This Day This Scripture Is Fulfilled

Thank you Brother Demos, Brother Shakarian, Demos Shakarian, Brother Carl Williams and delegates all. I just think that Brother Plowman here just expressed what I wanted to tonight, that he's just taken my speech right from me. Because I have enjoyed this, I believe, this convention more than any convention I've ever been in. I've never seen in any convention more harmony and such real fellowship and brotherly love.

Another thing that I've done, I've met many new delegates of heaven, new brethren I've had the privilege to shake hands with, and to talk to.

Just a few nights ago I was listening to the Baptist brother sitting over there, I can't think of his name—Irvin, and he brought a card to me from, I believe it's his aunt, that's sitting here tonight. She's held that prayer card for some twenty years.

She was brought into the meeting dying with a disease that maybe the doctor could explain what it is. It's something like leprosy, but it isn't leprosy. You just ... there's an operation that could cut some kind of a cord up here, something, but she'd be like a plant; she'd have to sit there. And while she was sitting there, perhaps her card not called or nothing, didn't get in the prayer line, the Holy Spirit directed me to her. And she's back there tonight. We're very thankful for that.

Would you stand up sister; turn around, turn around. God bless you my sister for your gallant faith in the Son of God. May he keep you well until the time he calls you home, and this mortal will take on immortality.

I'm so thankful for that to think she held that card for all these years now. And then was brought here to me and show me tonight. You know I was saying it's like bread upon the water; it returns to you when you try to do something for somebody else.

Now I have also had the privilege of meeting many of these fine ministers and I certainly appreciate their fine fellowship, this cooperation. Brother Carl announced that we'd be back next year if the Lord is willing, and we're here on earth. And I hope to meet everyone of you here next year again. May each one bring another delegate with him and with she.

Now there's just one thing that I would like to say a little something about, maybe for just a moment, because Dr. Reed is to speak next, and I've come all the way over here tonight. I've got two hundred and fifty miles that I , to make this trip to hear Dr. Reed, and just something happened a while ago that I would, but Dr. Reed I'd drive a thousand miles to hear him, but something has taken since I've been here. I would drive a thousand miles just to hear what I heard a little while ago, such a wonderful thing. Something that flesh and blood cannot reveal; it takes the Holy Spirit to do it. And to see someone who encouraged my life in such a way, and I certainly will be very grateful all the rest of my life. What I wanted to say was if I ever have to have an operation, call on a medical doctor, you could come to me Dr. Reed right away. I can trust the man to operate if I have to have one. Hands that believes in God, that would be the one I want working on me. And so we, I trust I'll never have to have it, but if I do, I want he or a man like him to do the work if he couldn't be there.

I had something happen last night that, or yesterday afternoon rather, that was just really kind of strange to me. And I'll be brief because I don't want to take my brother's time, as he's going to speak. But I suppose it's kind of a complimentary to my ministry. I watch little things, just every little thing has a meaning to me. I don't believe that anything happens to a Christian by chance. I think it's ordained of God because Jesus said he'd make all thing work together for good to them that love him. So therefore, I believe that every little thing in the little humble ministry that he has given me to help you people, to help everyone—and you all are a help to me, helping each other to get to glory, in that every little thing has a meaning to me.

But it was hard for me to believe that yesterday afternoon when I lost my text up here. I tell you I never was so gotten in my life. Then, my wife gave me a new Bible for Christmas.

My old one was just worn out; I've had it almost twenty years now, was give to me by the Houston Gospel Tabernacle people many years ago when I started out on the campaigns. And so I just, I cherish it so much, and I—the leaves, the pages crossing the sea and around, until I just dropping out and I pick up a page maybe in Genesis, have to look back over in Deuteronomy somewhere to find it—you know just stuck it somewhere back in the Bible. So she got me one for Christmas, and I hated to lay the old book aside. It's been so dear to me. I said if I went before Jesus comes, lay it on me. Let this go down with me, and I'll come up with it when we come up. So that's my opinion anyhow.

As I used to tell a little story, hope this is not sacrilegious, but I went to a man told me one time, I believe it's Brother Earl Cricket meeting up in New York. And I met a man; he said, “Say what do you do with these business men, being a preacher?”

I said, “I am a businessman.”

He said, “What kind of business are you in?”

I said, “Assurance.” Now he thought I said, “insurance,” you see; so, I said, “assurance.”

He said, “Oh! What kind of insurance do you sell?”

I said, Eternal life.“ Said, ”I don't sell it. I'm just a policy holder myself, and I try to perscribe it to others.“

I remember a boy I went to school with one time; he was an insurance salesman. Now insurance is all right, but I don't have any. And so he come to my house and he said, “Billy, I'd like to sell you some insurance.” He said, I know your brother ... (my brother sells for Metropolitan). He said, “Well,” said, “I would I'd like to sell you some insurance.”

I said, “Oh Wilmer thank you.” He may be here tonight, a nice brother. He writes the articles in The Upper Room, the book The Upper Room.

So I said, “I have assurance.”

He said, “What?” And my wife looked at me as if I was a hypocrite.

She said, “Billy?”

And I said, “Yes Hun, I have assurance!”

He said, “Oh, I'm sorry.” He said “I heard you didn't have any insurance.”

And I said, “No, I have assurance!” And he caught me right quick when I said that.

He said, “What'd you said?”

I said, “Assurance.”

And he said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

I'm an heir of salvation,

Purchased of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in his blood.“

He said, “Billy you know I appreciate that,” said, “that's a very good thing,” but said, “son, that'll not put you out here in the grave yard.”

I said, “But it'll get me out! I'm not bothered about getting in, it's getting out!” So I think that's the way we feel tonight.

Last evening when I picked up that Bible, and I couldn't find that text, and I picked up that new Bible, I was reading out of the old, and I picked up the new one and put it under my arm and run up here. And I turned over to that place, and I thought, why here —I believe it's St. John 16:21, and it wasn't the reading at all.

I said to Brother Moore, “Is that where that's at?” “Yes.”

And I looked back, and it wasn't there. I thought, well they got a misplaced page in it. Then my brother here, Brother Stanley, he came over, Bishop Stanley rather, and I don't know what the man meant. It was such a comfort. He walked up close to my side, and said, “Hold steady brother. God is maybe going to do something.”

And that just encouraged me, to think that he had said.... I wonder if he realized he had prophesied, but talking to him a few moments ago just before getting up here, I'm sure he did.

So I brought in my message upon the—“Birth Pains,” and so forth, and my little rude way of doing it, about the lily. How it's born down, begotten, and comes up and draws up the sun and the dew drop and so forth. And then the corruption of what it has to die out of, to be borned out of rather, to come out. And I was trying to make an illustration of the church. Just like the doctor here if he went to treat a patient. We've got doctors today that says you can rub your foot over the back of the heel and heal the cancer on your face, you see. But a good doctor wouldn't listen to such a thing as that. He treats the patient according to the book that he's reading on medical research.

And that's the way I try to do to treat the patient. When I see the church sick; I don't want to try to tell them they need a new hand shake, or something like that, or a new organization. I have to treat it according to the book, and I know it's here. And so when I see the church look like breaking out with measles, I want to take the very prescription I think is right for the measles, to get it out of the church; when I see sin breaking out in it, the same way.

Now I try to make a comparison with Esau and Jacob, and then bringing times down, and I won't go into that, but bring it down to the last part, and my last scripture to use was comparing it not unscripturally, but as Jesus said it would be.

What the main doctor said the condition of the church would be in this last days: it would be a Laodicea, rich, blind, naked, poor church. And it would be compared with the days of Sodom. Now we know that's the truth.

If you noticed it historically he brought in the days of Noah first, and then the days of Sodom, and that's just the way it's traveled. Just the same way history has many times repeats itself. History does and so does promises of the Bible.

For instance, like in Matthew 3 verse 30, it says out of Egypt I have called my Son. Now if you would run the reference on that it was Jacob his son he called out of Egypt. That was his lesser son, but his greater Son Jesus was called out of Egypt too. So it had a compound answer.

So, and seeing as they went along talking about that, and then I brought my thoughts of that, and I walked down off the platform and went out. My children, going home, wanted to stop by here somewhere and get a sandwich and I went.

The wife said, “Billy, I was so nervous I didn't know what to do.” Said, “I gave you that Bible.”

I said, “You never wrote it, and you never put it together Honey.”

She said, “But just to think I gave you a Bible that had a flaw in it!”

I said, “Hun maybe it wasn't.” And so one of the children picked it up, and we feel the pages and all. It looked all right, but right down at the bottom it was two pages sticking together see. And the 16th chapter was on this side and then the continuation of the 16th chapter come up on the other side and the 17th started on the.... See it's just perfectly exactly the same across, and that Indian paper, real thin sticking together.

And I was reading out of the 17th chapter all the time, instead of the 16th chapter.

And I thought, God why did you do that? Why would you do such a thing? Done... that's me feeling you know, to see what it's all about, because I think nothing happens by chance.

Now I was thinking about the comfort of this brother here, coming telling me, “Hold steady,” he being a priest. “Hold steady, maybe God is going to do something,” or something in that manner.

And I thought how could that be, and then sitting there, like a thunderbolt out of heaven it came to me. Now this might not make sense to you, but it does to me see.

I remember in Luke the 4th chapter that Jesus entered the synagogue at Nazareth where He was brought up at, as His custom was to go into the church on the... synagogue, on the Sabbath. And when he did, we notice there that the priest gave the Bible, the scroll. Jesus, looking through the scroll found a certain place, Isaiah 61, and He read the Scripture. Then He handed the Bible back to the minister. And then as He turned to the audience, all eyes was upon him, and he said, “This day this Scripture is fulfilled.”

And we know how peculiar that scripture reading was because He just took a portion of the 1st and 2nd verses of Isaiah 61:1 and 2. But He read down this far, where: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bind up the broken hearted, and to give, heal the sick, and to open the blinded eyes, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” And then he stopped, for the next was to bring judgment. That would apply to His second coming, not His first coming. And He stopped, and turned around, and said, “This day this Scripture is fulfilled.” How direct that was!

What a statement it was to the teachers, and to the people that were present. That He could make this plain to the people, this day this Scripture is fulfilled. For here He was the Messiah, yet they didn't believe it. Here He was the anointed one for that hour. Every bit of His ministry from His birth up had proved to be what He was. And yet they could not believe it! What a statement. But He could say today, and if a person opened up their eyes they could've known what day that they were living in, for that was His hour, for He was right there doing exactly what the Scriptures of the prophets had said would happen in that day. Here He was doing exactly what God had prophesied would happen. How did they miss seeing it? They should have known right quick, seeing what His ministry was, there's the Messiah. They would have known it because He said the scriptures fulfilled.

I think of today, and notice what that was as the priest gave the Word over. The Word was read and handed back to the priest. And the last quotation out of my text that I had in my scriptures wrote down was St. Luke 17:30 where Jesus referring back to this day that we're living in, rich Laodicea age, and yet rotten in politics—church politics and national politics—just as rotten as it could be. And then He said, as it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the coming end-time.

Notice what He said there: in the day that the Son of man will be revealed, see, in the days that the Son of man will be revealed.

Now I want to draw your attention, see He came in three names. He came as Son of man, which was prophet, and that's what He did. He proved His ministry by being a prophet. We all know that, everyone of us knows it. He never said He was the Son of God. He said He was the Son of man. Now today He is the Son of God, which He returned back, and now He's in the form of the Holy Ghost the unseen person, but yet God, the Son of God. In the millennium He sits upon His Father's throne, which He'll be Son of David. He revealed Himself first as Son of man, a prophet. This age, to the church age Son of man, or Son of God. And in the other age Son of David, three sons.

But you notice here, He said at the ending of the church age, and it got in such a mess till... He would be revealed again as Son of man: “when the Son of man, is being revealed.” How appropriate was that mixup yesterday; and I hope you don't miss it. We have had the revelation of Son of God, but the last promise that Abraham had before the son was made, or brought into existence, the one that he was been promised. Before the promised son showed up, God manifested Himself there at Sodom as a prophet, being a man in flesh—God Elohim. As I heard someone speaking of a little while ago, which the Godhead bodily was in Him. He was the fullness, Elohim is the fullness of the godhead bodily. And we notice there when Lot saw, when Abraham saw Him coming he said, “My Lord.” There was three of them, and down in Sodom Lot saw two, and said, “My lords,” lack of revelation.

So notice what's taken place here when He come up, how He made Himself known.

Could we not, could I not say this if I'd just been on my toes see; the brother prophesied when he said to me what he did, “this day!” Watch what he did right after the reading of that Scripture in the days when the Son of man, not a man, not a human being, the Son of man will reveal Himself among His people again. This day, this promise of this hour that we're now living in is fulfilled before our very eyes.

He turned immediately to the congregation and ten, or twelve, whatever, people it was out there, unknown, he did the very same thing he did at Sodom. This day has this Scripture been made manifest before you. It's been made true before you. Then my brother, sister, delegates, ministers, whatever we are here, children of God.

How close are we to His coming then? If we're now seeing the Scripture that He promised just before the fire fell in Sodom to burn up, and liken this day to it, and seeing that Scripture right before our eyes being fulfilled, how close are we to the coming of the Son of God then? How close is the manifestation of the Scriptures like He did through Abraham, bringing the Church up in type, which He was the promise to the Church?

And now we find out Abraham's natural seed how they failed, but the royal seed of Abraham which is by faith in the promised Word is now being manifested on the earth today. We are at the end-time my brother, sister. We're at the end

and we have not one other type.

I have to type Scriptures because I don't have education enough to bring out words and things. I make a type, but if I see the shadows, if I never had seen my hand and see the shadow, I know I have five fingers. And that's the way you have to watch the Scripture types of the Old Testament. What does it do? It foreshadows this and Jesus said that Sodom was the foreshadow of the end-time now. In the very Scriptures that was promised to Sodom, the very Scriptures that was taking place to Sodom, that Jesus said would repeat itself again in this day. It's made known right before us today.

God bless you. Don't miss it! And if I don't see you here next year, when you climb the golden stairs I hope to meet you up there. God bless you. [break in tape]

...according to the Scriptures we're seeing manifested before us the last sign and type. The words of Jesus Christ said this is so. Just as it was at Sodom, we see the world in it's condition; we see the church in it's condition; we see the Elect being called out of every denomination. The light that's in those places moving out now to take the form of the seed.

We pray, Heavenly Father, that we'll awaken, and quickly. As the brother just said now, he seen before his face, and when he had his eyes closed just masses going before you. Oh God we feel that's there's masses untouched yet. Help us dear God; may we go from this convention with such a warning in our heart, knowing that this day the Scripture is fulfilled. In Jesus' name. Amen.

[Brother Demos Shakarian speaks, and brings a prayer request.]

Distance is no difference to God, He's omnipresent—He has to be to be God. Some of the greatest things that I've noticed being done in my own humble ministry is by telephone or someone calling in, great things taking place. Let us agree together that God will heal this people that's sick.

Dear Heavenly Father we bring them into your presence by prayer. We know that one night there was an apostle that was shut off from all activity then; he was in a jail, and he was going to be beheaded the next day. Down at John Mark's house they had a prayer meeting, and right in those inner cells there came that same pillar of fire that followed the children of Israel, or the children of Israel followed it through the wilderness, came right in because that prayer meeting, and opened every door and brought the apostle out on the street again free to minister. We understand that these ministers, missionary people, is bound in now; they're even in a coma. Lord you are the same yesterday, today, and forever; hear our prayer tonight. O God you said when you pray, believe that you receive what you ask for, it shall be given. Lord we believe, and pray that in Jesus name that you'll heal them Lord, for Your glory. It's been said, been asked, now let it be done. Amen.

[end of tape]