THERE IS A LOT OF CONFUSION AMONG THE RANKS OF RELIGION IN THE WORLD TODAY, AND IT IS SAD TO SAY, BUT A LOT OF IT IS A RESULT OF VARIOUS PREACHERS TRYING TO PREACH WHAT BRO. WILLIAM MARRION BRANHAM SAID, WITHOUT HAVING ANY PERSONAL REVELATION OF WHAT WAS SAID. BECAUSE OF THAT, CERTAIN OTHER CHARACTERS HAVE CREPT OUT OF THE BUSHES TO CHALLENGE THE WHOLE THING, AND WE NOW FIND OURSELVES 19 YEARS BEYOND THE DEATH OF BROTHER BRANHAM, AND THIS SORT OF THING IS GETTING WORSE INSTEAD OF BETTER. NOT ONLY DO THEY MISREPRESENT WHAT THE MAN TAUGHT, THEY HAVE THE AUDACITY TO PROCLAIM THAT HE WAS GOD. THEY HAVE VARIOUS TERMINOLOGIES THEY USE, BUT REGARDLESS OF HOW THEY SAY IT, THEY ARE STILL WRONG. INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING THE TRUTH HE STOOD FOR, THEY HAVE BECOME IDOLATERS, AND MADE THEMSELVES AN ABOMINATION IN THE SIGHT OF GOD, AND A THORN IN THE FLESH OF PEOPLE WHO DO LOVE TRUTH. I DO NOT MIND TELLING YOU, THAT I WILL NEVER STAND UP IN A COURT OF LAW TO DEFEND ANY MAN THAT HAS SAID, BRO. BRANHAM IS GOD, OR ELOHIM, OR THE WORD. SUCH A PERSON WILL JUST HAVE TO STAND THERE AND DEFEND HIS OWN TESTIMONY, AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I DO BELIEVE THAT WHEN WE HAVE A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED, AND WHAT WE BELIEVE AND TEACH IS VINDICATED BY THE BIBLE, GOD IS OBLIGATED TO DEFEND HIS TRUTH, AND THE PEOPLE WHO STAND FOR THAT TRUTH. HE MAY LET SOME BE PUT IN JAIL, AND HE MAY EVEN LET SOME BE MARTYRED AS IN FORMER TIMES, BUT IT WILL NOT GO WITHOUT VINDICATION. TRUTH WILL MARCH ON. GOD IS NEVER WITHOUT A TRUE WITNESS SOMEWHERE. HIS REDEMPTION PROGRAM IS NOT FALLING APART, IT IS RIGHT ON SCHEDULE. BIG NAME PREACHERS MAY BE TELLING THEIR CONGREGATIONS, IF WE DO NOT DO SUCH AND SUCH, THE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL, BUT I WANT YOU TO KNOW, THE WORLD IN GENERAL IS GOING TO HELL ANYWAY, NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO, FOR ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE, THE GREAT MASSES ARE NOT GOING TO BE SAVED. THEY ARE ENTERING IN AT THE WIDE GATE THAT LEADS TO DESTRUCTION. BUT DO NOT FEAR, GOD’S TRUE ELECT ARE ENTERING INTO THE NARROW WAY WHICH LEADS TO ETERNAL LIFE, AND THESE ARE THE ONES THAT GOD WILL VINDICATE. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER THEY KNOW A LOT OF GREEK AND HEBREW WORDS OR NOT, THE THING THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE IS WHETHER THEY KNOW THE TRUE AND LIVING GOD OR NOT. THAT IS WHY WE ARE GOING TO DEAL WITH A MESSAGE ON THE INVISIBLE GOD. WE WANT TO PRESENT TO YOU, THE SAME GOD THAT THE FIRST CHURCH PRESENTED TO THEIR AGE, AN INVISIBLE GOD THAT MANIFESTED HIS ATTRIBUTES THROUGH THE PERSON OF HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. THIS WILL LET YOU KNOW WHY WE ARE TITLING THE MESSAGE, “THE INVISIBLE AND VISIBLE GOD.”
COMMENTS ABOUT THE MESSAGE
Before we actually get into the message though, let me remind you that the English translation of the New Testament is a product of trinitarian translators. The original epistles written to the various churches and individuals were written in the Greek language, and through the centuries they have been recopied and re-translated in an effort to keep the thought alive. But as I have pointed out many times before, no oneness man with a true revelation of the Godhead has ever translated the New Testament. Now you may not think that would make any difference as long as it is just translating without commentary, but it does. Those translators still must choose between certain words that they feel best expresses the projected thought, and therefore a trinity minded person whose mind is already set on three persons in the Godhead will naturally filter everything though his trinity glasses. For this reason I am asking God to help me, as I endeavor to take us back almost two thousand years, to the time when Jesus Christ walked upon earth among men, and the years following, when those scriptures were actually written. Just try to imagine yourself as a Jew, living back then and believing that God is one, and hearing what those first age Christians heard, that made them Christians. No true Jew ever believed that God was more than one, so how did they hear what they heard? This is what I want us to think about as we enter into this message. Every true Jew knew that God was an invisible Spirit, and they applied what they heard according to what they knew already. It was Gentiles that lowered God to their carnal concept of what God should be, and came up with three persons in the Godhead. Therefore theology does not do one thing to correct the error, for their theology is all built around a three person concept of God. It is the same way, when they study the Greek and Hebrew; they study through a mind that is already made up, and we have all been guilty of this in the past, (studying the scriptures with our mind already made up about certain things), so that is why we must yield our mind to the Holy Ghost as we study the scriptures. We cannot rely on our education to reveal the word of God to us, for only the Holy Ghost can do that, and He can do that, even if we do not have educational degrees. I just have to be thankful to God, that it does not require an education to catch a revelation of His wonderful truth. I feel the same way about the articles we print. Our papers fall into the hands of people from every walk of life, and many of them have very little formal education, so I would not want these messages edited and seminary words inserted in place of my common language, for this way, I feel that if they can read what is written, it will certainly not be over their heads from the standpoint of the language itself. Therefore let us go into the scriptures now, and just see what the Holy Ghost will reveal to those who will yield to Him.
NO ONE HAS SEEN GOD AT ANY TIME
Some time ago, I heard of a testimony given by some big doctor of theology, how he had been conveyed into glory in a wonderful experience, and how he had seen the heavenly Father, and so on. Brothers and Sisters: That is not even scriptural. There are so many scriptures like John 1:18, that tell us that no man hath seen God at any time, and John 4:24, that tells us why, because God is a Spirit, why would anyone think God would go against His very own word, when He gives them a vision? Let me just say this, If you ever have a vision where you see what is supposed to be God the Father, with His Son Jesus seated, or standing by Him, as some claim they have, you had better beware of the spirit that gives you that vision. Now do not bother to say, Well Moses saw God. Moses saw a manifestation of God, but he did not see God as a person. In John 5:37, when the Jews were contending with Jesus because of what He had been preaching He finally said to them, “The Father Himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape.” What that really sums up to is this, Jesus is saying to them, You have never heard Him, nor seen Him, and yet you are trying to tell me that I do not know what I am talking about. That next verse ought to speak to someone, for an awful lot of people who claim to be so spiritual, do not even recognize a true servant of God when they hear him. Jesus said, “Ye have not His word abiding in you: for whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not.” Then over in 1st Timothy 6:16, Paul was writing to Timothy about how Jesus who was then dwelling in immortality, was dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto (then says) “whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” Why? Because He (God) is a Spirit. Yet we are living in a day when Gentiles everywhere are claiming to have seen the Father. I had an article sent to me from India, telling how a certain Catholic person had seen the Father, and how He is a huge old man that hardly ever makes Himself visible. Now saints, that kind of thing just serves to let us know that there are a lot of people in the world claiming to be Christians, that do not care one thing about what the Bible says. They have their own concept of God and they are not about to change, so God just allows Satan to give them visions that they want to see. What else can you say about something that is so scripturally wrong? In Colossians 1:15, Paul is making reference to Jesus Christ, and says, “Who is the image of the invisible God.” He most certainly was not referring to the human body of Jesus when he said that; for that which is invisible cannot be seen. Trinitarians would have you believe that God is three distinct persons, but not one of them will ever attempt to explain how such a thing could be possible. They just pass it off as a great mystery that we humans are not supposed to understand. We are supposed to believe it, but not understand it.
NOUNS AND PRONOUNS REVEAL THE TRUTH
Open your Bibles to Genesis 1:26, and let us read the very verse that is the beginning of the trinitarian doctrine. This person that wrote the letter criticizing Bro. William Branham, says, “The trinity is the cornerstone, and the very foundation of the Christian faith, and deserves to be guarded and cherished.” Even the footnotes in your Scofield Bible will tell you that verse 26 speaks of the trinity fo God, so let us read it, and we will see if that is what it points to. “And God said, Let US make MAN in OUR image, after OUR likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Now brothers and sisters, if you do not have a revelation of the Godhead, there is absolutely no way that you could ever convince these highly educated people that this verse projects anything other than a three persons God. They will throw their Greek and Hebrew words at you until they choke you half to death. For to them, the words US, and OUR, could refer to nothing less than a triune God, because they are plural terms, but does that settle the question? Absolutely not. I have never claimed to be very smart; and all of you know by now, that I have no educational diplomas to boast of, so I just have to depend upon the Holy Ghost to guide my mind into the scriptures that put together a picture of something. The English language was never one of my favorite subjects in school. I enjoyed working with figures, for I knew even a farmer ought to be able to count, but I never could see that proper English should make much difference when I would go out to call the pigs, feed the chickens and milk the cows. In other words, nouns and verbs were just like Greek to me, back then. Nevertheless as I was walking across the yard one day lately the thought came to me, the word GOD is a noun, and the word US, is a pronoun. How could a plural pronoun be used in connection with a singular noun? The pronoun has to carry the same identity as the noun. Is that not right? Just go ahead and write on some subject using a noun singular; then use as many pronouns as you want to, but your pronouns will have to carry the identity of the singular noun if your article is to make any sense. Actually verse 27 reveals the whole thing, except to those that are blind, spiritually speaking. Notice, “So God created man in HIS own image, (Saints, I want you to catch this. God, the noun, created man in HIS own image. Please notice that the pronoun is singular. According to the trinitarian interpretation, if the word US, in verse 26 applies to three person of one God, then the noun would need to read like this, The gods said, Let us make man in our image, so pay attention as we read the rest of verse 27.) In the image of God create HE him; male and female created HE them.” The pronoun is singular in each of the three times, HIS, HE, and HE, so please tell me how any person who knows the proper usage of nouns and pronouns, could ever attach the pronouns US, and OUR, to the singular noun, God? Brothers and Sisters: The pronouns, us, and our, in verse 26, are not in reference to three persons of the Godhead at all. It has to be angelic helpers that God is speaking to, for they are spirit beings also, and the scriptures will bear out the fact that angels assist God in His great plan and program for mankind. God is the architect, the master of His whole plan, but He uses angels to assist Him.
WHAT ABOUT ANGELIC HELPERS?
These critics of Bro. William Branham’s ministry, mention how Bro. William Branham would speak of an angel standing by him on the platform, and the idea they promote, is that it could have very well been an angel, but not an angel of the Lord. Do they not realize that they are actually defeating themselves when they got to those extremes? They prove that they do not know their Bible. Jesus Christ, who was none other than God incarnate, fasted for forty days alone in the wilderness, after His baptism at the Jordan, and when He was tempted by the devil, and overcame him through the authority of the word, He was ministered to by angels after the ordeal was over, and John the Baptist said that Jesus had the Spirit without measure. Now here is why I am saying this. These critics speak of how this is the age of the Holy Ghost, and how (they say) Brother Branham constantly spoke of the angel by his side, and seldom spoke of the Holy Ghost, so my point is, angels are a part of the Holy Ghost dispensation, and these fellows, in their efforts of trying to discredit Bro. William Branham, just simply prove that they do not know much about what is really going on from the standpoint of the scriptures. In fact, there has been more angels ministering in this Holy Ghost dispensation, than there ever was in the Old Testament. Even the apostle Paul who certainly was filled with the Holy Ghost, when he was on that old ship, and the storm was raging about them, and it seemed to the crew that all hope was gone, Paul stepped forth and said unto them, “I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar,” and so forth. Now he could have said, The Holy Ghost said, Thus and so, but he chose to say, the angel of God stood by me, so please tell me, What is the difference? We just simply have to realize that many times God lets the ministering spirits be visible to the recipient of His attention. Otherwise the person would just say, the Holy Ghost said, or did thus and so. But the truth is, ministering spirits minister the anointing of God. In the account of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the gospels say an angel came down and rolled the stone away, yet when Paul speaks of it in His epistles, he merely states that He was raised by the power of God. Saints, it is all the same thing; it is just that these Trinitarians want to find something to pick at, something they can hide behind. Some people hide their own faults, by constantly calling attention to the faults of others, especially in religion. Just remember this though, God is preparing some people to rise above all of this criticism and confusion, because they know who God is; they know what He has done, and they know what is inside of them, guiding them. You just have to realize that the reason denominational people hate a true revelation so much, is because it always goes against the structure of their creeds and dogmas. It would wreck their great institutions.
THE LOGOS WAS GOD
Let us get back now, to this invisible God, this invisible Spirit that so many religion people want to believe is an old man, because their natural mind just simply cannot yield to a spiritual truth. As we said, verse 27 says all that needs to be said, right there in the first chapter of the Bible, to rule out any idea of a trinity, if people really do want to know the truth. It gives you the singular pronouns of the noun, which is God, and allows us to see that the pronouns us, and our, could not possibly be pointing to the noun, God. Remember saints, the wise, and the prudent are not supposed to understand the word of God, or their great intellectual minds would catch these things when they read them. It was God Himself that confused the languages of the inhabitants of this earth, and scattered the people, but He knows where to place every verb and noun in every human language, in order that His true children may be able to catch a revelation when they read that which is written. That is how we know that God is not a person at all, and certainly not three persons, but in reality an invisible Spirit that is omnipresent, (everywhere, fills everything) omnipotent, (all powerful) and omniscient (all wisdom.) He always was, and He always will be. He was never born, and He cannot die. But everything else that has life in it, derived that life from Him, so let us go to John 1, verse 1, and we will see how that Jew expressed his revelation of this great God, and His Son Jesus Christ, as we read his record. This takes us back almost two thousand years, before Gentiles ever had an opportunity to pervert the gospel that was believed by that first age. Furthermore let me say this, God did not tell John what to write; he was writing according to his own revelation of what he had seen and heard. A lot of Jews had followed Jesus from the time He performed the first miracle at the marriage at Cana of Galilee, but very few of those that followed Him, ever really received a revelation of who He was, and what He was doing among them. That is why, in chapter 6, we read that many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. They were offended by some things He said, simply because they did not really know who He was. But notice what John does, when he gets ready to write his record of what he saw and heard in those days. He went all the way back to the beginning, and started with the one who is the beginning of all things, and he knew full well that he was not speaking of a person, when he started out with God. Notice, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” In our English language we always have the tendency to think of a word as that which is written or spoken, but here we see that the Word was in the beginning, with God, before there was anything spoken. So we must realize that Word, as used by John, here, pertains to something that we must reach beyond our English language to comprehend. It was translated from the Greek word LOGOS, which not only speaks of that which is spoken, but also includes the thought, and a thought has to come from an intellect, so let us read it again, using the Greek word, and notice the difference in your thought as we do. “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” What was in the beginning with God? His thoughts, which later became His expressed thoughts. Paul tells us in Ephesians that God counseled with Himself, and that He is working everything according to the counsel of His own will. In other words, That great intellect had all of His works from the beginning throughout all eternity in His great mind, before He ever even started to express any of those thoughts to effect creation. “In the beginning was the Logos.” John knew what he was writing. Trinitarians read the English translation, “In the beginning was the Word,” and then when they read verse 14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” they think they have just proved that Jesus was with God causing Him to say, “Let us make man in our image,” but tell me, saints, Can you now see the difference? If not, just stay with me; we still have a lot more. Everything you see or know anything about, is a result of an expressed thought. Where does an expressed thought come from? It comes from a mind, an intellect. That is where the word omniscient comes in; it pertains to infinite awareness and wisdom that only God has. Now we read how John expressed his revelation of this omniscient intellect, so if you will permit me, I would like to put it into my own words, the way I feel that I would have written it, if I had lived two thousand years ago, and heard what John heard, and saw what he saw. “In the beginning was the Word, the supreme thought of God, and this expressed thought was with God, and was God, because it was the expressed thought of this omniscient mind which is God Himself. This is that which was in the beginning with God.” There, you have the first two verses of John’s gospel, as I believe I would have expressed it, if I had been writing it back then. I did not actually change the present day English writing of it, I only enlarged the fact that the Word was the expressed thought of a mind that always was, a mind that holds supremacy over all other minds.
DID JESUS THE SON OF GOD CREATE ANYTHING?
When you go into Ephesians, chapter one, you find the apostle Paul expressing his revelation of what John was writing about. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He (God) hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, which was according to the counsel of His own will.” A trinitarian will read these scriptures and see Jesus the Christ right there in the beginning, creating for the Father. But when a revelated person reads these same scriptures, they see the reality of an invisible God, who, in His great intellect held His own predetermined plans for everything that He would do in creation, and it would all culminate in His only begotten Son Jesus, the Christ. In another place, Paul said, speaking of the Father, “who created all thing by Jesus Christ,” but when you know the truth, you understand what scriptures like that actually point to. His Son Jesus was in His great mind from before the foundation of the world just like every other predetermined plan was. All that together is what made up this Logos that John wrote about, and that was later translated, Word. Each time this Logos was expressed it accomplished something that God had predetermined to do. Something materialized as a result of that expressed thought, yet the great mind was not exhausted because of it. When Melchizedek met Abraham on the road, and served him bread and wine, that was an expression of this Logos. So was the man that came to Abraham while he was sitting in the door of his tent in the plains of Mamre. The eternal Spirit (God) took upon Himself the form of a man in those instances, to accomplish an objective, but what Abraham saw with his natural eyes was not the eternal God. These were theophany bodies the eternal Spirit contacted Abraham through, but neither one was ever seen again, and Abraham did not go looking for them. Yet each incident was recorded, and we are able to look back and see these expressions of the Logos of God. Paul wrote in Hebrews, how that Jesus Christ is the high priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. So you see, even though Jesus was not a person with the Father in creation, everything pointed to the things this person (Jesus) would accomplish and fulfill in the plan and purpose of the Father, in redemption. Every one of these manifestations, left in the mind of the earthly recipient through time, something that would be materialized and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and even though many of these scriptures may sound like the world and everything therein was created by the man called Jesus, I want you to know that the man called Jesus never created anything at all; He had to be created by the very Spirit that created all things.
JESUS – JEHOVAH SAVIOR
I realize that statements like this would be enough to make some oneness people climb the wall, for they see Jesus as the Father, but there is only one sense in which that would be true, and that is only after He was incarnated by the Father at the age of 30 years, when He was baptized by John. Then, He could say, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” but until then, he could not say that. Trinitarians have a concept of Jesus, even as a little boy growing up, out creating birds and flowers, and all such like. One Catholic magazine portrayed Jesus in the garden of Eden, and spoke of how He created Adam and Eve, but let me say once again, The man called Jesus never created anything at all, for He Himself was a product of creation. Did it ever really hit you, that the name Jesus, given to the one who was called, the Christ, was already a name meaning “Jehovah Savior” with the Father, before the baby was ever conceived by the virgin Mary. Jesus is the redemption name of the eternal Father, and it was given to the Son in whom this redemption plan was to be worked through. There have been a lot of little babies given the name Jesus, but only one of them ever grew up to be called, the Christ, the anointed one. Did not Jesus Himself say, I am come in my Father’s name, and ye received me not? (John 5:43) In the beginning was the Word, (the Logos) and the Word was with God, and so was the name JESUS, but the Son of God, as a person, was not with Him. Yet in the mind of the Father, His Son Jesus was as real as anything could be. That part of the Logos was not materialized until just two thousand years ago, so even though Hebrews 1:2, which is speaking of the Son, says, “by whom also He (God) made the worlds,” we have to realize that the literal meaning of that is, He designed the ages through Him, or to be culminated in Him. It all reaches its highest peak in Jesus Christ. God, the eternal Spirit, is the Creator and the Savior, but all through B.C. time, all manifestations and events moved toward the time when from this Word, would come forth to materialization the man, to whom the whole world must look for their salvation, and that man was given the redemption name of His Father when His birth was first announced by the angel of the Lord to Joseph, in Matthew 1:21, before the little baby was ever born. The angel told Joseph that that which was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Spirit, (That is what God is, a Spirit, and He is holy) and that she would bring forth a son, and that he (Joseph) should call his name JESUS: (savior) for He shall save His people from their sins. So John says, in verse 3, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Not by the flesh man Jesus, but by the eternal Spirit that incarnated Him. If as Trinitarians believe, all things were created by Jesus the Son, then I ask you, What did the Father do, that we should even call Him Father? To be a father is to begat something. God the great eternal Spirit was not the Father of anything, or anyone, before the Word (or Logos) began to materialize what He had predetermined to do. He was not even God then, for the very word God, speaks of deity to be worshiped, so how could He even be God when He was still existing alone before He started to create?
WHAT WAS MADE FLESH?
Some people are so carnal in their thinking, they can visualize the Father sitting somewhere in heaven, saying to the Son, I want a planet created that we should call earth; you create one for me, and so forth. Brothers and Sisters: That is just plain carnality when people think like that. You just simply cannot take one verse of scripture by itself and build a revelation off of it. A divine revelation will allow for every scripture in the Bible, so that none will make void another. In order to believe what some people believe, they have to completely ignore at least two thirds of the Bible, for they cannot possibly fit it all into what they believe. Actually if you had not already read John 1:14, Jesus the Christ would not even be in your mind as you read these first verses here. But because verse 14 says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth,” when you read verses 1 & 2, it sounds like it should be referring to the man Jesus, and it requires a revelation of the Godhead to see the difference. But once you have that revelation, you realize that the Word that was with God, and that was God, is also the Word that created the embryo in the womb of the virgin Mary, that brought the man, Jesus, into the picture. That is how the Word was made flesh. It did not just transform into flesh from some other pre-existing form, as some believe, but from that expressed thought came the materialization of the little embryo, from which the man Jesus was born, and it was a full thirty years before there was ever anything in Him that we see in these first verses of John’s gospel. Alright, so “all things were made by him.” Who? The Father that dwelled in Jesus, when He walked the shores of Galilee preaching to the people. “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” But that life was never seen as it was seen in the New Testament, until after the Father got inside the Son, there at the Jordan River that day. From that time on, when anyone looked at the Son, they saw as much of the Father as anyone would ever see, for He was manifesting His attributes through that human form. Isaiah 9:6 was finally being fulfilled. That prophecy had laid there for over 700 years, as generation after generation would come and go, and every generation of Jews would read it, and look for its fulfillment, and now it is being fulfilled. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be open upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” After 4,000 years of man’s existence, here stood a God-man that could be touched. That is why, over in his first little epistle, John said, Our eyes have seen, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. Brother! Sister! That is what all of those other manifestations of this Logos were pointing to. Hallelujah! We have not been able to touch Him like that, but we have the written witness of many of those who did, and because of that witness, we are enabled to enter in, by faith, and receive the same salvational benefits as those that were privileged to touch Him. (Of course Isaiah’s prophecy covered the whole scope of what Jesus would be to mankind, and it will not be completely fulfilled until Jesus sits upon the throne of David in the Millennium, as King of kings.) But all who believe are accepted of Him, regardless of race, color or earthly citizenship, and we have that light to walk in. In verse 5, we read, “And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness comprehended it not. (Let me go ahead and read a few more verses to keep it all together.) There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. (John the Baptist) The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light (the Christ man) but was sent to bear witness of that Light. (Which was in the Christ man) that was the true Light, which lighteth every man that commeth into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” There, you have to realize that John was not referring to the flesh man Jesus, but rather to that which was manifested in the flesh of the man. The world was made by that invisible One that has come down, to walk on man’s level, in this body of flesh. He (the Father; was still invisible, but His works were put on public display daily, through the life and ministry of His only begotten Son, in whom He dwelt, and the world in general failed to recognize who was walking in their midst. Even those religious leaders would say, Is this not the son of Joseph the carpenter and his wife Mary? They knew the flesh, but they could not see a thing beyond that. The revelation of course, was what was talking thought he mouth of that man they knew, and what was touching people through His hands, as He walked among them. Verse 11, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Now what does that really mean? God, the Creator, the one that designed this whole plan of redemption, and gave it to the Jewish race first through types and shadows in the law dispensation, by the mouth of His holy prophets, came to those Jews with what they had been looking for, and they failed to recognize Him. Why? Simply because He did not come according to their preconceived ideas of how He would have to fulfill all those prophecies. They knew Jehovah, the Elohim, the invisible Spirit that made the covenant of promise to their father Abraham. They knew He fills the whole universe, and that He had appeared to the patriarchs and prophets in various ways, and they expected Him to come among them in human form, to set up an earthly kingdom, but they could never accept the idea that He would come in such a humble way. They knew that Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” and every generation looked for that son to be born of certain virgins that they thought might have been worthy of such an honor, but never could they accept the idea that God would allow that certain son to be wrapped in an old blanket and lain in a smelly old stable. That is why it says, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: (THAT NAME IS THE NAME OF THE FATHER (But believing on His name goes much deeper than what most Gentiles teach it today. That is why I have stressed the compound meaning of that name in other messages.) ) Which were BORN, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God.” In other words BORN OF THE SPIRIT according to the WILL OF GOD’S predetermined counsel with Himself. Then John says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Let me just take time right here to point out some things. First of all, when the Word was made flesh, it was still under the Old Testament dispensation when God sovereignly exercised and expressed His own mind. There was not two minds involved at all, as it was later under the New Covenant, when the Son had a mind of His own. Yes, that is right, Even though the Son was always submissive to the will of the Father, what the Father did, was channeled through the mind of the Son. They were joined as one Spirit, but there were two minds functioning. That is the reason Jesus would say, I do not mine own will, but the will of the Father. All the many times that He made similar statements, certainly proves that the Son had a mind of His own, and also the ability to exercise His own will, but He was always subject to the will of the Father. Now let me ask you this, How many of you think I have been talking about two persons? I hope all of you here at Faith Assembly know better than that by now.
DID JESUS HAVE TWO FATHERS?
Now to any trinity minded person that may hear this, or read it in the Contender, let me say a few things that can help you. I know you have all read the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, where it tells how the angel Gabriel was sent to a young virgin named Mary, and told her that she would conceive in her womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. Verse 32 says, “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: (God Himself is the Highest.) And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David.” (David was not his father genetically, but Joseph was of the lineage of David, and in the natural, Jesus was known as the son of Joseph.) Verse 34, “Then Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Listen to me now. If the Holy Ghost is the 3rd person of the trinity, as you supposed, and from the virgin womb of Mary, has come forth a child that was fathered by the Holy Ghost as a person, why is he called the Son of the Highest, the Son of God? If that were the only question, you might be able to reconcile the thing, but it is not. According to your belief, God is three persons, all equal in authority, but all three in perfect agreement, even in creation. So tell me, if you can, which one of the two is the Father of Jesus, and how could the Son that was just born two thousand years ago be equal in authority with the other two, in creation? Then tell me which one incarnated the Son when He was baptized? Does he have two Fathers? Now tell me why Jesus never did say, I do only what the Holy Ghost tell me to do, or shows me to do? If the Father and the Holy Ghost were two separate persons, and the Holy Ghost was the one that overshadowed Mary for her conception, why did Jesus always attribute everything to the Father? Are you beginning to catch my point? Matthew 1:18 very plainly states, that she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, and the gospels tell us also, that when Jesus was baptized the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came down from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. Then in Luke 4:1, it says, “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,” so we know for a fact, that it was the Holy Ghost that took up His abode in Jesus, there at the Jordan. Is that not correct? Then if God the Father and God the Holy Ghost, (as you express it) are not one and the selfsame Spirit, how did God the Father get into the picture at all? The truth is, they are not two separate persons, but two separate terminologies that both apply to the same sovereign Spirit which is holy, and that one Sovereign Spirit entered into His son, and blended Himself with the spirit of His Son, and from that moment on, they were one Spirit, yet there remained two minds present at all times. Furthermore the great eternal Spirit did not cease to be omnipresent when He entered into His Son, for He could not vacuum Himself completely out of the whole universe, and pour Himself completely into one little human vessel. Yet that human vessel did possess a full measure of every attribute of the Father, for as we have already pointed out, He received the Spirit without measure. It is just like Paul said in his Colossians epistle, “In Him (Jesus) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Therefore what we really see is not three persons at all, but three office works of one God who is Spirit and not even a person. In creation, He was, or is Father. In redemption He worked through the Son from within the Son, still during the law dispensation until our redemption price was paid there at Calvary, and since the day of Pentecost, He has indwelt true believers, and been referred to as the Holy Ghost. But when you read the New Testament epistles, if you do not have a revelation of the oneness of God, you cannot even know what Spirit believers have in them, for in one place you will read where we have the Spirit of God, and in another place, the Holy Ghost, so I do praise God for a revelation of His oneness. Regardless of which terminology is used, I still know what the writer is talking about. According to trinity doctrine, we would either have three persons dwelling in us, or the writers of the New Testament were terribly confused about the Godhead, so tell me, can you reconcile either one? No wonder they say it is a great mystery, that no one can explain. I would sure hate to have to explain such foolishness. JESUS THE SON OF GOD, WAS TEMPTED BY SATAN
In religion, you have two extremes concerning the Godhead. The most ridiculous of course is the trinity concept, but there are some one God people that are still a million miles from a true revelation of God’s oneness. They are the ones that like to harp on Isaiah 9:6, and teach what is commonly referred to as Jesus only doctrine. They get real upset when the Son of God is even mentioned, for they believe that Jesus is all there is. But is it not strange that the writers of the New Testament were not afraid to speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? They had a true revelation, so they did not have to worry about saying something that would distort what they believed and taught. They could speak of the Son of God, because they knew exactly where He stood in the Godhead. But look at the church world today, they know the Son was a person that walked upon earth in human flesh, but most of them cannot accept the idea that the Father was not, is not, and never will be a person apart from the Son. The Son was a perfect human from birth, but He was not God until the Father incarnated Him. Even at age 12, when Joseph and Mary found Him in the temple sitting with the doctors, and asked Him why He had stayed behind when they left Jerusalem, He answered, “How is it that ye sought me? Do ye not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” That showed right there, that even at that young age, His mind was on spiritual things, rather than just getting out with a bunch of boys and having a good time. Most twelve year old boys are out throwing rocks, twisting dogs’ tails, and chasing cats, and that sort of thing, but not this little boy, He would rather discuss the scriptures with the scholars of that day. Nevertheless He went back to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary, and the Bible says He was subject unto them, and that He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. He did not have to learn how to be obedient, His very nature was to be obedient, because He had not sinful attributes in Him. He was the Son of God, and He knew it, and He was perfect in every way, but before age 30, He never did one supernatural thing. But let me ask you now, How many of you will agree that He had a mind of His own? He certainly did; and He knew how to fellowship and correspond with the heavenly Father. That is why you have heard me say, No one had to tell Him when to go to the river to be baptized by John. He knew from the scriptures, that it was to be done, so when the time came, the Father Himself showed Him. Then because of His obedience, look what happened as soon as He came up out of the water. The heavens were opened, and a great manifestation of the glory of God was revealed to those Jews that stood by watching. They were privileged to witness the very act of incarnation, when the Father (a Spirit) came down to earth and took possession of that physical man, which was His only begotten Son. No, He did not take the Son prisoner, He just moved into that obedient Son, to fulfill those types and shadows of the Old Testament. Now God was walking among His creation in a permanent physical body. This was not a theophany body, as every other one had been. The people who saw Him on Monday, could go out, and find Him somewhere, on Tuesday, for His purpose was to make Himself known to the human race. For the next 3 ½ years, those Jews would be able to see, hear, and touch God. But first the Son had to be tested. Why would He need to be tested now, after being a perfect Son for 30 years already? Because now He has within Him a Spirit that could literally turn stones to bread, or anything else that Satan could suggest to Him, so old Satan had to be given a chance to put Him to the test, for God wanted those Jews to know, that they were looking at a man that would defend what was in Him. He would not be as the first Adam who forfeited it. Therefore that obedient Son was led by the spirit into the wilderness where He touched neither food nor drink for forty days and nights, and the devil was right there tempting Him the whole time. The physical man Jesus, got just as hungry as any of us would; he got weak, He lost weight, and He was fatigued, just as any person would be under the same circumstances. “But if He was God invested, why should He have to go through all of that?” You may say. Because He had a mind of His own that He could have exercised at any time, and God wanted the human race to know, (Hallelujah!) Here was a man that could be buffeted by Satan in His weakest moment with the written word of God. “If thou be the Son of God, (Does that sound like some of these big theologians of our day?) Command this stone that it be made bread.” Satan was actually tempting Him to exercise His own will, and satisfy His flesh, but what did He say? “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” Now some will say, “Can His temptation really be compared to ours? Even Paul referred to the first Adam as of the earth, and earthy, as though to say that there is a difference.” Paul was only referring to Adam’s condition after the fall. When God first made Adam, he had no sin in him, and no death. He could have lived for ever, sinless. God gave him a condition, Abstain from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and you will live, but the day you partake of it you will surely die. Well we all know what happened; they (Adam and his wife Eve) partook of that tree, and that is when sin entered the human race. That is where Paul’s statement picks up, for from the time God confronted them, and removed His holy presence from them, that first Adam became an earth bound creature. He was no longer able to communicate with the spirit realm of God’s creation. He was earth bound and earthy, and so is all of his descendants. We were all born of this natural law of reproduction, that God placed in effect at the very beginning, so we all came into the world bearing a sinful nature as a result of one man’s sin. But this man Jesus, the second Adam, bypassed that genetic line of fallen mankind, because His origin was directly from heaven. As we have already said, Genetically He was neither the son of Joseph, nor Mary, because He was born of a created embryo, but He was every bit man, for He took on all of His natural substance from the very elements of the body of Mary. Therefore when He was tempted by Satan, it was the human part of Him that was tempted, not the divine part which was the Father in Him. God was not tempted; it was the Son of God that was tempted. He was as human as any of us, and subject to pain and suffering just like we are. The difference is, without a sinful nature, He is also without sickness and disease, but if He stepped on a piece of sharp glass with His bare feet, or cut His finger, He would feel the pain just like we do. You just have to realize that except for the absence of imputed sin, the physical man was just like the rest of us. Therefore He could be tempted. But Bro. Jackson; I just do not understand how God could be in Him in the fullness of Himself, and still not do anything to stop all of that. That is exactly how multitudes of people look at this, but God wanted it to be recorded that this Son would be obedient to the end, so He let the devil throw everything he had at Him. Brother I want you to know, that temptation was real. He was tempted in every area of what He was to fulfill in the great plan of God. Satan even tempted Him to jump from a pinnacle of the temple, which would have been tempting God, and that is exactly how Jesus responded, It is written, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” If He had yielded to Satan in any of those temptations, Luke 4:14 never would have been written; “And Jesus returned in the POWER OF THE SPIRIT into Galilee: and there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about.”
CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE GODHEAD?
Do you see yet, why we titled this message, “The Invisible and Visible God?” I believe you do. Almost two thousand years ago the invisible God put Himself on display for a full 3 ½ years, and allowed mankind the privilege of walking with Him, and talking with Him; and He fed many of them just like He fed the children of Israel when they were on their 40 year journey through the wilderness. Standing right there in human flesh, was the One that supernaturally supplied the manna, the quail, and the water from the rock, and now He is feeding multitudes with one little boy’s lunch. Now, how many of you think I am talking about the Son of God, Jesus? No, I am talking about the Father of Jesus, that was in Him. The Son did not even exist, except in the mind of the great eternal Spirit, when the children of Israel were eating manna and quail in the wilderness. In other words, The Son was not the Creator, but the Elohim in Him was. The Son was not the miracle worker, but He had the miracle worker in Him. The Son walked on water, but it was by the power and authority of the Father that was in Him. He literally meant what He said, when He said, “I can of myself do nothing,” (meaning nothing supernaturally) but by the authority of the Father in Him, He could do anything. Is anything too hard for God? (Jeremiah 32:27) Brothers and Sisters: We are dealing with the Godhead; it is important for every child of God to know whether God is one, two, three, or a half a dozen. You will never really understand the scriptures, until you have a revelation of the Godhead. The Trinitarians say the Godhead is such a mystery, that it cannot be explained, but I say, Any child of God with a revelation can explain it, for we do not have to try and make three persons out of one God; we just simply let God be God, (SPIRIT) and the Son of God be the only PERSON of the Godhead, and the Holy Ghost the same Spirit substance that the Father is, for they are one and the selfsame Spirit just different office works, so to speak. Once you see the Godhead as it really is, it is so simple you wonder how anyone could have ever even thought God was three persons. It is the one person of the Godhead, that every predestined seed is to be conformed to the image of, just like it says in Romans 8:29. Jesus the Son bore the image of the Father, and we are not able to see the Father except through the Son, so we are to bear the image of Jesus the Son, who had the Spirit of the Father in Him in full measure. Though we only have that Spirit by measure, the measure is still sufficient to conform us into the very image of that obedient Son. Our character, our attitude, our motives and thinking is all to be made like unto Him, as we yield our will to His will.
A LOOK AT HEADSHIP
In Ephesians 1:22, the apostle Paul wrote concerning Jesus Christ, that God had put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, so let us look at headship for a few minutes. Jesus the man, is not the head of the universe. In 1st Corinthians 11:3, that same apostle wrote, “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Now that lets us know that God the great eternal Spirit is still the head of the universe, so what did He make Jesus Christ the head of? Everything that pertains to creation, in relation to man. He is above all principalities and powers, and so forth. In other words, God who is the head of the universe, lifted up his obedient Son because of that obedience, and placed Him above every king, potentate, magistrate, and governmental powers, and taking Him high in the heavens, placed Him on His own throne above every angel, even Michael and Gabriel, but the Father Himself is still head of the universe. We will read Philippians 2:9-11, what Paul wrote to them. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” If some of these oneness Pentecostal people would study the whole context of the scriptures they like to use, they would have a whole different concept of the Godhead than what they now have, for the Father was in Jesus and the Holy Ghost that anointed Him is one and the selfsame Spirit, and when we receive the Holy Ghost, we have the same Spirit Jesus had, but in a lesser measure. Therefore when we receive the Holy Ghost, what is God doing? He is lifting us up out of our fallen state, and redeeming us back to Himself through His only begotten Son. That is why the scripture says, We were chosen in Him (Jesus) because our redemption must come through Him. God is actually re-creating us through Him. But all of these many terms are sometimes misleading if we fail to catch the thought that is being projected. In 1st Timothy 3:16, Paul summed it all up like this, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” But you still have to have a revelation to unravel that verse. Now go with me to 1st John 1:1, and let us read what that aged apostle wrote more than fifty years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: (How beautiful) For the life (which was God) was manifested, and we have seen it, (How? Through the Son.) And bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, (Not as a person, but as the great eternal Spirit.) And with His Son Jesus Christ.” God came down to where mankind was, and walked among them in a body of flesh, but He still remained to be an omnipresent Spirit. The next phase of His great plan was to get inside of all of His people, but even then He is still an omnipresent Spirit.
MANIFESTING THE FATHER’S NAME
Now I want to show you a verse of scripture that will prove to you that the name JESUS did not just originate with the birth of the Son of God. You will find it in Revelation 14:1. “And I looked, (John speaking) and; lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His FATHER’S NAME written in their foreheads.” That is the 144,000 servants of God that will be sealed with the Holy Ghost under the ministry of the two prophets of God in Revelation 11:3, which we see in chapter 7:1-8. They have a revelation of that redemption name of the Father, the very name that was given to the only begotten Son of God. Jesus. That is why, in John 17:6, Jesus was praying to the Father, and said, “I have manifested THY NAME unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.” That verse not only reveals that the name JESUS was the Father’s name also, but it reveals predestination as well. If you have a revelation in your bosom today, it was no accident that you received it, for except that the Spirit of God had opened your understanding, it would have been impossible for you to receive the word of God in the form of a revelation, and He only does that for those that were foreknown of Him. Notice John 17:12, which is still in the same prayer Jesus was praying. “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in THY NAME: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; (Judas Iscariot which was to betray Him; He already knew that Judas would do that.) That the scripture might be fulfilled.” That whole chapter is a revelation, but I am just pointing out these verses that pertain to the Father’s name. Verse 26, is another one. “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” When Jesus finished this prayer, He went right to the garden of Gethsemane where He prayed the prayer of surrender to the ordeal of the cross, saying, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will but thine be done.” This was the Son of God praying, the human, that could feel pain and draw back from death, just like any of us. One gospel writer states that He prayed so fervently, that His sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground. Nevertheless He surrendered to the fate that He already knew awaited Him, and He did it willingly, for He even said to Peter, after Peter had already cut off one man’s ear, Put up thy sword. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” This God-man had been shining the light of God’s Word for 3 ½ years, and the time had come for Him to open up the way for the predestined children of God to walk in that light, so He went to the cross willingly, to pay our sin debt, and set us free from our prison of darkness.
A LOOK AT LIGHT
Let us just go back into the first little epistle of John and take a look at the light God inspired him to write about. God is light, and without that light people perish. Brothers and Sisters: If there ever was a day when man needed light to walk in, it is this present day and hour. Of course you know why I say such a thing, for the truth is, every man that has ever lived, needed this same light, but the evil of our day makes it seem so much more urgent that we have this light of God lighting our pathway. Alright now, as we pick up in verse 5, right where we left off earlier, we read these words, “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” That is emphatic. God will not tolerate darkness in His domain. When light comes in, darkness has to flee. We hear a lot about a message in this hour, but John was the first of the early church to mention such a thing, and he goes on to say this, verse 6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, (traditional churchanity) we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, (a true revelation) as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Many times, verse 7 has been lifted completely out of context, and presented as if fellowshipping each other is what constitutes walking in the light, but that is absolutely the opposite of what John was saying here. Walking in that light is what causes us to have fellowship one with another, but just merely fellowshipping one another will never put you in that light. Verse 7 is tied to verse 5, and verse 6 makes that clear. God is light, and we can only fellowship Him in the light He shines upon us, so if we are attempting any other way, we are just simply fooling ourselves, and John says we are liars, if we call that fellowshipping God. On the other hand though, when we do truly enter into that light, and start fellowshipping God in the light of a true revelation, we automatically have fellowship with others who are doing the same thing. So while we are talking about light, let us just consider the part light plays in our natural surroundings, and we will better understand the spiritual significance of the light which God Himself is. If you take the sun out of the universe, all life on this planet would soon die, wouldn’t it? Is that not what we studied in school? Lay a board flat on the grass, or turn a tub upside down over some grass, or other plants, and see what happens. When you shut off the light, it first loses its color, because that color comes from the sun, and the first thing you know, it is dead. That is exactly how it is spiritually, when man is shut up in some old traditional religious system. There is no light present, so there is no life either. Those places are spiritual prison houses, and there are multitudes sitting in them today, spiritual dungeons. That is why so many of them act the way they do at times, when they hear truth preached. It is just like bringing a person suddenly, out of a dungeon into bright sun light, it almost drives them crazy. Once your sense of sight becomes completely adjusted to darkness, (That is nature’s way of enabling you to survive) if you are suddenly exposed to bright light, a shock runs right through the head, and many times just drives the person into complete blindness. That is why it is so important spiritually, for us to realize the necessity for the light of God in our soul. Think of it like this, When you have day after day of cloudiness and drizzly rain, people have a tendency to get cranky. It does something to our makeup, psychologically. Even animals get cranky after so long. You stable them, and close them up, and a horse will almost kick the door down. An old mule will just simply chew the place up, for he is just bored to death. Unless you have some kind of wood he doesn’t like, you can hear him just chewing everything to pieces. That is the way people are, in a spiritual sense. They are shut up in those old dark systems, and they are bored to death, and they just chew on anything. Saints, I just say all of that to stress the importance of spiritual light in the life of mankind. God Himself being light, do you think He is going to save someone and just leave them to walk in darkness, and ignorance? Not if they are truly born again. He may let the devil mislead that person momentarily, while they learn to recognize darkness and cope with it, but the Holy Ghost is sure to lead that person out into the light eventually.
SOME WALK IN DARKNESS
When the church started out, almost two thousand years ago, she was walking in the full revealed light of the Word of God. There was not one bit of tradition in that early church. From the Godhead all the way down through every doctrine, and every principal, she had everything in proper perspective. Every time something tried to creep in, the Holy Ghost was right there to deal with it, and sent it on its way. Light will not fellowship darkness. That is why I said, When light comes in darkness flees. But please remember this, It can work the opposite way. It depends on which one is coming into its season. When people have the true light shined upon their pathway, and they refuse to walk in it, God will allow total darkness to come upon them. That is what the apostle Paul was dealing with in 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2. He pointed out the fact that when people have no love for the truth, God Himself will send strong delusion upon them, that they may believe the devil’s lie, and be damned. Therefore I want to take the three verses we just read from 1st John 1:5-7, and apply them to our day, and to some of the very people that we have known. No, I will not judge them, this word of God that they are rejecting has already judged them. We hear so much talk about a man that came with a message, and truly he did, we all believe that; but we do not believe what a lot of them believe. We do not believe the man gave us another Bible to replace the one we already have. Neither do we believe that every word he uttered was “Thus saith the Lord,” either, for he was as human as any of us. Nevertheless a lot of these fellows claim to be preaching the man’s message, just run the roads with a box full of books and quotes, and preach about the man; they know nothing of the message he brought. Regardless of how it may sound to you, I still have to say, Those men are walking in darkness; they did not see the light God shined through that little man. They sing long and loud about Malachi 4:5-6, how the hearts of the children are to be turned back to their fathers, but then they conduct themselves like anything but someone that has been restored to apostolic doctrines and beliefs. You cannot even talk apostolic teachings with them, lest they get all upset, and accuse you of not being in the message. Brother, I want you to know, God has allowed Satan to turn the whole thing into darkness for them. What did God do through that little man? Some may ask. What he did through him is very simple to understand if your mind is open, and you are seeking the truth. I sometimes wonder, Why do some people think Bro. William Branham preached on the Godhead? Do they actually think he was trying to give them another concept of the oneness of God? Bro. William Branham did not restore the one God revelation to the church. Neither did he restore faith, nor sanctification, nor the baptism of the Holy Ghost. God had already called other men to do that, in their respective hour of time. Even the gifts of the Spirit had already been restored to the church before Bro. William Branham’s hour. Now listen to me, You do not have to sit there thinking I am minimizing what God called him to do; I am not. All of those precious Reformation truths were scattered around in various denominations, and treated as though each one should stand alone, but God wanted them all put together and handed to some people who would appreciate all of them, and that is what the seventh church age messenger did. Lutheranism had made faith a dead subject, the way they had treated it. But faith is not a dead subject. A living faith will always keep you growing and progressing in the stature of the Lord Jesus, and it will keep you hungry for more truth from the word of God. A person who has a living faith toward God, will not look at you with that numb, unconcerned look when you mention something from the word of God that is new to them. Neither will such a person consider you to be a fanatic. To move on with God, many times, will make you look like a fanatic, but if God moves on, and you do not move with Him, the light you already have will become darkness to you. That is what happened to those denominational churches that were founded off of some Reformation truth. When God later attempted to add something to what they had already, a lot of them got all upset, and said it was of the devil, so God just moved on, and let their system of religion die.
SOMETHING THAT HELPS YOU READ BETWEEN THE LINES
Even sanctification became just an outward show to those who failed to move on with God when predestination and eternal security was presented to them, and they rejected it. When God shines light into your life, He keeps enlarging that light as He keeps feeding into it, truth from His word. But there are a lot of people that can only take one thing at a time, and if you try to give them more, you have trouble on your hands. Even many people who claim to follow Bro. William Branham’s teaching, are just as narrow minded as any denominational person you will ever meet. They will grab a hand full of tapes and books and hit the road, and as long as you let them do the talking everything is just fine, but the minute you try to express your own revelation or feelings to them, they treat you as though you had just blasphemed. I have to say, For a long time after Bro. William Branham’s death, it was very disheartening to try to stand for something you felt in your heart was truth, with certain characters always trying to shoot you down, by constantly trying to discredit you, and always accusing you of not being in the message. Being in the area where he stood and preached made it worse, but I just thank God for the strength He has given during these nineteen years. When you knew the man personally, as many of us right here did, and you would sit there listening to him preach, there were many things said that you would understand because you knew his makeup, and his feelings about certain things, that others sitting there would not understand. That is why I have said many times, If you know me, you know my nature, and how I look at certain things, I can get up here and preach, and you will understand some things that others miss completely, simply because they were not able to read between the lines. I do not plan it that way, but there are times when it is like that. None of us knew the apostle Paul, the man that wrote most of the New Testament epistles, but when you study the framework of how he looked at things, and how he wrote about them, it cultivates in you, an image of the man, that helps you, as you go from scripture to scripture. In other words, When you know the man is consistent in what he believes and teaches, you will not be thinking he is contradicting himself when something is expressed from a little different angle. Therefore knowing in your own mind that the man ministering is a man that is consistent, help you keep everything on a true course. Bro. William Branham did his utmost to be consistent in the things he said, yet there were times when certain statements would be made, that would make it seem like he was terribly confused. They accuse me of saying he made mistakes, but I have never said he made a mistake, for I have always felt that a purpose of God was served in every instance where he stated something a little different than before. God Himself is infallible, but no earthly man is, and God never did intend for the flesh of anyone to be worshiped, nor that any human flesh should ever become an idol to anyone, but it happened just the same. When Bro. William Branham would preach on the Godhead, that was his way of saying, Get back to the word of God, but some would always hear something that would cause them to feel that he himself was more than what he was. I certainly never heard im say anything that would cause me to feel that there was any deity about him, and I knew him well enough to know how he would feel, if he found out that anyone was looking at him as anything more than a man. There were times though, that he preached so straight to the point, and so simple, you knew you had never heard it preached like that before.
APOSTOLIC TEACHING
I will never forget one time down in Evansville, Indiana, when Bro. William Branham stood in the platform of an Assembly of God Church, and preached on sanctification from the book of Hebrews. Having been a Methodist until the Lord led us out of that system, I was well familiar with the subject of sanctification, for that was the prime doctrine of the Methodist church. How many times have I heard, “John Wesley said this, (using Luther’s revelation on faith.) We believe it is true, the just shall live by faith, but we also believe that without peace and holiness, (which is sanctification) no man shall see the Lord.” That was Biblical, and we believed it. But when Bro. William Branham took a text from Hebrews, and showed sanctification in its true Biblical setting, he made the thing come alive, and people had to face the reality of what may have been just a doctrine in the church before. Now he did not restore sanctification to the church, but he did do what no other man this side of the Dark Ages had done. He took Luther’s revelation, Wesley’s revelation, Calvin’s revelation, and all those major doctrines that had come out of the Reformation, and put them all into one revelation, and through various sermons he preached, he showed us how it all fit into the apostolic Bible, and never even hinted that he was giving us another Bible. It was those carnal minded, zealous preachers that heard him, that have done that. They go out preaching quotes from Bro. William Branham’s sermons, but when you take those quotes out of context, away from the thought that was being projected, and preach just the quotes, you are not even preaching truth. These who do that, will come on with a big smile, leaving the impression by what they say, that we are all brethren, but I want you to know, we are not all brethren. They do not like it because I will not fellowship with them, but I have tried, in the past, and every time, I would find things twisted around sooner or later, where I was forced to agree with them, and I just simply cannot tolerate that kind of fellowship. To be forced to agree with something that you know is Biblically wrong, is just as serious to me, as joining up with the Catholic Church. When someone forces me into a place where I am forced to say, Yes Bro. William Branham said that, I want the quote to be in the same context as when Bro. William Branham said it. I hope you know what I mean. God has given all of these characters their chance to walk in great light, and they have chosen their own way, so I will just have to remind them, that the Bible says, To whom much is given, much is required. People who were raised up in the Catholic Church, believe what they do, and act like they do, because they have been taught like that, but when you see people who have been exposed to great light of truth, conducting themselves in ways that to God are just as abominable as the Catholic Church is, you just simply have to admit, they have the same spirit on them, that is on Catholicism. In the sight of God, it is no more abominable to believe that the Roman Catholic Pope is God, than to believe that Bro. William Branham is God. What is the difference? Either way you go, you have missed the true way, and you are rejected of God. There are no idolaters in the true family of God. But. Bro. Jackson: He was the prophet; he had the word of the Lord. Well, you do not have to tell me that. I realized that at the very beginning, but what about all the other things that some of you attribute to him? It is just like I have said many times, I will never go to Maine, and try to tell them how to raise potatoes, but neither do I want them coming here, trying to tell me how to raise corn; I know how to raise corn. Likewise when it comes to what Bro. William Branham preached, do not come around trying to tell me what he preached; I already know what he preached. I sat right there, I heard his words, I watched his actions, and I observed his countenance, his facial expressions; and I feel like I heard what God anointed him to say. Let me say this, and I believe you will have to agree that it is true; any time a man is preaching under the anointing of the Spirit of God, those who have the Holy Ghost many times, can already see the picture that he is building up to, even before he gets there, and if it is something of a revelatory nature, those who do not have the Holy Ghost will not get it straight, no matter what is said. They are able to quote certain statements, but they are not able to present a true picture with them, because they did not get the true picture themselves. They call themselves preachers, and in one sense they are but they are not called of God to preach what they are preaching.
OUR GUIDE KNOWS THE WAY
Brothers and Sisters: We serve an invisible God; there is no visible flesh for us to see, as those first age Christians were privileged to see, yet if we are true children of God, we have the same Spirit they had, and we can have the same revelation they had. Now that will let you know why some of these characters that are running the roads preaching the prophet, and preaching quotes, have to limit themselves to that, for without the Holy Ghost to give them revelated understanding of what they heard, they just have to take the words they heard, and give them a carnal interpretation according to their own traditions. They are just like the Catholic Church; they could not care less about whether what they are preaching is scriptural or not; just as long as they can get the spotlight on themselves by boasting about knowing the prophet, and so forth. The Catholic Church says, No salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church, and these carnal preachers of quotes leave you the same impression; there is no salvation unless you believe what they believe. But Saints, light is a wonderful thing; it lets us see how carnal all of that is. It lets us know that we do not have to fear any of these carnal forces. I am not afraid of the Catholic Church, even though I am aware of what she can do in the realm of politics. In other words, She can get our doors closed by her political influence, but, Praise God, she can never rob any true child of God of a pure revelation of His word. I will say this also, When our doors are closed by something like this, just know that the end is very close, for God will not permit that to happen years in advance of His coming. Furthermore God’s true children will worship and praise Him wherever they are. They do not have to have a certain building. After all, Where is the kingdom of God anyhow? It is within you. Not just in your midst, but literally inside of you, if you truly are one of His children. Now when we get on a subject like this, someone always asks, Bro. Jackson: Can God save a person who is a member of one of those church systems? Yes, God can save anyone, anywhere, if they were foreknown of Him. But He will not save that person in the Baptist Church, just to make a Baptist of him. If he gets a true experience of God’s saving grace, he will find his way out of that system. When God saves someone in one of those systems, it is not because the system is right, but only because He loves the individual person, and that is the hog pen where He finds them. One familiar phrase can always be heard when a child of God starts pulling away from those old systems though, Doesn’t he, or she know that they ought not get mixed up with a cult? Hallelujah! Let them talk. Jesus said the Comforter would guide us into all truth, and bring all things to our remembrance, so if that is what they call a cult, then let them scream it, we still must follow our guide. In John 14, Jesus referred to the Holy Ghost both as a guide and a teacher, and that is exactly right, for a teacher will set you down and instruct you, but when it comes time to travel, we need a guide. Hallelujah! He knows the way! Brother, some of these churches we passed through, we needed a guide. All of that confusion and uproar is just like swamps in a jungle. If you do not have a good guide when you go into a jungle, you may never come out alive. Something may grab you, if you do not know how to avoid it, but a good guide will usually get you through safely. Well religion is the same way. Preachers have their nets out, waiting to grab you and your pocket book. They say they are building something for the kingdom of God, but what they are really building is spiritual prison houses. They will sell you a three person god, and work your fingers to the bone trying to keep up with all of their programs, and they hold their captives through fear tactics. So just remember, Tradition is darkness, and it takes the light of the Holy Ghost to lead you out of it.
WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF MANKIND
I will never forget the first time I heard Bro. William Branham preach on the serpent’s seed. I said, That makes more sense than anything I have ever heard in my old system of religion. They always give you a picture of a beautiful apple hanging on a tree, and a big old snake hanging up there by it, talking to Eve. Did the Lord really say that you should not eat of this? Not one of them ever realized that the old serpent was a two legged creature that looked much like man. Then when you tell them that the serpent seduced Eve to commit fornication sexually, they immediately say, You are crazy. Everyone seems to think it is perfectly acceptable for a snake to be talking, but when you tell them that Eve’s first son Cain, was an offspring fathered by the serpent, they will say, God has set a law so that animals and humans do not mix like that. Do they not know that this same law applies to snakes talking? Scientists have combed the earth, looking for the missing link between the highest known form of animal life and mankind, but they will never find it, because God stripped the arms and legs off of it, and added it to the reptile family, and the scriptures tell us that this is one creature of God’s creation that will never be restored to its original form. The Millennium restores everything else, but dust will still be the serpents meat; he will never get his arms and legs back again, nor talk, as before the curse. When that serpent which was actually created to be a servant to man, yielded himself to the devil, to do what he devil inspired him to do, he started the whole creation of God on a downward course, and made redemption necessary. You just have to realize, that in the beginning God’s glorious presence was constantly with His creation. Therefore if sin never had entered the picture, every little baby born through God’s law of reproduction would have been a perfect, sinless son of God, just like Jesus was. Man never would have been looking for the light, for there never would have been any darkness, spiritually speaking. What we speak of as God’s Shekinah glory was with Adam and Eve all the time, before they sinned; and that is what redemption is to bring all of God’s creation back to. We see it in 1st Corinthians, chapter 15, and in Revelation chapters 21 & 22. That in itself ought to be enough to show people that God was not three persons before the fall of Adam, when He would communicate with them in the cool of the day. Brothers and Sisters: I hope every one of you are able to see a clear picture with your spiritual eyes, of this great and glorious invisible God. If you do, you will never have to worry about darkness overtaking you again.
RESULTS OF CARNAL UNDERSTANDING
Now, since we are examining Light and darkness, let me remind you of something else Bro. William Branham used to say. He would say, The trinity is wrong, and that would cause the oneness to rejoice, but then again he would say, But the oneness are NOT ALL RIGHT. Yet he never did go into any depth of explaining it. He just left it, that the subject is still there in the Bible. But a lot of those denominational people would seemingly see the oneness of God, and the importance of proper water baptism, when he would preach on it, and they would jump right into the water and get baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. But the real test came when the little man was taken off the scene, for many of those that claimed to have understood the Godhead, were the first ones to try to make Bro. William Branham God. That is why I said, Any person that would make Bro. William Branham God in his life, is still walking in utter darkness. Anyone who understands the Godhead, knows that the spiritual power that was exercised through his life was just a greater measure of the Holy Ghost, ordained of God to take certain things of the Christ, and demonstrate them to mankind. Did not Jesus Himself say to His disciples, that the Comforter would take the things of His, and show them unto you? That was started in the apostolic hour, and it progressed like that, until the devil was permitted to enter the picture, and just begin to tear the whole thing to pieces. So I say, Why would God not do the same thing again in the endtime, as the truth is restored back to the church? The true bride of Christ is not going to make herself ready to meet the bridegroom after the rapture takes place, every last one of them is going to be ready when He comes. We will be like Him, and we will see Him as He is. Hallelujah! The bride is going to receive some precious nuggets of truth just before the curtain closes on this whole thing. She is walking in the light, and waiting for the day that her Bridegroom comes for her. But because she is carrying a true revelation of the word of God, she knows that there are yet some prophecies to be fulfilled before that can happen, so the washing by the water of the word is still going on. We are not yet made perfect in love, but we will be.
WHAT GOD IS DOING WITH US
Now the same apostle that projected God as light, here in the gospel of John, projects Him as love, over in his first little epistle. People in this message talk a lot about love, but I want us to look at the word LOVE, as John taught it. We will go to 1st John, chapter 4, but before we start reading, let me say this, There is no way that the love of God can be perfected in people that still hold to their traditional denominations. They may meet together, and pick certain neutral subjects from the Bible to preach on, things that will not create offenses, and they may call what they have, love one for another, but I want you to know, that kind of love is as carnal as anything could possibly be. That kind of love will put a little baby and a rattle snake in the same crib, and then cry their eyes out because the little baby dies of snakebite. God’s love just simply does not operate like that. Since God is light, and His true children, walking in that light, are walking in His will, they know better than to do a lot of things religious people are doing in this hour. God is not trying to get religion together; He is bringing His true children together. He may bring a Catholic in, but that person will not be a Catholic very long, for God will see that all that traditional junk is washed out of such a person. In other words, The first thing God does is lift us up out of the mudhole where He finds us, and then He goes to work on us, washing all of that traditional darkness out of us. It may take a while in some cases, but when the job is done, we no longer see each other as what we used to be. With our eyes washed clean, we can all look at the same thing, and when we do, God’s perfecting love is doing its work in us. Of course we still have a little distance to go yet, but as long as we are walking in the light, we are getting closer every day. We just have to remember that Jesus, our example never made one effort to try to please the traditionists. As a matter of fact, what He did was usually just the opposite of what they demanded. “Why do your disciples eat without washing their hands? A bunch of them asked Him one day. Then, another time they came to Him, and said, John’s disciples fast, but your disciples are always eating. Why? He merely replied, John came, neither eating nor drinking, and you said he had a devil, but the Son of man came eating and drinking, (just being sociable) and you say, He is a glutton. Saints: That just lets us know that there is always an element of people in the world that you could never please, no matter what you do, so God does not want you to even try to please them. Just do what you know is right, and let the grace of God work out the circumstances around you. We do not have to manipulate anything; we just let God build what He wants built in our lives, and in the end, it will be something that He can present to Himself, without spot, wrinkle, or blemish.
READING THE SCRIPTURES WISELY
I believe we are ready to look at 1st John 4:11, down through verse 19; I believe it is. Many times these verses are taken out of context, but remember, when John wrote this, it was to people who were walking in the light, for to walk in the light, is to walk one with another in truth. Two people who have a true revelation, can sit down on an old rock someplace, any time, and just rejoice and praise God together, as much as they could in church on Sunday. Do you know why? Because they both have the praiser in them, and He does not require a building to manifest His presence. Alright now, verse 11, “Beloved, If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” Only born again, Holy Ghost led believers can read that verse, and give it a true application. Charismatics only make a mockery out of a scripture like that, for it cannot even apply to people who are not walking in the light of God’s word. They may call what they have, true fellowship, but let one of them say something about the other’s religious system, and you will see what happens to their fellowship. It can fall apart instantly, because it does not have a solid foundation. Verse 12 brings us right back to the invisible God. “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.” That is not a scripture that will work where you have people with mixed ideas. We all know very well, that this kind of love can only be perfected among true children of God, who are recipients of light, for it is that light in us, that causes us to love one another. “Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.” That knowledge comes to us after we receive of the Spirit, the portion allotted to us. John uses terminology here that lets us know we only receive a measure of the Spirit of God when he sais, “He hath given us OF His Spirit.” But be assured that impartation of His Spirit is sufficient to enable you to walk in the perfect will of God. “And we have seen, and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” Brothers and Sisters: When you read these epistles, and take note of the phrases used by the writers, how freely they spoke of what the Father is, and what he Son is, and was to do, you become conscious of the fact that they had nothing to hide. They did not have to be afraid to mention the Son of God, as the Jesus only people are, and neither did they have to refrain from mentioning both the Father and the Son, for trinity was not even a thought in their minds. They held the original revelation of the Godhead, and did not have to be concerned about critics that would twist what they said, into three persons. They knew when the Son came into the picture as a person, and they knew He was the only person of the Godhead, but they also knew that the Son was in the mind of the Father, even before He ever created that first thing. That is why they could relate such a beautiful picture; they were free to tell it just like it is, as the saying goes. Alright, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” Now saints, here is where we must be wise with our use of the scriptures. This is one verse that is used to fill churches and swell the membership rolls, and it no longer applies to the overall situation at all. You just have to realize that in the hour when John wrote this epistle, no pagan was going to confess that Jesus was the Son of God, unless he himself had received the new birth experience, and it goes without saying, that no Judiastic Jew would make such a confession. Even today, they will still tell you that Jesus was a prophet, but He was not the Messiah. In that day, they could only make such a confession if they had a revelation of it, and they could not have such a revelation until they had received of the Spirit of God to quicken it to them. Only then would they dare to break with their traditional upbringing. “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is LOVE; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in Him.” I do not know how many of you are familiar with denominational methods, but I have seen them wrestle with poor souls to get them out of the pew, and down to the altar, and then they would take this 15th verse and say, Now do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Yes. Do you believe He died on the cross to save lost sinners? Yes. Do you believe He arose from the dead? Yes. Well you are saved then. So they read Romans 10:9 & 10, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Then they come right back to 1st John 4:15, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God,” and psychologically they convince a lot of poor souls that they are saved, and have the Spirit of God dwelling in them, so they place their name on the membership roll, and get them involved in all the programs of the church, and the struggle of trying to be a Christian according to the formula of that particular denomination begins. It depends on which one you are in, what they teach. In some of them that believe in eternal security, you are saved, no matter what you do, and in a lot of the others, you are saved today, lost again the first time you do something wrong, and you must get saved all over again. God called all of this darkness, before it ever even got to be like it is, because of His great foreknowledge. All such tactics are the works of darkness. But let me ask you this, Is there anything wrong with the scriptures they use? No, they just use them out of context, without even considering what Jesus said in John 6:44, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” We are living in a day when drunks, gamblers, adulterers, perverts, and even murderers, will say “Yes I believe Jesus was the Son of God,” so I ask you, Are we going to say, “Well according to the Bible, they are saved?” Is that what God wants His true children to see, when they read these verses? I hardly think so. If the Spirit of God really gets hold of your heart, draws you to His word, and baptizes you with His Spirit, you do not need a legalist to tell you what you have; you already know you have been accepted, by His Spirit that is in you. Praise God! I am so glad that He bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and that we do not have to worry about losing our salvation every time we sneeze at an inopportune time. No wonder Peter wrote, that we can “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” No wonder we just automatically love some people the first time we ever see them. If God is love, and you are dwelling (or abiding) in that love, and I am dwelling in that love also, then when we meet, regardless of where or when, there is something that draws us together, and that something is God that is in us.
FEAR HATH TORMENT
Let us notice verse 17 now, which says, “herein is our love made perfect, (That word HEREIN, means, by this, so remembering what is written in the preceding verses, we read, By this is our love made perfect) that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.” Naturally that is speaking of the judgment seat of Christ, when He judges our faithfulness, and gives out rewards. That is the only judgment a true child of God will ever have to stand in, for our sins have all been blotted out by the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus the Son was a perfect example of obedience to the will of the Father, and that is exactly what every true child of God should have as their goal in this world, perfect obedience to the will and purpose of God our heavenly Father. Jesus never did go out just looking for trouble, but being led by the Spirit as He was, He was always in the right place at the right time, when the Father wanted something said to a certain bunch of skeptics. Furthermore He never agreed with tradition that first time, so do not feel strange when you must restrain yourself from agreeing at times, when it may look to everyone around you that you should. You just simply cannot agree that there is a great worldwide revival sweeping the earth, when you see all the signs of the times pointing to the sure judgment of God. Neither can we agree that God loves everyone, when the scriptures make it so plain that God hates idolaters, and all such like. We just have to learn that God wants us to have compassion, but not sympathy. Compassion will always find its proper course, but sympathy can very easily identify with the wrong side. When truth from the word of God cuts someone to the bone, it is all right to have compassion; that is of God. But to sympathize with them is a rotten thing to do. When we first came out of the Methodist Church, we would sit there in the tabernacle, and Bro. William Branham would push a point across, and it was just like taking a sword, and reaching over, and nipping off a little at a time. Sure it hurts! But what is the sword of the Spirit for? What is it supposed to do? It cuts off the flesh, those old traditional ideas and habits. We can just get so proud in things we think are so right, when they are not right at all. It is the purpose of God, for us to be set free from all of those assumed ideas and opinions about what a Christian is, and is not, and He sets us free by telling us the truth. The truth of God’s word is what settles us in the faith, and brings about our statural growth. Let us read verse 18 now. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” Now does that mean that we should stand in the middle of the road with a huge lion bearing down upon us, and not be afraid? Are we supposed to have enough love, that we will not be scared of that lion? No, that is not what it is talking about at all. It is talking about that inner fear that is felt many times, when the devil creates situations and circumstances around you, and you cannot really be sure which course to follow. You search the scriptures for the answer, and the answer does not come immediately, and all the time the devil is whispering in your ear, If you were really a child of God, you would do thus and so. Or many times the devil sees God putting a hunger in someone’s heart to walk with Him in truth, so he will get their relatives, or their closest friends to go to work on him, or her, Don’t you love me any more? Just think of all the good times we have had together. You can be a good Christian without leaving here, and are you sure this is what God wants you to do? Most of you here, have heard similar things at one time or another, but what choice do you have, when the Spirit of God starts dealing with you, to break you loose from everything that has been holding you back? You love them, and you do not want to hurt them, but deep within, you hear these words, Follow me. It requires a choice. Will you continue on in the same routine, or will you follow this invisible God, that you cannot even see? If you do not have a revelation to do what you are anticipating, you will lay down at night, and roll and toss, trying to sleep, but sleep will not come to you. You pray, Oh Lord, I want to do your will, but I hate to hurt the people I love. You are tormented with an inner fear that affects your whole makeup. The devil will show you all the wrong scriptures for he knows you do not yet know how to rightly divide the word of truth. You see, he knows the scriptures. He has no trouble at all with the Godhead. The trouble he has with the Godhead, is trying to keep his perverted version from being recognized as a perversion. HE is the one that sold the trinity to the church, and he does his level best to keep them from finding out that the three persons concept came from him. James wrote, in verse 19, of chapter 2, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils (demons) also believe, and tremble.” So as long as you hesitate, and do not know how to reach out by faith, he will keep you full of fear and torment. You say you love God, but deep inside, there is a fear of doing the wrong thing, so what is wrong? Actually we can say, the love you thought you had for God is not perfected. It is still a very weak driving force for you. But when you once wake up, and realize, God is light; I can follow that light without fear. Sure I am going to lose friends, and maybe even have enemies in my own household, but did not Jesus say it would be that way? You do not purposely make enemies of them; that is just the way it turns out. You just follow God, and let him take care of those details. He will give you a family that knows what love really is. They will love you for what you really are, and they will have compassion, because most of them have had to go through the same things you have been through. Therefore when you do finally get settled in the true love of God, there is no fear in that love. Let the relatives cry, let the old friends scream, you have made up your mind to follow God. You are going to walk in the light of truth, by the help and strength of an invisible God. We do not love God first, “We love Him, because He first loved us.”
TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME SCRIPTURE
Brothers and Sisters: If I have learned anything at all about studying the word of God, it is this, Do not ever try to build a revelation off of one little word, or one verse alone, and do not try to make a literal application today, of every scripture that might have a literal application when it was written. Some people get so hung up on one little word, they just simply cannot move on with God. That is why I say, Let us always look at a complete picture. The Bible says, “No man hath seen God at any time”, and then you look back, and begin to say, Abraham saw Him, Moses saw Him, Isaac saw Him, and Jacob even wrestled with Him, and said I have met God face to face. Did he? Jacob wrestled with an angel of the Lord, and limped the rest of his life. I think it would be good for a lot of these Gentiles, if they could wrestle with Him, and limp the rest of their lives. They might have something in their head besides a lot of theological junk. When we speak of God, or Elohim, or Jehovah, or of the self existing one, we surely ought to know that we are not speaking of a person that sits on a chair somewhere in glory. Yet some people are so carnal. They read Isaiah 66:1, which says, Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest? Then they put that with Genesis 1:26, where God said, Let us make man in our image, and they can see an aged old man sitting some place, saying to His Son, Jesus make us a man, and Jesus make the man an help mate, and all such. No wonder the world of religion is in such a mess, when people who are supposed to be leaders of the faith, have that kind of concept about God. Actually that verse in Isaiah speaks of how God rests in His creation. John was caught up in the Spirit, (Rev. 4:2 & 3) and transported into heaven, in the year 96 A.D., and what did he see? He saw only one throne, and only one seated upon that throne, yet your Trinitarians read where Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand, and they visualize two chairs, and two literal persons sitting upon them. They just simply cannot reconcile these symbolic terms to an invisible God. Yet every true child of God will, so that just lets us know how thick this spiritual darkness really is, in places that claim to be a great lighthouse for God. I hope all of you can see, that before the incarnation there at the Jordan River, every act of God was by one sovereign mind, and that one mind, was the mind of the Father, which is an invisible Spirit. All of those throne scenes in the Old Testament, carry a picture of something this invisible Spirit will accomplish one day. Whatever anyone saw in any kind of vision was just symbolic of something that would one day be, but none of it was meant to make God, the Father, a person. We refer back to our text, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him: and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Now verse 14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Now when you read those verses, and you already have your mind made up, that God is three persons, it just seems like this is all the proof you need to prove it. To the natural mind, the trinity sees more than one person there, and the Jesus only people can look at the same verses, and they see the one in verse 1, becoming the one in verse 14, but a true revelation sees neither version. If the Jesus only people were right, there would never have been but one mind involved. They look at it from the standpoint that when the Baby Jesus was born literally, God was born, mainly because of Isaiah 9:6. You know what it says. We have already read it. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” Then they put that with 1st Timothy 3:16, God was manifest in the flesh, and to them, this one became this one, and that is all there is to the Godhead. (I am using two cups, one a little smaller than the other, in order to illustrate the incarnation.) But if you look at the Godhead like that, you have just as many scriptures that cannot be explained as the trinity people do. First of all, when you say God was born, you are in trouble, for He is without beginning or end. Then you have only one mind in the picture, so you are saying that God was tempted by the devil, in the wilderness, and James 1:13 plainly tells us that “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.” Furthermore when the devil came to Jesus tempting Him, he did not say, If thou be God do thus and so; he said, If thou be the Son of God, turn these stones to bread, and so forth. Also you would have the eternal God kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane begging Himself to be spared of death, and we all know God cannot die, nor cry, so it is no wonder the trinity people are afraid of you. Even as strange as their trinity is, they have a higher respect for God’s sovereignty than that. But that is like trying to choose between the lesser of two evils. Both concepts are absolutely ridiculous. Neither one will line up with the scriptures. The trinity people who love to speak of the Son of God, and what a great mystery the three in one is, having no answer at all when you ask them to explain how Jesus could have two daddies. Now you say, Why ask such a question? But I have to, for they say the Father is a person, the Son is a person, and the Holy Ghost is a person, and that the one they call Father, is the Father of Jesus, but as I have already pointed out, Matthew 1:20 says Mary conceived of the Holy Ghost, and Luke 1:32 says, “He shall be called the Son of the Highest,” and verse 35 says, “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” so as I look at what they teach, and compare it with the scriptures, I have to say, If the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost are all three persons, Jesus had two daddies, or two Fathers, however you choose to say it. The only possible answer is, that the Father and the Holy Ghost are one and the selfsame Spirit, and not persons at all, and Jesus the Son is the only person of the Godhead. You can line that up with any statement in the Bible, once you see it by divine revelation, and you can explain the Godhead. It ceases to be an unexplainable mystery. The Holy Ghost that works in the New Testament dispensation in redemption and regeneration, is the same omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Spirit that worked in creation, and is called Father, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Then one other point that I would like to restate is, The Bible says that when Jesus was baptized, the Holy Ghost descended upon Him, in bodily shape as a dove, and that Spirit indwelt Him, but every mention Jesus ever made of what was in Him, was that the Father was in Him. Read your Bible, and then come and tell me whether I have told you the truth or not. Paul instructed Timothy to study to show himself approved unto God. Rightly dividing the word of truth.
GOD CANNOT DIE
I have heard the statement many times God gave His life on the cross for you. No, He didn’t! God cannot die. He gave the life of His Son on the cross. Do you oneness people really want to commit the keeping of your destiny into the hands of a God that could die? Think about it. That is not the kind of God I serve. That is not the kind of God the apostles wrote about either. They said God gave His only begotten Son. In order for you Jesus only people to keep your concept of God consistent, you say that when Jesus arose from the dead, and forty days later ascended into heaven, His body of clay just simply disintegrated, and went back to gases, and the Spirit that was here, in Him, is infused back in with the Father. That is a terrible misrepresentation of a beautiful picture. You do not like to be referred to as “Jesus only,” but that is the most accurate way to speak of you, for there are a lot of us that believe in one God, and we believe it is all right to say, Jesus was, or is God, but I assure you, we have a much different picture of the Godhead than what you present. I see an invisible God (not with my natural eyes, they only see His handiwork) that premeditated and determined everything that He was going to do, and knowing how it would all turn out, before He ever even started to create anything. He knew what Adam would do, so that is why Jesus was as a Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. He knew what you and I would do when we heard the gospel, so that is why our names were written in the Lamb’s book of life from before the foundation of the world. Saints, it is a beautiful picture, if you know how to look at it. I see God in the flowers that bloom in their season, and the little birds that chirp and sing, and flutter around doing what they were created to do, and in a baby’s smile, and in the preciseness with which the planets keep their course. I see Him as the highest source of intelligence in the universe, and as a God that makes no mistakes, but I cannot see Him in all of this confusion out here in the realm of religion. I see the old devil there. He has never created anything good; he only perverts what God has already created, or established. Everything we see, touch, or taste, is a product of a manifested thought of God, or the manifested thought of God, the Word, the Logos. It was all in His great mind before He ever started to materialize His thought, but do not try to associate that omniscient mind with a head, for there was no tangible head involved. An invisible Spirit has no head, nor bodily shape. When He created man in His own image, He created a spirit being, and only gave him a body of clay for the purpose of fulfilling his responsibility on earth. He put the man on earth, in a physical body, and commanded him to replenish the earth. To replenish, is to refill. That is one of the keys that lets us know there was a prehistoric creation upon earth before it became void and without form. I will not go into that now, for that is another message. Our purpose in this message is to help every true child of God that reads it, gain a Biblical revelation of the Godhead, for Jesus is not coming after a bunch of confused people. He is coming after those that have allowed His word to wash all tradition out of them, and give them a true revelation. We will never have the mind of Christ until He has been allowed to take control of our minds, and cleanse them of all manmade traditions. If we will just let Him have control, we will know the reality of what Paul wrote about in the first chapter of Ephesians. Beginning in verse 3, notice what he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: (When did He do this? Before the foundation of the world.) According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; (Notice here) Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ (or through Jesus the Christ) to Himself, according to the good pleasure of HIS WILL.” What is this all leading to? To the very thing God had in mind before the world was created. He wanted the world filled with sons and daughters of His very image, and that is what He will have when redemption is finished. Every last soul that escapes the lake of fire will walk in perfect fellowship with their Creator, and Jesus the Son, the only begotten Son, will be our elder brother. Praise His great name.
WAS MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS?
Let us take a minute to clear up another concept a lot of people have. You have no doubt heard someone say, Mary was not the mother of Jesus no more than Joseph was His Father. But wait a minute before you accept that. They say Mary was just an incubator, but what do you think Mary would say, if you could ask her? Do you think she ever forgot how she carried that little form of life for nine months? Do you think her period of pregnancy, and His birth was any different than any other? I have said this, If you can prove to me, that Jesus did not have a navel cord when He was born, I will say no more, but I believe we all know that He did. God only bypassed the genetic law of reproduction, and created that little embryo in Mary’s womb, but He did not set up a freakish situation like some would have it. If you see something that causes you to want to say Mary was not His mother, then for goodness sakes say, Genetically she was not His mother. That will be right. For if He had possessed any of Mary’s genes, He would not have been sinless, for Mary had inherited sin, just like all the rest of us. Therefore even though He had no inherited nature from Mary, every fiber of His body of clay was made of elements from her very own body. Another statement we hear from time to time is this, Jesus was neither Jew nor Gentile. But do not carry that too far, or you will wind up in a corner. Do you think He who is going to manifest Himself through this vessel of flesh, is going to cause a little flesh child to be born into this world, that carries no physical likeness that you can identify with any race: Among the Jewish race, which is the semetic line, He would have looked like a freak, because the semetic race has black hair, and dark eyes. Are you listening to me? Do you want me to believe He had blonde hair and blue eyes? No, brothers and sisters, when He came to His own, I say He looked as much like a Jew as anyone could, because as far as His flesh was concerned, there was not one thing about Him, that would make anyone think He was unusual. He grew up in Nazareth, looking just like any other Jew. Again we can say, Technically He was neither Jew nor Gentile, because genetically He came from neither, but I believe we would have to realize that when Jehovah came to His own, according to His promise, and according to all that He had prefigured through types and shadows, He came in a physical form that would not be all that different from any other Jew. They would see nothing about His physical flesh that could make any difference. It was what was unfolded from within that flesh that made the difference. But do not forget this, Jesus did no miracles whatsoever in the first thirty years of His life. He only performed miracles, after the Father took possession of His flesh. He was not born the incarnate God. The life in Him was the very life substance of God, it is true, but it was that part that had been separated from His own substance, to form that little cell of life in the womb of Mary: from where the first perfect child that was ever born on this earth would come forth. He was the first and only perfect child that has ever been born of woman, and He knew how to pray and tap the resources of heaven without having to be taught. So, brothers and sisters, if you can truly see with a spiritual eye, the things we have been presenting to you, you can understand why Jesus could correctly say, In John 16:28, “I cam forth from the father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” His disciples understood. Notice how they reacted to His statement. Verse 29, “His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.” They knew in what substance He came forth from God. They did not need anyone to tell them, that He did not exist with the Father as a person in Creation. They were Jews. They always believed that God was one. If the translators of the King James Bible had not all been Trinitarians, we would not have so many scriptures in the New Testament that make it sound like God could be more than one.
DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE
I have a Lamsa translation here, (I believe he was a Persian) so I want to show you the difference in the wording of Ephesians 3:9, between the King James version, and the Lamsa version translated right from the Aramic. The King James says, “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST.” Now that was Trinitarians that translated that, so when Trinitarians read it, they read it with the same mind as the translators who conveyed the thought like that. But notice how this other version is translated. You do not see more than one God in the picture there. The same verse says, “And that I might enlighten all men, that they may see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages had been hidden from the world by GOD WHO CREATED ALL THINGS.” That is strictly the difference made by the translators. Each group was translating the words of the apostle Paul, but in the Lamsa translation, you find no mention of the Son at all. I have another translation here that carries the same thought as the Lamsa. “And to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which for ages has been hid in Elohim who created all things.” I believe you can see that much of the confusion in religion yet today, is a result of Trinitarian translators. I could show you a lot more, if we had the time, but we do not. Furthermore let me say this, we could not add one extra name to the book of life if we corrected every Bible in print today. We will never convert the world, no matter what we say. Why do you preach so hard then?, some will say. Because there are still some hungry souls out there, that love to hear truth. They want to learn. They make up part of that glorious church without spot or wrinkle, that Jesus Christ is going to present to Himself, according to Ephesians 5:27. God is redeeming His lost children, getting them reconciled back to their heavenly Father, so that one day Revelation 22 will be a fulfilled reality. Hallelujah! God the great eternal Spirit will descend back to earth in the fullness of His Shekinah glory, to dwell back in the presence of His redeemed children, in the fulness of Himself. That is what all of this is about, so let us live every day for Him, for the time is short. Do not be guilty of playing around with His word, when you need to be getting dressed up with it. God bless you. Amen.