Supplement 8 — For Lessons 15 & 16

Supplement Eight

For Lessons Fifteen and Sixteen

In Lesson Fifteen we have seen that in the days of Abraham and his seed God began to reveal His will in more detail concerning the coming of the seed of the woman and the purpose of His coming into the world. We have seen that God planned that the chosen race should be His representatives in the Earth to demonstrate the will of God among men; that they should prove to all men that God loved them and wanted to bless them in holiness, health, wealth, and happiness which they could never enjoy fully apart from God; and that God had a wonderful future for all men who would conform to the plan of God. God began to require of men absolute and unwavering faith in His plan and will for them. Faith, the obedience of faith, was the particular test which God placed all men under in the days of the Dispensation of Promise.

Men were required to believe that God desired to banish want, sickness, and all misery from the Earth and restore man to his original state as before the Fall. This basis of dealing with all men made it possible for the individual to prove true to God and receive from Him all that He freely promised all men alike. Faith will still produce that very same result. If all men fail to believe in God and refuse to conform to His plan but one person, that one can still get from God all the benefits of the plan. This fact makes God just to all and makes it possible for each individual to attain to the things which the majority fail to enjoy.

Unlimited Power in Prayer

As the plan of God unfolds before us in the lessons, we can clearly see that there are unlimited possibilities in prayer. As we have seen in Lesson Sixteen, there are no limitations to what all men can receive from God according to the promises. There can be no failure to get any one benefit that God has promised.

With such knowledge of the will of God and of the unlimited power of prayer, there is no excuse for all the sin, sickness, disease, failure, poverty, and unhappiness in the world. Why the children of God are so easily satisfied with coming so short of so many good things of this life when they can have an abundance is hard to understand. It is true, they have been taught wrong and limited doctrines of the grace of God, but those are no longer an excuse for them, for we are giving them the true light of God’s Word in these lessons and supplements. From here on it is not a question of ignorance and wrong teaching. It will be simply a question of willful rejection of plain truth and a refusal to put forth the necessary effort to attain to these benefits.

In our previous lessons we have given abundant scriptural proof that there is no limitation to the believer in prayer to attain to all that he wants in this life as well as in the life to come. In Lesson Ten we have given proof of God’s plan for the needs of man. In Lesson Twelve we have shown why God’s plan for the needs of man is not realized. And in Lesson Sixteen we have shown how to attain to the fullness of life by simply asking and receiving according to set laws which God has plainly revealed in Scripture. With the wonderful truths of these lessons plus the many wonderful helps in all the lessons and supplements you should be receiving from God the abundance of life here and now.

Inventory of Your Personal Progress

For the next few minutes let us have a heart-to-heart talk with you concerning your progress. After all, it is your personal gain in life that you are interested in. This is why you wanted to study these lessons. This is why you want to continue the whole series until you have the whole truth that will help you in all your future life into the abundance of life in God.

Let us begin by asking you just what benefits you have received in these lessons. Suppose you review the whole of the lessons and supplements to see just what you have received in knowledge, wisdom, healing, prosperity, answers to prayers, and what; you personally want and need in life. Have you faithfully followed the instructions given you from the first lesson until now? Have you faithfully practiced the lessons on prayer and consecration to the whole will of God? Have you surrendered your life to God? Are you really born-again? Have you given up the sin-business? Has your fulfillment of needs and wants been sufficiently worth giving up sin for? Or, have you, without becoming God’s child, been trying to attain to the benefits of God that are promised only to those who obey Him? Have you got a simple knowledge of God’s plan for you so that you can follow the will of God? Have you conformed to the plan as you have learned it? Have you faith in God, or are you still having battles with demon powers because of doubt and unbelief?

You are the one who can answer these questions. No one else can answer them for you except God. It is absolutely necessary that you conscientiously answer these questions before God and check up on yourself to see how you are progressing. If you are making good progress that fact is true because you have obeyed to the letter the simple instructions laid down for you to follow. If you are not progressing as fast as you wish in getting things from God and having your every need supplied for body, soul, and spirit, you have lagged because you have failed on some point or points. You are the one to discover wherein you are failing, and you are the one to concentrate on the weak points of your progress. Even if you have to start all over again it will pay you rich dividends to do so.

You should make an outline of the necessary steps you are to follow. Put down the main points from the first lesson and supplement to Supplement Eight and see if you fully understand everything that you are to do. Then check off the points that you know you have been faithful to practice daily. Also check off the points wherein you have failed. Begin to practice all the truth and not a part of it. If after this you are not getting the benefits you are entitled to, go to God about it, quoting the promises that cover your needs and wants. Seek Him about the failure. Be sure that you have not been doubting God during your practice of the principles taught you by the Word of God. If you have been wondering or questioning at all why you have not made better progress, your doing so shows that you have been doubting. If you doubt, this doubt will in itself defeat you. As long as you question and wonder about why you do not get answers to your prayers, you will be defeated. Do not mistake this! Do not let anyone deceive you! God’s Word is clear concerning every detail. You cannot mistake the truth, for it is too plainly written to leave one in ignorance. It is plainly stated that “he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not in faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” Romans 14:23 and “let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” James 1:5-8.

Your duty cannot be made clearer than this when it comes to knowing what to do to get answers to prayer. If you have sin in your life, it is no wonder that you waver. If you do not have sin in your life, you have no business to waver, so quit it here and now. Make up your mind that you are through with wavering and that you simply refuse to make God a liar any more. It matters not how hard pressed you are by evil spirit forces to doubt God and be discouraged. You do not have to yield to these spirits in the least. You must doggedly refuse to doubt what God has said and resist these satanic forces. Jas. 4:7 says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” You could not bring yourself to believe that this is a lie, could you? Would you dare say that you have resisted and the devil has not fled? Would you dare say that the Bible is not true? No! You cannot afford to do this if you want things from God.

You might wonder what is the next action to take after you have done all this. The answer is, keep on doing it until victory comes. It will come. Never doubt this fact. God is true. The devil is a liar. You can believe God more than you can believe the devil. You can, if you will, have faith in God instead of unbelief in Him and His Word. The fact that you are having a struggle with unbelief proves that you have it or you would not be having any trouble with it. As long as you have unbelief the fight must go on until you firmly and positively refuse to waver again. Let it be settled once and forever that you will not doubt. If you do know that you will not get what you have prayed for as long as you doubt, it should be easy to cast all doubt aside and to resist the very unbelief that causes the failure. You know that you will not get the answer as long as you doubt. You also know that there is a definite assurance that you will get it if you will not doubt, so why be foolish and give up to unbelief and doubt? If there was the slightest possibility of your not getting the answer provided that you have faith, you still would be better off not to doubt because you know that doubt will bring sudden defeat. You certainly cannot lose any more by having unwavering faith than you lose by having doubt; so why not wholeheartedly cooperate with God and have faith in God?

Jesus gave absolute assurance that you will receive if you have faith and doubt not. He said, “If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; It shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” Matthew 21:21-22Mark 11:22-24John 15:7, 16.

Why should you be afraid to step out on the promises of God? They will not fail. “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” 2 Corinthians 1:20. Being afraid of trusting God and His Word should not be tolerated in the life of a Christian. Such an attitude of fear reminds one of a man crossing a river that was frozen over with solid ice. He crawled on his hands and knees for fear that the ice would break through. When he got out in the middle of the river he heard someone whistling and he looked around and saw a boy with a wagon load of corn drawn by a pair of husky mules coming across the river as if it were solid ground. The boy was carefree and had absolute confidence in the ice holding up under the big load, but the poor man was afraid the ice would break through under his own weight, so was crawling in fear trying to cross the river.

The promises of God will hold you up. They will not fail. You will be shown in due time that God means what He says. One of the greatest surprises of Heaven will be the fact that we shall see how abundantly God had provided for us in this life though we failed to attain to such benefits. Let us make up our minds never to waver or limit God and His abundant promises to meet the needs of man in this life. God will not rebuke you if you dare ask anything that He has promised. “Let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him James 1:4-8.

If you are not progressing as fast as you desire, then get busy and do not be discouraged. You are the one that has been hindering your own progress. You can progress as fast as you desire. Read over and over again and again the promises until faith is generated in you sufficiently to enable you to say, “It shall be done,” “I do believe God,” “I do believe that He has heard my prayer and that I have the answer.” God is more anxious for every one of His children to believe than any one of them is to receive. God loves each one and deals with each one personally according to his faith. On this basis God is dealing with each one. Every single person can get what he wants and make the progress in God that he desires. Each one should be personally satisfied with his progress because he is the one solely responsible for it. There should be no complaint in one Christian. If he wants to develop in the business of asking and receiving, let him do what all have to do to make a success in this kind of business. God is no respecter of persons, and He does not try to hold one back and push one forward. He does not will that one of His children should be defeated in life in any particular development.

Partnership With God in Business

We have seen above that there is unlimited power in praying. A businessman needs God in his business in order to have guaranteed success. The businessman should not be ashamed of God to take Him as a partner and let it be known that he has done so. He should honor God in this respect and give Him credit for the success he has. He should take God into consideration and pray to Him about every phase of his life and work. He should be just as incurably religious and prayerful as a preacher concerning his business, and he is bound to succeed.

All men pray, even if some are ashamed of it. Even sinners and infidels find themselves praying to God when calamity strikes, or when they are scared. They do it naturally under such circumstances. They do not have to be taught; they simply pray out of the heart during such times. They pray without regard to whether it will do good or not. They must pray, proving that prayer is natural. Because prayer is natural, let us all live a natural, normal life and not be ashamed of prayer. It should be considered the greatest honor to pray to the Supreme Sovereign of the Universe.

The businessman above many others should openly pray to God to help him in his many problems. He should learn to let God run his business by following the will of God concerning every move that he makes. God is interested in the success of every man, and He will help every one to be a success in life if He is consulted and obeyed. God can run the business of any man better than the man himself can run it. God knows the details of the business world and all the problems that a business man has to face, and He can supernaturally work and accomplish things where all men fail. It matters not what business you are in. If it is a legitimate business you should not feel that it would be wrong to ask God to help you in your business and lead you into unknown ways of making money and helping others in life by your business.

If a man wants to succeed in business he must not only make God His partner, but he must be willing to follow the laws of prosperity as discussed in Supplement Six, No man can possibly fail in business if he will follow these suggestions. With God as a partner and by following the laws of prosperity he cannot help succeeding in any kind of business.

God can help the businessman by changing him in his life and conduct so that he will be capable of making a success in life. God can help him by directing him in the proper channels of success and to the sources of help that he needs. God can help him by moving on the hearts of men at every moment that he needs help to carry on some transaction that will help in a crisis and cause him to make a success. Partnership with God is indispensable to any businessman and to any Christian in any walk of life, and the person who fails to seek the help of God in every endeavor loses many blessings that he would receive from partnership with God. If you will take God into your life and acknowledge Him in all things, you will be a success in life.

Problems that are hard to solve and from which a man cannot possibly see a way out, if he has God as his partner, he can simply turn them over to God, and He will make a way out. Things can work out so easily and quickly when God begins to act that it will be surprising to see how the problems will be solved. How any man can get along without God in his business is hard to understand. Another thing that is hard to understand for some is how a godless man prospers in business without God, but this is easily cleared up when we consider that following the laws of prosperity will cause both sinners and saints to prosper in a material way. If sinners can prosper by these laws without God, how much more will a Christian prosper with God as a personal partner in his business? If Christians could see this point they would not have to wonder at the prosperity of the wicked. If all businessmen could see the advantage of prosperity with God as being greater than without Him, many of them would turn to God for His supernatural guidance in business matters.

Tapping the Infinite Resources of God

Dwight L. Moody once said, “The world has yet to see what God will do in and for and with and through the man that is wholly yielded to Him.” How true this is! The infinite resources of God have never been explored fully. The average person has such a limited conception of God and His infinite love and providence to all creation that God Himself is limited to manifest His great love to them. When men limit God, they naturally limit His blessings to themselves. If men could wake up to see for themselves the abundance of the provision of God, they would get more from Him in life.

As long as men argue that it is not God’s will to do this or that, or that He cannot and will not do certain things, they will come far short of God’s blessings. It would seem to me that only one reading of the Bible would be sufficient to correct most of the erroneous ideas the average man has of God.

The purpose of these lessons is to help such deluded people to see for themselves what God’s will is and what they are missing of the good things of this life. What should be done by every person is to read the Bible for himself and see what it plainly says on all these questions we are teaching. Every man by reading for himself can see where he has been misled. The Bible says one thing, and what men teach contrary to: this is easily detected.

There is no excuse for you that are taking these lessons, for you are having your eyes opened to see the infinite blessings God has promised to them that love Him. You have no possible excuse to continue in unbelief and ignorance of what God wants you to have in life. God has literally promised material wealth, physical health, and spiritual freedom from sin as well as from evil habits, and failure in life. In fact there is not one phase of life that God has ignored in His program. There is no want to them that fear God. There can be no failure in life for anyone who will tap the resources of God. It is the duty of every believer to learn what God has promised and then be bold and aggressive in attaining to the benefits provided.

Let the student enter wholeheartedly into fellowship with God and love and obey Him, and he will see for himself that “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” Psalms 84:11. You have before you sickness or health, poverty or wealth, failure or success; you have before you the infinite resources of God and you can have what you want in life that is good; so forget the many false concepts of God and truth that you have been taught and lay hold of the abundance of life. You can have anything you want by simply asking and receiving from your Heavenly Father.

Ten Questions For Supplement Eight. Do You Know:

• That the bride of Christ is a city and not the Church? In Rev. 21:2, 9-10, it is as simply stated as can possibly be that the bride of Christ is the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. The bride then is not the Church or a special part of the Church. Neither is the bride Israel or a special company of Jews such as the 144,000 of Rev. 7 and 14. If the bride is a city, that should be accepted without any question. In no place is the Church called the bride, a virgin, a lady, a woman, or referred to by feminine pronouns. On the contrary, the Church is called a “man” because it is the body of Christ, who is a man Ephesians 2:15Ephesians 4:13.

• That all saints of all ages will be a part of the bride of Christ? If, as stated above, the bride of Christ is a city, then naturally all who will live in this city will be part of the bride of Christ. According to Heb. 11:8-16 the Old Testament saints are going to live in that city, and they will be a part of the bride of Christ. According to Heb. 13:14 the present Church saints are going to live in the same city; so they will also be a part of the bride of Christ. The tribulation saints and the 144,000 Jews of Rev. 7 and 14 will also have part in the resurrection and will live in this city; so these two companies are also to be a part of the bride of Christ Revelation 7:1-17Revelation 14:1-5Revelation 15:2-4Revelation 20:4-6. Therefore, we conclude that every company of redeemed that will go to live in the New Jerusalem will be a part of the bride of Christ. Just as no one individual or group of individuals, or no one building or group of buildings that go to make a city could be called that city, so no individual, group of individuals, or building in the New Jerusalem could be called the bride of Christ. All the resurrected redeemed saints of all ages and all the other inhabitants and all the buildings of the New Jerusalem will make the final bride of Christ, as we see in Lesson Fifty-two.

• That there is a difference between the kingdom of Heaven and kingdom of God? The kingdom of Heaven in this age is the realm of profession as taught by the parables, wherein the tares and wheat and the good and bad are in the kingdom of Heaven. The kingdom of God is the realm of God in the vast universe. The kingdom of Heaven is only a part of the universal kingdom of God, as we shall see in Lesson Thirty-one.

• That the Church is not the kingdom of Heaven or kingdom of God? The Church is the wheat-part of the kingdom of Heaven and only a part of the true servants of the universal kingdom of God. In other words the tares in the kingdom of Heaven and the angels and other subjects of God in the kingdom of God are not part of the Church, as we shall see in our future studies.

• That there will never be a revived Roman Empire, as taught by many Bible students? The common theory is that the Roman Empire will be revived in the last days and that Antichrist will rule all this empire from Rome. But this is not taught in Scripture anywhere. According to Dan. 7:23-24 there will never be a revival of the Roman Empire, which would mean that there will be one vast empire formed out of the twenty-two states that are now inside the territory of the old Roman Empire. Instead of one empire being formed and being ruled by one man from Rome, as in the days of the Caesars, there will be ten kingdoms ruled by ten kings from ten separate capitals inside this territory. In other words, there will be ten kingdoms formed instead of this empire. There will be ten rulers of this territory instead of one. These ten are the same ones symbolized by the ten toes on the image of Dan. 2:31-45 and the ten horns on the beast of Rev. 17:8-17. That they will be in existence in the days of the second advent of Christ is clear from Rev. 17:14, for here they fight against Christ the day He comes. This same truth is taught in Dan. 2:44-45, which speaks of the God of Heaven setting up His kingdom on Earth during the days of the ten kings.

• That Antichrist cannot be any man now prominent in world affairs? This is clear from the fact that the “little horn,” the coming Antichrist, cannot come until after the ten kingdoms are formed inside the territory of the Roman Empire. If the “little horn” represents the Antichrist coming after the ten kingdoms are formed and if he will come from among them, as plainly stated in Dan. 7:7-8, 23-24, then he cannot come until the ten kingdoms are formed, and therefore he cannot be any man in world affairs until after they are fully formed. His coming, according to 2 Thess. 2:7-8, is after the rapture of the Church, as we shall see in Lesson Forty-three.

• That the Antichrist will be a future mortal man and not some supernatural resurrected man or not some succession of popes, as taught by many? That he will be a man is clear from Rev. 13:18, “it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three-score and six” Revelation 13:18. That he will be a mortal man is clear from the fact that he will be “slain” by Christ at His second advent Daniel 7:11Isaiah 11:42 Thessalonians 2:7-8. If Christ is going to slay him at the second advent, then he must be a mortal man at that time. This proves that he will not be a resurrected immortal man from the dead.

• That Antichrist cannot be Judas or any man that has ever lived on the Earth before? As we have seen in the last point above, he will be a mere mortal man at the second advent of Christ, and therefore, he could not be a resurrected immortal man as he would have to be if he were Judas or some other historical man coming back from death. There is no statement anywhere in Scripture that says that he must be some historical man from the dead. This is mere supposition of prophetic sensationalists who try to get more from the Bible than it says. That both Judas and Antichrist are called sons of perdition proves nothing, for this term simply means “sons of destruction,” because both are destined to destruction. It is appointed unto men “once to die” and not two or three times as would have to be the case if Antichrist is to be some historical man from the dead. Antichrist will die the day Christ comes so he must be a mortal man at that time. If he is a mortal man at that time he cannot be some man from past history who has died and has seen corruption in the grave for hundreds or thousands of years. Therefore we dismiss this theory as not being worthy of consideration from the standpoint of Scripture.

• That Antichrist cannot come from Italy, the Vatican, Germany, Russia, or from any prominent country of today, or from Heaven or Hell? According to Dan. 7:7-8, 23-24, he will come from within the old Roman Empire and from among the ten kingdoms that are yet to be formed therein. This alone would prove that he cannot come from Heaven, Hell, Germany, Russia, or from other countries that man say he will come from. According to Dan. 8:7-9, 20-23, he must come from one of the four divisions of the old Grecian Empire, which would be known today as Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. When Alexander the Great died, his empire was divided into four parts, as can be seen by consulting any ancient history publication. In Dan. 8:9 it states, “Out of one of them,” that is, out of one of these four divisions of the Grecian Empire the “little horn” would come, and this is explained in verse 23 as being in the latter time of the existence of these four kingdoms a king of fierce countenance would rise. The four kingdoms of Dan. 8 will make four of the ten of Dan. 7, and the purpose of this chapter over Dan. 7 is to narrow the coming of the Antichrist geographically from ten kingdoms to four of the ten; so we can definitely say that he will not come from any country outside of these four kingdoms. Therefore, because he is coming from either Greece, Turkey, Syria, or Egypt he cannot come from Italy, the Vatican, Germany, Russia, or some other place many Bible students say he will come from, for none of these countries was a part of the old Grecian Empire or the four divisions of the Grecian Empire out of which Antichrist must come. If men had read these chapters and believed what is plainly revealed, we never would have had all the foolish speculations of the past about Mussolini, Hitler, or some other man. Neither would we have now the present foolish speculation that the Pope, or some present man will be the Antichrist to fulfill prophecy.

• That the Bible definitely tells you where Antichrist comes from? The book of Daniel not only makes it clear that he will come from the ten kingdoms of the old Roman Empire, as in Dan. 7:7-8, 23-24, and from the four divisions of the Grecian Empire, which are four of the ten, as in Dan. 8:7-9, 20-23, but it also makes it clear that he will come from the Syrian division of the four divisions of Greece, as plainly taught in Dan. 11. The king of the north of this chapter is Syria, and the king of the south is Egypt. Wars between these two divisions of Greece are pictured in Dan. 11:5-34. Verses 35-45 portray war between these same two kingdoms “at the time of the end,” showing the result of the last war between them. It states that the land of Egypt shall not escape the king of the north in this last war, thus identifying Syria as being the country from which Antichrist must come. If the king of the north was Russia, as many Bible students now teach, how could Dan. 11:44 be fulfilled? What countries are north of Russia that could fight against her, as is required by this verse? There are no countries north of Russia, thus proving that the king of the north could not be Russia. When we understand the reference to be the northern division of the Grecian Empire, Syria, everything in the passage is clear. The Antichrist definitely comes from Syria and is called the king of the north who will fulfill all of Dan. 8:22-23; 11:35-45; 12:1-7.