Restoration Of The Bride Tree #06

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we’re glad that the all things that are possible has to do exactly with what was given us by Peter, when he said that after the great Presence and the great revival, healing revival, there would come a restoration of that Word, and we know that all that is possible now.

And there would be then according to vindication, in this hour the descent, wherein there was the Shout, and the Voice and the Trumpet, and there will be definitely a catching up of a living Bride and those who are down in the earth will come forward, glorified bodies, and we’ll meet the Lord in the air.

And I believe at that time Lord, that all those risen ones that came forth out of the graves with You, two thousand years ago, will be looking over the battlements of heaven up there, with Jesus, even as the angels looked when Jesus arose with that first group, and they said, “Lift up your heads ye gates, ye everlasting doors, and be lifted up.”

And we believe Lord that’s the Omega of the Alpha of this hour, and we appreciate it, that there is this great convocation Lord. And we believe the convocation is greater than those who form the congregation, because You are there Lord, the great One in the full display of Your power and majesty of that particular marvelous promise, which we only barely know of, that we cannot even consider it as to the true revelation, except we believe we’ll be a part, and what unfolds at that time, we will be very grateful for, and we appreciate that.

And we see Lord, numbers going by the board, we see that all over the place, even as it was at the time of Noah, and I know there that people were saying, “Well it’s going to run out, you watch, there’ll be nothing to it.” But there was something to it.

And the same thing Lord, with every great juncture of history, and every prophet was always the same thing, “Watch it run its course, it will never survive.” But Lord we know there is an imperishable Word that’s been given to the Bride and by It she shall live and survive and become immortal.

So we thank You Lord that it doesn’t matter concerning numbers, it doesn’t matter concerning what people consider glamour, what they can see, consider this evidence, or that evidence, or that status, or other status Lord, we know it has to do with the Word.

And we know Your Word absolutely has told us that not one shall be plucked out of Your hand, and also, “The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them which are His.”

We rest in that this morning Lord, just bring our case before You, as simple believers in heart, mind, soul, and follow You Lord, we try to, and we pray You will help us to recognize the strength You give us to follow more closely and more determinedly.

Bless our studies this morning, in Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

You may be seated.

Now we’re into number 6 of the Restoration of the Bride Tree, and we noticed last Wednesday that Brother Branham was dealing with the restoration of the church by first telling us how that church lost out in the First Church Age. He said that the first step down was the relinquishing of the nine gifts of the Spirit.

However at that time he barely mentioned the gift of speaking in other tongues except to say that though the formal church came against it, calling it nonsense, there were some who understood the languages and were saved.

It was very noticeable that Brother Branham did not speak of any of the other eight gifts, and bypassed them in favour of emphasizing the laying on of hands and prayer for healing of the sick according to Mark, wherein healing is one of the signs following the Word of God, wherever the gospel is preached.

Yet later he said the laying on of hands, either for the baptism or healing, was a Jewish custom and not actually needed today, though he did not rescind it.

He noted that at the early church period, or at the early period or the first period, the church grew rapidly with the tremendous spirit of unity and oneness. But the greedy worm of humanism, wanting to impress people and make the church a more cultured center of worship began pandering to the rich and intellectual who welcomed to a degree the healings, but turned against the rebirth and the power of God until the leaders, and eventually the people, reacted to this signs that followed some of the believers, even as the Jews turned on Christ in spite of his vindicated ministry.

We finished reading on page 33, where Brother Branham is telling us how Christ challenged the Pharisees on two points. Number one: proved by Scripture that he was not whom he said he was, and number two: to do the works that he did, to prove that they were at least somehow correct, or at least if then they were true believers, they would believe the Word and then of course decide that they wanted a part of that ministry. See, Judas wanted it and then he fell from it.

As we read as rapidly as we can today, and then start again on page 33, where we left off at, but as we read rapidly even that place, that paragraph onward, we will see Brother Branham is actually using much of the same material he used in The Church Ages, and remarks that prefaced the various seals as they were opened.

What we are seeing is the devalued Word of revealed truth as was set forth by Paul, the vindicated prophet of God. If we note how Paul revealed and reveled in the glorious redemption of God, in and through Jesus Christ, and what it means to us passively and actually, we see it all begin to melt away until the church is naked and devoid of life, as is this tree of which he is speaking.

Now it’s up to the Elijah of this hour that’s Christ coming through William Branham to discern the error and then establish the truth, so once more we see the Tree planted by the water, God’s Tree, bearing God’s fruit, fully clothed or leafed out in the very Presence of God, getting ready for the Rapture. As we saw that in Revelation 22:10 and so on.

So all right, on page 33, we begin where Christ challenges the Jews as to who He is and His ministry, and asks them to step into the arena and prove their right to interpret the Word that man should live by.

And as we go into this, we can actually wonder if we are not into an Omega period, where we have all of these things laid out before us, and they’re being reneged on by the very people who say that they are a part of this ministry, that they believe actually the vindicated Word, comes to the place as where Brother Branham said, “You say that you believe me, then why don’t you obey me?”

And this is where we could be this morning, and it certainly gives us great room to think, and also it could actually pinch us as to our conscience.

Now on page 33 then, Brother Branham is using Christ as the challenger, and remember that he is also challenging in this hour. As he said on one occasion, “Go up and stand right beside me.” He said, “If you believe in three gods, bring your Bible, bring your Scriptures.”

He said, “There’s only one God, period.” And remember he was not a Trinitarian nor was he Jesus Only. It’s in-between. So you got to get your thinking away from both sides, and you got to reconcile it right to the middle. What is he talking about?

Now this is what people have not been able to do. I don’t know whether there’s some of you sitting here this morning or not, that’s entirely up to you, I have not talked to you, and I’m not a discerner, and I don’t even intend to discern, if I could, or talk to you if I could.

To question you. But there are those who I know still believe and think I’m teaching two gods, they don’t have a clue to what is being said. And they don’t have a clue to what a Trinitarian is, although they are Trinitarian, and they don’t have a clue to what Jesus-Only is, though they are Jesus-Only.

You say, “What a mixture.” That’s exactly right, it’s a complete ungodly mixture.

A complete ungodly mixture by disavowing the terms, God the Son, God the Father, God the Holy Ghost, and then understanding there is one God, period! And I don’t care if He has five billions sons! And the five billion sons by His power created five billion universes! One God! You baptize into His Name, Lord Jesus Christ, but do you understand terminology?

See, this is what we’re looking at. You don’t have to look at it, it’s your business. I’m not here to club you into it, nor do I want you screaming and jumping up and down as though you understood it. Not interested. The Bible says, “He that hath ears to hear,” not “open his mouth and scream.” That can come later. But a person better know what he’s saying “amen” to.

Heard a young preacher the other day, think he’s a fabulous young preacher, he keeps on saying, “Can the people say ‘amen’?” Why do you want them saying “amen” to what they don’t understand? Sin against their own souls.

What you’re saying “amen” to is the conversation you have concerning the Word and what you believe in your heart. We could have a conglomerate then couldn’t we? Not a conglomerate, we’d have a conglomeration.

All right, said:

[33-2]  All right. “Show Me where I’m not fulfilling the Word to the hilt, [see? Perfect, right to the line. Nothing left out.] right where It’s supposed to be. Show Me in the Scripture where in My day… If I don’t do the works of My Father, then don’t believe Me.” He said, “Now, you claim to be that; [you’re the guys that put yourself over me,] let’s see you do it.”

Brother Branham challenged them. They couldn’t take the challenge, they were smart enough not to, like these birds here, but they went behind his back to destroy him.

That’s where you have the crucifying themselves the Son of God afresh. Why? Son of God, because it is the Holy Spirit ministry in Brother Branham revealing the Son of man, the same One that was there, Jehovah indwelling the flesh of that Son. He left that flesh, went back to a Pillar of Fire, came right down here to Paul, then came down to William Branham.

You find Paul mentioning of God in him, William Branham carried it further to the extent of absolute illumination. And he said, “The Pillar of Fire is standing up inside of me right now.” Oh they say, “Horrors.” Ha, tsk, tsk, tsk. Well, every man to his own dish of oats.

[33-2]  Oh, my. From henceforth they asked Him nothing; [sure, they were challenged, they couldn’t,] they let Him alone. [But they went behind his back.]

[33-3]  Like the devil flew into Him… I said that he thought he’d jump in anyway, but he found out that had a million volts in that Wire. [In other words, Christ just blew him right off.] He jumped off of that One real quick [you see?], because he couldn’t handle That; that was one thing sure.

What’s he talking about? “Come on, do what I’m doing. Stand up here.”

They said concerning gifts to Brother Branham, “You put us on the spot.”

He said, “You don’t think I’m on the spot?” Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

And that’s very wonderful too. Because it means God Himself is on the spot. Sure. You read your Bible; you’re going to find out God puts Himself on the spot all the time. Then He puts us on the spot to see if we are of the adoption, which means the placing of children.

All right, let’s start reading.

[33-4]  So this little palmerworm came around to take off the fruits. [I have two pages of fruits; I’m just, want to read some of them.] First thing, the first fruit he took off was brotherly love. [Now that’s what the prophet says. And of course the tremendous church with that lovely unity, they had real brotherly love, they looked out for each other.] That’s right. That’s one of the things that kills the church right there, when brotherly love [goes] Yes, sir.

[33-5]  Then, the next fruit he took off the Tree… You remember, love is the first fruit of the tree: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, meekness, faith, patience…

Now remember where Brother Branham places that love. It’s a brotherly love.

Like he said, “You can only show your love to God by loving and serving your brother. You love and serve God by loving and serving your brother.”

And you got the same thing here. Then what is that love that is in the fruit of the Spirit?

Well most people automatically want to simply place that toward God, which is wonderful, I’ve got no kick about it, but notice Brother Branham placed it within the brethren. And so there’s that brotherly love.

Be interesting to know how some people qualify what they have as brotherly love. They want to destroy ministries, churches, everything else, and all the time prayed about their great love, which is nothing but an emotional. It’s either erotic or phileo.

Now the Pentecostal church is full of erotic love, if you don’t believe it, you see the Swaggart’s and the Bakker’s and all that kind of stuff, and there’s thousands and thousands of them. It’s not just one or two people. It’s like the Catholic church.

You think one or two priests? Well I don’t know about Bernadine, I wouldn’t say that he was a homosexual, I wouldn’t say he wasn’t. Go back and trace the history amongst the popes.

Read the books on the good popes and the bad popes, find out about them. Don’t be blind and deaf and dumb, because somebody sold you a bill of goods, read it! And you’ll see why it’s ripened today. What did they do? They went plumb against the Word of God, which denied the relationship of marriage to every man and woman that desired it.

So what do they do? Read Father Ciniquy’s book. Find what they tried to do in that day. Then you’d understand the seed of discrepancy took hold. Just hey, read the first chapter of Romans again, read it crying unto God, read it on your knees, until it gets a hold of you. Where did it all come from?

Left the Word. When you leave the Word and make something to take It’s place, the first thing is there is no brotherly love, there’s got to be contention. He puts them down here.

[33-5]  …long-suffering, goodness, meekness, patience, [that right.] in the Holy Ghost. Now, nine spiritual gifts and nine fruits of the Tree… All right.

[34-1]  Now, the first, he got to eating on the fruit of the tree.

Well that’s where the good sweeties are, you see. Almost everything will attack the fruit first. See? Why do they want to destroy it? Why do you want to destroy the fruit? Because the seed is in the fruit.

Now I’m talking naturally you understand now. That life. So they want to destroy or get right down to the seed. You notice the little worms what they try to do?

They try to get down to the core, and get in the seeds, where the real goodies are. That maybe kind of explains to you in a certain degree how it is when you take sprouted oats and sprouted wheat and sprouted barley, it’s more nutritious than when it’s not sprouted. Why? Because it shows there’s life there. You’ve tapped into it.

How does a farmer find out exactly how many wheat are going to mature if he plants a certain type of wheat? Or the agronomist? He simply puts it on blotting paper, pours water on it, puts it in the sun, he’s got one hundred little berries of wheat in there, and if sixty of them mature, he said, “I’ve got sixty percent maturity coming up.” They’ve done that for years.

Now they’ve learned to sprout them, and they know the life is there, and better form of protein, assimilable, where the life is. So the little bug attacked the brotherly love. Instead of standing together, they pulled apart.

I don’t say we do too well here, but to a degree we do well we do to a degree, just let it sit there. I’m including myself, not you. Maybe thinking of myself more than you.

[34-1]  Now, let’s picture a big tree, of God’s tree; it’s bearing nine spiritual gifts. They’re healing the sick; they’re speaking in tongues; casting out devils; doing great works, preaching the unadulterated Word, no denomination to tie them down; they’re free, doing a great work.

So in comes this little old devil, setting up with his two horns setting out in front like a grasshopper, you know, and his little old greedy teeth. That’s his first, the palmerworm, he came to eat off brotherly love. He said, “You know, So-and-so did so-and-so over at Such-and-such’s church; I wouldn’t believe that bunch of people.” See? There he is, first thing.

Now what’s Brother Branham saying? Why does he say what he’s saying? Because he is the target and these people are the target with him. Why didn’t he just address the people there in the own church, “Listen you people, So-and-so and So-and-so”? Because that’s not what you’re looking at, at this particular time. He addressed his people, not too long before he died, concerning that brotherly love.

But he’s letting the people know, “Look, you are targets, I am a target.” Why? He’s just talked about Jesus being a target, and those people with him being targets. Now they’re targets. So don’t let the people bug you. You see? Now before you bring it home, look at the large picture.

[34-2]  Next, he wanted to eat on the fruit of faith: faith in the Word: “Now, look, how do you know that is the Word? It’s been translated so many times.” [And we’re always getting new [inaudible] you see, getting better.] That little devil’s still eating. See? That’s right. “The Word’s been translated so many times. He’s this, that or the other. Oh, he’s all this.” See?

All right, what’s Brother Branham talking about? He’s talking about the fact in the First Church Age, the church literally split over a diphthong, and a diphthong are two vowels that go together in a word that can change the entire meaning or whatever.

I’m not a Greek student, all I know is that’s the way it was. And Brother Branham mentioned they argued the Greek back there, they argued the Aramaic, they’ll argue it now.

And they’ve got so many translations, and so many ancient manuscripts, and they’re looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls, and every single thing they can see, positively, when listen, the very fact of I suppose his name is really Schonfield, Schonfield, we pronounce it Schonfield, maybe, the one that wrote ‘The Passover Plot’, a brilliant, brilliant Jewish scholar, literally translated from the manuscripts he could get his hands on.

I suppose it was the Sinaiticus, which is supposed to be the best one out of about five of them, maybe went to the Aramaic. He translated, and he made a complete study of that age, and he said the New Testament is positively correct as to exactly what it says concerning that hour of how they conducted themselves, the geography, the history, and everything else.

And his translation of the New Testament is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Monsignor Knox had a very good one too, when he got away from his Catholicism to the Greek, he became a scholar instead of an adherent to the church. Because if you are an adherent to something and not truly liberated, to go at the subject, per se, you cannot deal with that subject.

When I find a man who claims that Jesus’ death and resurrection was a plot, and Jesus died later on someplace else, as they try to say, and yet he tells you flat, because he’s an absolute scholar, that that New Testament is a hundred percent with the times, whether he believed the contents or not, and it was a plot.

All right, we’ve had all these translations, even from what we’d call an infidel and an unbeliever, an antagonist of Christ and the Word. And they all say, “Look, there is the element of the genuine.”

You still have to go to somebody who has ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD’, or you cannot have a restoration of God’s Word. I don’t care what any scholar says, I’ll debate him and argue, and then say, “Look stupid, bring me your proof, come up here and tell me.

And when you go to the Greek, I’m going to have my thirty-two versions all lined up. And I’m going to bring in some Greek scholars, actually Greeks themselves that I know.

And you tell me without vindication what I’ve got to believe, because I’ll not believe one of the thirty-two, these guys here or especially you, because you are a bamboozler. Now give me some miracles. Let me take your picture, produce an evidence.”

Now this is what Brother Branham is telling us. The contents of this message to me are not merely as important as the implications of this hour.

You say, “Why?” Because Brother Branham says many things here that he elaborates on later, and they take on the true distinct meaning. Here he is generalizing to a degree, but it’s not true generalizing. It’s Scripture. But many places he gets so definitive.

Not saying this is not definitive in the way it is going and what he is teaching, but he’s teaching the complete defoliating of the church down to the very nub where there’s only life left in the roots.

And you notice that that root appeared, and the Seventh Church Age, “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” There was nothing left but that life. And that life came forward. And the Word could only come by the vindicated prophet that it was indeed Jesus Christ the Elijah of this hour.

As Brother Branham cleared his own skirts, when they talked about Elijah, he said, “No, I am not Elijah.” Although at one time he did admit it. He said, “The Elijah of this hour is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.”

Now Lord Jesus Christ is the baptism titles, that’s Elohim, that’s Jehovah Elohim Himself. God Himself. And if you don’t think It’s God Himself, go back to where he brings the Seals, and he said, “God could not trust an archangel.”

He doesn’t say God even trusted His Son, it said, “God trusted nobody but Himself, came down in the Garden of Eden when His son and daughter were in terrible sin, so today!”

Then don’t try to change it! “Well Brother Branham said Jesus is all three in descending!”

I don’t deny it! What Jesus? The same One that said to Paul, “I’m Jesus.”

And Brother Branham said, “He went back to the Pillar of Fire.”

Who went back to the Pillar of Fire? The One that came down in the Pillar of Fire and stood over the Son and came into him! Then what are you crowing about and griping about? Where’s your two god issue, your Trinitarian, everything else? So much. So much for your translations, your Greek diphthongs, and everything else.

Where’s it going to get you? Hundred more translations? Ha! The last translation is going to be written by Joe Blow who is a committee of fourteen men who can’t make up their own minds what time it is to go to lunch. Yep.

[34-3]  Now, that’s the fruit he ate off of it: joy of salvation [faith, joy of salvation]: “Shhh. You people make too much noise. Oh, my, my.”

Look, Brother Branham was not making noise and issue. Get the tapes out. You will hear some of those that screamed the loudest aren’t anywhere near a message that Brother Branham preached.

Noise isn’t the issue, or lack of noise isn’t the issue. The issue is what is real, and you refraining from what is real, and cannot open your mouth and praise God, and do those things which were done in the First Church Age shows that there could be a real lack of sincerity, drinking in the Word of God and the assimilation thereof.

Because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If there isn’t any real joy and vocalization of what’s within you; you don’t have much, and I don’t have much, because the only hope we have is vocalization of the truth, that it might grow and increase and enlarge.

Because the Bible distinctly said, “There’s a priesthood with a confession.”

And we say the same things that Jesus said, and Paul said himself, the people were taught of Jesus not of Paul, and he called them the wholesome words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And wholesome is somatic, means giving you strength.

And I’ve never seen a strong healthy person that wasn’t able to shout, that wasn’t able to express himself, that wasn’t able to give voice to not opinion, but a reality.

Now here’s what he’s talking about here.

[34-3]  “…Oh, my, my.”

[34-4]  “Oh, how can you preach, Brother Branham?” a woman said to me one time… No… it was a man [he said,] [I believe he’s… I hope he’s here; he belongs to another church], but he said to me; “I was up to hear you the other day, and I couldn’t even hear you for those people crying.” [And I said… ] And he said, “How in the world can you preach there?”

And I said, “If they didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t be preaching.” That’s right.

That’s true. Next thing is would you enjoy it as much if you understood what’s being said? What if someone was saying something and right away you knew positively, “Oh that’s me, that’s me,” shouting and shouting.

And the guy said, “No, it’s the little guy down front here.”

“Oh.” Be kind of embarrassing.

Now understand this, I’m not panning Brother Branham his sermon. What I’m trying to bring out here is the fact that vociferation under certain conditions, or vocalization, can be absolutely that of the hypocrite. I have never been against this church saying “amen.”

And many a time I’ve said, “Look, now is the time if you really are the people that some people think you’d like to be of yourself, you could be on your feet screaming to God right now and praising God.”

The Pentecostals have done that under my ministry of five hundred people, and I preaching for Brother Branham, five hundred people, didn’t even know I was through my sermon, rose instantaneously and began praising God. One of the elders in the church said to another one, standing there, he said, “That’s the way it should be.”

He said, “But it won’t be unless you preach like that guy.”

If my sermons leave you absolutely unmoved here, and I’ve preached to some being zombies, which some people misunderstand when I say you can die under my ministry.

That is this, you can take the letter of the Word, the pounding, the pounding, the pounding of that Word, until you go by it letter perfect, and you won’t have a clue even to what’s in my heart and what’s in the heart of God.

Say, why do I pound certain things? For the very reason they’re real to me. I can’t pound what isn’t real. If I do, I’m whipping a dead horse. And I’m full of the same maggots the dead horse is full of. Huh? I got a dead horse in me? I got a double-load now, his maggots and mine.

So we’re not against the screaming, we’re not against the crying, we’re not against any of those things, not as long as it’s not a peculiar screaming that I know that you are doing, has nothing to do with the Word but you’re just a pest and a nuisance. Trying to get attention to yourself.

I had that in Brother Branham’s meetings. Told you about it, the funniest thing this person making noise, and I knew it was a woman, just as sure as I was alive, it was a woman doing it.

See, I’m not partial to women, most of the time. They’re usually the ones that are doing it. And I go sneaking around, sneaking around, sneaking around, and I come to the very area, and I’m listening, and I come to the very person.

It’s a man. I laid my hand on his shoulder, I said, “Brother, listen I understand your joy in the Lord and all, but when you’re doing this, you disturb Brother Branham and people cannot hear, and the Word of God is more important than you praising the Lord or making any sound.” He quit right away.

At the end of the service Brother Branham said, “Brother Vayle, I sure appreciate you stopping that woman making all that noise.”

I said, “Brother Branham, fooled you too, didn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“It was a man.”

No, see, when you are into the psalms and you understand the psalms particularly, and the people shouting and praising God, absolutely I am for that. But you’ll notice in the Bible you will find that the people shouted and praised God at the end of the services.

It was after that Solomon lifted his hands toward heaven, the blessing of God came down, the Pillar of Fire, the Holy Spirit filled the temple and all, that the priests could not stand to minister, and it was almost not exactly mayhem, but there was a tremendous overwhelming, a spirit within the people that brought on this tremendous emotion.

We are not against that. And I really hope that the people here enjoy the preaching of the Word, like Brother Branham said.

[34-5]  I used to have… A friend of mine, Jim Poole, we used to have an old dog. We called him Fritz. This old dog, he’d go into anything that he treed, but a skunk. He was afraid of a skunk, ’cause he smelled so. So I’d get him a skunk under a brush pile; and the only thing I had to do was pat him a little bit and say, “Sic ’em boy, sic ’em, sic ‘em, sic ‘em.” He’d go and get that skunk, because I was patting him, saying, “Sic ’em.”

[34-6]  Well… The worst stinker I know of is the devil. So when I’m bringing this Word out and somebody says, “Amen,” that’s “Sic ’em, to me boy.” We got him treed.

Now I understand that, see? There’s no problem here with me, and anybody, as long as it’s very, very sincere, and it’s not something that we are trying to pump up emotionally. You see, let’s face it; I realize that many people were carried along by Brother Branham’s tremendous enthusiasm.

And I’m going to be honest with you, if I’m just a dead head, if I’m just a hypocrite up here, I’m a skunk, I’m a serpent seed, I’ve got to tell you honestly, I was not many times, most of the times, a part of it. Because I wanted to hear what he had to say. I wanted to know!

Even on tapes today, some of his words are so hard to figure out mine are too, to some people, because I talk very rapidly. Sometimes very much slur my words and run them together, just a wheat you know, walk through them. But believe me, when it came to that Word, I was attentive, as I am today, to know what was in that Word.

So my ministry could be little problem to you, I hope not. I hope you have a joy in your heart, that you express with your words, you express with your life, a confidence in God, that is not all wasted in the whistle of the steam engine.

Now this is an old Pentecostal illustration. And they were the noisy birds. I’m not against that, that’s fine by me. Actually you can make a lot of noise and relieve your tensions, is that all you’re going to get in church?

Or would you sooner come here, literally deadpanned, and get a Word of God that brings the ultimate peace of God into your soul, and it’s no longer the psychology of letting off steam by screaming into a pillow? Or something like that… Anyway, the old story always was this.

The steam from the boiler that runs the motor is the same steam that blows the whistle. Would you sooner get your train moving or use all the steam on the whistle? In other words, where is your attention? Is it directed only toward emotion?

Now Brother Branham is not saying that. Brother Branham is talking of the true moving of the Holy Spirit that moves you beyond yourself, where Jesus himself said, “If you never cried out, the stones would.”

So we’re not against people, as I’ve said different times, this is the time you could be shouting, I wouldn’t say one word, you get up and run around, I’d maybe start running with you.

As Brother Branham said, one day he looking down a bunch of these people, and he thought, “My isn’t that awful.” He said, “They were tapping their toes, and some were even dancing. The first thing,” he said, “I found myself tapping my toes, and I was dancing in the aisle with them.”

Listen, hey, look it is legitimate! Don’t be stiff and starchy as though this religion did not belong to a part of your natural normal life, where there’s joy and the carefree Spirit of God.

Like I’m not against people dancing! Long as women dance by themselves, I was just going to say together, God have pity, not any more. And men by themselves.

No more dancing together. Please? Divide the church, men dance down this aisle, three feet apart, and the women dance down this aisle three feet apart, and then you go around the corner. All right?

Now I’m not kidding, I’m not lying to you, I’m not being facetious, I’m telling you, look, I am not against it. From a child I always believed in dancing, but never ballroom dancing! No!

I wouldn’t even dance with my wife, if I were to dance. But impressionistic dancing in the Spirit is in every single child, male and female, and nothing wrong with it. Keep your clothes on and don’t get sensuous.

But dance unto the Lord, like David did. In fact he shed some of his robes he never was naked. The word ‘naked’ many times in the Greek means they’ve simply got their loincloth on.

Yi, don’t even talk about that. What can I say? He didn’t have a dirty mind. His wife had the dirty mind. She said, “My lord surely disgraced himself dancing out there.”

He said, “I did it unto God, from now on you’re not my wife. Out!” David was a prophet king. That guy was one tough bird, you never crossed him with the Word or you’re gone. Now if that was in that man, what do you think is in God’s heart to cross Him with His Word?

So all right, this church, I’m not against it, as I told you I’m not against gifts, go in the room there, start it, I’ll go in with you, though it’s not my job. There’s many things I don’t understand, I don’t preach it as though I understand, I just leave it hey, I’m sorry, I just got to leave it right there.

[35-1]  So we find that he took away the joy.

Now the joy he talks about is expressed vocally. I am not against it! As I sat in Brother Branham’s meeting, I’d just get so welled up and choked in my throat, I could just literally scream a strangled scream, just strangle it; it was so overpowering.

It was real, I’m not against it. I’m not against anything real. I only would to God I had enough that I could be an example. So that’s the truth.

[35-1]  So we find out that he took away the joy. You know, David one time lost the joy of his salvation; he didn’t lose his salvation; but he lost the joy of it. He cried, “Lord, restore unto me the joy of…

I don’t think it’s my salvation; it’s thy salvation, what the Scripture says. Brother Branham’s got ‘my’ in there, you look it up, you ain’t going to find it, ‘thy’ salvation. David never had any salvation, God had it, and He gave it to David.

[35-2]  So this little old palmerworm begin to eat the fruit of joy out: “Now, looky here, you people make too much noise. I tell you, all this crying, saying ‘Amen,’ this shouting, that’s nonsense. There’s nothing to it.”

Well there is something to it. Number one: there’s the vocalization of your victory in Christ; that you’re more than conqueror through Him, your passive faith is letting everybody know that you’re resting secure. Then let me tell you this, anybody else can make noise and be million miles off the Word.

But because that is true, don’t let them take away the praise of God out of your heart, don’t let them take the shout out of your mouth, don’t let them take the dance out of your feet, and above all don’t let them take the joy of giving out of your hands, the perfect peace and relaxation and combined with brotherly love, that forgives men from your heart…

I’m going to tell you something, Paul the apostle said, “In the Person of Christ, forgive I you.” Where is that? Corinthians. I know it’s in Corinthians, but whereabouts?

Now that’s the value of having a beautiful mind that’s full of holes. If I were to rename my brain, I’d call it Swiss cheese. But I wouldn’t know where to plug the holes. Oh my. It’s in Corinthians, but I don’t know if I’m going to find it for you.

All right, it’s in 2 Corinthians 2 I would go to 1 Corinthians and mess things up, wouldn’t I? Just to keep you waiting. All right, Paul is talking about the guy they’d turned over to Satan, he cleaned up and he came back. Verse 9:

And that word is ‘presence’, it is not person. The actual Presence of Christ from what I read in other translations. So now looking at the Omega of this hour is in the Presence of Christ, you forgive everybody, but watch, this man had come back.

The church cannot forgive anybody unless there’s a comeback. You say, “Well, we’re going to put it out of our minds, and forgive him in that respect.” That is true. Just leave them go.

But what I’m talking about is where Brother Branham said when the church says thus and thus and thus, why does it forget that the same Christ said, “I give unto you the keys of the Kingdom. And whosoever’s sins you remit, they’re remitted, and whosoever’s sins you retain, they’re retained!” See they’re right here? Same thing.

There is a way it is done! How do you stop the reaping of your sowing? The fourth generation can die of syphilis and AIDS, because your great-great grandfather committed adultery, and your great-great grandmother messed with other men.

If you talk to certain men who seem to know the body, seem to know the judgment of God contained in this Scripture, you will find that many people right today, who suffer with blemishes on the skin and skin problems, it is said by those who are supposed to be authoritative, that it is more than likely your great-grandfather, or great-grandmother had a venereal disease, and you get the results of their sowing even to the fourth generation.

So all right, the joy is gone. I want to ask you a question this morning, though you may not be vociferous, that’s fine by me. You could be, in all the right places, but not prolong so you’re going to blot out what I’m preaching and teaching.

Because the important thing is for you to have the engrafted Word down in your heart, perchance I’m actually teaching it. I will just ask this one question; it’s rhetorical, there’s no need of an answer, because you alone can answer that question.

I have to answer for me, you have to answer you. Have you greater joy now in your salvation because of this Word that you have than you ever had before? Now you got to combine that with other things, because you don’t let just joy stand all alone.

You don’t let brotherly love stand all alone, you don’t let faith stand all alone, you don’t let your joy stand all alone, you don’t let all these other things stand alone, they’re all together in there. Because if you’ve got that one spirit, you’ve got to have those nine things in there, whether it’s in the modicum or they’re all overflowing, or one is predominant! I’m not going to argue the point! It’s all in there!

So when you talk about joy, do you have more peace? Are you more gentle? Have you more brotherly kindness? All of these things are there, so let’s not try to bypass anything and then just talk about one thing. Now Brother Branham’s talking about everything. But he’s taking them one at a time.

He could just take blanket covering and say, “If you’re truly full of the Holy Ghost, they are in there.” Begin to inquire within your heart by the Word of God and set your mind on these things and see that your life becomes transfigured and transformed by it, because piling Word upon Word, you must come to it!

Not what you want to come to, according to your thinking, because down the road there’s a Millennium right? a thousand years of further sanctification!

Now get this, this morning, I’m going to add to it! What did Brother Branham say about Samuel, when the witch of Endor called him up? Brother Branham categorically said, “He was in his prophet’s robes, and he was a prophet even at that time.” In the Millennium we will have what?

Temple worship, is that true? Then is it not possible every prophet will be there! Ministry. Every evangelist will be there. Ministry. Every sheep will be there with his proper accord. Proper ministry of priests and kings unto God.

Paul said, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

I want to tell you something, it’s not just in this life, brother/sister, it’s you and me coming back. Not reincarnation, forget it! It’s you and I as individuals, as we know ourselves and others know us, but it’s going to be a lot different, because we’ll be all different.

[35-3]  First thing you know you’re sitting in a big morgue, you know, sitting there, all of them dead.

Well, I’ve seen sometimes the churches more like a slumber party, zzzzzz, people dozing off. Well, it’s all right if you want to doze off. I’m not going to be too bad on you, but I used to get up at five in the morning to rush to Brother Branham’s, be one of the first ones in the door, then that building so full of heat, and perspiration coming down into my eyes and my eyes stinging and pinching, and pretty soon I nod and wake up.

Well I don’t see anybody getting here at five in the morning, standing at the door, so you’re not the same excuse I got. Some people drove all night to get there, couldn’t afford a motel room.

[35-3]  See? [They’ll be] sitting in the big morgues… all of them dead. Some of these embalming fluids of so-called doctrine of creeds pumped into their veins where the Spirit of God ought to be running, where the old church creed pumped in there, no wonder they’re icy, cold, and dead. [The] spiritual thermometer, ninety degrees below zero. Yeah.

Someone say, “Amen”; everybody stretch their neck around like some kind of goose or something, want to know what was said. [Or who said that.] It’s a shame, when the Spirit of God ought to be joy, peace, love. Little old bug started eating on it, and he ate all the joy.

So all right then, joy really precedes your shout! And peace has got to be even beyond that! What joy is there in being constantly torn up? But what great joy in a vindicate… “Yeah I believe that, yeah I’ll believe that, I don’t see that yet, but yeah I’ll believe that!” At least, bless God, you got peace with the Word! And the Word is God. Right? Sure. Yeah.

How red hot were those vociferous ones that the minute Brother Branham put the church in order, was saying, “Put the gifts in a little room under the direction of the Holy Spirit, make sure it’s real, then tell us about it.”

And they ran off where they could do anything they wanted. I hear today that women are wearing slacks and bobbed hair. I don’t know; I hope to God they’re not, but I don’t know what they’re doing.

What about the prosperous church? Back in the ages and all ages, they hid in dens, walled themselves up where nobody could hear; they didn’t dare scream any praises to God, walk out on the street and say, “Hey, I’m one of them, bless God, come and get me!”

Word of God said, “When they persecute in this city, run to the next.”

Martyrdom isn’t you and me saying, “Here I am, come and get me.”

Polycarp hid until lives were in danger because of him, and he came and he said, “I’m the one you’re looking for, leave them alone.” Jesus did the same thing.

I just want everything put, as far as I can see, in due order, where Brother Branham were he here, he would not want to be misunderstood. Certainly he loved the people shouting and praising God, but the same man also loved to sit with people who were onto the Word the way he was and talk with him, bring things to his attention.

Where they found him not only right with the Scripture, in the sense that they knew he was right with the Scripture, but now they’d gone to the Word themselves, say, “Brother Branham here I’ve got something I want to show you, here’s your ministry right here.” I want to tell you that meant a lot to Brother Branham.

All right, so all the noise is great, everything is great, I’m not against it, if you’re shouting in the right place, that’s a hundred percent fine, no problem, but we also remember that the Word of God distinctly says, “When persecutions come in and all these things are heaped up around about us, lift up your heads and rejoice!”

And it doesn’t say run and say, “I’m one of them, come and kill me.” The rejoicing is an inner rejoicing, which can be vocalized, no problem. Let it be in the Holy Spirit, not the empty wagon shout.

I guess I got cheesed off with a lot of these things in Brother Branham’s ministry in the church, because I knew many of them shouting the loudest and getting up every time, speaking in tongues and attempting to prophesy, and interpret, oh I knew… pshew… oh brother.

Preachers that would say, “Well, Brother Branham, yeah, I always was a Trinitarian, he’s never convinced me, ho-ho-ho, I’m still a Trinitarian, ho-ho-ho-ho.”

See it’s hard to make myself understood in just what I’m trying to say, without killing people off or getting wrong ideas. Look, if this church, when you like something you have heard me say, I am not stopping you saying “amen” or anything else like that, just be careful that you don’t have a barrage where the Word is not being heard, but everybody’s free to praise the Lord in the church, and sometimes I get very angry with myself not with you, but myself by not having more freedom, when I myself just want to stand up and scream.

And I tell you I could be jumping with the chandeliers, but they’re a little bit too high at this point in the Millennium, yes but a little bit too high, and they might not even hold me if I got to one of them.

But honestly, I mean there are times when… and I imagine that well Brother Branham got the people shouting, I never did see him shout himself too much, except in his sermons, and they were, you know, unfathomable rolls of gratitude and love and joy toward Almighty God and his fellowship with the brethren.

So all right, when enthusiasm is lacking because the church is off the Word, that is a horrible thing. You see? But when the church is on the Word and the enthusiasm is lacking, then it’s the end of the day, it is over.

Now the Bible distinctly says in the Book of Proverbs, “The blessings of the Lord maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.”

So there’s a blessing with the Word of God, and in our minds, our souls, every place, and it should be brought forth in a natural attitude of worship and our daily living. Now that covers it.

[35-4]  Then, the next fruit… is peace, peace of mind, knowing you’re saved. They tell you, “Well now, you’ll recite our creed, you’re saved.”

“If you’ll join the church, you’re saved.”

Well now, one says, “You’re not saved if you go there; you… join this church and be saved.”

“You have to say ‘Hail Mary.'”

“Got to have your name on a book.” [This, that and the other thing.]

[35-5]  Oh, my. That would take all the joy out of it;

Sure, because you’re in a place of speculation. Maybe you didn’t sign the right book. You got to be like the guy that came to town, drifting around, looking for a church. He saw a church open, he said, “I think I’ll go in there.”

He got in there just as the old preacher was intoning, “Oh Lord God forgive us, we have not done the things we have ought to have done, forgive us Lord. And we have done the things we ought not to have done, forgive us Lord.”

He said, “This sounds just like a people just like me, I’m going to love them.” So he stayed with them. He never could do the things he should do, and he never refrained from the things he shouldn’t do. And that’s the way people are. He loved the guy’s prayer it fit him right.

Well we’re not that kind of people here. “God take away those things that are displeasing to You, we know they are, because they’re displeasing to us. And I know they’ve got to be displeasing to Your saints around me. Get rid of that stuff.”

You know, it just takes one person to talk out of turn and say something wrong about a person, and people not maybe love the person talked about so much, and believe it, and pretty soon the whole church is full of all this talk.

And then maybe one day that person leaves the church and the talk’s all gone. You ought to bite your tongues, because you know you were taken by that person. So let’s watch that, that kills brotherly love.

I’ve had people say things about certain people and I’ve talked to the certain person involved, or certain persons, and find out that wasn’t it at all. Just wasting your time, giving the devil all the time he wants, and taking my time, and running the person down, hey, even telling the truth is bad enough about any of us, without being involved in a bunch of surmiser lies, come on. At least my heavens we ought to be that judicial.

[35-5]  Oh, my. That would take all the joy; that’s not God’s Tree. You know where you’re at; that’s a hybrid… You know my story about the mule; he’s a hybrid. He didn’t even know who his mama and papa were, either one. See? He’s a hybrid… Oh, you take a good pedigreed horse, he knows who his mama and papa were through generations.

And a real good pedigreed Christian too, that’s got the Holy Ghost, he knows It fell on the day of Pentecost. He knows where he’s at; he can trace his generations plumb back–his genealogies to the first beginning. Peter had It; on down through the nation, and races, they’ve [laid] It on down. A good pedigreed Christian knows where he comes from.

In other words, he’s telling you the truth. The seed has to come on down, the Word has to come on down. And there might be only a little bit of manifestation left, or that Word, but remember, that Word is not void of power! And remember, that same Word has life! Because it’s true.

It can come on down here until the Bible says, “Now listen, don’t destroy the oil, and don’t destroy the wine.” Everything is gone! But don’t you touch it! He’s telling you there’s a little bit of something trickling down! See? I could give an illustration here, but I don’t feel like it.

[35-5]  A good pedigreed Christian knows where it’s from. [In other words, you know we’re a son of God.]

[36-1]  “Well, I’m Lutheran, umph.”

“I’m Presbyterian.”

…You hybrid.

“Well… who are you?”

“I’m born again.”

“Born of what?”

“The Spirit of God.” That’s why we’re not a hybrid; you’re born correctly. [Now listen, he qualifies it, so don’t stop reading about the born again.] Not with some church creed, but with the Spirit of God; God lives in you!

But now hold it! A church creed is not the Spirit of God, it is something written out! So therefore there is something written out that’s got the true Spirit in it!

Okay, you want to know where it is? Somebody tell me. Come on, beat me to it. Huh? 1 Peter 1, okay, I didn’t hear you say it, but I think you mumbled it. All right, verse 22.

Now let’s go back to 2 Thessalonians, and see what’s in our day here, how we get by. 2 Thessalonians 2:13.

So Brother Branham’s laying it on the line.

[36-2]  Notice now. This little old insect started eating.

See, because the Word is what’s going! And with that Word goes everything contingent with the Word! And yet people say, “I’m going to have it all, bless God!” And they don’t have the Word, that’s a lie!

And that’s why at the end time it’s a complete restoration of that Word! You understand what I’m saying? All right, good. I see you get the that’s an amen to me, now I can go on.

[36-2]  Notice. That little old insect started eating. So he ate off all the peace of mind. On, and on, and on, and on down. I got pages here: all the fruit, he ate it.

[36-3]  Then, this little guy that fellow died out, and he became a locust. [See he went through a stage.] That was the next stage, the locust. Now, what does a locust do? A locust eats the leaves. That’s right. A locust eats off the leaves. What the palmerworm left [he left the leaves; [see] he ate all the fruit off [first], then what took over? The locust came to eat, and did eat what the palmerworm left.

Now things are getting worse, you see. But notice the life finally went down to the roots. Out of the roots then come what? Come back actually that Tree planted by the water. Now that’s Bible!

[36-4]  Now, what did he do, what did this palmerworm do? Destroyed the leaves. Leaves for what? Destroying Divine fellowship. That’s right.

Now Brother Branham is throwing something in here you don’t find in the Bible. In the sense of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. But if divine fellowship is not in the Bible, then throw the entire Bible away! Because that’s what got left in the Garden of Eden! Look! It was no longer direct, it become circuitous!

But bless God, if I could pick up a Rolls Royce, by just going around a curvy road, and a curvy road, and climb up a little not too big a mountain in my age and then around the top and coming down the curve, and down the curve, and I pick up my Rolls Royce, who’s going to complain?

That’s the way salvation is! The light, may it be circuitous, going around a little at a time, and here and there, watch it go from the east to the west, and watch it move here, and watch it right down in America, there it is all the way from Bethlehem, all the way from Jordan! All the way from Calvary, all the way from the upper room. All the way from the desert Arabia, where Paul was, right out to the desert in Arizona. What do I care?

You know, my people, they just can’t understand how that life comes. Same light shines in the east, shines in the west. Try to tell people that? “Well it doesn’t mean [inaudible] It doesn’t really look that way. I just don’t understand.” Sure you don’t!

Why don’t you shut up and listen? “With all thy getting, get understanding,” Paul said, right? I think I quoted that right, look it up, somebody. All right.

[36-4]  Destroying Divine fellowship. [He takes after those leaves.]

“Now, he’s Presbyterian; he won’t have anything to do with him. He’s Nazarene. He’s Pentecostal. He’s this, he’s that… he won’t have a thing to do with him, because he doesn’t belong to our group.”

“Have a meeting here for healing… [Now Brother Branham talking about himself.] Huh. Our churches don’t even believe in it.”

He’s talking about his ministry now. In other words, no fellowship amongst churches, the church each stands there like a tree. “Come under our shadow, come under our shadow, we have it, peace, rest and joy and love and happiness, all these things are ours, divine fellowship.”

And you look up and say, “Where are the leaves? I don’t see any divine fellowship, and this fruit you talk about, the only reason you love me is because I come here and pay my tithes or something, so forget it, bud.” Oh you know the little tricks. Yep.

[36-3]  See? There you are…

[36-6]  What’d the little old locust do? He cut off the fellowship [That’s right.], all the fellowship. What is fellowship? What do leaves do? Makes it cool, where the birds fly in under the [heavens leaves] to cool off [There’s your tree: “He shall be like a tree that’s planted…” See? All right], where people can come and sit down under the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, cool off a little bit.

You’re all flusterated, don’t know what’s happening, whether you’ll die, whether you’re saved or not, you don’t know whether this church is right or that church is right; come on down under the Tree that’s got some leaves on It and set right down there. Let the winds from heaven go blowing like a rushing, mighty wind through the leaves, you know. And begin you begin to cool off a little bit.

Now Brother Branham’s talking about his church, his fellowship, the people that God gave him, the little Bride at the end time. See? Now what are they fellowshipping around? The Word, the Word, the Word, the Word, the Word.

[37-1]  “Oh, I’m going down to tell that bunch of holy-rollers what I think.” [Brother Branham called himself a holy-roller. He was, like you and I are.]

Just sit down awhile and cool off. Right. You can’t do it in on your own, ’cause what’s the matter? The locust has eaten it all off, sure, ate off the leaves. You might as well sit out there in the sun; there isn’t any cooling there. All right.

[37-2]  But you know what we’re supposed to do. The Bible said that the predestinated church, the predestinated sons in God… What did they do? Sit in heavenly places. What is that? Coolness, comfort, feel at home. Amen.

In other words, there is a good feeling because you have a good revelation that’s working in your soul. Yep. I never could feel at home with the Pentecostals. I’ve told you time and time again.

I believed I was full of the Holy Ghost way back when I was about twenty years of age, somewhere in there, but I never could stand to be one it got so bad I went out in the world for awhile. I came back, I still went to Pentecost.

My God, I couldn’t take it. One meeting almost threw my hands up and just walked out, and the spirit of darkness came in that place, with the screaming and the hollering and all the junk, the Trinitarian hogwash, and I didn’t know the guy was into sex, but he was.

Later on, I pigeon-holed him as being some kind of a womanizer, he was. But when it came to Branham message, that’s it.

“Well Brother Vayle, you old church hopper, you this and that.”

Well bless God; at least I’m past the grasshopper stage. I’ve got peace about the Word. If anything means anything, this Word means everything, I just tell you flat. They talk about if He’s not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all.

If this Word ain’t it, there’s isn’t any Word. Pbbt. That took care of that, right? We wipe that kind of stuff right off the map. Talk about Lord of all and deny the Word, come on. Who’s sick? What church is sick? Not this church, by the grace of Almighty God.

You say, “Well Brother Vayle… but I don’t know if I feel quite that good Brother Vayle.”

Well we’re getting healed, praise God, that’s a slow process. What are you looking for, a miracle all the time? Don’t be ridiculous. How many miracles did God actually perform all through His Word? Ha, not very many. Not very many. But healings everywhere. All right:

[37-4]  I said to a little woman the other day, poor little woman, she belonged to a great dignified church… She said [she was dying with cancer, went down to pray for her, Brother Roy Roberson here, one of the trustees, sent me down there, poor little thing was there dying with cancer] and she…

And I said, “Are you a Christian?”

She said, “Sir, I don’t know what to say. I went to a certain church,” and… Then she started crying.

I said, “What’s the matter?”

“I just couldn’t dress right. They looked down on me.”

[38-1]  Oh, there you. See? You’re uncomfortable. But the Bible said that we are to assemble ourselves together in heavenly places. Oh, my.

[38-1]  Oh, my. What? All alike. Why, I’ll tell you what this’ll do. It’ll make a pair of overalls and a tuxedo suit put their arms around one another and call each other brothers. Sure it will. It’ll make an old calico dress put their arms around a silk, or satin and say, “Sister, how are you this morning? Praise God.”

That’s right. It will. It’s joy, peace, love, faith in the Word, long-suffering, gentleness, patience. Sitting down in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, cooling off a little while. See? [In other words, getting your rest. “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” See?] That’s what the leaves did.

[38-2]  But what did that old locust do? He came around, to eat them off; [see, eat the leaves off,] he said, “You belong to ours or you don’t belong to anybody.” [That’s the Catholic church right there, and the Protestants are going for it.] So he took all the coolness out of the Spirit. See? He fixed himself a creed. All right.

Now look it, let’s face this about the Catholics and the Protestants. If the Catholics took a forty-four and put a bullet right between your eyes, you’re dead. And if the Protestants came behind and they took a high pressured blowgun, with a piece of ice pbbt and got you right between the ribs and your heart, you’re just as dead. Huh? Just as dead. Yeah.

Somebody cut your head off with a sword, or gives you a little sweet-tasting poison, you is just as dead. And the Protestants, Catholics, and all religions are no different, because all tables are full of vomit. And all offerings and all is corrupt, so therefore when you eat the unrevealed truth, you are eating and drinking ptomaine to yourself, and it’s getting more and more virulent.

They tell us now that there is a certain bug like Legionnaire; well they’ve finally tangled with it, and can do something about it. There’s another bug developing that they don’t think they’re going to be able to lick. It’s in hamburgers; it will be in hamburgers everywhere.

And they can’t lick it, because you have to burn it. Now does anybody want a piece of hamburger that’s completely a cinder? Be my guest. I’m just telling you the truth. You’re just as dead. That’s what Brother Branham is showing you here. See? He that offends in one point of the law is guilty of all! Oh my. See?

[38-3]  Now, we got to go on [the Word]. We could stay a long time on that little locust, but the third stage of him was the cankerworm. Hmm, that’s got a bad name to start with: cankerworm. [Like canker sores, like a canker. That means sore and broken open and acid hurts it, and anything touches oh my.]

What does a cankerworm do? It goes into the bark; that’s the lifeline there. Yes, sir. It goes into the bark, it destroys the covering of the tree the covering. What is religion? Covering; that’s what the word religion means: “a covering.”

I never heard that, and I didn’t look it up, but I’m willing to accept that definition, because a prophet is giving it. I think it actually comes from the Latin word ‘to bind back’, but I’m not positive, but I take Brother Branham’s word on it, because that’s really true.

It’s a covering. And when you use it in the sense he’s using it, oh my, oh my do people cover themselves with religion. That’s why they’re wretched, miserable, naked and blind.

And let’s face it, brother/sister, if there’s a worm that eats the leaves, and you’ve got a fig leaf on you, huh? Okay, Eve. Adam. You blew your covering, shows just what you are.

[38-4]  So a little cankerworm, after he got amongst the congregation, got them all dignified, then he took all the fellowship away in the form of the locust; and now, he comes around and takes their very religion and makes dogmas out of it. That’s right.

Sets up unorthodox words; forms himself a religion and gets a bunch of men together and puts a creed down there; he takes the very religion, strips it off of God’s Tree the very bark that bears the sap that comes up in it, takes it away. Cankerworm… Do you see that insect? That’s exactly right.

[38-5]  That cankerworm, that was Rome, in that early church. First thing, the [Protestant] group, not Pentecostal organizations… No, sir! Anything that organizes is dead; I’ll prove that in just a minute by Scriptures. See?

When it… But the Pentecostal experience, who’s it for? It’s for the Catholic. Who else? The Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, anybody who wants it. [See in other words you can overcome your creeds and dogmas, if you’re a child of God, you will.] But you’ve only got to want it.

How are they going to want it? There’s nothing in there to want it. Now you’ve got a kid that all the time just wants nothing but white bread with jam on it. Can you get that kid to eat a baked potato? Not very easy.

They’re used to fried food, mountains of chips well he may fool you when he’s home, but as soon as your back’s turned, he’s wallowing in it right again. Unless the kid’s got well brought up, and you know he’s got something in him.

[38-5]  You’ve got to want it.

[38-6]  You don’t join into it. I’ve been in the Branham family fifty-three years, I never did join the family. Why? I’m a Branham to begin with; I was born a Branham. That’s the way Christians [were]. Not because we’re joined into something; that’s an organization; we’re born Christians by being regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

Now first of all you’re foreknown, you’re elected, you’re predestinated, and that comes forth in the natural means that God has down here, repent, be baptized, filled with the Holy Ghost. Right, that’s exactly true.

[39-1]  Notice now. This little cankerworm began to bore hisself into the bark. What did he do? He began to take its religion, its covering, its doctrine away from it. The religion is a doctrine, a covering that covers it. [See, now he’s going to doctrine, now he’s hitting the real truth of the whole matter, watch your dress today. Get those robes washed properly to come out like snow. See? Wash your garments.]

That’s the reason that our religion is by blood, the Blood the Life is in the Blood that covers the Word. And the life is in the blood; the blood is the religion; and the Life in the Blood is what brings the results. Why, you see it? See?

[39-2]  It’s not covered by fig leaves; Adam and Eve tried that one time. [Now watch, this is really good.] Cain did the same thing, did you notice that? [Here’s how Brother Branham explains when Cain brought that which was literally in my understanding a first fruit, that he denied the serpent seed, that he was a serpent seed.]

Cain brought some botany life too, [Adam and Eve presented fig leaves to cover them, Cain brought fruits, apples, beautiful things,] it wouldn’t work. It didn’t work with Adam and Eve, it won’t work today. [I love this, this is your definitive, and don’t ever forget that.]

When God refused it at the beginning, it’s refused for eternity. [The botany life, see?] Manmade creeds and thoughts will never take it; [that’s what Adam and Eve did, and Cain too,] it’s God’s Word has to do it; and the Word is by the Blood, the Sacrifice of Christ. That’s right.

Now notice that’s right from history, sacrifice of the lamb that pointed to The Lamb. See? And as Brother Branham said, if what could happen under the blood of the lamb pointing to The Lamb, what could be happening now?

And this is why they fail to understand where Brother Branham said, “He had more success in my ministry than He had in His Own.” When He was here upon earth in flesh. Greater works. See?

People just hey, you’ve got to let your thinking go, and simply rejoice in what Brother Branham is saying, and believe it, and watch how God will deal with you. But if you haven’t got that in you, hey, there’s nothing I can do to convince you.

And if I did, I’m not going to do you any good. It’ll do you harm. “For he that’s convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” See, that’s a little saying that’s not in the Bible, I think I could find it though. I’m sure I could.

[39-3]  People [as a Brother said this morning] pulling splinters… Well, you know, there’s nineteen different nails in the nation today that’s different organizations are holding, and could claim it’s the original nail that was in Christ’s hands. [Because of His hands, Christ’s hands.] What if it was? I wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Certainly. God never left anything for relics and tokens. He sent the Holy Ghost…

You know that the Catholic church has claimed they’ve actually got a little bottle of Mary’s milk? Now who at that time would have thought of that? They got so many pieces of the cross, you could build a barn! A pole barn. And yet the people are all for it. “Our great religion”

I’ve got news for Ted Kennedy. He’s going to wake up his brothers and dad, not in the Catholic church, but where the Catholic church is destined to go according to the Word of God.

Well you got men like him, they’re supposed to be moral, leading the nation, he hasn’t got any morals. And Tip O’Neal says he’s the greatest politician alive today in America. Yeah, Tip O’Neal. Which direction is he tipped? And for who’s he tipping? See, even your name can tell you, a lot about you.

[39-4]  So now we’re holding on to nails; we’re holding on relics; and we’re holding on to places. And today people walk up and down the city of Jerusalem, and all up and down the different places, holding to relics and things. That hasn’t got a thing to do with it, not one thing; the thing’s condemned, rotten, gone.

[39-5]  I went to a church in Rome, where they all these priests had died; they’d plant them in a garden down beneath there, and let the meat fall off the bones; and then they’d take the bones out, and make light fixtures, and put their skulls around. And people come in, and rub those skulls to get a blessing, until the skulls were white and worn out.

That’s marvelous. Isn’t that great part of the church? Should we dig up… Listen, if I was going to touch anybody’s skull, I would start looking for either Brother Branham’s or the apostle Paul’s, or somebody’s.

We know those were men of God. Of Polycarp. These men? Read their history. I challenge you, read the histories. Let them deny it. Oh they’ll deny it. Yeah, they’re bold as brass.

This guy in Texas let everybody know, he said, “Listen, you Protestants, I’m onto you.” He said, “Get this flat,” he said, “it wasn’t us Catholics killed you Protestants, you Protestants killed us Catholics.”

Yeah. History is full of it. When did the Catholic church ever apologize? Tell me. Their scourge is coming back on them in their own priesthood. Before it’s over, they might have to ordain women priests, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

The only thing going to save the Catholic church right now is a complete collapse of our money system. That will bring them back. And the deadly wound will be healed again, don’t worry. You can’t get blood out of a stone and you won’t, but you can get gold out of a stone. Yep.

[39-5]  …Saint Peter’s Cathedral, a foot of Peter [they claim] there, a statue, has been kissed off nine to ten different times; have to mold another foot on it.

I can’t find Scripture where Peter said, “Kiss my foot. Here’s my toe. Here’s my ring finger, the fisherman.” Hmm. I really think God must laugh in the heavens at all this stuff, the Bible says He does. I mean, I believe the Lord’s a little sarcastic I know I sure hope He is, because I am, I got a big dose of it.

[40-1]  Such nonsense. Superstitions, that’s all there is, creeds of manmade doctrine. God sent the Holy Spirit, the [Breath] of God, to be in you, not a statue. You are the guy that God wants to live in, not a statue, but in you. People call “holy statues.” There ain’t no holy statues; you’re God’s holy statue. The Bible said so. That’s right: “a body has Thou prepared Me…”

Brother Branham’s Statue Of A Perfect Man talks, God’s wants us living, breathing statues unto God. See? What about prayer cloths? Prayer cloths are fine, Bible says so.

[40-2]  Now, this little fellow started destroying: destroying what? The cankerworm got into the bark. Watch what it did; it began to destroy the bark. What did it do? It made a natural church for a spiritual church. [Oh yeah.] Yes, sir. It took away the true and gave it the false.

Well yeah, because you see the life is down to almost nothing, the leaves were off. Say, “What kind of a tree is that? Man, I don’t know, but boy, what a tree, no leaves, and no bark, and I don’t see anything around… well, what do you think it could be?”

See, there you are. It is not identified with Christ in any way, shape and form, even though someone come by and say, “I want to tell you what, that tree actually was a locust tree,” and you find out later on it wasn’t the locust tree. That’s when you’re too late, you’re at the judgment.

[40-2]  Now, this little fellow started destroying: destroying what? The cankerworm got into the bark. [Took away the truth and so on.]

[40-3]  Now, remember, the leaf the fruit, the palmerworm ate. The leaf, the locust ate. Now, the bark, the covering, the religion, the doctrine, the doctrine, the cankerworm got.

[40-4]  Where did that first doctrine come from outside the Bible? You historians, you know where it came from: from Rome. That’s exactly where it started. There they started accepting dogmas. That’s how Irenaeus, Saint Martin, Polycarp, all of them after John’s death…

For translating the Word of God, he was out on the Isle of Patmos; they’d burned him in grease for twenty-four hours, brought back, still wrote the Bible. [That is, you know, the part of the Bible.] God was determined that His Bible would be written.

That’s the Word of God; we can’t take It away or add to It. It’s just to lay there just the way It is–the Word of God. [In other words, just as God gave it, by the prophets, don’t do a thing, just leave it.]

[40-5]  Notice, when they got back… When these saints of God were trying to hold up that Word, Rome came right in and accepted dogmas instead. Now, let’s just see what she did, some of her false doctrines, that were done.

Now you see here’s where he’s into the Church Age and the Seals, a lot of this.

[40-6]  Water baptism. Where they were commissioned… Peter said on the day of Pentecost under the influence of the Holy Ghost, that the Word of God came, “Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.”

[40-7]  What did Rome do with it? Turned it around and said, “Be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” making it a creed, not a doctrine of the Bible. What did he do? That’s the cankerworm eating. Sprinkling instead of immersing in the name of the Father…

[41-1]  Father, Son, Holy Ghost is no name. There’s no such thing. Father’s not a name; Son’s not a name; the Holy Ghost is not a name. But when Jesus said, “Baptize in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” it was “Lord Jesus Christ”; exactly what Peter and they did, and all everybody in the Bible there…

There was nobody… I challenge anybody to bring me one piece of Scripture or one piece of history, where anybody was ever baptized in any other way than in the Name of Jesus Christ, until the Roman Catholic church.

And Rome absolutely admits that they invented that baptism, it is theirs, and if you are baptized that way you are a Roman Catholic. And what are you looking at? You’re looking now Son’s not a name. What is the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?

What is that Name in there? It’s Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, it is Elohim Jehovah Savior. There you are. One Person. Who was the Savior? God, Elohim! Revealing Himself through the complex title of Jehovah, the relationship to man, the beginning of His generations.

We’ve been teaching it here, faithfully as I can from what Brother Branham taught. Showing a relationship, showing the whole thing. See?

But Rome accepted that. In fact it is told by some people, that Matthew 28:19 was interposed. I don’t say it was, I’m not a prophet, would take Brother Branham to tell you, not just somebody working on numerics, like Ivan Panin, that’s wonderful, that’s great, I’m not enthused!

Not when I see That, and hear ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD’, and see It manifested, I cannot turn from That, and I won’t turn from It! They may torture me till I say, “Well I recant,” down deep inside I ain’t recanting nothing. But I don’t think that’s going to happen, by the grace of Almighty God. See?

All right, here we are, time’s up, when I get back I’ll get back, by the grace of God, and we’ll finish, we’ll go into this message here, which as you see already is the same thing, a lot of it he preached in the ages and the seals preambles.

And right now it is actually reflecting on this age, giving us the history, and showing us why the church is in the condition it is, and showing that if God did not take His church out of here, turn right around and do the same thing. But she won’t have time. It’s all over. That’s wonderful to know that.

When is that hour? That hour is here. Just what moment? Don’t ask me. I don’t know. But I tell you, whether we die, or whether we stand right here, it’s upon us.

Let’s rise and be dismissed.

Heavenly Father, again we want to thank You for the joy it is of gathering together, the peace we have in coming around Your Word, the confidence we have in It.

And though Lord we may be completely remiss and confess it this morning that we have not shouted as we should have shouted, or even danced in those places we could have, Father we know that it’s not said in Scripture we have to do this, the big thing is to know the evidence, which is believe the Word for the hour.

But we also know there’s certain things contingent to it, that are natural, the prophet brings out by the Word, that we could certainly indulge in without one bit of a problem.

Knowing only this Lord, that also said by the apostle Paul, when that church came together to hear the Word, there was to be decorum, and there was to be silence among the women, there are to be many things concerning a teaching ministry, which would perhaps not obtain at the time other service was in order, I don’t know.

I may be just trying to apologize to You Lord, I may be trying to defend myself, I may be trying to wiggle out, I may be coming against You, which I hope I certainly am not.

But Father in heaven it would be nice if You’d show us something where how to let go, and we should do a little more letting go, then that is good. Yet I believe the same prophet said he didn’t care how you yelled and how high you jumped, as long as you walked straight when you came down. And then there again we see some things.

So Father help us to get really lined up inside, with the joy of the Lord and these things in here, and then giving expression Father, we know that no matter how voluble, no matter how marvelous it is that we manifest expression in the dancing unto the Lord, let it be like David, wild gyrations, who cares, let it be unto You Lord.

I don’t know how suited I am to it, but Lord, if I’m one of Your children and I’m supposed to be suited, I am suited. I know in certain ways I would well be suited to it.

Father God, whatever You desire, we pray that we might enter into this great tremendous joy, and know what it is Lord, when Israel saw you coming upon the little white donkey, the foal of an ass, they began taking palm branches and singing, “Hosanna.” And people got angry at the people praising, You said the stones would cry out.

Lord, we don’t want any stones crying out in our place. We sooner be little rocks crying out, built upon the solid Rock, Christ Jesus. Manifesting Lord by Word and by deed Your Presence, and not being adverse to shouting Your praises, and dancing in Your glory.

Whatever it is it would take Father, whatever it is, I don’t know, but teach us by Your Word, lead us in the depths of the knowledge of God.

Now as we dismiss we pray that any sick amongst us may be healed Lord, healing certainly has not left this church or our faith by of one iota, we believe it. We believe they can be healed sitting, standing right there this morning, as Brother Branham said a Jewish tradition.

Well Lord we have Jewish and we have Gentile, we have the whole thing this morning, the complete revealed Word in this hour, let the people be healed O God, by the Word of life which is now gone into their minds, their spirit and down into their souls, where true healing comes forth even as John said, “I wish above all else you may prosper and be in health, as your soul prospers.”

That’s the truth this morning. We receive it O God, in the Name of Jesus Christ for the help You’re giving us, to continue Lord living a life, but only on condition that we serve You, and love You, and in so doing we do to others, proving it is thus and so.

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

‘Take the Name of Jesus with you.’