The Future of the United Bride
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20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
Introduction
Introduction
The Jewish nation in Jesus time didn’t have much to look forward to. 40 years after Jesus time the Roman General Titus completely destroyed Jerusalem. Their future was dark.
At this time the rival factions of the Jews had united themselves together to reject Christ, but what they were rejecting was their own salvation.
The only way out was heeding the Message.
The future of this nation is more immorality, more drugs, more crime, more lawlessness, more suicide, more hopelessness.
The only way out is the Message of Christ.
There wasn’t one of them Christians caught in there, for they saw the sign and moved. See? They said, “Let them that’s on the housetop come not down, or him that’s in the field go back, take not his coat; but flee into Judaea, and pray that your flight be not in the winter time or on the Sabbath.” 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
The only ones saved were those who believed what Jesus said.
The temple was destroyed, but we know it will be rebuilt.
And we do understand that that city, which is now been a curse for two thousand years, will be rebuilt and re-established again. And the temple worship will be set up just like it was in the beginning. 61-0730E - “The Sixfold Purpose Of Gabriel’s Visit To Daniel”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth floated the possibility of a third Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, according to a recently unearthed interview.
"There’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible," Hegseth said during a 2018 speech at the Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem, according to the Times of Israel. - The Christian Post
Oh, how the churches today ought to see the sign of the time that we’re living in! Flee as hard as you can to Calvary, for Life; not to some church, but to Jesus Christ. Unite yourself with Him, and not with some organization or some church creed.
Unite with Christ, and be sure that it’s Him. You can’t just take anything, you got to be positive that it’s Him. 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
Why has there been such an effort to destroy the Message over the last few years?
20 years ago you would have to look for a while to find someone who hated this Message, now there are entire families and even former pastors who have devoted their lives to destroying it.
Now, we see this uniting time coming. See? Now, watch! And then the church has united itself against the Message; and then when it does that, the nations are uniting themselves in Communism to destroy the church again; just exactly what it did in the first place. See? It repeats itself right back again. 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
Notice, they’re right now uniting. You say, “Brother Branham, is that true?” They’re coming to the Battle of Armageddon; exactly what they will do. See? And they’re uniting for that right now.
That’s why we got the UN, and everything we have. The Western World is uniting against the Eastern World, communism and so forth, it’s all uniting together. The churches are uniting together. Everything seems to be uniting. Uniting, uniting themselves together, we see that.
Also, while all this uniting of the nation, these signs, national signs, we see out here in the world, earthquakes in divers places, different things uniting; bringing the world together, bringing the people together, all the churches together, all these things.
There is another uniting going on.
God is uniting His Bride. She is coming together, from the East and the West, and the North and South. There is a uniting time, and that’s on right now. What is She uniting for? The Rapture. Amen!
God’s getting Her ready. Yes sir, uniting! What is She uniting with? With the Word! “For all heavens and earth will pass away, but My Word shall never pass away.”
She’s uniting Herself with THUS SAITH THE LORD regardless of what any denomination or anybody else says. She’s uniting Herself. She’s getting ready. Why? She is the Bride.
And She’s uniting Herself with Her Bridegroom, see, and the Bridegroom is the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
And the Church and the Bride and the Word is becoming so one, until the very Word Itself is working out the works of the Bridegroom. Amen! You see it? A uniting! Not no more, “Join the church”; not more of this, but flee from everything and tied to Jesus Christ.
It’s the uniting time. God, uniting His Bride together, bringing It back; just exactly. Uniting the Words of His promise. 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
When the nations began to put astronauts in space Bro. Branham tells us that it was a fearful sign because they could take atomic weapons into space.
See now, they got a sign in the heaven too, a fearful sign, a man in a astronaut; might have an atomic missile, and could drop and destroy the whole nation. Get up in an astronaut, and stand out there. There ain’t nothing keeping them from doing it. They can sure do it, they…anytime they want to.
They can bring her into dust if they wanted to, but…in fifteen minutes from now. And what one can do, the other one that way, too. So, you see that they got a sign, but that kind of sign makes them scared.
They’re uniting together, putting their powers together. The free world, they’re putting its power together. The communism putting their power together with Russia. Everybody; but each one’s scared of the other one. See, it’s a fearful sign. 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
The Russians recently launched the worlds first nuclear weapon carrying satellite:
U.S. military personnel at Space Command, in Colorado Springs, have kept a close eye on Cosmos 2553 ever since it reached orbit. Bathed in the bluish glow of their computer screens, they sit and watch what’s going across all of space day after day, tracking the latest information on satellite constellations, coming rocket launches and the daily operation of the space-based systems that shape modern life.
But Cosmos 2553 is different. It circles Earth every two hours in a region called a graveyard orbit. Only 10 other satellites are out there, and all of them have been dead for years. The area is rarely used in part because it’s inside the Van Allen belts, zones of high radiation that encircle the planet.
That’s why Moscow claims Cosmos 2553 is there — to test out “newly developed onboard instruments and systems” against radiation. But what it’s really doing, U.S. officials say, is testing components for a Russian weapon under development that could obliterate hundreds, if not thousands, of critical satellites.
Cosmos 2553 isn’t armed, but it does carry a dummy warhead, one of several details being reported here for the first time. So while the orbiting satellite poses no imminent danger, the officials caution it does serve as a forerunner to an unprecedented weapon. - The New York Times
That is a fearful sign.
But the Church has received a Heavenly Sign: an Astronaut! Amen! Jesus Christ, in the form of a Pillar of Fire; that He was in the Old Testament, that He was when He met Saul on the road down there to Damascus, the same Jesus here today!
And what does It do? Does It bring fear? It brings love, a uniting of one another. Amen! A feeling for one another. It brings the Love of God, oh, uniting us and brings us, the Body of Christ, into unity as a Bride.
They’re uniting themselves, one group here to fight the other one, one group over here to fight the other one. Here the church is standing between them; you watch what happens, it’ll unite with them. That’s exactly right. But, now, we find out that brings fear and flusterations.
But the Church, the Bride, is united by one God, under one Spirit, the Spirit of God, in one holy Union of God, to be one holy Bride to God. That’s right, all together; unity of the Body. The Body waiting as a Bride; It is the Bride, as we call ourselves the Bride.
For the uniting time of the Bride, the Church is so coming together. It should create just a love among us, that we could hardly be away from one another. That’s right.
When you just, you don’t have to beg people to pray, you don’t have to beg them to worship God, you don’t have to beg them to do what’s right. They’re just so in love with Him, till there’s nothing else. 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
The thing I’ve been teaching to you here, is telling you of these signs and different things happening, I haven’t got time to do it now; will in another message, the Lord willing. But there’s one little thing yet lacking in the Church. And we want that, to get to that, and I’m right on the edge of it now.
We want to get to that, if…you got to do it. If you don’t do it, that’s just all, you must do it. For looky, the uniting time is at hand, for God is getting the Church together to be a Rapture to go to the wedding for the Great Union: when God and man will unite for Eternity, when creatures of time unite with the Eternal.
Bro. Branham preaches four sermons over the next two Sundays at the Tabernacle:
How Can I Overcome?
Perfect Faith
Token
Desperations
It was once done in the form of the Son of man on earth. And He had to give His Life to bring about a power, to unite other men with this same Power, for the Bride of Jesus Christ.
And now the Church is uniting Itself to the Body of Christ. It’s got Itself free, cut away from every little fetter, getting Itself ready; getting together, union among them; oh, a love and joy, and the Holy Spirit moving among them. Oh, my, what a time! 63-0818 - “The Uniting Time And Sign”
This isn’t doom and gloom. Depression theology didn’t come from this Message. We are not going down, we are going up.
What is the future of the United Bride? Not destruction, but salvation.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
The Bride is being united in love to Christ.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Glorious
endoxos, adj., notable; held in esteem; honor.
The Bride doesn’t need to go through the tribulation to be glorious, she already is.
Someone discussing that with me, not long ago, said, “The church will have to go through, for a purification.” I said, “That is true, because she rejected the Blood.”
But if the Tribulation period catches the Bride, His Own Wife, in the Tribulation? No, sir! The Blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us from all sin, and there is no more purifying.
And the Blood of Jesus Christ, and that Token, as identification that it has been purified. Amen. That’s the Token of the Bride, wearing the ring. 63-1128E - “The Token”
Now we find out, the little flock is ready for the Dynamics to move It up into the skies, to escape all this tribulation.
The church will go through the tribulation, yes, sir, but the Bride is free from it. She’ll go in the Rapture, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. She’ll be caught up to meet her Lord in the air, for the Wedding Supper.
She has nothing to go through any tribulation about; her Lord has paid her price. 64-0126 - “What Shall We Do With This Jesus Called Christ?”
Illustrate: Bro. Darrell Ward “I could argue with the waitress, or walk out of the building with my free dinner.”
The idea that we are just waiting around dwindling in number and in power until the persecution comes is not scriptural at all.
We are not Laodiceans, we are the overcomers of the Laodicean age.
The Bride will not be lukewarm.
The church, the lukewarm, the anything outside of the elected Bride will go through the Tribulation Period. 64-0823E - “Questions And Answers #2”
We are not a bunch of Pentecostal babies, we have been taught supernatural things.
We see the Opening of the Word, we are overcoming Laodicea, we are, under our messenger, the final voice to the final age.
We have seen the sign, and made ourselves ready for the escape.
Illustrate: Esther was united in marriage with the only one who had the power to cause the accuser to hung on his own gallows.
We have been united to the Word, so that the flesh and the devil have no more power over us. His scepter has been extended.
The Bride must be unified, unified together by the Word. “My sheep hear My Voice.” And This is His Voice on printed Word. All right. Unified by the Word, She makes Herself ready, not with the regular creed.
Like Esther, when Esther was to be chosen to stand before the king, she didn’t adorn themselves with all the things, but she adorned herself with a sweet, meek spirit. That’s what the Bride is adorning Herself with, with all of the fruits of the Spirit following it.
What She got? Assembling together in the fellowship of the Word.
Fellowship of the Word. That’s right. Fellowshipping, setting together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, tonight: one accord, one place, one Spirit, one mind, one hope, one God, one purpose. “Amen.” See? There you are. Every time the Bible says anything, we say, “Amen.” Punctuating every Word with, “Amen.”
“Jesus Christ, same yesterday, and forever.” “Amen!” “Repent, and be baptized, the Name of Jesus Christ.” “Amen!” See, everything, just, “Amen! Amen! Amen!” right on down, see, in fellowship.
“Fruits of the Spirit.” Her, what’s She got? What is the fruit of the Spirit? Joy, joy of Her heart, knowing that He’s coming soon. “Amen, and Amen! Amen!” Yeah.
Peace of mind. Why? Peace of mind. Peace of mind. Know what? No matter what comes or what goes, let the ship rock, let the storms come, let the lightning flash, the thunder roar, whatever takes place, don’t make a bit of difference.
Atomic bombs can fall. You can build rock shelters, bomb shelters, whatever you want to, but She’s still saying, “Amen! Amen! Amen!”
Why? She’s fortified. What? Fortified in what? The Word, the Word (what?) made flesh, dwelling among us, watching Him move among us, in our assembly. See? There He is. So what difference does it make? “Amen!” Let the conflict go on.
(Haven of Rest)
Assembling for fellowship. Joy, one of the fruits of the Spirit. Peace of mind. And faith in the Word. Peace, joy, faith, longsuffering, patience, gentleness.
Faith, what kind of faith? What kind of way you using your faith, to fight the conflict? Are you going to use your faith on some theory, on some reasoning, something? “Isn’t it reasonable that the most the people comes to this church? Isn’t this the big church?” No, sir, it isn’t.
If that church don’t preach every Word of that Bible there, and “amen” to every Word of It, believe every sign, every wonder, and see them working right among them, I’d get away from it, no matter how big, how little.
Faith, love, joy, peace, and faith in the Word. So let Satan set up his guns. We’ve anchored. Amen. 62-0531 - “The Conflict Between God And Satan”
Our future is the Rapture.
Can you imagine being a believer in Jerusalem in 70 AD?
All the city is consumed with politics and strife, but you just sit there watching for the sign.
When you see those Roman standards on the horizon, you know it’s time to leave. You aren’t scared, everything is working in perfect order.
The Christians slipped out of the city unnoticed, a sudden secret going away.
The same thing is repeating today.
Christ has been crucified afresh. The religious world has united against the Message. The armies of the world are uniting to bring on the battle of Armageddon.
We have seen our last sign. What are we waiting on? What is our future? An abundance of rain.
Elijah saw a cloud like a mans hand, others doubted it, but he knew the significance of the sign.
Others might be preparing for war and famine and pestilence, but I’ve seen a cloud and I know rain is coming.
I’ve been caught up, I’ve heard the Shout.
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
You think you could change the mind of a first century Christian, who had heard the words of Jesus and saw it manifested before their very eyes?
When they saw the sign of the armies they knew it was time.
I heard Him descending with a shout! The shout was the Message. It must be time for a sweep to come over us and we will be changed.
Now the stabilizers has been put on the ship. Great fearful waves are out here before us; but we know, just beyond that wave yonder, we’re nearing the shore.
Just stay stabled. Just stay in the Word. Stay with God. No matter how you feel, what anything else; stay right with the Word. Let it stay stable, when you see all these great big old clouds around us, and storms coming, and atomic bombs, and everything else they’re talking about.
But our stabilizer is right straight in the Word. God said it would be here; we’ll crest every one of them. Yeah, we’ll go right over the top of them. Yes, indeed!
They, they can’t sink us. They can’t drown us. You put us in the grave; we’ll come out again. That’s just all there is to it. There ain’t no way in the world to keep it down there. We’ll crest every one of them, ’cause our great Chief Captain is calling at the other side. 65-0822M - “Christ Is Revealed In His Own Word”
Our future is the death of death.
13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
He will reign until every enemy is under His feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Conclusion
Conclusion
This is the future of the United Bride.
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
