"And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must

receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." Acts 3:20-21

"Restoring the Ultimate"

Every new thing with man is God working backwards to His original pattern. Luke 21:34-36: "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." We are now in the time of the restoration. The scripture does not say that the heavens will receive Him until all things are restored, but until the times of restoration. In the Millennium many things will be restored, but the Church will be restored before Jesus comes. If we are rightly interpreting the scripture, the Lord, at His coming, is going to have a Glorious Church (Ephesians 5:27), there must be a restoration and a great reviving from the presence of the Lord. The Church as a whole is not ready; Joel pictures her present condition as stripped. Paul says in the end a falling away would come. Joel, in Chapter two, verse twenty-five, tells of the restoration to take place. What is restoration? Webster says, restoration is "to give back that which has been taken away, to restore to former state." What is revival? Again Webster defines it, "to bring back to life, to recover after weakness." Everything God gave the New Testament Church all ministries, all gifts, all graces, are to be restored as the coming of the Lord draws near. "Turn ye even to me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning and rend your hearts and not your garments" (Joel 2:13). By this, Joel tells us God will restore all things. In the light of all this I believe that we the church, can expect, and believe for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Ghost as we approach the end. We will examine this thought. Revival in every generation has waited on the Prophets of that generation to find God's message for that particular time. Peter spoke of present truth, meaning a message for a particular time. I believe that most who read these lines will agree with me, that there is a famine in the land for what God is saying to this last generation. We have no want of religion but we have a great want for God. We are more expert in talking faith and miracles than we are in producing them. Looking back, history reveals that when the man of God connected with the message of God, revival always came. It was the search for this message that brought me to the truth I now bring. As I searched and waited, God showed me that His message for this last Generation was, "The Gospel of The Kingdom," preached as a witness. (Matthew 24:14). What is the Gospel of the Kingdom? The Gospel of the Kingdom is the Gospel fully preached in the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost by a fully restored church. There have been men who have preached this Gospel of the Kingdom but have produced very limited results. These men saw beyond their day and by faith made tomorrow a reality today, in a limited way. Dr. Roberts in his book, "The Fourth Man," talks of the law-of-averages in healing of the sick. The reason for this limitation is clear. No matter how close a man may draw to God he will only have a measure of faith. One can chase a thousand, but two can put ten thousand to flight. The Church, The Body of Christ, alone, through its many members, has the Spirit without measure. We have before us, what I believe to be an undeniable fact. That fact is, before the Gospel of The Kingdom can be preached in all nations as a witness, the Church, the ultimate thing, must be restored

(Acts 3:21). Keep this in mind: the only generation of the Church to reach their generation was the first one. This last generation, of which you and I are apart of, will duplicate the success of the first. As we examine this great truth as to how this restoration has, and is, being accomplished, there are three things we must fix in our minds. First, the Second Coming of Jesus will mark the time the Bible calls the end. Second, Jesus will not return to the earth until the Church is restored. Third, the message of this last generation will be THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. It is worth noting here that Acts 3:23 was spoken on, or about the birthday of the Church. Two things make this remarkable. First, the Church was born fully developed, it lacked nothing. Second, the Holy Ghost saw a time when she would be famine stricken. In the Old Testament the Prophet Joel saw the Church reduced to a stump, nothing left. In the New Testament the story of the Prodigal tells it all. Looking back on history we can pinpoint a time when the Church was totally void of truth. Jesus will not return for a Church that is less than He started with, to do so would be to admit failure. So Luke tells us that before Jesus returns, the Church must be restored to her original power and glory. "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in the place will I give peace, saith the LORD of host," (Haggai 2:9). Jesus is not coming back for a broken down religious machine; neither is He coming for a Church that does not know what she believes. The church of the end will be a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). This explains why all the great preachers of the past who effected their generation for God, preached to the Church. God gave all the ministry gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the Church. "And he gave some, apostles; some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of body of Christ:"(Ephesians 4:11-12). The Gospel of the Kingdom preached as a witness is, God fully expressed in His power and glory, through the Church, by the Holy Ghost. For God to be fully expressed demands a body fully restored and developed. With this truth in mind it is easy to see that all the great revivals of the past have been restoration revivals. As we explore this truth keep in mind, there cannot come a true revival through any body of religion that is preaching less than the current revelation. So every new move of God has come out of the old. One by one the revivals of the past have restored to the church the great truths which the Canker worm, the palmer worm, and the caterpillar have destroyed. By the Middle Ages everything had been lost. It would have been difficult to find a person who knew how to be saved, and if he did, he was ignorant of any of those things that are imperative to the born again. In those perilous times God found a man by the name of Martin Luther who could think outside the slavery of Romanism, and through that man God began the long road back to reality and fullness. The restoring of the Church began with the Lutheran revival. In those awful times that men called the 'dark ages,' religion abounded but was a religion without God. Everything was lost so God began at the beginning. God's message through Luther was not the Gospel of the Kingdom, but "ye must be born again." Since the Gospel of the Kingdom can only come through the new creation this great truth had to be restored. When Luther connected with God's message the revival came, and a thousand years of darkness was broken. Millions who had sat in darkness saw a great light, and were liberated both spiritually and physically. In time the movement that men call Lutheranism died, that is, it ceased to be a living active agent of God on the earth. It became an institution that misrepresented the God that had birthed it. Although the movement died spiritually, the truth it birthed lived on through a remnant that refused to bow to Baal. Religious bodies have a way of carrying on long after the anointing has moved on, but God never intended for His 'elect' to sit around burnt-out altar fires; they are to move with the cloud. While the devil was gloating, and poking around in the ashes of Lutheranism, God was raising up a man named John Wesley through whom he would restore the message of Sanctification. No matter how dark the present may look, the elect of God must know that the program of God is moving forward. God will have a church and it will be a glorious church.

When God found His man, John Wesley, and His man connected with the present truth, revival came. The Methodist revival took the truth restored by the Lutheran revival and added there to the message of bible holiness. Power is a position (Joshua 3:5), therefore the Gospel of the Kingdom could not be fully preached apart from the message of sanctification. Like every other spiritual movement before it, Methodism was infiltrated by the world the enemy of God, the results, always the same, spiritual death. Methodism ceased to be a movement, she instead, became an institution, no longer the expression of God on the earth. But the truth birthed by Methodism lived on. The anointing that brought Methodism into being moved on carrying with it the restored truth of sanctification. The institution continued to speak, but words without the anointing are like faith without works, they are dead. Though millions remained behind to sit with the corpse that was once the living Body of Christ, the cloud had moved on. The remnant, the true church, had moved forward on the high road to restoration. Again, while the devil was poking around in the ashes of dead Methodism, down the road a ways, God raised up a people who were speaking in tongues. The great Pentecostal revival was born. The anointing that birthed the Pentecostal movement brought with it the restored truth of "justification by faith" of the Lutheran revival, and the truth of sanctification restored by the Methodist revival, and added there to the great truth of "the Baptism of the Holy Ghost." Without this great truth, the Church lacks the power to demonstrate the Gospel. With the anointing, the Pentecostal Church became the vehicle of expression, the living Body of Christ. Blinded by her selfishness, the Pentecostal church began to compromise her position. In her desire to be like others she allowed what God will not allow, and like Samson, the devil put her eyes out. Today, that once great champion of God, THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH, is so blind she believes that Romanism and Pentecost are compatible. Having convinced herself that unity is more important to God than truth, she has joined herself to the harlot system called "the ecumenical." She has become a form without power. No longer endued with power and life she now attempts to imitate the real. Passing from the living to the form, she lost her ability to express God, but the truth she restored lived on. In the late forties new life began to flow into, and through, what appeared to be a corpse. This move incorporated the truths restored by the Lutheran, Methodist, and Pentecostal revivals, while adding the great revelation of the Gifts of the Spirit. The message centered on healing of the sick, and the gifts of the Spirit. Spreading rapidly, the revival caught the attention of the world. Without the restoration of these gifts the Gospel of the Kingdom could not be fully preached. Like every other movement before it, this one carried the seeds of its own destruction. Instead of progressing toward the image of Christ, it moved toward the image of self, worshiping the creature more than the Creator. Super stars of religion began to emerge, and the Corinthian disaster was repeated; God became subject to man. The movement lost its ability to express Christ, but the truth it restored remained as the property of the Body of Christ. Now as the Church moves into what is perhaps the final decade before the coming of Jesus, these great truths have been restored. Doctrinally these truths are a part of the end-time remnant Church, but for the most part, they are mere teaching. They are not what God intends, a living expression of Christ. Once more in this end-time, the Word must become flesh. The harlot has deceived millions with her imitation of the real, now the true remnant must preach the Gospel of the Kingdom in power and demonstration of the Spirit.