Questions And Answers – Pastors Series #10

Shall we pray.

Heavenly Father, we know that You’re here and You have devolved upon us that we represent Your Presence, which we feel most inadequate. And yet You would not call upon us to represent Your Presence unless we were fortified by You.

And Lord, this morning we’re falling back on a vindicated Word that You sent by a vindicated prophet, trusting, Lord, that whatever the hour necessitates to bring forth in us, it will come forth by that Word which we happily believe is the conduit of the Holy Spirit alivened in us.

We too, then, can be a conduit, that You called us the representatives and ambassadors and whatever. So, Father, may we be true to Your Word today, even as You have been true to us by that same Word.

In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

You may be seated.

Now, this morning, we’re on number 10 of “Question and Answers”, which is a very nondescript title, but it kind of serves our purpose.

And in our studies relative to some statements that Brother Branham made concerning the pastor, we have hopefully discovered some Scripture that might very well be the basis for a thought in marriage and divorce, which we have studied by ourselves but not in groups.

We’ve read it; we used quotes from it.

And Brother Branham said in “Marriage and Divorce”, number one: “This sermon on marriage and divorce is only for those who follow this message that I am bringing.” That’s the first thing he said.

This does not encompass other people. It is only those to whom Brother Branham was sent, only those for whom this Word was given.

Number two: he said, “Don’t ever divorce again and remarry.”

Now, to bear that out, I’m going to read for you on page 44-45 and 48-49 a few excerpts from “Marriage and Divorce”.

And by the grace of God we’ll not be taking them out of context. They are deliberate statements.

[44-5]  Now, remember, I say this to just my group only. And out in the air: [He was on a telephone hookup.] I’m saying this to only my followers; this Message is only to them. And what I’m going to say here, any minister—that is—he’s the shepherd of the flock; let him do whatever he wants to. That’s up to him and God.

Any priest, any teacher, that’s up to [him], my brother. I’m only speaking here in Jeffersonville, the only place I’d speak this at, is because it’s my own flock. [He was the founder and actual pastor.] It’s the flock that the Holy Ghost gave me to understand, to… oversee over. He’ll hold me responsible for it.

Now, he’s speaking as pastor, and he says he understands the flock. I wonder how many pastors understand the flock. I hate to be so nasty, but I am so fed up with preachers thinking they’re somebody when they’re nothing.

When the great God himself is here, the chief shepherd of the flock manifested Who and What he is in His glory, Shekinah glory… There it is caught right on the camera [points to the picture of the Pillar of Fire].

We’ve got an excellent photographer who’s taken excellent courses. That’s Janet, Sister White. She knows the camera doesn’t take psychology, same as Brother Branham knew, and George Lacy. We’ve got evidence.

I just want to defer to God and say, “Hallelujah, Lord! Let me understand the flock if I’m supposed to.” He said he’ll hold me responsible. Far cry, from what a lot of preachers, pastors enter into.

[45-1]  And these people of mine have been converts here from across the land that I’ve led to Christ. And little children, I’m here to help you and be your friend. You might think I speak against you; I’m saying this for your good. I love you. And if that isn’t so, God’s my judge. And you know that I love you.

[45-2]  This is an awful strong thing. I didn’t know how to bring it out! What will I do when I get men and women sitting in my congregation, [when I got them setting in my congregation,] some that’s been married twice or three times? [Now they’re] good men, [they’re] good women, [but they’re] all mixed up! What’s done it? False teaching…

Now, let it sink in because you didn’t catch it. I’ll explain it to you. If false teaching got them messed up, what will good teaching do?

You say, “Well, Brother Vayle, at least it gives us a chance.”

Oh, stop that nonsense. You’re missing God and His Word. See, I jarred you. I jarred myself. I wasn’t going to say this. This is unrehearsed entirely.

Good seed brings forth good fruit. “A sower went forth to sow.” Christ, in the form of the Holy Spirit brought His Word, though men declared It, It was still the Word of God.

And he said, “False teaching has done it.” Then what will the true teaching do?

See, we’ve got to understand these things. “Good men and women. False teaching.” Exactly.

Not waiting on the Lord. Now, that’s the next thing: you take the Word and wait with It. Don’t get all hot and bothered.

[45-2]  “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder…” Not what man joined together, what God joined together.

[45-3]  When you got a direct revelation from God that’s your wife and the same thing, [women to men] that’s yours for the rest of your life, [eternally even.] See? But what man joins together [not a true revelation on both sides]—But what man joins together anybody can put apart. [Let it sink in.]

Brother Branham preached this sermon… A couple, I think in Georgia, who wrote Brother Branham, “We were engaged; we loved each other; we thought we’d get married, but we saw we would never make it. But we said we’d get married to each other. Are we married?”

He said, “No way.” Any man can break that.

Boys, listen to me… young men. Truth will set you free, not mess you up. You know what I’m talking about. Oh, yeah.

I’m not up here as a little kid talking, brother/sister. I’m the voice of God this morning. I’m parroting the prophet word by word, and I’m telling you what he said.

And if you’re slow of mind to get it, I’m helping you get It. Don’t fool with the things of God.

In other words, I’m telling you straight: you can have an engagement that is no more of God than nothing. Any man can break it up, and it can be broken up. But if it’s of God, it never will be. Yeah.

Whatever God joins together, no man better dare to touch it. Huh, uh. That’s wonderful. “Whatever God joins together,” he said, “let no man put asunder.”

Not what some half-drunk magistrate or something else put together or some backslidden preacher with a bunch of creeds in a book that would let them do anything in the world and the Word of God laying right there, because he used the Bible. See?

I’m talking about “what God joined together.”

All right. Reading on, page 48-49:

[48-8]  Now, you believe this to be true and believe it… from God. And by the vindication of His Cloud and His Message that’s brought me this far, should not God upon the mountain permit me to do the same thing to suffer you to go on the way you are and do it no more!

[Do what no more? Listen to false teaching and get into false marriages that bust up and everything else. All right.] Go with your wives and live in peace for the hour is late. The coming of the Lord is at hand! [That’s the physical coming.] We haven’t got time to break these things up!

But remember; we’re a royal priesthood unto God. Ezra and Nehemiah, tried to break some things up, especially the priest marrying foreign wives.

And remember; as we go along this morning, we’ll find out that an illegitimate child is originally in the Bible, a Hebrew marrying a Gentile woman.

Now we’ll apply it to this hour in the Scripture where Paul helps to obviate any problems there. We get in 1 Corinthians 7 later on.

[49-0]  The coming of the Lord is at hand! We haven’t got time to break these things up! [And only Brother Branham as a prophet could do it.] Don’t you dare try to do it again!

In other words, stick with the teaching which is vindicated of God and no more divorce and remarriage. This is what we’re looking at. Now, we’ll go into that more. Just hold on to your seats and let me finish the message.

[49-0]  I’m speaking only to my congregation. But if you are married and God bore me witness to that on the mountain that I could say this (a supernatural revelation because of the opening of the Seven Seals and this is a question in God’s Word): let them go on in as they are and sin no more!

Now, what is the basic sin? Unbelief. Or, in plain English, faith in the non-Word of God in contra-distinction to faith in the Word of God. See?

Now, look at that. Don’t do it. You get the true teaching, stay with it.

[49-1]  It wasn’t so from the beginning. That is right. It wasn’t so, and it will not be at the end! But under modern conditions, as God’s servant [This is for this hour, right now. Listen.] …I won’t call myself His prophet, but I believe if I wouldn’t be sent for that, I’m laying a ground for him when he does come [You know he just says that. You know who he is.] …so under the modern conditions, I command you…

Now, how could he, if he wasn’t the right one, how’s he going to command anybody? You come into my house and start bossing my wife around, I’m not very strong, but I can pick up a four-by-four. And I don’t mind whose teeth lie on the floor, so long as they’re not mine.

Ha! Preach it, Brother Vayle! That’s nice comforting thought. If I can’t handle you, Norman can. If he can’t take care of it, I’ll send you up with a couple more guys. You get the picture. All right.

[49-1]  I command you to go to your home with your wife now. If you are happy with her, live with her, [Notice that you’re not boxed up exactly.] rear your children in the admonition of God; but God be merciful to you if you ever do that again! [We’ll touch that.] You teach your children to never do a thing like that.

Ah, ha, ha! Here we are! Parents do that. I’ve been admonishing you to watch your children. We have some mothers who do teach their daughters, as the Scripture said, and some of you women had better learn to teach your daughters because they’re growing up.

And it’s up to you to see that they’re presentable as tutored wives, as they marry, so they know how to please their husbands and do the things of Christ. That’s your job, whether you want it or not.

We have some good examples in this church. I won’t mention them now, but if you got a half an ounce of spiritual energy, you’ll know of whom and what I am speaking.

And we expect them to have fabulous marriages. We’ll read about that, too. Huh? Why certainly, come on. Life is good to us, and God is good to us. We’re just too messy, messing things up here. See? All right.

[49-1]  You teach your children never to do a thing like that. Bring them up in the admonition of God! And now that you are as you are, [You’re forgiven. The record’s clear.] let us go on to late evening hour that we’re living in, …press right [through] toward the mark [and to the mark] of the high calling of Christ where all things will be possible.

In others words, you’ll see the ultimate of God in the Resurrection and in the glorification, immortalization, the Rapture, the Millennium which is to come.

So, all right. I said, here in our studies, we ran across some Scripture while we were perusing this bit about the pastor being the spiritual husband.

And in there I found some Scripture, which I believe, and I’ve read to you, that actually bear out what Brother Branham said in the words of Paul, “This message on marriage and divorce is only for my own people.”

And then he said, “Don’t ever do it again.”

Now, what Brother Branham said here, I believe is categorically taken from the Scripture we read in 1 Corinthians 7, which we will look at for a while this morning. And we hope we’ll get finished.

Now, how could Brother Branham command the wife of God unless God gave him the command to give her? He’d be a presumptuous scoundrel. He wouldn’t be worthy a name of a gentleman, which he was.

How could Paul do that? “I’ve espoused you to Christ,” he said, “as a wonderful virgin, and I want to present you, too, but you listen to me.”

Where do you get that nonsense? I guess nonsense. You don’t tell another man’s wife what to do. You can talk to the husband. See?

1 Corinthians 7:

Now up here, I want you to notice something; and this is horrendous. These couples up here in 10 and 11, I take to be Word Bride.

They absolutely endorse the message as married couples and said, “This is God.”

And now they’re fussing at each other to the extent where he’s fed up to his gills. I wonder what kind of a boob he is, or what kind of a boob she is.

Oh, I could say something here, but I’m a little afraid this tape might get in the hands of that person, and I don’t want him thoroughly insulted.

But I think right now, I know a case just like this in a certain area, and he will backslide; he will destroy his family. That’s my job to tell you these things.

If you’re in this church, I would mention that being in this church. I’ve seen indications that could have happened, but you stepped out in time on the right limb.

And I’m not looking at anybody in particular. It may mean a lot of bearing and forbearing, but I’ve got news for you: you can’t divorce and remarry.

We’ll look at where it has been done and see what we come up with because there is a sacrifice for disobedience; there is a sacrifice for ignorance, but there isn’t a sacrifice for willful disobedience, where people know… It says, “For him that knoweth to do right and doeth it not, it is sin.”

So, you examine your marriages.

But I want to say this: by and large, I am exceedingly happy with this church. I believe that this church has wonderful husband and wife relationships.

And I’m not being rough on anybody. I want you to know I’m simply reading the Scripture, and we’re trying to understand the Message of the prophet, because everything he said is in this Bible.

There is nothing that isn’t, except Hitler’s going to come on the scene and Communism going to take over, Nazism. It’s in there all right, but it’s so veiled.

It’s not a direct prophecy as pertaining to names and places like, this is what he’s in to, because he’s not worried about history; he’s worried about a Bride, because there is no further history. Okay.

He said, “But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother has a wife that believes not, pleased to dwell, don’t put her away.” Can’t do it. See?

Now, you don’t have a fellowship in Christ in this place and the Word and the proper prayer life and all. It hinders you, but you can’t put her away because… You say, “Look, I don’t see it.” You see it? Wonderful.

Like I told you the case the other day. The man said, “Hey, honey, I am… don’t need to fuss at you, I know you are a good woman; go ahead.”

She goes to church, she prays, she fellowships. He just can’t see it. He knows there’s something there. Look, if he can’t see it, he can’t see it. Now, she stays with him.

She doesn’t become his ‘holier-than-thou, wonderfully spiritual woman’. Yah, yah, yah… I hope you see from my face what I don’t dare say from this pulpit.

It would be like feeding me a Chinese dinner; in stead of fried noodles, it’s fried worms. I might like that better because that’s just one meal. The woman’s a lifetime proposition.

1 Corinthians 7:

I wish he’d have put the reverse in there, that the believing husband sanctifies the children, because this is the case of illegitimacy from the Old Testament, where the priest and Israelites were marrying Gentile women and the child, then, being of a foreign blood, was called illegitimate.

That’s the first mention of illegitimacy in the Scripture. That’s the original bastard that cannot come into the congregation until it goes through ten generations where the blood is completely dissolved. We’re back to Israelic blood.

That’s something like, you know, they say genetically… What is it?

The black and white marry, that that generation produces a mulatto. Two mulattos marry, it produces a quadroon. Two quadroons marry, it produces an octoroon. They marry, it’s right back to the white, because, you see, you’re getting more and more predominate and according to… that’s what I’m told. I haven’t read about it.

Brother Branham said there could be a throw back, and I believe that because I said our own family has produced a redhead, except this last generation.

For generation after generation after generation, an Irish redhead got all messed with a bunch of Hungarian blood. Oh Lord, what a mess that had to be!

Not only sauerkraut, but nice wine. I can imagine the beer and the liquor that must have gone with it. Not that I ever did; just knowing what it is. Okay.

1 Corinthians 7:

Now, from what we have learned, I can only take the stand I’ve always taken in this church concerning marriage and divorce.

I don’t have answers for you, except, I said to the young people: you don’t have a prayer from this point on.

You have got to determine that you will marry a true believer in Christ; and you will seek God, knowing that He has the right mate for you. This is what you’re looking at.

Now, what about those who have been divorced outside the message? I cannot speak for them, except I take the same stand I’ve always taken.

If you are convinced that the Lord is allowing you to remarry, especially somebody in the message… And I’ve always advised, and they are people sitting here, right now, that know that I have advised this…

I talked to Dave Ozimek, and I’m going to use his name, because Dave does not mind. Both he and Ruth came to see me.

I said, “I haven’t got an answer, except I know this, Dave, while you’re in position of bitterness of divorce, the life that is shot, because…”

And this is on tape, and Dave will not mind because we’re Christians here and we want to help people. His wife wanted to use his name, live in his home and have the liberty of living with other men. That is out.

Whether you ever remarried again, you do not tolerate that, unless you want a social disease or something. I just won’t buy it; I don’t buy this.

Now, look; you better find out from God while you don’t want anybody whether there’s somebody’s down the road that you could marry. To the best of my knowledge, this is exactly what he did. He has a good marriage.

There’s no finer man in shoe leather than Dave. He’s the one man gets the compliments from this church: ‘if I’d like to be like somebody, I’d be like Dave’. Well, I don’t know that I would.

He’s losing his hair worse than me, and his nose is just about as big. So, and he’s got much longer to live. I’m getting out of here. But admire him, I do.

And, as far as I know, they have both searched their hearts and believed from God that their marriage is of the Lord.

Now, this is the best I can do for anybody. I haven’t got the answers, because I’m not a prophet. I know in the… in a case where I’m fought day and night on marriage and divorce, Brother Branham said our daughter could remarry.

Like a fool, I didn’t say, “Brother Branham, tell me why.”

His only volunteered information was he said, “Lee, you know that she hasn’t done as bad as either you and I have done.” Yi, yi, yi. What is going on?

Now, look; Brother Branham said, “You better know that’s the right one.”

Now, you might think so, and in this hour of the heat of passion where Eve was deceived, too many young girls will lie with young men, sexually speaking, and that guy was no more intended than nothing and vice versa with the opposite sex.

And you’ve got on your hands a spoiled virginity, a loused-up life. Not saying you can’t marry, but what are you going to talk to somebody now…

You say, “Well, I was very outside the message.”

You’ll condemn yourself ten times over again.

So, you say, “What about people, then, that in our church here are married?”

We have a case right here. I’m not going to fuss about it. Different ones tried their best to help in the situation. The woman was adamant. “I’m going to divorce you.”

When it came before the judge, she turned the tables and said, “You divorce me.” Right? I don’t think he should have done it, but I’ll tell you one thing: she still did it where she forced him to do it.

Now, there is hope that a man can remarry under certain conditions; none for the woman. No place can a woman put away a husband, although it was done in Mark 10, I think, or 12, somewhere in there.

There is no Scripture for it. What’s that person going to do? I don’t know, except I have the same advice. I cannot acquiesce to anything like that, but I do not know if it could be wrong.

Our own daughter, being a woman, divorced and remarried. What am I going to say to somebody in this church?

And I’m not basing it on an experience in our family, though I’ve got a just… though I should justify my daughter. I was dead set against it.

And Brother Branham said, “Carol, don’t talk to your dad about this because we don’t even see eye to eye.” He said, “I’ll deal with it.”

Evidently that’s what he told her because he dealt with me. He said, “Look, Lee, I said she can remarry.”

Now, see, I trust Brother Branham.

But he said, “Tell her to marry someone gentle.”

She blew it. Get her out of one pig puddle; go into the next pig puddle.

And I’m speaking from my heart up here this morning and letting you know the truth. I don’t know what to do about people.

And my answer’s the same to them: while you’re bitter, you’re disillusioned, fight it out with God in your hour of despair. If you haven’t done it, I don’t know where you stand.

I’m going to be honest with you; look, I’m not …[Inaudible] up here. But you know what I said to each and every one.

You marry, I’ll accept you and your wife as a true Christian in Christ on your word, but I don’t know what you are any more than you know what I am.

But let’s get this flat, brother/sister: marriage and divorce is wrong. Marriage is right. To the wrong one is wrong, and it could bring a divorce. You better be very, very careful and look for character.

I’ve got a testimony of a father from his own son. He’s looking for character. I appreciate that like you can’t believe. Most of us don’t. Only by the grace of God do we get our sex queens with spirituality.

I want to tell you something. No man ever gave a true, Bride man a woman that leads him around by the nose.

“Preach it, Brother Vayle!”

The true Bride shall knuckle under. Not that a man makes his wife knuckle under. No sir. She’ll have the spirit of grace and of Christ with his spirit of grace and of Christ.

But if he’s got no spirit of grace and of Christ, a true Christian woman, though really born again, can not knuckle under to disobedience to God.

Like I say here, if I try to make you obedient to a disobedient preacher, you get up and walk out or enough of you recognize and throw me out.

You’re not obligated to Lee Vayle. Phooey! My own wife isn’t. She better serve Christ and, thereby, serve me, because, if she’s not serving Christ, I better do something about it.

So, look. We’ve got to answer to God. Paul said, “This is a commandment of God I’m talking about here.” See? We want these things right.

Now, I won’t read again, what I just read here, but whoever sits under the word ministry of Brother Branham… those spoken only by ‘devoted followers’ has but one choice when it comes to marriage. It’s final. I read the guidelines. I won’t read them again on page 45.

Now, listen carefully. If this sounds impossible to you unmarried young people, or far-fetched, or beyond your faith, please quiet your anxious souls this morning and right now believe and hold to your faith that you will receive that revelation of your right companion, consequently your right mate, which is from God.

The prophet has spoken it. It is not a harsh warning that he gives us, but a definitive promise of you getting the right one and having a beautiful marriage.

My faith today, and I hope always will be, is placed with your faith as part of our congregation and the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the faith of all the congregation to the end that you young men and women… and you growing up and you’ll soon be way into your teens, some of you, that all of us together, believing to the end, you will receive God’s promise which is a rich and beautiful marriage, a true companionship in Christ.

So, God bless you with a happy marriage, each and every ‘single’… and I do mean ‘single’…

Any of you people are thinking maybe down the road you’ll find somebody, forget it. This is to the single ones I have faith, not to any married ones. I’m sorry, I can’t do that. You work it out.

But I want to encourage you young people here today… the unmarried ones, any unmarried person: God is on your side with this promise so that you can live out your lives of love with each other according to the beautiful Scripture that we find in Ecclesiastes.

And I’ll get it right here for you,

And now he’s speaking, “All life is vain,” but “Hey, enjoy it; have a good time; be like a couple of kids. Take your shoes off and run through the grass in bare feet. In the early dew of the morning, sit under the trees and hear the crickets.”

Don’t act like a bunch of phony, fuddy, old grown-ups. Oh, my God, how pitiful. The majority have no more romance than a dill pickle that’s been frozen and stepped on by a cow or hit by a Sherman tank.

Even your stupid sex books, which I’m against, tell you to fantasize. Who needs to fantasize when you’ve got a beautiful, lovely wife. She may not be Marilyn Monroe; she’s a billion times better than Marilyn Monroe. Phooey on her.

Who needs to conjure up the foolish, when you’ve got the real?

I always personally get a big kick out of some of you women. I do, because I think you’re marvelous. Your spontaneity; so many things about you.

I appreciate this congregation. I don’t like to see stodgy people. I never get more thrilled than my old friend, Esther, up there in Canada. And what’s she? About eighty-five or seven.

She said, “Brother Vayle,” she said, “You don’t walk like an old man.”

I said, “You ought to see me sometimes.”

She says, “You’ve got the spring of a young man.”

“Yep,” I said, “I put it right in my boots.” Get the thing Norman has there to pop up and down on the dry wall.

Now, come on, listen: “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of thy vanity.” Have a good time. Enjoy yourself. Be in love; barefoot in the park.

You don’t have to be Robert Redfield. What was it? Redford? Robert Redford, and who did he act with that time? I forget. It’s kind of a cute thing. Go in the park; walk barefoot. Find that life is not stodgy… not just sit down to caviar on gold plates…

Be like Pinocchio. What’s your… that old guy may sound like Gazpacho [Geppetto], like a piece of soup. How do you make gazpetti out of his… spaghetti, where it is… The old boy… He, Pinocchio, didn’t like the peeling on the pear.

I don’t like it myself. So, the old boy had to peel them, and after he had eaten them, he was still hungry. He said, “Eat the peeling.” And he ate the peeling. That’s life. Enjoy the peeling; enjoy the turnip.

I’ve told you time and again, if I had to do our family over again, I would rear them on apple boxes as seats, take them out and view a sunset, and give ‘em grits with a little sorghum on it. Don’t be stodgy… but don’t be lax, either; don’t be crude and lewd.

Read the Songs of Solomon, and realize there’s a beautiful Bride and a beautiful Bridegroom, and life can be fantastic. And don’t worry about your problems because you don’t have much food and much clothing and all.

Look; as long as I got a little buck or two, I’ll help you out; but enjoy life.

Make up your mind this morning to live your life all your days with the one that you love, which God gave you, the days to be… and under the sun, the sunshine of His smile.

Lie in the sun as, so to speak, walk in the sun, walk in the rain, all the days of your vanity for this is your portion. This is your labor.

Hey, God wants me to have ‘fun’. I use the term loosely. Good time. God wants me to walk in His Presence with faith toward Him, sobriety, serenity, and enjoy every minute of our lives together.

Now, that’s the promise I’m holding up to the young people here and the unmarried in this church. In other words, I’m saying, don’t do what we older ones have done. Do God’s thing.

Everybody talks about doing his thing, and he ends up categorically in a stinking, fouled-up mess that stenches reach to God’s nostrils. He’s going to wipe the whole thing out.

When He wants the beauty of what He instituted in the Garden of Eden to be top-rated and top notch… which is two people typifying Christ in a Bride, loving and living together in the joy of the Lord, worshipping God together, centering on Christ, and everything falls into line with such delight, it’s just like having a perfect entrée, and a master chef serves the hors d’oeuvres and all that goes with it.

It’s better than a chocolata bar, Ruth. Don’t think for one minute it’s not.

All right. Listen; back to 1 Corinthians 7. We’re talking about it.

Now, Paul gives them warning that is a divine pronouncement, a decree of God, “Stay together and serve God, and don’t leave each other because you can never marry again.” You have to reconcile. That’s 1 Corinthians 7:10-11.

Now, let me just go into some Scripture here that is good advice. It’s a real admonition now, and we don’t want to miss it in the future.

So, we’re going to go back now to 1 Corinthians 7 and…

Now, verse 1.

Now, this is the highest ideal, but you don’t have to join the church and take vows and say, “I’m going to be celibate all my life.” Hogwash! Because watch the next step.

So, she gets mad, and she says, “I will hold myself.” You’re wrong.

But neither is a man to treat his wife like a doormat and a dog and then think she’s going to give him sexual favors that are interesting. It’s a two-way street kids, two-way street.

Listen, as I say regretfully, too late we learn. Today it had better not be too late. We had better learn now. This is God’s command.

This subject was taken out of the church and taken to doctors and taken to lawyers and taken to school. It should never have gone that far. It should have been in the pulpit, because this is “THUS SAITH THE LORD.”

It’s the same as welfare. The church should look, first of all, to the household of faith. Find me one true Mormon, or one true Seven Day Adventist, that’s on relief.

You know why? They obey the Word of God on tithing, and they know exactly how to tithe, and they don’t stint. They know how to give off the top, so they’ve always got something for somebody.

Church, smarten up this morning. If we do not understand the mundane things, we cannot have the spiritual.

Now, listen to me. You cut your throats and blame it on me or somebody else. You cut that out from now on. You are on the spot. Lee Vayle is not.

And those that listen are not on the spot, but you as individuals are on the spot because you’re not doing right, some of you. I’m not mad at you.

I’m just telling you. …willing to blow your steam and everything else; I’m blowing my steam this morning. As a servant of God, I’m telling you.

Now, sometimes we go through duress and hardship, but you don’t worry about it because you’ve been faithful to God.

What about a man, he’s been faithful to his wife, and somebody comes and says, “Well, hey, now, I saw your husband.”

Does he give a rip if he’s been faithful? He can say, “Look, girl, honey, I’ve made a vow. I’ve kept it. The vow was made before God, and I’m keeping it before God. If you believe that woman, you’ll answer to God.”

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Okay here, the husband doesn’t have power, the wife doesn’t have power, homosexuality, perverted acts of self-indulgence, called masturbation, are illegal.

You won’t go to hell for it, but it may pave the road to it. No defrauding. The body in this respect is for one thing and one thing only.

According to the scandal on Bakker and Swaggart, they didn’t believe this Scripture, or they didn’t believe it enough.

Now, watch.

You consider me a bachelor? You’ve got be crazy. I wasn’t born to be a bachelor. I wasn’t born to be, and ain’t going to be, a bachelor. Even if my wife and I would scrap, I’m happier with her than without her. I said, “Kid, you’re a bargain at any price.”

I’m a million times unhappier without her than I am with her. So you win a million to one shot. Hey, man, you won the race. Didn’t you? Oh, she’s the same with that as I am, she thinks the same about me as I about her.

So, all right. Now he said in verse 9. “If they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn,” in others words, to have the continued pressure.

So therefore, how can you have pressure in marriage when you’re legally married in order to eliminate the pressure? But that’s not just the reason for marriage.

There’s love involved there and a compatibility and just a oneness. You understand that as time goes on more and more.

And he said, “Unto the married” and so on. And I’m going to skip this part here. Well, let me see, I read 1-9.

Now, all right, okay.

Now, with this, we want to go to 1 Timothy, because I said this is an offshoot of what we were teaching and stumbled across.

I’m talking about ministers who Brother Branham defined as the spiritual husband of the church.

So, here’s what we came up with. And I think it’s 1 Timothy 5:11-15.

“But the younger widows refuse:” that’s to be part of the congregation like the old widows, and you take care of them because, then, they’d have nothing to do but just putter around.

And ‘wax wanton’ means to desire sensual pleasures. And that’s nothing wrong with the woman. What do you think she’s created for?

And we can’t sit… be in a congregation that’s half baked which a bunch of stupid theories that people put forth in order to profit or propagate what their silly attitudes are. I’m like old Dr. Bell, Billy Graham’s father-in-law.

He said, “Who needs all this teaching on sex and all the books? It’s in the Bible.”

He’s telling you right here about it. “Young widows.” They’re familiar with marriage and the whole bit, so why should they want to give it up? What’ll they do? They’ll marry.

Now, he said here, they should marry to stop them from getting into sin because they will get into sin. Like Brother Branham said, a woman divorced, will enter into sin.

So, he tells you the church cannot support young widows. They should marry. Now, that’s not a threat; that’s a promise.

“Hey girl, go out and hustle.”

No. No, you don’t hustle up a boyfriend and get married. You say, “Hey, Lord, you made a promise.”

I hope this Word which is a part of the Word of God is as real to you as understanding Brother Branham as the prophet sent from God.

We weren’t sent here to be condemned. We’re here to get the best out of everything. In Him there is no darkness. Then there isn’t any. Everything is light.

So, all right. The poor widow’s got a bad row to hoe.

You say, “Okay, get married.”

Now, the older widows can only be supported by the church if they don’t have help at the age of seventy. So, anybody up to age of seventy can get a husband. That’s not bad. That’s good. They need companionship.

I’m not telling you to get married again. I’m just telling you what’s allowable here: what’s open to the promise of God.

Now, he’s telling you right here, the key to a solid life is a compatible marriage amongst Christians. Hey, marriage is going to make me a better person. Come on now.

Now, not many people think along that line. But it’s true. One of… a few of you… a few of us… A few of us and a few of you have, I know that… and knowing what it can do for you.

He didn’t go all glamorous and try to find Marilyn Monroe. I wouldn’t even look for her myself. I’ve always had my druthers when it came to what I have thunk in the past, what a really beautiful woman has been like.

Marilyn Monroe did not quite qualify. I’ll be honest with you. Every man to his own oat bin, you know.

But what I’m letting you know here… Look; this is laid down in God’s Word that there can be truly happy relationships with good children.

And I’m seeing it. But it can always be better. Right? You understand what I’m saying? I’m not critical… not critical at all. No sir. I’m very happy with this, but I’m letting you know the Word of God.

Then It says, “Let the elders rule well” and so on, “they might be worthy of double honor,” and what have you. Now, we can see how seriously we must regard marriage.

Therefore, it is only right and fair that parents, now listen, and elders have something to say about each marriage that is contemplated in the church. Now, you wait till I’m through talking about it.

I would believe from Scripture, history, and family counseling, that both the man and the woman be well accepted by each family, the girl’s and the boy’s families, especially in the light of what caliber each set of parents actually is, for the rearing of each subject, boy and girl, was in separate homes, and it is all but impossible to break family training and tradition.

As the saying is, “A tree grows the way the twig is bent.” Or “Bring up a child in the way that he ought to go…” or ‘she ought to go, or in a way he or she ought not to go,’ they’re both the same, and he is most apt to stick with it, right or wrong, or if he left the right, he’s supposed to come back to it.

So, we have a modern concept today; and I admit it was in my generation. And I’m getting to be an old fogey… really ‘old’. I did talk to my wife’s dad, but it was boring to me. I was going to marry her anyway.

But I can tell you people sitting right here, and I’m one standing here, that our children with our advice, would not have married and got in the messes they got into, had they listened to us.

So, when I say to young people, viewing marriage, deal with your parents on both sides. Visit, if it’s another church. Visit the families and find out what those parents are like, what that home is like, because you might not be happy. You may want to reconsider.

You better be sure there’s something there. Remember, brother… the Word of God says, you can’t even take wool and linen, I think it is, and mingle them.

So, you’ve got to watch marriage very, very carefully and know that it’s a good thing to have advice in the church and the elder people.

And I’ll tell you what. I remember my brother-in-law, older than I, as a very wonderful person. I was going with, just barely going, it was just a matter of, you know, I wanted someone to go with, and she wanted someone to go with.

And she was a Pentecostal girl, and I was a Pentecostal boy, as much as I could be, which, I could never be all the way. And that’s the truth. I tried it, but it didn’t work.

She was a nurse. She had pretty blue eyes. She had nice curly hair, and I liked her for what I saw.

And I saw her parents, and I knew what she’d be when she got older. You can laugh, and I’m laughing, too. I sort of made a 180 degree turn.

Now, she’s a lovely girl. Anybody would be happy with her. There was no proposal, no nothing. We were just going together and just kind of looking the situation over; nothing ever said of marriage.

But when I brought Alison home and my brother-in-law saw her, he said, “Now, you’re clicking.”

He said, “Look at her eyes and the other girl’s eyes.”

He said that years before Brother Branham ever said one thing about that wild cow I’ve talked about that gave that wild look and took off across the prairie like a hornet in search of a man who, you know, hit the nest.

All right. Now, listen. This inclines us to a time when marriages should take place more and more within the message churches that lays out the doctrine.

Now, some message churches are so legal they’re pitiful. And they run the congregation into the ground. I’m talking about real, sincere people, and I trust we are. And I’m not using us as a standard.

I’m just talking, period. …a message church, letting you know that. More and more within message churches, as we are seeing, it’s done here locally, young people marrying within the church, having good marriages.

And if you don’t come for help, we’ll try to help you all we can. I don’t care what it is. And parents become inactively engaged and supportive, but not pushy, in helping the young adults into a happy and wonderful marriage.

The church must, can, and will become more and more family oriented in the love of God. I’ve been telling you that continually.

Now, “Be not unequally yoked.” That means ‘don’t be looking outside’.

But there are times that those people who are looking for mates can pray to God, and who knows, but you will be the one that God has singled to reach out there and bring somebody in. It’s been done here already. The marriage is a good marriage.

And look; you don’t need to have somebody, to marry somebody in this message that knows everything that I know and everything that you know. Come on.

As long as they understand that was God’s prophet and that we have a vindicated Message, you accept that, you can go from there, because that’s it.

All they need to know is something about the Rapture tape to really understand the little fine points in there, as Brother Branham used it as the epitomization of his whole ministry. We’re just waiting for it.

Then we begin to see the lovely Bride and Groom, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the church and realize that we are, what you might say, not just simply microcosms, we’re way beyond that, we’re a genuine type that we can have this in our homes because we have the conduit which is the Word and the life in the conduit, which is the Holy Ghost, and that placed in us which brings us to a life which is hid with Christ in God.

Now, let me read in Ephesians 5 again to see where our children can go if they’re taught right and they eliminate… They don’t eliminate, but they sublimate and direct the urges of sexual companionship.

In other words, you’ve got to put that down for this, and you’ll get that back a thousand-fold better than ever would be otherwise.

No guilt complex, no nothing in it… just knowing that Brother Branham categorically said, so don’t you ever think otherwise: that act of procreation is a righteous act.

God, we have been to the point where people make us blue in the face, red in the face, and to where we literally feel we’re criminals because we’re human beings. That is a lie from the pit of hell.

But we’re to be right in what we’re doing, not in what we see preachers doing like that. God is manifesting in this hour what those birds are doing.

Brother, I tell you what: when the pot called the kettle black, every reporter in the country is writing against Swaggart right now. Not what he did, but how he treated Bakker.

And Bakker is less of a pervert than Swaggart is, when you want to come down to the Word of God, providing Bakker, of course, did not enter into an illicit act sexually… with the prophets, absolutely, the Word of God bars and scorns.

That is not natural use that some people enter in to. Don’t ever succumb to that. I hear of people in the message have tried it. No, brother/sister. Temple of the Holy Ghost. What Holy Ghost? Tell me what Holy Ghost.

If this weeds out, I’m sure it doesn’t weed out here, by the grace of God. I couldn’t… I would never believe I could put my finger on anybody in this church being so base.

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands,” Ephesians 5:22, “as unto the Lord.” “As unto the Lord.” Well, God’s a supreme ruler.

Tell me when God ever made you do anything. The old song says, “He does not compel us to go against our will, He just makes us willing to go.”

So, Israel sat there and they wouldn’t move. So, God sent the hornets among them, and they were just too willing to go. Neither does a husband compel his wife. He makes her willing. How? By being what God says he’s to be.

Oh yeah, there’s more on the husband than the wives. The wives just have to really watch themselves in one place, and they’ll get along great. It’s much easier.

“For the husband’s head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church:” What kind of head? “As Christ is the head.” “He’s the Savior of the body.” He wants to help her, he wants to preserve her, wants to keep her, wants to reinforce her.

“Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ… Therefore, as the church is subject, in the Word of God…” Let the wives in the Word of God, be subject to the husband and all those things, too, that relate to the male wherein he must be the provider and the sustainer.

It’s all laid out in the Bible. Come on. It’s all laid out in the Bible. The man brings in that which the woman ministers to him. That’s it. That’s it. He’s got no big deal. He’s got no big deal. Pilgrims going on with Christ.

My, listen, brother/sister. You know… Well, I felt so terrible to be in my early and late thirties, saved at age 18, 20, almost 20 years later, to preach sermons on faith that I should have heard when I was born again.

Where were those preachers? A bunch of emotional hogwash and claptrap and balderdash, from the little black book; some preacher woman’s imbecile brain, spiritually speaking. And here I preach the kind of faith, people get out of wheelchairs.

You say, “Where is it now?”

That wasn’t my real ministry. I had to prove to myself the Word of God. Where were these preachers? And I’m asking at age 73, why didn’t somebody tell me these things? Now, we’re supposed to be ready for rapture.

We weren’t even ready for a good marriage: to be lively, exuberant, joyful, not necessarily laughing all the time, but joyful in the Lord. Not some euphoric, stupid experience, but a genuine life.

You know, when God put Adam and Eve in that garden, he gave them a genuine life of union in Christ Jesus… marriage. Oh, I can’t wait for the Millennium myself to see all the botches made right. Yeah.

Ephesians 5:

What does a husband guide his wife by? By the word. He doesn’t say, “Here, dear, you do it because I say so. I’m the boss.” “Honey, look,” he says, “This is the Word. Let’s face it here, instead of up there.”

You know, my wife is a little critical of me… not bad, but she says, “You always run yourself down, and you always tell the people your sins.”

I say, “Yes,” because it’s going to be shouted from the housetop. Let me tell you something, what is on the housetop? The antennae of a television set, and Bakker sins and Swaggart sins, shouted from the housetop.

That Word of God, brother/sister, never fails. Never fails, never fails, never fails. And It’s not going to fail in you and me.

It’s going to bring forth a Bride that’s going to get out of here and show the glory of God, that sweet spirit of Christ will come into this church when the people get here and they get healed.

Not because I said so, but God’s Word said so. It’s vindicated. And I’m telling you how to do it. You keep listening.

Never forget Galatians 6:2. That tells you categorically, “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

I like Bradley staying home and helping Marilyn. Some of you can’t stay home and help your wives, then get somebody else to help her. I’ve washed the diapers. I didn’t like it.

My wife wasn’t able to do it. I got up with the kids the same as she did. I did all those things. I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t mind washing dishes.

They tell me that one of the biggest men in the world loves to wash dishes. Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Universe, for six times in a row, will not buy his wife a dishwasher. He likes to wash dishes.

Okay, some of you boys that think you’re so macho, phttt on you. You’re a bunch of fuddy-duddy little jerks. Not hitting at anybody. I should preach that, shouldn’t I, Janet?

Listen, it got so bad with my wife and me and her sister… Her sister’s a wonderful girl. I used to drive them both crazy. Soon as I eat, I jump up, clear the table, start washing dishes.

“Oh Lee, please, please, please, don’t do that.”

I said, “It’s my nature.”

Shouldn’t be. I should quit it. I did quit it. I think some of the best times in my life is helping my wife. I really do, because that’s the way it goes.

Now, we have dealt the third time with the Bride Church. That’s the third time we talked about these things here in this Scripture. That’s today, third time.

What about those others that Brother Branham mentioned had wrong relations and wrong marriages and, therefore, some divorces and remarriages?

I think if we read Corinthians 7:12, “But to the rest I speak…” other than this Bride church that they got to be right, because they have the Word of God and they’re marrying in it.

Now, let’s read. “If they’re pleased to dwell, don’t get apart.” If they do depart, that’s okay, although they shouldn’t. It’s best to do the other way.

Verse 15: “They’re not under bondage.” See, they’re not under bondage because they were not married in the will of the Lord. There wasn’t a marriage of God.

Now, you can have a couple of hypocrites. Now, please, don’t think I’m saying this to you as though it’s real here. We could have a couple of hypocrites in this audience, right this morning.

A woman who said, “I believe, I believe, I believe,” because she wanted to get her man. She got him. What did the man say? “I believe, I believe, I believe.” He got the woman.

Now, that’s nasty. That’s a dirty low-down trick. That should not be mentioned amongst us. It could happen. Maybe it has. I can’t judge anybody.

Now, that’s going to cause problems because later on one of the two is going to show their colors. You can’t help it. It’s manifesting time. You’ve walked into a trap.

Now, just keep that in your minds. You might have to apply it to one of your kids. I don’t know.

Now, It says here: “…You’re not in bondage, for God hath called us unto peace.” What kind of peace? Marital peace.

Brother Branham said, “Don’t try to go back, because you couldn’t live with her then, you can’t live with her now.” “Marriage and Divorce”.

And if another man’s had her, you can’t go back, period. You know somebody so disbelieved this message, and thought they had it right, that this woman had left her husband that she had married, and then, she felt guilt complexes, and she went back to her husband whom she couldn’t live with, and he treated her worse than ever.

And I say, he was entirely wrong in ever taking her back. That’s nothing from God. Who… Which preacher ever allowed that?

It’s the same thing as a preacher told Sis Dellie [Green] here, after he’d beaten her up, stepped on the boy’s head. The preacher had the nerve to tell her to go back and apologize to her husband who is dying with cancer.

The only apology she could give him is the apology that he didn’t know Christ. It’s about time that he knew Him. I’m tired of preachers who mess up congregations and put burdens upon them.

You’re not hearing burdens this morning, my brother/sister. You’re given a command to walk in and a light to walk in, and I’m trying to lift your burdens and ease the loads and let you know that you can be happy. Just start being happy.

As Dr. Crane so wisely said, “Go through the motions, and the corresponding emotions will come.”

He said, “Court your wife now as you used to court her.” And I’m crazier than ever. I tell my wife goofy jokes all the time. Always was crazy, left-handed to get a laugh and get a rise.

We don’t have a boring marriage. We don’t have a fighting marriage, either. We don’t have the best marriage in the world, but we’ve got a good one.

And I wouldn’t trade with anybody else’s, although I would like to trade some of the things I’m doing with somebody else so I might be a better husband. I could well afford that. But to trade places, absolutely not.

Okay, now we keep reading here. And It says here:

And then he goes on. Let me just swing over here because I don’t want to take all day on this. He says here, verse 26.

Now, that word ‘loosed’ means… It’s the same word that Jesus said, ‘loose’ the colt, untie it. ‘It’s no longer anchored there’. ‘Let it go; get away’.

Well, the next word, “Art thou loosed from a wife? [That is absolutely divorced], seek not a wife.”

Now, watch:

Now the question is: to whom is Paul speaking? Is he speaking to those that have been loosed that they can marry, or is he talking to those that want to get married?

And it’s a better state to stay single, but they… It’s better to be married if you’re going to be looking for somebody all the time and you’ve got sexual instincts that you can’t simply put out the window. They’re going to haunt you.

To whom is he speaking? I don’t know. But according to the proximity, by the context, I would be inclined to believe that a man can remarry.

But don’t ask me to do it. I chicken out right there. I got to be honest with you folk, I’m not here to make us laughing, but I’m just going to be honest with you.

Lee Vayle’s Lee Vayle, and I’m not going to budge. I don’t know. But I believe here, and so looking at the people that I’m addressing, on condition that 28 is based on 27, your marriages can be truly legitimate, and will be, I believe, if you have caught from the Lord, the one for you.

Now, I don’t know I’m telling you one hundred percent. I’m doing the best I can and not to gloss anything over and say, “Yes, you can get married,” because I’ve sidestepped this all along.

I say, “Buddy, listen; I’m not a prophet. I don’t understand. You’re on your own in this case, but if you say you’re right, I will treat you as a brother and sister in Christ.” And you know that I have. You know that I will.

I’ve been told by people, of course, I’m supposed to kick you out and not even let you come into church. Well, I said, as long as God lets me run this church, I’m going to do what I think is right. And I haven’t got any word from God, and God has not spoken to me audibly.

But I tell you, when I got in hot water one time, I told you, and I was mulling them before the Lord, and I said, Lord, I just don’t, you know, appreciate the fact what’s done.

And God told me like an audible voice, “They are not wrong; you are wrong.”

And I said, “What have I done wrong?” And he very pertinently told me three things: one, two, three, and I was wrong in all three.

So, you see, I’m not trying to justify myself or justify you.

Now, let me tell you something else. I’ve told you before. Brother Branham had a case where a woman in Puerto Rico was divorced from her husband. The man had never divorced his wife, but he left her.

And so therefore, the two got together without benefit of the marriage which, where the state requires, and which they should have had.

Now, you watch this, if you think that a proposal actually binds you to a woman, because I’m going to tell you what: sexual intercourse and raising children is a whole lot more binding than just a promise.

All right. They lived together in this liaison. They had children. They heard the message. They did, they came to the Lord.

They said, “Brother Branham, what can I do?”

He said, first off, you, man, will divorce your wife and marry this woman. And he said next, he said we will then pray and trust God and see what He will do for you.

I cannot out-prophet the prophet. I wish I had answers for you. I do not have answers.

All I can do is, like Brother Branham said, “We hope and we pray and we live godly in Christ Jesus.”

Don’t press your luck and fool around. You’ve loused up one marriage. Press into Christ and live godly with your wives.

Now, hear what I’m saying. I’m serious. I’m not calling names, but you know what I’m talking about.

And the young people take the advice: become serious before God. And with your sobriety and your anxiety to please Christ, you will please each other and have a fabulous marriage. I wouldn’t trade marriage for nothing.

Brother Branham categorically said, “If God could have given man something better than a woman, He’d done it.” And let’s face it, a woman’s part of a man. I always want to get back what was missing.

All right. Now remember; all churches are three kinds. We’re still on the same subject. So, let us be of one mind. That’s why you talk the Word, and you get into the Word, and you know you’re saying the same thing.

Don’t sit back and be critical and say, “Hey, that person doesn’t know split beans from buttermilk,” that’s Jack Bell’s good phrase, when it comes to this message.

Be kind and help him and her with the answers they need. Bring all your questions to me, and I’ll do my level best to help you, or I’ll tell you I can’t.

Three: study to say the same thing and enter into the same judgments which are in the church. Not just the same judgments according to the Word… what the Word says, but what the church stands for.

Like you’ve done a fantastic job. The majority said, “Let’s build a building.”

And I’m honest with you; you surprised me wonderfully, like a marriage should be. I’ve got a good wife; you’ve got a husband that wasn’t quite so believing. Nice wives; good bunch of kids.

And you turned out; everybody’s turned out and worked on the church, saving thousands of dollars, getting the building thing going. Man, that’s great!

That’s the same judgment. Some didn’t go for it. But the same judgment, the people went ahead. I appreciate that. See?

Now, study to say the same thing and have the same judgment. This is where we really could stick with the pastor because he must take the Word before the whole congregation when the people stick together and they abide by the laws of self-discipline in the church.

What’s that, chapter? Matthew 18. Okay, verse 15.

You take two more with you. You’ve got to have three witnesses to be established. And if he doesn’t hear, then tell it to the church. That’s the preacher’s job right there. If he doesn’t repent, disassociate him right there.

Now, let’s say that it’s proven that this case is legitimate, even though you can’t bring it all together, you know, not just where ‘there’s smoke there’s fire’, but you know stinkin’ well, there is fire.

The church has got to come as one mind on the discipline of that person. Otherwise you’ll start fighting, and that’s the way the church goes apart. Now, if you want a church to fall apart, then you don’t treat it as a family.

No father and mother that loves their children wants the family split and the kids kicked out. But the whole family takes a hand in preserving the little hophead who got into drugs. They go and help the drunken kid that wrecked somebody else’s car.

But they don’t say, “Well, I tell you my little boy was just picked up.” That why that test of drugs in his blood… Phooey. “Why what happened, he ate a green apple. Anybody knows green apples put drugs in your veins.”

You don’t act like a bunch of idiots. You say, “Hey, it’s wrong, it’s wrong.”

Now, let’s get it ironed out. And that’s what’s got to happen in churches. This never happened here originally. That’s what should have happened. It didn’t.

A period of time was taken to bring in a reconciliation, and let’s face it, there is nobody that didn’t suffer from it, in some degree. And that suffering could continue for some time.

I don’t know when God will erase everything. That’s why I keep insisting, family must be family, brother/sister, and treated as family.

Brother Branham said, the Branhams in the backyard are the same Branhams in the front yard. They squabble in the back yard, but not in the front yard. And if you come in and try to get between us in the backyard, you’ll find out who we’re going to fight.

In other words, they’re pretty tough cousins. They pick you up and tear you to pieces like I use to tear the wings off a fly. Yeah. They’re treated as a publican and a heathen.

What does that mean? They are treated as though they need to be born again because they’re not showing the fruit of a rebirth. That’s what he’s talking about.

Okay. Now, he said… Now, watch. Listen to how God backs the church up. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven because it’s been previously bound in heaven.

God’s Word, having been set in the heavens, has told you exactly what to do and what will happen, and it’s got to happen because God said so.

Your binding is simply agreeing with God. Your loosing is simply agreeing with God, because who can advise God or tell Him anything or ask Him anything that He hasn’t said we can have?

Now, there’s a little place in there you’ve got to be careful, because you can find anything in the Bible you want to find. And you can go to God like Israel.

And if you’re a rebellious and a stinkin’ bunch of kids, God will give you the desire of your heart and send leanness into your souls.

I would sooner God withhold a lot of things from me and make me fat and happy in Christ. And He’s done it. And I’m glad for it. I’m glad for it.

I’ve been places where a lot of people haven’t been, and I haven’t been to places where a lot of other people have been. And we can’t swap experiences. We can go on experiencing day by day.

Again I say, the agreeing and so on.

All right. Now, listen. So, then, let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 6, that’s a chapter ahead. I was going to get out of here early, but you know how that is.

My heavens, I hope I make the Rapture on time. Somebody gets me out of here, carries me out, I’ll do it.

Notice here:

And I’m going to tell you one thing. You could stop here and say, “Well, that fellow’s not my brother. I can take him to court.”

That’s legitimately true. But another stand, it could be that there are true brethren get so deep and the church does not take a hand and the believers do not take a hand, it gets so big, deep, that bitterness and real terrible problems will come.

Then, if there is a wrong spirit, captivates the majority of the people, that church will go plumb down and under.

Why do you think the Roman Catholic Church killed the Protestants? Sixty-eight million in one book alone proves it. You think we’re any different?

Let me tell you, brother/sister: David was a servant of God. He was a prophet of God. He was a great man of God, yet he with four hundred and some wives, he killed another man, took his wife in adultery.

Don’t ever think we’re above anything in this church. We must stay with this Word.

My discipline was a lot like Brother Branham’s: just preach It, and you do what you want.

But there would come a time that something must be done, we will do it. It has got to be done to save the church.

So then, on this premise of one Word, let’s go to Ephesians 4: the premise of one word amongst us. That’s why I like to drill you in this Word, and you talk It and talk It and talk It.

There is only one, and there is only one, Word that tells you all about everything that’s mentioned here. Then let’s have one Word.

Listen; didn’t I want you to think like me? You know me better than that. I want to think like William Branham thought, which were the thoughts of God.

Paul said, “We have the mind of Christ.”

William Branham said, “Just think, the same Pillar of Fire that brought the Word to Paul… [to the church,] to Paul, is here revealing the same Word.”

Paul said, “I have the mind of Christ.” William Branham had the mind of Christ.

He said, “I don’t think my own thoughts.” He told me personally in 1964.

I’m sure it was ‘64 in Tampa; might have been ‘65, but I think it was ‘64. We sat together at breakfast, discussed the things of God.

I don’t want you regimented here like Seven Day Adventists and Pentecostals. But I do want this regiment in knowing the Pillar of Fire is leading us.

And I’m trying to point you all the time to Christ, the prophet and his… and the Word. I don’t try to point you to me. I’ve got to be up here, that’s my job but that’s as far as it goes.

Okay, it’s the same Word, same Holy Ghost, the same everything. And it is that same Word and the Holy Ghost in that Word that is going to produce Galatians 5.

Because Paul said, “Listen, God gave me this Word. I didn’t get it on my own. Nobody taught me. Fourteen years later I found out I was saying exactly what Jesus Christ, He personally, had taught those people. He’s the one that’s the Apostle after the Gentiles.

You read James; you read John; you read Peter; you read anybody. They did not set the church in order. They did not bring the Word of God, it was Paul.

Now, Paul said, “You Galatians, what’s the matter with you? You’ve left the Word.”

Now, he says, “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith you’re called.”

Now, watch verse 22 and 23.

Now, that’s what that Word… and it can’t come without the Word to be legitimate, because the Word is the conduit. We are not the conduits per se. God have mercy, brother/sister.

Let’s get away from Pentecost and Baptist, Methodist who are in idolatry. We are not the conduits per se. It is the Word that’s the conduit. That makes you…

Are we all over? Tape finished? Ho! Well, it was nice of you people to sit here. Nice place to start next week.

Sorry, I’ve worked myself out of my time. I was going to get away early so I’d feel better. But you know what? I feel good.

So, Lord knows all about ninety minutes. I guess we quit in ninety minutes. But I’ll know just where to start here. If I don’t know where to start, I’ll know where to start. You remind me.

It’s the Spirit of God in the Word that does this. So, it’s not illegitimate, but legitimate.

Let’s rise and be dismissed.

Sure do love you people. Grace and mercy be yours all day and all night… days to come.

Heavenly Father, again we want to say how good and how precious it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, to know we can come together as a Word church…

[Tape recording ends.]