Chapter Ten – The “Short Work”—and a “Remnant”
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The Bible contains an awesome but little recognized prophecy having to do with the last phase of God’s Work, completed at the end of the age. Though mentioned, it has not yet been addressed. Nearly all have lost sight of it, and many never fully understood it. Yet it carries implications almost beyond imagination. For those who can comprehend what they will now relearn—or possibly hear for the first time—the next five chapters will be incredibly exciting. In fact, they will leave you stunned at what you can and should be a part of. You will also see that this prophecy represents perhaps the very greatest proof that God’s Work is not finished and continues—in a BIG WAY!—right to just prior to the appearance of the Two Witnesses.
At this point, you have been refamiliarized with the special Ezekiel Warning to the nations of Israel. What most have not realized—or remembered—is that there is a powerful New Testament prophecy that is a corroboration and expansion of Ezekiel’s “watchman” instruction, and this book would not be complete without it. This is a subject of which Mr. Armstrong spoke or wrote often to brethren and co-workers. You will see from various quotes that the Church once understood this prophecy—and most clearly!—but it has taken its place on the scrapheap of doctrines forgotten.
Recall that Mr. Armstrong wrote in his final letter “The greatest Work lies yet ahead.” Three of the next four chapters will reveal why he may have been more accurate in this statement than he could have known. In fact, much of Chapter Thirteen will follow with a close examination of several vitally important, and absolutely absorbing, brethren/co-worker letters from Mr. Armstrong. They contain forgotten knowledge pertaining to Revelation 10 ALL, and the “little book” described there. But before the reader is ready for that fascinating study, we must first review a related equally fascinating prophecy that sets it up.
We begin with a summary of Mr. Armstrong’s ministry.
Contents
First, the Work of Elijah
Jesus commissioned the apostles: “Go you therefore and teach ALL NATIONS baptizing them…teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world [age]” (Matt. 28:19-20). In addition, we have seen what Mr. Armstrong repeated so many times—that Jesus told His disciples in the Olivet prophecy: “And this gospel of the KINGDOM shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto ALL NATIONS; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). “All nations” appears in both passages.
First, recognize that there is no possible way God’s Church in the Philadelphian era could go to all nations preaching ALL of the doctrines of God—“ALL things”—unless one had come in the 20th century and “restored all things” to Christ’s Church (Matt. 17:11), as the final Elijah was foretold to do (Mal. 4:5-6). The reader must get this fulfillment and connection clearly in his mind before proceeding.
It is not the purpose of this volume to prove Mr. Armstrong fulfilled these verses. The book I Will Send Elijah to Restore All Things does this conclusively. If the reader is not yet convinced that Herbert W. Armstrong fulfilled this role, the above explanation and what follows will not make sense. Be sure you take time to fully prove the long-planned fulfillment of the Elijah role under Mr. Armstrong. It paves the way for what you will now understand.
No one of any spiritual understanding doubts that Mr. Armstrong took the gospel to all nations of the world. Any who do not believe this much are reading the wrong book. But he also took all of the other true doctrines of the Bible to these same nations. Further—and by now this should be understood—he served as the Ezekiel “watchman” of the 20th century, fulfilling Ezekiel 3:17 and 33:1-9. Moreover, the Work that God led Mr. Armstrong to do was absolutely colossal in size and scope. But in the end he died. This created the two competing ideas—the Work is over, completed by Mr. Armstrong, or something else remains, whatever that is.
The remainder of this chapter and the two to follow will reveal to you what is already underway, but yet to be finished. May God help you comprehend the sheer magnitude of what you will now learn. And may He move you to see the responsibility this knowledge brings to YOU!
Here is what the reader must understand—and with no shadow of doubt remaining. Since the Elijah Work ended over 25 years ago, and the gospel coupled with “all things” is to be preached until the age ends, it becomes crystal clear that there must be a second, follow-up—meaning a separate and different—and much shorter work that picks up and continues after the apostasy and two-phase separation of brethren—first, from the Worldwide Church of God and, second, from the Laodicean splinters and slivers that arose from it.
Before we can examine that Work, if this two-step separation process from splintered Laodicea is not clear to you, pause and reflect on it. Review what has been explained about this in “ANOINT YOUR EYES” and other books to the splinters. Reread that book if necessary until it becomes unmistakable to your thinking. You simply cannot properly understand the all-important, prophesied, final Work of God’s Church for the remainder of the age unless these last paragraphs have been fully comprehended. This process also reappears in the next chapter in an unexpected context.
Another Work—a “Short Work”
The book has proven conclusively that God’s commission to His Church continues until the end of the age—that God’s kingdom will be preached “until the end come.” It has also proven conclusively that the nations of Israel are to be warned by the “watchman” of Ezekiel 33 ALL —that these two components of the Great Commission in this age have not changed, nor will they until completed. It is against the second part of this backdrop that a special prophecy in Romans 9:27-29 comes into view. This will, in turn, lead to Revelation 10 ALL.
Paul recorded, “Isaiah also cried concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a REMNANT [take note] shall be SAVED: for He will finish the Work and cut it short in righteousness: because a SHORT WORK will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah.”
There is not space in the book to re-explain all that the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord mean to the world. The Bible is plain that there will be no time like “Jacob’s trouble,” and there will certainly be nothing before or after the Day of the Lord that will remotely rival that prophesied punishment on all nations. The vast majority of mankind will not live over into the Millennium. Of course, a relative few will from every nation.
But our focus is on those of “Israel” and the “remnant…saved.”
Preparing the “Remnant…Saved”
We must state again that Mr. Armstrong has been gone for over 25 years. This has another meaning not yet mentioned. The population of Planet Earth is over one full third larger today than it was when Mr. Armstrong died. Just ponder this incredible fact. Then realize this means that the nations of today’s Israel are also much larger in population than they were in early 1986. For instance, in 2006 America announced it had reached the population milestone of 300 million, and this just 39 years after it had reached 200 million (1967). We can interpolate a growth figure since Mr. Armstrong of over 60 million just in the United States.
Let’s summarize what these statistics mean. Nearly an entire generation of people—the Work will surely end at least 30 years beyond Mr. Armstrong’s death—will have died of natural causes since the last true warning went out to the peoples who heard his voice and read his books. Also, those who were alive, but under age 20, will for the most part not have understood any message or warning they might have heard under his leadership. Vast numbers of others were not yet born. In effect, therefore, the significant majority of those alive in the nations of modern Israel today have never been warned of what prophecy has in store for the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel!
These many scores of millions simply have no idea what is coming on our lands, and on our peoples!
Since no human parent would ever punish a child for something that the child had not been told (warned) was wrong, neither would God do this with His children. The fair, just, loving, merciful and patient God of the Bible is literally obligated to explain to all today WHY “the sword” is coming on 600 million people. Only a parental monster would neglect such a responsibility to so many “children” (of Israel) who hang in the balance. And remember, the generation alive today is the most rotten in the history of the world, and is one Jesus likens to both the universal corruption of Noah’s day (Matt. 24:37; Luke 17:26-27) and the awful perversion of Sodom and Gomorrah (Luke 17:28-30).
Take a moment to glimpse a tiny snapshot of this final generation reflected in Proverbs 30:11 through 14. The God described by I John 4:8 and 16—“God is love”—would never shirk His duty to trumpet a warning to such an abominable “filthy” generation.
The rest of this chapter will examine a great many passages from the Old Testament, some of them extensive, all of them graphic. These verses form a picture, at the same time both beautiful and ugly—wonderful and horrible. Together, they present a reality more astonishing than one could believe, almost beyond comprehension for those who try as hard as they can to grasp it. Yet, these sobering, stunning and horrific prophecies must be comprehended—and by YOU!
You are about to take a truly extraordinary journey into and through the immediate future. Fasten your seatbelt!
“For Our Admonition”
One of the greatest New Testament principles of the Bible is found in I Corinthians 10:11, and references the Old Testament: “Now all these things happened unto them [Israel] for ENSAMPLES [types]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
This passage references God’s people alive at the “ends of the world,” and how they are to learn from Old Testament “ensamples,” meaning types applicable for us today. Many sermons and articles could open with I Corinthians 10:11 applied in different ways to our time.
1 Corinthians 10 ALL itself opens with a remarkable statement about a past event. Notice 1 Corinthians 10:1: “Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.” You will soon see ancient Israel’s exodus from Egypt as but a tiny type (ensample) of what will be repeated—and in the very NEAR FUTURE! And the final phase of God’s Work is directly connected to it.
Several more times in succeeding chapters we will discuss more about the biblical principle of duality. What you just saw becomes one of the greatest applications of this principle in the Bible.
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