Leadership #03

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we acknowledge Your Presence and we know truly that You are that One that followed Israel, You are that Rock, and that Cloud by day, and the Pillar of Fire by night, and You certainly were there in Messiah.

We understand these things, and appreciate the fact that You are the One that brought the Word to Paul, and now here, revealing that same Word, having revealed It, and standing here now, the Pillar of Fire, to take us into the Millennium, but first of all, raising the dead, and transforming a people, at the same time, and taking the Bride up to the Wedding Supper to the Reincarnation.

These things, Lord, we stand on to be truth, to be absolutely evident by vindication. And we thank You, Lord, that this is that hour, in spite of the fact that many evidences in the world and all, at this time, do not seem to go along with Your Word, Lord-it never has, and never will.

Except for the fact that It’s proven to be true, which we are happy about, and therefore know that things are climaxing rapidly and no matter what any man says, what any man’s plans are, we already know what You’ve said and what Your plans are, and we rejoice in them, Lord.

Help us to study Your Word today, to feed our souls, to be more and more full of the Holy Ghost, to come more and more to that stature of the perfect man, right to Headship, where the Bride of Christ, individuals all conforming that Bride.

Maybe as Brother Branham said, “Those living, moving, statues,” God in them, and they, completely controlled by Him through that life of the Word, and then going into immortality for a greater sanctification, for a greater work.

These promises we have from You, Lord, vindicated to us, and we’re grateful. So, we thank You for Your Presence and what You do for us.

In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

You may be seated.

Now we’re in Leadership number 3, and Brother Branham has taken for his reading Mark 10:17-22, which portion of Scripture is usually called “The Rich Young Ruler,” and he used it in a two-fold thought of ‘follow Me’ and “leadership.”

It is very evident that when Jesus invited this young man to follow him, he was also inviting him to accept His leading or His leadership, which the youth declined.

Now right there, of course, the youth had asked him for the way to eternal life, and you notice that Christ set it forth.

Now Brother Branham then begins by illustrating that each and every one of us is lead by someone or something. From our first step to our last step, there is either someone or something that is in control over and above and beyond ourselves.

It is very telling in that he is talking to men who have assumed leadership, practically around the world of Christendom, and he is telling them about the fact that God has likened us to sheep, which cannot find their way, and require a leader-not a lot of leaders-a leader.

Even in their slaughter, they are led, but how horribly in that a goat-not another sheep-leads them into the chute to the slaughter pen, and then, the goat jumps over the fence and leaves them to their destruction.

Is Brother Branham telling these men that they are leading the church into Rome and great tribulation and second death? It is certainly so as we see it today. Brother Branham, then, tells of himself hearing the lost lamb and carrying it in his bosom until he was able to find its mother.

Is it possible that he is thinking of bringing a Bride, lost in Laodicea, to its true mother, the New Jerusalem? I’m sure he’s done it.

Then, as in many messages, he begins to talk of God in nature, as he points these men to Jesus Christ, in hopes that they will point and lead others to that Great Leader.

And so, we’re ready to start reading here. And after Brother Branham talks about that little lamb that he took in his bosom, he talks about God carrying him in His arms, a lamb, across that river into his journey’s end, to a land where there’s no sorrow, sickness, and things, and “I’ll be with the ones that I love.” And that is true.

Now he says:

[21]  If you’ll study nature, there’s a great understanding to be found in nature. Everything that I look at, and God has made it, He’s the Author of nature. Nature runs in continuity. All nature runs about the same.

In other words, there’s set laws and it all abides by those laws, and God is keeping those laws in order.

You notice, everything… As I have said, I believe last evening, that “Nature testifies of God.” If you never had a Bible, you could still watch nature and know that this Bible is the Truth.

[22]  Now I’ve had the privilege of going around and around the world. And I’ve read many histories, and I’ve seen different religions; the Mohammedans, and I’ve read the Koran, I’ve seen the Shiites, the Jains, the Mohammedans, the Buddhists, and whatmore.

But yet, each of them, they have a philosophy, a book of creeds and a book of laws, and so forth. But our Bible is the Truth, and our God is the only one that is right; because each one of them has to point to a grave somewhere where their founder is still lying, but Christianity points to an open tomb and can live in the Presence of the One that was put in there. He is alive! It’s not a God that was, It’s a God that IS. Not an “I was” or a “will be,” but an “I AM.”

Now he’s talking about God per se, but he’s also talking about Jesus Christ, the Son, that was made the sacrifice, that Jesus was raised from the dead.

And, if you go back to the Book of Acts, you will find that that is identically what Peter speaks on the day of Pentecost and shows them that because Jesus was raised from the dead by God, now God is able to do these things that God could not do otherwise.

So, this is what you’re looking at here: that we are pointing to our prophet. Every one of these people point to a prophet or some philosopher-a Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, and whoever else. It doesn’t matter; there are scads of them.

And they talk about updating. Prophet Mohammed came along and somebody else came along, and he had a better revelation. Then, the Mormons came along with Joe Smith.

You talk about a… Hey, listen, if anything is nuttier than a fruitcake, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the midst of their insanity.

But he’s showing that everyone has a prophet, and everyone points to a tomb wherein the bones lay, but our prophet rose from the dead. You see? And remember, our prophet was a man.

God was in him, but he’s still a man, because God has to deal with man through men. That’s the law laid down and you’re not going to change it. But there’s a big difference in just taking that statement.

You’ve got to understand God raises that man up according to foreknowledge, election, and predestination, forming him in the womb in a certain way that other people are not formed.

Now people aren’t going to believe that. Who gives a rip? These guys here say, “Well, I believe that, I believe that they were formed a certain way, too.”

Well, that’s fine, but you understand also the devil has a part in forming, too. The devil, the prince of the power of air, he’s got a lot of power over the human body, genetics and everything else.

So anyway, we’re looking now at an empty tomb, because God raised that man, Christ Jesus, from the dead; and therefore, having raised him to His right hand, to the Mercy Seat, make him mediating and interceding, we find that there now is a way that God has bridged the gap.

And we know that the tomb is empty, and our God always was, and is, and He’s known as the ‘Great I Am’, which none of these others can possibly prove, because they do not have what lies in Christianity, that is, the true manifestation.

Now Brother Branham here in saying, “God is not a God that wasn’t, but He’s a God that is, not a ‘was’, and ‘will be’.” He is an ‘I Am’. And he speaks, of course, at the time, talking about the empty tomb. And this is the language that Oneness people use.

But what is the exact historical and proven truth of what Brother Branham is saying here? Well, I’ve been talking about it from Acts 2, but we’ll just take Acts 10, where the Gentiles have received an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

And you’re going to find Peter saying the same thing to them that he said to the Jews in Acts 2:22-36, and 10:

Now notice that “the Word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ,” there are three people involved there: God, Israel, and Jesus. And you can count it any way you want; you can’t come up with two.

Now you can come up with one God with one Message to one people, but how did it come through? One Lord Jesus Christ. So, don’t try to finagle, or you’ll come up with Jesus-Only, and then, you’re not part of this Message. I don’t care what anybody says; I’m going to stand with the prophet.

Now It tells you that Jesus was there, and God was with him, and that’s two people. You might say, “Well, it’s one and a half.”

No, it’s not. It’s two people, and God is in Christ reconciling the world.

Acts 10:

So, here’s what you’re looking at here: you’re looking at the empty tomb, because God raised him. Everybody else talks of a prophet, of a philosopher, somebody that brought truth. You see? But nobody can point back to an empty tomb except Christianity.

Now Christianity, as we know it today, in its modern, filtered condition, where they’ve filtered out the Truth and the Light, cannot point to it. All they can do is talk about it, and they really don’t believe it.

That’s why the churches are so dead, and you have what you’ve got: such corruption today, where the kids even say there’s no relativity between God and people. If God exists, fine; He runs His business, we run ours.

He does what He wants, and maybe in the end, He’ll have finality. But, as long as He’s the way He is, and we find nothing relative, then, all right. What does it matter what anybody does? We’ll see what happens later on.

Well, you see, the churches have bypassed every point of vindication. They never have wanted it, only a teeny, teeny Elect-like that little sheep here that needed help. All right.

Now:

[23]  …All nature runs in continuity, as I have said, talking to our Church Ages, on our church ages (which the books are now coming out). Uhm about my writing of The Church Ages. How that we see the Church, how It’s matured, and come up just exactly like all nature does.

Now there might be a certain amount of agreement there at that meeting, that the Church is maturing, and they’re looking at themselves as the great nurturers and ‘maturers’ of the Church.

Because remember, these are the ones, who, like the fundamental businessmen, formed the ‘Fishers of Men’, these Full-Gospel Businessmen. They started in opposition to spread the lie of the evidence of the baptism with the Holy Ghost.

Now, if you’ve got a false evidence,… huh?… how can you have, then, a false or a real Holy Ghost, if you’ve got something false? Can’t be. There’s no way. If I’ve got a genuine robin, it is not going to produce brown eggs, won’t do it.

If I’ve got a white chicken, it produces white eggs; brown chicken produces brown eggs. It doesn’t mean that a red chicken is going to produce red eggs. It doesn’t mean a Bantam hen with sixteen colors is going to produce sixteen colored eggs. But we’re looking at this as evidence.

Now Brother Branham will talk about that evidence. Now these people here have boasted leadership. The five-fold ministry failed, so they’re going to take over.

Do you remember what happened to the first Church and the first Church Age under Paul? All the elders came together, and they took precedence over the five-fold ministry. Now an elder should be blameless. These guys are a bunch of liars. They were liars in the beginning; they are liars now!

Say, “Brother Vayle, don’t you think they came in with a genuine, true motive, the true love of God in their hearts?”

Hold it, please! I just don’t feel like vomiting, especially on you, this morning. And I don’t want to go out here, holding my mouth, running, because I’ve got to throw up. What are you trying to tell me, if your thinking is so loose this morning, you here and those on tapes?

Are you trying to tell me the Word of God lies? These men are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They set a trap! They dig a ditch! And my Bible says they’re going to fall into it. Blind leaders of the blind!

On the other hand, you have this consolation: the elect cannot be deceived. They’ll never believe a lie, no matter how sugar-coated it is, and how delicious to the taste. Do you know a baby, a little child, can eat Ex-Lax, which is very, very delicious?

And he’ll die of diarrhea, because it contains a virulent poison that the stomach rejects, and it rejects the kid with it. And children have died eating Ex-Lax. You don’t believe it? I’ll get you the history on it.

Everything is sugar-coated: “Thou shalt not surely die.”

Everything has a promise of durability and endurance and success at the end; but it doesn’t, except for the Word of the Living God, which is truly understood as God gave It.

Now he said here:

[23]  …How we see the Church, how It’s matured, came up exactly like all nature does.

They are going to mature the church through spreading a false evidence of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, though the doctrine of the baptism is correct, yet their understanding is incorrect, because they say you can be born again and then filled with the Holy Ghost.

And the old fundamental idea, even by like Dr. Macrossan, was ‘you are born to the Spirit of Jesus Christ when you are born again, but you’re not filled with the Spirit of God’.

Whoeee! I thought Jesus had the same Spirit. Yeah. Brother Branham said, “You’re born again by the baptism with the Holy Ghost.”

Paul said, “Because you are Seed;” didn’t become Seed, but “because you are, God gave the Spirit,” clearing with Galatians 3, making a way through the Blood. As It says in Hebrews, “The Spirit answers to the Blood.” If you’ve been thoroughly cleansed by the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no way the Holy Ghost will not come in.

You say, “Just a minute, Brother Vayle, the point is to be thoroughly cleansed, and then, there’s a fight between the devil and that person, which way you’ll go, so seven more devils could come in.”

Ho! Ho! Ho! I never heard such stupidity. An elect child of God? Why, that means God turned him over to Satan. Because then, you turn him over to Satan for? Well, the man’s climbing and screaming to God; God says, “Hey, I don’t want you,” and turns him over to Satan?

Well, how could… See? I’m trying to tell you something: if nature runs in continuity, let me tell you something: there’s something in continuity over the continuous nature! And a million times stronger and a million times greater. The church matured.

Catholics are vying with the Full-Gospel Businessmen. All Protestants, whether they are Fishers of Men, or anything else, they’re vying, and they’re claiming the Church will come to perfection through them.

Oh, boy! If this is perfection, please count me out. I’m not interested.

Now, watch what Brother Branham is saying here:

[24]  As we were talking the other day how about the sun rises in the morning, it’s a little boy, real weak, not much strength to it at all. As the day goes on, it gets stronger and stronger. By eight o’clock it enters school, like a young boy or young girl.

About eleven o’clock it’s out of school, it’s ready for its service. That’s its career. Then across until three o’clock it changes, in the middle life into old age. And then it dies in the afternoon. Is that the end of the sun? No.

It comes back the next morning to testify that there is a life, a death, a burial, a resurrection, and a continuation of that same Light that was hidden for a while, under a cover, as it were. Eternal life may be blanketed, but it can never cease. It doesn’t disappear, go into a nonexistent state. That’s just the physical part. It’s always there… Resurrection. See?

[25]  We watch the trees, how they move and what they do. I was sometime ago down in Kentucky, I like to squirrel hunt, I went down in the fall of the year to hunt squirrels with a friend of mine. It got very dry.

[26]  And anyone ever hunted a gray squirrel, know that how hard it is to slip up on them when the leaves are crackling. Houdini is an amateur escape artist to those fellows, how they can get away! And then trying to shoot eye shots at fifty yards, it takes some good hunting to get your limit in a day. [In other words, he shot them through the eye so the squirrel wouldn’t be messed up by a bullet.]

[27]  So, Mr. Wood, a friend of mine, a converted Jehovah Witness, was with me. And he said, “I know a farm over there where there’s a man, he’s got a lot of them, in what we call “the hollers.”

[28]  And he said, How many people know what a holler is? [Then they raised their hand, a lot of you.] What part of Kentucky are you from? Well, he said, That’s where I’m from. See?

[29]  Like here now long ago here not long ago in one of the chapters… I was telling Brother Williams this, that they said, “We’ll now stand and sing the national anthem.”

[30]  And I said, “For my old Kentucky home.” So, nobody joined with me… That was the only anthem I knew. And that’s a pretty good, little, cute thing in there because nobody ever joined with him that I know, when he preached the Gospel, either, down amongst those people.

So, Brother Branham, then, prays for a lady, and then, he goes on:

[33]  On with the little story just to kind of get a feeling before we get right down to the few notes I’ve got written here, and some Scripture.

[34]  Now he said, “This old man, we’ll go over there and see him. He’s got a lot of hollers in his place, but he’s an infidel. He’d just about curse us out if we went over there.”

[35]  And I said, “But we’re not getting any squirrels here, and we’ve been camping two weeks. And we’re dirty, and our beard’s all out and all over our faces.”

[36]  And he said, “Well, let’s go over.”

[37]  So we went down a few miles, about twenty miles. I’d been in the country down there once before, for three nights, at a Methodist camp meeting where they had some great things the Lord had done, and great healing services amongst the Methodist people.

And then we went way back over some hills and hollers and ridges. And you just have to know Kentucky to know what kind of a place you had to get into. Now a ‘hollow’ or a ‘holler’, as they call them, is like a declivity between hills or mountains, so that’s what they call that… your hills and valleys.

And while we went back there we came to the house, and there sat two old men out there, with their old hats slouched down over their faces, and Brother Wood said “There he, is he’s the tough one. He hates that word ‘preacher’.”

[38]  So I said, “Well, I just better sit in the car, or we won’t get to hunt at all. You go in and ask if we can hunt.”

[39]  So he got out and started walking in, and spoke to them. And in Kentucky, always, you know, it’s “Come in,” and so forth. And so, he went up there and he said, “I just wondered if we could hunt a while on your place.”

[40]  And the old man sitting there, about seventy-five years old, tobacco running down his mouth, spit, and he said, “What’s your name?”

He said, “My name is Wood.”

He said, “Are you relation to that old man Jim that used to live…” probably ‘here’.

He said, “Yeah, I’m Jim’s boy’s son. I’m Banks.”

[41]  “Well, old man Jim was an honest man. Certainly, help yourself. Are you by yourself?”

And Banks spilled the beans: He said, “No, my pastor is out there.”

He said, “What?”

He said, “My pastor is out in the car, and he’s hunting with me.”

[42]  He said, “Wood, you don’t mean you’ve got so low-down till you have to tote a preacher with you wherever you go?”

[43]  He’s a rough, old character, so I thought I’d better get out of the car, you know. So, I walked around, and he said, “Well, you’re a preacher, huh?”

[44]  I said, “Yes, sir.” He looked me up and down (squirrel blood, and dirt on me) he said, “Well, don’t look much like it.”

[45]  “And I kind of like that.” He said, “You know, I want to tell you something. I’m supposed to be an infidel!”

[46]  I said, “Yes, sir, I understand that, but I don’t think it’s much to brag about, though. Do you?”

[47]  He said, “Well, I don’t know. I’m going to tell you what I think of you guys.”
I said, “Well, all right.”

[48]  He said, “You’re barking up the wrong tree.” Now how many knows what that means? See? It means it’s a lying dog, you see; the coon’s not up there at all, see. He said, “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

I said, “That’s your opinion.”

[49]  He said, “Well, look, you see that old chimney standing up there?”
I said, “Yeah.”

[50]  I was born up there, seventy-five years ago. I’ve lived right here in these hills all along through all these years. I’ve looked towards the skies, I’ve looked here and there, and, surely, in all these seventy-five years, I would have seen something that looked like God. Don’t you think so?”

[51]  I said, “Well, it depends on what you’re looking, at or what you’re looking for.”

[52]  And he said, “Well, I certainly don’t believe there is such a creature. And I believe you fellows just simply get out and swindle the people out of their money and everything. And that’s the way it goes.”

[53]  I said, “Well, you’re an American citizen, you have a right to your own thinking.”

[54]  He said, “There’s one guy, one time though, that I heard of, that I sure would like to meet. If I would ever get to talk to that fellow, I’d like to ask him a few questions”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

[55]  He said, “He was a preacher, you might know him. He had a meeting up here in Campbellsville not long ago, in a church yard up there, a campground. I forget his name. But he’s from Indiana.”

And I said, “Oh? Yes, sir.”

[56]  [And Brother Wood started to say], “Well…” [So Brother Branham kicked him. I know that stopped him.] He said, “What about him?”

[57]  He said, “Well, the old lady… forget her name… up there on the hill… You know, she was dying with cancer. And my wife and I would go up there of a morning to change her bed. They couldn’t even raise her up high enough to put her on a bedpan, just had to pull a draw sheet. She was dying. She had been to Louisville, and said the doctors had given her up and she was ‘going to die’.

[58]  “And her sister went up to that meeting and told us that the preacher was standing up there on the platform, looked back over the audience and called this woman by name, and told her, that when she left, she’d take a handkerchief and put it in her purse, and called this woman’s name down here, that’s the one that lives up the hill, twenty miles below here, how she was suffering with cancer, what her name was, and all that she’d been through.

Now, in other words, this, the camp meeting, was 20 miles from this place, the woman who was dying of cancer was up the hill. Her sister went to the meeting 20 miles away.

Brother Branham called her by name, told her-her sister was dying of cancer, took her handkerchief, and no doubt he prayed over it, put it on the woman, and told her she’d get well.

[58]  “…So take that handkerchief and go lay it on the woman,” and said, “the woman will be healed of her cancer.”

[59]  He said, “They came down here that night, and honest, I heard the awfullest screaming up there. I thought they had the Salvation Army turned loose on top of the hill up there.”

I said, “Well, I guess the old sister’s dead. Tomorrow we’ll go and get the wagon, and we’ll take her out to the main road so they can get her to the undertaker.” We waited.

No need going up that time of night, for it’s about a mile up the hill there. Well, we went up there the next morning, and you know what happened?”
I said, “No, sir.”

[60]  He said, “She was sitting there eating fried apple pies, and drinking coffee, with her husband.”

I said, “You mean that?”

He said, “Yes, sir.”

“Oh!” I said. “Now, mister, you don’t really mean that.”

[61]  He said, “What bothers me is this… how did that man, and never in this country, and he knew that.” See?

And I said, “Oh, you don’t believe that.”

“Oh, yes, it’s the truth.”

I said, “You believe that?”

[62]  He said, “Well, go right up the hill, and I can prove it to you.” He’s preaching back to me now, you see.

[63]  So I picked up an apple, and said, “Can I have one of these apples?” and rubbed it on my clothes.

[64]  He said, “Well, the yellow jackets are eating them up, I guess you can have one.” I bit into it, and I said, “That’s a nice apple.”

[65]  He said, “Oh, yes. You know what? I planted that tree there forty years ago, or something like that.”

I said, “Oh, is that right?”

He said, “Yes, sir.”

[66]  I said, “I notice we haven’t had any frost yet, and it’s early August, and yet those leaves are falling off the trees.”

[67]  He said, “Yes, sir. That’s right, it’s coming on Fall. I believe we’ll have an early fall this time.”

[68]  I said, “Yes, sir.” Changed the subject, see. I said, “Well, you know, it’s strange how that sap goes out of that tree, and those leaves fall off, and yet there’s no frost to kill the leaves.”

[69]  He said, “Well, what’s that got to do with what we’re talking about?”

[70]  I said, “Well, I’m just wondering.” (You know, Mama said, “Give a cow enough rope and it’ll hang itself.” So, I just gave him plenty of rope.)

[71]  So he went on, and he said, “Well, yes, what’s that got to do with it?”

[72]  I said, “You know, God brings those apples up, and you enjoy those apples and leaves, and you sit there in the shade and so forth. It goes down in the fall of the year, [That’s the life goes down in the fall of the year.] and it comes back again with apples and with leaves again.”

[73]  And he said, “Oh, that’s just nature. [In other words, “That’s not God, that’s just nature.”] See, that’s just nature.” [Repeats himself.]

[74]  And I said, “Well, of course, that’s nature. That’s nature, but Somebody has to control nature. You tell me now what does that.”

[75]  He said, “Well, it’s just naturally nature.”

[76]  I said, “Who is it that tells… talks to the little leaf now, and it falls off?” I said, “Now, the reason that leaf falls off is because the sap does down into the root. And what if that sap stayed up in the tree through the wintertime? What would happen?”

[77]  He said, “It would kill the tree.”

[78]  “Well,” I said, “now, what intelligence is there that runs that sap down into the roots, and says, ‘Get out of here now, it’s coming fall of the year, get down into the roots and hide’? And stay down in the roots like a grave; and then next spring comes back up again, brings up more apples, and brings more leaves and things.”

[79]  He said, “That’s just nature, it’ll do it. The weather! [See? That’s part of nature.] The changing, you know, coming on fall.”

[80]  I said, “Set a bucket of water on the post out there, and see if nature runs it down the bottom of the post and brings it back up again. See?” [Now that’s kind of offbeat for an illustration, but it’s still true. If nature is so tremendous, let’s see it do something. In other words, nature’s in a rut, you know.]

And then he said, “Well, uh… you might have something.”

I said, “Think of it while we go hunting.”

And he said, “Well, hunt where you want to.”

[81]  And I said, “When I come back, if you’ll tell me what intelligence runs that sap out of that tree down into the roots and stays all winter and comes back next spring, I’ll tell you That’s the same intelligence that told me about that woman up there.”

Said, “Told you?”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

He said, “You’re not that preacher!”

I said, “Would you know his name?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Branham?”

He said, “That’s him.”

I said, “That’s right.” See?

[82]  And you know what? I led the old man to Christ, right there on his own testimony.

[83]  And a year later I was down there and pulled a car (Indiana license on it) into their yard. They had moved away, he had died. And when I came back, there stood his wife and really raked me over the coals, because I thought I had permission to hunt. And she came out there, and she said, “Can’t you read?”

[84]  I said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “Did you see those signs saying ‘No Hunting!’?”

[85]  I said, “Yes, ma’am, but I have permission.”

[86]  “You do not have permission!” she said, “I’ve got this place posted for many years.”

[87]  I said, “Well, sister, I was wrong then, I’m sorry.”

[88]  She said, “Sorry nothing! Those Indiana license plates on there, and you sit there, you’re the boldest people!”

I said, “Could I just explain it?”

“Yeah! Who gave you permission?”

[89]  I said, “I don’t know who it was, but it was an elderly man sitting out here on the porch, when I was down here last year, and we were talking about God.”

She looked, and she said, “Are you Brother Branham?”

And I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

[90]  She said, “Forgive me. I didn’t know who you were.” She said, “I want to tell you his testimony. In his last dying hours, he raised up his hands and praised God. He died in Christian faith, and was carried away to God.” [And he quotes the Scripture:]

[91]  “If they hold their peace, the rocks will immediately cry out.” There’s something in nature.

Now this is true here, because you’ll notice that the apostle Paul immediately goes to nature as a disclaimer against those who will not believe in God.

And, of course, there’s many people who might believe in various gods, of various nature, when they consider nature as in creation.

But you must realize that Brother Branham is pointing to the definitive Creator, and how this One created, and how He maintains.

Now, in this particular case, we don’t know that this man was even baptized in water. We don’t know if he went on to baptism with the Holy Ghost.

All we know that there is an election here, and a predestination; and this man became thoroughly converted to the understanding and the acceptance of God, which you will notice, that Paul did as he went to preach to the Athenians, who had a multiplicity of gods.

It was zeroing in on the truth of Godhead. And you will see here that this little Seed that this man carried… maybe it did not carry him to the place of Abraham, or to a Peter, or Paul, which I don’t say even we are carried to that particular place–you know, station wise, within the kingdom.

But what I’m looking at here in this testimony is where Brother Branham, back here in this prayer that he prayed:

[09]  Thank you for the success that these brethren had overseas in the countries over there where they’re hungering and thirsting for God. I pray, Lord, that if they go back again, and these children, that they brought into the Kingdom, will have become great-grandmothers and grandfathers of the children that they bring in.

In other words there’ll be a continuity of the Word of God going forth and bringing souls into the Kingdom, which is what he is talking about here.

Now, concerning this fact of Brother Branham praying and looking at these men’s ministry, it’s literally the same thing as I mentioned before, that when Brother Bose, a Trinitarian, sat there, and Brother Branham preached on “End Time Evangelism.”

Brother Branham actually was stressing the fact of the Message of this hour and its vindication, and what there was at this particular time, which, if turned down, would be just the same as the Catholic Church having turned down Luther, as the Lutherans having turned down Wesley, as the Wesleyans having turned down Pentecost, and now they, in turn, becoming a chaff, which would be the holder of the true Seed.

Yet at the same time you must understand that whether these are foolish virgin or not, how they come in, whether they’re based on that one statement that Brother Branham made in the… I’ve got it here, Lloyd gave it to me, he looked it up… where Brother Branham mentioned the heathen will have the Gospel preached to them.

These things I am not able to explain to you. I do not go beyond what he says. I believe what he says; I cannot put it together. I have no way of knowing too much.

But I do know this: that Brother Branham had perfect confidence in the salvation of this man, and he has the confidence that whether these men are preaching the identical message they should preach or not, there is something there that is going to do something for the people.

Now I’m going to relate that at least to the fact that Brother Branham said people do not go to church to become bad people. They’re not sitting on bar stools; they ‘re not out there rioting and doing things they shouldn’t be doing. They’re coming in order to better their lives, to have a relationship with God, to become more spiritual.

Some people only come, as we notice some churches, they’re disregarding entirely… Like Dr. Schuler’s church out there in California, when he has Wynonna Judd and the Judd’s up there on the platform in their slacks and singing songs that are ungodly and heathenistic and everything else.

These people… I don’t have any use at all for him. If he’s not part of the kingdom of Satan, don’t even talk to me; I’m going to hell anyway. But I wouldn’t go to hell with his bells on. I can tell you that flat.

There is nothing here, there is nothing there in my understanding that has anything to do with it, but this here does have something to do with the future and what is going on.

Now I talked about the people coming to be better people. That’s when I wanted to explain by making a statement last Wednesday: that in the world today you look around and where are the major hot spots? The major hot spots are not in Christianity, though there’s one in Europe.

I didn’t talk about it, and I don’t mean to. But that in Europe is between the Muslims and the Christians, and the Christians, of course, are likely the Greek Orthodox. And you’ll notice they’re talking about ethnic cleansing, and it’s a holy war.

Now there’s a holy war going on in Ireland, let’s face it. And you’re seeing every place you go the Muslim-Mohammedans are rising into a holy war. There is that going on.

But, look at those countries. Look at the countries that repudiated the move of God. Now those that repudiated the move of God have always stayed behind in basic social advancement.

So, what I’m trying to say is this: even though there’s preaching of Christianity that isn’t true, or with a wrong spirit, a wrong Christ, a wrong gospel, yet where that has gone, because of witnessing to Jesus, the Son of God raised from the dead, things have happened and brought forth a people who have had at least a better conscience, at least for some time.

So, I believe Brother Branham is saying here, “Look, do all you can. Go out there just like I do it, and you leave the results in the hands of God,” and, as he said to me concerning a man that turned from Catholicism to becoming a Freemason, he said, “Look, Lee, that was a tremendous step.”

That man’s name was Mr. Lee. He ran a restaurant in New Albany. I knew the man. We ate there on different occasions.

And he said, “Look, that was a tremendous step for that man to make. Who knows if he might make the next step to becoming a Christian?”

So, what we’re looking at here is a gradation. I’m not going to try to explain it too much, because I don’t have the answers. But I want you to know this: you do not leave the definitive Message of this hour, no matter what Brother Branham says relative to other people.

This is talking to them. This may be some place where they are leading and going, not for Lee Vayle, and not for Grace Gospel Church, or anybody under the sound of my voice, I hope.

So, let’s be careful, and in our carefulness, let’s not go, as I said previously concerning the ecumenical movement, which is absolutely diabolical, but claims to be based upon the pure love of God.

Now, at this time, they will be getting results. Will all of those end up in the Lake of Fire? By no means they’ll not all end in the Lake of Fire, because they’re before the White Throne right now being sorted out.

And the rest that come up will finish the White Throne at the complete sorting out. So, stay carefully with what you and I are hearing, because these people are not necessarily going to take this Message. So, all right.

Now here:

[91]  “If they hold their peace, the rocks will immediately cry out.” [There’s something in nature.]

So therefore, Brother Branham is saying, “No matter which way you turn, God is going to vindicate Himself in some way, and this way is nature, because when men turn nature down, that is, a Creator down and they see nature, they have turned down the ultimate which God has set before them as, across the board. But that does not go for the believers.

Abraham could well have left the Ur of Chaldees, just mumbling and bumbling around, and said, “I know there’s a God by nature. That’s absolutely true; there’s got to be a God.”

But I’m going to tell you: until God appeared to him and talked to him, he did not know if there really was a God, or if he really believed there was a God, who was that God, what was He like, was there any relationship, did he have any hope.

So, nature will show you there is a God but only vindicated revelation will show you the true God, what He is, how He deals, who you are, what you are, is there a relationship, what is the future. Now that’s it.

Now, if you turn down, as Brother Branham is talking about the church maturing and all of these things which he brings in, by nature and all, to turn down the Word of the hour proves that you are not elect, as Bride.

But you could be in an election of foolish virgin. So, all right. Never forget that, just keep  go… to where we are going, we stand with the Judge right now, and He is the Word. See? Okay.

[93]  Watch the little dove how he flies. Nature. What a different bird he is, see. He doesn’t have any gall, he can’t eat like the crow can. See? He has no gall in him. He doesn’t have to take a bath in the water, because he’s got something on the inside of him; it cleans him from the inside out, you see.

Now that’s true, but on the other hand, we have a bird bath in our backyard. Now we put water in there and the robins like to bathe more than anything. They come in there even though it’s raining and splash around like crazy.

Well, a dove one day decided to go in the bird bath, but he wasn’t splashing and cleaning himself, he was just hot. He was getting cooled off. And the robins would buzz him, but being bigger than the robins, he wouldn’t move until he got good and ready to move.

Now he went to the waters to cool off, and so therefore, the dove has the cleaning from the inside, but he also knows how to get cooled off. And what I’m telling you: he knows how to rest in the shade. He knows how to get cool.

And so does the Christian have the inner cleaning. He has that something from the inside that takes care of the outside; yet at the same time, the outside cannot be let down, as though it is of no account. It needs rest; it needs care. And a Christian will know how to conduct himself, and so on.

I thought that was kind of interesting in the fact that the dove never got in the water to clean off; just got to get cooled off and refreshed. I think that’s the way Christians are.

You don’t come to church you know because… as though you’re going to get the Holy Ghost coming to church, although that’s an integral part of being filled up and all with the Word, but you come because you want a time of refreshing, receive the Word to make you grow up in grace.

Now:

[93]  …He cleans from the inside out, you see.

[94]  And that’s the way the Christian is. That’s the way God represented Himself, in a dove. See, because Jesus was represented as a Lamb. Always in nature, you’ll find God. You’ll find the similes, the likeness.

And God likened us unto sheep that have to be led. Did you know that I preached a sermon on it sometime ago? The Dove coming down on the Lamb, to lead the Lamb, and It led him to the slaughter. That Dove! Did that.

Now that Dove could not have descended on any other type of animal, because they both had to have the same nature. Now, what did Brother Branham’s say the nature comes from? The soul, right? You have a soul down in there giving you a nature; [it] gives the nature to the spirit; shows what’s in you. So, all right.

We have, then, the Holy Ghost coming upon a gene of the Holy Ghost. If the Dove would have lit upon Lamb, and he would have snorted and growled, the Dove would have taken its flight.

So, that’s very true. The Holy Spirit can be in a meeting, if the lambs aren’t there, the sheep aren’t there, a little lick of fire, a little modicum of the Holy Ghost will not come down and bring that seed to life and begin a child on his way to maturity and adoption.

[95]  Well, that’s the same way now. And because of our ill ways, the Holy Spirit just takes His flight and goes away.

Now he’s talking about an animal of another nature, and he talks about the ‘ill ways’. Now what are the ill ways? The ill ways are evil ways.

If he has the way of Cain, which is a worship and a stubborn spirit that he’s going to continue his worship, that he knows the Word, he’s going to do what he wants with It, the Spirit of God cannot abide upon that person. There’s no way He can move upon him.

There’s no way a union can take place, because, you see, you can’t… unless you go to genetic splicing, which is human engineering, science being of the devil, you cannot take a human cell and a cat cell, even in vitro, and combine the two and actually bring forth a cat person. It doesn’t work. You’d have to have some pretty rough things going for you.

Now it’s being done in an engineering process, but it’s not being done in life; and so, therefore, there is no way that a person manifesting himself contrary to the Word of God in a form of worship and service can ever be baptized with the Holy Ghost, unless the gene is from God.

And that gene from God will indicate and validate and perform with the Holy Spirit right in the Word.

Now, if you’ve got the wrong soul, it will not validate the Word of God. “Oh, no, no, no. That man’s wrong.”

Forget it. It won’t join with it. There’s no way it’ll perform. See? It can’t do it. It’s got to be the same life. And there’s where people are all messed up on what they think we’re preaching, two gods and everything else here.

If I’m preaching two gods, I’ve proven all along Brother Branham’s preaching two gods. The same people will scream, “Oh, I’m a gene of God! I’m a part of God!”

Hey! I’m not here to make them liars, but something doesn’t add up. And I’m not backing away. I’m not saying what they are. That’s between them and God. I’m just telling you God’s Word. You do what you want.

That’s what this pulpit is all about. Just spit it out. And, if I don’t make the Rapture, I won’t make the Rapture. If you don’t make it, you don’t make it.

You say, “That’s cut and dried.” Look at nature. It’s cut and dried.

Now man can mess in it. But, as soon as man takes his hand off, it goes back. Darwin found that with the pigeons-all went back to what was it? browns, or grays; I forget, one of the two. I wasn’t much on evolution.

I never got taught it, thank God. didn’t have to bend my brain with all that crud; had enough trouble as it was. My trouble was trying to get away from God so He wouldn’t box me around.

Now:

[95]  That’s the same way now. And because of our ill ways, the Holy Spirit just takes His flight and goes away. It’s got to have the same nature. And nature comes from the soul. The bird of the Heavens, the dove; the meekest animal on earth, the lamb; they can agree together.

And when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and makes us new creatures, then He can lead us. But if we try to live the same old life, it won’t work! It just won’t work.

Now Brother Branham is telling this then: from our understanding there is first a passive faith, and then, there’s an active faith, and you can see that all the way through his teaching and the Scripture, because he based it on the Scripture.

[96]  Now the first step you probably ever took in your life, speaking of leadership, is probably by the hands of some old mother. Those hands may be still tonight, out there in some cemetery somewhere, but that was the hand that held you to make your first step.

[97]  Then, after mother taught you how to walk, you make a few steps and fall down, and get up, and you thought you were doing great things, then she turned you over to the schoolteacher. And she began to lead you to an education; and how and what you must do, and how you must learn, and-so forth like that.

[98]  Then, after the schoolteacher got through with you, then you returned to your father, and he got a hold of you. When your father got a hold you, he taught you perhaps your business; how to be a successful businessman, how to do things right. That would be in that particular area. Your mother taught you how to be a housewife, if you were a girl, how to cook, and so forth.

[99]  Then, after they got through with you, then your minister or priest got hold of you.

Now it doesn’t mean that these things have to come in three separate areas: till the kid is five years old, sixteen years old, twenty-two years old, then on to the priest. No.

He’s just telling how things begin to develop, and they are running parallel with each other, but he’s showing you that you’re getting these various types of training at this particular time.

You’re being led by them, and, of course, you’re being led in these areas in order to keep you in those areas in which they lead you, because now they want a perfect set of zombies in a certain way.

In other words: like father, like son; like mother, like daughter, right down the line.

You say, “Well, my mother believed the priest, bless God, and I believe the priest,” See? Or, “my minister” or so on.

Now he said:

[100]  But now who leads you? That’s the question now. Now, we’re all led by something tonight. We have to be. We’re led. Some people are driven, not just led.

But, after you’ve got all this under your belt, in your mind, you’re made up of this composite; you’re the person. Now the thing is: you’ve been taught. Now you’re on your own. Get out there.

What are you doing with yourself tonight? You know you’ve been led. You know that’s the norm. There’s something that’s got to be there doing something.

You’re not as much your own boss as you think you are, because you came here without wanting to, and you’re going out here maybe screaming and kicking; but you’re going to go.

So, in other words, Brother Branham is talking about a certain fatalism here, a certain something in life I call a sort of fatalism. We’re led; nothing we can do about it.

Now people will argue the point, but you just say, “What about the fact when you die, you’re so smart, what’re you going to do there? Which one of your friends that taught you came back to prove it? See?

Young guys have gotten shot by believing in the Mafia. Did they know any of the Mafia bosses that got shot came back and said, “Everything’s okay over here. St. Peter said we’re just fine? The money we gave the pope and the church was blessed, and we’re okay. We made it. Hey, man, we didn’t even go to purgatory; right up here in heaven; walked in, and we’re all having a great time.”

Now he’s hitting up a real strong point here, in spite of the fact there are those who are obnoxious in their thinking, they are proud and arrogant, say, “I’m my own man!”

Hogwash! Nobody’s his own man. There’s always a faster runner, a better boxer, a faster gun, a smarter crook, a better deal. Yeah. He’s letting them know, “Hey, you better reckon there’s a fate; there’s something ahead. How are you contending with it?”

[101]  Now let’s look at this young fellow as to what had influenced him. This young businessman we would call him, because he was a businessman. He was a great successful man. Let’s look at his leaders.

[102]  Well, first, perhaps, his mother taught him as a little boy the things that he should do. The father had made him such a fine success, and maybe left him an inheritance, because he was a ruler himself; perhaps his father was gone, so he became a businessman. Let’s call him, today, like a Christian businessman; or, he was a religious businessman, I think that would be the best quotation.

Now there’s a distinction, because religion and Christianity are actually hand in hand, but they’re still different, because you can have a religion, and you can also be a Mohammedan or something else, but you still are a Christian, but you’ve got a religion.

In other words, are you of the true Christian religion? But this man was religious, and Brother Branham, knowing they didn’t call them Christians in those days, although ‘Christ’ means ‘Messiah’, and they were messianic in their belief, and in some places Brother Branham calls them Christians, which is truly Scriptural.

So, he backs away at this point and says, “Well, let’s put it as religion; that’s the better.”

[103]  This man was religious, he was by no means an infidel. ‘Infidel’ means… comes from the Latin word ‘fido’, meaning ‘faithful’, like you call your dog “Fido.” ‘Infidel’ means ‘unfaithful’; he doesn’t have a faith, but he was by no means one that wasn’t taught, and had a faith.

He had been taught by his mother how to do right, how to walk, how to dress himself. He had been taught by his father to be a great businessman, and how to be a successful man; and his business was successful.

His father and mother had been raised up in the church, had pointed him to the priest. The priest made him a real religious man. Therefore, he was a fine cultured man, he was a fine boy with good character.

Now religion, of course, can do every one of those things, but look where it went today. When they got away from the life, the Word for the hour, it went worse, worse, worse.

And I know that everybody’s going to try to say, “The Catholic Church, Brother Vayle, is in better shape than when Luther left it.”

I’ve got news for you: it’s in worse shape.

You say, “Well, the Lutherans are in better shape.”

They are in worse shape, and the last Protestants, called ‘Pentecostal’ are called ‘chaff’, which are going to be burned: brittle, dead, husk… Even farmers don’t even want to put them in the ground and plow it under. I guess it stays in the soil.

How many years would it stay in the soil without rotting even? It’s kind of miserable stuff; gets in your eyes; everything else. Bearded rye and stuff out there. Barley out there that’s getting in your clothes.

I remember, when I was a kid, messing out there, we’d come home and shake our underwear, clean it out, pick out all the stuff. Yeah, you know what it’s like. Yeah, fit for the burning.

All right.

[104]  If Jesus Christ looked at him and loved him, there was something about that boy that was real. That’s right. For the Bible said here, we find in Mark, “And Jesus beholding him, loved him.” Yes, “Jesus beholding him, loved him.”

So, therefore there must be something really outstanding about this young fellow. He had a good character, good character rating, a man raised right; intelligent, smart, intellectual, successful in business, a religious man.

Had a lot of good characteristics that were outstanding, so much that it attracted the attention of Jesus Christ the Savior. But when he was confronted, being successful and all these other things…

Now Brother Branham didn’t finish his sentence, but the fact of the matter is, Brother Branham is telling us: when this young man met an unnerving challenge, that unnerved him, when this certain, specific talk came up about giving it all away.

You see, he didn’t understand the rules of sowing and reaping. If he’d had stuck around, Jesus would have said, “Everything you give away, you’re going to get back, boy, one hundred fold, not only on earth here, but the life to come, depending on how it’s working out with you, and for you, and how you listen.”

Do you know you can have it here, and have it there, also? Sure. Absolutely.

Now he was confronted, it unnerved him. Now notice:

[105]  Nothing had gone wrong; he was perfectly cut out right, measured up right, intelligent, right education, successful, smart, fine businessman, probably belonged to a businessman’s group somewhere in Palestine. He might have belonged to a businessman’s fellowship like we have here tonight, no doubt he did, because businessmen have always had fellowship one with another.

[106]  Cause just like “birds of a feather,” they have things to talk about. That’s in common. The religious men, they don’t want to talk about the men that run the barroom, that is, to not talk about them, but actually talk with them and associate with them, and then all of them get together because the two groups have nothing in common.

The barroom gang and the spiritual gang-so called, you’re not going to find them having a great time together. We’ve got to have things in common. So, Christians have things in common with Christians, and sinners have things in common with sinners; and societies, and whatever they are, they have things in common. And this young boy probably belonged to a businessman’s fellowship.

Now here then a segment of society or cosmos world might have a lot of appeal, you know, to belong to one of these societies, but the point is: where does it get them, who’s leading what in this particular area?

Now, remember, this is a businessman Brother Branham is talking about, and when he got confronted with eternal life equating to Jesus Christ, and in turn, there was a Word concerning it.

Now I wouldn’t have been surprised if this young fellow might have known something about Jesus, and said, “I believe this one could be the Messiah, and he would bear what he’s done. I think he’s got something to tell us.” Like Nicodemus, “Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

And so, now the Word comes out here, “Look, this is the Word of the hour, and this is something in the Word that you’ve got to come to, and it’s going to make it tough on you. It’s going to be your cross. But I want you to notice something: you, then, will come under the proper leadership into an eternal life.”

The leadership actually was not just a person standing there, it was the Word. Remember, there’s always the Word, because He is the Word. Well, he had to turn it down.

And Brother Branham said:

[107]  And he was religious as he could be, because Jesus, in questioning here, he said, “I have kept these commandments, observed them all from my youth.” That’s right.

See, he had been brought up right, taught right, and everything. But when he was confronted, see? the confrontation, with the thought of eternal life… See? That’s it. Now I want you to notice, with all this character that he had, yet he knew he did not possess eternal life.

Now you can’t say this about these businessmen. They really believe they’re born again; they’ve got eternal life. But this was a businessman, and when this businessman, with all he had, his fruitage… Now we’re not talking about gifts; we’re talking about fruitage.

And you look at fruitage to see how your life’s been changed. That’s fruit. Now this boy did not have a lot to change. He didn’t have anything to change, really. He’d done it all. He had one thing to change, only, and that’s different from all these others-that was his mind.

He had to come to grips with what Jesus said when God revealed Himself, manifested Himself in the way that He did in that hour. Now he knew, Brother Branham said, something in him made him to know he did not have that eternal life.

Now look: he’s coming to Jesus, not somebody else, not his priest, not a group; he’d have a confrontation here.

And he’s saying, “Look, you evidently have something, far more than what I have. I’m concerned then. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Am I missing eternal life? I believe I am. Something is missing. What is here?”

Now, see, why I am talking this way is because I’m relating this one hundred percent to my own experience in this hour with Brother Branham in the return ministry of the Son of man upon this earth, where the prophet reveals It.

And you come right there and you say, “Look, I know that I’ve got something, something’s missing. What is the difference between this person and me?”

This question could have been couched in various ways, but the actual question was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? There’s something that I do not possess. There’s something here.”

Now Jesus was talking to a man who was not born again. He was talking to a man who knew that he needed something.

Now this businessman back two thousand years ago is being met, being duplicated as the omega in a group of American Full-Gospel Businessmen, and they’re claiming that they’re born again.

And they’re coming to a confrontation. They are not coming to say, “Am I missing eternal life?” “I don’t believe I really have eternal life,” “What do I have to do to have eternal life?”

They’re saying, “Tell us, if you can, something, and give us something to make us more effective in what we already have because we know we’ve got it.”

Understand what I’m saying? I know what I’m talking about this morning. Because, if they’re born again, and turn this Message down, William Branham lied to us, because he said, “If you’ve got the Holy Ghost, you’ll say, ‘Amen’ to everything He said.”

And you’ll find it here in the Bible. You won’t kick your toes in the dust and walk away.

Now, either that picture is scientific, and had there been a time of a camera in the days of Moses, it would have been the same picture.

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

Well, I do know about it! I just read, “He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever,” and that doesn’t have to do with the things of God in this universe as per creation and those things, it has to do with God Himself and His dealing with people!

He has never changed: Hebrews 13:8 is Genesis 18. Then, it’s Exodus 1:20 and so on.

Then, it’s the same Pillar of Fire that came down in the temple in the time of Solomon and the same Pillar of Fire that left. It’s the same Pillar of Fire that came upon Jesus, the same One came to Paul, the same One came today. There isn’t any difference.

He doesn’t change; this is it. And this is where they’re all messed up! See?

Now you just remember that. I’m taking a lot of time with this, because I’ve got to, because you can read a lot of things in here; you think Brother Branham is swallowing his tongue, he’s backpedaling, he’s lying, and everything else.

Well, there’s one thing about it, he has to talk to people, only what they can bear. They can’t even bear that.

[109]  Now, all our societies, our churches, our membership, the things we hold so dear, our American societies and everything, are very fine, there’s nothing to be said against that. And our Christian Business Men’s society here, is a great thing, it’s been an open door to me for my interdenominational thoughts that “we are Christians.”

[109]  There is no one (no one denomination) can claim us, a real Christian, because we belong to God. Denominations are man-made, and Christianity is Heaven-sent. But in all these things that we have, as good as they are, as fine as they come together, and as nice meetings as we have, and social understanding that we have, [social, didn’t say ‘spiritual’ based on vindication, yet we’re each one confronted with eternal life.]

And no matter how successful we’ve been in business, how successful we’ve been, and what great church members we are, and how we work, and how we try to do things right, still, if it’s not done in the right way, it is a worship of God in vain.

Now, we know they have organized into a Trinitarian group, falsely declared what God’s Word does not declare, and they cannot prove, by talking about tongues evidence being the baptism with the Holy Ghost, then turn right around and cover up with their rotten, stinking preachers, by saying, “They backslid.”

That’s why at the day of judgment, if they don’t come back to God, because there’s no eternal security… “That’s of the devil…”

You see where these guys are? You talk about Luther going to seed, and Wesley came by and cured them of Antinomianism, where are these guys? The Antinominalist said, “You’re already predestinated, so it doesn’t matter whether you’re born again, or anything else; you will get there.”

Now these guys say that in spite of everything that God’s done, you might not get there. So, if you’re sealed in as part of the Body of Christ, then you run out here, and you’ve backslidden, and showed that you’re nothing but a louse, and you die as a louse, now there’s a member missing of the Body of Christ.

“Oh, well, no. You see, what it was, Judas fell from his place, and God took another one.”

I’m telling you what they teach. You believe that, forget this. If you’ve got that junk out of this, you’re reading something that’s not in the book. You’re reading between the lines. You’re not facing up to reality. You can’t stand the fact that God would take one lump and choose out of it.

Listen, let me get this straight as I tried to tell it the other day: genetic breeding-there are more dominant traits of the beast in our bodies than there are from Adam.

Now remember, Eve got hers from Adam, pure and simple. That’s all. She’s identical to him. For the child that was born to her from Adam, they all became the sons of God through Adam or known as the children of Light, and the last true genetic person was Noah.

Do you mean to tell me that God could not breed us back to a Noah, and back to an Adam? Certainly, He could do it!

Now listen: He was on the road to doing that, when He told Israel, “Get out! And when you go in, don’t you dare marry anybody from what I tell you to marry! Kill every inhabitant, unless you see a woman out there you love and you want to marry her, because you’re a sex-minded bunch of idiots, and that’s all you want.”

“Then, you watch the kids. And He was going to kill out the serpent seed. He could have. He said, “If you’ve got a child that’s obstreperous, and will not obey his father and mother, take him to the elders and kill him. Kill his seed. Get rid of him.”

God could have bred the people back, but they’re still in the flesh that could fall, and coming by sex, and it’s always been the root of the problems. You’re right back where you still need a Redeemer. So, all right.

What am I trying to tell you? One lump! We’re all alike. We’ve all got the perverse elements in us; we’re all mammalian; we’re all part animal.

What makes me disgusted… I was down South, down in the South, I had a bunch of people around there, in Athens, Georgia, they were saying the black people are serpent seed because Brother Branham said that the serpent was a black person. He didn’t say it was Negroid.

Brother Branham absolutely said the black race today comes from the fact of their geography, where they were stationed, where they were, the soil and the elements and all those things… adaptation and all. He said it; I agree.

But the point is: every one of us has the strain of the serpent in us. People are crazier than hoot owls when it comes to this Message. They can’t sit down and be reasonable.

They just go “Whooo” like a Roman candle out of control. Not a Roman candle but a keg of dynamite with a cigarette butt thrown in it. Blows everything to pieces.

So, look here: one lump. That’s why Brother Branham said for Him to bring forth an elect child of God is a million times more difficult then just going ahead and creating a sperm and an egg, and putting life in it. He could have done that.

Every one of us could have been a sperm and an egg, and then, that being of ours, that gene, could have popped in there, and it would have developed. Huh?

Nothing to it, brother/sister; nothing to it. When you get God in this, and you see these things, it’s so crystal clear, it’s pitiful that people don’t begin to understand these things.

Now he says here: these church members, these people here, with their societies and all. You can come to the place where you worship God in vain, and he is challenging them at this moment as the prophet who is a judge, and the Judge is here.

Does their worship bring them to eternal life? In other words the complete and full elements of the future. And the point is: how can it, unless the seed is there. So, Brother Branham now equates eternal life to worship.

He makes them inseparable. Why? Because, if you do have eternal life, you will worship a certain way and no other way. Now, come on!

Let me read it to you:

[111]  Jesus classed that the same way, as I stop here for a moment. He said, “In vain do you worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” In other words, he’s teaching… these people are teaching a walk that is not based on the definitive revelation of the Word.

So therefore, their walk before God is not acceptable. It just isn’t there. See? This man here would not walk out on the Word. Now think! A sincere, honest worship [with the sincerity of your heart] to God, and still be in vain! See? It began that way with Cain, at the Garden of Eden. Sincere worship, but rejected! Very religious, still rejected!

Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Cain went to the Word, but he mis divided the Word. He’s the guy refused to believe in serpent seed. Therefore, he didn’t need a blood offering.

Oh, he couldn’t believe he wasn’t the son of Adam. Well, you take one look at him, and he didn’t look like Adam-he was a giant. There were no genes in Adam to bring forth these guys that are about ten feet tall, size twenty-three shoe, fingers fifteen inches, whatever they were, take a whole room for a bed.

Talk about a king size; one freight car would just do it… one bed, one gondola. See? Never forget 1 John 3.

Now watch:

[112]  In Shreveport last week, week before last, at a Business Man’s meeting, a breakfast where several hundred people were gathered, I took two and a half hours on “Doing God a Service Without It Being His Will.” Now, that sounds strange, but we’ve got to channel ourselves into God’s provided channel and God’s way of doing it.

In other words you cannot worship and serve God apart from a certain channel, and that channel is the prophet: Good Master, Good Prophet. I wanna know something, I want to know the truth. No matter how much we think it’s right, it’s got to be according to the Word of the Lord or it’s in vain.

Cain worshipped, but it wasn’t according to the Word of the Lord. The Pharisees worshipped, but not according to the Word of the Lord. Now why was it not according to the Word of the Lord in both cases? Because they changed It, they changed It from its actual revelation, the desire of God from His Heart to the people, and they to Him. And in this particular message to the businessmen, I taught this.

[113]  David wanted to do the Lord a service, and he was right in what he said. “Is it right for the ark of the Lord to be down there?” By no means, of course. “Let’s bring it up here.” In the days of the king, the other king that he succeeded. He said, “It’s not right. They never consulted the Lord by the ark, but we must do it.”

Now, that’s correct, what they shouldn’t have done. He said, “We should go get the ark, and we can consult the Lord.” That’s right, it was down in the other country. He said, “We’ve got to bring it up here. Get it up here and put it in our house there, and worship the Lord.”

[114]  Notice he went in the wrong channel to do it. He consulted the captains of fifties and hundreds and thousands.

He might as well said, “You businessmen, you’ve got fifty thousand, and hundreds of thousands. There’s billionaires here. That doesn’t make you an authority.”

But that’s what they built on, Word, the businessmen. “We love the Lord, we’re successful, we talk in tongues.”

Then, they’re like Clifford Ford, the guy from Denver, talking in tongues to show a Baptist up in Minneapolis how he could speak in tongues, and had the tongues.

He’s spitting all over the poor guy. He was a very ‘fluid’ orator, not fluent so much. And the poor guy said, “Yeah, I’m seeing you do it, but prove it to me. Prove it something.”

He’s the same guy with the businessmen, when Brother Branham said there was a well in Kentucky that would bring in a gusher. Poor old Banks Wood put in $23,000. What he got from those guys, and the businessmen, they got greedy, wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

So, what did God do? He wouldn’t let them drill in the right spots. So, some businessmen came in, the gusher came in, they had to bring up bulldozers and put a big well in there, and big… dam it up so the oil could come on.

I don’t care if they’re worth a million dollars. What’s your million bucks when you’re going to die? It didn’t bring you into the world; you’re not going to take it with you. So, I like what he’s saying. Yeah, I like talking about it, in fact. It’s interesting.

[114]  …They were all consulted, these guys with the money, big captains, and so on, everyone. Seeing it was the will of the Lord, looked like it was the Word of the Lord.

[115]  The Word of the Lord, sometimes you have to put it in Its right place or it’s not the Will of the Lord. Of course, now Brother Branham, he was just being nice there. The fact of the matter is: Paul the apostle said you’ve got to rightly divide It or forget It, because that is the mark of you being a true, born again, Word believer.

Now let’s face it, that’s right in the Book of Timothy. Now let that soak in deep and you’ll get a general conception of what I’m trying to say. In other words, he’s saying, “You cannot worship and serve God without a prophet of the Word.”

[116]  I don’t want the church to fall into the steps that you found over there in England: long hair, painted-face men, and perverted. We don’t want that! No matter how religious it sounds, how much Elvis Presley can sing religious songs, he’s still a devil.

And I’m no judge, but “By their fruits you know them.” See? He’s Pentecostal, but that doesn’t make a bit of difference. See, your fruits bear record of what you are.

[117]  No matter if the Spirit comes upon him, he could speak in tongues, he could shout, could heal the sick, and Jesus said, “Many of them will come to me in that day, and say, ‘Lord, haven’t I done this and done that?’ And I’ll say, ‘Depart from Me, you that work iniquity, I never even knew you.'” See?

[118]  We’ve got to be real, genuine Christians, and the only way we can do that is confront it with the question here of “Eternal Life.”

Hey, it’s getting really thick right now, because they won’t even get an idea of what he’s talking about. See? Again, you’ll notice, eternal life is linked up with worship.

Eternal life is not a gift, per se, as though it is… what would you say?… controlled or sterile by itself. It isn’t. There are certain things that you’ve got to recognize that are involved in it, a part of it, before you can even say, “Yes, I know I have eternal life.”

You can say, “Yes, I know eternal life is a gift from God. I know I asked for it. I know He said, ‘If I ask anything in His Name, I’ve got it;’ so therefore, I have it.”

Is that a fact? See? Take it all the way to the Word, and you come up with a human reasoning that is called ‘proof text salvation’, and Billy Graham and some people, I don’t know how far he got away from it, but I do know that adherents around him, and I thought he did, too absolutely revile what they call ‘proof text salvation’, which is simply ‘preach a message’, and you say, “Hey, fella, you know, you’re a sinner. Here, the Bible says so.”

“Well, yeah, I know, I’m a sinner.”

Well, there you are. See?

Now the Bible distinctly says, “He took upon us His sins.” Now here it is right here-he bore them. Then, now, if your sins are on him, they’re no longer on you. Right! Hey, then you’re not a sinner.”

And they lead you verse by verse until “Shake my hand. Now you’ve got it.”

Hogwash! That’s the guy that can clean up and have seven more devils come in. And that’s what religion does, every single time. God started with a group.

As Brother Branham warned, “At the end time, preaching “The Token,” “you can get cleaned up, but unless you truly receive the Holy Spirit, and you can only know that by coming right to the Word, you take a hundred per cent this Message, are you getting filled day by day, because, see, the born again we’re talking about here, the baptism, is not that full stature,” We’re working on it. We’re looking at it.

So therefore, as you look at eternal life, you have got to come to the place where you have got to have an understanding far beyond what is a ‘proof text salvation’. It won’t work.

So, to say, “Look it, I’ve got this gift, here it is, in a box. That’s it. Now I decree this fruit, I decree that gift, I decree this, and hey, look, it matches. I’ve got it.”

Now, just a minute. You a trinitarian? You oneness? You missed her.

“Why, I can’t take that.”

Well, look it, I’m not here talking about myself. I’m talking about what a vindicated man said. I’m talking about a man who’s talking to these people and telling them, “This young ruler wanted eternal life, and he turned down the Word of eternal life.”

Now turning down the Word is turning down Jesus. Accepting Jesus, and turning down the Word is not accepting Jesus. So, here’s where we stand, and here’s where we quit today, because time has run out. See, this is real slow, because we have this problem.

I’m looking at every single thing that I know goes on, and has gone on, and I even sat and discussed it with Brother Branham. And I’m not fooled for one minute when he preached to those men and said, “Doing God a service without His… being His will was entirely unacceptable.”

Puts you right back where the Pharisees were, and Jesus came and said to them. “In vain do you worship me, having for doctrine your teaching, your commandments of men,” and yet those people stood right back on the Old Testament, the same as the people right today stand on this Word and say, “Don’t tell me-I found it in here.”

Then, why did they not come to vindication? See? That’s what you’re looking at.

Let’s rise and be dismissed.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your goodness and mercy to us, giving us time to come together. Maybe some people think we’re belaboring points here.

That’s fine and dandy by me if that’s the consensus, but I know, Lord, that it’s a whole lot more under the surface in this Message, knowing the reality of the hour and having been there amongst them that there was a complete turning down in many cases of the Message and the Messenger who stood there completely vindicated and Lord like Brother Branham we don’t condemn anybody we know that great good is done just by preaching some word and how much and all will come we acknowledge that, we appreciate that.

Hospitals have come up through the ministries, great good fine things have happened, but we know Lord that this young man turned down the Word, who Himself was the Word eternal life just by what that One said could be traced down to the rich man lifting up his eyes in Hades having lost it all.

We see a lesson there for us today to Lord to cling to this Word as never before and to believe It with all of our hearts, until It becomes our entire nature.

Which will then not only manifest Itself but actually give us the great consolation that we’ve been looking for, the knowledge for the maturation within us, to the great passive faith and the outworking of it as we do those things Lord that we should do and not tempting vagally?

Ourselves into position Lord where we don’t belong but just as real Christians with this Life in the Word within us lift the lives Lord, that the prophet indicated and told us what to live.

And here we stand then here this morning Father dedicated to the Word that You have forgive us of any sins we have, any error, anything we might have said or believed wrong Lord we pray You’d correct it by Your Word and may it come forth in the nature of our souls and hearts and lives here to prove it has been corrected.

That we are going on with You Lord moment by moment every oversight corrected and walking in the light as You are in the Light, and have fellowship one with another the Blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleansing, this is our desire, this is our hearts cry and Lord we know that You told us You wouldn’t turn us away empty we might not get full all of a sudden but we know we are marching on and You’re helping us.

Lord we just ask that It keep pouring the Words in-in our souls until there is such a complete Oneness with us there will be the outgoing of what You want coming out of these vessels, we don’t predict our walk Lord we only know there is a path that we can and must walk that will be to Your Glory and Honor, we will not bring shame upon You or upon ourselves although we’ve reviled, misrepresented, misspoken of even cursed we know that’s besides the point that does not matter.

The thing is Lord have we been approved today in our worship and our understanding by coming to a vindicating Word and standing with the prophet and no matter what people say and what people think they see and what they say they’ve accomplished or whatever else might be manifested. We are standing with the source of the Word and the reality of this hour.

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible the only wise God the all power and honor and glory through Jesus Christ our blessed Savor. Amen.