Leadership #05
Watch And Pray; God’s Criterion#3494
Shall we pray.
Heavenly Father, we are happy to be in Your gracious Presence, knowing that the work You have done to bring us to the true Word is the very result we see today: people coming to a Message which is full of life and we appreciate that, knowing, Lord, that a time is at hand when there must be a Resurrection and a Rapture, and by Your grace, Lord, we’re believing to be a part of it.
Help us, Lord, all to bend every thought and every effort to that end. Whatsoever we do in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, may it be according to the Word that we may reap the proper benefits thereof, and not hear any condemnation for having used Your Name or Your power or any other such thing in adverse to Your divine will and sympathies, Lord.
We just pray now that You’ll look down upon us and help us to be the people that You want us to be; and that’s what we want.
In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
Now we’re on number 5 of the sermon, “Leadership,” that Brother Branham brought us and there are many things I could say right at this point but I think I would take a lot of your time, so I’ll just go right into my notes and continue in this message that Brother Branham brought which is so propitious.
Now remember that this is actually the very last sermon that he preached. He preached on “Communion,” although it was a sermon, I do not consider it as part of his ministry out there in the world and to the churches.
His ministering in “Communion” was to the little group in Tucson and a lot like his message when he preached “Shalom” and some of those others, which were what you might call ‘pastoral’ messages to the people that the Lord had given him.
And you remember that when he preached “Marriage and Divorce” which would be so controversial, he said, “This is to the people I believe the Lord… with whom the Lord has entrusted me;” and it was specifically to them and to nobody else.
Now in this particular instance he is, of course, preaching to the Full Gospel Businessmen, in particular, the last people to whom he really had access; and they invited him because of Carl Williams of Phoenix, Arizona.
And, of course, we know that they organized. They set up their creeds and their dogmas, and they said, “This is it, and this is as far as anybody goes”… will allow them to go… “and, if you don’t believe as we do, then, of course, you’re going to have to believe as we do, because we are the constituted authority.”
So, we’re looking at all of these things that you would look at and you would expect, or perhaps not expect, unless you jarred your conscience and by going back to the Word.
That if God sent a man, as He sent Luther and Wesley, as He sent other men like He sent, of course, Paul, as He sent Moses.
If this was indeed a man sent at the end time that we would believe-and we are confident of from the Word of God, everything fulfilled from the Word of God-that this was a great end time prophet to the Gentiles, to set the Church in order by the Word, what would you expect from that person?
Now this is where people will not jar their thinking. Number one: they do not even want anybody from God to come.
You say, “Brother Vayle, why not?”
Because you’re not studying your Bible. The word ‘Laodicea’ means ‘people’s rights’, the independence of the people. Now what does independence mean when it comes from the Bible? Independence from God!
“Well,” you say, “oh, no!”
Then tell me what it is. Come up here and tell me. I’m anxious to learn. I’ll even let a woman stand up here, though God knows that’s a disgrace. I don’t throw these challenges here for nothing.
I want to know. Or perhaps you’re to tell me God doesn’t deal with prophets anymore. Give me the Scripture for it. Just tell me. I don’t care what you bunch of people tell me. Tell me what God said.
They didn’t expect a prophet. And those that did cried for a prophet but didn’t even know what they were crying for. A prophet to them was “Vindicate me, Lord, the way I am. Come, stand with me.”
You tell me when God ever stood with anybody except first of all that person standing with God. Can’t do it. So, all right.
We’ve been studying this message here by a man that was recognized for many years to have the closest ministry to the Lord Jesus Christ in two thousand years, and when he stood like Paul and Jesus and proclaimed that people were worshipping God in error-that did it.
Never mind the ministry any more. Forget the ministry. Why do you think God sends ministries? Even the Roman Catholics know and they know only too well, far above the Protestants.
When God does a miracle, and they even accept what happened at Fatima, and what is happening in the Philippines, what is happening anywhere, as the assured sign of Almighty God, telling them, “Sit down, shut up, and listen! I’ve got something to tell you!”
And that’s exactly how Jesus came. “I’m doing this to get your attention. Now, listen!” So, they were going to stone him.
He said, “What good work do you stone me for?”
They said, “No good work. But why don’t you shut up and listen to us? Why are you trying to set us straight?”
They said the same thing to William Branham: “Why are you trying to set our women straight and set us straight? We are straight!”
Do you understand the homosexuals are now saying, “The third sex is going to be the straight sex” and “the rest of us are deviates”? Do you mean you haven’t heard it? You haven’t?
Where have you people been? What do you think they meant when they said they’d be the majority and we’d be looking in? From homosexual goes bisexual; from bisexual it’s all gone.
Oh, come on! Think this morning. You weren’t today where you were yesterday and you aren’t today where you were ten years ago, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago. Let’s face it.
People just don’t want to listen… oh, the listening part’s okay… in one ear and out the other. Do you know the Bible said: in the days of Noah nobody knew anything, except Noah and seven more people, till the flood came and carried them all away? Now, it didn’t carry them all away.
As they said, “Millions now living will never die, and be carried away in a Rapture.” Hogwash! The millions that were carried away were carried by the flood-they died!
Now tell me, why did they die? Because they wouldn’t hear the one prophet called Noah… with a simple, little message of condemnation: “Get in the ark or stay out.”
How many of those people… How many do you think got converted the minute the flood came and they began trying to hook onto the ark. But the ark was pitched within and without and pitch is pretty slippery! It’s got to be to shed water.
What do you think it was like when millions, five and a half billion people were dying in the flood? What’s it going to be like when six billion people face the great tribulation? That’s what a prophet is all about.
Say, “I don’t believe that.”
Well, fine. You don’t have to believe anything. I don’t ask anybody to believe anything. Believe anything you want. I’m not just being mean and tough. I can’t come down and change your heart.
I can’t do one thing for you. The church can’t do one thing and neither can the Word of Almighty God unless a person listens and looks. It says, “Watch and pray.” Watch what? Oh, come on.
Who is giving those Words to us? Jesus is giving those Words. Now what is he talking about? His own identified ministry as the Messiah. Watch! Look what’s coming and pray according to what you’re watching and apprehending from what you’re seeing.
Boy, the high priest sure apprehended. Didn’t he? He could see his multitude going; he could see his crowd failing; he could see his money going; he could see everything going; and he didn’t realize that he was going.
How many are waiting right now to come forth in that Resurrection, having died under Titus in 70 A.D. in a mini, mini-tribulation? How many are waiting right now? Like the spirits in the time of Noah, waiting to come up and go to the Lake of Fire.
“Oh, Brother Vayle!”
Don’t “Brother Vayle” me.
You don’t believe God; you don’t believe your Bible. You’re sitting here with your own ideas… forget it. I’ve nothing to tell you. You’ve got nothing to tell me… our fellowship’s gone.
And I’m not being mean, I’m just telling you the truth because the Word of God is a separator. The gifts only bring the people together as the charismatic Pentecostal movement has invaded every single church, and especially the Roman Catholic, who are called the Neo-Pentecostals.
And it brings them together to such an extent now, those same people, and the Pentecostals have to come to a decision now… whether their baptism evidence is entirely phony, entirely false, or they’ve got to separate from the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church still worships the virgin Mary… believes in a fallible pope.
No matter how much you speak in tongues and claim you’ve got the Holy Ghost, you’ve still got to come by the Catholic Church. They’ll tell you that flat.
They’ll tell every single Protestant, “You’re Catholics and don’t even know it because you’ve been baptized in the name of a Trinity,” and the Roman Catholics admit that they put the Trinity on the map.
Because, except before the time that they got their organizational creed upon them… their dogmas, and said Matthew 28:19 is the only way you can go, and those are not names-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-those are titles.
Everybody was baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they say, “Now you Protestants are Roman Catholics!”
Are you reading any papers these days? Are you listening to anything? You know because you call yourself ‘born-again’ and read a Bible the odd day doesn’t mean you can’t open your eyes and ears and know what’s going on. That’s why the Bible said, “Watch and pray.” Watch! Watch! Watch!
When the Jews and the Pope signed their first concordat the other day -6-6-6- sixth month, sixth day, sixth year… no more religious persecution, and the Jews are not accountable for persecuting Jesus Christ.
And if they weren’t, then Rome was, right? Rome doesn’t know that the same spirit of hell, the Babylonian spirit that came down to Rome, was already amongst the Jews.
How much did Israel believe the Word of God when their own religion had been invaded by the religion of the people out there in the world? It had been invaded and Rome admits, but they won’t draw back from the fact they hurt themselves by letting all pagan religions become a part of theirs.
Does Rome then have anything to tell us except paganism? Nothing.
Now there’s your picture and this is what I’m trying to tell you, and Brother Branham stood before those people representing… and they were-the Laodicean complex and all their complexities, and he preached this sermon on “Leadership,” so here… I’m going to go over a little bit of it.
In our last reading, in pages 16-19, from the message on “Leadership,” we found Brother Branham speaking to a golden calf scheme agency of the final hours of Pentecostal Laodicea where the Full Gospel Businessmen had superseded the five-fold ministry.
Even indicting it, excusing themselves as though all ministers were failures-and they wouldn’t be now-in not taking the Gospel to the whole world, and these men now organized and apart from ordained ministers given by God.
Were no different from the ones upon whom they frowned, for they had rejected out of hand the Prophet Elijah, who alone could restore the Living Word to the church and thereby establish true leadership.
Now that’s a mouthful but it’s the truth as I understand it today because William Branham was vindicated and vindicated just the same as Paul was. And Paul’s vindication was simply based upon the miracle power of Almighty God preceded by THUS SAITH THE LORD, as Deuteronomy 18 tells us.
Furthermore, when God spoke to Moses, He said, “I will make Myself known in dreams and visions to prophets but with My servant, Moses, not so. I will speak to him even apparently,” which means “I will make Myself visible to him in some way,” and at the burning bush that’s exactly the way it was.
And with Paul, that’s exactly the way it was.
Are you going to tell me now: the God Who works in three’s could not do it through this man? and that is not an ‘apparency’ of Almighty God? I’m not saying that’s Almighty God… if that is the shekinah glory and the Jews understood it, that’s a glory attendant upon the personal Presence of God, and it doesn’t make it ‘God’, but God is behind it somewhere, vindicating Himself.
Say, “I don’t believe it.”
Nobody has to believe-I’m just telling what I believe.
You say, “Brother Vayle, why are you such a bad person in front of these lovely, nice people here?”
I know you believe, but you understand also these tapes go around the world. My ministry is not a local ministry… I don’t want it to be… except I love you and you love me, but I speak very, very strong because I haven’t got anything else to do.
Now Brother Branham did not accuse them concerning their desires that’s to win the world for Christ. He never accused them of that.
But remember: Jesus stood before the Pharisees, the religionists of the day, and the Sadducees-their complex religion which was dominated by the Talmud, not the Torah-and he said, “You circumnavigate the whole globe to bring in one convert and he’s a two-fold more child of hell than you are.”
Like the Apostle Paul said, “You can come to church and leave in worse shape than when you came!” And no little old ladies are getting mugged; no women and girls and young boys being molested; everybody’s been taking the Lord’s Table, and leaving in worse condition than when you came.
And you know how they are in worse condition in Paul’s day and Jesus’ day? And Paul enunciated… he said, “I’m giving you what God Himself gave me and you’re not taking It.”
Now don’t think I’m ‘God’ up here-I’m just Lee Vayle. I’m not trying to give you anything but I’m quoting the Word of God and showing you Scripture being fulfilled, and Scripture runs in circles because alpha is omega.
And if you wonder what’s going on in this hour, all you’ve got to do is trace your Bible and go back where the Bible talks about it. And when you see it, you know you’re in that hour.
And if we’re not in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah-Sodomite condition-I want to know what we are waiting for to find a Sodom condition.
Now you know that AIDS comes out of sodomy… there’s no two ways about it. Are you fully aware that AIDS is spreading amongst the heterosexuals in their forties and fifties faster than any group?
Are you aware what’s causing it? Men frequenting prostitutes is what’s doing it. If we’re not in a Sodom condition of destruction, I don’t know what people call a Sodom condition of destruction. They’re willfully blind.
Brother Branham did not accuse them concerning their desires or motives, but he informed them from the Scripture that they themselves were unscriptural.
How could they lead others in any way except in an unscriptural way where all worship and service towards God is in vain and he was quoting Jesus who said, “In vain do you worship me, having for doctrine the traditions of men.”
In other words, “You do not have the actual true teaching from the Word though you go to It, you will not stick with It. You’re using your Talmud; you’re using the expressions and sermons of the elders of Israel.
You are not going right to the Word Itself. And neither will you examine It in the light of the Word Itself.” That’s why he said, “You say you’ve got Moses? Then go to Moses!”
They weren’t going to Moses they were going to their Talmud. They weren’t going to the Torah.
He said, “If you had known Moses”… he doesn’t say, “Well, if you were back there, so many hundreds of years ago, when you talked to Moses and met Moses…” He doesn’t say that. He’s talking about those five books of Moses.
He said, “If you’d have known.” Now what were they supposed to know? Exactly what a prophet is so they could tell one when they saw one… so they’d know Messiah. But they didn’t go there… they didn’t at all, they didn’t even believe in it.
Now we get the scenario: here these men were criticizing the five-fold ministry for not getting the work done, which to them meant the loss of millions of souls and they in turn bringing in those millions, hopefully to a rejected worship and worse still-a very possible three and a half years of the great tribulation and White Throne after that.
Now let’s check the Scripture and find out if I’m lying to you. We go to,
(18) And unto the [messenger] which is in the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath eyes like unto a flame of fire, and feet like unto find brass; [In other words, he’s been through the judgment so now he’s going to talk to these people here.]
(19) I know thy works, and charity, service, faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.
(20) Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, to eat things sacrificed to idols.
Now if you’ve got a Jezebel, you’ve got to have an Ahab. Say, “Well, I don’t believe that!”
Then you don’t believe the Bible. Jezebel was nothing without Ahab! Ahab was the husband; he was the king; he was the authority; and he married her and she then began ruling him.
So the church says here, “You’ve got a murderess, an idolater, a filthy woman, a schemer, who gets fed to the dogs, running you… and you’re happy.”
Now you try to tell me the Bible doesn’t say that… I’m going to tell you, “Go back here and I’ll prove it to you.” Come on… get your Old Testament, stand up here and show me the Old Testament doesn’t say it.
Did the dogs not lick her blood? Was she not the one who flaunted the death of Naboth? Was she not the one that polluted the religions, the truth of Judaism? Really, it’s Christianity because the word ‘Christ’ is ‘Messiah.’ Christos is Messiah, and Messiah and Christos mean simply what we know: Messiah, which is Savior.
And for anyone to think the Jews are not Christians, you’re mentally deficient. Are you in that category this morning? Christos and Messiah is the same word.
The trouble with the Jews: they are Christians who rejected Christ and now we’ve got another bunch of Christians rejecting him with their creeds and their dogmas.
How do I know it? Because it says in Revelation 3: “Standing at the door,” and you don’t find that they’re inviting him back in. Why? Because the church goes to judgment! Now if they had invited him back in, it’s a different story.
(21) I gave her space to repent of her fornication; she repented not.
(22) Behold, I will cast her into bed, and them that commit adultery with her into the great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. [Now when is the great tribulation going to come? At the very end of the Laodicean church age. So this prophecy goes right on down there.]
(23) And I will kill her children with death; [What’s that? That’s the second death-the Lake of Fire.] and all the churches shall know that I am he that searches the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
And He tells you right here: He’s going to stand as Judge at the end time. And you mean to tell me then that before the great tribulation and the White Throne, there isn’t going to be God Himself letting the people know that He’s judging them?
He tells you right here that He’s going to do it!
Say, “Just a minute…”
Don’t “just a minute” me.
If this is the great tribulation age in which we’re going, if we’re seeing the complete demise of civilization and we talk about the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and the handwriting is on the wall, and we see the feet of clay and iron, and they’re right here: democracy and tyranny, dictators and so on, communism and democracy.
We see the same right at this hour here and we see the pope, the antichrist, starting to form the concordat with Israel, of which it’s already started… And remember: the same thing started with Constantine.
Constantine, the Roman emperor, took the church and he said, “Now listen: we will get together politically,” so-called religiously, “because I want my empire fortified,” and the pope is doing this right now and he publicly declared-and you know it-he said, “I’m going to lead the whole world in Jerusalem by 2000 A.D. and I’ll be head of the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity and Islam.”
And you know the day is coming when you cannot buy or sell without it.
Now you sit here and say, “Brother Vayle, I believe all that…” And you can’t sit there and understand then something’s got to be done about this day because He said it would be done!
Now He said, “I’m the Judge,” He tells you “Feet of fine brass.” Brass is judgment. Do what you want. My zeal or my loud speaking isn’t going to convince anybody if God doesn’t touch your heart and make you begin to see.
We’re in this crucial hour here and you’re not going anywhere. It’s running out, the seed is running out. And you and the seed run out… what happens? There’s no more baptism with the Holy Ghost.
And no baptism… nobody can come into Christ. So when the baptism runs out, what’s the next step? The Baptizer Himself. “The fan is in his hand, thoroughly purging his floor, gathers his wheat into the garner-that’s Judge-He’s separating.
One taken, one left… separating. And you mean to tell me then this prophecy here to be fulfilled at the end time is not going to be absolutely fulfilled? Then read the rest of the prophecy: the Laodicean church age, the third chapter.
(20) Behold I stand at the door and knock…
What does James say? The Judge is at the door. What are we supposed to look at in this hour? Everybody just… “Oh, Rapture! Rapture! Rapture! Rapture! Rapture! Rapture!”
Come on! Are you going to build a hope on one little verse in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that people don’t even know the meaning of? I don’t understand people… just take what the church says… take what the church says.
God Himself says, “I will kill her children with death.” And who are the children? Protestant churches. I keep on telling you about the article I got from Time Magazine… I’ll never find it likely but you could write Time Magazine and ask for it-they’ll find it for you.
Time Magazine shows that every single church came out of Rome… bar none… in Christianity… bar none.
Oh, the Baptists say, “Well, we went back to John the Baptist.” Poor old Dr. Carroll… my God… I guess one of the loveliest Baptists in creation… did he blow it! He became the laughing stock of the universe trying to prove that the Baptists go back to John the Baptist. Shee-ew! Oh, brother!
Trying to make Christianity like Israel…
“My father was Lev-so I’m a Levite.”
“My father was Benjamin-I’m a Benjamite, an Israel.”
“Well, my father was Reuben-so therefore I’m an Israelite.”
That’s only by blood! John the Baptist wasn’t married! Shee-ew! Poor old Dr. Carroll. I feel sorry for him.
Like Dr. Lee… can preach one of the greatest sermons under high heaven… witness to Jesus Christ and salvation… and come up here and shake my hand…”Now you’ve got it.”
So I ask a question here: do you think any of these children are going to repent? Do you think Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostal, this and that, are going to repent?
The Bible says they won’t. It gave them a change to repent… they wouldn’t repent. What does the word ‘repent’ mean? Change the mind. I know people say, “Well, you know, bless God, repent means to change your ways.”
It’s not that at all. It’s to change your mind-then your ways get changed. Sure. You look at the Greek, look at the word… it doesn’t say “change ways”; it said, “change your mind.”
“I gave them a chance to change their minds but they wouldn’t do it.”
No, they could not do that.
Now this is what we are looking at, very simply: these self-ordained businessmen-preachers they’re businessmen-preachers… and even Oral Roberts said, “Keep out of the pulpit,” but they wouldn’t do it… were preaching a false gospel of creeds and dogmas whereas if they wanted the approval of God, they had to come by the Message of the hour.
That Message was predominately that God was a Rhema-Logos God. A Rhema-Logos God in plain English is: God cannot depart one iota from His Own Word.
As Brother Branham said, “This Bible is literally ‘God in print.'” That’s why you cannot add one Word or take one Word from It or you defile God Himself.
How are you going to change God? I’ll tell you how you change God, by changing God’s Word. When did Israel believe in three Gods? Never was three Gods-there’s one God, and you can’t cut Him in three parts because the Son of God is not God the Son-he’s the Son of God… and sons have beginnings.
I’ll admit the Trinitarians are right on one thing: according to substance, essentiality and exactly what God Himself was, is in that Son but he’s still the Son of God because sons have beginnings-but there’s not three of them. He’s got that one major Son and then all the rest of us are Sons according to natural and spiritual election.
He’s a Rhema-Logos God… one God and no Message but this Message-and this was God’s Message, even as Luther’s message absolutely condemned Catholicism from that point on.
Now if somebody is going to tell me after God raised up Luther that He could wink at Catholics’ ignorance, which was their studied and systematically defended and relied upon as the true knowledge of God, the true knowledge of worship, the true knowledge of true social contact in the Bride and Body of Chris-having rejected Luther.
No way! They were dead and already judged and condemned.
Now the next thing is tricky: what about when Wesley came on the scene? Lutheranism organized and died.
When the Pentecostals came without a leader, but the church was going to the gifts restored, they died because they all said, “This is of the devil,” and when you call anything of the Holy Ghost ‘of the devil’, you’ve committed the unforgivable sin.
Do you think Catholicism is going to rise? Lutheranism is going to rise? and Wesleyanism is going to rise? and the Pentecostals call that ‘of the devil’. Now how do you blaspheme the Holy Ghost and get away with it?
Say, “Well, I don’t think they blasphemed.”
Bring your history books and stand beside me because I know Pentecostal history like the palm of my hand. I was born into it. But I always knew something was desperately wrong.
But that doesn’t make me right and that doesn’t make me able to critique anything-don’t misunderstand me here, this is a personal testimony. I knew something was wrong with Pentecost all the years I was with them.
Then I began to understand: how could there be an eternal hell when God alone has eternal life? Every single one of us must have eternal life to go to an eternal hell. This is stupid because the Bible says, “Only God has It.”
So therefore only Sons of God would have it-not those who are not sons of God. I knew something was wrong right there.
I knew that speaking in tongues was not the answer though I believed in it and knew they had something but it couldn’t be the answer because you watched the life and those things that came forth. But that’s simply my testimony… it has nothing to do with anybody else’s.
Now leaving illustrating from nature which Brother Branham was doing, he goes on to show how Moses could not take Noah’s message; Jesus could not take Moses’ message; nor could Luther take the Catholic message; nor the Wesley, the Lutheran; nor Pentecost, the Methodists,’ and so today.
As we see the Church progressing, can the Church or should the Church, according to knowing Scripture and according to knowing history, should the Church expect to come to a place of complete restoration of the Word of Almighty God which started to go off course in 2 Corinthians 11, let’s look at it.
Now I hope you don’t think I’m trying to beat you down with what I’m saying…get you to believe anything. Please don’t understand… understand me, please.
If you meet me outside the pulpit, I’ll simply say, “Hey, glad to know you. May the Lord bless you,” and walk on. As I say, I preach hard because these tapes go out.
I preach hard because I know one thing: I believe with all my heart what we are looking at is a last day message, and if I believe this, should then I not do everything in my power to drive a nail and clinch it? If you think I’m making an overkill, that’s your business entirely.
To me, I cannot ever make an overkill. If I could make an overkill, then I could persuade men against their will, even devils. Forget it. I’m just trying to show you.
Now 2 Corinthians 11:2, It says:
(02) I’m jealous over you with a godly jealousy: [verse 2] I have espoused you to one husband, I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. [But watch what happened to this woman… the church, the Bride.]
(03) But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
(04) For if he that cometh preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel…
How far can you go wrong? Another Jesus, another spirit, another Word. Now listen to what I’m telling you: this woman is getting pregnant.
Where is she getting pregnant? The church is getting pregnant by a wrong Word coming in. Is it the Bride? No, it is not the Bride that’s getting pregnant by a wrong Word! She never has and never will.
It’s these children that are bastard-born from creeds and dogmas according to Acts 22.
Let’s put it together… now Paul the Apostle says in,
(27) I have not shunned to declare unto you… [No, let’s go further… verse 25:]
(25) And now, behold, I know that you all, among whom I’ve gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.
(26) Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. [Why?]
(27) For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. [Everything that God showed me… I held nothing back.]
(28) Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
(29) For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
What’s a ‘grievous wolf’? He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He looks exactly like a Christian. He might even have more love; he might even have more gifts; he might even be a finer person… oh, he would absolutely be…
But remember: he’s a ravening wolf; he’s of the devil; and he wants to get you by his seductions the same as he got Eve. You’re not looking at a rape artist here, brother/sister, get this flat. You’d throw a rapist out in fifteen seconds… I’m talking about the Gospel now.
Joe Smith’s bunch came in with a bunch of Mormons, Seven Day Adventists, and a woman prophetess. But you get some really nice fellow come here… you say, “My God, he’s got more love than I’ve got”… kind old priest. “Oh, my! He’s got more gifts than I’ve got. Oh, he’s this… and he’s that…”
How do you get seduced? Huh? Do you know how seduction comes? Let’s get it flat: a woman is seduced because she feels inferior. This man is making her feel good. He’s working on her ego.
Every woman seduced feels inferior unless she’s a whore going out there to trap a man… say, “Look what I’ve got, here it is.” We’re not talking about that, we’re talking about a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
So these guys come in… like a friend of mine went to India and when he went to India he forgot about Christ.
He said, “God never gave me anything like the love those people have-there’s something wrong with me… there’s something wrong with my God.” Do you hear what I’m saying? Do you want me to mention names? I’ll mention their names! I’ll take you to them. Don’t call my bluff because I’ll take you to them.
One man owns restaurants in South Carolina, unless he’s sold them, and the preacher that went there ended up getting a degree in psychology… one of the finest young men I’ve ever seen in my life and he went to the Holiday Inn as managing their restaurant. Shall I take you to him?
Oh, come on… challenge me… how that he was a Baptist, became a charismatic and brought the congregation with him. He let a seducer come in. I can name his name, too… Shall I?
He worked with a man William Branham knew. Booth-Clibborn who is a Universalist, who said, “One day the devil and Jesus will walk hand in hand down the streets of glory.”
My Bible says he goes to the Lake of Fire and gets destroyed. Where was Booth-Clibborn coming from? And he’s the son of the Evangeline, General Booth’s most famous daughter, who turned wicked Paris upside down when a man couldn’t do it!
A woman doing it? according to the Word of God? It’s impossible. If you want to talk to me, you better know your history and where you’re coming from.
I’m eighty years old, that’s from 1914 I’ve read the books and I’ve been around people. That doesn’t make me an authority but I know what I’m talking about at least.
Acts 20:
(29) …Wolves in sheep’s clothing, after my departing they’ll come in.
(30) Also of your own selves shall men rise, speaking perverse things.
“Of your own selves,” your own group right now. As Brother Branham said, “There’s three kinds of believers: unbelievers, make-believers and real believers in every group,” and they’re right here. It wasn’t the true Bride that got her mind infected. It was the group sitting there.
So therefore the next generation, even of the true believers, had to look at these things going on, and by the grace of God, they separated and they had the little… finally at the end time the Catholic Church had a few members with a little bit of light.
And God said, “Don’t you dare destroy the oil and the meal and the wine, a little bit of meal, a little bit of oil, little bit of wine.” In the Dark Ages had almost entirely died. Then God told Luther to come on the scene, start bringing a light back.
Now I want to ask you a question: has the light come all the way back to Paul? Has it come back to where it was supposed to come back? Do you know the true Jesus? Do you know the true Spirit? You know the true Gospel? Come on, tell me who’s got it? Then prove it! Prove it!
Say, “Well, I prayed in the Name of Jesus and this was done and that was done.”
I’ll trump your ace… everybody in this church, I’ll trump your ace and I’ll bring all the people under my ministry that got healed: devils cast out, tumors disappeared, blind eyes opened, deaf heard, dumb spake, cripples got out of wheel chairs. I’ve got nothing! Any devil like Judas could do what I’ve done and many times over.
Do you know this age gets judged by the Gospel of Paul who said, “You can’t add or take one Word.” He said, “Cursed be that person.” Do you know he said that? Well, I want you to know he said in 2 Thessalonians 1, and It says here in verse 7:
(07) You who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.
Now listen, It tells you: that’s the time you get your rest. That’s not the rest in the grave and that’s not immortality. It tells you he’s going to be revealed from heaven, It tells you, and at that time you’ll be standing her, and you’re going to enter into a place of rest.
Now hold your finger there and let’s go to 1 John 3 and let’s read something here. I just love this because this is one thing that opened my mind, “My God, Lee Vayle, where do you think you’re going?” First chapter:
(01) Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him. [Now watch:]
(02) Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: we know he shall appear, we shall be like him; we shall see him as he is.
Now just a minute… how is he? How is he? Tell me what about your Jesus that rose from the dead, where is he? Tell me what he’s like.
“Well,” you say, “Brother Vayle, I know what he’s like. He’s risen from the dead and he’s got a glorified body.”
And he said, “Handle me and see. A spirit hath not flesh and bone.” He didn’t say “blood,” he said, “flesh and bone,” the blood was gone. He could go through walls; he could go through doors; he could disappear from your sight by just wanting to.
Now It says right here, “When he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.” So therefore you’ve got to see him as he is before you get your change to be just like him. So he’s going to appear from heaven before men.
Now the thing is: how does God appear? Ask your pastors; ask yourself; get your Bible. I’m laying it on the line this morning for you people.
I want to know if you’ve learned anything in the last ten to fourteen years or anybody coming in here is going to have to double-guess me. You don’t have to double-guess me-I’ve said it right here.
It says in John, “You will see Him as He is to get like He is.”
Now everybody says ‘the Rapture’. No, not the Rapture because you’ve got to get changed down here to get up where He is. So then He’s got to come down here somehow.
How does He come down here? How does the Bible teach you? What does the Bible say about Him?
Now let’s go back to 2 Thessalonians… now It says here:
(08) In flames of fire taking vengeance upon them that know not God, that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
(09) Who should be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of our Lord and from his glory.
Now that’s an interpolation and that throws you plumb for a loop. He’s talking about ‘you’, then he’s talking about ‘them’, I don’t want to hear about them. I want to hear about me. So let’s forget them, let’s start over… verse 7:
(07) And to you who are troubled rest with us, [That’s you and me and all of us here by the grace of God.] when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. [Now verse 10:]
(10) When he shall come to be glorified in his saints…
He’s going to come to make sure you get your glorified body and at the same time you’re going to get your glorified body, the rest are reserved in judgment for the great tribulation. Now that’s known as the ‘Presence’, and who dares to teach the Presence?
“Well,” you say, “that’s that bunch of Rutherford… Jehovah Witnesses taught that.” I don’t care if they taught It they taught it wrong. Do you think they didn’t teach it wrong?
Let’s go to,
(03) As he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came and said to him privately, Tell us, when shall these things be? [That’s everything cast down.] and what shall be the sign of thy coming… [No way-the sign of thy Presence in the end of the world? Presence then in the end.]
You say, “Brother Vayle, they’re talking about his Second Coming.”
I beg to differ! They didn’t even know about his First Coming! They never had a clue about him dying and rising and going away for 2,000 years and coming back.
Come on! Stand to your feet and challenge me… make me a liar. Get your Bible… tell me they knew about his Second Coming. Do you know the question they were asking?
Come on, come on, come on… anybody knows the answer. Turn to your Bibles–first chapter of Acts, verse 6:
(06) When they therefore were come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
Still didn’t have a clue about the Second Coming. They still wanted him to take over… “Declare your Presence… make it plain.” His brethren said, “Make it plain.”
The word isn’t ‘Coming’ at all it’s ‘Presence’, and the word ‘Presence’ has nothing to do with ‘Coming’ at all; it has nothing to do with the event; it means ‘He’s here.’
The same as when He appeared suddenly in the temple, took up the Bible and showed who He was and everybody said, “Isn’t that great? That young kid… man… does he know Scripture! Oh, boy, can he do it!
They said the same thing about Brother Branham…”Oh, man! Has he got a ministry! Oh, boy, can he do it. That’s like Jesus did and I think we can do it, too. “THUS SAITH THE LORD, brother/sister, belongs to a prophet. I knew William Branham, I was in meetings many, many times-never failed once.
Whoever William Branham was in touch with when he said, “THUS SAITH THE LORD in the Name of Jesus Christ,” and every event came to pass and everything that he ever said never, never failed, you can’t find one time out of thousands and thousands.
And those who say it did are merely liars and detractors and I know all about them because I’ve been in the presence… well, we’ll bypass that about ‘presence’ but I’ve got enough reports without trying to make anything personal because nobody was much too personal with me concerning Brother Branham.
I guess maybe a little bit afraid of me on the grounds that I knew who was around him when they could say, “You know, Brother Vayle, I was with Brother Branham in a meeting.”
I said, “What meeting was that?”
And the fellow said, “I was down there in Florida.”
Well I was in Florida at that time when Brother Branham first went down there. The man was telling the whole world that he was a confidante and a helper of Brother Branham he was an usher in one meeting.
I don’t know if he ever shook the man’s hand. What good was his testimony, unless he told us something was there? But you get this all the time.
Now listen: we’ve looked at this Word here and we find concerning what we are looking at in this very hour: that Brother Branham stood there before the people, a vindicated prophet of Almighty God, and he talked to these people in a manner that many people would not understand.
And I want you to know one thing: Brother Branham could say things in a different manner from me because he was on the spot. I am not on the spot, I am bearing witness, not to Lee Vayle or anything Lee Vayle knows-but to William Branham, prophet of God, and what he taught.
So therefore I stick my neck out, say anything I want at any time… you understand what I’m saying? And I’m no embarrassment to the man. I’m an embarrassment to myself if I’m wrong.
But I believe… not with only with all my heart but everything in Scripture, that that man fulfilled what was to come to the Gentiles though people say, “Well there never was a Gentile prophet.”
How then do you connect the Resurrection with Jonah, a Jew, going down to the Gentiles? You’ve got a type right there. I know Jonah was an Israelite, I’ve no problem with that but where did he go?
Now remember this: when he went down there, it was the same as God going down there because the prophet is God to the people. That’s exactly what it says in Deuteronomy.
The people said, “Don’t let God talk to us anymore. Let Moses be the spokesman.
And God said, “That’s the way it shall be from now on. I Myself will never personally go to any one person and talk outside that man being a prophet and I’ll vindicate him to the people.”
Now that’s the Bible.
You say, “Well I heard God say so and so.”
Well, honey, just believe what you want. I’m sorry for you. You’re your own prophet. Prove to me God talked… give me THUS SAITH THE LORD.
I’m not being rude or vulgar up here, I want to know. I want to know why people can turn down the prophet just because they say so, “I don’t believe in it.”
Find what a prophet is. Then if that comes on the scene… See? That’s what happened with Jesus, he was that prophet. He came on the scene and they crucified him.
Now if a prophet comes on the scene today, don’t tell me they will accept him. They cannot accept him or you’ll have millions now living who will never die, when the Bible said that millions are going to die.
Eight people made the ark, which is a percentage, which means ‘very, very few’ are going to be in the Rapture. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings or anybody’s feelings, it’s just the absolute truth.
Now Brother Branham spoke to those people. Now if he was a prophet in the end time, what is that man supposed to do about the end time? Well let’s go to the Word of God and find out: 2 Timothy 4. What do you find there? Verses in 1-4 maybe:
(01) I charge thee before God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
Now look: that’s not the White Throne… that’s not the White Throne… doesn’t say it’s the White Throne. “The Lord Jesus shall judge the quick and the dead.”
In other words, there’s going to be a separation between those that are born again and those that aren’t and His kingdom is right afterward.
(02) Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
(03) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine…
Now are we going to lie and say, “God, you lied”?…”Hey, Paul! You shouldn’t have said that!”… “Oh… millions and millions will have the sound doctrine.”… “Millions are going to go in the Rapture.”
You know how many Christians there are, Roman Catholics included? Roughly, one billion. Mohammedans, the same. Israel? What? six million to fifteen? Who knows? You can never get a poll on them or an actual count.
(03) The time will come when they’ll not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
(04) And they’ll turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Now what’s a fable? It’s where the Pope is. He said, “I’m not spiritual, I’m moral!”
Aesop’s Fables-they’re stories with a moral to them. So you come to church and you hear all the preachers preach a story with morals to it, and they tell you how to be nice and how to be good and how to love, how to make friends and win your enemies-which is all good-but they don’t give you the truth. Why? Because the Word is not rightly divided. That’s just one thing.
Let’s go to Titus… after Timothy comes,
(09) Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convince the gainsayer.
Now what’s sound doctrine? Sound doctrine was handed down from Paul to Timothy to Titus and should have been handed right down to this age, but right in the first age the devil crept in, preached a false Jesus, a false Gospel, a false Spirit and you’ve got the same thing right today.
So therefore, there has to be a false Jesus at the end time because it’s been sown for. There’s got to be a false Gospel and my God! we know that’s true because it’s all gone social; and there’s got to be a false Holy Ghost. Baptism… is speaking in tongues… is that the evidence? If it is, I’d like to know more about it.
I’m not against speaking in tongues. The honest truth here: with the Spirit of God moving into the meeting this morning, I was going to get up and dance, but I thought you people would be floored and you wouldn’t understand what was going on, and you wouldn’t join me.
And I wouldn’t take any woman’s hand or any man’s, I’d just have danced unto God… because you worship God in the dance. You think I’m stiff and starchy… I’m not. I scream inside… I jump for joy inside… I laugh inside… I cry inside-sometimes it spills over.
Now if that had been Brother Branham, he’d have got up and done some toe tapping. We’re not dyed-in-the-wool, starchy people here. We’ve learned how to listen.
But if we’re not inside jump-for-joy-ers… my God! Who is? We’ve got something real. Oh, yeah… make you glorify the Lord.
Now listen we were in Titus here… 1-4… yeah… now we go to verse 10:
(10) For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially those of the circumcision [the legalists.]
The legalists, who don’t know the first thing about the grace of God so they put all kinds of things upon you.
Like the poor Mennonites right today-they’ve got the black hat, the black clothes and the women with the little thing on their head-when the Bible distinctly says, “Her hair is her covering,” not some little thing on top of her hair. It’s her hair, long hair. Find where you can cut your hair.
I’m not against any women who cut their hair-that’s their business. I just want the Bible. I want the men to show me where they can wear long hair and get away with it… how they can wear earrings and those things that pertain to women.
The Bible distinctly says, “A woman cannot wear what pertains to a man, and visa versa.” Why are they doing it? I want to know!
“Oh, my church says so.”
Fine for your church! Is the church going to judge you and judge me on that great day? What does the church have to say what?
Let’s get the point: where did the church begin to get its doctrine? Right from the Apostle Paul. What happened? It went off. If it denied the truth 2000 years ago, where is it today?
You say, “Brother Vayle, I agree. We need somebody to come back and tell us the real truth. Who is it going to be?” Not Lee Vayle! Don’t look to me… merciful God… I wouldn’t know the truth if I met it in my bowl of porridge. I want vindication.
I want a man to come like Jesus, come like Paul-vindicated. I can show you that Scofield said that Paul was vindicated. I could show you every teacher, every Baptist that knows anything, any Methodist, Pentecostal, Paul was vindicated!
Now where does vindication go? It went plumb up in smoke! when the people wanted it to go up in smoke. Now where are the people today?
They’ve been mentally abused and deceived until they’re insane with the word of the devil, not the Word of God, because they went off track 2000 years ago on the Word, on Jesus Christ Himself and on the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is God. Then where is the church today? You tell me!
Say, “My church…”
Bring your church and bring them with one evidence and I’ll take them to a Roman Catholic priest that prays for the sick in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, which I doubt you and your whole church and your whole organization can bring one sign that there’s a Living God anywhere.
THUS SAITH THE LORD is God’s criterion. Deuteronomy 18… when did it ever change?
And after THUS SAITH THE LORD by the Apostle Paul, you can have every man come into the church and he can have his own tongues and signs and wonders but not THUS SAITH THE LORD and take them right off the Word which is Deuteronomy 13: the sign of the false prophet.
And what is a false prophet? It’s a man that’s got every sign right but the Word wrong. Shew! You don’t have to listen to Lee Vayle to know that. You know that by now… my, my, my.
What does it say here?
(11) Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.
(12) One of themselves, even a prophet of their own said, The Cretians were always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
(13) This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith,
(14) Not giving heed to Jewish fables…
Why did Paul cut that? Because they went to the Talmud, they weren’t going to the Torah! Paul himself pointed every Jew to the Torah, the five books of Moses, the law and all the prophets. He never quoted the Torah once.
You say, “Brother Vayle, didn’t he quote the Book of Wisdom?”
You’re absolutely right. He quoted the Book of Wisdom, that’s not part of the Talmud, nor a part of the Torah, but evidently it was that which was said that came a hundred percent from the Scripture.
Like I could tell you right today, without saying, “Thou shalt not steal,” I could give you an illustration of how you can steal without even quoting the Scripture.
How you can steal a man’s reputation and he never gets it back again… and be a hundred percent with the Word of God… just the way Paul was, because, you see, he wasn’t adding or taking one Word.
His illustration was perfect with the Word, even as Brother Branham said, “I’m going to illustrate, and when I do, I’m trusting God, I won’t lead you off one Word by my illustration,” that you’ll hang right on that Word and say, “Oh, I’m going to take Brother Branham’s illustration.” No… Word, Word, Word.
Again, we read in Titus 2… no, let’s see… Timothy… did I read that yet? Timothy, the third chapter… 2 Timothy 3. Oh, that’s the whole chapter on the parable of the end time… you’ve heard it many times.
Go back to Titus 2 just for a couple of verses there… time’s running out… 12-15:
(12) Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; [And that’s great.]
(13) Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ;
(14) Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
(15) These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.
See? What I’m trying to show you: William Branham standing before these men, and he said many things that they did not like. Many things they did not want to hear.
If he was a man sent from God, which the Pentecostals even wrote a book… Gordon Lindsay, that he was a man sent from God-but then they changed their mind.
They said, “William Branham was only a prophet when he discerns and reads your hearts and tells you those things that only God could know… reveals them, but when it comes to the Word, don’t listen to him.”
Have you ever heard such tripe and baloney in all your life? Who in the world would know the Word of God like a prophet?
Look it: I’ve got a yard full of geese and a yard full of chickens and a yard full of ducks, they’re all together. Do you think for one minute a little duck can’t run up to a duck and a little chicken doesn’t run to a chicken and a little gosling run to a goose?
And I could have a barnyard full of animals and the lamb will run to the sheep. That’s what God said. He said, “The oxen know their crib; the eagles and birds know the path they take; but my people know nothing about Me.”
Isn’t it strange then that people will tell you in the face of a vindicated prophet… in the face of THUS SAITH THE LORD, and God is a God of integrity, that God would back that man up, and then he could come and tell you a lie… in the meantime, sit around and believe something different? I can’t buy it.
Jesus was a prophet, brother/sister. Never, ever forget it… Jesus was a prophet. Moses said, “A prophet will the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me and him you will hear in every Word, or that person that doesn’t hear is going to be destroyed.”
Now listen, get this flat: that was not the time when Jesus was here on earth in his flesh. They were not destroyed!
There were thousands and thousands that were not the servants under the Blood of Jesus Christ that heard the Word that “when you see Jerusalem surrounded.”
They left on the Word of the prophecy. They were not born again. There’s no record in the Bible, no record in any book I know. They fled; they got out.
Everyone wasn’t killed but there’s coming a time… there’s coming a time, and it’s got to be at this time of the revelation because it’s the only time it could be: when He appears, which is the Appearing, which is His Presence.
He comes down here according to the Scripture of how he comes down and how God operates, and at that time the rejection is: everybody else burns… except what? A hundred and forty-four thousand.
Now can’t you put it together? Can you begin to see where you’re at? You say, “Brother Vayle, then tell me plainly.”
I will tell you plainly, I will tell you plainly: God does not work apart from a prophet. He doesn’t.
So therefore if He comes down in Appearing, He’s got to have a prophet. Revelation 10. Revelation, chapter 10… if you want to go to chapter 5 first of all, it’s okay.
(01) And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. [And the Lamb of course takes the book and hands it back.]
Then notice in,
(01) I saw another mighty messenger come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
(02) And he had in his hand a little book open… [So who came down? Revelation 4 and Revelation 5 came down in Revelation 10:1.]
Now look at verse 7… who is standing there when He comes down?
(07) But in the days of the voice of the seventh messenger, when he shall begin to sound, [How many messengers are there through the whole church age? Seven.
This is the seventh, right? Now I left you hanging on 2 Thessalonians 1… I’m going to take you back right away.
(07) …and when he began to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, [And that in the literal Greek is the… how do you put it now here? ‘when he began to sound the mystery of God as he hath declared the good news of the Gospel to the prophets’] shall be finished.
So therefore the Gospel has at least two prophets. You say, “John was a prophet.” He was not, he was a scribe. Peter was not a prophet; he was a scribe. The apostle-prophet was Paul to the Gentiles, and there are seven of them.
Now the last messenger is in Revelation 3:14-23 about. So therefore: the days of the seventh messenger, he shall begin to sound, the mysteries of the gospel will be finished and the last mystery you and I know is this: there’s going to be a people standing here that will not taste death.
But like Abraham and Sarah, a sweep will go over them at the time the dead come out of the ground, and the Spirit of God will change them to immortality. 1 Corinthians 15. Start at verse 20 when you begin there.
Now let’s go to 2 Thessalonians 2. Nobody has to believe this… this is exegetically sound but nobody has to believe it. Now let’s look back… 2 Thessalonians 1, beginning:
(07) And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty messengers, his angels. [Now verse 10-that’s to us:]
(10) When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and be admired in all them that believe [because our testimony among you was believed] [In what day?] this day.
Now: if Paul’s testimony… right of 2 Corinthians 11 is this, you’re leaving it… you’re leaving it. Then before they can be judged by what is his, because when they left it, it’s no longer his, who is going to come back and put us on track?
Because we’re going to be judged by that Gospel, and you know I’m telling you the truth, and It says we’re going to be judged by one Christ Jesus by Paul’s Gospel. Who’s going to come back and put us on track? Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterian. I was all of those pretty well!
You say, “Brother Vayle, how?”
Because I was born in the Presbyterian Church… we had a wonderful man of God named Brother Langel but I was too young to get the truth, but I knew he had something. Our church joined the Methodist in Canada. We became united, so now I’m Methodist-Presbyterian. I hated it.
My sister got sick-she was prayed for by Pentecostals… became Pentecostal. The day came when I couldn’t stand it so I got with the Methodists… I beg your pardon, Baptist. Finally, I’m all by myself. And it made God help me to stay that way because all I need is His Word backed up by Jesus.
Now listen, right here It tells you: “In this day right here…” Now don’t tell me we’ve got Paul’s Gospel outside of Paul coming back or Jesus coming back or God sending somebody because it’s off track, and the last Laodicean church… “they’re wretched, miserable, blind, naked and don’t even know it.”
Now how can you be in Christ and not clothed with righteousness? So they’re not in Christ.
Now let’s not stop there, let’s go to 2 Thessalonians 2, we’re going to talk about the Antichrist, verse 7:
(07) For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: [That’s back in Paul’s day.] only he that now hindereth will hinder, will be taken out of the way. [That’s the Holy Ghost]
(08) Then shall that Wicked [one] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: [That’s after the great tribulation.]
(09) And even [Now watch this Wicked one], whose coming is after the working of Satan and he’s got all power, signs and even lying wonders, with the power… [Now It doesn’t say the power and signs are lying. It said he’s got lying wonders. And notice:]
(10) With all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
Now how can you have a love of the truth if you don’t even know it?
Say, “Well, I’ll tell you, Brother Vayle, I really believe that our church really has Paul’s Gospel and understands It, rightly divided. I believe they have.”
Prove it! My Bible said it went off track. My Bible says Christ is outside the church. My Bible says He’s knocking, trying to get back in. So you tell me your church didn’t try to kick Him out? What is the name of your church… I’d like to go and investigate.
What did you come out of? I’ll go with you and find out some of the things that they kept secret. I’ll be a nosy reporter. I’ll dress up in a dress and pretend I’m… is it Serec? or who is this… I know… Sawyer… she’s the one that’s got that ability to smell out religion and things. Let’s put her on the track. She’s even conveniently telling lies so I don’t want her with me.
Let’s just go to the bare truth. Let’s find out. It says right here:
(11) And for this cause [Now watch: for this cause (10) …because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.] And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie: [Millions now living won’t die.]
(12) That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So therefore anything outside of the truly revealed Word of Almighty God is unrighteousness, just as Cain did, offering a Scriptural offering but wrongly divided. I’m not trying to condemn anybody. I went through this myself.
I wanted to be right… I was even called a ‘church hopper’ because I was looking for light. Well, that fat woman sat there and she was just happy to sit there in her stinking, gluttonous pride with a religion that wasn’t worth a plug nickel.
Maybe I speak kind of harshly about her, but she sure burnt me up because she didn’t have a clue… didn’t have a clue. She couldn’t tell me one thing but she wouldn’t listen either, type of the church. The church isn’t going to listen. A little Elect Bride will.
Now It tells you right in here that at the end time there’s going to be people believe a truth. Now how do you know it’s the truth?
“Well, Brother Vayle, I’ll tell you: my life was changed.”
Oh, don’t give me that hogwash. I can take you to the Muslims and they… according to a true Muslim, your life will be changed. You’ll be sweet, you’ll be kind-which is usually a pack of lies because their religion is of the sword.
Who am I going to believe? So bring the Baptists, bring the Methodists… Oh, wonderful! I’ll tell you what you’re going to get: you are going to get confusion based upon compromise. So! they’ll lay it out so everybody can have something.
Now what if your little bit of nitty-gritty doesn’t go with their nitty-gritty? You’ve got a fight. What do you do? Get swords and clubs and kill each other? Now listen, let’s get very logical… I’m going to close.
Let’s get down to bare facts and bare truth: wouldn’t it solve everything if God in His grace should just send somebody-call him a prophet, call him an apostle, call him what you will.
Wouldn’t it be great, if there is a God Who would be so disposed to have pity upon us, if we do need pity, to send somebody that could stand there with the authority of God, like Paul did, like Moses did, like Jesus did, like the prophets did? And you can’t find anybody in the Word of God that ever stood there without Him!
Come on… I challenge you. You say you believe the Bible? Go from Genesis to Revelation… I challenge you… come on, find it. Just find it for me… can’t do it.
God never dealt with anybody after Moses unless that person was a prophet and every person that claims he’s a Christian mouths the word ‘prophet’, prophet, prophet, prophet, prophet.
But when it comes to the nitty-gritty, the reality… could God send a prophet? “Oh, no. My God wouldn’t do it.”
Where is the Scripture for it? Come on, tell me. I want to know right here. Then on top of that, you give me some sign that you’re right.
You see, my case-whether you know it or not, is one of desperation because I’ll die pretty soon if the Lord doesn’t come, and let’s face it, if He comes and He doesn’t want me… could die anyway. I’m going to go through the tribulation.
I saw the throes of the worst depression from 1929 to the ’30’s. I don’t want to go through another one. What if I have to? Well, I’ve got to go through it.
But in the light of the Bible, I have to make a commitment and I cannot make a commitment solely based upon Jesus dying upon Calvary, I’m sorry because Jesus did not die upon Calvary to save everybody. He only made a way for it.
Now why don’t people come when there’s no need for condemnation? It says, “This is the condemnation in spite of the fact that Jesus died to take away every single bit of it- “That light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”
They simply turned down the Word of God like they turned down Jesus. They never turned down Jesus because he was Jesus, the great prophet… because he did miracles, fed the sick and raised the dead. They turned him down because he opened his mouth.
And he said, “You’re wrong. And I’ve got the witness I’m right, because every deed I do-the Father backs me up.”
He said, “Sure, John talked about me but I’ve got a greater witness. The works that I do, I don’t do, but God in me does them.”
“Ho!” they said… “kill him!” It stuck to their heart-they knew it was the truth. He had the evidence. They said,
“Kill him!”
He said, “Why don’t you produce it?” Oh, that got them real mad.
He said, “If I’m casting out devils, how do your sons do it?”
They were casting out devils. How do you know they were? Jesus had twelve apostles, one of which was Judas and even he was casting out devils and he was a devil himself.
The anointing of God was upon every single one of those twelve-to cast out devils, to raise the dead, to heal the sick and they were doing it. And it couldn’t be denied.
And some people were casting out devils, not even belonging to the group. Then God sent seventy more out, and they were doing it. And others unheard of were doing it.
And he said, “If I’m doing it, by whom are they doing it? If you claim I’m of the devil, they’re of the devil… your own children, your own gang is of the devil. But he said, “They’re not doing what I’m doing.” They couldn’t do it.
Do you know what he said? He said, “If I had not done the works no other man did, they’d not sinned. But now they’ve both seen and hated both me and my father.” And he said, “I’m a man.”
What if God sent another prophet, and Jesus was a prophet, and that man did those mighty works?
Let’s talk about the atonement and I’m going to close, because this is why Brother Branham preached the way he preached: that these men were hopeful, they wanted great things, and I’m not against their motivation, I’m not against anything, I have no problem with all of that, I think it’s wonderful.
But what if you’re taking a wrong message? What if you’re taking a Word of reconciliation at a time when there’s no reconciliation? You’re taking something at the time of judgment?
Look what it says in,
(26) For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. [Now watch it: sacrifice and truth go together. Sacrifice without truth is no sacrifice.]
(27) But a certain fearful looking of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
(28) He that… [Now this is what happens under Christ and he’s comparing to Moses.] He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
(29) Of how much sorer punishment, shall ye be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace?
And he’s talking about what? Rejecting the Word that goes with the sacrifice. What if Abraham, having made that sacrifice, and God came down and said, “Abraham, you’re going to have a son by Sarah.”
“Huh! Lord! You’ve got to be kidding! I’m too old; she’s too old.”
Now, come on, would the sacrifice have been accepted by God? No way. People talk about being born again and talk about fruit. What kind of fruit? The fruit the Bible says.
See? Christians, without meaning to, and I’m not condemning, I’m just illustrating, we all as Christians have invariably applied to ourselves what we feel goes with the sacrifice other than what God said goes with the sacrifice.
That’s where the Catholic Church is: accept God, accept Jesus’ death upon Calvary-he is the Savior but remember: Mary is his mother. Ah, yes, and we talk to her so she’ll talk to Jesus and that sounds great, it’s wonderful if it were true, but the fact is: the Bible said there’s one mediator between God and man-a man, not a committee, either accessory or advisory-one man.
Now they don’t reject the sacrifice of Jesus-they love it-but they say, “Let me tell you something: there’s a purgatory and us priests are going to get you out.”
You say, “The Protestants don’t do that.” The Protestants do do that.
The Seven Day Adventists tell you, “Oh, we believe the Blood of Jesus Christ, you must be born again, but you’ve got to keep Saturday.”
Find it in the Bible. Show me by history. They’ll try to show you by history… they can’t do it… they’ll quote everything.
And like years ago, I told you: when Dr. Bosworth cornered me, he said, “Lee, at one time,” he said, “I used to believe in tongues evidence and I knew everything in the Bible and out of the Bible,” and I was the same way. That cut me right to the heart. He killed me right there. Go to the Bible.
I heard a man named Mr. McArthur, Rev. McArthur, the other day, he preached a fabulous sermon… he’s got to be a Baptist… without a doubt, because only Baptists would preach the way he preached, and he said, “Don’t you ever take any sign or any evidence anybody gives you. Go to the Bible and find out.”
Well, I want to ask one question: if that man saw a man stand there with THUS SAITH THE LORD, time after time, would he say, “That’s of the devil,” or “that’s of God,” or “I don’t know”? See, the Bible is the authority.
And you know something? If I preach wrong this morning, I’m not going to be judged by my heart and what I said I thought was right, I’m going to be judged by what is right that is vindicated to be correctly divided.
Not what everybody talks about, and everybody says, but it’s the Word of the Lord.
Well, let’s rise and be dismissed.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the time we’ve been here together, knowing, Lord, that we could go over the fact of the prophets: Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah… every prophet had to be vindicated or anybody to believe would be insane or devil-possessed or easily fooled and led astray… if he ever had anything to be led astray from.
And today, Lord, we go back to the same Word, the same God of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God of David, of whose lineage Christ came, blessed forever.
Going back, Lord, and understanding that Paul was that prophet-apostle sent to the Gentiles, we understand this, Lord, we only know one thing: that a wrong division could turn us aside and we have only one hope, Lord, knowing that it takes a prophet to bring the Word, to reveal It, and our hope, Lord, is not in William Branham per se .
You know that in our hearts, Father, we never have made him ‘God’, we’ve never made him ‘intercessor’, we’ve never made him ‘mediator’.
We’ve never made him anything but a prophet because we believe that’s exactly what you made him according to Deuteronomy 18, according to Paul himself who knew that his ministry was vindicated by the miracles, the signs and the wonders that were performed in a manner that no other person performed in.
Given to him exclusively with THUS SAITH THE LORD, the only way Lord, I can understand it going back to scripture and staying with how You were back there, You’d have to be the same today.
And we as a people here Lord, standing with It believing that we now have today the truly reveal Word of the Apostle Paul, if we only want to receive It. And in there we see the marvelous Grace Lord, Your marvelous predestinating Power, Your marvelous Fatherhood to a people.
Your marvelous mercy Lord, at the same time we know Judgement strikes the earth and we know You going to get Your Bride out of here without spot without wrinkle, perfectly sanctified at the end time to be presented to You by the washing of the water by the Word.
And we know, Lord, a word that wasn’t given by You to Paul, is not going to do the work. It won’t do it. It’s going to have to be that Word that was given there with the proper understanding.
And I believe that, Lord, and I believe that today we do have that revelation. As Brother Branham himself said, “By the grace of God, we have the perfectly revealed Word for this hour.” And I believe that somehow Your Word has been fulfilled, and we’re standing on It.
And I’m content today to make the testimony, Lord, to You, to anyone who’d care to listen, that I don’t have anything of myself. I have not discovered one of these things that I preach.
I have not had it in my heart for one moment, but what I’ve got for my belief, the man that You sent from God, and I believe vindicated by You in this hour, thereby vindicating Yourself to him and him to us in the Word with that end result.
That we believing, Lord, now have that legitimate faith at the end time and do not exclude it from anybody else under any consideration, no means, what they come from or what they going to. That’s not it.
It’s up to their own hearts whether they want what we have, knowing we don’t want what anybody else has, but not excluding them, just leaving them to You, knowing that “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them which are His.”
So, Lord, we commend ourselves today, and we clear ourselves to You in prayer, from our hearts. And if we’re wrong anywhere, Father, we just ask not only to forgive us, but correct us, so we don’t enter into that which is in error, but stand clear in the judgment of our God.
Bless your people this morning. If there are sick amongst us, may they be healed. So many need healing, Lord, these days in this hour, and we know people are getting healed. We’re grateful for it.
Some people need jobs, Lord; we know their income is small, but You can make it last further than most people… On the other hand, Lord, we know there’s nothing wrong in looking for work that betters them. We pray, then, Lord, for better jobs and anything that’s in the Word of God that’s not just committed, but it’s actually based upon a promise that is there’s.
May we not fall short of one promise, not putting You to the test, but as it were, ourselves to the test, to enter into every grace and Word of promise in this hour.
That we can stand before you, Lord, not with any pride in ourselves or justification, but stand here wanting to, not just hopefully, but endeavoring and at times true, glorifying your great Name as we stand with this Word showing to our own hearts and those around who want to look and listen, that You are the faithful God Who promised, and You will never deceive us and never leave us.
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only-wise, God be all honor, power and glory, through Jesus Christ our blessed Lord, world without end. Amen, amen.
“Take the Name of Jesus with You.”