E-1 Thank you, Brother Neville. Lord bless you. Good morning, friends. I certainly deem this one of the highlights of my life, to be in the Tabernacle again this morning to see its beautiful structure and the order of the children of God setting in His house today.
I was so astonished when I got here yesterday and seen the looks of the building. I never dreamed that it would be this way. When I seen the blueprints, that when they had drawn up the blueprints, I just seen another little room setting on the side, but now I find it to be a--a beautiful place. And we are grateful to the Almighty for this beautiful place. And we are...
E-3 I'm bringing you this morning greetings from my wife and my children who long to be here at this time for this dedicational service and these--a week of consecration to Christ; but the children are in school, and it's hard to get away. And... They have about worn away from their homesick feeling for the house, but we will never wear away the feeling for you people. You don't wear that away.
There's such as having friends, and I--I appreciate friends, everywhere, but there's something about old friends: no matter where you make new friends, it still isn't the old. No matter where I'd ever roam, this spot will always be sacred. For about thirty years ago in a muddy pond bed, I dedicated this piece of ground to Jesus Christ when it wasn't nothing but a--a mud bed. This was all a pond. That's the reason the street's out of cater there, the--the road had to go around to get away from the pond that was in here.
E-4 And in here there used to be lilies, pond lilies come up. And the--the lily is a very strange flower. Though it is born in mud, it has to press its way through the mud and then through the waters and slime to get itself up to the top to show its beauty. And I--I think this morning that that's a whole lot what's happened here. That since that time, a little pond lily has pushed itself; and when it got to the top of the water, it spread its wings forth; its little petals went out, and it reflected the Lily of the Valley.
E-6 May it long stand. May it be a house fully dedicated to God. The Tabernacle itself has been dedicated in 1933, but thinking this morning it would be a--a very good thing for just a--a small service of dedication again and especially to the people who's... (with their love and devotion to Christ), has made this all possible.
E-7 And I want to thank each and every one of you for your offerings and so forth that you have put forth to dedicate this church to Christ. And I'm greatly in appreciations and thank the congregation to speak these words in behalf of our good brethren here of the church who's dedicated their services to this: Brother Banks Wood, our noble brother; Brother Roy Roberson, our noble brother; and many others who, with unselfishness and with singleness of heart, has put months in constructing this place the way it's been--stayed here to see that it was built just right. And...
E-9 When I walked in to see this pulpit, the kind I have always longed for all my life--I... Brother Wood knew what I liked. He never said he would build it, but he has built it. And I noticed the building and how the construction, it's just all... It's supreme.
E-10 And now, there's no words to express my feeling. There's just no way to do it (See?), and--but God understands. And may you each be rewarded for your contributions and all that you have done to make this place what it is in the way of a building, a house of the Lord.
And now, I--I would like to say these words: Now, the building, as beautiful as it is, inside and out... My brother-in-law, Junior Weber, had the brick masonry... I don't see how it could have been anything better than what it is: a perfect job.
E-12 Another brother who's here (I never met the man), he put in the sound system. But noticing even in a flat building like this, I can just... There's no rebound to the acoustics; they're in the ceilings here--different ways. No matter where I stand, it's just the same. See? And every room is--is constructed that the speakers are in them. And you can make it any way you wish to hear. It's--I believe it was the hand of Almighty God Who did these things.
E-13 Now, if our Lord has so given us a building that we can worship Him in... For better than--around thirty years... We started off with a mud floor--sawdust, and set here by old coal stoves. And the contractor, Brother Wood, one of them, Brother Roberson was telling me that where those pilasters was, and those old stoves used to set in those rafters that went across, they had caught fire and had burned back maybe two or three feet. Why it didn't burn down, only God that kept it. And then after burning off and all the weight of the Tabernacle laying on that, why it did not fall in--only the hand of God. Now, it's undergirded with steel and setting on the ground built up strong.
E-14 Now, I think it's our duty to make the inside right by the grace of God to be so grateful to God that our... This will just not only be a beautiful building that we'll come to, but may everyone who comes in see the beautiful characteristic of Jesus Christ in every person that comes in.
May it be a consecrated place to our Lord, a consecrated people, for no matter how beautiful the structure is (that we certainly do appreciate), the beauty of the church is the character of the people. I trust it'll always be a house of God of beauty.
E-15 Now, in the dedicational service of the original cornerstone being laid, a great vision came, and it's wrote in the cornerstone the morning I dedicated it.
E-16 And you might've wondered a few minutes ago why I was so long coming out. My first duty as I come into the new church, I married a young man and woman standing in the office. May it be a type that I'll be a loyal minister to Christ to get a Bride ready for the ceremonies of that day.
E-17 And now, let us do as we did at the beginning. When we started at the first dedication of the church, I was just a young man and my--maybe twenty-one, twenty-two years old when we laid the cornerstone. It was before I was even married. And I always wanted to see a place correctly in order and God's--for God to worship (See?) with His people. And we can only do that, not by a pretty building, but by a consecrated life is the only way we can do it.
E-18 And now, before we dedicate a dedicational prayer--read some Scriptures and dedicate the church back to God, and then I have some--I have a message on evangelism this morning to build in to my message coming up.
And tonight, I want to take the 5th chapter of Revelations, which is blending in from the--from the Seven Church Ages to the Seven Seals, that I... Then we'll have... Monday night will be the white horse rider; Tuesday night, the black horse rider and on down--the four horse riders. And then the Sixth Seal being opened, and then Sunday morning, next Sunday morning, if the Lord willing (we'll see later, announce it later), maybe next Sunday morning have a prayer meeting for the sick in the building. And then Sunday night close off with... May the Lord help us to open the Seventh Seal, where there's just a short verse, and it says this: "There was silence in heaven for a half hour," by that silence...
E-23 Now, I don't know what these Seals mean. I am just as much at the end of my wits to them as perhaps some of you are this morning. We have ecclesiastical ideas that has been presented by man, but that will never touch it. And if you'll see, it has to come by inspiration. It must be; God Himself is the only One Who can do it, the Lamb, and tonight is that Book of Redemption.
E-24 Now, in this I... The reason I'm not announcing prayer meetings for the sick or so forth is because that I am--I'm staying with some friends, and I'm giving every minute of my time to study and prayer. And you know the vision that I had just before leaving and going out west--of those seven Angels come flying, so you'll understand a little later.
E-25 So now, now in the building I think that we ought to have in this, if it's been dedicated (or going to be dedicated in a few minutes to the worship of God), we should keep it that way. We should never buy or sell in the building.
We should never do any business in this auditorium here; it should never be done in here. That is, such as permitting ministers to come in and sell books and everything. No matter what it is, there's other places to do that for... We--we shouldn't buy and sell in the house of our Lord. It should be a place of--of worship, holy, consecrated for that purpose. See? Now, He's give us a nice place; let's dedicate it to Him and dedicate ourselves with it to Him.
E-26 And now, this may seem a little rude, but it's not a place to visit; it's a place of worship. We should never even murmur a word inside of here, outside of worship, to one another unless it's absolutely necessary. See? We should never rally around; we should never run through the building or let our children run through the building.
And so doing this, feeling not long ago that--of doing this, we constructed it so we could take care of all of it. Now, we have this set here... 'Course many people are strangers. The Tabernacle folks know this, that the building is going to be dedicated to the service of the Almighty.
E-27 Therefore, dedicating ourselves, let's remember when we enter that sanctuary, keep still to one another and worship God. If we want to visit each other, there's places we may visit each other like that but never walking around where you can't hear yourself think, and some person come in, and they just don't know what to do. See? It's so much noise and things, it's just humanly...
And I've seen it in churches until it has made me feel real bad, because we do not come into the sanctuary of the Lord to meet each other; we come here to worship God, then go to our homes. This sanctuary's dedicated to worship. When... Stand outside; talk anything you wish to as long as it's right and holy; go to one another's homes; visit one another in places; but when you enter that door, be quiet.
You come here to talk to Him (See?) and let Him talk back to you. The trouble of it is, we do too much talking and don't listen enough. Then when we come in here, wait on Him.
E-29 Now, in the old Tabernacle, there might not be one person present this morning that was there the day of the dedication, when Major Ulrich played the music, and I stood behind three crosses here to dedicate the place.
I would not permit anybody... The ushers stood at the door to see that nobody talked. When you done your talking outside, you come in. If you desired to, silently you come to the altar and prayed silently. You walked back to your seat, opened up the Bible. What your neighbor done, that was up to him. You had nothing to say. If you want to talk to him, say, "I'll see him outside. I'm in here to worship the Lord." You read His Word or set quietly.
E-30 And then the music--Sister Gertie, I don't know whether she's here this morning or not, Sister Gibbs. The old piano, I believe, set back in this corner the best of my remembrance. And she would play softly, "Down at the cross where my Saviour died," some real sweet soft music, and--and then until it come time for the service, and the song leader got up and led a couple of congregational songs, and then if they had some outstanding solo, they sang it, but never just a bunch of carrying on.
And then the music continually played, and then when I heard that, I knowed it was my time to come out. When a minister walks into a congregation of people praying in the anointing of the Spirit, you're bound to hear from heaven. That's just all. There's no way to keep from it. But if you walk into confusion, then you--you're--you're so confused, the Spirit's grieved. And...
We don't want that, no. We want to come here to worship. We have lovely homes that I'm going to speak about just in a minute and so forth at home, where we visit our friends and take them. This is the house of the Lord.
E-32 Now, there's little children, now, little babies. Now, they don't know no different. They... The only way they can get what they want is cry for it. And sometimes it's a drink of water, and sometimes they need attention. And so we have by the grace of God dedicated a room; it was called on the list a "cry room," but it's right straight in front of me. It's, other words, where the mothers can take their baby.
Now, it's never bothers maybe me here at the pulpit; maybe I won't even notice it, being anointed, but there's other people setting near, and it bothers them. See? And they come here to hear the service.
So the mothers, if your little baby starts whimpering, you can't help that. Why, sure it's a... You should, you ought to bring it. A real mother wants to take her baby to church, and that's the thing you should do. And we've got a room there to where you can see every corner of the building, all the auditorium, and a speaker there to where you can control the volume any way you want to, with a--a little toilet in the end, and water basin, and everything just exactly for the mother's convenience. With chairs and things you can set down, a place to change your baby if it needs to be changed and everything setting there. It's all fixed.
E-35 And then, many times teen-age children and sometimes adults will get to, you know, young people will pass notes or cut up or something in church. Now, you're old enough to know better than that. See? You should know better than that. See? You shouldn't come here... If you expect to be a real man someday and raise a family to the Kingdom of God, then start it off in the beginning (You see?), and--and act right and do right. And now, 'course...
Now, the ushers stands at the corners of the buildings and so forth and if any carrying on, they are--they're ordained as their duty (and trustees set here in the front) that in a case of someone getting misbehaving, they are--are commissioned to ask the person to keep quiet.
E-37 Then if they don't have that respect, it would be better that someone else had the seat, because there's somebody that wants to hear. There's somebody come for that purpose to hear and that's what we're here for, is to hear the Word of the Lord. And so everybody wants to hear, and we want it just as quiet as they can be--just as quiet as they can be. That is, not a bunch of talking and carrying on.
Of course, somebody worshipping the Lord; that's expected. That's what it should be; that's what you're here for, is to worship the Lord. And just if you feel like praising God or shouting, just go right on (See?), 'cause that's what you're here for (See?), but--is to worship the Lord in your own way of worshipping. But there's nobody worships the Lord while you're talking and passing notes, and you're helping somebody else to get away from the worship of the Lord. See?
E-38 So we feel that that would be wrong, and we want to make that a ruling in our church, that in--in our congregation, that to this building, this church will be dedicated to the Kingdom of God and to the preaching of the Word. Pray; worship; that's the reason you should come here, to worship. Then...
And then another thing, when service is over usually the people in churches... I don't--I don't think it's here 'cause I'm always gone (See?), 'cause I get away usually even in preaching other services, the anointing comes, and visions happen, and I'm wore out, and I step off into the room, and maybe Billy or some of the men there take me on to home and let me rest awhile till I get out of it, 'cause it's a very much of a strain.
And then, I have seen churches though, to where the children were permitted to run all over the sanctuary, and--and the adults stand and holler across the room to one another. That's a good way to ruin the service coming that night or whatever time it is, See?
E-42 As soon as the service is dismissed leave the auditorium. You're through in the worship then. Then go out and talk to one another and whatever you want to do. If you've got something you want to talk to somebody, to see them, why, you go with them or to their home or whatever it is, but don't do it in the auditorium. Let's dedicate this to God. See? This is His meeting place where we meet with Him. See? And the law goes forth from the sanctuary, of course. And I--I believe that that would be pleasing to our heavenly Father.
E-43 And then when you come and you get to find out that gifts are beginning to fall among you... Now, usually it... I'll trust it'll never be here. But when people have a new church, the first thing you know, the congregation begin to get starchy. You never want that to be. After all, this is a place of worship. This is the house of the Lord.
And if spiritual gifts begin to come among you... I understand that since I've been gone that people have moved in here from different parts of the country to make this their home. I'm thankful, grateful to God that I believe that the morning when I dedicated and laid that cornerstone there as a young man, I prayed for its standing to see the coming of Jesus Christ. And when I did, owing thousands of dollars--and they... You could take up an offering in a congregation of this size and get thirty or forty cents, and our obligation was somewhat a hundred an fifty, two hundred dollars a month.
How could I ever do it? And I knowed that I was working, and I would pay it off. I... Seventeen years of pastoral without taking one cent, but giving everything that I had myself, outside of my living, and all that come into the little box on the back to the Kingdom of God... And people prophesied and predicted that within a year's time, it would be turned into a garage.
E-46 Satan tried to take it away from us one time in a flaw, in a fraud of a lawsuit: some man claimed he hurt his foot while he was working on it, and then let it go, and then--and he sued and wanted to take the Tabernacle. And for weeks I stood at the post, but in spite of all the misunderstandings and the predictions and what they said, she stands today as one of the prettiest auditoriums and the finest churches there is in the United States. That's right.
E-47 From here has went the Word of the living God around the world (See?), around the world, and it's constantly taken its circle around the globe from every nation under heaven as far as we know, around and around the world. Let us be thankful for this. Let us be grateful for this. And now that we have a place to dwell in, a roof under our head, a clean nice church to set in; let's dedicate ourselves newly to the task and consecrate ourselves to Christ. And...
E-49 Brother Neville, our noble brother and real pastor, servant of the living God, as far as that man knows the message, he holds with it with all he's got. That's right. He's a gentle person; he's a little a--afraid to--or not afraid, I don't mean that, but he's so--so awful gentle; he just will--doesn't speak out. You know, like to--to say a thing that's sharp and cutting or "set down," or "keep still." I--I've noticed that and listened to the tapes behind it.
But it so happens that I can do that, so I--I--I want you to remember my words. You see? And this is all being taped (See?); everything is taped.
And please let every deacon stand to his post of duty and remember that you're under a commission from God to hold that post sacred (See?), every trustee the same.
E-50 Pastor is to bring forth... It isn't the pastor's place to have to say that; it's the trustees--or I mean the deacons, for they are the police of the church. That is, if young couples come on the outside and blow horns, and you know how they usually do, or something like that at meetings or--or get out there... And mother sends her girl down here, and she takes off out with some renegade kid and runs out there in the car, and her mother thinks she's in church like that, the deacon ought to see to that. "You either come in here and set down, or I'm going to take you in my car and take you home to your mother." See? You--you must do that.
E-52 Remember, love is corrective (See?), always. Genuine love is corrective. So you must be able to stand the correction. And mothers know now that there's a place there for your babies. You young kids know different than to run around over the building. See? And you adults know different than to talk and carry on your conversations in the auditorium. See? Don't do that; it's wrong. It isn't pleasing to God.
Jesus said, "It is written: My house shall be made a house of worship, prayer, called the house of prayer by all nations." And they were buying and selling, and He plaited ropes and ran the people out of the auditorium. And we certainly don't want that to happen in this sanctuary here. So let's dedicate our lives, our church, our tasks, our service, and everything we have to the Kingdom of God.
E-54 Now, now, I want to read some Scriptures before we have the dedicational prayer. And--and then, it's just a rededication, because the real dedication happened thirty years ago. Now... And then--then as we--we read this Scripture and talk on it for a few minutes, I trust that God will bring His blessings to us.
And now, there was another thing I was going to say. Yes. Where we used to have the recorders and so forth, we got a regular room there where those who wants to take recordings; there's special hookups and everything there that comes directly from the main mike in there.
E-56 There's rooms, robes, everything for baptismal service. And then one thing: many people has always felt bad at me (many people who really didn't know the Scripture) about having a crucifix in a church. I remember one time of something happened here about that. I had three crosses, and a brother got all shook up 'cause he heard a--another denomination say that a crucifix was meant Catholic.
I want some student, or somebody, or some borned again Christian to say that Catholics has got the option on the Crucifix. Crucifix of Christ doesn't represent Catholicism; that represents God, the Kingdom. Now, saints represent Catholicism. We believe there's one Mediator between God and men, and that's Christ; but Catholics believe in all kinds of mediators, thousands of women and men and everything. Any good Catholic, almost, that dies becomes an intercessor. Now, crucifix of Christ represents Jesus Christ.
E-58 Did you know the early Christians, according to the--the ancient history of the early church, they carried crosses on their backs wherever they went to signify and identify themselves as Christians. Now, the Catholics claim that was them. 'Course they claim they was the first ones, but the Catholic church wasn't even organized then (See?), but Christians packed the cross on...
You've heard people say, "Crossback." You refer that to Catholic? It is the real Catholic, the universal Holy Ghost Church of the world, correct. We are Catholic; we are the original Catholic, the Bible believing Catholic. See? They are the church Catholic, the organization. We are free from that. We are the continuation of the doctrine of the apostles. We are the continuation of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and all the things that the early church stood for, and the Catholic church has none of them. See it?
E-60 So they placed the crucifix here that was brought, that was hewed out of olive trees under where Jesus prayed, that the crucifix had taken years and was given to me by Brother Arganbright, and I want to dedicate it with this church... And how appropriate that ever who hung it there (I don't know who it was that hang it here) to my, to my left, He pardoned the thief to His right. That's me.
And another thing it represents: As His head is bowed as you see His suffering, any persons who are... It's looking over the altar, and He's expecting you here, sinner. He will be looking down upon you. Later they'll have a little light setting here that when the altar call is being made, a light will flash on to that, that when people are here to...
E-63 You say, "Why do you need that? You shouldn't have an image." Well then, the same God that said, "Don't make yourself any graven images," the same God said, "Build two cherubims and tip their wings together, and put them at the mercy seat where the people pray." You see, it's--it's without understanding. See? So that is inspired and directly hung in its right place, and I'm so thankful to be the one at the right side.
And I trust that He has forgiven me, for I--as far as literally stealing anything as I know, I never did in my life; but I so misused His time till I stole that way, and I--and done many things that I shouldn't do, and I'm grateful to God this morning that He has forgiven my sins.
E-66 And now, I want to read out of the Book of I Chronicles 17 and just speak for about five minutes on dedicational service, pray, and then we going into the message. Now, in I Chronicles, the--the 17th chapter...
Now, it came to pass, as David set in the house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, Lo, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the LORD remaineth under curtains.
Then Nathan said unto David, Do all that is in thine heart; for God is with thee.
And it came to pass the same night, that the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying,
Go and tell my servant David... Go and tell David my servant... (rather)... Thus saith the LORD, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in:
For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another.
Whereas I have walked with all Israel, spake I a word to any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have ye not built me an house?
Now, therefore thus shall thou say unto David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, even from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be ruler over my people Israel:
And I have been with thee wheresoever thou has walked, and have cut off thine enemies from before thee, and have made thee a name like the name of great men that are in the earth.
E-67 I would like to say that this place that--that David saw the same thing that we saw. David said, "It is not right that you people have built me a house of cedar, and the ark of the covenant of my God is still under curtains." (That was skins that been sewed together of sheep and animals.) He said, "It isn't right for me to have a nice home, and the ark of the covenant of my God remaining in a tent."
So God put upon his heart to build a tabernacle. But David, being a man of--of love and consecration to God, yet he had shed too much blood. So he said... David speaking this in the presence of the prophet of that age, which was Nathan, and Nathan, knowing that God loved David, he said, "David, do all that's in your heart for God is with thee." What a statement. "Do all that's in your heart, for God is with you."
E-68 And that same night--showing the consecration of David to the love of God, and then to see the same night, knowing that he was in a error that he was not permitted to do it, God was graceful enough to come down and speak to Nathan. And I always like these words: "Go tell Nathan, My..." or "Go tell David, My servant, that I took you from the sheepcote." Just... He wasn't nothing.
I--I'd like to apply that here just a minute. "I took you from nothing, and I--I--I give you a name; you've got a name like great men that's in the earth." And I'd like to apply that in a--in a confidential, yet in a--a way of making a point.
I was thinking that a few years ago I was standing down in the city here, and nobody cared for me; nobody loved me. I loved people, but nobody loved me because of the background of the family. No disregards to my precious mother and father. How I wish that mama could've lived to walked in this sanctuary this morning.
Many of the old-timers who placed their money to help build it here, maybe God this morning will let them look over the banister.
E-73 But the family of Branham didn't have a very good name around here on account of drinking. Nobody had nothing to do with me. I remember telling my wife not long ago, just remember that I--I couldn't get anyone to talk to me. Nobody cared for me, and now I have to hide to get a little rest.
And now the Lord has give us this great place and--and these great things that He's done. And He give me a, besides a bad name, He give me a name liken to some of the great men; and He's cut off my enemies wherever I went. There's never been nothing stand before It wherever It went--but--and how grateful I am for that.
E-75 And how would I ever knowed, as a little ragged kid, up here two or three blocks from here to the Ingramville School, when I was the laughing stock of the school from being so ragged and skate on an old pond. How did I ever know that down beneath that pond laid a seed of a lily that could bloom like this? And how did I ever know that no one talking to me, and yet, He would give me a--a name that would be honored amongst His people?
E-76 And now, David was not permitted to build the temple. He could not do it. But He said, "I'll raise up from your seed, and he will build the temple, and that temple will be an everlasting temple. And upon your son, the Son of David, will be an everlasting Kingdom He will control." Solomon, David's son in the natural (from his natural strength) built a house unto the Lord, a temple. But when the real Seed of David come, the Son of David, He told them there would come a time that there wouldn't be one stone left upon the other of that temple, but He tried to point them to another temple.
E-78 John, the revelator, over in the Book of Revelation, he saw this tabernacle (Revelations 21). He saw the new temple coming, descending down from heaven, adored as a bride was adored for her husband, and a voice out of the temple said, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and God shall be with them, and they'll wipe all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more hunger, nor no more sorrow, no more pain or death, for the former things have passed away."
Then the true Son of David (as we're going to see in this lessons coming on in this week) will then come to His temple, the temple of God, the real tabernacle, which He has gone away to construct now. For He said in John 14, "In My Father's house are many mansions, and I will go..." What did He mean by that? It was already foreordained, "And I'll go to prepare a place for you, and will return back to receive you unto Myself." And of course, we know that'll be in the great age to come. And the true Seed of David will take the throne, which is Jesus Christ, and there will reign over the Church as His Bride, in the house with Him and over the twelve tribes of Israel throughout all eternity.
E-80 And these little places... As David could not build the true tabernacle of God, because he wasn't prepared to do it... There was nothing he could do. He was a mortal and shed blood.
So is it today to us. We are not prepared to build the true Tabernacle of God. There's only One can do that, and it's being in its construction now. But this little tabernacle, along with the temple that Solomon built Him, and along with the others, are only temporary places of worship until the time comes when the real Tabernacle will be set up upon the earth, and righteousness shall reign from sky to sky, and there will be no more sorrow. There'll be no funerals preached in that Tabernacle. There'd be no more weddings, for the wedding will be one great wedding for eternity. What a time that will be.
E-82 But let us purpose in our hearts today, that in commemoration and waiting for that Tabernacle to come, that we will so characterize ourself by His Spirit that we will worship in this place as if we were in that other place, waiting for that place to come.
Now, let us stand to our feet, and as I read the holy Script.
And I saw a new heavens and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth was passed away; and there were no more sea.
... I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adored for her husband.
And I heard the... voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
E-83 Let us bow our heads now. Our heavenly Father, we stand in awe. We stand in respect and in holy reverence. And we ask You, Lord, to accept our gift that You've given us grace, money to prepare for a worship place for You. There's nothing or no place that we could prepare upon the earth that would be worthy for the--the Spirit of God to dwell in, but we offer this to You as a token of our love and feelings toward You, Lord. And we thank You for all the things that You have done for us.
And now, the building and the grounds being dedicated long ago to the service, and we thank You for memories of what has been... And now, Lord God, as the vision broke through years ago expressing this, that I seen in old buildings that the people once was in, and they had been repaired and made new, and I was sent back across the river.
E-86 Now, Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, we stand as the people of Thy fold. We stand as the--the--the--the people of Thy Kingdom, and with myself, and the pastor, and the church, the people, we dedicate this building to the service of the Almighty God through the Name of Jesus Christ, His Son, for the service of God and for reverence and respects of God. And may the Gospel so flow from this place till it'll cause the world to come from the four corners of the globe to see the glory of God going forth from it. As Thou hast done in the past, may the future be many times greater.
E-87 And, Father, we now dedicate ourselves to the service to the Word with all that's in us. Lord, the congregation and the people, they dedicate themselves this morning to the hearing of the Word. And we, as ministers, dedicate ourselves to the preaching of the Word, to be instant in season, out of season, reproving, rebuking with all long-suffering as it's written there in the cornerstone from thirty years ago. You said the time would come when people would not endure sound doctrine, but would heap for themselves teachers having itching ears and be turned from the truth to fables.
E-88 Lord, as we have tried to hold out the Word to the people, may we be inspired and strengthened with a double effort, Lord, as a double portion of the Spirit strikes upon the place, may the Holy Spirit as it was in the day of the dedication of the temple when Solomon prayed, the Holy Spirit in the form of the Pillar of Fire and Cloud came in the front door, rode up around the cherubims, and went over to the holy place, and there took Its resting place.
O God, Solomon said, "If Thy people be in trouble anywhere, and look to this holy place and pray, then hear from heaven." Lord, may the Holy Spirit this morning come into every heart, every consecrated soul that's in here. And the Bible says that the glory of God was so great until the ministers could not even minister for the glory of God.
E-89 Oh, Lord God, let it repeat again as we give ourselves to Thee with the church in dedication for service. And it is written: "Ask and you shall receive," and we commit ourselves with our offering of the church this morning to You for service, for the latter day Light for the evening time Lights, that we might bring consolation and faith to the waiting people that's waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom to dress a Bride in the Gospel of Christ for the Lord Jesus to receive. This we dedicate, myself, Brother Neville, and the congregation to the service of God in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
May be seated.
E-91 David said, "I was happy when they said unto me, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord.'" And may it ever be with us, that when it's mentioned, we'll be happy to gather in the house of the Lord. Amen.
E-92 Now, after the little dedicational service, I have a hour now. And now, just remember now what we're dedicated to: to reverence, holiness, quietness before the Lord; worship before the Lord and be just as reverent as you can be in the house of the Lord. And now... And when this service is dismissed--immediately after the service is dismissed, go from the building (See?), and that gives the janitor time to get in here and clean it for the next time and get ready. Then it's not a confusion in the house of the Lord. And there's near about...
E-93 I think you... Place will be cleared out in about fifteen minutes after the services is dismissed. Be sure to be friendly; shake hands with everybody, and invite everybody back. And--and we expect to have this coming week now, one of the most solemn services that's ever been held in the Tabernacle. We're looking forward to it.
E-94 Now, I--I never dawned upon me to something till long late wee hours last night in prayer; I begin to see something. So I--I trust this will be a great time, which I believe it will if the Lord will help us. Now, now, when I said "great time"... Now, I'm going to speak on something about that this morning.
You know what man calls great sometimes is not great, but what God calls great, man calls foolish; and what God calls foolish, man calls great. So let's bear that in mind. Weigh every word.
E-95 Now, the services are long; they'll be drawn out because it's a hard service, much teaching, consecration and I just... The place where I'm staying, the people just kind of want to feed me everything, but I... Said, "Well, you've lost so much weight, Brother Branham," everything, but I've been constantly in service. I've got to leave here next Sunday night to get to another one right quick in Mexico, so it's just a hard thing. So but I'm just trying to let off from so much eating and--and making myself ready. And I'm happy, this morning, to see Brother Junior Jackson, and--and Brother Ruddell, and--and the different ministers and so forth around; God bless you all.
E-98 Now, I want to--to speak to you this morning upon a subject that I have some notes written here on. And I want to read first from the Book of Isaiah the 53rd chapter. Now, while you're turning to it I'd like to make a announcement or two, that tonight, I want to speak on this Book, bridging it between the last church age to the Seal opening. Now, there's a vast gap in there. And...
Before, when I ended up on the Church Ages, I also spoke there upon the Seventy Weeks of Daniel immediately following 'cause it tied in. And I said, "Now, if I ever take the Seven Seals, I'll have to get rid of this Daniel's Seventy Weeks in order to tie in the Seals, leaving one thing open." And that was the 5th chapter of the seven-sealed Book, and we'll take that tonight.
E-101 We want to try to start early tonight. How about me... You already mentioned it have you, start early? How about... Can everybody be here about seven o'clock? All right. Let's start the regular service at six-thirty, the song service, and I'll be here by seven. And then through the week we'll make an early start. And--and we... Now, we come... There's nobody loves singing like Christians does. We love singing; we love those things, but now we're--we're in something else now. We're--we're in the Word (See?); so let's just--let's stay right with that. Now, we're going to...
E-103 We're--we're in teaching, and you can realize what a great strain it is on me (See?), because if I teach anything wrong, I'm going to have to answer for it. See? And so I must not take what anyone says; I must--it must be inspired. And I believe that the Seven Angels who's holds these seven thunders will grant it. See? And I'm...
E-104 Now, in Isaiah the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, the first verse or two. I want to ask this question. Now, this is not pertaining to the Seven Seals at all. This is just a message, for I knowed I had to have dedication; I couldn't go into that because I wouldn't have time. But I thought, just for a little dedicational service, little memorial service for this church (or a little dedicational service, rather) then they--they wouldn't be time then to go into what I want to say (See?), on this opening of this Book. So I will tonight.
E-105 And now, this is just a little service that--it--it'll blend right in with it though, so listen to every word. Catch it. And--and if you're taking it on tapes or anything, then you stay right with that tape teaching. Don't say nothing but what that tape says. Just say just exactly what the tape says (See?), now because some of those things... We're going to understand a whole lot about this now, why it's misunderstood. See? And you be sure to say just what the tape says. Don't say nothing else (See?), 'cause... I don't say that of my own. It's Him that says it. You see? And... So many times confusion, people will raise up and say, "Well, so-and-so said it meant so-and-so." Let's just leave it just the way it is.
E-107 See, that's the way we want the Bible. Just the way the Bible says it, that's the way we want it, just--just like that. Don't put own--no interpretation to it. It's already interpreted. See? Now...
Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Let me read it again now, closely.
Who has believed our report?... (Question)... and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
In other words, if you have believed our report, then the arm of the Lord has been revealed. See?
Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
E-110 Now, I want to read also in the Book of Saint Matthew's Gospel, the 11th chapter of Saint Matthew. And now, you bring your papers and things, because constantly we're... If you don't have a recorder, you--you bring the--your paper so we can get it. The 11th chapter of Saint Matthew, the 25th and 26th verses, 11:26, 27. All right. Jesus speaking in prayer... I want to begin a little bit behind that. Let's make it the 25th and 26th verse I believe that's where I announced though, for I had it marked here in my Bible.
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father: for so it seems good in thy sight.
E-111 Catch those two Scriptures. "Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?" Even... Then Jesus thanked God that He'd hid the mysteries from the wise and prudent, and would reveal it to babes such as would learn, for it seemed good to God to do that.
Now, from this text, or from this Scripture reading, I draw this text: "God Hiding Himself in Simplicity, Then Revealing Himself in the Same." Now, for the tapes I keep repeating, so for the tapes (You see?), 'cause they're--they're taping it. See? "God Hiding Himself in Simplicity, Then Revealing Himself in the Same."
E-113 It is strange to think how that God does such a thing as that. God will hide Himself in something so simple that'll cause the wise to miss it a million miles and then turn right back around in that, some simple thing in the simplicity of His way of working and reveal Hisself right out again.
I thought it made a--a text that we might study this before we go into the--the--the great teachings of the Seven Seals. Many miss Him by the way He reveals Himself. Now, man has their own ideas of what God ought to be and what God is going to do; and as I have made the old statement many times that man still remains man. Man is always giving God praise for what He did do, and always looking forward to what He will do, and ignoring what He's doing. See, see?
E-114 That's the way they miss it. They look back and see what a great thing He done, but they fail to see what a simple thing He used to do it with. See? And then they look forward and see a great thing coming that's going to happen, and nine times out of ten, it's already happening right around them, and it's so simple that they don't know it. See?
E-115 One day a--a man up here at Utica... And if some of his people is here, I don't say this for any--for any radical exposure of the man. He was a--a veteran of the Civil War, and I believe he was... I don't know which side he was on, but I believe he was a rebel. But he--he was an infidel, and he claimed that there was no such a thing as God. He lived in Utica; his name was Jim Dorsey.
Many of you people might've knowed him. He's given me many a watermelon when I was a little fellow. He used to raise watermelons down on the river in the--in the bottoms there. And he was quite a friend to my daddy. But he said one day, one of the great outstanding things that was ever said to him in contrast (Now, I was just a little boy in those days.)--but in contrast to his belief that caused him to walk away, and drop his head, and cry. And I understood that by this the man was gloriously converted to Christ at the age of about eighty-five years old.
E-117 He asked a little girl one day, who was coming from Sunday school, why did she waste her time on doing such a thing as that? She said, because she believed that there was a God.
And Mr. Dorsey said that... He said, "Child, you are so wrong to believe in such a thing as that."
And said that the little girl stooped down and picked up a--a little flower out of the--off of the ground, pulled it from its petals, and said, "Mr. Dorsey, could you tell me how this lives?"
There it was. When he begin to search back... He could have said to the child, "Why, it's growing in the earth." And then the questions could revolve back: "Where'd the earth come from? How'd that seed get here? How it happen?" On and on and on and run it on back until he seen... See? Not the great glamorous things that we think about, but it's the simple things that God is so real in, the simplicity.
E-120 So it pleases God to reveal Himself and then hide Himself, then hide Himself and reveal Himself in simple little things. It's--it's put over the top of the head of man because... If you'd say, "Why would a just God do that?" Is because that man was made up in the beginning not to try to shift for himself.
A man was made to rely completely upon God. That's the reason we're likened unto lambs or sheep. A sheep cannot lead himself; he has to have a leader; and the Holy Spirit's supposed to lead us. So man is made that way, and God made all of His works so simple that the simple could understand it; and God makes Himself simple with the simple in order to be understood by the simple.
E-122 And otherwise, He said in Isaiah 35, I believe. He said, "Though a fool should not err therein..." It's so simple. And we know that God is so great, till we expect it to be some great something, and we miss the simple things.
We stumble over simplicity. That's how we miss God, is by stumbling over simplicity. God is so simple until the scholars of these days and all days miss Him a million miles; because in their intellects, they know that there's nothing like Him so great. But in His revelation, He makes it so simple they go plumb over the top of it and miss it.
E-124 Now, study that. Study it all. And you people who are visiting here, when you go to your motel rooms, take those things and ponder over them. We don't have time to break it down as it should be broke down, but I want you to do it when you get to the motel, or hotel, or wherever you're staying, or the home. Gather together and study over it.
E-125 Miss Him by the way that He reveals Himself, for He is so great, yet hides Himself in simplicity to make Hisself known to the least. See? Don't try to get the great, because he goes over the top of it; but listen to the simplicity of God, and then you find God right here in the simple way.
High-polished worldly wisdom, educated, always misses Him. Now, I'm not here... And I know there's school teachers, two or three that I know of setting in here; and I'm not here to contradict school and education and try to support illiterateness; I'm not here for that. But what it is, the people have so placed so much upon that, until they're... Even in the seminaries and so forth they're missing the very thing that God has put before them.
E-127 That's why I not against brethren who are in denominations, but I'm against system of denominations; because it tries to magnify itself and--and--and educate its ministers in such--such a place, until if that they don't have the proper schooling and education, they're ousted; and--and they have to stand the psychiatrist's test and so forth. I've never think that it was God's will to test a minister by psychiatry but to test him by the Word. See? Yes. See, it's just the Word would be God's way of testing His men that He sent out to have the Word--preach the Word.
Now, today we preach philosophy; we preach creed, and denominationalism, and so many things and leaving off the Word, because they say It can't be understood. It can be understood. He promised to do it. Now, we're asking Him to do it.
E-129 Now, we're going to take a few characters here for a few minutes. Let's notice in the days of Noah. Noah's day, God seen worldly wisdom so greatly punctuated and respected, He sent a simple message by a simple person to show them His greatness. Now, we know that in the day of--of--of Noah, they claim that a civilization was so mighty then until we have never reached that spot yet in our modern civilization.
And I believe that it will finally be reached, because our Lord said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of man." And He gave some illustrations.
E-132 And they built the pyramid and the sphinx there in Egypt, and they built gigantic things that we have no power today to build such with. They had an embalming that they could embalm a body to make it look so natural until it still stays today. We cannot--we cannot make a mummy today; we haven't the stuff to make it with. They had colors that--that hold so fast for four or five thousand years ago, it still remains just the same color it was. See? We don't have no such as that today. And many great things of that civilization speaks of its superiority over our modern civilization.
E-133 And so you can imagine how education and science of such great tokens that we have left that there was such a civilization, what the--what a great civilization that must be by these memorials, how that science and--and modern civilization and education was--was a--a must with the people. They must be. It had to be.
There was hardly any, I guess, any illiteracy among them at all. And so God, searching through that great economy at that day in their systems could not, perhaps, find the right type of a man till He found an illiterate, maybe farmer by the name of Noah, a sheepherder. And He gave him His message to preach to the people that was so simple till their--their scholarships of that day, until the people stumbled over the simplicity of the message.
E-134 And yet, the message was in the face of science, radical. How could there be rain in the skies when there was no rain up there? See? And the simple message of--of building an ark, constructing of something to get into that there's no water to float it, why, he become a fanatic. And he become a--an--a--a--a what we would call (if you'd excuse the expression of today) a "oddball."
And nearly all God's people are oddballs (See?), they are. I'm glad to be one of them. So... You know, they--they're different from the--the modern trend of civilization. So they become odd, strange. He said His people was a peculiar people (odd, strange), but a spiritual priesthood, a royal nation, offering spiritual sacrifices to God, the fruits of their lips giving praise to His Name. What a--what a people. He's got them.
E-136 And notice now what a great thing that must've been in that day for some fanatic to come forth to the church, a fanatic, and preaching a gospel that was seemingly all out of line to their way of believing. And scientists... Why, they--it was simply crazy. How they could scientifically prove there was no rain there. But this simple sheepherder believed if God said it would rain, it would rain. See?
And so that... Just compare that with today about somebody gets healed, they say, "It's only emotion," or "I can scientifically prove to you that the cancer, or the substance, or--or the thing is still there." But to the simple believer, it's gone (See?), because he's not looking at the substance; he's looking at the promise, just the same as Noah did.
E-139 So don't you see: "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." Scientifically, no one... The doctor could say, "Looky here, your lump is still there. Your cancer remain. Your arm is as crippled as it ever was. You're crazy."
And remember, that's that same spirit from the days of Noah that said, "There's no rain up there. We can shoot the moon with instruments, and there's no rain there." But if God said there would be rain there... For faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that not seen. And faith takes its final resting place on the Word of God. There's where it finds its resting place. You--you understand? Its resting place is on God's Word. That's where Noah rested it: "God said so." That settles it.
E-143 Now, if you notice again then... And now, Noah in believing such was a fanatic. And the people of today who believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit... Now, the church says, "These people are fanatics. They're nothing but a bunch of worked-up, emotional, panic-stricken people." But little do they know, that the Word of God teaches that; it's a promise.
E-145 And to Noah, no matter how much they said the old man was off at his mind, that he was scientifically wrong, and--and mentally he was wrong; but to Noah it was the Word of the Lord. And Noah stayed with it, and the wise and prudent stumbled over the simplicity of it and lost their being. What a--a rebuke. Now, it is to that generation.
Many people say, "If I would've lived back there..." No, you'd have took the same attitude, because today in the very same thing being reproduced again today, only in another form, they stumble over it today just like they did then.
E-147 No doubt in them days they had plenty of preachers, but Noah was inspired of God. And Noah could look out and see that what was fixing to happen and know that an adulterous and wicked generation like that, that God would not let stand. So what can we do today, but see the same thing: a modern Sodom and Gomorrah (See?), wicked, adulterous people so polished in scholarship that they stumble over the simplicity of God's manifestation of His Being and His Word, showing His Word.
E-148 There's not a person in the world, Rosella, that... or any--any can say that we don't see with us the very Word of God made manifest. The very promise of the last days, the very evening Lights that was to shine, we are privileged people to see that. And where the high-polished world, it's hid from them...
Jesus said to God the Father; He said, "It pleased You to hide it from them. Even so, Father, You have hid it." Let them with their wisdom... You see, it was wisdom that started the ball rolling in the muck of sin at the beginning. For Eve was seeking wisdom when she met Satan, and Satan give it to her (See?), and wisdom is contrary to the Word.
We're not asked to have wisdom; we're asked to have faith in what's already been said. So you see? But today the scholars polish it up in such a way, and set it over there, and put their own interpretation to it, always have... They do the same thing today. It's in the same measure.
E-150 Now, people... But the people then missed it just as they miss it and do it today, same thing. They do the same things. For they--for the reason they missed it, for they were too smart to believe it. See? Now, the message was so simple that the smart was too smart to believe the simplicity of the message. Oh, my. God made it so simple in Truth that the smart and intellectuals missed seeing it, because it was so simple. Well, that's what makes the greatness of God so great, because being the greatest can make Himself simple.
E-151 Men today, showing that they are not of God; they are great and trying to get greater and express themselves greater as big Bishop, Doctor holy Pope, everything--making themselves something that they're really not, and God being so great, brings Hisself down simple. Simplicity is greatness. We can build a jet plane; we can fire a rocket to the to--to--put a missile in orbit, and we can do all these things. Yes. But we cannot build one blade of grass. Amen. What about that? But instead of trying to come back and see what makes that grass and accepting the very God that created the grass, we're trying to build a missile that'll get there quicker than somebody else can build one. See?
E-153 We are so smart and intellectual in our churches till we can build a million dollar building, or ten million dollar building, but yet--and trying to build one better than the Methodists, or the Baptists build one better than the Presbyterian, and the Pentecostals got in the rat race. But by--the thing of it is this: we are yet--we are so smart and so set on our ways until we fail to humble ourself to realize the God that's in the little mission on the corner. See? That's right. Well, that's... We stumble in simplicity. They've always done it.
E-154 Now, they--they were--they were too smart to believe such a simple message. It wasn't polished enough for their scientific researches that they'd had. It wasn't--it wasn't brilliant, the message wasn't enough for their educational program that they had in that day. See? They'd studied to know that there was a God; and they studied to know that He was great; and they tried to build themselves up great with Him, when the way up is always down.
Now, who knows whether the North Pole is the North or the South Pole is the North, or the North Pole is the South, the South Pole the North? Which is up and which is down? We're hanging in space. We say, "The North Pole's up." How do you know? The South Pole might be North. See, you don't know. So let's remember...
In this words, said, "Then how would you say, Brother Branham, that up is down? On the basis of Jesus Christ's Word. He said, "He that humbles himself shall be exalted, but he that exalts himself shall be abased," be brought down. So then, actually, up is down and down is up.
E-158 As the old saint said in Chicago, that a man... A certain minister from a certain organization got up where there were some Pentecostals... He had all of his intellectual things together. And he got up there and used words that the Pentecostals knowed nothing about. And he got up there, and he seen it wasn't going over with the Pentecostal people. And he went up with his chest stuck out, and he was holy Doctor So-and-so, you know, from certain, certain big school there in Chicago. And he looked around, and them Pentecostals were looking at one another. They didn't even know what he was talking about; he was so educated, so smart, brilliant. They didn't know...
E-159 It was something like a certain senator or man that just run recently for President and was defeated. Tuck Coots told me, when I was preaching Mama Ford's funeral and was telling about the resurrection, the guarantee of the resurrection... Just as sure as the sun rises, so shall I rise. Just as sure as the grass dies in the fall, and the leaf falls from the tree, it comes back again; when the earth corrects itself around the orbit, it's got to rise again.
E-160 Tuck said, "I appreciated that message, Billy." Brother Neville and I were setting together in the car, and I said, "Tuck..."
He--he said, "I appreciate your messages."
I said, "Tuck, I have no education." I said,...
He said, "That's the good part about it." See? And I... He said... He went to see... Well, I guess the man forgive me; I don't mean, Adlai Stevenson, you know. And he said he heard him fifteen minutes, and Mr. Stevenson is such a brilliant speaker, supposed to be, you know, until Tuck said (I guess he's got a college education.) he said he set there and went to sleep. And said he went to sleep listening to him in fifteen minutes. And said, "With a college education, I didn't understand but very few words he said. It was so highly polished." He said, "You never seen me sleeping in one of your services, did you, Brother Branham?"
So, see, it's the simplicity of it, just simple. That's where God lays.
E-163 Now, they--they were--they were too smart in that day to catch the meaning of God's simple way of doing things. It wasn't polished for them. It's got to be polished. It's got to be highly chromed, or they miss it. Now, but the great Jehovah was hid in His Word, and He made Himself known to the people that believed in His Word by saving them and bringing to pass a simple message, the simple message of Noah, God brought it to pass. Now, notice that.
E-164 Now, then again in Moses' day, notice another time of deliverance. When God is just about to do something to deliver His people, God sends a message to the people, and it's so simple, as we'll catch in the breaking of these Seals (That was my purpose of bringing this first.), that we find out that the breaking of those Seals is so simple, the--the--the smart miss it a million miles. See? I hope that God anoints me for it. See, see? It just goes over the top. And that's the reason I thought this message this morning would be appropriate to lay a foundation on the simplicity of God (See?), how God hides Himself in simplicity.
E-166 Just think, they could break atoms and do everything else, but when it comes to touching life, they can't even tell where it come from. A simple blade of grass, and God's hid in it. They can fire a rocket to the moon and--and shoot a radar over there or whatevermore and yet can't explain the life in a blade of grass. That's right. See, it's because it can't be explained; it's so simple they overlook that.
E-167 Now, notice. Moses, in the day that God was going to deliver the children of Israel, according to His Word He... What did He do? He chose a simple family; we have no record of them. See, he's just a son of Levi is all we know (See?), and so we... And his wife... Just a ordinary, probably a mud dauber (as the world would think,) out there making brick for the enemy. He was just an ordinary slave in Israel, but God chose that family to bring forth the deliverer: just an ordinary Jewish family. He never went and got royalty, and celebrity, or something, or even got some priest; He took a common ordinary family (See?): simplicity.
Notice what He done then. He brought forth a child, a simple human being. He never... He could've--He could've ordained the sun if He wanted to to deliver them. He could've ordained the wind to deliver them. He could've ordained an Angel to deliver them.
Oh, hallelujah. God can do whatever He wants to do. "Well, how do you know that, Brother Branham?"
E-169 God won't leave His program. That's the reason we know that this day, it's got to be simple. See? Now, He always works in simplicity. But God in the beginning that could've made the sun preach the Gospel, or the winds preach the Gospel, or an Angel preach the Gospel, but He ordained men for that purpose, and He never changes it.
He never ordained indiv... He never ordained denominations; He never ordained groups of men; He ordained men to preach the Gospel, not machinery, mechanical devices, or any angelic being; it was man. And when He brought deliverance to the people down there, He sent a simple human being, born of a simple family in a bunch of slaves. Oh, my, what a God He is, unfolding Himself in simplicity.
E-171 Now, notice. And He had him trained in worldly wisdom so that he could fail and show that it isn't wisdom that we'll ever be delivered by; it's by faith that we are delivered. He let him go in and get such an education until he could teach the Egyptians wisdom. He was so smart. God was with that simple family, who could, perhaps, maybe not write their name.
And Moses was took into the highest of schooling with such a great education, till he could teach the wisdom to teachers. He could teach the genius. Yes. And God let him get that way so He could display Himself in humility to show that wisdom has nothing to do with it; and Moses miserably failed in his genius. He let him get that way for His purpose, so he'd fail, and he did fail, and he fell.
E-172 So to show, not by power, not by might, but--not by the wisdom of Egypt, not by the wisdom of our schools, not by the power of our seminaries, but--not by the amounts of our organization, not by the power of our scholarly teaching; but "by My Spirit, saith God." His wisdom was vanished and at its end. When he met God in the burning bush there, he took off his shoes and humbled himself to humility and forgot all about his wisdom.
God, bringing deliverance, had to train him in wisdom to let him fall to show that you cannot lean upon the arm of your own understanding or anybody else's understanding. Let him fall to show His hand. Can you see it? God's purpose in doing so was to display Himself in humility.
E-173 And He let Moses become the highest until he would was the--he'd be the next pharaoh. He was a mighty general. According to history, he conquered (Moses, himself) the countries around. And then when he turned to the work of the Lord with all of his talent, God let him take a headlong topple, so that He could put him out there on the desert and beat all that out of him, and then appear to him in humility, and send him down with a stick in his hand to deliver the people.
When he couldn't do it by a military training, by an education, by a scientific education, and by a military force, he could not do it, and He give him an old crooked stick off the desert, and he did it with it: God in humility, simplicity. God was in the stick and in Moses. And as long as Moses had the stick, then God had it, because God was in Moses. Sure.
E-175 Notice. "Not by power, nor by--by might, but by My Spirit..." But by the simple faith, Moses had a understanding that he was to be the deliverer from the teaching of his mother. And he trained himself in military might to do so, but it failed. See? He had the understanding; he had the education, but that didn't work. So he had to forget it all and come to the simple thing of taking God at His Word, and then he delivered the people. Yes, sir.
E-177 God delivers by what? Faith in His Word. Always has been... We could take a look if we had time. (We've got about twenty something minutes yet. We had...) We could take a--a look at Cain and Abel, how that--that Cain tried to please God by some beauty. Another way, people think by--by great fine dressed congregations, by a priest, with--with a ministers with robed, and robed choirs, and all the--the put-on, that pleases God.
Can you see where it come from? Cain tried the same thing, and he built him an altar. No doubt that he made it pretty, and the man was sincere. He worshipped. He thought, "As long as I'm sincere, it doesn't make any difference." It does make a difference. You can be sincerely wrong.
E-181 Notice, he--he built this altar and he's--more--more like put flowers and fixed it up and put beautiful fruits, and thought, "Surely, a great, holy, clean, beautiful God will accept that sacrifice." But, see, he done it with his own wisdom. He done it by his own thoughts, and that's what it is today. He--he... They do it by their own wisdom, by their schooling, by their education and ethics that they have learned.
But Abel by a revelation, by faith, offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice. Nothing clean about it as far as it looked, humanly speaking, the little fellow, and grabbing him by the neck, and wrapping a vine around him like that, and pulled him along to this altar. There was nothing so beautiful about it, laying him upon the altar and hacking his little throat with a--a sharp rock until his blood flying all over him, him bleating, dying. It was a horrible sight (See?) to see it.
It was simple though. In simplicity he knowed that he was born of his mother and father's blood, born in his mother's blood by his father's blood, and it was blood that caused the fall, so it was blood that would take it back. So he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice 'cause it was revealed to him.
E-185 And some of the brethren, today, who think they eat apples and pears and... I seen the most radical thing the other day in the paper. They said now they proved that it wasn't an apple that Eve eat; that I--I think they claim it was an apricot. So... Oh, see where that spirit comes from.
And they said that Moses never crossed actually the Red Sea, that it was a--a bunch of reeds down there, a sea of reeds; and he brought the children of Israel through this sea of reeds. Up at the end of the--the sea, there's a big bunch of reeds up there, and Moses crossed the sea, but it was the sea of reeds that he crossed, you know, grass, called like tules and things that he crossed through there.
How ridiculous when "The water," the Bible said, "parted from right to left, and God caused a--a mighty east wind to separate..." See, see? They--they want to try to figure it out in their own way, and that's the way they've always failed, and they'll continue to fail.
E-188 You know, all these things that Cain--the very type of the carnal minded man today who's religious outwardly. He wants to do something outwardly, but he's--he goes to church, and--and he will do lots of things for the--the buildings. There's only one Church, and you don't join that. These are lodges. See? You join the Methodist lodge, the Baptist lodge, the Presbyterian lodge, the Pentecostal lodge, but you're borned into the Church. See? These all are lodges; they're not churches; they're lodges. No such a thing as Methodist church or Pentecostal church. No, there isn't such a thing. No, that's all wrong. See? They're... That's right. They--they're lodges that people join, but you're born into the Church of the living God, and that's the mystic body of Jesus Christ being formed.
E-193 Now, but it pleased God to reveal His secret to Abel by simple faith in the shed blood. Oh, I wished I had time to lay on that a little while. See? Yet and Cain with all of his wisdom, the smart man... Oh, you say, "Now, Brother Branham, you said he... You're trying to make him the educated genius." He was. He was the smart... Follow his--follow his strain. Look at his children. Every one of them was scientists and doctors and smart men, every one. But you follow the generation of Seth; they were humble peasants and farmers and so forth on down to the destruction. But Cain's children were the smart, intellectual group. They even... They could--claim could temper copper and make metals and builders, and they were smart men; when--when these other men just dwelt in tents, and herd their sheep, and rested upon the promises of God. See, see? See what it was? Now, just follow the genealogy down through and see if that isn't right. See? They rested upon the promise of God.
That's how Noah was chose from that kind of a people. That's how Paul was taken out from his flock. See? That's how John Wesley, Martin Luther, and whatmore. That--that's how you come to be what you are today (See?), the same thing: humbled to believe the simple promise of God.
E-199 Now, notice. It pleased God to--to identify... Now, God always will a-vindicate whether it's the Truth or not. See? Now, many people try to act themselves into something that God stays a million miles from. That's right. But when you see God come back around and say it, punctuate it, say, "It's right. That's right. That's right." Then you know that's true.
Now, when the offerings was on the altar, God refused his intellectual conception of God. But when He seen Abel by simple faith to believe that it was not apples or fruits of the field, but it was blood, by faith he believed it, by a revelation from God, God a-vindicated Adam by accepting his sacrifice. See?
E-201 That's where we think of praying for the sick--anything else. Jesus said, "If ye abide in Me and My Word in you, just ask what you will, and it shall be done to you." Now, as we're coming right on down, fastly now, with twenty minutes more...
E-203 Notice. Elijah's day, God chose to hide Himself in a simple person. Now, just think of it. God chose... That was His choosing. Remember, they had rabbis, priests; they had great men in them days. Even King Ahab himself was a Jew. He had great men in the land in that day, but God hid Himself in a simple man, not a scholar, no, not a renown man of the world, some great military genius, or something, no, no big names. We don't even know who his papa and mama was. We don't know anything about his genealogy: just a plain old farmer somewhere that was raised up for the purpose to be a prophet.
God had him living to himself in the wilderness. Only thing we know, he stomped right out of nowhere, walked right in and condemned the whole ecclesiastical system. My.
E-204 And you know what they thought about him? "What school did he come from? See? What denomination is he with? Is he with the Pharisees the Sadducees," or whatmore they had? He didn't belong to any of them, but he condemned the whole thing. See? God chose to do that. But a simple man, no education... We have no place where he ever went to school; we have nothing about him, just a simple man; but God was pleased to hide in that simple person. God, back there with this simple man, hiding in a human being, can you grasp it? God hiding in a illiterate crank to the world... 'Cause...
You know, they--they accused him of everything, even being a witch. Elijah, all prophets are accused of that. See, so... Jesus was accused of being one (You see?): Beelzebub. And being crazy, said, "Why, you're mad. You... We know you got a devil. You're--you're off at your head." See? That's where He told them when it come in the last days that they'd--that'd be blasphemy to do such. He forgave them, but it wouldn't be forgiven in these last days. It had to be paid for with eternal separation, never to be forgiven in this world or the world to come.
E-209 But Elijah was considered a crazy man. Could you imagine him, standing up to the... The women was all cutting their hair like the modern days, I guess, and painting up like Jezebel, the first lady of the land; and--and the--the preachers all gone worldly and everything, and then what taken place? Then here come old Elijah out condemning the whole thing all the way from Jezebel down.
They thought, "We don't have to listen to you; we got pastors." Sure they didn't have to, but he was their pastor anyhow. He was Jezebel's pastor. She didn't want... She might've had a different kind, but--but God sent; he was. See? He was God's sent pastor for her. She hated him, but he was pastor just the same.
E-212 Notice. And Elijah humbled himself and stayed with what God said in such a way that it pleased God to take that same Spirit from Elijah and promise to shove it three times down the road from there (See? Amen.), and He did it. Amen. Sure He did. Sure. He promised it that it would come. And it come upon Elisha, his successor, then come on John the Baptist, and according to Malachi 4, it's supposed to be here again in the last day. See?
God loved that spirit that was upon that simple, uneducated woodsman from back there in the woods somewhere. And so... It was so obedient to His Word that He could say, "Elijah, do this," and Elijah would do it. And God hid Himself in there in such simplicity till they all told him... "That old crank. Don't have nothing to do with him," and so forth.
E-215 But one day when--and he got old and his head bald and his--and his whiskers hanging down, gray, what few hairs he had hanging over his shoulders, his little old skinny arms, and the meat flopping on them like that, come walking down that road to Samaria, and them eyes looking up toward the skies with a crooked stick in his hand. He wasn't very much to look at, but he had THUS SAITH THE LORD for the day.
He didn't stammer with it. He--he didn't stutter. He didn't say, "Now, great Ahab..." He walked up and said, "Not even the dew will fall from heaven till I call for it." Oh... God had honored his simplicity.
E-216 Now, you see, while it was in the simple way and everybody was--everybody against him, everybody was at his throat... All the ministerial association and everything else was at his throat (That's true.), trying to get rid of him, everything else. But in that simplicity, even though they had no cooperation with his campaigns and whatevermore they had, everybody thought he was a crank, God was hiding Himself. But when it come time for that seed to get ripe that had been planted, God manifested Himself by sending fire out of the heavens and licking up the sacrifice. God hiding in simplicity and then revealing Himself again. See? Sure. It pleased God to do that. He's always did it in such a way. Yes, sir.
E-217 Now, we find out that He--He promised these things. The trouble is today with so many of us people, we want to get so, you know, so seminary and denominational, educated minded that God can't use us. God can give a man a start to do something and give him a ministry. The first thing you know, he will go to catering to what others say. And the first thing you know, he will be all wrapped up in a big bunch of stuff, and then God just takes His hands off of him and let him alone. See, see?
E-219 And then He will try to find Him another man somebody that will do it. See? He's got to find something that will--will take His Word, will take the Divine revelation and won't move with it, will stay right there on that Word. That's the way He--He does it. He's always done it that way. So when man gets so educated and smart that he tries to put his own interpretation... Well, like they say, "The baptism of the Holy Ghost," they say, "oh, that was for another day." But if they don't... "Well, it wasn't for another day, but I'll tell you; it don't come just like it did on the day of Pentecost. We received the Holy Ghost when we believed," and--and all kinds of stuff like that. You see?
E-220 And talk about the baptism in the Name of Jesus Christ, they--where the Bible teaches it that way, they say, "Well, but the seminary says, and so-and-so says." That's compromising. See? God can't use a person like that. See? He may let a man be beat all across the country like that and the man cast out, and laughed at, and made fun of, and everything else like that, but when the real showdown come, God stands up and vindicates Hisself right in the same simplicity.
E-222 Rise right up like the flower, the seed look like it's over with; it dies and falls in the ground. Dig the little seed up, and it's rotten and looks like a mess, but out of there springs life to reproduce another flower again: God in simplicity.
He does the same thing. The way up is down, always. Humble yourself. Don't never say, "Well, I've got this and that." You ain't got nothing. Just--just remember, if you've got the grace of God, just be thankful for it and be humble...?... Just keep humbling yourself.
E-224 Now, I'm going to have to hurry 'cause the clock's... I don't want to keep you too long, 'cause I don't want to wear you out. See? We got a long time yet through this week.
E-225 Now... And now, we find out that people get so smart and educated. Now, I want to show you another. The--the other goes so far to the other side, they become fanatics trying to be religious. Now, we know we have that group. See? They go to the other side...
That's where I different with the group of brethren that pulled off here not long ago from the--the way of Righ--Light; they--they just couldn't see the phenomena of being done unless they made themselves a group, so they gathered up in Canada and--and made a group of people that they was going to give out and make apostles and prophets out of one another and things, and it fell right through. See? And it always will. See?
They become... They feel that because that they are... That--that they don't... They so condemn the other things and the--and the things till they go plumb on the other side.
E-228 See, there's one side that's highly intellectual, cold and indifferent; they deny everything there; and the others get on the other side, on the other side's a radical bunch of emotion and deny the Word. But the real true Church stays right in the middle of the road.
E-229 Now, if you notice, it's--it's--it's got the Bible knowledge of what God said, and it's--it's spiritual enough to be warm in its heart, and it's just a road. Isaiah said it would be that way He said, "There shall be a highway."
And the blessed, holy, precious friends of the Nazarene church, a mighty little move that God started up. But what did they get? When God begin to speak with tongues in the church, they were so religiously and so self-starched that they called it the devil, and you see what happened to them. See, see? They--they... And the holier than thou are... And--and so we find out that all those things goes to seed and dies right out. See? And the--the--the other side...
E-231 Now, one side becomes a fanatic; the other side becomes cold and starchy. Now, Isaiah said, "There shall be a highway." And the Nazarenes and many of the old holiness people used to say, "The blessed old highway (Glory to God.); we're walking up the old highway." But you remember, that wasn't exactly what he said. He said, "There shall be a highway and ('And' is a conjunction.) and a way," and it shall not be called a highway of holiness, but the way of holiness.
E-234 Now, an highway of holiness... People try to make themselves holy. And when you do, it's just like I said before; it's like a... It would be like a buzzard trying to put dove feathers in himself to make a dove out of it, when his nature's still a buzzard. See? See, it's... It would be like a crow trying to put a--a pigeon's feathers in, or a peacock, and saying, "You see, I'm a beautiful bird." See, it's something manufactured.
But a peacock don't have to worry whether he's going to have peacock feathers or not. The dove don't have to worry whether he's going to have dove feathers or not. As long as his nature is a dove, he will have dove feathers.
And see, the holiness people begin to say, "The women must wear long hair and long sleeves," and all these things, "and long skirts, and not wear any wedding rings, or jewelry of any type." See, it become a self-righteous holiness. See, see? That--that's--that's manufactured holiness. But the real Church of the living God is--it a...
E-236 Look what's happened to the denomination. Now, they've all got cut hair like the Pentecostals and--and so forth, and--and they all, nearly, wear rings and so forth.
Look at the Pentecostals years ago how they harped on that. See? "And we, the church--we, the church." The Church is Christ's body. It's a individual amongst other individuals that is born in the Kingdom of God. That comes from the inside out. It's automatically lived.
E-238 You don't ask the sheep to bear wool or manufacture wool, I mean. The sheep don't have to manufacture wool. He'd say, "Now, my master wants me to have some wool this year. I got to get busy." No, the only thing he has to do is just remain a sheep. That's right. The wool will automatically--it will--it will--he will bear it because...
And we're not asked to manufacture fruits; we're supposed to produce fruit (See?), bear fruits. See? We are supposed to bear fruits. And as long as you are a fruit tree of God with God's Word, God's Word will vindicate Itself. It'll bear fruit as long as the Word's in there.
And Jesus said, "If ye abide in Me and My Word in you, ask what you will, and it shall be done." See it? You don't manufacture it. You work yourself not up to it; it's just actually there. And it goes on and on.
Now, let's go--just, hurrying it up now with just a few minutes left, and then we'll close.
E-241 Now, now, others go so far as to be fanatics. Now, they go on the other side. And they think just because that they jump up and down, or get some kind of a sensation or emotion, speak with tongues, or--or--or give a prophecy that happened to be right or something like that, they think that's it: that--they--they've got it, but it isn't.
Jesus said, "Many will come to Me in that day and say, 'Lord, have not I prophesied in Your Name; Your Name done many works and cast out devils?'" He say, "Depart, I never knew you." See? That isn't it. That isn't it, friends. That's the reason that tongues evidence... I believe in speaking in tongues, but I don't take it to be the only evidence of the Holy Spirit. No, sir. The fruit of the Spirit is the evidence. See? And now...
You see, that's the reason I have different with the move of the Pentecostal brethren in that manner that they say, "If a man speaks in tongues, he has the Holy Ghost." I different. That's no sign he's got the Holy Ghost. See? I've heard devils speak with tongues just as fast as they could, drink blood out of a human skull, and call on the devil.
E-245 I've seen Indians take snakes and wrap around them in the--in the--in the rain dance out there in Arizona, hold their hands up like that, and run right around; the witch doctor come out lancing himself, and lay a pencil down, and it write in unknown tongues and give the interpretation. So, see? So don't--don't tell me that. No, I'm too old for that. See? So...
The--the fruit of the Spirit is the... Jesus said, "By their fruits (not tongues or emotions, but) by their fruits ye shall know them." So that is the fruit of the Spirit.
It's God unfolding Himself in humility, sweetness, and everyday the same. It's something about a man that stays right with the Word, every time that he sees the Word, he punctuates it with an "Amen," no matter what the other people say.
That's... He believes it. You see?
E-247 All right. See? But we go far enough then to rest upon a fanatical... And Satan gets amongst the people. That's Satan's business, and he's a good businessman. And he--he gets amongst the people to make them think that they've got it just because they can jump up and down; and then hate your neighbor? No, see? To--to say things and speak in tongues just wonderfully and things like that... And remember, you can speak in genuine Holy Ghost tongues and still not have the Holy Ghost. The Bible said so. "Though I speak with tongue of men and Angels and have not charity, it profit me nothing. I'm become as a sounding brass, and tinkling cymbal": I Corinthians 13. See? So you don't--that don't do it. See?
E-249 The Methodists said, "When we shouted, we had it," but they didn't. The Nazarene said when they lived holy they had it, but they didn't. The Pentecostals said, "We speak in tongues; we got it," but they didn't. See, see? God unfolding Himself, not in sensations, no, that's... Sensations yet's with it. You see the place? He just gets it so humble till anybody can see it, if you don't--if you don't try to put--inject your own mind to it (See?) and your own thoughts. It's God. Now...
And then they become a bunch of fanatics. Then here's the cold formals on this side; here's the fanatics on the other side, and here goes the Bride right straight through it all, calling from both sides. That's just God vindicating It as He goes along: His Word.
Now--oh, I've got to skip some of this, because I got too much here, and I--I got... My time's run out. I'll hurry just as quick as I can now.
E-253 From Eden--from Eden it has come, been being prophesied that there was coming a Messiah, all the way from Eden. Now, I'm going to skip over a few of my Scriptures I got wrote down here and notes, just to get the message off in time if I can. God hiding in humility... Now, I'll talk fast, but yet I--I want you to catch this. See?
E-255 Since Eden, it had been prophesied that there would come a Messiah. It was foretold what kind of a Person He would be. We could linger a long time. You know the Bible, what He would be, what kind of a Person He'd be. Moses said, "The Lord, your God, shall raise up a prophet like me." They knowed that that Messiah was to be a prophet, the kind of a ministry He would have with Him. All the prophets spoke of what He would do.
They spoke of it in symbols, and it went plumb over the top of their head and plumb under the rest of them (See, see?), went under one and over the other one. See? By the time that He arrived on the scene of time, the people to whom He was sent had their own interpretation of what that He was to be in their own imaginary interpretation.
E-257 The Bible never changed. The Bible is always the same. That's the reason I say the Scripture says, and I stay with that: "The Bible is of no private interpretation." So Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals, don't try to put your interpretation to it, saying, "It don't mean that; it means this." It means just what it said, just exactly.
Someone said, "How can it... I don't know how." It's not me to say that; it's God to take care of that. He's the One Who said it, not me (See?), and He will take care of His own.
E-260 But now, but--this Messiah had been prophesied. The prophets told just exactly how He would come, what He would do when He come, but their own private interpretation of it amongst the people... And when He come He was in such a simple way in simplicity till the whole church group stumbled over it. Is that right?
There those men who had been taught... A man could not be a teacher, a priest until he was born in a certain lineage, after Levi. And just think, his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a priest, laying right in that Word in the temple day and night like the Catholic priest or the minister, that's a--a handed-down minister from generation to the certain churches and so forth. "My great-great-grandfather was a Methodist bishop. My grandfather was a bishop," and so forth. See?
E-263 All that--lived right in the Word, but they had formed their own way of it. And their children had accepted it in such a way that the fathers had taught it, until the fathers had taught it off of the real way, and they'd made such an organization out of it, till when the Spirit tried to present Truth, they couldn't receive it. And that's the same thing today.
I don't mean to be rude, but it's right. It's the same thing today. They make it so--so complicated and--and some other way they teach they're... Just like it's been said: God don't have any grandchildren. You know that? God has sons, and He has daughters, but no grandsons and granddaughters. Every man must pay the same price and come the same way; just as your father did, so must you. Now...
E-265 So He was so simple, when this Messiah... For four thousand years every prophet spoke of Him. David sung of Him, and all down through. And when He come, the people had their own idea built up what He must do, how He was going to do, how it was all explained, drawed out on charts, and everything till when He come in that real simple way, it just--it just ruined their theology. See? They didn't know it. See, He come according to the Word.
Now, do you believe that God spoke through the prophets that that Messiah would come in a certain way? It's too bad we haven't got about another hour that we could go through there and explain how it was. See? We all know how it was though, most of us. How God said He would come and "How that thou, Bethlehem of Judaea, art not the least amongst..." and all down through there and how He would do, and what He would do. See?
E-267 And yet He was so simple till those great scholars had got it so mixed up, till they missed it. But you know Jesus didn't come contrary to the Word; He come according to the Word, but contrary to their interpretation. See? He taught things that was against their ecclesiastical training about Him.
Now, they said, now for instance, "When Messiah comes, certainly He will come up to the temple and say, 'Caiaphas (or ever who's high priest), I have arrived.' He will come with a ten million Angel salute. The... God will say, 'All right, fellows down there, you're really a mighty church. You're My people. I'm going to turn the crank here and let the corridors of heaven down; I'm sending you Messiah to you this morning. I'll let it land right out there in the yard.' And all the people get around and say, 'Doctor So-and-so, you and Doctor So-and-so; you all can stand at the head to greet Him first.'" You See?
E-269 That's perhaps something like they thinking today. Now, I know it's a little--it sounds a little "rashal," but I don't--I'm trying to make a point. "And--and there is--that's the way it's going to be. And if it don't come that way, it's not right. It's an antichrist. If it don't come just that way, it's an antichrist (You see?), so it won't be. And so then there'll be a... Then the next thing comes down will be about a ten million Angel salute with their bands, and they'll land out there in the yard where Solomon built the temple, and oh, all up and down through here, this holy place where saints and sages had died..." and so forth.
E-271 "Yes," Jesus said, "you hypocrites, you sons of the devil," said, "you garnish the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers put them in there." That's right. That's right. See? "How many righteous men and prophets was sent to you, and still you slayed every one of them." See? But what would He called righteous then, what they called fanatics and cranks. Yes. There they thought it would come that way.
But when He come in a stable, borned of a--a virgin, with just a common carpenter for a foster father and a--a little unknown girl... See, not the high priest's daughter or whatmore; He--He come as from a little lady that lived down in the--in--in a little old mean country called Nazareth. And just a common widower; his wife was dead. He had some children: Joseph. And--and she--he was engaged. And then He come with a black name to begin with. They said He was illegitimately born.
E-273 Oh, my. That hit their polish too hard. See? Their educational ethics could not swallow that. Their interpretation of the Scriptures knowed nothing about that, but yet it was the THUS SAITH THE LORD. Oh, my. Shivers me to think it. And to see the same thing reoccurring again... God cannot change. (It's already twelve, but... Will you just... Shall I stop or just--just go on? I think if you can sit still just a little bit. See? Now, now, this is... I'm basing something here for a message coming. See? And I'll try to let you out just as quick, maybe the next ten or fifteen minutes if we can. God bless you.)
E-276 Notice. Now, it's so simple that it--it--it just missed the mark for them, but it hit God's mark (See?); it hit the Word. He come just exactly the way He said, but they--their interpretation of it was wrong. The interpretation of the deliverer in Moses' time was wrong; the interpretation in the time of Noah was wrong (See?), but God comes according to His Word.
And then Jesus came, and He--and He taught things that was contrary. "If Thou be the Messiah, do such-and-such." You see? "If Thou be... Come off the cross, and show it to us now." See? But God don't clown for people; God just does the things that's pleasing and right.
E-278 They thought such a One would certainly have to come with a great salute of Angels, but He come by a stable. And to their own polished ethics, it was ridiculous for a--an ordinary human being to think that Almighty God, the great mighty Jehovah, Who owned the earth and created the whole thing, couldn't fix a place for His own Child to be born, better than some cow barn over a manure pile. How could there... See?
What was it? God in simplicity. That's what made Him so great. See, the ethics of education cannot belittle itself like that. See? It cannot stand it, but God is so great that He brought Himself down to that, not even of clothes to put on His own Child. Think of it. And the world... There was no room in the inn, and He went into a cow stable, a little--a little ledge, a little cave-like back in the side of the hill; and there upon a straw bed came the Son of God. Oh, that was a lot different from meeting up there...
E-280 And His mother was to be mother; she was found to be mother, oh, months before they was even engaged to be married or even married. See? She was to be mother, and the people saw it, and they knowed that it was this a way. And Mary, in her own heart she knowed what was going on. And Joseph didn't understand, but the Angel of the Lord came to him by night saying, "Joseph, you're a son of David. Don't fear to take unto you, Mary, your wife, for that's not nothing bad, but that is of the Holy Ghost." That settled it.
E-281 The man, Joseph, with such connection with God till God could speak to him. But today we get our ecclesiastical jackets so drawed around us till nothing can speak to us outside of the ecclesiastical group that we belong to. I don't want to get harsh or radical, so I'll leave that alone right there. Notice... But you understand what I mean.
E-283 Notice. A stable was ridiculous for them. The polished... We don't even have a--no record where He ever attended one day of school, and yet at the age of twelve years old, a simple boy confounded the priests in the temple by His teaching. Oh, my. What was it? God hiding Himself. I feel pretty religious right now.
God hiding Himself in a barn, God hiding Himself in a little Child... See? Watch. It's going to display after while though. See? He had to... He... When He went on the streets, the parents, no doubt would talk and say, "Don't play with that kid. Don't have nothing to do with Him. His mother's nothing but a common prostitute. (See?) And the father and mother... The baby was born before they were actually married. She was to be mother. Have nothing to do with it."
E-285 What Mary thought... But altogether, no matter what the outside thought, she pondered all these things. They hid it in their heart. They knowed they couldn't say nothing about--against it. God speaks to His men sometimes, say, "Hold your peace. Don't say nothing about it."
I've had people in my meetings say, "Well, if you be a servant of Christ, you know this is going on there." Sure I know it's going on, but then what are you going to do when He says, "Hold your peace. Don't say nothing about it."
E-289 Took some men the other day, showed them on a book, something spoke years ago. I said--said...
Said, "Well, I couldn't understand it."
I said, "You see there?" Here it was back there, got it dated and everything when it happened back there. Oh, when many people had seen it on the book there, I said, "It'll come to pass that this will do this way and that way."
Said, "Well, why didn't you say something about that?" 'Cause it had to be that way. See?
E-292 And Joseph knowed different. He knowed Who that baby belonged to. Mary knowed Who it belonged to. Jesus knowed Who His Father was. What did He say? "I must be about My Father's business," not sawing wood and--and making a door, but about His Father's business. Amen. He said that to His mother: "Can't you understand that I--it's time for Me to be about My Father's business?"
E-293 Now, they thought this little cracked-up Child--any illegitimate child is kind of an odd, curious thing anyhow, and there you are. See? But God hiding Himself... Listen. God hiding Himself in what was thought of the world as filth, corruption, illegitimate... Look, God hides Himself in the corruption of a dead seed to bring forth life. See? Do you get it?
God hides Himself in a simple little wash woman or an ordinary man with his dinner under his arm, kiss his wife and children good-bye, and go out there, and maybe hide Himself in that man to do something that a archbishop would know nothing about. See? You don't hear Him blow no horns and send it out. He--He... God just gets glory; that's all. The simple hear it and are glad. See?
E-296 Now, God was hiding Himself in the simplicity of a baby, hiding Himself in the simplicity of a--a common family, God. And the ecclesiastics and the great men, the mind, the genius, and the--and the--all of them, the Herods and so forth of that day, and the Neros, and they all overlooked it: God hiding in simplicity. (Now, quickly).
E-297 John the Baptist, in Isaiah 40... We could get it if you want to. Malachi 3, all... Well, yeah, you mark it down if you want to. Isaiah 40, all you know, speaking peace to the... As it is, maybe I... It might be good that I--I--I would read it right here, if you got--if you got that much time...?... just for a minute. We'll turn over here in the Book of Isaiah the 40th chapter and--and read here and just see what he says about this now. Look, here.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,...
Now, remember this is 712 years. Look at the heading on there, see712 years before He was born here’s a prophet speaking of Him. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak ye comfortable words to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the LORD’S hand double for all of her sins. The voice of him crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight his paths in the desert a highway for our God.
And every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough... shall be made... plain: (Oh, hallelujah. What a man that was to be. See?)
E-298 Now, turn over to Malachi with me, the last book of the--last of the prophets in the Old Testament. Now, and in Malachi, listen here; Malachi picks it up just at the end time, so they be sure not to forget it. Malachi the 3rd chapter:
Behold, I'll send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, who you delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.
See? Still speaking of John... "Send My messenger before Me to prepare the way." Jesus spoke of it in Matthew 11:10. Said, "If you can receive it, that's who was spoken of, 'Behold I send my messenger before my face...'" See? That's right.
E-300 Now, how all this spoke. When it had been for seven hundred years there was to be a forerunner come before the Messiah; but when he came on the scene in such simplicity, they missed him. They missed him. Remember, he was a priest's son. Well, look how ridiculous that was for him not to follow the office of his father, go back to the seminary, but his job was too important.
At nine years old he went into the wilderness, and he came out preaching. They missed it. He was so simple, too simple for their high-polished education to believe such a one. They thought when this man come... "How about: 'All the high places will be made low; all the low places be made high; all the rough places be made plain'?" David saw it and said, "The--the mountains skipped like little lambs and the leaves clapped their hands."
E-303 What, did it happen? An old whiskered guy like that with no education at all, with a piece of sheepskin wrapped around him, came stumbling out of the wilderness of Judaea saying, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. And you bunch of snakes, don't you think to say 'I belong to a certain organization.' God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham."
My. "Well, that's not him there. We know that's not him." But it was him. See? He was making the path clean. See?
There's when the rough places was made plain. There's where the high places was brought down. "Don't you think you got Abraham to your father? Don't begin to tell me that kind of stuff, 'cause God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." The high places was brought down. Oh my. That's it. Yes. See the difference?
E-304 He said that's what would take place. And when they come, they thought, "Oh, my." They was just ready to receive him, if he come to their own organization. But because he come like that, in such a simple way, yet in interpreting the Scriptures, the high places was made low. They didn't want to accept it, but they was.
Boy, he shaved them off. He shook the hide right off them. Said, "You bunch of vipers. You snakes in the grass. I tell you the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and every tree that won't bring forth the fruits is cut down and cast into the fire. And I indeed will baptize you with water, but there's coming One after me Who's mightier than I. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire, and His fan is in His hand. He will thoroughly purge the floors, and...?... of straw, burn up the chaff, and take the wheat to the garner." Amen.
That was when the rough places was made plain (See?), but the people didn't get it; but it's just exactly with the Word, just exactly the way the Word said it, so simple that they missed it. They missed seeing it. Don't you be that blind. See? Don't you be that blind.
E-308 So listen. Now, they missed it. He was so simple for their common beliefs of such a person that he missed it. Again, what was it? God, which is the Word, hiding in simplicity, not a priest with his collar turned around, with smart education.
Jesus asked them the same thing. He said, "What'd you go out to see?" when John's disciples come over. Said, "What'd you go to see? Did you go to see a man dressed with a priest robe on, you know, and soft clothing," He said, "that--that--that kind of a preacher?" He said, "Did you go to see that?" He said, "No".
"Them kind kiss the babies, and, you know, and bury the dead." They--they don't know nothing about a two-handed sword on the battle front. They was out there, some intellectual speech to some Kiwanis Club or something, you know. They're all right there, but when it comes out there it's battle to face it, they know nothing about it. See? 'Cause they--they--they're in kings' palaces. They fool around with that kind of celebrity." But said then, "What did you go to see? Did you go to see a reed shaken with any wind? A man that could say... Somebody'd say, 'You know, you belong to the--you belong to the Oneness, but if you'll come over here to the Assemblies, I'll tell you what I do: we'll--we'll make it..."
"I believe I'll do that," a reed shaken... Not John. No, no, no, no.
E-312 "If you'll come and be a Sadducee and not be a Pharisee, or something or other. You didn't see anybody shook with the wind, not John." No, sir, brother. Not him. He said, "Then, what did you go to see? A prophet?" It'd take a prophet to do that. See? He said, "Now..."
That was the evidence of a prophet. See? The Word of God with him. The Word comes to the prophet. See? Said, "What did you go to see, a prophet?"
He said, "Yes, that's right."
"But I say to you, even more than a prophet," for he was. Why was he more than a prophet? He was a messenger of the Covenant, that bridged the way between law and grace. He was the keystone in there that been spoke of. He said, "If you can receive it, this is he who the prophet spoke of. 'Behold (a... Malachi 3) I'll send My messenger before My face (See?) and he will prepare the way before Me." See? Oh, he was so simple, God again hiding in simplicity.
E-316 Then and watch what he done. He preached such a mighty Christ coming; "He's got His fan in His hand. He will--He's fanning His way. I mean He will thoroughly purge His floors. He will take up the trash and sweep it out yonder and burn it. That's right. He will gather up the grain and take it into the garner."
See, he was inspired. But when Jesus come, they was looking for... And all them apostles, you know, they was looking for a great something to come. My, my. "Boy, He's coming. That's all there is to it. Boy, He will be mighty. He will kick them Romans off the face of the earth. My, He will make them Greeks go this way and Romans go that when He come." When He come, a little humble Fellow being pushed around from one side to the other. What was it? God hiding Himself in simplicity. Oh, my.
E-319 Then He stood at the end of His message and said, "Who can condemn Me of sin? What all the Bible said that I would do, if I do not the works of My Father, then condemn Me. But what did the Scriptures say that I would do that I haven't done?" Sin is unbelief you know." Who can accuse Me? If I cast out devils by the fingers of God, then show Me what you're doing by."
Simplicity: even surrendered Himself unto death, but, oh, on that Easter morning. Hallelujah. That's where He purged the floor. He swept out the trash all right, brother. Yes, indeed. And the wheat was sealed in the garner--laying there in the ground with Eternal Life resting there, waiting for that great day that we're going to speak of the coming of the Lord when that life will come to Life, and we'll rise in that resurrection, be caught away with Him in the air and be gathered into the garner. And the trash will be burnt yonder, the husk that's wrapped around and tried to pull it this way or that way, will be burnt with unquenchable fire. Amen. Oh, isn't He wonderful. They missed Him: God in simplicity.
E-321 Why? Why, He never even preached in the ecclesiastical terms. He never. He never preached like a preacher. See? He preached like a... He used the terms of simplicity of God, the terms like "the axe is laid"; the terms of the "tree," the terms of "snakes," not some seminary teacher, as in the ecclesiastics of the day, like a Doctor of Divinity, Doctor So-and-so. He didn't do that. He preached like a woodsman out yonder somewhere. He talked about axes and trees and serpents and things like that, and wheat and garners, and everything like that. He'd be considered today a, I guess, a "soap box preacher." I think He was called a "stump preacher" in that day, standing on a stump down there by Jordan...?... God in simplicity, hiding from the wisdom of the world...
E-322 Now, let's find out... Jesus said, "I thank Thee, Father, Thou has hid these things from the wise of the world and is going to reveal it to babies such as will learn." See? God hiding in simplicity in Christ, God hiding in simplicity in John... See? Just... See, He was--He was... Just think of it. God in simplicity, hiding Himself from the wisdom of the world.
Now, we'll close in just a minute or two, 'cause I don't want to hold you no longer.
E-324 Look. Let's stop just a minute: something personal. Think of the day that we're living in (to close this off now). Think of the day we're living in: when God coming down in a little old humble place that we've been dwelling, healing the sick. And the rich and the haughty and the high scholared, "Days of miracles is passed. There's no such thing as divine healing."...
You remember the message I preached from right across this piece of ground here, the morning that I left, about David and Goliath? Said, "How you going to meet an educated world out there, Brother Branham, with all this?"
I said, "I can't help how I'm going to meet it, God said go." See? That's all. See? It's His Word; He promised it. The hour is here.
E-328 When that Angel, that you see in that picture over there, come down on the river down there that day, thirty years ago this coming June or thirty-three years ago, rather, this coming June, and said, "As John the Baptist was sent forth," (before five thousand people or more) "the hour has come when your message will stray the world."
You remember the criticism if any you were there... I guess Roy Slaughter or some of them setting here might remember the day, or some--Mrs. Spencer or ever who would be--some of the old people here that would--would know. See? George Wright or some of them (See?), who know that, how it was... But hasn't it done it? It did it. And then in the midst when the--they turned down and said, "It's just a mental healing." And God turned right back around and sent an old dumb opossum in there and was healed by the power of God.
E-331 Lyle Wood and Banks, when we was setting down there and know the God a-vindicated truth when a little old dead minnow fish, laying on the water, and the Holy Spirit spoke the day before, He was going to show them His glory and do something about it. And there that morning, standing there, the Holy Spirit come down in that boat, and I raised up and spoke to that fish, and it laying on the water dead for a half hour, its gills and entrails pulled out of its mouth; it come to life and swam away as good as any other fish. What is it? God hiding Himself in simplicity.
E-332 God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham. God's able to heal a opossum, or a fish, or anything. If He will bring His message forth and the people won't believe it, God can raise up a opossum to believe it. Hallelujah. God can raise a dead fish; He can raise a dead opossum; He can--He can do anything He wants to do.
What a rebuke to this generation, when they stumble over it and fuss about it, and "You didn't do this and do that," and God sent a simple animal in. See? What a rebuke. What was it? God in simplicity (See?), showing Himself to be great. Oh, my. Rebuke these men of this generation of their unbelief.
E-334 Now, they think now like they always have: "It must be done in their own way. Now, if there's such a thing as divine healing..." Like a Catholic man told me, this fellow, the other night, told me about that. You know, about... Said this Ayers that I went to see about his boy there at Houston. He said--he said, "Well now, if--if that was a gift of God, it'd have to come in the Catholic church." You see? See?
Yeah. The Methodists thought It'd have to come in their church, and the Pentecostals thought It'd have to come to their church, but It didn't come in any of them. And It come in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ Who manifested Hisself. That's right. Sure He does. Yeah. Just watch it. Don't let it pass from you. Keep it under your--your heart and remember; ponder it there.
Got to come in their own way, for their--from their own denomination. And except it does that, it isn't Him. See? "It's just psychology, or it's the devil." It's a--it's--it's not God, because if it was God, He'd have to come in their own way, you see, "The way we've got it interpreted..."
E-337 That's the way that Jesus had to come to the Pharisees. It had to be that way. See? If there... If God was going to--to send a Messiah, they had it all interpreted just how He must be, and because He come different, then it wasn't the Messiah. He was the illegitimate something; He was the Beelzebub. But it was God hiding in simplicity.
The forerunner must be a certain educated man that there... Well, one no doubt each day, each year when they--they ordained their ministers and sent them out as missionaries to proselyte and bring in... Each one thought, "This will be that forerunner that comes forth," but God raised him out of the wilderness where there wasn't no seminary at all (You see?), and things like that. See? God hiding Himself in humility and in simplicity...
E-339 But now, wait. In closing we say this: But to reject God's simple message... To--to--to reject it, God's simple way, is to be destroyed eternally. Now, that's how much we talk how simple it is, and people think, well, they can laugh at it and run over it and treat it any way they want to, but it's eternal separation from God.
Those who died in the days of Noah and did not listen to his message, they perished. And Jesus went and preached to them in the chains of darkness in His death before He rose up, and He went to hell and preached to the spirits was in prison that repented not in the long-suffering of the days of Noah while a simple message of God by a simple man was being preached. He went. He said, "Noah preached that I would be here, and here I am." That's right. See?
E-341 Those who failed to listen to that prophet's message, Moses out there in the wilderness, that he received from God, properly vindicated by a Pillar of Fire and was led out in the wilderness, and then tried to raise up and make an organization by it, and they perished and died in the wilderness, every one of them but two men, Joshua and Caleb. And over there, the--the Pharisees was so blind they couldn't see that, so they looked back and said, "Our fathers eat man--eat manna in the wilderness."
And Jesus said, "And they are everyone dead."
E-343 They seen the glory of God; they walked in the Light of the... They walked in the Light. They walked in the Light of the Pillar of Fire. They walked in the presence of Its power. They walked through the places that the Holy Spirit made for them to walk. They eat the manna that fell out of heaven that God provided and lost and went to hell. They're every one dead. And if you take that word, it's eternal separations from the Presence of God. They're every one dead. See?
E-344 Every one that refused Jesus is perished. See what I mean? To refuse that simplicity of God... It's just not something... You say, "Well, I made a mistake." You don't do it that way. God don't receive it that way; you perish eternally. We'd better be thinking about something. We best. Now, it's got to be properly identified by God. See? Then if it is, it's His Word. See? Oh. Like those that rejected Moses, rejected Elijah, rejected John, rejected Jesus of their days...
E-345 Here, let me just tell you a little bitty thing, and then I hope I'm not hurting too much. But, look. The other day I was called to Houston, Texas, to try to get a pardon... I gathered some people together to preach a message to get people there to sign a pardon of--of this young fellow and young girl, you know, that got in that trouble (I guess you've read about it in the paper) and that was Mr. Ayers' step son.
Mr. Ayers is the one who had taken the picture of the Angel of the Lord that you see right there: a Roman Catholic, and his wife was Jewish.
E-346 And he married this Jewish girl; they wouldn't speak religion among one another and so forth like that, and Ted Kipperman, which was also with him in the business had the Douglas Studio. And when he come over there where Mr. Best, Dr. Best, of the Baptist church, holding his fist under Brother Bosworth's nose, and shook it and said, "Now, take my picture doing that." Said, "I'm going to take that old man's hide and hang it on my study room as a memorial of divine healing."
And before I went to Houston, Texas, the Lord God told me to go there, and I was there in the Name of the Lord. And you all know the debate and things that come up. You've read it in the books and so forth, and there it was. And that night, trying only to walk humble, "Why," they said, "they're a bunch of ignoramuses." Dr. Best said, "They're nothing but a bunch of ignoramuses." Said, "There's no such people believes in divine healing, stuff like that. That's a bunch of backwash."
They don't know that it was God in simplicity. "Why," said, "the man ain't even got a grammar school education." He was polished with all the scholars of degrees that he could, till he thought he could smother Brother Bosworth down anyway, but when it come to the Word, he wasn't even a tenth of a match for him. See?
E-350 Brother Bosworth knowed where he was standing. Many of his people setting right here was at the debate. And there he was, and then he just throwed off on us every way, as being a bunch of ignoramuses. Said, "Decent thinking people don't even believe it."
Brother Bosworth said, "Just a moment." He said, "How many people in this city (of about thirty thousand that night, setting among us like that)... How many people in this city here that goes to these big fine Baptist churches can prove by a doctor's statement they've been healed by the power of God since Brother Branham's been in the city, stand up," and three hundred stood up. Said, "What about that?"
E-352 There it was. God was hiding in simplicity. Then he said, brother... He said, "Bring forth the divine healer. Let me see him hypnotize somebody; then let me look at them a year from today."
And Ted Kip--and Ayers there, the very one who took the picture. Said "Mr. Branham ain't nothing but a hypnotizer. I seen a woman had a goiter on her throat, like that, and said he hypnotized that woman; the next day I talked to her, and she didn't have no goiter." Said, "The man hypnotized her."
And, oh, he just ridiculed me, said I ought to be run out of the city, and he ought to be the one to do it (See?), and all like that: big lines in the front page of the Houston Chronicle.
I never said a word. I was there to do my Father's business, and that was all: stay with that Word. He sent me there, and it's His business...
E-356 That night when I walked down there, and I said, "I--I--I'm--I'm no Divine healer. I--I'm not... If anybody says that," I said, "they're wrong." And I said, "I don't want to be called a Divine healer." I said, "If Dr. Best here preaches salvation, well then he wouldn't want to be called a Divine saviour." And I said, "Then I preach Divine healing, and I don't want to be called a Divine healer, but he says he isn't a Divine saviour. Certainly he isn't; neither am I a Divine healer, but 'By His stripes we were healed.' I'm pointing to that." See?
And so... "He's nonsense." You know, walked around.
I said, "But if the Presence and this gift of God, this Angel of the Lord, if that's in question, that can be proven." And about that time, here she come whirling down on me. Said, "No need of speaking now; He's already spoke for me." And I walked out.
E-358 I went... And Houston, that big city, one of the nicest cities there is in the country anywhere... When I walked in there the other day, it was a disgrace to look at that city. The streets were dirty. The counters of the place, right down on Texas Avenue, and I went into the Rice Hotel where movie stars used to stay, and went down there in that basement, that cafeteria, and the ceiling's dropping out, plaster on the floor, and filth, and dirt, and a confusion amongst preachers like has never been or ever heard in my life.
Why? To refuse Light is to walk in darkness. There sets their children in death row. Right. God came down when simplicity was displayed and rejected, then God showed Himself in simplicity. And there they took that picture which has swept the world. Even the scientists said It's the only supernatural Being was ever photographed in the--all the history of the world, and hangs in Washington, D. C. in the Hall of Religious Art. See? There it is, simplicity manifested then. See, see? God hiding Himself in simplicity, then manifest Himself. See?
E-361 Now, He hid Hisself in the death of Christ, but manifested Himself in the resurrection, oh, my, so forth. You can just--we just--we... There's no end to it. Just keep saying... But there you are. To refuse to say there's a sunshine is to go into the basement and shut your eyes from light. That's right.
And remember, the only way that you can be wrong is first to refuse right. And to refuse to open your eyes, you'll live in darkness. See? If you just refuse to look, how you going to see? See? Watch the simple things. It's the little things that you leave undone, not the big things you're trying to do--do. Oh, my. Then look here.
E-363 Let me tell you. In Mal... In Matthew 11:10 He said, "If you can receive it, this is he (See?), this is he who was sent before Me." It was simplicity.
It was asked of Him one day, said, "Why does the scribes say then that..."
He--He said, "Son of man's going up to Jerusalem. I'm going to be put in the hands of sinners, and they're going to kill the Son of man. He's going to die, and on the third day He's going to rise again." Said, "Don't tell nobody the vision up there."
E-366 And the disciples... Now, think of it, disciples who had walked with John, talked with him, eat with him in the wilderness, set down on the bank, they said, "Why does the teachers say that Elias must first come? You say you're going up to the crucifixion and going to rise; you're the Messiah, take the throne. Now, why does the scribes... All of our Scriptures say here--the Scriptures plainly says that before the Christ shall come, that Elias will come first." See?
He said, "He's already come, and you didn't know it." Now, who was that? Disciples.
E-368 I'm going to hurt here in just a little bit now, but I don't mean it. See? For the next few minutes (See?), just a minute too; but so that you'll be sure to understand. (Can you hear me?) Look: Why... Them men who'd walked with Christ, "Why does the Scriptures first say that Elias must come," and they were John's own converts and didn't even know him. Why did the Scriptures say, the teachers? Can you see what I mean? "Why does the Scriptures say that Elias must first come?" Disciples that walked with him. "Why does the Scriptures say that he must first come before these things and restore all things?" He did to about a half dozen people, and that's all there was. See? That's all that was supposed to receive it. That was what was ordained to see it.
E-370 Jesus said, "He's already come, and you didn't know it. But he done just what the Scriptures said he would do. He restored them, you all, that received Me and believed on Me. He done exactly what the Scriptures said he'd do. And they did to him what the Scriptures said they would do. He's already come, and you didn't know it." Are you ready?
I want to shock you a little bit. The rapture will be the same way. It'll be so simple; no doubt it'll be likewise, till the rapture will come one of these days and nobody will know nothing about it.
E-371 Now, don't--don't--don't get up now, but study just a minute. I'm sure enough closing. The rapture will come in such a simple way till the judgments will fall, and they'll see the Son of man; they'll say, "Wasn't we supposed to have such-and-such... And wasn't there supposed to be Elias sent to us? And wasn't there supposed to be a rapture?"
Jesus will say, "It's already happened, and you didn't know it." God in simplicity... See?
E-373 Now, this week we're going to get in some awful deep teaching on the Word. Now, notice. The rapture will be... So few go in that Bride. It'll not be... Now, see how the teachers has got it? They've got charts, and they go to show ten million people coming up here, and all the Methodists, if it's a Methodist preacher; and if it's a Pentecostal, all the Pentecostals coming. It will never touch it.
It'll be, maybe one leave Jeffersonville, just somebody come up missing. They'll say, "Well, you never..." The rest of them won't know. There'll be one leave Georgia. See? There'll be one leave in Africa. And let's say there'd be five hundred people a-living will go in the translation. Now, that ain't--that ain't the church body; this is the Bride. That ain't the church; this is the Bride. See? The--the church will come up by the thousands, but that's in the next resurrection. They lived not for the space of a thousand years. See? But in the Bride if five hundred people left the earth this very minute, the world would know nothing about it.
E-377 Jesus said, "There'd be one in a bed; and I'll take one, leave one." That's at nighttime. "There'd could be two in a field (over on the other side of the earth); I'll take one and leave one. And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man."
Think. Everything will move just as common as it can be. A fanatic message will go by, and the first thing you know something, "This minister going somewhere, he's never come back. He probably went to the woods hunting; he's never returned no more. And this fellow went somewhere..." "You know what happened? I believe that young girl, she--she must've been caught away somewhere, you know. Somebody take that girl out and ravish her, probably throwed her in the river. She was miss...?... Nobody... Half of it."
Ninety-nine out of every... May say one out of every hundred million will ever know anything about it. See? Unless somebody's acquainted with... Say, "The girl's missing. Why, I can't understand. She never did leave like that." No.
E-379 And when they say the--the graves will open, how is the graves going to open when... I--I haven't got time to get into this, what I wanted to. I'm going to have to take this... Just to show you the simplicity of God. And that calcium, potash, and everything when... When everything that's in you of materials only makes a spoonful... That's right. And what that does it breaks on back into spirit and life...
God just speaks and the rapture will come. It ain't going out there, and the Angels come down and shovel out the graves and get out an old dead carcass here. What is it? It's born of sin to begin with, but a new one made in its likeness. You know... See? If we have this, we'll die again. See? Nobody will say, "The graves will open. The dead shall walk out." That may be true, but not open the way you say open. See? That's right. See? It won't be like that. It'll be a secret, because He said He'd come like a thief in the night.
E-380 He's already told us this, the rapture, then judgments will strike: sin, plagues, sickness, and everything. The people will cry for death to take them when the judgment... "Lord, why is this judgment upon us when You said that there'd be a rapture first?"
He will say, "It's already come, and you didn't know it.": God hiding Himself in simplicity. Oh, my. All right. "It's all--it's already happened and you knew it not."
Why don't believers believe the simple signs of His coming? They're expecting the--a--all this things that's spoke of by the Scripture, and--and the moon's going to go down in the middle of--the sun in the middle of the day, and there's going to be all kinds of things.
Oh, if we just had... I got the notes wrote here on it (See?), to show what them things are, and we'll get it on the breaking of these Seals this week anyhow. See, see? There it is, just where it's already passed and you didn't know it. See? See if it is. If the Angel of the Lord will break them Seals forth to us... Remember, it's sealed with them seven mysterious thunders. See?
E-385 Now, why--why can't people believe the simple simplicity of a humble bunch of people (See?) and the--the voice of the signs of God? Why can't they believe it? Just like it always been. The true Word of God being made manifest, It's... They're too smart and too educated to believe the simple form of the written Word. They want to put their own interpretation to it. "It don't mean this. It don't mean that." See? It does mean that.
Listen. May I say this right quick now? Even the visions that God gives here at the place, it's so misunderstood. That's the reason you hear me on the tapes say, "Say what the tapes say. Say what the visions say."
E-386 Now, if you're wide awake, you'll see something. See? I hope I don't have to hold it in my hand to show you. See, see, see? You're... It's--it's here. We're at the end. Yes, sir. Smart, education will miss it. The simple visions, when they're revealed in such simplicity, till it just crosses over the top of people's head. See?
Because I seen the vision and told you all about going up there hunting, and, you know, that just stumbled people. And there God set it up there for the very purpose, and come back and interpret it right around, showing of the going of my mother and things like that, and then come back and told it beforehand, and it happened just exactly the way He said it would do...
E-388 See? And yet, John came right out there and confessed: He said, "I'm not no Messiah, but I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness." And then them very disciples say, "Why did--does the scribes say, the--the Scripture teach that Elias must first come?" See? The simplicity of God goes--just roosts right over the top of people's heads.
Let me take this, and then close; I will, by the help of God. See, look. Now, let's break this down. Then I--I'm sorry to keep telling you all that going down there. See, so... Sorry to hold you, but just a few hours, we come back.
E-391 Look. Let's take a simple drop of ink. Everything is for a purpose. You've gathered here this morning for a purpose. I eat at your house, Charlie. Nellie, you cooked for me for a purpose. Now, everything's for a purpose. This church is erected for a purpose. There's nothing without a purpose and a cause.
E-392 Let's take the simple drop of ink now. (Can you hear me?) Let's take a simple drop of ink and look at it. What is it? A drop of ink. Where did it come from? All right. Let's take this drop of ink. Now, it's--let's say it's black ink. Now, that ink is for a purpose. It can write my pardon in a--out of a penitentiary. It can write my pardon from a death cell. That right?
It can write John 3:16 and save my soul by believing it. Is that right? Or it can sign my death warrant. See? It can condemn me at the judgment bar. It's for a purpose. Is that right?
Well, let's look at that little ink and see where it come from. Now, it's ink; it's been put together in chemicals and so forth, till it's become ink, and it's black.
You drop it on your clothes; it'll stain it. But we have manufactured a stuff called bleach. You women use Clorox bleach. Well, I'll take that one drop of ink and drop it into a tub of--of bleach. Now, what happened to the ink? See? Why? A bleach has been manufactured, invented and manufactured chemicals together that'll break up that coloring so bad till you can't find it.
E-394 Now, part of the bleach is water. Water is H2O which is hydrogen and oxygen, and both hydrogen and oxygen, both are dangerous explosives. And then hydrogen and oxygen are actually ashes. That's what it is (That's right.), chemical ashes, just chemical ashes. Now, now, put it together you got water; but break it, you got hydrogen and oxygen. You just keep on going back. Now, in getting in this, let's take...
Now, I cannot... Now, there might be chemists setting here, and I--I want to say it 'cause there would be chemists listening at it. I don't know the formula, but I want to just explain it in my own humble way, trusting that God will reveal Himself in it.
E-397 Look. I drop that drop of ink into a--a--a bleach. What happens? Immediately the black stain is gone. You couldn't find it again if you had to; it's gone. You'll never see it no more. What happened? Now, you don't see nothing come up from it. You don't... Why don't you? Because it's broke up. Now, science would say, "It turned back to its original acids."
What did the acids come from? See? Well, you say, "It come from--from certain things." All right. Say, for instance, like fumes made acids. Where did fumes come from? Well, it was--we'll say, fumes was made by molecules. Where'd molecules come from? From atoms. Where'd atoms come from? From electronics. Where'd they come from? Cosmic light. See? You're plumb back a-past finding of chemist now. And if it is a substance and a creation, it has to come from a Creator; so you're not setting here by chance.
E-400 I'm not holding till twelve-thirty or one o'clock by chance. The footsteps of the righteous is ordered of the Lord. See? There's some reason for it. There's some reason for you to believe. There's some reason for you not to believe, just like you're--with that ink. Now, let's break that down.
Now, the first thing, say, after we get back to... We bring it back as far as molecules. Now, we took molecule, I'd say number one times molecule nine, times molecule twelve. Now, if it had been eleven, it would come out red; but it--it had to be twelve to make black. Then we'll take that down to atom. It was atom nine-six, times plus four-three to equal atom sixteen-eleven. If it'd been sixteen-twelve, it might've been purple. See? Then you keep breaking it on down.
E-403 It shows that there was a something back yonder to begin with. That's only common sense. It's a creation, it has to have a Creator, and it went out from a Creator. And then it--it was determined and put into these different... Now, science cannot take atom B-sixteen times twelve times fourteen times, whatever what like--like that, to make that. God had to do that. And then it's brought down to a place to where it's got down into atoms, then science can begin to touch it.
Then it comes out into molecules, then they can begin to see a little better. Then it comes down from that into something else, and the first thing, it comes into chemicals and then they blend these together.
E-405 Now, when man--before he sinned... (I'm closing, but don't you miss it). When man sinned, he separated himself from God and crossed a great chasm and put himself in death on this side. He left; there's no way back. Exactly. There's no way for him to get back. But then when he did, God accepted a substitute which was a lamb, or a goat, or a sheep, or something for blood, which Adam spoke of--or Abel spoke of on the other side of the chasm.
On that side he's a son of God; he's an offspring from God. He's an inheritance of the earth. He can control nature. He can speak into existence. Why, he's a creator himself. He's an offspring of God.
E-407 But when he crossed, he separated his sonship. He's a sinner by nature; he's under the hands and dominion of Satan; and God took a sacrifice, a chemical of the blood, but the blood of bulls and goats did not divorce sin; it only covered sin.
If I've got a red spot on my hand and cover it with white, the red spot's still there. See, it's still there. But God sent down from heaven a Bleach for sin. It was the Blood of His own Son, that when our confessed sin drops into God's Bleach, try to find it again. The coloring of sin goes back through the mediators and down through the time until it hits the accuser, Satan, and lays on him till the day of the judgment.
E-410 What happens to the son? He becomes in perfect fellowship with the Father again, standing on the other side of the chasm with no remembrance of sin against him. No more... There's no more stain of bleach can be seen anywhere. He's free. Hallelujah. Just as that Clorox or that ink can never be ink no more because it's broke up and sent back again...
And when confessed sin is confessed and been dipped into the... A man or woman that's been dipped into the Blood of Jesus Christ, it kills all symptoms, and every molecule of sin goes back to the devil and laid on him till the day of judgment where his eternal destination will be throwed into a lake of fire; and the chasm is bridged and never to come into remembrance no more. And a man stands justified as a son of God: simplicity.
E-411 Moses, under the blood of bulls and goats, with his confession in the Word of God, and God could take that simple man and put His Words in his mouth. And he proved that he was Jehovah's servant, for he could walk out there... And Jehovah spoke to him by vision. He walked out, stretched his hands towards the east... And now, remember, God had spoke to him; it's God's thought. God uses man. God spoke to him; it's right.
He said, "Go stretch that rod in your hand towards the east and say, "Flies."
E-413 And Moses, under the blood of that goat, sheep, walked out there and took that stick, reached towards the east, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, let there be flies." Never heard a fly... Walked on back, it's already spoke. It's a thought; now it's spoke; it's expressed. It's the Word of God then. It come into a human's lips, a simple man under the blood of a bull--bull or goat.
First thing you know, a green fly begin to fly around. The next thing you know, they were five pounds per yard. What was it? Was the Word of God spoken through Moses, the creator, because under the blood he was standing in the Presence of God, and his own words wasn't his word.
E-415 "If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, then ask what you will; it shall be given to you." Where's the Church standing at? "Let there be frogs," and there wasn't a frog in the country. In a hour's time, they were ten foot deep in places. What was it? It was God, the Creator, hiding Himself in a simple man.
I want to ask you something. If the blood of a bull or a goat be used for a bleach, which can only cover, could put a man in position to speak the creative Word of God and bring flies into existence, why would you stumble at the Bleach of Jesus Christ's Blood Who could speak a squirrel or something into existence?
Don't you do it. Don't stumble over simplicity. Believe that He still remains God. Oh, my. Pardoned of sin... Oh, how I wish I could... Then, Mark 11:22: "If you say to this mountain 'Be moved,' and don't doubt in your heart, but believe that what you said will come to pass (oh), you can have what you said."
E-420 My, I've got three or four pages; we've got to leave it go. Thank you. God hiding Himself in simplicity. Don't you see? There's something wrong somewhere. There's something wrong somewhere. When God makes a statement, He cannot lie. He made the promise. See? He hides in simplicity. It's so simple the educated and scholars say, "Aw, it's--oh, it's telepathy," or something. You know it's a...
E-423 God can sweep Himself back down through the streams of time and tell you back there just exactly what happened, tell you just exactly what you are today, and what you will be to come. That's still by the Bleach of Jesus Christ, Who can take a sinner to bleach him into there, and he stands in the Presence of God, "And if ye abide in Me and My words in you, you can ask what you will and it'll be done. He that does believe on Me, the works that I do shall he do also. How do you condemn Me? Oh, did not your own laws say that those who the Word of God came to, the prophets, did not you call them gods? And then how can you condemn Me when I say I am the Son of God?" They failed to see it. They failed to see it.
E-426 Now, Church, in the coming messages from tonight on, don't fail to see it. See? See the day that we're living in. And remember, the Blood of Jesus Christ takes sins so far from you, until it's not even in the remembrance of God anymore. It takes all stains.
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
Then before the throne,
I stand in Him complete...
E-427 Oh, my. How can I be complete? How can I be complete? Because the Blood, not me, but that Blood stands between God and me. I accepted It, and He put It... I'm a sinner, but He's God. But the chemistry stands between me to kill sin, so God sees me just as white as the--the water that's in the--that's in the bleach. Sin is gone. It can't even reach him because there's a Sacrifice laying there.
E-428 Where's our faith to believe the simple Word of God? Just what God said, take Him at His Word. God hides Himself now in simplicity in a humble little bunch, but one of these days, He will manifest Himself as He always has in the days passed by. Do you love Him?
I love Him, I love Him
Because He first loved me
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
E-429 You love Him? My, isn't He wonderful? I hope and I trust that the message will produce what it was intended to do; that it'll get you to a place that you don't look for flowerly things or some... When you see God in greatness, look how humble it is, and then you'll see God. Don't look for Him...
E-430 When Elisha was back in that cave, the smoke went across, blood, thunder, lightning, and (See?), all these kinds of sensations we've had--blood in the face and in the hands, and sensations and everything, they never bothered that prophet. He just laid there, but he heard a still small Voice. What was it? the Word. Then he covered his face and walked out. See, that was it.
E-431 Remember, friend, don't look for great big... You say, "God." He speaks of great big things. There'll come a time there'll be this, that, or the other, great big things... I hope you're catching what I'm talking about (See?), great big things... See? And oh, when this comes to pass, it'll be great, big like this, and it'll be so humble you'll miss the whole thing and just go right on. See?
You'll look back and say, "Well, that never did come to..." See? Passed right over the top, and you never even seen it, just...?... See? It's so simple. See? God lives in simplicity to manifest Hisself in greatness. What makes Him great? Because He can simplify Himself. A big great man can't simplify himself; he's got to be a dignitary. See? But he ain't big enough yet. When he comes big enough, then he comes down like this (you see?), can humble himself.
E-434 As the old saint said up there in Chicago, that fellow went up with all the education and things, said he come down whipped out, head hanging down, walking out defeated. He said, "If he'd have went up the way he come down, he'd have come down the way he went up."
Well, that's right. See? Humble yourself. Just be humble. Don't try to be peculiar; just--just love Jesus (See?), say, "Lord, if there's any guile in my heart; if there's anything wrong, Father, I don't want to be like that. You take it away. I don't want to be like that."
"Oh, I want to be numbered as one of them in that day, Lord. And I see the day approaching." You see these Seals begin to... If God will open them to us. And remember, He alone can do it. We're depending on Him. God bless you.
E-437 Now, I suppose our pastor will have a word for you to say--or for him to say, rather, to--to you before we meet again this afternoon. And I think the service will, the song service is at six-thirty fine, sir? And it's... All right, six-thirty, and it's... The doors open at six; song service will start at six-thirty. And...
The Lord willing, I'll be speaking tonight on the subject of the Seven Sealed Book. And then Monday night the white horse rider; Tuesday night the black horse rider; Wednesday night the grizzled horse, the pale horse and then the red horse rider. Then go into the 6th--4th, 5th and 6th and then Sunday night... Next Sunday morning maybe a healing service I don't know.
E-439 Now, remember, we're dedicated to the Lord--ourselves and the church for the service of God. God bless you. I've--I'm one hour late; will you forgive me now? I don't--I don't mean to do that. But see, I--I just can be with you this week and I'm be leaving again. And I don't know where I'll be going; just where He leads. And I want to spend every minute I can, because I want to spend eternity with you. God bless you. Now, Brother Neville.