The Bride’s Anointing, Part 3

Rev. Raymond M. Jackson

WHAT INTERCESSORY PRAYER IS

AS THE LORD DEALS WITH HIS BRIDE CHURCH IN THE END TIME, WE ARE GOING TO EXPERIENCE SOME THINGS THAT WILL BE COMPLETELY NEW TO A LOT OF PEOPLE. WE ARE GOING TO SEE SOME ANOINTINGS ON VARIOUS ONES THAT WILL GO BEYOND ANYTHING WE HAVE EXPERIENCED TO THIS POINT; BUT REST ASSURED, IT WILL NOT BE FOR THE PURPOSE OF GLORIFYING ANYONE’S FLESH: IT WILL BE FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AS HE LEADS US TOWARD A STATE OF PERFECTION. WE WILL NOT HAVE SELFISH MOTIVES, NOR WILL WE FEEL THAT BECAUSE HE USES US WE ARE BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE. WE WILL LEARN HOW TO RECOGNIZE, AND ALSO HOW TO APPRECIATE OUR ANOINTINGS; AND HOW TO ATTRIBUTE ALL PRAISE TO HIM WHO IS WORTHY OF ALL PRAISE AND WORSHIP.

Through the years of time I have heard people talk about intercessory prayer; and heard others say, What is that? If you have never experienced it, you would not know exactly, what it is: You would need someone to explain it to you. Intercessory prayer is none other than an anointing of the Spirit of God coming upon someone; and everything you are doing at that moment takes second and third place. Inside of you, there is a feeling that swells up, and you feel driven to get somewhere and pray. You know that feeling inside of you will not leave you until you do get somewhere and yield yourself to prayer. That does not mean you rush to the church house where you make a public display of yourself: it is just between you and your heavenly Father. Sometimes it drives you to your bedroom, sometimes it will drive you to a closet: Just somewhere where you and God are alone. You may not know why the anointing is upon you, what you are to pray for: you just yield yourself to prayer. People might say, I have to know what it is for, so I will know how to pray. There are some things God is never going to tell you why He has put that burden there. It is His business. You just be willing to go and intercede for something God deems to be important enough to call upon you to do it. Paul wrote in the Roman Epistle, how, many times we feel like we just do not even have words to speak, but coming from within us there are groanings and utterings that can not be understood: Only God knows what is being said. Sometimes when you have that inward feeling, you get to your knees, maybe you begin to weep, and after awhile you groan. To the natural minded person, it will seem silly; and they might say, What is wrong with that person? Well the answer is, They are making intercession. When something like that is taking place where it can be heard by others, it is still none of our business why the yielded vessel is acting that way. We have so traditionalized things and put things in such a ritualistic trend, people do not hardly know how to recognize special anointings when they do come.

AN EXAMPLE OF INTERCESSORY PRAYER

Years ago after the turn of the century, when the Holy Spirit had began to reach across the country, a certain preacher had an experience that illustrates what intercessory prayer is. you have heard the man’s name, F.F. Bosworth: He accompanied Bro. William Branham to South Africa in 1952. He was one of the old timers in the early Pentecostal hour that we have read about. I read his testimony how that shortly after he received this baptism experience, he was asked by some friends of his to come to a Methodist Church and speak to them on a certain night. He had just recently received this experience in the Spirit and had already run into complications. Everywhere he went people were asking him to pray; and even though he tried his best to pray in English, every time he started to pray he spoke in another language. It was embarrassing for him and began begging God, Please do not let this happen to me: But his begging was to no avail. He went to a certain Methodist Church, and knowing he was going, he had begged God all week, Please Lord, do not let that happen: You know how it makes me feel; but what do you think happened? Keep in mind, God was not going to set the Methodist Church in order anyway; Therefore He would use whatever He chooses; and wherever He chooses; and the way He chooses. It will always be a witness to someone; and sooner or later God will get from that, what He wants out of it. He will just use it. Finally he made up his mind that he would go, but he would try to stay as inconspicuous as possible until they asked him to speak. Now just listen to this: They had already finished the song service and so forth, and finally the man said, Let us all gather around for a season of prayer. F.F. Bosworth said, I went and hid behind the piano so I would not be seen. Well, there he was, kneeling behind the piano, and someone said, Bro. Bosworth, will you please lead us in prayer. It put him on the spot. Here he is in a Methodist Church, and has been asked to lead in prayer, and he had prayed all week, Lord: Don’t let this happen. He no sooner said, Dear Lord, and it happened. He began to pray in another language. All the time he was praying in another language, in his mind he was thinking about how ridiculous this must sound to these people, and what will they think of me? They will think I am a crazy man that has come in among them. Finally the anointing lifted and the prayer was over, instead of it being the way he thought it might be, all these people began to raise to their feet and gather around him saying, We want you to explain this to us. We want to know something about this experience. That became an opportunity for him to give his testimony and many of those other people began to seek God. That was in the early days of the moving of the Spirit of God. Therefore we have to realize, when God moves by His Spirit He will do things many times that will cause us to think, Why this? He has a reason for it. You can ask, Why, to a lot of things; but the truth is, God may not always tell you why: He may just require some thing without an immediate understanding on our part. That is how intercessory prayer is, much of the time: You just feel the urge to pray, but really do not know exactly why. Just obey the leading and let God work it all out.

ARE WE FANATICS OR YIELDED VESSELS?

For thirty some years we have journeyed along this pathway of life, and we have stood against fanaticism, against all those unnecessary quotations of Bro. William Branham and a lot of other things that would take too much time to try to name them all; and because we have, there are people out there today that think we would have to be a bunch of devils to have taken the stand we have, on these various things. I have felt many times, If God can take truth and use that revelatory part of His Spirit to deal with people, He will do it; but by the same token, He can go to another element of people who do not have enough revelation truth to even mention and anoint certain vessels among them to produce what He is looking for; and it will fulfill His word exactly. He has anointed them to fulfill certain things, yet they do not have enough truth to know daylight from dark, spiritually speaking. Why? Because He is God. He is that Spirit which is sovereign and He can do with Himself whatever He pleases to do. When Christianity first started, it was not that way. Jesus brought truth for the hour of that first age Church; and that truth He gave to them was sufficient for their beginning; but what He gave them was not all He had to give. He promised the disciples that they would be endued with power from on high, and that Spirit they received on the day of Pentecost was exactly that; but what else did He tell them? That promise also let them know that this same Spirit, this Spirit of truth, when He comes, He convicts the world first of sin and of judgment and of righteousness; but He promised that this Spirit would also lead believers into all truth. I realize we mention this verse a lot; but it is worth mentioning. Unless He continues to lead a believer into more and more revelation of the scriptures, that believer that started out with a little truth will just go through life with a few rituals year after year. Truth encompasses all the doctrines of the scriptures. In the early Azusa Street hour, Baptists, Methodists, even Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans and whoever heard about it, because of their hungry hearts, here they came; because they wanted to know what God was doing. In other words, they were ready to lay aside their particular doctrine they had subscribed to, that which they thought was truth, just to see what God was doing by His mighty power. That is why after that revival fire was lit, in a few short years it had spread to the ends of the earth. Then when we come to about 1908 into 1912, there was approximately four years in there when God began to deal with certain individuals within that same element of people about taking on His name in water baptism, and in the fact that God is one, and not a trinity, (three persons). Right there, is where that revelatory part of the Spirit of God began to look like it was running counterproductive to the power side of the Spirit. Nevertheless we must always keep in mind the fact that God knows exactly what people are going to follow, and what people are traditionally going to align themselves with, if they do not move on in the revelation He is giving them access to. That is why we see such a confused picture in this so called tongue talking, evidence line of Pentecost today. They constantly look back at Azusa Street and never even realize there is a revelatory quality of the Spirit of God that is just as important as that of the manifestation of His power. Therefore speaking on behalf of this Assembly I say this, We have to look at what God is doing among us from this standpoint. We cannot just suddenly go after the manifestations of that sovereign Spirit and begin to neglect the revelatory side of what He is among us to do. I am fully aware of the many things that have been said against us through the years we have tried to stand faithful to the word of God; and I will not try to convince anyone that some of the persecution did not hurt our fleshly makeup; but the most important thing anyone can do is stand faithful to the things God reveals to them, regardless of the price the flesh has to pay. People have said, Well, if what you teach is the truth, as you say it is, and it is the truth for this hour of time, then why is there not more manifestations of the power of God than there is? Brothers and sisters, I have never questioned God about that. I just have to say to those people, Stick around a while, until God sees fit to manifest other things in this element of saints that cherish a true revelation of His word: We are going to see what all of this will add up to one of these days. I believe the hour of that time has come. The Charismatic world of religion has already had their great hour of attention. They think it is yet coming; but their hour of great attention is past. I guess you could say, They have already gone over the top and they do not know it. They will go into a decline with what they have for as long as time lasts. You will notice that as this eventually begins to go into a decline, God will slowly begin to pull His people that really have truth, out into the forefront. That is where I want to be. In many movements in recent years, preeminence was given to whatever manifestations they had taking place among them; and they seemed perfectly satisfied with just that: not even indicating that they were expecting anything more. I do not know how many of you have ever heard about the Shaker movement: The closest group to us was down in Shakertown Kentucky. That is as close as it ever got, to this area. The Shaker movement was started by a woman. We do not necessarily justify her and her ideas; but it is a fact that what they preached in that hour, especially concerning the experiences they had, carried a certain amount of truth. Because as they held their meetings, many times the people would pass out in the Spirit, fall on the floor, roll on the floor, shake and tremble; and over a process of time many of them would come through speaking in another dialect. That is the way they wrote about their services. So and So lay on the floor tonight, So and So spoke a message tonight, and on and on like that. That is what they built the whole service around; and we find also, that they were not always right in their doctrine. The reason we can say that, the hour had not come that God was going to straighten up a lot of these movements and their particular doctrines. God knew they would die out; but at least they were an element of people that God used to preserve something, and to keep something alive as a testimony of God’s power, of His saving grace, and what God is. When people get to the place where you hear, We don’t need this and we don’t need that, that is when that same element of people are standing on a bluff; and if you do not repent and get back to God, you are going to fall over the thing. As I say that, it is very easy for some to say, Well Bro. Jackson, do you mean to tell me that if I stick around this, I will have to do all of that? Do not even ask such a question as that. An old drunk would just as well come along and say, Do you mean that if I become one of you I have to give up my drinking? Do you see where that puts you? Just say this, If I get what you have, God will put in me the want to, to lay that beer aside or whatever else is in the way. Take smoking for instance. If you have never smoked, if you have never known the taste of it, if you have never known the addiction a person can have to it, and the affect it can have on you, you do not know what such a person is going through. That is why many times, if you try to publicly make a man feel like he is just one step from hell if he does not get rid of his cigarettes, then you are really only blocking the way for him to be touched by conviction. On the other hand, if you can show him that if he ever gets hold of the power of Act, and it is actually God getting hold of him, then God has a way of dealing with the heart of mankind in these matters, to put inside the person that which is needful to help them make the right decisions, and also to enable them to overcome. In other words He is imparting a measure of faith. When you feel the power of God surging within you, and begin to understand what He is after, you will say, Lord I don’t want this filthy habit any more: Deliver me from it. After that genuine experience of presenting yourself to God, that thing is no longer appetizing, or no longer attractive; and it is no longer an addiction. What once was an addiction now becomes something your inner being can almost abhor the thoughts of. Even the smell of it is disagreeable to you. I remember the night out here in the country, where I knelt and gave my heart to God, and how that was one of my obstacles. I said for days, Lord, take this craving, this taste away from me. That night as I knelt there to pray, I cannot say I knew how to pray through to God; and I certainly did not know how to pray a long prayer; but I knew I wanted to talk to my Creator. Let me just say to others who may feel as I did that night, IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR LONG PRAYERS, THAT GOD HEARS YOU. Neither is the eloquent and fluent prayers a person may pray, what touches God. He is not concerned with that, nor with how many words you speak: It is the expression and honesty of your heart, your inner being that He delights in. When you kneel there, TALK TO GOD LIKE YOU ARE TALKING TO A PERSON: because He is certainly going to see you as a person. He wants you to talk to Him that way. I said, Lord, take this craving away from me, because I know I cannot go on down life’s pathway without serving you; and I do not want to serve this habit any longer. I know the peace of God in my heart is the only thing that can really make life worthwhile. When I got up from there, I could not help but realize something had happened. I felt a release. I felt a burden had been lifted off of my soul. It was the next day, that I began to realize for sure that God had done something. He had taken that taste, and that smell away, and that craving for cigarettes. Every since that day I have never had a desire to smoke. In fact, when I am around where someone is smoking a cigarette my nostrils burn; and I cough. Only God can do that; but He is always ready to respond to an honest cry for help, if our motive is right. As we look at these things, there are many experiences people have had as individuals, but through the years of time, and in every movement, there has always been certain individuals that had some outstanding experience that God chose to use as a testimony for that particular hour and time. Back in the early 1950’s, after we got acquainted with Bro. William Branham and his teachings, we met a certain sister in Michigan. In the early days we had been up there several times ministering in that area. This sister told me of an incident that occurred shortly after she had received this Pentecostal experience in her life, and she mentioned an opera singer, a woman that lived in that hour. She could sing in such a high voice and could lift her voice up to such a high key and hold it there for a long period of time. She said, I always wished I could sing like that person. There is nothing wrong with that saints, if our motive is pure. One day her husband was at work, she had been working around the house all morning with the thought, I just wish one time in my life I could sing like that. Sometime later, in the afternoon hours, as she was walking through the house, humming, all of a sudden the anointing came on her. Suddenly she felt something get inside her. That is exactly what happens. Something gets inside of you. You might feel your lungs swell up. When people say, It is not feeling, that only applies where it applies. Up to a certain point that is true: We do not live each day of our life by the fact that we got up in the morning and had a certain sensation run through a certain member of our body, that made us feel good. We walk by faith, whether we have a special anointing or feel nothing, we have the assurance from God’s word, that He is with us. No saints, we do not depend upon our feelings to tell us whether we are children of God or not. When we get like that we are getting out of the scriptures. Anyhow, there she was, humming, and this anointing came on her. Then something began to swell up inside her and she began to sing a song she did even know. She was singing in another language. She said the sound of my voice, the pitch of it had been lifted up into the same key structure of that opera singer I desired to sing like. She said, But I was singing for the Lord. I walked around the living room, the kitchen, and all through the house just constantly singing like that. There was seemingly no end to it. After awhile she thought, I have to get supper ready for my husband. What am I going to do? It was just like the Lord impressed her, Go on, sing. So she just kept on singing. She said, I could hear my voice going from different levels, like an opera singer would sing. She said, I literally was lifted up into a state of ecstasy as I went ahead and prepared the meal. All of a sudden the anointing stopped and my husband came driving up the driveway. She said it had not happened again from that day until then. What is wrong with that? Nothing. It is just the way God wants to bless a person, and it is that type of testimony that glorifies Him. You just never know what a testimony like that will do for some other people. As I was reading the history of Azusa Street, that same thing happened many times. Many times as they came together and maybe someone would start a sermon or give a little talk, all of a sudden the anointing would come upon the group of people that were there seeking God; and they would just suddenly burst forth singing in another language; and they had never sang like that before. When people begin to question God, Why is all of this necessary? Then we have to say, God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the mighty. Think of Dr. So and So, Rabbi So and So, Cardinal So and So; and how everything has to be done exactly as they predetermine: without giving any place for the Spirit of God to do anything. That is the way organized religion is. Look at the leaders of organized religion, the traditions that thousands of people are led through each time they come together. They give the Holy Spirit no place: Yet there has been times when God would just move in the midst of some of those people just to show them His power, and to set their soul’s on fire. That same sister that sang that song in another language, told me about another sister, an elderly person that had desired a certain thing from God for a long while. (This just goes to show, it matters not, whether you are an old person ready to leave this world or just a young child, God knows exactly how to move on every person in the hour of His choice.) This elderly person had been seeking the Lord for this Holy Ghost experience like other people had been receiving, but seemingly to no avail. She had been seeking this anointing, this manifestation in her life; but being an older woman, and all this time gone by, she became very discouraged and begin to express herself as being so displeased about it all. Then she became ill and was taken to the hospital. In the hospital the doctors examined her. She was told there was no way she could recover. They called the family in. They were all told, Your mother will not be with you much longer. That mother told each of her children how she loved them, how she had always prayed for them, that the grace of God would always be in their lives. After she had talked to every child, telling each child how much she loved them, and her voice was getting weaker and weaker, all of a sudden she was no longer talking in English: She began to pray in another dialect. That family stood there hearing mother pray like that, and her face began to light up. She began to raise her hands. She died and went out of this world with her face lit up that way. They knew by her expression, that she was seeing the other side. Therefore I say these things, and hope that wherever this message might go, and whatever God has in store for His Bride people further on up the road, that none of you will stoop to what many have stooped to in the past, and look at someone and say, Well what is wrong with you brother, what is wrong with you sister? Why are you not feeling this? You do not speak to anyone as though there has to be something wrong with them if they are not feeling what you are feeling. No saints, that in itself is not necessarily an indication that something is wrong. If they are honest, that is all God asks. Just be honest, sincere, and love God with all your heart, and leave the rest to Him. If He anoints you, obey the anointing: If He does not anoint you, do not feel that you have to do something just because most everyone else is. Above all else, Do not begin to question yourself, Must I do this, that, or something else? It is not a matter that anyone has to do any certain thing: You just say, Well I can do nothing without HIM; but if God wants to do something to me, or through me, then I will let Him have His way. When we say that, you might think, well if God has His way, what does that do for me? That puts you right in line for God to pour something upon you, and you will not be expecting what you get. In this history of Azusa Street, you find many experiences recorded; and many of them are repeated over and over again and again. It is full of various manifestations. That is why I said, when I started reading this book the second time, that I really did not even read it the other time. The other time I read it, I just got a certain thought; but when I read it this time, I see every one of these individuals standing out. It tells on this particular occasion, this Baptist preacher had heard about what was going on at Azusa Street, so here he came. His testimony was, he did not know why he came other than he just wanted to see what was going on. He was sitting about twelve feet away from the one that was speaking at that time. (Brothers and sisters, I believe and pray with all my heart, Lord, if we are your Bride people, regardless of whether we are sitting, standing, or what position we are in, Lord, may you do inside of every last one of us whatever it takes to make us ready to meet our heavenly BRIDEGROOM when He comes to take His bride out of here.) There that Baptist preacher sat, not knowing what to expect, just listening to the speaker. All of a sudden the power of God came upon, and he said he felt something get hold of him, and immediately he was on his feet shouting, Hallelujah! and when he hit the floor he was speaking in tongues. People began to rise to their feet; and when they did, they began to fall out, under the power of God. That Baptist preacher came, not knowing what to expect; but he did not resist. Anyhow, that shows God does not need help. He just wants sincere hearts. In another case, and this happened with the same man, in Norway, as they had that moving of the Spirit there in the 1930’s. Then just think what Hitler did: Norway was taken over. Many of the people were arrested, put in jail, and done away with. He said that during those months that followed that experience he had, on another occasion, the people began to pray for the Spirit of God in their own lives, and for the moving of the Spirit of God to touch sinners and to make the Church something God could work through. On this particular night, he said they had started the service and were sitting in their pews. The time came to pray; and while we were praying, all of a sudden one person has a vision. That person began to cry out, I see the ceiling burning: it is on fire, it is burning. It is falling in upon us; but actually, the ceiling was not on fire. It was a vision; and the power of God fell on the whole congregation; and they were all slain in the Spirit and lay there under the power of God for a certain amount of time. Out of that experience, all the people realized that God is sovereign: He does what He pleases, and He does it when He pleases. Nothing He ever does though is without a purpose. As I say these things, we all need to realize that such a move of the Spirit of God is not witnessed among people who are not willing to pray and seek His will and purpose. God’s move does not come to a bunch of care free people that are not willing to pray and seek His will and purpose in their lives. All of the Azusa Street people were people that sooner or later were dealt with in such a way, that they as individual’s felt, I just have to get away somewhere and pray. There are people who have an attitude that as they come along in life, they have to go to church with someone, and they cannot pray unless they are praying with someone else; but there comes a time, that you, as an individual person, will realize you have to get out of that rut. You have to get to the place where you want to do something because it is your own personal way of committing yourself to God, without saying, I need company, in order to pray. We do not need company to pray. If God does not need company to do the things He does for us, then there are times when God delights in our coming to Him in prayer without the company of someone else. When we actually determine to do the right thing toward God, we do not need company. We just need to be ready to do what God wants us to do. Let me say also, When we speak of the manifestations of the Spirit, we are speaking of these things we have listed here on the chart we are using. This is the place where the true body of Christ needs to be, where it can really function as the Church of the living God. This is the product He is looking for: A body of people that can function as one. Such a body of believers, really do carry on the works Jesus began here on earth. Here, (pointing to middle column of chart) is where you are in the service of the Lord. We have seen some of these. We have had speaking in tongues, prophesying, interpretation of tongues and a certain measure of faith in the realm of healing and things like that; but we have not yet seen it in a body of people. I believe when it comes through these kinds of gifts, we will not limit the gifts to just a preacher or evangelist. These are gifts that can definitely be bestowed upon any person out in the congregation. When I say that, we need to look at it in this light, If this is a beginning, it is in its infancy; but God knows what He is doing. He knows why He is doing it; and He has a certain way He is going to bring this all about. He has a way He is going to work in behalf of each and every one of us. As we move into this anointing, we begin to feel we have received our experience, and that somewhere the Lord must use me. Well God has His time for everything; but let me ask you this, What is a gift of faith? It is not something you necessarily got by reading. It is how the Spirit of God comes on you, and inside of you, and you have that know so deep down inside, that if you carry out a certain thing, it is going to be exactly like that. Any other time you do not feel like that. You may imagine certain things, like, Well what would it be like if I had that gift of faith; but that gift of faith is strictly for a certain occasion, and not something you are going to have all the time. Let us not think in a way where we would actually make God a vending machine. God will never allow Himself to be a vending machine. He knows exactly what He is doing when He operates a gift through you; and He knows why He is doing it: even though you may not. There will be times we will come together and His Spirit will just sweep into our midst in a very special way; as He does, we are going to be able to see that there is a certain thing He wants to build the service into. If we are willing to be sensitive to that anointing, God will bless us; but we must learn to discern His leading and follow Him in the anointing. We cannot run ahead of Him and still have acceptable results. Whatever happens, He is the ONE that is to be magnified. When we begin to function as a body, we will cease from desiring a blessing from God just to satisfy our own craving for a blessing: We will look only for the purpose of God in everything.

WHAT ABOUT MIRACLES?

As we consider miracles, is that what it takes in order for this perverted society to see Jesus in you? If it takes miracles for this generation to see Jesus in us, instead of seeing us as Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics and whatever, then this takes you right back to the book of Acts. That is why I have to believe the Holy Spirit is going to lead all of us into something in the near future, that will be very different from anything we have experienced before. I will explain it this way, Whatever this anointing is destined to do for the Bride, it will not be just a few receive it: Everyone is going to receive their own spiritual experience; and no one will ever be able to say again, I have never felt the power of God. You will have felt it. I hope all of you do understand what I am saying. You will have felt it! There is no need of you saying, I have never felt the power of God in a sensational way. You will have felt it! You will no longer be worrying, Why is He on this one, why is He doing that: You will understand. For now though, just hold your peace and go ahead and pray. Keep your heart open to HIM; and one of these days when you least expect it, it will be with you just like that Baptist preacher I spoke of. God is a sovereign God. He has a way He likes to work on people and do things for them; and He is not subject to anyone’s demands, for He knows what it will take to fulfill His entire plan for redeemed mankind. When He does something for you, it will not be just to make you feel good: It will enable you to be a useful vessel under His leadership. Then, when the body of believers are in the unity God is bringing us to, if something of a counterfeit nature comes along and tries to disrupt the service, the Spirit will raise up someone that will say, I saw you in a dream last night. I know you came here with the wrong motive: So repent and get right with God, or get out of here. Such an instance as this, will not make the instrument God uses, greater or more important than anyone else: It will just makes it more clear that Jesus is the all in all. God will work in such a way that the devil will not be able to put anything over on the Bride. That is going to be wonderful. We are living in a rotten, stinking, evil and dirty world of unbelief; but our heavenly Father loves us and enables us to exist right in the midst of everything the devil is doing, without our becoming defiled by it. Therefore it behooves us to pray fervently that God will make us ready for the hour we are living in. It is not an hour that bride saints can just sit back and coast on through: We have to stake out our ground and stand up for what is ours. Jesus went to Calvary and paid the price for our complete salvation; (deliverance from Satan’s bondage) but be must know from the word of God what is ours, and then refuse to let the devil trespass on it. It will take that anointing in the hard conflicts; but every true child of God has that overcoming Spirit within, that is his or her enablement to live an overcoming life in this world, no matter what is going on around them. We are in this world; but we are not of it. We work and earn our natural bread in this world; but our spiritual bread is from above. There are many things out there, that you can argue with; but you will never change it, because Satan is the god of this evil world of perversion and degradation, and the only thing that is ever going to change the total picture for the better, is the coming of Jesus Christ. You can go to 2nd Corinthians 4:3-4, and see what the apostle Paul wrote about the god of this world. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: (4) In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Remember how the devil took Jesus up to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world; and the glory of them; and offered to give them to Him, if He would just bow down and worship Him? A lot of people have sold out to him for a moment of fame: but hell is awaiting them. If God ever brings you in contact with something, and you are anointed to deal with it in some fashion, rest assured, God’s purpose will have been fulfilled, regardless of the visible outcome. In those instances, we just obey the anointing and leave the rest to God.

ABOUT SPIRITUAL SONGS

In the early Pentecostal hour, as I read in this history book, many new songs came by the Spirit. Some of the choruses we sing today were given in that hour of time. As people were moved upon by the anointing, a song would drop into their heart, or they would hear the melody, and words were put to that. I just have to believe that God no doubt has some new songs for the bride saints also, here at the end of the Age. I have to say all these things and put them in here like this: because we cannot limit God, and say He will just do this and not do that. I believe He is going to give us the whole assortment before we reach the end. Sure we can look back through the ages and say, He did this at Pentecost, He did this in Ephesus, He did this at Caesarea, and on and on; but what if He reaches back and takes a little out of this and that and puts it all together and says, Here, this is for the Bride? I just have to say, Hallelujah! That will be wonderful!

ORDER IN THE CHURCH V/S FREEDOM IN THE HOLY GHOST

Through the years, as we sat under the teaching of this end time revelation of the word of God, we have more or less looked at the gifts of the Spirit in 1st Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 from the standpoint of order in the Church and we still have to keep that order in its proper place. However, in the light of what has been taking place in some of our services for the past few months, it is necessary for us to examine the whole picture and determine where the boundaries are. It is not a question of whether we should have order in the church of freedom of the Spirit: It is a matter of determining how to have order in the church and freedom to obey the anointing of the Spirit both at the same time. God is the author of what the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian saints; and He is that Spirit that causes His anointing to come upon us for one reason or another; and we know He is not going to anoint us to be out of order in the Assembly; so it is our responsibility to allow Him to teach us how to conduct ourselves when we come together for worship. I have been forced by present circumstances to reach some scriptural conclusions on this matter, and I am sure others will be faced with the same thing before very long; and some of you may not have all the sources of information at your disposal; therefore I feel that I can say enough from certain sources of information that I have, to help you make proper decisions when the time comes that the Spirit begins to move in your assembly in a different way. Some have already come to that place and they have questions about what to allow and when; so just bear with me as I try to cover the questions that have already been brought to my attention. We do know this, The message we have had preached to us in the past number of years has always more or less been built around this order in the church, how the gifts are to be operated, the manner and purpose and so forth, especially speaking in tongues. We can read that right in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians and in the 14th chapter. As we deal with this, I am going to ask every one of you to listen and learn. I am learning as I go along. I am getting it by having to go to school; and that has to be through prayer. I have said, Lord, somewhere there has to be a message to go along with this: to guide new people that may have never experienced any kind of sensation or manifestation of the Spirit of God in their lives. Almost every group of people that gather together for worship, have been taught that certain things are to be done a certain way: with no exceptions. What we have got to realize, is that God never intended for His true Church to always live in the same traditional realm. This is, we will say, God bringing the new convert into the fellowship and introducing Himself to them. It is God making His entrance into their lives. As He makes His entrance into their lives, it brings them to a point of service in the body. In that service, we then have to begin to see ourselves in the light of these three chapters: which are 1st Corinthians, 12, 13 and 14. As we have the truth, and that is why there was a message, we then realize that through the years there have been many people brought into the light of this truth through the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Do not forget that this Spirit is not only a convicting Spirit that deals with the person, young or old, but He is also a Spirit that Jesus promised would lead us into all truth. Therefore if this is the eventual place He wants to bring us to, old and young, then He, that Spirit of truth, has His own way of directing our pathway to lead us eventually to what the end time bride will need to know. I have to believe He has absolutely give us a clear understanding of every New Testament doctrine, the complete prophetic picture, and how to see ourselves in this end time wrapup. Therefore if we have been willing to follow God in that, then as we near the time for Jesus’ appearing for His church, His church has to be definitely dealt with by that Spirit, to finish out her preparation for that event. That is when He fills the Church with the anointing of that Spirit of truth; and He empowers the Church, which is no longer just a people embracing the letter of the truth, but a people the truth has been quickened to and made alive in them: so the entire body of believers can begin to become a functional body that can be led of the spirit of God, to do the very works Jesus spoke of. That takes us back to Paul’s teachings in the 8th chapter of Romans, which says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” I want to say this to my brothers and sisters wherever this message may go, I realize there are many things that God will do, that will be of a strange nature to you; but the main thing is that we first have a knowledge of His word that establishes us. Our eyes are fixed on truth, our faith is settled on truth. That is our foundation. Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” We come to God through the knowledge of what Jesus did for us at Calvary; but then we start on a spiritual journey: seeking the revelation of God’s word for our spiritual growth. Whatever other manifestation that comes along and God adds to us in our walk with Him, tat is only a phase of growth within that truth.

MANIFESTATIONS – HOW DO WE TREAT THEM?

I feel that it would be profitable for us to take a better look at the manifestations of the Spirit; and then reach some scriptural conclusion as to what place they have in an assembly of worship. To a person that has never experienced any of these things, they are just as new to them as they were to those people in the first age, that we read of in the book of Acts, when Christianity first started out. As I said earlier, We already have written in the scriptures, the divine order for prophecy, tongues, interpretation and all of that; so in the course of conducting a preaching service or in a song service, we already know how those things are to be regulated by that divine order to avoid confusion; but when we come to the part of a gathering where the whole gathering is in a spirit of worship and praise, then by all means, let us have the wisdom to allow the Holy Spirit to manifest whatever fulfills the purpose of God. The apostle Paul explained the divine order for a service in the chapters we mentioned, in 1st Corinthians; but when you go to the book of Acts, all these instances wherein the Spirit moved in these different settings, whether at the home of Cornelius or one of those other instances where the Spirit moved in such a way it changed the whole order of the service and brought in new believers, we have to realize the fact that God was sovereignly moving upon those people for a specific purpose; and it was no time that anyone should try to bring everything under the divine order laid out in the scriptures. When the Holy Spirit is blessing a great number of people all at the same time and causing them to glorify God in various ways, WE CANNOT JUMP UP AND TRY TO PUT THEM UNDER DIVINE ORDER. Can you understand that? In the house of Cornelius, The Spirit fell on all of them; and it says they all spoke with tongues and magnified God. Let us read those few verses in the 10th chapter of Acts 10:44-47. “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. (45) And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. (46) For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, (47) Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” Peter did not say one word against all of them speaking in tongues at the same time: He just said, (in my words) Brethren, I believe it is time to baptize them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of those new believers were eventually going to become a part of the collective body of Christ. Wherever the Holy Spirit moves in that way, WE SIMPLY CAN NOT ATTEMPT TO PUT THE RECIPIENTS UNDER DIVINE ORDER. We have to give way to the Spirit of God, when He moves among us in that way. As I have said before, God knows what He is doing. He will not do anything wrong. I want to emphasize this again, WHEN GOD IS MOVING AMONG A PEOPLE, AND HE IS NOT NECESSARILY DEALING WITH THE OLDER ONES THAT ALREADY HAVE THE HOLY GHOST, AND HAVE ALREADY EXPERIENCED THESE THINGS IN FORMER TIMES, HE MUST BE ALLOWED TO MINISTER TO THE NEWER SAINTS, AND THEM BE ALLOWED TO RESPOND TO HIM IN THE SAME WAY THOSE IN THE BOOK OF ACTS DID. Even the older saints may get a refreshing from the presence of that anointing; but at such times, He is basically working exclusively to anoint the new ones. When He moves like that upon those who have not previously experienced this sort of thing, there is no way you could bring them instantly under a divine order from those scriptures in the Bible. When I talk like this, we have to begin to realize that there has to be a season, an the opportunity over an interval of time, that the Holy Spirit, you could say, is in charge of the service. His plan is to deal with receptive believers in a way to familiarize them with His very being and to open up a new way of life to them. After that, there will always be the opportunity to bring your services back under divine order for the purpose of ministering the word of understanding and revelation to the whole assembly. Of course I realize there are always carnal minds within the range of hearing, that will take things you say and stretch them to no limits. Nevertheless we cannot allow that kind of miserable souls to make us afraid to stand for what is right in the sight of God. Let me just say also, There are people born into this world who take great delight in taking what you say and using it to hide behind. You cannot change them, no matter what you say: You just have to realize that somewhere, God will take care of all of that. In the meanwhile, let us turn our attention for a moment to this thing of shaking under the anointing of the Spirit. Shaking, is only one of many manifestations of the Spirit. You also have trembling, drunkenness, slain in the Spirit, dancing in the Spirit, shouting, and another one I did not even think of in the beginning, which is stammering lips. I have different sources here, that I have been reading from. Here is the book of Smith Wigglesworth. He was a British evangelist; and a contemporary to Charles Price. You might say he was the inter-linking man between the early days of the Pentecostal revival, which this book is talking about, and the time of 1930’s on up into the 1950’s. This man comes on over and more or less hits the scene in this later time: because in here, it tells about him being in California in 1947 and 1948 and in Arizona somewhere; so he is, you might say, a between man, between the Azusa Street hour in 1906 and the 1930’s, 1940’s, and into the early 1950’s. Wherever they were, all of these writers, whoever they were, and wherever they are from, they all speak about these various manifestations. If that is a fact, we need to realize something else: that in many cases where the Bible says nothing about any manifestations of the Spirit, there are things written about the event that lets the observing reader know there definitely were visible manifestations. When we read in the 8th chapter of the book of Acts, when Philip went down into Samaria and preached the gospel to them there, many believed and were baptized in the name of the Lord; but the Holy Ghost had not yet come upon them when Peter and John later heard that Samaria had received the gospel. What did they do? They went to Samaria. When they got there, all they did was lay hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost. It does not say one thing about them speaking in tongues or prophesying; but it does tell of something else that took place and that lets you know there was something else happened. This fellow by the name of Simeon, which those verses speak of, when he saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, the Holy Ghost was given, he came to them and offered them money, if they would give him this power, that on whomsoever he would lay his hands, they might receive the Holy Ghost. You can read the account later if you care to; but right now, my question to you is this, How did Simon know those people received the Holy Ghost, if there were not some manifestations the scriptures do not mention? It says, WHEN HE SAW THAT THROUGH THE LAYING ON OF THE APOSTLES’ HANDS THE HOLY GHOST WAS GIVEN: he offered them money, if they would give him the same power. What did he see? There had to be something take place, that this carnal minded man saw. In other words, if no one moved, if no one shook, if no one fell out under the power of the Spirit, and there was no utterance of any kind, then what in this world did he see that would cause him to be willing to offer money for this power? You just have to read between the lines, and know that he saw something, and he wanted in on it; but he looked at the whole thing from a carnal viewpoint and Peter rebuked him for it. I say, If there were Simeon’s in that hour, then we surely have dozens of them running the road of life today. I could probably say, hundreds, and be more accurate. Nevertheless whatever God has in mind to do for the Bride Church, I believe, and in my heart I am convinced, that whatever peak or spiritual plateau she reaches, that is the same level He will move the good news of Jesus Christ over to the Jews on. Once He has His Church to that required level, it is in this level that the time factor will no doubt come about when we will really experience Revelation 10:3 and the sounding of the thunders. I believe it is in the same frame of anointing, that these things are to be bought forth. In the continuation of the writing of that 10th chapter of Revelation, John was told to take the little book and eat it. For the purpose of this prophecy, John was taken by the Spirit all the way over in time to our day and hour; and I have to believe when that angelic being told him, Thou must prophesy again before many people, tongues, and nations, It was speaking of something that saints of our day and hour are going to do. John is dead, and has been for almost two thousand years; but that was definitely spoken for our day; and I believe the anointing that is moving around the earth now, is definitely to lift the Church up, to spiritualize and empower it, and to get it moving forward in such a spirit of unity, that as that hour approaches, there is going to be men in various areas of the earth that God is going to deal with supernaturally, either by visions or by prophetic utterances; and they will fulfill the commission given to John by the angel. What I am saying now, has no connection with the thunders. The thunders are for the entire Bride Church. It has to be related to something connected with the coming of Christ for His Church; but this thing of prophesying before many people, nations, and such like, to me, that is how God, through the Church, will deal with certain individuals out here: because God is definitely going to leave a testimony with some people that are still here. Just as in the book of Acts, many times those apostles were brought before kings, magistrates, governors and so forth, to give a testimony concerning their belief in Christ Jesus. Their testimony did not necessarily change the picture; but God had it given in that hour: because somewhere later on God was going to deal with that leader on the basis of that testimony. As for these manifestations we are talking about, you not only have shaking, trembling, drunkenness, being slain in the Spirit, dancing in the Spirit, shouting, leaping and all of that, you also have what Isaiah wrote about in chapter 28, of his writings, stammering lips. That is the prophecy that was written in the seventh century before it even took place. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and came into the streets speaking other dialects, it was all fulfilling something in God’s foreordained plan for redeeming His lost children. It was the apostle Paul who wrote, in the 1st Corinthian letter, as he was explaining these gifts and their purpose, how the Jews could boast of Moses: WE ARE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM; but when it came to spiritual understanding, they just did not get it. In 1st Corinthians 14:21-22, Paul wrote, “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that, will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” The Jews could boast of Moses. They could boast, We are the seed of Abraham and of the Law; but God already knew they would become so traditionally guided and influenced, that they would lose spiritual contact with Him altogether. Therefore He inspired Isaiah the prophet, to prophesy about what the God of that Law they boasted of, would do in an hour of time they were not aware. With stammering lips, and other tongues, or other languages, would he speak to this people and give them another chance, yet regardless of everything that was done, they still hardened their heart’s and refused the very thing they were supposed to be waiting for: their Messiah. Does that say it was not true? It was every bit true. Stammering lips is not a language, but it is a manifestation of how the power of God gets into the lips or tongue of a person, and causes that person to act just like a drunk man. What is the purpose? To demonstrate the power of God. The best way I can explain it, he wants to say something, but just simply cannot get it to come out right. They want to say something, but it never gets out. He is stammering and stuttering in a way that points to drunkenness. We do know this, If that can happen to a natural man under the influence of intoxicating beverages, then that prophecy of Joel which says, (1:5) “Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth,” was certainly telling them that this NEW WINE (the Holy Ghost) that was going to be poured out upon them would have the same affect in one way, that the stimulating beverage did. When Joel prophesied that, it was to let us know this new wine that was going to be poured out, (the Holy Ghost) is absolutely going to have certain stimulating effects upon the flesh of the people that receive the experience. Otherwise you could not relate it to the state of drunkenness. That is why on the day of Pentecost, no doubt there were certain people that came into the street staggering, and at the same time talking in other languages. That had to be why those Jews out of every nation began to ask the question, What meaneth this? I hear the wonderful words of God in the language where I was born. They had their spiritual ears tuned to the right channel, so to speak. On the other hand, the home town gang whose heart’s were hardened by traditions, could hear nothing but what they judged to be the jabbering of drunk persons. To them, it was all just so much jibber jabber; but to those who were there seeking God, those people were speaking the wonderful news of a Savior for lost mankind. The very fact that those local Jews said, They are just drunk on new wine, lets us know they were actually judging the whole thing by what they were seeing with their natural eyes, just a bunch of people staggering around speaking something they could not understand. Well I just want to say to you young people, When you feel drunk like that, or feel like what you are speaking does not make any sense, do not be afraid of it: You have just simply had a drink of this new wine, the Holy Ghost, and it is causing this God ordained stimulating effect; so just learn to yield to it. You will not be drunk the rest of your life: It is an entrance of the Spirit of God into your life, to lead you into a realm of the Spirit you have not known before. He is bringing you to the point of service in the body: Yet there will be times in your life, He can refresh you with that spirit of drunkenness. That does not necessarily mean we should come to church every time for the rest of our lives, just wanting to get drunk. There is more to the experience than just getting drunk or falling out. It is different with us than what it was with those people at the Azusa Street meetings: We have their testimonies of what took place with them; but none of those people had any idea whatsoever of what God was about to do. They were honest, sincere people. They wanted God to move; and how ever He moved, they wanted to be willing to accept whatever He did with them. Therefore when He did begin to move in those meetings, there were those that came, and would immediately fall prostrate. Some would just be standing, trembling all over. Was this a totally new experience? No. None of those things were new. They are as old as time itself. I can take you back to 1st Samuel and show you what happened to king Saul when he got in the midst of a company of prophets. (1 Samuel 19:21-24) King Saul did not like David, so he was chasing him; and when they came to a place where some of the students of the prophets were, and Saul saw them in a worship service, he was attracted to what he saw going on among them, there in the school of the prophets, so he spent the night with them. It tells how he was slain by the power of God and lay there naked, the rest of the night, prophesying. He wasn’t standing upright. He was slain. Read the scriptures. “And when it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied likewise. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they prophesied also. Then went he also to Ramah, and came to a great well that is in Sechu: and he asked and said, Where are Samuel and David? And one said, Behold, they be at Naioth in Ramah. (23) And he went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied, until he came to Naioth in Ramah. (24) And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?” The reason I put that in there, these things are not something new, they are as old as time itself; and it is all in the Bible. It is just another example of what the power of God can do. The fact that Saul lay there prophesying, and there came a statement following, that gave some the idea, Saul is numbered among the prophets, did not make him a prophet of God. Just the mere fact that he had that experience did not mean that he was one of God’s anointed prophets. This kind of thing can happen to anyone who finds himself in the midst of such an anointing. This goes to show that there are always some people, that even though they have a negative attitude, if they get around where the Spirit is moving, where the anointing is present, it will get on them and cause them to be as the others. While they are there, they may act and do the same things as the sincere ones. It has always been that way; but the fact that there are false ones in our midst at times should not hinder us from wanting to give ourselves over completely into the realm of God’s Spirit. Furthermore when I said, God does not call us to live in this realm forever, you must understand that we do not set the time limit on it. You should use every opportunity to seek God for His anointing presence. Whatever He wants to put on you, just learn to yield yourself to Him. He knows when to move us up to something else. As for being drunk in the Spirit, that is a genuine experience that we have at times, when that anointing is upon us; but hear me saints, I say to every brother and sister who may hear or read this, There is not one person on the face of this earth that is going to stagger around under the power of God every time they get together with other saints. You may stagger around like a drunk person at times and it be a genuine experience; but if it happens every time, and it turns out that you are only pretending to be drunk, sooner or later, God will expose your pretense and you will not enjoy it. To do that, is only to be found making a fool of yourself. Many times, after enjoying a genuine experience under the anointing, people are tempted to try to duplicate that same experience: That is what I am talking about: only that same anointing can duplicate it. He may not do the same thing every time. However, regardless of whether you are young or old, if you are obedient, and learn to be sensitive to the Spirit, then you can expect there to be certain sensations when He is present. You may begin to feel dizzy or numb. On the other hand, you may just simply feel a great flood of joy sweep over you, or an unusual calm throughout your whole being that will cause you to be very quiet. Those things are unpredictable: because God is not limited to any certain thing. What I am really getting at is this, Just do not get in the habit of expecting the same exact manifestations every time the anointing is present: Let Him do as He wants to do. All of the various feelings people have can definitely be indications that the anointing is moving upon us; and remember this, It will not only affect your spirit inside your body, but it will also affect the physical, nervous system. This is why, if we do not know how to look at some of these things and conduct ourselves accordingly, it can cause some people to jump up and run out of our midst saying we are crazy. God is not crazy; but the things some people do under His anointing presence causes others to say they act like crazy people. Nevertheless we need to obey God above everything else, regardless of what may be said by those who feel nothing: The only thing is, just do not allow your fleshly zeal to run ahead of the anointing. What God anoints you to do will always be right; and some people may still make fun: but they will have to answer to Him. Some will say, Why does it have to be this way? Can God not do something else? Let us look at it this way, It is God doing it in the first place and He makes no mistakes. I keep going back to the statement Paul made in 1st Corinthians, God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. It is always man in his intellectual realm that is trying to compete or argue or justify himself against God. At the same time, it is God, by His Spirit, that will choose certain foolish things just to make the wisdom of men become as nothing. Therefore when we think of these manifestations, whether it is shaking under the power of God, or whether God throws you down on the floor and you lay and tremble and shake all over, or whatever, this has been going on through the centuries of time; and it is just as much the working of the Spirit of God as Him putting you under conviction and causing you to know you are a lost sinner. All of these things are according to His perfect design. It is His way of introducing Himself to you: because He wants every child of His to become acquainted with His anointing. That anointing can absolutely produce many kinds of sensations to the person God is dealing with. It seems almost impossible to describe to you every feeling or sensation a person might experience. All we can hope to do is make you aware of at least two things, God can move upon us any way He chooses to; but when He does, He wants us to learn how to glorify Him in it all. He expects us to do our utmost to learn how to enjoy His presence without letting our fleshly zeal to carry things to an extreme point. We should always be mindful of our brothers and sisters who are present and not allow our own enjoyment of this anointing to infringe upon them. No one else should ever suffer any abuse because of your obedience to the leading of the Spirit of God. You can just be sitting right here in church, singing, listening to what is being preached, or listening to someone testify; and all of a sudden the Spirit of God begins to deal with you. (I will say this, but I want you to understand, I am not responsible for what some may take and use in a carnal way.) You can just be sitting there, and for no apparent reason, all of a sudden you inwardly begin to get a nervous feeling. It is not because you are afraid of anything, it is not because something has happened to make you scared, it is just a nervous feeling. You will not necessarily show it on the outside, but inside you feel your inner being begin to feel very different. What is it, Bro. Jackson? God has to have some means of letting you know He is dealing with you, some way for you to know He is anointing your Spirit. If He never did that, how in the world are you ever going to know what an anointing is? You have to know there is something different than just a natural feeling. Remember though, He does not deal with everyone the same way: That is why you have heard me say that we every one need to learn how to recognize our own anointing. Then we have to learn how to obey the leading of the Spirit with it. God will never anoint anyone to jump up and shout and dance and totally interrupt the person who is delivering His word to those assembled. He would be defeating His own purpose if He did that. You must learn to hold your anointing for the proper time in order for it to be a blessing instead of a hindrance to others. In a song service, or when saints are just giving themselves to a time of worship and praise, a person that has never been very emotional may suddenly leap into the air shouting Hallelujah! Praise God! Then they may begin dancing, or running and then eventually fall on the floor. What happened to that person? The Spirit of God got inside for that purpose. He got hold of that person’s spiritual makeup and actually took over certain sensations of the nervous system. God has a way to reach every child of His. I have expressed it like this, It is a feeling of great inner joy that causes anyone to respond like that. It just begins to build up inside. The best I can describe it, You are like a balloon that is being blown up: you just get to the point you feel, I have to do something or I will explode. That is just one example, and certainly not meant to be a pattern or something everyone must feel. When the Lord first began to use me in the realm of interpretation, (We were still down on State Street) we had at that time a French brother, an elderly man with us. Over in Louisville, in another church, there was a Voice of Healing evangelist, Richard Dunn ministering. I had read about him in the Voice of Healing magazine, so I wanted to hear him preach. This French brother and I, went one particular night. There was a big crowd in there that night. I went, not even expecting the Spirit to deal with me in any manner. The man preached a beautiful message along the line of salvational and deliverance. When he finished preaching, he gave a call for those needing to be prayed for. A line of people assembled; and this Brother and I were sitting in the last pew in the back of the church, so I felt very secure as far as being dealt with to have any part in the service. As the man stood there ministering to the people, praying for them, all of a sudden he stopped praying for them and spoke a message in tongues. Having read about the man, I knew he himself had a gift of interpretation; but I noticed that he just stood there. Then the old man beside me stood up and gave the interpretation. The evangelist thanked the Lord for speaking to the people that night and went ahead praying for more of those who were in the line. It went on for a few more minutes, then the man stopped again and started giving another message in tongues. The minute he did, I began to feel that anointing settle on me. I was like F.F. Bosworth, I said, Lord, not here, not in this church. It would be all right in our little assembly down on State Street, in that old garage where the water runs down the walls every time it rains and the lid on the wood stove jumps up and down when the wind blows down the stove pipe, but not here Lord. As he spoke, I was sliding down lower and lower in my seat. By the time he was finished, I was getting lower and lower in the seat, thinking, Not me Lord; but inside me, it was just like God had me on a tire pump and every stroke He was pumping me up tighter. A few moments passed and the man said, Speak Lord. I was getting tighter and tighter inside: but still saying within, No, not me Lord, not here Lord. A few more moments passed and man again said, Speak Lord. When he did, I was not ready for the floor, but my mouth flew open and I spoke the interpretation. Brothers and sisters, that is not necessarily the way God is going to deal with you in your life; but He could; and it may very well be the way He will deal with some of you. Sometimes He has to deal with certain ones in that fashion to bring them out of that human nature bondage that some are held by, to get them out of that fear realm where they can sit in a service, and no matter whether there are twelve people or five thousand people present, you will not look at people: you just look to God. If He wants to use you, then being used of God has got to be understood that you are subject to Him and not to masses of people. Therefore we must learn through some of these things, how to be sensitive to the Spirit and recognize His presence. If we do not learn it here in this way, then there will no doubt come a time later on when you may say, Oh God, use me; but if we have not learned what the anointing is, how it can come upon us, and understand how to become sensitive to it, you may just sit in every service thinking, I will just sit wanting; and if God wants to use me He can, but chances are, that such an attitude will have you as dry as a bone: You will not feel a thing.

OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE SPIRIT

In 1st Corinthians, it says there are diversities of operations, there are diversities of administrations concerning gifts of the Spirit. Therefore as God uses various sensations to make contact with the spirit of the person He desires to use, I am saying these things to be as honest as I know how, so whoever you are, and wherever you are around this world, I sincerely say to you, Be sincere and seek only to please your heavenly Father.) may He be merciful to the man or woman who will take these things and stretch them out of proportion in such a carnal way it brings reproach, not only on themselves, but upon the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered at Calvary to give us an entrance into this realm of the Spirit. If we learn how to be sensitive to the Spirit, then that determines how we then begin to react to some of these things when the Spirit of God moves upon our lives. For instance, take shouting. Shouting is the result of the Spirit building up inside a person to give them a feeling of inward joy. Many times the person would feel like, If I do not open my mouth and shout, or at least say something, I feel like I will burst open. You might say it is God’s way of urging, or stimulating the person. He does not just let you sit there forever in your own dried up, human way of looking at things. He gets inside of you and changes the way you look at things. Sometimes it electrifies you; but whatever it does, you know there is something going on inside you. You may sit there and wrestle with it, but sooner or later you have to give in to it. When you learn to give in to it, you learn more and more how to be sensitive; and eventually you lose that feeling of fear, as well as that feeling of pride. You just do not care any more whether the president or who is next to you. If God is going to slay you, it no longer matters to you who may come by and take a look at you. You just say, Praise God! I thank you Lord for your blessings. I want to say this also, many times we get so carried away, we shout, yell, scream to the top of our lungs and go on like that until we make ourselves hoarse. Well I want to say this as humbly as I know how, Do not think for one minute that screaming loud makes God come to you in a better way. Do not let yourself be carried so far in that way, that hours later you cannot even whisper. I hope all of you understand what I mean by that statement? Well Bro. Jackson, Why did you say that? For this reason, In the 14th chapter of 1st Corinthians, the apostle Paul said, (1st Corinthians 14:26-28) “Let all things be done unto edifying. (27) If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. (28) But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.” Do you know what that tells me? When we are coming through this realm, we may do a lot of things in an over expressed way. It is not wrong to do something in an over expressed way; but if we can learn in all of this, that there is a point where God is accepted by you and you are accepted by Him and you know you have entertained Him, so it is not how loud you yell or scream that he accepts; but the sincerity and honesty you have approached Him with. Here is why I can say that: God is not going to leave you in this realm the rest of your life, jumping and screaming: because those are not gifts? Had you thought about that? Those things are not gifts of the Spirit. Yet there are times in a worship service, while we are gathering here for a normal worship service, teaching and preaching, the Spirit of God will sweep down over a congregation of people and lift three or four or many more to their feet and they start dancing in the Spirit. That becomes an expression of worship and praise to the Lord. Otherwise why would it say in the Psalms, what it does? (Psalms 100:4) “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.” Then in Psalms 149 and 150, we find these words that let us know what God accepts. (Psalms 149:3) “Let them praise His name in the dance: let them sing praises unto Him with the timbrel and harp.” (Psalms 150:6) “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.” Praise Him in the dance. Praise Him with the loud sounding cymbals. All this is an expression of praise. It is a part of worship. But then we have to realize that we do not take these as gifts of the Spirit. No. They are manifestations; but should not be considered among the gifts. Even though you come through that phase on your way into this other realm, some of these things can repeat themselves many times, over and over. Let me use the life of Jesus to express something to you. In Matthew 3, Jesus went to the river. There, He was baptized by John. The scripture says that as He was brought up out of the water, the heavens were opened unto Him. (Matthew 3:16) “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.” Then in John 3:34, we find that Jesus received the Spirit without measure. “For He whom God hath sent (Jesus) speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.” (35) “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” Listen carefully. The apostle Paul spoke of Jesus having received the Godhead in the fullness. This lets me know the baptism of the Holy Ghost came upon Jesus, the man, in the Jordan River. The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, came into Jesus the man at the Jordan River, bringing all the divine characteristics and attributes of God Himself into Him. In other words, He did not receive just a measure of the Spirit which is God, like we do: He received all the fullness of the Godhead in what was given to Him there in the river Jordan. I receive it in a measure. He received it without measure. Now if He received it without measure, then I want to show you something. Suppose that was as far as Jesus ever went in His experience of receiving the Holy Spirit? Think seriously. It does not tell you that Jesus jumped up and down shouting Hallelujah, or anything like that, at the river. Does it? It does tell us that immediately after coming up out of the water, the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. There was such an urge within Him, that it took Him from that river bank that day and drove Him into the wilderness. He went into isolation. He wanted to get as far away from society as He could. He did not want to see anyone or hear any human voice until after He had spent some time (forty days) fasting and seeking the will of God. Then at the end of that, the devil was allowed to come against Him. That is why I want to say to you young people, Regardless of how many times we get under the anointing, and regardless of how we feel inside, it is still going to be the devil’s business to set traps for us, to discourage us; and God will allow it. You can dance and shout and lay on the floor speaking in tongues Sunday night; and the very week ahead, you can go through one of the most hair raising trials of your life. My point is, You cannot rely on the fact that you lay on the floor, nor can you rely on anything else you experienced in worship to help you overcome Satan in his attacks against you. You have to rely on the fact that the God put you on the floor is still the God that lives inside of you. No matter how I feel, nor what is coming at me from the left or the right, He is still the one that promised, I will be with you unto the end of the world. When we can come through that by faith, always looking to Him for His leading and guiding hand, then there will be many times He will repeat the blessings to us, because it is always His way of refreshing our spirit. Always remember, Our heavenly Father is for us, not against us. He desires to bless us; but He also chastens us when we need it. That is because we are His children.

HOW IT HAS BEEN AND HOW IT WILL BE

As I was reading this Azusa Street book, and paying particular attention to the way some of their services were conducted, it caused me to think the whole thing through, as to the purpose of God for mankind, and the route His word would take to ultimately bring the bride Church back to the original revelation of it. In that early hour of this century, because of the spiritual ignorance of that hour, and because those saints did not know that God would eventually bring His church back to its original, perfect status, their thinking was a lot different than what our thoughts and motives ought to be. In those early Pentecostal meetings, it was Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Nazarenes, independent holiness people of different walks of life, all brought together for the purpose of seeking the will of God for their lives and God met them there in that little place. There were times that they would come together and maybe just have one prayer before God would take over the meeting. Or they might sing one song; and from there the Spirit would just take over. Many times they would come and there would be no sermon or anything, the Spirit would just take over. Why was it like that? It was because there was not a message from the scriptures known unto them, as to how to teach and explain it to impart knowledge to the people. Therefore every person that came to those meetings was almost totally ignorant as to what to expect, and then what to do with it afterwards. This is why many times there would be fifteen people on the floor speaking in another language and no one saw anything wrong with it. At times, God would take one person to go to another congregation, a place that they had been invited to. That person would go; and God would anoint him or her just like He did F.F. Bosworth in that meeting we spoke of earlier. God used that hour of this generation to restore to believers something the Church had almost totally lost: the power of God in manifestations of the Holy Spirit. He was not setting things in divine order: He was restoring something back, that the Church had been stripped of. He took this restoration process just one step at a time. His purpose then, was to restore to believers something that would cause them to search His word for a knowledgeable, acceptable thing of truth. Therefore the manifestations and things were allowed to shape the entire meeting. Many times they shouted, spoke in tongues, sang in the Spirit and danced for hours. It just went on and on. It was said, that many times the meetings went on all night long. This served as sort of a pattern for others later on. Pentecostal churches coming out of that, just never seemed to go on any further. Even today they try to carry on much in the same way as what went on back there. You can go to some of them, and if you are not in the Spirit by the time you get there, then with modern jazzed up music, they will endeavor to whip you up. They get you dancing to this new beat, speaking in tongues and shouting; and that is about all they are interested in. What are they doing? They are trying to repeat yester-years. They can go through the same motions, but that is just a shell: The whole thing has lost its impact. Why? Because God has moved on up the road. He is now dealing with truth: the true revelation of His written word. Nevertheless, Even though He is dealing with truth in this hour of Laodicea, there are still people that have to come through this part we have been dealing with in this message. That is why I am glad it was not all over with in 1963, like some are proclaiming. When I see these young people sitting here, and think how God has blessed their hearts, giving them a little taste of the Spirit to hold their interest, it thrills my heart: because I realize this is just the beginning of their walk with God. I just have to say to them, Don’t stop now, keep on seeking the Lord for everything He has for you. Seek Him for everything He has for you, and remember that there may still be others who have not yet experienced what some of you have, so make room for them. Let me say this also, As God moves in our various groups, wherever they might be, watch, be sensitive to the moving of the Spirit: for there is going to be times when the Holy Spirit is going to move right in and completely change the order of the service, simply because He will want to minister to certain individuals in a certain way. That is why I say, If suddenly, you see two or three people on the floor, speaking in another language, do not feel compelled to enforce divine order until after you have had a chance to spiritually appraise the situation. I know some will say, Now wait a minute Bro. Jackson, what does the Bible say about this kind of situation? I will say this, Give way and let the Spirit of God do what He wants to do. I should not have to repeat myself. Give way. Just learn to be sensitive to the Spirit of God. We are not born with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, we only receive that through a new birth experience as we are willing to walk with God. As we come through that, there is plenty of time for divine order, in that sense of the word, later. It is only after we come through this for a period of time, and God deals with us in and through it, that we learn, or we are supposed to learn what the Holy Ghost really means to us as individual’s. What the Holy Ghost is to you as a individual person, is the first thing you have to get settled. How does He deal with you concerning truth and faithfulness? and how do you respond? How do you feel when He begins to inspire you? Do you feel an urge? Does your heart suddenly begin to beat faster? Do you feel like God is blowing you up and you will explode, if you do not yield to some outlet? Whatever it might be, somewhere in it we are going to learn how to conduct ourselves. As I said earlier, That night God was pointing His finger at me, and I was trying my best to slide behind the pew down onto the floor so I could not be seen; but He knew exactly where I was. There is one thing sure, you do not hide from God. You can hide from people, or you can try to, but you will not always succeed. Be assured then, If His finger is pointing at you, He is going to get you. He will keep knocking on your heart’s door until He does. He will keep coming back until you give in and yield yourself to Him. I say these things so these young people will realize, We can dance for an hour and half, we can shout, we can sing, and we can lay on the floor never saying a thing; and every bit of it be pleasing to our heavenly Father: because all of these manifestations of the Spirit are God’s way of introducing us to the power side of the God we have heard about all through the years of growing up. I just pray that none of the people that have followed us in this truth for the past number of years, will suddenly get the idea, We do not need that. I have to say, You do need that; and if you cannot make a place for it, please make your exit. When I think of the number of people that sat under Bro. William Branham‘s ministry, Assemblies of God preachers that at one time believed speaking in tongues was the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as well as U.P.C. preachers who believed the same thing, and many others, as long as they did not know there was a prophet messenger to the age in their particular congregation, they ran the aisles, they shouted, they spoke in tongues and believed everything that Pentecost stood for. But the minute they heard this man teach, it was almost like they took everything they had formerly believed and cast it from them: We don’t need that anymore; and we don’t need that anymore and so forth. Then they sat down like a bunch of storefront mannequins, and began to say, I believe the message, I believe the message. No, they do not believe the message that prophet brought. They could not possibly believe it: because they did not hear it right. The message he brought, does not take something away that God has already restored back to the Church. The only thing it takes away, is those man-made traditions you have been carrying and holding on to through life. Tradition, we do not need. Truth we do. Truth is not tradition. Truth is essential in any walk of life we go through. As for stammering lips, that is the next thing to speaking in other tongues: because it is caused by how the Holy Ghost, that begins to get into our throat, our lips, or our tongue. Some men, when they are intoxicated, their tongue gets thick. That is why they wallow that tongue around, trying to get it in the right place to speak something, but never seem to accomplish that. It is the same way with the Holy Ghost. It is a feeling, a sensation that gets in the tongue, or sometimes it gets in the lips. If you try to say something, nothing will come out, not even English. It is a sensation that is there because of the presence of the Holy Ghost. It is a sign that we have been partaking of something that has a stimulating effect, just like natural man-made wine; and it is the closest thing to speaking in tongues. The reason I say that, is to fore warn you. If this is something God intends to bring the true Church through, as we are in the process of getting dressed up in that fine linen, to be ready for the rapture, you can rest assured, there is not a living soul in this truth today, that is going to get by without God knocking on their heart’s door with it, and they are going to experience something they probably never thought would ever happen to them. The main thing is, Come to church with your heart open, and your mind spiritually prepared, so you are in an attitude of worship. Lord I come to worship you, I believe you are that Holy Spirit, and I can see from your word many ways that you can come to us, and manifest yourself to us, and through us. Lord, here I sit, I am not afraid; and I will not be ashamed of anything you may see fit for me to experience: I will only rejoice in it. As the Spirit begins to move, many times it will be like we have experienced before; but there mat be other times we will come and God will do something just the opposite, or different than what we have been used to. This is the way God orders things to keep us from getting into a rut. If He can keep us out of a rut, then we will never get in a position where we want to manipulate or handle it, or control it. That is how He keeps control of the service. He just wants us to be sensitive to His presence. This is why many times we may come and start singing, but after awhile an anointing can settle on a congregation, or on the person leading, and you feel like He just wants to do something else, something different. It is from that point, if we yield, the Spirit can take over. If He does, then let us be willing to move with the Spirit. I know this, If down there in that meeting, when God let me sing the course to that song, Have Thine Own Way Lord, in the spirit, if I had been somewhere where my mind had already been programmed to what divine order is, there is no way I would have given myself over to such an expression. However as that evangelist asked, How many would like to come and help pray with these people, that God would bless them? I was standing on the outer circle of those people; and when that organ hit a note, I did not know what the note was, but slowly that course began to be sang. The very minute I opened my mouth, I started singing it in another language. I became so happy I said, Lord, I don’t know what I am saying, but have your way. It was a wonderful experience for me. Therefore I say to you young people, old people, or whoever you are, When you see the hour that the Spirit is moving in such a manner, then do not sit there holding on to your seat resisting the Spirit. Let the Spirit of God have His way. Many times when you yield to the Spirit and the Spirit blesses you, that determines how the Spirit will move on someone else for their spiritual benefit. There are times when what one person does in obedience to the Spirit, is the key that unlocks the anointing for many other people to move right into it. I know one thing we should learn from all of this, After a while, if the Spirit speaks through you in tongues, He will not leave you hanging on a limb of ignorance as to what it is all about. After a while He will began dealing with you as to how that gift in you can be functioning in the congregation. When the time comes that everyone in the body has came through this schooling by the Holy Ghost, and everyone is sitting here, knowledgeable and submissive, loving the truth, entertaining the Spirit and just worshiping God, and sincerely wanting God to have His way, It will take us back to what it says in 1st Corinthians 12:7, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” That means that somewhere, everyone who has been sincere with God through all of this is going to fall in line. You have to think universally when it comes to God dealing with the bride of Christ of course. It is not limited to our assembly, nor to North America: The bride of Christ will come from around the world. If the rapture does not take place soon though, the hour will come when there will be thousands upon thousands that are believing the letter of this message of truth; but there will not be one sign of a manifestation of the Spirit among them. If it should come to that, I would have to say that we are no different, and no better off than the Baptists. I hope you understand. He is going to have a Church that has been completely restored; so may we let Him restore it in everything. I cannot do that. I cannot even save myself. I cannot give this anointing. It is God that does it all. I am glad He is a God that does not need my help. He just needs for us to learn to stay out of the way of what He is doing, and learn to follow Him. Let Him do what He wants to do. As He does, somewhere, sometime, all are going to pass through and experience some of this. It is not to create fear, it is to bring them through a realm that they can accept, yield to, and learn to entertain that anointing in their particular life. Then somewhere over here, God is going to create conditions that will necessitate that these things find their channel in a divine order. It is only when people have passed through this first thing, that they can function in the rest. You might say that is the training ground. That is like soldiers going to boot camp. Boot Camp, is where you learn all about what war is, even though you have not been in war yet. You have not been shot at; but you learn what to do if you are. He will not leave you in boot camp all your life though. That is where you become knowledgeable of all the fundamentals of what the whole thing is about. Out of that He brings us into the other realm. In these various groups all over the world, wherever they are, I realize human nature, or culture is different from place to place. God many times moves upon people according to their overall human nature and the culture they are brought up in. In that, He is merciful, He is gracious to us. As He is, let us learn to express our love to Him, thank Him, and praise His wonderful name. If someone gets under the Spirit and starts running the aisle, shouting, and I have seen that person sit here in Faith Assembly for years and never let out a peep, you will not hear me say, Sit down brother and be quiet. If I say anything at all, I am going to say, Get out of his way. I want him to have freedom like that when he is coming into this experience; but I do not expect that brother to go the rest of his life without ever growing beyond that experience. Jesus had the Spirit in Him in the fulness; but did He conduct Himself the way a lot of Pentecostal people of our day do? If He had stayed in that realm the rest of the time He walked among mankind, then think how it would have been: They would have been able to hear Him coming down the road ten miles away, because He would have been shouting, leaping, screaming and yelling at the top of His voice. No saints, Jesus did not come to town like that. You do not read of that kind of picture of Him. When He came into town, unless there was a crowd following Him, nobody knew He was there until something began to be expressed by someone else. That is when they knew there was a man by the name of Jesus in town. He came into town many times, and would say, Do not tell anyone about this. He did not advertise Himself. He knew by saying that, that somebody would nearly break his neck going to tell what he knew. There are times when that is the way God wants it. If you try to keep things at a minimum in a small scale, then God will blow it up the way He wants it. On the other hand, the minute we get all puffed up, Oh praise God, we are having the greatest revival the world has ever had, come and see: Many times you have to resort to all kinds of substitute things to give an impression that what you have said is a fact. I believe God is on the move: But I also believe He just wants us to be wise. It is not a matter of doing things just like Pentecostal people always have. The manifestations are going to continue of course; but people who know the truth are not going to place those manifestation above the word of God. It is a fact though, anywhere there are manifestations taking place, and the word gets around, you will see the crowd begin to gather. Everywhere I read in all the writings of various men, wherever it was reported there is a moving of the Spirit and people are getting under the anointing, whether they are falling out under the Spirit, whether they are trembling, speaking in tongues, whatever these manifestations are, here they come. They crowd the place. They want their share. There are always those individuals that want to be in the forefront where they can attract attention; but that is not what God is after. Here is where I have to say, If we have stood for the truth, and the truth is the thing God wants us to continue to stand on, He is just coming on the scene with this anointing to quicken that truth and make it more precious to us. There will be false characters come around and you may not be able to touch them at first; but let them keep coming, let them keep talking and attracting a lot of attention; and after a while that Spirit they claim to have is going to expose their whole plot. I believe here is where we are going to see the genuine working of the Spirit, as He sets about to really clear things up and keep things clean. For months, and even years, as long as God worked in the Jerusalem area, no man durst join himself among them for fear. That is why Simeon of Samaria could not buy what he wanted. The minute he offered money, that exposed the spirit, the carnality and falseness of his makeup. Peter and John said, You are in the gall of bitterness: you have no part in this. I believe, as we move on with God, beautiful things are in store. He is not finished with us yet.

GOD’S PURPOSE IS BEING REVEALED

No one knew in advance that this move of God was going to sweep around the world like it has. Yet when we look in the scriptures and see it stated in Ephesians, how He will have a perfect Church in the end time; and how He is going to wash it with the washing of the water of the word, we should have known it could not be too far away. Also, in Revelation 19, you see the finished product in heaven and there is great rejoicing. The word says His wife hath made herself ready. You know this anointing, this moving of the Spirit, to me is one of the most wonderful things that Christian people could have happen to them. Christians through the ages have experienced the Spirit and power of God at times; and then there has been those periods of time that seemed like there was a long dry period. Nevertheless God has always met the faith of His people in those periods of time. He has honored their faith and their efforts in being faithful to Him by giving then the blessing and presence of His Spirit. That is why I want the Spirit of God to have His way in every heart and life that sought a closer walk with Him: That is what He wants. I just pray, Lord, you know how to apply what you have for your people; so help us stay out of your way while you administer it. I am saying these things to give you something to carry in the back of your mind: because somewhere in front of us, whether it is a year, two years, three years, or whatever, God has purposed to build this moving of His Spirit into something that will glorify Him. He is not doing it just to keep it in a closet somewhere. Never yet has there been a true move of God that has benefited people in a major extent, without it somehow being noised abroad. You could not keep a thing like this shut in, even if you tried: It cannot be contained. It is like water. Once it finds a hole to go through, it is going to run out. It has always been like that; and this time is no exception. Ever since the death of Bro. William Branham, God has singled this assembly out to stand for something. We did not plan it to be so: we just did what we believed was right to do. During that time, people have come and gone; and when they left here, some of them were not very nice with their remarks about us. If they were all still here today, all those who have been here through the years and sat here for a considerable length of time testifying of how they felt God had led them here, we would have had to build a huge building somewhere long ago. If God truly leads you somewhere, is it done just so you will get your feelings hurt about something and go off somewhere else with those hurt feelings? Not one of those who have gone away with hurt feelings, have benefited their spiritual life by going off hurt and staying hurt. They are in worse shape now than they were when they were sitting here and got hurt. God is not going to let us get hurt for no reason. If it happens, God has allowed it for a test. If we live on our feelings all our life and carry them around on our shoulders, whining about how we are mistreated, rest assured, you are going to be far away from being able to feel this anointing in your life. You are a poor recipient to feel anything poured out upon your life. God likes to pour His presence upon the hearts and lives of people that are willing to shed off everything that is negative and displeasing to Him, and then just let Him have His way. For almost thirty years this assembly has had to stand for what God revealed to us while many others mocked and found fault with us. We believed we were blessed with a light of truth; and we lifted it up for the whole world to see. Now in different places of the earth the Spirit of God is moving; and I just have to say, Because what we stood for is right, God is honoring it. I believe this move of His Spirit is going to keep on until every hungry soul upon the face of this globe is touched by it. Many are wanting to hurry it up; and that is alright, if you are not sitting somewhere with fear in your heart, feeling that God is going to pass you by. He is not going to pass anyone by, if you are truly one of His. If you have truly lived for God and absorbed the truth with all your heart, and you cherish it above all else, God knows exactly where every one of you are, regardless of whether you are young or old; and He will not forget about you. He has a special way He wants to deal in your life; and He knows the exact moment He will begin, so just be patient and wait on Him. Some people are just so anxious to do something for God; and a lot of them are not even equipped to be of service to Him. In order to be of service in the body of Christ as you see in the number 3 column of the chart we are using, you first have to have that experience Jesus spoke of in John 16:13; and when you have that experience, you may partake of what we have listed in the number 2 column; but the point is, until you receive this Spirit of truth into your own life, you have nothing to minister to the body with. Think of it. In that No. 2 column, we have listed some of the ways the Spirit affects those who receive Him, but remember, God is not going to announce in advance what He is ready to do: we just have to be prepared to receive Him when our time comes. You and I have to come together with knowledge that He is sovereign; and that He knows exactly how to deal with those who are foreknown of Him, and just say, Lord, have your own way: Move on me and make me into what pleases you. Do not allow the devil to convince you that if you make any kind of move someone will stop you: Just worship the Lord and be willing to do whatever He moves upon you to do; and I assure you, I will not get in the way. Knowing how the Branham Tabernacle was years ago, when we first started going there, helps me understand how things should work. There, stood a man in pulpit, telling me the Holy Ghost is good for Methodists people also; and that the gifts of the Spirit are for His true Church; and that made me realize this was something I wanted to have a part in. I wanted to be in on this thing, yet at the same time knowing there were people sitting there who had come out of the Methodist Church, just sitting there, having never even gone as far with God as John Wesley took those who followed him. They did not know one thing about the power of God that the old Methodists had in their lives. Here they were, sitting there just as negative about speaking in tongues as anyone could be; and even after Bro. William Branham was taken off the scene, there were still individuals sitting there saying, We don’t need tongues, we don’t need this or that. Saints: Listen to me, Any person who picks up that kind of spirit is going to pay for it before they leave this world. I came to one conclusion, I do not care if it is Bro. William Branham or whoever it is, if this is truth, then I want to be in on it. It is for me just as much as for anyone else if I be a child of God. If God is going to do that for you and in you, then you have got to reach a place that in your mind you feel free to let God bless you. Let Him come on you with the anointing and demonstrate through you however He sees fit to do so. You cannot sit there and say, If so and so wasn’t here, I would feel more liberty: You just have to realize, that wherever the Spirit of God is, there is liberty. I despise this attitude of people sitting in a congregation, saying, We don’t need this and we don’t need this, when they themselves are in no shape spiritually to know what we need. I say, We need everything that is in the program of God. We are not going to sit here and put a monopoly or any kind of hindrance upon what God wants to do for those who are obedient to Him. We have not in former years made a practice of promoting these manifestations of the Spirit like your denominational Pentecostal assemblies have; but neither have we shut the door on anything God saw fit to manifest in our meetings: We have just stood for the true revelation of the word of God and tried to remain open to whatever He desired to do for us. Therefore I believe God has begun to vindicate our stand for His word and anoint that truth to make it a living reality to every individual, so they can know the true joy of living and walking in the Spirit. It does something inside you, that changes your whole outlook on life and on others. It causes you to look at people, ant to look to the future with a different understanding. It causes your days to go by a lot better than they would have otherwise. We have preached, and stated many times, how certain things are to be in an orderly fashion. Those things are still truth; but as I have already stated in this message, There comes a time when there are people that need an experience of the anointing and power of God, and we have to give way for God to move in that manner to fulfill that need. That need is something that God and God alone has His own order for, because He is the final authority over everything He sees fit to do. How can you take what we have in column No. 3 and put it in effect in a Baptist Church, unless you give them No. 2 first. It will not work, will it? If they are against No. 2, then they are against No. 3; and No. 3 is where you see the body functioning the way God wants it to. In No. 2, God schools His children and introduces Himself to them, to give His people the access to this power source and enable them to begin to function in the area we have in the No. 3 column. He is not going to tell you a week in advance that such and such will be taking place at such and such a time. He is just going to do it in a sovereign way and those who are seeking Him in that way are going to receive what they are desiring. I have to believe if we will come together with an open heart, and hunger for God to have His way with us, not only are you going to be slain, or dancing in the Spirit, sooner or later there will begin to be a deeper manifestation of that Spirit that is going to bring you into the realm of the gifts. In this gift realm, as you move into that, whether it is six months later or a year later, all of that depends upon how you and I begin to come into the presence of God and give ourselves to Him. There came a time in the Jerusalem Church, after the day of Pentecost, when God again poured out His Spirit upon the whole assembled number because they were all in one accord seeking His perfect will. (Acts 4:31) “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; AND THEY WERE ALL FILLED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, and they spake the word of God with boldness. (32) And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. (33) And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.” That just shows what God can, and may do at any time when people assemble together seeking HIM like those saints were. It was the same way when the Holy Ghost first came to the 120 disciples there in that upper room in Jerusalem: They were all in one accord. They did not have a few sitting somewhere by themselves saying, We have no need of anything more: They were all in one accord, just waiting for whatever this promise of the Father Jesus spoke of, was. (Acts 2:1-4) “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, THEY WERE ALL WITH ONE ACCORD IN ONE PLACE. (2) And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. (3) And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. (4) And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” When they heard that wind blow, I do not know whether there was any glass in the window cases or not, or whether the sashes were open or closed, but regardless of that, there came a sound from heaven and they all received what they had been waiting upon God for; and with every door closed and locked, and every window likewise, there could come such a sound in here at any time, and some of us could be literally picked up and carried all the way to the back of the building. A lot of people might say, Well I have never experienced anything like that. Then just keep your heart right and hang around awhile: You could very well see it. Somebody is going to experience some things just like they did on the day of Pentecost. When we hear about what is going on in Bro. Govender’s assembly, it makes our heart’s glad. I like to hear this, because do you know what it tells me? It tells me God is still the same God He was two thousand years ago: You do not control Him, nor manipulate Him, nor tell Him when to, and when not to, do this or that: You just prepare yourself to entertain His presence and leave the rest to Him. If we everyone just submit ourselves to Him, we will not have to worry about being out of order when He sends His anointing upon us. Therefore if something begins to take place in your heart, when you are sitting there seeking His perfect will for your life, then do not say, well I am afraid to do anything: I am afraid I will be out of order. You will never know for yourself the true joy of being immersed in that sweet anointing until you obey God with your whole heart, soul, mind and being. When you obey God, many times that is the key that unlocks the whole atmosphere and lifts others up into that same realm. It just takes that one individual to yield themselves to the Spirit of God and it can be like an avalanche or a stack of dominoes. Here they go. It sets the thing in motion and here many people become electrified and caught up in the Spirit of God. That is exactly what we want to see. I have to believe there will come a time when every true child of God sitting here will begin to realize God has given you access to this same anointing. It is here, it is yours. Somewhere outside, there is an element of people God wants this thing witnessed to. I am not saying whether they are coming to get the same thing you are getting, or whether it will be just something they will be judged by: I am not saying either one; but remember this, God has never done anything outstanding in the Church, without sooner or later it becoming known to an outside element of people of the world. It first begins to be investigated by those of the religious order. In that religious realm, there are people who always have ears to hear if there is anything going on anywhere else other than in their particular realm. Just as sure as they begin to hear that God is moving in a certain place in a certain manner, then they are bound to come and check it out. Whether they are coming for salvation, whether they are coming just to take a look, or if it is God’s way of having them present for something He wants to witness to them, or to an element of this world who may have been referring to all of us as Branham people and calling us a cult, I do not know. That is His business. It may be HIS way of saying to some of them, Take a look at these: You have talked about them; but you have never seen them. You cannot just sit back forever, finding fault with what God is doing for other people, and expect God to do something for you. He finds no fellowship in that sort of thing. On the other hand, you do have to take a stand against that which the scriptures declare to be contrary to God’s will and purpose for His Church. You can rest in this scriptural fact, This Comforter, (THE HOLY SPIRIT) when He comes into your life, will lead you into all truth. That is why it is so important that we be completely submissive to Him: He does not save you to make a Catholic, Lutheran, or Baptist or anything like that out of you. HE SAVES YOU TO MAKE YOU A CHILD OF GOD, IF YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN. All of these brand names are man made: God has nothing in any of them. That is why the religious world is going into death. If there is still a predestinated seed of God trapped in any of them, God will have His own way of getting them out of there in time. It may be, that somewhere out there, God wants to bear witness to an element of people, that He still has a people on earth that He can lead by His Spirit of truth. Any time God starts anointing an element of people though, it always stirs up a certain amount of curiosity. Therefore you have to expect people to come, looking, wondering what it is all about. Then, is when we need to have a little knowledge, and the wisdom to conduct ourselves properly, that as the onlookers or the critics come, they will not find us going beyond scriptural authority in that which we do and say. I believe if we can be found doing that, (and I am not asking God to strike somebody dead, but you and I know there was an hour in the day of Peter’s life, that God met their wrong attitudes and motives just like that) God will vindicate us to all those who come in among us, if we keep ourselves within the bounds of scriptural authority.