Occupied in the business of our heavenly Father

Good morning, Businessmen and Businesswomen of the Gospel of the Kingdom. It is a great blessing for me to be with you on this occasion, to share some moments of fellowship around the Divine Program relevant to our time, and to see how businessmen and businesswomen worked in the Work of God in the past and were blessed, and how in our time there are also businessmen and businesswomen, merchants, who also work in the Work of Christ and are blessed as well.

To not mention many, we have Abraham, a businessman. He had his flocks of sheep, he had cows too, he had oxen, he had (what else?) mules, donkeys and mules and everything; and you see how he served God, he even tithed to God as well. And God blessed him, God was with him; and Abraham was blessed, his wife… and his entire family and all those who worked with Abraham were also blessed.

Then Abraham was followed by who? Isaac, another businessman, who inherited everything from Abraham; because it says that Abraham gave his son Isaac everything he had, all his inheritance; and to the other sons, like Ishmael and the six sons of Keturah, he gave gifts, presents, and sent them away from Isaac¹

Because when the other heirs, or the others who are children of the same person who departed, are too close, they want a share to be given to them immediately; but Abraham had given all he had to Isaac, the son of the promise, the firstborn of Abraham through Sarah. That was the one who would receive the Birthright Blessing. And now, Abraham gave him everything he had.

And then, notice, he was a businessman too, with his flocks of sheep; he had cows, he had oxen (for they had to plow, sow; and it takes oxen to do so, to plow); and also in those times they even used donkeys —I think it was— and all that; and he was a businessman who God prospered and was doing well (Isaac).

Then Isaac also had the same problem that Abraham had: he had a wife who was barren. But just as God opened Sarah’s womb, He rejuvenated her and gave Abraham a son through Sarah, now He opened Rebekah’s womb; and we see that Isaac had two sons fighting there in Rebekah’s womb, and there were two nations represented in those two sons that Isaac would have.

Because you see, great things always begin with one small thing.

You see, our body began very small, in a microscopic form; and there began that manifestation of that little body in the womb of our earthly mother. But we were in the loins of our father, of our earthly father; and then we passed (through the union of father and mother) to that place where the egg is fertilized by the sperm, and there the body is formed. It continues to grow in a microscopic form afterwards, until it is already visible (but it is still invisible to human sight, but it has already grown); and after a certain time (usually at nine months) that little body is born. And it is still small, but then it continues to grow; and look at how you are: you are already big, you reached the maximum height you were going to reach. You have already grown upwards what you were going to grow; you grow sideways as much as you want, according to what you eat.

Now, notice how in Rebekah’s womb there were two nations, those two nations represented in those two children. And Rebekah consulted the Lord, God, because of that struggle that was between them, a war there; and God tells her, He answered her, that there were two nations in her womb, two peoples, two nations, and that the eldest would serve the youngest².

So Jacob, trying to come out first, to be born first, it was not convenient for him to be born first: it was convenient for him to be born afterwards, to be the youngest in his birth; and then, you see, he is the second, the youngest.

Esau is the oldest because he was born first; although it was a matter of seconds, because Jacob came holding on to the heels (in other words, the heel) of Esau, because they were fighting there, and Jacob was fighting for the Birthright Blessing; but God already knew, and God worked, and He knew who would be born first and who would be born after, and that is why He poured the blessing upon the one who would be born afterwards.

That is why, God already speaking: “There are two nations in your belly there, and the greater one will serve the lesser one.” In other words, He spoke the word to the eldest that he would become the one who would serve, the one who would serve the youngest, in other words, He gave him as a servant to the youngest; and to Jacob, He gave him as lord of the eldest.

And now, watch this materialize from stage to stage.

And then Jacob fights for the Birthright Blessing: he buys it from his brother³⁴, who was blind, and could not see, of course. And God worked in all that, because if he had seen, he would have casted the blessing (upon whom?) upon Esau. For Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob⁵.

And now, see, the blessing falls upon Jacob; and Jacob, though his brother Esau was also rich, but Jacob was the one who had the blessing of God. He had to leave the territory where they lived for a while, twenty or twenty-something years, and then he returned rich; he left with nothing, but look, he had the Birthright Blessing.

And he that has the Birthright Blessing is rich even if he has nothing. At some point that Birthright Blessing will materialize producing you, materializing blessings from Heaven and Earth as well, with great heavenly and earthly riches as well, material and spiritual as well. Mainly the spiritual ones are the ones that have more value.

And now, you see, Jacob, a businessman with sheep, with oxen, with cows, with camels, with donkeys and all these things, served God; he was blessed of God. It was by the blessing of God, the Birthright Blessing, that all this wealth came to Jacob.

And so it was also with the Hebrew people there in Egypt, which were a enslaved people, but by God’s blessing they obtained all that wealth; and they came out rich, with great wealth, as God had told Abraham in Genesis, chapter 15, verse 12 and on.

And now look, Jacob was a rich man; so was Isaac, so was Abraham; and now the Hebrew people have the promise to be a rich people. It comes out of slavery with great wealth, it comes out rich. In 400 years of slavery, look at all that God had stored up for them; and now they come out rich to be established as a people, a free and sovereign nation, with their own laws given by God through the prophet Moses; and that is why he was a legislator.

And God says in His Word that God is the Legislator of His people⁶

And now, it’s like… God is the one who makes known all things that will come to pass, that is why God is God-Prophet; and that is why when He became flesh, He became God manifested in flesh in the form (of what?) of a prophet.

And that is why, all those who He sends to make known the things that God wants the people to know, He sends him with a spirit of a prophet; and that is why they are called prophets, because God is in that man to make known the things that will come to pass, and the Holy Spirit prophesies through that man, through that prophet: that man speaks anointed with the Holy Spirit; and puts His Word in the mouth of that man, and that is the Word of God, the Voice of God through human flesh. It is a Voice from where? From Heaven.

Jesus asked on one occasion… When they said things against Jesus, and even against John the Baptist in those times, Jesus asked on one occasion… When they asked him… That was… it seems that it was when Jesus turned the tables of the money changers, who asked Him: “With what authority have you done this?”

He didn’t have the authority of the high priest nor of any authority there in the temple. And He says to them: “I will also ask you a question, and then I will answer you (I mean, ‘I will tell you’)… I will tell you with what authority I do this, but first you answer me a question: The baptism of John (is it at that time, Miguel?), where was it from?”

Matthew what?… Let’s read it directly here. Matthew 21:12…

(Miguel, not here… Yes, but it doesn’t talk about John here… We have to look for Saint… Mark 11 or Luke 19. I will look for Luke 19 and you look for Mark; you look for Mark and I look for Luke. It’s not around here either. Look in the concordance, over there, for…, where it says “baptism” or “John”… Which one was it, Benjie? From Luke 20 what num-…? The verse… Yes.

[Luke 20:1] “And it came to pass, that on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders,

And spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority?

(That is when he overturned the money changers’ tables and everything).

And he answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing; and answer me:

The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?

And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not?

But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.

And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was.

And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.”

And now, John’s baptism was done here on Earth, but where was it from? From Heaven. It was ordained by God, it was ordained by God from Heaven, for John to carry out that work.

And now, our brother Branham says in a message that “there will be a trumpet from Heaven (It must be in the message “The Rapture.” Don’t you have there the…?), and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

A trumpet blast from Heaven, that is the Great Voice of Trumpet or Last Trumpet; and that trumpet blast or Great Voice of Trumpet or Last Trumpet, where is it from? From Heaven. And that is the Great Voice of Trumpet or Last Trumpet of the Gospel of the Kingdom being preached on Earth by the Angel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And from where is that Message of the Angel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Message of the Gospel of the Kingdom? Where is it from? From Heaven or from Earth? From Heaven.

And from where was the Message that Saint Paul brought to the first age of the gentile Church? From Heaven or from Earth? From Heaven.

And that of the second angel, and that of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh? From Heaven.

See where that trumpet blast of the Gospel of the Kingdom is from, that Great Voice of Trumpet or Last Trumpet: the Voice of Christ crying as when a lion roars and seven thunders uttering their voices; the Voice of Christ, the Voice of Heaven on Earth speaking to all the sons and daughters of God.

And now, just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were businessmen who were with God (and God said of Abraham that Abraham is His friend; Abraham is known as the friend of God⁷)… And see how these businessmen of different biblical stages, who served God, used their business for the Work of God and God blessed them greatly.

Job once said⁸: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.” He acknowledged that what he had was given to him by God: riches and also his children.

And after Job went through his difficult trial, God restored him; and He restored his sons, He gave him sons again; and his daughters were the most beautiful girls of that territory. He had sons and daughters again, and he had cattle, all in a multiplied way. Perhaps Job’s first daughters and sons were not so beautiful, the daughters were not too pretty; but later, when he received the restoration of his life, his health, his family and everything, God gave him children again⁹.

And now, you see, perhaps the sons and daughters of God, when they come in these mortal bodies will not be so gorgeous and so beautiful, but when they are restored with an eternal body to live for all eternity, there will be the maximum that God had for His children, in all senses; because there we will all be in the image and likeness of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

An eternal body, that is the maximum that a person can have as a body. And there will be there everything that God wanted for each of you and for me too.

Before we had this body, and God saw and determined that we would have this body, before that He saw and determined —predestined— the eternal body that we would have. In other words, that eternal body comes before this earthly body.

And what do you mean it is first? It is first in the mind of God, it is first in the Program of God; and that is the body in the perfect will of God, that is why it is eternal.

And there we will have everything that God predestined that we would have in the physical body: immortality, youth, and the beauty that He has determined as to what is beauty for God, all the beauty and radiance that God has determined to give us in the new body. And all the knowledge of God in that new body.

And there we shall have both our consciences (how?) together; and we shall be like our beloved Lord Jesus Christ: knowing all things; and we will know as we are known¹⁰. We will know all things in that eternal body.

Now, by knowing as we are known, it is also fulfilled by knowing God manifested in this end time; because in the seven ages, one knew and saw as in a mirror, in darkness or a dark place, because the seven ages pertain to the time of the night and that is why it was seen in a dark place and everything about God could not be understood. But in this age, the Age of the Cornerstone, which is the Age of the Light, because it is the Age of the Sun… and where the sun is present, there is light; darkness (what?) flees away. And now in the Age of the Light, the Age of the Sun, is that we can then see face to face.

During the night, if we are in a dark place, and we talk to each other in a dark place, we are seeing as in a mirror, in a dark place; we don’t distinguish ourselves very well, we are not seeing each other clearly; but when the sun rises, then we can look at each other and we can see each other face to face and talk face to face, seeing each other face to face.

That is for our age: to see face to face; and Him, seeing us face to face and us seeing Him manifested face to face; and to hear His Voice and know that we are hearing His Voice.

During the seven ages of the gentile Church some people didn’t even know who the messenger of their age was; but for our time, living in the age that we will see face to face, we would be seeing all things face to face, with the Light of the Sun of Righteousness shining and illuminating the understanding and the soul and our entire being in order to understand; and thus the wise understand all these things of God.

“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 14, and also Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 9.

And now, God’s elect of this Last Day are the first ones who get to obtain that knowledge: they become full of the knowledge of God, the glory of the Lord, the glory of God in His Second Coming, as the waters cover the sea.

That is how the knowledge and understanding of all things of God relevant to this end time covers us; that is how the knowledge of the Second Coming of Christ as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and King of kings and Lord of lords in His Reclaiming Work covers us. As the waters, we are covered with the knowledge of the manifestation of the glory of the Lord for this end time, just as we have known the manifestation of the glory of God in the First Coming of Christ.

And for that time there were also businessmen who worked with Christ, collaborated with Christ; and among them there were also some who were called to the ministry, as apostles, to work directly with Christ in the business of our heavenly Father.

Whenever we work in the Work of Christ we are working in the business of our heavenly Father.

And as there were many businessmen in past times working in the Work of God, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, there are also in this time. And where are those people? There is a group present here in Villahermosa, and in different places of the Mexican Republic, and in the different Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Here we have (it was “The Rapture”, see?), in “The Rapture”, page 37 in Spanish, here it says verse 1509¹¹:

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God!’ One day, there will come a blast from Heaven, ‘And the dead in Christ shall rise first.’ Them Old Testament saints back yonder, who are waiting, will blast forth and come out of there first, and go into the resurrection. We’ll drop right in line, going into the sky; these old mortal bodies changed and made like unto His Own glorious body.”

As His own glorified body, we will have our body.

Now, when it says here: “Them Old Testament saints”, we can say that it is those saints of the seven ages of the gentile Church and those of the time of Jesus and the apostles there in Jerusalem; because the saints of the Old Testament already resurrected with Christ when Christ resurrected.

And now see that trumpet from Heaven, which is the Last Trumpet or Great Voice of Trumpet.

On page 130 of the book of Quotations, and page 149, and page 47… On page 47 it says that the Trumpet of God will sound; it says that it is that Trumpet, that gospel something, will sound, and the dead in Christ will resurrect first.

Over here, we are going to have Benjie (he may be here); he can find that for us on page 130 (I don’t know if you can find it that way), or the Last Trumpet.

Then also, right there, on that page 47 it says: “…announcing of His Coming.” That Trumpet will sound, that Last Trumpet will sound, that gospel something will sound. What will sound? The announcing of His Coming; in other words, it will sound, it will proclaim, it will reveal the Second Coming of Christ as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, as King of kings and Lord of lords in His Reclaiming Work.

Also on page 130 and 149 it says: “The Trumpet will sound, that last Trumpet (in other words, that Final Trumpet will sound)”; and so…

He tells us [1333]¹²: “The Final Trumpet or that last Trumpet, or Seventh… That Seventh Trumpet, like the Seventh Seal, is the Coming of the Lord. It will sound, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

You see? That is the trumpet blast from Heaven: that Last Trumpet, which reveals the Seventh Seal, reveals the Second Coming of Christ.

The Seventh Seal for the gentile Church is the Second Coming of Christ, and the Seventh Trumpet for the Hebrew people is the Second Coming of Christ.

There in the message “The ten virgins” (page 450 to 452), is where it says (verse 402) [Page 47]¹³:

“‘For we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, down here, shall not prevent or hinder those which are asleep.’ Them precious ones that sealed their blood… sealed their testimony with their blood. ‘Not prevent or hinder those that are asleep, for the trumpet will sound.’ Something will take place, ‘the Gospel something will sound,’ the announcing of His coming. ‘And the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we which are alive and remain shall be changed.’ Standing, and feel a change come on: the gray hair go out, the wrinkles fall away, be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. And we shall meet our loved ones first.”

If we turn to page one hundred… Where there is more about that Last Trumpet is on page 130 of the book of Quotations and 149 of the book of Quotations, where it says that the Seventh Seal and the Seventh Trumpet is the Coming of the Lord.

Us working in the entire Divine Program for our time, we are being collaborators with Christ in His Work relevant to this end time.

And as businessmen and businesswomen, you work in the Work of Christ and your work in the Lord is not in vain; for you are working in the age that pertains to the Church of Jesus Christ in this Last Day, and you are working in the dispensation for this Last Day.

And therefore, by working in the Work of Christ in the age and dispensation that we were given to live in, and working with divine love, not feeling that we are forced but of good will… We want to work in the Work of Christ because we love Jesus Christ as our Savior, and we want to work with Christ and for Christ in this end time.

That is the work, the work that is pleasing to Christ, and it is the work that is blessed by God. And when we are in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Heaven, He will reward each one according to his works: according to all that he has done, that he has worked in the Work of Christ in the time that he has lived.

Therefore, businessmen and businesswomen of the Gospel of the Kingdom, onward working in the Work of Christ in our age and dispensation, because your work in the Lord is not in vain.

May God bless you greatly spiritually and materially also, and use you greatly in His Work in this Last Day.

Here we have, in the message “Broken Cisterns,” page 33, where what I said that is contained in the book of Quotations is. Here, in the message “Broken Cisterns,” page 33, preached on July 26, 1964 in Jeffersonville, Indiana, verse 1164 says:

“‘They which are alive and remain shall not hinder those which are sleeping, for the Trump of God, that last Trumpet…’ The sixth one has just sounded. And that last Trumpet, like the last Seal, will be the Coming of the Lord. ‘It shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.’”

There we can see what that Last Trumpet or Seventh Trumpet is: it is the Seventh Trumpet, like the Seventh Seal, the Coming of the Lord; and it will sound. That Seventh Trumpet and that Seventh Seal will sound, and that is the Coming of the Lord; and the Coming of the Lord will be made known. And the Coming of the Lord be made known, being made known, is the Last Trumpet or Seventh Trumpet sounding and revealing this divine mystery.

That is that Trumpet or trumpet blast of Heaven promised to be heard by the Church of Jesus Christ in this end time.

It is a trumpet blast of Heaven the Voice of Christ speaking from Heaven to His Church in the Age of the Cornerstone and Dispensation of the Kingdom, through His instrument for the Age of the Cornerstone and Dispensation of the Kingdom, which is His Angel Messenger, of Revelation, chapter 22, verse 16, of which it says:

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.”

And Revelation 22, verse 6, also testifies of His Angel that He sends to manifest unto His servants the things that must happen soon.

And in Revelation, chapter 4, verse 1, it says: “Come up hither.” With that Voice of Trumpet, He says:

“Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.”

We have to go up to an age, the heavenly age of the Church of Jesus Christ, which is the Age of the Cornerstone, to hear that heavenly Voice, that trumpet blast of Heaven; to be heard in a heavenly age, the Age of the Cornerstone; and thus to hear the Voice of Christ making known to us through His Angel all these things that must shortly come to pass.

And thus all of us will be working with Christ in the business of our heavenly Father; and thus, with our earthly business, working in the business of our heavenly Father.

Onward working in the business of our heavenly Father, relevant to the Age of the Cornerstone and Dispensation of the Kingdom, because your work in the Lord is not in vain: you will receive your rightful reward.

May God bless you and keep you and use you greatly in His Work, and may He prosper you spiritually and materially as well.

Thank you very much for your kind attention, and I leave again with us the Reverend Miguel Bermudez Marin.

God bless you and keep you all.

“OCCUPIED IN THE BUSINESS OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER.”