The Falling
Away
By
Sarah Foulkes Moore
In
the last days the Word of God speaks of a “falling away,” but it also speaks of a garnering in of the precious
fruit of the earth receiving the former and latter rain. - 2 Thessalonians 2:3; James 5:7-8.
Throughout
Scripture in type and anti-type, in prophecy and revelation, in these last days before the coming of the Lord is found a company
of people who are ready – living in the midst of a people who are not ready. This is a confirmation of the words of
Jesus which teach that the wheat and the tares shall grow together, until the harvest, then one shall be taken and one shall
be left. The wheat and the tares bear such a resemblance that one can scarcely be distinguished from the other. But in the
Harvest, the wise Husbandman garners in the wheat, and burns the tares. Matthew 25:1,13; Luke 21:34-36.
In
the Lord's parable of the ten virgins, five were ready for the Bridegroom's Coming and five were unready. To His redeemed
people, the Lord's words relating to the hour of His coming are weighed with warnings to be ready and to watch and pray always
that ye may be accounted worthy to escape the things coming to pass upon earth and to stand before the Son of Man. “Let
us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.”
Revelation 19:7.
In
the Biblical days, the heir's portion was a double portion. Christ's Bride is to be joint-heir with Him to His throne. Hence
the Bride's portion is the double portion spoken of in Scripture. Elisha was ready through trial and testing, to receive the
double portion. The fifty sons of the prophets at Jericho were not ready. Job's life was divided into two periods; a time
when he was not ready and a time when he was made ready through trial and suffering to receive a double portion, for Job's
latter end was twice as good as his beginning. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. Job is a clear type of the
suffering saint whom God is preparing to share Christ's throne with Him. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Not all our suffering is for Christ's sake: Much of it is
the carnal mind in us at enmity with God, or the flesh in us lusting against the Spirit. But there is a submissive suffering
and a glorying in tribulation which is for Christ's sake and for His glory. Job is a shining example of suffering the loss
of all things and counting them but dung that he might be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness, but that which
is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
Elisha
was made ready through trial and separation from the sons of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho to receive the double portion.
The sons of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho who had failed to press across Jordan were not ready. In the marriage at Cana
of Galilee, the best wine was miraculously served last, providing us with Scriptural reason to believe that at the end of
the Gospel Feast, in the midst of the prenuptial festivities preceding the marriage of the Lamb, the Lord in His miracle-working
power will pour into clean and empty vessels the best wine of the Spirit. Those at the wedding in Cana drank of this good
wine and marveled, but those not at the wedding did not even taste of its excellence. Likewise, Elisha possessed the mantel
and its wonder working power, while the sons of the prophets were bereft because there was a price to pay to obtain it and
they simply failed to leave Jericho with Elisha, and press on to the other side of Jordan where the double portion was received
in its fulness. “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord; His going forth is prepared as the morning; and
He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain upon the earth.” Hosea 6:3; 10:12.
In
the exquisite portrait of the Bride of Christ in the Song of Solomon we see her in the beginning unready. She makes confession
of her “blackness” not once, but twice. But as she goes on seeking, finding, communing, delighting in her Beloved,
she is made ready and in this readiness becomes “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.”
In this prophetic portrait of the Bride of Christ, we find her rising from her blackness to a position of purity and power,
terrible in its righteousness.
So
today the testimony of the Church of Christ is not aglow with white-heated love and with burning zeal, but is dimmed by worldliness
and compromise, and blackened by unrepentant sins, unconfessed in the hearts of God's own people. But in the days of His preparation,
all this quickly changes! Prophecy predicts it! Revelation reveals it! The true Church, The Bride of the Lamb, is prepared
and adorned for her husband. The Book of Esther pictures the Bride adorning herself in preparation and also in presentation
to her Lord and King.
John,
the seer, actually saw that the wife had made herself ready when the marriage of the Lamb had come. In the Bridal Psalm, Psalm
45, the garments of the Bride are beautifully described. Robed in garments wrought of gold, she is brought to the King in
raiment of needlework.
In
almost every instance in Scriptures where the Bride of the Lamb is portrayed, she is identified with suffering. A crucified
Bridegroom is coming for a crucified Bride. The slain Lamb of God can only be united in the ages to come with a slain Bride.
Her garments are wrought of gold. Wrought gold is first refined from its dross in a burning furnace and then beaten and hammered
into exquisite design. The Lamb's Bride is brought to Him in raiment of needlework. Needlework requires fine stitching and
great skill and care in execution. The trials and testings which the true people of God are suffering, and misunderstandings
of the world about them, an unbelieving world on one hand and a worldly church on the other, stitches the embroidery on her
bridal robes.
These
Scriptures deal with the spiritual or heavenly aspect of the Bride of Christ. But the prophet Joel graphically illustrates
the earthly aspect of the precious fruit being gathered in by the earth receiving its former and latter rain. Prophetically,
Joel sweeps through the centuries and envisions the day of the Lord near at hand. Joel 2:1.
In
the hour of the Lord's imminent returning, Joel sees spiritual desolation on every hand. The cankerous plagues of worldliness
and unbelief, sectarianism, ecclesiasticism, and formalism, spoken of as the cankerworm, caterpillar, palmerworm, and locust,
have eaten away the years of Gospel productivity. But Joel sees a work of restoration and a return to apostolic power and
prophetically and graphically pictures the Outpouring of the Former and the Latter Rain in double abundance. This is a time
when the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ is so fully and freely manifest on earth that “whosoever” calleth on His
Name is delivered! This is a time of tremendous spiritual activity. First, the Former and Latter Rain poured out and the Church
refreshed and revived, returns to Pentecost: And then on top of this mighty restoration to Gospel purity and power, the Spirit
is poured out on all flesh. Joel 2:28.
Some
hesitate to accept this prophetic vision as applying to the Gentile Bride of Christ, contending that it refers alone to the
time of Israel's restoration. However, Scripture shows Joseph, one of the most perfect types of Christ, married to a Gentile
Bride while he was cut off from his brethren, and that she became “one” with him in all his royal relationships.
In
Romans 11, Paul gives the doctrinal explanation. The Jewish nation through disbelief was broken off from its covenant relationship
with God. The Gentiles were grafted in, in the identical place that Israel was broken off, placing them in Israel's stead
in Covenant Relationship with God. It is a principle of prophecy that throughout Scripture, God is dealing with two peoples
in covenant relationship. He deals with Israel in the Old Covenant, and with the Gentiles and Israel in the New Covenant.
The
Lord Jesus warned the Jews of His day that the Kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth
the fruits thereof. For us today, the full force of Joel's end time prophecy relates itself to the fact that the full restoration
of apostolic power to the Church comes after a union in prayer at the House of the Lord, of ministers and people of God. Study
Joel 2:12-17 and read there God's covenant to bring forth Joel 2:18-32, if we will identify ourselves in covenant relationship
with Him in bringing it forth.
The
people of God assuming their part of the Covenant in humbling prayer and intercession, the Lord then begins a work of restoration
which culminates in a work of the Spirit on earth, more mighty, more miraculous than the world has ever known. This great
outpouring of the Spirit in the midst of apostasy and lukewarmness not only gives the world its last witness of the soon-coming
of the Lord, but also serves to make the true Church itself “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” that she
might be presented “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” Ephesians 5:25-27; Jude 24.
Thus,
Christ's promise of a ministry of Greater Things [greater in quantity, but never greater in quality] than He did is confirmed,
as the glory of the latter house excels the glory of the former, and once more on the earth stands Christ's Church, triumphant
and glorious. Haggai 2:9; John 14:12.
