WE WERE UNDER THE PARAGRAPH HEADING – “GOD’S TRUE MINISTRY SEEING EYE TO EYE,” WHEN WE ENDED THE JULY ISSUE, SO THAT IS WHERE WE WILL PICK UP AND CONTINUE ON FROM.
Every man that was an apostle in the first age of Christendom fully respected the others God had called to various offices. They might have had their personal differences, but never did they disagree in their understanding of the word of God. They all had the same understanding, concerning the revelation of the word of God. There is absolutely nothing written in the various epistles by these apostles, that is different than what the other men taught. When these lesser ministries came along, if there might have been in that first fifteen years of time thirty or forty prophets raised up in the various assemblies, no matter what year they might have been called and anointed, when it became evident what their ministry was, and how and where they would be used, every one of those men, in his mind, already knew he was a part of a collective body of believers called the Church. That man worked within the anointing of God, collectively with the other ministries, and not as an independent character seeking to make a name for himself. He worked collectively for the overall body of Christ. He was an individual, but he was not the only one God was using. He knew he was part of a ministry, and he was called to minister to the body of Christ. He preached the same doctrines, the same truth the Church was founded upon. That is why the early church, from Ephesus to Jerusalem, or wherever it was scattered to, all believed the same thing. There was no such thing in the beginning, as anyone saying, Well I am a So and So, because I was converted under So and So’s ministry. I say these things to you, because this was in an era of time when there was no such thing as typewriters, telephones, TV, radios, and all the means of communication that we have today, yet many times they would take the verbal things a man had said, and did a better job of restating what they had heard, without stretching the truth, and five years later would still speak the same thing, and today, with all their high tech equipment, you cannot hardly hear the same thing twice, exactly as it was spoken originally. We received a letter from Africa today. They are asking me to write a letter and explain sonic things to them. It said, we have been told by the message preachers that have come here to Africa, that Bro. Branham, in his last days of ministry, had said that in the last days, the bride of Christ will stop preaching, and the people will stop going to church, and will just go to their homes and wait for the Lord to come. It does not matter how you heard such a thing, it is not true. I knew a man that at one time lived in this area, and preached that. His analysis was that Ichabod was written over every church house door. I just have to say, Any man who thinks that way is an independent, conceited, and self centered, self made preacher. He thinks he is the one and only, the big “I.” The same man that talks like that, has a lot of other twisted ideas he will try to perpetuate to twist your life and keep you under his thumb. God never did allow me to hear anything like that from the mouth of His prophet messenger. Many times I have heard Bro. Branham say in natural conversations, as he would refer to the Bible, Be not as the manner of some is, who have separated themselves carnally and stopped having fellowship. He admonished his people to have fellowship. I grant you, there are a lot of people in the world, that are just a small nucleus in their area, but whether they are a small nucleus or a large group, if we are to exist in any community, wherever we might be, we have to use enough common sense, to know that God wants us to fellowship together with one another. That is why it is written in the scripture, that we are to comfort one another with these words. We are to admonish one another with these words that were spoken by God’s anointed ministry. It is by sharing these truths, these things that mean so much to us, that we gain strength, therefore edifying one another. That is why it can say in the epistles Speak to yourselves in psalms, in hymns, spiritual songs singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord. I like to get with my brothers and sisters and worship God together with them. I like to see their faces, when the anointing of the Spirit comes upon them. I have to believe we are a people God has dealt with, that has a true vision of what is coming upon the earth very soon. Each one of us can have our own testimony. Each one can relate how we have been led down the pathway of life, why we find ourselves in this message of truth, wanting to be part of what God is doing in these last days. First off, it came from God, for at a strategic time, with a specific objective, that was designed to get us out of our religious indifference, and set us free, so that we are no longer bound to a system. We became bond servants to the Lord Jesus Christ. We became crucified with Christ. Nevertheless we still live in this fleshly body. What is so wonderful, is that God, in His process, is seeking to make us a new creature in Him. I want to refer to some passages of scripture as we go along. As I have already said, God knows exactly how to put this body together in its final analysis. He will use the apostle’s office as the front runner. That is like He did in the beginning of the book of Acts. All the other ministries will then fall right in place. As the body comes together collectively it becomes necessary that there be someone out in the front ranks to become the pastor. Sometimes there are cases I know, where there is a small nucleus of believers and very few even feel like they need to be a pastor. They want someone to just come along. But if we could use common sense, if five people were left in the mountain somewhere to exist and try to survive the onslaught of some kind of disaster, you do not start praying, God send us somebody to get us out of here. What you should pray is, Lord help us to know how to survive until something does come along to help get us out of here. That is why sometimes you can read of some of the most miraculous events that have taken place, how some people have been in a plane crash or something, and they are able to live in nature by the grace of God. I use that to illustrate, because in many of these localities where just a small nucleus of two or three families gather together, they say, We want God to send us a pastor. Maybe God wants you to use your common sense, learn to read, learn to pray and let Him speak to you. I guarantee you, If you do that sincerely, it will not be long until God will begin to deal with you in such a way that you will be encouraged. He will lay something on someone’s heart to say something for the encouraging and continued existence of a fellowship. I have to believe that God is just as concerned for the few as He is for the large fellowships. We are living in a world, and especially in the last thirty some years, that the industrial age has blown everything else to pieces. This is a day when everything is geared to high technology. They think God is so far back in the woods that He is no longer a God of reality. Well I have to say to you, If you think like that, just go ahead and run on down the road with whatever you think you have. Go on and play with it and think what you will; but I assure you, God is going to have a people that know Him in an intimate way, and their confidence is in Him being eternally the sante: so that their faith can stay anchored in His written word. There may be times when you think you are not getting anything done, but when you walk with God, it is not how fast you walk that counts: it is the fact that you are walking with Him that counts. He may purposely ask some to walk very slowly, and He may or may not speak to them periodically; but the important thing is that your attitude and motives are acceptable in His sight. He will at various times, impart something to such a person’s life, that when they do something, they will know for sure that they did it because God told them to.
SETTLING A PROBLEM
Go with me to the book of Acts, the 15th chapter. Here is where the apostle Paul and Barnabas came back to Antioch, the church, or the outpost from which they were sent to the Gentiles over in Asia. After months of their absence, they came back to Antioch and they find that church is in an uproar because some Jews had come along teaching that they had been sent from the church at Jerusalem, from the apostles and elders there. They taught the Antioch believers, that except you keep the law of Moses and circumcise your children, you cannot be saved. Paul and Barnabas found this church in an uproar over that kind of teaching, so to Jerusalem they went. We are going to find out about this first hand. You can read the 15th chapter and you will find in the final analysis that Peter, James, and those said, We did not send those men. Therefore they came to a conclusion, and I am picking it up in the 24th verse. This is what they wrote to that assembly. “Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment.” (Brothers and sisters, we have the same kind of characters in this world today. All of you know how much I admired the man William Branham, but there is an element of people that sat there for years, just like they were glued to a board. They were the ones that went away and said, Just say what he said and say no more. What I heard him say was, Get back to the word. Now if you are referring to something he said, then notice from the context of the word, why he said a certain thing. But if you think just because he said, Say what I say, that is what he meant, you are very wrong: He just did not want anyone teaching some doctrine that they thought they understood him to teach. Many of those that sat there did not understand what he meant, and didn’t know one thing about why he made such a statement. That is why they have taken it and ran the wrong way with it.) “It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” Some might ask, Who was this Judas and Silas? This Judas is not the one that betrayed Jesus. This Judas was another Jew who carried the same name, but was not anointed of the devil as Judas was. (Come on down to the 32nd verse.) Here, it tells us what offices these men were identified in. “And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren (What did they do? They went with Paul and Barnabas back to Antioch. There, they were exhorting the church.) with many words, and confirmed them.” What does that mean? It means the Holy Ghost used them in some kind of utterance after they were given a dream or vision, that the purpose they had come there with Paul and Barnabas might be confirmed, and the analysis was, that the decision made at Jerusalem to tear down that division and squabble that had been going on in Antioch was of God. The fact that the Holy Ghost used these men to confirm and to convince them, was God’s way of driving that devil out of the minds of those people, so they could put that silly stuff away and get back to the original truth they had received, pick up from there and go on serving the Lord the way they had first been taught. Therefore we can see that over a period of time those prophets were added, because conditions made it necessary that God fill the ranks. He was building the Church. He was putting it together as He had originally purposed to do. He was supplying the ministry, and He did it all Himself. Each man in his office and calling was sooner or later identified and he is referred to here, as that. (Let us go to the 20th chapter now.) Here is where the apostle Paul, after he has been among the Gentiles for many months, wants to go to Jerusalem. He wants to be in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. After his absence for many months, we are going to see in this 20th chapter, as well as the 21st chapter, that repeatedly, as he set his mind to go back to Jerusalem, God speaks to him. Paul does not realize how God Himself looks upon him just wanting to go to Jerusalem for human, personal reasons. If we watch this carefully, we will see Paul from the human side, as well as from his apostolic calling. God did not tell him to go back to Jerusalem. That was just something Paul was wanting to do. We will see here, in the end results, that even though Paul al one time says Why Keep ye over me? I am not only ready to go to Jerusalem, I am ready to die. In the end results, we find that he was not ready to die, because he appealed his case to Caesar. If he had been ready to die, then he would not have told his nephew, Go tell that officer you have something you want to tell him secretly. These are things you have to read between the lines to get; for this is what brings the details out of the story. Starting in the 22nd verse Paul begins to relate how he feels as he is going back. He tells how he testified, preached to the Greeks and so forth. “And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit (What does he mean by that statement? Something made him feel heavy inside, worried, not rejoicing as he would have liked for it to have been, not a feeling of liberty or happiness. He said, “I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide in me.” I have to say, that at this time, when this portion of the letter was written, there is no way a denominational church today could have anyone in its ranks that would write a letter like this, because nothing in those systems today will really give way to this kind of leadership. As Paul is going back to Jerusalem, he is journeying to every one of those little churches, along the way, because he wants to say goodbye to them. He wants to see all of them for the last time, to see how they are progressing, and it is his own words that tell us what happened in every one of these cities. No, he was not going to the town hall, nor to the court house: He was going to that little assembly where the saints of God would be found. There in the midst of the Holy Ghost body of people, whether it was fifteen or twenty, somebody would stand up and speak a prophetic insight: Brother Paul, I saw you in a dream or vision, or maybe they would just utter a word of prophecy to this effect, My servant, if you go to Jerusalem you will be bound by your enemies and suffer many things. That is why he suffered many things. That is why he said, I go bound in the spirit and so forth. I want to say to you at this time, We have many today that do not want prophecy, they do not want tongues, and they do not want interpretations. Their thought is, Who wants to mess with these foolish things? Well, if you feel that way help yourself. If you think it is foolish, run as far away from it as you can get; but the day will come, that you will cry out in anguish, Why did I allow myself to think like that? Paul was a man that wanted to be around that kind of people, because he was the one that taught it; and he was the one that caused them to be like they were. I have to say, When be went to those various churches to pay his last respects and say goodbye, saying to them, From now on, you will see my face no more, there was not a committee of men that rose up, Now Brother Paul, you know we three fellows have been praying, and we have a strong feeling that it might do you good to stay right here. That is the way the denominational churches do today. They have their missionary boards, so they rely upon those ecclesiastical educators to supervise the mission boards as to who goes where, when and how. It was not so in the early days, when the Church was just getting started Those men were led by the Spirit of God; because the Holy Ghost said so. Yes, Paul is saying that the Holy Ghost spoke, but when the Holy Ghost speaks, He uses an earthly vessel, but that earthly vessel is not chosen because of being an intellectual person, or because of social standing: He is chosen because he is cultivating the kind of intimate relationship with the Savior that makes him right for the occasion. The Holy Ghost absolutely spoke and singled out Paul, warning him of trouble if he went to Jerusalem; and Paul himself said, The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me; but be was determined to go anyhow and we all know the outcome: That was the end of his freedom to go about without restraints. That was God’s way of letting him know what to expect. God warned him one time when he was in Jerusalem, Get out of here: They will not receive your testimony here. After many months of absence, he just wanted to go back and see how things were, there in Jerusalem. Knowing what was waiting for him at Jerusalem be said, (24) “But none of these things move me, neither count my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. (25) And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. (26) Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. (27) For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. (28) Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. (29) For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock” He warned them, that the day would come when grievous wolves will creep in among them; and that is exactly what happened in the Branham movement, beginning back in 1960’s, after Bro. Branham was taken from the scene. He has been dead for thirty some years, and out of that movement, has come men that have not only defiled their own lives, they have brought reproach upon their homes, some even being separated from their wives and marrying someone else, and fathering children by young women, all because they understood that the prophet told us we could. Do you know where they got that? They got that when Bro. Branham preached on marriage and divorce. You would be surprised how grievous wolves just sat there waiting for something they could pounce upon. It is nothing but devils using minds of men that have sold themselves out to the devil. From all over the face of this earth, I get letters about what has gone on in various places, and especially in Africa. From the Internet a few days ago, we saw where a certain preacher has been arrested because of a sex scandal going on in his congregation. I said this several years ago, If the people of this message, especially the preachers, do not get hold of themselves and get this message understood in their hearts and lives the right way, God has a law of elimination. He will only let you into it up to a certain point, and that is because of His mercy and grace; but when someone just simply plays around with this revelation without submitting their lives to it to live it, God’s law of elimination will catch up to them. God will derail you; and you will bring reproach upon your family, upon yourself, and upon all who have trusted you. Such a person is a prime candidate to get hold of a doctrine that is so devilish it wrecks lives. They just go from one strange doctrine to another. Like I said the other night, A sister from Texas, that we have known for several years, the wife of a young preacher we also knew, came to this other sister’s home and was relating what God had been dealing with them in. Her husband now knows who all the seven thunders are. Well I have news for him, Only the bride of Christ will know who they are, and that will only be after they have made their appearance among the bride of Christ. It is not going to be seven men that are all from America. When a man will walk into your house and tell you, I am already in the rapture, and we are in the Millennium now, you can rest assured that you are looking at a man that has missed the whole thing. Men like that have learned Bro. Branham’s sermons verbatim, and could quote him by memory, without even having to look at the book. When I hear something like what this fellow says, I just have to say, Yes, grievous wolves have conic in among the body of Christ, and they have sowed thoughts, ideas, and revelations that can only confuse and scatter others, simply because they have reached a point within the message and refuse to go any further, lest they would have to come the right way. There is a right way, and God will lead you the right way, but if you will not come the right way, God makes sure that sooner or later you are derailed. God will not care then, which way such a person may go, because He is only concerned with those who will walk with Him to a right end. As we look at the 21st chapter of Acts, Paul is approaching back on to the mainland, heading for Jerusalem. We find he has come to the last place before he makes his departure to go on into Jerusalem. In this place, (We are going to the 10th verse of the 21st chapter.) He has already said that the Holy Ghost bears witness in every city, that bonds and afflictions abide him; so in this last place, the little group of people, whatever it consisted of in numbers, and in whatever type of building they assembled in, Paul is assembled with these to preach to them and to expound things he feels necessary to relate to them. “And as we tarried there many days, there I came down from Judaea a certain prophet, (Right here, is this prophet we read of in Acts, about the 11th chapter, and now he appears again.) named Agabus. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.” This is the last time the Holy Ghost has spoken. Let us notice what else happened out of all this. “And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought (begged) him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done.” You can read the rest of what happened. When he got to Jerusalem, the first time he appeared in the temple area, after he had already talked with the apostles and elders and got advice from them on what to do, there was that man that has raised all the ruckus wherever he has appeared. Then it started up. Here came Jews rushing around him, saying, That is the man, get him! Finally, one of the centurions had to run into their midst to break up the crowd. Paul used the occasion to give a testimony for the last time. Then we find the centurion has taken him into custody. He brought him in to safeguard him. Paul testifies this, that the Lord came to him in a vision and said these words, As you have bore witness of me in Jerusalem, so shall you bear witness of me in Rome. I have to say, The little bride is not completed yet, but there is a nucleus of people being brought together all over the world; and they are all getting a picture of the effect and what is going on. That little element of people will have one mind and they will be in one accord in their hearts. They will have one objective, and that is to be part of a people that they know one day soon the Lord is coming for. I just pray that you have all understood what you have heard. No man can put the body together. It is God who puts it together. It is God that furnishes the cleansing agent, and He is the one that furnishes the time for us to take heed. He is the one that furnishes the means and that is all within the realm of His word of truth and the workings of the Holy Spirit. I am persuaded, that the closer we come to the time when He will take His bride, there is a lot of things no doubt we are going to experience, and be able to understand, and recognize just how unique God is, how precise He can be, and how accurate God can be with His people, when His people have a mind and willingness to let Him lead them. We are less than two years away from the calendar year 2000 A.D., when the world at large is looking for a great new Era, but the bride of Christ is looking just a little beyond that focal point. We are looking for a greater event than any of that crowd could ever anticipate. Hallelujah!
PROJECTIONS OF THE HISTORIANS
I have here with me the Jerusalem report. There are articles in it expressing different religions, authors, historians and preachers, all giving their analysis of the year 2000. I want you to know, the critics of religion in any manner, as they write their unbelieving, all up and settling ready to pour out an episode of judgment on an element of people that has turned their back on Him and want nothing at all to do with religion in any way, as if their attitudes and ways of thinking is going to change the picture. Even the Islamics have certain historians that are making calculations on their study of history. They are saying that there will be somewhere, an antichrist, and that he will be a false Christ coming from the Jewish clement. He will come on the scene first, and he will only last a short time, then the real Messiah, which will come out of the Moslem world, will come on the scene to fulfill expectations. They come to this conclusion simply because they take certain things from the Old Testament, twist them around, and conclude from them that the true Messiah, the true Savior of the world has got to come from Ishmael’s side of Abraham’s seed. It is a sight just to read the analysis of what all is being said. John Hagge, a man you see many times on Trinity Broadcast, with the Christian evangelists that give their analysis of the year 2000, naturally has his version of what is going to lake place. It is strange, how so many of those fellows project the idea that somehow or other this Mosque of Omar is going to be bombed, or that some person somehow is going to tear it down, and that will give the Jews an opportunity to build their temple. You never hear one of them even indicate that Israel has got to have a miracle war that will turn the Arab world around and align them with Israel. When it is all over, the Arabs will make their contribution to the building of the temple just as it says in Isaiah 60. Those preachers never refer to any of that. When I read these things, I just have to say, Oh God, thank you for letting us see something that others do not see. Brothers and sisters, I have never claimed to be a smart person. What I know is because of the grace and mercy of a sovereign God that knows my heart and deals with me accordingly. I want you to know, that when God spoke to me that morning in February 1952, and let me know that the spirit of Elijah was to come again, when I read the first chapter of Luke’s writing, and realized that the Lord used that to let me see something, I have never changed my mind nor my attitude, and I have no doubts about it: That spirit of Elijah that was to come was in that little man, William Marrion Branham, sent by God to be the prophet messenger to this age, to help an element of people find their way back into the scriptures. You know, it is sad to think, but I have had conversations with people by phone, as well as by letter, and find that there are people today, that even though they have been harping on Bro. Branham, Bro. Branham, Bro. Branham for years, (because of the confusion there is in the movement all over the world) they are now saying they doubt that he was God’s prophet to the Age, They no longer see him as the seventh angel messenger. When I begin to see that, after this long of time, it begins to let me know, God, somewhere along life’s pathway, will give every human being an opportunity to see something real. He will watch you and me, and if we play with this for personal reasons, to pacify our own carnal beliefs and attitudes, there will be a day come that will have a bad effect on our faith and our future outlook. He will not allow anyone to just play around with reality forever: He will take away that which He has given us access to, if we do now allow it to prosper us. I have to believe that this element of educated people in the world today, that have had opportunity to read about that prophet messenger, and read the sermon books, as well as listen to tapes, even though they were not permitted to sit in his meetings, after all these many years, if they still do not have a true picture that puts them in the scriptures, somewhere along the line they are going to lose interest altogether and turn the other way. In fact, they will walk completely out of the picture and say. Do not even mention that to me any more. First off, the spirit of God was never really allowed to lead them. As I say these things, my mind goes back to the year 1963, when in March and April Bro. Branham preached the revelation of the six seals. God brought him back here from the city of Tucson, Arizona for those meetings. He had his own experiences with the Spirit of God out there. People have followed along and gone out there, and up into Sabino Canyon, thinking there was some virtue in it. They have chiseled rocks, and carried them out of that canyon and every other imaginable object, as though this was sacred, just simply because it was something that meant a lot to them. The last I heard, the local authorities closed this canyon off to outside tourists, because they could see that the canyon was being so desecrated by a certain element of people. Saints, I ask you, If you had a wheelbarrow full of wood, sticks, rocks and such like, what good would it do you? It reminds me of the Catholics, and a lot of other evangelists through the recent years, especially in the latter part of this 20 century. We have had a lot of religionists travel to the Middle East and bring back various things they use to support their programs. They bring back water from the Jordan in little bottles and then advertise over the radio and television program saying, You need some of this sacred water. It becomes a sales gimmick. It just goes to show that man, if he is not careful to let God lead him, will go berserk. It is true. There just scents to be something in mortal mankind that likes to touch a little something that they think has been touched by something sacred. I do not mean to say that there is anything wrong with that, if we know exactly how to respond to it, but if we think for one minute that we can bottle up water from the Jordan River, or take some kind of material object and put it in some kind of container on display, and then attach some spiritual value to it, we are as bad as any pagan worshiper anywhere. If we do not have a revelation in our heart that causes us to look to our heavenly Father to stabilize our life in its stormy journey, none of the wood, the rock nor anything else that we can carry around is going to us one bit of good: Our ship is going to sink, and we will perish with all of our supposed-to-be sacred junk.
HOW UNITY WORKS
I want to take you to the gospel of St. John at this time and continue on with the message we are dealing with, “Putting the Body Together.” That is really what the Lord did. Going to the 16th chapter, we will read from the 12th through the I5th verses, because they have a very important meaning to us. These are some of the words Jesus was saying to His disciples shortly before He was hung on the cross and crucified for the sins of the whole world. Here in this prayer-like communication with his disciples we read, “I have yet many things to say unto you, (He was not saying this to the world. He was saying this to His disciples, present tense, at that time.) but ye cannot bear them now. (Which meant, you would not be able to understand what they mean.) Howbeit (However) when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: (That is not projected as a possibility, but a fact.) for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” Now remember, we are using as a title, “PUTTING THE BODY TOGETHER,” so when we read in Corinthians 12, and in Ephesians 4, of these different things God chase to set in the body to start it in its earthly journey through time, as we get a true picture of what was being said, the very words spoken by Jesus right here, went into operation when the Spirit came upon those apostles. There was only twelve apostles, after they elected Matthias there in the upper room, and they were the only builders God started the Church out with. All twelve of them had all walked with Jesus. However Matthias had not been chosen by Jesus at the time He chose the original twelve. The important thing is, he had walked with them and witnessed all that had been said and done. He was one of the disciples that went everywhere with them. My purpose in approaching it like this, is to show you why these twelve men, after the Holy Spirit had come upon them on the day of Pentecost, did not do what we read that the reformers did. It all adds up to one very important fact: Those twelve apostles had a united understanding of the plan and purpose of God as they preached His word in that first Age. They had heard the words Jesus spoke as they were uttered from His lips. They were very well informed as to what purpose John the Baptist played in what was being set forth among the people, so they had the historical background of everything that went on in that hour of time. Therefore let us ask ourselves a question: Suppose those twelve men had been like a lot of preachers are today, preachers that have all heard the same man, William Branham, as he preached the word of God in this generation? They listened to Jesus, and all of them went the same way. These men listened to Bro. Branham, and went a dozen different ways, all claiming to be preaching what Bro. Branham preached. It is true, they may have been quoting what he said, and they are so verbally correct in trying to say everything just the way he said it, yet the analysis of it is, they are void of understanding as to what he meant. What if those twelve would have done the same thing? They never had a telephone. They never had a tape recorder. They never had a radio or TV, yet they got the message right. This goes to show that what they heard with their cars, they all heard the same thing. Then after the Holy Spirit has came into them, it was absolutely a necessity for that Holy Spirit to take in them what they have already heard, and record it in their mentality and begin to quicken that to their understanding, so that in the streets that day when Peter preached his first sermon, we would not see them as a lot of the Branhamite preachers are today, saying, Well I don’t believe that: That is not the way he said it. It has been going like that for over 30 years now. There is a danger in the fact that we did not all hear it alike. It is important that we understand it the same. This confusion is not of God. This confusion is none other than the devil deceiving people, showing how he can take that educated mind and twist the whole thing. Let me say once again, I have nothing against education. It is essential for many things, but the very day you try to portray yourself to be a smart instrument for God, and you are laying it all on the fact that you have a degree a mile long, be careful, you could wind up just being stupid instead of very spiritual. The Bible was not written by doctors of divinity, even though Paul was, that was not the reason God chose him. His own testimony in Galatians and what we see in the book of Acts, proves he had to begin to realize that what he knew at one time, he had to count it as nothing, that he might gain Christ. We can say one thing for sure: Those twelve men that Jesus chose to be apostles, inside their minds and hearts was a united picture of understanding. They all could remember certain things that Jesus said, but not every one of them were able to remember all that He said. That is evidenced in the writing of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of those writers wrote the things that stood out in their own mind’s, of the things that Jesus said and did. That is why one would write certain things that Jesus said, that the other writer did not mention, but that in no way indicated that they did not all have the same understanding. That does not make them contrary to each other. It only goes to show God trusted these men to have remembered enough of the things that were done and said, so that when you read it all in its proper context, you cannot help but find a true picture of how things transpired as things progressed and moved along in that first age of Christendom. This is why it is mentioned in two places in the book of Acts, how the early Church progressed, from the day they were in the streets on the day of Pentecost when three thousand souls were baptized that day, to the next great event when five thousand were added to the number. It says, And the Lord added to the Church daily, such as should be saved. There were no modern evangelists in the picture then, trying to set up rallies, a million more in 84, and this kind of nonsense that goes on in our world of religion today in the realm of evangelism. With these things in mind we can see when Jesus said here, And He shall take the things of mine and show them unto you what the things of Jesus were. Were the disciples drawing a picture of Him? I know one thing, an artist that can take a pencil and set and look at you, and you are not even aware they are looking at your person or image, they can get a glimpse once in awhile, when they are done they have a picture of you, and you did not know what was going on. Do you think these artists only appear in the twentieth century? I believe there were artists back then just as accurate and perfected in their talent, as they are now. I am sure if God had wanted us to have any idea what His features were like, He could have made sure of it. Did He have black hair, brown eyes, blue eyes or what? It all adds up to this, those personal physical traits are things that are useless even to think about. If there was ever anyone that walked the face of this earth , that there should be certain things portrayed of his image, to honor him, the blessed Lord Jesus Christ was one of them that ought to be honored, but God does not necessarily want you looking and trying to find out, How did He comb His hair? How did He walk? What kind of slant did He have? What was His manner of speech? All of these things are things that pertained to Jesus as a person, but that is not the things of Christ God wants us to see.—Keep in mind, what made Hint the outstanding man He was. Was it because of His figure? No. It was when God descended and filled Him with the fullness of Himself, that He became one to watch. Everything God is, as to His deity, and His power, was invested in Jesus the Christ, the very SON of God. That is why that same Spirit led Him to the wilderness: He had to have His chance to be tested. We can see this man called Jesus, now began to say things that began to change the course of mankind in that hour. Some would listen to the man and only point their finger at the person. Others could look at the man and see Him clearly, because there were things that came out of His mouth that really hit home. The things of Christ, if we will get a good picture of them, is what He did, and what He said, after God had come inside Him. With this in mind, we can see how the Church, from the day of Pentecost, slowly began to grow in its collective numbers. In a very short time, there were things that began to be manifested in the lives of other people, in other men. This is where God began, by His Spirit, to choose this man, or that man, to be this kind of gifted person, a spiritual leader. Slowly, over the period of months and years, God added prophets. He never added an excess of anything. I have said for years, When the bride of Jesus Christ is complete, and she is ready to leave this world, the true ministry will not be in excess. They will not be just sitting aside, waiting for something to happen: They will all have their part to play. Once God has laid His hand on a man and definitely put something inside him that is to express Christ in him, and he sees the job that lays before him, there will be inside him a will to do what God has called him to do. He will work cooperatively with the other ministry of that hour. There is no such thing among God’s true ministry, as I have my own revelation. They all bavc the same revelation. Some people are so jealous it makes them say a thing like that. They will say, He thinks he is the only one that knows anything. Some have said it about me, but it is not true. However if God ever calls a man to be a mouthpiece for Him, rest assured, there are always three or four out there competing against him. They did Paul the same way. That is why he wrote what he did in Galatians. He starts writing, looking at the people, but he winds up writing about that guy that came into the Galatia area sowing seed of discord. He wanted to be seen as the number one instrument. The twentieth century is full of characters just like that. They are on TV. They are in the Branham movement. They are everywhere you go. You could not get three of them to agree with each other if your life depended on it. They say, talking about Bro. Branham, I know him, I went hunting with him. You could have hunted with him 365 days out of the year, and still wind up dumb and ignorant, because if you did not hear him right, you only prove yourself to be a number one fool. However many times we might have seen him, and walked with him, ate with him, that has no virtue that passes on to the Church. These are things that mislead people and get them off course. We know this, If Malachi 4:5-6 in its end time effect, was to turn the heart Of the children of this day, back to the faith of their apostolic fathers, then we have to understand that God meant exactly this: It will pull us out of our denominational organizations, cause us to shed our traditional ideas, which are basically just hand-me-down teachings of man, and bring us back to the same apostolic picture the Church started out with 2000 years ago. What is the purpose of it? That again the body of Christ might be put together by the Spirit of God and have within it the functional offices and talents and gills that it had as God gradually built the body to be a means to express, or show forth the things of Christ. That is why, when that early Church was beginning to be motivated to be an influence in the streets of Jerusalem, as well as in other parts of the world, wherever they were taken, the world was compelled to later acknowledge, These people have been with Jesus. They could not help but see Jesus living in them, still doing the same things. When God dealt with Saul on the road to Damascus, He was calling out a man who was a doctor of divinity, a man who sat on the Sanhedrin court, and had authority to go to Damascus where there was an element of Jews that had also been converted to the Christian faith and arrest them. When he heard about them, Paul was very zealous to show the Judaistic world what he thought about this new faith, and the people who held to it. So whether he rode a camel or horse, I do not think he walked all the way from Jerusalem to Damascus. He was knocked down in the road and made to see a light. An audible voice spoke to him. We know the story. When he goes on into Damascus, and Ananias, a Christian that had been dealt with by God, approached him, he had met a man that was under the supernatural leadership of a sovereign God. He was told to go out and go to a man that needed prayer. He did exactly as he had been instructed and was an instrument in the hands of God, to help Saul get his life turned around. It was through Ananias’s lips that God spoke to Saul. Why doing this, because this man was ordained of God to be a light to the Gentiles and a means of salvation to the ends of the earth. That included you and me. Sitting in this congregation today, are ex-Catholics, ex-Baptists, ex-Episcopalians, ex-Jehovah Witness, ex-Church of Christ, ex-Methodists and probably some others: You name it. We represent an element of people all over the face of this earth. Just as Christian denominations exist today, each movement got its existence and birth because of a move of the Spirit of God somewhere in decades gone by. The average human being sitting in these traditional systems today, think that is all that is necessary to secure their place in heaven. If you died never knowing any more than what you knew sitting in that certain system, I can say, God is merciful, but the bride of Christ will not be perfected in any of those places. Living in an hour such as this, when God has laid a message of truth in this earth, that message becomes a plumb line, and sooner or later everyone that God gives an opportunity to see or hear it, He will require that individual to make a decision, What will you do with what I have given you? God never gives anyone a negative picture. He gives you enough to start you on your pathway with an opportunity to do something with it, and if you just treat it as nothing special, He will require it of you eventually. We received a letter from Africa with yet another teaching: They are teaching there in that nation, that Bro. Branham said the time will come when you no longer fellowship together. In other words, you do not even go to church anymore. You just sit at home and play tapes. That is not true at all. He never taught anything like that. You may have heard something said, about a condition that could arise, and that is the way the devil has let you interpret it, but if that is the way you sec it, you see it wrong. There is one thing sure, Bro. Branham was absolutely against people sitting around, and just playing tapes, and not wanting to do anything else. If you are going to quote him, if you are going to refer to him, then say it as he said it. The end analysis of what he said is supposed to put you back in the Bible; and this idea is totally contrary to the scriptures. The Bible is a book the devil has been trying to get people out of for two thousand years, and he has had much success in many areas, but he will never be able to get the true bride Church out of it because she is being perfected by what is written therein. Think of it: God placed a gift in the life of the prophet to this Age as a drawing factor, to get the attention of the people, but any way you look at it, his life and ministry almost characterized that of Jesus, for just as the ministry of Jesus exemplified the very purpose of the Creator, so did that same Spirit that was in Bro. Branham’s life, vindicate, or confirm the word of truth God means for His children to walk by.
TRUTH SOMETIMES MAKES FANATICS
I want to direct our thinking at this time, to the months of March and April 1963, when Bro. Branham preached those messages that opened our understanding of the first six seals of the book of Revelation, chapter 6. For eight days, he sat in a room, he prayed, he sought the face of God; and each night, when he came to the pulpit, God used him to bring out the revelation of a seal. When we came to that last Sunday night, which was to deal with the seventh seal, the final analysis was that the seventh seal has not been broken, and therefore it has not been revealed. That is in this book. This is the book that a man in Canada walked up to me and said, Bro. Jackson, I appreciate what you said tonight, but how come you had very little to say about Bro. Branham? I said God did not call me to preach William Branham: He called me to preach Jesus Christ. He said, I want you to know, as he held the seals book in his hand, if I had to give up either one, and he pointed to the Bible I held, I would keep the seals book. I said, I’m sorry you feel that way. Well saints, I want to attempt to show you where so many people are today, concerning their understanding of what God used Bro. Branham for, and why we have insisted right on through the years, that the seventh seal has not been broken. Nowhere in all of his written messages or taped messages, will you ever find the actual words that William Branham said the seventh seal is such and such and such. But Bro. Jackson, in the church age book, it says such and such. What about the church age book? I was there when he preached it. I was here when Dr. Lee Vayle edited that church age book, which was preached in December 1960. In that book, Dr. Lee Vayle, (as it turned out) went ahead and referred to the seven thunders, and in the church age book said the seven thunders shall be the revelation of the seven seals. This book had not even been printed yet. I want to say to everyone of you, No writer in the Bible, ever wrote anything as history, three years before it took place. The seals were not preached until 1963, so how could there be anything in the church age messages that would say what the seals were, when we all know God gave Bro. Branham the revelation of the individual seals as he was preparing himself to preach on them? When you do what was done with the church age messages, insert something that had not even been revealed when the messages were preached, simply because the editing took place alter the seals were preached, you are playing with the consistency and the chronological order of how God wants you to look at His word and time itself. No prophet could say five years in advance of what the next prophet would say, the things he is going to say or do, and then, when that prophet comes on the scene, he speaks and says things inconsistent with that. That is why this upsets me. That is why people like to shoot at me. The original church ages, as they were preached in the original and first printed in the little booklets, (I have a copy of them.) were exactly what Bro. Branham said, and they contain exactly what he meant to say. You take them and read them along with the edited church age book, and you will find the inconsistency of much of it. I intend for this to bite deep. I intend to gouge your spirituality, if you are guilty of having any part in this kind of thing. We should let William Branham himself speak. What did he say about the seventh seal? They are saying today, Yes, the seventh seal has been broken. I say, It has not. For thirty two years we have been saying it is not broken. Well what did Bro. Branham mean in Questions and Answers? I have to say this, I sat there when he preached Questions and Answers. What is the seven thunders, and he quoted just exactly what Dr. Lee Vayle had already said, that they are the revelation of the seven seals. How could William Branham, a few months later, make a statement that is going inconsistent with the statement he made when he clewed out the seventh seal. This is why I have said, There are many people in the earth today, they have heard his tapes, they have read his booklets, but there is an incomplete picture of them knowing how to put a picture together. That is why I go back to St. John, where they came to ask John that day who he was. Are you that prophet? Are you this or that? John the Baptist, who had the spirit of Elijah in that day, really prophesied; but what he said did not sound like prophecy: It just sounds like an answer to their question. He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.” They said, Then why are you baptizing? ” He knew exactly why they asked the questions, but he said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: (He is referring to Jesus.) He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” John said, Whose fan is in His hand. Do not be guilty of just closing your eyes to that statement. Because Jesus, as High Priest, has absolutely been filling people through His intercessory work, for two thousand years. It is through His intercessory work that you and I have been privileged to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Don’t stop at that last word there. When John said, whose fan is in His hand, where in the world do you think that fan comes in? That is a figure of speech. You have to understand that in the old Levitical law days, when the thrashing season came, they did not have combines nor binders. All the grain was harvested with sickles. People followed, grabbed the cut stalks and tied them in bundles. Then they came along later and it was stacked. There the grain was left in stacks for days on end, while it seasoned and matured. Then there came the time when all this grain that had been tied in bundles was hauled to the threshing floor. Usually that is a precise spot around the dwelling places. There these bundles are pitched into the threshing floor. In some places they brought in oxen, pulling sleds that drug over the grain to dislodge it from everything that was still holding on to it. They just kept walking that way. This was a means of rubbing the grain, until it is all rubbed out of the heads, out of the straw. All the grain will eventually work to the floor, down to the bottom. Then men get it with sticks, we could call them pitch forks. They throw the straw out, but it leaves the harvested grain, the chaff, the husks and stuff like that. That is where there are two things that is important. Even in your modern mechanical means of harvesting, there is underneath the thrashing plate a big fan. It takes this wind set at the right volume, hitting the grain at the right level, at an angle. It is the wind itself that lifts the trash, the husks, and blows it away. It is carried on a volume of air out the back and on to the ground. In ancient times there was usually a big festivity attached to this event. In the Jewish culture these festivities usually had a dance. The maidens were given a thing, looked like a big plate for serving bread or something. As they form a circle around the threshing floor, the purpose was to dip into the grain with all the chaff and stuff, they watched the winds from which direction it would come. Music was being played, and they would dance around this area. They had a unique way, you have seen guys fixing pizza crusts. They had a way of handling these trays, it would bounce the grain into the air and the wind would carry off the chaff, but the grain would come right back down onto the tray. As they danced around this, forming a circle, there was a certain place, the grain that is not purified by this wind, they would dump it in one spot. If there was not a natural wind blowing, they had ways of making artificial wind. They would weave together blades of straw and make a large fan that would hang on some kind of rack. They would have people pulling strings, letting these move back and forth. This would create an artificial wind. That is exactly what the statement of John the Baptist was pointing to, whose fan is in his hand. Now as the end of time is approaching and that spirit of Elijah has already made his appearance to this Age, and yes, God caused him to say things that will put you right on the threshing floor, which is His word. Every time you are pitched up, you will come right back down on the word. At least the true bride saints will. If not, then somewhere within this ministerial work, when Christ is still the mediator, the High Priest, Christ will cause this instrument to say things that will play a dual role. That is why it said, whose fan is in his hand. I have to say this, He is the only man this side of the Reformation that ever spoke of certain things in dual terms. I want to say this also, A human mind, sitting there listening to this man, a prophet, and he is the only prophet that ever spoke in dual terms. If you do not have mind enough, not sensitive enough to the Bible, to what is written, and you are not even looking at the scriptures, you are just looking at the man, thinking He is a prophet: Anything he says has got to be thus saith the Lord, then God is going to try you, because your spiritual mind is going to be treated just like a grain of wheat. That statement, or statements, however it might appear to you, is going to be used to shake your faith, your confidence in what you have heard. My point is this, God does not do this to make you discredit the man. He makes this to happen to prove you, whether you will come back to His word, or whether you will be led astray by some other statement, thinking that is the word. How many have said today the world over, all seven seals were broken? Ben Howard in Georgia printed a book that put his final analysis in print, that all seven seals were broken that night. I read a book Ewald Frank of Germany has printed, and it is the same way. He did not agree with Ben Howard because he only used the phrases to agree with himself. As I looked at that I said, There is an element of people out there that just want to be the first out there in front saying I’ve got the revelation. If God did not give you the revelation to be out there in front, you had better be on the tail end. You would be better off to have a dust broom and pan in your hand, cleaning up after other people. Let us go to the actual sermon and see what he did say. I am going into the sermon book to the night he preached it, and these are his closing comments. I am on page 575 and the second paragraph up from the bottom.
READING
“Now, do you notice on the opening of the Seventh Seal, it’s also in a threefold mystery. This one I have…. will speak and have spoke. that it is the mystery of the seven thunders. The seven thunders in heaven nill unfold this mystery. (What he is actually saying is when the seventh seal is broke, it brings forth the seven thunders, whatever they are to be of.) It’ll be right (notice what he says) at the coming of Christ. (It has been thirty two years since he preached it. That was not at the coming of Christ then, because Christ said no one would know when He would return. He is referring back to Matthew 24. Five scriptures, five statements Jesus made, no man knoweth the day or the hour. Now let’s read the last paragraph.) Did you notice when the Jews asked Him that? You know when we compared the Scripture here with Matthew 24 with the six Seals, the Seventh Seal was left out; because, you see, Christ said only God Himself knew—not even the Angels. No wonder, it wasn’t even written. You see, they hushed—nothing taken place then. Angels don’t know it; nobody knows when He’s coming. But there’ll be a….There’ll be seven voices of these thunders that will reveal the great revelation at that time.”
Now I am going to ask this of anyone who thinks he knows more than others, Do not come around me, playing with some type of statement that you know what the seventh seal is. You might be able to say it is the revelation of the seven thunders. Then what did they say? What did they say? It is not even written. The reason it was that way is this: If it had been said in 1963 when this message was preached, when the coining of Christ for His church will take place, what a mess we would all be in today. It would be a mess. You see already what it has become. When the ones that sat under his ministry, and I can think of the doctors of divinity I know personally and talked with, that sat there, what they have said since then. Some have said, It is this, it is this, it is this. Then when the time comes there will be seven thunders uttered, and those that utter it will know when that seventh seal is broken, most of these runners that have already ran wild, will be so humiliated you will not even see them in the picture anymore. I am not finished reading yet. This is what I have stood for ever since he preached it.
READING
“So, I believe, to us who….if we don’t know it, and it won’t be known until that time, but it will be revealed in that day in the hour that it is supposed to be revealed in. So, the thing for us to do is to be reverent before God and serve Han and do all that we know how to do and live good Christian lives. (Brothers and sisters, that is simple advice. ) Here now, we said that the Sixth Seal has been opened to us; (That is why I have said (or thirty two years, you know what the first seal was, you know what the second one was, you can read it for yourself. The third, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth. You do not have to go to Webster’s Dictionary to find out what was said. But the seventh is not broken. I want to remind you there is not a Catholic priest this side of the Vatican that knows what Bro. Branham meant when he preached the seals. There is not a doctor of divinity out of the Baptist, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, or any other system that even says anything about the seven seals that Bro. Branham preached. What did God deal with this man for? Was it just to make a fool out of the man? He is the only one that took those four horse riders and made it have sense. When that first horse rider, which was a white hone came out, he explained that night that it has already ridden. The red horse rider had already ridden. He explained the second one, leading into the third age, it became such an hour of a blood bath for Christians. That is why that one was red. Church histories point out that era of time, the number of Christian lives that was slaughtered by the devil. Then when we come to that third horse, that black horse, he told how that rider, through Roman Catholicism, took the word of God and turned it into creeds and rituals and sold it as a monetary gimmick. That is that the Catholic Church did, and still continues to do. That is exactly why we have a continent down south of here, South America, existing as it is even today. It was established under Woman Catholicism, from the front end to the back end, from the cast coast to the west coast. Only the rich have survived. Go down there, into any city you want to go to, and you will see what I am pointing out to you. Go to the rich area. They are the big shots, the politicians who can sit in the Catholic Church, well dressed, in their nice suits. They are well known by the Catholic Church that rules and dominates in these areas. Then go to the outskirts of the cities, to the slums. There is where the poor peasant people live, by dirty streams, having no toilets. All outside is their latrine. They live in poverty. It has been that way for five hundred years. When America knew that it was a nation founded under the wisdom and leadership of Protestantism, God gave us politicians that did not flirt with the Catholic Church. That is why Abraham Lincoln made the statement, That scourge ought to be driven from the continent. He could see what they were. This bunch of politicians we have today, do not have sense enough to see it; and they are certainly not going to talk like that. They do not even want anyone else to be allowed to say things like that. Nevertheless I have to believe God gave this nation an opportunity, and if fifty or sixty more years was to be allotted to this nation, then the day will come, when the biggest part of the American society will be living in poverty, just like South America. Do not even allow yourself to think that our scientific advancement will always keep us in the forefront. One of these days, other parts of this world will pass us up. Let me get back to this.) Now there was some reason that God let this seven voices be thundered, because it must come, see, for they… we find that Christ, the Lamb, took the Book in His hand and He opened that Seventh Seal. But you see, it’s a hidden mystery. No one knows it. But it…right along with what He said: no one would know His coming; they also would not know about this seven thunder mystery. So you see, it’s connected together.” The seventh seal has not been broken, and neither has there been any thunders sound their voices yet. People are running across this nation, around this world, saying, I know what it is. Well look, I am very inquisitive. I am curious: If you know what it really is, tell me. If you really knew what it was, (It has to pertain to something in connection with the canting of Christ.) Do you think God is going to let any element of people have the knowledge of His soon return be known by people like that, so they would have it to play with for the next thirty some years, going all over the face of this earth, playing with that statement? You see what the devil has already used them to turn his message into. I know this, when the body of Christ, that which really is the body of Christ, get their head on right, and get their understanding right, they will all be sitting together in unity, not in the same building, but in revelation and purpose and motive. There might be twelve here, twenty over somewhere else, and a hundred and fifty in another place and so on, but in the eyes of God they will all be looking at the same thing. There will not be forty preachers running the road, trying to say what the message was, and none of them agreeing, but saying, I have a revelation, but I am not supposed to speak it. That is ridiculous! Why do you think the great commission to the disciples was, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature? Some of that kind will say, Well I have a secret revelation. Yes, and the devil gave it to you. What He shows His true servants in secret, they are to preach it from the house top, so to speak. But Bro. Jackson, will it not be just for the bride? The thunders will, but the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be preached to the whole world. When Jesus said, And He will take the things of mine and show them unto you, where do you think Paul got the revelation of the transformation, the change of the human body, recorded in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians? “I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep.” That is Paul’s way of saying, Yes, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment, but the day will come when we will not all sleep in that way for, ” In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54: So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be y brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” I do know this, Those bride saints that remain alive unto the coming of the Lord will everyone be in total unity with their revelation of the word of God, and with what the prophet to this age came to do. We will know exactly why he said what he did, and the purpose in saying it. All these other dual statements so many play with, will be just so much trash to other people. Bro. Jackson, if you would keep still, maybe people would think better of you. I am going to scream it that much louder. They have run all over the face of this earth with their private interpretations of what Bro. Branham said and what he meant, and all they have accomplished in doing so, is a lot of confusion in the mind’s of people who are not sure which one to believe. They have had much more money to work with than I have had, but , what is that to God? With what we have had to work with, we have put more of an actual picture together than all of them put together have. No it was not for Raymond Jackson: He is not your Savior. I have said this, Give me a million dollars, (I know that is not going to happen.) And I will put a larger crowd together in this area, of people that are in unity, than all the rest of those fellows put together. They cannot get together without having arguments. I do not want to see that in anything I have anything to do with. Let me read the rest of this now.
READING
”Now, we have in the completion here now, by the grace of God, all the mysteries of the six Seals that’s been sealed up (Yes, go to this book, it will tell you plainly what the six arc.) and He understand and know here that the Seven Seal is not to be known to the public. (And it will never be known to the world. I am going to the last paragraph where he made some statements.) You see Israel gathering in its clot homeland But you notice, Ile omitted the revelation of this Seventh Seat (So if in 1963 when he preached on a Sunday night, the last remarks he made about the seventh seal, and he then said, it is omitted, that is it.) And here when the Seventh Seal, when He opened it, He also omitted it again, see. So see that it is a complete mystery therefore the hour is not yet (Let us not go to sleep, the hour is not yet, that was thirty years ago.) for this mystery to be known (Thank God it was not time. I would hate to hear today what it really was, even though men have done wrote their writings what it was, that ii was opened, for goodness sakes tell me what it was. I can read what the first one was, I can read what the second was, the third, fourth, fifth, and the sixth, but you cannot show me what that seventh one was. Do not even attempt to tell me, I have no reason to listen to you.) therefore, we’re this far (Thank God, thirty years ago we were this far. When that week was over, naturally we are human, I never thought I would see the day all my children would be graduated from school. I have lived to see them graduate from school, and now I even have grandchildren that are graduating. Does that mean Jesus isn’t earning? No. His coming is just around the corner.) and the rest of it will be known right around about the time that JESUS appears on earth again for His Bride, or whatever takes place at that time.” Brothers and Sisters, if I have scared you with any of this, that was not my purpose. Please, I beg of you, Do not run the road of life saying that the seventh seal has been broken. That is not so. I will say this, When that Bride of Christ does reach its state of completeness, it will have every type of ministry that was supposed to be in it, and each and every one of those men will be preaching the truth in unity. Their messages will not be conflicting. Every person that is influenced by their ministry around this world, the true body of Christ collectively, will sit together in harmony and total unity, because they will be looking at the same picture in its time, with the same revelation, singing and rejoicing and giving glory to God for what He has allowed us to become. I will just say this for now, May God help us hold true and consistent until that hour has come. Let us now go to Ephesians, chapter 4, for a better look at something we want to nail down.
JESUS IS NOT GOD-GOD IS IN JESUS
As we go into Ephesians 4, to read a few verses, remember what the title of our message is, “Putting the Body Together.” It takes a time factor for many things to come to maturity, to be set in place, or in order, the way God ordained it to be. This scripture is very familiar to most of you, but we are going to read from the verse, down through the 12th verse. We notice here, that when Paul was writing this epistle he was in jail, in Rome. It was written in 64 A.D. When he wrote the Corinthian letter, which was years in advance of this, he spoke of the body there, mainly in the distribution of the various gifts, such as prophecy and those things. He was speaking of the body, the laity, in its collective makeup. However, here in Ephesians he is speaking of the ministry and its objective. We know it takes the two working together in harmony to even constitute what God is ultimately after. The ministry is the means by how God puts this whole picture together. I realize we have seen evangelism as we have known it in the 20th century, as it worked through the denominational structure, but when we look at the biblical structure of the ministry, as Paul wrote it, we must keep in mind that there was no such thing as a denominational image involved. When Paul spoke of the body, he spoke of it collectively, every member from the greatest to the smallest. He wrote it in that manner, that we would always understand that the body, which is the church, was always looked upon by God as something that was always to function in a way that would characterize what Christ had done when He was here. When Jesus said in St. John, And He, meaning the Holy Spirit, what He would do was take the things of His, (which was really the things that God expressed of Himself in and through the person of Christ) and show them unto you, or us. If those things had not been expressed, those words of wisdom Jesus uttered, those statements and those sermons, the messages as Jesus explained the plan of God in simplicity, no one would ever have known that here was the man God had chosen, that He might reveal His deity, His headship and His miraculous saving attributes through. That is why we can look at the early part of the life of Jesus, and understand why there were no sermons preached, no miracles, and nothing like that was evident, that any man could actually say that they could see God in this man. However, at twelve years of age, even the elders at Jerusalem marveled at this young man’s wisdom, because He knew the scriptures. The elders were confounded. They marveled at this man’s wisdom later on also. They said, How can He know such things, having never learned, or gone to school to learn them? We can say this, All of that was to show, in the early years of Jesus’ life, that He was to grow up before mankind just like any other boy would, He was to portray himself and conduct himself as a true Son of God though. He portrayed himself in such a manner that any man looking at Him and watching Him in the right way could see, This is not a sinner. This is not a man with a fallen nature. He lived and conducted himself very orderly. That is why in Luke’s account it says He grew up in stature, and in favor both with God and man. That is all the account speaks about Him. It gives no honor to any particular sermon or any miraculous deed. It gives respect as to how the man conducted himself growing up. That is what caused Him to find favor with God and man. No man could find fault with this man. That set the first agenda, but that day He went to the Jordan river to be baptized, we can say this man had come to a time in life when the purpose of God for his life was to start being manifested. God was going to be seen in and through him, but he himself would not be God. God (the sovereign Spirit) was ready to use this vessel, and in order to express His purpose through him, He was going to place Himself in this vessel, in the fullness of all His deity and headship attributes. To explain it to many in that way, would just cause them to say, You are talking very mysterious. When we know the truth of it, we know that when He went to the river and was baptized by John, then the heavens were opened unto Him, and the Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, yet we know that was only a symbol of the nature of the Spirit that was condescending, to make His abode in this human vessel of clay. Here is where the scriptures were fulfilled that Paul wrote about, when he said, Truly God was in Christ Jesus. At what time was He in Him? After He went to the river and got John to baptize Him. A lot of people today would argue and fuss about that, but I could not care less about who they are, nor how educated they may be, that is exactly when the Spirit which is the Father, incarnated His Son. From then on, God has been in the person of His Son, to lead that vessel of clay and to speak through His very vocal ability, things that will confound the Judaistic society, things that the Judaistic society in their apostate condition will want to personally condemn Him for, and they did just that. They condemned him for tearing down their tradition. At the same time, others could listen to Him speak and realize there was something being spoken from those lips that could only come from God. I am using this so we can see how the first century, as the first century came and went, was dealt with by God. What those apostles wrote in all their epistles as they explained various things to the body of Christ in a local setting, once they were written, they became the standard by which the universal body later on, would be guided through life by. They are a means for the correction of error, admonishment, and to show the people that lived then and those that would follow thereafter, just what God intended for His children to live like. This is why Paul was dealt with like he was. We know he was the author of about half of all the epistles of the New Testament. That is why Ananias was chosen to speak to him when he was led by the Holy Spirit to the place where it took place, because God had already said, And he shall be a light to the Gentiles and a means of salvation to the ends of the earth. I am thankful that God, one day, allowed me to see something in this word that has helped me realize God’s word is every bit true. Looking at the scriptures, we know why we have seen a manifestation of the grace of God in the last four years, as God has moved among us, basically using the younger ones, because the young minds have not been traditionalized as the older ones that had denominational upbringing. I appreciate how God, in His mercy, could take a body of young people and deal with them in the manner He has. Not only has He done it here, He has done it in other parts of the world. When I look back into the writings of Bro. Branham, and a question is asked, Bro. Branham, is there to be a revival for the Bride? If so, what is it to consist of? He said it like this, Yes, that is what is going on right now, there will be apostles, there will be prophets, there will be evangelists, pastors and teachers. At that time, you could not see such a thing, because the general theme of the mass who had heard about him and seen him, seemed as though their minds were shut to the reality of an apostle or prophet, other than Bro. Branham himself. They were ready to jump on anyone that even seemed to show any nature that characterized anything after the life of Bro. Branham. There was, in the minds of the mass of people, that he is the one and only, and you are not to desire for the supernatural to be in your life, and if you are desiring such a thing, you are just trying to be like him. Well I want to say, When God chose that little man, back in the year he was born, he grew up in the manner he did, and had the testimony in later years which he had, God was not doing that just to try to show the world He loved that man better than anybody else that lived on the face of this earth. That was not the picture at all. We are all sinners, saved by the grace and mercy of God, even Bro. Branham. Yet there are people that say, I read it in a letter, Bro. Branham was not human, he was divine. Now that lets me know there are some people in this world that cannot stand to look at anything in a display of the supernatural. Yet God wanted the Church to be a body of people that in the natural flesh they are made up of, they could be just as normal and natural and human as can be, and yet somehow or other, in their spiritual makeup, they can be different in the manner of life and conduct they portray. One day they could be a sinner, living like the devil, and another day the grace of God could come along and in a mysterious way, remove all the attributes of sin and unbelief, take away all that stubbornness, and that perverted nature, and put within them a Spirit that makes them sweet and gentle, wanting to g be a different type person altogether. As we read here in Ephesians, time had passed after the church was born, and as Paul wrote this, he could see many things as he feels his ministry is ready to be brought to a close, so he writes this letter to the Church at Ephesus. I wonder how many times he thought about this church as he traveled about? Because this is the church that was lit off of the great revival Paul was the instrument of, what we read in the 19th chapter of the book of Acts. Let us see what he is saying to this church. “But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. (That means it is not just a few, no matter how little or insignificant) you might seem to be, there has been grace given to every one of us. It is the devil’s business to fight us, to bother us, to try to rob us of that faith, and that grace that has come to each one of us, to save us out of our sinful nature of unbelief, and change our course, but he cannot do that if we have the real thing. Somewhere, in the process of our redemption, God might settle us, that eventually, somewhere there is going to be something of the supernatural part about Jesus Christ in our life. When Jesus said in Mark 16,”These signs shall follow them that believe,” (He was not limiting that just to a few. He was speaking collectively, that these would be the things that would be displayed in the body, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. These things would be manifested in the communities wherever the true believers are, because this would be a means that the believers of that community, or that area of that city could show forth to the world that Jesus Christ still lives, because He lives inside His redeemed people. Therefore the Church is His mystical body. It is a mystery that we even exist like we do. A true believer that can believe in the supernatural, and God sees fit to begin to display any of the supernatural in him or her, it is a miracle that such a thing can even exist like that. I have to say, I thank God for His grace. We read words in the four gospels that were spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ when He walked on earth in a fleshly body and we acknowledge that this is God’s word, but do we believe that Jesus was God? We should not, but many do, simply because they do not have a true revelation of the godhead. God (the eternal, sovereign Spirit) was in His Son Jesus, and the words that were spoken, even though they came from the lips of Jesus, they were not His own words: they were the words of His Father that had taken up His abode in Him. Did He not say, (John 8:26) I have many things to say and to judge of you: but He that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him? 27: They understood not that He spake to them of the Father. 28: Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. 29: And He that sent nie is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him. (Also in chapter 12, we find this same thing.) (John 12:48) He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath ONE that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. 49: For I have not spoken of myself but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. 50: And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto met so I speak.” The godhead is not all that hard to understand: You just have to be willing to cast off all that old denominational, trinity junk you have been carrying around for so long. You absolutely cannot make ONE GOD, which is SPIRIT, fit into a three persons in the godhead teaching. When you try to explain your three persons theory, the scriptures themselves testify against you and cancel out every attempt you make. When I was in the Methodist Church I did not know there was anything else. It is a shame that masses of the world of religion believe only the system they were born and raised up in. They believe there is nothing outside of that. It goes to show how their vision is limited to their natural surroundings and how they have been brought up. If for some reason that barrier is removed, then you can begin to realize there is something more, and see that God is seeking to put together a true Church of normal individuals, with no extraordinary talents. Strictly by God’s redeeming grace, when He gets through molding us, He can take us out of the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, or whatever we are in, and when He gets through putting something in us that we never realized He would do, the end results is, He is putting us together in a body of believers where we can all have the same belief. With this in mind, let me finish this.) Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (He is not talking here necessarily about the whole body of laity. He is starting out here talking about the body of the ministry.) Now that He ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some, apostles.” That is part of what was in the Upper Room, the apostles. There was no such thing as evangelists, pastors, teachers or prophets. That is why, when we can see the book of Acts in its entirety, in its collective picture, we can see over the months and years, that God had put inside of the ministry every talent and gift that was ordained to be a means of building the Church of the living God, collectively putting together and uniting an element of people that could be absolutely founded upon a certain solid foundation. This is why it could be written and we are built upon the Foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Not the New Testament prophets necessarily, but the Old Testament prophets, because it was from the Old Testament that the present apostles got their original revelation. As they reached back and searched the writings of those prophets and got the things that had already been written, but not understood in the early days of the birth of the church, in the months that came and went, time itself necessitated that various things be understood. That is why Jesus said He had many things yet to say unto the believers. I say today. It is the sante way, as we have been brought out of our denominational backgrounds, thinking of the traditional ideas we have had about passages of scriptures that had been taught to us by the religious systems, sometimes these traditions get so embedded in our minds, it is like a nest of starlings. What do you mean by that, Bro. Jackson? Let a nest of starlings get established in a barn, they will take twigs, pieces of straw, and they will go out and find mud, and they use this mud like a mud dauber. They will put together this wall of mud, then here comes a feather, a hair off a horse’s tail, anything they can find, they will weave it into that mud. After a while that thing is glued to a sill, or a rafter in the barn loft. That thing can be used over and over and over, because they have attached it so permanently. I said that simply because of the fact that when a tradition gets embedded in your mind, the devil muds it in. He will put any kind of trash, or what have you, that he can put together just to make a nest where he can hatch another bunch of ideas that is as carnal as what you have already. That is just my plain old hillbilly terminology, but I believe you know what I mean. Oh how proud we can get, with that carnal tradition. People get so angry, when their tradition is rubbed the wrong way. I know this, as these original twelve began to preach the truth, as God revealed it to them, that Judaistic society really got disturbed, because they felt like they had been betrayed. Sometimes they became so angry, they were ready to destroy that entire element of people. Regardless of that, God, by His grace, would take those simple minded men, and the things they would say would help break down that embedded traditional nest. Out of that, came an element of people whose faith was so fervent, so pure that the Holy Ghost, living inside those vessels of clay, made them begin to react to the truth they were hearing, and when they began to react and live accordingly, they became yielded vessels God could use in different ways. We are going to see the same thing again before this Age closes out.
HOW GOD WORKS OUT HIS PLAN
I will never forget the time a few years ago, when we first went to Canada preaching the message as we understood the message then. I will have to say though, We see things much more clearly now, not any different, but we have gained more enlightenment, and the truth we had back then had become more expanded. The light of truth shines a little brighter for us today. I still remember when things used to be said behind our backs, like, Well, if this is the truth, why is God not doing this and doing that? Sometimes that kindly hurt a little. You are doing your best to stand for a truth and someone becomes very upset, thinking, Well I want to see something now. God has a time factor in everything He does. God does not have to move any certain way, at any certain time, just because we become impatient with Him. He has a time He will move. He may let me die and go into the ground if I become impatient, but He will have a people somewhere that will move just when He is ready for them to move. I am thankful, that even after all the opposition we have had to contend with, I can say, Do not worry, God has a plan in this message. He is going to use this message as it exists right now, even as He has in the past, to separate a lot of people. He draws a lot of people to it for a while, then they take hold of different beliefs and attitudes about what they hear, and why they have heard it. Some will go that way, some will go this way, but there is always a little element that will take it, and in simple faith and confidence in knowing what God has said, they will be willing to walk with God in the light of it, simply because they know it is the truth. We saw a precious thing four years ago, when God started moving by His Spirit among our young people. These young people were not yet born when I first went to Canada, but I am thankful God has done just what His word said He would do, even though many thought Jesus left the mercy seat years ago. I am saying these things the only way I know to say them, and I am trying to keep from saying things that might cause some to say, Well , you are trying to build yourself up. No. I am going to be like this, though, There is no such thing as ten apostles living in 1998 and having ten different revelations. There have been enough preachers run the roads since Bro. Branham’s departure to fill a gymnasium, and they have preached enough sermons from here to there, that even many of the European Christians have a bad image of the American preacher. To them, he is the guy who brought all these adverse spirits to Europe and Africa. I have to say something in answer to that. Brethren, When you talk like that, you do not realize how you are stepping over scriptures. No matter whether you were born in Europe, Africa, India, or where, when you hear a certain thing you are going to be required by God to hear it right. If you do not, maybe the preacher from the states did not bring the spirit you got. If your attitude about what you heard is not right, there will be a spirit that is different from what is in the states, that will grab hold of you, just simply because of that kind of attitude. God has a law of elimination in this message. You will conic the provided way, the way He leads you, or He will eliminate you along the pathway somewhere. You will wind up like a box car that has been sitting on a side rail for the last six months, down behind a bunch of warehouses where the weeds have grown up around it. That box car has a sticker and number on it. The railroad company that owns it, knows where it was parked the last time it was ever routed out on the line. Some day there will be an engine come down the line, and it will be switched over to that side rail, because the engineer has an order to pick up that car. It will be connected into the main chain of the train, and be put back into active duty. I just use this little illustration to say to every one of you, It does not matter where you live, in Africa, India, Sweden, or Russia, nor what you have been exposed to, God knows where you are, and when the time is right, He will send that little engine down the line for you. It has the right revelation, and it is coming for you. I am saying that to say this, When we think of this ministry that started in the days of the apostles, you will never read where one of the original men, whether they were referred to as a prophet or a teacher or an evangelist, ever went astray. You will find no epistle that writes one negative thing about any of those men. Agabus was the first man to appear on the scene, and years later, in the book of Acts he is still on the main line. Philip was treated as an evangelist. He was one of the original seven that was chosen to help take care of the daily needs of the saints. Years later when Paul was coming back Philip was still on the main line. He was a married man with four daughters that had grown up. They had gifts in their lives, and one of them was the gift of prophecy. Of course we do not know how many men there were in that assembly, but I assure you, God never calls any man to be an apostle, a teacher, evangelist, or pastor, or anything in the way of a ministry, and then leaves him sitting somewhere with nothing to do. Every man in those days was busy in his calling. It is this other element who were not called by God, but were self appointed angels of light, imposters, false apostles and prophets that caused the problems. They had a message different than Paul. They had a message different than Peter. I have heard people say, Where are the apostles and prophets we are always hearing about? The only thing I can say is, Give God time and He will bring them upon the scene, one by one and two by two. When people sit back with their arms folded and say, Well I am looking for this, and I am looking for that, and then I will know who is right. No, you are not. You are just a busy body, wanting to show somebody how much you know. When Bro. Branham was alive, I did not know I would ever be standing here talking like this. My personal attitude is always to agree if at all possible, and try to get along with everyone. If they want the road, I will let them have it. I will stay out of their way and try my best not to cause them any trouble. There are times though, that God will not let you be quiet. Looking at it in that way, I never dreamed that one day, for some reason or other, God would even allow me to be a means for anything to be changed or started. As I look back after thirty two years, I have to say, God, it has been your Grace that saved me to start with, but it has been your Grace that has used my frail mind to put a picture together of some things, so people who desire truth can have access to it. It has been your Grace that has caused me to see things to help lay out a picture of truth. I would like to be as sweet as I know how to be, but some people are always wanting to get in front of you, saying, Well, I would do that a different way. That is why they were not called to do what they are talking about. God calls people that will listen to Him. The road can be full of those who drive Cadillacs, Lincolns, and fly airplanes, all ready to evangelize the world, but is that what God wants? All they are doing is just getting in God’s way, because they all sing a different tune, so to speak. Every one of those men in the early age worked collectively together. They were individuals whose frame of thinking could have been different one from another about everyday things, but when it came to preaching the gospel, they were all of one mind. No, they did not have to wear the same style of clothes, comb their hair the same way, nor eat the same type of food, but deep inside their spiritual mind and heart there was an understanding of a truth that was so real the devil could not change it. That is why God could use those men to put together a body of believers. Then, when He put the laity together around that kind of ministry, sooner or later that laity has been invested with the gifts of the Spirit. That is why I say to you, When God brought His prophet messenger on the scene, and said that he was to be a means to restore the end time children back to the faith of the apostolic fathers, we know it is a fact, even though the man is not here in person to do the restoring, the blueprint he laid out before us, gives us a description of the written truth of God’s word, and that lets you and I know, we do not have to sit around in our systems of religion being different from each other. There was a young man and his wife brought here years ago, God had dealt with him in Norway. Every time he went there he was confused. He broke down. God showed him in a dream when Bro. Strommen was very kind to befriend him and take him to his home. Bro. Strommen took him to his basement where he saw the Contenders he had there. Bro. Strommen explained a few things to him. For a little while he wanted to get in touch with us. When he came back from Norway, back to California, he called me, Bro. Jackson, I’ve got to see you. I paid his way here, and I let him preach and give his testimony one night. He was so thankful to be here. Then he came for the summer convention after that. A few months later, I got a letter, Bro. Jackson, I appreciate you as a man of God. I appreciate you for the things you stand for, but I have to disagree with you about this, Every time you open your mouth you say things as though you are the only one that knows it, and you won’t listen to anyone else. I could get riled up, but you know what, I did not even answer him. I am going to be by him just like Paul was in his day: God did not call me to agree with people who want to find fault. I have kept my mouth shut until I knew what I was talking about, then when I speak I do not intend to go around and butter you up so you will agree with me. I heard the man God sent to this Age. I did not sit under his ministry just to be a puppet to him. I sat under the man’s ministry to learn something from him. I was not able to follow him around all the time, and I thank God now, that I did not have that opportunity: after seeing how those turned out, that did follow him everywhere he went. The many times I was privileged to hear him preach, I heard something coming through my ears that let me know God was using that little vessel of clay to give me an insight of something that is written in this book. I will avoid trouble any time I can, but when you come to the place you realize God has called you to be an instrument of service, you know you have to look to Him for His direction. He has helped me through the recent years, to take things Bra Branham said and study them in the light of the scriptures, as well as in the light which he spoke them. There are two ways to listen to some of the things be said. One of them is right, but when something is spoken in two different ways, they cannot both be right. I have gone through every sermon book and picked out dual statements and phrases. Sometimes you have to look at them very close and for a good long while, before you can open your mouth to comment on them. After his death, many of the preachers in the movement began to say, All seven seals are broken. Here I am saying, No, they are not, only six are revealed. However the trend continued, with them saying all seven seals are broken, and the seven thunders were the revelation of the seven seals. Yet here I stand saying, Only six seals are broken, and the thunders are yet to sound. (As of this very moment, the thunders have still not uttered their voices.) You do not know how that makes you feel, to stand up against so many educated men and declare that what they are saying is wrong. I There are some people out there just to contest you. I always said I would keep my mouth shut until I felt like I knew what I was looking at. I do not remember now, what year I was sitting in an airport restaurant, I opened my Bible and said, Bro. Strommen, I am going to say something to you before we leave and go home. “These other guys have preached and harped this and that, but Bro. Strommen, that seventh seal has not been broken yet, and those seven thunders have not sounded. Some were saying the seven thunders were those seven angels that came to Bro. Branham. Angels don’t speak audibly to an element of people. Those who use that, are using it to imply the same seven angels that came to Bro. Branham are going to come to me. When I looked at the scriptures right, I saw in Revelation 10, seven thunders uttered their voices. T-H-E-I-R is a plural pronoun. John, at that time, because he was in the future tense of time, heard seven thunders, I said “that is not one man speaking.” When I did begin to speak it out and we printed the message, saying that there will be seven men within the ministry to the bride, not front one nation but from all over the Christian world, you would be surprised how many have taken my statement and ran wild with it. A Sister called from Texas: She named a certain young preacher. (I know him.) He has taken the opposite side of the road, and is preaching now, that he knows who the seven thunders are. Well I am glad he does, because I sure do not know who they are. I know this just as sure as I stand here right now, there are going to be seven godly men strategically placed around the globe, that will sound those thunders; and I do not need to know who they are right now. They are going to have an understanding so consistent, that the devil is going to get completely tangled up when he tries to tear their mentality apart. I told one man this, You cannot, at this time, find three that will totally agree, but what a miracle it will be, when out of the midst of the bride, in the universal setting, God has seven particular men that have such a consistent picture of the truth, that He can trust them to take this understanding and receive from Him that which he would have the bride Church to know. That is going to be so vital, so necessary, so absolutely important for His bride. It has got to be something the bride will understand in such simple terms, yet the world will not be in shape for it. Those seven men will not diminish anything whatsoever from the messenger to the Age. He has already fulfilled all God called him to accomplish. The whole thing, as we look at it, shows us a vindication that the bride in the end time is the product brought forth at the end of seven Church Ages. If in the spirit world there are seven angelic beings who represent the same spiritual angels that have followed the messengers down through the age, what is wrong with God having seven men right here at the end time, as a vindication and a confirmation? Here are seven men that can speak the same thing and it does not have to be spoken in the exact same words, in order for the bride to get the same picture from them. If all of a sudden you heard of seven men scattered over the face of this earth begin to say the same thing, God spoke to me the other night such and such, after awhile the number two man has the same thing, maybe different words. What all seven have heard and what God has told them concerning the seals and the imminent coming of Christ, you will know in simple terms that you are living at the threshold of the coming of Christ for His church. That line of time on our chart is not meant to give you the day or hour: It only gives you a proximity of years. That is why the seventy weeks deal with years and the two days deal with years, but if we have the points of beginning and ending, looking at them right, we can see that God put in His word a yardstick that we can measure this thing out by. If we are too ignorant to read the yardstick, I want you to know, we will never know when the thunders are next to sound, or even know there is such a thing to take place. That is why I say, The movement as a whole is in a dangerous place. I believe God is going to hit them with confusion. I do not say this because I hate them: No. There is no reason for me to hate them, but whatever does happen to tear them apart and disintegrate them, they brought it on themselves. They are a reproach to Christ. They have been a mess in the pathway of righteousness. They have been ready to bang everybody else, but may God have mercy on them. How pious they can look. How holy they can walk. They act like the Nazarene and Pilgrim Holiness, and the Pentecostal Holiness of bygone days. They are so holy you could not touch them with a ten foot pole. All they do is just see the holiness side of things. Because of that, their revelation is not worth two cents, as far as perfecting a bride. God is not coming for a denominational church. He is coming for a holy people that knows what true holiness is. The end result is, when He is through with us, we have a picture of understanding in our minds of what God’s true purpose really is. We are partakers of it, and we are the recipients of it. I am looking for Jesus Christ to come very soon. I want to close this message emphasizing the main theme of it: When the day comes for the Bride to leave this world, every minister that has been called of God will be preaching the same thing. It is not because they are puppets: It is because they have all been listening to the voice of God, whether inwardly or outwardly. God forbid that we become Puppets, hung on somebody’s string, them saying, Now jump, now shout, now leap. No saints, it is just that each man is doing, saying and going about fulfilling his calling, just as God directs him. We are going to see a little body of people put together so uniquely. They will all have the same revelation of things pertaining to our spiritual being, and the purpose of God in His beautiful plan of redemption. We will still have our same physical makeup, freckles or whatever until Jesus comes. Some of us will become more and more bald, and we will continue to lose teeth until Jesus comes. Then there will be a great day of repairing all things. He is going to put us in the shop for a total change, so to speak. We are going to go in a wreck and come out looking like a brand new vehicle, because redemption has made us over. Before I close, let me say this, God put this kind of ministry in the body to see that the body grows consistently, revelatory wise, with the same attitude. That is why Paul could say in so many letters, See that you all speak the same thing, and that all of you are of the same mind, and that you have the same judgment one toward another. This thing of people coming along saying, Well we don’t all have to agree. just as long as we love Jesus, is pure junk. The more I hear that, the more I am convinced, that if you are one of them, you are a stubborn character, you are self willed and headstrong. I have to say that with respect, because I realize God has a way of trying every true child of His, but I know this, that if we will keep our mouth’s still and wait on the Lord, and never want to be out in front of someone, but let God do the leading. He will put every instrument in place as it pleases Him, and we will fulfill our predestined purpose. He is the One that does the choosing, He is the One that does the giving. We are the recipients and beneficiaries of His grace and mercy. I am glad we arc on the right track. There have been a lot of things said in years gone by, but I can see how God is ironing out everything for His true bride people, taking all the kinks out of the picture and giving you a clear vision. It is a picture of how we can get ourselves ready for the coming of the Lord.
OBSERVATIONS AND REMARKS-CONCERNING THE MIDDLE EAST
I am going to make a few comments about what is taking place in the Middle East. (This was preached 02/15/98 P.M.) As I have read quite a few things in the past few days, from the old American traditional way, Well what do we need to be in the Middle East for? Why don’t we come home and forget everything going on over there? It makes me say, Well you are not back in 1920. You are not living in 1960. You are living in 1998, just short of the completion of 2000 years of time since our Savior walked upon earth in human body. You would be surprised at the number of big men, spokesmen of various religious things, they all begin to calculate and anticipate, What is the year 2000 going to bring in the Middle East? We could be standing at the threshold of something most people are not prepared for. If the world could see into the spirit realm, what is ahead in the next two years, there might be some do just as they did in October 1929, jump out hotel windows, because they cannot stand the strain of what is ahead. It is a pitiful shame, that the political leadership of the forces that was used in the Gulf War in 1991, did not have sense enough to know they were dealing with a devil. They were not dealing with a small Arab nation of Islam. They were dealing with a dictator, a mad man, as bad as Hitler ever thought of being. Any man that can kill his own son-in-laws, even shoot a son of his own, is something less than rational. He has had more than one wife. He is demon possessed, and mentally, he thinks like the devil. He (Saddam Hussein) is a power crazed madman. If he thought he could bring the world to its knees by some secret means, do not think for one minute he would hold back his maneuvers just because you just got through giving birth to a little baby. It was said on the News that if we go into the Middle East and we do start a war, we might get a lot of uprising here at home because of public opinion. When they look at television and begin to see the bodies of innocent people laying in the streets of Baghdad, or wherever else it might be, people begin to chant, This is inhumane. I want you to know, here is a book that has given you the picture of what the end time is going to be like. This book tells us exactly when this is all going to be over. The president we have, I am speaking from the political and personal standpoint of our president, who is the leader of a nation that years ago when it was involved in a conflict, never went into a war just to play politics. They went at it to win it. It did not matter how many women and children got in the pathway, war is war. We never made in invasion in the Pacific but what there were leaflets dropped hours in advance of the invasion saying, Clear the area, because you are in the pathway of an imminent invasion. If you stayed there, the American forces were not responsible if they found you laying there dead, because they had given you warning. When we have to fight a war, all because of public opinion, we might wind up the loser. Let us just take a look at this mad man. What does he have? What is the world looking at? He has various germ, biological warfare instruments. If for some reason, he had three small rockets, and he was successful enough to launch them and hit three areas in Israel, he could take out thousands of Israeli people in a flash. Who is going to weep over them? Very few have wept over the Israelis that have died, simply because of what the Palestinians have done. Look how the News Media exploits what Israel does, calls her a war lord, a warmonger, and the Arabs are portrayed as peaceful loving people. They magnify it when they see a few Arabs lying in the streets, that have been killed through gunfire. The Israelis are looked upon as dirty dogs. It is a shame that the world has to have that type of image. Let us look at our president. He is in hot water. Why does this Gulf conflict run parallel to all his sex scandals? Every day you listen to the news another woman comes into the picture, another testimony comes into the picture. At home it gets bigger and bigger. An element of American people are saying, What do we care what he does in the bedroom, or behind closed doors, our nation is at its best. I read that in the local newspaper. We have a society that doesn’t care about the spiritual or moral image of America. They do not realize that if America sinks, they will go down with it. When the angels of God came to Sodom and Gomorrah and told Lot what was about to take place, even his whole household refused to believe it. They made fun of their old man, but when the sun was ready to dawn in the valley on that morning, those two angels that had stayed all night with Lot, suddenly took Lot and his wife and two daughters, saying, Get out of here, nothing can take place until you are gone from here. They compelled them by force, to get them out of there. Then Lot’s wife just had to look back, after being warned not to. They no more than got out of sight of the place when all of a sudden fire and brimstone began to fall. What was it? The valley floor of Jordan opened up and a volcano belched and pitched lava, flames leaping into the air, rocks falling here and there. Over in the ancient land of Moab, there is black burnt rock on the desert floor. Any Arab that lives there will tell you, that is rock from Sodom and Gomorrah. That is why when you understand the picture of what really took place, there was no Dead Sea in the days of Lot. When that valley floor belched open and fire and brimstone, hot rock and lava reached into the sky, it left a hole in the ground. The Jordan River, from that day on, had nowhere else to flow to. It formed a lake. It has been that way for almost three thousand years. Now most any military man, even our Congress and Senate know, the very fact that Saddam Hussein has taken the attitude to cut the U.N. weapons observers out of the picture, he is covering up something he does not want them to find. It is in a form and in a way, that he can let them in for a few weeks here, he has it hid somewhere else. Then he runs them out and moves it again. Now I will let you in over here. They go in and find nothing: He is playing peekaboo. From the president’s view, if he could do something miraculously, militarily, that is about all he has left at his fingertips, to change the image of things in the Middle East. These same people that will say, We don’t care what he does in the bedroom, he sure took care of Saddam Hussein, did he not? That is what he is looking at. But let us just say this, There is something more behind it than just that. Let us just say that all of a sudden our planes and rockets begin to hit these cities and the News Media begins to portray the pictures of desolation, the devastation, human flesh laying in the streets of Baghdad and all the other places from Cairo to Damascus, from Baghdad to Tehran, the Moslem world is going to go into an uproar. They will say, Away with America, and down with Israel. There is enough Islamic sympathizers in this nation right now, that can start demonstrating at a moment’s notice. Every reprobate, every pervert, every Islamic sympathizer, and I have to believe some of them are terrorists from the word go, would do whatever they were instructed to do. Some of them are no doubt just over here trained, and waiting for the right time. If there was suddenly in the Arab world, an uprising of anti Israel, anti United States, they could use this conflict to be the trigger. We might find ourselves bottled up and tore up, in just a few months of time. I am not saying that is what is in the making, but there is the possibility of it. If we are close to the end of everything, closer than we might think, God would absolutely let this be a triggering device to be the beginning of America being knocked out of world leadership. It could set off something in the Middle East and Israel will be forced to take the initiative. I have to say, God help us all. We could be very close to the threshold of an era of time, that once this starts it never will return to a normal state again. It will gradually unfold, grow and grow, and get worse and worse until it eventually leads to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have had the best of everything here in this country, but those good times could suddenly come to an end, so let us be thankful to God for what we have and trust Him for our future. Amen.
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