Questions And Answers – Pastors Series #12
One Word Union#1788
Gracious, heavenly Father, we count it a great privilege to know the secret of Your Appearing in the midst of the Bride, Lord, unknown to the world, but known to us by identifying Yourself, by doing what You did when You were here upon earth, but now returned to the form of the Holy Ghost in a Pillar of Fire.
We thank You for that, Lord, but we still stand knowing in our hearts we are so remiss concerning that same Presence, and we know by history in the Bible that men also were remiss.
But, Lord, we are not interested in what they were and what they did. We’re interested in ourselves in this last hour to know that You’re amongst us, Lord, and then, not be so remiss as to behave like men who, even in the presence of their wives wink at other women, and women in the presence of their husband give the glad-eye to some man, Lord.
It’s nauseating to think that’s the way life is, and we’re a part of it.
We pray, Lord, that we will be so sincere in Your Presence, knowing Your greatness and Your goodness and Your love and how You’ve exposed Yourself to us.
And that’s a tremendous thing, Lord, to think that You put Yourself at our disposition. How then, could we flirt with the world or do the things, Lord, which are wrong.
Help us, O God, this morning to be uniquely sympathetic to You and to Your Voice, Lord, and to be very, very tender towards You, Father, that we would not hurt You.
Help us, O God, to be strengthened with might in the inner man, so the outer man might show the positive loveliness of the Christ that resides within. Bring each one of us, Lord, to that place this morning. We pray for Your honor and glory.
We’ll give You the praise, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
You may be seated.
Now, in this series which we’ve been calling “Questions and Answers”, and relative to, especially, the pastor being, spiritually-speaking, the husband of the church, I first would say that though many years ago I disliked very much the connotation placed upon it because it was a put down to the sheep, I never realized the extent to which this has been taken by certain people, so that I feel that it was of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, giving me this in order to balance out what the prophet was really saying.
And I have found that this statement has caused great, great problems as to bring up sins that are under the Blood, and to bring a spirit of condemnation, a spirit of complete undoneness and wondering which way to turn, until I can sympathetically say that what’s happened to some people is what happened to me when I got yeast infection all through my blood.
It did mellow me to a certain extent on the ground I found I was helpless. But it was driving me to despair and to suicide… cancer in the blood stream because it does go to Kaposi’s cancer, same as AIDS does. It eventually it could go to that; it could go to a form of cancer.
And though the Swaggart may scream about certain people being a cancer on the body of Christ, I will not scream, but I will admit, honestly, that wrong teaching is a cancer in the blood. It’ll destroy you. It’ll kill you.
We have enough trouble today in this life without the preachers casting additional burdens upon the people. I figure you’ve got it bad enough, and I don’t have to come here in the pulpit and whip you.
I’m up here to lift you up to show your position in Christ, to drive away the evil clouds of self-destruction and doubt, because God knows I need it the same as you do.
So, I’m going to go over last night again, something like we use to do with this Ephesians series. I’ll just read, and then, I’m going to go to something along the same line to continue, and, if we have time, which I don’t think we’ll have time, to take some of the questions. All right.
Now, since we’ve started attempting to give a correct, Scriptural, middle-of-the-road dissertation, so we don’t go into the ditch… Remember; the middle of the road: there’s a highway and a line right down there that you’re supposed to walk on.
Brother Branham recalled his mother’s own dream where a woman in high heel slippers said, “I can walk that line.” She fell screaming into destruction.
So, we want to stay right in the middle of the road and not be drawn aside by some stupid spiritually-ignorant cliché that says, “Yeah, stay in the middle of the road and get hit by a car.”
Or as Brother Branham said, “Lie in the sun and ripen.”
…And then someone else says, “Yeah, lie there and don’t rot.”
You know I’m ironic, and I’m rough, and I’m crude. But I’m not going to twist the Word of God for anybody. It’s right in the middle of the road this Scripture of Brother Branham is a middle-of-the-roader.
So, you can’t listen to that which takes you too far on either side. You’ve got to stay right in the center, in other words, right as the apple of God’s eye, a peculiar people.
And the word ‘peculiar’ is literally ‘a circle with a dot in the middle’. So, peculiar people are those who have actually truly surrounded by the beneficent power of God. All right.
We want to give a correct, Scriptural, middle-of-the-road dissertation on some of the things that Brother Branham said about pastoring and people’s relationship, especially concerning the one where the pastor, spiritually speaking, is the husband of the church.
Now, we want to continue that. And we went to 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, and here we see what we believe to be a husband and wife who have recognized themselves as true believers in Paul’s gospel.
Now, that’s a pastor in the church, where we’re believer churches. Both of them… not one, but both… have the one and same and only gospel: Paul’s gospel. It’s the gospel of grace. It’s eternally one faith.
Explicitly this means there is a ‘one word revelation’ only, that is given jointly, this one people, their faith.
Now, we saw in Ephesians 4, “There’s one faith, one God,” one this, one that. And the one faith is the one, true revelation that gives you all that’s mentioned there.
You say, “I’ve got the one, true revelation.”
You don’t need to worry about your revelation of God or anything else, because you have it. What God shows you is up to God in His Own way, but you must rest in that.
This marriage is a contract, which is a merging of the minds. It is incumbent upon a true Bride Church, therefore, that the church have the same mind as the pastor, if you are conceding and believing that he knows that Word and is delivering It correctly.
One of the greatest muddles can happen in any church is for people to sit there and think their own thoughts and try to think up something.
Don’t do that. Think concurrently, not even necessarily parallel, but bringing it even deeper than parallelism, because you can run plumb around the world and never meet it. It’s two parallel lines.
You must think concurrently with what the thoughts are from the sacred desk. And you know I’m not up here to fool you. And there are men in this Message who are not up here to fool anybody.
They are men of God that I know, and they don’t pull any trick at all. They’re consistently pure and transparent in their understanding of the Word of God.
Now, we notice what It said concerning this people, this marriage, in 1 Corinthians, that we apply to us. She is married and is not to leave that marriage. She is warned. She cannot do it.
If she does divorce her husband, or separate, she can never remarry. For that’s according to Hebrews: she thunk her last thunk. There’s no more repentance. There’s no more Word. There’s nothing to change to.
And that’s to her advantage, because she can be reconciled. No place to go. She has to remain single or come back to him and be reconciled.
As for him, he cannot command her to leave. No. He can’t leave her, either. So, evidently he’s forbidden, then, not to push her out as well as not leave her, because you see, she can’t get somebody else, and she’s supposed to come back.
But if he pushes her out, how can she come back, unless he’s invited? Many people may not be real as the pastor would like them to be real.
That’s like a husband that’s a real believer, and she’s not. But if she’s content to live with him, he’s got to accept her.
What about a church, then, that says, “Well, our people won’t accept you?”
And you say, “Well, I’m trying to do right, and if there’s someplace to repent, I want to repent.”
Your preacher says, “There’s no repentance.”
That preacher better examine what the pastor’s husband is, like I’m doing today. This church is built on what I am preaching whether you people sitting here know it or not, and some of you really ought to know it.
Now, thank you for your nice silence, but take it, because it’s not a wicked thrust. It’s the truth, we are doing our best. I will sweep dirt under the rug anytime, if I think I’ve got enough people to help me hold the dirt down under the rug.
I don’t want to be accused of harming or hurting anybody. At the same time the church must remain clean. Unless I see gross immorality, I stand with Brother Branham, the middle of-the-roader.
We are not here to set a higher and more wonderful example than William Branham. Hogwash. The whole stinking bunch of us couldn’t come this close to his little finger.
Let me tell you about Bill Branham. His son tells us, whether you’ve heard it or not I don’t know. But Brother Branham often received gifts from people. They just threw it in the trunk of the car.
One day arriving in Tucson after going through the border, where your car is cleaned, they said, “Do you have anything such as plants, or fruit, or nuts and so on?”
He said, “No.”
He got home he found a small bag of pecans in his trunk, which is forbidden to go into Arizona, because Arizona raises pecans. He drove back two hundred miles to tell the man he lied. Ha!
Let the preachers emulate that one! Have them even approximate and come near. Phfft! I got no time for myself or anybody when it comes to William Branham.
All right. Here’s what I’m getting at. These two people have a one Word union. They are confirmed to be believers. They pledged their vows.
You people ever… When I’m reading this to you, are you thinking how our constitution was drawn up in this church?
I’m repeating back to you what we started out roughly six years ago, or less, to establish ourselves as a church of the Word of God as revealed by a vindicated prophet.
That became the source of everything, because no matter what we produce, if it isn’t produced from that Word, it is obnoxious to God; anything under, it’s a false anointing.
This one Word revelation is the basis of, not only an indissoluble union, but has within it the elements to make every part and bit of the marriage contract, not only valid, but workable, even to the Holy City.
Again, this church was built upon that… is built upon it. Hopefully, truly one with the Word. We don’t know. We’ve got no proof, but as far as we know, it’s right.
This has to be true because, if a breach occurs it is commanded her to return and be reconciled as the only solution to her problems. And problems must be solved, not create a bottleneck or the church falls apart.
Now this church is not out of the woods yet, because we’re not glorified. We must understand this: the problems must be solved. A solution, therefore, will end happily on condition it’s a Word solution.
Every marriage must live up to its contract, “I keep thee to me,” and “I keep me to thee”. And on the conditions I mentioned. “Live or die, sink or swim.” We are stuck with each other, and the solution must be one with the Word.
Now, that means, if you disagree, and you depart and do this and that, you’ve got to come back in repentance and say, “I was off the Word, I’m wrong I take the blame. If the church had done something wrong the church must repent.
Now, I’ve seen cases in churches I know where a church did a certain thing wrong, and the man stood his ground and the church kicked him out. The man was right, and the church was wrong.
The man got a bad spirit over it, of course, and that made things worse. The man’s in bad shape. On the Day of Judgment, even in this hour, could that church be responsible? Better think it over, church.
Don’t make up your own laws and rules. It isn’t going to work. I’m not going to make up laws and rules for you. I preach this Word according to the Message, and you know it. I’ve not delayed. I’ve laid down no rules except what the prophet laid: gross immorality.
And the basis is the Word. To come against or to contradict the Word shows you what you are. You are not part of those that believe that Word. That’s where the unbeliever is hooked up to the believer.
And there’s no reason for anybody to work about you and you worry, to stick you just stay around if you like it, but if you start causing trouble what happens?
The believers just pull together more and more and more, until God moves that person out, or moves him in. That’s the prophet speaking, not Lee Vayle. It has to be workable. It is workable. See?
Paul dealt with the divisions, with their greed, with their adultery, with all their vicissitudes, an unholy walk, or semi-holy walk, or the best they could do, not the best they could do, he dealt with it all.
It’s in the Book of Corinthians. You can see it right there, even set the Church in order with gifts.
A marriage based on a one Word, ‘faith’, is as It says in 1 Corinthians 1:10, of one mind, of one voice, and a true judgment. United or married minds comes from one revealed Word, because it’s the only basis of a true relationship between pastor and people.
And as the pastor is given headship by the Word, that Word is the only source of a truly, mutual relationship that will in turn keep the church functioning properly and make him a true, spiritual husband, both eating the same Manna.
Now, that does not say that I’m arrogating to any pastor any authority outside of the Word, because he’s under the same Word that the people are.
He does not say, “Do as I say, not as I do.” He says, “Do as I do and I say.” If he’s not a leader of the moral precepts of the Word of God, you ought to get out of the pulpit.
Now, I can say some pretty harsh things right here, but it’ll upset some of you, so I just let it ride. You’re too closely involved. Now, that makes you think.
I want you to think and keep thinking, but not at this moment. That’s down the road somewhere you’ll meet it. What I just said you’ll meet down the road. It’s up to you. It doesn’t refer to everybody. It just refers to a few. Very few.
The Word, then, creates the marriage, the church-pastor relationship as of God. In other words, the church is of God and known to be of God on the grounds of the Word relationship. Now you know that is true.
And the Word of God maintains that relationship, because God does not change in anything that He does. No way! All things are made by the Word, created by the Word. All things are maintained by the Word.
This church comes into existence by the Word, and it is kept by the Word, and it goes out by the Word.
So therefore, you must have the Word. That marriage relationship is a fantastic relationship. Who can have it? Ephesians 5: 25-27 tells us.
All right, eat your hearts out. Here’s what a real relationship is.
(25) Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it…
The marriage of a husband is self-sacrificial. Not marrying some sex queen and getting all you can get for self-gratification.
I know a fellow fancied himself to wanting to be a preacher. Big fat… Well, I won’t say ‘slob’, but I said it.
And he sat right there with his wife and had three or four little kids, and she was pregnant now with another one, carrying the other one…”
Do this honey, do this honey, do this honey, do this honey.” Oh God, why doesn’t that bird get up and exercise his fat off by doing something for her.
Now, If he loved his wife as Christ loved the Church, I’ll eat it, with four pounds of cayenne pepper and three pounds of Limburger cheese at the same time. That lets you know I’m not going to eat it.
How sacrificial is the man? Can he bring out in his wife what’s in her, because what is in her is in him. Because everything that was in Eve and is in Eve was and is in Adam, except she supplies an egg. But everything else.
So therefore, when a man marries a woman he gets back what he is. And if you study the number of sperm there are, and the number of eggs there are, you’ll know what we said before, that one Adam and one Eve, if they were salmons could have the world ten feet deep in people standing on each other’s heads.
So therefore, each one of us is a microcosm of the entire universe humanly-speaking. And in every one of us is everybody else.
And so God in His infinite wisdom… So, Brother Branham could say, “You were in your father’s loins and through holy matrimony, and the bedding ground of your mother, you and your father are one, and your mother and father are one, makes you all one.”
That went over your heads, but don’t worry. It’s biologically correct, and I can prove it. What you’re looking at, brother/sister, you don’t know the answer yet, is simply every life has to have some substance to manifest it, but it’s the same life.
The life of the male is not different from the life of the female. No way, shape, or form at all. And the genes aren’t either, nothing.
Nothing in the form of the spirit is any different, but woman goes to the feminine side, while the man goes to the masculine side.
Because the Bible distinctly said, “God breathed into Adam the breath of lives and he became a living soul,” then was taken out of him.
So, Brother Branham could categorically, one hundred percent, say, “You’re in your father, but your mother and father are one.”
So, I can tell you right now, if you’ve got a natural union from Almighty God, you and your wife is absolutely one. And your position is self-sacrificial.
Brother Branham said, “I will work my fingers to blood to have a wife who will love me, care for my children, and care for me.” Well, hallelujah, that’s the Word of God. Lovely marriage.
Ephesians 5:
(25) …Christ… loved the church, and gave himself for it; [You’re talking about the preacher now, too.]
(26) That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word…
What’s the preacher going to do in any church? Beat him over the head and club him? Live in their homes? Run tally and tab on him? Go to the new age, what is it? the Orwellian age? where you have television watching everybody and getting impulses back, so everybody knows what’s going in everybody’s kitchen, everybody’s bedroom, everybody’s stable, everybody’s garden? No! He preaches the Word of God.
And if you are the husbandry of God, which means a good chunk of ground, you’ve got the right elements in you, you’ll receive the Word, you’ll respond. If you’re like Cain, you’ll be a rebel.
That’s why I’ve got it nice up here in one respect, and any pastor does, any preacher does. If you want to be one with God, you make a little sacrifice now and then, you preach the Word of God continuously and say, “It’s up to you kids.”
You know, my kids got to a certain age, hardly twelve years of age I said, “You are too big to whop.” I said, “I’m tired of beating on you. If you haven’t got enough brains now to begin to live like you have some brains, you never will live and have any brains. I’m not going to touch you again.” I never did.
“Hi twelve year olds.” You’re thirteen, your bar mitzvah, I’ve become a man. I don’t bop you over the heads… phoeey.
But listen.
(27) [Paraphrased] Look at the glorious results, able to present it, Christ through this ministry is presenting to Himself a Church no spots. [Man, I’ve got dozens of them, old age spots, liver spots.] No wrinkles. [Take a few teeth out you see how soon they come in.] No spot, no wrinkles. No blemish. Why, it’s a perfect body. So men ought to love their wives, and so on.
Now, let’s take a look at the women, the Church, Ephesians 5:22-24.
Okay Church:
(22) Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
In other words, you’ve got perfect confidence in him to give yourself over to him… goes for the Church.
(23) For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
(24) [Paraphrased] Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ,… [or so, we’ll put it this way: as wives are subject unto their husbands, so let the church now be subject unto Christ through the Word which the husband, [you know,] in type is ministering down here.]
So, we see that It doesn’t say so much that the wives love their husbands. It says, “The husbands love their wives.” So, It doesn’t say that the church loves the pastor as much as the pastor loves the church.
But as the wife will be in obedience to the husband, and he’s not going to kick around; he’s just going to give her the Word, which is good for both of them, because he wants to treat her because when he treats her he treats himself right down the line, then the wife will respond and minister back to him what he provides.
And a church that ministers back to the pastor, indirectly typing Christ, in very, very indirectly, will literally be ministering back to God through the Word that’s given.
Now, if you sitting here find that you cannot lose yourself in the Word and minister back to God, I am not teaching you right. You heard what I said? I’m teaching you wrong.
Now, some might sit here and say, “Well, Brother Vayle, you’re wrong.”
I’m going to ask you one question: why do I get telephone calls from around the world and letters, that tell me my preaching has literally saved their sanity and their lives? where other men have led them down into the pit of despond and the slough of illicit subjection. For the first time they’re free.
Now, I don’t see anybody sitting here has that idea. I’m just letting you know, hey, this Word is doing things to people. I know It’s doing things to me.
And of course, not as much as I want. I’m one of those fast working guys, if I say I can live my life in thirty-two years, why fool with seventy-four? Who needs the other forty? Fap! See?
When I was a kid I used to train myself to walk in a room and see everything at one time. And then go out and try to remember it. I don’t anymore. I’ve learned you can’t see too much at one time, and you never remember it anyway—at least it seems.
Now, let’s read from Ephesians 5:28 on.
(28) So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
Well, I know a preacher’s wife who didn’t think that. She’d flip the women on the nose (poom) like this. They get [inaudible] the forehead.
If my wife tried that you wouldn’t have to slap her back. I’d knock her down in front of everybody. I’ve never laid a hand on her. She made me so mad, I spit tacks. That’s par for the course. I made her so mad that she’s gone through the ceiling, too. No problem. Just get over it in a hurry, because there’s really nothing to those things.
(28) …loves his wife loves himself. [You want to get along with yourself? Get along with your wife.]
Preacher’s talk about, you know, their problems, they can’t get along within themselves, start making your mind to get along with your congregation, you’ll find how happy you are. I’m not kidding you. I’m telling you the truth.
If I weren’t happy with you folk, I’d move out. In fact, I’m scared every day that I’ll wake up and not find myself happy with you, it’s just been a dream. At the point, I’m dreaming very happily. Because you know I’m very happy with you.
You surprise me so many times so delightfully that I could consider living till I’m eighty-five, like Joe said, but perish the thought, cousin Joe. I’m not for it.
All right.
(29) …no man hates his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, [What’s the job of the preacher? To feed the people. To cherish the people. To love them. To nourish them.] even as the Lord the church:
Now, there’s where you get “the pastor’s ordained to see you through,” because Christ came here, Jesus Himself, the one that God took his flesh and lived in.
He was here to do the Father’s will, and now, by interceding, he is obligated by God the Father to see us through. So is the pastor.
Now, I can’t see you through, if you don’t listen to me. And I’ve got no right to expect you to listen, if I say you listen, but don’t watch. You’ve got both of them. See?
So, we have a harmony here, if we want it. If we want it, we can have God’s Own harmony. You’ve got to let yourself go. I’m having a bit of a job, but I’ve asked the Lord.
You know, people kind of get on my case. You say, “Brother Vayle, why do you stick your neck out? You know you can get it cut off like last time?
I said, “Yep!”
“What will you do next time?”
“Well, likely stick it out and get it cut off again.” And then I kind of get within myself and say, “Now, hold it boy! You’ve got to watch yourself.”
How can I watch myself if I believe that God will take care of me when the pressure comes down, if and when it does, and they demand my life? Now, this is what’s demanded of pastors.
Then, if that’s demanded, you can see why pastors get so upset because they often are with a bunch of people that are phony and fraudulent, and I don’t even know if some are classified as serpent seed.
I don’t know where they came from. They’re just a bunch of religious mish-mash that aren’t worth a plug nickel. They try to run the pulpit and everything else.
They run here to there and cause problems. They don’t know how to be humble and submissive. I’m not talking about you.
I’m just telling what can go on in this Message and other places and why the preachers are prone to take certain things Brother Branham said and use them as weapons for themselves, instead of like Brother Branham, just preach the Word of God.
When he got through preaching real hard, and never making anybody do anything, he said, “I was like a doctor holding your nose and pouring the medicine down, and you spit it out.”
When did Brother Branham ever hold anybody’s nose and pour in the medicine? Every single time he said, “People, listen…” And he had to repeat it. Didn’t have enough on the ball to take the medicine that’s going to make it better.
Now, that’s a beautiful thought right there. Everything in this Word is conducive to our well-being and not to our hurt. What is hurting us, it wants to get rid of. And we turn around and think the Word is going to hurt us. Fap!
Oh my God, that’s infantile; but then again, bar mitzvah here we come. Ha, it’s got to come. It’s going to come, brother/sister; let me tell you, absolutely.
I may fool up here a little bit, just kidding kind of, but I’m more serious than you know I am. This is my way of teaching. I don’t want to get you frustrated.
I want you to realize there’s no frustration in what I am saying. The darkest corner in our hearts and the one that is least feeling out toward God and His ways, that one, and you sitting here this morning could be one that’s fussing and fighting with yourself, and you have family problems over.
Listen to me, this Word is what’s going to help you. Have faith in It, brother/sister, till the Life is released.
You’ve got to be like that old colored lady that Brother Branham spoke of.
She said, “I want to make a little testimony here.” She said, “I ain’t what I want to be. And I ain’t what I’m going to be, but thank God, I ain’t what I used to be.”
To begin with, you never even had the Word of Life. So, you who are without God and hope in this world, you were one in the church that was wretched, miserable, naked, and blind with Christ outside.
Now, Brother Branham said, “Each one today has the power to feed the Christ within us by the Word of the living God.”
And the Christ in us does not take dead, rotting, corrupt manna from any institutions that’s created by man. He lives by the life of God, that Life within. All right.
No man hates his flesh. No preacher can hate the church or any member in the church. What’s hatred? Well, it starts, number one with a disagreement.
Yeah, that’s where it starts. Doesn’t it? Why certainly! Cain and Abel. With us it’s over revelation, and of course, some preachers want you to have the revelation, “You do what I say, and you’ll make it by me.”
Well, I’ll borrow some money if I have to, and I have to, and I’ll write a hundred thousand dollar check. And I’ve got to borrow a lot. Of course, I could sell the house, and that’ll help.
You would lend me some money, and that’ll help. And I’ll give any preacher a hundred thousand dollars in the next forty-eight hours, I think we could arrange it, if he can tell me I listen to him and be under him, he’ll see me through.
Now, look at his church, and I’ll come back and stick with you kids any day of the week and any hour of the day. I’m not interested. No man can see me through.
But we are obligated to help each other to come to Christ, to stay with Christ, and to approximate Christ. Right? And we can have such fun doing it, because we love each other, who love to exercise our muscles to lift up the fallen one.
Our wisdom, muscles to advise those that need help, and our dieting muscles to push away from the table our own understanding and push them to the table of Christ.
Do you know how to get happy, healthy, and wise and thin? Work in the church to edify the members of Christ. Let all things be done to edify.
Ephesians 5:
(30) For we are members of his body…
Then can any minister, without going the limit of church order, dislocate one person lest that person be a member of Christ?
Now, the way I preach here… Listen, sit here and understand this flat. If I could live the last ten years of my life over again, they would be different.
But I’m not dwelling on any past mistakes I’ve made or mistakes that you’ve made by the grace of God.
I’m dwelling on what is now, and we’re going forward to the extent that everything must be under the Blood and the dirt held under the rug, if there’s dirt there. I don’t care what you’ve done.
This might be necessary, so I’ll tell you. I was talking to Brother Branham one day, and we got to the place of, not me necessarily me talking to Brother Branham, but knowing the condition of ministers of which very few at that time were one woman men.
That particular time around 1958, I think Brother Branham commented to Billy Paul, I was the only minister he knew had been faithful to one woman and had one woman.
I began looking it around at people’s lives, and I saw men who claimed to be ministers, and they’d been fouled up with women.
And I began drawing the erroneous conclusion that an illicit, sexual act would, without really going against what the Blood could do… what the Holy Ghost could do, would somehow disqualify or leave the people in a permanent position of disability, so that person could never be really, really, really real.
So, I voiced my opinion to Brother Branham, and I was talking to him, and he said, “Lee, don’t you dare ever think those thoughts.”
So, I quit thinking. I didn’t then turn around and say, “Well, it’s too bad that I didn’t have thirteen or fourteen or a hundred different women like some of these guys, or be a Hugh Hefner, or Don Juan, or you name it, or an Adonis with all the Venuses.”
Could make you kind of wonder wouldn’t it? A man be so sexually, even incestually wrong, and could come all the way, no hindrance, as though he’d never done it. Yeah.
I hope you’re resting better. That ain’t got nothing to do with it. There’s only one thing… There’s one thing that you have to watch, brother/sister: that you don’t leave this Word, and you don’t blaspheme the Holy Ghost.
I’m not opening the door now to people who say, “Well, let’s go ahead and have sexual problems in our church. We’ll cultivate them.”
I never said that. I said, “If you’ve done it, that’s no big thing.” It’s a wrong thing, but it’s no big thing. “Because he that offends in one point of the law is guilty of the whole caboodle.”
And he, though he never offends in any law, but attributes to Satan the works of God, he’s gone. This little trick of putting people in and out of the Message is for the birds, the buzzards, and the crows, not for the eagles.
This Church…
(30) …members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
What right, then, has any preacher to treat his spiritual wives any different from his own physical wife? Because they, too, are one flesh, in this church we suppose and believe, and this is the one thing we’ve got to do… everybody’s Bride.
And I’m going to make it my duty to see that they respond to what’s in them to make them true Bride. “You that are spiritual, restore those that need a restoration.” Help them, see? This beautiful marriage…
(31) For this cause a man will leave father and mother, …joined to his wife, and… be one flesh. [Now, that’s husband and wife.]
(32) This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
So therefore, there should be… That’s why the pastor must always be truly married. A real, true pastor, the real elder, he’s got to have a wife.
I couldn’t put my finger on and make that stick as far as the five-fold ministry is concerned, but I can’t see where a man can truly pastor outside of having a wife because he cannot go places without a woman being in attendance, or he shouldn’t do it.
Sometimes it’s necessary, but he’s got to be terribly, terribly careful.
Ephesians 5:
(33) Nevertheless every one of you particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
Now, notice on one case ‘love and reverence’. Love and respect. And don’t you know that respect is a major ingredient of love.
So, if a congregation respects the pastor, as Brother Branham says, “Respect to the ministry,” then you automatically love that person.
But remember; that love that that pastor is supposed to show to you can only be reciprocated if it is true love, because there is a phony love.
The Bible says, “Let love be without hypocrisy.”
In other words, a pastor cannot love you to take advantage of you. He loves you because he loves you. All right.
Now, we see here in this indissolvable union, which committed the Church to the Headship of the Word, from which there was no escaping, Elijah was Jezebel’s pastor.
He told her, “Cease and desist, or you will die, and the dogs will eat you up.” She died, and the dogs ate her up.
He said, “Ahab, cease and desist, or the dogs that ate your wife up will lick your blood.” The dogs licked up the blood. Pastor Elijah.
The Headship of the Word is what did it, for Elijah was no more pastor of Jezebel and the whole system than nothing, except by the Word.
In the event of a deviation from her headship, she was left there standing alone, until she became reconciled to the Word. For when she left the Word, she left God.
And Brother Branham said, “When a preacher leaves the Word, he has left God. Get away from him.” Don’t wait to get kicked out.
If I leave the Word that goes out to you and stands correctly, you must leave me and leave me alone. It is because the Word, and the Word alone, can correct all the errors and bring her to reconciliation or restoration, which is a better term.
You see, this is one reason I’ve got to quit preaching, when I’ve got to get myself lined up. And part of my trouble is this ‘Epstein Barr’ that’s in the throat. I suppose there’d be another Barr there when this is over. So, we keep struggling. All right.
Acts 3:
(19) …when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
(20) [Even] he shall send Jesus Christ, [That’s God.] which before was preached unto you.
Now, It says right here, there’s got to be this presence of God, ‘the Lord Himself descended with a Shout’, then, after that, He’s going to send Jesus Christ… meet the Lord in the air, which was appointed unto you by preaching.
(21) Whom the heaven[s] must [retain] until the [restoration] of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. [Now, listen:]
(22) For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.
(23) And it’ll come to pass, that every soul, [that] will not hear that prophet, shall be [utterly] destroyed from among the people. [Malachi 4:5-6.]
So, what is going to bring this Bride back? What is going to bring the Church to the position of the beautiful Bride of Ephesians 5? The Message of the prophet.
Now, that’s what the Bible teaches. Elijah is going to bring a reconciliation period.
And the Judge said, “Tell my people they are the righteous, virtuous bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, they didn’t even do it. It all falls back on Satan!”
So, what you did is being promiscuous in the flesh, and I might have done as being greedy, which is steal. What’s the difference? Which because of pride, make me tell a lie; which because of hatred, make me fight. It’s all gone. Didn’t even do it.
That’s a good one. That’s not that two-soul junk that’s being preached. “You didn’t even do it, so go ahead.” You can have that. Put it where it belongs, which is right in the devil’s sewage tank where it came from.
You are responsible the minute God gives you the power to be responsible, which you have the minute you are full of the Holy Ghost. “Greater is he that’s in you than you yourself.”
All right. Now then, her life course is found in Galatians 5. The beauty of repeating is: it’s going to get a hold if you dwell on it long enough.
You know what they say about pornography? Look at it long enough, and you’ll do what Swaggart did. Then, if we look at this Word long enough, we’ll do what It says. You can’t help it.
That’s why I like to keep repeating and repeating. Does me a lot of good, and I’ve got enough faith, it does everybody good.
Okay,
(22) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, [That’s a marriage. and] joy, [hey, and] peace, [Oh, you got to be kidding. Love, joy and peace in a marriage? What tribe is that way down in Africa? Oh, hold it, It says,] longsuffering, [hmm] gentleness, [What for, if we’ve got love, joy, peace?] goodness, [oh mercy, goodness, yeah,] faith,
(23) Meekness, [meekness, me?] temperance: [yep, holds good.]
Everything is there if you want it. All during your suffering you can be full of joy, love and peace. Why? Because you know the Word is going to work it out. You know your marriage is of God. You know that you can have what the Bible says.
Now, this Message is more for what I’m saying now for our young people here that are recently married… married just a little while. You can work on your marriages and have the most wonderful thing, because it types Christ and His Bride.
And it types the beauty of the Millennium where we’re all together, our children in peace under our own vines, figs trees, and everything is just wonderful coming up roses with no thorns.
The beautiful, evening breeze is bringing in the glorious scent of the flowers. Living in the paradise of God. A Bride that’s ministered to under headship by the world bringing its… all those out there bringing their glory in.
See what we missed in the Garden of Eden. You don’t have to miss it all here. It’s a matter of attitudes.
All right.
Now, this beautiful situation here of marriage through the ordained Word, and I read from last night’s notes, we read how that, out of the innermost being flow these rivers of living water.
That’s the life of the Holy Ghost, pouring through us, will pour through it in this fruit: God’s fruit tree.
Now, out of the belly shall flow. The belly we understood was the womb. The womb is the place of gestation. It is there that life takes on a form for the spiritual life that lies within us.
In other words, a life has got to be there, and in itself already has a little form to manifest it, during that gestation, that period in there to bring it forth, and it’s going to bring forth that life. See?
So, the physical elements are supplied to the life itself, then both the physical and spiritual are nurtured until it comes forth.
So, what you’re looking at is the Word of God here in our womb, which is the mind, the period of gestation is the constant feeding of the Word with the Word, piling Word upon Word, taking It as our authority as the Life, which is within us, It will bring forth this which is spoken here.
Now, we find that this would eliminate, and will eliminate, what lies above it:
(16) This then I say, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. [Now, the only walk in the Spirit is the Word of God.]
(17) For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, the Spirit against the flesh: [they’re] contrary the one to the other: so you cannot do the things that you would. [That’s of your own you can’t.]
(18) But if you be led of the Spirit, you’re not under the law [of the flesh.]
(19) Now the works of the flesh are manifest, [and they] are; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
(20) Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
(21) Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like:…
What will the Spirit bring forth?
(22) …[truth] love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
(23) Meekness, temperance… [Why? Because it’s got all this up here to contend with in the lives of the unborn again.]
Now then, you can see the battle. So, those who have learned to cope and overcome the battle help the Christians that are weaker. You don’t have to go to psychiatrists.
They say, “Jimmy Swaggart better go to psychiatrists.”
He better go to God and get born again. That’s the trouble with those birds. They’ve repudiated the prophet. So has Pat Robertson. Now, he’s telling all kinds of lies and stupid things.
Years ago he said, in 1984, its been released on a California station just again. He said he’s been ordained of God to bring in the Millennium, to bring in Christ; and the Church, the Bride, is going to literally annihilate everybody down here, and then, it’s going to take over everything that’s down here.
That’s the Roman Catholic theology of the church doing it. Anybody knows that. The spirit of Rome and idolatry is in Pentecost today.
And I’m not through preaching yet. Let me show you something about it. I’ll read it to you. All right. This is what makes her Bride morally sanctified under her husband.
Now, we look to 2 Corinthians 4:13-14, and from It we found the difference between those that were truly baptized and those who were only anointed.
Now, let’s go and see 2 Corinthians, because that’s at the end time when a Message is going to come forth, and in the Message you will see Christ, and in the transformation of the Word in your mind you’ll be glorified.
Now, here’s what Paul said down in verses 13-14.
(13) We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, [That’s the same as John 7:37-39.] I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
(14) Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
He’s talking of the presentation, “When the Lord shall descend with the Shout,” then we get presented to Jesus Who has been immortalized, and now becomes the tabernacle of God.
And It says right here: “This is the difference between those that are of the Bride, and those that are not of the Bride; those that are going to get immortalized, and those that don’t.”
They speak a certain language of the Scripture. Now, get this flat. Please understand: in the days of Paul they did not come and say, “Listen you Galatians, let me tell you something. Paul taught you one hundred percent wrong.”
They did not say that. They said, “Paul taught you right except here. He told you disregard the law, and we’re telling you the law never fails. So now, with grace, you take the whole Bible, you take the law.”
The law to the Jews was never given to the Gentiles. So, these people will not throw the Bible out any more than Satan said, “There’s no God. He didn’t say this. He didn’t say that.”
They take It and pervert It. Now, let’s understand that, brother/sister, before we go one step further. All right.
Now, listen to me. A life… This is not directed to Brother Klassen.
This is directed at something that Brother Klassen told me of which he’s very, very familiar of churches who are saying, “Well, where’s the life? You people preach Presence. Where’s the life; where’s the life?”
Well, I wouldn’t have their life for a billion dollars, because they’re gone, in my books.
Listen: A life back in Pentecost, or from the Wesleyan or Lutheran Age, cannot be the life of God, be it ever so perfectly, physically manifested according to the Word, because Christ our Life is outside the church trying to get back in.
That’s number one. What put Him out? Living a good life? No. False doctrine. You don’t dare talk anything about a walk, my brother/sister, until you talk about the Source. And you’ve got to have it right.
Let them walk as though every thought, and every deed were motivated by the life of God fulfilling the Scripture so that even powerful gifts are in evidence, the church in total is condemned as miserable, wretched, naked, and blind, and above all, without Christ.
As Jude said, “They are twice dead, plucked up by the roots, wells without water, empty clouds drifting denying the Lord Jesus.”
They are without the Pillar of Fire, but walking in all the benefits of that same Pillar of Fire, even as they did with Moses when he led Israel out into the Promised Land and two million carcasses fell on the ground and rotted to become ashes under their feet, even as it shall be in our day.
And remember; Egypt always prospered when Israel was there, and as long as there’s a Bride here, that world church will prosper.
Now, the Bride Church is in the midst of all that is portrayed in Revelations 3:14-23: “Wretched, miserable, blind and so on,” but cautioned to let Christ in and receive the Holy Ghost, and will come out in this hour, in full union with Christ, even though she’s in there.
This is that ‘invisible union’ spoken of by Brother Branham that everybody is missing, because they’re talking about a life and pointing their fingers, especially at me, as though I do not preach the life nor have the life.
Yet I have not taken men’s money. I have not run with women. I have not told lies. I have not led people astray. I have not tried to bring gifts back in the church.
Always and ever I’ve preached Jesus Christ and pointed to Christ, and the prophet. And I challenge them to any record at any time.
But I want to see them go to this Word the way we do here, because it’s always the same story. “So, He’s here. So what? Where’s life?”
Where’s their life? Where’s the life that makes them tell lies? I want to know that. I thought that was the original sin, telling a lie, that is Satan telling it.
I find in my Bible, immediately after Paul speaks of the Church coming to perfection under Christ. And he said, “Don’t lie.”
I want to know why people lie. It seems the Pentecostal spirit of Jimmy Swaggart is amongst us. You can do anything as long as you do it. But let them…
Let me tell you something, brother/sister: one thing in my life that I abhor, and you know it, I hate the fact that I react too quickly. You want to lay your sins up here, I’ll lay every one of mine. I kid you not, I’m not afraid.
Because every high point in the world now has a television and a radio antenna, and it’s shouted from the house tops. This is that hour. I’m not boasting.
Now, one thing you will not accuse me of, I have never falsified the Word of God. I have not used It to trick you, and I won’t do it either.
There’s no way it’ll take place, because I believe in God. And God evidently believes in me, according to the prophet. He believes in you, according to the prophet.
This is the invisible union spoken of by Brother Branham. Her only difference is the revealed Word of God, that is, from the wrong church to the true Church.
Her only difference is the revealed Word of God and a true Church order of 1 Corinthians 15, where He, God Himself, come down to have Headship over the Church. God once more is His Own Prophet, and a prophet always brings the Word. True. All right.
Again: this is the invisible union, that invisible union spoken by William Branham. Her only difference is the revealed Word and a true Church order of 1 Corinthians 15, wherein her husband is the Headship-Word-God.
Headship Word God of 1 Thessalonians 4:16, where He came down with His Own Message. His Own Church order. So it is with the pastor as husband.
The pastor’s major concern is not, first of all, the physical moral condition of the church. Nor is he, first of all, concerned with a manifestation in the people, but as Paul was in,
(10) Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; …that you be perfectly joined… in the same mind… in the same judgment.
You have the one Word, and come to the one conclusion to act the one way, then you deal with sin. He said the same in Galatians. He said, “Why are you moved from the gospel?”
They said, “Well, the law makes us better men.”
He said, “You are liars. You’re finished. You have no mercy, nothing but condemnation, because none of you can live it. The law was a school master to bring you to Christ. Why do you want to go back into bondage?”
I don’t care how hard you try, brother/sister, you and I will try; till the day we die we will have trouble with our flesh, but some people seem to want to have trouble with their cotton-picking flesh.
I’m not talking to you. Talking to those who don’t want trouble. And they hate it. It’s an unclean and a terrible thing. And they have their tears on their pillows at night, and their tears by day, and they hate it. You have it with you till you die.
But the harder you try to pull yourself up by your boot-straps, the more you’ll sink in the ground.
Like Newell said, “The harder you try to jump from New York to Calais on the shores of France, the further out you get, the worst danger you are in.”
It’s the same as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, “I have you as a chaste virgin. You weren’t messing around. You were just everything a man desires. God Himself wanted you, but your minds got tricked.”
Didn’t say the body; he did say, “The mind got tricked.” It opened the door to it.
John in Revelation 22:18-19 said, “Don’t add a Word, and don’t take a Word.” That’s where the Lake of Fire is. It was only after this came the moral judgment of 1 Corinthians 5, “How dare you allow this man to be among you?”
Because you got off the Word. Don’t you see what I’m trying to see this Church built upon? The Word and the Life that is in the Word. We are already Seed, or we wouldn’t take the Word. Cain hated the Word. He hated his brother.
You say, “What Word did Cain hate?”
The revealed Word. Not the unrevealed Word. Listen, as long as the first fruit offering stood down the road, see? Cain loved it, see? but it was a blood offering that was in season.
Now, the same with people. Oh, they love, “Elijah must come. The Lord will descend. There’s going to be an Appearing.” But when It does come, and It’s manifested, they can’t take It.
Now, don’t go to sleep on me, brother/sister. Listen to me: this is what I’m trying to get across to you: only God can do it for us. Only Christ, the Sower of the good seed, can plant It, and He can water It. But it depends unto us if we want It.
Here is the only escape we have. You can deal with morals only after you have that. You can talk about life only after that.
But can’t you hear the prophet saying that the Africans, no morals, yet have morals we in America know nothing about. That the Christian Scientist has far more love than we’ll ever produce if you want evidences.?
And if you want power, not one of you sitting here, and not one Pentecostal anywhere, can do what Judas did, because as soon as God told him, he went out and did it, like Moses or William Branham or Jesus Christ.
But everybody else has to pray a prayer of faith, and just hope and build themselves to where, “Well, let’s see if it’s done.”
Where are you going to be, then, with your evidences? I tell you, I want to be that Bride that has the Word and knows what to do with It, or keeps her mouth shut until she knows. You cannot bring correction to any moral condition without the Word of God.
James speaks of this. Let’s go to James 3 and see other people in the Bible treat this, because we know Paul cannot stand alone as one voice.
(01) My brethren, be not many masters, [many teachers,] knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
In other words, the more teachers you have, the more your condemnation is going to be. You just have one person. We have Brother Branham, and now we have those that believe the Message as the Holy Ghost gives It.
(02) For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. [The perfect Word of God is the only hope we have. There isn’t anything else.]
(03) Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, [and] they may obey us; and turn their whole body.
(04) …ships also, though…great, …driven [by] fierce winds, [a little] helm, [just turns the whole thing around.]
(05) Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! [And what’s best to have in the tongue? The Word of God.]
(06) …the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, …sets on fire the course of nature; and… set on fire of hell. [That’s the tongue.]
(07) …every kind of beasts, and… birds, and… serpents, and of things in sea, is tamed, hath been tamed of mankind:
(08) …tongue can no man tame; [See, even that killer shark and all, they tame it.] an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
(09) Therewith bless we God, the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
(10) Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. [What’s the remedy?]
(11) Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
(12) Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? …a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
(13) Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
(14) But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. [Notice, ‘lie not against the truth’?]
(15) This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
(16) For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
(17) But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, …peaceable, gentle, [Hey, that’s Galatians 5:22-23.] …and good [works], without partiality, …without hypocrisy.
(18) And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
Now, he said, “Here’s a bunch of people their tongues just… they’re full of something shouldn’t be there. Then these people that got it, what are their tongues full of? The wisdom from above.
You know, brother/sister, you cannot be talking about the troubles that you’re going through at the same time you’re testifying to the sweet goodness of Jesus Christ. You cannot fuss at people the same time you’re praising them. See?
Now, watch:
(01) From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, of your lusts that war in your members?
(02) You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not.
(03) You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts.
(04) You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
(05) Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? [Now, watch:]
(06) But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he said, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Now, watch the next verse, the greatest battle ever fought.
(07) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee…
And Brother Branham said, “Resisting the devil was by the Word of God.”
Coming under the yoke of bondage to a husband, wife and pastoring church is always receiving the Word and not resisting. What you don’t understand, don’t resist; just wait and listen.
What you think is against what Brother Branham taught, just wait and listen. If you come to the place where you know it’s against It, then there’s time for concern, but not until then.
Now, Peter also agrees. Notice what Peter says in 2 Peter 2. He’s talking about teachers again.
(01) But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, [That’s what James said.] who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even [saying no to] the Lord that bought them… [and here he is right here and they’re saying, “That’s not God, forget it.” Who’s William Branham?]
(02) …many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
What’s God’s way? Restoration by a prophet through the Word.
“Oh, that’s not it. You got to live a life. Who cares that He’s here?”
Don’t you understand in the Exodus when He was there, there were only two people over twenty years of age that understood the Presence outside of Moses? The rest of them had to die.
And it was, “He’s here, so what?” And soon as they saw some women, hoochie-cooching, oh, they made a dive for the women and couldn’t have enough of their sex orgy in the presence of God.
So those preachers, “He’s here, so what?”
And I say, “He’s here, He’s here, He’s here…”
“So what? That’s it, so what?”
I’ll tell you so what! You drop that kind of nonsense. Shows where you’re right back in the foolish virgin—the mixed multitudes. Terry Sproule hit it. They don’t believe this. That’s their business. We believe it.
(03) …through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: [build bigger churches, have bigger crowds, and have a big time going haw, haw, haw, up their sleeves,] whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and damnation slumbereth not. [And so on, tells you that there.]
Now, watch what It says here about them. Verse 15.
(15) [They] have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
(16) But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
(17) …wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; …darkness is reserved for [them.] [Now, watch:]
(18) …they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, [by all that big talk,] …wantonness, [They’re people who are wanton; don’t have anything in the first place. They don’t have anything.] those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
Now, this is a church here that looks like it’s a pretty good, sanctified church. They’re escaping from the sins of the world and all, but they’re being pulled in by this allure, by this other glittering thing.
Now, watch what these men do:
(19) While they promise them liberty, [Here’s your Jimmy Swaggarts.] they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
(20) For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, [Now, It tells you they can be all cleaned up and look just like the real McCoy.] they are again entangled therein…
Not the same thing they had, but the same thing in a different garment. “Well, I’m no longer a Baptist, hallelujah, I’m Pentecostal. Oh, praise God, I’m no longer Pentecostal. I’m Branhamite.”
Check it out, buddy. They are again entangled. They go right back to Pentecost; they claim they belong to the Message.
(20) …and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
(21) For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment…
Listen; that is Hebrews 6. But it happened according to a true Proverb, “The dog returns to his own vomit, and again the sow to the wallow.”
All right. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 10, and we’ll just get through here, let you know brother/sister, this church believes in morals.
This church believes in a life, but it doesn’t believe either one of them apart from this Word.
Now, that’s all I’m looking at, and I have been chosen to be misunderstood. That’s their baby, not mine. I’ve cleared myself on a hundred tapes.
(01) Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel…, …they might be saved.
(02) For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
(03) For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
And I want to say this about the people. I’m sorry to say it, but they going about to establish their own restoration have not submitted themselves to the restoration of God.
I’m reading It correctly, and It says, “Every person that doesn’t do that is going to be destroyed.”
That goes for everybody that names the name of Jesus Christ and William Branham, jumps up and down, says, this says that, produces everything and turns around and says, “That’s not the way it is.”
I’m going to tell you: that’s the way it is, and you can do what you want because, Elijah, my brother/ sister, cannot bring you salvation. Elijah cannot grant you repentance. Elijah cannot sanctify you. Elijah cannot fill you with the Holy Ghost.
I’m talking about William Branham, Elijah of this hour, any more than John the Baptist, or Elijah himself, or Elisha. They cannot do it.
They have one thing that turns the full tide and brings God on the scene where the heart of God and the people are one, which is a marriage, and that is Word.
And in our case it’s the same as Elijah, identified and vindicated. There were three great men outside of God: Moses, Paul, William Branham.
Oh yes, they don’t want his name spoken. I love his name spoken. One day that river is going to flow, brother/sister; going to flow beyond.
All right.
Let’s keep reading:
(04) For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
(05) For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
(06) But the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? [that is, to bring Christ down from above:]
Who even knew to ask Him to come down in the Appearing in the form of the Holy Ghost in a Pillar of Fire? Who asked Him? Nobody knew to ask Him.
(07) Or, Who descend [to] the deep? [that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.]
Whoever thought of that back there? Whoever thought He’s here now to put us in a Rapture, raising the dead? Who? Nobody thought of that. They never thought. They had to be told, and then, they said it.
Romans 10:
(08) But what [is] it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach.
Now, that was good for that day, but is not good for this day. The Word of faith is, “The Lord has descended with a Shout, with the Voice of the archangel and the Trump of God,” and it’s going on now. That’s the Word for this hour.
And brother/sister, you put it right back on the Throne up there, where the Body is, you miss out. You’ve missed out.
(08) …the word of faith, we [preached;]
(09) That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
(10) For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; …with the mouth confession is made [to] salvation.
(11) For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
How many people are ashamed to believe that the Lord Himself descended in a Pillar of Fire? I want to ask one question: Who came down?
Who is Brother Branham talking about? What did he mean when he said, “The Pillar of Fire shall lead us to the Millennium? I want to ask the question.
You say, “Brother Vayle, it’s all a big life.”
I want to tell you something, this age only is wretched, miserable, naked, blind, without God.
You say, “I’ve been born again and full of the Holy Ghost.”
Doesn’t mean a thing. You got to die anyway. No Tree of Life, no immortality. Everybody has got to die, and then you come back.
People try to abort the Word of God. Let me tell you, brother/sister: this Word will never be aborted. We’re ready, hopefully day by day going.
And I have one prayer for you, and I want you to have one prayer for me: God help us all to get into this Word.
As the prophet said, “I have one fear for the Bride: she’ll let too many things get in the way of that Word. Yep.
Women who are unable to bear children and want a baby so bad, they go to every doctor and try everything under heaven that they may have a child. But the Bride doesn’t think, the Church Bride, doesn’t think like that little Bride that wants a baby she was ordained to have.
We do not take every opportunity and every means to go into this Word and make It the joy and the feeding of our heart as we ought to do it.
The kids go down the street with their ears absolutely glued with the best glue under high heaven, the epoxy glue, to get all the rock and roll of the little radio and the little cassette player; the Bride of Christ does not glue Her ears to the Word of God.
Our church coming up must be dedicated as never before to one inspiration, and that’s the Word of God.
And everybody as never before to tend to the food that God has given us and nurtured the Christ within because, brother/sister, He is here and for that very purpose to bring us restoration, to prove little Bride, you’re the virtuous, sinless, perfect, blotless, blameless, wrinkleless, Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s rise and be dismissed.
Heavenly Father, again we realize we’ve taken time, but, Lord, we know that this is time that’s valuable to us. If we don’t do enough at home, Lord, at least we’re going to get something here.
I’m standing in the same position, Father. I certainly do waste too much of my time, and I could be feeding on the wonderful Word of God which is inexorable in Its ability to destroy that which is not of God and absolutely invincible in Its power to augment and bring to pass that which is of God.
Lord, how clear and precise that is. Help us to no longer play the fool… little twelve year old kids, but come into our true bar mitzvah today, Lord. Declare ourselves as adults in the Kingdom of God. Act like men and women; eat like men and women…
[Tape recording ends]