WE WERE SPEAKING OF HOW PEOPLE IN DENOMINATIONAL CHURCH SYSTEMS ARE ALSO EXPERIENCING AN UNUSUAL MOVE OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD; BUT THAT NO MATTER WHAT MANIFESTATIONS THEY MAY EXPERIENCE, IF WHAT THEY RECEIVE DOES NOT TURN THEM TO A REVELATION OF THE WORD OF GOD, IT JUST HAS TO BE LOOKED UPON AS GOD GIVING FOOLISH VIRGINS A CHANCE TO RECEIVE THEIR MEASURE OF HIS SPIRIT. LIKE WE SAID EARLIER, THEY ARE EXPERIENCING THE SAME MANIFESTATION THE TRUE BRIDE SAINTS ARE EXPERIENCING; THEREFORE THE TRUE REVELATION OF THE WORD OF GOD BECOMES THE SEPARATING FACTOR.

In John 16, we find these words spoken by Jesus; and they have to stand as a gauge, no matter what various people want to believe. (13) “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. (14) He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” It is ever so obvious, that what denominational people are receiving is not teaching them anything. They are just enjoying the experiences: believing they have all it takes to make them ready for the heavenly Bridegroom. This is why somewhere in this Laodicean Age, (And God knew exactly when.) This parable of Matthew 25 was ordained to go into effect. Keep in mind this parable is not talking about just one element of wise virgins that begin to see this thing set in motion. As I have said before, Sitting right here are my children: When we were sitting there, listening to Bro. William Branham preach, I could not begin to tell you how many times we thought, Our children will never see the day that they graduate from school. It just seemed like time was that short. That is what we thought anyhow. That is the way it looked to us back then. Well they have every one been to school and are out: and we now have several grand children; and some of them are graduating. All of this lets me know that even though we older ones belong to a generation that saw this parable come into its beginning, God has brought along the offspring of this generation to witness the closing out of this parable. Oh yes, saints, the generation that saw the fig tree (Israel) begin to show forth new life will also have a representation of it still living to see the end of it all. God’s word tells us that. You have to understand that this parable has a time factor involved. You just simply do not apply it only to the ones that heard Bro. William Branham minister the word. There are some who do that; but they are wrong to do so. You have to realize that once this parable has a beginning, it is going to lay here in the earth until its effect has reached completely around the world. Well I believe it has already done that by now. The foolish virgins have already been awakened; and they are going to the market place to get oil in their lamps: That is what we are seeing out here: They are getting their oil experience. These written pages I have been reading from, tell about it. Of course I am aware that some have thought, It seems like God is moving more among the denominations than He is among the separated people that love the revelation of His word: But then, here He came moving among us in such a precious way, it fulfills what one Brother would always say, “The best is yet to come.” Hallelujah! We can still say that. He has come among us to set back in operation, every gift the true Church had been stripped of; and to activate every doctrine of the Bible: which will strengthen this body of people and mold them into such a unity that God can once again display Himself through it. That is His true Church in these last days. I am convinced with all my heart, that His true Church is going to be shown off for a little season of time: for all to see. She is going to be exactly the way God wants her. I will never forget the year 1956: Bro. William Branham made a statement, (I believe he made the statement at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois.) “I predict that this will be the year that the United States will make a decision, or be compelled to make a decision. Either she will accept Jesus Christ or she will reject Him.” It is now evident that this time factor of the nation rejecting Him, became more and more obvious starting about then. Both in the church world as well as society at large in America, it really became obvious that they did not want gospel preaching that could change people’s lives and shape them into something God would accept. When you look back to that time, (1956) and realize that four years later, here came that woman that was so instrumental in taking prayer out of the schools, you can see that this was actually a prophetic statement. Then here came the dope gangs, and hippies by the masses. Youth of America began to be swamped by it all and led astray. It looked like there was no hope of God salvaging anything that could ever represent His true image to the world ever again. Nevertheless I thank God for the fact He has signaled out some people, and their children, and selected them to receive something here in the end time. When Bro. William Branham said that in 1956, we soon began to hear more and more of this glossiola move among various groups of people. It seems like it was something that began to pop up among a few people. There were even Jews, Presbyterians, Catholic priests, and others, an anonymous element of people that began to have those experiences of speaking in tongues, dancing, shouting and such. Somewhere they had seen a little bit of what God had done in the deliverance hour of time and they were beginning to get hungry for the same thing. In basements and meeting rooms of family dwellings those meetings were held; and the Spirit would drop on them. They began to speak in tongues. They began to give their testimony. One Sunday morning the question was asked Bro. William Branham, What is this thing that is taking place? He said, “This is what definitely shows that the foolish virgins are going to get oil.” It was on a very small scale back then. It had not yet reached the News Media, with publications put out about it. It was just mainly talked about from one place to another. However coming to the year of 1965, which was the year God took Bro. William Branham off the scene, more and more the glossiola terminology turned into a term called Charismatic. The move just seemed to lose the word glossiola after that. Furthermore it started coming out of the basements and the living room and began to go into the big churches. Then it was not long until it moved into the large auditoriums. I will read to you from these articles a little later, how the whole thing appeared in the years past: which, when I read it I said, Lord, now I remember what Bro. William Branham said about this. Here, is what he said while preaching the Church Ages. On page 285, (I may have referred to this already; but let me read it.) “Thus the grain of wheat that became a plant for the harvest is the record of the church. And even as not all the wheat plant is wheat seed, and as not all the plant is used in the harvest, so with the church; all the church (He is referring to the overall church world.) is not the bride, and neither is it all given eternal life, but a PART of it is gathered into the garner; and a PART of it is kept that it might enter into eternal life in the second resurrection, and PART of it which is accounted chaff is burned in the lake of fire. And this is exactly what John the Baptist and Jesus said, for John said that the wheat would be garnered and the chaff burned. Jesus said, Bind the tares, and then gather the wheat. The ecumenical move will bind the tare churches together, for the tares must be bound FIRST.” We can see why the ecumenical spirit has been out in the forefront of all of this: It had a job to do, binding the tares together. Now we are seeing the last phase of this move; and at the same time, here comes the move among the real bride people. What does all this tell you? God is finishing out this age. We can actually say today, All the denominations are bound together, either in the World council of Churches or in this ecumenical move. The part I wanted to read to you is showing you how in London England, in the big cathedral there, hundreds of Episcopalians are standing there shouting, speaking in tongues and manifesting the very things, at least outwardly, that we are seeing among God’s revelated people. It tells of another Catholic church in Toronto, where hundreds of people in a crowded gathering, are standing with their hands in the air, speaking in tongues, singing in the spirit, rejoicing in what they feel is the baptism of the Holy Ghost: Yet we all know they are void of the true revelation of God’s word. They will baptize any way a person chooses: They will sprinkle, pour or whatever: It matters not, what the scriptures say about baptizing. All they want is the momentary blessings. I just have to say, We are fast approaching the end. I have to thank God He has given us an outline through the Bible, whereby we are able to see ourselves in the complete picture of true believers. If we do not use the Bible, we will never find ourselves in that picture here at the end of the age. Knowing what we know, if that were the fullness of the Holy Ghost they are receiving out there, God would come on them with such a shaking demonstration of His power it would put them under conviction; and then He would begin to show them the revelation of His book. On the other hand, when there is no revelation, you can know for sure that it is a deception. It makes them think they are getting it all; but it is just enough to give foolish virgins life, and bind the rest together for ultimate destruction. The Bible is very clear on the subject of the acts and deeds of genuine believers; and also on the fact that God will not accept any substitutes for His true way.

MANIFESTATIONS GROSS DECEPTION WHAT NEXT?

At this time, I want to go back to the Azusa Street hour and just touch upon these various manifestations. In these articles I have been reading from, which came from the Charismatic realm, there are two different sources of writings. I am surprised to see the way some of these fellows look upon the move of the Spirit they have going on in their midst; and how they are unscripturally trying to diagnose what is going on, as though they look upon it with skepticism. I just thought as I read these articles, YOU ALREADY HAVE FALSE DOCTRINE: TRINITARIANISM IS AS FALSE AS YOU CAN GET. They have very little left. If they cannot prove a false doctrine, how in the world can they hope to prove a false experience. It is not going to be done. Many people, when they begin to witness some of these, shouting, dancing, trembling, shaking, stammering lips and so forth, want to look upon the whole thing with skepticism; but I assure you this, Every one of these manifestations mentioned in these articles have been recorded in the Bible. When David came down the road as you would read about in Chronicles or Kings, the time when they were bringing the ark of the covenant back where it belonged, when David saw it, (according to the scriptures) he leaped with all his might. Then do not picture him coming down the road with arms crossed, pious looking. He was presenting himself, leaping in a manner, he was so caught up in the ecstasy of what he felt, even his wife looking out the window at him, looked upon him with scorn. Yet in the light of what was taking place, I have no doubt there were a lot of other Israelites dancing and leaping along with him. It just goes to show, he was a leader and the people respected that. They felt God was with this man. Therefore we have to realize that there is such a thing as leaping in the Spirit: because it is a gesture of praise. This is the way God gets the emotions of the individual person to respond to Him. I grant you, there can be leaping that is all motivated by another spirit; but you do not judge it all by that fact. Go to a ball game sometime and watch what happens when the fans get excited. They shout, yell, scream, jump up and down, and many times get in a fight because of something some of them do in their rage of excitement. We are every one aware of what goes on in those places, yet no one finds anything wrong with acting like that. Is it not just as justifiable for a child of God to get that excited about the things of God that are revealed or manifested to him or her? THAT IS WHY THE BIBLE SAYS THERE ARE THOSE WHO SPEAK EVIL OF THE THINGS THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND. The natural, human mind does not understand the things of the Spirit of God: That is why they carry on so when they observe these manifestations among the saints. I have noticed that natural minded people who know nothing at all about God, have a tendency to visualize Him as an old man sitting somewhere observing what His human family is doing, just waiting for a chance to punish anyone who expresses any emotions whatsoever. What a perverted notion! Do they never read the Bible in which they claim to be such authorities on its contents? Any time someone in the realm of religion begins to express their emotions like we are reading of here, immediately you have critics that want to jump on it with both feet and denounce it as unscriptural. In the book of Exodus, (I believe it is chapter 15.) the children of Israel have been permitted to cross over the Red Sea, through this great chasm of water, when God miraculously parted the water and allowed them to cross over on dry land. Yes, they crossed over by dry ground in the place where water naturally flowed. When they were on the other side they had the opportunity to look back and see what God was doing with the enemy that tried to follow them. God waited until the enemy got down in this channel, then He turned the water loose to swallow them up. When they began to see the Egyptians flying here and there as the waves caught them and pitched them into the air, they began to sing in the Spirit: You can turn there and read it. It is also mentioned in the Psalms about the horse and rider, how God overcame them and so forth. They literally danced up and down the shores of the Red Sea shouting and singing and praising God. I do not believe they were doing rock and roll: The picture I see is a great multitude of people dancing, shouting and praising the God that delivered them from their enemies; and I believe the great Creator accepted their praise and thanksgiving. They were dancing with the Spirit of excitement because they had seen what God had done to the enemy. It is strange how a doctor of divinity, who would search the pages of the scriptures to find out if some of these things could be scriptural; will always fail to see other things that could reveal to him just how far from God he himself really is. It is a sad thing these doctors of divinity become so learned in some things, yet are so ignorant to other things, they cannot recognize some of the experiences that have been manifested through time. When we think of quaking and shaking, all you have to do is read Hebrews, where it is referring to Moses who went up on the mount and there he received the Law. They write that Moses testimony was he exceedingly feared and quaked. Look in the dictionary and see what the word quake refers to. It is literally an uncontrolled, emotional shaking of the body. There he was, he quaked in the presence of God. People still say it is of the devil and pure fanaticism though, no matter what you show them in the Bible. Coming right out of England, as the new world was discovered, was a move of the Spirit on some people that became known as Quakers. Do not try to shove the word off into the closet somewhere: It means just exactly what it says; and you will not find any evidence that God was not in the experience. It was an element of people that came along later in the Wesley hour. They literally shook, they quaked under the power of God. Many of them collapsed. That was their experience. We can say truly this was an experience in the Holy Ghost because that followed the Quaker movement as long as that Spirit was allowed to move among them and those that were sensitive to move with the Spirit. Out of that came a movement called the Shakers. Down in Shakertown Kentucky you can get a little history book of the origin of it. It will give you the background, how it was established. The word Shaker pertains to the same thing as the Quakers. It mainly was a branch that came out of the Quaker movement which started in England; but here in the States it was called the Shaker movement. Testimony after testimony that is written in the analysis of their meetings, it started out, they sang, then after awhile there were so many literally thrown on the floor. They lay there ever so long just shaking. Some spoke in tongues. They wrote these things up as though this was really having a service; yet very little preaching ever took place. I am saying all these things to try to get us to realize that in those hours of time, all through the Reformation period God did not deal with any element of people seeking to put His Church back in the order that the Bible portrays. He was giving people an opportunity to experience the same manifestations the early Church experienced. How sad it is, that so many of them took those experiences and then were not led by the Spirit they received. Instead, they allowed their own carnal thinking, as they read certain passages of scriptures, to lead them right out of the scriptures. I am not trying to tell anyone just how much of it was of God and how much was of the devil: When God begins to do something the devil always runs a counterfeit of the same thing right along with it. However, even though any of this can go on in the devil’s camp, I am convinced that God is absolutely, here in the end time, repeating everything He has ever manifested Himself in through the ages of time, to His true Bride people. He is not going to leave any one of them without them having some kind of experience and relationship with Him in the realm of the Holy Ghost. When we trace it back through the Reformation, (I am talking about these spiritual moves) there seems to be about a three year period in which, whatever the objective of God is, it will begin to reach its objective and purpose. We read in the book of Acts, where God, through the apostle Paul, gave Asia the gospel to the extent that all seven churches of Asia had their flame lit from that one three year meeting at Ephesus. When we read the full account, over a period of three years as Paul stayed in Ephesus, he could then write how all Asia had heard the gospel. Therefore we can say that through a three year cycle God had reached down and accomplished His major objective there in Asia. The seven churches that set a type for the SEVEN CHURCH AGES were all set in motion in that three year revival. As we look at ourselves here in the end time, we are just a short distance away from the year 2000. Even many of your preachers on trinity broadcast and such, are beginning to analyze the records of time and things and projecting their own opinions. They too are beginning to look at the year 2000, and saying that it is likely to bring us some kind of drastic change, or something that is going to unfold and show us something pertaining to the eminent coming of Christ. Yet these same people seem to be so void of any revelation such as God has revealed to us. They want nothing more than what their denomination has put its approval on. I have written down the five major points that all of those people in this Charismatic realm, from the Catholics right on down to the Pentecostals, hold to. The other things they lay aside because they do not want to create any offense by bringing up any of the other doctrines that some believe No. 1, They all emphatically believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He is the second person of a trinity. When they sing their courses, they are singing their courses about the Holy Ghost: that He is the third person of the trinity. They will make their statements that they want to honor the person of the Holy Ghost. That in itself should let you and I know we ought to be thankful that by the grace of God we were not left in that kind of camp. It is not because we are worthy of anything, or because we are so smart: It is just that God’s grace has let us know it is utterly impossible for you to take the Bible and come out with such a thing as a trinity. There is too much Bible that will look you right in the face and show you that you are completely ignorant of the true picture portrayed by those prophets and apostles of former ages. No. 2, They will emphatically state that Jesus was born of virgin birth, from the Catholics right on down. No. 3, They will all let you know real quick, that the Holy Ghost is the third person of the trinity. Well I could let them know just as quickly, that there is no such thing as a trinity when you are talking about the Godhead. Someone was mentioning that they heard this fellow, Benny Hinn, a fellow you see many times on Trinity Broadcast, make a statement about something Katherine Kuhlman said to him one time. It was something like, How would you feel if you were neglected, never even recognized? She brought up the subject to him, that we just do not honor the Holy Ghost, the third person of the trinity enough. Somehow or other Benny Hinn said that seemed to spark something in him to emphasize that we definitely needed to recognize the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost. Thank you Holy Ghost. Listen to me saints! There is not one ounce of Bible for anything like that. Did not Jesus say in the 16th chapter of St. John, that when this Spirit of truth is come, whom the Father will send in my name, He will not speak of Himself? How can we then take the Bible and say, Oh Holy Ghost, third person of the trinity, we want to shake hands with you? What they refer to as the third person of the trinity is none other than the Spirit which is God Himself, coming to us in His third office work, to live inside of us. He comes to glorify Jesus. Therefore we can say, Thank you Jesus, and be right on track. On the other hand, when you say, Thank you Holy Ghost, and you say it as though you are speaking to a person, you have left the track and you are heading for a wreck. Therefore we can say that this point of their major belief, or foundation, has no foundation whatsoever. No. 4, They all believe in the rapture; and so do we. We just differ on who will be going in the rapture. No. 5, They believe in the second coming of Christ; and I have to say, So do we. When it comes to all these other doctrines of the scriptures, predestination, eternal security of the believer, proper water baptism and such, they say, We leave them out because they cause division. That proves there is no way they can go to the book of Revelation and possibly come up with the revelation of the seven seals. A few have tried; but oh, what a mess they made. Billy Graham’s book has the four horse riders riding at the end of the age; and we every one know that the first three finished their ride a long time ago. The pale horse (gray horse) which is neither white nor black, is still out there deceiving the multitudes. The rider of all four horses is the spirit of antichrist; and he is still doing his work. In 1963, God used his messenger to this age to bring us the revelation of those six seals; but the denominational world pays no attention to it. Most of them, because of certain fanatical trends that have followed Bro. William Branham‘s teachings, look upon us as a cult. Well based upon what they are looking at, I can understand why they feel that way; but that does not make us what they think we are. I realize sometime new people that would come among us, and hear us preach or testify of things, might become fearful and wonder, What kind of people are these. Well I want to stress as much as I can, that we are a group of people that not only enjoy the moving of the Spirit of God, but we are going to do our utmost to make sure everything we allow and take part in can be vindicated by the Bible. The end time Church is not only a people that has been called out of man made systems of religion: it is also a Church that emphatically holds to every doctrine taught by the apostles of Christ. The Bible is our text book and we trust the Holy Spirit to teach us how to study it. By the leading and direction of the Holy Spirit, the scripture is instilled in the true Church in a way that lays a foundation for all that God expects His Church to be. Did not the apostle Paul write to Timothy concerning the Church and refer to it as the pillar and ground of the truth? Look at 1st Timothy 3:15, “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” The true Church is the very pillar and ground of the truth. That should establish in our eyes that there is no way we can go down the road of life just enjoying the good things of God without paying attention to His word. As we said earlier, Had the early Church just taken that upper room experience and then traveled the road of life enjoying those manifestations, never expecting God to reveal anything to them, or do anything through them, we would not have a New Testament written. When Jesus said to the disciples, (John 15:26-27) “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: (27) And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning,” those disciples cherished those words: They were eager to receive everything the Father would bestow upon them. We have placed much emphasis on two or three statements Jesus made concerning the Comforter which He would send to them; but to me, this is the key to everything the believer will ever be or do that will be worth anything in the kingdom of God. In the 16th chapter of John, verses 12-15, you will read another one of those statements. We spoke of it a little while ago. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. (13) Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. (14) He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. (15) All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Thank God, that in that first age Church He not only had a people full of the Holy Ghost; but from their midst there came a ministry that allowed that Spirit within them to teach and lay down these doctrinal truths we find written in the scriptures. While it is true that the apostle Paul wrote most of the Epistles of the New Testament, you can be sure that every single one of those apostles believed and taught the same truths he wrote in these Epistles. They were all of the same mind: when it came to the revelation of the word of God. Every doctrine the New Testament Church believed in the first age of time, is written right here between the covers of this blessed old Book. That is why it is such a tragedy: that much of what is supposedly representing Christianity to the world today just simply ignore many of the basic doctrines that are found written here. This is especially true of this Charismatic realm. They are becoming so convinced that what is taking place among so many, is a move of God that should be allowed to over ride all of their former theological preaching, they no longer feel that they have any need of preaching. They just want to come together, sing, praise the Lord and fall on the floor. Well when you consider what some of them have been preaching, you know God has no respect for that; but I assure you saints, He will never seek to completely exclude the preaching of a true revelation of His word service after service. To you young people I say, When the Spirit of God moves on you to slay you, yield to Him and go down. Do not fuss or argue with God. If every one of you just sit there like a knot on a log and pay no attention to the moving of the Spirit, when He really wants to make you living witnesses and give you a testimony that there is something going on in your life, how in the world would a stranger know that there is something going on? God is truly moving among various elements of church-going people; but He is not moving to please any doctor of divinity. He is not going to leave it up to any church official of any denomination to be able to say what is right or wrong, true or false. They have already coasted past their hour of such a privilege. God is on the move, and He has already bound many of them into bundles for burning. They mat not agree on doctrinal points; but they sure do agree on the idea that they all need to stick together.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SPIRIT

Let us take a closer look at some of these manifestations that have been reported. As these manifestations were taking place during that great move on Azusa St, people experienced some very strange things; and it looks like we are going to also. There was a brother from Kentucky present in the service here this morning; and he told me of something that happened to him on Sunday, in the October meeting. He said, Bro. Jackson, at one time I felt like my hand was on fire, or that there was fire in my hand. I also felt a hand take hold of my wrist. I thought, What is taking place here? He thought maybe it was someone behind him and he turned around to see: but then the feeling left him. He said, I thought to myself, You foolish man, why did you do that? In that Azusa St. revival it is written that there were people that had that same sensation: that their hand was on fire. They would look at it; but they saw no fire. Nevertheless they felt like they had fire burning in their hand. They would rub their hands together and then it immediately felt like both hands were on fire. Did not John the Baptist say that the One coming after him would baptize them with the Holy Ghost, and with fire? (Matthew 3:11) “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” It is all one and the self same Spirit, but the fire is just a mere manifestation among the many others. That is why when Moses was in the desert and the Lord spoke to him out of the burning bush, you could say that was the fire of God manifested in that way. Did they not follow a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day? Those things are merely manifestations of that invisible Spirit which is God. That kind of manifestation can go on right on down through time; and it has been, in various movements. It is written in history: that back before the twentieth century there was an element of Baptist people (maybe not all of them were Baptist) up and down the Appalachian mountain range, that at times felt like their hands were on fire. They were just mountain people, simply country people, hungry for a revival in their spiritual lives. God began to move in their midst in simple ways. There were experiences of various kinds reported. When they would feel this fire in their hands, it made them dance and shake their hands. To the educated minded person, someone having a sensation like that in their hand, and dancing like they did would look pretty silly; but to the Creator that was giving the experiences, it was one of the ways He manifested Himself among them. To the educated mind, all of this looks very foolish; and that is understandable, simply because they have grown up in life examining everything from the standpoint of whether it makes sense or not. They associate all of this with fanaticism. Without the Spirit of God in your own life, you cannot understand anything like this no matter how much you witness it. We are not trying to say that educated people cannot receive the Spirit of God: nor are we saying that none of them can have these experiences: It is really the scientific mind V/S the spiritual mind, if we would examine it closely. It really just boils down to the fact of whether an individual is willing to allow the written word of God to speak to them or not. Did not the apostle Paul write of this very thing to the Corinthian Church? (1Corinthians 1:25-29) “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (26) For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: (27) But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; (28) And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: (29) That no flesh should glory in his presence.” Think of that! God has chosen what the world looks on as fanatics, illiterate, unlearned, inexperienced people who have just enough sense to say Yes Lord, have your way, to confound those who feel that they are so much above anyone who would act like that. God manifests Himself to them, using simple minded, Bible believing people, bringing on foolish manifestations that only spiritual minded people can understand. God does this to do what? To confound the wise, the mighty, to bring to naught things that appear so important, yet to bring it to naught. I must say this though, through the years of the Reformation God did use men with education, especially in Luther’s hour. Do not ever think God could use some mountaineer or hillbilly to accomplish what Martin Luther did when he was on the scene. It took a man that knew the ins and outs of Catholicism. It took a man that knew the political influence it had in the structure of politics. It took that kind of man who was well learned in the affairs of man’s way of thinking. That is why He used Luther, Calvin, Knox, and that type of men. The gospel message started out simple: Then it was made very complicated through man’s carnal minded approach to it; and God used those educated men to rescue it from the clutches of Catholicism and give it back to people who would receive its message through simple faith once again. That has brought us to an hour of time when God is leaving the intellectual minded religious leaders and coming back to the simple way. That is why in the early Church, God used simple men: He did not purpose for man’s redemption to be so complicated that only the very intelligent of the human race could ever understand enough about it to be saved from the clutches of sin. When I think of these doctors of divinity of our day, that will look back and look upon the early Church as primitive, it lets me know for sure that they do not know the first thing about God. Do you know what that word primitive pertains to? Sometimes it is associated with natives that live in the jungle or like the American Indians were in the mountains. Here, are a few of the dictionary definitions of the word. (barbarian, native, savage, prehistoric, crude, undeveloped) There are other definitions of course; so I am saying this only for the purpose of showing you what some people choose to associate people like us with. I have to say this, The primitive Church had the Holy Ghost; and that is what really counts. In the primitive Church they had men that knew how to obey the Holy Ghost. In the primitive Church the Lord Jesus Christ was exemplified. That is why the scribes and Pharisees of that hour could not deny the fact that those men had been with Jesus. Nevertheless, regardless of what those people have in mind when they refer to the early Church as primitive, that is the Church I want to be a part of. This theological church world of our day has completely explained the reality of the Christian life away. They have made it a ritual, rather than an experience with the resurrected, living Savior. It is no wonder, that their people cannot live this Christian life in a world like it is today: Theology cannot overcome Satan’s traps and deceiving devices. You have to have something inside of you that literally causes this Bible to become a living, motivating reality. I realize I sometimes say a lot of things about Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and so forth; so I hope none of you misunderstand my purpose in doing so. I want you to know that I have nothing against any individual that is still in those denominational churches: It is the system of religion that I speak against: not the person. When you look at the overall picture of denominational organizations and realize how their people have been influenced, you can see why many of their live’s are so twisted. Dads and moms will beg, Oh daughter, don’t do this, Son, don’t do that: Yet they cannot display before those children the reality of living for God. Parents have the privilege and the responsibility of teaching their children right; but only God Himself can put within them what it takes to live a life separated from the world in general. Many homes are in a turmoil because of spiritual differences; but did not Jesus say, (Matthew 10:34-36) “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (35) For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. (36) And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” In some cases that is a fact. How sad that is. In these closing days of time, when we can see that the coming of the Lord is just a short distance in front of us, there are young people wanting to get married so quickly, I am afraid many of them are not careful enough about their choice of a marriage partner. Young people, if God can give you a companion, whether you are a boy or girl, of the same faith, and that person is determined to walk with God, may God bless you both; but please do not let an impatient spirit get hold of you and cause you to compromise your Christian principles to the point that you are willing to marry someone just simply because they may be good-looking. The devil will set a trap for you and the day will come when you will begin to realize how dad and mom raised you to do the right thing; but by then, you will have suffered much heartache. That is why the Bible instructs parents, Bring a child up in the way it should go and when he (or she) is old, he (or she) will not depart from it. Sooner or later the Spirit of God will get hold of that child. He might be forty or fifty, but sooner or later those things that dad and mom held before them by words and example, will come back to them. Then they begin to realize how important it was that dad and mom took them to church and made them listen. By the time that happens, many have already married some infidel, some unbeliever that has taken them down the road of life and made their lives a wreck. Then the minute they do turn to serve the Lord, all the forces of hell are turned loose against the believer. Their marriage is like torment itself. Words like this are heard, If you are going to go to that church, I am leaving you. In those situations, that is how it usually turns out. The unbeliever leaves, a divorce follows and the believer is left with questions. I have had the telephone ring many times when some heartbroken parent on the other end of the line would say, Bro. Jackson, my daughter got married while she was out in the world and lived with the man five years until he became unfaithful. They eventually got a divorce and she herself sowed some wild oats; but now the Lord has gotten hold of her life and she is faithful in church; so my question is, Can she get married again? I have to say, The only answer I can give such a person is this, Only in the Lord Jesus Christ. How many understand what I have said? Only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know what that means? It means you look for somebody that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am going to say something that some may not like to hear; but I hope you will everyone think seriously about it before you attempt to choose a marriage companion: It matters not how good a church member a person may be in some other belief: If that person objects to what you believe, he or she can make your life miserable. You may say, Oh, but he is such a dedicated Christian. Do not hide behind that shield, He is a dedicated this, or a dedicated that: He can be a devil in your life if he refuses to let you go to the church of your belief. He would rather see you go to hell than to see you go to church where he refuses to go. I have just given you an example of the kind of situations many are facing: I am not speaking of any particular one right now. It could apply to either a son or a daughter. The point is, when a couple goes ahead and gets married outside of a solid, mutual belief in Jesus Christ, that marriage is usually headed for trouble. I told one person, There will come a day when folks are going to wake up and realize that not every one out here professing to be Christian’s are going to heaven. Not everyone that goes to a church building somewhere regularly is on their way to heaven. There is an element of people in this earth today that God is dealing with; but there are also a lot of people in these church systems of the world that God is not dealing with. They are what they are because they do not intend to be changed: They have no desire to live their lives according to the Bible: They are going to live according to their denominational creed: regardless of what the word of God says. They have no revelation; and they do not want any. God will not chasten them: He will not even correct them because they do not have ears to hear anything He would say. When we read the testimonies that came out of the Azusa Street hour, the persecution and heartache in the homes where one accepted an experience with the Lord and the other one did not, it lets us see how important it is for both marriage partners to be of the same belief spiritually. No wonder Paul wrote in the Corinthian letter, (2Corinthians 6:14-18) “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (15) And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? (How could there be any compatibility in such a union?) And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (17) Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. (18) And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Keep in mind, the Church of that hour was made up of many people that had been converted and brought into the faith out of paganism; so Paul was laying down principles and giving advice on what would be required if such a person wanted to have a happy future: Those who were not married yet were to look for someone in the same faith. Let me say to any young man or young woman that may have been sitting in this assembly just because dad and mom brought you here, and you are just waiting for the day you come of age so you can jump out the door and go your own way: It will catch up with you. Somewhere down the road God is going to ring your number. When He does, you are going to start crying and blaming others for your predicament; but the true cause of your situation will be because somehow or other you sat here all that time never learning anything that could have enabled you to avoid such a trap as the devil has you caught in. You need to realize that there is a God who watches over our lives and sets before us a way of life that can keep us from becoming slaves to Satan’s devices if we will only take heed soon enough.

BAPTISM IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST

Let me get back to something I started talking about earlier. During the time of that Azusa Street revival, there was a man that began to preach on the oneness of God. He had seen enough in the scriptures to convince him; but as he did he met great opposition. God was doing something no one had even considered up until then: He was going to test those Trinitarian people who were receiving those wonderful experiences. Yes they were all Trinitarians because that is what the Azusa Street revival had produced. Catholics, Baptists, Nazarene, Church of God, little independent people, which were all Trinitarian in their belief, had all been brought together through this move of the Spirit of God. They had all received something from God and they had searched the scriptures to find out if what they were receiving could be identified with the experiences the first Age believers received; but that is as far as their study of the scriptures went for most of them. However one particular man, according to the article I read, saw the beauty of the name of Jesus. He began to realize as he searched the scriptures, that all baptism by the early church was done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he made known what he had come to realize, there immediately came a complaint from the others. They branded him a fanatic. It tells in here how in later years Frank Bartleman, along with another man, began to see the move of the Spirit in Jesus name baptism. They became rebaptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The trinity side then began to call those men JESUS ONLY, because they would not refer to Jesus as being the second person of the trinity. God by that time, was really testing something. That is why I have to say, Thank God for the Spirit of revelation. It is one of the most important factors of the Holy Ghost: outside the fact that He is life to you. He is a teacher: He can take you when you do not know one thing about doctrines and principles of the living God and begin to open up your understanding of everything that pertains to your hour of time. When you hear certain things of truth preached, He has a way of quickening that to your understanding. The Spirit of God is able to mold inside of you a spirit being that can shine for the world to see: and at the same time reflect something back to Him that pleases Him. That is exactly how God wants it to be. In the eyes of the world you might look so dumb and illiterate they can hardly stand to have you around; but in the eyes of God you carry a revelation and understanding of His plan in your life that just glorifies Him completely. It says in here, That through the years that followed, Frank Bartleman was finally ostracized from the ranks of the older Pentecostal groups and then became a writer in his older days. With that in mind I want to bring in another article. One Brother has this old magazine put out by the oneness movement, I believe it was printed in Springfield Illinois. Anyhow, I read the article and the story goes like this. I believe the year was around 1913; and this certain evangelist had been brought in, (I believe it was up in Indiana.) to a church for a revival meeting. They had this meeting that was really blessed by a manifestation of the moving of the Spirit of God; and it lasted over a period of two or three weeks. Many souls were saved and filled with the Spirit. Then, on the last Sunday of the meeting, they went down to the river to baptize all the new converts; and as the Pastor of the congregation and the Evangelist waded out into the water an audible voice spoke to the evangelist, Bury them in my name. The pastor looked at him and said, What was that? The evangelist looked back, Oh nothing. That lets us see that God can speak to one person and someone standing by can hear something; but they do not hear anything distinctly. It happened with Jesus that way. Anyhow the first candidate for baptism came out into the water and was standing between the two preachers: They were commenting on a certain passage of scripture while preparing to baptize the person waiting and that same voice spoke again: Bury them in my name! The pastor again said, What was that? What did He say? Oh nothing, the Evangelist answered. However just as they were ready to lower the person into the water, the audible voice again said, Bury them in my name! The pastor said, What did He say? I will tell you when we get back to the house the Evangelist replied. Well they went ahead with the baptizing: using the trinity titles instead of the name of Jesus. When they arrived back at the pastor’s house, the Pastor looked at the Evangelist and said, Now tell me what He said. He said, Bury them in my name. They grabbed the Bible saying, Let us examine the scriptures concerning this. When they opened up to the book of Acts they read the 2nd chapter and took note of verse 38. Then they read the 8th chapter, the 10th chapter, and the 19th chapter; and every place they read they discovered that baptism was ministered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. When they finished looking at the scriptures the Pastor looked at the Evangelist and said, Then you will rebaptize every one of them just like it says here. That became an article of controversy back in that period of time: because that was the years that God was moving in the old Azusa Street revival; and the experience had been embraced by many people; so God was then in the process of revealing His name. I have read in other testimonies, I know one particular article, two people were sitting at a table talking. God had been dealing with one. During the night, this one man was awakened and heard the words, Will you take on my name? Sitting at the breakfast table, they were having Bible reading; and as they were talking the one man asked the other, What has the Lord been speaking to you? He first kind of evaded the issue. Then when asked the question, Has the Lord been telling you anything? He had to bring in the experience he had that morning. They sat reading from the scriptures and saw that all baptism in the book of Acts, which was the record of the early Church, was all done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one looked at the other, Let us go rebaptize ourselves. So they went and rebaptized each other. At that particular time, there was no preacher that went around preaching it that way. It was just a sovereign move of God. If God can move sovereignly to give people an experience in His Spirit, then keep in mind He can move sovereignly to give anyone a revelation also. That is exactly what He did. After a while, when there were a number of men bold enough to accept this revelation of water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, God began to move upon them to go out and preach it. Some of them did; and the Trinitarians persecuted terribly those who followed the oneness revelation. It was like that right on into the mid 1920’s. They were treated like the main line Branham following has always treated us: In other words, like a bunch of renegades that had gone off into fanaticism. The way I see it, a true revelation is just as much of God as any move of the Spirit is. I am thankful for the move of the Spirit we have been witnessing and experiencing: First because this lets me know He is now giving us the Spirit to quicken the truth we have stood for through these many years. I am thankful also for the stimulation that it brings to all who will yield to what God wants to do among us. I have to believe there are those out there in that other element, that at the present time only want to jump and shout, speak in tongues and lay on the floor, that will one of these days in the near future, come around to investigate what is going on here; and it is sad to realize that no matter how many questions they ask, and regardless of how much time you spend answering their questions, they are not going to understand the revelation we have. Foolish virgins cannot become wise virgins.

NEW DENOMINATIONS THAT CAME INTO EXISTENCE

Let us take a little time to look at another point. As the oneness people began to go forth, there were also the Trinitarians making it hard for them. The first denomination of such, was The Assemblies of God. Then as time passed, there came another denominational organization called The Pentecostal Church of God. Then here comes Free Pentecost. Then the Church of God of Prophecy. All those Pentecostal, tongue speaking groups were denominating because somewhere they held to a little portion of scripture they felt was important enough for them to formulate their experience around and bring it into a denominational structure. They felt that was the only way they could control some kind of fanatical trend that might take hold. I have to say, to formulate a denomination and organization is the last thing on earth you need, when you are trying to deal with heresy or fanaticism. When you absolutely put things in writing that stipulate what you believe, or will allow someone else to believe, you just as well go to the door and put a lock on it and say, God, don’t come in here anymore. On the other hand, if we determine to move with God, yes, we will sometimes have to tolerate a lot of nonsense; but just as sure as God will let some things that are foolish appear, it is His Spirit in our midst that will show what is right and put everything in its place when the time comes. He is a teacher and guide along with everything else He is. When we look back to the book of Acts, there was Ananias and Sapphira, a husband and wife that coveted together to be deceptive. The Church had pledged all their excess possessions to be pooled and distributed to the needy. Then when Ananias and Sapphira who had also made such a pledge, sold a possession and secretly kept back a certain amount of the money they received; God would not let a lie like that go without Him dealing with it. When they came in unaware of what was about to happen, before the sun went down that day both Ananias and Sapphira were dead. God had men standing by to take them out and bury them. You may say, Was what they did really all that serious? God could not allow such an example to go untouched when He was establishing a pattern of what His true Church was to be like. It was not the money: It was the deception God was dealing with. Notice what Peter said to Ananias as we read three verses of it. (Acts 5:3-5) “But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? (4) Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. (5) And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.” When man takes it upon himself to do what only God should be doing he is locking the door against the very One that makes it all worth while. That is what denominations have done to the Spirit of God: exercised their own will over the will of God: just like Ananias and Sapphira did. Along the line of their denominational structures, when the oneness people began to move out and segregate, here came the UPC, The United Pentecostal Churches of Christ, then The Pentecostal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then here comes Pentecostal Adventists. People will say, Are there really Pentecostal oneness people that believe in the Sabbath day like that? Yes, there really are. Right down the river going toward home, years ago, there was a man that came into that area and built a little church. The old thing has long ago caved in; but that man was ever so strict on Saturday keeping, (Saturday Sabbath worship) that is when he got his congregation together for worship. He was against certain meats and things like that. He would not even trust his congregation to go to the store and buy their own meat. He went and bought their meat and took it to their homes. When Christianity gets to that place, you can plainly see that it is out of the plan of God. Also all these who hold to speaking in tongues as the initial evidence of the presence of the Holy Ghost are all out of the plan of God. Many of these organizations have built their entire system around this experience; and I assure you, It is a foundation that is actually going to crumble. God put every one of these things to the test when He sent a prophet messenger to this Age, and your denominational doctrines did not pass the test. They do not meet the scriptural requirements. I know your doctors of divinity do not believe the scriptures make any provision for a prophet to this Laodicean Age: so I want to say some things just for their benefit: knowing that sooner or later some of them will either hear this on tape or read it in the Contender. I want to say it in a way so that when they do hear it or read it, they will have to go to the Bible and check it out. An awful lot of them do not even understand the seven Church Ages in the first place. They pay no attention to the writings in the book of Revelation, the part that pertains to the seven distinct Ages, or periods of time the New Testament Church will pass through. They just simply do not see that there are seven Ages represented in those seven local churches of Asia. Therefore they would not see that there were seven outstanding men through time, that really stand out as star messengers of their particular hour. They would rather remain in spiritual ignorance.

TWO ELIJAH’S OF MALACHI’S PROPHECY

I want us to take a brief look at some things written in the Bible: for I believe these things we will look at can present the whole picture of things people argue about; and do it in the light of the scriptures. I do not have to read every scripture right now: I can just refer to them and you can read them later. Most of your denominational doctors of divinity will say, The Bible does not say God will send the Spirit of Elijah back again. I say, Oh yes it does: if you know how to read it. Let us just see what the Bible says about that. (Malachi 4) Every one of you sitting here today already know what I am going to present: It is very familiar to you I know; but there will be some read this in the Contender that it is not so familiar to. I am thankful I do know it: for I believe it is necessary, in order to know where we are in time. The Bible says this; and Malachi wrote this four hundred years before the first advent of Christ. Malachi was the last prophet of the Old Testament dispensation; and here is what he wrote, “Behold I will send you Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” That speaks of two definite things this spirit of Elijah will do: Turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers. Elijah was a God identifying prophet. That is something no one can deny; but I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have heard Gentile people say, I don’t see in the Bible that God is ever to send a prophet to Gentiles. Or they will say, It is not even in the Bible: that God ever called anyone other than a Jew to be a prophet. Well saints, I just have to answer, How about this scripture here in Malachi, written by the last prophet of the Law age, the last writing prophet? He gave us this prophecy that has a future fulfillment: so when was it to be fulfilled? If he spoke about the coming of this Elijah, who was to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, what could that possible pertain to? and the heart of the children to their fathers, what does that pertain to? Let us just allow the written word of God to answer those questions for us. We will pick it up in Matthew, for our first reference. There are two other appearances of the Elijah spirit before this one of Moses with Elijah; but let us establish the whole thing with this one event described by Matthew. Jesus had just finished saying to those which were following Him that day, (MAT 16:28) “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.” Then as you go into chapter 17, you find recorded there the event we are going to read. (Matthew 17:1-13) “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, (2) And was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light. (3) And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him. (4) Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. (5) While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. (6) And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. (7) And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. (8) And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. (9) And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead. (10) And His disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? (11) And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. (12) But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. (13) Then the disciples understood that He spake unto them of John the Baptist.” In the vision, the disciples, all three of them, heard Moses and Elias talking to Jesus of the things He was going to suffer on the cross. Notice, what this vision was really doing. It had a two fold objective. No. 1, It gave a precise type of something that will precede the coming of the Lord Jesus in His second advent. He will definitely be preceded by the coming of Moses and Elijah. There you connect it with Revelation 11, verses 3-12. They are the two witnesses mentioned there. Well does this tell us anything about that Elijah spirit? It emphatically declares that God will send the spirit of Elijah as well as the spirit of Moses to rest upon two Jewish men in the first three and a half years of the seventieth week of Daniel. Those two Jews will be prophets for the end time hour; and they must come prior to the literal bodily return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, while coming back down from the mountain, Jesus warned the disciples: “Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen from the dead.” They began to ask Him, Why do the scribes say that Elias must come and restore all things? He begins to tell them something that I want to be sure you catch. He said this, “I say unto you Elias has already come and they have done to him whatsoever they would.” Then they understood that He was speaking to them of John the Baptist. Let us go back to another setting here in the gospel according to Matthew: where Jesus vindicated that John the Baptist was really that Elijah that Isaiah prophesied about. Some disciples of John, while John was in prison, were sent out to ask Jesus, Are you the ONE we look for, or do we look for another? He just told those disciples of John this, Go and tell John of the things you have witnessed: (Matthew 11:5-6) “How the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. (6) And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” When they had departed Jesus took the scriptures, Isaiah 40:3 and referred to John as being the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and then He follows that up, and if you can accept it, this is he who really was the Elijah for the hour. Let us go ahead and read that. (Matthew 11:7-14) “And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? (8) But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. (9) But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. (10) For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. (11) Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (12) And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. (13) For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. (14) And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.” How do we link this up? Keep in mind, the first advent of Christ brought an end to the old covenant: which was the Jewish Law. Christ is the end of the Law to every one that believeth, is that right? That is laid down by Paul’s teaching. We know also, that according to Jeremiah, a new covenant will He make with the house of Israel after those days. This is also in Malachi 3, about the messenger of the covenant that was to come. This lets us know that the first advent of Christ was preceded by John the Baptist: who was the Elijah of that hour. That set the stage for the man who was going to be the messenger of the new covenant; and that man was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the ONE who was going to activate this new covenant. What was the new covenant? It was the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost: when about one hundred and twenty disciples of Jesus received the experience while waiting in an upper room for the promise of the Father: as instructed by Jesus. When this new covenant went into effect, the old covenant had done all it was ever to do. From then on, it was a new covenant, and a new faith, and the children in that hour, that the heart of the fathers was to be turned to, were those that were going out to hear John. They were Jews right from the congregations of those old Judaistic teachers and leaders of that hour. They went out asking questions. We can see it was out of that following of John, those which became the children of the new covenant. They were the ones that eventually followed Jesus and went to the upper room: where they waited for and received this new infilling of the Spirit of God. To this element was added the apostle Paul. He was called and ordained to be the messenger to the Gentiles.

THE CHURCH WAS ROBBED

The apostle Paul preached the same revelation to the Gentiles that Peter, James, John and all of them preached to the Jews. However as time passed, and those apostles of Jesus passed off the scene, the spirit of antichrist began to work through certain individuals to rob the Church of the true revelation it had been founded upon. Satan, coming at the Church in a deceptive manner, just little by little stripped her of the true revelation of the word of God. Through the centuries of time, as the Church was stripped of her original revelation, God little by little withdrew His Spirit likewise. Every truth the Church lost in that manner, caused her to lose also something of the initial Holy Ghost experience the first Church enjoyed. When time moved into the Dark Age period, there was very little left of the original apostolic gospel. It was just a body of people motivated by tradition. That is why for a thousand years, which was the devil’s millennium, people said, Hail Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death and all such as that. None of those Christians of that first Age ever prayed to Mary. They all knew who their prayers were to be directed to. Jesus taught His disciples how to pray. (Matthew 6:6) “Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” In John 16, verse 23, Jesus instructed His disciples to pray to the Father, in His name. We will read verse 23; but there are other verses that go with what is being said. “And in that day (after He has ascended to heaven) ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.” Anyhow by the time the Church was found in that long period known as the Dark Ages, she had been stripped of every doctrine of the New Testament. That is why there had to be a period of time that we now refer to as the Reformation? A lot of the church people of the world do not realize why there had to be a Reformation; but that is because they are still trying to do something for God (as they might say) still living under a cloud of darkness. Revelation of the word of God, IS LIGHT. Furthermore you now have doctors of divinity out there caught up in this Charismatic realm, and many of them are saying Luther, Calvin, and those men were crazy; and that there never should have been such an hour as that: when they protested against that old system of bondage. Through those men, God restored to believers many of the truths Satan had robbed the Church of. I have to say, Thank God for every one of them. That was God’s way of re-structuring His truth: It was His way of making it accessible to individual believers once again. The Church was set free from Roman Catholic domination a little at a time. However as soon as He would restore a truth, carnal minded mankind was ready to fence it in and denominate it. God would restore another truth; and man was ready to organize it. Just as fast as He could restore a truth, there stood someone ready to organizes it. On and on they went with this thing until the world became filled with denominational church systems all claiming to be the true Church of the living God. Where did that leave the end time children of this Grace Age? We can say really, We are the children of the old apostolic fathers because we are believing potentially on the merits of what they wrote. Is that not right? It is not what the old covenant contained, It is what the new covenant contained: that we have to know, in order to make ourselves ready to meet the Lord Jesus when He comes for His bride Church. Satan had stripped away the true revelation; and what had been restored was all mixed up and scattered to the four winds; so here we are, sitting in these denominational churches, ignorant of God’s true purpose and void of a true understanding of what this new covenant was all about, this covenant that was given to the Gentiles in a true revelation nineteen hundred years ago. Where is this covenant, as the Grace Age is coming to a close? Is it with the Jews? No, it is with us Gentiles. I do not want any doctor of divinity saying that we do not have the same covenant the Jews that were gathered in the upper room had. The Gentiles have been entrusted with the responsibility of keeping it until such time as it should go back to the Jews; but it was Gentiles (our forefathers) that let the devil strip it of its original apostolic meaning. This makes it necessary for there to come an Elijah spirit, not to the Jews to straighten up the gospel for them: but to the Gentiles, to straighten up this end time Church that Jesus is coming for. Do not think for one minute He is coming for a bunch of Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians and what-have-you: as they perceive it to be out there. They do not even want truth. They are content just to observe their little rituals week after week and pretend that God is well please with them. That is what made it necessary for God to send a man to this Age, (A prophet messenger) and vindicate his ministry, and use him to speak Thus saith the Lord, concerning things that were shown to him. We can say this, The last thing that God did of any major extent, was give the revelation of His Godhead and true water baptism to some people in the Pentecostal hour that had its beginning back around the turn of the century. That is right where the messenger to this Age picked up. Here he came down the road, Get back to the word! Get back to God’s word! He preached sanctification, he preached justification, he preached the baptism of the Holy Ghost, signs and wonders, water baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the second coming of Jesus Christ. He preached all those major doctrinal truths and very emphatically that Jesus is NOT the second person of the trinity your denominational systems preach about. He is not the second person of a trinity, He is the only person of the Godhead. The Creator, the very God of heaven was incarnate in this perfect, and completely obedient Son of His, whose name was Jesus; and who was called THE CHRIST. This is the way that prophet messenger to this Age presented God to the people he preached to. He presented the gospel message to this generation in its original form: just like the apostles of old preached it. The point I really want you to see though, is that just as John the Baptist was that Elijah to his generation, to prepare a people for the first coming of Jesus Christ, when He came to set this new covenant in motion, This man, William Marrion Branham, was that Elijah to this generation, to prepare a people for the next coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He comes to reap the fruit of this new covenant which has been a covenant of grace to Gentiles. That fulfills what Malachi wrote about God sending Elijah the prophet. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great (When Jesus came the first time, that was the GREAT DAY OF THE LORD; and John the Baptist came with that Elijah anointing upon him and turned the heart of those Judaistic fathers to the children. They became the children of this new covenant; but there was no way John could have fulfilled the second part of that verse; because the DREADFUL DAY OF THE LORD HAS NOT COME YET. Let us finish reading it.) and dreadful day of the Lord: It is obvious to anyone that this is a two fold prophecy; and it is certainly obvious to us that there was to be a great span of time elapse between the great day of His coming and the dreadful day of His coming. The dreadful day, will be when He comes to pour out the wrath of God on this generation of wicked people living here on earth at the end of this new covenant period of time. (6) And he (this Elijah) shall turn the heart of the FATHERS TO THE CHILDREN (That was done two thousand years ago, when John came with that God identifying anointing of Elijah upon him.) and the heart of the children to their fathers, (This is the part Bro. William Branham fulfilled when he came to this Laodicean Age with that same anointing upon him.) lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” That word LEST, could have been translated BEFORE. That is exactly what it means. All of this had to be accomplished before the Lord smites the earth with that curse, or judgment that is awaiting this wicked generation. That will get the predestinated children of God out of here before it comes. John’s part in this was directed to the Jews. They were the first to receive this new covenant of grace. He turned the heart of the fathers to the children. They became the children of this new covenant. Then the gospel was given to the Gentiles; and over a process of time the message of it became so defiled it could not be recognized as the same gospel preached by the apostles of Jesus Christ. That made it necessary for something to be done to turn the heart’s of these children of God in this generation back to the faith of their apostolic fathers: which we all understand was Matthew, Peter, James, John, Paul and all the rest of those apostles of that first Age. It is a beautiful picture; and I am very thankful to God for allowing me to be a part of what He is doing in this hour of time. We are enjoying an outpouring of the Spirit of God that is designed to finish up what those anointed servants of God were used by Him to prepare His people for. Mortal man has his plans; but God’s plans are greater and we need to always be ready to submit ourselves to the leading of the Holy Ghost so we will carry out God’s plans.

QUOTE FROM BRIDE TREE MESSAGE BY BRO. BRANHAM

I would like at this time, to read something Bro. William Branham said when he was preaching the Bride Tree message. I will be reading it from his own words when he was preaching on the Church Ages. (Page 51) “The vine has been split and limbs have been grafted in. (How true. Think of it, when it did die off coming into the Dark Ages, then the minute it did spring out a new shoot, man takes and organizes it. The organization of this move is the same as a man going out to a peach tree and doing that grafting work, I have seen my dad do it, and graft in the limb of another tree. Let us continue) They have grafted in Baptist limbs, Methodist limbs, Presbyterian limbs, (when you get all these people together, the Methodists only know Methodist theology, Baptists only know Baptist theology, Presbyterians only know Presbyterian theology. They cannot all sit together as Bible believing Christians without somehow or other projecting the idea, I just do not believe they are as near right as we are. I remember the time when Methodists doubted that any Baptists person was even saved. I remember the time when a Baptist stood in the front door of Rogers Campground Church when they were having a hymn singing and overheard him tell a Baptist lady how the Methodists were wrong in teaching sanctification. That is the way the old timers used to look at each other. The Church of Christ are the same way. Presbyterians are the same way. They all thought they were it; and that no one else could be anything. It is just the way they interpreted the Bible. That is why Bro. William Branham would talk like he did. They are all limbs of course; and whatever life they have, they all have to derive their life from the same source. Therefore knowing that, we know that they can only be limbs manifesting fruit of their own kind.) and Pentecostal limbs. And those limbs are bearing Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal and Presbyterian fruit. Denominational seeds from which they produce their fruit. But if the vine ever brings forth another branch of itself, (Praise the Lord for this.) that branch will be exactly like the vine itself. It will be the same kind of branch that was brought forth at Pentecost. (Listen to this.) It will speak in tongues, prophesy, and have the power and signs of the resurrected Jesus Christ in it. Why? Because it is thriving on the natural resources of the vine itself.” How wonderful. Now let me turn to another place where he referred to it again. (Page 67) “What the church had at Pentecost is her inalienable right. Originally, she had the pure Word of God. She had the power of the Spirit manifested in divers signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Ghost.” (Heb. 2:1-4) “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience (to the Word) received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?” That original church was not organized by men. It was led by the Holy Ghost. It wasn’t very big. It was hated and despised. It was oppressed. It was persecuted unto death. But it was true to God. It stayed with the original Word pattern. (That is why if we will accept this move of God and allow the Spirit of God to implant in us, cultivate in us, place us within His body so that we respond and react and be something God can use for His glory, one of these days God is going to let that miserable church world take a look at His true Church: because she is going to be scattered all over this world. God has a few things to say to them. Now let me continue reading what he says,) The True Church will always try to be like the original at Pentecost. The True Church of today will try to approximate that early first one. And the messengers to the churches, having the same Spirit of God in them, will try to approximate the apostle Paul. They won’t be exactly like him; but the true messengers will be the ones that come the closest to Paul, who was free of all men, sold out to God, and gave forth the word of God only, and manifested the Holy Ghost in power. None else would do. You have to work from the original. As like begets like, the True Church will always be the one who tries to follow in the steps of her founders at Pentecost; and her messengers will follow the apostle Paul, the first messenger to the first church age. It is that simple, and that wonderful.” That is why I have to say, God, by His grace, for some reason, saw fit to signal us out. We sit down here on a dead end road; but inside of us I believe there is something that is not going to stop because of some manmade fence that cuts us off from the Interstate Highway. The true Church of the living God is destined to go out of here one of these days; and it will be because she has believed this word of God and submitted to the revelation of it. I am thankful for this truth. I love it. I just pray God will continue to lead us right on to the end. It is not a matter of whether He will or not: it is a matter of whether we follow faithfully or not. I intend to show you how these poor, blind, denominational people just follow their programs and do not even realize what is going on in their midst. They enjoy the blessings of this move in their midst; but there is no revelation to give it any direction that God will accept in the end. They do not even know how to detect what is of God and what is of the devil. What a pitiful shame. I have to say, Thank you Lord for all that you have done to give every individual person the chance to follow you in truth. What a wonderful God. Praise His great name! Hallelujah!

WHAT WILL THE YEAR 1995 BRING?

Let us go back to Matthew 25. I pray that we can make the things we say in this message have some real meaning to you; so I want to read this parable again before going farther. It is the foundation on which we build this entire message we have titled “FROM AZUSA STREET UNTIL NOW.” The purpose in this is to try to get an understanding of what has taken place in the past number of years from 1906 until our present day. This is still 1994, as we preach this message: ready to break into the new year of 1995. All these things we have up here on our chart are things related to movements of God in the past. We used this when we were preaching the message, “THE BRIDE’S ANOINTING.” We believe in this anointing and this moving of the Spirit. God is not only pouring out His Spirit with these manifestations: He is also bringing His true Church back into the full relationship of His word. The year ahead, 1995, will bring many things to light. God is again dealing with His Church as He did in the beginning. It was founded upon the revelation of truth that was preached by the apostles of Christ; and God intends for the end time Church to be exactly like it was in the beginning. Jesus will not come for it until it is. God will not reap from what He sowed in the beginning, something altogether different than the seed He sowed to set the Church in motion. Nevertheless from the Azusa Street meeting that followed from 1906 right on through the different decades, there have been manifestations of all these things we are talking about. Furthermore it was not only at Azusa Street; but when men began to come from the ends of the earth to receive that wonderful experience at Azusa Street, they began to go to the various places of the world and speak of it and there began to be revival fires break out that were spreading the Azusa Street message. Jesus spoke a parable to His disciples shortly before His departure that we want to consider. Many times in the religious world these parables are looked upon as irrelevant to our situation. They try to place them back in the days of the apostles or the early Church, making them irrelevant to a present day experience with the Lord. That is because they do not understand them. It is true a parable does not always bring out every little detail; but it does give you an overall picture of how a certain span of time and spiritual things that are related to the kingdom of God will be affected; and how those in the kingdom of God will react and express themselves within that time factor. The parable itself starts out because Jesus has been speaking of signs of the end time. That is why we can quote the 24th chapter with these various things: they are going on in the world right now. When Jesus had spoken them, He put this word THEN, in the fore front of what He was going to project. T-h-e-n, is a future tense word. It has no other application in time such as relative to the apostolic age of early Christianity, or any other time such as in the Dark Ages. It is only applicable to now: since we are now living in the time the word THEN, pointed to. He says, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven (The kingdom of heaven is referring to a span of time. It has been in effect ever since the birth of the Church at Pentecost, 2000 years ago; and will terminate whenever God cuts off this grace age to the Gentiles: which is when He will again turn back to the Jews. The kingdom of heaven is that span of time, but the kingdom of God is that which is in the Bible believing people during that span of time. The two must go together. You would not have a kingdom of heaven if you did not have something going on within that period of time. Look at it in this light, Jesus is saying the kingdom of heaven will be a span of time, that in the end will be likened unto the parable He is giving. Let us read the rest of it.) be likened unto ten virgins.” I do not necessarily have to read it all, but I want to come on down here to where it says FIVE WERE WISE AND FIVE WERE FOOLISH. The numbers five, and ten are only symbolic: they are not pointing to any specific number of people. It says they all slumbered and slept: Both the wise and the foolish. This is definitely a picture of how the Laodicean Age was, which had its beginning at the beginning of the 20th century, starting in 1900. The reason we have 1906 on our chart is because that is when the Azusa Street revival started. However according to the history recorded in this other book, the initial outpouring of the Spirit actually started January 1, 1900, in Topeka Kansas. A man by the name of Charles Parham and a group of about forty of his people, are the ones that witnessed this event. They were the fore runners. They were to this age of Pentecostalism much like Cornelius’ household was in the book of Acts: when just a few years later, God opened up the dispensation of Grace and gave the gospel to the Gentiles. Following that, the apostle Paul went into Asia and began to preach; and God gave him that great revival we have already mentioned. We find here in this parable though, that it says they all slumbered and slept. This is the condition Christendom as a whole was found in as we began to approach the middle of this twentieth century. I am saying these things because of what I am looking at right now. It is apparent that the Laodicean Age will have an approximate period of time of about one hundred years, starting from the beginning of the century; and we are just six years away from the year 2000 at this very time. With all the signs in the world today, we can see that we are definitely living in the later days of that period of time Jesus spoke of. It says in this parable, in verse 5, “While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight (This calls our attention to a dramatic point of interest, AT MIDNIGHT; and I have to say, Apparently the religious world did not know when midnight came. God knew though. That is the way we have to look at it.) there was a cry made.” For some reason the religious world has still not become aware of the fact that there was a cry made. Yet we can say since there was a cry, that there has definitely been a dramatic change take place. Since that cry went forth, we find that the religious world began to be faced with two ultimatums. One group definitely began to move in a certain direction, a direction that definitely identifies them as FOOLISH VIRGINS because of the way they look at time, and at the coming of the Lord. They are definitely the foolish virgin element: Each one of them fulfilling their lot. At the same time there is definitely another element of people going forth in the earth; and they are called the WISE VIRGINS. This division is fulfilling scripture precisely: because in other parables it speaks of how at the end time there is definitely to be a SEPARATION; and it is very strange that the religious world which has these same written scriptures, seems not to be aware of how to look upon these particular passages that bring out the separation part.

WHY THE MIDNIGHT CRY?

We want to take a few minutes to deal with this MIDNIGHT CRY. Keep in mind, God knew the hour of importance, when it should be necessary that a cry be made. The religious world about us does not even realize there has been a cry. If they did, they would be going in a different direction. Nevertheless the cry was made. “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.” This is a general picture of waking up and realizing that a revival spirit has hit the scene. All of that began to be evident as the war years of WW2 came to a close and we come into the 1950’s. One of the greatest eras of world revival broke forth in that period. It covers a period of approximately ten years. While it is true in the United States, which had the greatest number of those preachers, and because time always moves westward, importance, or preeminence lay here in a western part of the world where this move would eventually start. Once it had started, throughout that era of time this spirit of revival began to hit the entire world. What we need to realize though, is that it did not wake up everyone to have the same understanding of the word of God. Some awakened to see one thing, others to see something else. We can ask ourselves then, Why was it like that? Simply because God’s word already pictures it to be like that. We must ask ourselves the simple question, Why did some respond to the cry being so unprepared? Simply because of who they were: They were foolish virgins. It was the wise people (virgins) that had the spiritual mind and understanding to know where that cry came from and how to respond to it. Otherwise they would not be considered to be wise virgins. Therefore the wise virgins not only heard a cry, but they responded to it the right way. When they were awakened they knew what direction to go in. You must realize saints, This parable was never meant to be fulfilled in a time factor of three or four years. It has to linger here in this earth long enough for the fulfillment of it to have an entire global, or universal application. Nothing that pertains to the bride Church takes place so fast it cannot possibly circle the globe. Always remember, God’s true Church is made up of people from every nation under heaven; and they every one have to be made aware of what God in doing on their behalf. You just simply do not bring something about like that in a two or three year period of time. It is definitely something that lasts long enough that the first ones that began to respond to it in one part of the world actually have time to bring on another generation before the end of it is reached. The younger generation will have their part in it even though they were not the ones that were alive when the parable started to have its effect. As we speak of it today, we realize that the cry has now been in the earth long enough for its effects to be witnessed around the world and we truly believe the end of it is in sight. As we said earlier in this message, When the Azusa Street revival broke out, it benefited many of the old holiness type people, Methodists, Church of God, Nazarene, other independent like holiness, it also affected many Baptists and even some Catholics; but it mainly affected various holiness groups. The reason I say that, is because this was an experience in which God was opening up the door to receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost; and these people, no matter what their denomination or doctrinal belief was, this anointing was poured out upon them and they all received this experience of speaking in tongues. Right behind that experience there came healing. That was followed with prophecy and many other dramatic experiences. I have read how most all these moves that have followed that one through various decades since Azusa Street, all seemed to reach a certain peak before starting to taper off. I just want to say to all our young people, You have not seen the full scope or depth of this experience yet: You have only experienced the outer fringes of it. It is recorded, that at times, in some of these groups that experienced what you have been experiencing, there were times when without any effort on the part of the people to bring it about, the Spirit would fall upon them and all of a sudden they were every one caught up in a spirit of praise and before long they were all singing in another language. They become so carried away in excitement, they were just like what the sister was telling us about: where two such sisters in the Lord were lying in their bed talking to each other in another language. Mentally, maybe they knew what they were talking about; but if anyone else had heard them, they would not have known what they were talking about. The point is, When God gets the heart of people, and their attention focused just right, He has a way of dropping His presence upon them and lifting them up into the ecstasy of His anointing. Many times they are not aware of everything that is taking place: simply because they are so overwhelmed by the joy of how they feel. That many times, is when God will anoint them and they will begin to sing in other languages. There is no doubt in my mind, that such an experience is headed our way. We have already seen some wonderful things; but as our Brother preached the other night, “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.” Knowing that, I would say to you, Let us prepare our hearts for whatever God sees fit to do in our midst: because it is His good pleasure to bless those that are His. He is going to finish this thing according to His plan and we do not want to look at it as if it is all going to be finished in six months. The midnight cry has sounded and we have heard it; but there is no way for us to know how much time God has allotted for the full scope of this parable; so we just need to keep our heart’s in tune with the leading of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to bless us in whatever way He sees fit. As long as this parable hangs over us He is going to be doing things that will be unannounced; so we just need to be ready to move with Him. He is not going to tell you a month ahead of time what to get ready for. There is something I want to bring out here, concerning the midnight cry. It has to be a ministry, a man that has definitely been sent forth by God. Denominational religion will fuss and fight about this; but I want to state emphatically that God is completely bypassing their doctors of divinity with all of this. They all have their degrees of ecclesiastical learning; and they can use words that a man like me would have to spend a lot of time looking up the meaning of; but that is not what God is using in this hour of time. They have all had their place in time; but we are living in an hour when God has gone off and left them sitting behind their denominational fences. He is going to show the world what He can do by the power of His own Spirit, in the mind’s and lives of people who will take His word to mean exactly what it says. Not necessarily that they are illiterate, but they are willing to submit their mind’s and their spirit’s to the living God whose purpose they are committed to fulfill. He can take a person with common education and literally confound the wise and prudent of this world. It is established in the scriptures, that this is the type of people He used to usher in the Age of New Testament Christianity. Jesus chose uneducated fishermen right from the beginning, to proclaim this wonderful gospel of our salvation. Therefore having said all of this I now say, The audible voice God used for this midnight cry, could be none other than the voice of a man who lived in this Jeffersonville, Indiana area whose name was William Marrion Branham. He was definitely the man who fulfilled Malachi 4 for this age and time. Doctors of divinity from all ecclesiastical organizations will literally fight that idea saying, It is unscriptural. They will say, That cannot be proven. Well saints, by the time we get this message finished, I expect to establish by the scriptures themselves that what we teach about this, is right in line with what is written in the Bible that we anchor all our hope and faith upon.

EXPLANATION OF CRY AND OF THE SHOUT

God has hidden all of the deeper spiritual truths from the professing realm of religious people in the world who have no real interest in the doctrinal precepts of the scriptures; therefore they are blind, spiritually speaking. Keep in mind what the apostle Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans concerning the blindness that had come upon the Jews until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. (Romans 11:7-8) “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election (the Jews that believed the Gospel) hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (8) According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day.” When those Jews of that first Age rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ, God just simply blinded their eyes and left them where they were, spiritually speaking; and turned to the Gentiles with the wonderful, good news of the gospel; and Jews as a whole have been in that state of blindness ever since then. They will remain like that until God is finished dealing with every individual, predestinated Gentile person who will ever trust Jesus for their salvation. Paul made it very clear that the same God that blinded Israel and grafted in wild olive branches (Gentiles) will in the end time graft in again the natural branches; and it will be when Gentiles left alive on earth have come to look upon Jesus with the same unbelief those Jews did two thousand years ago. I say, We are just about there. Let us read some more of that 11th chapter of Romans. (15) “For if the casting away of them (Unbelieving Jews) be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (17) And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, (Gentiles) being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; (18) Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. (19) Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. (20) Well; BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: (21) For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee. (22) Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. (23) And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. (25) For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” God, in the end time, when His purpose is fulfilled, He will break the Gentiles off, which are wild olive branches, and turn right back to Israel, which are the natural olive branches, therefore fulfilling His whole plan. The key is one of two things: either belief, or unbelief. Among the Gentiles you find more churches, more programs about religion, all kinds of ideas about Jesus Christ, and about the coming of the Lord, yet they are totally ignorant as to how to relate all of what they talk about to the Bible. All of that fulfills scripture though; so we are definitely living in a time when the Gentile church world, which has had ample opportunity to really see time and the plan of God as related to the Bible, have held to church creeds and programs of man instead. It is evident that self will and unbelief is creating the very conditions of the end time. Anyhow to get back to the cry, it corresponds precisely with what Paul says in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. He said it like this, concerning the last days, (1 Thessalonians 4:16) “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a SHOUT, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” Of course the denominational church world with their theological concept of this verse, will always picture Jesus standing on a cloud, shouting with a great shout. Well let us just take that picture and try to pursue that route. Would there be anyone out there that would have ears that would even hear Him do it? Remember saints, that shout is for a definite reason. Why say He comes on a cloud and shouts, unless there is some kind of recipient on earth that is in position with God to hear that shout. Surely those theologians cannot interpret 1st Thessalonians in such a carnal way, when none of them are able to explain how that shout is related to what God is doing. God help them. Then it says, “with the voice of the archangel.” I challenge any of them to explain how that is related. Who is going to respond to this voice of the archangel? It surely has to be some people that somehow or other that voice of the archangel can relate to. It is evident the religious world is not being related to it: when they know not what it pertains to. Then the last thing of that verse says, “and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” You every one know good and well that a dead man in the ground cannot hear anything. When we take that back to the scriptures, where Paul explains that God, when He sends Christ the second time, that He will bring all those righteous saints with Him, that lets us know for sure, The trump of God is not going to sound from the portals of glory at any other time than when the Lord comes back and the spirits of all those deceased saints are coming with Him. Therefore when He does proclaim that trumpet sound for the dead in Christ to rise, those spirits are going to be there with Him, to be reunited with their glorified bodies. That lets us know, as we back up to the other two components of that verse, the shout, and the voice of the archangel, they have to be something related to living people. That is why I want to impress upon you that the SHOUT of 1st Thessalonians 4, is exactly the same as the MIDNIGHT CRY of Matthew 25. It is very evident that your denominational church people want to think that everyone on this earth professing to be children of God, if they do not belong to one of their organizations, is in a cult, or crazy, or both. All these cult things we see out here are a sign of the end time. The sad part is, those systems of religion want to brand people like us a cult and scare other people away. We have to realize truth comes right down the middle of the road and sometimes gets so close to fanaticism that is scares the daylights out of people who have no revelation of truth. On the other hand, they will take tradition and dress it up in a beautiful box with pretty ribbons and all kinds of trimmings and spend most of their time admiring the thing because it is so pleasing to their carnal flesh. If you want to run from something, run from that: because it is pure carnality. It is only the carnal mind that looks at religion in a way that causes them to dress it up and make it look beautiful. That is how people react when they have no revelation knowledge whatsoever of what God is doing in this dispensation of grace. Well saints, I do not claim to know everything there is to know about God; but I do know He sent out a CRY (or shout) precisely at a time to accomplish something very important in this parable. This man (Bro. Branham) brought a message right out of the word of God that had the effect that midnight cry was to have. This message was to some so simple they could not possibly believe it was inspired of God. It did not come from a theological voice of an educated man with eloquent language and pronunciation and all those dressed up words that literally stupefy people. No one would say of him, Oh he is such a wonderful speaker: like they do of those theologians. Most of the time they did not even know what he had said when they had sat and listened to him. This man talked so simply, mostly in hillbilly language, that the highly educated preachers and educated people who did hear him would say, What is the man talking about? I cannot understand what he is saying. Well you would have to be raised in the country, where people talk like that; or at least be familiar with their words and terminology, in order to catch the revelation instead of criticizing his speech. That is why I have said many times, Those who did not know the man, will never know exactly what he meant just by listening to him. You may hear the words, but you have got to know the man to know what he meant by what he said. Nevertheless God made sure there were some present in his meetings that did understand his speech and understand what he meant. Therefore with that in mind, in the light of this parable, and in the light of what we understand about the purpose of this midnight cry, as we see things going on in the world of religion, it lets us know that whenever in time this parable was to apply itself, there had to definitely be an element of people on earth whose heart’s and lives God deals with to the extent that they become aware of how this parable is to apply itself. It is seeing this and recognizing the time they are living in that helps them know exactly how to let themselves be prepared by the grace and mercy of God to meet the Bridegroom. We have nothing to boast about, as though by our own deeds we merit such favor from God: It just simply boils down to the fact that those who have ears to hear and eyes to see what God is doing in this generation were foreknown of Him before the foundation of the world. It was By His own foreknowledge, that He knew who would respond to the messenger and message of the hour in which each one of His foreknown children lived. He leads every one of us according to His foreknowledge. He does not have to guess about anything.

THE CRY WAS MADE WHEN THE TIME WAS RIGHT

This parable of Matthew 25:1-13, causes us to begin to examine the course the Church has followed from the time of the Azusa Street revival until now. Bro. William Branham came on the scene in the early 1930’s. His message was not yet in the beginning heralded to the world. His message did not really begin to go forth like that until after the WW2 years, about 1948, 1949, and 1950. Along about then, his message began to be slowly introduced to the world. As it did, it picked right up with the last important thing that took place in this Azusa Street outpouring. That was the oneness of the Godhead and the proper form of water baptism which God restored to those who would receive it; and those people were baptized again: the way believers were in the first age, as recorded in the book of Acts. His message had those two important ingredients of true Christianity in it. Any time God does something, keep in mind, He can bring in a lot of other people that have not known prior to that time what He has been doing; but the people He uses to be the cradle in which this new thing is born, are always people He picks, that have a knowledge of the last thing He did. Therefore when He moves among them, they know it is time to strike the tent down, tear down denominational ideas and get on the move again with God. Looking back to the people who were effected by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Azusa Street revival, it became obvious coming on into and through the years of the 1920’s, and on into the 1930’s, and through the 1940’s, that the people it had affected, for the most part had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt from the denominational structures they had organized, that they would not move any further in a divine revelation. That is when God sent His messenger to this Age; and his message was a shout which was to awaken, or a cry (which means the same) designed to cause an alarm to go forth, declaring that something is about to take place. When we look back at those early years of His ministry, more and more it becomes evident that the multitudes that attended his meetings wanted the gift, the supernatural manifestation and such like: They all enjoyed those things. why? Because that is basically what the Azusa Street outpouring was: speaking in tongues, restoration of the supernatural, vindicated with divine healing. Pentecostals had lived on that, coming on out through the years. This is exactly why they had no basic foundational teachings to take that experience and become grounded in the word of God. That caused them as the years went on, to slowly began to divide and organize, and go right back into the same framework of spirit as their predecessors had. That made it impossible for that particular move of the Spirit to go any further, to the point where it could bring on any further revelation than what those people would receive, or allow. God came on the scene with this message: which in reality was the CRY of Matthew 25, and the Holy Spirit those people received was the same Holy Spirit the others received; but when the cry was made, there began to be a division set up. As time passed it became discernible that there were people awakened to the reality that something had been said that was going to make a difference in the way they looked at Christianity from then on. In their heart’s they determined to know what the Spirit of God was doing for their day and hour. This is the picture that describes a wise virgin. They know something has been said that is important to them; and they go forth reaching out for it at any cost. Some were fortunate enough to be close by to hear the initial cry. They were some of the first ones that began to wake up to the reality of what it was all about. These are things that can naturally be explained if you look at it right. You know good and well you can take ten thousand people, put them out here in the open country side, and let them all go to sleep; and regardless of what happens, they will not all wake up at the same time. Some people do not sleep as sound as others. Some sleep with one eye open. Some people snore: Just dead to the world. Some just cat nap through the night. That is a picture of a lot of people in the various levels of spirituality. Then when you do make a sound to wake the whole thing up, you know good and well it does not bring an instantaneous response from everyone. No, there are always those that sleep shallow, they are the first to hear the noise. Their feet hit the floor and they are instantaneously putting their clothing on. It is the racket and commotion of the first ones reacting like this, that eventually awakens the others. They rub their eyes, What is going on? What are you putting your clothes on for? Then you are the ones that have to explain to them what is going on. It was like that in the Army. Some of those guys, when they went to sleep, they snored, you could hear them from half a city block away. It takes more to awaken them than it does those who sleep lightly. It is the same way spiritually. My point is this, It is a fact that not everyone awakens instantly when a noise is made. Not everyone responds to the same thing. That is why, when this cry was sent forth, there is a time factor involved for it to begin its application in the earth. We can look back and see that when this man’s message, (this cry) began to be proclaimed, which was all within the framework of this Azusa Street outpouring, and which is now embraced in all your Pentecostal systems of religion, they did not want anything to do with this man’s message. That was, and is the pathetic situation in the world today: They do not want to hear a thing he ever said. As long as he would stand on their platform’s and minister to their sick folks with those gifts of the Spirit, the Baptists, the Catholic priests, the Lutheran priests, all these ecclesiastical big shots of religion would sit there in awe. This uneducated man could stand there in the largest auditoriums they had, with thousands of people packed into them, so it was utterly impossible to look back through those crowds of several thousand people and see with the natural eye; and describe in detail the clothing a person sitting way in the back was wearing. He would stand and look back across the audience, way back when it was far beyond a man’s normal 20-20 vision, and describe their clothing, tell them where they were from and what they were asking God for. The Spirit of God within the man just lifted up such a person in a vision and brought that person right before him. I have watched it. When the Spirit would move like that and bring someone into his focus you would hear things like, You are not from here, you are from the state of Oregon, telling them their house number and all such like. Listen to me saints, That is not fortune telling, that is the power of God in operation. That is the same vision Jesus had when they brought Nathaniel to Him. When the disciples found Nathaniel, there he was sitting under a fig tree, grumbling and griping. He was one of those habitual complainers. We have a lot of them in the world today. Ask them how they are, and they will give you their whole life’s history. Anyhow when Jesus got through speaking to Nathaniel he knew that was no ordinary man standing before him: He proclaimed, (John 1:49) “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.” He knew that was more than just a man standing there. I have seen those ecclesiastical big shots sit there with tears flowing down their face as they would witness the power of God that was manifested through that little man; because they every one knew their theology could not produce anything like that. It did not matter whether there was Pentecostal, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian or what sitting present. It was the power of God being manifested and they all knew it. Tears came streaming from their eyes, they pulled the handkerchief out. Probably the first time they had cried in a coon’s age. Of course a lot of people do not know what that means; because it is also hillbilly language. It sure did not come from a seminary. The point is this, We all want the power of God. That is what Azusa had. As long as they speak in tongues, praise the Lord. As long as they sing in the spirit, praise the Lord. We want more of that; but let him scratch their denominational creed a little and you would hear them squall, Oh no. Now he has gone off into error. He could say, We don’t believe in the trinity: that God is three persons and they would respond, Oh no. Now he is really off at the deep end. Be careful: he could be a false prophet. If he would say, We do not baptized converts in the titles Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we baptize them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They say, That’s it! We have got to do something: This man has gone crazy. It goes to show the religious world does not want God.