THIS WILL BE THE LAST PART OF THE MESSAGE “TRUTH IN CONFLICT,” WHICH WE STARTED IN OUR MAY ISSUE. IT IS A MESSAGE DEALING WITH THE GODHEAD, AND WITH THE WAY PEOPLE IN GENERAL TREAT TRUTH. NATURALLY THERE IS NO WAY TO GIVE A REVELATION TO THOSE WHO ARE OUTSIDE THE REALM OF THOSE WHOM GOD HAD FOREKNOWN BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, BUT TO THOSE WHO TRULY ARE CHILDREN OF GOD, JUST HAVING A FORM OF RELIGION WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO GET YOU OFF THE GROUND WHEN THE RAPTURE TAKES PLACE. THIS IS DEFINITELY PREPARATION TIME FOR THE BRIDE OF CHRIST. SHE MUST BE CLOTHED IN A REVELATION OF THE WORD OF GOD; AND THE TIME LEFT FOR THAT IS VERY SHORT.
If ever there was an hour that truth finds itself in controversy, it is now. Right here, is a letter from Bro. Segun. You remember him: He was the brother from Lagos Nigeria, that came here about two years ago. Some of these African names are hard to pronounce, but I believe it is spelled right. He tells here how a group over there with a certain minister in it, has taken to prophesying, and no doubt some of the prophecies as he started out were very true, but somehow he did not know where to draw the line and he felt that with this type of ministry he could go forth and really help other assemblies. Bro. Segun tells how they felt led to let him come to their assembly and throughout the meeting he prophesied that his ministry would be the means of a revival setting in and so forth. Nevertheless by the time the meeting came to a close, he had preached and prophesied things that split the congregation three ways. Bro. Segun and about a third of the others came through it feeling like they had victory over the ordeal, but sad to say, not everyone did. All of this just goes to show, that as the Spirit of God will move among a people of the message in different parts of the world, there is always individuals that are looking for some kind of recognition above everyone else. They take an attitude toward certain things that those groups have been motivated by, up to a certain point, and it mentions how the Contender has been used. They use the Contender as a shield. This makes me feel bad. We have not been printing this for twenty some years with any intention of causing anybody to want to take it and use it as a shield, thereby hiding some revelation of their own, or some ministry that somehow or other supersedes that of the scriptures, which we know would cause such a great reproach. However just as sure as we are sitting here this today. As we get closer to the end of time, more and more individuals are going to appear on the scene with motives of their own choosing. It is like the old cream separator: In order for cream to be able to separate from the milk, the whole thing has to go through a spin process. Since cream is lighter than milk, because milk is basically water, and water being the heavier of the liquids, the cream will eventually be forced to the tope through this spin process. There is no doubt that in any moving of the Spirit, any working of the Spirit whatsoever, God knows what He is doing. It will serve His purpose, but it behooves you and me as children of God to learn what the Holy Spirit is, and why God gave the Spirit to us in the first place. He did not give me His Spirit to make me some big shot that can be stuck on a pedestal and have a million people worshiping my flesh. That is absolutely wrong, as wrong as wrong can be. I have always said, Gentile people are silly people. If they do not hear a thing right, they will take it anyhow and go some other direction with it. Thursday night, when I read the mail there were two booklets like this, in it: Hard Truth. Friday morning I set about to read the most of it. I will have to say, The man has really brought out some beautiful things of truth in it. I began to feel at ease the way he had put certain things together, but he came to a part of worship and in the worship he uses this approach that real true worship to the Lord is to be done without any musical instruments whatsoever: Jesus did not use them, neither did the disciples mention it. Therefore there is no grounds for you and me to use instruments in our worship services in this day and hour. He said these people that want to use certain psalms where it reads how to praise Him with the loud sounding cymbals, praise Him with the stringed instruments, and this and that, he had his remarks about that also. I am going to write him back and say, Brother, you sound like the Church of Christ preacher I used to hear when I was about fourteen years old. You have the same picture he had. In the book of Revelation, we read where the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down to worship the One sitting upon the throne and so fourth, so let me read a few verses to you and notice what is written. (Rev. 4:8) “And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. (Now 5:8) And when He had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. (Rev. 14:2) And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. (Rev. 15:2) And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.” What picture do you see there? I am going to remind him that those elders were not angels. Those elders were men who had been on earth at one tie, and that had also worshiped God, knowing that instruments were a part of the process. There is not a nation nor race of people upon the face of this earth that does not use something to give some kind of sound or tone in their gatherings for worship. You can go to the most remote heathen in New Guinea, or Indonesia, and they will take bamboo and cut big slices and stretch some kind of string or hide over that to make an instrument. They will have with them some kind of means to make a sound. If it is not drums, then it is something of that nature. I have to say, We are going to see more and more of this kind of individuals rise on the scene as we get closer to the end. They will have just so much beautiful truth and that is what people will go after, but then they will hit some other thing and say, No, this is out. All you have to do is be wrong in one thing and you are marked. God is never wrong; therefore what is truly done through His inspiration and leading is never wrong either, but there are too many people who profess to have that leading when they do not even know how to recognize it. There are people in various places that say, Well Jackson has fifty percent truth, so and so has thirty percent truth, and another one has twenty percent truth and another ten percent truth and on like that: Saints, I do not want to be counted as a part of such a conglomeration as that. I hope you know what I mean? I do not want to be part of that type of thinking: for this is all just a game with them. There are some men out here that do not want to learn from anyone else, yet they expect everyone else to learn form them. They think Jackson will not share with anyone else. Well they are wrong on both counts, but there is one thing sure, I did not need their kind to get me started, and I do not need them now, but neither am I trying to make it a one man show like they accuse me of doing. I will listen to any man who has proved himself to be God called, but not just any man who calls himself a preacher. I have stood for a ministry through the years, and many have preached from this pulpit, and even though I know my ministry, if the apostle Paul was still here today, I would have to say, Brother, come on and take my place, I want to sit down and listen to you. It was prophesied to him by Ananias in Damascus, Thou shall be a means of salvation to the ends of the earth. That means until the end of time. What God had put in his bosom as a revelation, will be the means God uses right on until the end of time to touch the hearts of lost mankind and bring them into a relationship of salvation. I will use an illustration. A wild goose has more sense than to follow just any goose. When it comes time for them to go south, or north, it will not be some young drake up front leading the way: It will be an old gander that has made the trip two or three times before. He will honk away, and the others will follow him. I realize as I say that, a lot may get their own personal ideas. It is one thing to respect a man for what God uses him for, but it is another thing to worship him, or to attribute to him more than what he is deserving of. Gentiles have always been people that do not know where to draw the line on anything. They are prone to carry everything to extremes; therefore there comes a time when we must take a stand, if we have a job to do.
LOOKING AT CERTAIN STATEMENTS ABOUT THE GODHEAD
I have some things written down, that I want to read to you. I have written them down so they will be self explanatory. I mentioned last Sunday night, that many times Bro. William Branham, in preaching on this subject, would say, denouncing the trinity, Jesus is God. Another time he would say, Jehovah of the Old Testament, was Jesus of the New, then you would be hitting the nail right on the head. In the sermon book, Church Order, preached in October 1958, Bro. William Branham made the statement that Jesus is the Son of God. Another time he refers to Jesus being the Son of God and says, There is no such thing as eternal Sonship. He went ahead to say, There is no place in the Bible where it says anything about Jesus always having been with the Father. If He is God’s only begotten Son, anything that is begotten of a source, that source has to be considered above that which is begotten. An the word son itself implies male offspring of something that a son can be gotten from. Therefore if we were to say, as the Trinitarians do, and even some of the oneness people, because they take St. John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God,” that Jesus was with the Father before all time, and then put Jesus in the garden because He is the word by which God created all things. We would have to say that the Son was also self existent. In the Old Testament, Jehovah of Old, which is the invisible Spirit, made Himself known to the patriarchs through seven redemptive names. One of those redemptive names was self existent, meaning always was. That which always was had no beginning. Neither does it have an ending. It has no father, It has no mother. Therefore He is in the rightful position, He holds the position to be referred to as God, the Creator, the Father. But if we are going to hold to the idea that the Son was before all time, then we would have to give the Son equal self existent recognition with the Father before all time. This would make us accept as fact what the Trinitarians bring out, that He is co equal, because that is the formula of Trinitarianism. They state that there are three persons in the godhead, each being co equal with the other. If so this would mean He is co equal with the Father in headship. Then consider what a position the Son has been lowered to, for in 1st Corinthians 11. Paul would have everyone to know that the had of man is Christ, and at the head of Christ is God. Something there begins to back up. We are putting a plug in the flow of something. If we are going to say He was there with the Father before all time, and that He is co equal with the Father, and that He is also self existent, then what a position to be lowered to. Paul says that the Father is the head of Christ and that Christ Jesus the Son, is only head of the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ Himself. The scriptures state that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, which means He had a beginning. Son means male offspring of one who is His Father. Only the Father is the head of everything, but the Son is head of everything that the Father has redeemed to Himself through the Son. Jesus the man, is not the head of the universe. Only God Himself holds that position. Everything on earth, eventually, that is affected by this redemptive plan of God, whether it is the earth, the Church, or what, Jesus Christ holds a position of headship in that, while the process of redemption is in effect. This is why there is going to be a Millennium shortly in front of us. There is a living generation of people right now, that is going to be the head. That is why He is going to be King of kings and Lord of lords throughout all the earth, and for a thousand years the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the sea. And the word of the Lord shall go forth from Jerusalem in that day and all nations shall flow into Zion and into Jerusalem to worship the Lord of hosts. They will literally worship Jesus the Christ, the incarnate God in the person of His Son. I wrote it down that way so that it will give the average person a little insight about this thing called Sonship, headship, and what Christ really is the head of. Was He here before all time? Was He here when Mars, Jupiter and those places came into existence? No. This is why when you read Ephesians 1, Paul is speaking of you and I having been predestined in the mind and plan of God. That did not mean we were already created, but we were created in His mind already: We had a potential existence already. God through His foreknowledge saw us. He chose in that foreknowledge state, that one day He would bring forth a begotten Son, that through Him He might redeem this lost creation He had seen that would come into this period of time of being estranged from their Creator. Yes, we were predestined in Christ before the foundation of the world. The apostle Peter picks it up in his writings how that Jesus the man was foreordained before all time, yet was manifested in His time. That means when that portion of the word, that though that lay there with God all the time, when God executes it, or activates it, He sets it in motion, it materializes into that of being a man. This was the predestined plan of God, to reconcile the world to Himself by this means. He knew Adam and Eve would sin.
JESUS – IN THE GARDEN PRAYING
As we go into some of these other scriptures all of this will become more clear to you. Let us go to the 17th chapter of St. John. In the 16th chapter as we said earlier, Jesus is talking to the disciples. They are leaving the Upper Room where they had the Last Supper, and He is on His way down the summit of Mt. Zion, going down across into the valley of Jehoshaphat. This is when He entered into the garden of Gethsemane. We know the conversation He carried on with His disciples just before He went through the gateway and told them to stay there and watch and pray while he went a little further and prayed. He is no longer on the summit of Mt. Zion in the Upper Room, where in the 13th chapter we see they had the Lord’s Supper, and He washed the disciples’ feet. They have left that spot and in a process of walking, have arrived at the garden. Here, in the 24th verse of the 16th chapter we find this, “Hitherto (or He could have said, up until now) have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things (when He said this, keep in mind, He does not even state specifically what things) have I spoken unto you in proverbs: (If you take a dictionary and see what the word proverb means, it is sort of the same as using a type to illustrate a point, but it does not bring out every detail. It is something to set your mind looking toward a profile, so He is actually saying, The things I have been speaking unto you, they have been spoken in proverbs. That is why when we go back through the gospel of St. John, every time He would make one of these statements, I and the Father are one, again He would say, I come forth from the Father, or the Father sent me, again He would say, I came out of the Father, and I return to the Father. With these things said like this, we can see why he would say this) but the time cometh (He is telling His disciples the hour will be,) when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.” Meaning it will be the Spirit of the Father, which we call the Holy Ghost, that is to come and take the place of the person of Christ in our lives, and not speak to us as the man He was, but as the Spirit of inspiration that was in Him. This Spirit will speak more specifically, no longer to leave us in darkness nor in doubt, but to bring out clearly the meanings of things He has said. I am saying it this way all because when we do go to the 17th chapter and here is where some of those people that are Trinitarians, or Jesus only people, want to say, Well right there Jesus is saying glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before the world was. You have to realize what that speech terminology pointed to. He did not exist there as a person. He was that ordained Spirit of life itself that eventually one day was to be manifested and become a man. In the mind of God it was a thought: That is why Ephesians 1 plainly states how that God, as He counseled with Himself, which means He meditated, He did not talk to anyone. He did not say, Come here Gabriel, I need help. He did not speak to any arch angel, no seraphim or cherubim, I need your assistance, help me make a decision. There was no trinity of persons involved in putting this picture together. It was all done by the sovereign mind of God. Therefore when we see here, Jesus is plainly telling the disciples, The hour will come when the Spirit that will come from the Father, will show you plainly, meaning He will give you clear understanding in these deep things, that right now you have stumbled at, I don’t understand this man, what does He mean? We are living in the end of time. The Grace Age is fast coming to a close. The Bride is not going out of this world with a bunch of confused ideas as to what is or what is not. They are going out of here with a finished picture of what has been going on through this two thousand years of the Grace Age. Any other thing laying in the Old Testament that is relative to our growing in the knowledge and grace of God and in the plan He has for us in the next age to come, He is going to teach us. That still does not mean we are going out of here knowing everything. We are going to know everything that is relative to redemption and what it means to you and I to be part of that, and that which is going to be our role in the Millennium age. According to the prophecy of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is going to make it plain to us, so as we go to the 17th chapter, verse 3, we hear Jesus praying. He has just said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.” This has to refer to Calvary. Then in verse 3, He says this, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” We are going to see that there is no sense nor reason for anyone to be Trinitarian, or Jesus only. One is as bad as the other, because they are both extremes of ignorance: One on each side of the road of truth. Well as He continues praying, Jesus says, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” If you notice when He said that, there are three things He mentions in this prayer. The first is when He says, I have finished thy work. Well what is the work He came to do? Miracles. Right? To do miracles. The second is to make known a name. You find that in the 6th verse, I have manifested thy name. The name given to Mary’s son at birth was Jesus. That is the name of the Man, a human name, but at baptism, when the Father came down and incarnated Himself in the person of His son, God the Father, the invisible ONE, took on that name and became revealed through that name. Therefore the name Jesus, became a compound name in its literal meaning. This is why you go back to Isaiah 7 and it says His name shall be called Immanuel, which means God with us. That is true, but it is quite another thing to say that Jesus is God. When you say that, you are giving the devil an opportunity to take your own word and twist it one way or the other, because you have not explained it. If He was not to speak to us in parables anymore, then it behooves us also, not speak in parables anymore. First of all, some of the parables we might use would be total ignorance on our part. Anyhow Jesus says, “I have glorified thee on the earth: (the first thing)I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (The miracles that He did) And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Listen carefully, you have to see yourself in your future role, just as Jesus saw Himself in His next phase, because He had not died yet. Did you know, I can read the Psalms, I can read Isaiah, I can read Jeremiah, and I can see myself in the Millennium. If we look at ourselves right, the Bride of Christ, we can see ourselves there. I see us coming back with Him in the 19th chapter of the book of Revelation. I do not have to wait for that to be a manifested reality: I can see it already, so it is going to be worth everything it takes to gain that position with Christ. I was not there when God planned the Millennium, but I can see it through the written scripture. As Jesus came close to the hour of time when He must die, it was the end of 33 ½ years of life. He did not come down from heaven as an existing Son. He did not go around thinking, I came down to die, I came down to die, I came down to die. When His life was begotten of the Father, to be manifested in the person of the little baby Jesus, His intelligence, or His mental capacity was not to go around throwing rocks and teasing the neighbors dog. His mind was constantly on how to please the heavenly Father, because He did not have an earthly father where He inherited an ornery nature. He had a heavenly father; and the scriptures say there was no guile in Him. His whole mentality and psychological makeup was to seek to learn after His heavenly Father. There was only one source and that was to go to the written scriptures. As He got older, how many times the Spirit would speak to Him in different ways to acquaint Him with His role on earth. Therefore when He says I have glorified thee, He knows exactly how, the fact of the works He had done, the miracles, the name that He had revealed, as well as all the other teaching. However as I said earlier, You will find no place in the four gospels where any of the disciples, once they found out what that name meant, ever called Him Immanuel. That was not the way they addressed Him. They addressed Him as Jesus. This is why as Jesus is coming closer and closer to the ending of His ministry, He took His disciples to Caesarea Philippi and there is where He asked them personally, Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am? He was wanting to get a personal report of what was going on in the conversation realm. Well some say thou art Elias, and some say this or that. Then He asked them personally, I want to hear what you have to say. That is when Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. You did not hear him say, Oh thou art Immanuel: We know what that name means. He simply spoke, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” That is a revelation. We need to stop using Gentile speech terminology concerning the Godhead, simply because it does not carry a true thought. Let us learn to say just what the Bible says. There are an awful lot of people afraid to quote the Bible anymore. They will quote bro. Branham, but they will not quote the Bible. That is because they made the quotes of Bro. William Branham superior to the Bible. I want you to know, the writings of Bro. William Branham did not exist back in 900 A.D. and through the time when the Catholics tried to destroy the written Bible. They gathered them up, piled them in heaps and burned them, but a few were hidden. As time went on they were finally reprinted and the Bible became a cherished book. The Bible, as a written book contains the infallible, written word of God. It was inspired of the Holy Spirit. It has been watched over by the Holy Spirit down through time. It takes the Holy Spirit to interpret it. No matter what language it might have been originally written in, it takes the Holy Spirit to interpret the meaning of passages of scriptures. When Jesus said “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” it was because He could absolutely read through the prophets and see exactly how every prophet had prophesied of His hour. That is why I pointed back to the 6th chapter of Isaiah, because Isaiah saw the glory of God, he saw the temple of God come forth, He saw the four beasts with the six wings, He saw this great train of angelic beings, but he did not see the four and twenty seats. That was not a finished picture. Let me say this to the brothers in Africa, and to the brothers in the Philippines, or India, or wherever you may live, Isaiah 6 does not present a finished picture of how heaven looks. It shows a preview of something that one day will be manifested and it will have its origin in heaven and when it is manifested it will have its duration of time. How many doctors of divinity in the trinity world will read that and say, Oh, but that is how heaven looked. That is not how heaven looked. Heaven, however it has looked, no doubt had one particular visible manifestation to it in general, it has always been a Spirit world. This is why when we come to the 1st chapter of Ezekiel, more than a hundred years after Isaiah, He sees the same vision, but God had added more to it. Now if God is adding to it, keep in mind, there has to be a reason. He saw the throne, but he saw the form of a man sitting on that throne. He also saw a rainbow about that throne. He still saw the four beasts and described their faces. This form of a man was prefiguring the day when there will be a man sit on that throne, but at that time this particular man had not been born yet. Notice also in the 1st chapter of Ezekiel, that the twenty four seats are still not there. By Ezekiel living in 500 and something, we come on through time to the day that the word that had been with God all along only as a thought, because it took God to think such a thing, and as long as it was a thought it was still with God, because He was the originator of it. However when God activated that thought, it means He expressed it by His own power to bring it forth and set it in motion. That is why we see in the very beginning of the gospels, the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. If God in the Old Testament could manifest Himself in a theophany form, then we would have to realize also, that if the Son already previously existed, He would not have had to come from such a position down to earth to such a trying entry into the world of mankind. No. The Son could also have enveloped Himself with theophany flesh and suddenly appeared on earth, walking among us. I said that just to get your attention. Since He was not a living being, a living person, co-equal with God, there had to come an hour that God Himself, the Father, the head of everything, executed His thought to begin the process of Mary’s pregnancy. This Spirit which we refer to as the Father of Jesus is the same Spirit that created the stars, the moon and everything else. He overshadowed that virgin womb and created in there the very nucleus of everything that was going to be the little fetus in Mary that would one day be the man called Jesus. When that little fellow was growing up into adulthood, do you think He had to run to a priest, Please tell me what this means? I was reading thus and so in Isaiah and in Ezekiel, who do you think this is referring to in there? No saints, Hallelujah! He knew exactly who He was, and that those scriptures were pointing to Him. That is why when Nathaniel came to meet Him and cried out, (John 1:49) “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel,” Jesus said to him, “Thou shalt see greater things than these. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” When Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus said flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Jesus knew exactly who He was, and He knew exactly how to pray right here, Now glorify thou me with thine own self. He could have said, Now heavenly Father, that vision you gave Isaiah, that vision you gave Ezekiel, let this become my promise. He did not say that. He just said, Glorify thou me with thine own self, which means take me up to thyself. He came out from God, but it was as a spirit of life, not as a person. Jesus was not a person prior to His coming into this world two thousand years ago.
COMMENTS ABOUT LIFE AND ABORTION AND COMMON SENSE
I want to say something at this time, not to create something for people to get all tangled up over, but just to clarify something. My wife fell in possession of a diagramed chart on how abortion is performed, step by step, the different stages these abortion doctors go through and all of that. The question can be asked, When does a baby have a soul? Listen carefully, all the potential of it being a soul is already there the minute conception is consummated. Please listen carefully to what I say. I am not a doctor, I am not a scientist, but in that moment of conception there is no knowledge in that fetus of where he or she is. There is no feeling. There is no sense of sight. There is no sense of speech. We can say instead, The soul, all the potentials that are set in motion are dormant. There is life, because the life is what makes the heart beat. That little heart is beating, pumping blood through the veins. The blood is picking up nutrients that is fed through the umbilical cord of the mother, into the body of this fetus. There is a potential there, but there is a process of time that must elapse before those potentials are realized. Keep in mind though, the minute that little body has come to the hour it is brought from it’s mother’s womb, something strikes it, and it starts breathing. Those lungs, for the first time, start their job. Everything about that being becomes activated. In a short time the eyes are open, it can distinguish between light and darkness: the ability to speak is activated and from there on, it is just a matter of growth and maturity. At birth, is when the soul actually becomes a living reality. IT is not that the baby knows a lot of things, but it is definitely aware of light and darkness, and it now can relate to touch. You take this back to Genesis, God has created the spirit man first. God said it is not good that man be left like this seeing he has not a man to till the earth. In other words, a spirit cannot plow the ground, a spirit cannot build roads, nor anything like that, so out of the dust of the earth God created a body. What did He do? He fashioned it and breathed into it the breath of life. I am not going to listen to these evolutionists who deny the fact that such a thing took place. The first body God created, He put the Spirit of Adam into; and I want you to know, it had no connection to the Neanderthal man or the Homo man or any prehistoric creatures some call men. Those other things, whatever they were, they were not sons of God. We find no trace of anything they left, like written articles. They were all of a prehistoric animal kingdom that Lucifer ruled over. Genesis 2:7, says “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” That means everything about him became activated, because his knowledge, his speech, his sight, his hearing and smell, all these that we will say helps to make up the soul of the spirit of the person, became activated. He then began to function as a human being. That is why I say to you, Let us try to keep the picture balanced, without getting narrow minded. There are people that will take issue with what I just said, simply because they are not content to take a reasonable look at an issue. I get letters all the time, Bro. Jackson, what about this? Please give us specific Bible proof of this, (whatever it happens to be). There are times when there is not enough Biblical proof of something that comes into a message, but a common sense, reasonable look at it, helps you realize what we are doing. We are not trying to start a new doctrine: We are just endeavoring to get God’s people established in the old ones of the scriptures. The spirit of life that came out from God, that sets in motion and becomes the word of God, the thought of God manifested, which means God has activated it. The spirit of life in that little boy carried in the arms of its mother had not existed previously in some kind of subconscious state with the Father, looking at things with the Father. In this little vessel of clay was the beginning of the man we know as Jesus the Christ. This is why He is called God’s only begotten Son. Anything begotten of another, has to have a beginning. Therefore the minute that soul is activated, it begins to grow and learn. Every sense that is a part of it grows and increases. Everything that He has been created and brought forth for, He is getting closer and closer to it. That is why He prayed like He did, when He said, Glorify thou me with the glory I had with thee before the world was: because He actually saw that position He was going to be projected into. How did He know? He had read it in the scriptures. WE see in the scriptures, what God has in store for the true bride of Christ, that we are going to be returning back with Jesus to rule and reign with Him, so we could say, Lord, glorify thou me, for I know this body is going to take on a different state of existence: That it is going to be changed. That change will be part of the glorification process; and we did not have to know that before all time, but now that we know it, because we have seen it in the written word of God, we can therefore pray according to that, without praying in ignorance or trying to bring it to pass before its time. The church world, if you were to talk like this, would say, Oh you are getting too super spiritual now; and I would have to say to them, and you have been sitting in the dark for so long, it scares the daylights out of you when people talk about the reality of the word of god. All you want to know is John 3:16 and John 5:24, you do not want anything else. You are so wrapped up in soup suppers and bingo parties, you cannot wait until service is over and you can light your cigars, or take a plug of tobacco and get involved in something like that. I have seen it just like that. It is a pitiful shame, that churches the world over today have lost the revelation of the time we are living in. They have lost the revelation of what God is doing in the earth. They have really lost the true meaning of the word of God; and they have nothing left to hold a congregation together. That is why they start announcing. Next Sunday morning we are going to have a fellowship breakfast at Shoney’s, or wherever. These are the carnal things going on in the religious world today, to keep people together. Everything on their spiritual table has become a dead, dry morsel, and they have to create something of interest to keep their people coming back. We do not use gimmicks to generate a crowd: We are just here to feed those who are hungry for something from God and we desire more than anything else, to present a true picture of the Godhead and a revelation of God’s word that will meet the needs of God’s true children. Therefore I have tried to express to you something that will enable you to see that Jesus, the man that was prophesied by Isaiah, both in the 7th and 9th chapters, and which John has spoke of over and over, while referring to certain statements He made, was not a person, there in heaven with the great Creator, prior to the time He was born to the virgin Mary. Having done all I know to do to explain the Godhead to you, there is no way any of you should now be sitting there still believing that Jesus is God Jehovah Himself. Jesus, the man that was born of virgin birth IS THE SON OF JEHOVAH of the Old Testament. His first introduction was, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Nowhere did Jesus ever say, I am Jehovah. They think just because He said, the Father is in me and I am in the Father, that He was actually saying He was God, but a true revelation overrides that idea. He said, Believe me for the very work’s sake, but He never indicated at any time, that He was more than THE SON OF GOD. If you read the scriptures right, you cannot help but see that Jesus is the only begotten SON of God, the Father of all creation. In Him was manifested every thought that God had purposed to bring forth to convey to the human race of lost mankind, how He looked upon them and purposed to redeem them. It was not the man Jesus that did the choosing. It was the Father that was in Him that did the choosing. It was not Jesus that designed the plan. No. It was the Father that created Him that designed the plan. Therefore we can say this, It was God in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not to the person of the Son, but to the Father. The Son became the means by how the redemption was to go forth.
HOW THE APOSTLE PETER PRESENTED JESUS TO CORNELIUS
Let us go to the 10th chapter of Acts and notice how Peter spoke of Jesus the Christ. Knowing that the apostles were Jews, we can have confidence that the New Testament scriptures are always consistent with the written word in the Old Testament, and with the thought that the recipient is to obtain from it. In the 10th chapter the apostle Peter is speaking to Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, and in the 34th verse we read these words, “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respector of persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord of all:) That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.”who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” I want to ask my critics a question: If the man that we call Jesus was Jehovah Himself, how could Jehovah anoint Jehovah? It makes no sense at all, to believe that Jesus was God. However it does make sense to believe what the Bible says: That God was in Jesus, reconciling the world unto Himself. How many of you can really see the picture like it was meant to be seen? Jehovah created a cell of life in the womb of the virgin, which eventually brought forth the man child that the angel of the Creator had already given them the name He was to be called by. He was given the name Jesus, not Immanuel like you see in Isaiah. Immanuel only means, GOD WITH US. That was not the name He was to be called by. They called Him Jesus; and that man called Jesus, for the first thirty years of His life, knew He was the Son of God, and had no thoughts whatsoever that He was more than that. Before He received that anointing at the time John baptized Him, there was no way He could have performed any kind of miracle whatsoever. Until that hour came, He had no thoughts about doing anything beyond what any other man was able to do. On the other hand, He did not have to go to the High Priest, Sir, I believe I am the Son of God, but can you see anything in the scriptures that speak about what I am supposed to do? No, all the time He was growing up, growing in knowledge, growing in stature, He knew exactly who He was; and He did not have to worry about what He was supposed to do. He knew He could not do anything until the right time. When that right time came, He did not have to ask anyone what He was to do next. He came to the river right on schedule. That is why John the Baptist cried out like He did, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” As the two met in the water and carried on a conversation, and John baptized Him, right there, is where Jehovah the Creator, the head of everything manifested His glory and His power, by accepting this Son whom He had watched over for thirty years of His growth and existence. He cried out with an audible voice, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” vindicating Him. Then by a supernatural manifestation of His divine glory and power, He sent forth that anointing presence in bodily shape like a dove, to abide with Him, even in Him from then on. No, No one saw the Father in the shape of a man. What was seen was the radiance of His glory as it comes from heaven, coming into this man. I will read two of the verses that speak of this manifestation. (Matthew 3:16, and John 1:32) “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. (John 1:32) And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him.” They saw this dove. I like to think of this dove coming down in one of those rays, those beams of glory. Not rays from the sun, but rays coming from the glory of God. When that dove came down, it did not fly right into the person of the man. It rested on His shoulder. All this signifies God has taken up His abode in this vessel. God has taken possession of the person of His Son. Now God is in Christ to start this wonderful work of redemption. This is why no Jew, anywhere in the written scriptures referred to Jesus as if He was the sovereign God, the Creator, the very God they served. It was the God in Christ they looked to. When we go to 2nd Corinthians 5:14, we find Paul speaking here. It was Peter, a Jew, speaking, in the book of Acts, chapter 10, and now we want to watch how both of those men spoke consistently along the same line of thought as they presented the picture they had of the plan of God. Paul says here, “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.” In other words, Paul only saw Him in a vision, not in the person of His flesh, because the person was already in heaven. That is why you and I have never known this man after the flesh, that is, by seeing Him personally. We have got to see Him in the scriptures and understand Him by divine revelation. It is how the Holy Spirit, which is the author of the written scriptures, will take the passages of scriptures and quicken them to us and help plant a finished picture in our spiritual mind of what has really been going on, that we have to depend on. In the 17th verse we see these words, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, (because He is the one who designed this plan) who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, (We can see it is God who does the choosing, it is God who does the foreordaining, it is God who does the calling, but when He calls us we must enter through the doorway, and Jesus has already told us He is that door. We must enter in through the person of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.) and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; (This 19th verse is the clincher.) To wit, (is to witness, to preach, to testify, to proclaim) that God was in Christ, (How was God in Christ? It was the anointing that was in Him. God did not leave the universe and reside only in His Son. He who is self existent, He who is omnipotent, He who is omniscient, did not leave the universe. Get that settled: He just manifested His power in such a way that man cannot help but see that He has taken up His personal abode in the person of His Son, but He who is in His Son in the fulness of His headship is still in the universe because He is omnipresent: He is everywhere.) reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” You can see here, another Jew preaching the same thing. Yet he was not a copy cat. They just simply spoke according to the revelation they had. You did not hear Paul saying, Now I want to show you God. We see exactly how the picture goes together, just simply by putting the scriptures together. Let us turn to Hebrews 1 at this time. Again it is the apostle Paul we are reading after. He is writing to the Hebrews, which would be Jews, because the word Hebrew means foreigner. Every Jew that he spoke to, every Jew that he wrote to, every Jew he met outside the confines of the land of Israel, he saw them as foreigners: because they were aliens in another land. That is what the word Hebrew means, foreigner. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; (keep in mind saints, that this is a King James translation. The translators, being Trinitarian themselves, want you to believe that God created the world, or as it says, worlds by Jesus Christ. It literally means this, God, who designed the worlds, which means dispensations, or ages of time, He designed them so that Christ could be the central figure or focal point in His overall plan of redemption. In each dispensation of time, somewhere God manifested Himself. He used various forms to cause certain things to be characterized and made known, that one day all that which was types and shadows would be culminated in the person of His Son. It was note h son doing any of the creating: It was how God designed it that made it this way.) Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” I hope you know by now, that this does not mean He is seated in heaven ont eh right hand of another person: Jesus in the ONLY PERSON of the Godhead. Anyhow to go further with this, we will go to 1st John. This is the same man who wrote St. John. He wrote this in 90 A.D. just before the book of Revelation came forth in 96 A.D. John is the one saying this. “That which was from the beginning, (It is almost like he is going back and picking up those same two verses to start with.) which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (As he is talking about it in St. John 1:2, he is talking about that which was the thought with God, but here, the thought has materialized and now he can say we have handled of the Word of life.) For the life was manifested, (you every one know that the word manifested means, made known.) and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, (He, the Father is the one who designed this whole program.) And was manifest unto us; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, AND with HIS SON Jesus Christ.” I hope none of you still use this Gentile speech terminology, that Jesus is God. Say it the way the Bible says it and you cannot go wrong. Argue about it and one of these days God will take your revelation away. Watch out, this will be from now on until the end, God gives people so much potential, but this is the day for that potential to start taking hold. From now on until we are raptured out of this world, that potential He has given us, is to be sufficient to direct our pathway, our spiritual growth and our fellowship one with another. If we look at it the right way and allow God to embed these things in our spiritual minds, it will cause us to grow wiser, to grow stronger, to become more sure of who we are and what we are. When we get to the place we are so complacent, we are ready to argue about every little issue, God gets tired of this carnality, or this nonsense that goes on in our carnal minds. It seems like there is always someone wanting to out run someone else. What a man believed six years ago, by the hour Jesus arrives, he will not believe the same thing. He will be playing around with something else. I say these things because it is the only way I know how to say it and make it sound simple. Let us just simply learn to say it the way the Jewish apostles of old said it, and if we do, God will see to it that every one of those words will become a thought to be expressed and we will see a clear picture. That clear picture will open our understanding and deliver us from ignorance. I am thankful to God for my brothers and sisters in the Lord. I would not do anything deliberately to hurt any of you: I just want to help all of you any way I can; and I pray that I never have to preach on this subject anymore. May God bless every one of you who love truth. Amen.