Stewardship #08

Shall we pray.

Heavenly Father, We welcome Your presence and especially that presence of yours which indicates the great revealer of Himself and His Word and is already relieved his Word through the prophet. And now we pray for understanding especially in meekness of spirit and soul.

And receiving not only Your understanding, Lord, but the strength to walk in that understanding and not give ourselves any leeway anymore but bring ourselves under the complete governance of Almighty God, the Holy Spirit indwelling this Word, making it live within vessels, thereby being living Word.

Father we know that this is not beyond us, we look at… back… history, we see various people and they are actually living that Word out and many people are living it out and don’t even recognize it because so much of it is so very simple.

So help us, our Lord, today to receive from You, receive that life, that light, and walk in it and we be then the living vessels of the living God. We put our trust in You this morning for that strength. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated.

Now we’re into “Stewardship” again. And, as I broach this subject this morning, which is part of “Stewardship”, I don’t want anybody to think I’m preaching from a goody-goody aspect, or someone who has lived up to all the requirements that devolve upon us in this particular area of stewardship.

The tragic thing is that very few, almost none, have ever taken the Word of God at it’s true meaning and have followed in the light, very fearful of course, that they’ll miss something.

The fear of missing something is very good, if we are fearful of missing what the Lord has for us. The Bible mentions that in Hebrews 4, there is to be that fear. But then, the fear of coming against the Word of God is not the kind of fear that too many of us have; and it started with Satan.

And you remember, Brother Branham talked about Satan wanted a more beautiful kingdom, a more glamorous kingdom, than Michael. And now, if you look at the word ‘kingdom’, which we did, oh, months and months ago, you can’t have a kingdom without a king.

And so, Satan wanted to be king. And when you’re king, then you call the shots. And, when you get to be king, you’re like Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold. And we’re going back to the head of gold again very shortly.

Remember, it came from the head down, and now we’re building the feet up, which is the way that God has built His Church. And, at the same time, as you come back to headship of Christ, you’re going to find the headship of gold in there, and he demanded worship.

And that’s what you find at the end time, back in the days of Israel, when they wanted a king.  God, in Moses, laid out everything that would happen when a king was put over them, rather than simply the Word of God given to them by a prophet.

And all the people, fearing God and obeying His Word, would never have infringed on anybody.  There would not have been sin committed in the camp. There would not have been people murdered.

There would not have been people hurt. All you would have found was a loving kingdom of people, God being their King! and they would have progressed into heights that have never been known. And those heights can only be known now in a resurrection.

And, when you realize it’s the same thing as Jesus said, “If you had known this John the Baptist was Elijah to come, look what you would have had.” See? They knew Elijah was to come preceding Messiah, but they turned it down.

“If you had only known what belonged to your day.” And again, “If you’d only known what belongs to this day. If you’d only taken heed to the Word of God.” Well thank God there’s grace in the Blood to help us.

But think, think what it would be with people, under sovereignty, the sovereign God, listening to God, and fulfilling the offices of their stewardship, wherever they’re placed. And we’ll try to make that very simple this morning to you, as we go into this one phase of stewardship.

But it brings us the good things of God, and they are difficult. There’s a price to pay in the flesh in obeying God, and there’s a price to pay in the flesh by disobeying God.

And the price that we pay in disobedience is so vastly negative that it’s compared to what we get in paying a price in obedience, because when you pay a price you demand something for your money.

Well the Scripture tells us there’s coming a day when we realize that the price we pay in suffering is not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us. So see, stewardship is very, very important. Same as sowing and reaping.

And remember, then, that we can no longer treat the vindicated Word of this hour as anything but being stewards of it. And also remember that we can no longer treat any violation of God’s sacred trust of stewardship and not have some harmful effect that comes from having perpetrated that which is against the Word of Almighty God.

So, going into this morning’s message… And I usually read quite a bit, because I like to have my thoughts in order and as well as I can present them, especially for your good and also for my good, because it certainly helps me.

Now, as we have already read many Scriptures concerning stewardship, we did, we went into many Scriptures, especially those in the Gospel and we found that the position of a steward was not only one of honor, but one that involved great responsibility.

The steward was not required to provide any part of the wealth he administered for his employer. The employer gave it all to him. But he was bound to be responsible for it.

In other words it was a great position of trust where the owner of the assets simply said, “Look, I’ve got confidence in you. I see in you the capabilities; I see in you that which will be a fine administrator.

Now I’m turning it over to you. So, therefore, I’m requiring of you now to administer this trust. And you will not do it in your self-interest. You will do it in my interest and for my family, and in doing that, you will make me a profit.

And in making that profit, you will set my stature higher than what it has been. I’m trusting you for all of this. This is a great trust, so do not let me down.”

Now, in a case of neglect or wrong judgment, wherein he lost his employer’s assets, he could be dismissed and even pay for the loss by restoring what he had lost or squandered or be punished by imprisonment, which length of imprisonment would depend on how much he lost.

Now in the law of the Old Testament, if a man borrowed, and he ran up a great big debt, and he couldn’t pay it, actually then, he could sell himself into bondage to pay that debt. Or he, could sell his children into bondage. And, of course, there was every fifty years a jubilee where the debts were written off.

That would be a great thing right now in the light of what’s happening in America. And it’s a known, absolute fact, if the rich people in America, and that’s even us who don’t have anything hardly, were charged just a one-time three percent tax, the national debt is paid off.

Yet everybody’s screaming and screaming, screaming and screaming. The rich man won’t do it. We pay the rich man to advertise; like McDonalds in Europe. It cost us $1435 per month. Nobody sheds a tear.

“Hallelujah, it’s great, wonderful.” But you talk about a little girl that’s made a big, bad mistake, And God knows it’s a terrible, terrible, filthy rotten mistake. and she has that child. Four hundred and some dollars a month is too much. Going to be a big price paid. See?

Look, I want you to know what I’m dealing with this morning. We have never been sincere. I have to admit, I’m not preaching to you now as a lily-white guy. Don’t think I am. And I’m not preaching to you as a goody-goody.

I’m looking at the Word of God this morning as the Word of God is. If it strikes home, it strikes me; it strikes everybody. But we just deal with the Word of God, and we’ll see what we’re going to do about it, because that’s all we can do.

Like a man phoned me one day, he said, “Brother Vayle, there’s so much of the young people in our church fornicating and all.” He said, “What can I do?”

I said, “There’s nothing you can do but preach the Word. There’s nothing you can do but preach the Word. If it has a place in their hearts, they’re going to follow that Word.

If they want to follow their lusts, they’re going to do it. You can’t go in their homes and look in their refrigerator and under their beds and in their beds. What are you trying to do?” See?

Kept by the power of God through faith, and the power lies in the Word. Let a man take that Word seriously and honestly and sow it in his heart, and then, look at it and watch his life. Something’s going to happen.

No, there’s no way you can change this living Word, brother/sister. We’re at the end time now where there’s going to be a Bride, and I mean she’s going to be a beauty: all glorious within and without, neither spot nor wrinkle in her garment, completely washed in the waters of separation, completely undefiled.

Yes, and they’re all going to have the mind of Christ, because it’s already been delivered to us.

We’re past the eye age; we’re in the mind age right now. And what mind do we set our minds to? What set of mind do we have? Doctrinally, we have the mindset of the Word, but when it comes to conduct, we are lacking very, very greatly.

Thank God the Blood is there. Thank God the intercessor’s there, or we would be wiped out. In this age, there’s no two ways about it. But remember, this Bride will not go into losing her virginity of that particular Word. All right.

So therefore, he could be imprisoned, and would depend, on how much he lost. And the same thing holds good today. As Brother Branham said, “There’ll be a resurrection body for those that are of the serpent seed.”

And they will be in that Lake of Fire as long as God deems it is just suffering, a penalty, for what they did.

Now remember, we know that God created Satan. We know that God raised up Pharaoh, and we know what kind of a man he was. But let’s face it; nobody made Pharaoh do what he did. Nobody made Satan do what he did.

They had a free moral agency, and they had within them that capability to do it, and they did it. And we have within us the capability of going one way or the other. You simply cannot get away from responsibility, brother/sister. See? So there’s a walk. All right.

He was a trusted person, and it was expected of him to do his best. And remember, this man in the Scripture… And we, in Scripture, are with this man. We are capable; we are capable. Remember, a man is not judged by what he has not, he is judged by what he has. See?

What’s expected of us in this end time is more than what has been expected before, but that is beside the point, because more has been given us.

If I’m a brawny person, able to lift two hundred pounds, I would have no trouble standing at the dikes and taking those sandbags of forty apiece and going “phoom, phoom, phoom.” But if I don’t have the strength to lift ten pounds, I can’t handle those sandbags of forty pounds. See?

But God’s given us strength, the strength of God in the measure of our necessity. And our necessity devolves by what position God has given us.

Now don’t get frightened. We’ll see a lot of good things in scripture this morning, I’m taking my time to understand. The food is going to be cooked very slowly, very deliciously.

So turn the tape over and put another one in, if we have to, and I hope not. All right.

Now in the majority, if not all, of the Gospel narratives, we find that each parable is addressing us all as stewards of the grace of God as stewards of the gift of God and the gifts of God.

These parables go back to Genesis even chapter 1 verse 26-31. And here’s where we find the germ or the seed of stewardship, the actual stewardship that God wanted above every single thing. So, 26 to 31:

Now you notice in there, there’s a great deal of talk about creation. And there’s no doubt that it is an actual creation. But you will find when God began to put man in a human body, something else happened: he breathed into him the breath of lives and man became a living soul.

God actually breathed the Holy Ghost into him in order that, by human instrumentality, He may have many manifested sons and each one a seed of God by that soul. And it was handed down from God to Adam and comes down by the human race and people don’t believe it.

I wonder if you believe it this morning that you’re really convinced that Brother Branham told us the truth, that positively, we are a part of God concerning our soul as he said, “My eyes, my ears, who’s me?”

See? They don’t understand the stream of life and God is life. And they don’t understand that life is spirit and God is spirit. See? That’s why they talk about, “Oh, we’re looking at Mars now.

I think for sure there was water up there. Oh my, it may be, then, all these comets came down and sprinkled everything upon earth, and, because all those things were right there propitious in order for life to come, life came.”

Hogwash! They forget that Brother Branham put it distinctly years ago: “Before God ever made a fish with a fin to swim, He made the waters to swim in.” I don’t care if comets brought it all down here; they got this and that on Mars.

These guys are complete kooks. They are insane. They are insane! The scientists are insane. We’ve got a bunch of Frankensteins and Draculas a God knows what. Not bat men; the bat’s smarter than that.

He can emit a sound that comes back and deters him from being hurt. But these scientists open their stupid mouths and emit sounds that are condemning them, and the idiots that listen will be condemned with them, because by your words you’re justified or by your words you’re condemned. See? So we’re very careful about our words this morning.

Genesis 1:

Now here we find, in the light of this stewardship, the stewardship is defined, they are to bring forth seed unto God, they are to be in control of the earth. And remember, it started there in the Garden of Eden.

And that’s very important to know that the Garden of Eden is a very special place the kingdom of God on earth. And the life in there, and their conduct within there, was entirely distinct from their conduct outside, which we’ll get into as we go a little further down the road.

Now, here we find a total disregard for the Creator, Who was their master employer. When He rightfully and authoritatively demanded their stewardship of the entire earth and it’s furnishings, be governed according to successful guidelines that were amply explained and demonstrated, they disregarded those rules and bankrupted God’s Kingdom on earth, and the devil took over.

For these six thousand years, Adam’s seed have been in bondage and can only come out of this pest house prison at the First Resurrection.

In other words the penalty, the warning, not so much penalty but the warning, of what would happen when you perverted the Word of God, you threw it from the positive to the negative. And man being… now listen, a receptacle of that Word as long as it’s positive, he went straight back to God, blessed by God.

The minute he perverted it, he went negative. So therefore, if the word ‘positive’ said, “Thou shalt live,” the word, ‘negative’, absolutely meant ‘death’. If the word ‘positive’ meant you would eat of that tree and the tree of life, and you’d be blessed, you would have it.

If you went negative, you would eat of the tree of death and you’d not blessed. Do you understand what I’m saying? All right.

So, this is what we’re looking at: sowing and reaping. And remember, God sowed that Word, and that Word cannot come back to Him negative. It’ll come back positive.

But the man who turned it negative will pay the price until God turns it back by redemption and according to the hour in which it is.

Only that will bring man back to a positive. In the mean time, for 6,000/ 4,000 years, they were dying. Then there was the first half of the First Resurrection.

Where they are and what they are doing don’t ask me. I only know they’re resurrected; they’re somewhere. They’re doing something. I don’t know. When our turn comes, we’ll find out.

But now, for two thousand years people have been dying. Why? Because entirely off of that Word. And you know as well as I do, it started in the garden. And then, what happened in the day of Paul?

Death entered the same way; it entered the same way. You tell me that there couldn’t be people living here upon earth? Sure, there could’ve been, but they haven’t, because man has always taken the Word and made it negative.

He has perverted it. And therefore, now, the Word of God cannot work unto life. It has to work unto death.

One day, and this is our day of the perfect Word, there’ll be a perfect Bride. She’ll go right into immortality. She will be here living and breathing and eating and everything else; and suddenly, like a sweep comes over her, the change is there, and she’s like the immortal ones raised from the dead in the second part, the omega part, of the resurrection, First Resurrection, going to be taken away. See? So we’re looking at a truth here.

Now there is another parable besides that in the Gospel that is not so well known. And that’s over here in Isaiah the 5th chapter, and just a few verses, 1 to 7.

Now you got sour grapes. You know you can’t make good wine without a lot of sugar. That’s why only California grapes make real wine in America, as far as I know at this point, because they alone have the sugar content.

You got a sour wine, you got to add sugar. You got a sour religion, you got to doctor it up. I can tell you one thing, God’s Word isn’t sour. People just make it sour. That’s the trouble, they just have fear.

But the Bible said the Holy Ghost, when He comes, doesn’t give us a to fear but of love and of courage and a sound mind. So there’s something a little bit wrong today in the light of the gift of the Holy Ghost Himself.

Wrong attitudes wrong applications, because there’s a fear in there. You’ve got it right in your kids; it’s called ‘peer fear’. When are you going to be taught to rise above the herd? See? What a difference. Okay.

Isaiah 5:

Isn’t that exactly what happened to Eve? Yeah. Here everything in the Garden of Eden is one hundred percent propitious. It wasn’t one thing out of disorder; everything was flawless. What did she do? She wouldn’t listen to the Word of the beloved.

No, she would rise above it. She listened to Satan, the perverter. So she perverted that Word with him. Now she’s no longer hedged in. Now she’s no longer behind the Word. She’s one hundred percent open now to anything that can happen in the realm of the negative the Word of God gone sour, the Word of God lost it’s power, the Word of God now not for you, the Word of God against you. See?

Remember, there is no such thing, in my books, as a God of judgment just coming down and judging, no way, shape, and form. There has to be a misdemeanor, before there can be a judgment; or there has to be a credit, before there can be a judge giving a merit award. It’s always with the Word, brother/sister, turning it down, turning it down, turning…

Why do you think the great tribulation is going to hit right after us getting out of here? Because they’ve turned down William Branham, prophet of God, God in the prophet. They wouldn’t listen to that voice that spoke form heaven.

They wouldn’t listen to the One that came down and informed the prophet what to tell us. They wouldn’t do it. So now they’re on their own, and they’re still saying, “We’re rich, increased in goods, and don’t lack a thing.”

They didn’t listen the prophet said, “You’re blind.” If they’d a said they were blind, they wouldn’t have had sin. But the minute they said, “We see, we don’t need you.”

What about the guy, then, that said, “If we’d only prayed, we wouldn’t have to have had Brother Branham?” Supposed to be in this message. What message? Not in my message that I believe. I couldn’t do without Brother Branham.

What voice spoke to me and said, “If you ever listen to any man, that’s the man you’ll listen to.” How could I listen to that man, if God or the devil one of the two hadn’t a sent him?

Well, you know, God never answers back to the devil’s plea. No way can you pray in Jesus’ Name and come in the Name of the Lord, and God betray you. That’s the secret that it is God. Oh, I get so burdened for this.

Isaiah 5:

What kind of judgment? To judge according to truth and institute it. We are now wise unto righteousness to discern between good and evil. We know the answers. We’ve been given them. We know the devil’s lie.

We know the secrets of God. “But behold oppression; for righteousness, behold a cry.” In other words there’s just constantly a cry going up, but there’s nothing coming from it.

Well, I’m going to tell you, at this end time, God will hear the cry of the righteous and judge And the result of this Word is settling in right now. all the negativity from that Word, by the disobedience and putting it to one side, because there’s only life in it. So therefore, the world is full with death at this particular time.

Now, having read these verses, it is not difficult to detect that the same spirit that was in Isaiah was in Jesus, when Jesus gave forth his parable on stewardship. Now you tell me it wasn’t. Same God goes right back to Genesis; goes right back to Israel. He planted them in the Promised Land.

And He said the first thing is, “I want you [to] get rid of all the enemies.” And He gave them all the strength to do it. He gave them all the pleasant places. He gave them everything they had need of a priesthood.

He gave them prophets. There was nothing they lacked. And you know what? They wanted something else. What kind of an appetite lies in us and let’s face it, it is there if our appetite for wrong for opposite the Word exceeds the appetite for what is in the Word?

And remember, Brother Branham talked to the old Indian up in Northern Canada I guess the Yukon Territory, way up there maybe past Whitehorse and so on. The Indian said, “Like there’s two dogs in me fighting all the time: one white dog, one black dog.”

He said, “Which one is winning, chief?”

He said, “The one I feed most.”

Like Brother Branham said, “Feed the Christ within you.” And there’s only one way you can do that, and that’s through the Word.

Now, so therefore, the same spirit in Isaiah was in Jesus when he gave forth his parables on stewardship in the Gospels. The perfections of God’s gifts and their importance to us were not rightly esteemed because of grace.

And in most cases there was not an instant response like there was in the Garden of Eden. People think they’re getting away with it. It’s like Oral Roberts tells the time when there was a certain man came to him, and he’d been committing adultery.

And I guess it was on a Saturday night; the man fell into sin. The next day he thought, “God will strike me dead in the pulpit.” He said, “Certainly,” he said, “Some terrible thing can happen.”

He got up there nervous as all get out, but he was so anointed by the Holy Spirit, in the office that he had of, course, that he preached with great freedom and he thought, “Hey! I wasn’t struck dead. I didn’t lose any anointing. I guess it’s all right.” Now you see, that’s what people are looking at.

The mills of God’s Word in judgment grind slow. And God does not bring judgment in twenty-four hours. He never has, except in the Garden of Eden. And I don’t think He ever will again, on this grounds: that that judgment will come whenever it is necessary for God to bring it.

In other word, God simply pulls away His support, because He’s not in that Word that the people have and therefore, the whole thing begins to go down. Because, remember this brother/ sister…

Now I’ll show you why, all creation was made by the Word of God and is now presently sustained by the same Word. Therefore, the minute you pull that Word back, that which was created is not eternal, begins to go down, down, down, down, down. So that’s what we’re looking at. All right.

Now, my major thought on the subject that we are considering is this, so listen carefully, and I’ll explain it: the indescribably munificent gift of God’s grace, in whatever form that grace comes, cannot be contemned, c-o-n-t-e-m-n-e-d, by man without the severity of God’s responding judgment.

Or, in other words, God pulling right back. Now it doesn’t say that you don’t have the free gifts by grace. Now the word ‘contemn’, and you’ll find it in the Bible, you find a dictionary, it means ‘to scorn and despise’. So I read it again. The indescribably munificent gift, or gifts, of God’s grace You can’t describe what God has given us.

It’s utterly beyond us. We have it in whatever form that grace comes, cannot be scorned or despised by man, without the severity of God’s response, which is: He can’t respond any more to you than what He gave you, and you are adrift as a star floating in the universe and has no mooring, orbits around nothing, orbits around everything wandering stars as the Bible proclaims it.

Now grace is unmerited favor; as Paul says: “the free gift.” And the free gift, or grace, is always unto life, never changing. It’s always unto life. It’s either to bring you back from the dead, to get you out of the mess you and me are in, to do those things that are vitally necessary for us, are free.

Always to life, never changing never ceasing. It is as Paul says in Romans 5:12-21, with verses 12-14 setting the basis for what precedes as grace to you and me. So let’s go to Romans the 5th chapter. And he says:

Now that’s in the negative concerning Jesus. As we got a free gift of being dislodged from God, all of us, slaves in the dominion of Satan, his kingdom.

Even so, as we did not ask for it, we did not ask for Jesus to come and pay a price and get us back to God.

So, you can understand now exactly what grace is. Grace is the free gift of Almighty God to rescue you and me and to get us back in the divine orbit of God, back to the oneness with God.

Back, not only to Eden, but far beyond Eden, which was merely a starting point. Now, if Eden was merely a starting point, what will be the end? New Jerusalem, but don’t ask me what that means, because I don’t know.

I’ll only know, and you will only know when we get there, and then, we’ll begin to realize the enormity and the immensity of what God gave by grace, that which Satan, through Adam, took away and Adam, by Eve, because she’s the traitor to the whole cause and Adam stood with her.

Now, watch in verse 15; “But not as the offense, so is also the free gift.” Now here again, is what we’re looking at. The stewardship, that Adam and Eve had, went into disrepute, went into sin, went to the place where every child of God was now born in sin, conceived in sin and shaped in iniquity, come into the world speaking lies, as Brother Branham said.

That’s the condition they put us into. But remember now, watch what It says here, “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.” In other words, the offence and the condition we are in cannot be compared to what God does for us by grace.

In other words, if we have one ton of guilt and filth and immorality, and all of those things that are condemnatory, because we have gone against the Word of God…

Now, by free grace, we don’t only have one ton to measure, we have a thousand tons to come against it. See? It tells you, you can’t compare them. I am comparing them but you cannot do it, Paul says you can’t compare.

Let me read It again;

Has leaped over the entire borders into the Kingdom of Almighty God, there to have His rest in the perfections of Jesus Christ and to come forth immortalized exactly like him. This is what you’re looking at. And who can compare it?

If we have sensations now that have come to the place where those sensations are paramount in the world today, and they’re mostly animal, rather than the exotic, aesthetic sensual of the spirit, just wait till we find when the breezes of God begin to blow upon us and the joy of Holy Communion of brothers and sisters.

What we have here now, we’ll look at, if we could look at it, we’d only look at it with disgust. And the finest of the finest couldn’t even begin to come near the lowest of the low in the Kingdom of God. Now that’s just trying to give you an idea of what Paul is saying here.

Adam and Eve did one thing, and they blew the whole thing. You and I have not only taken their sin but our own sins. So therefore, now God declares us completely as though we never did it.

And the Word of the Lord came back from God’s prophet right there, and He said, “Little Bride, you are the perfect, righteous, sinless Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. You didn’t even do it. You were tricked into it.”

And let me tell you something, you know as well as I do, and the police in America are so stinking and the law courts so rotten, you’ll never get this to happen; but the policemen, the people today, they trick people into sin, and then they pick them up.

They have policemen standing on the corner and women policemen to entice men like prostitutes. And the minute a man approaches them… And let me tell you, when that woman does that before God she’s guilty of adultery, and she’ll burn in hell, if she doesn’t repent.

That’s your law today. Yeah! O God have pity. I can’t wait to see America get the number seven, the burning. And, if I’ve got to burn with it, let me burn. One offense, but now many. One woman enticed brought all the sin on.

But she did that one thing. And, you know, just one thing. And out of that one thing came the millions and billions of sins that’s in the world today. But righteousness, which is exalted, and now through the Blood of Jesus Christ, gives us perfect cleansing.

Now we’ve got something really to look at. And that’s reigning in life right now considering even the life, which is to come, the reigning and ruling is priests and kings in the New Jerusalem.

Oh, they’ll be the complete fulfillment, and even far beyond what God gave Adam and Eve, and the sons of Adam, the sons of God by the flesh, greater than ever.

That’s what God said to Peter Peter looking at the Gentiles, Peter looking at himself, he learned a lesson right there. And God said, “Don’t you ever call yourself, or anybody under the Blood, common or unclean, when God’s cleansed it.” It’s a different thing right there.

Do you realize right now if we put our faith to work there wouldn’t be one morsel of food touch our lips that wouldn’t be good for us? Cleansed by the Word of God and prayer, brought back to diamonds.

I don’t mean for one minute that you can eat a bowl of pasta day after day and say, “Well that’s got all the vitamins in it.” I’m not talking about being some kind of a nut that you take a little bit of some kind of a cereal or a grain or some foolish thing and say, “Now Lord,” like the Catholics, you know, bless it with holy water, some rabbit’s foot.

Forget it. I’m talking about reality, where we know how to eat properly, our vegetables and the food before us. And I can tell you one thing; it’s cleansed by the Word of God and prayer, because Paul said so.

That doesn’t mean only cleansed from the altars of sacrifice to devils and things out there, I believe. I go beyond that, because this goes beyond it. It goes right to the crux of the thing. But it’s still the truth; nothing in the food.

We sure need to pray over it. We sure need to do everything we can. And in doing what we can, asking God to bless it, I believe we can have better health than we ever had before. It’s going to be pretty hard, but it can be done.

Now:

Now let’s look at that. “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound.” In other words God is telling you right here, “Look, if you sow wrong, you’re going to get a crop. If you sow one grain of wheat, you could get fifty back.”

So, if you sow one Word of God in the right spirit, the right attitude, with the right understanding, and you really mean it giving God the glory you could get multiplied back from God that you cannot believe. Now, let’s take a little further look.

That, “As sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign in righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.” So, all right, the Word of God perverted, the Word of God used the same as Satan used it, and the serpent used it to Eve, and Eve listened brings on all of this, which is death, because it is no longer the Word of God, but the Word of God standing there in all creation, these things got to go down.

Because, as I told you, all things are made by Him, spoken Word, and all things maintained by Him, spoken Word. You turn away from it; you’re going to see the thing go down. That’s why at the end time there’s going to be the complete dissolution of the heavens and the earth and new ones come in, going to be there.

You simply cannot take away this Word. That is why Brother Branham said, “He is His Word, God is the Word, and this is God in print.” And the revelation of this Word in you and me constitute the reigning of God in our lives, as we lay our bodies on the altar of sacrifice. We’ll go into more and more of that.

Now, the offense abounded, but where sin abounded… Now what’s sin? Unbelief. Now let’s look at it. There never was a time of more unbelief than this hour. Not even in the days of Jesus, because that was merely a small fraction of the people, chosen Israelites.

There was no relationship to the Romans or anybody else; it was Israel. “He came to his own, and his own received him not.” And ‘his own’ had to be Israel, because he was born of the tribe of Judah according to the flesh. They crucified him. Unbelief. There is no such thing as unbelief in the world this time except in the day of Noah, and this is worse far worse.

Now, where sin abounds unbelief. And all of the attributes of sin: smoking, drinking, adultery, lying, stealing, killing, raping, drug addiction, destruction; you name it. Those are the symptoms.

Now, with life abounding by grace, there won’t be one bit of that in a Bride. Her attitudes will be incorruptible and uncorrupted. Oh, I’m looking for a Bride in this earth, but I expect I’ll be dead. But I’m looking for a Bride that’s been brought up in this Word, going to be nobody like her.

And you know how she’s going to be that way? Because you’re going to teach your children. You’re not going to look at yourselves and say, “Look, I wasn’t so good like these guys out there.”

They said, “What about pot?” to these mothers and fathers in the world. They said, “No big deal.”

Sure, because they smoked it. And the President of course, he didn’t inhale, phttt! I could tell you a joke right now that’s a true joke, but I won’t do it. It’s a little bit too filthy; we best leave it alone.

Now, as unbelief reigned unto death, and it’s reigning right now, so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. And righteousness is what? The worship of God according to truth. There’s going to be a Bride get out of here. Okay.

Now, thus we see what even the gifts of grace given us end up in eternity. And to see that, we go to 1 Corinthians the 3rd chapter. Now It says here, in verse 10.

Paul was one hundred percent consecrated to the gift and the use of the gift, which was not his to use on his own, but God using the gift according to His Own knowledge and desires within the man who knew how to get to one side.

“Get out of the way,” as Brother Branham said. That’s in Ephesians. I read it to you many times.

You can take the Word of God; I can take the Word of God. Now how we going to take it? How we going to handle it? How we going to use it? What kind of stewards are we?

Well, it depends on how our stewardship… If we honor it, we’ll have gold, silver, precious stones from that Word. If we do not honor it: wood, hay, stubble burned out.

We’re talking about eternity now, because remember, this is the gold that doesn’t perish, this is the gold spoken of by Peter.

Now he’s going to get multiplied status by being faithful. And faithfulness comes, first of all, to the revelation, which is by faith, because, if you’re off that revelation, it doesn’t matter what you do: give your body to be burned no problem.

Give everything you have to the poor no problem. Do what you want. You still haven’t got it, because righteousness has to do solely and purely with the seed and the attitude, which is the true revelation of that which God has given to that seed. That’s in 1 John 3.

He’s talking of people here. You can waste everything God has given you, or you can make good of it.

I had the little stupid idea I wanted to be an evangelist, because I loved the Lord and I wanted to, you know, this is where the glamour was. But I never could be. It wouldn’t work out. Nothing did. I finally reconciled after the prophet told me.

He said, “You know, you’re no pastor. You’re a teacher.” A little gift of teaching. And I’m very happy and very satisfied, and I hope by the grace of God that I may get a reward, because I believe I’ve been faithful to the Word.

Now, of course, my attitude will have a lot to do with it too. But I’m sure I don’t have an attitude where I just want to destroy people or something else, that’s not the point, or be iconoclastic or put a little realm around myself and say, “Look, I’ve got it and you’d better come to Lee Vayle to get it.”

I never have said that, never will. Why should I be such an idiot? Because it isn’t true. Nobody has to come to me for anything.

But, whether anybody comes or anybody listens, that hasn’t got a thing to do with it. I’m supposed to be faithful to the Word of God. If nobody listens, I’m still supposed to blow, as it were, my voice in the wind. And God will not let that Word come back void, if that is the Word of God in my mouth.

And, if nothing happens, it is still the Will of God, because there’s going to come a time when all men’s ears are closed, because they got the little punch… awl mark in there, except the tiny, tiny minority, of Brother Branham said, “One hundredth of one percent will not listen.”

Tell me, how many percent even heard in this seven million people five and a half to seven million people on earth? Tell me, how many? Have a million heard? Huh? Huh-uh. Do a million know about Brother Branham’s tapes and ministry?

Well, let’s say that they did. Only one hundredth of one percent would even listen. Kind of few that travel the narrow way and get through the little narrow gate. All right.

Now, so, having read these verses and seeing a little of the grace of God, let us see in the Scripture where grace was frustrated, even by fine people, exactly, it was Peter.

Let’s go to Galatians 2. This is where “let a man think that he standeth take heed, lest he fall.” Listen to Paul in 2:11-21:

Don’t use the word ‘dissimulation’ like a ‘little argument’. “Oh, they couldn’t quite make their minds up.” They were hypocrites! Because they knew better, but they catered to the crowd.

Like Becky tells in her last paper how that Carl Williams and Sonmore were the only ones that voted against the Full Gospel Businessmen Shakarian, the whole bunch of them, evidently didn’t want to hear Brother Branham anymore; and they said, “You reverse it, or we resign.”

And they saw two of the most influential men were ready to pull out, they said, “Oh well, we’ll let it go.” Until the only place Brother Branham could ever go with that bunch of hypocrites, Trinitarian idolaters, who turned the grace of God into a lie was through Carl Williams.

I don’t know that Sonmore did any more; he talks a lot about Brother Branham talking with him in Jamaica for three hours telling him things that are coming to pass right today. Who cares two bits about that.

I don’t care if Brother Branham said there’s a flood coming, and I find a record he said it tomorrow morning. I am not interested, give me the truth of eternal life, because I could die in a flood. It doesn’t make a bit of difference. Or a fire, as long as I’ve got His life burning in me by the Word. I don’t go for this nonsense.

Let’s keep reading.

Are we down here now to tell that the Father and the Son had a contract, but we’re changing the terms? We’re changing how it’s administered? We’re now putting a hand in the pot? That’s your organization; that’s your preachers and your teachers; your five-fold ministry that’s corrupt.

Not a true five-fold ministry. And your deacons and your elders that want to rise up like we had them here, and tried to tell me what to preach. A lot of people thought I was mean. A little old gal in front here said, “Oh, you’re mean Brother Vayle, you’re mean.”

I said, “Well I’m mean. Fine.”

She’s a hypocrite. She said, “I don’t care what Brother Branham said.”

Well I do care. I do care. And my care is, “Am I believing right? Have I got the right attitude concerning it? Am I doing right by it?”

These were a bunch of… Peter was a hypocrite the whole bunch of them. They knew better.

Hey, we’re talking about men full of the Holy Ghost. We’re talking about Peter saying, “Let’s choose men full of Holy Ghost and faith to do these things. We’re not called to serve tables, bless God. We’re here for the bigger things.”

Now the big thing came. He opens the door to the Gentiles. Now he slams the door in their faces. Hey! Stewardship! And you’re responsible, even if you are Peter, or you’re Paul or James or John, or you’re Jesus Christ.

You’re responsible, because God Himself is a steward. He said He stands behind His Word to perform It. Now I feel like shouting and screaming, but the Pentecostals wouldn’t go with me.

They wouldn’t grab the chandeliers and start swinging. I think Ralph might. He’s a good old boy. But, if the rest didn’t follow us, I’d know something’s wrong. I know something is very wrong, because this is the faith of Jesus Christ. This is His contract.

This is His life. This is His security. This is His Church. This is His Word. And we dare to finangle; and we know better. And Brother Branham said, “They know better.” And I preached that sermon in Toronto.

Not because I preached it, because I preached what Brother Branham said, it should go the whole world and they’d know that God doesn’t do one thing manifested, except for the purpose of the integrity of His Word. Oh, yeah.

He said, “But if, [verse 17] while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners, [unbelievers] is therefore Christ the minister of unbelief?” This faith contract of God in the Son coming down here.

Did Jesus take his hands off now and tell these people, “It’s okay; let’s go into unbelief now?” Do you know what these guys are doing? They’re making Jesus Satan. Let it sink in. Is he the minister now of sin? Is he telling us to go back on it?

Now the Church, having been set in order, shall we put the pew full of tongues and interpretations, so-called, and women prophesying and all that jazz, because it is jazz, it’s a strident sound, it’s off-beat with the Word of God.

They’re marching to the tune of a different drummer. I can tell you that. The beat of a different drummer. Now listen to what Paul said:

Peter finally woke up, and he calls it: “turning back the dog to its vomit and the sow to the wallow.” And he was saying, “I was washed. I’m born of the Word. I blew it for a while. But not anymore.”

And they took him to crucify him, and he said, “I’m not worthy, turn me upside down.” He learned his lesson. It took Paul, who wasn’t with Jesus, who received everything by revelation, to set those other apostles right.

So you see, if we put our faith in anything we think we are, or anything we’ve got, either Paul or William Branham, and you begin to make one little move, Paul said let an angel from heaven come down, even purported an angel of God, change one word, “Let him be accursed.” If I change one word, let me be accursed.

Hey! He didn’t need to say that, he would be. Now he wouldn’t be lost, but he’d be disapproved, and everything he stood for, everything he proclaimed, everything he saw, would go down the drain.

Be careful, lest any man take thy crown; be careful, lest any man take your place. How many preachers had ministries and lost them by adultery? Right today we’ve got preachers whose wives have left them. They’ve had to step down. Why?

Because Brother Branham said, “If my wife left me, I’d have to leave the ministry.” I don’t know if there’s Bible for it, because the gifts from God are without repentance. But the thing is, there’s common sense for it.

Who’d want a man whose wife left him? But it’s right today all over the place. Something is radically wrong.

Now, did I get to 21? No, let’s keep reading. “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” What did the law do? The law merely came and showed them where they were wrong.

And, if they persisted in it, it meant hey, they’ll lose everything but their eternal life providing they had this eternal life, because you can’t [lose eternal life]. God can’t lose a part of Himself. Now watch:

He said, “Forget it Peter. Forget it you guys. Stick with reality. This is reality. Stick with it.”

Now just a minute. What does the word ‘frustrate’ mean? It means to ‘set aside’, to ‘disesteem’, to ‘neutralize’, to ‘violate’, to ‘cast off’, to ‘despise’, to ‘reject’, to ‘bring to nothing’. Brother Branham kept saying, “One word off, there goes your grace. There goes everything.”

We’re talking now in terms of revelation. Paul was only standing up for the revelation. He never stood against those men, as though they were filthy, as though they were rotten. They were hypocritical, because they knew better. Oh yes, they knew better.

But Paul stood with the Word, the defense of the Gospel, which was brilliantly what? Word, Spirit, Jesus. And Brother Branham, at the end time, brought them all back; the true and the living God; the beautiful Son of God; the Word today; the Son on the Father’s throne.

God, down here, bringing all things into subjection; and the Word of God, powerful, bringing to life a Bride; and to the full fruitage of what God saw for this end time.

Now we ought to read Romans chapter 2. You girls better turn down the heat on the dishes out there, I’ve got three pages out of twelve here. Now:

Now here is a fellow saying something and putting a stamp of approval or disapproval on it, and he’s doing it out of his own head of his own heart, his own mind. But this is something different. What Paul is doing, now, is different. Watch what it is:

You see, look, how you esteem that Word and how you hold it is really going to influence your life, whether you believe it or not, because that Word has a certain life in it, and life has to manifest according to the Word. A dog does not mew and cat does not bark.

Neither does salty, impure waters come out of a pure fountain. Double mindedness and double-tongueness is not in the Word for any Christian. The minute you take a stand, that’s the minute something happens to you. That’s the minute you’re going to manifest something that didn’t manifest before.

These guys are looking at works. They’re pronouncing a judgment. They’re saying, “How can you people that believe Reverend Branham, all these things you say, why you’re no different from us in fact, you’re not as good.” Hasn’t a thing to do with it. And yet it has a lot to do with it in a certain way.

Now:

See, there’s the whole thing, they’re off the Word of God in their worship and service. I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what it is. A misinterpretation of the Word of God brings unrighteousness, because your sin boils down to unbelief, which boils down to unrighteousness, because faith brings the perfection of God through the Blood and through the Word of a five-fold ministry.

So all right. As we have already seen, stewardship is exactly worked out, good or evil, on the premise of sowing and reaping. See? That’s what you’re looking at.

So Galatians the 6th chapter 7 to 10… I’m trying to show you here there are certain things that we do according to the light and the life. Bringing our bodies under subjection, now begin to sow.

And sowing the Word is sowing righteousness because nothing outside of this Word is right. Nothing outside the Word is right, because the Word sets the standard. See? There’s nothing you can do about it. So all right, 7 to 10.

We read that in the book of 1 Corinthians. You sow to a spirit. In other words you open your life for the Spirit of God to come in: repent, be baptized, you’ll be full of the Holy Ghost. From that time on, the Word takes precedence, because now the Holy Spirit lives in the Word.

And you begin to plant that Word, there is no way you will not reap that Word. It may take you a long time. It may take you as though you’ll even leave this life and are barren, but you watch what happens up there at the judgment seat when God places you with great honor and calls your name and bestowed upon you garlands and wreaths and crowns and introduces you.

Brother Branham saw the scene. And a man prophesied, “Because you have obeyed the Word of God, you’ve made the correct decision, a great portion of the kingdom awaits you, great privilege, great power.” There’s a kingdom; and when you’ve got kingdom, you’ve got rulers under you. Oh yeah, there’s a real kingdom there.

Now:

Now, right there it shows you there’s a tremendous stewardship in people in the Church honoring and loving each other, not covering up sin, not lording over people, not being high minded as though they can’t fall; but being honest in real integrity of the Scripture and the Holy Ghost to help the people advance in Christ.

It’s the same with our kids. Now, even oral gifts in the Church are based on Paul’s God-ordained commandment, which is in Galatians 6:10, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”

Now, let’s go back to Corinthians, to the Pentecostal Church of Paul’s day, who based everything upon the day of Pentecost and the utterance gifts. Let’s find what Paul says about them, and to them, concerning stewardship.

Are you ready? We go first of all, then, to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Now all this I’m teaching I feel is necessary, because we have to know the truth of everything we possibly can. 18-19, and I’m condensing this.

Then, how dare anybody get up and speak in tongues in a church and take up that time, when they have believers meeting, coming together and there’s where it could be, and even cause chaos there because they all want to talk in tongues at one time, different people want to take the floor, false prophecies going forth, everything without control, nobody at the door discerning spirits, the whole thing just a camouflage?

And yet they are using legitimate gifts to which they are stewards, or of which they are stewards, and they will reap the disapproval of God. Why? Because they turned the Word negative, and they used it to a wrong end.

Now, watch it go up in flames. That’s why at the end time; the Laodicean Pentecostal Church is chaff to be burned wood, hay, stubble.

Now I’m going to tell you something. If this sermon went to churches I know in America and Canada, they would sneer and call me every name in the book. And I care less because the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

You don’t have to talk in tongues out of order, though you certainly can in a proper meeting. You don’t have to prophesy out of order.

You don’t have to be like the preacher who used to come here with his gang all the time and finally went down to Tennessee, and he said, “Now, look,” he said, “If I prophesy wrong, don’t write me off your books,” he said, “How many times did Babe Ruth go to the bat to make a home run?”

Brother Branham said, “One prophecy you’ll pray that spirit off of you.”

And he told the people to welcome a wrong spirit? Now what kind a preacher is that? Now I’m going to tell you something, I’m condemning myself here right this morning, because, if I do something like that, you just better boot me out or walk off. It might be hard to boot me out, but it wouldn’t be hard to walk off and leave me here stranded, because I deserve it. Well, all right.

Let’s keep on going. Then, what about Romans 12:3 to 8, with verses 9 to 21 explaining how gifts are to be used? Oh, you won’t get the Pentecostals going to Romans 12. You won’t get them listening to…

Hey! I was down in Texas many, many years ago, and I was, you know, latter rain on the fringes. And I got up there one time, and I said, “Listen, do you realize that the awareness of God and the anointing of God are two different things?”

I said, “Let me explain to you. What if I’m in the house, and I hear the telephone bbbrrr, ring, ring, ring. I don’t jump up and down, jump up and down and talk in tongues and fly around and this and that, I pick up the receiver, and I say “Hello.” I want a message.

I said, “Therefore, if I feel the spirit of God moving on me, I don’t have to get hilarious and then speak in tongues. I say, ‘Lord, what do you want me to know?’ And I illustrated.

I was in a meeting years ago in Ohio here up near Findlay. I forget the name of the town. I’ll remember later on. And, anyway, I suddenly felt a real moving, what I considered the Spirit moving within me. Now I was Pentecostal see, so you’ve got to forgive me.

And I was just going to, you know, be an utterance kind of Pentecostal. And suddenly something within me said, “Hey, just a minute. Maybe that’s not for speaking in tongues or prophesying or something,” and I’d been out of order. And I picked up my phone, I said, “Hello.”

And a voice inside said, “Look up. There’s a lady at the back. See her at the end of that chair there, the chair. And she has this and thus wrong with her. Pray for her.”

And I said, “Sister, you sitting at the back. Isn’t it true that you have thus and thus?”

And she said, “Yes.”

I said, “Let’s pray it will leave you.”

Now, what if I’d a spoken in tongues? And I tried to tell the people that. Ho, man did they get mad. Whoa, boy, I was finished.

But one fellow walked out and he said, “Brother Vayle,” he said, “You sure raised their hackles. But,” he said, “I want you to know, you’re right.”

They didn’t invite me back. And I was a little disappointed, because I didn’t have the truth in those days.

But anyway, here we are in Romans 12:3. “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, [Now listen, this is a gift that Paul had freely given him: the gift of revelation, the commandments of God, and any man born again, any man a prophet, any man of knowledge, will admit what I say is superimposed on every single thing you ever said, because I have the Word of God. This is God. Now listen.] not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.”

Now look, if you don’t have faith to prophesy, shut your mouth and sit down. If you don’t have faith to pray for the sick, don’t bother. You know I mean we’re talking about ministries where they got to. Show some evidence that something going on.

And I know what I’m talking about. Buddy, I’ve prophesied. I’ve spoken in tongues with absolute revelation. I’ve laid hands on the sick. Cancer disappeared, everything under high heaven, tumors of the brain easy.

Any little baby with a water head or with a spastic problem, you know, paralysis, as long as they were under two years of age. [There was] not a failure; not to my knowledge. Get my hands on them in time. See? Faith.

Now let’s keep reading.

In other words you’ve got a measure of faith to do every one single thing. Now that sounds good. Those are gifts.

Now let’s find out how everybody can operate those gifts and whether they’re amongst us right today in this church. “Let love be without hypocrisy.”

You know, there’s a cute thing happened years ago. You know very well that my contract with this church was, if I stay here and preach my sermons that go out on tape, I didn’t have to pastor, because I’m not a pastor. You understand.

It wasn’t the best thing, but that was the contract. And I’ve stood by it. And I’ve taught, and my sermons have gone out from here. And my name wasn’t up for a vote. But, because of a certain brother, I said, “Look it, I’ll put my name up for a vote too.”

I had four people vote against me. I bet those four people shook my hand, loved me, and said everything nice, but wanted me out of their hair and out of their way.

Look, don’t be a hypocrite around me brother/sister. Look, it isn’t worth it. You’re going to pay a bigger price than I do. Don’t put anything on. Just be natural. If you’re an old rubber boat for God’s sake be a rubber boot.

That’s what God wants you to be, a rubber boot not a rubber stamp a rubber boot. Rubber boots are very good. They keep water off people’s feet. They can slosh through mud when others can’t.

They can go through water and tides. Rubber boots are very good. David knew that, he said, “I’d sooner be a door keeper in the house of the Lord than be a king, as long as I can be what God wants me to be.”

Now watch:

Don’t do anything about [it], just get mad, then walk off. People don’t understand me. I blow my stack. I keep on blowing my stack, but to do something; I just mouth about it.

Not even good to blow your stack. It gives you ulcers. Of course, I’ve always said, “I don’t have ulcers; I give them.”

And, if you’re doing that, you’ve got every gift that God has given you in perfect working order. What more do you want? “Well, I want to talk in tongues, Brother Vayle. I want to talk in the church.” Ah, shut up. I don’t buy that. See? All right.

There is not one seed, which is a born one, who becomes a reborn one of the spirit, but is a servant like his master, a veritable bond slave, even as Jesus is yet in his resurrection of high priest, and he can’t get out of it.

He’s stuck. And that’s why the Bible calls him a faithful high priest, because he had a decision that he made.

God said, “Thou art a priest after the order of Melchisedec.”

He said, “I’ll be that faithful one.”

“Lo a body has thou prepared.”

“I’ll take that body.”

And being a son, yet he suffered, sticking to his decision, knowing the power of the cross, what it would do to him. And I’ve showed you the terrible suffering. We had that on a tape that I got from Dr. Dobson. We played it here.

Taking the sins upon him, not having done anything evil he was spoken in evil, done whatsoever was wrong, like a lamb, led to the slaughter.

And he said, “Lord, if this cup can pass from me, I would like it; but not my will, but Yours be done.” And you know something?

He suffered, and he learned obedience, and yet they call him ‘God’. How can God ever learn obedience? You talk about corrupt information and disinformation from the pit of hell.

You listen to these idolatrous Trinitarians, and the Oneness are the same bit, the same ilk and the same thing. How can they do it? You see where all this goes. Okay.

He is that high priest. Yet all of us are taken from the ranks, common, sons, slaves, so on, bondservant; and given different gifts for different offices and fully endowed and endued. We’re not just endowed; we’re endued.

In other words we don’t merely have something to work with; we have what it takes to work with it. In other words it’s omniscience plus omnipotence in us in a measure. Right? It has to be, because, if you’re endowed and endued by God, let’s face it, you’ve got something from God and God’s going to see that it works.

Now, well forget about me, lets keep going all given different gifts for different offices, fully endowed and endued and fully responsible, for service toward God. And that responsibility is the original purpose and commission of God to His Own and can never change, as seen in the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:12.

Then, if I got it right, it’ll be there.

Now you see right here there are certain things, and they’re legitimate; they’re right. But hold it. It may not be for you, or it may not be how you want to use it. Now, you see, if you wanted to be a cheerful giver, everybody can do that, to a degree, but you wouldn’t have that genuine office.

You could have an elder or a deacon apt to teach. That’s fine, but that would not constitute you as a teacher in the five-fold ministry. You could possibly prophesy the odd time, and maybe just once in your life, and it be one hundred percent accurate, but you wouldn’t be a prophet. See?

So you don’t covet what isn’t yours. You can only covet what is available to you and what you know from the grace of God which is a free gift you would be able to do it. See? There’s no fear with these things.

I’ve gone past the place of fear in teaching, except I have to watch myself and say, “Now just a minute, are you sure?” Because this is what the prophet said, this is what lines up can you understand? Those are things we all have to watch in that. See?

But he tells you right here that we are able to use good things in a wrong way. As Brother Branham said, “What is the manifestation such as sin?” He said, “It’s always the right act perverted,” which, of course, he mentioned as fornication and adultery. So therefore, we have many of these things.

He said, the same as, “What is a lie? It is merely the truth perverted.” What if people used the Word of God to perpetrate a lie? What if they used the Word of God to substantiate a position they do not hold?

What if they used the Word of God to lord it over somebody? What if they used the Word of God to lead people to their own camps? All these things are possible; they lie there.

Paul said, “Though all things are lawful, [They’re all here.] all things are not expedient: all things are lawful, but I’ll not be brought under the power of any.”

Then, what power are you going to be brought under? The Word. No matter what you and I have or what we don’t have, let us try to be sensible in using the Word of God.

Now we want to go to the context of what we’re into here. We go to,

There’s many things that we could do, but they’ll end up in condemnation, because they, in themselves, do not seem too wrong or too far out.

Now, going back to what I said, all of these things here: we’re responsible, and we’re responsible to use them in the household of faith. That’s what Paul is preaching.

That’s why, when I mentioned tongues and interpretation, Paul said, “I would rather speak only ten words of my understanding that the Bride, the people in the Church, are edified; [that] they get some help.

Because, if I’m doing it on my own, though I could be exalted within me, and I could find some spiritual uplift,” he said, “those people aren’t getting something.

So therefore, what we’re looking at now is not only this: that we have gifts that we’re responsible in our actions toward God, but it’s now upon all the members of the people in the church here. That’s why I said the man going behind my back and lying to certain of you in the congregation, I said it’s time that you went.

Another man said, “I don’t agree with what you’re preaching.”

I said, “What’s to agree or disagree? This is my pulpit. Don’t tell me what to preach.”

Poor Pete had that problem. He ended up saying, “Listen, if you want to preach, preach.” He said, “I never heard such miserable sermons in my life, as when they tried to preach.” The same guys took Peter Marstrander aside and talked for hours on his concoctions. One concoction was, “At one time, Satan was the bride of Christ.”

When he got through talking to Peter, he said to Peter, “And what do you think?”

And Peter said, “I’ll be more careful who I let talk to me next time.” Talk about nonsense. All right.

We have now opened the door very wide for 1 Corinthians 6:12. 1 Corinthians 6:12 tells us; “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful, but I’ll not be brought under the power of any.” Why, if all things are pure to the pure in heart?

The Word of God and the endowments of God are tremendous. But the thing is this: the minute we try to use gifts for the sake of gifts, rather than let God guide us in the use of those gifts and I’ll give you a Scripture for it we now come to the place where it’s not only not expedient, but we’re brought under the power of it.

And, when you’re brought under the power of it, you are going to pay for sullying that particular gift; you’ll be accountable for it. See?

Now, so all right. All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient. And I’ll not be brought under the power of them, because there’s a power, you were supposed to be brought under over here in Ephesians 3:20.

“Now unto him that is able to exceeding abundant above all we ask or think, according to the power that is at work within us.” In other words the Word of God and the gifts are absolutely able to do the incomparable, as long as God is in control of that which is within you.

And Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, I am dead, dead, dead: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh by Christ living in me,” see, I live through that life, to the… I live the life that’s… let me get that for you again.

“For I’ve been crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ that lives within me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

And so you see, what he’s doing, he’s saying, “I am under the power of the resurrected Christ as the head of the Church, and as he is the head, and I am a member, that head controls me, which am the member.”

Now listen, this is not only possible, it is mandatory. See, I’ve told you, I’m setting a high standard this morning, and I’m not claiming as though I’ve reached any place that is very great. And I haven’t got to the real nitty-gritty of the message yet, which I won’t be able to do this morning.

But I’m leading you to it to show you that: look here, we have been enabled. And not only is that enablement a gift, but that gift is used at the discretion of the omniscient God. And when it is, it turns into omnipotence.

Even if we died over it, and we’re taken to the grave or burned in oil, and we had to starve on a missionary field somewhere, you watch, at the end of the trail, and before the end of the trail, God Himself is there doing it. You’re not under a gift, my brother/sister.

Smith Wigglesworth, the daredevil of faith they called Jack Coe that but they called Wigglesworth the apostle of faith. When a man was dead this is the truth from those who saw it and the book is still extant he took the corpse off the bed, put him against the wall and said, “Walk!” and the corpse walked.

His wife died and he raised her from the dead. And God said, “You raised her, but you shouldn’t have. I’m going to take her, and the next time, don’t raise her.” He left her go to the burial.

I’m going to tell you, the gifts in the church are powerful and super-powerful, when they’re administered by God Himself in a human vessel. Then don’t talk to me about the Pentecostal Church that doesn’t care two bits for the ministry of Almighty God and want only gifts of a manifestation.

I’m not interested. I wish I were so subdued to the Will of Almighty God that these things could begin to operate in my life the way they should.

Well, I’m not here to take two more hours, even though you’re gracious enough to let me. I’m going to turn my notes here, and, if and when I get back, we’ll try to make a little resumé and start over.

Stewardship. Am I a steward? Yes I am. Am I a son? Absolutely. Am I a bond-slave? Very, very truly. Am I a brother? Absolutely. Are we all in this together, and God’s the head? Oh yes we are; yes we are. But I’m preaching the sanity and the power in the presence of gifts, I believe, in the way they should be.

And, if I thought for one minute we could open a room here and someone could stand at that door and I myself had the gift to have a discerning of spirits, I’d be happy to go in that room, see what could happen. I was willing to go with Brother Branham. Each time the door was shut on us.

If I was willing under a prophet and the door was shut, I’m not opening any doors as far as I know. I have a little bit too much fear, hoping it’s a little bit too much respect to try to go in with hobnail boots where the prophet couldn’t tread, because He wouldn’t let him.

Do you understand what I’m saying? That’s the way it is.

Let’s rise and be dismissed. Not if the Lord wills, but whatever happens, if God wills or works it out, be with you again.

Heavenly Father, as we go our ways at this time, having lunch together, further fellowship, may the grace of God continue, the same life in the Word, and may it now settle in our hearts and minds in such a way that we begin to comprehend as well as have apprehended that every single one of us is a member in particular, every one of us is here to edify each other, every one here has everything that is absolutely needed, we do have the measure of faith, we do have the Holy Spirit to minister those things through us.

Help us O God, to get to the place where we walk in the bold faith of the apostle Paul, no hypocrisy, no way, neither shall we be intimidated. But we shall march on as that army as Brother Branham spoke of in Joel.

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, through His blessed Son, our Lord Jesus Christ our brother, our great high priest, our intercessor and our mediator, now through him, the great one, may the healing Word and the healing power in this message as Brother Branham said, “Take this message for your healing,” heal our souls, heal our minds, heal our spirits, and heal our bodies, and bring us into the place of victory and absolute prosperity within our lives.

In the Name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Take the Name of Jesus With You.