Christ Revealed In His Word #07

Shall we pray.

Heavenly Father, again we want to thank You for Your love which has been extended to us, manifested two thousand years ago in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and gave himself for us, shed His Blood and, then, became our intermediator and our intercessor and, then, now in the last days by the Holy Spirit has returned into our midst again to show forth love, not willing any should perish, or again showing that the righteous will not perish with the wicked, but coming Himself, Lord, You Yourself coming to deliver us with a high hand, even greater than when You took Your children out of Egypt.

And Father, we are thankful for that, that this is not something that’s done now just sectionalized in a country, but it’s world-wide where all the Bride is, plumb around the globe, Lord, and soon also now all the saints of the ages will rise because of what You have done, are doing, and will yet do by Your magnificent Presence here. May we reverence that Presence, Lord, realize that Thou art an austere Person; we ought to be all the more sober and all the more careful now that we know Truth as we have not known It previously. So, help us, Lord, never to think in terms of being worthy of It, which we never will be, but recipients of It and subject to It, Lord. That is what we so desire and believe You as never before. Help us in the study of Your Word. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

You may be seated.

Now, again we’re continuing in “Christ Is Revealed in His Own Word”, and I think this could possibly be number seven, right around there anyway. Now, before we begin to read on page 30, paragraph 120, we’ll start this morning. And last week we didn’t get very far. We had eight paragraphs, 112-120 is all we were able to take, and I had hoped that I might finish the last thirteen pages today, but I’m not even going to attempt it.

So anyway we’ll be on page 30 pretty soon and paragraph 120. And to recap, we simply repeat that this sermon, that is “Christ Is Revealed in His Own Word”, is not at all a full doctrinal treatise as one might expect, wherein Brother Branham consistently shows by many, many illustrations exactly where Christ is couched in that Word, but it is more an explanation of how He is actually revealed.

In this way the prophet is able to tell us how to look for Him, which you notice that he does, and how not to look for Him in that Word, in order that we be correct. Also, he has shown consistently with this sermon as with all other sermons, that his prophetic ministry that Brother Branham had for this age is able to point Christ out to us as no one else can.

Now, there again is something that makes this a little different treatise from what somebody else would take it because other students, perhaps just as fine students as Brother Branham, far greater theologians as far as the head knowledge is concerned, the ability to lay it out according to language and, you know, how that you’re supposed to develop thematic structure and all those things, you know.

And to make everything follow in sequence, there are those no doubt could do a better job in the sense of the mechanical, but they don’t have what the mechanical needs, which is the inspired Word of God.

William Branham is letting you know, pure and simply in a humble way, in a kind of an off-handed manner, very carefully letting you know, if you’re just listening, that he is that one who can show you Christ revealed in the Scripture. And all we have to do is to listen and to believe. That’s why the constant application of that little song of Luke Rader’s, ‘Only Believe’. Only believe what? Only believe what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing.

And if you believe that, then you are in the frame where God wants you, because remember; everything is based upon faith. The first virtue in the pyramid of the structure is faith. And remember; that’s where the lion got turned loose in the original first age when they went forth preaching the Gospel after 33AD.

Now, the last few paragraphs that we read dealt with how God makes His Word exclusively His Own Word by bypassing man and his talents. And we saw that it was a very exclusive club that God had and He being the Head of it. Very exclusive, no one else is the Head. We see that God is the Head of Christ and Christ is the head of the Church. And there’s where Headship lies.

You notice it doesn’t say one thing about the body ever taking over, no way, shape and form. And there is a way that God has exclusively passed on His way or His Word to us. And we saw that was exclusively by prophets that God designated. And those men didn’t have raw, natural talents, although no doubt they had excellent talents because God never picked and pardon the expression, a blithering idiot to give forth His Word.

This is one thing that’s always bugged me about the pew’s identity of a minister. “Well, he’s just some poor dumb cluck that God picked up.”

Well, if you’re being fed by some poor, dumb cluck this morning, you better leave now, because there’s no place in Scripture where God ever put an insane person, or a person that’s way far out, over a sheep that He designated for eternal life. He never has.

Now, I’m not saying I’m some great character, don’t get me wrong there, but I’ve always been bugged about people’s attitude that the ministry’s some inferior type of junk. Well, if that’s the case then, and they’re the head, then what kind of junk is the pew? I’m not saying you ever thought that here, but I’ve seen that around the country, and I used to see it in my early days, and it always bugged me.

They say, “Well, why did God ever send a person anyway to anybody? Because always it’s got to be some flotsam, jetsam, some type of junk.”

Well, it’s not. There’s no junk in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve said many a time that God has never picked a garbage tin to represent Him and never will. Now, you may start as a garbage tin, but you won’t end up as a garbage tin. And let’s face it, even already you were designated from that lump of clay, because the potter has the power of the same lump to raise up a vessel to honor and dishonor. So you see, election goes all the way through.

So, we are a privileged people. We’re an exclusive people. We’ve got an exclusive God. We’ve got an exclusive Bride. We’ve got an exclusive Word. We’ve got an exclusive ministry. The whole thing is exclusive. It excludes the world and brings in only God. And any foreign plant He will rip up and cast into the fire. Don’t you believe otherwise.

We’re not going to some junk pot that God had at the backside of a desert. Now, He may allow us to be on the backside of the desert to dry us out. Well, goody-goody, that’s fine by me. But I’ll tell you, His vessels are choice vessels, and so we ought not to be puffed up at any time. That’s not the way we look at ourselves, or anybody else, no ‘puffed up’.

But we should be serious and sober, realizing that God in His omniscience, in His omnipotence, and God being what He is and all things from Him and by Him and for Him and to Him, how could He be satisfied with anything less than came right from His omniscience and His omnipotence, with all those fine attributes all thrown in. You couldn’t be, because the Bride becomes a composite of all the attributes of Almighty God in particular ways.

Now, you say, “The Bride couldn’t be a savior.”

Never said she was. But when she’s saved she becomes, like Brother Branham said, Messiahettes and little Christs to the world. Paul said that. Now we’re ministers; we’re ambassadors, instead of Jesus Christ. We all are vicarious workers. We’re all vicars. See?

That’s why there’s no big fellows and no little fellows. It all becomes one. I’m sure all the program and plan of God is retained in the great glory which we’re going to see down that road. But I’ll tell you what: we’ll see it the way it always was in the beginning God at the Head and everything coming on down.

You know, they got this, isn’t it strange today that people are beginning to realize. Even in the world there’s a beautiful type out there, like, you know, the trickledown economics you know? what they talk about, trickle down? Well, we’ve had that all the time. Always trickle down from God just the way He wanted it. And people are just, see, everything in nature, everything in the world, if you just look around.

Now, I said, now God doesn’t just pick up a bunch of junk or someone with a nutty brain, but He’s got some slow-witted guys like me. Let’s face it. I don’t claim I’m without brains and I’m an idiot, which I could kind of pass as one a lot of times, but not really, not really mentally gone.

But the thing is a lot of times it takes a long time for these things to trickle down. I never could see in nature what I’m seeing now. Never could see how you could just watch nature and take it right back to God and see it all built on a certain specific way of which God is Himself.

Now, you see you yourself are built a specific way. You’ve got a certain mind which lies with the spirit, which goes down toward the soul, then it’s got these inlets out here, and you do with what the inlet out here, and what lies beyond the inlet, according to what’s inside of you. You are a specific type of person.

And you’re in the image of Almighty God. So therefore, if you’re doing this thing, then God is doing that thing. And what am I saying? According to what’s in you, you are bringing out. So then, all you got to do is look around, and you’ll see what’s brought out. Go back to the Word of God and see where perversion came in, and what isn’t perverted, what is right, now apply, you’ll see it coming out from God.

See, “nature runs in continuity,” Brother Branham said. He didn’t say human beings do. Nature does. See? And spoken Word is original seed. And where man has perverted, that’s all going to go, but you can see lots of things that couldn’t be perverted. No siree.

Now, you say, “Well, what can’t be perverted?”

Well, you can have interbreeding and line breeding and various types of breeding, which will bring original seed into what man wants to develop that into. Well, that doesn’t destroy the original seed. You let that thing revert, like Darwin found with the pigeons: they go back to slate-colored pigeons.

So, out there, there’s an originality that you can’t get rid of. See? Then, when the species got all messed up with serpent seed, God stopped it right there. But it’s going to take a resurrection to get us back. See, man can’t breed it back. There’s no way. Not with those chromosomes and genes. You couldn’t do it.

And man would not stand for what the world wants, which is a superman to take over breeding, where they say, “Well, this is bred to this one, that one to that one.” Egyptians tried it and God flattened them. Hitler tried it, and where is he? Fap! He’s not even worth mentioning. He’s not even a stench in the nostrils anymore, forget it.

Well, that’s right. See? Man can only go so far. But you look out there, you can see these things. And see where the pattern lies. And man discovers a lot of things in nature. Then you say, “Where’d it come out of?” It came out of God. Now you take it on back. And you begin to see some of the things that we’ve never seen before. See?

Well, that’s just what I’m just showing you, how Brother Branham looked at nature. He looked at how God has got certain principles in nature, like electricity. And he’ll work a premise on that, take it right back to God. Some men are finding these principles God laid down, like in what’s called polarity.

They found it in generators, I guess, and in what do you call it? Well, they’re mostly generators, but there’s an old fashioned one they had there. It’s not cognito; it’s a magneto, what is, and you can find… and yet the human body has polarity, too. And everything has polarity. See?

Now, we’re talking about polarity. That’s a very mystical thing, at least as far as I’m concerned. But I’ll tell you what, how come the North Pole, the magnetic North Pole, is now moving toward the true North Pole? What’s going to happen when it finally gets there? Science hasn’t got the answer.

But I’m just saying everything has an original; everything is there. And a man begins looking at nature, and the more he understands in nature (if he’s got anything in him at all), the more he’s going to go back to God! But you see, that hasn’t happened! They haven’t let him taken it back to God.

So, what we have left? We have nothing left except a prophet to come on the scene, a man with “THUS SAITH THE LORD.” That’s why Mr. Walker had that vision, when the great white horse rider came over, the vision he had concerning the white horse rider: thundering, looking up. And the scientists were messing with their test tubes and having a great time.

But he thundered, “I’ll ride this trail one more time.” What happened? Nobody looked up! It didn’t bother them at all. They were too interested in what they were doing. See? They were too interested in what they were doing with what they had, rather than thinking, “Hey, just a minute. Why is this the way it is?” See?

Now, I think Brother Branham made a statement, he said, “They’re going to come so close to producing life, just so close, then they get cut off.”

They’ll never produce life; actually it’s not in their power to produce life. If you can do it, bring back the passenger pigeon. How many of our species have expired today? They say hundreds are off the face of the earth already. Now, man’s getting a little bit scared.

But now what I just read the other day in the paper, I don’t think there are too many giant pandas left in China, but the other day they found some men killing pandas. There are not too many elephants left, but the poachers murder them by the hundreds to just get that bit of ivory. They kill the rhinoceros for the tusk. You don’t find man listening at all. Man doesn’t listen to anything.

And so now a prophet comes on the scene. Do they listen? No way! So, Brother Branham takes everything in his power, and by now you’re beginning to realize how powerful that power was. It was God inspired ability for him to teach the way he taught, and yet himself stand there veiled in his own words, obscure, just like Christ. And people passed right on. Say, “Oh, great ministry, great ministry, great ministry.” But when it comes to ‘prophet’, “Well, you know, oh my, he had a boner.”

What boner did he pull?

“Well, he doesn’t agree with me.”

Well, who are you?

Now we’re getting to the fatheads. Now we’re getting to those, the chuckleheads, the nincompoops, and the rest. Then don’t tell me they were ever chosen by God when they raise their voice like that, because they saw nothing, have seen nothing, will see nothing and presently see nothing.

No, God didn’t bring a bunch of people in as though they were smart and erudite and everything else. But He brought a people in that can have the mind of Christ. And you get a better mind than that, you tell me where it is, and I’ll go buy it. In the meantime, I’ll tell you I’m not going to buy it, because you’re wrong.

You’ll never get it. You’ll never get it. What we’re studying here word-by- word is simply out of this world, and it is out of this world, because it came from another world. But I’ll tell you what, you can escalate to the other world on it.

That’s another word that we find today, ‘escalators’. Years ago it was just a clause, to escalate things, now we know what it is to escalate things. They made an escalator, stairs that revolve and go right up. You don’t have to work there, just climb on the first step son. Don’t try the second step; you’ll fall backward, every single time. You’re always warned. And that little light shows you just where the step is.

You remember years ago they had those steps without lights? And I said, “Hey, people like me, we can’t see too good.” Even before my glasses, had to wear glasses, I said, “Hey, you know I see people stumbling, why don’t they even put a white line on that?” Somebody came along with a better idea, put a light under it.

You want to walk in the Light? and get escalated? Just take that first step. What’s the first step? Believe in a prophet.

You say, “Well, I think I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Uh-oh, hold it right there. Now you put yourself above God’s way of doing things. Now you see who’s got that manure-head. Brother/sister, I want to tell you something. God’s people are not manure-heads. They are not what you might call the swell-heads, and they don’t belong to any brain trust, except His brain that’s in trust for us.

We don’t belong to these great schools, you know. No, simplicity… but we can understand and see. And that’s the great mind right there: the little child’s mind that absorbs like a sponge. Are you absorbing like a sponge? And don’t let anybody squeeze it out of you. The child’s sponge is not meant to be squeezed. It’s meant to suck up.

Those that are babes are those who have a sponge-like mind. They’re just there to have it poured in, to think about, to talk about. Not to argue or fuss about it, but to believe.

Okay, this great prophet William Branham, we’re taking his sermon here now to paragraph 120, so we’ll just start at 118.

Christ Is Revealed In His Own Word, 05/08/22M

[118]  Now, we realize then that God sent His prophets. That was the way He had of bringing His Word to the people, [exclusively. There’s an exclusiveness here.] through the lips of His prophets.

Now, notice; he showed it, the Word would come through the lips. In other words, it’s not a product of the mind though it is in the mind, as when necessary. It was not a product of their mind, but it could come to their mind through the Words of Almighty God, then that Word coming through their lips would not be a product of their mind, but a product of God.

[118]  And notice, you know, Moses said, if you want to read… Exodus chapter 4, and the 10th to 12th verses. Moses said God spoke to him. God talked to a man, lip-to-ear. [Now, that’s the phraseology he used. It was face-to-face. ‘Lip-to-ear’ is the expression we use.] Moses said, “I’m slow of speech,… I’m not sufficient. I can’t go.”

Now, notice how the prophet places himself. He’s not a gung-ho character: “Hey, I can do this. I see the ropes, that’s fine, let’s just move.” But oh brother, when he does move, you better step aside. See your butterfly? He becomes a Sherman tank, down the road. But at the time in the presence of God, he’s a butterfly. He doesn’t have sufficiency’s.

He doesn’t have a brain. He doesn’t have a speech. He doesn’t have coordination of those things in life which you might think a prophet would need. He’s just not with it in himself. Yet there’s something there that God has already put there.

[119]  And [God] said, “Who made man to talk, or Who made him dumb? Who made him to see? Who made him to hear? Didn’t I, the Lord?” [God] said, “I’ll be with your mouth.”

Now, the man’s mouth wasn’t any good even by itself. And his words weren’t any good by itself. But God said, “I’ll put My Words in your mouth. Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it. You say you can’t talk? You’ll be surprised how you’ll talk.”

You see, Moses at this time was not realizing the life that lay in that Word! And you get that Word in your mouth, I don’t care who you are, you’ve got life! And you ever get the life in your heart, that Word in your heart, what have you got?

[120]  And Jeremiah said, if you want to read that in Jeremiah 1:6. Jeremiah said that, “God put words in my mouth.” [God] talked lip-to-ear with one prophet and spoke through the other prophet, who had no control at all, [Prophets didn’t have control.] so God spoke through the man’s lips. [God’s] got ways of getting His Word out, you know. [Yes, sir!]

Now, Brother Branham’s talking of Christ revealed in His Own Word, so he’s showing you now how Christ can come out of that Word. God’s got ways of bringing that One out. And He doesn’t change. He may speak face-to-face, lip-to-ear. The man may just suddenly hear himself saying something. And that’s not at all surprising, not at all. I’ve had that happen twice in my life.

You say, “What was it? God or man?”

As far as I’m concerned, it was God. You can say it was man; some may say it’s a devil. Be my guest. We’ll find out. We’ll find out someday. To hear yourself talk is a very strange thing. It’s not what you think it is not like you think it is. And I’m not a prophet, so don’t think I’m a prophet. I do have a spirit of prophecy. That’s something else, though.

Okay, now listen. You can tell by what Brother Branham said, that logically, if you have a logical mind, if you’re a lawyer or a preacher or a doctor or just anybody, if your mind can understand logical things, which is first of all, you do put your socks on before you put your shoes on.

Now, of course, if you want to put your shoes on, then your socks on, be my guest. But if you know how to put your socks on, and put your food in your mouth before you chew it… ah, that’s a good one, then you know that God has to have a way!

Because look; we’ve got to admit we’re pretty stupid when it comes right down to Godhead. Oh, brother, what do we know? Nothing. Nothing really, and it’s less than nothing. Look; it’s like a guy out there that he owes the creditors fifty thousand dollars. I would sooner have ten cents to my credit than fifty thousand bucks in a debit. See, it’s how you look at it.

All right. Look now; we’ve got a debit, as far as we’re concerned when the Word of God comes on the scene. Maybe we have a debit, sure we do. We have a debit maybe in many ways when it comes right to looking at the Word of God. But you see, if God has a way worked out, this can become a credit. See?

Now, God exclusively has formed a way whereby His Word will get to us. Absolutely no problem, absolutely no problem. You can rest on It. Now, you see, if you get this far, now you notice how we repeat and repeat and go back and back and back as the prophet did, and you’ll notice how It piles up on you. You get more and more rest and more and more assurance that what you have is right, and even if you don’t understand It right, you know that is right, and you’ve been called by the grace of God to get It right.

So, you see, you’re growing.

You say, “Well, I don’t know if I’m growing.”

Don’t worry. You’re growing. Like my wife gets after me every now and then.

She says, “Lee, why do you keep on telling the folks they can die under your ministry?”

Well, you can die a certain degree under my ministry because I don’t take the pastoral subjects. But you won’t die under this, brother/sister. I’m aiming not for your conduct; I’m aiming for your resurrection and you’re getting up in a Rapture. Now, by this time you ought to know enough about the others. You ought to know enough about conduct; you’ve got a conscience.

If women don’t know how to stop cutting their hair, and men don’t know how to do the things they’re supposed to do and not do, then look; brother/sister, there’s something wrong with you. There’s something radically wrong. You know only too well. Oh, listen; the Word of God nails that right down. Why, he said, “Their own conscience bears them witness.”

He speaks even concerning the vessels of wrath. Yup. And he lets them know; he said, “The people didn’t like to have it in their minds. It wasn’t convenient. They didn’t want it. They didn’t enjoy it, so they got it out.” Their conscience burned, seared with a hot iron, the devil’s poker. Okay, now you see God has His way of getting this to the people, and it’s an infallible way.

All right. Getting down to 121.

[121]  So you see, the Bible is God’s Word, not man’s word. Moses said, “God spoke to me with a voice, and I heard Him. I wrote down what He said.”

Now, how in the world could this man remember what was said? The Holy Spirit absolutely said, Jesus Himself speaking said, “When the Holy Spirit’s come, He will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said.”

That’s why you could take a man that was simply a scribe and write Matthew, Mark and Luke, and even John, but John was an apostle, Matthew an apostle also. But Mark and Luke were just two men that wrote. How could they get such an accurate Book? Well, God did it. See? God has His ways of doing it. See?

Then, if He has His ways of doing that, don’t tell me He doesn’t have His way of getting it across to us! Ha. Why, that would be just like a coconut shell you couldn’t break into.

You say, “Oh, I know the food’s in there, man alive.”

Well, a little two year old kid couldn’t do it. How would you starve a little kid? How’d you starve anybody? Why you could put a billion dollars worth of food in front of the people, and if they couldn’t get to it, they’re going to starve anyway. Then, do you mean to tell me God has given us a Book here that He doesn’t open up to us? Oh, come on. God would have to be worse shape than we are.

You talk about teasing donkeys with a carrot. God doesn’t do that. He’s not giving a bunch of donkeys a bunch of carrots. Why, the prophet’s own vision was so simple at the end time, the food stored up: carrots and, no doubt, fresh corn on the cob and peas and beans and all the good things we see. When? In the time of the growth, the great growth.

So, this was a great growth period that Brother Branham introduced us to by the living Word of God. And the great growth period is what? The capping off of this age, the coming up of the dead, and we going to the new Kingdom, food for the journey. Tremendous!

Now, don’t tell me that God didn’t make a way for us. Now, Brother Branham’s gone. What’s the way? Tapes! And here this morning we take it word by word so that you know what you’ve got. Here’s where our assurance lies, brother/sister: to know what you’ve got your hands on.

You know, my mother used to tell the story all the time of a boy that left Europe. I don’t know what part of Europe he left, but anyway he came over to America. And he made a lot of money, and he wanted his parents to have some of this world’s goods, and he couldn’t get the money back in the country without the government taking it, like the Reds would do today. This is way back.

Well, you see you always have had the communist just another form. Babylon’s always existed, brother/sister, come on. Despotism, all that sort of junk. But anyway he decided what he would do; he would send his picture back home, and he had carefully ensealed in there several thousand dollars, which he was sure that nobody would detect.

Well, sure enough, it got right through the hands of the officials, but his parents got so mad at the fact that all he dare would do was send a picture of himself and his affluence, they threw it in the fire, and there went the money.

Well, wouldn’t it be great if God did something like that to you and me? Wouldn’t that be great, God come on the scene and just say, “Now, look here. We know there’s got to be something after life. We know there’s something out here, and we know things are shaping up. Well, what about it?” Well, then if He knew all about it and kept us from it, what good would it be?

So therefore, you realize what you have your hands on is life and death in the balances, and when it’s opened, it’s nothing but life! There’s no death in this one that’s opened up. This has taken out the death, brother/sister. And it’s not going up in smoke. See?

God didn’t just send us a picture of that which is to come. He came down. Look; He came down Himself. Either you believe That and you believe That, [referring and pointing to the two pictures on the wall] or you ain’t nowhere this morning!

You say, “Well, the world says something else.”

Let the world say what it wants. Who cares what they’ve got to say. The only people that bug me are those that say they believe this Message and pull the stuff they pull. That shouldn’t bug me at all anyway. As long as we don’t do it, what’s the difference? If we having a ball this way, they have a ball that way, we don’t have to play catch. No, no, no, that’s the trouble. No.

[122]  Jeremiah said, “I couldn’t speak at all. And the first thing you know, my lips were talking, and I was writing.” And God spoke through his lips, and it came to pass. Daniel, Isaiah, and so forth, all those prophets were just about the same.

[123]  You know, in the Old Testament alone, there are more than two thousand times those prophets [That’s all of them.] said THUS SAITH THE LORD. [Now, he’s going to explain ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD’, same as I’ve done.] Now, if any man says THUS SAITH THE LORD, it’s not the man talking. If he would, he wouldn’t be a prophet; he’d be a hypocrite, see? ’cause it never would come to pass. One chance out of ten hundred thousand times, (see?) they might guess it. [And if God wanted better odds than that, He’d have them, too. One out of a trillion or ninety trillion, who’d give a rip?] But if it’s THUS SAITH THE LORD, and the Lord God has said it… like… I’d say, “Thus saith Orman Neville;” my brother say, “Thus saith Mr. Mann”; if I’d say, “Thus saith Brother Vayle,” out here, or some of these other brethren, any of you; I’m speaking what you said. If I’m truthful, I’m just saying what you said. [Now, that’s what ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD’ is: saying what God said.]

Now, what’s he doing? He knows that he has based his whole ministry on “THUS SAITH THE LORD” and the vindication that followed it. So, what’s he talking about? He’s talking about himself! Having what? Not the writing, but the revealing! People today and the church, they don’t like to hear a thing about a prophet being a revealer. Not that bunch; no they don’t.

Oh, they say, “A prophet wrote the Bible,” and Pentecost talks about they got prophets, but oh, boy, how they stick their neck out for their revelations. And there’s not one “THUS SAITH THE LORD” in the carload. There’s not one “THUS SAITH THE LORD,” period. Now, they say that, but I can’t believe it. I can believe people are picked up and messed up, and they think they hear things, but I’m talking about this Word here. I’m depending on the Word of God.

Now, he said:

[123]  If I’m truthful, I’m just saying what you said. And these men, being prophets, said, “It’s not [I]. I have nothing to do with it, but it’s THUS SAITH THE LORD.”

Now, there’s the integrity of God at stake. Would God back up a statement that was not His? Now there’s a guy, his name was Garret. I’m sure his name was Garret. He was out there in Tucson; he had his big tent. And I had a lot of respect for the fellow and used to read some of the things he said. I think he went to China and various places else. Now, in one of the magazines, (I forget which it was, his own or somebody’s.) he writes in and he said, “See,” he said, “Brother Branham made a big mistake.”

And he based Brother Branham making a big mistake on his own career. And his own career, he said, “I had this vision,” he said, “it was just like it just in broad daylight,” I guess it was like broad daylight, and he had this great vision. And this vision was so tremendous he went before his whole tent load of people and he said, “Thus saith the Lord” and it fell flatter than a fritter. It didn’t come to pass. Now he wants to say, “Now Brother Branham, you see, made a big mistake.”

Judging William Branham with thousands of “THUS SAITH THE LORD” that never failed by his own little, abysmal failure showing exactly what he was? They’ll do it every time.

“Well, Brother Vayle, I know Brother Branham was a fine man, but you see I had a ministry too, and you know…”

I tell you: I’ve said it so many times, I used to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “Just a minute bud. Let’s cross swords, and let’s find out how many experiences you had, and you put them up against mine, and I’ll bet you a hundred dollars to a hole in a doughnut, mine eclipses yours so bad, you’ll look sick.” And I ain’t got nothing when it comes to vindication.

They talk about one little dream, one little vision, one little thing that came to pass, one or two things here. Check my life out with witnesses; it comes to many, many times. And I have no vindication. I accede one hundred percent to William Branham. In fact, I accede to such a point that I’m not even interested in anything I might have.

I want to tell you something else; liars are going to be destroyed. When those men said, they were prophets way back in the old days, the thing they said did not come to pass, or they tried to take you away from the living God, which a real prophet brought you to, It said, “Take them out and stone them.”

Yet people want us to hold hands with people in an ecumenical spirit. You can have your ecumenical spirit, my brother, and go where it’s going to go and my sister you go with it. I’ll not hold hands. I’m not interested. I have an exclusive identification with an exclusive God through an exclusive ministry by a very exclusive prophet with an exclusive vindication.

You say, “Well, maybe you’re the only guy in the club.”

Well, I hope not. But if that’s the way the cookie crumbled, that’s the way it’s going to be. Now, you’ve got to have the same attitudes I’ve got. Or you’ll think I’m some kind of a stuffed shirt. Well, I don’t believe I am, but I have a right to speak plainly. See?

Now, the prophet said:

[123]  I have nothing to do with it,… it’s “THUS SAITH THE LORD.” So the Bible is THUS SAITH THE LORD by the prophets.

Notice:

[123]  The Bible is THUS SAITH THE LORD by the prophets.

See, “by the prophets;” now, “by the prophets.” That means ‘by men’. And that throws it for most people except the Bride or the believers. They don’t like that idea. Thus, when Elijah comes, he has to be one hundred percent with the Word, and not make one mistake.

Now ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD’ today that’s vindicated is no different from “THUS SAITH THE LORD” four thousand years ago under Moses, or I’m going to quit my Bible today, and I’m going to say, “Well, who knows? Who cares? I mean fiddle-diddle, here’s a God that said He’d never change, and He does the same thing in the same way.

Why it’s just old hat with God; He’s not interested in anything new. This is it.” Then I’m supposed to come along and disbelieve Brother Branham? Oh come on.

Now see, I’m showing you something: God doesn’t pick idiots! He doesn’t pick defiant antichrists. Now, they may be for awhile, but He’ll knock them down and cure them, like the apostle Paul, few others. He had to take Moses and get all his learning out of forty years. Moses learned forty years wrong, then he had to learn forty years good; then, God by grace gave him forty years to just put it into practice. I think that’s fantastic.

That shows the grace of God, see. Elijah must be one hundred percent with the Word; one hundred percent with this Word, period, just Bible. He can’t come and make his own Bible, because the Book is finished, revelation finished; you can’t add or take. All you can do is fulfill.

Now, predicting Nazism and Fascism and Communism going together is not necessarily letter by letter in the Bible but a prophet can do that! Because the basic structure for it is in the Bible, where the three sit down at one table. You bet they do. And they’re all liars. And Communism comes out on top, see. Because it’s the natural one to win; the others couldn’t win. Now, they’re just cold hash, see?

All right. He’s got to be one hundred percent with the Word. Now, you’ll notice that this is Brother Branham’s call to bring the Bride to the Word through his ministry! And that’s a Word ministry that he’s got to bring you to. He builds faith in the people toward his Message, but only believers, of course.

[124]  Notice, they took Christ’s Spirit upon themselves and forecast the events that would come to pass.

Now, that’s tremendous assurance. They knew what Spirit they were dealing with and could go to the people with the Word that came forth. You know, most people can just sit in a room by themselves. That’s what I’ve got to do, that’s ‘had to do’ all these years, until I caught the prophet’s Word: just sit by myself and look at that Word and think.

I had a lot right and had a lot wrong, too. In fact, I had most everything wrong on the grounds that they were little jots and tittles that weren’t in line. And I could have some mistakes right today, but This doesn’t. What we need for this hour, brother/sister, there’s no mistakes in It. You see, there was no mistakes what they needed in Luther’s hour, no mistakes in Wesley’s hour, no mistakes at Pentecost hour.

That brings us right to this hour: no mistakes in this hour. They’re coming up. We’re going ahead! We’re going ahead in one respect, that is to say we get the truth all before they did. They don’t need any more truth; they’re finished. That’s our perfection that brings them out of the ground.

[124]  Now, they took the Spirit of Christ upon themselves and forecast the events that would come to pass.

How else could it be done except by the Spirit of Christ? Why don’t we sit around today and how much time we got? Six million years left? How long could we live? I want to get out of here by tomorrow morning. I feel pretty good today, physically, so it would be a nice time to go.

I’d like to go with a good feeling. I think that’s nice. Even if you had a divorce, it’s nice to go with a good feeling. There’s no such thing as a good feeling in a divorce, I guess, but you know how it is: I’m just trying to lay it out the line here. See, it’s always nice to have a good feeling about things. Well, it would nice to get out of here. We can’t do it.

But here’s the thing: how else could it come to pass? How else could it be, except for the Spirit of God telling a man something? I sit in that room and study my lessons and do my best, but now today we’ve got something real.

Remember on “The Rapture” tape, which we consider to be the great epitomization of the whole thing that was set before us, the whole Malachi 4, the whole Revelation 10, in other words, the part that sets us up for the Resurrection going out of here, he said “THUS SAITH THE LORD” three times. In other words, he says, “Thus it is spoken, thus it shall be”. God dealing in His perfections.

All right. How else could it be? What assurance those men must have had. Notice Moses coming. “Well, I can’t even talk.”

“Well, I’ll be with you.”

“Oh no,” he said, “Now, now, now, now.”

God said, “Okay, shut-up. I’ll give you a man called Aaron; he can speak. In fact, he’s coming toward you now, and his heart is strangely warmed,” He said. “He’s going to make a good guy for you, you’ll do the talking. You’ll talk to him, and he’ll talk to the people.”

Look at how God stretched a point. Do you think He couldn’t do that to a five-fold ministry? A lot of people are so skeptical; they don’t believe in the five-fold ministry. What are you going to do with this? Well, that’s as bad as the guy that divorced his wife because he finally found out after she’d been faithful all these years, she’d confessed that she’d had an affair before they were married, had seven children by this man she married, and I thought she was a wonderful, wonderful girl. I loved her deeply, and I still do. He just booted her out.

When did Adam boot out Eve? Anybody in this building that might think of divorcing, you better start thinking of these things. Don’t boot anybody out, or you might get booted out. With what measure of mete, to you it’s meted. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Do you want a running over booting out that you booted your wife or husband with? Just dig in, my brother/sister. Dig in and sow, sow, sow, and you’ll reap, reap, reap!

Oh yes, a little bit of love brings a lot of love back. Ah-hah, there’s your economy, your trickle down economy again. There’s the understanding acknowledged: one person benefit, infinitesimally goes around the world. One person a little bit of love, infinitesimally goes around the world.

What will love of God do in this hour? Makes you want to feel like shouting, doesn’t it? Makes you feel provoked to get in the swim; makes you feel like being nice kids, dear children, sweet little lamb chops, not these grisly goats the Bible speaks of.

Right! That’s little bit thrown in. Don’t do you any harm. That’s my pastoral thought for the day. Love your wives, and wives love your husbands. Love your children and children love you. Everybody love each other. You might get so far as to love me, which I know you do, like I love you, and that’s tremendous.

All right. Now he said:

[124]  [Oh, you] talk about forecast!

What are we talking about this great assurance these prophets had, tremendous assurance. Why they go before the people like a Sherman tank. That’s Moses and talking Aaron, see? Just about lost my thought there, but Lord’s good, brings it back. God said, “There’s a mouth for you, see?”

Men said, “I’m just not able.”

Jeremiah, they just blasted. Like Brother Branham said, they stood before kings and just lowered the boom and had their heads chopped off for it. Didn’t bother them one little bit.

Well, listen; brother/sister, I’m going to tell you something. That same spirit that the prophets had is in you and me today, though it doesn’t work in that office; it works in our office! The same spirit that John the Baptist had, that laid his head on the chopping block, and Peter on the cross, was in millions of people!

Eighty million the Catholics killed, just the Catholics alone, never mind the ones that went before. Hundreds of millions for all we know gladly gave their lives. Same spirit! There’s not a million spirits; there’s one Holy Spirit! with a thousand or a million aspects to Him, or a billion aspects to Him! Always be the same; never changes. You’ve got the same spirit; I’ve got the same spirit. How do we know? Because we listen to a prophet.

Why, listen; back there in those old days, those seven thousand that didn’t bow the knee, didn’t have one bit of trouble with Elijah. They just loved him. Oh, the rest, the Jezebel’s and Ahab’s hated him. They hated his internals. I tell you that. And they got lost from their eternals, too, brother/sister.

You better watch your internals. It will have a lot to do with your eternals. You bet. Yup. That’s my cliché for the day, so I’ll get down to business now. Yes, they had assurance, brother/sister.

[124]  [You] talk about forecasts! [That’s telling events.] They said what would take place down through the ages, as they… stood, lay, walked with the Spirit of Christ upon them, insomuch… they acted like Christ. And the readers would read it and think that the prophets were speaking of themselves.

He’s showing the intimate relationship. In other words, the prophet had his own spirit, but God’s Spirit was in there making the two one so that Christ’s Spirit, His life, came forth.

[124]  You remember the eunuch when he was reading Isaiah 53:1, he read, “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed”? The eunuch said to Philip, “Who is the prophet speaking of, himself or some other man?” See, the prophet spoke as if it were himself.

In other words, this speaks of Christ identified in the prophets. That’s why they were God to the people!

Some say, “What is this fellow talking about, himself or somebody else? Why, it sounds just like he’s talking about himself. Is he talking about himself?”

No. That’s that person in there, Christ speaking in the first person through the third person, really through the second person, you might say. You know, they use the pronoun ‘he’ for the third person, ‘I’ for the first person speaking terms. Well, that’s how it is. God bypassed the ‘he’ entirely, the third person; spoke right out in the first person.

“Well,” they say, “Which first person is it?”

Well, I’ve got to tell you, the speaker’s the third person. The words are coming by the first person, shakes his head, “I don’t understand that.”

Certainly not. You don’t understand prophets! It hasn’t filtered down yet how it is a prophet can just talk: not off the top of his head, but from the tip of his tongue.

Then the others could come by, though not speaking from the top of their head, knowing word by word precisely what God said and how He said it, like William Branham proved it, that he was a prophet. Man came and told him a dream. Said, “Hold it, hold it, I’ll tell you the dream.”

Another man came and started telling a dream and he said, “Hold it, you told it wrong.” How does a man do that? Brother Branham categorically told us, “I’m the only man living,” said he, the only one who could tell it exactly as he saw it and tell it exactly as he heard it.

Brother/sister, you don’t have to worry about William Branham; worry about yourself. Everybody’s worried about Brother Branham even made him a false prophet. Some of these great backers… Oh, great men that loved the miracles, “Oh, Brother Branham, great man, great man, great man, oh great man, great…”

Great man, phooey! With an attitude like that you make him less than nothing! Great man, my foot! Great God! And a man completely subject to God. And a man trying to make his whole life completely subject to God, wherein it wasn’t necessary for the office of a prophet, but for a real, true Christian, just like you and me. Even a slip of his tongue, he’d go and make it right.

Billy Paul tells how his own dad went through Arizona, into the access to the state, and they asked him if they had anything in his car, like you know, fruit and nuts and things like that. He said, “No, not a thing.” Drove all the way to Tucson, two hundred miles from where he was and went through the trunk, and somebody put some pecans in there for him. Now, he could have phoned the man; he could have done burned them. He took it right on back.

Is that a prophet? No, not a prophet per se. That’s just a man of God. What drove him that far? That Spirit of Christ drove him all the way to be a man just as perfect as he could in the image of Jesus Christ with what God gave him. But that had nothing to do with the office in the sense of Brother Branham saying, “THUS SAITH THE LORD.” That office influenced him, but that’s not what made an office. That office is absolutely on its own, brother/sister.

That’s we saw how Balaam, with just the spirit of prophecy upon him, and he not a true prophet but truly was a prophet, his prophecy is coming to pass right today. And you look at the things that Jacob said, though he developed into a tremendous person. Jacob was, as Brother Branham said, categorically a shyster. He was a crook, a con artist. He didn’t mean to be.

And I must admit he reached his hand out for the good things to con. He took a wrong approach spiritually is what he did. He wanted the right thing, but he didn’t know how to get it! And the way to get it was let God do it! Sure, that was the way to do it. He didn’t have to bargain, dicker this and dicker that.

Then finally, the day come when he ran out of dickering. He couldn’t do it. His brother was coming with a big force. He said, “Oh yoi, yoi,” he said. “Forget it. No more dickering,” he said, “God, You got to do it.” You know he tried to dicker, send a little present, do a little this, do a little that, found out that wouldn’t work, nothing would work. Nope. Great man of God: Brother Branham, certainly a great man of God.

All right. Now, watch; he illustrates some more.

[125]  Look at David crying in the Spirit, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? My bones, they stare at me, at me,” (David!) “They pierced my feet and my hands.” (David!) “They pierced my feet and my hands, but Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither will Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption,” as though David were speaking of himself being holy.

Why, David holy? David had problems. And you know what? Self-inflicted problems. He never had legitimate female trouble; he had five hundred wives, just about. But he took somebody else’s wife and killed. Yep. Wasn’t just passion; wasn’t just physical necessity… illicit, entirely illicit.

You read of people like that down here. What about this guy in New Carlisle. Was it the city manager? Solicited a prostitute. Now, why would a man do that with a nice wife and growing up children? No need. Well, David didn’t either.

Not going to condemn anybody; just letting you know, that ain’t got a thing to do with the office of prophet. And if it did have, you know what would happen? People would never judge by the Word of God, they’d go right to their own creeds and dogmas what their own church said.

That’s why the Pentecostal, this kid up there in Fort Wayne, he got all messed up with a woman, a secretary. I don’t understand why a preacher’s got to have female secretaries anyway, should be male secretaries. That’s bad today, too, so I guess better forget that one. God have pity!

Just say do your own work. Have your wife do it and your daughters or somebody else. I didn’t mean to kind of get that away on me, but the point of the matter is it’s true. Sure it’s true, absolutely true. It’s gotten to the whole thing where if the center of the circumference is a whole sore, it’s…

Anyway, anyway, when he straightened up, you know, the big hierarchy, they decided, you know, they were going to deal with him. And so what were they going to do? They said, “Well, I tell you what you do,” he said. “There’s a nice place in Texas you can go to.”

Now, in other words, Assemblies of God in geography is going to make the great cure. I thought a man repented where he was and lived where he was.

And the kid said, “Well,” he said, “you can fly a kite, because I will not do what you say. I have cleaned up my life. I’m going to go on with God no matter what the price is.” They drove him to a place where he got a gun, and he was ready to commit suicide. And that’s when the Lord stepped in and helped in.

Now, I know he doesn’t believe like we do, but I appreciate the fact that the man went ahead, hopefully with Almighty God. Today he’s got a huge work there, and he does whatever he can. I do not agree with what he does. That’s his business, but I’m just showing you here what organization would do. They would overlook the sin. God didn’t.

“You meet our church’s condition, because we know you’re a real worker. We want them that sheep coming in, those cards and letters rolling in, oh yes, we want them big busses down the road, and we know you can produce, so we want you to go to Texas. We’ll put a man in here.”

And that guy’s got a way, way, way bigger church than the guy they put in. Why there’s no comparison between the two fellows gift wise. One’s just a pedantic fop, as far as I can see. Well, maybe I should take that back. He’s pedantic, come out of the general council up there, in Assemblies of God, preach, I think he was preaching or teaching, or something, one of their big places there in Springfield Missouri. They bring him in, going to boot the other guy out, so he’s got that place. So, the plans going ahead.

But you see what we’re saying here? It would never line up. Look! God’s got His Own way, and He doesn’t cotton to anybody; He doesn’t listen to organization and denomination, and the man that’s going to be Bride has got to come God’s way! And that’s a prophet!

Now, when you really believe that and get a hold of that, (God-prophet, prophet-God, nothing else, exclusive.) when you really see it, well, you’re on believer’s ground. Sure, until you believe that, you’re nowhere.

Now, listen.

[125]  …though David was speaking of himself being holy. [David wasn’t.] It was the Son of David, that germatized, spiritual Seed coming down through there.

Now, what in the world does that mean? “It was the Son of David.” Well, he’s talking about the fact of David crying in spirit. And what he said. So therefore, that spirit was coming down. That spirit in the prophets was coming down. And what was that spirit doing? It was giving life to the Word. So therefore, the Word was germatized.

Brother Branham was simply saying this is a Word that must come to pass because this is that Word said there and It will manifest! And It’s ‘germatized’. It means It’s ‘specifically made to come forth at a certain period of time’! because every Word in Its season. Do you follow me? Okay.

[125]  It was the Son of David, that germatized, spiritual Seed coming down through there.

Now here’s what I’m going to say about it: omniscience particularized for redemption. Omniscience is the mind and the perfection of the Almighty’s knowledge and wisdom, what He within Himself contains as concerning what we call mind and all the facets. The whole plan, the whole scope of God Himself lay within Himself, and God knew Himself.

You and I don’t know ourselves, but God does know Himself. You and I do our best to regiment and particularize a certain part of our lives. And there’s no use you trying to go in for mathematics when you’re entirely literary-minded. You can get by, but you’ll be a square peg in a round hole.

Now, this is no square peg in a round hole. This is the particularization of redemption that is to come forth through the shedding of Blood. Do you follow me? That was what was crying out and coming down through David, as it has to come through men. Then secondly there is the natural election; this is the supernatural election.

The natural is there had to be a bloodline. So David’s lineage, the tribe of Judah, was chosen to have the woman who would be honored to produce the physical mechanics and chemistry through her body that this plan necessitated, whereby the Logos could become flesh and dwell among us. So, that’s what you’re looking at.

[125]  Though David himself was a cocklebur, [there he is] but on the inside of him was a wheat grain. You get it? So, the whole Bible is not the word of man, [That’s the whole Bible is not the word of man.] neither was It written by man, or brought by man,… neither can It be revealed by man. It’s God’s Word revealed by Himself, His Own Interpreter…

Now, how’s He going to interpret? Face-to-face, lip-to-ear, through the mouth? I don’t know… vision?! He’s going to do it! Who’s He going to use? A prophet! When’s He going to do it? When He said He was going to do it! When did He say He’d raise up a prophet? At the last day! Who’s He going to raise up? Elijah, that’s who!

You say, “I don’t think I go for all that.”

You don’t have to go for anything. I have no problem, no problem. I know people don’t like the way I preach, because one fellow got mad at me, because… Well, he said, “The fellow,” he said, “preached,” I think he said, “eighteen sermons or so on Ephesians.”

I think I preached, what? Twenty-four or forty-eight, for all I know. He can’t even count straight. Yet he’ll stand up… If I gave him a chance, he’d stand in this pulpit and tell you that Brother Branham was wrong. Not in this pulpit he won’t. In fact, if he came in the door, I’d want to ask my deacons to ask him what he wanted here if I could recognize him.

I think I’ve seen his picture enough and seen him once. I’d wonder what he was doing. I know when I see a cat trying to get into a fishbowl, I know he’s not trying to swim, just pure and simple. I’ve got no time for that stuff.

You know, I’m going to tell you something, brother/sister: the churches today have seminaries to defeat the principles and cause in the life of Jesus Christ. Why would we have that stuff around us? I don’t belong to seminaries in the world out here. We had one vicar; that was William Branham in the flesh. Don’t sell anything short. They can prate all they want. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

[125]  It’s God’s Word revealed by God Himself, His Own Interpreter, [using the prophet. That’s the way He brought It.] Christ revealing Himself in His Own Word. [See?] [Always showing the case for his own ministry.]

[126]  Look at Christ standing back here in David. David couldn’t even think now. His mind had gone from him.

Now, how does he know? Why David, (Brother Branham) since the time of Christ, Brother Branham born in 1909, that’s nineteen hundred years, and David what? Four hundred years before that? Brother Branham talking twenty-three hundred years past that, how does he know?

Why, they said to Jesus, “What do you know? Abraham’s been dead, buried all this time, and David’s been buried, what are you talking about as though you know?”

Well, how did he know? Because God never changes. And he’s a prophet. No problem. Well, look out in nature. Everything goes by instinct out there. How many times have you ever seen a mother and father robin teach little, baby robins of the future how to build nests? They just do their dead level best to get them a nest and get them out of a nest and see they’re on their own, and those kids come on, whup, whup, whup, build a nest.

Well, if God does that in nature, do you think a prophet would come on the scene and not know how the prophets work? Oh faddily-faddily. You throw a bunch of birds in a pen; you throw a bunch of bantam chickens… Well, you put chickens in one, a bunch of them, we’ll put geese in there, and we’ll put some ducks in there, and we’ll put some partridge in there, and what do you see?

You see the chickies go with the chickies, and the duckies go with the duckies, and the geese with the geese, and the partridge with the partridge oh, no problem at all. No problem at all. That’s why Bride goes with Christ. That’s why we have a prophet bringing the Word. That tells it all, come on, these things are so simple it’s just elementary. Sure.

[126]  His mind had gone from him, as it were. [Notice as it were. What happened? The subconscious blipped into the conscious. That’s all. No problem. He was made that way.] And he was hanging on the cross, like you see the statue here; [Brother Branham has that one of Christ on the cross, and made from olive and he] crying, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me? All my bones, they stare at me. They pierced my hands and my feet. They thrust my side.” See? “Why art Thou so far from me? All the bulls of Bashan… encompass me. They wag their heads, saying, ‘He trusted in God, that He would deliver him; now let’s see if He’ll deliver him,’”, speaking the same words.

Jesus said the same words on the cross that David said, either sitting there, penning them, or something. We don’t know because Brother Branham said lying or walking or talking or this and that was of God. Okay.

[126]  So, you see, when God was made manifest on earth here, He said the same words David did.

Well, how could He not? There’s not a dozen spirits. There might be a million manifestations, but the same Spirit! There might be a hundred themes that God is going to work out, a thousand roles in His great drama! hundred thousand chapters! Why there’s trillions out there in space, for all we know, what He’s done and going to do and is doing, Son of God. But it’s particularized as to the hour of the great, dramatic theme!

[126]  …He said the same words David did [when he was manifested. He had to, because it was prophesying of him. You get it?] So, you see, It’s not the word of man.

Now, look; if it’s the Word of God prophesying of this One coming, He’d better say the same thing, or it’s not God. Or where’s His integrity? How could He ask you and me to have some integrity, and we’re His children, and He doesn’t have any? It wouldn’t work. That’s why He wants you and me to be honest and have integrity, because He is integrity personified because “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He’s Truth; that’s integrity. He had to say the same words. No way.

[126]  So,… [they weren’t the] words of a man; it’s the Word of God. That was God in David.

Now you see the Jews back there didn’t put it together! He tried to show them; he tried to tell them. They wouldn’t listen! You know something? I don’t believe that every single word that Jesus said in John and Matthew is all down here. I believe a lot of things he elaborated.

But the theme is all here. There’s no problem; there’s no loss. But if he was that great prophet, don’t you think he took time to answer questions and do things? I believe he did. John said, “All the things he did aren’t recorded here.”

So, I can believe that God, being the kind of God He was, (Look what He did in our day.) gave us all the opportunity. What would He do back there? Gave them all the opportunity and said, “Can’t you understand what David said is talking about this?” A handful understood; nobody else did.

So that was God in David, the germatized seed, God in that role particularized. God’s not only Redeemer. He’s more than that, though that’s the great principle and could cover it all. But what it does, it gets us back to everything. And we honor it and love it. But it was particularized, germatized to that end. See?

Now, it was the Word of God that was in David. What is Brother Branham doing here? He is again approaching his own ministry, telling about it for our sakes, that we might believe, proving that prophecy edifies, which builds up in Christ.

[126]  …that wasn’t David. He didn’t know what he was saying; he was just so deep in the Spirit [is what Brother Branham’s saying. ‘He just so in the Spirit’ means ‘just so deep in the Spirit’]. That’s the way Moses was. He was so in the Spirit, passed out of the dimension he was living in and stood there face-to-face in that burning bush talking to God Himself.

What’s he talking about? Trance and vision. Do you think anybody else would have seen that burning bush that Moses saw? Why they’d have said, “What is it? The guy’s hallucinating.”

Now, I believe Brother Branham, said, “Lee, can’t you see that light on the wall?”

I said, “No, but I see the one who sees the light. It’s good enough for me.” I wasn’t anxious. I wasn’t exactly scared. I wasn’t curious. I thought, “Fine if he does; fine if he doesn’t. But Brother Branham’s here, so great.”

I had the same attitude when that woman in Hartford died. Everybody got excited. I was not excited. I called Brother Branham’s attention. He went into a trance and vision. He said, “Mary come back.” Mary came back. She wasn’t sick any more until she died. She was old then.

Brother Way fell across my feet. I helped to sort of lay him out. Mrs. Way was just going through the roof, you know, several roofs in a row. She was very excitable. Didn’t bug me one little bit.

I said, “What are you worried about?” I said, “Brother Branham’s here.”

God raised him from the dead.

I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see Brother Way’s spirit leave him, when Brother Branham saw it. I didn’t see Mary walking out the door. Brother Branham saw her just disappearing out the auditorium door. I didn’t see any of that. I saw the prophet.

You see, now you don’t see these things; you come by, and you say, Moses said, “There’s a light burning. There’s a fire. The bush is on fire.”

“Moses, you know, there’s some berries out here in the desert. You weren’t eating some of those berries, were you? It makes the sheep go crazy, you know. Did you think, you know, that you could eat those berries and get away with it?”

Down in Mexico they eat mushrooms? What? You think they’re going to believe that and that? Oh, come on. They’re not going to believe anything. Poor old Dr. Macdonald. Perry Green, you know, he made a real stab at Dr. Macdonald and make Macdonald admit something about those cloud of angels.

I guess Macdonald literally blasphemed; he ended up killing himself. His wife divorced him. He tried to kill himself, nearly blinded himself, but he found another way and did kill himself.

You say, “Was that brought on by that?”

I don’t know. It could have been.

But you see, a scientist doesn’t care. Why they’re too scientific. Why don’t they go out in the graveyard and raise the dead sometime? Let’s get really scientific; let’s get some real science going. Engineers, what they do, they make roads, and they make it so that everybody gets killed going in and out of them, and then they blame it on the drivers when it’s blamed on the engineer.

And the only decent piece of road ever made in America was by a woman engineer. So, the only road is made by the Bride. You know what I mean? She’s on the only road there is, and she’s got the only Word that works. What is the road, nobody else has got it. Oh, brother, let’s… you talk about a mess.

And he said:

[126]  God said, “Take your shoes off. The ground you’re standing on is holy ground.” I imagine when Moses left there, he thought, “What happened?

Now, somebody say, “Oh, that’s ‘puh’. Why these fellows under the anointing, they just come in, you know, and they go out and everything is just…”

Just a minute, everything is what? How do you know? Were you there? Huh?

Remember that old Baron Munchausen series years ago, and Charlie, the attendant? And every time old Munchausen would started talking, Charlie would say, “Just a minute, Baron, that’s not how it is.”

He said, “Vas you there, Charlie?”

He said, “No.”

“Vell,” he said, “that’s the vay it vas.” (Laughter)

They’ve got too many Charlie’s around. They don’t know the real aristocracy. So they want to tell you how a prophet would act. How would they know? How would you know? How would I know? No way! No way No way! Because unless you’re built peculiar, with a conscious and subconscious… and you could be built peculiar, all right: nuttier than a fruitcake. You bet, there’s a lot of those going around. Oh, they hear voices, inquiries, everything else, and they see things.

You bet they do, and some are just shrewd enough to be shrewd, and they’re devilish, and they’re hellish, and they’re mentally corrupt, everything else, and some of them are just poor blinkers. They blink in and out of anything.

Not prophets, brother/sister, oh no, no, no, no, no!

But I tell you what, they’re like Daniel, they get pretty fogged up. Daniel saw visions; sick for days, twenty-one days, I think. Or was it three days? Anyway it was a long time sick in there, just like a head trouble. Brother Branham would come to a place where he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t real, the visions coming too fast and too many.

You say, “Well, if that was a prophet, he wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown.”

Who said he wouldn’t? Are you God?

“Well, he’d do so and so.”

Then why aren’t you doing something? You tell me. Did you wake up early this morning to tell God what to do? I don’t think you could.  Why, you couldn’t do it anyway because God’s always awake, and the sun just… The world keeps rolling and sun never sets. Oh no, we think it does, but it doesn’t set, it just keeps rolling. How are you going to wake up in time to tell God anything?

Remember what the Bible says? He said, “Keep thy mouth, and it goes in the house of the Lord, for remember that God is in heaven, thou art on earth; let thy words be few.” Don’t give the sacrifice of fools, He said, because you’re going to be judged for what you say.

Well, these people, they don’t understand a prophet; they don’t care about a prophet. They’ve got their own ideas. See? But Brother Branham says it correctly here, by his knowing how God deals with prophets, because he was a prophet, and he is a prophet right now. Don’t worry, so was Samuel; so was David. They’re all prophets. All got their roles to play. They’re still doing it somehow in the great economy of God.

And if you could be with Brother Branham like he was with… There was a man named Rogers. Brother Branham had great hope for that man, but first thing you knew the man had a woman prophetess in his church preaching and never could leave the Trinitarian dogma. That took care of that.

But anyway, he was with Brother Branham one time, sitting on his porch talking. Two hours later he said, “Oh, Brother Rogers, I’m sure glad to see you here.” Where was he? Talking intelligibly for two solid hours, that man. That man didn’t know it.

One day at the table, my wife will tell you, she sat there, and he said, “Sis. Vayle are you really here?”

She said, “Yeah, I’m here Brother Branham.”

Well, he said, “Good,” he said, “because that could have been a vision for all I know of.”

You say, “Well, I don’t think that’s the way it should be!”

Wonderful! Well, I tell you, I don’t like the way I am, will be please do something about it? You won’t? What kind of a bird are you anyway? You sure talk big. You’re going to change a prophet and can’t even change me? That’s like getting mad at God and getting a big four-by-four and beating Him up.

You see what happens, brother/sister? why Brother Branham had the trouble he had? and why he kept on referring how the people don’t believe a prophet, “Only a man, only a man, only a man?” Why? Because he was letting them know: you’re only a man; you’re only a man; you’re only a man. What are you doing? But he was nice. He was not like me, see.

Now, if he was like me, he’d have preaching like me today. That would have been horrors. Mustn’t do that. We’ve got good preaching when Brother Branham preaches, good spirit. I’m kind of nasty. He did admit that, did tell a friend of mine. He said, “Look,” he said, “trouble with Lee is he defends me too much.”

Well, I hope he wouldn’t say that today, because that’s not my point. My point is to show you there’s a reality, and we must not stick our nose in it, and we must not become judges. We must be believers, see, believers. That’s where the salvation is, brother/sister.

When God dynamizes that Word to you and me, and in us, we’re going to get out of here. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. You’re on the right track; stay on the right track. We’ll see that later on down, maybe another three or four sermons.

[126]  [Now,] God said, “Go down into Egypt. I’ll go with you.” [And Moses] said, “It’s so real to me, I must go.” He got his wife and his children, his child, rather and his stick in his hand, and took off to Egypt, to deliver the people. See?

[127]  God speaking Himself, through the prophets.

Now, you could say Brother Branham should have not put that word in there, ‘Himself’, in the wrong place. “God speaking, Himself, through the prophets,” should have been “God Himself speaking through the prophets,” but either way, it sure is good.

See, it’s good both ways, so just let what the prophet said go there. In other words it’s that old saying, you know, what they said, “Here was Moses, a one man army, going to take over Egypt,” and the same old saying is this, “God in one man constitutes a majority.”

It was just like Elijah: one man just took over the whole scene by the power of God. Look at Elisha: one man took over a whole army, the Syrians. Of course, God did it. But you got to give credit where credit is due, and the credit goes to Elisha and to Elijah and to Moses and these men in respect and honor as the vicars of Christ, true representatives of God, God to the people.

Sure. Yes sir. Yup. God through the prophets. Not God Himself using His Own lips, but using the lips He has a right to use, because they’re all His. All flesh is God’s.

[127]  See, they’re absolutely… It isn’t the prophets; it was God because the prophets, of themselves, couldn’t say those things. “Who has believed our report?” Isaiah saying, “Who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He shall grow up before us as a calf in a stall. [It’s a tender plant in dry ground.] And how that, [But I don’t discredit that statement, it’s the same, it’s also true.] yet, He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, chastisement of our peace upon Him; with His stripes we were healed.” We were healed way over here in this age here, and Isaiah, back… eight hundred years before Christ. See? “By His stripes we were,” past tense, already “healed.” Oh, my! How, the Word of God’s so perfect! Trust in It, folks. It’s the only thing that can save you.

Now, he doesn’t say or tell to trust in me not even his ministry. He tells you to trust in what the ministry brought forth. Now:

[128]  All other words, I don’t care how well they’re placed, who they come from, what denomination they come from, or how smart the man is, are to be absolutely ignored if it’s anything contrary to the Word. You want to put that Scripture down, It’s Galatians 1:8. See? Paul said, “Though we, or an Angel from Heaven would preach any other thing than this that you’ve already heard, let him be accursed.”

Then, how could Brother Branham be off this Word and be a true prophet of God?

Well, they say, “Well you see, he was cursed because he died in a car wreck.”

Well, who’s to judge that? Who’s to judge that? If that’s the case, then Paul must have died for the same reason; they chopped his head off. Then Jesus must have been a mess, although we do know he was cursed for our sake. See, you’ve just got to understand these things.

[128]  In other words, if an Angel would come to you from Heaven, a bright, shining angel, and would stand; boy, would that be bait for this day, wouldn’t it? A bright, shining angel come up there and stand and say things was contrary to the Word; you say, “Satan, get away from me.” That’s right. If he’s a bishop, if he’s… whatever he is, don’t you ever believe him if he doesn’t speak exactly with that Bible, Word by Word.

Now, look; that’s all right about talking about an angel. How many people actually see angels or what they think are angels? Not very many. Nah, in Florida we had those that saw lights. You know, that’s okay. If you get drunk or take something you shouldn’t take, or get hit in the head, you’ll see lights too. That’s okay. I don’t go for lights. There’s no point in it.

But I’ll tell you one thing: not many people get visions either. And not too many get dreams that really, you know, mean something or think they mean something. Oh, a lot of people open their refrigerator door and the light’s out, that means, you know, some in the dark, which is the food in the refrigerator, but you know they’re a little bit funny.

But listen, those things that are phenomenal, they are not many in number, but oh boy, you watch those bishops. You’ve got a lot of them.

[128]  If he’s a bishop… 

Now, a bishop is an elder. Now, you watch any talk about elders because old elders go two ways. ‘Elder’ in one instance means ‘the older person in the Lord Jesus Christ, a mature, real Christian’; that could make anybody, any male qualify. He’s got the rest of the thing said. That’s also the word ‘bishop’. Then there’s also an elder by virtue of the fact that he is appointed one, elected one in the church.

And you notice that these bishops always are out there in a big status, and it means nothing. Right away when you’re a bishop it means you’re false unless you’re in a little, old, local church. It means you just use the name for ‘elder’, that’s all you’re doing, a man apt to teach, living a godly life and is filling in, in the ministry.

So, how in the world can they have cardinals and bishops and prelates and this and that in these churches out here and be of God? There’s no way. District presbyters. A district presbyter is a district bishop. So, where are they from God? They’re not of God!

You say, “Well Brother Vayle…”

Listen, we’ll get down, and we’ll find out that God burns up the whole world, and that takes in the churches. Now, these fellows come around. See? There’s people traveling all the time. They just love this idea. You know, this guy that I mentioned that said Brother Branham didn’t tell the truth, he made a mistake, he’s with this kick here about elders, something about elders. Then you get them running around, they say they’re apostles.

A fellow used to come visit me a lot. I used to love the guy a great deal. I still love him. I think we could be friends, but he wanted to run, because he was going to be the great apostle. I would be the great teacher; he would be the great apostle. Well, I ain’t no great teacher, and he ain’t no great apostle. I just took care of that. But I would be a great one if I listened to him. He’d come around and take care of the churches.

Oh no, not in my books you don’t. You go your own. The supreme authority is the pastor here, whether you like it or not. I don’t think anybody worries, because the only authority I try to carry is the Word here, just teach the Word and go on. I try to live It, you try to live It, that takes care of the whole situation. If you don’t, that’s your business, not mine. We’re not playing little games anymore. See?

See, now all right here, these bishops, you’ve got to watch them, you see. Because there’s lots of stuff in the church, somebody likes to take over and take you off the Word.

[128]  [Now,] if he’s a bishop, he’s… whatever he is, don’t you ever believe him if he doesn’t speak the Bible exactly, Word by Word. Watch him, he’ll carry you with the Bible now. He’ll carry you [In other words, he’ll use some of the Scripture, then he’ll carry you.]… and then hook it right in there. [Put a hook in you.] When you see the Bible saying one thing, and he bypasses that, watch him right there… like the way he did to Eve.

Now, he puts the bishop and Satan right together, so you can tell there’s two spirits. One’s the Spirit of God goes right to the Word that’s written and interpreted and lived, the whole thing; the other goes right out. Okay.

[128]  See, that’s the way he done Eve. He come right down and said everything just exactly.

“Well, God said this.”

“That’s right, Eve. Amen. We believe that, together.”

“Well, God said this.”

“Amen. We believe that, together.”

“God said this.”

“We believe that, sure.”

“Well, but God said we’ll die.”

[129]  “Well, now, you know, He’s a good God.” You know Satan didn’t say He wouldn’t, you know. “But surely…” Oh, my! There he is. And if he was deceitful like that, and the Bible said, “In the last days he would deceive the elected if it were possible,” where ought we to be today, friends? Now, these little Sunday school lessons are, should be carried pretty close, you know, to our hearts… We ought to listen real close and see how deceiving that thing is.

Now, you’ll notice that back there Satan misinterpreted the Word to Eve. See? And you know what happened? He denied the judgment! Right. He denied the judgment of God, which was death. Today it is spiritual death! David du Plessis, Mr. Pentecost, denied categorically Brother Branham as a prophet of judgment. And he said, “That man who judged was judged himself.”

And that means that every member of the bride of Christ that was eaten by lions and made dung upon the face of the field was a miscreant. No prophet of God was ever a prophet of God without judging and condemning, because it always been to tear down, then build up. They don’t understand; never will.

How can they understand Christ? They can’t, because they don’t know it was the same Spirit. It doesn’t know it was that same germatized Word, in other words the Spirit that had that Word, that innate Word, or rather that living Word, that was innate, of course, in there.

Now that He manifested in His form for the hour, and that came down in the person of Lord Jesus Christ, they don’t recognize the same Spirit is moving! Yet they will attempt to recognize any manifestation of any spirit, even recognizing the Spirit of God, but not placing it! Then, brother/sister, it’s entirely wrong.

What if I had my hand growing out of my shoulder up here? You could not deny that that was a real hand growing out of my shoulder with real flesh and with real life, but you’d say, “Ah-hah it doesn’t jive.” Neither do these things that the Word talks about, but the prophet condemned and said they’re false anointed. Do you see what I’m talking about? Okay, let’s understand these things.

Now, listen; reasoning took this woman to a misinterpretation. Then what would dislocating and misplacing the Scripture do in this hour? And we have all of it in this hour, not just some of it. See? And Brother Branham said, “This is a Sunday school lesson.” Why did he say that? He was letting the folk know this was the real Sunday school; the stuff that they wanted of him, and he gave them, was not it.

He said Sunday school in itself was a Methodist dogma, the ragtag school is what it was, raggedy tag school, little kids off the street. Salvation Army did a lot of work on it and so on. I’m not against those things, but he said it is not of God. And I’ve seen church after church messed up with Sunday school, and I’ve seen it all along. It always will do it, but you get the kids sitting with their parents where they belong, you’ll see the kids grow up if they’re going to grow up at all, find the things of Jesus Christ.

I think our time is pretty well gone, so we’ll just call this hour and a half, and we’ll just… Sorry about that, we got from page what? Thirty to thirty-two? Well that’s better than just four paragraphs, we must admit. So, if you don’t think I’m improving, I agree with you.

No problem there. But I trust this is not some little Sunday school thing except, I agree with Brother Branham, we’ll make it that so you get rid of the other thoughts on Sunday school and make this your Sunday school. And listen real close and get away from these deceiving things because, brother, they deceive us.

Christ is in that Word, and He can only be brought out into His magnificent beauty by the One Who reveals It. And if we’ve got the same Spirit he has in the measure that we need, for what we need, then, brother/sister, there’ll be a perfect coming together. And there with the Holy Ghost and His human vicar, we’re all going to be getting out of here one of these days, to the glory of God and to our own eternal good.

The Lord bless you. So, let’s rise at this time and be dismissed.

Gracious, kind, eternal Father, again we want to praise You for the time we’ve had together, a real time of socializing, Father, and communing, talking as it were back and forth with each other, Lord, looking at this Word, agreeing and enjoying It, Lord. We’re so happy that we know that it’s just like You said, they would come together one time and talk this Word, and that’s how we feel these meetings are, Lord. It’s just as it were a conversation, going back and forth, Lord, amongst us all here, one family discussing the Word, Lord. You might use my mouth for it, Lord, and I appreciate You’ve allowed that privilege, O God, but in my own mind and thinking it is a communication, Lord, of one together having fellowship one with each other and with You, walking in the Light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing. Father, what else? You just made the way. Your commandments are Your enablement’s as one person said and Brother Branham also said, proving it true to us, that You made the commandment; therefore, You had to make a way for It. And here we are with this way, Lord, everything just dovetailing, everything coming together. We appreciate it so much, Lord.

Now, Father, may that sweet spirit develop amongst us, because we need it as never before, real sweet spirit, O God, real sweet spirit, no rejection, just humbly going day by day, humbly moving on, Lord. That’s the way we want it just sweetly, kindly moving on, Lord, until one day there’ll be everyone healed amongst us, and we’re all getting out of here, the witness of the Resurrection. That, Father, we know the witness has already been here, but we speak of this One the prophet spoke of, and, Lord, we’re so grateful to know that he said it.

Father, we commend ourselves to You, and we just thank You again for being with us. It’s been so enjoyable, so kind and so loving of You. We just appreciate this fellowship so much, Lord. What would we do without it? Everything else pales before it, Lord. It’s worth a sacrifice, worth everything, O God in heaven. And we cannot thank You enough. We cannot praise You enough.

We thank You for every single person here this morning, every home represented, and those homes that couldn’t be here, Lord. We know that some is a matter, Lord, of inability to come, some there’s just one reason here, one reason there, but knowing, Lord, one day these doors are going to be closed. We know that, knowing one day, Lord, the prophet said they’d stop us. They’d stop us. I don’t know when that is, Lord, but he said it would be, and I don’t think he’s talking to foolish virgin, and I don’t believe he was, maybe he was, I don’t know.

[Recording ends]