Perfect Faith #03

Heavenly Father, again we want to thank You for this special opportunity You’ve given us again to meet on this first day of the week, commemorating Your resurrection.

We know that You are alive, that You have risen from the dead and seen in this last day and hour, the absolute proof of it, as far as we’re concerned, and to understand by Your Word Lord, that You’ve now done the same things by Your blessed Holy Spirit, that You did when You were here in the form of human flesh.

Help us to recognize that, to understand it Lord, to know what the import, the impact is upon our lives, and help us Lord, to understand what You’ve done for us this day.

And may we by it Lord, grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to serve Thee acceptably, and be ready Lord, for the day which You have proclaimed ‘the great day of the Lord, of a judgment and a victory Lord.

When You will take away a people Lord, unto Yourself, that You will bring back a people upon this earth immortal Lord, to serve You under the ideal conditions that You set forth in the Millennium, Father, when every man will be under his own vine or fig tree, everyone, Lord, in peace with the King and Prince of Peace here in our midst, governing and ruling from sea to sea Lord.

And we just thank You for that promise we have. May we know more about it today, whatever is required and necessary for us.

In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated.

Now, as I mentioned already, previously, that we’re studying the message, Perfect Faith, which was delivered by Brother Branham quite some time ago now, and I want you to realize this, that Brother Branham had the greatest gift of healing since the time of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no record of anybody since the time of Christ that had this great ministry that he had. In fact, as I mentioned to you that Brother Bosworth tugged my coattail back in 1953 in West Palm Beach, and he said, “Brother Vayle, I prayed for the ministry of Christ to return to the earth for forty years and there it is in that man.”

Now, why he was able to know in himself and especially from Scripture that that ministry would return is something that I am not familiar with, except I know that God had to show him.

I have read no book anywhere, and I’ve had many books in my hands, that would even suggest that.

Now I know people thought how wonderful it would be, but to actually believe that that ministry would return, and then to place it in this hour as to the validity and necessity.

As I say, I have never run across anything in theology it might be there but I am not aware of it.

Now mentioning Brother Branham’s great gift of healing, I want to sort of talk about and compare it to a great gift of an artist. There’s a great gift of painting or drawing.

Now that artist cannot possibly tell you how to express a gift that he has and you don’t have.

The best he could do, and especially in my case because I remember we had an art instructor who was exceptionally proficient and he said, “Anybody can be an artist.”

And I thought, “Hogwash, anybody can be an artist!”

Then later on I read by one of the most famous artists in the world that everybody simply couldn’t be, and I knew that.

What this fellow was trying to sell, I guess, was a bill of goods, or maybe an encouragement, but there’s one thing he could do.

He could teach us laws of art which have to do with perspective and straight lines.

And so I became at that time a little efficient. You know when you understand how inefficient and ineffectual I am as an artist, and you’ve seen me scribble on boards here, so you know.

So when I talk about being a little efficient with these straight lines that show forth perspective, then hey! that’s great, you know.

Well, you can be taught certain things about anything, but to be proficient, to really express what lies truly within you, then you have to have whatever it is within you.

And then actually I believe those are the people who find these laws such as, you know, when they… in Greece, where the Acropolis and the Parthenon, and you can stand back and the columns look perfectly straight, because they bent them, knowing that, you know, as you stand back, things just kind of have a vanishing point, and they kind of look like they’re going up.

It’s wonderful. It’s a pity that people weren’t of the frame of mind to save, you know, the glory of Greece.

People weren’t of the frame of mind either to save the glory of Christ, so everything is always taken over by barbarians.

But anyway… talking now, getting back to Brother Branham, like the artist with this tremendous gift of healing that he had, and remember with every gift goes a measure of faith. We read that, right?

Yeah, that’s in the 12th of Romans; a portion of faith. Now every man has his own measure of faith, which is static, like it’s basic, like the Scripture says in 2 Thessalonians: “All men have not ‘the’ faith.

Then it says in Mark 11, “Have ‘the’ faith of God,” and the faith of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, and those various truths in there.

And in 1 Peter, it mentions on the first rung of the ladder in the stature of the perfect man ‘faith’.

So okay… everybody has a faith. Now Brother Branham’s faith was far greater than ours to the extent that he had actually more than a faith in this gift on the grounds that God would show him things by either prophetic utterance or by a vision.

And in the vision he would tell us what it was: it was always THUS SAITH THE LORD, it could never fail.

There was no way that that thing could fail. So that was resident in him, and he had it so that when this gift was operative, there was nothing that he knew that could stand in his way and he feared nothing, as we’ll read about… absolutely feared nothing, wouldn’t matter what it was, it was operative.

Now, as an artist can stand back and say, “Now here are certain laws that I’m defining that will help you in whatever you have, because you have a little bit of it and you will use that successfully as you follow these laws.

Now you can’t aspire to be the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot aspire to be Paul. You cannot aspire to be a Martin Luther or a Wesley; you can’t aspire to even be a Finney.

What can you aspire to if it’s not in you? But you can aspire to what lies within you and use it as it ought to be used.

So that’s what I see in this message that Brother Branham is doing, I’m going to start to read from. He is trying to give us some laws that he is conversant with that will be helpful to us.

Now he cannot give us laws that he is conversant with that are his. You know you can’t do that.

There are people who have a gift of evangelism… like I used to like to hear Morris Ward, the Pentecostal. Now, look it, this is I’m talking.

Billy Graham’s great, but as far as straight projection, I could never consider Billy Graham to hold a candle… well, that’s maybe a little too rough, to ever approximate Morris C. Ward as a brilliant evangelist, but Ward never had the results that Billy Graham had. Billy Graham had a very special gift.

He himself was the gift of evangelism and evangelists in this hour to the churches out there.

So Morris could do a very good job with what he had, but when it came down to the final results, there’s nobody that touched Billy Graham.

Now none of us expect to touch where Brother Branham got. But in our own level, we can have, and we should have, a continuity of success I use the term loosely or results, or net benefits, from the promises of God, the way Brother Branham had on his higher level.

Now you’re only required to be faithful to what you have.

Now if I’ve got ten dollars and you’ve got one dollar, I am ten times more responsible in the sense of magnitude, but in the sense of the essentiality, I am no more responsible than you are, because in our own way, in our own possessions from God, we are responsible.

Now, if I’ve been born a teacher, which maybe doesn’t sound like to some folk, but I teach after a a bit, a little way, my own funny way.

If I’ve got a little special measure to bring things across, then you won’t approximate it, but every single person has a measure of the teacher in him and in her, and you will be responsible for what you have, just as much in your area, as I am in mine. See?

Now, evangelistically speaking, every one of us should be a witness. I think it was Dr. Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s father, I think it was, very popular minister many years ago now, and you’ll recognize that, but she’s the one that wrote ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, the daughter did, and they said, “Dr. Beecher, how is it that you have such a success ministry?”

“Well,” he said, “I tell you what”… I forget the number in his church, but he had a few hundred… let us say three hundred, he said, “I preach a sermon, one sermon, Sunday morning to three hundred and I have people preaching three hundred sermons on Monday morning.”

Everybody is a preacher, an evangelist, a teacher, whatever in the measure God gave you as a witness.

Now, you can never take the person’s place that God ordained to leadership in the church, those five-fold functions, but you can do those things, because you’re able to do it, and you have plenty of the Word of God to give you the guidelines.

It doesn’t tell you, like for instance, it doesn’t tell you and me to labor constantly over people that just laugh and shrug their shoulders. It says, “Witness twice; from that point, treat them like a heretic.”

They’ll never get saved. It doesn’t mean they won’t get saved but the heat’s off of you. See? You’re not required to do miraculous things and be something you’re not.

So, as we look at Brother Branham here, he is speaking of himself many times and you must not attempt to approximate it on his level, but you can take what he said, and I can take what he said, the principles that are ours that he lays out and he feels are good for us, and we can deliberately use them and in their usage become more and more familiar with them until we are able to use them easily, or with good results.

Now this can be done, and this takes application of the mind more than anything else. Why?

Because the soul works on the spirit and the spirit works on the mind, which is a spiritual entity and then it works on the brain which collects the information from the outside.

Then the inside information comes against the outside information and in your soul lies the power of choice, whether you will believe what is on the outside or you’ll believe what is on the inside.

Now the believing on the inside had better be what’s in this Book, and that’s what the Spirit of God does.

He will speak to your spirit by way of the processes of the brain and the mind and channel it down in the soul where your decision and my decision lies.

Will I walk in the principles of faith that God has laid out? And William Branham is trying to help us with these principles.

So that is where we start this morning. Okay.

In discussing then perfect faith, Brother Branham speaks on: one, what it is; two, what it is not; and three, how one who has faith uses it to gain an answer to prayer, especially a prayer for healing, because he’s going to deal with the prayer line.

Now first of all he impresses us that we must unconditionally accept faith as being real… real. See? Okay. Hard rock. It is actually in Scripture classified as a substance, and at no time is it to be reckoned as anything less than a substance.

Now let it sink in… unlike a piece of rug or a window there, but a substance, it’s real. It is not a product of the imagination or of the mind.

It’s not something you’re conjuring up, something you’re trying to say, “Thinking makes it so,” like the old song, “Believing makes it so,” and that, to a degree, is correct, if you know what you’re talking about and where it’s aiming it, but this is not a product of the imagination of the mind.

You’re not conjuring it up. It can be even more powerfully effective in comprehending and apprehending in its realm, as is any one of our five senses. In other words, you can come up with faith and it’s a whole lot realer than what you see or what you hear or what is going on, and you don’t give a care.

Oh, you’re concerned but… you know. You’re standing there watching something through faith, the inner eye.

By faith we can know without seeing or feeling or involving any other criteria through the senses that we possess, the promise, and then conduct ourselves accordingly, in other words, by faith, apart from the senses entirely.

We know within ourselves that we can possess the promises and we can conduct ourselves in such a way that we can gain the promises.

Now, in paragraph 43 on page 9, tells us this by an example of one coming to a prayer line, and Brother Branham will deal a bit with the negative here, but don’t feel bad because it’s merely in order to explain and to help. He is not being critical. All right.

[43]  See, if you had perfect faith, [which we know to be faith that is really working, something which is going to accomplish. Perfect faith zeros right in and gets the promise.] If you had perfect faith, you’d look straight to God and believe it, and walk away.

[In other words, you’d know you had your answer.] You’d have no need of coming into a prayer line. You’d have no need of these things, because your faith has now made it so, see. What would be the use for me saying, “I got to put a shirt on”? I’ve got a shirt on already!”

Now this doesn’t mean prayer lines are not needed or obviated. He’s just illustrating.

[44]  “How do you know you got a shirt on?”

[45]  “Well, I see it, I feel it, I know that it’s there.” [Scientific.] Well, that’s just how real that when perfect faith takes hold. You don’t have a need anymore. It’s already done; you know it.

Now this is illustrated at the time Dr. Price was telling about a little child in a prayer line. Then many children tried to do the same thing but it wouldn’t work, because this child was inspired.

And the little child came in and he was club-footed, and so therefore he was not walking properly. And Brother Price noticed that this little boy had a box under his arm, and he said, “Little fellow, little man, tell me,” he said, “what’s in that box?”

He said, “A new pair of shoes, because as soon as you pray, I’m going to put on my new shoes. I’ve been waiting years to do this.”

And he did it. And he did it, and thousands saw it.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, and I lived there, and I’m talking about Dr. Price way back in those days so I can tell you much more about Brother Branham.

I was not there, but Dr. McCrossin, one of the most respected Presbyterian theologians living, and a Greek student of the highest order, stood on the platform where dozens of people spit up goiters and you know a goiter is not inside the throat, it’s in the walls of the throat.

They picked them up in dust pans.

You know, you don’t even have to talk about God, you can even talk about psychic healings and you know there’s something to it.

When Dr. Poharidge wrote the book, ‘Surgeon With a Rusty Knife’, about Arigo, the Brazilian, it would bring tears to your eyes to realize how that man suffered and died, and he was under the influence of a spirit that was not of God, and everything that he did was not in the realm of Divine healing whatsoever, but the man could take a rusty knife and excise perfectly a tumor off the eye. Never was there any case of infection.

What was the name of that Brazilian… was it Bettencourt? It is reported that this president was cured miraculously by Arigo… It was Bettencourt.

Bettencourt was the man that ran for president, became president.

His lung was full of cancer. Arigo went into his room in a trance, took out the cancer. The blood on the bed proved what had happened. Bettencourt had no more problems.

Now, that’s not Divine healing, that’s an intervention of a description we don’t deal with. And I’m not pitting Satan against God… I’m just telling you things.

It’s the most amazing book. Ruth Montgomery writes of these things, too.

You cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, put away the supernatural. I don’t care who you are. God has laid down the precepts in this Word of His, and through Divinely-given teachers, especially a Divinely-given prophet, William Branham, to show us some of these things.

How do you know you’ve got a shirt on? Well, I know I’ve got a shirt on… don’t tell me I haven’t. I’ve got more than a shirt on; I’ve got a tee-shirt on; and a shirt on; and a coat on; and a tie on my shirt; I’ve got hair on my head; and to deny it would be simple folly.

And faith is more powerful than that. See? It’s already done.

How do you know it’s already done? Well, you know you’ve got your coat on, anybody can see it.

“Well, I can’t see it.”

Listen, if you can’t see it… well, I’m going to tell you something: I am going to see it and you are going to see it, because I am in the will of God asking for this and I’m obeying the precepts of faith and I know that I have it.

It’s the strangest thing, you know, as you get encumbered with theology, you get less and less faith. I’m very sorry to say that, but it’s true.

I remember when I first got saved, I told you I had this bad wrist here, I was a hockey player, ha, ha. Gretzky, I wasn’t, or a Bobby Orr, I wasn’t. Hah! Bobby Door, maybe, falling on my face all the time, or bumming into something.

But anyway, playing around, I hurt it. This… you could kind of put your fingers in it, and if I moved, it was like ‘ummmmm’, a toothache. It lasted months and months. I was eighteen when I got saved.

I remember I used to lie on it like this, and kind of pin it down, and when you pin it down, lying on it, you don’t move, you get pretty good sleep out of the deal… not as good as you’d like to get, but you get sleep out of it. Okay.

I pinned it down, but one night I said, “Now, Lord, tomorrow morning there’s no more pain.”

Fifty-five years I have not one pain in that wrist, and I never will have either, because God does a job, He does a good job.

[47]  “Faith tells me so!” That’s it, see. Do you get it now, what I mean? That’s perfect faith.

In other words, the assurance which comes by faith, or as the Bible said, “Faith is your assurance of things hoped for.” Faith is like money. Say, hey, I tell you what, I think I want one of those… what do you girls like?… you men like?

Oh, I know, you like Friendly’s ice cream cones Okay. Eighty-five cents a carton. I’m going to buy me a cone. How do you know? Because I’ve got a dollar bill here says that’s mine. As long as that ice cream cone is for sale, as long as it’s available, and I want it, I got it.

Now that’s what you are looking at. You say, “Faith is real as that?”

You bet it is. Faith is a whole lot realer, too, than that because all these things will perish, but I just wanted to illustrate that. Well, that’d take me an hour and a half to preach that sermon, never mind it. Okay.

[48]  Now, in other words, [Brother Branham says,] I am venturing out.

I’m on the move, see? Now some people venture wrong. In other words, there’s a presumption involved; it’s not a true, perfect faith where they know they’re going to go. It’s just a kind of a ‘hope-so’, ‘guess-so’, ‘maybe-so’. Listen:

[48]  “Well, I’ll go, The Bible said, ‘Call the elders, let them anoint with oil, and pray over me. All right, I’ll go up there.” You say, “Well, I’m going to be healed.” See, you’re making yourself; [see, you’re just trying to put yourself in that position.

Now watch, you mustn’t do that,] you just get worked up. And then when you pass through, you’ll say, “Oh, I still don’t know.” See, there you are, you didn’t have faith!

Now, that doesn’t mean that hands are not laid on the sick anymore, and it doesn’t mean it’s simply an act of presuming when you go up there, but it means this: you know what that Word says, and you don’t go up there unless you do know what the Word says and you’re going to stand with It, because it’s a committal.

You can’t run to every prayer line in the country and you can’t run through the elders time after time if it isn’t working that’s no the way God wants it.

See? Now, he’s not trying to be critical here; he’s trying to be explanatory and helpful.

[48]  See, there you are, you didn’t have the faith.

[49]  Your genuine faith will do it right there…

Now you go through the prayer line, you’ve got the elders praying, a genuine faith will do it. See? Maybe not at that moment.

Like Brother Branham said, “When God said, ‘Let there be light’, who knows if it was a trillion years or a thousandth part of a second?” I don’t know, nobody knows.

“Well,” you say, “I believe it came right away.”

I do, too, but that doesn’t mean we know.

[49]  Your genuine faith will make it so real for you. [For example,] Look at that little woman with the blood issue, she said, “If I can only touch the border of his garment, I’ll be made well.”

And as soon as she did it, she said, [it’s said of her,] she felt within herself that her blood issue had stopped. She actually believed it.

Now our faith then, according to this statement here, can be real, for it’s based upon a proper reality for this hour, for the simple reason that Brother Branham could show that God was the healer and wanted to heal.

Now we’re talking about this woman then. She’s in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[50]  And when she touched [the hem of his garment, now watch, Jesus proved himself that the blood issue had stopped because he turned around and said,] “Who touched me?”

Now, I want you to watch the language we’re going into because there’s something we must see here, and it’s based on the fact if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, He will now do, in the form of the Holy Spirit in a Pillar of Fire to the Gentiles what He did when He was back there in the form of a human being.

Remember He said, “I must send Elijah in order to restore.”

Christ’s own ministry vindicates Elijah or the prophet of this hour to bring us the truth of the restored Word, and this is the part of the vindication that he has to prove that he is that prophet, and he’s using this as a springboard to help us to understand faith and to use it. Now:

[50]  …Jesus himself turned around and said, “Who touched me?” That’s perfect faith! And that same perfect faith tonight, [watch the time element,] will touch Jesus Christ as it did then. The woman came with a perfect faith for that time.

Now that’s in Luke 8:40. Let’s read it and then we’ll talk about this. Luke 8:40.

You’ve got your Bibles, which is very good, and I trust I’m emphasizing these things exactly right to be helpful. Okay, I think it’s in the 40th verse… here:

Now notice he did not pick her out like the man at the pool; he did not pick her out like the widow’s son. She made a move toward him, and he honored her faith.

Now, even if she hadn’t touched the hem of his garment, she would have been healed, but she said, “When I do it, all I’ve got to do is touch that garment, because there is something there.

Let me get some kind of a contact. Let me just some little thing here, because there’s enough there to get what I want.

Now, what I was belaboring here, when I talked about this, when Brother Branham said, “When she touched the hem of his garment, Jesus himself proved that the blood issue stopped because Jesus turned and said, “Who touched me?”

Now, how many times did Brother Branham absolutely use the same phraseology from this actual Scripture in order to show that people in the audience were actually touching God, because he could call them by name, tell them exactly what is wrong, and said, “It’s over; go on home.” And it was over.

Now you say, “Mental telepathy.”

Well, then, let’s have more mental telepathy. Let’s have a bunch of it. Mental telepathy won’t do it.

Never has, and never will. Now it can do some things, but it’ll never do this. Brother Branham was illustrating to you and me.

What? That Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever, and is actually present in a way that He has not been present for two thousand years, and this is not Moses, Jesus Christ, and William Branham, as though you’re dealing with ascended masters, or some great phenomenon that occurs every two thousand years.

Forget it. It is not Adam and Noah and Moses and Jesus and William Branham, making five, but there are five, and it’s not reincarnation, not ascended masters, it is God moving according to how God has always moved the same yesterday, and today and forever.

So, at this particular time the Scripture says, “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.”

That is the Appearing, and ‘appearing’ means to evidently show forth in His true character, which was shown forth that this was the literal ministry of Christ, and you cannot have a literacy without the literal one being there.

If it’s going to be a literal ministry of Christ, it better be a literal Christ. And remember Paul said, “Henceforth we don’t know him after the flesh.” And Paul called the Pillar of Fire ‘Jesus’, or the Pillar of Fire called Himself ‘Jesus’.

From that time on Paul called God in the form of the Holy Ghost in the Pillar of Fire ‘Jesus’.

And the Same One that visited him was obligated to come back and visit at the last day, because the revelation was not complete, and Paul himself admitted it. He said, “Oh, if I could attain to it.”

How can you attain to that which is not attainable at that moment? How can you jump three feet high, or even four feet or five feet when you reach the age of twenty, and you’re only two years old? It lies there, the ability in the future.

So the apostle Paul knew something was coming down the road. John knew something was coming down.

Every prophet knew something was coming down the road: the ability at one time to stand before God and become immortal.

Man has looked for it, and that promise was sealed in the garden under the seventh seal, six thousand years ago, but now it’s opened before us.

So here we have the prophet. There’s hundreds of things we could talk about, we haven’t got time for it.

I’m not going to take you for the next sixteen hours, and I’m not going to stand here sixteen hours either. We’ll quit pretty soon.

That same perfect faith, that that woman had, he illustrated was the same perfect faith that people were using in that building night after night after night, and many times they weren’t even using a perfect faith.

There were people sitting there who were in need and just suddenly thought within themselves, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could have it?”

And that was enough for them to be a perfect faith to them, to really trust and to see what was there.

When he was in Lima with us back in 1957, usually when Brother Branham picks you out of the audience, calls you by name, and tells you what’s wrong with you, I say, ‘usually’ the majority do not rise to the occasion and be healed.

There wasn’t one person in that meeting in dozens and dozens were called, that was not healed, and there were many people who were healed that didn’t expect it.

They just came even to see what was going on, and God let them know what was going on.

The mercy and grace of God trying to bring people to Himself by doing these wonderful things to attract our attention, just like in the days of Moses.

We don’t need a burning bush in the twentieth century we already had it. We had literally hundreds of burning bushes.

Do you realize, back in Moses’ day, one little burning bush, and then one little some incident… not incident, beg your pardon, a miracle that took place in Moses’ day, and there were miracles taking place.

Do you know this age we’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of them?

Yet I know one man so blind, the poor fellow… lovely person… “I’ve never seen a miracle,” and his own wife, dying of tuberculosis, was healed as she listened to the television broadcast of Oral Roberts.

Can you follow what I’m saying? How can a man ever say he’d never seen a miracle?

If my wife had tuberculosis, or I had tuberculosis, and somebody was preaching on the goodness of Almighty God, and then letting people know, exhorting them concerning faith in the power of God to heal, and that woman gets healed… Do you mean he didn’t see a miracle? Well, there it is.

Now, let’s keep reading. That’s Hebrews 13:8 of course that we were dealing with, and Brother Branham was exemplifying it to us that very night. Like he would say then, “Who did she touch? Who did he touch?”

Now, he said, “It wouldn’t do any good to touch me.” Then what was he doing? Let’s put it this way: Jesus Christ couldn’t heal anything either. We’ll study this. He said, “I in myself can do nothing; it’s the Father in me doing it.”

Then who did the woman touch? God, in Christ, because God was in Christ. All right, then, who was being touched here when William Branham stood on the platform? God.

All right, I’m going to ask you a question: who answered for God to the woman? Jesus, the prophet. Then who answers for God in this hour? It would be a prophet, and it was.

Now for your minds and mine, that’s very simple. It ought to be for anybody’s, but you know how it is. It’s kind of tricky for some till they get used to it.

It wasn’t that easy for us all the time so let’s not be arrogant as though we had great faith.

Okay. Paragraph 51:

[51]  Now, we see at first the disciples didn’t have this perfect faith. [That’s true.] They didn’t have it because they had Christ walking with them, but afterwards Christ was in them.

So, you see, it’s hard then to have this perfect faith without the Holy Spirit; [that would be the baptism,] it has to bring it, and it does. Now, you say, “The disciples didn’t have perfect faith?”

No; for they had an epileptic child there, that they were trying to cast this devil out of him, and they couldn’t do it.

Now, you know the first thing that’s born into you after you’re baptized with the Holy Ghost is faith faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, and so on. So, therefore, every man has a measure of faith.

The Scripture distinctly says every man has the measure of faith. So when you’re born again you have this faith and you are to use it as a faithful steward. You don’t have to, you can lie right down on the job, but you shouldn’t. All right. 52:

[52]  And the father saw Jesus coming, and he said to Jesus, “We have brought my son to your disciples, and they could not cure him.”

[53]  And afterwards, the disciples asked Jesus, saying, “Why could we not cure him?”

[54]  And Jesus said, “Because of the lack of faith, or your unbelief.” That’s right. “Because of their unbelief.”

Now unbelief is now introduced in this message on believing the negative; it’s the negative, of course, of faith.

Now, let’s understand this: the disciples did not deny healing. They did not deny the power of God to heal, and they did not deny that God was healing; they just lacked confidence.

So we are not unbelievers just because we fail in our faith, because Jesus said to Peter, “I pray that your faith fail not,” and Paul tells us we keep our confidence together with Christ, which means… you know, we’ll discuss that, too, on the Word abiding.

All these things will come up more and more as we talk about it.

So this is not a denial, it’s a lack of confidence, and it’s not a lack of faith as though you had no faith; it is a lack of determining the use of your faith with the laws that God laid down and pressing on to get what you are setting your heart for, and we’ll discuss that from Romans 5, as we get to it, because there’s a series of steps that you got through, one of which is a trial.

See? It’s not, “Oh, God, give me.” I got it. “Oh, God, give me.” I got it. “Oh, God, give me.” I got it. Well, you might wish for what? a magic rug and a Persian palace. You think you’re going to get it?

You will never get any of those, but you can hope for in God various things, such as a better home life, a better home, a better job, better health, above all, a better witness to Jesus Christ as thorough-going, Godly Christian under every circumstance.

You say, “Under every circumstance, Brother Vayle?”

Ha! Ha! You caught it exactly right, because there’s where the trials come in the trial of our faith. As old Dr. Price said so often, “You want something from God, but, my brother, God wants something from you!” Yeah, we’ll talk about that.

So it’s not a lack, it’s not a denial, it simply means that something is not lined up wherein you can use what you’ve got. Look at it just like… hey!

You don’t believe for one instance, do you, that Itzhak Perlman… now I do, of course, believe this, and I know you believe this the same way, too. I believe he’s greater than Stern…

I believe he’s the world’s greatest violinist. Now you might be a lover of Stern, like Itzhak is, but he says he’s the greatest, of course. Of course you always believe somebody else is greater.

That’s nice. But you know something? With me, I think you will agree that Itzhak Perlman is not to be believed the world’s greatest virtuoso concert violinist to the exclusion of every other single person, for somebody out there may have never had a chance to have a violin in his hands, and could have been three times better. Right? Right. Sure.

So, you got faith, not as though you lack it. You can develop your faith, you get results. I’m going to tell you something, but listen: if you do, please keep a balance. Please keep a balance in everything.

Someone here said to me. “Well, Brother Vayle, I think I’d like to pray for the sick.”

Wonderful! I hope you start praying for the sick, and I hope you stand right there with faith, as it were, your jaws clenched, literally jutting out, facing every exigency, every trial coming up, see, and say, “I’m believing for you.”

I used to do that years ago. You say, “Why did you quit?”

You talk to God about it. I didn’t want to quit.

I thought that was the only way to go. I would say, “I can tell, honey, you ain’t got no faith, that you’re not even… just pretend you’re a million miles away. I’ll use my faith for you.”

See them turn just like that. You can’t major in a minor. My teaching ministry is far greater than my worry about the other.

This isn’t very great, you can tell that, but the point is: this is still better than the other. So anyway, okay.

Let’s keep… 55:

[55]  Now remember, they had the power. Jesus had given them power to heal the sick and raise the dead.

[Now you know that’s true Matthew 10. Said, “Behold, I give you power.” That word is ‘dunamis’, the literal power, dunamis. “I give you power.”]

Jesus had given power to heal the sick, raise the dead and cast out devils, just a few days before that. They had the power, but not the faith to use the power.

Well, let’s go back to Matthew 10, we’ll read it, and then we’ll have that. Now we’ll read a couple verses, we’ll read verse 1, then 7, 8.

That’s Judas included. What are you going to do about that one? He didn’t say, “Well, I’ll call you twelve, but I’ll just give eleven of you power. Gave every single one. Judas was a devil, the Bible says.

“One of you is diabolis; one of you is the devil.” And the devil literally incarnated himself in Judas… the devil, himself, Lucifer, Beelzebub did it.

And then he said in 7 and 8,

All right.

[55]  …They had the power, but not the faith to use the power…

That’s exactly true according to Matthew 17, where this is a story of the little boy that was brought with the epilepsy and they couldn’t do it, he said, “Because of your unbelief.”

Now remember it wasn’t that they did not believe in healing. They did, because they tried to cure him, so it was something that was in their way, which could have been a lack, it just wasn’t there, or it could have been something there they didn’t know how to use it doesn’t matter.

If it’s dark in the building and you can’t find the switch, you’ve got problems. So that’s what we’re looking at here, see. It’s not that there’s not a light switch in the building you just can’t find it.

“They had the power but not the faith to use the power.”

That’s a good statement. They had the power but not the faith to use the power. “Behold I give you power.

You shall have power. After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, that word in the Greek is ‘dunamis’.

Now, remember, with dunamis goes authority, which is ‘exousia’, I think, is the word in the Greek. So therefore you dare not use power without authority. See?

But we’ll hold that until we get down the road a bit, too, if the Lord helps bring it back to my memory..

[55]  They had the power but not the faith to use the power. Now, there’s the Branham Tabernacle! [He’s hitting the thing right in the head.] There’s the church, the bride, today!

The Holy Spirit is here with the power, but you haven’t got the faith to move it. [To put it into action, to get the thing done.] See what I mean? It takes faith to move it.

Now let’s understand this: the faith is available. He never sent the Holy Spirit without the faith. He never sent the faith without the Holy Spirit.

They are both here, but remember the Holy Spirit only moves in His power, which is sovereignly decreed here according to our faith.

As your faith is, so be it unto you. Now it doesn’t say it’s not unto you, as though you can’t have it.

It said it is there but there are certain laws laid down, there are certain attitudes that you must have, certain information that you can use.

So we keep looking at these things, and by the grace of God we’ll get our faith built up. All right.

Now, we’re going to read it.

[56]  Here, I got a gun shell that I hand-loaded. [He was great at that… he liked doing that.] I know what it’ll do by ballistics, like the Word, but I’ve got to fire the gun.

Now ballistics is what? It’s the science of dealing with the motion and impact of projectiles, such as bullets. Now he knew all about bullets, he knew what a speeding bullet can do, what effect it would have, how big a hole it would blow in an animal or anything else.

A ballistics expert knows all about projectiles, their force, impact, damage done, anything like that. All right.

[56]  …I know what it’ll do by ballistics, like the Word, but I’ve got to fire the gun. [Now, he said, “I know what the power of God will do by the Word.

I’ve got the Word that tells me what God is willing and able to do for us, and wants to do for us, but,” he said, “I’ve got to get that moving.” Now, he said,] The fire has to get to the powder.

The powder’s got the power, [that’s like the Holy Ghost,] but it’s got to have the fire to light it off. And the same thing, the powder’s in the shell, but it needs faith to charge it and throw it out.

Now, all of us have the Holy Ghost if we’re born again, and we all have the measure of faith.

There’s nothing wrong with the Holy Ghost, there’s nothing wrong with the faith. There’s something wrong then with attitude and understanding.

That’s what it takes [see], perfect faith to ignite the power of the Holy Ghost which we now have, since He’s come upon us; faith to ignite, to see great things, the faith, something that’s present to you… something that presents it to you.

[57]  With a heart full of joy, [now here’s Brother Branham not you and me, except under very limited cases] With a heart full of joy, knowing exactly what you’re going to say.

Walk in there, [to the sick room,] and know what’s going to happen, something’s already been revealed, and you know it.

[Now that doesn’t only happen to a prophet, but he’s dealing with himself at this particular time as we’ll see, as in other cases.] And you walk in, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, rise up there. THUS SAITH THE LORD!” There you are; that’s perfect faith.

[Now watch:] If there’d be ten million people standing there saying it wouldn’t happen, you know it’s going to happen anyhow, ‘cause you know it.

It’s going to happen, regardless of what anybody else says, you’re the one that’s got the faith.

Now this was is ministry.

He knew by vision, he knew exactly what was going to happen because he saw it ahead of time, and he said, “It’s THUS SAITH THE LORD,” and it never did fail; it’s never been known to fail; and it couldn’t possibly fail, it was so supernatural. All right.

Now look, now remember, he’s going to talk about George Washington later on, but I remember the first time he used this illustration.

He said, “Look, if God told me to go and raise Abraham Lincoln from the dead, I would go to his grave site, and I would challenge the armies of the world to stand there and shoot me down if it couldn’t be done.”

What kind of a person can make a statement like that? This is why I am so alarmed at, and so unforgiving concerning people who make potshots at him, and have done it on the grounds of denomination.

Do those people think they’ll not answer to God? I want to ask you a question: did Judas think he wouldn’t answer to God? He certainly didn’t think he would, and after the deed was done, he knew he had to.

And I say the world has sinned away its day of grace, because God showed through a man what would happen to them.

Listen, let me ask you a question, let’s be honest now. Would you choose for such a ministry if you knew it was available? The man that God chose? Not on your tintype, you wouldn’t… you know jolly well you wouldn’t.

You’d choose you, or somebody equally ridiculous. Might as well… I couldn’t help that… getting mean again, Nellis, so you got to watch when I get mean, ‘cause I do get my dander up on some of… I can be honest with you.

Brother Branham has said, “The trouble with Lee he defends me too hard.” He didn’t need defending, but I like to come and, you know, lay my few little cracks in there, too.

See, look, Brother Branham could do this, but I want to tell you something: you and I, in our own limited, lower rungs of the ladder, can enter into the same faith for which we are responsible.

We are not responsible for his kind of faith. Why? Because we haven’t got it! Like I said, “If I’ve got ten dollars, and you’ve got one dollar, and we’re supposed to go out here and buy groceries…

Well, if I took one of you people and we’re limited to buying groceries, you know jolly well I had better procure ten dollars worth of groceries, or ten to one, to your one.

But you can’t say, “Well, hey, Lee, tell you what, ol’ buddy-buddy, I’ve only got a dollar. So tell you what, what if you just spend nine dollars… I won’t spend any.” I’ll have a buck left.

See? You ruined it right there. You blew it right there. You just… I’m sorry, but that’s not the way it works. That’s what I said, we wouldn’t do what God did.

Now listen:

[58]  Could you imagine if Joshua had called the elders of Israel together and said, “Uh, brethren, um, we’re servants of the Lord and I’d like for you to, with me, ask the Lord if it’d be all right if He’d just give us a little more sunlight, see, and hold the sun a little while longer”?

Now you think Joshua talked that way? Let’s find out:

[59]  No. He had need of it, [that’s the sunlight.] and without prayer, without anything], he had need of it, and he just commanded the sun!

He said, “Stand there! I have need, and I’m in the service of the Lord, and He sent me over here to do this job, and I’m doing the best I know how, and the enemy has rallied, and they’re out there; if I let the sun go down, they’ll get together and cause me more trouble.

So, stand still! And, moon, you hang there!” Amen. She hung there for twenty-four hours.

Now watch what he says here… here’s going to be the killer.

[60]  Now, if the world’s turning and Joshua holds it up, [from turning,] and the sun stayed in place, [there’s no movement,] what happens then?

Now watch: If you make yourself an infidel or not.

Now, you made yourself an infidel if you say of this; and then you don’t, you do fool around with science, ‘cause they said if the world stopped, [science said,] if the world stopped, it’d drop.

So now what? And if you say God’s Word is not right…

There’s an explanation to it, see, somewhere. It’s not really happen; the sun did not stand still, really, and the earth didn’t stop there… no, no way.” Then you’re an infidel.

Now some of you sitting here, you may find this very difficult. I did, for quite a while, but I get stupider as old age comes on. I’m willing to believe.

My heart’s getting softer with my head.

You know it’s good if you have a hard head, you have a hard heart… usually… if you’re hard-headed the wrong way.

Now if you get hard-headed the right way, your countenance like a flint as you go toward New Jerusalem, Christ that’s great.

[60]  …But if it happened, that’s the main thing. I don’t know the mechanics of it, but it happened.

All right, now let’s go to Luke here, and I’m just going to close with this because I don’t want to go any longer.

We’re taking your time and so, let’s just go to Mark 11… we’ve got lots of time to study this together, no problem here.

So what if Joshua said, “All right, stand still.”

Well, people say, “Hey, the thing is this: it didn’t really matter if the sun stood still, or didn’t stand still, because we know it really didn’t, you see, because science proves it would happen this way, and that way, if it did this and did that.

And what it is, you see, Joshua was ignorant, and God knew he was ignorant, so God just gave him anyway.”

Well, you could say that, but I don’t think you should. I think you’re in trouble.

You say, “Well, Brother Vayle, have you come to the place where Brother Branham stood, and the Bible stands on this, and say it took place?”

You tell me why it couldn’t happen, and I’ll tell you God’s limited. I’ll tell you, then God cannot do what He wants to do with His Own, when God says, “I can do with My Own what I want to do with My Own.”

God, He made the sundial turn back, the shadow. How did that happen?

“Well,” you say, “maybe He melted it, or something.”

No, He didn’t, because the day has lengthened. Somebody tries to tell me the science in NASA, and some of these scientists have got to the place where they could figure that actually happened.

I don’t believe that actually happened in science, I don’t believe science has proved that. Do you know anything about it, Gene You know, preachers will preach anything to make it sound good.

You don’t have to tell a lie to make God great, brother/sister. I got to tell a lie for God? What kind of a jerk am I?

Remember when Paul Harvey wrote that article about it happened at the United Nations where a stranger walked in and everything else… everybody thought that had actually happened, as though Christ was there.

I’m sure it was Paul Harvey wrote it, and they put it out in tract form. Look, I don’t have to tell you a lie up here. Why should I tell a lie? If God needs my lie!… He’s not doing very good because I’m a very poor liar I get caught.

Not too good. That’s silly.

No, we don’t have to make things up, but I’m going to tell you frankly, I was of the opinion most of my life as a Christian, that Joshua knew what he wanted but didn’t know how to say it, and God knew what he wanted and did for him in a way that, you know, he’ll work it out someway, somehow.

But I believe what the Bible says. I’m sorry. Let me tell you something… I’m going to close with an illustration.

How many folks ever been to Ontario? Let me see your hands. How many have heard of Holy Ann? Let me see your hands. Nobody? You never heard of Holy Ann?

This is statistical: Holy Ann Preston, I believe her name was, and people are still living… She was a mentally retarded lady who was born again, and she never had any more brains than take her water bucket with a rope and go to a dry well and she always brought up water.

And the scientists tried it, and the city fathers tried it, and the people tried it who loved the Lord, and nobody, but nobody brought up a speck of water from an empty well, but Holy Ann did.

That’s right… never failed. I might be Canadian by birth… doesn’t do one thing for us! Anymore than you born down here.

“William Branham was born down here,” they said, “oh, it does, yes, we identify.”

But anyway, listen, you cannot tell God how to do things but if you ever get to believing that God will do things, then that’s the key.

You say, “What will He do?”

Look in the Bible, look in the Bible. He’ll do it. So all right, that’s enough. Lord bless you. Let’s call it a day. Wednesday, 7:30.

Let’s rise and be dismissed.

Gracious Heavenly Father, again we want to thank You for Your kindness to be with us today, to help us out, to lift our spirits Lord.

We trust they have been lifted to build up our soul’s faith, O God, to know that nothing with You is impossible because that’s what You said Lord, and we know, Lord, that’s been proven and, Father, the big thing is this: we don’t want it proven by somebody else.

It’s already been proved to us by somebody else, now we want to prove it to our self in this respect, that You love us and You will answer our prayers.

So help us Lord, to begin shaking off the fetters of unbelief and the fetters Lord, of ignorance and doubt and these things Lord, which encumber our faith because we know there is an encumbrance.

Now in this series Lord, I pray in the holy Name of Jesus Christ, very sincerely, help me Lord, and help us as a people and whoever hears these tapes O Lord, in whatever way, whatever way O God, it can be done that there will be a reaching out, there will be something, Lord God, as never before happening in people’s lives.

Even as the prophet wanted it to happen, and he said ‘could’ happen, and Lord, it should happen not to be big wheels or some big manifestation, but just ordinary little Christians which we are, drawing on the strength and power of God through faith, and living this life of love and dedication, helping each other.

That’s why we want it Lord, and we pray Lord… if we don’t want that in that way bad enough, then Lord look, we’re willing to be made willing, we want to go this way.

So undertake for us, cleanse us now by Your Blood, O God; fill us with Your Holy Spirit as never before. May the Word have a greater latitude in our lives than ever before.

And unto Thee we shall give the glory as we ask Your blessing just voluminous, without end, upon every single person in this building and every family represented.

In Jesus Christ’s holy Name, we pray. Amen.

We love you all. Lord bless you and keep you going on your way.

‘Take the Name of Jesus With You.’