A True Experience
Rayford Strange
(Note: Just as it was in the garden of Eden in the days of yore, there are two trees in the (church) the garden of God bearing fruit. One is the fruit of life from which we may choose to eat and live forever. The other tree is an evil tree bearing the fruit of knowledge, which we may also choose to eat. If we eat of it, we will have eaten a lie from the serpent whose only intent is to bring death into the (woman) church. Let us choose wisely.)
Even though I was a very young child in 1948, well do I remember the talk and the excitement of the declaration of United Nations establishing the State of Israel. There followed all the paranoia and expectations that persisted in so many churches associated with that impending event. Many people were expecting the rapture at any moment once the ink dried on the UN document, making Israel a nation. Excitement from expectation filled the air.
After awhile, the paranoia subsided as time progressed since there was no rapture. Between that date and June of 1967 there were a number of scares in the church concerning what many called “the end-time.” Meanwhile, there was no lift off. Then who among the Apostolic churchmen, as was I, can forget June of 1967? The dire psychological condition of some became so bad that they required mental health treatments. Let me explain:
In June of 1967, I attended the night services of the Louisiana District, United Pentecostal Youth Camp in Tioga, La. The six day war between Israel and the neighboring Muslim world was pending.
Before I attended the Youth Camp, I had attended a meeting conducted by Prophet Joe Duke whom I had known all of my life. He made the statement, “If those Jews cut that barbed wire, rush across the no-man strip that divide the old city of Jerusalem from the new, I’ll never preach another sermon. The rapture will happen almost immediately. There will never be another altar call given, never another soul saved, all that are not in the ark of safety at that time will be lost forever. If the rapture does not happen at that moment, I will go to Catahoula Lake and fish waiting for the rapture, but I will never preach another sermon since it will be too late for a soul to be saved” Much time passed but still there was no lift off. Joe Duke went from one meeting to another. I’m not sure if he ever went to the lake to fish.Oh yes. Saint and sinner alike flooded the altar area.
From that meeting, I went to the Youth Camp at Tioga, La. By this time, the paranoia was building exponentially, since it was expected that the Jews would momentarily cut the fence wire and captured the old half of the city. One night the camp Evangelist preached much the same thing. His message was entitled, “Count Down to the Rapture.” He spoke about Gabriel blowing his horn and time would be no more and the saints would be caught up to meet the Lord but the sinners would be left behind to suffer the awful consequences of the wrath of the Anti-Christ. He counted down from ten to one. Each count was a stirring warning of the great consequences of being lost forever if they were not ready when the trumped sounded.
By the time he got down to ONE, the tension in the air was so heavy and thick you could almost cut it with a knife. With each count, he warned the young people to be sure that they were ready to meet the Lord in the air at the sound of the trumpet. If not, they would be lost forever and would have to suffer the calamities of the Antichrist and God’s judgments upon the earth. All would have to take the mark of the beast or starve to death….and still be lost.
The audience was suspended in expectation but unsure of exactly what. He then shouted into the microphone “ONE,” he backed away from the pulpit. For a moment, the loudest noise on earth was the thundering noise of absolute silence that filled the large tabernacle where the thousands of kids were assembled. In that silence, with the air filled with tense expectation, someone, from an off stage blew a trumpet over the PA system. I will never forget what happened next as long as I live. The scene that unfolded before my eyes made an everlasting impact on my mind. Those children were shocked into stunned silence for a moment. Then suddenly, as they recovered, they began stampeding toward the front to the altar area. Some children fell and were trampled on by other stampeding children. Others crawled and jumped over the pews in an attempt to get to the front to pray as quickly as possible. As far as I know, no one was seriously hurt.
Earlier in the day, I remember standing near a phone booth waiting my turn to use a pay phone on the campgrounds. There was a well known Pastor in a phone booth talking to his wife who was not there but stayed home with their two small children. I heard him crying and pleading with his wife to come, to bring their two children because he wanted to see them just once more before the rapture. People were breaking down, psychologically.
Some few years later, while visiting in the home of Rev. V.A. Guidroz, the former District Superintendent of the Texas District, I listened as he related the circumstances that surrounded these same events in his District at that exact same time. He told me that some of the children were psychologically traumatized. Some of their parents had to be called to come fetch their children.
Since that time, I have heard many more twisted interpretations of prophecy that have left people confused and in darkness from such spiritual naivete. How well do I remember that one well known Evangelist came to hold us a meeting. Oh my! He played various audio affects over the sound system. You could hear the roaring sounds of Atomic explosions and the exchange of missiles between the USSR and America. It is then that I learned that it only takes 28 minutes for a missile launched from Moscow to reach New York. All of this compressed in the less time than that of his sermon. In less time, the world could be blown up and saints taken away in the rapture.
I met one man that esteemed himself as an Endtime Prophecy teacher at the 1992 General Conference of the United Pentecostal Church in Salt Lake City. Utah. He was in the book sales department of the arena. I asked about him, his father and his ministry and what he was doing. He informed me that if the Israeli Prime Minister and Palestine Leader, Arafat signed the pending Jerusalem Compact which was scheduled at Camp David, the next year (1993), he continued, “from that date until the rapture and the battle of Armageddon would be only seven years.” He said that he was trying to raise the money to publish and distribute a million magazines to all the churches by which he would warn the churches of the impending rapture and the battle of Armageddon, both of which would be only seven years later.
Sure enough, the next year, 1993, Rabin and Arafat signed the Jerusalem Compact. Those magazines flooded churches all over the nation. I was an Elder and a Teacher in Life Tabernacle of Houston. We had a tall stack of the EndTime magazines on a table in the vestibule. I still have two copies of it. Of course, the rapture would also coincide with the y2k scare also. There was one church so traumatized that most all of their members sold everything they had to get ready for the rapture, the y2k crash in 2000, the soon rapture and Armageddon. The year came and went and so did y2k without a whimper. There was enough embarrassment to go around, quite liberally.
Yet, the “many false prophets” persist in this same error, as Jesus warned us which is inflicting great violence on the Lamb’s Lady while seemingly inviting it upon herself. She spends millions buying their publications. This is so sad, incredibly sad. Still, the serpent in garden of God, which is the church, hiss the same lie…”thou shalt NOT surely die.” Many believe the lie and are eating the delicious fruit to their fill, not knowing that death is pending and so is their expulsion from the garden.
Oh! I could tell so many stories of false prophecies that have fallen from the mouth of false prophets but the church seems to be so seduced by the art of spiritual sorcery as to be in a semi-conscience stupor lying in a ditch wherein both have fallen….both leader and followers.
As noted above, there are two spirits in the world and in every church, the Garden of choosing. There is both the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, i.e., the tree of Life and the tree of Knowledge as in the days of yore. Which of the two fruit will you take into your spirit? You can eat at the table of the Lord or you can eat at the table of the Antichrist. Which will it be? To eat from both will soon be prohibited since the Lamb is interested in perfecting his glorious Lady clothed with pure white garments having neither spot of evil, wrinkle of error or moth eaten by lust of this world’s wealth and all that it affords.
Oooooo church, with tears, I ask you don’t you want to be found pleasing in His sight? Church, indeed, there is an “end time” coming for you except that you repent before the light is taken from your assemblies entirely….just as Jesus promised.
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