Stewardship #02

Shall we pray.

Heavenly Father, we know with Your Presence the weak become strong and the strong become weak because all things are level before You. And we know that You are here, and no one can interfere with what You say or what You desire to do because You’re sovereign.

And we do not feel neglected because of that. We do not feel, Lord, that we are playing a role which is unworthy of us. We’re glad that You are sovereign, because we see we need a sovereign God in this hour.

We need You, Lord in Your might, in Your wisdom, to be with us and to help us. And we are glad to cast ourselves upon You, Lord, and leave every decision to You that we possibly can, hoping that every decision, Lord, we will leave to You.

And all the things of life, Lord, dedicated to You so that we are one with You, not only in the understanding that we have a part of You, that You gave Your life to us and brought us forth here on this earth, but, that You are also our Father. You are our God, and You are looking out for us.

And the best thing in all the world we can do, Lord, is to allow You to look out for us, to take the training, the chastening under Your hand, the bringing up, educating us, showing us the way of life more perfectly.

These things, Lord, we need this morning, and we know we need them. We know that we don’t have a choice about them, in the sense that we can make out any other way.

There just isn’t any other way you can make out.

Help us to be fully dedicated, Lord, to the principle of the Passive Faith: that You revealed Your Word and revealed Yourself to us, O God.

But also, may we be enjoined by You, and we join ourselves to You on the grounds of that active Faith wherein, Lord, we can do Your will on earth, here, and fulfill the ministries of each one You’ve given us. All those things, Lord, we desire this morning, and we need Your help.

May we, Lord, not be hypocritical, and simply come to You in prayer, Lord, but may our conscience be free in our hearts, free to just enter into the service and worship of our God according to the vindicated revelation of the prophets, and thereby serve You acceptably. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated.

Now, last night we started what I hoped we would be able to finish off without actually entering into a series on Stewardship. And as we looked at the understanding of a steward, we found that, actually, a steward is no different from a servant which we found to be a bond-slave.

Now, a steward, of course, is a manager. It comes from the fact of being a manager of what is not his own personal possessions but someone else’s possessions.

And it actually describes a house manager or an estate manager. In other words, it’s not something that is impartial; it’s something which has to do with very personal welfare of others.

So, if we’re given a stewardship, as Paul mentions a stewardship, it has to do, then, with others. It has to do with how the person conducts himself what he does with what is not his own, but is that which belongs to others.

How he does it, then, will affect people. There’s an actual effect to it. And, of course, then, it also means he doesn’t just administer in the economy.

He has to actually be there for the well-being of the family, whoever has hired him.

He’s got a very very important position. But we find out that it’s really no different from being a servant. In other words, a servant is a bond-slave.

It’s someone that has been given the position… not just given a position, but he has been inducted into that position, usually because of a debt.

Slaves were available at the time of the Gospel. All through the Bible you’ll find they were available, but they weren’t slaves by reason of being stolen. The Bible mentions that man-stealers will be condemned to the Lake of Fire.

And that’s what you see, over here, in America when they brought slaves over from Africa and various places. Those people did not incur a debt to anybody.

They were simply taken against their will and, therefore, the people who did it will be judged.

And America, of course, can call itself a Christian nation. Well, sure, it’s a Christian nation because they don’t have a bunch of Taoism and Hindu philosophy.

The hard-core of America is Christianity; but that’s merely a title. We don’t give them credit for being dyed-in-the-wool, born-again believers; they’re simply not so.

Now, we realize, of course, that some people were taught wrong and they did wrong, so they made people bond-slaves.

But when you’re talking about bond-slaves to God make no mistake about it there’s no error there. It’s God’s right to make us bond-slaves, on the grounds that we read, over here, in Romans the 14th chapter, where it says, here:

Romans 14:

So, therefore, as the Scripture says, “All souls are mine, saith the Lord”.

There isn’t anybody wise virgin, foolish virgin, serpent seed… whatever that is not obligated to God by reason of the fact that they were bought through the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, there’s nobody that doesn’t have an allegiance to Almighty God.

Which is proven eventually, as the Bible said, “The day is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord… He is the Christ, the Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.

In other words, there’s going to be a day of reckoning when God will absolutely prove to every single one that He is their owner, and not Satan. That He is the One to Whom they should have bowed and given subservience.

They should have actually been dedicated to Him to see that His will was performed. People just don’t see that today, but that’s what we want to see in what we’ve been reading about, here, and talking about last night: The bond-servant and the steward are actually the very same.

Now, this steward, here, or these servants who are in the house of God, which is the Body of Christ, the true church… they also have, of course, the false-ones in the other church. You have many people that try to be good and efficient servants of God. We’ve got nothing against that.

It’s the same as Brother Branham said, “People go to church to be good, not to be bad.” And that’s true, even though the church may teach a lot of corruption and get the people involved in those things which they should not be involved in.

There’s no doubt about it that people actually want to, you know, improve their status, improve their relationship to God whatever thoughts they have of God.

They go to church to be good people and not bad people. But we know that many many times they’re entirely wrong. Yet we see them following certain Christian principles which God does bless.

And you can’t deny the fact that, as the statistics come out, there actually were no Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists that were on relief or had to be subsidized by the government.

I’m not saying there aren’t any now, and I’m not saying there weren’t such things as ‘Jack’ Mormons which they call a Jack Mormon, a guy that says he’s a Mormon and doesn’t live the life but they’ve been heavy tithers; they’ve been industrious.

The Mormons, especially, went into the health angle. They’re very very strong in it. As you look around, you’ll see Utah, they ship out more herbs and goodies than almost any place in the universe.

And you see that they, actually, in taking their position as stewards in a certain respect like financially and health-wise that they have actually shown the world that living this certain way in respect to God’s laws and being true to the principles that God laid down in the Word such as “know ye not your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?”

And you must respect your body, you must have financial principles in your life.

And it’s been proven statistically, even to the point where you’ll notice when people begin to make comparison, they want to use a certain group to judge you know, how they have the blind, double-blind tests, and the placebo… this and that, they will take and they will go to Loma Linda in California where there are all kinds of Seventh Day Adventists, and they began using the Seventh Day Adventists because they know, according to the Adventists, they don’t smoke, they don’t drink, they don’t eat meat.

They live good clean… they’re supposed to live but don’t you believe it, you know, good clean lives and all the rest. But you see, even the world has to recognize the fact that there are principles that are laid down in life, and those principles must be adhered to.

And when those principles are adhered to, then you get out of life what you sowed in it. So, therefore, we find that stewardship and servitude… and that means to understand that you don’t have a choice.

That God has told you what is right. Now, you do have a choice in this sense: I can do it or don’t have to do it. I can use this the right way, or I don’t have to use it the right way.

And then, of course, people always want to come back, and they claim the grace of Almighty God. Well, God’s grace will forgive people, and if He requires us to show mercy with cheerfulness, then God is very happy to show mercy.

But the point is this: God cannot abrogate His own laws; He cannot lay it down. Like Brother Branham said, “You can be forgiven but you cannot be justified on certain principles, because the point is this: If you did it, there’s no way that you can say, ‘I didn’t do it’.”

See? Justification means you didn’t do it. Forgiveness means I did do it, but, you know, I’m off the hook.

Well, you can be forgiven as far as the grace of God is concerned, but you cannot take the laws of God and turn them topsy-turvy and expect God is going to work it out for you.

So, we took a lot of Scripture last night as we went into the understanding of servitude, bond-slaves. And believe me, if you are a bond-slave clean across the board, then you could not be above a bond-slave if you were given an office of stewardship. You can’t do it.

The very fact that Christ died for us and bought us, we are obligated. That’s why there is going to be a judgment. That’s why the wicked will be judged. You can’t get away from it.

There has to be a judgment. “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment”. See? The Bible tells you the way of grace.

God sends the light, He gives the grace, and people must receive. If they don’t receive, then they’ve got to pay a penalty. There’s no way that you can go to Purgatory.

The Purgatory you have is right here, now. Your testing, your trials, your teaching, your training, when God has to lay a heavy hand upon us, it’s for our own good.

He has to help us, like the Bible says, “He that suffers in the flesh ceases from sin”. Many many times people have to go the hard way.

As Brother Branham mentioned that illustration that so many people have used many many times about the shepherd in the Orient. He had the little sheep follow him around like a little dog. He couldn’t get rid of the sheep at his heels.

And the Westerner commented on it. “Well”, he said, “You see, that was a little sheep that I had a problem with. I could never get him to listen to my voice and follow me, and the rest of them do.”

Like Brother Branham mentioned the time when he was over there and he saw an Arab or whoever it was leading a bunch of sheep into town. And here was the market-place.

And the fruit was there, and the vegetables, and everything was wide open. And he said, “Oh, oh… here comes a riot.” He said, “The sheep will smell that food and boy, I don’t know what that guy is going to do.”

And the shepherd went right down, and the sheep never smelled the fruit, never… you know, never took any time to munch on anything… just followed the shepherd.

And Brother Branham’s eyes were about bugging out. Why? Well, the sheep knew the voice and they followed.

Well, the little sheep, he wasn’t going to be too obedient. So, he had a hard job. So the shepherd just went out one day, and just took and broke his leg and set it and carried the sheep around, and carried him around, and pretty soon he had such an obedient sheep he couldn’t get rid of him.

He had too much obedience! But God, many times, has to do those things for us. But always, then, we must remember that with any type of servitude and any type of stewardship, any time there is anything that God gives us entrusts it to us, there is a great responsibility.

And it’s in that area that it’s like a gray area where you don’t seem to be able to fit in predestination there’s a choice there.

Now, the predestination that people don’t realize that is there, is not the predestination of you either being a child of God or not.

The predestination that which stays there is already there in the form of rewards that you will get if you are faithful to what you’re predestinated to.

Now, you can’t get rid of your sonship; that’s utterly impossible. “I will lose none!” But you can lose rewards.

The Bible distinctly says, “Let no man take thy crown.” There are those things that are reserved for us, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to get them.

Because, if you fail, someone else voluntarily could take up the challenge and will take up the challenge.

There will be somebody there with the obedient heart that knows positively that he is not his own, that knows what he has is not his own, positively.

All of these things in Scripture, that I’ll talk about, we’ll take Scripture and show you that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. ” And, remember, He said to Adam and Eve, “Fill up the earth”.

Every single thing belongs to God. So that’s what we’re looking at as we study this Message and go into it.

So, we understand, then, this from the Scripture we took last night: we understand privilege and responsibility; we understand position and the product that must come forth; we understand goals; and we understand there’s equipment that God gives us to use, and an atmosphere, and an attitude to get there.

There are aspirations which are great desires. And God puts those things in our heart. And with it He gives us something whereby we may not just have an aspiration, but see it fulfilled. And yet it will be a Scriptural aspiration.

You can’t ask God for something that isn’t there. It’s like Brother Branham said, “A deep calleth to Deep.” As I’ve said many many times, “If there is not an answer, there can be no question”.

How can you ask a question when there is something not there to be questioned? You can’t do it. There has got to be… if there’s a question, there’s an answer.

If there’s a deep calling, there’s a Deep out there to answer. And if a person has an aspiration, or something from God… like the Bible said, “If there’s a man that feels he would like to officiate in the church of God, he feels he would like to be of service, and that man could be an elder”.

It’s not something that God Almighty says, that’s an office in the church like a five-fold ministry, it’s subservient to it.

But a man can have that desire, and that desire does not go contrary to the five-fold ministry which does not have a desire. Brother Branham said, “If you’re really called to a five-fold ministry, you’re not going to want it.

You’re going to try to want to get away from it. You’ll try to duck it.” And that is so very very true.

But, then, you’ll come to the place, if you want to be obedient to a call, you will begin to see Scripture and find strength in that determination as the Holy Spirit helps your mind and your life to move into that and to stay with it.

It took me a long time to know my ministry. I hated to be called. I made a bargain with God, “If You don’t call me, I’ll be very happy, I’ll even be a deacon or an elder in the church.

I’ll live a good life and I’ll tithe. But just get rid of this stuff of ‘calling’ because I’m not the least interested”.

And then when I knew I had to answer the call, I couldn’t help myself. And you talk about a tempest in a teapot. I was like a hurricane.

I hated to say ‘yes’ to God; I was, literally, to the point of defiance. And yet when I said, “Yes”, the strangest peace came into my life.

And I got the same strange peace in there, because answering the call, I wanted to be an evangelist. And I used to hate it when people would tell me Sunday morning and say they loved my message.

At night, they never complimented me. Man! I could have poked them right in the teeth, you know.

I was not happy… and when you’re not unhappy you get obstreperous at times, too, you know. Especially if you can’t really handle the situation. And I couldn’t handle it.

I would preach conviction and salvation until they would reach out and their knuckles would get white on the back of the bench, but they would never come forward.

It was a devastating situation I was in. Especially when they would compliment me and say, “Oh, we’re so happy about what you said this morning.

How helpful!” Helpful? Who cares about being helpful! I’m not interested in you; I want the other guy. Boy, I learned that my ministry was not… maybe I’m too lopsided, now. I don’t know.

But you see, a definitive call of five-fold, but there’s a legitimate desire in people’s heart to serve in the house of God. And there are certain requirements there.

And that desire, if it’s one wherein you want to be a true servant and helping others, God will actually take an elder and he can take the position of a pastor, if there’s no pastor.

Or he can be, actually, like they often call an ‘assistant’ pastor, but he can do the full work.

And that full work entitles him also, then, to a living, to a tithe to the part of that tithe, whatever is there, because “the labourer is worthy of his hire” and “thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn”.

And Paul said, “Does God say that for the sake of the oxen? Nay, but altogether for our sake”. And he’s talking about elders.

So, you can see, there are various positions and gifts in the church. In every individual there is something. Like Irenaeus said, “There are hundreds of gifts in the Body of Christ”.

The poor Pentecostals, they’ve got it down to nine gifts of the Spirit in the Book of 1 Corinthians 14.

And then they turn around and they forget Romans 12. And Romans 12 is a composite which takes all those nine gifts and everything else in there, like giving and showing mercy, and lots of things in there… so there’s nobody in the Body of Christ that does not have an actual ministry.

In other words, God gives every single person a ministry, and then He turns around in the parables and Paul’s preaching, and He said, “Now look, you’ve been given this, and it has been given to you by God. You are now responsible for a product. I’m looking to you so that your life will manifest this product”.

Now, if I said I’m called to teach, and I can’t open this Bible and start teaching, there’s something wrong with me.

And then, if I teach, and I don’t teach according to vindication, then I’m a false teacher. See? A pastor that says he’s a pastor and cannot do pastor work, he’s no pastor.

The best he could be is an elder because… and even then, you see, God will help that person because there’s something in view that God wants.

Now, what does God want for His Bride? He said, “A five-fold minister in the church to bring a Bride to perfection.” And that perfection is apart from the Blood.

The perfection of the Blood sets you a hundred percent free so that God can see you only through the Blood.

You are no longer a sinner in God’s sight. He is at peace with you. You are a child that has been reconciled under the Blood. But are you reconciled under the Spirit to fulfill the law and will of God?

Now, if you’re truly a five-fold you’ll fight it for a while. Then you get to the place where you enjoy it; it’s your life.

And you’re happy… no matter what the conditions are, you’re happy. Oh, you’re not happy with the conditions, but there’s something in your heart that has worked out because you followed the will of the Lord.

How often, not too many years ago, I was adamant even quitting again. I got my citizenship here in the States. I was never on relief or anything, so I’d been clear over half my life down here as a citizen, paying taxes and everything else but how often I used to say, “I’m going to go and get a job somewhere”.

I’d go down the road, slam the brakes on, make a U-turn of course, I’d want to see that nobody was coming in either direction… make my U-turn, go back home and say, “I’ll starve first.

We’ll die, but there’s no way I’m going to leave the ministry. I cannot do it”. And you know, God has enabled me to maintain that.

And one of the greatest things of my life was when I was up there in Michigan with Brother Branham in Jackson, Michigan a little meeting up there with…

I forget the man’s name maybe the man’s name was Jackson and the town was something else, but he was in a certain restaurant for breakfast and I walked in for my breakfast and here he was sitting there.

And so he got through; he waved me over and I sat down and he slapped my knee. He said, “Doc, he said, what are you doing pastoring? You know you ain’t no pastor.”

Well, I knew that for years. I just am not a pastor. I’m just not… not a pastor. If you’re not a pastor, you’re not a pastor.

How would you like a doctor and I’m not saying I’m a skilled teacher, now, but… how would you like a very skilled doctor who doesn’t really know, really, enough about your car to, you know… to fix your car.

And you’ve got a fellow down the street that’s not a doctor but he’s a real mechanic. He hasn’t got the education, perhaps, and various other things, and doesn’t know the first thing about medicine, but boy can he tune your car.

Well, I’d sooner go to the guy that can tune my car for a tune-up, rather than go to the best skilled doctor in the world for my car’s tune-up, because he’s not going to do it. And that’s the way life is, you see.

If you’re trying to fill a position that is not yours, you’re an interloper. You’re telling God He doesn’t know His Own business. You’re telling God you’re not a servant except at your own desire.

You can’t do that. And so, he said… you know, he told me I was a teacher, which I had known by this time that that’s how it was.

And I also knew that people, especially in Pentecost, don’t like teaching. They only like to be told, “Hey! You’re right”. And they like to be told, “Hey! You’ve got the real thing.

Let’s get some more of the same. Let’s pile it higher and deeper”. And they did, too. Their philosophy is gone to complete legalism.

Their philosophy, their doctrine no longer contains any thought of predestination, no longer contains any thought of actual vindication, no longer can understand that God could be Present because God is ‘simply everywhere’…

“We’ve got the Holy Ghost, you see” all inured by years and years of teaching, and you can’t get them out of it.

Only God could get them out of it because only God’s-sheep hear the Voice.

And they will not, when they get loose in an Arabian Bazaar, they won’t go sniffing the fruit and sniffing the vegetables, because they know their food is at the end of the village out there where the still waters are, and the green pastures.

And you’re not going to sit around there for any bunch of food that somebody has piled for human beings. You know you can’t eat human-being food; you’ve got to get angel-food.

You’ve got to go beyond angel food. You’ve got to get to the Living Word, or the broken Word of Almighty God, where the Life is for you. That’s your life. See?

So, we talked about that and we saw then, here, that position demands production. Your goals you have to use the equipment. Your aspirations you have to use that equipment.

And remember, the demands that are upon you, God has given you provision and given me provision for it. And you’ll always find that it boils down to sovereignty.

Now, I showed you a verse in Scripture the other night, here, in Ephesians verse 20 of the 3rd chapter:

That is not a real true translation. The real translation is, “That God is working in you, and He is using that power that He put in you”.

In other words, a Sovereign God does not give anybody a gift and it says, “Hop to it”. Now, I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what it’s all about.

The dependency upon God is greater than most Christians even realize. The dependency… most people have an idea and I can understand it where you can take certain principles in the Bible and you can use them, and you can come out on top.

And I mentioned that with the Seventh Day Adventists and the Mormons. They have financial principles and health principles they lay down.

And they follow those principles, and it’s very good. But, it’s like Paul said,” Bodily exercise profiteth little but godliness is profitable unto all things”.

You can manifest certain things in life, but a real true child of God will know that he is completely sold out to God and His Word yes or no, nothing between.

He ought to know, and he does know deep within whether he lets it surface or not that this is what I am allowed to do. This is what I’m not allowed to do. See?

Now, we know we’re fallible. That’s why we have an intercessor. Like Brother Branham said, “We backslide a thousand times a day.”

But listen, that does not obviate the fact that we can grow up in Christ more and more and more, and Brother Branham said, “Bringing us to the stature of a perfect man.”

In Peter, he said, “That man, by piling Word upon Word” which means therefore not just believing in the sense that it’s passive, which that’s the place you start, but going on to the active “you can go up to that stature”, where he said, “You’re like a statue”… and he likened it to the statue, which is what you see right today in heathenism.

They have a statue and that statue is supposed to contain the spirit that the statue represents. And that statue, to them, then, representing all of what’s out there.

God wants us to be statues, living statues… that stature of God moving us so that we are being living and moved by God.

And Brother Branham brought that out. And he brought that for the end-time. Now, that’s a tough one. We studied that in The Stature of A Perfect Man.

That’s a tough one, but, you’ve got to believe your Bibles. There is a ministry of the Word that brings the Bride to perfection.

Now, let’s go into Ephesians, and begin to see that which is the 4th chapter. And he said, here, that when God came down… that’s the same God that came down to William Branham came down to the Apostle Paul.

And Paul set the church in order. Now, how did he set the church in order? He says right here. Now watch… go to the 1st verse:

“Now, I’m a steward, I’m a servant, I’m a prisoner…” In other words, you’re stuck. The Just Judge of all the earth has said, “Paul, you’re My prisoner.

You’re My steward concerning the mysteries and the grace that I have for My sheep.

I’ve given it to you. You’re My slave.” Didn’t Brother Branham say, “I’m in a tube and I don’t quite like it.” Come on, didn’t he? “I’m in a tube.” Yup.

Now, what are you going to do about it? Paul said, “If I preach to you and I know these things and I myself am not subject to them, I have become disapproved.”

There’s an approval through Jesus Christ and the Blood that God gives you; but there’s a disapproval from God when we don’t listen to the Spirit-filled Word, and we know what we should do and we won’t do it.

You know, I look back and I’m so happy I stood a few tests of time. I get so tickled with myself because I obeyed God.

I’m not tickled with myself because I’ve amounted to anything, because I certainly have not.

I don’t need that; I don’t need that at all. I’m happy because I know that God is in my life and I listened to Him, what He wanted… and I didn’t do a good job but I’m still in there slugging.

And, maybe a little bit raunchy, but I’m still in there slugging.

Now, Paul said, “I’m a prisoner; I’m a steward; I’m a slave to God.” Now, he said:

What is your calling? Now, ‘vocation’ means your ‘true calling’. ‘Avocation’ means your ‘by calling’. Every one of us here this morning has a vocation and an avocation.

Avocation is what we do for a living, materially-wise those other things we’re caught up in of necessity because we’re here on the earth, but there’s a vocation which is your true calling of God, that you’re a true child of God.

You have a position, you’re an honored member in the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are obligated therefore because you are fully equipped to let God so move in your life by what He has given you that you can manifest Him.

Therefore, you become a living epistle. You become the stature of that perfect man. You’re moving in there.

Now, Paul says;

Now, he wouldn’t have said that if there wasn’t a battle. But, we’re obligated. Yeah! William Branham was obligated, just like Paul. I’m obligated according to what I have from God.

Brother John is obligated according to what he has from God. And every woman, here, is obligated, as well as every man, for what you got from God.

And he tells you how to fulfill that obligation because you recognize you’re called.

Now… lowly, meek, longsuffering, forbearing. Bearing and forbearing is a great secret of life. It’s like marriage: you bear and you forbear.

You bear what is said and you forbear retaliating because there’s no fight until the second blow is struck. There’s no argument until the second person wants to refute it.

Now, you can’t argue with God’s Word. You can’t argue with God. When He said, “Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord”, He was simply saying, “Come. And I’m going to give you the reasons why things are so, because you’ve got to see My side.”

It’s the same as when Paul mentioned, concerning a mediator, he said, “A mediator is not of one. I don’t come on the field and say, ‘Look, I’m the mediator and you listen to me.”

But God can and does, because mediation brings peace. And He begins to show you through the Holy Spirit how that His way is the right way and the only way.

And believe me, it is! I don’t care what anybody says. It’s just, there’s no way but God’s way. And if you get into God’s way, you are fulfilling the office, and “eye hath not seen nor ear heard what is laid up there for you” as your possession.

And you can have it, and I can have it, under the conditions set forth. I’m going to tell you something: There’s somebody that’s going to get what you and I have laid up for us if we don’t claim that prize. Yeah!

I’m not telling you a lie; I’m telling you the truth. “Let no man take thy crown” it tells you flat. Paul said, “I can tell you these things, here, and I myself go out of the road, I’ll be disapproved of God.

I can be a disobedient child, though not a child of disobedience. But I can be an obedient child! In other words, I can show my obedience as being an obedient child. See?

Now,

And then he said:

In other words, every vessel is perfectly fitted. In other words, if you have… let’s say we have a gas tank. Now, you can take that gas tank into your car. It could even be plastic or very thin metal and you’d get by.

But you try to use propane under pressure… and you’re going to find that a propane tank will weigh so much in your trunk or someplace in your car, you’ll forget about propane. Right? Sure, I’m right! I know all about it.

See? The vessel is fitted admirably, perfectly, for the membership and place that he has in Christ. And everyone has a place because everyone is a member in particular.

There’s no one that isn’t. Why, He knows His sheep all by name and they follow Him. He puts out the stars by name. He brings them all in. He can number the sands of the seashore, and the stars of heaven. See?

Now,

The one that went up there is now in complete charge, on the grounds that nothing can approach God or be from God except by the Son.

The recognition of Mary as superior to the Son obviates everything the Catholic Church may hope for. And they’ll go right into devil worship; they’re already in it and don’t even know it.

Maryolatry is the most stupid, foolish thing under high heaven. It’s even worse than mythology because we know mythology is wrong; there’s nothing to it.

But we know that Maryology is a real thing, as far as their doctrine is concerned, and it is horrible.

It’s horrible even to think that people believe even God had a female spirit. That’s gnosticism. Gnosticism believes there was a female above the male, and she cried out and she said, “Listen: Shut up.

I’m the one that created you”. That’s what… gnosticism supersedes itself above Isaiah 40. Could you believe that for one minute… that the devil was a Gnostic?

“I’ve got a higher revelation”. Do you know that agnosticism is nothing; forget it. The devil never said there was no God. He said, “Hey, listen!

Let me tell you how it really is”. Come on… [Brother Vayle points to the picture of the Pillar of Fire] there’s the man that followed Paul 2000 years later.

There’s the same Pillar of Fire. Some people try to place Brother Branham with Jesus Christ. Forget it! He placed himself with Paul and with Moses!

You’ve got false teaching everywhere. Some of you sitting here may go for it. Be my guest. You say, “Brother Vayle, you don’t have a heart”.

How long have I preached and how hard have I preached and how have I tried to show you truth? It doesn’t mean I’m going to come and lick your boots and live in your house.

A word to the wise is sufficient. William Branham placed himself categorically right on tape: Moses and Paul… he never said Jesus.

Just leave Jesus alone where He belongs the Almighty, only-begotten, one-of-a-kind. Nobody like him before; nobody after. Nobody every will be. Right up there now, sitting on the Throne.

Don’t you fool with his position. Jesus said nobody can take it from him because God gave it to him. Nobody can take what you and I have from us; God gave it to us.

But Jesus himself became a bond-servant in flesh, because he already was the bond-servant of God. He wasn’t just a son; he was a bond-servant, he was a steward.

He never qualified himself as a steward, and neither did Paul. He qualified him as a servant, which is a bond-slave. Didn’t he say before he had a body, “I come to do thy will, O God.”?

Didn’t he have a covenant, and didn’t he believe the covenant? Didn’t he abide by it? Don’t you and I have a covenant? Should we abide by it? See, you’ve got to believe who and what you are.

You’ve got to believe that you’re gifted. You’ve got to believe these things. If you don’t believe them, what are you going to do? You say, “Well, Brother Vayle, I don’t even know what I have!”

Hey! Just start living the life. It will appear. Unh? well, I’m going to take this peach stone, here, and when it grows into a tree I’m going to keep looking, and looking, and digging, and prodding, and doing, and…”

Oh, for lands-sake! Give it fertilizer; let the sun and rain hit it. You’re going to have peaches.

Ephesians 4:

Now, if that doesn’t tell you that you’re going to have a perfect, absolute, vindicated Word of Almighty God sometime before the Bride gets out of here, I don’t know what it’s saying!

Because, how do I know if it’s a wind of doctrine or if it’s really the doctrine? How do I know if it’s not cunning craft, or sleight of hand or like…

That Satan came in, unless I’ve got a standard laid down somewhere? I’ve got to have something to go by.

So, there’s a perfection that’s going to come by a five-fold ministry. And God help any five-fold person that doesn’t obey the calling which God has called him, to bring this Bride to the place where God said she must be.

Why do you think Jeremiah scorned and turned on the false shepherd? Read the Book of Jeremiah and hear what he said about the false shepherd.

Hear what Paul says about the false people. See? Then people say, “Well, you’re preaching judgment.” I can’t preach this Bible without judgment! Who do they think they are?

Who is here but the righteous Judge? Who knocked at the door? It’s the same One standing at the door: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

The same One that brought the ministry of the Son of man back to this earth, talking to William Branham, an individual. The same One of John 14:12: “Greater works shall he do…” It’s the same One James says, “Behold, the Judge standeth at the door.”

Huh! Are we going to have two people? Don’t be ridiculous! Many gifts, one Spirit… one Spirit in the whole church, one Spirit manifesting the way God wants it.

Every single individual brought up and caught up to perfection where they’re not moved any longer. This is it live – die, sink – swim. And we know it’s it; there’s nothing else out there!

How does the Bible line up except with this Message? Come on… tell me! There’s your Revelation. There’s your truth, right there.

Now, there’s going to be a Bride at the end-time. Every single one is going to be in step. Brother Branham mentioned that one, over there, in Joel… I guess it is. Sometimes I forget whether it’s Joel, or which it is you know, like an army going over a wall.

He said, “That’s the Rapture.” Every single one in place, the church in order. And Paul put the church in order.

And he put it in order through the Word of God and dedicated men… only dedicated because God dedicated them, and they recognized their positions.

They’re teaching the true Word of Almighty God. And there’s where your perfection lies in this area.

So now, you’ve got a perfection of the Blood what God did for you by grace, and now what we see the Holy Spirit doing in a Bride, we see another perfection.

Well, you’ve got two perfections. What more do you want? You’ve only got two people in Heaven God and His Son.

So now, we’ve got God giving men to the church and giving them ministries, giving them that which they require have need of. And it said here:

Grow up in him in all things? What’s all things? That’s a Rhema the Word. Growing up the full Word of God, now, in the Bride through ministries from God, these people obeying what God gives them to teach because they’re teaching what the Prophet taught, vindicated, the people receiving it.

Now, all growing up… according to what? The Word! That’s why Brother Branham kept on saying, “Who is God but the Word?” Now, you go up to the head…

Who came down? God came down… the same One that led Israel, the Pillar of Fire. That Rock which followed them was Christ. That cloud that followed them was Christ.

The same thing… you’ve got the same thing which is God. Nobody knew a thing then about God incorporating Himself in His Son.

They knew it was God; they called it ‘Jehovah’. God revealed Himself to Isaiah as Jehovah-Elohim. You’ll find the compound many times in there.

You’ll find the compound ‘Jehovah’ is in there. All through the Bible that One led them God Himself coming down. It tells you that!

There’s one God and Father of all Who is above all. Man is the head of woman. Christ is the head of man. God is the head of Christ.

But when you talk about ‘headship’, what headship are you talking about? Well, if the same One that raised Jesus is going to raise us, Who is here? God is here! Who came down?

Jehovah-Elohim came down. Who else came down? The son isn’t Jehovah-Elohim. He merely has the Name ‘Jehovah’ Jesus-Savior Joshua, which is Jehovah-Savior, because Jesus is the Greek and Joshua is the Hebrew.

Now, he says here:

Now, God came down in the human flesh of Jesus Christ. He’s down here now getting His Bride ready for the great Presentation.

And when that Spirit that’s in our midst right now Who has brought us the Word right there in the Pillar of Fire, Who is going to raise the dead, Who is going to change us He takes us right up to Jesus, doesn’t He?

And He incarnates Himself. Then we crown Him King of kings, and Lord of lords. Now, the whole Body is complete. Yup! The whole Body. Wise Virgin the whole group, right there.

After the Resurrection, White Throne, what do you see? You see all the Foolish Virgin outside could be a billion for all I know. How many? God knows. I don’t know and I care less.

Who is in the Holy City? The 144,000, and how many Wise Virgin? I haven’t got a clue, but they’re all there. “As in Adam all died, every single one is now made alive.”

Adam threw away what? He threw away his stewardship. My! What he had laid out before him! I read to you last night… and you know what God laid out.

He said, “This is yours! This is yours! Now, there’s a choice: Do you want it or don’t you want it? Now, if you want it, you’ll come here. If you don’t want it, you’ll go there”. What do… he went there! Yeah!

Now, the Word of God can’t lie. The Word of God has got to come to pass. So what happens? It comes to pass through Jesus Christ. Man gets there, but look how he got there.

Wouldn’t it be nice just to think if you could have been born [no matter how you were born] but you were born free from all these terrible conditions that we have in our bodies and outside of our bodies?

What kind of a life would it be, to just be like in a Garden of Eden under God, under the power of the Holy Spirit? Do you know Brother Branham said he told us flat, he said, “The baptism with the Holy Ghost literally makes up for what we lost. [He said,] Only the prophets could come near to what you and I have.”

Now, where did it place William Branham and Paul? My! What a position they have. What a position you and I have!

As the Scripture says, “What manner of men we ought to be…” You just don’t go to the Word and look in it and then turn away.

James tells you that. He said, “Why do you just go to the Bible and look in the Bible and forget what the Bible says about you and says to you? Don’t be that kind of a foolish person!”

See? That’s what stewardship is all about… is recognizing what God has given us and what we are obligated to.

And He has given us the power right within us and helping us to see that we mature to the position and produce those things that God wants in us even to the place where we go right to New Jerusalem singing the glorious praises of God.

And he warns us: “There’s a place in here where you’re responsible”. Don’t think Brother Branham wasn’t. He certainly was… he surely was.

Now… so all right. Now, gifts and callings are without repentance. But with them comes the choice, “Will I take my place as part of the Living Word a part of God, an ambassador and fulfill the role that God has given me? Will I be that one?… will I be that one?”

Now, God has protected it right down to the very end and [at] the very end we know there is a washing of water by the Word, so the Bride is spotless, completely justified she never even did it there stands before God.

But in that position, the thing is now: Will she repeat what Adam and Eve did?

And the answer is: God, again, has helped us before the debt. As Satan got to Eve through the serpent and Satan got to Eve, the virgin-born church in the First Age… and Paul said, “Her mind is already defiled. In her mind, she’s got a wrong spirit… understanding.

She’s got a wrong understanding of Jesus. She’s got a wrong understanding of the Word. At the end-time it comes up Perfect: God, Son, Word what else do you want? All united in us.

All that Revelation there. The Bride cannot fail. She will not be seduced. There is no way the Elect can come into the Judgment.

She’s already been judged the perfect, virtuous Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. You didn’t do it; you were tricked into it.

Now, we’ll cover that in a little while and show you why we do have problems. But we’ve got to wait for that.

Now, I want to go back, then, with what we’re thinking of here. And starting back there in the Book of Genesis, because I’m trying to show you, here, in this little series, that Stewardship as I like to call it, more than servants… although it’s one and the same thing when it boils right down to it, which is like a law of sowing and reaping, except in this sense, it is more suited to this hour to understand who and what we are in Christ and what we have within us and how God is working in us and through us in order to bring forth what He desires.

And our co-operation, then, is necessary. We have to believe, and we have to know who we are.

Brother Branham made great powerful stress upon, “The Bride must know who she is.” That the Bride will say before the change, “I and my Father are one”. She’ll have recognition.

He recognized this [Brother Vayle points to the picture of the Pillar of Fire] And sheep can only recognize the shepherd.

Then, are we not able to recognize all the rest of it? Certainly we should even discerning the Body, taking Communion. All of these things are wide open; they are no more parables; they are no more mysteries.

Contrary to popular opinion among some people that say they believe this message, the Seventh Seal has been opened!

Because Brother Branham said, “There is silence, but it has been opened, [He said,] It wasn’t revealed to the public.” Now they’re running with that!

It wasn’t revealed at that time, but did he not say, “The Seventh Seal is Revelation 10:1-7?” Then, it is revealed to the public.

Talk about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! Running from a little tiny mosquito and being clobbered by a lion. Think, “Ho, here comes a lion. That’s great!”

In other words, welcoming error in the extreme. Listen, I’m going to tell you something: You take away one Word take away, take away, take away… nothing left; add, add, add fifty volumes, and all perversion.

So, all right. We’re going to Genesis 1:26-28. We like these, don’t we?

Now, with that we go to,

Now, Adam and Eve were given full stewardship over the earth, which was, according to Psalm 24, Psalm 50:10-12, and Psalm 89:11… God’s… all of this is God’s property because He created it.

So, let’s go here to the Book of Psalms and begin to see what is very very correct. And so, we go to Psalm 24:1 and actually, I’ve already quoted that one, and it says:

It says, right here, that God controls everybody and everything that pertains to this earth. It’s all God’s, and it isn’t anybody else’s. Now, we know that man sold it out, temporarily.

Eve caused an interruption, so that God has to conform to His Own Word, and He does.

And Satan, now, is the governor of this world. He doesn’t own it but he’s got an interim period, here, that man gave up. Now, see, he had stewardship. Now, listen carefully.

They had stewardship, but they didn’t realize they were bond-slaves to God. They fiddled with the Word of God; they didn’t take it seriously. What about people say,

“Hey! I’m born-again; I can do what I want.”

How do you know you’re born-again?

“I speak in tongues.”

That doesn’t mean a thing.

What about the guy that tried to teach me his nonsense concerning John 6 John 4 rather, where he said Jesus speaking concerning the fact of worshipping God in spirit and in truth, and then taking Scripture further on…

“The flesh profits nothing”. So the man put them together. “Well, he said I can do anything I want in the flesh.”

He said, “I can drink, I can smoke, I can commit adultery; it doesn’t affect my ministry and the gifts of the Spirit. I can go ahead and minister.” A truly false anointed-one!

Did you get what that man said? “It’s okay. I can do what I want.” And he had gifts. He could discern like a house afire. He did a lot of lying too, and I caught him in it.

A lot of people got healed. He went to Cuba and had a pretty good healing revival.

He went to Turkey, and the newspaper came out and said, “Revelation. So-and-So, praying for the sick, if he keeps on praying there will be nobody sick in Turkey.”

I don’t know all the papers carried that, John, but I know that one did because I saw a copy of it.

Yet, he was a woman-chaser, adulterer, a liar, a thief. I’m going to tell you something: He is going to answer to the fact that he prayed and got a gift that wasn’t his to begin with.

Those gifts were for a Bride. An anointing to gifts but not to the Word. Stewardship.

These two people were the stewards of God denying sovereignty of God over them and what they had. “Okay, we’ll just use it”. Come on… well, am I right or wrong? Now, you know I’m right.

Now, let’s go a little further. We go to Psalm 50. And in Psalm 50:10-12, we read:

Every single thing created and every single thing produced from that creation I don’t care who uses what in God’s earth belongs to God. All right? So, what are people?

Stewards… stewards who forgot servitude began serving themselves. And the Bible speaks of self-serving people. Sociology and good manners civic, speaks of self-serving people.

And if you’re not thinking of politicians, what are you thinking about? And if you’re not thinking of preachers off the Word, what are you thinking about?

I hear preachers say, “My sheep.” Phhtt! Psalm 89:11… That’s as bad, you know, preacher got sheep… that’s like Moody, one day he was going down the street and a drunk recognized him.

“Oh, good-day, Brother Moody. Hi, I’m one of your converts.”

He said, “You sure must be one of mine because you ain’t one of God’s!”

That’s a true story, too. The same as when he… “Do you know grace?” People said, “Grace who?” This is an actual story… see, the grace of God. He got so enthused with it.

Now, let’s see what Paul says over here. We’ve always got to go to Paul because he is the last Word, that we know of.

He took the Old Testament and gave us what we needed, plus what we needed for this hour because we’re not Jews, we’re Gentiles. In Colossians,

And he tells you right there, that not only did He make it all, not only does He own it all but except for Him it would just dissolve and go into space.

Except for God doing what God does, do you realize… now listen, I’m just talking off the top of my head, but if you would follow this through logically, do you realize that if God let go even of you and me we would just simply have to go back to God where we were, the place we don’t remember, and not having fulfilled the place we’re supposed to go that shows the true grace and greatness and marvel of God without which He would not be fully exposed to what He really is?

Now, would you like that? Well, I wouldn’t like that. Hey! I’m not going through this for nothing. I want to get over yonder. I want to get passed the interruption.

So, He owns it all; and the word ‘consists’ means, He ‘maintains’ it. He doesn’t take His hands off. He is a hands-on God. Yeah!

He that sits upon the circle of the earth, that looks down upon us as little dust mites and you know what they’re like, He weighs even the dust that’s in the scales of balances.

He knows ratio, proportion; He knows all about chemistry. He made it, and He controls it. Oh yes, He certainly does! My Bible tells me that, and I believe the Bible.

Adam started out correctly, as we saw in Genesis 2:19-20. So, let’s go back there and look at it:

Now, you know who brought the animals and all these before him? God did. But Adam had a super position. He was the steward. Yeah! Absolutely, for it all.

And God said, “It’s in your hands.” And everything was great while God was moving on Adam and Adam was moving the way God wanted him to move, which is marvelous!

“Animals, come here.” Brother Branham said, “It was all done by the Holy Spirit.”

Another man had that happen one day. Do you know what his name was? Noah. God and Noah built an ark.

God gave Noah the plans; He gave him the material; He gave him the strength; He have him the family to help him, and the ark was built. Then God said, “Noah, it’s time to call the animals”.

Who brought them in? Who can make the lion lie down with the lamb? Only God, and God did it. Oh, everything is so marvelous when you have a servant who listens to God, a servant who does not consider himself any more than he ought to.

And the consideration, that he can say, “I’m a true son of God. I have been a part of God. My soul is a gene from God; it’s a part of God. I am that person.”

Well now, Brother Branham brought up predestination one time, the way the Lord… much better than I did, I know, but I got blessed the same way, down in South America.

Suddenly it revealed to me that God, as a parent, would He do less for us than we would do as parents? Remember, we took that in the last series, you know…

Seed of Discrepancy. And Brother Branham taught, “The baby’s going to come on the scene… Hey! Going to have a little boy [or] a little girl. We’ve got the booties made up. We’ve got the crib made up. We’ve got the room decorated.

We’ve got everything on hand, here… we’re looking. We’ve got doctors here, and everything looking to make everything just as great as we can.

He said, Didn’t God do that? His thesis was, Before there was ever a fish with a fin, there was water to swim in. Before there was a man, there was a garden to put him in.”

Everything is propitious. See? So, now… Adam started out correctly, as we saw in Genesis, 19-20 . And he was able, thereby, to maintain his momentum, and yet came to losing his stewardship because of Genesis 2:7-17, that would be Genesis 3 rather, because in there we find that he listened.

Well, let’s go back to,

And he died before a thousand years. [See?] Methuselah lived the longest. Adam, I think, lived 930 and Methuselah 969. But he died before the day was up.

Death entered by sin, and the process moved in until today we’re dying even before we’re born. Children with tumors, AIDS, diseases everywhere.

Genes that are shot. Genes that should be there, that are not there. Mutations… you’re dead before you’re born. Brother Branham talked of death setting in about age twenty.

And he was right, concerning biological things, but today and even in his day death had already set in. And he recognized that. We recognize it. You’re dead before you’re born.

Why? Because death reigns in our mortal bodies. “In Adam all die.” It was what happened, because this man, he got off the beaten path of the Word of the Living God.

So…

He, therefore, became the progenitor of every child of God and through natural election, based upon supernatural foreknowledge and election, he was able to give that Life of God that was given to him.

Came right down to you and to me at this hour. Eternal Life whether people want to believe it or not is carried in the human race, because God breathed into Adam the breath of lives.

And Brother Branham said, “That was the Holy Ghost.” Now, you go to philosophy, you go to devil worship, you go to false things, and you’ll find they deny that.

And you’ll find that Mr. Clinton, the President, is allowing death on every hand and literally forcing it, loving it, making people believe it.

Because you are not a person until you breathe. He’s got the word ‘spirit’ all mixed up with ‘wind’. This was not wind, because this made him a ‘living soul’.

Of course, he tries to say, “Well, you become a living soul after you’re born out of the womb.

Before then, it doesn’t matter”. That’s a lie. Brother Branham, on vindication, told the Mormon fellow who lost his baby prematurely, he said, “You’ll see that baby in Heaven.”

It was only the spirit granted that gave that life to the flesh. Now, that spirit that was granted connects the life of the body to the soul, which is down here in the heart. That’s how that soul down there gets fed.

So, then, he goes on and he said:

Now, notice what happens eventually because of Adam’s failure his failed stewardship. You find the failed stewardship over here, in Genesis 3:14-19. Now, the failed stewardship.

Now listen: This beast was a very superior beast. He could reason; he could talk. He was exactly like a man, but he wasn’t suave, cultured, everything there. He was a Gnostic.

He was the devil. He superimposed himself upon God and he said, “I will be above God”. And he came and he superimposed his folly, his gnosticism, upon the Word of God, and that’s all Eve could see.

Now, that’s a tragic thing but that’s all she could see. This was her choice. She had a third, now. It wasn’t ‘eat-die, eat-live’; it was ‘eat and you’ll have the best of both worlds’.

There’s something got to be awful funny, you know, when a person can let a mind go like that. Now, this woman was the original woman. She wasn’t in the original creation we’ll look at that in a second, but she was there.

Now, it says, here, then… so, the beast fell from his superior position; he actually did. And he got changed so that the evolutionists can’t figure it out, because every bone in his body was changed.

See? But he was part of that change. Not that we believe in evolution as Darwin said and Darwin recanted before he died. And now you’ve got all these idiots following… just brainless idiots, that’s all.

There’s no proof of mutation anywhere. Find it. Find us something… for heaven’s sake, find us something. Find where anything ever changed. Man has messed things up; that’s all.

Now;

As the poet said… That was Longfellow, I think, that said, “That was said to the body, not to the soul”. Tennyson, maybe it was. But anyway, one of the poets mentioned it… Browning, or somebody.

It was not said to the soul; it was said to the body. Now you can see right here that this fellow who was given a stewardship failed, and the consequences are here today!

There is no such thing as a pebble thrown into the water, but the ripple goes infinitesimally across waters until it is lost.

It’s the same thing as the economist said, “Let one person receive even a ten cent raise in his pay per hour, and though it is infinitesimal, it’ll be felt around the world.”

In other words, there is no man who lives to himself and dies to himself. There is no man who commits any sin whatsoever that becomes purely personal but it has its influence around and around.

How, then, would it be if there was a Bride who was one in the Word, one in Spirit, one in love, one in the gifts, one in the virtues, one as Brother Branham taught that perfect stature what kind of a Bride would it be?

That’s where you get where he said, “How you ought to love each other, you that love this Word!” The question, then, is: How much do we love the Word? Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it? That’s just the way it is.

Now, so here’s what you find. Now, bring that to,

Now, let’s go to Revelation 11 and we go to verse 18.

Now, what was set in motion by Adam brought forth chaos in the earth. And that has been picked up by every generation because every generation is under sin.

And you can find even a marvelous Christian doesn’t know what he’s doing. Even part of a Bride, here…

That is to say, the end-time Bride, not this church could actually, not knowingly, being a scientist could bring forth that which is absolutely not what God wanted in the beginning. But it’s here.

Now, I’m thinking in terms of a brother who is a doctor of Science and he was in the Redstone arsenal. And at the time that Brother Branham mentioned that he didn’t think they would get to the moon, he said, “Lee, we have everything now to put us on the moon.” And he was a part of it.

You say, “Well, I don’t think the man was of God.” Don’t give me that nonsense. The very God that gave Ezekiel the very art of making beautiful artifacts and things for the temple, that same man positively could have the ability to create an arrow or a dart or a sword or a spear that could effectively kill people more than any other spear ever did, because he knew Israel was in a tight spot.

So, I’m just telling you something: He blew his stewardship and it’s had effects right to this minute and will have effect until after the White Throne, the dissolution of this earth, and we have a complete new start. Not just a Millennium… oh, no, no, no, but trillions of miles beyond it.

Now, Revelation 11:18, and it says;

Now, I looked this, a little bit up maybe I shouldn’t have but I looked it up, and I found in there that, actually, they’re going to rot. The earth waxes old as a garment because of what people are doing to it.

They that destroy the earth are going to be destroyed. And the actual fact is: They’re going to rot. Uh? What does rotting signify? Tell me… come on. AIDS… somebody said.

AIDS. And I showed you last night where that stuff comes from adultery, sinning against your body. There’s only one sin that hits your body, that’s that sex out of alignment.

The sexual act of procreation is a righteous act in holy wedlock. Outside, you are paying a price and you are destroying people around you.

A man that cannot contain himself and fools with women in the church around, or tries to, that man had better marry because it’s “better to marry than to burn”. And burning is not just an extreme desire for sex.

It is, as Brother Branham said [and the Greek says it], “It is when you are messing around.” Now, parents, I haven’t touched that yet, but you are stewards too. We’ve got to look at all these things.

And you’re going to find out that what blew the whole thing was stewardship, granted the greatest privilege in the whole world, granted to reign on this earth.

And that’s why Revelation says, “We’ll live, reign, and rule with Him on the earth.” And that’s the song that they sang because of the Lamb.

Stewardship restored men given much and we’re accountable. See? Yeah. This is just part of it.

Now, here is what I’m trying to get us to see as I address this subject of stewardship: Adam was given a charge, given the privilege to be the ruler over God’s creation, and all that was therein.

And not only so, but to fill it with God’s children who in turn would be over-lords with Adam. That was the commission given to him by God and empowered by God so that he could do it.

As people say, “God’s commandments are God’s empowerment”. And that is a hundred percent correct. God’s gifts demonstrate God’s empowerment. Because He had the power to give it, He would have the power to take it if He wanted to.

He has the power to cut it off. But the big thing is that’s pleasing to God: Will we let Him decide how to use and when to use what we have, to be led as sheep and to know the Voice of God?

And remember, the will of God is the Word of God. And turning down that Word turns down God. Turning down the Word of God takes away those things which are truly given to us of God.

He turned his back on his stewardship. In other words, he said, “I’m the steward. I’ve been given this, so I can use it.” No! He was a slave.

If his elder Brother was a slave before the foundation of the world, this man also was a slave, and even more so, on the grounds that his position was not near the position of him, even Jesus, the Only-begotten Son.

He turned his back on stewardship, and like the man in the parable who played fast and loose with God’s economy, he lost it for himself and his entire family for 6,000 years.

An unfaithful steward, the manager of the well-being of mankind, threw it out the window for a selfish moment of gratification and what he thought God could not rectify so he played God and he took Eve and made her, now, the mother of ALL living… when she was the mother of serpent seed, and that’s where he could have left her.

Now, Brother Branham tells you the same thing, “He played God.” I’m not quoting Lee Vayle, although I have said that, myself, without knowing Brother Branham said it.

Adam did not sow by the Word of God. He never sowed by it. See? It wasn’t time. He did anyway. And therefore, he did not reap for the position of stewardship.

No… no, no! “You’re to be the father of all these living. You’re to be the one. By you I shall fill the earth.” But what came of it?

1 Corinthians 15:

“Every man in his own order…” Notice, it says, “Christ, the first-fruits”. There’s the One with the charge from God! There was the One Who took His stewardship effectively.

He said, “The Father in me doeth the works. The Father says it.” Completely a bond-slave of Almighty God. Now, Who is He? He’s the head, and Adam isn’t. He lost his crown, didn’t he?

Well, come on… are you and I any different? I want to know. Oh, I know this isn’t very popular preaching; I don’t like it, myself. I’m a free thinker, and a free loader and a free giver, and a free this… oh, yeah!

I admit my problems. But Brother Branham said, “I always do what I want. I always want to please Him.”

Now, you and I can say the same thing on the grounds, we always want to please Him. It doesn’t mean that we do. But listen, it’s time we gave this serious thought and began listening and doing.

This is the hour when we cannot live for ourselves and live to ourselves. This is the hour we live for each other, or we’re going to miss it down the road somewhere.

Not that we’ll lose our lives and all no… I mean the salvation but we could sure lose our lives, and we could sure have a great lot of trouble.

Because I’m going to tell you one thing, brother/sister, I can be gone… and I believe I will be, and my wife.

And I pray daily that she will go ahead of me, because I would not want to leave her here for one minute. I would sooner be here myself, alone, unless she gets the help I would love her to have. And I think that’s maybe a possibility.

And the thing is, I can be out of here. You’re going to be here… you’re going to be here. Already we see signs of moving here and there. And I’m not talking about people leaving town.

I’m talking about spiritual movement very easy to discern. It’s not hard to see… not hard to see. And I’m not being a judge. I’m just looking at the Word, looking at life. He lost it.

Oh, we love to think, “Oh, my! Christ recovered it. Hallelujah!” Just a minute… Adam had it. He threw it away. Well, well, well… He got it all by grace a divine gift, a great privilege, a great compliment from God.

Do you know something? Eve was not in the original creation. And Brother Branham asked the Lord, “What really happened?” And God said to him, “It was not complimentary to me to have a son fall from the original creation”.

So He brought Eve in, and she’s the one who brought about the Fall, and caused the interruption. And how did she do it? She threw away her stewardship and we’ll talk about that, too.

Adam was paid a great compliment, and Eve consequently… a great compliment. “Hey! It’s yours.” Five-fold ministry, you can bring a Bride to perfection. Elders and deacons, you can be models.

You can stand still and not run, or you can take a hint, or something, and you can run. I ran. I ran right into death. I ran into TB of the pituitary gland. I ran into where my mind wouldn’t function.

My feet burned; I put them on concrete floors. I went to a psychiatrist a few times. He liked me; he couldn’t do a thing for me. Nobody could but God! And I turned back.

Where are you standing this morning? I’m not trying to intimidate you by my voice. You do what you want… do what you want. You can blow it. You can throw it.

You won’t lose your salvation. Don’t worry, He’s accountable for that. But we’re accountable for this.

This is what He gave you and me, not Jesus. Jesus is very accountable. We are children of Adam; don’t ever forget that. We need an Intercessor.

We don’t need the Mediator, maybe, today maybe all the Bride is in. The Foolish Virgin needs Him, and the Jew, 144,000 needs Him.

But the Bride does not need the Mediator to get her in because she is in I hope. I hope it’s all over. But she needs that Intercessor for the child-training.

She needs that Blood circling the earth. It’s not what Jesus did that’s in jeopardy. And what He did for us, that’s not in jeopardy.

What’s in jeopardy is: Are we going to reap the abundance that lies ahead? You say, “Brother Vayle, I’ve wasted a lot of time”. So have I, but don’t forget Samson… “One more time, Lord.”

And he brought more in his death in one time than ever in his life. And we have an opportunity, now, to live as no other people lived, to do as no other people did, to love, to forgive, and all of these things that are so strange to us and should be so perfect to this hour. We have that opportunity.

And remember, the new year is started in forgiveness. God help us.

So, all right. He got it all by grace, by divine gift, a great privilege, a great compliment from God. He did not ask to be formed and become a human being. He already was a spirit-form man which is very wonderful.

He did not ask to be clothed in sensate clay; but he certainly was. This was a gift of life, and position, and privilege because only at that time did God breathe into him the breath of lives, when he was in the human sensate form.

So God really wanted it that way. And if God really wanted it that way, that was the only way that was good and the only way that was right.

Because, God cannot make momentous decisions and then turn around and say, “Oh, I blew that one. I’ve got to make another one”. He never made another Adam. He never made another Eve.

They had to go right down the road in the relinquished position stewardship gone from them and now they have to take up under the duress of those things that are not there because they have allowed the superimposition of other things.

And now in their sowing they must bear the reaping, and it’s continuous. As Brother Branham said to one man I don’t know what his sin was, but he said, “Son, God has forgiven you but you will perhaps bear this the rest of your life.” Marriage and divorce, for all I know.

This was a gift of God, of life and position and privilege but with a responsibility. Which responsibility, thank God, will one day come back by the same grace and gift of grace by God in the Millennium where there will be no failures.

But don’t think for one minute there isn’t a loss, and don’t think for one minute it’s not a Lamb the wounded hands and feet and side and brow.

He is always the Lamb bearing in his body the dyings, that you and I might have life.

So, don’t think for one minute their tables are going to be turned around and suddenly, by the grace of God, at the great Presentation we’ll suddenly have our cups filled and overflowing.

I’m not saying there is going to be sorrow. Tears will be wiped away. I’m not telling you that it’s not going to be marvelous.

I’m simply telling you this: In God’s economy, I read something in the Bible, here, that demands attention, or it wouldn’t be written. And if I’m saying it wrong, I don’t know how I’m saying it wrong. I don’t understand.

Adam had it and he lost it. He didn’t get it back. We don’t get it back. Jesus paid a price and got it back. Now, it’s all under him, to the glory of God. God is not going to miss a trick in His Word.

It will be fulfilled, don’t worry, because Word never returns void. No, no, no, no… It will not return void. Brother Branham said it so beautifully, “If we’re not Bride, there’s a Bride out there somewhere and, by the grace of God, I don’t want to stand in her way.”

So that’s what happened. See? It will come back; for as it says distinctly in,

Lord willing… because I’m not too willing except I count it a privilege to be able to… and in that way, willing to come back. And we’ll talk some more. And we’ll go into it some more on Stewardship.

And you’re going to find that one steward blew it and one Steward brought it back. And by the grace of God through the baptism with the Holy Ghost we can qualify for the abundance of God that we never even realized could be so marvelous, that lies ahead of us.

Remember, Brother Branham… the vision beyond the curtain of time, this lady beautiful young woman in her teens, it looked like ran up and hugged him. No sensation in the flesh.

You could shake hands, you could hug. Couldn’t eat. The angel said, “Don’t you remember her? She was saved at age ninety under your ministry.”

And I was there the time that Brother Branham talked about the glory of being there. I… I admit… Hey! Look-it, it’s over my head. I wasn’t there. I don’t understand it.

But he came back and like a man [Inaudible], he said “Don’t, don’t, don’t miss it!” And I said, “Oh, God… Oh, God. What if I was meant to miss it?” He couldn’t be saying to me, if I was a goat, “Don’t miss it.” He must have been talking about the fact… “Who are all these?”

“Why, they’re Branhamites. They’re your converts.”

He said, “I only preached what Paul preached.”

And they screamed, “We’re resting on that!”

Don’t miss it. Don’t miss it.

The Revealed Word that the early church had, we have in Its full bloom, full fruitage in this hour. Don’t miss it. It’s yours, in your hands. Don’t miss it.

Let’s rise and be dismissed.

Our Father, and our God, we realize that we could wax eloquent, we could wax emotional over things which are entirely outside of Your Word. But I do know, Lord, there has always been a place that mystified me concerning this Sovereignty which is exhibited, here, in Your Word.

And I believe that we have seen a little bit, maybe a teeny teeny corner of what part has been given us to play. What role, what character genes from great, great, great grandmother; great, great, great grandfather, crossing to bring us down to what we are to fulfill a role in Your last day, here, every single one of us each a member in particular.

Help us, Lord, to begin to start, at least, with those graces that are mentioned there as the fruit of the Spirit to have the love, the joy, and the peace, to exercise even if we don’t have mercy with love and kindness and cheerfulness.

Help us, Lord, to begin to at least prospect a little bit for the gold that lies within us to bring it forth as part of the currency of Your Kingdom Your Word, Lord, which we can receive, can believe, and can manifest.

Help us, Lord, to come to that place where Brother Branham spoke of. And we can say, Lord, with him as never before, “If we’re not Bride…” to do that… and there’s a Bride out there somewhere, help us never to stand in the way, but always to encourage… at least, to move on.

So we could say, “If we’re not the Bridegroom, if we’re not the Bride, we are friends of the Bride and the Bridegroom, standing by to give glory unto Almighty God.”

But, Lord, we’re just asking You, therefore, as Brother Branham had that beautiful tremendous gift [he gave credit to everything] to learn to get out of the way.

Help us, Father, to get ourselves out of the way so that men will see Christ and love Thee.

Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be all power and honor and glory, through Jesus Christ our blessed Savior that one on the Father’s Throne, now in his Name we pray. Amen.

Take the Name of Jesus with you.