For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, THAT YE SHOULD FOLLOW HIS STEPS (I Peter 2:21). FOLLOW THOU ME (John 21:22).

I see footsteps that came thousands of years ago to planet Earth straight from the throne, footsteps of Lord God Almighty. God came down to make a beautiful garden, a place lovelier than anything we have ever seen, but God was not satisfied; it was a lonely place. Then a plan began to be formed: God would make an intelligent being in His own likeness, a being that would function in perfection. There would be no sickness or disease, no mental illness, no evil thoughts, no lack. Man was to be holy like the God that would make him. Just a little lower than the angels, man would be every bit as pure, wonderful and great in the eyes of Almighty God. This beautiful man that God had planned would be able to make decisions, to think for himself. We have no way of knowing how long God enjoyed the companionship of man, how many times in the cool of the day He came down to walk and talk with His creation. It was a beautiful relationship, indeed. With intelligence this man could answer God; this man was able to name all the animals in the world. Many were the gifts this first man possessed. Everything he needed was his with but one exception. God saw that Adam, the only one of his kind, needed a help mate. For Adam, God made a beautiful creature, probably the most breathtaking thing Adam had ever beheld. A being perfect in every way was this Eve, made from the very bone of Adam; God gave Adam His best. Day after day the footsteps of Almighty God left the throne of Heaven to come down to commune with Adam and Eve, footsteps of love paving a highway from Heaven to Earth. But then came that black, black day when man sinned against God. The nature of God is such that He cannot look upon sin; God refuses to fellowship with sin of any kind. Sinning against God closes the door between you and Him, but God is very nigh unto all who have no sin although they may not always be aware of His presence. Open your eyes and see the footsteps of His Son who has come to bear your sin so that you can be blameless in God’s eyes. The footsteps of the Son of God are here for you to walk in, but you must recognize that they are there for you.

Every Thought Was Evil

The light of Heaven isn’t shining on the Garden anymore, for man has been driven out. God, heartbroken, no longer comes down. Although man was out in the cold, out in the night, still he was not forgotten by God. At different times God would listen in on man; it only grieved Him more, for what He heard was vulgar, ungodly. God finally declared that every thought of the mind of man was evil continually; it’s a description that could also fit the world today: filthy talk, darkened minds, the language of Lucifer pouring forth through human tongues. God heard the tongues of devils using the tongues of men. Never, when He made the first man, did God think He would hear such a thing; never did God think that man would sell out…but he had. Although God waited, man grew no better, only worse. Heavy of heart, God repented that He had ever made man and determined to destroy him from the face of the earth by a great flood.

Only Noah found grace in the eyes of God. He and his family looked so much like the first Adam and Eve God had loved so much that in His plan to destroy the earth God made provisions for the saving of them. One hundred twenty years the ark was in the building; one hundred twenty years men had a chance to repent, but only Noah and his family were spared. The rest had gone too far, stepped over the border just the way people have today.

The Last Call from Heaven

The Lord warned that this hour would come, the hour when His presence would lift from people. People now will go either to the left or to the right, either come to God or turn away from Him forever. There is no straddling the fence. In this final hour people will yield to God’s miracle power and to His Spirit or else turn their backs on God completely. Many people now on the face of the earth have no urge to seek God. Many will never get another call from Heaven; there will never be another call, and that’s thus saith the Lord. If you are a sinner or backslider, be grateful that God is still pulling on you, still calling you. He will not call forever if you continue to reject Him. If you do not change, one day you will insult the Holy Spirit for the last time. It happened to the people in Noah’s day. God heard them damn Him, heard oaths pour from their mouths until He said, “No more. I will never hear a prayer from them again; never show them any love or grace. They are doomed.” I am sure those people in Noah’s day prayed as the waters began to rise, declaring at last their belief in God; but it was too late. The door of the ark had closed.

A Chance to Change before Judgment Falls

What happened in Noah’s day should tell you something about the judgment in store for this hour we live in. Although God has promised never to destroy the whole earth again by a flood, the judgments soon to come will be much more horrible than drowning. Read of them in Ezekiel and Revelation. God wants you to know the kind of God He is. Go back to the beginning of the Bible and retrace His footsteps. The Old Testament is filled with His judgments, filled with types and shadows of living realities to come. What God has done in the past He will do again. Today God is showing mercy, but soon He will rain His judgment. Each time before judgment has fallen in the past, God has warned the people, has given them a chance to turn from their disobedient ways; but the people as a whole did not believe Him. God said that in the day of the coming of His Son—our day—there would be scoffers walking after their own lusts, satisfying every desire of the flesh and mocking, “Where is the sign of His coming? Since the fathers have fallen asleep everything has continued as it always has. Summer, winter, spring, fall—it’s never going to change.” God said it would change and it will change. Long ago when God warned that He would destroy all from the face of the earth except Noah and his family, they were destroyed. What God has said will be done.

I see footsteps. The steps of Jehovah God brought destruction to the whole earth; and when it was over, eight people were left. For a short while the fragrance coming up from the earth was sweet in the nostrils of God. Then one day it happened again: someone sold out to the devil. One by one the descendants of Noah began to sell out until God could no longer bear the frightful things taking place in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, dwelt in the midst of it all.

Two Angels Sent to Rescue

When God told Abraham He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded for the righteous that lived there. Lot was righteous; the Bible says his righteous soul was vexed at the things taking place around him, and so the Lord sent two angels into the city to bring out Lot before judgment fell. God could not save everyone, only the righteous. Today God cannot save the whole world, only His salt of the earth. Jesus is coming for the salt, the jewels, and He is going to take them out before God rains down judgment once again.

Watch the footsteps of Jehovah God. If you want to know the path He is taking the human race, just look at the path He walked yesterday. Two angels representing the Word and the Holy Spirit have been sent to get us ready to be taken out. The Word of Almighty God is reaching out for you daily. If you do not yield to the Word of God, His presence will lift from you. You will cry out to a God who won’t be there to hear. God always has been available to man, but it will not continue to be so. Perhaps you have been taught from the cradle the truth in the Word of God; perhaps not, but no one will be able to shun God in this hour and still find Him at their convenience.

The discipline of the Holy Spirit is going to be severe. It’s going to become more severe daily now, and that’s thus saith the Lord. You’re either going into the arms of God, or else you are pushing God away with your actions. God will let you go. One of these days you will roll out of bed to the most dumbfounding news you’ve ever heard in your whole life: thousands of people have disappeared from planet Earth. All the babies are gone. “It can’t be!” your mind will scream, but it has happened. You pushed God away, and now He doesn’t want you. The Word had been sent in to get you. The Holy Ghost came to use the Word to bring you out, but you refused.

Two angels cried, “Come on, Lot, get your family ready!” Lot’s sons-in-law did not want to leave even though Lot told them the place would be destroyed. Lot seemed to them as one who mocked; they chose the destruction of Sodom over the safety of God. The angels took the hands of Lot, his wife and daughters and pulled them out of the city. God has pulled on some of you and, like Lot’s sons-in-law, you have rebelled. One of these days you would give your life to feel God pull just one more time, but it will be too late. There will be no pull, no tug from Heaven.

Have You Grieved the Spirit?

We can play hard to get when we don’t want to be gotten. We can play hard to get when we feel we are a winner, but on doomsday it will be a different story. When the earth begins to tremble underfoot, when the heart isn’t beating so well, your breath is not coming right and you know you are dying, you will wake up to the fact you need someone greater than you. He was available at one time. God had sent the Word to rescue you, the Holy Spirit to use the Word to bring you out before destruction; but you did not want it. Now it’s too late. You have called, but His ears are closed. You turned your back on Him once too often. Again and again you insulted and grieved the Holy Spirit. What makes you think you are so special that you can continue to spit in the face of God and never come to the day of reckoning? That day is almost here.

The cry of the Holy Spirit is in the land today, “Come to Jesus, come to Jesus!” Soon that cry will be cut off forever. The children of God will open their mouths to cry, “Come to Jesus,” but there will be no invitation coming forth. The last person will have been accepted, and the last person will have been rejected for the Rapture. Now the Rapture is taking place. Others are being changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. You could have been part of it, part of the Bride of Christ. But you didn’t love Him enough; you loved the world more.

You could have been holy—some of you were at one time—but now you’re contaminated with things not of God. Some of you allowed your tongue to contaminate you or your mind to get you into trouble with crooked dealings. If you do not know whether or not the things you are doing are wrong, just ask yourself if Jesus would do them. Would Jesus cheat; would Jesus tear down; would Jesus hate or envy? Would Jesus carry grudges or lie? Would Jesus always rebuke and condemn? The Bible tells us that Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save it; how strange that so many of His followers feel the need to exceed the authority of Jesus when it comes to condemnation. I do not go out to condemn the alcoholic or the sinner. I go out to bring them into the reality of God’s saving grace that will change their lives if they desire it.

Treasure the Greatness of God

Many of you come to church yet have no living reality of God in your hearts. You do not actually believe the Rapture is going to take place in your day. If you did, you would never do anything against God day or night. There would be no strife or envy in your heart against anyone, only love, love, love—all the love that’s described in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians. Because the Corinthian church had lost their love, they lost the valuables of God—the gifts of God and the fruits of the Spirit. At one time they had the greatness of God, but they did not treasure it.

The greatness of God is offered you; it’s on the table. But by walking afar from God you are rejecting it all. Those little “no-harm” sins bring condemnation upon you. If you are in Jesus Christ, the Bible says, there is therefore no condemnation. Are you doing something wrong and feeling condemnation for it? Do you know you’re not walking hand in hand with Him? Are you gossiping, treating people unfairly, justifying yourself with your own spirit rather than taking your actions to the Word of God? How much would you need to change if you knew the Rapture would take place in just a few hours? Make the necessary changes now. The Holy Spirit and the Word are pulling on you; but if you refuse to go they will allow it.

Married More to the World Than to God

The Holy Spirit was dragging Lot’s wife along, but she didn’t really want to go. She had some love for her husband and children, but she had more for what lay behind in Sodom; she loved what went on in the world. Married more to the world than to God, Lot’s wife looked back. It cost her life. Many today are married more to the world than to Jesus. The Spirit and the Word are crying, “Come on! Come on! You must flee! Death is just behind. Get ready to get out of here. The Rapture is about to take place!” Rejecting the warning, they choose the world. Jesus, when He was here on Earth, said that if you looked back you were not fit for the Kingdom. If you are looking away from the Lord more than you are looking to Him, you are not fit for the Kingdom.

Looking in His direction part time is the story of Lot’s wife all over again. Lot’s wife was told she couldn’t look back, and the Holy Spirit and the Word are declaring the same thing to you. Types and shadows of what was to come are now living reality. Not two angels but the powerful Word of the living God and the mighty Holy Ghost Himself are pulling on you, doing everything that can be done to take you to Rapture ground before destruction falls.

Are you determined to look back; is there some love of the world that you didn’t get out of your heart? You didn’t stay at Calvary long enough or else you didn’t climb to the Upper Room as the Lord expects you to. If you are not living in the Upper Room, you have lost His anointing, His presence; you’ve lost your first love. Since you have let the reality of God escape, you no longer rejoice in the face of adversity but draw up into a shell of self pity. You blame others for your mistakes rather than accepting the responsibility of your own actions. You’re like a spoiled child. Paul said that when he became a man he put away childish things; read it in I Corinthians 13. Put away childish things and become an adult through Jesus Christ. Stand tall in this final hour, and once again seek with all your heart that first love.

Do Loved Ones Cause You to Look Back?

When Lot’s wife looked back, judgment struck. All that was left of her was just a pillar of salt. Think how much love for God Lot and his family must have had in their hearts at that moment; it kept them from looking back when that warm hand turned cold and lifeless. No matter what happens to any member of your family in this final hour, no matter how critical of God’s power they become or how they turn away from God, you must be with God and His people. In this life’s journey with God you cannot look back. If no one else in your family makes the Rapture, your love for God must be so great that you will be counted worthy to be taken away. Some of you have stumbling blocks. You have allowed people to hinder you, allowed your kin to still the light of God in you. It’s time to take your stand for Jesus, to be so full of the love of God that it will drive out all the fear of man, Lucifer and his demons. The quickening power of Almighty God can bring your spiritual body to life in such a great way that you will stand with a testimony even though you may be the only light in your home, the only one that causes God to visit your home in a great way. Because Lot and his daughters held on to God, they were taken out; but how sad they must have felt to have left behind their loved one!

We who are taken in the Rapture will not know about the mothers, the other loved ones who are left behind. The Lord is going to take us away from the disaster those not yielding to God will face. If you are left behind, the ones who are taken will not remember you. God will wipe you out of their minds just as He will wipe you out of His mind.

Make Your Crooked Paths Straight

Today is your day of salvation; today the cry of the Spirit is going forth. Now is the time to stir your hearts with the Word and with the Holy Spirit. Now is the time to make your crooked paths straight, to prepare yourself for the Rapture. Stop doing the things which take the very victory of God out of your life. Why sell your soul for a few moments of pleasure with sex outside of marriage? Why sell your soul for lying just a little or for gossiping? Nothing is worth missing the Rapture no matter how much the senses enjoy it. In this final hour the Holy Spirit is demanding strict discipline, strict adherence to the Word of God. Yield to God; allow Him to supervise your life while there is yet time. Tomorrow the opportunity may not be available.

God wants His immense love for all mankind to be part of each person daily. He wants lives yielded to that love, changed and tempered by it. Jesus is sending me to the lost with His love. The cry of the Holy Spirit goes through my voice to reach them, to urge them to come to Him, for He loves them. All that yield to the cry of the Holy Spirit can be delivered.

Hypocrites Are Deceived

Many know they are undone without Christ, that they are displeasing in the eyes of God, that they are sinners. God, however, answers them as they reach out to Him. But what about the hypocrites who live for the devil during the week and then make great pretense of holiness on Sunday? Their eyes red from alcohol, their lives dirty from illicit sex, from dishonesty, they seem not to turn a hair in condemning others for doing the same things they have just done. On Sunday they are perfect, thinking they are going to Heaven. The devil has deceived them. The Spirit of God has lifted, and God no longer is dealing with them. People without feeling, they have become like some that Paul described in Ephesians.

Many today are without feeling when it comes to the presence of God. Those who live like the devil and try to cover it with the cloak of Jesus will be cut off from God. Soon all the skeletons will be out of the closets; every evil deed will be revealed. That which is covered up will be uncovered unless it first has been washed away by the blood of the Lamb. If your sins have not been covered by the blood, you are still unclean. Nothing can erase your sins but the blood of Jesus applied to your heart and soul.

The Day of Reckoning

The day of reckoning, the Day of Judgment is coming much sooner than most people think. Listen to what the Spirit is saying. Just as clearly as Lot recognized that two angels came to take him out, recognize that God has sent the Word and the Holy Spirit to take you out. Lot followed the servants, the messengers of God. Believing God, Lot moved. Decide that you, too, will believe God and move as the Word and the Holy Spirit direct. Those of you who have let up on your praying, fasting and living in the Word, who have decided that you can live just as good staying away from church: it won’t work. The Bible says to not neglect the assembling together of God’s people, people supporting a minister who preaches the whole Word of God in all its fire and power. Every church will have some hypocrites, but never use that as an excuse to fail God. As long as you can read the Bible, you can find God’s truth. There will be a time when the hypocrites will be separated. Jesus said that if the tares were pulled out too soon some of the wheat would be destroyed also, but at harvest time the separation will come.

More and more we are returning to the power that was in the Early Church. At that time two of the hypocrites fell over dead, and it is hard to tell what will happen in this hour of separation as God uncovers sin. In the congregation of His people God will uncover the unrighteous, separating them and getting the righteous ready, removing the spots and wrinkles. If you are not yielding to God, your garments will be unclean; and you will be left at the time of the Rapture in your wrinkled, spotted, dirty condition.

Let the Word and the Spirit Get You Ready

You needn’t be left; for, thank God, there is an Old Rugged Cross; there is the opportunity to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Thank God for Jesus and that He didn’t forget us when He prayed the Father to send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to get us ready. Greater is He that lives on the inside than He that is in the world. The Word and the Holy Spirit have been sent to take us out.

It’s time to take the Word of God into your heart, time to let the Word speak to you, feed you and to get all deceit out of your mind about yourself. Some have been insulting to God and to His true people. Some of His own people have hurt His people. God said it would be better for a millstone to be tied around your neck and for you to be cast into the sea than for you to offend one of His little ones. You have hurt people and compounded that hurt by refusing to look at what you have done. Although you blamed the other person, God did not. Be done with your hurtful ways and decide to walk like Jesus no matter what others may do or think. It may seem that all hell has boiled over on you for doing it, but God’s grace is sufficient to take you through any trial. Remember, as the powers of darkness come against you, there is a rainbow after every storm whether it can be seen or not. Never has there been a storm in your spiritual life that has not been followed by God’s rainbow of promises. In the valley where you cannot see the rainbow, you almost felt that God had forgotten you. But when you got to the mountain peak you saw it, realizing that the storm was over.

Problems occur because people do not believe the whole Word of God; they believe what they want to believe. Two angels are sent to bring them out, but they refuse to follow completely. Many will accept the command of Jesus to preach the Gospel but will reject His command to receive the Holy Ghost baptism. Those not receiving the Holy Ghost baptism will be left behind when the Rapture takes place: you need the Holy Ghost’s power working within to prepare you for the Rapture. Only after some of you have missed the Rapture will you believe you needed the baptism.

Lot was glad he got out! If you make the Rapture you will be glad you did whether anyone else did or not. Those left behind will realize too late that they were not ready, that the Rapture was not just an imagined thing. Too late they will get out their Bibles and read. There will be a lot of Bible reading after we’re gone.

Moses Failed God Only Once

God sent Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. Although God performed mighty miracles through Moses, the Israelites would believe God only for short periods of time; and then they would doubt. Grumbling, murmuring, complaining and disobedience kept most of them from ever setting foot in the land of Canaan. The adults had to die before the young could cross over. Moses had been on the Mount with God—no one before had ever lived with God for forty days and nights—and Moses saw the finger of God write the ten commandments; but in his hour of aggravation at the doubting Israelites, he failed to sanctify the Lord his God when He anointed Moses to strike the rock and bring forth water. Because of it, Moses was not allowed to enter the land of Canaan.

If God didn’t let Moses into the Promised Land because he had failed to sanctify Him one time, we today had better be diligent to walk softly lest we fail to make the Rapture. The Bible tells Christians to pray that they be counted worthy to escape the tribulation coming upon the earth. Moses, of course, was under the law, and the penalty of the law was strict and severe. But we under grace are becoming aware that the discipline of the Holy Spirit is going to be very severe in this last and final hour. We are near our journey’s end; it’s almost time for the Rapture to take place.

Move Closer to Jesus

The Holy Spirit is going forth in every direction. Jesus’ footsteps are leading all over the earth. The cry of the nations is coming up before God; they must have help before it is too late. Hear their cries; see their hands reaching up to God. Only spiritual bread will give them life, and we must see that they get it. Years ago the Holy Spirit said He would anoint their ears so they could hear what the Spirit was saying, their eyes to see, and their hearts to receive. The Lord is doing it now. Are we going to fail; are we going to decide that we won’t make it so there is no need to try?

Move in closer to Jesus, Child. Move as close as the Apostle Paul when he heard the Lord say, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness (II Corinthians 12:9). Even when it came time for Paul to give his head on Nero’s block, he wrote the most glorious last love letter to Timothy: For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand (II Timothy 4:5-7). He had kept the faith; he kept the Word—all of it.

If we keep the faith that has been delivered to us, the Word of the living God, if we stay close to God and let the Holy Spirit live and dwell on the inside of us we can declare, “I am ready for the call, ‘Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him.’ I have finished my work, Jesus. I have done all you told me to do and I am ready.”

You can’t afford to fail. Stand in His presence and be cleansed of anything unlike Jesus. Pray the way Job prayed for his children: “God, forgive them if perhaps they may have done something against you.” Let God cleanse you; let the blood of Jesus flow over your soul another time, cleansing you from everything unlike Jesus. Let Him place in your heart all of His love and clothe you in His grace.

Agree with Me as I Pray with You Now:

Oh, God, I cry for the lost, for each backslider. Don’t let anyone go another day lost and undone without you. Don’t let a mother or father, a boy or girl who is reading this go to hell. Don’t let anyone who loves you miss the Rapture, oh Lord my God.

I pray for each sinner, each backslider, for the stubborn, for the rebellious, for your children who have rebelled, those who have failed God in any way. Those who have stumbled and fallen by the wayside, I pray for them that they can stand to their feet and be counted for the Lord.

Those who have held something in their hearts against another, Lord I pray for them, that they will give this burden to you.

Those of your children, God, who have left their first love, who do not love your work the way they once did, I pray for them.

Those who do not love the family of God as they did in the past, God quicken them anew in your Spirit; fill them with your love.

Those who have talked and gossiped, Lord, do something for them now; let them face what they have done as they stand in your presence. Don’t let them be deceived any longer.

Those who have hurt and abused others with their tongues, help them realize the hurt they have inflicted.

God, let there be a spirit of love come to us such as has never come before. Let the love in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians be ours; crown us with it, making it our badge of consecration and dedication unto you.

We thank you Lord for renewing us in you, for saving our souls, for making us whole. We thank you for the Blessed Hope, for the glorious morn soon to come; and we thank you because we know you walk with us. We thank you for the Old Rugged Cross and all its power. We proudly hold up that cross, taking all the shame that goes with it because as we look beyond the shame we see the glories of life eternal, the glory of living in your presence forever.

Oh my Lord and my God, make us realize that victory in this hour is with Jesus all the way. We honor you Lord. Help us not to fail but anoint us to do all of your work. Give each one of us strength. Give each one of us all of you so that we will be so possessed by your love that we won’t murmur or complain about anything that you want us to do, Lord. We pray that our hearts will declare every moment of the day, “Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way!”

Let the Lord find you always walking in the steps of His Son Jesus, working in the harvest field and bringing in the sheaves. Let the anointing of His presence come upon you like it has never come before, opening wide every door and window to your soul, to your innermost being. Let the Holy Spirit and the Word penetrate with all of God’s greatness, all of God’s perfect love, all of His promises and all of His help, all of God’s strength, making you the way He pictured man in the beginning. How can it be?—through Jesus Christ. The Lord is reaching out to take you in His arms, to hold you close, so you can become what God wants you to be.