Christ Is The Mystery Of God Revealed #13
God In And Through Christ; How He Comes#4586
Shall we pray.
Heavenly Father, we’re very grateful again to be in this place that You’ve given us, to gather together at least for the time being Lord, and trusting we shall make full proof of our time as we do gather so that You might be exalted, Your Name might be glorified.
That Your Word might have free course in our lives, take lodging place Lord, and bring forth the life that You desire, that Word to bring forth that we might be living epistles read and known of all men that we have been with Christ and Christ is in us.
Help our studies today Lord, because we know that we cannot at all match up to a prophet Lord, we cannot approximate him in any way, it will take a real definite revelation by Your Spirit to help us to get what has been said by him.
We pray Lord, You’ll help us to that end this morning in meekness and soberness of heart as we bow before You in Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
Now we’re still in Christ the Mystery of God Revealed, about up to page 58 of about ninety pages and I think perhaps this could well be Christ is the Mystery of God Revealed, number 13, might be a little behind or be head or something but hopeful that that’s right.
Now concerning our title Christ is the Mystery of God Revealed we must never forget that we are not saying that Christ is the mystery of God as though God had made Christ something mysterious and we must now try to find all about Him or as much as we can this one who is the Christ.
But rather the whole mysterious subject of God as to Who and what He is and how He conducts Himself, His relationship to us, etcetera, etcetera, if there be any is… is what can be made known to us in and through Jesus Christ. So that is how Christ is the mystery of God made known.
God Himself is the mysterious One. His ways and so forth but it is in Christ that we get a revelation. So Christ is the revealer or translator of the invisible and unknown into the visible and known.
In other words, Christ is the revelation of God and who without Him then God would be very, very mysterious, there would be no way that we would actually begin to know Him.
Now let’s just get some Scripture so that we’ll familiarize our self with the text itself or the title and in John 14 we read verses 7 to 11, and there again these are very familiar. Jesus said,
(07) If ye had known me, [you] should have known my Father also: and from henceforth [you] know him, and have seen him. [So therefore, there is the knowledge imparted, there is the visible invisible being made visible.]
(08) [And] Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it [will suffice] us.
(09) [And] Jesus [said] unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet thou [hast] not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
That’s a very strong statement there that when you see Him you do see the Father, so therefore, that answers the question. Anybody then asking a further question becomes wholly ridiculous and outside what you might call the pale of safety in spiritual matters.
(10) Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: [There again you see how it is done. God was in Christ, Christ being a part of Him, and the word spoken were not by the visible person though they were enunciated through the lips of that visible person, the words actually came from the source of the Father.] but the Father dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
The Father that dwelt in him did the works which, of course, was the manifested proof that this one was above human beings and you could only attribute the works that this person spoke of and then saw consummated as being something that God did, because these works no man could do.
That’s what Jesus said. “If I had not done the works that no other man did, why,” he said, “you had not sinned but now you’ve both seen and hated both me and my Father.”
And that was on the grounds of the refusal, number one, to attribute the works actually to God and number two, the relationship of that person to God who which actually was the vehicle or the channel of God, then it went from there to blasphemy.
So you can see how this works and how dangerous it is not to receive the Word of God as It is brought.
Now he said,
(11) Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
Now there again he’s not hedging, he’s simply telling them if this is beyond you there’s a place you can start and that place to start is you can’t do it but I can. You claim you are of God, I claim I am of God, let’s have the contest.
Now when you can do what I can do then we’re on the level of speaking terms. In the meantime if you can’t do what I can do, shut-up and sit down. Now I use rough language on purpose because nobody understands anything but rough language.
Jesus did not only use rough language, he got rough. I’m not throwing anybody out of here or anyplace else. I wouldn’t have the right to anyway, but rough language is a necessity. You understand it? Because people simply don’t get it any other way because the devil’s got them so thoroughly bound, the chains have to be cut off.
Now if you’ve ever seen a person with handcuffs on, or those handcuffs were squeezed and you get a person with a hacksaw or a chisel that fellow goes away bruised to get those chains off.
So many times the Word of God cannot be handled like toothpicks; It’s a Sword and the Bible said, “Curseth is he whose sword does not draw blood.” So we can see here a very rough tough statement and you just look behind what is being said.
Now he claims that he was the manifester of the Father because the Father literally inhabited him as the temple. “What temple will ye build me,” saith the Holy Ghost? Okay, this was the temple of God. All right.
We go then to 2 Corinthians 5, which we’ve read several times but then you must really, you know you can’t read It too many times to really take this to heart. Paul is speaking… and he said,
(18) …all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and [God] hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
(19) To wit, [to this end, now here’s what it’s all about] that God was in Christ [or the Messiah, the anointed One], reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now had God simply put His only… put His Son on earth, this virgin born one, and not inhabited him which He did at the River Jordan, this could not have occurred. It would not. So you see here you do not see a plethora of three gods, you see one God who made a way to become part of the human race and still retain His perfect integrity as God. So He did it by His life which we’ll explain as we go along.
So you see here God was in Christ, God was in that anointed one, God was in Messiah, and had He not been in him it would not have worked. See? It just wouldn’t have worked, so therefore, the visibility of God and the unknowingness of God comes into visibility and knowingness if you can begin to understand this one who is here revealing Him. He is the veil unveiling you might say.
Okay.
Let’s go to 1 Timothy and that would be 1 Timothy 3:16, something like John 3:16.
(16) And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in… flesh, [Now remember, the mystery of godliness at the end time runs out in Revelation 10:7 all the mysteries]
(16) God was manifest in the flesh, [Didn’t say… there’s a ‘the’ in there, an article, it could have been simply said, God was manifest in flesh but it wasn’t. It was God manifest in ‘the’ flesh, and we know what flesh it was.] justified in the Spirit, seen of angels [messengers], preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, [and] received up into glory.
So therefore, the mystery again we see is that this person was literally manifesting God who was within him, so therefore, he said, “When you have seen me you’ve seen God,” and that is very true.
Now let’s go to Philippians 2 that Brother Branham used in The Unveiling of the Mighty God.
(05) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
(06) Who, being in the form of God,…
That’s the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision, the external appearance. Well, you know there is no such thing as an external appearance of God because no man has seen God at any time neither can any man see God, and if he could see God he’d only die for it, so there’s no way he’s going to do it.
(06) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: [or a thing to be grasped and retained.]
In other words, here we find that God in Spirit form was going to take upon Himself something whereby He could be envisioned, envisioned, not just envisioned but literally seen and apprehended by the people.
(07) [And] made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: [And we’ll see that likeness previously in the Old Testament was not always in the likeness of a man; it was in the Pillar of Fire and so on.]
(08) And he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And you’ll notice in here right away that this figure that God dwelt in which is the Son of God, a man born like no other person was born, a man who had God as His Father as no other person had Him as his Father, and all that relationship was necessary in order to bring about redemption.
And that’s why you can never exalt Jesus too highly, although Jesus per se as a body is not God because God, let’s face it, is Spirit and no man can see God. But we’ll talk about that how you can see life and how life becomes visible. Just keep these things in mind because they’re not that hard to understand.
Now we’ve got a couple of these New Testament Scriptures which Scriptures from the Old Testament and go back to Genesis 18th chapter which is one of the great chapters…
(01) And the LORD appeared unto [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the door [of the tent] in the heat of the day;
(02) And [Abraham] lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself [unto] the ground,
(03) And said, My LORD, [not lords, although the plural is used elsewhere] if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:
And then going on and we’re reading, much as I don’t like reading too much Scripture and yet It’s really good for us so I shouldn’t mind, reading from verse 10 and now Abraham said,
(10) And [God] said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.
Now if you understand that carefully you can understand why Brother Branham said, that when Abimelech fell in love with Abraham’s wife and she was ninety years old and he was a hundred, he wasn’t looking at some dotty old grandfather, you know, screwy as a bedbug thinking some old gal all like a prune was a beautiful thing.
She had gone back to age sixteen and him back age nineteen because that’s what It says here. I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life. What time of life? When you’re young enough to have a baby so He said right here, “I’m going to turn her back to when she can have a baby and I’m going to turn you back, now you see, so you can have the child.”
And Abraham and Sarah couldn’t believe that. They said, “Well, how could…”
Just like Nicodemus. “How can a man be born the second time when he’s old? Can he go back in his mother’s womb?” There’s no way. They just stood there gasping at what God said He was going to do.
And Sarah laughed and she said…, “While I’m old how can I have a baby?” No way could she believe that the time of life was there. The time of life to her in her old age would be the menses and there’s no way she could menstruate.
And Abraham was functionally dead, seminally speaking. So if you’re going to go to the time of life you’ve got to go to the time when you can have children. So He had to turn it back. They couldn’t apprehend it.
I wonder if we’re something like that now waiting here for the… for immortality. Do we really have a glimpse of what immortality is and to be changed?
It all sounds good but I’m looking at you and you’re looking at me and you say, “Hey, that’s quite a pipedream, kid.”
That doesn’t look… I’m not looking at anybody especially either, and you’re looking at me and I’m not special but I mean you could… I’m older, see, and then of course, then down… and then Sarah denied that she’d laughed. She was afraid because God called her bluff…
(16) And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.
(17) And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham [the] thing which I [shall] do;
(18) Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
Now see God was going to bring through Abraham and Sarah’s son which is typical of bringing forth Jesus in the flesh through a virgin because no more can a virgin bear a child by herself especially a male.
Now if it’s possible I guess they call it parthenogenesis where a woman could have a baby outside of male intervention, she doesn’t have both the X and Y chromosomes, she just got for female. Only the male carries the two chromosomes.
So there would be no way a woman of herself could ever have a male child. See, there’s just no way it could be done. So this kind of looks at this the same way. It’s an impossible thing but it shall not be impossible with God.
“How shall this thing be,” said Mary.
“Well,” he said, “the Holy Ghost is going to come upon you.”
What do you think came upon Abraham and Sarah? What gives our right to be immortalized? The Holy Ghost upon us. So you see all these things add up if you just, you know, put them just say, hey, this God has done this from Genesis to Revelation. There’s no big mysteries here.
It’s all done through Christ, the anointed one. God appearing in a form, you see, because He’s got to do it, He’s got to contact man.
And then Abraham came, he said now…
(18) …Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
(19) For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him,…
Now at that point he only had one child, Ishmael, going to have another called Isaac and Abraham didn’t know that Sarah would die and he’d marry Keturah and have seven more sons plus daughters for all we know.
God said, “This man is going to do right by his children,” and he did right. You know how he did right? He gave Keturah’s seven sons all kind of money and said, “Shoo, shoo, go your way.” And he kept his son Ishmael right with him.
You say that’s kind of a pretentious. Oh, hogwash. When you’re dealing with God, let God have His way, never mind what somebody out there, some social minded idiot says. They try to tell you how to run your life and run your kids and run this and run that. Tell them to drop dead. They’re already dead.
You may pay a price for it. Deal with God. That’s the One that’s going to do something for you, get you off the hook in the final analysis.
God said, “Abraham, I put something in his heart and he’ll do right.” So he sure did right. Anybody say that wasn’t much love. That’s all you know about love.
I’m trying to get across to you, there’s a phony love, there’s a pseudo love, there’s a hypocritical love, there’s a human love, there’s a cruddy love, there’s a sexual love, there’s a dastardly love where you love yourself and you sell man down the creek for it.
There’s every putrid thing under God’s high heaven but you want the real love, you get it out of the Word by the Word dwelling in you because the Word and the Holy Ghost is one.
So Abraham just shunted them all off. He was good to them; never treated them bad but he took care of Isaac. Say, “Well, I don’t think that’s good to have favorites.” You got to be crazy.
Jesus had favorites according to the Word, and if you’re not a favorite of God there’s something wrong with your thinking. Ha! You got caught right there, didn’t you? Doesn’t choosing show favoritism? It does to a degree; of course, it’s not that kind of choosing He did, He chose them in Adam where the life was.
As in Adam all died, Christ brought them all back. But I just let that one slip in there to let you know you could just use a little illustration.
(20) And the LORD [God] said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
(21) I will go down now,… whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
(22) And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet [with] the LORD.
Now notice who he’s talking about. The two other guys went away. They are simply angels or messengers but God stood there, one Person. What was He? He was in the form of a man by a little creatorial act He just made a man, a figure and He stepped into it and took complete control. See? That’s what He did.
(23) …Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
(24) Peradventure there be fifty righteous within [that] city [down there]: [will you]… destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are [there]?
(25) That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked:…
But no, no, this guy is a good Philadelphia lawyer and he’s trying to wrap God around his finger. You think you can wrap God around your finger by yapping and talking just because you’re Abraham? Or Abraham’s seed? Get wise.
As the fellow said to William Branham, “Get next to yourself, preacher, you’re barking up a tree.” You’re off beam entirely. Abraham does a good job as a Philadelphia lawyer here.
(25) …and [he said,] that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
What made him think the Judge of all the earth wouldn’t do right? What if he had a few experiences like him, his wife being barren and then taking Hagar and having this little fellow Ishmael that he loved but he was a rascal? You know he wasn’t the one. He had all kinds of problems, wars and everything else.
Kind of a little flattering thing here, going to God with flattering speeches: the Bible said when you’re in the Presence of God, remember, you’re on earth and God’s in heaven, therefore, let your words be few and he said, don’t make your mouth… don’t let your mouth make your flesh to sin, get you in hot water “because when you make a vow defer not to pay it, for the Lord has no pleasure in the sacrifice of fools.”
Hi, fools! Foolish, are we? Yes, everyone has been foolish trying to butter up God. Ha, ha, ha, you couldn’t even butter up some of your own parents. Try to butter up the cop that stops you doing sixty-five miles an hour.
He’s buttering up God. Trying to tell God Who and what He was, sort of so-to-speak. God doesn’t mind though, the guy’s heart was right, he just, you know, he just didn’t know God like maybe he thought he knew God.
(26) And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city,… I will spare… the place for their sakes. [He said, “Sure, that’s a pretty good crowd down there in that number.]
(27) …Abraham said, now, [he said,] I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: [Now he’s getting real humble. He’s really putting the butter on, you know, you know, pouring the cinnamon on the applesauce, so-to-speak.]
(28) Peradventure there… lack five of the fifty…: [would You] destroy [it for forty-five]?… he said, [Certainly not, I won’t do that.]…
(29) [Well he said,] Peradventure… [for] forty… he said, [Not even for forty]…
(30) [Oh,] he said, [Please do no] be angry, [if] I speak: Peradventure there [be] thirty… And he said, I [won’t] do it, [for] thirty…
(31) And he said, [Look, You’ve been so good so far, could I get it down to twenty? Yeah, absolutely, for twenty I will not do it.]
(32) …he said, [Just one more time, and honestly I’ll quit, if there are ten people down there would you destroy it?]
Now remember up here he said, “That be far from Thee if this matter to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from Thee. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
God never will destroy the righteous with the wicked. That’s why there’s going to be a rapture before the Tribulation. See, Abraham said the right thing because God put it in his heart to say the right thing, then he messed the whole thing up by going further.
If God ever puts a thing in your heart to say the right thing, just leave it there. Don’t mess it up. That’s right. What I’m trying to show you here that God was in this creature, this man figure that He made, “this Man that could eat, drank the milk of the cow and ate the flesh of the calf,” as Brother Branham said, and the vegetables, the bread and whatever was set before Him. This was a man that God indwelt.
Let’s go to Genesis 32:24-30. We’ll get back to the sermon pretty soon. Don’t worry or as quick as we can. Here’s about Jacob and it says.
(24) And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
(25) And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. [He was lame from that time on.]
(26) And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
(27) And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
(28) And he said, Thy name shall be… no more [called] Jacob [which is supplanter in a vulgar terminology, it’s really one that grasps at the heel], but Israel [which is prince with God]: for as a prince… thou [hast] power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
(29) And Jacob [said unto] him, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
(30) And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
So therefore, God in the form of a man who wrestled, grunted and groaned, no doubt, sweated and fought, maybe dirty, got his hip out of joint.
See, He fought dirty, went right in there and won a fight, but He didn’t win it without letting Jacob win it because He wanted to teach Jacob a lesson. You say that was God? Yeah, that was God, that was Christ that was back there in the Old Testament.
You know many people don’t understand how far God has gone and is going right today. You know, let your thinking go. When Abraham met Melchisedec it says that he was King of Salem, a King of peace and a King of righteousness.
That’s what He was, without father and mother, and no descent. He was literally God in a human form and He had a kingdom on earth, a small one, and a retinue and people knew Him.
Now let your minds go. I know this is foreign to you. It’s not foreign to me because I’ve seen this for years and yet it’s foreign to me because it’s very difficult to retain it. God really was there.
Well, I really… see, I don’t really think so say the great, great students and the so-called humble but foolishly ignorant. You tell me why God wouldn’t do it. You tell me why He couldn’t do it or how He couldn’t do it. You can’t even tell me why John the Baptist got the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb, brought him to life?
And you’ve been maybe struggling for years to get it and you haven’t got anywhere. Oh, you say that’s John the Baptist. Fap! That’s God. God does what He wants. Imagine that, a king on earth being God.
See, it has to because it’s a type of the Millennium coming up. And He didn’t sacrifice blood; he gave the emblems of the sacrifice after the heat of the… it shows it down the road.
What was… the Bible distinctly said… let me read it to you so you’ll understand, Ecclesiastes, and I can usually find the right place if I try hard enough, always forget where it is, not always. The 3rd chapter…
(14) I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: [for] God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
(15) That which [has] been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God [requires] that which is past.
It tells you flat He’s got a way of doing things and if you ever learn that way you’re the one that’s smart with the smartness of God. So what’s already been is in progress now to be again, the Alpha Omega concept, a little continuity. So let your minds go.
You were little kids one time and believed in fairy tales. You believed in Puss ‘n Boots and the ogre. You believed in little black Sambo and the tigers. Sure, you believed Aesop’s Fables and things.
Why listen, back in the first century the early apostles they believed in the phoenix bird which makes its nest in… and is born in Asia Minor… no, it’s born in Egypt and flies up to Asia Minor, spends its life there and when it’s going to die goes back to Egypt and there it sits on a nest and it dies and a big worm in that bird begins eating the worm and before it’s over the worm has got the feathers and it’s a Phoenix bird again and it goes up to Asia Minor.
That is a fable, but they took that as an example of the Resurrection. I’ve got it in my books. Let your minds go. You got to be little children, not believing fables now, cunning fables but believing the Word of God which actually is more far out than fables, almost, because the truth is almost always stranger than fiction.
So let your thinking go about these things. Jacob did. Here’s God sweating, grunting, groaning, playing dirty, no, not really. Everybody thinks God plays him dirt. The Bible says, “Blessed is the man who’s not offended in me.”
And you can get offended in God quicker than anybody I know. It’s like the fellow once said, “Will a man rob God,” he said, “Sure, he’ll rob Him quicker than anybody else.” Let your thinking go.
Let’s go to Exodus 3, and see some more here and you’re all familiar with Moses and the burning bush, we sing about it, talk about it, and really enjoy it.
(01) Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
(02) And the [messenger] of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Now that’s a pretty rare sight. Now you say, “Why would God do a dumb thing like that?” It wasn’t dumb; it was God’s wisdom. Oh, He could have done a lot of great things. Oh, He could have come tumbling down in a basket or something; He could have put on a real circus.
He could have done much, much more if He had wanted to. People always want to question God, “Why did He do so and so? Why? Why? Why?” Why not just shut-up and find out what God wants to do and say, let Him do it? He’s going to do it anyway. That’s how we get out of the way with the Lord.
(03) And Moses said, I will… turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
(04) And when the LORD saw… he turned aside to see, God…
Now up here it says a messenger, see God’s His own messenger. What’s he talking about? A visible something that’s there that God veils Himself in, that makes messenger: God’s in that thing that you can apprehend so you know you’re going to get a message.
(04) God called… out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. [“Yes sir,” in other words, “yes sir.”]
(05) And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes… off thy feet, for the place where on thou standest is holy ground.
(06) Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,… the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. [And then he asked Him, “Who are you anyway?” and let’s see…]
(14) And God said (to) Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
(15) And God said moreover unto Moses,… [thou] shalt… say unto the children of Israel, the LORD [thy] God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,… God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: [and] this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto [my] generations.
Now He said right here, “I am going to come.” And you know how He came? He came in a Pillar of Fire. And you know how He also came? He came in Moses because God’s in the prophets.
See,… what He wants His own vehicle… He does it and He tells us how He does it and the tragic thing is people just don’t want to believe it.
Okay, now we go to,
(20) And they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness.
(21) And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, [and] to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:
(22) He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.
Why? Because He had to be in it: He had to be in it according to the circumstances or the needs that justified whatever form He wanted to take, and you know the desert drops thirty degrees just like that overnight.
So you could be out there in seventy degree weather at night and boom you’re down to forty that night and you’ll get not necessarily frostbite but you can die if you’re exposed too long. Now if its fifty degrees like it was out there about a year before last and it drops thirty degrees it’s down to twenty.
And I’ve seen frost out there in the desert and you go out there and you’ll die in the frost. You get frostbitten and die. So what did He do?
He had a cloud by day to keep them cool and the fire by night to keep them warm, so therefore, he had everything that you and I are looking for, seventy to seventy-four degree weather. My wonderful!
Maybe a little cooler at night, just maybe sixty-five, so they slept better but I know they didn’t because down in Egypt they didn’t have it that good. It was hot as blazes, so for them to have seventy-four degree weather, all day and all night, you know it was a ball. It was better than Vancouver Island and Mexico City if you want to know the truth.
Now to bring this altogether, New and Old Testament, Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever we’re going to go, of course, to 1 Corinthians 10 and we’ll see it. And what we saying Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New, period, not question mark. All right. We’re reading.
(01) Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
(02) And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
(03) And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
(04) And did all drink the same spiritual drink: [and] they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Now what’s he saying? Was that an actual rock? No. It could be but literally the fact is God the Supplier and God in a type, and God giving water, God always supplying. What about the waters of Meribah. There wasn’t a rock there.
He simply cut down a tree: picturing the tree cut down Christ and put in the bitter waters so sweeten it. So we have a type. We have God in a form of a tree, so-to-speak. It’s strictly a type, not God in the tree but strictly a type. All right.
Now, let’s go to Hebrews 1:1-3, because see we’re getting this thought of God revealing Himself and Christ is the Revealer. Mysteries vanish when you begin to see Christ which is the anointing that came forth from God and then God taking His place with that. Okay.
(01) God, who at sundry times [or in many parts and in many ways]… spake in [times] past unto the fathers [in] the prophets, [Now it tells you there God took His time doing it over many periods of time and in different ways He never held to one particular way as though He had to but always it was a manifestation of God.]…
(02) Hath in these last days spoken unto us [in]… Son, [Not by his Son but it’s ‘in’ Son, the word ‘his’ isn’t even there, in Son, not even in a Son but it has the office of Sonship] whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the [world];
(03) [Now] who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, [that is the outraying of his glory.]…
In other words, it’s an actual outraying or manifestation of what lay within the wisdom and the providence of God. He was that out-flowing. So in Him then would it all be brought to pass.
And the express image is the expression of His substance, that which cannot be seen and known now comes into an expression.
And remember, it is an expression but it contains what brought on the expression and you’ll see a double thing here in the birth of Christ and the filling of Christ as you keep that in mind.
(03) …and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
Now that’s where the sin question comes in. Now verse 1, when did this occur and to whom did it occur? When did God indwell men to speak with men? Well, it tells you when it occurred, over many times and in many ways and it tells you how it occurred. It occurred when God indwelt men in order to speak to men.
Now they were prophets. Now watch carefully. This is not the case of Abraham; he spoke to God face to face in a Pillar of Fire and met Him as a man. This is not the case of Jacob and this is not the case of others back there but this is the case where it starts with Moses.
This is where it started in Deuteronomy 18 where God says, “I’ll now deal with people through a person that’s called a prophet and he will be vindicated so that you know that is the one I am using and therefore, you know it is my voice; I will be in that person.” See?
And He will be in him in a measure only for a certain time, certain occasion, to get a certain thing revealed or spoken, many parts, many ways, different occasions.
Now every prophet had a portion of the Holy Spirit Word veiled in him to be given to the people as it says in verse 1. “God, in many parts, in many ways,”
He simply invaded or lived in a prophet and spoke through the prophet as was necessary at that time. Not as the prophet deemed it necessary but as God deemed it necessary because God’s sovereign.
God as in verse 3 out-rayed Himself and expressed Himself in and through the prophets in the little measure in each one, all pointing to verse 2, all these pointed to verse 2 which is God going to take on Himself a human form which He Himself would dwell in and that would be Father and Son and Holy Ghost, period, which is one God in manifestation, not three gods and not two spirits; one spirit.
And verse 3 totally outraying and expressing God in a special virgin born body. Notice then that everything spoken of by the prophets and don’t forget Moses wrote the first five books.
I repeat, all things written by the prophets are spoken by those prophets came completely fulfilled, as all the things they said pertaining to this One became fulfilled in a God begotten man. Now I didn’t say God born; I said God begotten. Women give birth and men beget.
The God begotten man Jesus Christ. The invisible God created a substance, a sperm and an egg, and God’s own life was in that sperm and It united with the egg and through the chemical processes of the incubator, virgin Mary, because she added nothing except what came through the fluids of her body, a man child came forth and the genetic coding or pattern resident in the life of God dictated the minutest details of that body physically, a holy thing begotten of God.
Now if Christ had… if Jesus had brown eyes where did he get them? He didn’t get them out of the dirt. Because I can take the same dirt for the cow, the pig, the horse, the man, the cat; for every single animal and that can be identical and you’ve got a genetic coding in there that people can see those little filaments.
They can take the DNA and the RNA and they can see the whole thing but that’s not the answer because they all work with the same thing. What determines it? Life determines it!
So if you looked at him in the flesh you’d positively see the genetic coding of God like you see the genetic coding of a man, dogs, horses, sheep, roses, asters, peonies, dahlias, lily of the valley, and poppies. See?
That’s why the earth brought forth the animals. The earth doesn’t bring forth anything. The earth coated the animals. It’s the genetic coating is in the life but it’s got to have a chemistry to work through and people have gone crazy over chemistry when they ought to go crazy over life, what’s behind it.
So Brother Branham said, “I say, my eyes, my nose, my ears; who’s my? Who’s me?” See? You just think what I’m saying.
You show me the elephant’s got different something to work from the horse and the cow and everything else. They’re all the elements right out there.
Now they have them in different quantities and I know that, and I know that a dog does not have enzymes within himself and really manufacture enzymes though some can. That’s why if you don’t feed him raw meat you’re hurting your dog. But then if his body is forced to manufacture enzymes and that dog runs his body down you wonder why your dog gets sick and dies.
Now man can fool around with nature and learn a lot of things from nature but you better believe brother/sister, what’s behind it all is God because God made everything out of nothing and that ought to give you a clue right there that the life is everything.
And that’s why he said, “The body profits nothing, the spirit profits it all.” See? That’s why sex is an act of procreation not recreation, although it’s actually both because you’re dealing with life.
And you keep these things in mind. They’re good for you to know. I don’t know why they’re going to be good but they’ll be good, but don’t worry they’ll come out. God doesn’t give them to me for nothing show me these things and I know they’re of the Lord because I know He helps me. All right.
Now that holy thing begotten of God and born of Mary and that born one was the Son of God as it says over here in the Book of John 1, and so we’ll read those verses. They’re very simple.
(29) The next day John [sees] Jesus coming unto him, and [said], Behold the Lamb of God, which [takes] away the sin of the world. [He’s the Lamb of God, not the Lamb of man. He’s a man but he’s more than a man, even in the sense of being a man.]
(30) This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. [He was in the burning bush speaking of salvation, deliverance. He was in the fiery furnace. See? That’s why Brother Branham liked that old song.]
(31) And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest [that is fully revealed, absolutely and definitely in His true character] to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. [Now listen! He’s coming in a way to give the definitive to who He is, to what He is. Now watch!]
(32) …John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
(33) And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
(34) And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
And He’s the Son of God in the way that nobody else is that type of a son and God is his Father in a way that God is a Father to no one else in that particular way. Okay.
Jesus gave visibility to God’s own life as no one ever did and ever will. He was the Son of God in a way that no one ever was or ever will be a son, and God was his Father in a way He was to no one else and would be no one else’s Father.
He is the step between God and man. Yeah, he is the Healer of the breach between God and man. He is God revealed in human flesh. He is the great God discourse… He is the great God in discourse for he is the Word.
Now discourse is the communication of the subject under study and that subject is God, so therefore, God communicates Himself through him that’s how it’s done. To know Him is to know God as it says in 1 John 1, and let us read what John has to say because he was there and he had a good revelation though not like Paul’s.
(01) That which [we have heard] from the beginning,… That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
In other words, the completely unknown and invisible, something transpired where they can get their hands on it, becoming sensate, objective to them, subjective.
(02) (For the life was manifested [phaneroo, completely shown to be the true character of God, so there is no doubt, there is no hedging; this is it.]
You say, “Well, what about the Pharisees?” They were serpent seeds they weren’t meant to see It. They were worshipping the devil thinking he was God, so they don’t count. So let your minds go from your denominations, your creeds and your past infilling.
(02) (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested (to) us;) [Now it tells you right there that God alone has eternal life. So it tells you that God actually came into human into view. You can’t deny it.]
(03) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that [you]… may [also] have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. [Now that human vessel is never left out.]
(04) And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
(05) This then is the message… we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Now just a minute, he says over here, “Life,” now over here he says, “Light,” and that’s exactly true for in Him was life. God alone has Life and It’s God Life and that Life is Light to us under the conditions that God brings it into something we can apprehend.
At the time of Moses he apprehended Moses at the burning bush, “I am God.” Abraham also saw the Pillar of Fire. At the sacrifice the Pillar of Fire came right down and ate up the sacrifice, just the same as it did the day of Elijah.
Sure, came face to face with Abraham, met with Isaac, wrestled with Jacob, but notice God swinging that pattern now into man. So everything’s got to devolve down into this position which is the being, in Him was life.
(05) …[Now] God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
(06) If we say… we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
(07) …if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Now you’ve got to keep your Bible in continuity, so therefore, the God that was Life brought Light which is revelation through successive measures now dealing through a prophet bringing light. Now watch where we’re going to go to Ephesians 4 after a bit and see how that also happens.
But watch what I’m trying to tell you. If you’re walking in the light as He is in the light then you got to go back to where He was with Abraham who walked in that light which was the light of the hour, “I’m going to give you, not immortality, but rejuvenation to bring forth a son,” after the time of the destruction of Sodom typing what we’re going through right now where the Son of man is revealed.
Now watch him go to Moses in a Pillar of Fire. What’s your Pillar of Fire going to be? In flames of fire, not just taking destruction, although that is true, but looking to this end when God came in a Pillar of Fire to a prophet and brought ministering angels which are literally spirits, flames… or they’re… the Bible calls them, spirits, flames of fire which are messengers bringing down in this hour in 2 Thessalonians.
So he’s telling you here that if you walk in the light as He is in the light, what that Holy Spirit is doing in that hour and revealing you’re having fellowship with Him and if not, you’re not. Now you see why Brother Branham was saying a Message through the ages, a Word and a Spirit the same thing?
I hope you’re following this because this is the Word of God. I know you haven’t heard this in church and you think I’d be teaching this without a vindicated prophet? I’d be right back in the old school.
“Well, God’s God so shut-up. And Jesus died on Calvary, that’s it. And we got the Bible, the plenary edition, that’s it. And boy, I tell you I got the Holy Ghost and I know as much as anybody and so what’s the difference they don’t know and I don’t know and it comes down to the fact that God doesn’t know either.”
And you know what you are and I am? A bunch of simpletons, a bunch of denominational hybridized God knows polluted serpent seed is what it all amounts to worshipping the devil calling on God. And the very God we think we worship is going to destroy us.
You cannot get rid of the Bible, brother/sister, I don’t care how big your denomination is and how many elders and how many priests and how many popes or how many anything tells you, and how big your church is; you’re just completely fooled, a dupe of the devil.
Because the Bible distinctly says, “The angels of Satan are transformed into angels of light.” It tells you a life takes on light; it gives a revelation and if the you think the devil’s not in the revealing business you had better read Genesis again because he gave Eve the revelation and it killed her.
It is just what people are showing right today; they got… what is it? Not prussic acid, what is it they put into the Tylenol for headache? Sure they cured their headache; they cured the headache, all right. If you want that kind of stuff to kill you just change the Word around; it will kill you every time.
Now let us emphasize verses 1 and 2.
(01) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
(02) [And] the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
“Absolutely,” he said, “we know positively, a hundred percent that that was God manifested in human flesh and when we saw that we saw God.” Now we’ve seen It and we listened to what It brought to us.
Now you listen to us and you’ll have what we got because you don’t need to see, you just need to hear and in believing you’ve got exactly what we got because this is the whole story. God in the prophets telling the people and then the message given to the people to tell other people until it’s down to the last person.
When I explained vicarage, the vicarage of God starting, Jesus was the great Vicar sending back the Holy Ghost that’s the vicar; sending it to messengers, that’s the vicar; taking it to the five-fold, that’s the vicarage; taking to the people, that’s vicarage; to the sinner out there, that’s where It ends because he can turn It down.
Life, eternal life in a seed form. Now you can see the husk of the seed, you can see the shell, but you can’t see the life in it. Nobody can see life because life is spirit. That’s exactly true. How do you see life? You can’t because it’s spirit.
Even the Bible is called ‘numa’ which is the wind, and the closest you get in the Hebrews is ‘nephesh’ that means you blow the moisturized warm air out of your lungs on a frosty morning and it hangs in a cloud and you can say, “I can see my breath.”
You don’t see your breath. You see the moisture that was in your breath but it’s a pretty good phrase, pretty good example, so therefore, there’s a identification.
Now how do you see life? How do you handle life? You can’t unless it produces a substance that expresses itself. That’s right. Well, God did that exactly and Jesus died for our sins so God’s own life, God’s own Blood atoned for us.
Why? Because it was the Life behind it. Don’t look at the chemistry. Brother Branham kept screaming, “Don’t look at the man. Don’t look at the chemistry. Don’t look at this. Look at God.” God was in the prophet. He’s still in the prophet.
“Oh, he made himself God.” You get a bunch of birds around him and they go off beam and they make William Branham God, and you can stand like I stood in 1958 and sware that you hear him tell you that he is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And don’t tell me I was there. I was there when the Holy Ghost rebuked the audience and a wind rushed across the platform, the Holy Ghost heard audibly, it’s caught right on tape like a discordant chord and come crashing down and I rose to stop the organist.
We didn’t have a pipe organ, and the organist wasn’t even there. Brother Branham’s coattails fluttered in the breeze; it rushed across the audience. “Oh some phenomena.” Oh, sure, God’s in the phenomena business, or haven’t you heard?
You’re still back with the old dead Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist the way I was for all those years. Forget it, this is Life, brother/sister. This is Life, certainly. See, God did exactly that.
Then God raised a body to power an authority and that body is now in the office of priesthood. There’s one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He’s still called a man. He had to be a man because he was born of a woman.
He wasn’t born of a sheep. The sheep typed him, but he was born in a stinking manger in a stable like sheep are. See? Okay, now let’s just look at this for a bit to reveal something we need to know, first, this man Christ Jesus is a living man; he’s not dead, he’s risen.
Read how he was both begotten and born. Let’s go over here to Luke. Take a look at It.
Remember the same one grew in stature and in favor with God and man but we’re going to get the picture.
You heard me say a lot of these things before but not the way I’m saying them now because every time it gets clearer. If it isn’t clear I’m sorry but it’s not meant to be hard, it’s meant to be clear.
(26) And in the sixth month [that’s the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy] the angel Gabriel was sent from God [to] a city [in] Galilee, named Nazareth,
(27) To a virgin espoused to a man… [named] Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. [They both came from the same lineage.]
(28) And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
(29) And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
(30) And the angel said [to] her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
(31) And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and [thou] shalt call his name JESUS. [Now it didn’t say one thing about a sex act; it took it right to the womb. Now that’s not where it starts. See?]
(32) He shall be […bring forth and call his name JESUS]… He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
(33) And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
(34) Then Mary [said] unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? [Now she understood biology.]
(35) And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing [that shall be first of all conceived in you, begotten in you, conceived in you] which shall be born of thee [issue forth from her] shall be called the Son of God.
(36) And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth… also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
(37) For with God nothing shall be impossible.
Now you know with God, that word ‘with’ that preposition means ‘meaning the actual presence of God’. God would be actually there as He was with Adam and there in creation and formation. This was not physical intercourse. This was spiritual.
(38) And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.
And that’s exactly what happened. She didn’t have any sensation to know what happened; it was just there. Now that’s how He was begotten and born. The life of God did this in the pattern of how sons are born to us, by conception, by way of the womb.
Next we go back to John which we read before…
(29) …and [John said], Behold the Lamb of God, [that takes] away the sin of the world. [when he saw Jesus coming to him.]
(30) [And then John said about Jesus,] After me [comes] a man which is preferred before me: [Because] he was before me; [this is He, this is that One in the burning bush]
(31) And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
(32) [The spirit]… John bare record, saying, the Spirit [of God descended] from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
Now you notice in there what happened. Here is this One that was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of Mary, now filled with Almighty God Himself. So here He is, this is God the great prophet. This is the great prophet. This is the One everything was pointing to which was pointing to redemption.
Now we go to Matthew 17: We don’t have to look It up. It says,
(05) …This is my beloved Son, in whom I am… pleased [to dwell];
Then in Matthew 27: Jesus on the cross said,
(46) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And God had left him in the Garden of Gethsemane. So he’s a man but he’s a God man. He’s not a man man, not a human man, not a race man, an Adam man; he’s a God man coming through Adam’s race through the processes.
Now, of course, we know that God raised him up within three days. We go to the Book of Acts 2:22-26 to see this. Now I want you to understand what the Bible says. This is what the Word of God says, not what your imagination, your reasonings are going to try to figure out.
I told you the other day a certain brother figured things out. He was in our church over there, and what he told us, and he said, “Why,” he said, “Now,” he said, “I know that… if you understand the Presence of God and you’re Bride,… well, certainly,… you won’t die, you’ll have to be here for the Rapture.”
I said, “Hogwash. Look,… I’m sixty-nine years of age, I could be dead tomorrow. And,” I said, “if you preach that nonsense one of these days you might get wiped out and your whole family,” like that Pentecostal preacher did many years ago.
He preached to everybody and said, “I will not see death. I will not see death.” Two days later he and his family got wiped out in a car accident; all five of them got killed. We’re not…
Look it, don’t come with crazy ideas around here. We want to keep this place strictly Word oriented by a vindicated prophet. We take every single thing to the Word of God.
Now, It says here,
(22) Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved [notice]… a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: [I don’t do the works, the Father in me is doing them. He didn’t say the Father outside was doing it. It said the Father within him was doing it.]
(23) Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, [you] have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
All right, who did it? Did Rome do it? Or did the Jews do it? The Jews did it. Everybody wants to wonder who did what, of course, Rome could have got him off, but didn’t do it.
Just like Rome could have got the Jews out of Hitler and didn’t do it from what I understand, that’s pretty well authenticated but now they’re trying to whitewash it.
(24) Whom God hath raised up,…
I hope they didn’t. I hope they really tried to get them out. I really do but there’s always been a war between the Catholic Church and the Jews. Why there should be I don’t know but there is.
(24) Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
(25) For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
(26) Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my [soul]… shall rest in hope:
(27) Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
Did His soul go to hell? It certainly did, and His body went to the grave, and His spirit went back to God who gave it. Split three ways and the spirit would come on down by the Spirit of God and move that soul out and that body move Him right out.
(28) Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
(29) Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.
(30) Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
(31) He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither [did] his flesh… see corruption.
(32) This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
(33) [And] therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. [In other words, he mediated the Holy Ghost coming upon the believer, and said, “You, you and you, and you and you,” because they were under the Blood, the Elect.]
(34) For David [himself had]… not ascended into… [heaven]: [it was not of David. It was not David that ascended; that’s what It says here, for it said,] For David is not ascended into the heaven: [that’s not true. That’s not what the Bible said, for it was not David himself who ascended into heaven] but he saith himself, The Lord said [to] my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
And in there you’ll find a place that says, Jehovah said to Adoni, as both called Lord, and Jehovah is the one with the many titles, the many names, God revealing Himself in redemption and Adoni is a title of respect.
It’s just like Moses was God to the people. When God was out he wasn’t God anymore. Now you’ve got a man that’s exalted to the right hand of the Majesty. Not as though God had a right hand, but if you could see His spirit I wouldn’t be surprised something is there like a right hand.
I don’t sell that short. To me genetic patterning is a pretty great thing for we are in the image of God from the beginning, you know, there’s something in there where God began taking, stepping it on down.
(35) [He said, Sit on my right hand,] Until I make thy foes thy footstool. [You find that in 1 Corinthians which we won’t have time to go into today. See, our time’s running out but that’s all right.]
(36) Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom [you] crucified, both Lord and Christ.
He’s not dead. He’s not somewhere shunted off. God didn’t throw this body around, throw it away. He could take going down to see old Abraham in the form of a man he could, as Brother Branham said, “Take a handful of dust, shhh, and stepped into it.”
That didn’t mean anything. That was simply a creative thing, but this is literally we might say from the loins of God Himself, God’s Own whole life and I showed you the attributes of man what it would be the attributes of God put in a sperm and an egg and developed through a human incubator and brought here.
If you think for one minute God’s going to put that to one side? He’s High Priest and He fulfilled the Aaronic priesthood by taking His own blood and ministering and now He climbed on His father’s throne, He’s one hundred percent Melchisedec.
You say, “Brother Vayle, what’s this going to do for me?” I know what you’re thinking. I don’t have to know what you’re thinking; I can just look at you. Not everybody but let’s face it. This could be just tit-tat, you know, not severe, not something, not something special, not this, not that…
Let me just show you something here.
(15) Wherefore… after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
(16) Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
(17) That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
(18) The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; [you got to know about Him to get this] that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, [not yours now, his calling. What’s the hope of His calling? For what He did everything is under His feet that’s going on now.] and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, [the Gentiles get His Name according to Matthew 12. We’re Mrs. Jesus. Now watch!]
(19) And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
(20) Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,…
The Resurrection of the dead and your immortality depends upon this so you better listen. There’s too much ho-hum, ho-haw amongst the Bride brother/sister, and too much ho-hum and ho-haw around here too, and it may be that way where the tapes go also.
We should be literally consumed with the Word of God and take every effort to know what’s death, to know what’s Life, because without This you and I are going nowhere.
You say, “Oh, Brother Vayle, I don’t believe it.” You believe what you want. You don’t believe the Bible. You believe your own creeds and dogmas.
Stand on your own precepts and see where it gets you. Stand on it and see where it gets you, I challenge you. I’ll meet you at the White Throne. I’m not the least bit afraid. This goes to an everyday living, brother/sister, goes to everyday living. This is our life.
Let’s take another step. 2 Corinthians which we’ve already read, the 5th chapter. I don’t mean to be rough with you but this is the truth.
(16) Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.
You don’t know Him as a man anymore. He stepped out of the mask of a man and He went back to Holy Spirit in a Pillar of Fire. He went back to invading the prophets. He went back to having His picture taken. He went back to This.
He went back to showing Himself that he’s literally a man when He wants to be. Brother/sister, we didn’t get it when I read it, did we? Let me read It again. Let’s let It sink in here.
(01) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, [taken special care to examine] and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
(02) (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was [brought to our attention and proven to be so]…
This is what you’re into this morning. Go the way of the church if you want; that’s your business. Take your time to spend your life and your hours with the world, more important things than come to church, more important things to do this and do that.
The very way you even handle your finances shows whether you’re a part. I don’t want to touch it, I can take you Scripture after Scripture but let me tell you brother/sister, whether I’m playing church and you’re playing church or we’re here as hypocrites.
There’s a Bride out there somewhere and she’s doing those things, she’s listening, she understands, she’s got a part, but she doesn’t make William Branham God or some idol or something. She knows what we’re talking about today. See? We must understand these things.
We don’t know Him after the flesh. Yea though we did, henceforth now we know Him no more. You can’t know Him in this dispensation until the Rapture according to the flesh again. You will know Him according to the flesh of man in men and phenomena. We’re in an Exodus.
For as God told Moses to go to Egypt and God appeared in signs and wonders. He didn’t stop there. He made Himself visible so they could see a Pillar of Fire. That was taken from the people but God in the twentieth century had a camera and cameras that could take it.
You say, “I don’t believe that.” You’re like Roman Catholics. I want to tell you something, the Roman Catholics have far more truth than the Protestants ever had. Look in what they believe and then see where it came from and where it went.
You bet they do. They blew it. The Protestants are no different from the Roman Catholics; they got three gods, Trinitarian hogwash. It won’t work.
Now how did Paul know this One? Paul met Him on the road to Damascus. Acts 9:1-6, and the Pillar of Fire appeared in a blinding light and he said, “Who art thou, Lord?”
And He said, “I am Jesus.”
Paul did not know Him after the flesh. Peter, James and John did and it took the Spirit of God to show them something but Paul without ever knowing the flesh, went to the desert and the Pillar of Fire dealt with him and he knew God the way these men could never know God and I can prove it to you.
I did the other day when I showed you what happened with the council. Barnabas got carried away with dissimulation and false brethren brought in unawares, and now you got false prophets, and false apostles, you’ve got false teachers, you’ve got false pastors, you’ve got false brethren, you’ve got false evangelists, nobody stays with the Word. See?
Now, Paul was face to face with the Pillar of Fire. Here we have another prophet of the order of Moses, face to face with God the same as Jacob said. And we go to the Book of Numbers 12, and it says,
(06) …Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and speak [to] him in a dream.
(07) [But] my servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all [my] house.
(08) With him will I speak mouth to mouth, [and] even apparently, [in his view in a shape that he can see] and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: [the image of God, a figure] wherefore… were [thou] not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
If William Branham proven scientifically was that kind of a prophet, judgment has to hit this world.
You say, “Well, Brother Vayle.” Don’t Brother Vayle, shake your head, take a club for God sake and hit your head, try your brains this morning. Repentance starts in your skull.
Fear may come in your heart to get the thing going but knowledge does not come like Edgar Casey. He took a book, dumb as a dodo, couldn’t know a thing so he put his book on his heart and slept all night, the next morning knew exactly what’s in the book.
You try that with this Bible. I’ll laugh at you. I bet you one million dollars and I hope to God you got them and I’ll skin you. I ain’t got it. I’d go to the bank or tell them I got a sure thing, got a bunch of goofs down here in Quincy they bet me a million dollars they can put a book on their heart and say, “Dear God, let me know the book.” Fap! Hogwash!
Let the mind of Christ be in you. God has true attributes, mentality and strength; he’s not universal mind, He’s all of wisdom, the fount of all wisdom and He’s all power.
I meant to put that in here someplace today but I couldn’t get… my notes got in order and it didn’t work. God speaking face to face: God speaking again in man to man, God speaking again in man to man. See?
Not like Moses. Not like Paul. Thus we see the entire… not that He wasn’t in them, but it’s also face to face.
Thus we see the entire New Testament written exactly as was the Old Testament, prophets and scribes. Now don’t forget John was not a prophet like Paul.
Remember Numbers 12, then go to 1 Corinthians 14:36-38 and he challenges the prophets that “if any man thinks himself a prophet or spiritual, remember,” he said, “the commandments that I write is the Word of Almighty God, not yours.”
Remember John had visions and remember a prophet spoke to John. Right? Right! Right! Check the prophet, William Branham, check the Word. We had nobody like the Apostle Paul until today.
So Brother Branham could say, “Just think the same Pillar of Fire that brought the Word to Paul is here revealing It.” I believe it; you don’t have to believe it. I believe you do.
Now and the years after Paul, the years after Paul that extended down through the ages, five solid Church Ages, that’s through five solid Church Ages, we have no prophets but only gifted men as in Ephesians 4. Let’s look at it, vicarage again. Don’t sell this short, brother/sister, whatever you do, don’t sell it short.
(07) But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
(08) Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
(09) (Now… he [that] ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? [That’s Jesus when He died, left his body in the ground, went down to the very pits by the soul.]
(09) (Now… he [that] ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
(10) [And] he that descended [that’s the Holy Ghost come down] is the same… that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
(11) And he gave some, apostles; prophets; evangelists; pastors teachers; [That’s what He gave, gifts to the church. What for?]
(12) …[to perfect the] saints, the work of the ministry, [to build up]… the body of Christ:
(13) Till we all come in the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, [completely all done and over.]…
So you got a five-fold ministry whether you want to believe it or not functioning in a Bride and even the day that she’s taken off the earth, Brother Branham said, “See, you don’t change what you were on earth, you just change your position,” and he said, “See, Samuel came up a prophet the same way he went down.”
There’s no room to be all fogged up in your head whether the five-fold ministries gone or this is gone and that is gone, try to figure out something. Why are you trying to figure anything? It’s already done figured out for you. You worry about this?
You say there’s no five-fold ministry and then you tell me people aren’t tossed to and fro and even in this Message and I’ll laugh in your face. Say, oh boy, I finally met somebody goofier outside the goof house than in the goof house.
I’m not trying to be sarcastic, just jar you to let you know, you know what I know and I know what you know. What’s all this nonsense going on talking here and there?
(13) …unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
(14) That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
(15) But [holding] the truth in love, may grow up [unto] him in all things, which is the head, [now the spiritual Head is here, we haven’t come up to Him in the physical head. We’re going to meet Him in the air.]
Look I’m going to tell you something brother, if I’m going to be judged by Almighty God having taught you a certain way; I will be a teacher at that day being judged. I don’t understand a lot of that, why bother, not my axe to grind, somebody else’s.
(16) From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, [and so on,]…
Then He gave five Church Age messengers, I mean seven Church Age messengers, five of which were not prophets. Number one was a prophet, Paul, and number seven, in the 10th chapter of the Book of Revelation that messenger was a prophet. And we can take you and show you that and it tells you.
(07) But in the days of the voice of the seventh [church Age Messenger], when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be [consummated], as he hath declared [the good news of his gospel by] his servants the prophets,
Then it’s going to take a prophet to do this. The Word restored. Billy Graham knows the Word isn’t restored. That’s why he’s all dried out now. There’s no place to go. The fundamental doctrine’s all finished. It’s perfection hour and they turned down the evidence.
Why did God send that great man with a great healing revival, the great ministry? Just to say, “Aren’t I a nice God, see, I do things once in a while?” Hogwash! If God was just trying to be nice as far as I’m concerned He wasn’t nice enough.
That wasn’t His purpose. It was to let you know someone was here to bring a revelation, someone to listen to, someone to get you ready for the Resurrection, to the Rapture.
Brother/sister, you are not going to make the Rapture by being healed. You are going to make the Rapture by being resurrected without dying. It’s called transfiguration. It’s a metamorphosis.
It’s the little bug in the egg doesn’t die from the pupa to the imago and so on; he’s the same little fellow coming up. Well, you and I are the same one coming up, coming by the Holy Ghost to revelation to the acknowledgement of Him, to the understanding where you are and looking Him in the face by revelation, getting your change.
Getting your change like that cyclotron, I said, whirling and faster and faster and faster until you’re caught into It and yet you’re going to be pounding nails and if you knew He was coming tomorrow keep on pounding nails.
You say, “Why should I pound nails and build that fellow’s house?” And Brother Branham said, “If you’re digging… if you’re hoeing potatoes, keep hoeing.” Why should I do that if I know He’s coming? Just keep doing it. See, it’s something that is peculiar.
Get down to everyday living. That’s why the Word should be talked in the home, in the house, and all these things carefully brought back and forth between as husband and wife and children so that their whole lives are built upon It.
Now never forget 1 John 1:1-7. We go back again. When I finish this bit I’ll just forget about reading here because I got no place to read anyway, haven’t got time, that’s what comes from sitting at home and making your notes. If you wouldn’t make any notes you wouldn’t take all this time but okay, we’ll read It. It says here in those verses especially 5 to 7.
(05) This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
(06) [And] if we say… we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
(07) But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Now that’s what we’re looking at right there. We’re looking at the fact that God gives light through the ages, through the ministers, through the ministry to the people but at the end of the age He’s got the prophet we spoke of in Revelation 10:7.
Now the thrust of all of this is of what I’ve said so far and I’ve taken a lot of time to do it and I just… time’s about run out. Is to get you to see as perfectly as I can place… as I can place it before you, that is I see as perfectly as I can place it before you that this same Christ in the form of the Holy Spirit is revealing God exactly as ever He did and even as He did in flesh on earth and also in His visits in the Old Testament.
He never changes; it’s the same One. We have God in the prophet revealing Himself to us and turning our hearts back to God. This embraces both the ministry and the Word as it says in Acts 1:1 where it said, God… “Jesus both began to do and to teach.”
In other words, he was vindicated and proven that he had the right to speak on the grounds that he did what nobody else could do. So if he could do what nobody else could do then He was the authority, listen to Him.
What are you doing? See? What is it all about? If you can see God making Himself known to us in and through Christ, there it is again, and Christ means anointing. The prophet is a Christ, we are a Christ. It’s all graded but you got to understand how it comes.
We’re witnesses to what He witnessed to us. That’s what John said, “We declare unto you what was declared unto us that we literally had the contact with, now you listen to us, you got it.” Life by light: Light bring life. See?
You can see God making Himself known to us in and through Christ. You can see Him moving now this side of the atonement as He once moved toward the atonement. Get what I’m saying! If you understand what I’m saying, I showed you He moved toward the atonement in a man, like a man there.
Now from the atonement He’s still moving and He can’t change the way He does it because He’s Hebrews 13:8 which Jehovah of the Old is Jesus of the New because He laid aside the body, the body’s not laid aside and negated, that’s the High Priest.
We’re going to walk and talk with Him. God’s going to indwell him upon Mount Zion. We’ll read that. Not today, of course, we’ll read it Wednesday. We got a nice long weekend coming up. See? Okay.
So, He moved towards the atonement, now on this side as He moved toward it we look back, as God anointed Jesus now He anoints His Bride by bringing light wherein that light is life. We read It.
(01) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, [which] our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
(02) (For the life was manifested, and we have [saw] it, and bear witness, and shew [it] unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) [There’s the history.]
(03) …which we have seen [we] declare unto you, that [your] fellowship [may be] with us: [and so on]…
(05) This is the message [that] we have heard of him, and declare that God is light,…
I thought He said He was life? Life manifests Itself and a certain manifestation will prove Its God’s life. A manifestation will prove it’s dog’s life. You don’t have to see the dog, I hear, woof, woof, woof, bark and keep me awake all night. Take the dog and shoot him.
You don’t, I don’t have to see him. Oh, the Miller girls had that; they even had to sell their house because the neighbor’s wouldn’t keep their stupid dogs from shutting up, I don’t know what they… The law says to phone the police. They did and the police wouldn’t do a thing. So much for your law.
I told my doctor, I said, “They keep me awake.”
He said, “Why don’t you shoot the dog?”
“How are you going to tell your neighbor you’ve shot his dog?”
He said, “You don’t.”
Shows through seven Church Ages, through seven Church Ages the light came, that was the light of the hour. It went almost into totally eclipse in the Dark Ages under Catholicism, then it started coming back.
Coming back with what? The Word of God which was light to the Roman Catholics and it brought life. Luther followed the Catholics, Wesley followed, Pentecost followed, now this follows and this will not denominate. It will never organize.
There’s going to be a Bride get out of here. If we’re not Bride there’s a Bride going to stand for sure and say, “Well, praise God, I’m a friend of the Bride and the Bridegroom, at least I hope I am. Second Resurrection here I come.”
You better have a lot of good works on hand because that’s where it’s going to count. You better be a good neighbor because that’s where it’s going to be. Lay up treasure in heaven and so on. So, with this understanding we could have gone to page 58.
Two minutes will not do me one bit of good because this… we get into beautiful material here but I wanted to go back and show you again some of the things on God.
Let me read you something here before we quit. This is tremendous here. Brother Branham speaking on the Christian filter: The Thinking Man’s Filter. He said here,
A Thinking Man’s Filter 65-08-22E
[127] …When a thinking man begins to think Who he’s going to stand before and what the Word of God is, when he begins to think, then when he draws through that, there’s nothing can get to it but the Holy Ghost. What is it? It’s… [now watch!] It’s the germ, seed Word from the beginning, that was in God at the beginning, standing here drawing the seed Life. The seed is in your heart by foreordination.
See, you always were seed, and it comes by natural method. It comes by natural election. You cannot hear a message like this and believe it unless there’s something in there that will attract you to it. You won’t take it. There’s no way you can take it. You got to be born with it.
That’s why you got people right today just get like that, just hit like that, and they will be Christians in fifteen minutes which Christianity could not produce in twenty years because they… the reaper has overcome the sower. It’s in the former rain, in the latter rain that the whole thing comes. It’s all gone. And God’s got a beautiful spotless Bride.
If you wanted that it’s in The Thinking Man’s Filter on page 24. That’s… I never even knew it was there but I saw it last night. But the Lord bless you.
I hope you get something out of this to understand it a little more. God in manifestation, never quit, God in Christ, bring reconciling Word, doing all these, God now doing the same thing. Never change His way, never will, God on the scene, God in His people, amongst His people as we taught.
Let’s rise and be dismissed.
[tape recording ends.]