BROTHER JACKSON WAS COMMENTING ON A DREAM WHEN WE ENDED LAST ISSUE, SO WE WILL PRINT THE LAST SENTENCE OF OUR LAST ISSUE AND CONTINUE ON FROM THERE.

There is going to be a live ministry as the headship of the Bride of Christ, and they are going to exalt Bro. William Branham in the proper way, respecting him and the things he preached, but this entire thing is going to come to its climax as God takes his (Bro. Branham’s) message and causes the Bride to really understand it in a proper balance; and the new truths that are still hid here, God is going to put them all together and the bride will understand. That is why He is bringing it to an end on the basis of the voice of the seventh angel, and not my message. The five fold ministry is only building into the message, the final things that are needed to make the picture complete. Do you understand that? Never have I said, Praise God! I am going to be the big I, and all the rest the little you. You can ask any brother or sister wherever I have gone to preach; and you will find that I have always stood for a ministry of men that will come forth, stand for the truth, uphold it at whatever the cost, and give God a chance to use that ministry to help unite a people that are to be the end time Bride of Christ. I am going to read the last part of what we were reading from the seals book right here. Bro. William Branham said, “It may be time. It may be the hour now, that this great person that we’re expecting to rise on the scene may rise on the scene. (That eleven page letter had nothing in it about this. I wonder why? I would like to see the person and say, You put in your letter about the tent ministry, you put in there about the third pull, you put in there, that he would ride this trail one more time, on and on you went, but why did you not put this in also? I say this with respect and love, I believe truth in its proper hour, and what it means, should be upheld without compromise, but when men become guilty of using truth out of season just to propagate something of their own belief and ambition, that causes me to have disrespect for it. God is not the author of any such as that. He is not the author of confusion, He is only the author of truth.) Maybe this ministry that I have tried to take people back to the Word has laid a foundation; (I have to say it did just that, according to scriptures.) and if it has, I’ll be leaving you for good. (Well he did.) There won’t be two of us here at the same time. If it is, he’ll increase, I’ll decrease. I don’t know. But I have been privileged by God to look and see what it was–unfold to that much. Now that is the Truth.” I just want to say, Thank God for His leadership. I thank God tonight for a leadership of men that He has chosen and enabled me to be able to be part of. That is why, around the world tonight, there are men listening to me that are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, knowing that I have said the Bride of Christ is not going to be put together by the return of William Branham. It is going to be put together by a group of men collectively: men called of God from around the world. They are men that have been separated, washed and delivered from all the confusion round about, men that have proved themselves to be loyal and faithful to God. They are not men that I have appointed, but men God has raised up to hear what I have stood for and they have seen it to be the truth; and I stand in defense of that with all the strength God gives me. The Bride of Christ is going to be stirred by the Holy Ghost to understand and accept revealed truth, and He is dealing with our heart’s to get us to the place where we want to be found in His perfect will every moment we have left here to bear witness of His truth. I do not want to lose the friendship of anyone, but if losing friendship is a result of giving God first place in my life, I have determined in my heart to put God first. If I put God first, then I know He will lead and work everything out to fulfill his purpose. As I look over the congregation, I say Thank God, He put a little congregation together here, that has enabled me to follow the leading of God in ministering to people around the world. Through the years we have had to stand against a lot of negative criticism and foolishness, but I am thankful for the way God has strengthened and upheld us through it all. You that may be listening on the internet, I never did hear Bro. William Branham preach on Revelation 12 and Daniel 12, I only heard him refer to them. He was asked the question one time, What is the mystery of the woman in Revelation 12? He said, The woman is the Bride of Christ crowned with the gospel of twelve apostles. How many remember hearing or reading that? It is in one of his messages. Later on, it was asked of him again and he said, It is Israel fleeing for her life. Now we all know it cannot be both, so we have to settle on one or the other. Right? It has to be one or the other. God is so merciful: Just a short time before we ever put in print, anything about the woman of Revelation 12, Bro. William Branham was already gone from the scene, and in a dream, I saw my wife and me sitting in the Tabernacle, and there was a large congregation of people gathered there. We were gathered there because it had been announced that he was coming back to preach on Revelation 12 and Daniel 12. In the dream I saw myself sitting there toward the front, maybe the fourth or fifth row back. We were waiting for him to come to the platform. While we were waiting, I heard a strange fluttering sound outside the building on the left hand side, I looked out the window and saw a beautiful tree. In this fluttering sound there were 12 robins that came and lit in that tree. About that time I heard something from the right side, and looked out that window and hearing the same sound: There was another tree just like the one on the other side, and twelve robins lit in that tree. In the dream while sitting there, I said to myself, This is strange. Then, through the door came Bro. William Branham. He came to the platform and introduced himself as he always did and greeted everyone. Then he said, I feel led of God to come back here and preach to you the revelation of the woman of Revelation 12 and Daniel 12. In both chapters it is dealing with prophecy, and they go together. When I woke up out of that dream, I had the message that was preached and printed. Do you think I can just turn away from that and say God was not in it? I know God was in that dream, because that was in the scriptures, and it all became so beautiful as it just fell right in place. That is how God has dealt with me through the years, so I want to say, I do not just jump up and preach something without some kind of vindication first. I find the word of God to be very exciting as He opens it up a little at a time and lets us see a clear picture. That is why I can say tonight, I am really looking forward to the days up ahead, because I believe God will start stirring believing people in their homes, on their jobs and wherever we are, because it is time for Him to shake us loose from all ideas of carnal flesh that we still want to be motivated by. He is going to finish putting together a body of people that will have a true picture of what it is to be called by God, filled with His Spirit and given a revelation of His word, so that it comes alive to each and every one of us.

HOW EDUCATION ROBS MANY PEOPLE

I realize some of the things I have been preaching, you older ones have heard before, but I have a purpose because now it seems like I do not know whether I am waking up the dead or what. Regardless of which, I am waking up somebody. The letter I made mention of last week, (The man does not give an address, I suppose he was afraid I might reply back.) He stated in his letter, that his father takes the Contender and has for many years, and enjoys it. However he noticed in a certain Contender this vision about George Washington and he had to respond. He said in his letter, We have traced this down through the library of Congress and found it more or less all false. He then went on with his own way of explaining it. He sent about four pages he had printed out from somewhere; and I thought, There are a lot of people in this world today, that are so highly educated they cannot accept reality. They have been educated to disbelieve the histories of old. They are doing their best to change the histories, taking out words, taking out statements and things that they feel like the younger generation does not need to hear or read. That lets me know this much, we are truly living in the days just before the coming of the Lord. We have heard in recent months of different professors that are trying to prove the Bible is just a book of myth. I referred to a certain item taken from a magazine I receive, how this certain man had made a study of the social structure in Europe, all the way from Italy to Scandinavia. In many places he found that sixty percent of the youth that are born in Europe now are actually born to people that are not married to each other. They have a father and mother that are not married according to the old tradition: they just live together as common law husband and wife. The analysis of his subject was, Time is proving that in a short time marriage will be out of the picture and people will just live together. In Europe alone, there are a lot of gay marriages and all such as that. Look what has happened in the past week here in the United States, demonstrating, wanting to change the state laws, the Supreme Court, the Constitution and whatever keeps them from doing as they please. That is what they have been trying to do for the past number of years, as they go about taking God out of this, God out of that, Christ Jesus out of this, and Christ Jesus out of that, removing from America the old identity we have had through the years: We have been known as a nation that believed in God. It is a proven fact, that we are the last western nation of any major proportion that has had the gospel of Jesus Christ for a number of decades, but now something has happened; and the door is being closed to the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This lets me know for sure, that we are fast approaching the hour of the second coming of Christ. With all this gay demonstration and rebellion we have in this hour of time, it will not be long until the true condition of the days of Noah and Lot will be all around us and ready for God to judge. I hold my Bible up and say to you everyone, Though the critics say it is a book of mythology, and that we cannot prove it is actually the inspired word of God, I trust my eternal destiny to the promises made to believers of what is written therein. Why? Well first of all, God put something in me that lets me know this is His word; and secondly, I see it being fulfilled right before our eyes, as each condition of the world reaches the point this Bible foretells. I heard it stated not too long ago, that someone had said it is not a proven fact that the four gospels are actually the words about the man called Jesus the Christ, and states how the gospel writers came along later and wrote what they did ( as if they just wrote whatever came to their mind). God has stood by and upheld this gospel through the years as it traveled through the nations of the world, and finally, He has guided it throughout America. I would say to you this morning, It is a shame that we have leaders today, politicians and others, wanting to denounce the writings in the book which we call “The Bible.” I would like to say to them, If the writings in this book are just a myth, how come the words of Jesus in Luke 17, which say, As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man, are so precisely being fulfilled right before our eyes? We can read a few verses. (Luke 17:26-30) “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. (27) They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. (28) Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; (29) But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. (30) Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Who can deny what we see going on in our hour of time, which is exactly as Jesus said it would be? I ask you, Where did that come from, if He did not say it? Is that mythology? I would like to say to the historians of our day, You have helped produce the conditions we have all around us today. Your God denying, God hating and super human ideas have produced a generation out here that are ready to carry out anything that comes to their mind: with God out of our schools, we now have children everywhere, being arrested for all kinds of abuse, carrying guns to school grounds and shooting ever so many and doing things that never came into the mind of generations 60 years ago. The authorities arrest them and want to try them as adult criminals, even though they are just children. What has brought this on? I have to say, The general breakdown in the social structure of America has brought our nation to this stage of decay. When they took God out of our schools fifty years ago, forbidding prayer and Bible reading, the up coming generations have nothing to give them moral guidance. Now we have come to the place where we cannot mention the name Jesus in a public place nor mention the word God. It is almost a disgrace to mention the name Jesus or speak of the word of God in a public setting. When somebody robs and beats up old people, then you hear, Well what we need is better education. You cannot educate that evil spirit out of people who have no respect for God. They have had fifty years of this modern philosophy, so if it is so much better than what we had before that, it seems to me like it ought to have produced something better than what we are seeing on the News every day. This is not just a condition seen in America: It is around the world like this today. The reason I speak of America so much, is because I remember the days when this nation was referred to as a Christian nation. No. not everyone you met on the street were professing Christians, but back then, even sinners had a respect for God and for Christians. Since our leaders and law makers have had fifty years to say what ever they wanted and teach whatever they wanted, how come what they have propagated has not produced a better society of people? Just look, everything keeps getting worse. Now they say, Well, what we need to have is an anti-gun law. I have said this, Even if they take all the guns out of America, they cannot stop the killing, because they will use knives, clubs, or something else, which just proves it is not the gun that does the killing: it is that brainless character that has it in his hand. They have educated them, but education has not changed the fallen and uncontrolled nature of mankind. Just this week, in the News, we heard of a Louisville policeman that mauled his wife in the parking lot of a public restaurant. Think of it, a policeman, a man that is responsible to uphold the law. I remember when growing up, I had a cousin that lived in Jeffersonville. Back then in the 1930’s every morning a policeman would come along at a certain time, walking his beat. It was not unusual to see little kids run out of the house, grab hold of his hand and walk along with him. He was a buddy to the children. They would follow him to the next corner because that was as far as he would allow them to go. He would cross and go on to the next block. I saw that as a child and never forgot it. As I think of those days it almost makes me weep to think of how different it is now. Back then, the image of a policeman was admired by adults and children alike. Children almost idolized him, because he was a protector. He stood for something they wanted to grow up and appreciate. I also saw in the News, where another policeman abused his little infant: it had some broken ribs and a fractured skull.It just goes to show, when they took God out of America, they took the very source out that was able to guide our society and keep it on a stable course. I have thought lately, How much longer does it have to go on like this before the Lord brings some kind of judgment upon America? We are still on the message, “The Great Mystery,” because I have a lot more to say. This fellow I spoke of is from Africa, after preaching some of the things we have on the Internet, he sends me a message. He has it all marked up, as he is referring to twenty five different quotes of Bro. William Branham, in different sermons. He is letting me know that the coming of Christ is based strictly upon those quotes. When I read that and thought about it, I then thought, I do not stand in the way of someone wanting to trust and believe in Bro. William Branham for what he was sent to this age for, but I have to stand up and defend the Bible against all these quotes taken out of context, giving wrong meanings in different places. The coming of Christ is not going to be a one man show: The coming of Christ for His Bride is going to be a universal thing, and His Bride is not leaving here with one man at the head of it. Let us try to understand that the way I mean it. The reason I say it, (and I hope there are bunch of Branham followers listening. I hope I get some more response,) is because I realize the true Bride of Christ is going to go out of here with a revelation; and that revelation is going to extend beyond what Bro. William Branham preached when he was alive. When you read the 19^th chapter of Revelation, you see the Bride of Christ in heaven, clothed in fine linen, clean and white. That is a picture of the finished product of the ages. We have to realize also, that the living element when Jesus comes for her, has made herself ready. That is what the Bible says. It is true, that no denominational means has been instrumental in perpetrating and setting this thing in motion. God sent His man several years ago, right at a time when denominational religion was sound asleep, to call honest hearted, God fearing and WORD loving people back to a revelation of that WORD. That was his calling; and he fulfilled it exactly as God had ordained him to.

GOD WORKS IN MANY STRANGE WAYS

As we think of Bro. William Branham, When God brought that little man on the scene, He (God) vindicated him in various ways. I am so thankful, that in the month of February 1952, I had already given my heart to God, but for some reason I gave my heart to God while still in the Methodist Church, so every morning, I would choose to read a passage of scripture before starting my day. I felt like somehow or other, the way the signs of the time were, we were getting close to the coming of Christ. Well on this particular morning, as I sat down on the couch and opened up my Bible, it just automatically fell open to Luke, chapter 1. My eyes fell on that scripture where it speaks of Zacharias the priest going into the temple to burn incense and fulfill the function he was supposed to take care of. While he was in there the angel of the Lord came to him and told him that his wife, which had been barren up until then, was going to conceive. She would bring forth a son into the world, and his name would be called John. He would become the forerunner of the Christ. The angel quoted Malachi 4, the first part of that prophecy found in verses 5 and 6. When I saw in that quotation, that he stopped in a certain place and nothing was said about the heart of the children being turned to their fathers, I said to myself, That goes to show, that the first part was fulfilled in the days of John. Then I began to realize, Yes, I do believe we are living in the days just before the coming of Christ, but before He comes again, He is going to send that spirit of Elijah. Little did I realize then, that He already had sent him. It was that very year, in the month of August, that I was told by my wife’s cousin, Bro. Glenn Funk, who knew Bro. William Branham, and knew what had happened at the river in 1933, how the angel of the Lord had spoken and said, As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Christ, thou will take a message that will go around the world, and will prepare the way for my second coming. When I began to put these things together, I began to look for the reality of what all this is adding up to. The reason I am saying this is because, when God first led my wife and me to the Tabernacle, I truly saw a man that made Jesus Christ of the Bible stand head and shoulders above the tallest man I had ever seen. I have heard my share of doctors of divinity from the Baptists, the Methodists, and so forth, but this little man, the minute he took the Bible and opened it up, it was just the way he would present certain scriptures and the types he would use, that I began to realize this man had something I wanted, and I would not let daylight be seen between me and him until I was satisfied. I did not mean that I was going to worship his flesh: I just wanted to hear what he had to say. I have been compelled a lot of times, by people who tried to get me to go further, to just flat out reject their words, because I refuse to worship the flesh of any mortal man, no matter how much I like him. Worshiping the flesh is one thing, but respecting the person is something entirely different. I have to say, I have always had a deep respect for him, and I quickly learned to admire him, the way he conducted himself and the way he handled the word of God. When I read this article from that man, and him taking twenty five different quotes out of different messages Bro. William Branham had preached through the years, and then saying the coming of Christ will be based on that, I could not help but say to myself, The Bible does not say anything like that. It is one thing for the Bible to say He will send certain things to fulfill scriptures to prepare the way, but it is an altogether different thing for the scriptures to be used in such a manner that you wind up believing Bro. William Branham and he alone, is the only person that God will use to climax the preparation of the Bride of Christ before he takes her to glory. I know I went through a little of this last Sunday, but let us go back to the beginning. In the beginning of this dispensation of grace, which is called the kingdom of heaven, came John the Baptist. I will ask a simple question, Did John the Baptist say everything that was necessary to put the Church on its road through time? You know he did not, but he did announce the dispensation of time in which God would begin dealing with some people that would be called the Church later on. Then, in a short interval of time, he introduced the Messiah, which was, and is Jesus the Christ. He too came on the scene and began to preach the kingdom of heaven. When we come to the 13^th chapter of Matthew, here for the first time He is taking this whole dispensation of time from beginning to end and typifying it in seven parables. John never did that, but Jesus did. At that time those disciples did not know what those parables really meant in their overall application. In the realm of Denominational religion even today, how many times have you ever hear of a denominational preacher preaching on the parables? They just simply do not do it. Most of them feel that they are irrelevant, but that is because they are without understanding of what they represent. Jesus broke this whole dispensation of time down into seven different likenesses. The seventh one brings you right over here into this seventh age. He tells us, that this seventh age will be like unto a net cast into the sea. I remember this net. Some of you old timers, if you look back to the days when WW2 ended, there seemed to be a hunger in the American peoples’ hearts for God to send some kind of revival. From the homes of America, thousands of men had gone to war and never came back. God heard the cry, so He began to move upon the heart of various preachers and this nation experienced a great revival for many years. Here came Billy Graham, A. A. Allen, and all the many others we could mention. That is when God brought Bro. William Branham out and turned him loose. It is true, at first Bro. William Branham just came on the scene like many other evangelist, preaching, praying for people, and allowing them to watch that particular manifestation of the power of God in his hand. I was blessed to be privileged to see that for myself. God used that gift to open doors, but his ministry was to be more than just that. He was the Elijah of Malachi 4:5-6, B Part, to turn the heart of the children to their fathers: He was the seventh Church Age angel messenger, and in his ministry he characterized Jesus Christ. That is what caused some who sat under his ministry to attribute to him, that which belongs only to Jesus Christ. They follow his flesh and hold him up as more than a man, even though he constantly affirmed that he was our brother. Of course some will say, Bro. Jackson: why do you say he characterized Jesus Christ? Because when God began to deal with him with that unusual gift of discernment, so that he could tell people their names, where they came from, their very address and everything about them, what they needed from God and everything, that caused me to look back at what I had read in the Bible, where Jesus did the very same thing. He would relate to them certain things and converse with them in a way that astonished them, so I could begin to see the similarity between what He did and what Bro. William Branham did. Then, coming to 1963, God used him in that revelatory way to bring out the revelation of six of the seven seals of Revelation, chapter 6. No. He did not bring out the revelation of the seventh seal as many would have you believe. He only mentioned the seventh seal, without the opening of it. If you read the Seals book, you will find there are only six seals that were actually broken and revealed. He referred to how the seventh one would be broken, but it was not fully revealed. That would tear scriptures all to pieces, because no seal was ever broken and then just left to hang there on and on without the true bride having the revelation of it. When a seal was broken, it automatically required and included a revelation. Therefore since there is no revelation of its contents, the seventh seal has not been opened. We have other scriptures that point to what it pertains to, but those scriptures cannot be fulfilled until the seventh seal is fully broken and Jesus is off the mercy seat. That is why Bro. William Branham only spoke of it in certain references. With these things in mind, I have to say to you, You have heard it said by many of the Branham followers, that whatever it is, it takes a prophet to administer it. Well here is where I will make some of them really angry, because I say to them, You have been saying that for thirty eight years and you have gone nowhere with it. I say to you in the name of Jesus Christ, When God does get the people that are to make up the Bride and the preachers that are to make up the real ministry to the Bride, all straightened out and going in the right direction, I want you to know, It is not going to be because God has sent a prophet into their midst again: God will raise up that office of the New Testament apostles, prophets, and the pastors, the evangelists and teachers, just exactly like it is written in the scriptures.

GOD’S TRUE MINISTRY FOR THIS TIME

It was the apostle Paul that wrote the letter to the Ephesians, where, in the 3^rd chapter, he tells what those offices are for. We realize this, the early church only had this kind of headship for a certain period of time before all those men began to die off or be martyred. The men that came along in their place, soon began to loose the vision held by the original ministry. When they began to lose the vision, they began to lose the anointing required for the true leadership of God. History brings in, that by the time the last part of the fourth century rolled around, Christendom was fast becoming just a form. Then it soon went right into the Dark Ages, where Roman Catholicism ruled. Then from the fifth century to 1500, the church was under the headship of the Roman pope. God did not take the church at that time, because the Church was far from being what it was in the original. We have to realize, God, being merciful and just, He just let time move on. That is why we can see that every one of the seven parables of Matthew 13, overshadowed a period of time that is described in the parable that pertained to that time. Then when time moved on, it reached the seventh parable: I want to dwell on that one for a while. Look at that parable very carefully saints: Jesus said, Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like unto a net cast into the sea. I remember how that gospel net began to be cast out, and how evangelists and preachers went forth to minister, and how there was a moving of the Spirit of God that accompanied their ministry. A revival began to break out throughout different portions of the earth. God raised up different men to fulfill His purpose. In the beginning of all of this, God had an objective in the use of this one man. Therefore, I am saying this because I lived through all that whole episode. I look back today, and can clearly see exactly what was going on. After having met this particular man, I could see some of the other men sort of run their course and began to compromise, and they soon just sat down, returning to their former occupation in many instances. During that time, God had begun to pull this one man out from his former trend and into a revelatory manner of ministering. As He did, we began to see that this man was starting to break down and go deeper into certain scriptures and give you and me, (all the Bride of Christ) something to really lay hold on. Then when the time did come that God used him to minister on the seals of Revelation 6, this opened the eyes of many people that were looking to God for the time we live in. Forty years have expired since then, and I have never heard of even one denominational preacher touching the seals; yet it is all written in the book of Revelation, that some of them try to preach from. Regardless of whether it is the oneness people, the trinity, the Catholic or whatever, none of them have touched this book of Revelation concerning the seals. In fact, many denominational people will even go so far as to say the book of Revelation is irrelevant; and some say it should never have been written. I will say this, We know the book of Revelation does not carry a message to the world: It is God’s love letter to the true Bride of Christ here in the end time. He gave it to the beginning generation of the Bride, but they did not know what they were carrying. They did not need to know what all of that pertained to, so they have carried it in the written form, in the book we call “The Bible.” Then, here in these last days, just as God promised, He sent that spirit of Elijah to fulfill the rest of Malachi 4:5-6, and we are the generation that has received the revelation of all it pertained to. God made it necessary, that this man touch certain things in this book of Revelation, to open up the eyes of some people who would live to see the end of it all. I have to say, Thank God He opened my eyes. He enabled me to see that the true Bride of Christ will not be sitting under the ministry of a bunch of organized, preachers of theology, just having a form of religion, preachers that have gone haywire after certain signs and things that attract attention. The Bride of Christ is going to be a people that hunger for a revelation and understanding of the word of God. As time reached the hour that God took the man from among us in death, it left many of those people that had followed his ministry all over the world, in much confusion. When they heard about his death, many came along with their writings and have said that God has to send the prophet back to this age, to finish up what he did not get done while he was here. Well I have said many times before and I say it again now, You will never see his face again unless you see him in the rapture at the end of this Gentile age. He finished all that God ordained him to do; and God is not going to send him back just to vindicate your selfish ideas and ambitions. If he had not finished all that he was ordained to do, there is no way under the sun that Satan could have taken his life. The perfect will and purpose of God is not determined by what Satan does: He is fulfilling what He purposed before the foundation of the world to do. He is not just deciding to what to do because of present circumstances. All is going according to plan, or prophecies of the Bible would be undependable. As for Brother Branham, he did what he was supposed to do, he did it well, and was faithful in all that God had called him for. I had great admiration for him and for what he meant to the bride people of the world; and I still cherish the memory of him and try my best to uphold what he stood for.

IS GOD’S PURPOSE CHANGEABLE?

To you that think there were certain things left undone when Bro. William Branham was killed in that automobile wreck, I just have to say, If you really do believe that, then you have to accept responsibility for God taking him, because it was your own conduct and attitude that made it expedient for God to take him. That is why I referred to it the way I did last Sunday: When Moses left the land of Egypt with the children of Israel, God was working with him with signs and wonders, and Moses did not know that he would be with the people for just so long a time and then be taken from them. He left Egypt feeling like he would be the one that would lead them across into the promised land. Nevertheless, all those years of grumbling and griping of the people, putting up with that every day, eventually caused Moses’ heart to become hardened to the sympathy of the people and the compassion he should have had for them. God gave them water from the rock; and then let the rock stop flowing water for a period of time before the end of their journey. The people began to grumble because of no water and Moses went to the Lord in prayer, but he failed to do exactly what God told him to do when God answered his prayer. What did God tell him? Moses, speak to the rock, (The rock had been smitten the first time they needed water.) but as Moses went to the rock, he picked up that rod in disgust and said, Come here you bunch of rebels and then smote the rock twice. Well the rock brought forth water for the people, but Moses did not do what God told him to do, and God was so dis pleased he had to deny Moses the privilege of leading the people all the way. God said, Moses, come here, because you did not sanctify me before the eyes of the people, you will not take the people over. Now I have never said that Bro. William Branham himself did something wrong, and I am not going to say that. No. It was that gang that followed him everywhere and deified him, that caused God to take him off the scene when He did. Did God know that would happen? Yes. He knows everything, but he has to allow mankind to do what is in their hearts to do. Then He judges their actions in due time. I have said this because, by watching people through the years, I was able to see what they had done, how they conducted themselves and how they treated Bro. William Branham. They were the ones that caused God to take him from the scene. Did Bro. William Branham fulfill what God called him to fulfill? He absolutely did? I remember when Bro. William Branham told me about the tent vision he had. He said, Bro. Jackson, I believe the day is coming when I will be privileged to have a tent, and when I do, I will have a campaign manager that I can send to a certain city if I feel led to go there, and have him acquire the facilities to set up the tent. He said, We will go in and set up, and if God wants me to preach three weeks, we will stay there three weeks, if He wants me to stay there a month, that is how long we will stay, but we will do it by the leading of God. While watching during that same period of time what men began to do, I noticed that they began to move up and press in and say, I want to be a truck drive, I want to be a tent manager, I want to do this and that. It was not long until out of that same element of people came the revelation, Bro. William Branham is our Messiah: We will now baptize in the name of William Marrion Branham. That is what was going on in Canada during the last meeting he held. When he came home, I will never forget the morning he came to the platform crying. He was not supposed to be back: he was supposed to have been gone for two or three weeks in this campaign, but when he ran into this kind of idolatry in Canada and saw those people wearing medallions, then is when he came home and began to rebuke the entire situation. He began to say to the people, I would rather go down as a quitter than an antichrist. He stood there weeping and denouncing that spirit. I just thought, If he had gone ahead and got that tent, with the attitude that some of those people were taking, talking about making him their Messiah, this and that, there would have been no stopping what they would have perpetrated and set in motion. Though he preached the Bruised Serpent, and believed that at the end of it that spirit would go off and die, it is a proven fact, that after he was dead and buried, within a few months that spirit was revived. I will never forget when a certain man came into this area, (I will not mention his name.) he went to inquire of one of the men that was very close to Bro. William Branham, and did not know the man’s personal attitude. This fellow that came here from another state made the remark to his face, Well, it is a shame that some of the people had to go so far as to make him their Lord. He told me himself, that the same man he said that to, doubled up his fist and said, I’ll have you know, William Marrion Branham is the Lord! Saints I say to you, That is an evil spirit speaking such as that: It is certainly not a revelation given by the Lord. That is a spirit of idolatry. Bro. William Branham is no longer here to defend himself, so somewhere along the line, somebody has to defend the truth and the principal of truth he stood. I am going to keep doing my best to do that very thing as long as God allows me breath to do so. You might say, Bro. Jackson, you have no right to do that. I do have a right, because I will do my defending by what the Bible says: not by what they get from quotes out of Bro. William Branham’s messages. I know what he said in certain sermons, but if you take all those sermons and put them together in the largest book you want to, then you start reaching for this quote and that quote, you will wind up just like the denominations have, with the Bible truth totally distorted. I heard the other night on the News, that certain religious people do not want their picture taken and put on their drivers license. I just have to ask, What does your picture on a drivers license have to do with your religion? It should not be like that, but it just goes to show, that there are only certain scriptures in the Bible that some people believe, and all the rest are closed and of no significance to them. They think the rest are irrelevant, and that they have no need of them. Why would God inspire anyone to write something in the Bible that has no significance? If the Bible is not a book of truth, then why does anyone believe it is the inspired word of God for mankind? Bro. William Branham came on the scene and fulfilled his job faithfully. He characterized the part of Malachi 4, that belonged to this hour of time, because as he was to turn the hearts of the children, here at the end time, back to the faith of their fathers. That does not mean he was going to stand there and explain, and explain, and explain every detail of God’s workings with man. In other words, he was going to present it to them in a pure revalation, what God called him to proclaim to this generation. It was not his responsibility to force anyone to believe the truth he preached. John did not make anyone in his day believe his message, but God had His way of dealing with those who were ordained to believe and obey. He preached what God gave him to preach; and they either believed it by divine revelation or they did not believe it. Those who did not believe were the ones that condemned Jesus to death. I want to say to you once again, Bro. William Branham did his part and did it well, and no true believer ever looked upon him as the Lord. When the hour came that God would use him to bring out the deep revelation on certain things, again I say, he characterized another biblical character; and that was Jesus Christ Himself, but none of that caused any true believer to look upon him as the Lord. They took him at his word when he would say, I am your brother. I will say this, God, through him, typified the Son of man in character and in principal, but that did not make the man himself the Son of man. It did not make him the son of David. He characterized Him and did it well; and never expected anyone to ever look upon him as anything more than a true servant of God. Nevertheless all over this earth, there are those that have preached Branham, Branham, Branham, knowing full well that it was Jesus Christ Himself that died on that old cross to pay our sin debt. The One that died on the cross for us, has become a lost subject to many who claim to be Christians. That brings me to the point where I want to say something about this passion movie that has been made and released by Mel Gibson. I heard him testify about it. Sure, he is a Catholic, but I have to say, He sure did a wonderful job of being able to dramatize this whole event. I hope it makes some of those apostate and back-sliding American politicians wake up and realize they have sold America out to the devil. I pray that God will use this movie to make some people sit and cry their eyes out, because the Bible has been a closed book to their knowledge. Coming back to my point about Bro. William Branham, When he preached the seals, I know all of what he said, and sure, things were said that would give people the idea, Well he has to come back to do this and that. No. Brothers and sisters, I have said many times, God knew the hour He would take him off the scene; and he left nothing undone of what God called him to do. What he was privileged to do and say up until that hour, he did it well. When God took him from us in 1965, that ended his personal ministry. His message is still with us, but God has no intention of going to the dead and bringing back a dead man just to please a bunch of fanatical people here in the end time, people that have twisted the message into everything but what it actually was. That would break the continuity of the Bible, if God did a thing like that. Those that are still looking for him, do not really believe what he said: they have their own version of what needs to be done. He spoke of the ministry that was to come later on, but not one of those fellows ever speak of a that ministry. I will say to all of them that go to different books and quotes for their beliefs, You read what he said about apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but you do not want them to have any authority: you just want a bunch of prophets. God is not going to do that for you. These men are going to rise on the scene, and I have to say, they have been slowly rising on the scene for the past thirty some years now. God has done this in a way that the multitudes could not stand in the way of it. That is why I say, I am thankful to God for what Bro. William Branham preached. I have been reading to you from the seals book; and I am going to read some more to you, and I will probably read this several times. As I just said, It is so strange, the way these quoting characters are constantly going into this book, or that book, to get this quote, well he said this, and he said this, it has got to be this, and this, and the reason they do that, is because they are trying to bring the man back from the dead. Well I will say this, For the last thirty eight years, God has been using Bro. William Branham’s own words and has fulfilled exactly, to the letter, what He (God) wanted. God has done it in a humble way, a way that nobody could be glorified in. He has raised up men that has fulfilled this category of ministry that Ephesians 4 describes, each man in his own right, maybe not knowing what his calling was, but as he was privileged to hear certain things and began to analyze, and realizing, that is the truth, I can stand for that, God has been getting that kind right on along. And they each one began to embrace the true revelation in his heart, then God secretly, not in a big explosive way, has raised up this ministry and put them in place. He did it His way. You have heard me read this before: It is from the Seven Seals book, page 567. When I read this, I thought to myself, You quote out of the seals book, you quote out of the church ages book, you quote out of different sermons, but how come you leave these things he said, out of your choice of quotes? In this one man’s writings, he states that the second coming of Christ will be based on twenty some quotes that he just mentioned, all of which is in his letter. I have to say, I sat there in the Branham Tabernacle in 1963 when the seals were preached. I will never forget the time when Bro. William Branham said this about the five fold ministry, but I never said in my heart, Well that is for me. No. I just said, That is the ministry Christ will use, and it will be Christ in His ministry. It will be brought about in a way that will be very humble and meek, so nobody can be glorified, and so it cannot be published on television or in any way monopolized. I am going to read Brother Branham’s own words. I say to those out there today, I do not read these verses out of the seals book with animosity. I have looked at these words through the years and they have been an encouragement to me. Some have traveled this earth and talked about me being a blackbird, and I heard nobody rise to defend me, but I can look back and hear what Bro. William Branham said, so that is why I said, None of them have backbone enough to defend anything. They just want to take words out of context and use them to justify their own ideas. God has no obligation to vindicate their words.

ONE REMAINS TO BE ONE AND SEVEN WILL STILL REMAIN TO BE SEVEN

Bro. Branham has made the remarks here, about the seven thunders: they are yet to be. I will say this, I was the first man after his death that took these thunders out of the mystery side and began to say it has got to be seven men. Yet some of these characters say, But Bro. William Branham has to come back and reveal that. Who gave them such a ridiculous idea? It did not come from the Spirit of God. I want to say this, In Revelation 6:1, when the first seal was opened there was a loud thunder, just one. I ask you, How many times through this book did he repeat that? Notice, when the time came to begin to deal with the revelation of the seals, there was only one thunder. One thunder, which lets me know there was just one voice that would deal with the revelation that would come forth and that was the voice of the messenger to the age. How many can see that? When we come to Revelation 10:3, and then on down, it was not just one thunder: it was seven thunders. Also, each thunder is referred to as a voice. If I had not known already, that would sure let me know William Branham is not coming back to reveal the seven thunders. It will be God using a ministry of men that He has already sorted out, proved, and now has them in position in the Bride, just the way He wants distribution to be throughout the earth. When the time comes, God will anoint them with the Holy Spirit anointing and they will break forth with this revelation. From the time Bro. William Branham first spoke about this until this present hour, we can see that thirty some years have come and gone. That is why I said last Sunday, Just think of it, we are in our thirty ninth year since God called Bro. William Branham home. One more year would be forty years: That is the same amount of time God let the children of Israel wonder in the wilderness. This movement has sat here waiting for him to come back and a new generation has been born; and a new element of men have been raised up to minister. God has already dealt with them separately and put in them an understanding of His word and the hour that they are living in, and they are collectively on the scene to form that prophesied ministry to the true Bride of Christ. They are not doctors of divinity: they are just simple men that have the Spirit of God directing them. Now I am ready to read what he said here, (Page 567 of the Seven Seals book). “Now, when that gets on tape, which it is, that’ll probably send ten thousand of my friends away from me, (Bro. Branham was very conscious of how some might accept what he would say. He did not want anybody to think he was trying to exalt himself. He wanted people to feel like he was doing his best to fulfill his calling in a humble way. I always looked upon him as a man that was humble.) because they’re going to say that Brother Branham is trying to put himself and make himself a servant or a prophet or something before God. (He became very self conscious of that.) Let me tell you, my brethren, That is an error! I’m only telling you which I seen and what has been told to me, and you do whatever you want to. I don’t know who’s going to…what is going to take place. (This is how he, being the hill billy that he was, spoke; and all except the highly educated, had an opportunity to hear and understand him. Many of the highly educated type would ask, What is he trying to say? I have said many times, If you did not know how a hill billy talks, you might very well wind up among those who will never know what he has said. If you are trying to listen to it from the standpoint of correct pronunciation and a smooth flow of English words, you will not get it. I personally, am glad there are a lot of us around that are hill billy’s. We know how a hill billy talks and we understand what they say.) I do not know. I just know that those seven thunders holds that mystery, that Heavens was quieted. Everybody understand? (He is saying those seven thunders hold the mystery that will make known the coming of Christ, as time grows close to the time of His coming. Now to think of it, from the time he said this, we are going on almost forty years since then.) It may be time. It may be the hour now, that this great person that we’re expecting to rise on the scene may rise on the scene. Maybe this ministry that I have tried to take people back to the Word has laid a foundation.” And I have to say it has done that very thing. John the Baptist introduced the Messiah and baptized Him. That ended his ministry. Jesus came along and picked up and came into the period of time, and for three and one half years He preached further and laid down certain plans. In that span of time, He was the one that called twelve apostles. You find that in Matthew 10. John did not do that: Jesus did it. Then, it was not until after Christ had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, that other ministries came upon the scene. The reason I say that about the twelve apostles, is because there were no evangelists, pastors or teachers among them. It started out with the apostles. He said to His followers, Tarry in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. Then on the day of Pentecost, along with the others, there were the apostles and the whole number that obeyed Him was 120, including the twelve apostles; and they were gathered into an upper room. They were not sitting there fussing, asking, Well how did you hear it Peter, how did you here it John? They sat there as believers and they were all in one accord; and the Holy Ghost came upon them. From that day on, those apostles that came out of there were revelated, and inspired; and what they said to the others, was the things God wanted said, that He might lead and use each one according to His will and purpose. That was the beginning of the existence of the Church which had various ministries later on. It did not come into existence in one day’s time: It was a gradual, progressive thing, that grew through the years. After a short period of time, God, in the office work of the Holy Ghost, called another man by the name of Saul of Tarsus. This is why I have to say, If God could do that back then, there is no reason why He cannot and will not do the same way all the way through to the last generation. He is filling His called out vessels with the Holy Ghost; and by the Spirit they have in them He gives revelation; and then anoints them to fulfill His will and purpose. In this present hour, God has raised up men much in the same manner as He did in the first age, to fulfill the offices that Paul wrote about in Ephesians 4. We can say this because we have seen it taking place. At the time of Bro. William Branham’s death, the five fold ministry was not yet on the scene. Had you thought about that? I say this as humbly and carefully as I know how, because I can see why for the first three years after that, I found myself pushed, even compelled to go ahead. That is why I gave reference to the different dreams God gave me. I kept asking myself, What good does it do for me to say anything? They won’t believe me. It was just the grace of God that kept pushing, or persuading me to go ahead. Even though I had the dream about the apostle’s licence, that still did not make me feel like I was going to do something great. I can look back now though, and see why God just gradually nudged me on.

A STARTING PLACE

In 1969, God opened the door that began to take me out of the country. A sister in Canada, Sis. Reilly, rode a bus down here to our summer convention; and she was asked by the people at home, to talk to me about coming up there to preach for them. The people in that area were some Methodists, some Baptists, Assemblies of God, quite a mixture of them. They wanted her to ask, Bro. Jackson, will you come to Canada and preach this message to us? We already know you were personally acquainted with Bro. William Branham; and that you sat under his ministry, so that is why we are asking you to come. It was August 1969, when we went up there and stayed ten days. During that ten days and nights, we did our best to pour our heart out to some people that seemed to be very hungry. That was the beginning of a movement in Canada. For about the first two and half years, that number grew to several hundred people. They had come out of everything around. In one particular place, on the last Sunday night of the meeting, a certain brother who was a preacher himself and had been sitting there, after the meeting was over and we gathered for some refreshment, he asked this question, Bro. Jackson, are you the only preacher in the States that is preaching this message? (I thought that was kind of a narrow minded question.) I just said, No. Sir. He asked, Are there other brothers? I said, Yes, but if you get them, you will have confusion started. It will not be long until they will be preaching this quote, and that quote, and pretty soon all of you will begin to take sides and become divided. Nevertheless, later that year he took two men from his group and they flew to Tucson Arizona, to see Perry Green. Perry loaded him with books and quotes; and sure enough, when they went back home with all of that, it was not long until division started in. From then on, it has been a battle. Everything that I would say was going to be contested by this man with another quote. I just say this, I have to defend what the prophet messenger pointed us back to, the revelation God gives from the Bible. Well lt me finish reading this from the seals book. “Maybe this ministry that I have tried to take people back to the Word has laid a foundation; and if it has, I’ll be leaving you for good. There won’t be two of us here at the same time. If it is, he’ll increase, I’ll decrease. I don’t know. But I have been privileged by God to look and see what it was–unfold to that much. Now that is the Truth.” Just think saints, ever since his death, all I have heard is, He has to come back and finish the tent ministry, he has got to come back and ride this trail one more time, he has got to come back and finish the third pull. They push this and they push that, but they could not see those few words that he said right there. They do not want to see that. Looking back, I can see what God has privileged me to do. Wherever I have gone, whether Canada, Norway, Finland, Mexico, or wherever, God has always opened the door for me to go there, and there has always been a people to receive me. When we went to Mexico the first time, I never in my life saw so many people, and all they thought about was, Bro. William Branham is coming back, Bro. William Branham is coming back. Every preacher went from Arizona to Mexico, because it was so close. All they could preach was, the prophet is coming back: he has got to rise from the dead in order to fulfill the tent ministry, and he has to fulfill the third pull, on and on they went. I did my best to stand in the face of this kind of people and say, You will never see him again in this life. Out of all that kind of confusion, God is going to take people He can separate from it and reveal truth to. I will say today, that in the country of Mexico there is now a people that are free. They are free from the bondage of quotes and free to walk in truth.

LOOKING AT AND COMPARING TWO TREES

I will never forget one time when we went to Mexico City. We were in a house meeting one night and there were two preachers present, that came from the northern part of the city. I was told they had a large church. When the meeting was over, I noticed them talking to Bro. Saucedo. When they left, Bro. Saucedo came to me and said, Bro. Jackson, they want to know if you will come to their church tomorrow morning, which was a Sunday, and preach. I thought, Well, if we go, I am going to give them both barrels. That is just the way I felt about it. When we got there, we found a large crowd, but with church order, nobody saying a word, everything completely still. The ushers were walking around, keeping everybody hushed. There was a large blackboard on the platform, so I told Bro. Saucedo to ask the pastor if we could use the blackboard. When the song service was over, Bro. Saucedo asked if we could use the blackboard. They said yes. I asked Bro. Saucedo to draw a garden of trees, and then, in the middle of the others put two trees that do not touch the ground. I announced to them, that I would preach on the two laws of Eden, what the other trees were and how the tree of life was seen in comparison to the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It took about an hour and half to cover the subject, but after I started everything got quiet and I could see people taking notes. I say this not to brag, but when you give people truth that they cannot counteract, it gets their attention. When we were finished, both of those brothers said, We really appreciate this Bro. Jackson, this is a wonderful message. We had to go outside to shake hands with people, so after everybody had come by to shake hands, those two pastors walked up to Bro. Saucedo and said, Tell Bro. Jackson he has an open pulpit any time he comes to Mexico. Truth will always find its way, and I am thankful for the grace of God that enables us to deliver it. When we come to these last days, just as it was with John the Baptist, then Jesus, and then the apostles, so has it been with the Malachi 4 ministry, but we have to realize that Jesus was characterized in the person of Bro. William Branham as he fulfilled that of two biblical characters. From the time God took him from us, He has been using men who hungered and thirsted for truth, men who read and searched this end time message until they found their way in the scriptures. As those men saw what has been printed in the Contenders, they began to respond, Thank you Bro. Jackson, for the truth you have put out in the Contender. The Contender was never printed to exalt Raymond Jackson. It was printed to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and uphold truth that continues to be revealed. I cannot tell you how many letters we have received through these thirty some years since we started printing it, from brothers in many different parts of the world that would say, Bro. Jackson: the Contender has helped straighten up a lot of the confusion that people have had in their ideas about Bro. William Branham and what he said. What you have printed, makes his message clear to us. We never have printed a Contender to be opposite of what he preached: We just attempt to clarify things he preached as well as things he mentioned but did not really preach on. When we printed “The Two Laws of Eden,” that did not in any way tear down serpent seed: it only proved it further by expanding on the subject. After we saw what the tree of life was, we knew why the fall came: It was through what Eve did, in giving herself to the serpent in a pleasure relationship after he kept on enticing her. Through the years we have printed these main articles, many eyes have been opened to reality. Just as Bro. William Branham taught, There is one God, we have put the one God message in print also. I believe the last message we printed along that line was the “Humanity and Deity of Christ.” I will not mention the man’s name, but I will say, This occurred in another country. He had printed an article about the trinity. God had just saved him and he believed the trinity doctrine taught by so many. I have that article. After we had talked about the oneness of God in one particular message, he told me later that when he got the Contender about one God, he thought, What have I got myself into now? He laid it up on a shelf at the time. Later though, as God began to deal with him, he was led to go get that Contender down and read it. He began to read and his heart began to open up to the truth. He said it was like a light began to shine inside of him. He got his wife to read it also; and when she started reading, it was not long until she started dancing and singing. I did not do that: truth did it.

WOMAN OF REVELATION 12

Just recently, I told something about the revelation of the woman of mystery in Revelation, chapter 12, how I approached God for the revelation. I made mention of how I had heard Bro. William Branham say at times through the years, when he would be asked the question, Who is the woman of Revelation 12? Oh that is the Bride of Christ crowned with the gospel of twelve apostles. Then one time I heard, after he was asked that question; how he said, That is Israel fleeing for her life. Well I thought, It cannot be both. That is what caused me to begin to pray and seek God for that revelation, because I could see in that 12^th chapter of Revelation, that the true Bride of Christ does not have to flee and hide. When you get serious about it and seek the truth as you study, you soon find that the bride of Christ is translated, taken to the marriage supper before the time when the woman of that chapter has to flee for her life. That is why the woman of chapter 12, could not be anybody but the saved element of Israel, (those who have believed the message of the two prophets) when the antichrist is trying to have them destroyed from the face of the earth. Before I ever touched on it or printed it though, I had the dream and revelation of it. I made mention of it Sunday night, about being in the Tabernacle and Bro. William Branham had come back. (This was after he was already gone.) I saw the birds fluttering outside. There is no need of me telling the dream again: most of you remember it. When he came to the platform he said, I feel led to preach to you this morning out of the 12^th chapter of Revelation and the 12^th chapter of Daniel. After that dream, when I began to read these two scriptures and put them together, I could see it was none other than Israel fleeing for her life. Through these things, God has enabled us to put truth back into circulation. I have never intentionally done anything to exalt myself: My heart’s desire is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ that died to save my lost soul. Everywhere I have ever gone to preach, I have said, I am preaching and standing as firm as I know how, believing that God has to raise up some men to fulfill this ministry of Ephesians 4. I am thankful to God, that through these thirty some years He has absolutely raised up such men, each man in his own way. Each one that God has called to this ministry has gone through war, he has gone through much turmoil, he has had many trials and tests, but has trusted God for that which he needed. Many times he has been opposed by various sources, but sooner or later he comes out on the bright side, shining for the glory of God. Last fall, when we had our convention in September, I could see how God could take men from different places and put a revelation in their heart, so they could all begin to see the picture together.

GOD PREPARES SERVANTS FOR THE END TIME MINISTRY

God fulfilled what He was going to do in these last days by sending the Malachi 4:5-6, prophet to fulfill the last part. He did it years ago, by using the man by the name of William Marrion Branham. In the later years of his life, when his ministry had increased, God began to manifest that certain gift, and from that time on his ministry goes into the third pull, and here is where God uses him to bring out the revelation of the six seals of Revelation, chapter 6. I can see how he characterizes Jesus the Christ. That was absolute proof that he was the angel messenger to the seventh church age. I will say also, We noticed that when Jesus gave the illustrations of the parables and poke of this seventh parable, He looked at His disciples and said, Have you understood all this? They said, Yea Lord. Then He said, Every scribe, (Notice, He said every scribe.) that is instructed into the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a scribe that brings out of his treasure things new and old. When I saw how God used Bro. William Branham, I said, He is the beginning of this scribe, because we know this, A scribe under the Law, was a man that legally had the right and authority to translate and record the scriptures. Nobody else could do it. Jesus used that illustration to open up a revelation. Bro. William Branham was the beginning of this scribe calling of God, and truly, he brought out of his office, his calling, the treasure: He brought out old truths. That is what John the Baptist did. That is what Bro. William Branham did: He went back and picked up the oneness of the godhead, water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, sanctification, predestination, and the revelation of eternal security. He went back and re-established these old doctrinal truths that were a part of the apostolic faith. Then, when he brought out serpent seed, that was not an old truth, it was a new revelation. From there on he came into the book of Revelation, and into the seals. That was not old truths: that was new revelation. He fulfilled every bit of that. That set that scribe ministry in motion. I can look back now and see why God dealt with me in the manner He did. It does not make me anything I should be haughty about. I have tried to say very plainly, God did not put a halo over my head, but He put something in my soul that enables me to see a truth in His word just as plain as if it was drawn in a picture in front of me. The third pull did not stop when Bro. William Branham passed off the scene. God just continued it in a mysterious way, in a humble way, a way that nobody could attach his own name to and be glorified by it. Revelation did not stop, and will not stop until the bride knows all God wants her to know. The Bible says,(written by the apostle Paul) that God has set in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, so on and so forth. That is to be the ministry to the Bride. I will close this part by saying this, Those men that are to make up that true ministry to the Bride, as they move into this last day realm, the prophecy of Isaiah 52:8, is going to drop right down in the heart of every last one. In that day, not everybody that says Branham, Branham, Branham, not everybody that says prophet, prophet, prophet, not everybody that comes around with quote, quote, quote, are going to have that kind of unity: It is everybody that is a true, God called servant to the Bride, that will see eye to eye as that scripture says. They are not going to say, Well I don’t think we have to see eye to eye: They will all know better than to even think like that. I have to say, There will be doubters and idolaters right to the end, but they will not be ministering to the bride of Christ; and neither will anyone who thinks like that be in the bride as time closes out. What is going to finish the Bride? Not one man, but the true ministry of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers. As they collectively are anointed and inspired to bring together a body of people around this world from different nations, and they will not be trying to make a name for themselves: They will only be interested in following that precious anointing and fulfilling the plan of their heavenly Father. When God drops that special anointing on them, God is going to see that they each read the message the same, that they speak it the same, and they are going to finish it out. That is going to be the climax. This man I spoke of, has put together a bunch of stuff he thinks is important: he has everything marked, just quotes, quotes, quotes, from books and sermons, pages, paragraph, on and on. His kind sure are good at that kind of thing; they know all of that, but they do not know their Bible. The end time ministry will be using their Bible: not a book of quotes. That is the way God ordained it to be. I hope we can all understand that it has to be that way. May God help each one of us to understand the hour we are living in. There is no time left for just playing around with God. I know the internet is reaching a lot of people that would never sit in a pew here; and I feel like there are a lot of the Spoken Word element listening, that will be able to hear some of the things we have stood for through the years since Bro. William Branham’s death. After thirty eight years since Bro. William Branham passed away, this is the first time I have dealt with this subject in this manner. I hope it can be understood by those that would have a negative attitude. I want to say these things with love and respect, because I have no desire to deliberately hurt anyone. A lot has been said in the last number of years about Bro. William Branham, that it takes a prophet to do this, it takes a prophet to do that and so forth. That had its place, and had its day, Regardless of all of that, there is an element of people, that by the grace of God have been awakened and called out of the denominational systems, or from the world of sin and unbelief and had put in them a picture of something that their heart is hungering for. If the fulfillment of Malachi 4, was to turn us back to the faith of our fathers, then the subject that I am preaching on is part of it. Open your Bible back to Ephesians, where we will be reading.

WHAT WE ARE MOVING TOWARD

I am trying to bring out the point that it is one thing for the Church to be restored to that which it started out as, and that the ministry would have to be restored back into the Church, and that the Church would not be made up of an element of people, some negative and some positive. Saints: Every last one that is going to be in the end time Bride of Christ will see eye to eye concerning everything we are going bring out in this message. I grant you that through the years, as Bro. William Branham ministered to the different denominational people, many of them sought eagerly after him. A lot of it was because of the gift of healing. That was something that attracted them. There was something else that should have been heard and appreciated: That is when I would hear him say the gifts of the Spirit have got to be restored to the Church. The Reformation accomplished certain things, and the history of the Reformation itself did show that God manifested some of these things periodically, here and there. An occasional manifestation under a strong anointing, is not the same as the gifts being restored back to the body. Brother Branham’s message definitely did turn us back to the faith of our apostolic fathers of the first age, but it was not only to turn us back to the faith, doctrinal wise, but back to everything that the early Church had and stood for, so that the end time Church will wind up exactly like it started, with every ministry, doctrine and gift. Certain things have taken place through the years gone by, that has caused some people to fall away, just throw up their hands up and began to say, Well we don’t need this and we don’t need this; all we need is the prophet. If that is your attitude, it is to your own hurt: God is not going to bring the man back to straighten up your mind and make certain things come about to please you. What we see written here in the 4^th chapter of Ephesians, was not written by a prophet. After hearing some of those people say so many times, It takes a prophet to do that, it just makes you wish you could have them show you such a thing as that in the New Testament. I grant you, if Malachi 4:5-6 in its latter part was to be fulfilled, it would take a prophet to fulfill that, because that is what that prophecy of Malachi is about, but if he was to restore us back or turn our hearts back to the faith of the fathers, then we have to begin to analyze what we are looking at and see what the fathers taught, what the fathers embraced, what they experienced, and what the early Church was like before it began to go off course. We can see how emphatically the apostle Paul lays out these various things in Ephesians 4. (Verse 7) “But unto every one of us is given grace (This is talking about the Holy Spirit, when He comes into our life. God gives us His Spirit as the gift of eternal life; and within that gift, within that eternal life measure, there is something else that is very important. We must begin to realize the individual that we are.) according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” God does not give more of His Spirit to one person, just because He loves some more than others. What the scripture does show though, is that there are some that are given a certain measure of the Spirit based on their ability to eventually become an instrument so yielded to Him, that they will fulfill their potential precisely the way God wants it to be. That still does not make the person some outstanding individual that is to be looked upon and admired above others. The least one of us that receives the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, has the potential to become a useful vessel; and to eventually come into unity with every other true child of God. As time draws closer to the end, we just simply become more in agreement, and see eye to eye on genuine revelation, and begin to love one another and respect each other as is becoming to saints. Somewhere along the line the Holy Spirit in that person will show Himself, and will manifest Himself according to the plan and purpose of God. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people say, Well I just don’t feel like I have anything. That may be your way of looking at it, but do not look at it that way too long, because sooner or later, somehow or the other, as God does restore His Church into its state of perfection, everyone who truly has the Spirit of God in them, no matter how small you feel, He will show Himself and you will become recognized and respected by the body of believers. Every truly born again individual has an important place within the body of Christ. “Wherefore He saith, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” I ask you, Who is writing this? I will say for the sake of those listening on the internet, The apostle Paul that wrote this was not a prophet of the New Testament. He was an apostle of the New Testament age, and specifically to the Gentiles. The apostle Paul was a very critical Jew. He was of the Sanhedrin group of Jews, the highest judicial and ecclesiastical council of the ancient Jewish nation, composed of from 70 to 72 members. Up to a certain point, he had severally persecuted the Christian people; and then God changed his course. You find the account of it in the 9^th chapter of Acts, He had persecuted the Christian people, done his very best to make life miserable for them, if they were even allowed to live. What was his motive? He believed he was doing God a service. Then one day, on the road to Damascus, where he was going to arrest as many Christians as he could, bring them back to Jerusalem and put them in prison, where they would suffer terribly, God got hold of him. Well Saints: This account lets us see how God miraculously manifested Himself to Saul on the road, and mercifully changed his life and made him an instrument of salvation to both Jews and Gentiles. God just simply knocked him down, spoke to him supernaturally, and had someone prepared to minister His will and purpose to him. Let us continue reading what he later wrote. “Now that He ascended, (talking about Christ Jesus that ascended) what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? (From the cross He went into hell to set captives free. As life left his body, He went into hell, not to be a prisoner, but to be a Redeemer. That was the place where the dead were held in captivity until redemption was made for them, so they could be taken to glory.) He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.” In other words He went up and was seated on the right hand of the Father (which speaks only of authority, and does not refer to another person in the godhead) to become the High Priest, the Mediator between God and man. He has been there for two thousand years. In so doing, He was not here personally passing out these gifts and offices, the callings of God, but through the Holy spirit, all this has been accomplished. Notice what it says here. “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; (Five outstanding callings of the ministry, and none of it pertains to the Old Testament in any way whatsoever. It is all of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, under the Law Age, they had a category of priests which functioned in different categories, but there was one high priest that went into the Holy of Holies place, once a year. That was fulfilled when Christ went to heaven and was seated on the mercy seat; and He has been there for two thousand years. He is the Mediator and High Priest of our profession. Therefore it is the office work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, which is also the Spirit of Christ because the Father and Son are One Spirit since the day John baptized Jesus, and that Spirit has taken up His abode in every individual member of this glorious Church. God ordained that the Church should have these ministries and He has seen to it, that in the proper time there would be five outstanding ministries cultivated, developed, and come to fruition. Like I said earlier, The entire New Testament was written by men other than prophets. The apostle Paul wrote fourteen of the twenty seven books we find it the New testament part of our Bible. My point is, None of the writers were prophets. I hope we all understand that. That does not mean that these men were not human beings just like anyone else. They absolutely were, but they were so anointed, guided, selected and directed by God, that God watched over and saw to it that the things they dealt with, and the things that God used each one distinctively for, that every epistle that was written, those men were inspired and anointed to write it as the very word of God, all for the edifying and instructing of those who would believe the gospel and follow after righteousness. None of these writings are contradictory to the others. It really took the apostle Paul to set the record straight though. I will say also, that to the best of my knowledge none of those apostles were in a rat race one with the other, saying, Well I believe my ministry is just as big and important as his. We have a lot of people today, that have conducted themselves that way, but we all know that kind of attitude is not of God: It is puffed up human flesh, trying to outrun everyone else. They have gone around the world that way these number of years since Bro. William Branham’s death. They saw the opportunity, and realizing that something had to be done with this man’s message, they took it upon themselves to run with it and away they went. I think it would be safe to say, that ninety percent of them, each as an individual, began to take the attitude that he was the one and only one that knew what he was talking about. You might ask, Well Bro. Jackson, is that not what you have done? That is not true at all, because everywhere I have gone, I have been found standing for a ministry of men of those five offices, and I have determined long ago, to keep on standing for it long enough for God to raise them up. Do you understand what I mean? It has got to be that way. I will say just like Paul realized, God is not going to use some evangelist to do what He has ordained to be done by apostles. That is not the manner nor the route He takes in doing certain things. He ordained that apostles hold a line on the correct understanding of His word. Years after the birth of the Church, it took the apostle Paul to set everything in order doctrinally, proper conduct and outlook being right behind doctrine for those who would minister to the Church. After proper understanding has been established among them, those whom God has selected for the different ministries will fulfill their calling.

EVERYTHING IN ITS APPOINTED TIME

Paul lived to see what God had done in the body of believers. As the apostles were the first ones sent forth, it was not long until we begin to read in the book of Acts, that in such and such a place, there were prophets, teachers and so forth. This goes to show, the Holy Spirit was already working, raising up those men, enabling them, anointing them, placing gifts in them that caused them to stand out in defense of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul laid the framework, the groundwork of everything pertaining to the Christian life; and others coming behind him picked up the responsibility of ministering it wherever God opened the door for them to do so. Therefore I hope I can say without making it sound like I am bragging, that as I look back after thirty some years, I have to say, that by the grace God has given, He has enabled me to put something out there to give people something to hold on to in this God-hating generation we are living in; and especially in areas where so much confusion has been spread from here, there and abroad. It has been the grace of God that has helped me keep my equilibrium and my understanding of His truth while my enemies hurled accusations at me. Yes. He gave some apostles. That was the first thing. And some prophets, (New Testament prophets). If you want to know what they were like, all you have to do is read the different parts of the book of Acts. And He gave some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. They all function within the framework of the body of Christ under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. When each man is doing what he sees and is led to do, neither one will ever get in the other person’s way. I want to use the two brothers behind me up here, as an example. You know how many years they have been here. Never have I said, Now Brother Bud, you say this, and Brother Allen, you do this. I have never had to, because I have seen how God has led these men here to work with me. When the true ministry finds its place, they will not get in each other’s way. It is like soldiers that have been drafted into the military. Why do they teach men to march? Does that help them shoot a gun? No. It does help them realize, than when you learn to march as a unit, you learn to take commands. When you hear the command, Forward, March, you are in step and in harmony. You learn to take the commands. It is the same way spiritually. The Lord Himself is not down here, Forward, March. You do not hear words like that, you just know God is tugging at your heart. That is why I can say, that through these years as we have had conventions, I am thankful to the Lord, when I turn everything over to Bro. Bud and Bro. Allen, they each one get up and do their part without any bickering. Neither have I ever had to be worried about going away and leaving them to carry on the work here. They do what needs to be done; and they do it precisely the way God leads them. Neither do you ever see me getting up and competing against them, shutting them up, or correcting them. I have seen preachers do things like that; and if they had other pastors in the church, they just could not wait, when they would see the moving of the Spirit in a service, to jump up and be seen. They just have to get in the picture to be seen and heard. I do not care who is ministering when God anoints someone to be a tremendous blessing, nor do I worry about how He moves, who He uses, or what He starts with. I am going to stay out of the way in such cases and let God do what He wants to, the way He wants to. If God is glorified, His will has been done, His people are edified, so why should I get in the way? When the time comes that I know I have something to say, then I will get up and say it, and try to say it so people can learn something from it. When I am finished, I know how to sit down and let God do whatever He has purposed to do. I will say, The entire body of Christ, and the entire ministry of Christ, will have to come to a time when there is no one trying to outdo the others. When every man has been schooled by God, dealt with by God in various ways, yes, he will go through a lot of knocks and bangs, be knocked down and criticized, and even be talked about in ways that can be very discouraging, but all of that just serves to condition us for what God has called us for. Many times, we might even feel like just giving up, but the wonderful grace of God just keeps nudging us along to get us where He can use us and depend on us. Somewhere along the line every called out man begins to realize he is just a part of a ministry that is to be led by the Spirit of God. Since Bro. William Branham’s death thirty some years ago, I am thankful that God has allowed me to go around the world to preach to the blacks, the white, Orientals and Asians and all. After these number of years, there is a ministry of men scattered abroad, everywhere around the world, in different areas, that have seen what we have stood for here. They write and thank us, saying that they appreciate the stand we have taken, and the things we have taught that helped them get out of all the confusion. I do not say that Bro. William Branham said anything to create confusion: it is the way men have taken hold of what he preached, and applied their own carnal ideas and interpretations, refusing to let God direct them, that has brought about terrible confusion. If God directs a man, the man is not going to do something that creates confusion. God allowed Bro Branham to make dual statements on certain things, but those who look to God for truth, will take hold of the true revelation and others will be tested. The end results of anything that God puts in a man, is always to eventually bring about edification, revelation and growth. When Paul wrote what we have been reading, we need to realize he did not have many more years to live. He wrote this in 64 A.D.; and he was beheaded in 66., so you can see, that as he sat in prison somewhere in Rome, and as he looked at the whole picture universally, especially the places where he had been, he knew exactly where the Ephesian Church was spiritually; and how it stood as a model and pattern for others. Therefore he set about to write this letter. He had been privileged through the latter years of his ministry to recognize the different callings and things of God, so that he could see clearly how the body of Christ had been put together collectively, with a true ministry of men. That is why he could write this letter and mention these offices, because they were in operation, and were operating precisely the way God had ordained. It is a shame, that over the period of years beyond that time, the devil was allowed to start creating confusion and discord. Some of those first age men were martyred, some died by natural causes; and the next category of men that were raised up to fill the ranks, did not have the revelation and know how to walk with God as the early ones. That is what caused the Church to gradually go off into what eventually became the Dark Ages. As it began to gradually lose the revelation, they began to lose the importance of certain doctrines that the apostles had taught, and therefore began to give way to tradition and rituals. What the early Church had taught as something essential and precious, the next generation eventually began to treat as something to take or leave. From the starting of John the Baptist, where he laid a foundation, and did it well, Jesus came along and added to it; and opened far more understanding concerning the plan of God for lost mankind. When He came to those parables, which may have seemed very insignificant to those who heard Him, they nevertheless, when properly understood like we understand them now, as we see them in the proper order, he was actually telling the disciples back then, that this dispensation of grace will go through these seven stages. It has done just exactly that. The Church went off into the Dark Ages, which was introduced like unto a woman that had taken leaven and mixed it in meal until the whole was leavened. We now understand that this is exactly what the Catholic Church did to true revelation. Then here came the fifth parable, a treasure hid, a man looking. That is exactly what Martin Luther was looking for, a hidden treasure. When he found that treasure, he sold all that he had and went and bought that field. He took a lot of persecution and ridiculing for it, but he bought that field anyhow, because faith in God was that treasure. That jewel had been lost. Then comes the sixth parable. This was John Wesley. When he saw the revelation that the believer is to be sanctified, that without peace and holiness no man shall see the Lord, what did he do? He went and sold all that he had and bought that. Sanctification was the message of John Wesley, but that was not the end of the story. We still have the seventh parable to look at. How precisely it fit into the age of time that we are now living in. With this in mind, Paul has plainly said here in these scriptures, that this is the only kind of ministry in the final analysis, no matter that God brought a prophet on the scene that fulfilled the last part of Malachi 4:5-6, and also that part of the angel messenger to this seventh Church Age. Bro. William Branham characterized both of these biblical characters, because it was the Holy Ghost working through him that characterized these. That is why I read out of the seals book, where Bro. William Branham said there would be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. That would be the ministry that will follow him; and I realize these words are going to fall on the ears of many that will say, That Jackson is crazy: Don’t he know he is speaking evil of the prophet? I am not speaking evil of the prophet: I am speaking exactly what the book (Bible) says, and I am going to stand for that. I know that God is not going to send that man back to please your carnal appetite. All you want is one man at the head of the restored Church; and you want him to be the man of your choosing. If there were such a thing, it would not be a Church, it would just be a body of people that would be nothing more than a club. A thing like that, is not the Church of the first born. Perfection for the Church is not coming by Bro. William Branham returning back from the dead. Perfection is coming, in the final analysis, by a group of men that are led by the Spirit of God to minister to the universal body of believers, regardless of whether they are black or white, whether they are from Asia, or where. They will all have the same revelation in their heart. They have the same Holy Ghost in their lives, motiving them to look and see the Church as it is portrayed in the Bible. They are going to preach the same things. They are going to stand for it in the face of any opposition; and the body of people that can see that and rally around it, are the people the Lord will unite and perfect and get ready to be translated. With this in mind, go with me to 1^st Corinthians. We realize the apostle Paul wrote these scriptures about the gifts of the Spirit, because it was important that believers know what God was doing in the age of grace. As Paul had the occasion to write this first letter to the Corinthian assembly, dealing with the things of the Spirit, he went into much detail in the 12^th, 13^th and 14^th chapters. He also dealt with the unlearned use of the things of God, the fanatical way that some people come on the scene and want to do things. If we can analyze how Paul expressed certain things about how true believers should allow the Holy Spirit to direct them, inspire them and use them, it will be of great benefit in the body of believers of this hour of time. Paul was trying to show the believer that God wants unity, He wants to work everything toward perfection, so He wants each person to know his or her place, how to discern the Spirit working in his or her life, so that in their particular place in the Church, God can anoint them to function in a proper way and those attributes can be manifested as a confirmation that God is dwelling in the midst of this body of people.

DOING THINGS GOD’S WAY

The gifts of the Spirit are to be understood as a means that God uses to confirm His presence, and vindicate His word, by using anointed vessels in this way. That is why Jesus said just shortly before He went away, I will pray the Father and He shall send you another Comforter, and He will take the things of mine and manifest them to you. Well what was He talking about? He never left a brief case full of His personal items, He never left a load of tracts to pass out, the things that God had instilled in Him is what you see manifested through his three and one half year ministry, so that is what the Holy Ghost is going to take of the things of Christ and manifest through the Church. He will put them on display in the body of believers. That is the way He ordained it to be. In the last number of years, it has been very hard to get people to see the truth and what is involved, but I have to say, God is going to have every gift in His true Church, whether Spoken Word people like it or not. I do not say that to be a smart aleck: I say it because so many of them oppose anything Bro. William Branham did not give specific instructions about in his lift time. If any of them are listening to me, I will say this, It will not be a perfect Church until it has been restored back to its original likeness. When I first got acquainted with Bro. William Branham and would hear him say things like, The gifts of the Spirit are going to be back in the Church; I believed that and held to it. I yearned to see that hour come, because I could read it in the Bible. Then I would hear him say, You need the Holy Ghost: the Holy Ghost has got to be in every believer’s life. He would say, It is good for you Methodists too. Some could have taken offense at that, but I never did: I appreciated it. I went home and got down on my knees in the old cow stable and said, Lord: I believe that and I want everything that is available to believers of your word. I wanted those gifts in my life. I said, Lord: I want to see the gifts of the Spirit working, and Lord, let them be manifested in my life as it pleases you. I never thought for one minute, I want to be a show off, or I want to show them who is who and what is what. No. I just hungered for everything God had in His plan for my life. Desiring the gifts of the Spirit of God for any other reason than to glorify Him, is a wrong attitude to start with. I want to say to our young people, It is a good thing when we are hungry and to see the manifestations of the Spirit of God in our midst, but for the sake of all that is righteous, do not ever allow the devil to cause you to think we are going to be a select circle here in Faith Assembly. It is not going to be that way. God will manifest His presence wherever He finds sincere souls seeking the truth of His word and yielding themselves to Him. The only thing any of us are ever going to be, is what God wants us to be. If He has given you a measure of His Spirit, then cherish it, thank Him for it and pray about the proper conduct that goes with it. Please do not allow yourselves to think a half dozen of you can get away somewhere, in somebody’s little prayer meeting, and you can prophesy to each other until you wind up as a select few in the eyes of God. You may not realize it, but when you take such a self-centered attitude about the things of God, you are opening up your spirit to an attack from Satan. You are standing on the brink of chaos, if you do that.

HOW GOD DEALT WITH ME TO START THE FAITH ASSEMBLY CHURCH IN 1955

In the year 1955, God spoke to me while plowing in a corn field, to start the church we call Faith Assembly. As I was plowing ground that spring, God said to me, (I did not hear audible words, but it was like my mind became a tape recorder, just playing the same thing over and over.) Now is the time to start the church. When I came in at dinner time, I told my wife how I had felt while out plowing in the field. I said to her, If this feeling stays with me, when Monday morning comes, we are going to town and I will look and see if God will show me where He wants it to be. All day long, that feeling stayed with me, and right on through Sunday it stayed that way. When Monday morning came, we went to New Albany to start looking for a building we could obtain. I thought I would just drive each street to see if I could find an empty building. Immediately, as I started up Main Street, something inside me said, Don’t do it this way: Go back down town and go to a real estate office and inquire. That is what I did. I went to Cora Jacobs’ office first. When I asked there, they said, No. We do not have anything, but if you will go to Bernard Weber, he might have something suitable. I can look back now and say, God was directing me by conditions, and I recognized them. I went right to Bernard Weber’s office and asked, Would you have a vacant building around here somewhere, that could be rented for a little church mission? When I finished saying that, she said, Yes; and before she said any more, I immediately knew exactly where she was going to tell me; 904 State Street. A year before that, a little oneness group was renting it, but they had closed out for some reason. She then said, There is a place at 904 State Street. I asked to go look at it. She said they did not have the key, but it is alright for you to go look at the building. It had originally been the garage of a man that had a moving business. In there, is where he kept his moving van. Looking through the window, I said, This looks just fine. God used that little place to start our work. I want to say to every individual, Faith Assembly started in April 1955; and through the years since, there have been a lot of trials and tests. Ever since we started, there has always been a gifted person somewhere on the scene, so do not think I don’t know anything about the gifts of the Spirit. I do. I have seen the gifts used the right way; and I have seen them used wrong, but thanks to God, I learned a lot as time went on. The things I did learn, I learned by practical experience. You cannot hurry God; and there is no such thing as a select few in His eyes. If you are anything God has accepted as bride saints, you are a part of the universal body of Christ. You are my brothers and sisters, but do not ever feel that just because the anointing comes on you, that makes you a big person and everybody else is small. You are just a part of the body of Christ, period. I hope you understand. He gave none of us more than we need, nor less than we need. The part that He gave us, if we will look at it right and allow God to lead us, it will cause God to manifest in, and through us whenever, wherever and however He sees fit. Remember though, the fact that you feel the presence if God, does not mean that you have to do something in an outward way every time. You can just appreciate His presence and wait upon Him. When we learn to recognize our particular anointing for the gift He has placed in us, then we will not be using a precious gift with the wrong motive. I hope you everyone understand these things. We are all a part of one universal body of believers and God does not love any particular one, more than He loves all the others. Of course there are 30, 60 and 100 fold Christians, but that has nothing to do with God’s love for each one: that just pertains to the potential of each one as we move by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

MOVING ALONG, WITH GOD DIRECTING

Through the years, God allowed our little group to grow. I remember Sis. Higginbotham, when she came to fellowship with us. God began to use her with the gift of tongues. God used Bro. Higginbotham, and Bro. Maryfield, in the gifts also. As God saw fit, people began to be added to the assembly. My point in telling some of this is, I stood for something I knew was in the Bible. I knew that we, living under the same covenant as those in the book of Acts, should also have God working among us as He did among them. I thank God for the privilege of sitting under the ministry of Bro. William Branham. He opened my eyes to many things through the years, as he would take various subjects to minister on. Those were exciting and precious times, when we would gather there to hear the word of God expounded in such simple terms. It did not take a college degree to know what he was talking about, because there were none of those theological terms used, like you find in the denominational realm of religion. Remembering the time when he preached on the seals, March of 1963, people were moving to this area from all over the east, to be able to attend services at the Tabernacle where Bro. William Branham preached. It is sad to say, but some were just moving here for attention. They did their best to get it to. That condition had multiplied so, that by the time we reached the end of 1963, Bro. William Branham was compelled, (because of those uncontrolled conditions) to make a church order. When he did, he did not intend to make it a doctrine that every other assembly of worshipers should observe. Do not tell me he did: I know better: He did it to correct an error in the way people were conducting themselves; and I say he had a right to do it the way he wanted to. At the end of the tape he said, Now when you have done this, then we will see what God will have us do. He made it to correct a wrong display of certain individuals that were always on display. I can think of one individual, (He has since gone to glory.) but that poor brother, the very moment the moving of the Spirit started, he was ready to give a message in tongues. Some people think they just have to be the first to jump up and speak in tongues for interpretation. Saints: Regardless of how much the Holy Spirit is moving, that does not mean that one person has preeminence in every service. How many of you realize that? You, as a member of a body of Spirit filled people, should not feel that a service should be run like that. We have all got to learn that there is a time and place for everything to fit in, if we truly mean to be led by the Spirit of God. When the gifts of prophecy began to be manifested, here came certain individuals, Oh, I want God to speak to me like that. Through those months, as prophecy was given by certain ones, here came these same individuals with little booklets, filled with prophecies that had been given. You need a book of prophecy as bad as I need a billion dollars worth of gold bars to sit on. How many understand what I mean? The gift of prophecy or any of those things, can be manifested and be very helpful, very comforting, but when certain individuals begin to pull and pull, Oh I want the Lord to speak to me. Well He just spoke to you last week, and now you want Him to speak to you again. How many times do you think God is going to be interested in speaking to you? Are there not always others present, that God might want to speak to, or even speak through? How many understand what I am saying. No wonder things got off course there in the tabernacle, causing the man of God to see that something must be done to correct the trend. He did not want the Tabernacle to look like that to outside people that would not understand what was happening. That is why I have said several times through the years, When Bro. William Branham was getting ready in 1965, in the month of December, to leave Tucson and come back here, he had called the Wright family in Depauw, Indiana to tell them. I knew them: They were good friends. He had called them and said, I am coming back to Jeffersonville, at Christmas time. I am going to preach the trail of the serpent; and I am going to take out church order. He never lived to get back here to do it, so it is still right there. I have to say, When church order was made at the end of 1963, and was played for our hearing on New Year’s Eve, 1964, he wanted it to be a means of correcting an out of control situation in the services. He said, I make this for the Tabernacle. Well preachers began to call one deacon and say, If it is good enough for the Tabernacle, it is good enough for my church also. The minute that deacon released the tape, it went like a forest fire in a strong wind, from Canada to Mexico and so on. It was no time hardly, when every little church up until that time, that had been using tambourines, drums, and banjos in their services, retired every bit of it. No more such instruments. It soon began to sound like an old Catholic Church, just ritualistic and boring. Why do you say that Bro. Jackson? Because in 1962, I was in one church that had tambourines, drums, banjos, everything. Bro. Jackson, don’t you think Bro. William Branham was against all that? No sir. Because I have a picture of him in his early days, holding a mandolin in his hand. We have a lot of people today, that just because they did not see Bro. William Branham in 1963, playing a mandolin, they think they are not supposed to have one. How many know what I am talking about? The Bible says in Psalms, Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Praise Him upon the loud sounding cymbals, the stringed instruments, everything. But no, they think the prophet did not believe in that. This is why they have their little churches bound, locked up tighter than a jug, because they think the prophet meant this, and the prophet meant that; and they are looking at evert bit of it the wrong way. Is there no leading of the Spirit of God left among any of them? They cannot see what the Bible says, because they have come to totally depend upon what they think the prophet believed and said. That is why, when I refused to go along with church order, they began to say Jackson is out of the message. I will say this to them, I am not, and do not want to be in your message, because you have turned it from something precious into a total mess. You do not have ten preachers in your entire category, that can say the same thing twice. You will never produce any kind of unity, because there is no leadership among you. You do not want God to bring on leadership: It would tear up your comfortable little nest. You could no longer just glide along quoting the prophet: You would have to start using a Bible again. Some of the mail I get, comes from critics. They can talk about me all they want to: They don’t tie my shoes and they don’t butter my bread, so I am not bound to any of them. God, by His grace, has guided me through the years. I can look back and say, Thank you Lord, you did it for the benefit of your people. You have let me go around the world and preach this truth. I have stood for the fact that there has got to be a ministry of men that know who they are and what they are doing. I can stand tonight and say, Thank God for these men. They correspond with me, they are my brothers, they know what we have stood for and they appreciate it.