Christus ist in seinem eigenen Wort geoffenbart
Datum:
65-0822M
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BBV
Jeffersonville, Indiana USA
E-1 Let us bow our heads. Lord Jesus, the Shepherd of the great Flock, we are so in debt to Thee, Lord, that we could never pay Thee for the love that Thou has shed abroad in our hearts. We feel so unworthy as we bow our heads and stand in Thy presence. We ask You to cleanse us from all faults and all sin. We pray that You'll strengthen our bodies today. Many are sick and afflicted, as it shows here, of handkerchiefs and requests coming in on the phone and everywhere.
E-2 And we believe that we are ending up this world's history now, and soon time will fade into Eternity, and we want to be ready for that hour. And that's why we have assembled here this morning, is to prepare for that time. I am told that there are many of the telephone hooks-ups this morning across the nation, from coast to coast. Wherever our voices is coming, may that little group be blessed. Heal the sick that's among them, and I pray that You'll cleanse their souls from all evil. And help us here this morning, at the tabernacle, that we also may enjoy that great privilege.
E-3 And we ask that You'll speak to us today through Thy written Word, and may the Spirit reveal to us the things that we have need of, as we have gathered nationwide now, feeling that we are a small people, but have a place among the redeemed, because we have believed on Jesus Christ. Grant these things to us, Lord.
E-4 And when we close the service and we go to our different homes across the nation, may we say, like those from Emmaus, "Did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke to us along the road?"
E-5 Now, Father, I know that whatever I would say would be certainly insufficient, with the--the fine Christians throughout the nation now that's tuned in, it wouldn't be--it wouldn't be adequate. It would not be something that I could say that could do any good, because we're all in the same category. We're human, mortals. But let the great Holy Spirit speak; may He take a hold of the Word and just reveal Himself. We're waiting on Him now, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
You may be seated.
E-6 I kinda... surprising myself. I told my wife, if she happens to be listening in, down in Tucson, that I didn't think I'd have any service when I come back; and I didn't even bring clothes. And I said to my daughter-in-law, she had pressed my coat, and I said, "I'm staying behind the pulpit, with... They don't know the trousers is one kind and the coat's another." It's the ones I wore home. But, Meda, she got my shirt ironed and everything, so every... Don't worry; everything is fine.
E-7 Now, we have a request here, that there's a very dear brother... And I think that--that Prescott, I believe, is hooked in this morning, up in--in Prescott, Arizona. Sister Mercier's father is just been on his road here to the meeting, I understand, and was had to be taken to the hospital in a heart attack, Brother Coggins. And, also, Brother Junior Jackson, I think he's in on the next radio down, or the next phone down in Clarksville or New Albany, and his father is in the hospital, I understand, with serious operation of cancer in the liver. So we want certainly remember those in our prayers. And now there's others here, too, but we don't want to take up the time. God knows all about them, so let us pray for them now.
E-8 Dear God, as that dear, old, wrinkled-hand man, Brother Coggins, an old veteran of the field, has... laying in the hospital this morning, somewhere, suffering from an attack on his heart. God, that poor old heart's went through much troubles. I pray, God, to help him. Grant it. He like... He loves life like all of us does, and he wants to live. Lord God, grant it. We across the nation pray in Jesus' Name for him, that You'll heal him and bring him out. We believe that You will; he'll be come right to the meeting.
E-9 We pray for Brother Jackson, his precious daddy laying there near death now, and bring in the world a fine boy like Junior. I--I--I pray, dear God, that You'll heal him. I know it seems impossible. The medics, the doctors, they--they don't know what to do in that kind of a case. But we remember Brother Hall, also, when the very best of the physicians here said, in Louisville, said, "He's just a few hours to live," with cancer in the liver. And he's living today, and that's twenty-five years ago, because of Your grace. So I pray that You'll heal Brother Jackson today, Lord, let Your grace and mercy be with him.
E-10 And all this great pile of handkerchiefs and cloths and things that's placed here in request; You know them all, Father. I pray that You'll grant healing to all of them. In Jesus Christ's Name. Amen.
E-11 Now start, this morning, I didn't think that I was going to come down, at the first place, last Sunday. And then again, when we announced it, I come down. Brother Neville had me to speak! And then we announced to be down today, and it hasn't been notified out around the country to the peoples. And we got this telephone system now, which is very, very fine. The people can set right in their homes or their... gather in their places, their churches, and so forth, and hear the service. I appreciate that.
E-12 Now I see laying here, there had been many requests this last week, on what I said last Sunday on the Message. I believe I forget what I titled it now. But I said something about paying your debts. And you know, no matter what you say, it's misunderstood by many. Not 'cause they... they don't want to misunderstand it, but you just simply misunderstand it.
And now someone said, "Should we buy a car?" Or, "What should I..."
Now, that isn't what Jesus spoke of, or the Bible there, that said, "Owe no man nothing." That's lingering debts that you could pay. Pay them. It don't... That's owing no man nothing. It doesn't mean... My, we owe our rent, our telephone bill, we... and whatmore. We--we owe those things, and we pay them. But, an old lingering debt that you could be paying on, pay it off. See? Now, don't go with anything hanging on you like that. [Romans 13:8]
E-13 I remember a time when I was sick, once when I was a boy. I came out of the hospital owing about two thousand dollars. And used to be a drugstore here, Mr. Swaniger, I owed him about three or four hundred dollars, a medicine bill. He didn't even know me. And the man... I went to him. I didn't know him. And he just send it up there, anyhow, never refused to send it. And I said, "I owe you."And I said... I believe, Swaniger... It was Mr. Mason down on Court Avenue and Spring.
And I said, "I owe you. And I'm--I'm just still awfully weak, but I'm trying to go to work. Now, if I can't pay you..." I just become a Christian. I said, "First thing, Mr. Mason, as my duty to God, I owe Him my tithes. I want to pay Him my tithings, first." And I said, "Then my next duty is pay my debts." I said, "My father is sickly, and he... And we got... There's ten of us children in the family." But I said, "I'll... If I can't pay you no more than twenty-five cents on that bill, each payday; if I can't pay you even the twenty-five cents, I'll come by and tell you about it. I'll tell you, 'I--I--I can't do it this time.'" Now, by the help of God, I paid every bit off. See? But that's what I mean, see? Just don't somebody say...
E-14 Oh, some Christian here at the church one time went out and got some work done on a car here, and the man come down... The man said, "I'll pay you. I get paid Saturday," or something another. And he never paid him. And weeks after weeks rolled by, and never paid him, never said a word. And--and the man come and asked me, he said... See, it reflects against the church. It reflects against Christ.
You can't pay him, go tell him, say, "I owe you, and I'm going to pay you. I'm a Christian, but I--I just... I can't do it right now, I've got... I owe this." And, remember, it's on God's books too, you know, that you do. So that's... I'm trying to, for myself and for all of us together, try to be ready, for we know we're getting near something, very near of something is going to take place. So we want to be ready. When the Coming of the Lord is drawing so nigh now, we want to be ready for that great hour. [Romans 13:8]
E-15 Now we want to get ready and speak now on a little subject here that I chose for this morning, by the help of the Lord. And we'll speak just as briefly as we can, because of the hook-up of the people. I hope you all got a... all across the nation, got a fine morning like we have here in Indiana. Nice, cool, fine weather we're having now since the rain. And it's very fine.
E-16 Now I want to read from the Book of Hebrews, the 1st chapter; and from the Book of Saint John, the lst chapter. Hebrews 1:1 to 3, and Saint John 1:1, for a text. My subject this morning is a study in the Scriptures. Now let's read Hebrews 1:1.
God, who at sundry times... divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets,
But in these last days spoken to us by his Son, who he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world;
Who being in the brightness of his glory, and... express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; [Hebrews 1:1-4]
What a beautiful reading! Now Saint John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [John 1:1]
E-17 Now, and my text this morning is: Christ Is Revealed In His Own Word. Now, where I come to the conclusion to talk on this, was because that... Knowing that what we say we mustn't just say because we're gathered together to just haphazardly speak on anything, but it's something that will help stabilize the people, for we are going to pass through dangerous, treacherous waters. We're already sailing through them. And sometimes I guess it's with you like it is with me, that seems like that, so much of it, it's such a scary.
E-18 I was just talking to a young minister and his wife, in the room, just a few moments ago. And both of them are nervous just like the rest of the world, rest of the human beings on earth. I said, "Remember, Satan's got a punch coming at you." Don't care who you are, God... He's got a right for that one punch. Which had you rather be, that punch; be blind, or be an arthritic setting in a chair, or be nervous? See? He's got somewhere he can punch you. He's got a right to that open place. Now, that's the spot you got to keep covered all the time. And to see this nervous age that we're living in!
E-19 And last week's tapes, I think, will reveal to you the great hideous things that we're going to speak on one of these days when we can get a place sufficient, of the opening of those last plagues to be poured out upon the earth, those Vials, rather, pouring out of the Vials, and the Seven Thunders, and those hideous sights that's coming upon the earth. Man now, and people today, are in such a neurotic condition; the whole world!
E-20 You read this last month's Reader's Digest, you'll notice the subject there; it's on Billy Graham, the great evangelist. He got so tired he just couldn't hold his meetings, and he--he went to Mayo's clinic for a physical checkup. There wasn't nothing wrong with him, only he just doesn't do enough work. And they put him to running; physical exercise. He runs a mile every day.
And then the article goes on to say that science has proved that today, that young children, these little boys and girls, "hit their middle age at twenty years old." And by twenty-five, many times, in many cases, girls are out of menopause, at twenty-five years old.
I don't know if you knew it or not, but a few nights ago while the Holy Spirit was speaking here in the meeting, a little girl setting down here, that's exactly what was wrong with that child when it called out. I looked at her the second time, looked again, and I seen what was the matter. I thought, "It can't be; that child is too young." But it was menopause, about twenty years old, twenty-three, something like that. See?
E-21 My mother and your mother struck that age about forty-five to fifty. My wife struck that age about thirty-five. Now it's down to twenty. The whole human race is rotten. Well, if them physical beings of our body is tearing down like that from eating hybrid foods, tensions, that rotten it, does not that also rot the brain cell? Then we can see how women can get on the street, naked. We can see how they can speed through the--the streets at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, all these things. It's come to a place where the whole nation, the whole world, not only this nation, but everywhere, mentally gone.
E-22 And then when we open up those, the Lord willing, on those Seven Vials and show those hideous things. Men will be so insane, after a while, till they'll imagine they're seeing ants the size of a mountain. It'll be tormenting women; be locusts come upon the earth, with long hair, to torment women who cut theirs off; hair like women, hanging down; and long teeth, like a lion; stingers in their tail, like a scorpion, and--and so forth, to torment men upon the earth. But then it'll be too late to do anything about it. You get right now. Tormenting! [Revelation 15:7], [Revelation 17:1], [Revelation 21:9]
E-23 And last Sunday when we was going into those cycles, about how that the five senses on the outer realm. That's the inlet, five senses to the body. There's only one way you can get into the body, that's by those five senses: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. There's no other way to contact the--the body.
E-24 On the inside of that man is a man called spirit, and he has five senses: think, thought... and thought, and love, and conscience, and so forth. All right.
E-25 Now, you can't think with your body. You think with your mind. And in there is where too many, of Christians, only stop. And they can, just like the corn in the field and the weed in the field, they can be anointed with the same Holy Spirit that the real believer is anointed with.
But down on the inside of that, next realm, the third realm, is the soul; and that's predestinated by God. There is where the real seed-germ lays, is in there.
E-26 And, remember, if I'd take a cocklebur and cut it open, draft into it the heart of a--of a wheat and put it there, bury it, it would bring forth a wheat out of the cocklebur; no matter what the outside is, what the emotions.
E-27 Today, so confused about the evidence of the Holy Ghost, and so forth. Satan can impersonate any kind of a gift that God has got, but he cannot bring that Word, Word by Word. That's where he failed in the garden of Eden. That's where he's always failed. That's where them, the tape on "false, anointed ones," or anointed ones; they can be anointed with the Spirit, speak in tongues, dance, shout, preach the Gospel, and still a devil.
It's the inside! Now remember, Jesus said, "All the Father has given Me will come to Me. No man can come except My Father draws him first."
Now, we taken through the lesson, to show that in... You were in your great-great-great-grandfather, all the way back, physically speaking. Then, that's what you are in physical being, nature. Sometimes a child will be born in a family, red-headed. It astonishes the father, 'cause there's nobody he knows, of his people, red-headed, or the mother's. But if you'll go way back to several generations, you'll find out somebody was red-headed. That seed keeps coming on down, and you come the nature of one from way back.
Like as Hebrews the 7th chapter said, that, "Melchisedec, Abraham paid tithes to Him when he was returning from the slaughter of the kings. And Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes," for he was in the loins of Melchisedec at... or, "the loins of Abraham," rather, when he met Melchisedec. [John 6:65], [John 6:37], [Hebrews 7:1-2]
E-28 Now the same thing is this. If you are a son of God, and if I am a son of God, or a daughter of God, we were in God at the beginning. And when Jesus became the fullness of the Word, then we were in Him, germ form. When He was crucified, we was crucified in His body. When He arose from the dead, we rose with Him. And now, since we have recognized it, "now we set together with Him, in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus." See? For He... We, if we are sons and daughters of God, we are God's children, then we are attributes of God. Then we were... got Eternal Life. And God is the only Eternal Life there is. Then, we were in Him from the beginning. And when Jesus became all that Word, then we were a part of Him then. Amen! There you are. When that's in there, there is no devil, no powers, no nothing can ever move it. That's the tie post of the soul. [Ephesians 2:6]
E-29 You can be anointed out here, in this spirit, and desire, and do all these other things. But when it comes to this tie post to that Word, you'll never move from there. It'll hold right steady and true, to that Word, as it can be. Outside of that, regardless of what you do, you're still lost.
E-30 That Laodicean Church Age, "naked, blind, miserable; don't even know it." See, it's out... It's that anointed, anointed with the real Spirit. See, that Holy Spirit can fall upon a man, in his spirit. But his soul is his germ; that germ is the Word. See? And how... I don't care how much you can preach, how well you do this, and how much you love; that's one of the inlets to spirit. You can't love with your body; you love with your spirit. That's one of the inlets. And you can love, and even love God, and still not be right. You can cast out devils, and preach, and do these things; still not be right. Jesus said so, said many would come in that day. That Word settles it!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,... [John 1:1, 14]
E-31 Notice, I'm going to speak on this subject of the Bible, of, Christ Revealed In His Own Word. Where I drawed this conclusion, was in my room.
Some dear person, may be setting here this morning... I got a picture hanging in my study up there, that's a picture of Hofmann's Head of Christ, wrote in the Beatitudes. And right where you would come to place like you need a part of the hair, they pressed a little harder on the pen as you pass that part. There, there He is, setting in His Word, looking right out; Christ in the Beatitudes. Someone, ever who it was, I thank you for it.
And somebody brought that picture and put it in my study there, of Elijah going up in a chariot of fire. We appreciate these things. Many times, big crowds, I just don't get a chance to speak and say these things, but I see it, brother, sister. I--I know it, and God knows it.
E-32 Now I'm going to speak on this subject of: Christ Revealed In His Own Word. How, in the Beatitudes, there stands a picture of Christ, standing right out, like. That's where I thought of this subject. Now, Christ and the Word is the same. See?
E-33 They say, "How was the Bible...?" People says. I was riding with a man not long ago. He said, "Think of it. We here on this earth, the way we are, and we only know or can only say that we're saved by some Jewish fable called the Bible."
E-34 I said, "Sir, I don't know how you say that, but I don't believe it's a Jewish fable," I said.
He said, "Well, you pray, what do you pray to? I asked for so-and-so and certain things; I didn't get it."
E-35 I said, "You pray wrong. We should never pray to change God's mind; we should pray to change our mind. God's mind don't need any changing. See? See, it's right." I said, "Not what you prayed for..."
I know a young Catholic boy, one time, was had a prayer book, saying prayers, and for his mother to live. And she died, and he throwed the prayer book in the fire. Well, see, I don't go for the prayer book; but, anyhow, see, you take the wrong attitude. You're trying to tell God what to do.
Prayer should be, "Lord, change me to fit Your Word." Not, "Change," not, "let me change Your mind. You change my mind." See? "You change my mind to Your will. And Your will is written here in the Book. And, Lord, don't--don't let me go till You got my--my mind set just like Your mind. And then when my mind is set like Your mind, then I'll believe every Word You wrote. And You said, in there, You'd make 'everything work together for good' to them that loves You. And I love You, Lord. It's all working together for the good." [Romans 8:28]
E-36 I been this week down in the country, staying with some very dear friends. I asked some of them at the table, yesterday, when we was eating. We always set around and have a little... like a little study on the Bible. We was talking about love.
And there was a certain person said to me, he said, "I believe you're an antichrist."
E-37 I said, "If that would be pleasing to my Lord, that's what I want to be. I want to be whatever He wants me to be. I love Him. And if He should cast me into hell, I still will love Him, if I go with the same spirit I have now." He looked at me kinda strange.
I seen four or five of them there, young men; young wives, fine women. I knowed how them boys loved their wives, so I said to them, I said, "Here is the way to test it. If your wife, before you were married... Now, you go back, say you... this married life, you been dreaming you were married; you really wasn't married, but you dreamed you were. And you woke up, and you went and talked it over with your girl friend, and said, 'You know, I dreamed that we were married, and we had children. We living happy, and--and waiting for the Coming of the Lord, and everything.' And then this girl would say to you, 'You know, I love another man better than I love you. I could be happier with the other man.' Could you, from your heart, love her well enough to say, 'God's blessings rest upon you, my dear. Go with this other man'?"
Now, now check that, each of you men or you women. See? Well, if your love is correct, you would do that, for you are interested in her welfare. What, you know you could have her, you can live with her, you... She's your wife; she will be. She'll marry you, but she won't be happy. She would be happier... And then, if you love her, then you want her to be happy.
Therefore, whatever the will of God is, let God's will be done, whether I'm happy with it or not. I want to live so He will be pleased with what I do. Therefore check your--your objective and your motive by that; you know whether you love God or not.
What if He'd say, "You serve Me if I'm going to cast you away?"
"I love You, anyhow."
E-38 Therefore, if the churches would see that and could believe it in that manner, it wouldn't be one trying to jerk the football away from the other fellow when he's running with it. He would be protecting that one. See? When, real true motive and objective, wouldn't be one trying to say, "Hey, I got this too! I, this is me, this." See, God can't use a man. There is so much impersonation follows it, and that's Satan. And the people can't realize that. They're trying to take the ball from somebody that's been give it. Let God raise up a certain ministry and watch how many goes after it. See? See?
E-39 Now, genuine love for God, "No matter what part I am, Lord, if I can only say a word for It, help protect It, let me do that." See?
That's the same thing would be about your wife. If you really love her, see, it's not a--it's not a--a phileo love; it's an Agapao love, a genuine love. She could live with somebody else, happier; you're not married now, course, you can't.
E-40 And, by the way, people listening to these tapes. Some, so many, sends in, said, "Why, in the Marriage And Divorce, you said this and you said that." I said that so many times; these tapes goes only... I'm speaking to my congregation, brother. I'm not responsible for what God give you to shepherd; I'm responsible for what kind of Food I feed these people. This is for this tabernacle only. See? Now, if the people want to listen to the tapes, that's up to them. But I'm speaking to what God has give to me. It was their sins that was omitted.
Someone wrote out, and said, "Well, I done this and I done that. You said our sins..." I--I didn't say that.
I said, "See it to this; this is only to this people right here, the people here in the tabernacle, my own flock." Now, if people wants to hybreed food and stuff out there, you--you get the revelation from God and do what God tells you to do. I'll do the same thing. But these Messages are to this church.
E-41 Notice now, we come back, we've got to have something another that we have to hold onto. Something has to be a tie post, in other words, it's an ultimate. And everyone must have an ultimate or an absolute. I preached on it one time, years ago, on an absolute, a place that's the last word.
E-42 Like the umpire at a ball game, if he says it's a strike, that's just exactly what it is. No matter how you seen it, the umpire said it's a strike. You said, "I--I--I... It wasn't a strike. It went... I seen the..." No matter what it is, when he said, "strike," that's it, that settle just what. He, he is the ultimate.
E-43 And the traffic light is an ultimate, if it says, "go." You say, "Well, I, I'm in a hurry, I got..." No, no. It says, "You stand still while the other fellow goes." See? It's the ultimate.
E-44 Now, there's got to be an ultimate to everything you do. There had to be an ultimate when you chose your wife. There had to be a woman you had to select.
E-45 Now, there has to be a time where, when you're going to buy a car, what kind of an ultimate you're going to make. Will it be Ford, Chevy, Plymouth, foreign car, whatever it is, you got to have an ultimate.
And so is it with Christian living. There has got to be an ultimate.
E-46 Now, if a man said, went to another man and said... heard somebody say, "Well, you should be baptized," and this fellow never... Maybe, his, some church that didn't baptize, they just sprinkled. I think, say for instance, the Methodist, they do baptize if it's requested, I understand. Or maybe the... A Catholic, I think they sprinkle only. So then if--if a man heard something about being "immersed in the water," well, he didn't understand that; he was raised Catholic. So he goes up to the priest, and said, "Father, I understand that we're supposed to be baptized by immersing. What does our church say about that?"
E-47 "Why, it says that--that we're to be sprinkled." If that church is his ultimate, that settles it. All strife is over; the church said so, and that's all.
E-48 What if the... if a Baptist brother heard us say that we believe in being baptized by "immersing"? He'd say, "I believe that."
"And in the Name of 'Jesus Christ.'"
Now, this--this member of the church goes back to the pastor and says, "Pastor, I heard a fellow say to me that we should be baptized by immersing, all right, but in the Name of 'Jesus Christ.'"
E-49 "Well," he'd say, "now, let us see. Why, here the book says that we're to be baptized using 'Father, Son, Holy Ghost.'" If that church is the ultimate, that settles it. He don't care about what anything else says; that's his ultimate.
E-50 Well, every denomination is an ultimate to their believers.
But, to me, and to the ones that I hope that I'm leading to Christ, and by Christ, the Bible is our ultimate. No matter... Cause, God said, "Let every man's word be a lie, and Mine Truth." And I believe that the Bible is God's ultimate. No matter what anyone else says; It's the ultimate.
The Bible is not a book of systems. No, sir. It is not a book of systems, nor a code of morals. The Bible is not a book of systems, so many systems, and so forth. No, sir. It is not a book of morals. No, sir. It is not. Nor is It a book of history, altogether. Or, neither is It a book of theology. For, It is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now if you'd like to read that, you who have your papers, marking it down, that's Revelations 1:1 to 3, as, the Bible is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ." [Revelation 1:1-3]
E-51 Let us just read it while we got time. I believe my... haven't got too many notes here to speak from. If the Lord tarries, why, we'll try to get from them.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show to his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signify it by his angel to his servant John:
Who bare record of the word of God, and... the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the word of this prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. [Revelation 1:1-3]
E-52 So, the Bible is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. And It was wrote by prophets. Hebrews 1:1, in... "God, Who in sundry times spake to the fathers by the prophets, in this last day speaks to us through His Son, Jesus Christ," which was the prophets, all of them, put together. Jesus was Malachi; Jesus was Jeremiah, Isaiah, Elijah. All that they were, were in Him. And all that you are, and all I am, is in Him; Words, witnesses of the Word.
So It is not a book of systems, a code of moral ethics, neither is It a history book, or a book of theology. It is not. But It's a revelation of Jesus Christ, God Himself revealed, from Word to flesh. That's what It is. The Bible is the Word, and God is the flesh, God in... God is the Word, rather, and Jesus being the flesh. It's the revelation, how God (the Word) was manifested in human flesh, and revealed to us. And that's why He becomes a Son of God; He is a part of God. You understand? Now, He is not... The body is part of God, so much that it's a Son. [Revelation 1:1-3], [Hebrews 1:1]
E-53 A Son, as the Catholic puts it, "Eternal Son," and all the rest of the churches; the word don't even make sense. See? There cannot be Eternal, and then be a Son, 'cause a Son is something that's "begotten from." And the word Eternal, He cannot be an Eter-... He can be a Son, but He cannot be an Eternal Son. No, sir. It cannot be an Eternal Son.
E-54 Now, but He is the Son, so much, that all the Word that was in Jeremiah, in Moses, and all those Words, like He said, "They speak of Me." All that true Divine revelation of Word was wound up into one human body, and God put flesh around It. That's the reason He was called "Son," reason He refers, "Father." Why, it's just as simple, if you just let God pour it down into your mind. See? God revealed in a body of flesh, notice, revealed from flesh... or from Word unto flesh. That's Saint John 1:14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." [John 1:14]
E-55 Now notice this Bible. Some of them said, "Oh, well, It's done this, It's done that." But let me tell you something, let's just...
Let's go into the history of the Bible, just a minute, see where It come from. It was written by forty different writers. Forty men wrote the Bible, over a space of sixteen hundred years apart, and at different times, predicting the most important events that ever happened in world's history, and, many times, hundreds of years before it happened. And there is not one error in the entire sixty-six Books. Oh, my! No author but God Himself could be so accurate. Not one Word contradicts the other.
Remember, sixteen hundred years apart, the Bible was wrote, from Moses to--to the death of--of John at the isle, or the Isle of Patmos. Sixteen hundred years, and was wrote by forty different authors; one didn't even know the other one, and they never had It as "the Word." Some of them never even seen "the Word." But when they wrote It, and was understood to be prophets, then, when they put their prophecies together, each one of them dovetailed one to the other. [Revelation 1:9]
E-56 Look at Peter, who announced on the Day of Pentecost, "Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins."
Paul had never heard nothing about It. He went down to Arabia for three years, to study the Old Testament, to see Who this Pillar of Fire was that spoke to him on the road, saying, "Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" How could he be wrong? He never even consulted the church at all.
And fourteen years later, when he met Peter, they was preaching the same thing, Word by Word. That's our Bible. Let other man's words fail. This, no man can add to It. You don't add no more to the Bible. No, sir. This is the complete Revelation. It's all. [Acts 2:38], [Acts 9:4]
E-57 Like the Seven Seals. "The Seven Seals," someone kept saying to me, "now you'll... The Lord will speak to you, Brother Branham, when these Seals are revealed, and will tell us how to get closer to God, and how to do it."
E-58 I said, "No, sir, it can't be. Because, the Bible, the Seven Seals on It had the seven mysteries hid. It was already wrote, but they didn't understand what It was."
Watch how they plowed along with that, being baptized in "Jesus" Name; see, that wasn't it. The Name of the "Lord Jesus Christ"! See all those things, how it was. Cause, there's many Jesuses; I got several friends here on earth named "Jesus," minister friends. It isn't that. It's our "Lord Jesus Christ."
No author but God could be so correct. Now let's just see how this Bible was written. [Revelation 10:1-7]
E-59 Now, say for instance, from... What if we went now and took sixty-six medical books that deals with the body, wrote by forty different medical schools, a hundred and sixteen... or sixteen hundred years apart? Wonder what kind of continuity we'd come up with?
When, George Washington, our president, about two hundred years ago, for pneumonia, they pulled his toenail out and bled him a pint. What if we took...
E-60 Let's go a little further, on some things that we so attracted to today, that's science. What if we took forty different science, from sixteen hundred years apart, and see what we'd come up with? A French scientist, three hundred years ago, proved by science, by rolling a ball, that, if any terrific speed was obtained over thirty miles an hour, the object would leave the earth and fall off. Do you think science would ever refer back to that? Is any continuity with that now, when they drive down the street, on the road here, a hundred and fifty miles an hour? See? But he scientifically proved that, by the pressure of the ball rolling across the ground, that at thirty miles an hour, that, any object would lift up off the earth and go away, it'd fall off into space. No, there's no continuity to that.
E-61 But not one Word in the Bible contradicts the other. Not one prophet ever contradicted the other one. They was, every one, perfect. And when one come in and did prophesy, and that real prophet raised up and called him down, then it was made manifest. See? See? So the Bible is the Word of God, to all true believers.
E-62 Now, you couldn't get no accuracy in what doctors would agree upon. You can't even get accuracy of them now. You can't get accuracy in science now.
Now, you know, sometime ago, they told us that the... that, "When the Bible said that 'he saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the earth,' that that couldn't be. The earth was round." But the Bible said, "four corners." Well, now you seen, two weeks ago, or three weeks ago, it's been now, the papers packing this article, they found out that the world is square. How many seen that? Why, sure. See? I got it all copied off, just waiting for somebody to say something. [Revelation 7:1]
E-63 And they're going to find out, someday, that they're not seeing a hundred and fifty million years of light space either. They're going right around in a circle. That's exactly.
You're going to find out, one of these days, that when you go to Heaven, you don't fly off somewhere else. You're still right here, too, just in another dimension faster than this.
Right through this room is coming color. Every color, shirt, dress, whatever you got on, is Eternal, laying right on records, going around and around the world. Every time you bat your eyes, it's right on record. Watch, television will prove that.
E-64 When you are born, God sets a record on. It don't make... Put a record on, it don't make much noise for a little while, you know. That's the little baby, till it comes to accountability; then the noise starts, he starts saying things and doing things he has to answer for. And then when that life ends, that record or tape is took off and laid in the--in the great big library of God. Now, how you going to get around it at the Judgment Bar? It's played right back in front of you, every move you made, every thought that went through your mind. Can you see that? Now can you see where God...
E-65 Standing here, other night, there been a man on the platform, tall, bald-headed man, real handsome-looking fellow, strong. And he went out... The Lord had told him a whole lot of things about his family and what he should do. And he went out and set down. In a few minutes, here come before me another man like that, but he had his head down. I couldn't make out, and I looked at the man again out there; and he... Wasn't him, because it was something else. And this man, I couldn't find it. Looked around, no body behind, me. I said, "The man is setting inside of those curtains there." And it was our... a brother that comes to church here, tall, bald-headed, handsome sort of a fellow setting up there like that. And he had his head hung over, praying, because he was just about to die with stomach trouble.
He was going to get a pair of shoes. His wife wanted him to get a new pair of shoes. He said, "No, I don't have to get it, 'cause I ain't going to live to wear them."
He was dying. And setting there, you see, in that dimension, hallelujah, God just moved over in there and said, "There he sets," just the position he was in. See what I mean?
E-66 Now notice, and there is not any error in the Scriptures. Jesus, the Word of God, perceives the thought that's in the heart. "The Word of God is stronger, sharper," Hebrews 4:12. "The Word of God is sharper, more powerful than a two-edged sword, even a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the mind." See? Goes way down into the mind, and pulls out, and discerns. What is discern? "Make known, reveal out." And that's what the Word of God does.
Today we say, "The Catholic church is the Word of God; the Baptists, the Methodists, the Pentecostal, the tabernacle." That's wrong. The Word is the revelation; God, revealed by the Word. [Hebrews 4:12]
E-67 No, we could have got... get any continuity amongst medics, amongst scientists, different ones.
If Einstein had only had the spiritual application, as he had the--the physical application, as he studied the laws of light, and so forth, he could have told us something. When I heard his message on that great center somewhere into the skies, that, "Ever contacted with that center, you could create earths, do anything, and the power would be unlimited." See? He had seen that.
E-68 You see these little pockets going through the air, they call "saucers," so forth. People so... That, well, we better leave that alone. "Hear all these people come up missing?" you say. Don't hear from them; they're standing there, and they're not there.
That's the way the Rapture is going to be. One of them will drop right down, and this terrestrial body will take on a celestial body. And they'll be... hide, hair, or bones left; it'll be transformed in a moment of time, dropping right out of space and taking Home that. We see all this going on now, and the--and the Pentagon wondering about these lights, and mystic lights, and everything they're seeing in the--in the sky. You seen they had one here in the paper at Jeffersonville this week, and so forth, "a mystic light." So, oh, they don't know what that is. But listen, little children, It's going to pick you up, one of these days. See? See? Don't worry.
Remember, Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Sodom." [I Thessalonians 4:16-18], [Luke 17:28]
E-69 What happened just before Sodom? God came down with some Angels, and they had an investigation judgment. Said, "I've heard the cry, that it's so sinful, so great, so I've come down to find out whether it's altogether the truth or not." That right? Watch that main One that stayed with Abraham, could discern the thoughts was in Sarah's heart, behind Him.
Now, you look around just a little bit and notice, see, watch what It's doing, the same thing today. It's an investigation judgment.
Why, after a while, the Church, when It can stay in that place, and every seed has been brought to its spot, they'll be gone. They won't know what happened to them. One will be going one way. See? One will be going over to the pastor's house, and one will be going here, or down there, and, the first thing you know, they're not there. For Enoch which was the type, "God took him, and he was found not." Come down to investigate! The continuity, how the Enoch translation, a type. Of Israel being carried over in the ark... [Luke 17:28], [Genesis 19:1-10]
E-70 So perfect, the Word of God is so perfect, even to the Old and New Testament, is two halves and one whole. That's right. Old Testament is half of It, and New Testament is half of It; put It together, you got the whole revelation of Jesus Christ. There is the prophets speaking, and here He is in Person; see, two halves and one whole. Now we don't want to take too much...
E-71 Now, remember, the Old Testament is not complete without the New. And the New could not be complete without the Old. That's the reason I said two halves, one whole. For, the prophets said, "He'll be here! He'll be here! He'll be here; they'll do this to Him. They'll do this to Him!" And here He is, "He was here! He was here, and they did this to Him, and they did this to Him." I just preached on that a few nights ago.
E-72 Now, in order to study the Scripture, Paul told Timothy, "Study It, rightly dividing the Word of God, which is Truth."
Them is three musts in the Scripture. In using God's Word, there is three things that you must not do. Now let's study those for the next ten minutes; three things that you must not do. And all out in the land, wherever you are, across the nation, be sure to put these down in your mind if you haven't got a pencil. You must not do these things. We tell you all the time how you must do, now I'm going to tell you what you must not do. [II Timothy 2:15]
E-73 Now, you must not misinterpret the Word. You say, "Well, I believe It means this." It means just what It says. It needs no interpreter. And you must not misplace the Word. And you must not dislocate the Word. And if we would do either of these, it throws the whole Bible in a confusion and in a chaos.
E-74 Notice. To misinterpret Jesus, in the form of God in a man, you would make Him--you would make Him one God out of three. To misinterpret Jesus Christ being the Word, you would make Him one God out of three, or you would make Him the second Person in a Godhead. And to do that, you would mess the whole Scripture up. You'd never get nowhere. So It must not be misinterpreted.
E-75 And if you say that a certain thing, you put an interpretation on It, and you apply It to another time; or It's been applied to another time, you also make an incorrect interpreting.
E-76 If anybody misinterpret Jesus Christ in the Bible, of not being God Himself, make Him the second Person, or one God out of three, this would upset every Word in the entire Bible. It would break the first commandment, "Thou shalt not have any other god before Me." All right. It would make the whole Christian race a bunch of pagan worshippers worshipping three different gods. See what kind of a Bible you'd have? Then it'd make us what the Jews say we are. Said, "Which one of them gods is your God?" See? So, you see, you can't... You mustn't misinterpret the Bible.
For, Jesus Himself is the interpretation of the Bible, when He's made manifest in the age that the part of His Body is being made manifest. If it's a hand age, it must be a hand; it can't be a head age. If it's a voice age, well, then, it can't be a foot age. See? And now we're at the eye age. And now the next, is Him Hisself, to come. Seeing; prophetic! [Exodus 20:3]
E-77 See, down through the age, we started off from the foundation, from the first church age; when the Seed went in the ground, the complete Seed. Then it come out through the feet, Luther; come back out then through Wesley; then in to Pentecostals, the tongues, in the lips, see; now it's in the eyes, prophetic, of Malachi 4, and so forth. And now there's nothing else left for it to come but Him Himself to step into that, 'cause that's the last thing there is.
The next is the intelligence, and we have no intelligence of our own; it's His. We have no sight of our own. How can a man foresee those things? He can't do it. It's God Himself. See, it's--it's becoming to a place. And He's governed the body all the way through, then the complete Body of Christ is revealed in the form of a Bride that was taken out of His side, like Adam did at the beginning... like Adam's was, rather, at the beginning.
E-78 Yes, "god," this would set the whole Bible in a confusion, break the first commandment, and make a god, a pagan god of three. It would just--it would just ruin the whole picture of the Bible. So you must not misinterpret the Bible. Now, that's just one thing.
E-79 When, every Scripture in the Bible has the same application, you've got to set It in Its place. And to misplace It, you might make Him God in one age, and--and the next age you'd make Him a history, to misplace It. So you mustn't misplace the Scripture. He is God all the time. If you made Him today a God of history, what was back yonder, and He isn't the same today, what are you going to do with Hebrews 13:8? See, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever."
E-80 Now, so see what this would do, and what it has done. It's already done it, make Him deny His Own Word, to misplace the Scriptures.
E-81 To dislocate the Scriptures, you might put His body together wrong, the foot where the head should be, or something. Just the same as a... Other words, you might have Jesus teaching Moses' message. You might have... or even Wesley teaching Luther's age. You might have now, our age, teaching Pentecost, the Pentecostal message. You see what a mess It would be in? Pentecost has already showed its colors. Luther has already showed his, went off into denomination. It died right there. The age struck; there it went.
E-82 Notice, just as soon as it was organized, it died. Now, just see if that isn't right. Look back through the pages of history. Every time it organized, it died right there; there never was no more to it. It become a--a worshiper of the god of this world, and went off into organisms, and organizations, and denominations, and illusions. A bunch of Rickys got into there and put their own objections into it, or injected their own thoughts, rather, into it. And what did it happen? It become a mess. Going to head up in the god of this world, where they'll throne Satan himself, thinking that they're having a great world leader to bring them peace.
E-83 I told you the other day, I'll say it again, that even civilization itself today is absolutely contrary to God. Civilization is contrary to God. Education is a million miles from Him; science is a million miles. Science and education is trying to disprove God, see, through theological seminaries and schools, and rooms of science, and so forth. They've had their shake.
How about the vision the other night, of the man when he screamed to those scientists down there pouring that stuff in like that? They just turned and looked up, and went on. There'll be one more ride.
E-84 Notice, oh, these three musts must be. Now, you cannot... Jesus didn't come preaching Noah's message. He didn't come preaching Moses' message. Or, Moses didn't come preaching... See, don't mislocate the Scripture. It's got to be in the time. Now, you cannot apply... When that great man, John Wesley, come out, or...
The great man, Luther, when Luther came out with his message of justification. Now when that was a... Luther was a great man. He called the church out of darkness, and he set justification by faith. And when he did it, they built a organization on top of it, and it died. The Life traveled, like it is in a stalk of wheat, right out into the Wesley age, to the tassel. Out of Luther come other leaves, that died with it, which was Zwingli, and Calvin, and all the rest that come out from that great reformation.
E-85 Then along came Wesley, another age had bloomed out into a tassel. Wesley, and Atterbury, and all those, and--and John and his brother, and all of them, great men of God with a message, just swept the country. They organized it; it died.
Then it come out looking just exactly like she was going to put forth the grain now, and, come to find out, it was a shuck, Pentecost.
But back in behind all of it, come a little bud.
And you notice, usually... I think, in about three or four years after Luther was on the field, that the Lutheran church was organized. Just a short time after Wesley was on the field, it was organized.
E-86 Tucson, we've had a--a program of how the Wesley church, or Methodist church, come into existence. And when they come to America here, many of them had come back and said they had set up a--a charter and so forth, from England, to bring it over here, and how it was all dramatized out. I seen right then what happened. There she died.
E-87 Well, out come the Pentecostal, them old shouters back in the long days ago, got the gift of speaking in tongues, and started off with speaking in tongues. Then they named it, "the evidence of the Holy Ghost." Then they organized. One said he's going to do this, and the other that, and they had issues and issues. What'd it do? Each one of them leaves just unfolded, just like it did in the stalk and like it did on the tassel. They had the oneness, twoness, threeness, and the church of God, and all these others; just unfolded, unfolded, unfolded.
But now, according to nature, which is a perfect example, you'll never be anything to educate It out of it.
E-88 A family, of friends of mine down in Kentucky, just had a little--little baby born the other day, and the mother was up when they was cooking our dinner. And she was helping the other sister cook dinner for a bunch of us men that had been out hunting. And so the baby got to crying, and I was talking. I think the mother felt a little embarrassed, so she runs and gets the baby, and--and starts to--to feed the little fellow. I said, "You know, that's just nature." See? Now, you can't...
They have never found any better way for a baby to get what it wants than to cry for it. Now, you might give it a--a book of ethics, and set down here and say, "I want to teach you theology, son. Now, don't you go to squalling around here like other kids; you're different. Now, when you want to be fed, you ring this little bell over here." Just don't work. No, it just don't work.
E-89 So, when you watch nature, now we see where every age, and directly designed it out that we're in the last age. The shuck has pulled away. And we've had fifteen years, nearly twenty now, years, of the Message sweeping across from nation to nation, and this morning hooked-up across this nation, see, and no organization. It can't organize. There has nothing ever been like it, or will be hereafter. See?
The--the thing that's the matter with the Message today, is, those who obtain It in their hearts must lay in the Presence of the Son, to get ripened. See? You can pick up the Message, and then let the Son bake all the greenness out of you, see, making matured Christians. See what I mean? God is coming soon, to receive His Church, and we must have that type of Christians for Him to receive. The--the wheat has got to get ripe. All right.
E-90 These three musts must be. Must not misinterpret, or mishandle It, misinterpret It, or mis-... or dislocate It. It must be kept just exactly the way God said it was.
To the world, It's a Book of mystery. The people believe It's just a mysterious Book. One time I was talking to a very famous man here in the city, that holds a great standing of Christianity, and he said, "I tried to read the Book of Revelations one night." Said, "John must have had a big bait of hot pepper and had a nightmare." See, a Book of mystery.
E-91 But, while to the true believer, It's the revelation of God being revealed in the age we're living in. He said, "My words are Spirit and Life." Jesus said that. Again, "The Word is a Seed that a sower sowed." We know that that's true. It's God in Word form, and can only be interpreted by Himself.
The human mind is not capable to interpret the mind of God. How can the little--little finite mind interpret the infinite Mind, when we can't even interpret one another's mind? [John 6:63], [Matthew 13:19-20]
E-92 And you notice, He is the only One can interpret It, and He interprets It to whom He will. It didn't say, "Mortals of old, as they strode across the earth in sundry times and divers manner." "God, in sundry times and divers manner revealed Himself to His prophets." See? [Hebrews 1:1]
E-93 And, notice, "To whom He will reveal It." And He so designed that He can hide Himself in the Scripture, to the smartest theologian there is. Oh, my! He can just hide Himself, set right there in the Scripture, and you look all day long and never see it; look a lifetime, and never see it. He can just hide Himself, setting there.
E-94 Now, please, everywhere, let that soak in. That, God, in the Word, can hide Himself so in the Word, that there isn't a theologian or a school in the world could ever find Him, and yet He's setting right there.
You say, "Is that right, Brother Branham?"
How about the Pharisees and Sadducees? How about in every age? He's done it. Sure. He's done so in every age. Now we could check that. Let's think about the days of Noah; smart, intellectual age, how He hid Hisself in His promised Word. In the days of Moses, how He hid Hisself. In the days of Elijah, how He hid Hisself. In the days of Jesus, how He hid Hisself. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came to His Own; His Own received Him not." See? [John 1:10]
E-95 He hides Himself from the smartest, intellectual man there is on the earth. You say, "Well, this is Dr. Holy Father So-and-so." I don't care who he is, God hides Himself from him; and will reveal it to babies such as will learn, see, babies of God, predestinated seed.
E-96 Think. The Mighty God, setting in His Own Words, blinding the smart, educated people of this present age, and they don't see it. They think it's just a bunch of fanaticism. Look at Him standing there hiding, to Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterian. Reveal Himself right out publicly, and showing all kinds of things, even putting it in the papers, and things like that, yet they don't see it. Oh, our God, how great, revealing Himself to whomever He will.
E-97 "Oh," you say, "Brother Jones or Brother So-and-so, he's--he's a great man. He'll see It." Oh, no. He reveals It to whom He will. Say, "My wife don't see It, and she's a Christian woman." He reveals Himself to whom He will. "Well, my pastor is a great man." That's right, but He reveals Himself to whom He will. Now, check with what's been revealed, to what's happening, then you'll... you can quite understand.
E-98 Now we notice then, it makes It a Book of God and not a book of man. If It was of man... Now let us look how It would express Itself. Look how It exposes sin of the men who wrote It, notice, the men who--who lived in Its day.
Abraham, for instance, he's called "the father of the faithful." Notice how that... Do you think Abraham would've wrote this Book on himself, of his own cowardliness? How you think he would've wrote that he lied to the king that morning, and said that was his sister, when it was his wife? Would It write of his cowardly deeds that he done? Sure, he'd never done that.
E-99 How about Jacob in his deceit? A little deceiver that Jacob was. Would a--a--a man, a Hebrew writing of his Hebrew brother, that in him that all of Israel was called, would he dare to write the deceit of the very father of the whole nation? In Jacob, come forth the patriarchs; from the patriarchs, come forth the tribes. And the foundation stone of all of it, the Bible exposes him as a deceiver. Is that right? You think man would've wrote that? No, sir.
E-100 How about a man writing of the greatest king they ever had here on earth, as crowned king; David, in his committing adultery? Would those Jews ever wrote of their most noble king being an adulterness?
Oh, we have history, like, "George Washington never told a lie," and things like that. We say, call that history.
But this is a man, a Bible that calls David an "adulterness," and he was. The king of Israel, an adulterness who was to be the son... Jesus to be the Son of David. The very Headstone; and His father, according to flesh, was an adulterness. Jews would never wrote a Book like that. Would man write this of his own self? Certainly not.
E-101 How would that proud nation of Israel? You know how proud they were. Proud nation of Israel, went and wrote about their own idolatry, wrote about their rebellion against their God, wrote against the dirty, filthy things that they did, and wrote out in a book? They'd a-sure hid that. They'd a just showed the good things. But, this Bible, that tells what's right and what's wrong. It's, anyone knows that the Jews would've never wrote a Book like that, about their own uncleanness, and idolatry, and failure, and everything they had. They'd a-never wrote that. Oh, no.
Then, Who wrote It? The Bible said, in Hebrews 1:1, "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets." Then, it wasn't the prophets, it wasn't mortal. "God!" Not "prophets in sundry time." But, "God, in sundry time, divers manners spoke to the fathers through the prophets."
I got a Scripture wrote down here. I don't know what It is; I can't refer to It. Usually, when these things I'm referring to them, I'm looking at a Scripture. I'm going to look it up just for a minute, if you'll excuse me. It's Second Timothy 3:16. I--I--I thought I would remember that, but I'm sorry. I'll just stop a minute to find out what it is.
E-102 "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets."
Now Second Timothy 3, 3:16. Let's see what it says in 3:16.
All scripture (yeah) is given by inspiration of (Prophets? No.)... inspiration of (What?) God, and is profitable for doctrine, and reproof, and correction, and instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may stand perfect, throughly furnished in all good works. [II Timothy 3:16]
E-103 All right, then, all Scripture is wrote by inspiration. Jesus, here on the earth, said that heavens and earth would pass away, but His Word wouldn't. He said all Scripture must be fulfilled. So then the Book is not a book of man's writings. It's the Books of God's writings.
E-104 Now, we know God chose by predestination His Church, His place, His prophets, and all about it. By foreknowledge, He predestinated His prophet. And when the age arrived, He had His prophet arrive at the same time, and inspired him as He wrote the Bible by him. Now, God wrote the Bible only using the prophet, because that's His way of doing it. So, see, it is not the word... So, see, It is the Word of God, and not the word of man.
E-105 God is a Person. God can speak. God can talk. God can write. He didn't have to do it that way, but that's the way He--He chose to do it. He didn't have to do it that way, but He chose to do it that way. Now you say, "God wrote with His finger, His Own majestic finger, the ten commandments. So God could write, Hisself, if He wanted to." See? But He--He chose to write It through prophets, see. Because it was His attributes, His Word, He expressed through them, making all a part, or a part of Him. See? He could write with His finger. He also took His finger and wrote on the walls of Babylon, "Thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting." He wrote with His Own finger. [Daniel 5:27]
E-106 God can talk. Do you believe God can talk? He talked to Moses on the mount, in a burning bush. You believe that? Yes, sir. He talked to John, in the form of a dove, (you believe that?) that, "This is My beloved Son in Whom I'm pleased to dwell in." He talked to him. He spoke to Jesus on Mount Transfiguration, before Peter, James, and John. He can talk. He's not a mute. God can talk. So He spoke to--to Jesus on Mount Transfiguration. And He spoke to Jesus before a whole multitude of people; when, the people said it thundered, but it was God speaking to Jesus. And almost all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is Jesus speaking. He is God. So, God can talk. [John 1:30-34]
E-107 Took His Own fingers and wrote on the sand, one day. He spoke, He preached, He prophesied, with His Own lips, God did, when He was made flesh and dwelled among us, "God manifested in flesh." If He can write, speak, can't He also tell others what to do? Certainly can. He can talk to them, in a human voice. He can write and show them what to do. He has done it. [John 1:1-5, 14]
So, "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets." And He said, on this Writing, that, "Not one jot or tittle shall ever pass away until It's fulfilled," and then It's manifested; then It will pass, because It's manifested. It can't pass then, but just the Word Itself is made flesh. Jot means "small word." Tittle means "small mark." Not even one punctuation, one expression, anything, shall ever fail in the Word of God. It can't fail, because It's God, God manifested in a form of a human flesh. For, it's God Himself in letter form, prophet form, manifested in flesh. [Hebrews 1:1], [Luke 16:17], [Matthew 5:18]
Now, that's the reason Jesus could say, "The ones who spoke to you, you call them 'gods,' who spoke to you by the Word of God," said, "and they were gods." Those prophets when they were anointed with the Spirit of God, and brought exactly the Word of God, then they were gods. It was God's Word speaking through them. And can...
E-108 They only interpret as the Author would permit them to interpret. Now if you want to find that, that's Second Peter 1:20 and 21. All right. Cause, this, where God... "There's no private interpreter." He does His Own interpretation.
God speaks and interprets It, Himself, then reveals it to whomever He will, hides from all others. He don't have to reveal It to anybody 'less He wants to. And He don't... He, He has expressed His whole thing in the Scripture, therefore the whole thing is already made known; it's just He's just setting there watching it happen. See? No. Just seeing the Body be made and come back to Its, to the form, His Bride again. All right.
E-109 Believers believe It, like Abraham that called things contrary to It as though it was not.
E-110 It also, this Word, discerns the secrets of the hearts, Hebrews 4:12. "It discerns the secrets of the heart." [Hebrews 4:12]
E-111 Prophets did not always understand what they were writing or what they were saying, or they would in no wise have said it, if they could a understood It. See? But the Bible said, "They were moved by the Holy Ghost." Moved! When the Holy Ghost moves you, you move. Man... "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the prophets that were moved by the Holy Ghost." That's why, all ages, the people who were spiritual consulted the prophets about the times and what was to happen.
The prophet-writer must be in constant fellowship with the Author. See? He must live constantly in Presence of the Author, to know what the Book is going to be. See? The prophet-writer, he had the pen ready anytime, constant fellowship with the Author, which was God, to strike down whatever He said put down. See? Showed what kind of a life he must... a separated life from all of his brethren. [Hebrews 1:1]
E-112 Now, that's why the prophet had his mind set constantly on what God said; not what man thought, what the age thought, what the church thought, what the kingdom thought. What God thought! He only expressed God's thoughts to Word, 'cause a word is a thought when it's expressed. You got it now? The Word is a thought expressed, so the prophet was waiting for God's thoughts. And when God revealed His thoughts to him, he expressed it in Word, "THUS SAITH THE LORD." See, not "Thus saith I, the prophet." "THUS SAITH THE LORD!" See? All right. [Jeremiah 1:5-7]
E-113 That's why they defied kingdoms and church ages, which, to do so in their days, was a death penalty. You walk up in a king's face and tell him, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, such-and-such is going to happen," you'd have your head chopped off. The church would put you to death right now for doing it. But these prophets were bold. Why? They were moved by the Holy Ghost, see, and, they, that's why they become bold. And they wrote the--the infallible Word of God.
E-114 There was many tried to impersonate them prophets, like priests, or so forth. And what did they do? Just messed up, that's all. They couldn't do it.
Cause, God had selected the man for the age, and selected the Message, and even the nature of the man and what would go over in that age, what He could put over, how He could. With the nature of that certain man, He could blind the eyes of others. The words that that man would say, the way he acted, would blind others, and open other's eyes. See? He dressed the man in the type of dress that he was; the nature, the ambition, and everything just the way he had to be, just perfectly selected for that certain people that He would call for that certain age.
While, others would stand and look at him, say, "Well, I can't. There's... I--I can't see." They were blinded.
E-115 Jesus came the same way, dressed, immortal God dressed in human flesh. And because He was born in a manger, in a stable full of manure, not a place to lay His head; born, thinkingly, with a illegitimate name tacked to Him. See? All these things that He was, and how He come up, a carpenter's son, how He had no schooling.
More or less, in the world, the wisdom of this world, He didn't have nothing to do with it. None of this world's civilization, education, or anything, He had not one thing to do with it. Why? He's God. It would clash. If He tried to go to a seminary somewhere and learn something that these world's churches was doing, what in the... Why, it wouldn't even... why, it wouldn't even... wouldn't correspond at all with His understanding, for He was God.
So, education, schooling, seminaries, and things, is absolutely contrary to the will of God. The whole educational system is contrary to God. Everything teaches away from God, all the time. When I hear a man say that he is Dr., Ph.D., L.L.Q., that just makes him that much farther from God, to me. See? He just educated hisself that much farther from what he really was called to do. That's right.
Notice how that now they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
E-116 Now, that don't mean that educated man don't come in. Look at Paul. I guess there wasn't a smarter fellow in his day than Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus. He was educated under Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers of the day; great, strict Hebrew, a Pharisee of denomination. And Paul was brought up under him. He knowed all the Jewish religion. But when he come to the church, he said, "I never come to you in the education of man, and so forth. Because, if you would, then you would trust in that. But I come to you in the power and manifestation of the Holy Ghost, that your faith would be in God." There you are. See? That's right. [I Corinthians 2:1-5]
E-117 Many tried to impersonate these people, but they got the thing all messed up just like they do today. There was one raised up before the time of Jesus, led four hundred people off. And you know how the Scriptures read about these things, trying to do it before the time come. And some of them tried to impersonate Him, and they was all this, that, or the other one. And He said, "In the last days, how they would raise up false Christs, in the last days, and false prophets, and show signs and wonders." We have all that. See? But that doesn't do away from the real. It only makes It shine out better, because we have a real Christ, not a false one. [Matthew 24:24]
E-118 Now, now, we realize then that God sent His prophets. That was the way He had of bringing His Word to the people, through the lips of His prophets.
And notice, you know, Moses said, if you want to read it in Exodus the 4th chapter, and the 10th and 12th verse. Moses said God spoke to him. God talked to a man, lip to ear. And he said, "I'm slow of speech," Moses said. "I, I'm not sufficient. I--I can't go." [Exodus 4:10]
E-119 He said, "Who made man to talk, or Who made him dumb? Who made him to see, or Who made him to hear? Didn't I, the Lord?" Said, "I'll be with your mouth." See? So... [Exodus 4:11]
E-120 And Jeremiah said, if you want to read that in Jeremiah 1:6. Jeremiah said that, "God put words in my mouth." See? He--He talked, lip to ear, with one prophet; and spoke through the other prophet, he had no control at all, and spoke through his lips. [Jeremiah 1:5-7]
E-121 He's got ways of getting His Word out, you know. Yes, sir. So you see the Bible is God's Word, not man's word.
Moses said, "God spoke to me with a voice, and I heard Him. I wrote down what He said."
E-122 Jeremiah said, "I couldn't speak at all. And, the first thing you know, my lips was talking, and--and--and I was writing." God spoke through his lips, and it come to pass.
Daniel, Isaiah, and so forth, all those prophets were just about the same.
E-123 You know, in the Old Testament alone, it's more than two thousand times those prophets said THUS SAITH THE LORD. Now, if a man says THUS SAITH THE LORD, it's not the man talking. If he would, he wouldn't be a prophet, he'd be a hypocrite, see, 'cause it wouldn't (never) come to pass; one chance out of ten hundred thousand times, see, they might guess it. But if it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, the Lord God has said it.
If I would say, "Thus saith Orman Neville"; my brother say, "Thus saith Mr. Mann"; I'd say, "Thus saith Brother Vayle," out here, or some of these other brethren, any of you; I'm speaking what you said. If I'm truthful, I'm saying just what you said.
And these men, being prophets, said, "It's not me. I have nothing to do with it, but it's THUS SAITH THE LORD." So the Bible is THUS SAITH THE LORD by the prophets.
E-124 Notice, they took Christ's Spirit upon themselves, and forecast the events that would come to pass. Talk about forecasts! They said what would take place down through the ages, as they set, stood, laid, walked with the Spirit of Christ upon them, insomuch that they acted like Christ. And the readers would read it and think that the prophets was speaking of themselves.
You remember the eunuch when he was reading Isaiah 53:1, about how, that, "He had wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, with His stripes we were healed"? The eunuch said to Philip, "Who is the prophet speaking of, himself or some other man?" See, the prophet spoke as if it was himself. [Isaiah 53:5]
E-125 Look at David crying in the Spirit, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? My bones, they stare at me, at me," David. "They pierced my feet and my hands," David. "They pierced my feet and my hands. But Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither will Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption," as though David was speaking of himself being holy. It was the Son of David, that germitized, spiritual Seed coming down through there. Though David himself was a cocklebur, but on the inside of there was a Wheat grain. You get it?
So, the whole Bible is not the word of man, neither was It wrote by man, brought by man, or neither can It be--be revealed by man. It's God's Word revealed by God Himself, His Own Interpreter, Christ revealing Himself in His Own Word. [Psalms 22:1]
E-126 Look at Christ standing back here in David. David couldn't even think now. His mind had gone from him, as it were. And He was hanging on the cross, like you see the statue here; hanging on the cross, crying, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? All My bones, they stare at Me. They pierced My hands and My feet. They thrust My side." See? "Why art Thou so far from Me? All the bulls of Bashan compass about. They wag their heads, saying, 'He trusted in God, that He would deliver Him; now let's see if He'll deliver Him,'" speaking the same words.
So, you see, when God was made manifest on earth here, He said the same words David did. You get it? So, you see, It's not the word of man; it's the Word of God. That was God in David; that wasn't David. He didn't know what he was saying; he was just so in the Spirit.
That's the way Moses was. He was so in the Spirit, passed out of the dimension that he was living in, and stood there face to face, in that burning bush, talking to--to--to God Himself. Said, "Take off your shoes. The ground you're standing on is holy ground."
I imagine when Moses left there, he thought, "What happened? What taken place? What was it?"
Said, "Go down in Egypt. I'll go with you."
He said, "It's so real to me, I must go." He got his wife and his children... and--and his child, rather, and his stick in his hand, and took off down to Egypt, to deliver the people. See? [Exodus 3:5]
E-127 God speaking, Himself, through the prophets. See, they, they're absolutely... It isn't the prophets; it was God. Cause, the prophets, of themself, they couldn't say those things.
"Who has believed our report?" Isaiah saying, you see. "Who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He shall grow up before us as a calf in a--in a stall. And how that, yet, He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, chastisement of our peace upon Him; with His stripes we were healed." We were healed, way over here in this age here; and Isaiah, back yonder eight hundred years before Christ. See? "By His stripes we were," past tense, already, "healed." Oh, my!
How, the Word of God, so perfect! Trust in It, folks. It's the only thing that can save you. [Isaiah 53:1-5]
E-128 All other words, I don't care how well they are placed, how, who they come from, what denomination they come from, or how smart the man is, is to be absolutely ignored, anything contrary to the Word. You want to put that Scripture down, it's Galatians 1:8. See? Paul said, "Though we, or an Angel from Heavens, would preach any other thing than This that you've already heard, let him be cursed."
In other words, if an Angel would come to you from Heaven, a bright shining Angel, and would stand; boy, that would be bait for this day, wouldn't it? A bright shining Angel come up there and stand, and say things was contrary to the Word; you say, "Satan, get away from me." That's right. If he's a bishop, if he's a... whatever he is, don't you never believe him if he doesn't speak exactly with that Bible, Word by Word. Watch him, he'll carry you with the Bible now. He'll carry you to a certain place, and then hook it right there. When you see the Bible saying one thing, and he bypasses that, watch him right there.
See, that's the way he done Eve. He come right down and said everything just exactly. "Well, God said this. That's right, Eve. Amen. We believe that, together."
"Well, God said this."
"Amen. We believe that, together."
"God said this."
"We believe that, sure."
"Well, but God said we'll die."
E-129 "Well, now, you know He's a good God." He didn't say He wouldn't, you know. "But surely..." Oh, me! There he is.
And if he was deceitful like that, and the Bible said, "In the last days he would deceive the Elected if it was possible," where ought we to be today, friends? Now, these little Sunday school lessons are, should be carried pretty close, you know, to our hearts, to see... We ought to listen real close and see how deceiving that thing is. [Matthew 24:22-24]
E-130 Notice, we cannot, we must not, listen to any other man's word. We don't care how smart, how educated. The Bible, in Proverbs, says, "We must cast down reasonings." See? Now, here in this second realm...
First realm is your senses of see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. That's in your outer body.
On the inner body, which is the spirit, is reasonings and thought, and so forth. We must cast all that down. Can't reason, say, "Now wait, if God is a good God..." And we're told so much today that He is. "If He is a good God, then if I be sincere, though I can't see that in that Bible being right, though I be sincere, I'll be saved." You'll be lost. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] [Proverbs 16:25]
E-131 "If I go to church and just do the things that I believe that's right, and try to hold up for what I think is right, well, I..." You're still lost.
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death." See? You won't be saved; you'll be lost. See? See? It must be that inside control Man.
E-132 "Well, I've spoke in tongues, Brother Branham. Well, don't you believe in speaking in tongues, Brother Branham?" Absolutely. "Well, I shouted; don't you believe that?" Yes, sir. "I live a good Christian life. Don't you believe in that?" Yes, sir. But still that don't mean you're saved. You're a good person; clean, moral, holy, good person.
So was those priests, religious to the core, so religious till one misconstrued, they'd be stoned to death. The death penalty of fooling with the Word of God was death.
E-133 That's what's the matter with our country today. The reason we got so many loose-leaf things in the earth today, the penalties are not strong enough. If a man was caught running out with another man's wife, they should both be taken out in public and castrated, right, public, and turned loose. That's right. If a man is caught doing anything wrong, down the road, speeding, he oughtn't to be given less than ten years; he's pre-... premeditated murder. See? You put penalties like that on it, you'll slow them down.
But when some crooked politician can get to this one over here and pass it off, and say, "Well, he was drinking a little, he was... didn't mean to do that." And would kill a man, wife, and a whole bunch of innocent children, let the Ricky get by with it, that's politics. That's the world. That's the devil.
E-134 God said if a man was caught in adultery, or a woman, take them out there and stone them to death. That settled it. See? If he's even caught picking up a weight of a stick, on the sabbath day, "Take him and stone him." They lived by it then. And now, see, we don't have them kind of laws today.
But the Christian, the church, what I'm talking to this morning, that law of God is in your heart. See? You have no desire to do it. It's inside here. You want to keep God's law so perfect. No matter what it is, you want to be just what... If--if God needs a doormat at the door, He wants you to be that doormat, you're so happy to be that. No matter what it would be, you want to be the doormat. See? Whatever God wants you to do, that's what you want to do, 'cause it's God. Now, that's where you really find your real, genuine, true love for God.
E-135 Now we find out then, that, "An Angel would preach anything else," besides what's...?... already been said in the Bible, "let him be cursed." Nobody can. Can't do that; It must be just exactly the way It says.
E-136 And again we read, in Revelations 22:18 and 19, "If any man will add one word to This, or take one Word from It, God will take his part out of the Book of Life." Right. God will take his part, though he be a minister, whatever he may be, and his word... his name is wrote on the Book of Life. God said, "I'll just rub it right off," that's right, "if he adds one thing to It, or takes one Word from It." That's how infallible God has made His Word. See? You can add to the church, or take from the church. Don't you add to that Word, or take from It, 'cause God will take your name right off the Book of Life. And, that's, you're finished then. See? You can't add to It, or take from It. It's just exactly what... [Revelation 22:18-19]
E-137 It needs no interpreter, for the Bible said that God does His Own interpreting of the Bible. "It's of no private interpretation," said Peter. All right.
E-138 And all the Scripture is Divinely given, Divinely set in order, and the whole thing is the revelation of Jesus Christ. The New and Old Testament, where they foretold of Him coming, what He would do when He got here, and what He would do in this age to come. So that makes Him the same yesterday, today, and forever. See?
Like in Hebrews there, when Paul wrote it. He is God, "Jesus Christ yesterday," of the Old Testament. He is "Jesus Christ today," manifested in the flesh. "And He's Jesus Christ forever," in the Spirit, "to come." See? See? "Same yesterday, today, and forever."
And He ever lives to make His Word live what It said It would do for that age. He is alive. [Hebrews 13:8]
E-139 He was alive in the Old Testament, manifested. I just want to let you see a little something here, if you can stand it. Watch, when Jesus was manifested in the Old Testament, as we believe it.
Now, you preachers out there, you can argue with it, do whatever you want to, but I'm talking for my... what I think. See?
E-140 When Jesus was manifested in the Old Testament, in a theophany, in the person of Melchisedec; not a priesthood, but the Person, the Man. See? For, this Man had yet not been born, but He was in a theophany, so He had no father, no mother. He was God Himself. He was manifested in the form of a Man, called, "King of Salem, which is King of Peace, and King of Righteousness." See? He was Melchisedec. "He had neither father nor mother, beginning of days or ending of life." See? It was Jesus in a theophany, in the form of a Man. Could you go that? All right. [Hebrews 7:1-21], [Genesis 14:18-20]
E-141 Then He was made actually human flesh, and dwelled among us, in the Person of Jesus Christ Himself, born of the virgin Mary. He come in that form so He could die, and went back into Heaven.
Now in this last days, He has promised to manifest Himself in the fullness again, of His flesh, in Spirit. See? "For as it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the Coming of the Son of man." Now look at the Sodom, how it set, and what taken place. And Jesus Christ being manifested in bodily form, of His Church today, see, doing the same thing, same work, same things that He did all the time, never changes, the Eternal One. See? And upon earth today, He has manifested Himself in the human bodies, our human bodies that He has called, and done exactly the same thing He done in sundry times, and in the times of His flesh upon the earth. And doing the same thing today, because, "God in sundry times spoke to the fathers through the prophets, in this last days through His Son, Jesus Christ." See, the Son being revealed in the last days, God manifested in human flesh, setting just before Sodom's destruction, the end of the Gentile world. You see it?
There is three manifestations. [Hebrews 1:1]
E-142 Now, the next thing happens, is when it's all gathered up into that one Person, Jesus Christ, Bride and Body, at the physical return of the Lord Jesus. Making His three times... When He was brought on earth; killed, crucified, raised up. Manifesting Hisself in the form of His Body, which is His Bride, the Woman. You get it? She is part of His Body.
And the woman and man is just so close together, till they're just almost... They are the same. They ought to be, anyhow. There they are, see, they just exactly manifested the same. She is a part of him, because she was taken out from him.
And the Bride today is taken out from the body of Christ, which is acting and doing just exactly like He said It would do for this day, the Bride, the Queen; King and the Queen. All right.
We're getting late now, so we're going to have to hurry and get through.
E-143 All right, the entire Bible is the entire revelation of Jesus Christ, making Himself known to every age. He made Hisself known in the days of Luther, as a foundation; the church, the foot, the legs.
Like He did King Nebuchadnezzar; you remember how he dreamed those dreams, and come from the head down? See? Now He comes from the feet up. See? In the Babylonian kingdom He showed all those Old Testament's, He come from the head down, until He come down till God Himself become flesh at the foot of the ladder. Now here in the New Testament, He brings Hisself right back up again, to the Head again, the Head of gold, to be crowned. See? Look. You get it? [Daniel 2:1-48]
See, God was in the beginning, and He kept coming down, through the prophets, and on down, until God Himself became human like us, plumb down at the foot of the ladder, a baby born in a manger; hated, rejected, despised, and a bad name, and everything He was. Then He started rising, see, and from the feet He begin to build the Church, the Bride, coming back, on back; and now coming out into the Headstone, where it all joins together and makes the one great transfigured Body of Jesus Christ.
E-144 God is revealed in every age by His promised Word to that age. Now let's just look what some of His promises is for today, while we're closing now in these last words.
E-145 Now God is revealing Himself in the evening Light time. Let's see now. We see...
E-146 I just got a bunch of Scriptures wrote down here. As you can see on this page, how many Scriptures is written there. But, we just got about fifteen minutes till twelve. I want to get out. And I haven't gotten hoarse, this morning, speaking. Sometimes these air conditioners here makes me real hoarse.
So if Brother Neville don't... You ain't got anything for tonight? [Brother Neville says, "No."--Ed.] Well, well, I'll... If it's all right, I got something. I found a cigarette pack, the other day, laying in the woods; and I got a Message from that cigarette pack, for tonight, the Lord willing. See?
So, I got these Scriptures here. And I don't want to run overtime, so you can get back.
E-147 A cigarette pack, speaking. All right. I was starting out through the woods, and there laid a cigarette pack, and I just walked on away. I thought, "Well, somebody is ahead of me."
And Something said, "Turn back and pick that up."
I thought, "Pick up a cigarette pack? Not me."
Something said, "Turn back and pick that cigarette pack."
And I went down, there was an old empty pack, and I seen something. I'll tell you about it, tonight, the Lord willing. All right.
E-148 Now we're going to speak about evening Lights, just for a few moments. The Bible predicts that there would come a time, right at the closing time, that the sun would come out, and there would be an evening Light. We all know that. Don't we? We, we're... We who are familiar with our Message today from the Lord Jesus, we believe that there will be a evening Light. And this evening Light...
Of course, the great Light will come when Jesus Himself will be manifested here on earth, or up in the Heavens, taking away His Bride, and then the Millennium will set in.
E-149 But we've got one of the most dreadful times to go through, that ever laid before human beings. And I'm just waiting for the hour, and when we can get... everybody can get a chance where you get off from work and spend a few days, and we can get set up somewhere where I can speak on those Plagues and things that's to fall in the last days; and throw about two or three weeks together, and bring that together, if the Lord let's me live to do it and will inspire me to do so, see how those things will be dropped in, and those Thunders. Then you'll find out what that man and them people have been dreaming about, and all these things there, it'll come to pass; see, you'll notice what them revealed, that great thunder a coming forth out of the--out of the skies. Now, of course, the whole bunch of you, you know that I know what that--what that means, you see. And, but let's just wait till the time comes, you see, for it to be, see, now, and it'll be more in season.
E-150 Now, so we are going to read some of these--these Scriptures in here. Now, in the evening Lights come, now, we notice that it'll have to be the same Light that was in the morning.
Cause, there's not one sun in the morning and another sun in the afternoon. It's the same sun. Same sun that's in the afternoon is in the morning; the same in the morning as in the afternoon.
Now, It said, "The day itself," the day between that time, "will be kind of like, oh, like a dismal, dark day. It could not be called day or night, in between that." [Zechariah 14:6-7]
E-151 See, that's the forming of the Body, from the feet, coming up. When He was here on earth, He was the Son, the Lightness, then He was killed. The Church took His place, then martyrdom and went through the Dark Ages, and begin to build on the foundation coming out. Then where does the sight come from? At the top of the head.
See that vision; Nebuchadnezzar? See Him going down, from the beginning of the Gentile age before the Blood was shed for them and made an atonement. They were proselytes brought in. But notice it went right down, right down, right down to the bottom, in symbol, see, brought it down.
Then it started right back, coming back, the Church come back from the feet, coming up. Now it's in the head time--head time. Now notice the Light.
E-152 You can't see with your hands, yet it's part of the body. You can't see with the ears, yet it can hear. You can't see with the nose, yet it smells. You can't--you can't see with the lips, though it speaks; see, that was the Pentecostal age. But now it's in the eye time, the seeing. See? Now, there isn't one moving faculty beyond the eye. Is that right?
The next is the intelligence, which is Christ Itself, Who controls the whole Body.
No moving, motion beyond that. See? Everything else has moved. See? Move your feet, move your muscles in your legs, move everything. Move your... Your ears can move, your nose, your lips, and so forth. But after your eyes, there is nothing moves.
That's why they claim that man get baldheaded quick, is because, see, there's no exercise to develop the muscles in--in the hair, the scalp. See? And it's not got a cushion so that they get blood up in there. The blood won't pump through, see, won't go up and furnish blood. Course, the--the hair root lives by blood.
And now we find out that that part, you see, there is nothing beyond the eye.
E-153 Now let's find out. "It shall be Light" (about the middle day?) "at the evening time!" What is Light sent for? So you can see where you're... how to get around. Is that right? See where you're at. "It shall be Light about the evening time." [Zechariah 14:7]
E-154 Now, we take that now and compare it over with Malachi 4. He promised that there would be Light come again in the evening time, see, "For, behold, I will send to you Elijah the prophet, and he will restore the--the children back to the fathers, and the fathers to the children," (is that right?) "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." [Malachi 4:5-6]
E-155 Now let's take John or... Saint Luke 17:30, and watch what Jesus prophesied there, saying that, "As it was in the days of Sodom, it'll be the same..." [Luke 17:30]
Now remember, notice, this is at the time that the Son of man would be revealed; the revealing of the Son of man. Now, the Son of man was actually revealed potentially, just for a few moments there, just before Sodom was burned. Now, that Man was Elohim. That was God; and Jesus is God. And God was revealed potentially right there for a few moments, to talk to Abraham, in the investigation judgment. Just for a little bit, the Son of man was revealed; the Son of man, Elohim. Do you see it, church? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] The Son of man, Elohim, was revealed just for a few minutes. For, the very next morning she was burned, (when?) before the sun could come up again.
So there can't be no organization left, neither can there be any further advancement than what's going right now, for she'll burn before the day breaks again. The revival is over, across the nation. There ain't going to be no more revivals, big sweeping revivals; this nation never receive it. You might have a intellectual gathering. But, I mean, a Spiritual revival, we've seen all of it. I hope you're catching it. I'm saying it in such a way that--that I hope you get it. See? It's over.
A fine minister said, a while ago, said, "Brother Branham, if I could just have the joy of the Lord in my heart!"
I said, "Son, the revival is over." See?
E-156 Now the stabilizers has been put on the ship. Great fearful waves are out here before us; but we know, just beyond that wave yonder, we're nearing the shore. See? We're nearing the shore. Just stay stabled. Just stay in the Word. Stay with God. No matter how you feel, what anything else; stay right with the Word. Let--let--let it stay stable, when you see all these great big old clouds around us, and storms a coming, and atomic bombs, and everything else they're talking about. But our stabilizer is right straight in the Word. God said it would be here; we'll crest every one of them. Yeah, we'll go right over the top of them. Yes, indeed! They, they can't sink us. They can't drown us. You put us in the grave; we'll come out again. That's just all there is to it. There ain't no way in the world to keep it down there. We'll crest every one of them, 'cause our great Chief Captain is calling at the other side.
We're anchored in Jesus, the storms of life I'll brave;
I've anchored in Jesus, I fear no wind or wave;
E-157 Whatever it might be, let it come. What may, what will, doesn't make any difference. We're anchored right there in Jesus. If I live, I'll live to the glory of God. If I die, I die to the glory of God. I--I--I just want to just... It's to the glory of God, is what I want to do. When that's all over, I don't want to stay any longer. I want to go to where... to my reward that He bought for me; not what I earned, but what He bought for me, what He give to me by His grace.
E-158 So we see the evening Light's here. And what does it do to have Light, if you don't have any eyes to see how to get around in It? What is the evening Light? The Light comes on, to reveal something. Is that right? If there's something here, you feel and you can't understand what it is, in the darkness, then turn a light on. It's to reveal! What's Malachi 4 to do? See? Do the same thing. What was the opening of the Seven Seals to do, where all these denominations staggering around in this...?... Is to reveal, bring out. If you haven't got any eyes, then what's the use to reveal? There has to be eyes, first, to see. Is that right? To reveal Malachi 4, reveal Saint Luke 17:30, Saint John 14:12, also John 15:24, 16:13. And to also reveal Revelations 10:1 to 7, the opening of the Seven Seals, and the seventh angel's Message; to open up, to reveal, when the evening Light's come. Now if a man... [Malachi 4:5-6], [Revelation 10:1-7], [Luke 17:30], [John 14:12], [John 15:24], [John 16:13]
E-159 In the Laodicean Age, the people were (what?) "naked." Are they? "Blind."What good does Light do to a blind man? If the blind leads the blind, don't they all fall in the ditch? "Naked, blind, and don't know it." Even their mental faculties are gone, their spiritual faculties of mental, spiritual understanding. See? [Revelation 3:14-21]
"Heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are good; having a form of godliness, but denying the Power thereof." The power of revelation; they don't even believe in it. See? They don't believe in such things as prophets. And so they don't believe in it. They believe that--that Malachi 4 is to be a certain church or a certain organization. [II Timothy 3:1-8], [Malachi 4:5-6]
When he come the first time, he was a man. When he come the second time, with a double portion, he was a man. When he come in the form of John the Baptist, he was a man. See? [Malachi 3:1-3], [Matthew 17:10-13]
In the last days, when the evening Lights begin to shine, eyes will become open and you'll see where you're going. Then the Body is already formed, standing upon its feet, taking motion, moving by the Holy Spirit. What? The same One that moved upon the prophets that wrote the Bible, the same Holy Ghost moving in a Body filled with the Holy Ghost, moved in the Holy Ghost, out of every organization, every kindred, tongue, and people.
E-160 A little lady here, she don't belong in this organization, or this organization... belong in this congregation. She comes from somewhere else, and she come in this morning, got a picture there. She was... give it to my son, who was very much astonished. I don't know whether she ever heard about This or not. I don't know. She had a picture of this Angel of the Lord that was on the Seven Church Ages, Seven Seals opened, out there, when it did. Said, looked back through there, and she seen that standing in the sky, in a dream. And she looked back through there and seen that, seen somebody in white, marching forward; and behind it, said it looked... Said, "Brother Branham, it was you." And said, "Marched in there," said, "behind you, was people of different colors, packing banners; Georgia, Alabama, all different kind of places, marching forward," coming up into the headship to where Christ was being revealed into the vision. Oh, hallelujah!
E-161 We're in the last days, and the last hours of the days. Do you see Him now in His Word, and all of His Word made manifest right here before us? Oh, Church of the living God, get to your feet, believe Him with all that's in you. Hold to that little Wheel in the middle of the wheel, let It stabilize every move and every motion that you make. Every thought that you have, may it be controlled by this Tower on the inside of you. Because, God is setting right in His Word of this hour, in the evening Light, showing forth the Light.
E-162 The blindness of a bat! You could turn on a light, and the bat--bat would be so blind he couldn't fly. A hoot owl, all those night prowlers, and things like that, roaches and things, can't see in the daytime. They don't know what it's all about. They can't see.
And the evening Lights has come on. Every parable, everywhere we go, to nature, to the Bible, to the--the statues that Melc-... that Daniel saw, and--and the king of that day, all of them saw; and all these things, everybody, every form, every move, every place in the Body, positionally shows us the very hour that we're living in. Not another move can come above it.
There was a move of the hand; charity, Wesley. There was a move, of foundation; Luther. Charity, there never was a greater; it was called the Wesley move. They sent missionaries to all the world. One of the greatest moves that was made, in the age before that.
Then come the Pentecostal age; then come in the different fingers and things, the Pentecostal age, of tongues, and nose, and so forth.
Now it's in the eyes. What good will you need eyes, or need light, if that eyes wasn't there to see? There has to be eyes, first, to see. And then when that come, He opened the Seven Seals and revealed the evening Light, taking all the mysteries that's been hid down through these church ages, and now revealed them as He promised to do in Revelations 10:1 to 7. Here we are today setting in the midst of the Word, and the Word being revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Then, This is God's Word. [Revelation 10:1-7]
E-163 And be His subjects, we must walk close to the Author, to understand It, for It to reveal. "O Lord, what will Thou have to me, to do? If I must go to the fields and preach the Gospel, or must I stay at home? No matter what it is, if I must be a good housewife, if I must be a good mother, if I must do this, that, or the other? Whatever it is, if I must be a farmer, if I... Whatever it is, Lord, what would You have me do?" [Acts 9:6]
E-164 Wasn't that what Saul cried out down there, "Lord, what would You have me do?" He was down on the ch-... on his road down to--to put all the church into prison. But then he cried out, "What would You have me do?" When the Light turned on, as a big Pillar of Fire hanging above him. "What would You have me do?"
E-165 Think, that's a good word to close on, and say, "Lord, what would You have me do? When I see this Scripture so perfectly revealed right now; Lord, what would You have me do?"
Let us bow our heads.
E-166 I ask everyone in here to search out your hearts now and ask that question, "Lord, what would You have me do?" And you people, if you're still on the telephone wires out across the nation, you bow your head and ask, "Lord, what would You have me do? Seeing that we're here in the last days and the last hours, just so perfectly before us, so plainly revealed, what would You have me do?"
E-167 Dear God, while they're asking You that question; I ask, myself, to You, what would You have me do, Lord, as I realize that each day must be counted for. And I pray that You'll help me, Lord, to live so that each day, it'll be counted to Your honor and glory.
I pray that You'll help everyone all across the nation, and those here that's present in the tabernacle as we search out our hearts and say, "Lord, what would You have me do? What could I do, Lord, to further Your Kingdom and Your Cause?" Grant it, the God.
Search us, our hearts, and try us. If there be any iniquity in us, Lord, any selfishness, any bad motives or objectives, O God, cleanse us with the Blood of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who we humbly accept His propitiation of His death and His resurrection. And being justified by believing that He did this, we gladly accept the plan of salvation that You give us, to us.
Father, we thank You for the Message of the day, what we believe and what we hold onto, to know and believe that it's Your Word and Your Message. Not to be different from the other people, but to try to be more like Jesus Christ Who is our example.
E-168 Dear God, laying here is handkerchiefs, and there is sick people everywhere. And I myself, Lord, am tired and wore out, this morning. I pray that You'll help us, dear God. We look to You for strength. You are our Strength. You've helped so many, dear God.
E-169 The other day, thinking down there in the woods, walking around with Brother Banks Woods, when the doctors... His heart was so bad he couldn't hardly walk around. Then to think how I... little I knowed up there, walking in those mountains after that vision, "I must get that lion. I must see that lion killed."
And then coming down there, and standing there in Tucson, at Furr's Cafeteria, and see his clothes all bagging down, his eyes drooped. Said, "God, if You can show a vision, where a lion is, surely You can show about Brother Woods."
And then it come, "Lay your hands upon him."
And here he is today, back, our Brother Banks again, strong, running up-and-down those mountains. How we thank Thee, dear God. You're the same God to all of us as You would be to Brother Woods. I know You love him, because he's Your servant, honest and sincere.
E-170 And I pray, dear God, that You will deal with each one of us, and forgive our sins, and heal our sicknesses of our bodies. Make us more like You, day by day, Lord, until we come in that full statue of Jesus Christ. Grant it, Lord. I trust that You've searched every heart, now, and we know what to do. We ask for You to bless us now, in Jesus' Name.
E-171 And while we have our heads bowed, is there any here present, or out in the--in the telephone land across the nation, that would just like to, while you're praying, and your head bowed, just raise up your hand to God now. That's all you can do; it's crowded in here this morning. Just raise up your hand to God, say, "God, make me more like Jesus. I--I want to be more like Jesus." God bless you. Out into the land across the nation, hands just everywhere, just a solid mass. Also, mine lifted up. "I want to be more like Him. Search me, Lord, and find if there be any evil in me; take it out. I--I want..." What? We're just here so long, yet we're going to leave whether you're... whether, no matter what you are, how rich, how poor, how young, how old.
E-172 Standing yesterday to a--a little, poor bunch of people way up in a mountain, down at the... on the creek. There was a little family there, a man I been talking to about God, so long. Come down, his little wife, seven or eight children; him, a little bitty, spindly thing, out there trying to work, couple dollars a day. And a man let him live in a little shanty. And there his wife up there, nearly ready to have another child, and she had a big broad axe up there, chopping wood, to pull it down; baby on one hip, pulling the wood with another; come down to cut that wood, to can some blackberries, keep from going hungry through the winter. My, how we felt sorry for her! Brother Woods and I went and got the truck, and went over there and cut her wood, and brought it in. She, grateful little woman, just standing there. I felt sorry for her. And we kept praying for them.
E-173 And her little baby took epilepsy. We went and prayed for the little baby, and God healed it. And the other day, her husband had a hernia, and went in...
I been talking to him. He smoked, both of them. She used tobacco, and he did, too, typical of mountain people. And then I kept talking to them about it. And yesterday morning when I went in, about daylight, here he come walking out, holding his hands together, and said, "Brother Billy, I'm a changed man." He said, "I've smoked my last cigarette, and I'm over on the Lord's side."
She said, "I just smoked my last one, too."
Oh, plant the seed! "I the Lord have watered. I'll water it day and night, lest some shall pluck it from My hands."
E-174 O God, be merciful now, I pray, and give us the desire of our heart, 'cause in our hearts we want to serve You. Now, Father, they're all in Your hands, everywhere. They're Your children. Deal with them according to mercy, Lord; not in judgment, but in mercy. We ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.
E-175 You love Him? [Congregation says, "Amen. "--Ed.] All your heart! Now, you that have the handkerchiefs, can get them.
And now, our services, I think they start a little early, seven o'clock, or something like that. Brother Neville will announce it, just in a minute, about when to start.
Is there a baptism, I guess, this morning? [Brother Neville says, "The water is ready."--Ed.] The water is ready, if somebody is here and has not yet been baptized in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, why, it certainly is... Water is ready for the baptismal service.
E-176 We appreciate all the minister brothers. I see Brother... How was your meeting, went all right, Brother Parnell? And Brother Martin, and, oh, so many of them here, Brother Lee Vayle. Oh, there's just ministers all over the place. We certainly appreciate you being here, fellowshipping with us around the Word.
E-177 Maybe you might not agree with me just exactly on This; don't ask you to, you see. Only thing, you just consider It. What you tell me, I consider it. If ministers would pick up the tape, and they say, "Well, I disagree with." That's all right, my brother. You maybe shepherd some sheep; you--you feed them whatever you wish to.
I'm trying my best to stay right with the Word, for these that's been put in my hands for God, 'cause sheep want sheep food, of course. "My sheep hear My Voice." And that's what we live by, every Word that proceedeth... Not all... Not just a Word now and then; but every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, that's what the saints should live by.
Let us stand now to our feet. While we bow our heads...
And Brother Neville, you got something you want to say to them? [Brother Neville says, "No."--Ed.] Brother Mann? All right.
Everybody feeling good? Say, "Amen." [Congregation says, "Amen."Ed.] All right.
Now let us bow our heads.
I'm going to ask Brother Lee Vayle if he'll come up here, or he can. If you can get over there, Brother Vayle, if you can.
Brother Vayle is our brother here, a writer of the books. And he's getting the book ready now, The Seven Church Ages, and working with The Seven Seals. And we'll soon hope to have them out pretty soon. All right. Brother Lee Vayle,
God bless you. [John 10:27]
E-2 And we believe that we are ending up this world's history now, and soon time will fade into Eternity, and we want to be ready for that hour. And that's why we have assembled here this morning, is to prepare for that time. I am told that there are many of the telephone hooks-ups this morning across the nation, from coast to coast. Wherever our voices is coming, may that little group be blessed. Heal the sick that's among them, and I pray that You'll cleanse their souls from all evil. And help us here this morning, at the tabernacle, that we also may enjoy that great privilege.
E-3 And we ask that You'll speak to us today through Thy written Word, and may the Spirit reveal to us the things that we have need of, as we have gathered nationwide now, feeling that we are a small people, but have a place among the redeemed, because we have believed on Jesus Christ. Grant these things to us, Lord.
E-4 And when we close the service and we go to our different homes across the nation, may we say, like those from Emmaus, "Did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke to us along the road?"
E-5 Now, Father, I know that whatever I would say would be certainly insufficient, with the--the fine Christians throughout the nation now that's tuned in, it wouldn't be--it wouldn't be adequate. It would not be something that I could say that could do any good, because we're all in the same category. We're human, mortals. But let the great Holy Spirit speak; may He take a hold of the Word and just reveal Himself. We're waiting on Him now, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
You may be seated.
E-6 I kinda... surprising myself. I told my wife, if she happens to be listening in, down in Tucson, that I didn't think I'd have any service when I come back; and I didn't even bring clothes. And I said to my daughter-in-law, she had pressed my coat, and I said, "I'm staying behind the pulpit, with... They don't know the trousers is one kind and the coat's another." It's the ones I wore home. But, Meda, she got my shirt ironed and everything, so every... Don't worry; everything is fine.
E-7 Now, we have a request here, that there's a very dear brother... And I think that--that Prescott, I believe, is hooked in this morning, up in--in Prescott, Arizona. Sister Mercier's father is just been on his road here to the meeting, I understand, and was had to be taken to the hospital in a heart attack, Brother Coggins. And, also, Brother Junior Jackson, I think he's in on the next radio down, or the next phone down in Clarksville or New Albany, and his father is in the hospital, I understand, with serious operation of cancer in the liver. So we want certainly remember those in our prayers. And now there's others here, too, but we don't want to take up the time. God knows all about them, so let us pray for them now.
E-8 Dear God, as that dear, old, wrinkled-hand man, Brother Coggins, an old veteran of the field, has... laying in the hospital this morning, somewhere, suffering from an attack on his heart. God, that poor old heart's went through much troubles. I pray, God, to help him. Grant it. He like... He loves life like all of us does, and he wants to live. Lord God, grant it. We across the nation pray in Jesus' Name for him, that You'll heal him and bring him out. We believe that You will; he'll be come right to the meeting.
E-9 We pray for Brother Jackson, his precious daddy laying there near death now, and bring in the world a fine boy like Junior. I--I--I pray, dear God, that You'll heal him. I know it seems impossible. The medics, the doctors, they--they don't know what to do in that kind of a case. But we remember Brother Hall, also, when the very best of the physicians here said, in Louisville, said, "He's just a few hours to live," with cancer in the liver. And he's living today, and that's twenty-five years ago, because of Your grace. So I pray that You'll heal Brother Jackson today, Lord, let Your grace and mercy be with him.
E-10 And all this great pile of handkerchiefs and cloths and things that's placed here in request; You know them all, Father. I pray that You'll grant healing to all of them. In Jesus Christ's Name. Amen.
E-11 Now start, this morning, I didn't think that I was going to come down, at the first place, last Sunday. And then again, when we announced it, I come down. Brother Neville had me to speak! And then we announced to be down today, and it hasn't been notified out around the country to the peoples. And we got this telephone system now, which is very, very fine. The people can set right in their homes or their... gather in their places, their churches, and so forth, and hear the service. I appreciate that.
E-12 Now I see laying here, there had been many requests this last week, on what I said last Sunday on the Message. I believe I forget what I titled it now. But I said something about paying your debts. And you know, no matter what you say, it's misunderstood by many. Not 'cause they... they don't want to misunderstand it, but you just simply misunderstand it.
And now someone said, "Should we buy a car?" Or, "What should I..."
Now, that isn't what Jesus spoke of, or the Bible there, that said, "Owe no man nothing." That's lingering debts that you could pay. Pay them. It don't... That's owing no man nothing. It doesn't mean... My, we owe our rent, our telephone bill, we... and whatmore. We--we owe those things, and we pay them. But, an old lingering debt that you could be paying on, pay it off. See? Now, don't go with anything hanging on you like that. [Romans 13:8]
E-13 I remember a time when I was sick, once when I was a boy. I came out of the hospital owing about two thousand dollars. And used to be a drugstore here, Mr. Swaniger, I owed him about three or four hundred dollars, a medicine bill. He didn't even know me. And the man... I went to him. I didn't know him. And he just send it up there, anyhow, never refused to send it. And I said, "I owe you."And I said... I believe, Swaniger... It was Mr. Mason down on Court Avenue and Spring.
And I said, "I owe you. And I'm--I'm just still awfully weak, but I'm trying to go to work. Now, if I can't pay you..." I just become a Christian. I said, "First thing, Mr. Mason, as my duty to God, I owe Him my tithes. I want to pay Him my tithings, first." And I said, "Then my next duty is pay my debts." I said, "My father is sickly, and he... And we got... There's ten of us children in the family." But I said, "I'll... If I can't pay you no more than twenty-five cents on that bill, each payday; if I can't pay you even the twenty-five cents, I'll come by and tell you about it. I'll tell you, 'I--I--I can't do it this time.'" Now, by the help of God, I paid every bit off. See? But that's what I mean, see? Just don't somebody say...
E-14 Oh, some Christian here at the church one time went out and got some work done on a car here, and the man come down... The man said, "I'll pay you. I get paid Saturday," or something another. And he never paid him. And weeks after weeks rolled by, and never paid him, never said a word. And--and the man come and asked me, he said... See, it reflects against the church. It reflects against Christ.
You can't pay him, go tell him, say, "I owe you, and I'm going to pay you. I'm a Christian, but I--I just... I can't do it right now, I've got... I owe this." And, remember, it's on God's books too, you know, that you do. So that's... I'm trying to, for myself and for all of us together, try to be ready, for we know we're getting near something, very near of something is going to take place. So we want to be ready. When the Coming of the Lord is drawing so nigh now, we want to be ready for that great hour. [Romans 13:8]
E-15 Now we want to get ready and speak now on a little subject here that I chose for this morning, by the help of the Lord. And we'll speak just as briefly as we can, because of the hook-up of the people. I hope you all got a... all across the nation, got a fine morning like we have here in Indiana. Nice, cool, fine weather we're having now since the rain. And it's very fine.
E-16 Now I want to read from the Book of Hebrews, the 1st chapter; and from the Book of Saint John, the lst chapter. Hebrews 1:1 to 3, and Saint John 1:1, for a text. My subject this morning is a study in the Scriptures. Now let's read Hebrews 1:1.
God, who at sundry times... divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets,
But in these last days spoken to us by his Son, who he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world;
Who being in the brightness of his glory, and... express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; [Hebrews 1:1-4]
What a beautiful reading! Now Saint John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [John 1:1]
E-17 Now, and my text this morning is: Christ Is Revealed In His Own Word. Now, where I come to the conclusion to talk on this, was because that... Knowing that what we say we mustn't just say because we're gathered together to just haphazardly speak on anything, but it's something that will help stabilize the people, for we are going to pass through dangerous, treacherous waters. We're already sailing through them. And sometimes I guess it's with you like it is with me, that seems like that, so much of it, it's such a scary.
E-18 I was just talking to a young minister and his wife, in the room, just a few moments ago. And both of them are nervous just like the rest of the world, rest of the human beings on earth. I said, "Remember, Satan's got a punch coming at you." Don't care who you are, God... He's got a right for that one punch. Which had you rather be, that punch; be blind, or be an arthritic setting in a chair, or be nervous? See? He's got somewhere he can punch you. He's got a right to that open place. Now, that's the spot you got to keep covered all the time. And to see this nervous age that we're living in!
E-19 And last week's tapes, I think, will reveal to you the great hideous things that we're going to speak on one of these days when we can get a place sufficient, of the opening of those last plagues to be poured out upon the earth, those Vials, rather, pouring out of the Vials, and the Seven Thunders, and those hideous sights that's coming upon the earth. Man now, and people today, are in such a neurotic condition; the whole world!
E-20 You read this last month's Reader's Digest, you'll notice the subject there; it's on Billy Graham, the great evangelist. He got so tired he just couldn't hold his meetings, and he--he went to Mayo's clinic for a physical checkup. There wasn't nothing wrong with him, only he just doesn't do enough work. And they put him to running; physical exercise. He runs a mile every day.
And then the article goes on to say that science has proved that today, that young children, these little boys and girls, "hit their middle age at twenty years old." And by twenty-five, many times, in many cases, girls are out of menopause, at twenty-five years old.
I don't know if you knew it or not, but a few nights ago while the Holy Spirit was speaking here in the meeting, a little girl setting down here, that's exactly what was wrong with that child when it called out. I looked at her the second time, looked again, and I seen what was the matter. I thought, "It can't be; that child is too young." But it was menopause, about twenty years old, twenty-three, something like that. See?
E-21 My mother and your mother struck that age about forty-five to fifty. My wife struck that age about thirty-five. Now it's down to twenty. The whole human race is rotten. Well, if them physical beings of our body is tearing down like that from eating hybrid foods, tensions, that rotten it, does not that also rot the brain cell? Then we can see how women can get on the street, naked. We can see how they can speed through the--the streets at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, all these things. It's come to a place where the whole nation, the whole world, not only this nation, but everywhere, mentally gone.
E-22 And then when we open up those, the Lord willing, on those Seven Vials and show those hideous things. Men will be so insane, after a while, till they'll imagine they're seeing ants the size of a mountain. It'll be tormenting women; be locusts come upon the earth, with long hair, to torment women who cut theirs off; hair like women, hanging down; and long teeth, like a lion; stingers in their tail, like a scorpion, and--and so forth, to torment men upon the earth. But then it'll be too late to do anything about it. You get right now. Tormenting! [Revelation 15:7], [Revelation 17:1], [Revelation 21:9]
E-23 And last Sunday when we was going into those cycles, about how that the five senses on the outer realm. That's the inlet, five senses to the body. There's only one way you can get into the body, that's by those five senses: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. There's no other way to contact the--the body.
E-24 On the inside of that man is a man called spirit, and he has five senses: think, thought... and thought, and love, and conscience, and so forth. All right.
E-25 Now, you can't think with your body. You think with your mind. And in there is where too many, of Christians, only stop. And they can, just like the corn in the field and the weed in the field, they can be anointed with the same Holy Spirit that the real believer is anointed with.
But down on the inside of that, next realm, the third realm, is the soul; and that's predestinated by God. There is where the real seed-germ lays, is in there.
E-26 And, remember, if I'd take a cocklebur and cut it open, draft into it the heart of a--of a wheat and put it there, bury it, it would bring forth a wheat out of the cocklebur; no matter what the outside is, what the emotions.
E-27 Today, so confused about the evidence of the Holy Ghost, and so forth. Satan can impersonate any kind of a gift that God has got, but he cannot bring that Word, Word by Word. That's where he failed in the garden of Eden. That's where he's always failed. That's where them, the tape on "false, anointed ones," or anointed ones; they can be anointed with the Spirit, speak in tongues, dance, shout, preach the Gospel, and still a devil.
It's the inside! Now remember, Jesus said, "All the Father has given Me will come to Me. No man can come except My Father draws him first."
Now, we taken through the lesson, to show that in... You were in your great-great-great-grandfather, all the way back, physically speaking. Then, that's what you are in physical being, nature. Sometimes a child will be born in a family, red-headed. It astonishes the father, 'cause there's nobody he knows, of his people, red-headed, or the mother's. But if you'll go way back to several generations, you'll find out somebody was red-headed. That seed keeps coming on down, and you come the nature of one from way back.
Like as Hebrews the 7th chapter said, that, "Melchisedec, Abraham paid tithes to Him when he was returning from the slaughter of the kings. And Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes," for he was in the loins of Melchisedec at... or, "the loins of Abraham," rather, when he met Melchisedec. [John 6:65], [John 6:37], [Hebrews 7:1-2]
E-28 Now the same thing is this. If you are a son of God, and if I am a son of God, or a daughter of God, we were in God at the beginning. And when Jesus became the fullness of the Word, then we were in Him, germ form. When He was crucified, we was crucified in His body. When He arose from the dead, we rose with Him. And now, since we have recognized it, "now we set together with Him, in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus." See? For He... We, if we are sons and daughters of God, we are God's children, then we are attributes of God. Then we were... got Eternal Life. And God is the only Eternal Life there is. Then, we were in Him from the beginning. And when Jesus became all that Word, then we were a part of Him then. Amen! There you are. When that's in there, there is no devil, no powers, no nothing can ever move it. That's the tie post of the soul. [Ephesians 2:6]
E-29 You can be anointed out here, in this spirit, and desire, and do all these other things. But when it comes to this tie post to that Word, you'll never move from there. It'll hold right steady and true, to that Word, as it can be. Outside of that, regardless of what you do, you're still lost.
E-30 That Laodicean Church Age, "naked, blind, miserable; don't even know it." See, it's out... It's that anointed, anointed with the real Spirit. See, that Holy Spirit can fall upon a man, in his spirit. But his soul is his germ; that germ is the Word. See? And how... I don't care how much you can preach, how well you do this, and how much you love; that's one of the inlets to spirit. You can't love with your body; you love with your spirit. That's one of the inlets. And you can love, and even love God, and still not be right. You can cast out devils, and preach, and do these things; still not be right. Jesus said so, said many would come in that day. That Word settles it!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,... [John 1:1, 14]
E-31 Notice, I'm going to speak on this subject of the Bible, of, Christ Revealed In His Own Word. Where I drawed this conclusion, was in my room.
Some dear person, may be setting here this morning... I got a picture hanging in my study up there, that's a picture of Hofmann's Head of Christ, wrote in the Beatitudes. And right where you would come to place like you need a part of the hair, they pressed a little harder on the pen as you pass that part. There, there He is, setting in His Word, looking right out; Christ in the Beatitudes. Someone, ever who it was, I thank you for it.
And somebody brought that picture and put it in my study there, of Elijah going up in a chariot of fire. We appreciate these things. Many times, big crowds, I just don't get a chance to speak and say these things, but I see it, brother, sister. I--I know it, and God knows it.
E-32 Now I'm going to speak on this subject of: Christ Revealed In His Own Word. How, in the Beatitudes, there stands a picture of Christ, standing right out, like. That's where I thought of this subject. Now, Christ and the Word is the same. See?
E-33 They say, "How was the Bible...?" People says. I was riding with a man not long ago. He said, "Think of it. We here on this earth, the way we are, and we only know or can only say that we're saved by some Jewish fable called the Bible."
E-34 I said, "Sir, I don't know how you say that, but I don't believe it's a Jewish fable," I said.
He said, "Well, you pray, what do you pray to? I asked for so-and-so and certain things; I didn't get it."
E-35 I said, "You pray wrong. We should never pray to change God's mind; we should pray to change our mind. God's mind don't need any changing. See? See, it's right." I said, "Not what you prayed for..."
I know a young Catholic boy, one time, was had a prayer book, saying prayers, and for his mother to live. And she died, and he throwed the prayer book in the fire. Well, see, I don't go for the prayer book; but, anyhow, see, you take the wrong attitude. You're trying to tell God what to do.
Prayer should be, "Lord, change me to fit Your Word." Not, "Change," not, "let me change Your mind. You change my mind." See? "You change my mind to Your will. And Your will is written here in the Book. And, Lord, don't--don't let me go till You got my--my mind set just like Your mind. And then when my mind is set like Your mind, then I'll believe every Word You wrote. And You said, in there, You'd make 'everything work together for good' to them that loves You. And I love You, Lord. It's all working together for the good." [Romans 8:28]
E-36 I been this week down in the country, staying with some very dear friends. I asked some of them at the table, yesterday, when we was eating. We always set around and have a little... like a little study on the Bible. We was talking about love.
And there was a certain person said to me, he said, "I believe you're an antichrist."
E-37 I said, "If that would be pleasing to my Lord, that's what I want to be. I want to be whatever He wants me to be. I love Him. And if He should cast me into hell, I still will love Him, if I go with the same spirit I have now." He looked at me kinda strange.
I seen four or five of them there, young men; young wives, fine women. I knowed how them boys loved their wives, so I said to them, I said, "Here is the way to test it. If your wife, before you were married... Now, you go back, say you... this married life, you been dreaming you were married; you really wasn't married, but you dreamed you were. And you woke up, and you went and talked it over with your girl friend, and said, 'You know, I dreamed that we were married, and we had children. We living happy, and--and waiting for the Coming of the Lord, and everything.' And then this girl would say to you, 'You know, I love another man better than I love you. I could be happier with the other man.' Could you, from your heart, love her well enough to say, 'God's blessings rest upon you, my dear. Go with this other man'?"
Now, now check that, each of you men or you women. See? Well, if your love is correct, you would do that, for you are interested in her welfare. What, you know you could have her, you can live with her, you... She's your wife; she will be. She'll marry you, but she won't be happy. She would be happier... And then, if you love her, then you want her to be happy.
Therefore, whatever the will of God is, let God's will be done, whether I'm happy with it or not. I want to live so He will be pleased with what I do. Therefore check your--your objective and your motive by that; you know whether you love God or not.
What if He'd say, "You serve Me if I'm going to cast you away?"
"I love You, anyhow."
E-38 Therefore, if the churches would see that and could believe it in that manner, it wouldn't be one trying to jerk the football away from the other fellow when he's running with it. He would be protecting that one. See? When, real true motive and objective, wouldn't be one trying to say, "Hey, I got this too! I, this is me, this." See, God can't use a man. There is so much impersonation follows it, and that's Satan. And the people can't realize that. They're trying to take the ball from somebody that's been give it. Let God raise up a certain ministry and watch how many goes after it. See? See?
E-39 Now, genuine love for God, "No matter what part I am, Lord, if I can only say a word for It, help protect It, let me do that." See?
That's the same thing would be about your wife. If you really love her, see, it's not a--it's not a--a phileo love; it's an Agapao love, a genuine love. She could live with somebody else, happier; you're not married now, course, you can't.
E-40 And, by the way, people listening to these tapes. Some, so many, sends in, said, "Why, in the Marriage And Divorce, you said this and you said that." I said that so many times; these tapes goes only... I'm speaking to my congregation, brother. I'm not responsible for what God give you to shepherd; I'm responsible for what kind of Food I feed these people. This is for this tabernacle only. See? Now, if the people want to listen to the tapes, that's up to them. But I'm speaking to what God has give to me. It was their sins that was omitted.
Someone wrote out, and said, "Well, I done this and I done that. You said our sins..." I--I didn't say that.
I said, "See it to this; this is only to this people right here, the people here in the tabernacle, my own flock." Now, if people wants to hybreed food and stuff out there, you--you get the revelation from God and do what God tells you to do. I'll do the same thing. But these Messages are to this church.
E-41 Notice now, we come back, we've got to have something another that we have to hold onto. Something has to be a tie post, in other words, it's an ultimate. And everyone must have an ultimate or an absolute. I preached on it one time, years ago, on an absolute, a place that's the last word.
E-42 Like the umpire at a ball game, if he says it's a strike, that's just exactly what it is. No matter how you seen it, the umpire said it's a strike. You said, "I--I--I... It wasn't a strike. It went... I seen the..." No matter what it is, when he said, "strike," that's it, that settle just what. He, he is the ultimate.
E-43 And the traffic light is an ultimate, if it says, "go." You say, "Well, I, I'm in a hurry, I got..." No, no. It says, "You stand still while the other fellow goes." See? It's the ultimate.
E-44 Now, there's got to be an ultimate to everything you do. There had to be an ultimate when you chose your wife. There had to be a woman you had to select.
E-45 Now, there has to be a time where, when you're going to buy a car, what kind of an ultimate you're going to make. Will it be Ford, Chevy, Plymouth, foreign car, whatever it is, you got to have an ultimate.
And so is it with Christian living. There has got to be an ultimate.
E-46 Now, if a man said, went to another man and said... heard somebody say, "Well, you should be baptized," and this fellow never... Maybe, his, some church that didn't baptize, they just sprinkled. I think, say for instance, the Methodist, they do baptize if it's requested, I understand. Or maybe the... A Catholic, I think they sprinkle only. So then if--if a man heard something about being "immersed in the water," well, he didn't understand that; he was raised Catholic. So he goes up to the priest, and said, "Father, I understand that we're supposed to be baptized by immersing. What does our church say about that?"
E-47 "Why, it says that--that we're to be sprinkled." If that church is his ultimate, that settles it. All strife is over; the church said so, and that's all.
E-48 What if the... if a Baptist brother heard us say that we believe in being baptized by "immersing"? He'd say, "I believe that."
"And in the Name of 'Jesus Christ.'"
Now, this--this member of the church goes back to the pastor and says, "Pastor, I heard a fellow say to me that we should be baptized by immersing, all right, but in the Name of 'Jesus Christ.'"
E-49 "Well," he'd say, "now, let us see. Why, here the book says that we're to be baptized using 'Father, Son, Holy Ghost.'" If that church is the ultimate, that settles it. He don't care about what anything else says; that's his ultimate.
E-50 Well, every denomination is an ultimate to their believers.
But, to me, and to the ones that I hope that I'm leading to Christ, and by Christ, the Bible is our ultimate. No matter... Cause, God said, "Let every man's word be a lie, and Mine Truth." And I believe that the Bible is God's ultimate. No matter what anyone else says; It's the ultimate.
The Bible is not a book of systems. No, sir. It is not a book of systems, nor a code of morals. The Bible is not a book of systems, so many systems, and so forth. No, sir. It is not a book of morals. No, sir. It is not. Nor is It a book of history, altogether. Or, neither is It a book of theology. For, It is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now if you'd like to read that, you who have your papers, marking it down, that's Revelations 1:1 to 3, as, the Bible is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ." [Revelation 1:1-3]
E-51 Let us just read it while we got time. I believe my... haven't got too many notes here to speak from. If the Lord tarries, why, we'll try to get from them.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show to his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signify it by his angel to his servant John:
Who bare record of the word of God, and... the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the word of this prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. [Revelation 1:1-3]
E-52 So, the Bible is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. And It was wrote by prophets. Hebrews 1:1, in... "God, Who in sundry times spake to the fathers by the prophets, in this last day speaks to us through His Son, Jesus Christ," which was the prophets, all of them, put together. Jesus was Malachi; Jesus was Jeremiah, Isaiah, Elijah. All that they were, were in Him. And all that you are, and all I am, is in Him; Words, witnesses of the Word.
So It is not a book of systems, a code of moral ethics, neither is It a history book, or a book of theology. It is not. But It's a revelation of Jesus Christ, God Himself revealed, from Word to flesh. That's what It is. The Bible is the Word, and God is the flesh, God in... God is the Word, rather, and Jesus being the flesh. It's the revelation, how God (the Word) was manifested in human flesh, and revealed to us. And that's why He becomes a Son of God; He is a part of God. You understand? Now, He is not... The body is part of God, so much that it's a Son. [Revelation 1:1-3], [Hebrews 1:1]
E-53 A Son, as the Catholic puts it, "Eternal Son," and all the rest of the churches; the word don't even make sense. See? There cannot be Eternal, and then be a Son, 'cause a Son is something that's "begotten from." And the word Eternal, He cannot be an Eter-... He can be a Son, but He cannot be an Eternal Son. No, sir. It cannot be an Eternal Son.
E-54 Now, but He is the Son, so much, that all the Word that was in Jeremiah, in Moses, and all those Words, like He said, "They speak of Me." All that true Divine revelation of Word was wound up into one human body, and God put flesh around It. That's the reason He was called "Son," reason He refers, "Father." Why, it's just as simple, if you just let God pour it down into your mind. See? God revealed in a body of flesh, notice, revealed from flesh... or from Word unto flesh. That's Saint John 1:14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." [John 1:14]
E-55 Now notice this Bible. Some of them said, "Oh, well, It's done this, It's done that." But let me tell you something, let's just...
Let's go into the history of the Bible, just a minute, see where It come from. It was written by forty different writers. Forty men wrote the Bible, over a space of sixteen hundred years apart, and at different times, predicting the most important events that ever happened in world's history, and, many times, hundreds of years before it happened. And there is not one error in the entire sixty-six Books. Oh, my! No author but God Himself could be so accurate. Not one Word contradicts the other.
Remember, sixteen hundred years apart, the Bible was wrote, from Moses to--to the death of--of John at the isle, or the Isle of Patmos. Sixteen hundred years, and was wrote by forty different authors; one didn't even know the other one, and they never had It as "the Word." Some of them never even seen "the Word." But when they wrote It, and was understood to be prophets, then, when they put their prophecies together, each one of them dovetailed one to the other. [Revelation 1:9]
E-56 Look at Peter, who announced on the Day of Pentecost, "Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins."
Paul had never heard nothing about It. He went down to Arabia for three years, to study the Old Testament, to see Who this Pillar of Fire was that spoke to him on the road, saying, "Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" How could he be wrong? He never even consulted the church at all.
And fourteen years later, when he met Peter, they was preaching the same thing, Word by Word. That's our Bible. Let other man's words fail. This, no man can add to It. You don't add no more to the Bible. No, sir. This is the complete Revelation. It's all. [Acts 2:38], [Acts 9:4]
E-57 Like the Seven Seals. "The Seven Seals," someone kept saying to me, "now you'll... The Lord will speak to you, Brother Branham, when these Seals are revealed, and will tell us how to get closer to God, and how to do it."
E-58 I said, "No, sir, it can't be. Because, the Bible, the Seven Seals on It had the seven mysteries hid. It was already wrote, but they didn't understand what It was."
Watch how they plowed along with that, being baptized in "Jesus" Name; see, that wasn't it. The Name of the "Lord Jesus Christ"! See all those things, how it was. Cause, there's many Jesuses; I got several friends here on earth named "Jesus," minister friends. It isn't that. It's our "Lord Jesus Christ."
No author but God could be so correct. Now let's just see how this Bible was written. [Revelation 10:1-7]
E-59 Now, say for instance, from... What if we went now and took sixty-six medical books that deals with the body, wrote by forty different medical schools, a hundred and sixteen... or sixteen hundred years apart? Wonder what kind of continuity we'd come up with?
When, George Washington, our president, about two hundred years ago, for pneumonia, they pulled his toenail out and bled him a pint. What if we took...
E-60 Let's go a little further, on some things that we so attracted to today, that's science. What if we took forty different science, from sixteen hundred years apart, and see what we'd come up with? A French scientist, three hundred years ago, proved by science, by rolling a ball, that, if any terrific speed was obtained over thirty miles an hour, the object would leave the earth and fall off. Do you think science would ever refer back to that? Is any continuity with that now, when they drive down the street, on the road here, a hundred and fifty miles an hour? See? But he scientifically proved that, by the pressure of the ball rolling across the ground, that at thirty miles an hour, that, any object would lift up off the earth and go away, it'd fall off into space. No, there's no continuity to that.
E-61 But not one Word in the Bible contradicts the other. Not one prophet ever contradicted the other one. They was, every one, perfect. And when one come in and did prophesy, and that real prophet raised up and called him down, then it was made manifest. See? See? So the Bible is the Word of God, to all true believers.
E-62 Now, you couldn't get no accuracy in what doctors would agree upon. You can't even get accuracy of them now. You can't get accuracy in science now.
Now, you know, sometime ago, they told us that the... that, "When the Bible said that 'he saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the earth,' that that couldn't be. The earth was round." But the Bible said, "four corners." Well, now you seen, two weeks ago, or three weeks ago, it's been now, the papers packing this article, they found out that the world is square. How many seen that? Why, sure. See? I got it all copied off, just waiting for somebody to say something. [Revelation 7:1]
E-63 And they're going to find out, someday, that they're not seeing a hundred and fifty million years of light space either. They're going right around in a circle. That's exactly.
You're going to find out, one of these days, that when you go to Heaven, you don't fly off somewhere else. You're still right here, too, just in another dimension faster than this.
Right through this room is coming color. Every color, shirt, dress, whatever you got on, is Eternal, laying right on records, going around and around the world. Every time you bat your eyes, it's right on record. Watch, television will prove that.
E-64 When you are born, God sets a record on. It don't make... Put a record on, it don't make much noise for a little while, you know. That's the little baby, till it comes to accountability; then the noise starts, he starts saying things and doing things he has to answer for. And then when that life ends, that record or tape is took off and laid in the--in the great big library of God. Now, how you going to get around it at the Judgment Bar? It's played right back in front of you, every move you made, every thought that went through your mind. Can you see that? Now can you see where God...
E-65 Standing here, other night, there been a man on the platform, tall, bald-headed man, real handsome-looking fellow, strong. And he went out... The Lord had told him a whole lot of things about his family and what he should do. And he went out and set down. In a few minutes, here come before me another man like that, but he had his head down. I couldn't make out, and I looked at the man again out there; and he... Wasn't him, because it was something else. And this man, I couldn't find it. Looked around, no body behind, me. I said, "The man is setting inside of those curtains there." And it was our... a brother that comes to church here, tall, bald-headed, handsome sort of a fellow setting up there like that. And he had his head hung over, praying, because he was just about to die with stomach trouble.
He was going to get a pair of shoes. His wife wanted him to get a new pair of shoes. He said, "No, I don't have to get it, 'cause I ain't going to live to wear them."
He was dying. And setting there, you see, in that dimension, hallelujah, God just moved over in there and said, "There he sets," just the position he was in. See what I mean?
E-66 Now notice, and there is not any error in the Scriptures. Jesus, the Word of God, perceives the thought that's in the heart. "The Word of God is stronger, sharper," Hebrews 4:12. "The Word of God is sharper, more powerful than a two-edged sword, even a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the mind." See? Goes way down into the mind, and pulls out, and discerns. What is discern? "Make known, reveal out." And that's what the Word of God does.
Today we say, "The Catholic church is the Word of God; the Baptists, the Methodists, the Pentecostal, the tabernacle." That's wrong. The Word is the revelation; God, revealed by the Word. [Hebrews 4:12]
E-67 No, we could have got... get any continuity amongst medics, amongst scientists, different ones.
If Einstein had only had the spiritual application, as he had the--the physical application, as he studied the laws of light, and so forth, he could have told us something. When I heard his message on that great center somewhere into the skies, that, "Ever contacted with that center, you could create earths, do anything, and the power would be unlimited." See? He had seen that.
E-68 You see these little pockets going through the air, they call "saucers," so forth. People so... That, well, we better leave that alone. "Hear all these people come up missing?" you say. Don't hear from them; they're standing there, and they're not there.
That's the way the Rapture is going to be. One of them will drop right down, and this terrestrial body will take on a celestial body. And they'll be... hide, hair, or bones left; it'll be transformed in a moment of time, dropping right out of space and taking Home that. We see all this going on now, and the--and the Pentagon wondering about these lights, and mystic lights, and everything they're seeing in the--in the sky. You seen they had one here in the paper at Jeffersonville this week, and so forth, "a mystic light." So, oh, they don't know what that is. But listen, little children, It's going to pick you up, one of these days. See? See? Don't worry.
Remember, Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Sodom." [I Thessalonians 4:16-18], [Luke 17:28]
E-69 What happened just before Sodom? God came down with some Angels, and they had an investigation judgment. Said, "I've heard the cry, that it's so sinful, so great, so I've come down to find out whether it's altogether the truth or not." That right? Watch that main One that stayed with Abraham, could discern the thoughts was in Sarah's heart, behind Him.
Now, you look around just a little bit and notice, see, watch what It's doing, the same thing today. It's an investigation judgment.
Why, after a while, the Church, when It can stay in that place, and every seed has been brought to its spot, they'll be gone. They won't know what happened to them. One will be going one way. See? One will be going over to the pastor's house, and one will be going here, or down there, and, the first thing you know, they're not there. For Enoch which was the type, "God took him, and he was found not." Come down to investigate! The continuity, how the Enoch translation, a type. Of Israel being carried over in the ark... [Luke 17:28], [Genesis 19:1-10]
E-70 So perfect, the Word of God is so perfect, even to the Old and New Testament, is two halves and one whole. That's right. Old Testament is half of It, and New Testament is half of It; put It together, you got the whole revelation of Jesus Christ. There is the prophets speaking, and here He is in Person; see, two halves and one whole. Now we don't want to take too much...
E-71 Now, remember, the Old Testament is not complete without the New. And the New could not be complete without the Old. That's the reason I said two halves, one whole. For, the prophets said, "He'll be here! He'll be here! He'll be here; they'll do this to Him. They'll do this to Him!" And here He is, "He was here! He was here, and they did this to Him, and they did this to Him." I just preached on that a few nights ago.
E-72 Now, in order to study the Scripture, Paul told Timothy, "Study It, rightly dividing the Word of God, which is Truth."
Them is three musts in the Scripture. In using God's Word, there is three things that you must not do. Now let's study those for the next ten minutes; three things that you must not do. And all out in the land, wherever you are, across the nation, be sure to put these down in your mind if you haven't got a pencil. You must not do these things. We tell you all the time how you must do, now I'm going to tell you what you must not do. [II Timothy 2:15]
E-73 Now, you must not misinterpret the Word. You say, "Well, I believe It means this." It means just what It says. It needs no interpreter. And you must not misplace the Word. And you must not dislocate the Word. And if we would do either of these, it throws the whole Bible in a confusion and in a chaos.
E-74 Notice. To misinterpret Jesus, in the form of God in a man, you would make Him--you would make Him one God out of three. To misinterpret Jesus Christ being the Word, you would make Him one God out of three, or you would make Him the second Person in a Godhead. And to do that, you would mess the whole Scripture up. You'd never get nowhere. So It must not be misinterpreted.
E-75 And if you say that a certain thing, you put an interpretation on It, and you apply It to another time; or It's been applied to another time, you also make an incorrect interpreting.
E-76 If anybody misinterpret Jesus Christ in the Bible, of not being God Himself, make Him the second Person, or one God out of three, this would upset every Word in the entire Bible. It would break the first commandment, "Thou shalt not have any other god before Me." All right. It would make the whole Christian race a bunch of pagan worshippers worshipping three different gods. See what kind of a Bible you'd have? Then it'd make us what the Jews say we are. Said, "Which one of them gods is your God?" See? So, you see, you can't... You mustn't misinterpret the Bible.
For, Jesus Himself is the interpretation of the Bible, when He's made manifest in the age that the part of His Body is being made manifest. If it's a hand age, it must be a hand; it can't be a head age. If it's a voice age, well, then, it can't be a foot age. See? And now we're at the eye age. And now the next, is Him Hisself, to come. Seeing; prophetic! [Exodus 20:3]
E-77 See, down through the age, we started off from the foundation, from the first church age; when the Seed went in the ground, the complete Seed. Then it come out through the feet, Luther; come back out then through Wesley; then in to Pentecostals, the tongues, in the lips, see; now it's in the eyes, prophetic, of Malachi 4, and so forth. And now there's nothing else left for it to come but Him Himself to step into that, 'cause that's the last thing there is.
The next is the intelligence, and we have no intelligence of our own; it's His. We have no sight of our own. How can a man foresee those things? He can't do it. It's God Himself. See, it's--it's becoming to a place. And He's governed the body all the way through, then the complete Body of Christ is revealed in the form of a Bride that was taken out of His side, like Adam did at the beginning... like Adam's was, rather, at the beginning.
E-78 Yes, "god," this would set the whole Bible in a confusion, break the first commandment, and make a god, a pagan god of three. It would just--it would just ruin the whole picture of the Bible. So you must not misinterpret the Bible. Now, that's just one thing.
E-79 When, every Scripture in the Bible has the same application, you've got to set It in Its place. And to misplace It, you might make Him God in one age, and--and the next age you'd make Him a history, to misplace It. So you mustn't misplace the Scripture. He is God all the time. If you made Him today a God of history, what was back yonder, and He isn't the same today, what are you going to do with Hebrews 13:8? See, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever."
E-80 Now, so see what this would do, and what it has done. It's already done it, make Him deny His Own Word, to misplace the Scriptures.
E-81 To dislocate the Scriptures, you might put His body together wrong, the foot where the head should be, or something. Just the same as a... Other words, you might have Jesus teaching Moses' message. You might have... or even Wesley teaching Luther's age. You might have now, our age, teaching Pentecost, the Pentecostal message. You see what a mess It would be in? Pentecost has already showed its colors. Luther has already showed his, went off into denomination. It died right there. The age struck; there it went.
E-82 Notice, just as soon as it was organized, it died. Now, just see if that isn't right. Look back through the pages of history. Every time it organized, it died right there; there never was no more to it. It become a--a worshiper of the god of this world, and went off into organisms, and organizations, and denominations, and illusions. A bunch of Rickys got into there and put their own objections into it, or injected their own thoughts, rather, into it. And what did it happen? It become a mess. Going to head up in the god of this world, where they'll throne Satan himself, thinking that they're having a great world leader to bring them peace.
E-83 I told you the other day, I'll say it again, that even civilization itself today is absolutely contrary to God. Civilization is contrary to God. Education is a million miles from Him; science is a million miles. Science and education is trying to disprove God, see, through theological seminaries and schools, and rooms of science, and so forth. They've had their shake.
How about the vision the other night, of the man when he screamed to those scientists down there pouring that stuff in like that? They just turned and looked up, and went on. There'll be one more ride.
E-84 Notice, oh, these three musts must be. Now, you cannot... Jesus didn't come preaching Noah's message. He didn't come preaching Moses' message. Or, Moses didn't come preaching... See, don't mislocate the Scripture. It's got to be in the time. Now, you cannot apply... When that great man, John Wesley, come out, or...
The great man, Luther, when Luther came out with his message of justification. Now when that was a... Luther was a great man. He called the church out of darkness, and he set justification by faith. And when he did it, they built a organization on top of it, and it died. The Life traveled, like it is in a stalk of wheat, right out into the Wesley age, to the tassel. Out of Luther come other leaves, that died with it, which was Zwingli, and Calvin, and all the rest that come out from that great reformation.
E-85 Then along came Wesley, another age had bloomed out into a tassel. Wesley, and Atterbury, and all those, and--and John and his brother, and all of them, great men of God with a message, just swept the country. They organized it; it died.
Then it come out looking just exactly like she was going to put forth the grain now, and, come to find out, it was a shuck, Pentecost.
But back in behind all of it, come a little bud.
And you notice, usually... I think, in about three or four years after Luther was on the field, that the Lutheran church was organized. Just a short time after Wesley was on the field, it was organized.
E-86 Tucson, we've had a--a program of how the Wesley church, or Methodist church, come into existence. And when they come to America here, many of them had come back and said they had set up a--a charter and so forth, from England, to bring it over here, and how it was all dramatized out. I seen right then what happened. There she died.
E-87 Well, out come the Pentecostal, them old shouters back in the long days ago, got the gift of speaking in tongues, and started off with speaking in tongues. Then they named it, "the evidence of the Holy Ghost." Then they organized. One said he's going to do this, and the other that, and they had issues and issues. What'd it do? Each one of them leaves just unfolded, just like it did in the stalk and like it did on the tassel. They had the oneness, twoness, threeness, and the church of God, and all these others; just unfolded, unfolded, unfolded.
But now, according to nature, which is a perfect example, you'll never be anything to educate It out of it.
E-88 A family, of friends of mine down in Kentucky, just had a little--little baby born the other day, and the mother was up when they was cooking our dinner. And she was helping the other sister cook dinner for a bunch of us men that had been out hunting. And so the baby got to crying, and I was talking. I think the mother felt a little embarrassed, so she runs and gets the baby, and--and starts to--to feed the little fellow. I said, "You know, that's just nature." See? Now, you can't...
They have never found any better way for a baby to get what it wants than to cry for it. Now, you might give it a--a book of ethics, and set down here and say, "I want to teach you theology, son. Now, don't you go to squalling around here like other kids; you're different. Now, when you want to be fed, you ring this little bell over here." Just don't work. No, it just don't work.
E-89 So, when you watch nature, now we see where every age, and directly designed it out that we're in the last age. The shuck has pulled away. And we've had fifteen years, nearly twenty now, years, of the Message sweeping across from nation to nation, and this morning hooked-up across this nation, see, and no organization. It can't organize. There has nothing ever been like it, or will be hereafter. See?
The--the thing that's the matter with the Message today, is, those who obtain It in their hearts must lay in the Presence of the Son, to get ripened. See? You can pick up the Message, and then let the Son bake all the greenness out of you, see, making matured Christians. See what I mean? God is coming soon, to receive His Church, and we must have that type of Christians for Him to receive. The--the wheat has got to get ripe. All right.
E-90 These three musts must be. Must not misinterpret, or mishandle It, misinterpret It, or mis-... or dislocate It. It must be kept just exactly the way God said it was.
To the world, It's a Book of mystery. The people believe It's just a mysterious Book. One time I was talking to a very famous man here in the city, that holds a great standing of Christianity, and he said, "I tried to read the Book of Revelations one night." Said, "John must have had a big bait of hot pepper and had a nightmare." See, a Book of mystery.
E-91 But, while to the true believer, It's the revelation of God being revealed in the age we're living in. He said, "My words are Spirit and Life." Jesus said that. Again, "The Word is a Seed that a sower sowed." We know that that's true. It's God in Word form, and can only be interpreted by Himself.
The human mind is not capable to interpret the mind of God. How can the little--little finite mind interpret the infinite Mind, when we can't even interpret one another's mind? [John 6:63], [Matthew 13:19-20]
E-92 And you notice, He is the only One can interpret It, and He interprets It to whom He will. It didn't say, "Mortals of old, as they strode across the earth in sundry times and divers manner." "God, in sundry times and divers manner revealed Himself to His prophets." See? [Hebrews 1:1]
E-93 And, notice, "To whom He will reveal It." And He so designed that He can hide Himself in the Scripture, to the smartest theologian there is. Oh, my! He can just hide Himself, set right there in the Scripture, and you look all day long and never see it; look a lifetime, and never see it. He can just hide Himself, setting there.
E-94 Now, please, everywhere, let that soak in. That, God, in the Word, can hide Himself so in the Word, that there isn't a theologian or a school in the world could ever find Him, and yet He's setting right there.
You say, "Is that right, Brother Branham?"
How about the Pharisees and Sadducees? How about in every age? He's done it. Sure. He's done so in every age. Now we could check that. Let's think about the days of Noah; smart, intellectual age, how He hid Hisself in His promised Word. In the days of Moses, how He hid Hisself. In the days of Elijah, how He hid Hisself. In the days of Jesus, how He hid Hisself. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came to His Own; His Own received Him not." See? [John 1:10]
E-95 He hides Himself from the smartest, intellectual man there is on the earth. You say, "Well, this is Dr. Holy Father So-and-so." I don't care who he is, God hides Himself from him; and will reveal it to babies such as will learn, see, babies of God, predestinated seed.
E-96 Think. The Mighty God, setting in His Own Words, blinding the smart, educated people of this present age, and they don't see it. They think it's just a bunch of fanaticism. Look at Him standing there hiding, to Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterian. Reveal Himself right out publicly, and showing all kinds of things, even putting it in the papers, and things like that, yet they don't see it. Oh, our God, how great, revealing Himself to whomever He will.
E-97 "Oh," you say, "Brother Jones or Brother So-and-so, he's--he's a great man. He'll see It." Oh, no. He reveals It to whom He will. Say, "My wife don't see It, and she's a Christian woman." He reveals Himself to whom He will. "Well, my pastor is a great man." That's right, but He reveals Himself to whom He will. Now, check with what's been revealed, to what's happening, then you'll... you can quite understand.
E-98 Now we notice then, it makes It a Book of God and not a book of man. If It was of man... Now let us look how It would express Itself. Look how It exposes sin of the men who wrote It, notice, the men who--who lived in Its day.
Abraham, for instance, he's called "the father of the faithful." Notice how that... Do you think Abraham would've wrote this Book on himself, of his own cowardliness? How you think he would've wrote that he lied to the king that morning, and said that was his sister, when it was his wife? Would It write of his cowardly deeds that he done? Sure, he'd never done that.
E-99 How about Jacob in his deceit? A little deceiver that Jacob was. Would a--a--a man, a Hebrew writing of his Hebrew brother, that in him that all of Israel was called, would he dare to write the deceit of the very father of the whole nation? In Jacob, come forth the patriarchs; from the patriarchs, come forth the tribes. And the foundation stone of all of it, the Bible exposes him as a deceiver. Is that right? You think man would've wrote that? No, sir.
E-100 How about a man writing of the greatest king they ever had here on earth, as crowned king; David, in his committing adultery? Would those Jews ever wrote of their most noble king being an adulterness?
Oh, we have history, like, "George Washington never told a lie," and things like that. We say, call that history.
But this is a man, a Bible that calls David an "adulterness," and he was. The king of Israel, an adulterness who was to be the son... Jesus to be the Son of David. The very Headstone; and His father, according to flesh, was an adulterness. Jews would never wrote a Book like that. Would man write this of his own self? Certainly not.
E-101 How would that proud nation of Israel? You know how proud they were. Proud nation of Israel, went and wrote about their own idolatry, wrote about their rebellion against their God, wrote against the dirty, filthy things that they did, and wrote out in a book? They'd a-sure hid that. They'd a just showed the good things. But, this Bible, that tells what's right and what's wrong. It's, anyone knows that the Jews would've never wrote a Book like that, about their own uncleanness, and idolatry, and failure, and everything they had. They'd a-never wrote that. Oh, no.
Then, Who wrote It? The Bible said, in Hebrews 1:1, "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets." Then, it wasn't the prophets, it wasn't mortal. "God!" Not "prophets in sundry time." But, "God, in sundry time, divers manners spoke to the fathers through the prophets."
I got a Scripture wrote down here. I don't know what It is; I can't refer to It. Usually, when these things I'm referring to them, I'm looking at a Scripture. I'm going to look it up just for a minute, if you'll excuse me. It's Second Timothy 3:16. I--I--I thought I would remember that, but I'm sorry. I'll just stop a minute to find out what it is.
E-102 "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets."
Now Second Timothy 3, 3:16. Let's see what it says in 3:16.
All scripture (yeah) is given by inspiration of (Prophets? No.)... inspiration of (What?) God, and is profitable for doctrine, and reproof, and correction, and instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may stand perfect, throughly furnished in all good works. [II Timothy 3:16]
E-103 All right, then, all Scripture is wrote by inspiration. Jesus, here on the earth, said that heavens and earth would pass away, but His Word wouldn't. He said all Scripture must be fulfilled. So then the Book is not a book of man's writings. It's the Books of God's writings.
E-104 Now, we know God chose by predestination His Church, His place, His prophets, and all about it. By foreknowledge, He predestinated His prophet. And when the age arrived, He had His prophet arrive at the same time, and inspired him as He wrote the Bible by him. Now, God wrote the Bible only using the prophet, because that's His way of doing it. So, see, it is not the word... So, see, It is the Word of God, and not the word of man.
E-105 God is a Person. God can speak. God can talk. God can write. He didn't have to do it that way, but that's the way He--He chose to do it. He didn't have to do it that way, but He chose to do it that way. Now you say, "God wrote with His finger, His Own majestic finger, the ten commandments. So God could write, Hisself, if He wanted to." See? But He--He chose to write It through prophets, see. Because it was His attributes, His Word, He expressed through them, making all a part, or a part of Him. See? He could write with His finger. He also took His finger and wrote on the walls of Babylon, "Thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting." He wrote with His Own finger. [Daniel 5:27]
E-106 God can talk. Do you believe God can talk? He talked to Moses on the mount, in a burning bush. You believe that? Yes, sir. He talked to John, in the form of a dove, (you believe that?) that, "This is My beloved Son in Whom I'm pleased to dwell in." He talked to him. He spoke to Jesus on Mount Transfiguration, before Peter, James, and John. He can talk. He's not a mute. God can talk. So He spoke to--to Jesus on Mount Transfiguration. And He spoke to Jesus before a whole multitude of people; when, the people said it thundered, but it was God speaking to Jesus. And almost all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is Jesus speaking. He is God. So, God can talk. [John 1:30-34]
E-107 Took His Own fingers and wrote on the sand, one day. He spoke, He preached, He prophesied, with His Own lips, God did, when He was made flesh and dwelled among us, "God manifested in flesh." If He can write, speak, can't He also tell others what to do? Certainly can. He can talk to them, in a human voice. He can write and show them what to do. He has done it. [John 1:1-5, 14]
So, "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets." And He said, on this Writing, that, "Not one jot or tittle shall ever pass away until It's fulfilled," and then It's manifested; then It will pass, because It's manifested. It can't pass then, but just the Word Itself is made flesh. Jot means "small word." Tittle means "small mark." Not even one punctuation, one expression, anything, shall ever fail in the Word of God. It can't fail, because It's God, God manifested in a form of a human flesh. For, it's God Himself in letter form, prophet form, manifested in flesh. [Hebrews 1:1], [Luke 16:17], [Matthew 5:18]
Now, that's the reason Jesus could say, "The ones who spoke to you, you call them 'gods,' who spoke to you by the Word of God," said, "and they were gods." Those prophets when they were anointed with the Spirit of God, and brought exactly the Word of God, then they were gods. It was God's Word speaking through them. And can...
E-108 They only interpret as the Author would permit them to interpret. Now if you want to find that, that's Second Peter 1:20 and 21. All right. Cause, this, where God... "There's no private interpreter." He does His Own interpretation.
God speaks and interprets It, Himself, then reveals it to whomever He will, hides from all others. He don't have to reveal It to anybody 'less He wants to. And He don't... He, He has expressed His whole thing in the Scripture, therefore the whole thing is already made known; it's just He's just setting there watching it happen. See? No. Just seeing the Body be made and come back to Its, to the form, His Bride again. All right.
E-109 Believers believe It, like Abraham that called things contrary to It as though it was not.
E-110 It also, this Word, discerns the secrets of the hearts, Hebrews 4:12. "It discerns the secrets of the heart." [Hebrews 4:12]
E-111 Prophets did not always understand what they were writing or what they were saying, or they would in no wise have said it, if they could a understood It. See? But the Bible said, "They were moved by the Holy Ghost." Moved! When the Holy Ghost moves you, you move. Man... "God, in sundry times and divers manners spake to the prophets that were moved by the Holy Ghost." That's why, all ages, the people who were spiritual consulted the prophets about the times and what was to happen.
The prophet-writer must be in constant fellowship with the Author. See? He must live constantly in Presence of the Author, to know what the Book is going to be. See? The prophet-writer, he had the pen ready anytime, constant fellowship with the Author, which was God, to strike down whatever He said put down. See? Showed what kind of a life he must... a separated life from all of his brethren. [Hebrews 1:1]
E-112 Now, that's why the prophet had his mind set constantly on what God said; not what man thought, what the age thought, what the church thought, what the kingdom thought. What God thought! He only expressed God's thoughts to Word, 'cause a word is a thought when it's expressed. You got it now? The Word is a thought expressed, so the prophet was waiting for God's thoughts. And when God revealed His thoughts to him, he expressed it in Word, "THUS SAITH THE LORD." See, not "Thus saith I, the prophet." "THUS SAITH THE LORD!" See? All right. [Jeremiah 1:5-7]
E-113 That's why they defied kingdoms and church ages, which, to do so in their days, was a death penalty. You walk up in a king's face and tell him, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, such-and-such is going to happen," you'd have your head chopped off. The church would put you to death right now for doing it. But these prophets were bold. Why? They were moved by the Holy Ghost, see, and, they, that's why they become bold. And they wrote the--the infallible Word of God.
E-114 There was many tried to impersonate them prophets, like priests, or so forth. And what did they do? Just messed up, that's all. They couldn't do it.
Cause, God had selected the man for the age, and selected the Message, and even the nature of the man and what would go over in that age, what He could put over, how He could. With the nature of that certain man, He could blind the eyes of others. The words that that man would say, the way he acted, would blind others, and open other's eyes. See? He dressed the man in the type of dress that he was; the nature, the ambition, and everything just the way he had to be, just perfectly selected for that certain people that He would call for that certain age.
While, others would stand and look at him, say, "Well, I can't. There's... I--I can't see." They were blinded.
E-115 Jesus came the same way, dressed, immortal God dressed in human flesh. And because He was born in a manger, in a stable full of manure, not a place to lay His head; born, thinkingly, with a illegitimate name tacked to Him. See? All these things that He was, and how He come up, a carpenter's son, how He had no schooling.
More or less, in the world, the wisdom of this world, He didn't have nothing to do with it. None of this world's civilization, education, or anything, He had not one thing to do with it. Why? He's God. It would clash. If He tried to go to a seminary somewhere and learn something that these world's churches was doing, what in the... Why, it wouldn't even... why, it wouldn't even... wouldn't correspond at all with His understanding, for He was God.
So, education, schooling, seminaries, and things, is absolutely contrary to the will of God. The whole educational system is contrary to God. Everything teaches away from God, all the time. When I hear a man say that he is Dr., Ph.D., L.L.Q., that just makes him that much farther from God, to me. See? He just educated hisself that much farther from what he really was called to do. That's right.
Notice how that now they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
E-116 Now, that don't mean that educated man don't come in. Look at Paul. I guess there wasn't a smarter fellow in his day than Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus. He was educated under Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers of the day; great, strict Hebrew, a Pharisee of denomination. And Paul was brought up under him. He knowed all the Jewish religion. But when he come to the church, he said, "I never come to you in the education of man, and so forth. Because, if you would, then you would trust in that. But I come to you in the power and manifestation of the Holy Ghost, that your faith would be in God." There you are. See? That's right. [I Corinthians 2:1-5]
E-117 Many tried to impersonate these people, but they got the thing all messed up just like they do today. There was one raised up before the time of Jesus, led four hundred people off. And you know how the Scriptures read about these things, trying to do it before the time come. And some of them tried to impersonate Him, and they was all this, that, or the other one. And He said, "In the last days, how they would raise up false Christs, in the last days, and false prophets, and show signs and wonders." We have all that. See? But that doesn't do away from the real. It only makes It shine out better, because we have a real Christ, not a false one. [Matthew 24:24]
E-118 Now, now, we realize then that God sent His prophets. That was the way He had of bringing His Word to the people, through the lips of His prophets.
And notice, you know, Moses said, if you want to read it in Exodus the 4th chapter, and the 10th and 12th verse. Moses said God spoke to him. God talked to a man, lip to ear. And he said, "I'm slow of speech," Moses said. "I, I'm not sufficient. I--I can't go." [Exodus 4:10]
E-119 He said, "Who made man to talk, or Who made him dumb? Who made him to see, or Who made him to hear? Didn't I, the Lord?" Said, "I'll be with your mouth." See? So... [Exodus 4:11]
E-120 And Jeremiah said, if you want to read that in Jeremiah 1:6. Jeremiah said that, "God put words in my mouth." See? He--He talked, lip to ear, with one prophet; and spoke through the other prophet, he had no control at all, and spoke through his lips. [Jeremiah 1:5-7]
E-121 He's got ways of getting His Word out, you know. Yes, sir. So you see the Bible is God's Word, not man's word.
Moses said, "God spoke to me with a voice, and I heard Him. I wrote down what He said."
E-122 Jeremiah said, "I couldn't speak at all. And, the first thing you know, my lips was talking, and--and--and I was writing." God spoke through his lips, and it come to pass.
Daniel, Isaiah, and so forth, all those prophets were just about the same.
E-123 You know, in the Old Testament alone, it's more than two thousand times those prophets said THUS SAITH THE LORD. Now, if a man says THUS SAITH THE LORD, it's not the man talking. If he would, he wouldn't be a prophet, he'd be a hypocrite, see, 'cause it wouldn't (never) come to pass; one chance out of ten hundred thousand times, see, they might guess it. But if it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, the Lord God has said it.
If I would say, "Thus saith Orman Neville"; my brother say, "Thus saith Mr. Mann"; I'd say, "Thus saith Brother Vayle," out here, or some of these other brethren, any of you; I'm speaking what you said. If I'm truthful, I'm saying just what you said.
And these men, being prophets, said, "It's not me. I have nothing to do with it, but it's THUS SAITH THE LORD." So the Bible is THUS SAITH THE LORD by the prophets.
E-124 Notice, they took Christ's Spirit upon themselves, and forecast the events that would come to pass. Talk about forecasts! They said what would take place down through the ages, as they set, stood, laid, walked with the Spirit of Christ upon them, insomuch that they acted like Christ. And the readers would read it and think that the prophets was speaking of themselves.
You remember the eunuch when he was reading Isaiah 53:1, about how, that, "He had wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, with His stripes we were healed"? The eunuch said to Philip, "Who is the prophet speaking of, himself or some other man?" See, the prophet spoke as if it was himself. [Isaiah 53:5]
E-125 Look at David crying in the Spirit, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? My bones, they stare at me, at me," David. "They pierced my feet and my hands," David. "They pierced my feet and my hands. But Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither will Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption," as though David was speaking of himself being holy. It was the Son of David, that germitized, spiritual Seed coming down through there. Though David himself was a cocklebur, but on the inside of there was a Wheat grain. You get it?
So, the whole Bible is not the word of man, neither was It wrote by man, brought by man, or neither can It be--be revealed by man. It's God's Word revealed by God Himself, His Own Interpreter, Christ revealing Himself in His Own Word. [Psalms 22:1]
E-126 Look at Christ standing back here in David. David couldn't even think now. His mind had gone from him, as it were. And He was hanging on the cross, like you see the statue here; hanging on the cross, crying, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? All My bones, they stare at Me. They pierced My hands and My feet. They thrust My side." See? "Why art Thou so far from Me? All the bulls of Bashan compass about. They wag their heads, saying, 'He trusted in God, that He would deliver Him; now let's see if He'll deliver Him,'" speaking the same words.
So, you see, when God was made manifest on earth here, He said the same words David did. You get it? So, you see, It's not the word of man; it's the Word of God. That was God in David; that wasn't David. He didn't know what he was saying; he was just so in the Spirit.
That's the way Moses was. He was so in the Spirit, passed out of the dimension that he was living in, and stood there face to face, in that burning bush, talking to--to--to God Himself. Said, "Take off your shoes. The ground you're standing on is holy ground."
I imagine when Moses left there, he thought, "What happened? What taken place? What was it?"
Said, "Go down in Egypt. I'll go with you."
He said, "It's so real to me, I must go." He got his wife and his children... and--and his child, rather, and his stick in his hand, and took off down to Egypt, to deliver the people. See? [Exodus 3:5]
E-127 God speaking, Himself, through the prophets. See, they, they're absolutely... It isn't the prophets; it was God. Cause, the prophets, of themself, they couldn't say those things.
"Who has believed our report?" Isaiah saying, you see. "Who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He shall grow up before us as a calf in a--in a stall. And how that, yet, He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, chastisement of our peace upon Him; with His stripes we were healed." We were healed, way over here in this age here; and Isaiah, back yonder eight hundred years before Christ. See? "By His stripes we were," past tense, already, "healed." Oh, my!
How, the Word of God, so perfect! Trust in It, folks. It's the only thing that can save you. [Isaiah 53:1-5]
E-128 All other words, I don't care how well they are placed, how, who they come from, what denomination they come from, or how smart the man is, is to be absolutely ignored, anything contrary to the Word. You want to put that Scripture down, it's Galatians 1:8. See? Paul said, "Though we, or an Angel from Heavens, would preach any other thing than This that you've already heard, let him be cursed."
In other words, if an Angel would come to you from Heaven, a bright shining Angel, and would stand; boy, that would be bait for this day, wouldn't it? A bright shining Angel come up there and stand, and say things was contrary to the Word; you say, "Satan, get away from me." That's right. If he's a bishop, if he's a... whatever he is, don't you never believe him if he doesn't speak exactly with that Bible, Word by Word. Watch him, he'll carry you with the Bible now. He'll carry you to a certain place, and then hook it right there. When you see the Bible saying one thing, and he bypasses that, watch him right there.
See, that's the way he done Eve. He come right down and said everything just exactly. "Well, God said this. That's right, Eve. Amen. We believe that, together."
"Well, God said this."
"Amen. We believe that, together."
"God said this."
"We believe that, sure."
"Well, but God said we'll die."
E-129 "Well, now, you know He's a good God." He didn't say He wouldn't, you know. "But surely..." Oh, me! There he is.
And if he was deceitful like that, and the Bible said, "In the last days he would deceive the Elected if it was possible," where ought we to be today, friends? Now, these little Sunday school lessons are, should be carried pretty close, you know, to our hearts, to see... We ought to listen real close and see how deceiving that thing is. [Matthew 24:22-24]
E-130 Notice, we cannot, we must not, listen to any other man's word. We don't care how smart, how educated. The Bible, in Proverbs, says, "We must cast down reasonings." See? Now, here in this second realm...
First realm is your senses of see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. That's in your outer body.
On the inner body, which is the spirit, is reasonings and thought, and so forth. We must cast all that down. Can't reason, say, "Now wait, if God is a good God..." And we're told so much today that He is. "If He is a good God, then if I be sincere, though I can't see that in that Bible being right, though I be sincere, I'll be saved." You'll be lost. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] [Proverbs 16:25]
E-131 "If I go to church and just do the things that I believe that's right, and try to hold up for what I think is right, well, I..." You're still lost.
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death." See? You won't be saved; you'll be lost. See? See? It must be that inside control Man.
E-132 "Well, I've spoke in tongues, Brother Branham. Well, don't you believe in speaking in tongues, Brother Branham?" Absolutely. "Well, I shouted; don't you believe that?" Yes, sir. "I live a good Christian life. Don't you believe in that?" Yes, sir. But still that don't mean you're saved. You're a good person; clean, moral, holy, good person.
So was those priests, religious to the core, so religious till one misconstrued, they'd be stoned to death. The death penalty of fooling with the Word of God was death.
E-133 That's what's the matter with our country today. The reason we got so many loose-leaf things in the earth today, the penalties are not strong enough. If a man was caught running out with another man's wife, they should both be taken out in public and castrated, right, public, and turned loose. That's right. If a man is caught doing anything wrong, down the road, speeding, he oughtn't to be given less than ten years; he's pre-... premeditated murder. See? You put penalties like that on it, you'll slow them down.
But when some crooked politician can get to this one over here and pass it off, and say, "Well, he was drinking a little, he was... didn't mean to do that." And would kill a man, wife, and a whole bunch of innocent children, let the Ricky get by with it, that's politics. That's the world. That's the devil.
E-134 God said if a man was caught in adultery, or a woman, take them out there and stone them to death. That settled it. See? If he's even caught picking up a weight of a stick, on the sabbath day, "Take him and stone him." They lived by it then. And now, see, we don't have them kind of laws today.
But the Christian, the church, what I'm talking to this morning, that law of God is in your heart. See? You have no desire to do it. It's inside here. You want to keep God's law so perfect. No matter what it is, you want to be just what... If--if God needs a doormat at the door, He wants you to be that doormat, you're so happy to be that. No matter what it would be, you want to be the doormat. See? Whatever God wants you to do, that's what you want to do, 'cause it's God. Now, that's where you really find your real, genuine, true love for God.
E-135 Now we find out then, that, "An Angel would preach anything else," besides what's...?... already been said in the Bible, "let him be cursed." Nobody can. Can't do that; It must be just exactly the way It says.
E-136 And again we read, in Revelations 22:18 and 19, "If any man will add one word to This, or take one Word from It, God will take his part out of the Book of Life." Right. God will take his part, though he be a minister, whatever he may be, and his word... his name is wrote on the Book of Life. God said, "I'll just rub it right off," that's right, "if he adds one thing to It, or takes one Word from It." That's how infallible God has made His Word. See? You can add to the church, or take from the church. Don't you add to that Word, or take from It, 'cause God will take your name right off the Book of Life. And, that's, you're finished then. See? You can't add to It, or take from It. It's just exactly what... [Revelation 22:18-19]
E-137 It needs no interpreter, for the Bible said that God does His Own interpreting of the Bible. "It's of no private interpretation," said Peter. All right.
E-138 And all the Scripture is Divinely given, Divinely set in order, and the whole thing is the revelation of Jesus Christ. The New and Old Testament, where they foretold of Him coming, what He would do when He got here, and what He would do in this age to come. So that makes Him the same yesterday, today, and forever. See?
Like in Hebrews there, when Paul wrote it. He is God, "Jesus Christ yesterday," of the Old Testament. He is "Jesus Christ today," manifested in the flesh. "And He's Jesus Christ forever," in the Spirit, "to come." See? See? "Same yesterday, today, and forever."
And He ever lives to make His Word live what It said It would do for that age. He is alive. [Hebrews 13:8]
E-139 He was alive in the Old Testament, manifested. I just want to let you see a little something here, if you can stand it. Watch, when Jesus was manifested in the Old Testament, as we believe it.
Now, you preachers out there, you can argue with it, do whatever you want to, but I'm talking for my... what I think. See?
E-140 When Jesus was manifested in the Old Testament, in a theophany, in the person of Melchisedec; not a priesthood, but the Person, the Man. See? For, this Man had yet not been born, but He was in a theophany, so He had no father, no mother. He was God Himself. He was manifested in the form of a Man, called, "King of Salem, which is King of Peace, and King of Righteousness." See? He was Melchisedec. "He had neither father nor mother, beginning of days or ending of life." See? It was Jesus in a theophany, in the form of a Man. Could you go that? All right. [Hebrews 7:1-21], [Genesis 14:18-20]
E-141 Then He was made actually human flesh, and dwelled among us, in the Person of Jesus Christ Himself, born of the virgin Mary. He come in that form so He could die, and went back into Heaven.
Now in this last days, He has promised to manifest Himself in the fullness again, of His flesh, in Spirit. See? "For as it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the Coming of the Son of man." Now look at the Sodom, how it set, and what taken place. And Jesus Christ being manifested in bodily form, of His Church today, see, doing the same thing, same work, same things that He did all the time, never changes, the Eternal One. See? And upon earth today, He has manifested Himself in the human bodies, our human bodies that He has called, and done exactly the same thing He done in sundry times, and in the times of His flesh upon the earth. And doing the same thing today, because, "God in sundry times spoke to the fathers through the prophets, in this last days through His Son, Jesus Christ." See, the Son being revealed in the last days, God manifested in human flesh, setting just before Sodom's destruction, the end of the Gentile world. You see it?
There is three manifestations. [Hebrews 1:1]
E-142 Now, the next thing happens, is when it's all gathered up into that one Person, Jesus Christ, Bride and Body, at the physical return of the Lord Jesus. Making His three times... When He was brought on earth; killed, crucified, raised up. Manifesting Hisself in the form of His Body, which is His Bride, the Woman. You get it? She is part of His Body.
And the woman and man is just so close together, till they're just almost... They are the same. They ought to be, anyhow. There they are, see, they just exactly manifested the same. She is a part of him, because she was taken out from him.
And the Bride today is taken out from the body of Christ, which is acting and doing just exactly like He said It would do for this day, the Bride, the Queen; King and the Queen. All right.
We're getting late now, so we're going to have to hurry and get through.
E-143 All right, the entire Bible is the entire revelation of Jesus Christ, making Himself known to every age. He made Hisself known in the days of Luther, as a foundation; the church, the foot, the legs.
Like He did King Nebuchadnezzar; you remember how he dreamed those dreams, and come from the head down? See? Now He comes from the feet up. See? In the Babylonian kingdom He showed all those Old Testament's, He come from the head down, until He come down till God Himself become flesh at the foot of the ladder. Now here in the New Testament, He brings Hisself right back up again, to the Head again, the Head of gold, to be crowned. See? Look. You get it? [Daniel 2:1-48]
See, God was in the beginning, and He kept coming down, through the prophets, and on down, until God Himself became human like us, plumb down at the foot of the ladder, a baby born in a manger; hated, rejected, despised, and a bad name, and everything He was. Then He started rising, see, and from the feet He begin to build the Church, the Bride, coming back, on back; and now coming out into the Headstone, where it all joins together and makes the one great transfigured Body of Jesus Christ.
E-144 God is revealed in every age by His promised Word to that age. Now let's just look what some of His promises is for today, while we're closing now in these last words.
E-145 Now God is revealing Himself in the evening Light time. Let's see now. We see...
E-146 I just got a bunch of Scriptures wrote down here. As you can see on this page, how many Scriptures is written there. But, we just got about fifteen minutes till twelve. I want to get out. And I haven't gotten hoarse, this morning, speaking. Sometimes these air conditioners here makes me real hoarse.
So if Brother Neville don't... You ain't got anything for tonight? [Brother Neville says, "No."--Ed.] Well, well, I'll... If it's all right, I got something. I found a cigarette pack, the other day, laying in the woods; and I got a Message from that cigarette pack, for tonight, the Lord willing. See?
So, I got these Scriptures here. And I don't want to run overtime, so you can get back.
E-147 A cigarette pack, speaking. All right. I was starting out through the woods, and there laid a cigarette pack, and I just walked on away. I thought, "Well, somebody is ahead of me."
And Something said, "Turn back and pick that up."
I thought, "Pick up a cigarette pack? Not me."
Something said, "Turn back and pick that cigarette pack."
And I went down, there was an old empty pack, and I seen something. I'll tell you about it, tonight, the Lord willing. All right.
E-148 Now we're going to speak about evening Lights, just for a few moments. The Bible predicts that there would come a time, right at the closing time, that the sun would come out, and there would be an evening Light. We all know that. Don't we? We, we're... We who are familiar with our Message today from the Lord Jesus, we believe that there will be a evening Light. And this evening Light...
Of course, the great Light will come when Jesus Himself will be manifested here on earth, or up in the Heavens, taking away His Bride, and then the Millennium will set in.
E-149 But we've got one of the most dreadful times to go through, that ever laid before human beings. And I'm just waiting for the hour, and when we can get... everybody can get a chance where you get off from work and spend a few days, and we can get set up somewhere where I can speak on those Plagues and things that's to fall in the last days; and throw about two or three weeks together, and bring that together, if the Lord let's me live to do it and will inspire me to do so, see how those things will be dropped in, and those Thunders. Then you'll find out what that man and them people have been dreaming about, and all these things there, it'll come to pass; see, you'll notice what them revealed, that great thunder a coming forth out of the--out of the skies. Now, of course, the whole bunch of you, you know that I know what that--what that means, you see. And, but let's just wait till the time comes, you see, for it to be, see, now, and it'll be more in season.
E-150 Now, so we are going to read some of these--these Scriptures in here. Now, in the evening Lights come, now, we notice that it'll have to be the same Light that was in the morning.
Cause, there's not one sun in the morning and another sun in the afternoon. It's the same sun. Same sun that's in the afternoon is in the morning; the same in the morning as in the afternoon.
Now, It said, "The day itself," the day between that time, "will be kind of like, oh, like a dismal, dark day. It could not be called day or night, in between that." [Zechariah 14:6-7]
E-151 See, that's the forming of the Body, from the feet, coming up. When He was here on earth, He was the Son, the Lightness, then He was killed. The Church took His place, then martyrdom and went through the Dark Ages, and begin to build on the foundation coming out. Then where does the sight come from? At the top of the head.
See that vision; Nebuchadnezzar? See Him going down, from the beginning of the Gentile age before the Blood was shed for them and made an atonement. They were proselytes brought in. But notice it went right down, right down, right down to the bottom, in symbol, see, brought it down.
Then it started right back, coming back, the Church come back from the feet, coming up. Now it's in the head time--head time. Now notice the Light.
E-152 You can't see with your hands, yet it's part of the body. You can't see with the ears, yet it can hear. You can't see with the nose, yet it smells. You can't--you can't see with the lips, though it speaks; see, that was the Pentecostal age. But now it's in the eye time, the seeing. See? Now, there isn't one moving faculty beyond the eye. Is that right?
The next is the intelligence, which is Christ Itself, Who controls the whole Body.
No moving, motion beyond that. See? Everything else has moved. See? Move your feet, move your muscles in your legs, move everything. Move your... Your ears can move, your nose, your lips, and so forth. But after your eyes, there is nothing moves.
That's why they claim that man get baldheaded quick, is because, see, there's no exercise to develop the muscles in--in the hair, the scalp. See? And it's not got a cushion so that they get blood up in there. The blood won't pump through, see, won't go up and furnish blood. Course, the--the hair root lives by blood.
And now we find out that that part, you see, there is nothing beyond the eye.
E-153 Now let's find out. "It shall be Light" (about the middle day?) "at the evening time!" What is Light sent for? So you can see where you're... how to get around. Is that right? See where you're at. "It shall be Light about the evening time." [Zechariah 14:7]
E-154 Now, we take that now and compare it over with Malachi 4. He promised that there would be Light come again in the evening time, see, "For, behold, I will send to you Elijah the prophet, and he will restore the--the children back to the fathers, and the fathers to the children," (is that right?) "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." [Malachi 4:5-6]
E-155 Now let's take John or... Saint Luke 17:30, and watch what Jesus prophesied there, saying that, "As it was in the days of Sodom, it'll be the same..." [Luke 17:30]
Now remember, notice, this is at the time that the Son of man would be revealed; the revealing of the Son of man. Now, the Son of man was actually revealed potentially, just for a few moments there, just before Sodom was burned. Now, that Man was Elohim. That was God; and Jesus is God. And God was revealed potentially right there for a few moments, to talk to Abraham, in the investigation judgment. Just for a little bit, the Son of man was revealed; the Son of man, Elohim. Do you see it, church? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] The Son of man, Elohim, was revealed just for a few minutes. For, the very next morning she was burned, (when?) before the sun could come up again.
So there can't be no organization left, neither can there be any further advancement than what's going right now, for she'll burn before the day breaks again. The revival is over, across the nation. There ain't going to be no more revivals, big sweeping revivals; this nation never receive it. You might have a intellectual gathering. But, I mean, a Spiritual revival, we've seen all of it. I hope you're catching it. I'm saying it in such a way that--that I hope you get it. See? It's over.
A fine minister said, a while ago, said, "Brother Branham, if I could just have the joy of the Lord in my heart!"
I said, "Son, the revival is over." See?
E-156 Now the stabilizers has been put on the ship. Great fearful waves are out here before us; but we know, just beyond that wave yonder, we're nearing the shore. See? We're nearing the shore. Just stay stabled. Just stay in the Word. Stay with God. No matter how you feel, what anything else; stay right with the Word. Let--let--let it stay stable, when you see all these great big old clouds around us, and storms a coming, and atomic bombs, and everything else they're talking about. But our stabilizer is right straight in the Word. God said it would be here; we'll crest every one of them. Yeah, we'll go right over the top of them. Yes, indeed! They, they can't sink us. They can't drown us. You put us in the grave; we'll come out again. That's just all there is to it. There ain't no way in the world to keep it down there. We'll crest every one of them, 'cause our great Chief Captain is calling at the other side.
We're anchored in Jesus, the storms of life I'll brave;
I've anchored in Jesus, I fear no wind or wave;
E-157 Whatever it might be, let it come. What may, what will, doesn't make any difference. We're anchored right there in Jesus. If I live, I'll live to the glory of God. If I die, I die to the glory of God. I--I--I just want to just... It's to the glory of God, is what I want to do. When that's all over, I don't want to stay any longer. I want to go to where... to my reward that He bought for me; not what I earned, but what He bought for me, what He give to me by His grace.
E-158 So we see the evening Light's here. And what does it do to have Light, if you don't have any eyes to see how to get around in It? What is the evening Light? The Light comes on, to reveal something. Is that right? If there's something here, you feel and you can't understand what it is, in the darkness, then turn a light on. It's to reveal! What's Malachi 4 to do? See? Do the same thing. What was the opening of the Seven Seals to do, where all these denominations staggering around in this...?... Is to reveal, bring out. If you haven't got any eyes, then what's the use to reveal? There has to be eyes, first, to see. Is that right? To reveal Malachi 4, reveal Saint Luke 17:30, Saint John 14:12, also John 15:24, 16:13. And to also reveal Revelations 10:1 to 7, the opening of the Seven Seals, and the seventh angel's Message; to open up, to reveal, when the evening Light's come. Now if a man... [Malachi 4:5-6], [Revelation 10:1-7], [Luke 17:30], [John 14:12], [John 15:24], [John 16:13]
E-159 In the Laodicean Age, the people were (what?) "naked." Are they? "Blind."What good does Light do to a blind man? If the blind leads the blind, don't they all fall in the ditch? "Naked, blind, and don't know it." Even their mental faculties are gone, their spiritual faculties of mental, spiritual understanding. See? [Revelation 3:14-21]
"Heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are good; having a form of godliness, but denying the Power thereof." The power of revelation; they don't even believe in it. See? They don't believe in such things as prophets. And so they don't believe in it. They believe that--that Malachi 4 is to be a certain church or a certain organization. [II Timothy 3:1-8], [Malachi 4:5-6]
When he come the first time, he was a man. When he come the second time, with a double portion, he was a man. When he come in the form of John the Baptist, he was a man. See? [Malachi 3:1-3], [Matthew 17:10-13]
In the last days, when the evening Lights begin to shine, eyes will become open and you'll see where you're going. Then the Body is already formed, standing upon its feet, taking motion, moving by the Holy Spirit. What? The same One that moved upon the prophets that wrote the Bible, the same Holy Ghost moving in a Body filled with the Holy Ghost, moved in the Holy Ghost, out of every organization, every kindred, tongue, and people.
E-160 A little lady here, she don't belong in this organization, or this organization... belong in this congregation. She comes from somewhere else, and she come in this morning, got a picture there. She was... give it to my son, who was very much astonished. I don't know whether she ever heard about This or not. I don't know. She had a picture of this Angel of the Lord that was on the Seven Church Ages, Seven Seals opened, out there, when it did. Said, looked back through there, and she seen that standing in the sky, in a dream. And she looked back through there and seen that, seen somebody in white, marching forward; and behind it, said it looked... Said, "Brother Branham, it was you." And said, "Marched in there," said, "behind you, was people of different colors, packing banners; Georgia, Alabama, all different kind of places, marching forward," coming up into the headship to where Christ was being revealed into the vision. Oh, hallelujah!
E-161 We're in the last days, and the last hours of the days. Do you see Him now in His Word, and all of His Word made manifest right here before us? Oh, Church of the living God, get to your feet, believe Him with all that's in you. Hold to that little Wheel in the middle of the wheel, let It stabilize every move and every motion that you make. Every thought that you have, may it be controlled by this Tower on the inside of you. Because, God is setting right in His Word of this hour, in the evening Light, showing forth the Light.
E-162 The blindness of a bat! You could turn on a light, and the bat--bat would be so blind he couldn't fly. A hoot owl, all those night prowlers, and things like that, roaches and things, can't see in the daytime. They don't know what it's all about. They can't see.
And the evening Lights has come on. Every parable, everywhere we go, to nature, to the Bible, to the--the statues that Melc-... that Daniel saw, and--and the king of that day, all of them saw; and all these things, everybody, every form, every move, every place in the Body, positionally shows us the very hour that we're living in. Not another move can come above it.
There was a move of the hand; charity, Wesley. There was a move, of foundation; Luther. Charity, there never was a greater; it was called the Wesley move. They sent missionaries to all the world. One of the greatest moves that was made, in the age before that.
Then come the Pentecostal age; then come in the different fingers and things, the Pentecostal age, of tongues, and nose, and so forth.
Now it's in the eyes. What good will you need eyes, or need light, if that eyes wasn't there to see? There has to be eyes, first, to see. And then when that come, He opened the Seven Seals and revealed the evening Light, taking all the mysteries that's been hid down through these church ages, and now revealed them as He promised to do in Revelations 10:1 to 7. Here we are today setting in the midst of the Word, and the Word being revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Then, This is God's Word. [Revelation 10:1-7]
E-163 And be His subjects, we must walk close to the Author, to understand It, for It to reveal. "O Lord, what will Thou have to me, to do? If I must go to the fields and preach the Gospel, or must I stay at home? No matter what it is, if I must be a good housewife, if I must be a good mother, if I must do this, that, or the other? Whatever it is, if I must be a farmer, if I... Whatever it is, Lord, what would You have me do?" [Acts 9:6]
E-164 Wasn't that what Saul cried out down there, "Lord, what would You have me do?" He was down on the ch-... on his road down to--to put all the church into prison. But then he cried out, "What would You have me do?" When the Light turned on, as a big Pillar of Fire hanging above him. "What would You have me do?"
E-165 Think, that's a good word to close on, and say, "Lord, what would You have me do? When I see this Scripture so perfectly revealed right now; Lord, what would You have me do?"
Let us bow our heads.
E-166 I ask everyone in here to search out your hearts now and ask that question, "Lord, what would You have me do?" And you people, if you're still on the telephone wires out across the nation, you bow your head and ask, "Lord, what would You have me do? Seeing that we're here in the last days and the last hours, just so perfectly before us, so plainly revealed, what would You have me do?"
E-167 Dear God, while they're asking You that question; I ask, myself, to You, what would You have me do, Lord, as I realize that each day must be counted for. And I pray that You'll help me, Lord, to live so that each day, it'll be counted to Your honor and glory.
I pray that You'll help everyone all across the nation, and those here that's present in the tabernacle as we search out our hearts and say, "Lord, what would You have me do? What could I do, Lord, to further Your Kingdom and Your Cause?" Grant it, the God.
Search us, our hearts, and try us. If there be any iniquity in us, Lord, any selfishness, any bad motives or objectives, O God, cleanse us with the Blood of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who we humbly accept His propitiation of His death and His resurrection. And being justified by believing that He did this, we gladly accept the plan of salvation that You give us, to us.
Father, we thank You for the Message of the day, what we believe and what we hold onto, to know and believe that it's Your Word and Your Message. Not to be different from the other people, but to try to be more like Jesus Christ Who is our example.
E-168 Dear God, laying here is handkerchiefs, and there is sick people everywhere. And I myself, Lord, am tired and wore out, this morning. I pray that You'll help us, dear God. We look to You for strength. You are our Strength. You've helped so many, dear God.
E-169 The other day, thinking down there in the woods, walking around with Brother Banks Woods, when the doctors... His heart was so bad he couldn't hardly walk around. Then to think how I... little I knowed up there, walking in those mountains after that vision, "I must get that lion. I must see that lion killed."
And then coming down there, and standing there in Tucson, at Furr's Cafeteria, and see his clothes all bagging down, his eyes drooped. Said, "God, if You can show a vision, where a lion is, surely You can show about Brother Woods."
And then it come, "Lay your hands upon him."
And here he is today, back, our Brother Banks again, strong, running up-and-down those mountains. How we thank Thee, dear God. You're the same God to all of us as You would be to Brother Woods. I know You love him, because he's Your servant, honest and sincere.
E-170 And I pray, dear God, that You will deal with each one of us, and forgive our sins, and heal our sicknesses of our bodies. Make us more like You, day by day, Lord, until we come in that full statue of Jesus Christ. Grant it, Lord. I trust that You've searched every heart, now, and we know what to do. We ask for You to bless us now, in Jesus' Name.
E-171 And while we have our heads bowed, is there any here present, or out in the--in the telephone land across the nation, that would just like to, while you're praying, and your head bowed, just raise up your hand to God now. That's all you can do; it's crowded in here this morning. Just raise up your hand to God, say, "God, make me more like Jesus. I--I want to be more like Jesus." God bless you. Out into the land across the nation, hands just everywhere, just a solid mass. Also, mine lifted up. "I want to be more like Him. Search me, Lord, and find if there be any evil in me; take it out. I--I want..." What? We're just here so long, yet we're going to leave whether you're... whether, no matter what you are, how rich, how poor, how young, how old.
E-172 Standing yesterday to a--a little, poor bunch of people way up in a mountain, down at the... on the creek. There was a little family there, a man I been talking to about God, so long. Come down, his little wife, seven or eight children; him, a little bitty, spindly thing, out there trying to work, couple dollars a day. And a man let him live in a little shanty. And there his wife up there, nearly ready to have another child, and she had a big broad axe up there, chopping wood, to pull it down; baby on one hip, pulling the wood with another; come down to cut that wood, to can some blackberries, keep from going hungry through the winter. My, how we felt sorry for her! Brother Woods and I went and got the truck, and went over there and cut her wood, and brought it in. She, grateful little woman, just standing there. I felt sorry for her. And we kept praying for them.
E-173 And her little baby took epilepsy. We went and prayed for the little baby, and God healed it. And the other day, her husband had a hernia, and went in...
I been talking to him. He smoked, both of them. She used tobacco, and he did, too, typical of mountain people. And then I kept talking to them about it. And yesterday morning when I went in, about daylight, here he come walking out, holding his hands together, and said, "Brother Billy, I'm a changed man." He said, "I've smoked my last cigarette, and I'm over on the Lord's side."
She said, "I just smoked my last one, too."
Oh, plant the seed! "I the Lord have watered. I'll water it day and night, lest some shall pluck it from My hands."
E-174 O God, be merciful now, I pray, and give us the desire of our heart, 'cause in our hearts we want to serve You. Now, Father, they're all in Your hands, everywhere. They're Your children. Deal with them according to mercy, Lord; not in judgment, but in mercy. We ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.
E-175 You love Him? [Congregation says, "Amen. "--Ed.] All your heart! Now, you that have the handkerchiefs, can get them.
And now, our services, I think they start a little early, seven o'clock, or something like that. Brother Neville will announce it, just in a minute, about when to start.
Is there a baptism, I guess, this morning? [Brother Neville says, "The water is ready."--Ed.] The water is ready, if somebody is here and has not yet been baptized in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, why, it certainly is... Water is ready for the baptismal service.
E-176 We appreciate all the minister brothers. I see Brother... How was your meeting, went all right, Brother Parnell? And Brother Martin, and, oh, so many of them here, Brother Lee Vayle. Oh, there's just ministers all over the place. We certainly appreciate you being here, fellowshipping with us around the Word.
E-177 Maybe you might not agree with me just exactly on This; don't ask you to, you see. Only thing, you just consider It. What you tell me, I consider it. If ministers would pick up the tape, and they say, "Well, I disagree with." That's all right, my brother. You maybe shepherd some sheep; you--you feed them whatever you wish to.
I'm trying my best to stay right with the Word, for these that's been put in my hands for God, 'cause sheep want sheep food, of course. "My sheep hear My Voice." And that's what we live by, every Word that proceedeth... Not all... Not just a Word now and then; but every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, that's what the saints should live by.
Let us stand now to our feet. While we bow our heads...
And Brother Neville, you got something you want to say to them? [Brother Neville says, "No."--Ed.] Brother Mann? All right.
Everybody feeling good? Say, "Amen." [Congregation says, "Amen."Ed.] All right.
Now let us bow our heads.
I'm going to ask Brother Lee Vayle if he'll come up here, or he can. If you can get over there, Brother Vayle, if you can.
Brother Vayle is our brother here, a writer of the books. And he's getting the book ready now, The Seven Church Ages, and working with The Seven Seals. And we'll soon hope to have them out pretty soon. All right. Brother Lee Vayle,
God bless you. [John 10:27]