WE ARE GOING TO DEAL WITH A SUBJECT IN THE LIGHT OF PRESENT DAY EVENTS, A SUBJECT I HAVE NEVER BEEN LED TO DEAL WITH IN THIS WAY BEFORE. THERE HAVE BEEN THINGS GOING ON BEHIND THE SCENES FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS THAT ARE NOW BEGINNING TO COME TO THE FOREFRONT, CERTAIN THINGS THAT ACTUALLY PROMPT ME TO DEAL WITH THIS SUBJECT OF THE WISE AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS, SPOKEN OF BY JESUS IN MATTHEW, CHAPTER 24.

NATURALLY MOST OF US ARE AWARE OF WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR THE PAST 2 ½ YEARS WITH SOME OF THE BIG EVANGELISTS OF OUR DAY, HOW THEY ARE BEING INVESTIGATED AND SHAKEN; BUT I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IS REALLY TAKING PLACE, AND WHY? IT IS THE SHAKING OF ALL THINGS, SPOKEN OF IN THE 12^TH CHAPTER OF HEBREWS. IN OTHER WORDS, EVERYTHING WILL BE SHAKEN, AND ONLY THAT WHICH CANNOT BE SHAKEN APART WILL REMAIN. THAT IS WHY I FEEL WE SHOULD INTERRUPT THE SERIES WE HAVE BEEN RUNNING, AND INSERT THIS PRESENT HOUR MESSAGE RIGHT HERE. THEN, IF TIME SHOULD LAST LONG ENOUGH, WE WILL STILL END OUR SERIES WITH THE TWO SUBJECTS PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED, “THE BEAST AND THE FALSE PROPHET” AND THE “NEW CITY OF PARADISE.” IT IS ESSENTIAL, THAT WE DEAL WITH THIS MESSAGE AT THIS TIME; BECAUSE MANY THINGS ARE TAKING PLACE, THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING. WE ARE TOLD, IN THE BIBLE, THAT IT IS GOING TO BE LIKE THIS; BUT FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE READ RIGHT OVER IT AND FEEL THAT ALL THINGS SHOULD JUST COAST ALONG LIKE THEY HAVE IN THE PAST. WELL SAINTS, THAT CAN NEVER BE TRUE ANY MORE; WE ARE TOO CLOSE TO THE END; SO LET US LOOK AT THINGS IN THE LIGHT OF WHERE WE ARE TIME WISE; AND I BELIEVE IT WILL BE CLEAR TO ALL OF US, WHAT IS TAKING PLACE IN RELIGION AND POLITICS AROUND THE WORLD.

GOD’S INFALLIBLE WORD FOR OUR DAY

The Bible is the true Christian’s road map for this walk of life. It was not written just for man to read words and then jump over them and pick out certain points of his own interest, things that satisfy his own ego, and then treat the rest of it like it is nothing. No. It is not put together that way. Every scripture is written for our admonition, our instruction, and for our own correction, if we just know how to read it and let the Spirit of God apply it to our lives for that purpose. In the last few weeks since the news media has hit another element of big time TV evangelism, a lot of people thing that is the devil trying to destroy Christianity. That is not the devil after Christianity. It is fulfilling the word of God. The Bible says in the Epistle of Peter, The time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. You and I know the whole religious world claims to be the true Church of God, the Church that had its beginning in the book of Acts. By these things that are going on, and the way they are being dealt with, God is proving to those who want to know the truth, that not every one who claims to be called to minister to the bride of Christ is telling the truth; and not every institution that claims to be the Church of the living God is. Most of them are counterfeit. Some are just deceived; but a great host of those who claim to love the Lord so much, and that claim to have such a burden for the lost, are just doing what they are doing for personal material gain. They could not care less about the lost and suffering souls they pretend to be ministering to. We have a gullible society in the world today, especially in America. They want just enough religion to pacify them and make them feel secure. They will tell you, I am not going to hell because I believe in this man’s ministry. I watch him on TV every week, and I tell you, he is such a blessing to me. Then go right on down the road of life and live just as careless and carefree as anyone could, without a revelation an understanding of how to walk with God. They have a little something in their head; but they have nothing that motivates their heart. They will send money to whoever can give them this comfortable feeling without giving any attention at all to what the Bible says about how we are to live. God has tolerated all of that until the cup of abominations of a certain element became full; and now it is shaking time. He will shake everything; and only that which cannot be shaken will remain when He is finished with the shaking. Let us read about 3 verses in the 12^th chapter of Hebrews. (12:25-27) “See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but not He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” No saints, it is not the devil destroying these manmade systems of religion; it is just simply time for God to shake them. Therefore we are dealing with this subject in the light of what has come about in the past twenty some years since Bro. William Branham and his unique ministry was on earth. I am not going to stand here and preach to you about a man, without trying from the scriptures to show you the importance of such a figure. I want to show you also, how people many times are very prone to let the devil get on them and motivate, and propel them forth down the road of life very carelessly, in-differently thinking, We have found a good thing. People are like kids many times. They like to play with what looks good. You do not play with the plan of God and get by with it forever. It is something we have to allow the Spirit of God to put together in our lives. It then becomes a motivating factor to your soul. Otherwise, what you have been privileged to see, and privileged to hear, can eventually be turned in reverse. That is exactly according to the Bible. I will be using the 6^th chapter of St. John, where Jesus took a multitude of disciples out into a desolate place and fed them; because this is what preceded the other event I want to deal with. He took them far enough away from the vicinity of Hardees, Wendy’s, Burger Chef and all the places where people just step in anytime and buy a hamburger, that He might have an opportunity to reveal something to some of them. I am just giving this a twentieth century setting, using these names. If Jesus were here in our day and He was to repeat this same thing, that is the way the writings of it would be. In other words, He took them far enough away from their usual surroundings that this multitude did not have access to food. Then He took the lunch of a little boy and multiplied it many times over and fed five thousand men, besides women and children. When He was finished, each of His twelve closest disciples gathered up a basket full of fragments. That was more than they started with. Do you know what happened that day? A bunch of those ecclesiastical, Pharisee Jews sitting there on the ground with a stomach full of food, got a revelation. (We will call it that.) They got a revelation similar to what a lot of these Gentile Christians get today. It is one thing to get a revelation, but it is another thing to know what to do with it after we get it. God will judge us by the means of how we saw it and what we have allowed to come about because of it. You know yourselves how they began to mumble among themselves saying, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” Looking back to Deuteronomy, they recognized that this man could very well be exactly what they had been looking for. Jesus had to leave there immediately, to keep them from taking Him by force, to make Him their king. Did they care about His teachings? No. They were just looking at what a king like that could do for them. They could eat until they were full and never have to earn their bread again. They were ready to take a revelation they had gotten, (He truly was that prophet; but little did they realize that making Him a king like they had in mind, was going to displease God altogether.) And jump ahead of God by immediately making Him their king, thinking only of the loaves and fishes they had enjoyed. Jesus Himself said so. He said, You are not seeking me because of the miracles, you seek me because you have eaten of the loaves and were filled. Before the whole episode ended, they were ready to stone Him to death. Why? Because they were offended by His teaching. People are fickle like that. They will love you as long as you are doing something for them that their flesh enjoys; but the minute you say something that crosses their traditional ideas, they are ready to hang you for sure.

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT FAITHFULNESS

I want us to read a few verses from Matthew 24; and we will start with verse 32, for this parable of the fig tree leads right into what I want to deal with in depth. Speaking to His disciples, Jesus gave them the parable of the fig tree, a parable relating to the restoration of the nation Israel, which of course came about in the month of May 1948. “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” After that, He touched on another point, bringing in a two fold thought. (Matthew 24:37) “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” You would have to be blind not to realize that this it’s the number one picture in our modern, decaying society of this hour. What is going on out there today that makes this a parable for our day, is the perversion and overall break down of morals. Just think, We have a legalistic, liberalistic society today, that says we have no right to condemn their lifestyle. God has already condemned it; and those guilty ones are destined for death, hell and destruction. Those of that sort who even read the Bible just jump right over what the word of God declares is the penalty for that kind of life style. They ignore it and go right on to church; and dare anyone to speak one word against the way they live. That is a sign; and we will miss God if we fail to read it and prepare ourselves. When that sign is present, and is hanging before a society, He goes ahead and says, (Matthew 24:38-39) “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe (or Noah) entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” That is plain enough anyone should be able to recognize the hour we are living in; but there are multitudes in the world today that do not recognize such a sign; therefore they are totally unaware of the hour we are living in. Most of them do not believe this book contains the infallible word of an omniscient God. They think it is just a book of myths for simple minded people who are sour on what is in, if I may use that term. Well Jesus said they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away. The He jumped to another thought. Notice, “And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” When Jesus said, So shall also the coming of the Son of man be, He was actually speaking in reference to the time when He comes for His Church; because the coming of Christ has to be understood in a two fold manner. First you have the mystical coming, when He comes for those who have a revelation of Him from His word. This revelation is what gathers an element of people together from out of systems of religion, to fellowship around a revelation of truth. Then as that revelation of Christ begins to become more and more a great image of Him, that automatically leads into the event of Him calling the Church unto Himself in the clouds of glory. That is what He is talking about here. When that time approaches, for there to be a coming and catching away, right here He explains how the catching away will catch the world in general unaware. “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.” In other words, world commerce and industry is not going to stop for that occasion; for they will not know what is going on. However when He comes revealed from heaven in flaming fire with all His Holy angels and all the saints of glory, you can rest assured, industry will stop then. Commerce will come to a quick halt. Everything will stop. Why? Because the Bible says Philippians 2:9-11 “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 that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” That is why the Bible portrays in the book of Revelation how they will flee to find hiding places and beg the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from His face. Let us just watch how He relates all of this to His disciples. He told them how the translation will come about so unannounced, so secret the world population in general will never even know what is happening. They will just continue right on in their same old pattern of life, eating, drinking, marrying and having a good time, not even thinking about a time when they will have to give an account of what they have so carelessly given themselves over to in this life. Nevertheless He is coming for His bride Church one day soon; and nothing any of that worldly conglomeration of mankind does will hinder it in the least. There are the perverts of ever sort, out here demanding their rights, feeling they are just as good as anyone else. Well when I read my Bible, I find that God did not feel that way. He completely destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for that very thing; and has never apologized for it yet. Furthermore no matter what this weak bunch of politicians in Washington D.C. does, trying to give this perverted society every possible benefit in this life, the day is coming when God will burn every last one of them without mercy. No, I am not happy about it. I am happy to be a child of God though; and whatever He sees fit to do is right as far as I am concerned. The careless lives of these perverts and this pleasure seeking society has been the cause of such an alarming number of people being found with the Aids virus; and they want the rest of us to feel sympathetic toward them. I feel sorry for the little children that are born of individuals who are caught in the scope of this thing; but you can rest assured, they cannot blame the Christian people for bringing this cursed thing into this nation, or any other nation. Those who live such careless lives are the ones that introduced it into society; and they want everyone else to have a taste of their own wrong doing; and then expect the tax payers, the laboring people to pay the medical bills. What an evil picture this is. To think that god would allow this sort of thing to go on for ever and ever without dealing with it, is a very unscriptural way to look at it. He will not let it go on forever. Having these conditions so prevalent, and pressing so hard on society, Jesus said to the believers, “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” That is not for the world. That is for the true believer. Now we said this before, It is true the Bride will never know the day and hour of the coming of Jesus; it is not necessary that she know the exact day and hour. What do you think He put the fig tree parable in the Bible for though, if it is not to let the believer know the season of His coming? It is a sign to let you and I know, that when we see the fig tree blossoming, blooming, getting ready to bear fruit, the season is at hand. All that adds up to the fact the coming of Jesus is getting very close. Matthew 24:43-44 “But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” In other words He used a natural point to state the reality of what He was revealing. Let me break it down like this. If you lived in a community and you knew that there was a tendency that certain individuals in that community were constantly breaking into other people’s homes, would you just sit nonchalantly and say, Oh they will never come into mine? Would you leave your house with valuable belonging you have invested a lot of money in, just because you have an attitude, oh they will never break into mine? Would you leave your doors unlocked? Would you leave all hindrances to such a thing out of the picture? That is why He used this illustration; we are not to become careless and indifferent toward the coming of the Lord. If we get to thinking we can just coast on in, we need to take another look at the word of God; for it teaches us to be diligent in looking for that day. To be diligent, is to exercise great effort and care. Notice how the apostle Peter used the word in 2^nd Peter 3:13-14. “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” That tells me we have to be ready every day, every hour for the Lord to call us home. That leaves no room for careless living. In such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh. It is one thing to know in your heart where you stand, and have an assurance that Jesus in not going to slip up on you; but it is another thing just to get carried away with such an inner feeling of confidence, that we lose sight of reality, and of what is going on in the world about us. He says this as a warning. “If the goodman of the house, (a sensible man, a wise man that is the owner of valuable property and will never go away and leave it unattended, making it an open temptation for a thief to come along and take whatever he chooses to) had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up, (that means, Watch for your soul, nobody else is going to be responsible for it.) Therefore be ye also ready: (This is not the world being ready. This is you and me being ready.) For in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” To do what? To take one that is in the bed and leave the other. To find two in the field, take one, and leave the other. In Luke, it says, Two shall be grinding at the mill, (that is pointing to industry) one shall be taken and the other left. All these are illustrative of how we should approach unto and look at the time we are living in. Then as we come into the season of time when this great event is (by all signs) getting very close at hand, verse 45, which is our main text scripture, gives us another thought to be aware of, just who are the wise servants God has chosen to give us meat in due season, to help us further prepare to meet our Lord and Savior when He comes for His bride Church?

WHO ARE THE WISE AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS OF OUR DAY

We have titled this message, Meat in Due Season; so let us read the scripture from which we get such a title. (Matthew 24:45-47) “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.” Who, then, really poses two questions. The first is WHO, and the second, THEN, causes one to ask, When is THEN? The word THEN, is a future tense word; and it is not applicable 50-100 years before the time Jesus had in mind. When is that? The time just prior to His coming for His bride. That is what HE was talking about in the verses preceding this one, a time when society in general is living like they were in Noah’s day, just prior to the flood that destroyed them all. When you have a society like that, then know that somewhere within that same condition of time, the Lord is coming for His people. As we begin to realize we are approaching that time, then do not take this scripture and try to apply it anywhere else in time. It is not applicable anywhere else. “Who then (That is the question to be answered) is a faithful and wise servant.” It is true He spoke it in the singular; but we should always remember this, When God is going to do something, yet in the end He is going to hold each man responsible as to what he has done with what was committed to him, or how he uses it, every man is judged separately. It is not written in a collective sense. It is written in the singular. It shows how He will look upon that particular person as to how he has conducted himself. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household?” This does not mean one preacher is lord over God’s whole kingdom. No. That is what we have going on in the world today. These men get on TV and hit into a channel, a channel of psychological manipulations. They begin to see how it works. Then before very long they are hiding and masking that behind a cloak. Come help me build the kingdom of God. They are not building the kingdom of God. They are building a monetary, materialistic empire for themselves, to sit lord over. They are not going to share themselves nor their means with anyone unless they see some monetary advantage to it; because they claim God gave them what they have, therefore it belongs to them. In other words, What is mine, is mine. Brothers and sisters, Jesus was not talking about a different category of men altogether. He was talking about men that God has dealt with, and is still dealing with. Men that God Himself is seeking to equip, train and mold into an image of something that will carry on and do His will in these last days when time itself does become “THEN.” The THEN, does not last forever. Then, they will not look back. Let me continue reading. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over His household (meaning He put him in the ministry to work within that realm of His kingdom, His spiritual house) to give (who?) them (a plural word. The THEM of that verse is God’s true people.) meat (the word meat here speaks of feeding a meal. We can say, A meal is like when you sit down at the table for a breakfast meal, or lunch, or a dinner meal. That is really what it is implying. Give them a meal. When?) in due season.” Therefore He is actually saying, When the world is like He described and people are like they were in Noah’s day, He will be dealing with another people that is really going to be His own, and the ones He is coming after, and He will have some wise servants among them, to feed them suitable spiritual food. This describes how those wise servants in the end will appear in the eyes of God. Because God will see to it that they have given His people meat in due season. I will finish reading the rest of these scriptures and then we will go back to our text. The Lord said, “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” Naturally when he cometh, is speaking of His coming for the Church; it will not be His visible return to earth in power and glory to reign. That is not when He is going to say, Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing; because that has already been taken care of in heaven, at the judgment seat of Christ, before He comes to rule from His throne in Jerusalem. Think about what He said. “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” Doing what? Giving people the kind of meat that is applicable for the day time they are living in. In other words, Taking the word of God and breaking it down in an understandable way. We are all guilty of getting so involved in certain things ever so often, that we neglect to eat at the regular time, and we fail to eat the proper food when we do grab a bite to eat. However we all know there are three times a day that has been established in society from one end of this earth to another, that we are to expect to have a certain kind of food set before us. The breakfast meal is usually different than the noon or evening meal. You expect to eat certain things for breakfast, prepared a certain way, different than what one would expect later on in the day. It is one thing to eat fried eggs, biscuits, gravy, bacon or ham for breakfast. That is a breakfast diet. All of that is good; but nothing but that, three times a day, you would eventually get tired of eating the same old thing. Your taste buds would soon say, I’m getting tired of fried eggs, ham, bacon, biscuits and gravy. Yet it is enough to make anyone look forward to breakfast. WE have restaurants that capitalize on that, we serve biscuits and gravy. A lot of them do. You may be thinking, What is he getting at? What I am establishing, is what Jesus was setting apart from the usual every day kind of ministry you may have seen in the past. He knew there would be a people that would know how to break it down. People through the centuries have learned that there are types of foods that are prepared a certain way for dinner. They will use leftovers, warmed over, for supper. However we all know, if you look at these meals in the realm of royalty, royalty does not eat leftovers for supper. They may hand that out to the servants, but in royalty, there are three distinct meals that stand out, and it is fixed precisely a certain way that is applicable for the time of day. What Jesus is talking about here, is not that we should keep on eating leftovers and not waste anything. He is talking about feeding spiritual food in due season, or at the proper time; and there is no such thing as leftovers in the plan of God. God’s wise servants here in the end time, are those who will give themselves completely to doing what He wants done for the true Church He has determined to perfect. Giving them meat in due season, literally means, he is looking at the bride of Christ in the right way. It is one thing to look back and recognize something God did yesterday, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, forty or fifty, or a hundred or so; but it is another thing in the plan of God, for His called out ministry to be ready to recognize what he wants them to do right now, today, and in the days ahead. God never calls preachers to be repetitionists, copy cats. God’s word is so written that when you get up before a congregation and read a chapter, or even a verse, you are expected to be able to explain what it points to. What would you think, if I would establish a procedure whereby I would just step up here and say, This morning, we are going to read the 24^th chapter of Matthew, and when I finish reading it I just dismiss everyone saying, Come back tonight and I will read the 25^th chapter of Matthew, without one word of explanation as to what one should see in those scriptures? All of that was written in the first century of Christianity; and the apostles of Christ made application of what pertained to their day and hour; but much of it only applies to our day and hour; so there has to be servants of God on the scene that know how, by the leading of the Spirit, to pull out the part that applies to our day and make proper application of it. That is meat in due season; and the hour of time when T-H-E-N of the words of Jesus is at hand, God’s true servants will be feeding meat (spiritually speaking) that is fresh from that anointing. It will not be leftovers. That is not the way God’s word was constructed in the first place. He never intended that any preacher just get up and repeat word for word what someone else has preached without enlarging upon it. God’s word is written in a manner so the living minister is able to take it and digest it in his own spiritual system, and through the anointing of the Holy Ghost, put it out in fresh words that makes the thought warm, appetizing, and acceptable to the appetite of those hungry souls he is ministering to. I hate to keep looking back and never recognize what God is doing for today, causes you to be blind and ignorant of what is going on. Therefore blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing, feeding fresh meat. That is the wise servant Jesus was speaking of; and there will be several of them. There will be enough of them to get the work done worldwide. I have said this for years, The Bride of Christ will not be overstocked with unoccupied preachers. Our denominational world has been so filled with preachers looking for a place to preach, nonchalant so called Christians have been able to pick over and choose which one’s they want to listen to. Do you know why it has been like that? It is because God never intended for that kind to grow to be His bride Church. Otherwise it would not have been that way. God has just let them put up with their own wrong cultivation; but the Bride of Christ was never meant to be like that. She is going to have every instrument, every man that God has truly called, schooled and equipped to know exactly what to do and how to go about doing it through the leading of His Spirit, to feed His true people up to date spiritual food right on time. Therefore while the world passes on its way, blind, ignorant, and heading for destruction, the Bride of Jesus Christ is going to be wide awake, spiritually nourished, and well acquainted with the plan of God. Yes. Jesus was talking about that wise servant, or those wise servants, T-H-E-N. When? When the world is exactly as it is today. Only God Himself knows how much longer He is going to allow this ungodliness and overall perversion to go unjudged. It is already judged by the word of God; it is just that the penalty has not yet been activated. It soon will be though; and we will see a little later what the effects of it will be. Nevertheless Jesus said, “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing. (Notice) Verily I say unto you, That He shall make him ruler over all his goods.” That verse belongs in the Millennium. We will not need to preach in the Millennium. That is when we are going to rule and reign with Him. If we suffer with Him now, we have this promise and this hope, we shall rule and reign with Him. Hallelujah! I want to be ready always; and I hope you do too.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE EVIL SERVANTS?

WHO ARE THEY, AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THEM?

We have looked at the first part of what Jesus said about servants; but there is still something else to look at here in this parable. (Matthew 24:48-51) “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming; And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is the opposite of the wise servant. This is not talking about some other character that comes along ten or fifteen years later. This is talking about the counterpart, one that is very much like the other, but ultimately turns out to be the opposite of the wise, living and ministering in the same hour of time as the wise servants. Again let me say, This is not speaking of only one man. It speaks of a large number of so-called ministers of God in these last days. Let us take these next four verses we have just read, one step at a time; for I need to dwell on parts of them. “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming.” I want to put this in present tense application so you will realize just exactly who it applies to. This verse has no application in the Catholic Church realm; because you will not hear a one of them saying, Jesus ought to have come back by now; He is delaying His coming. Neither can you apply it to the Lutheran Church, nor the Episcopal Church, just to mention a few. None of them are saying anything that fits into this parable. Not eve the United Pentecostals. There is one movement on the face of the earth today that this verse is applicable to. That movement has grown, and is now recognized throughout the world, numbering into the thousands of multiplied thousands of people all over the earth. They are believing in an end time message, delivered to us by a last day prophet messenger whose name is none other than William Marrion Branham. I am going to explain directly why it was so important there be such a man; but let me run this thought straight through first. God so manifested His Spirit in this man’s life and used him as in instrument to bring forth revelations from His word, that it completely blinded a lot of those who followed the man’s teaching. When God used him to take the wraps off of certain scriptures, to give people an understanding in depth of what those scriptures pertained to, it fascinated a great number of Gentiles to the extent that they can see the man as nothing less than deity himself. This fascination has grown around the world until it has become a great blinding spirit. As the Spirit of God worked through this man demonstrating His sovereign power and authority, it caused a great number of those Gentiles to look at this man with questions in their own minds. Did you ever take something out to a young puppy dog that he has never eaten before? I have watched them, how after a while, when they sense that there is no danger, they will just go right into it for all that they are worth. Well we had Gentiles twenty and thirty years back, who had the privilege of seeing God in these last days, as He worked through a man in much the same way He worked through His only begotten Son over 1900 years ago; and that caused many of those people to act just like the young puppy dog I described. Some of them, because they just simply did not know what to think about what they say and heard, just sniffed and walked away saying, I will leave that for someone else; because they felt there was something wrong in the whole picture. Others came, sniffed like the little puppy and said, This is for me; and they jumped right in the middle of it all; but never were able to put it all into proper perspective for their own lives. Eventually they ended up like the little puppy that ate so much it made him sick, they are sitting somewhere so sick of all of that they do not know what to do. They ate so much without understanding what they were eating, it made them sick. Now they are lying sick somewhere saying, Oh my Lord, I wish I had some help, I know not what to do. Others jumped in the same way; but did not get sick. They ate at that table and began to digest what they ate, in their spirit, and soon began to come up with strange ideas, all because of the uniqueness of the man’s ministry. They began to question, Is this none other than Jesus Himself? Could this be the Messiah? Surely that has to be the Lord, what do you think brother? I heard Bro. William Branham make a statement one time, about that very thing. He emphatically denied that he was the Messiah, the Lord, or anything like that. I am going to use his own words a little later in the message; because around the world today, some of those of that element have gone to the ends of the earth telling people to stay away from that man Jackson. Why do they do that, and what reason do they give people? They themselves are jealous of my ministry; and they tell people, Jackson is against the Spoken Word books and all such like. No brothers and sisters, I am not against the Spoken Word books; I am just against the carnal minded interpretation some of those people who claim to know so much, put on many of the statements Bro. William Branham made in those messages. It is a case of every carnal mind reading them and trying to interpret what they read to fit their own fantasy. You just simply do not play with this end time message of truth like that. The messages contained in those books will either make you a thankful child of God, or it will destroy you, depending upon how you allow God to deal with you. It is destined to do one of two things. It will either lift you up where you can go on with God in the realm of eternal life, having joy, peace of mind and understanding because of what the plan of God is, or it will eventually head you into some kind of detour that will plummet you down the road to destruction. Nevertheless, here is what Bro. William Branham said of himself one time. If this ministry that God has called me to, is the ministry that scripturally I believe it is, there has got to be something about it, that from certain realms of religious people, they have a question, Who is this man? Because remember, in the days of John the Baptist, when they had been without a prophet or preacher of that type since Malachi, which was 400 years before, what did they do? When they saw John the Baptist come on the scene, they went out and as they watched and observed him, after awhile they began to ask the questions, Are you that prophet? Are you the Messiah? Are you such a such? What did John the Baptist say? He denied he was that prophet. He denied he was the Messiah; but he did say, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He says the same question has got to come about because it is the way God works in these last days, showing Himself to the Gentile church world in the same manner he did to the Jewish religious world in the first advent of Christ. It created a question then, and it has to create a similar question now. That does not make me anything other than a servant, a man through which God can work; but the question has to stay there. He said, What people do with the question is up to them. Well we all know what some of them did; and when they began to cultivate this, and think things like they did, you can rest assured the devil himself knowing what God was purposing, as He prepared this man to be a voice, a carrier of a message, was ready to anoint those who would run the wrong way with what they saw and heard. Nothing was any different than what is in the Bible; but it was just the way the man was bringing it out that made it so fresh and tasteful. It was all ordained to help you and me understand how to get back into the Bible, the same Bible the apostles and early church had in the hour they lived. Anyhow as God began to lead him into the ministry for which he was called, it was not long until that certain element began to project their ideas, what I call, their scriptural, negative thoughts: He is the Lord. He is the Messiah. I had one man come down to see me in 1958, and questioned me, as I was building on my house, as to what I thought about who Bro. William Branham was. I plainly told him, when I felt that I knew what he was getting at, what I believed then; and I still believe the same thing. I said, Look! He is God’s prophet for the age. He is truly that Malachi 4 prophet, and he is definitely that angel of the Laodicean Age, of Revelation 10:7; but when you want to make it any more than that, you are missing the boat. The man never said any more to me along that line. Did I change his mind? I do not think so; but he knew he could not change mine.

HOW AN ANTICHRIST SPIRIT WILL MANIFEST

Please bear with me as I continue on: There are certain things I have put in other messages; but I feel that I have to construct this message in a particular way, because down the road in front of us, (I do not know when, but I already see behind the scenes) there is something working. When and if, whatever it is that is working, finally boils out into the open and the News Media gets hold of it, this movement is going to take a shaking worse than any earthquake has ever shaken anything. I have said it for a long time, God would not be a just God, if He let this movement go on untouched by some kind of His dealing when Jim Bakker is in jail; and Jimmy Swaggart is still sitting humiliated, after being exposed for their devious ways. These others we have heard about, like Oral Roberts begging for money to stay afloat. What a tragedy. He never will get out of debt; nor will he ever be anything God will honor. I have my doubts they will ever see the rapture, the translation of God’s saints; because they missed the will of God somewhere along the way. Because of all of what I see working, I want to say a few things in connection with some of it. Let me say first though: the fact that we call certain things the working of that antichrist spirit, just simply means that they are not in line with what the Holy Ghost would be doing. Therefore anything that falls outside of what the Spirit of God would do when you are looking at spiritual things, has to be motivated by that other spirit that works against the true plan of God. That makes it antichrist; no matter who is being used in it. Having said that, let me continue. I believe it was in the year of 1962, when that spirit wanting to make Bro. William Branham the Messiah first began to come out into the open. As it finally did, first in a Chicago meeting, then in Canada, it caused Bro. William Branham to completely stop, cutting everything short. He came home so depressed, so discouraged, just from finding out that some of the men he called brethren, men that were very close to him would go behind his back and secretly manipulate themselves among the crowd of people and cultivate this type of spirit among them. Everywhere they would go it was the same thing, Who do you think Bro. William Branham is? Don’t you know he is the Messiah? Then they took another advantage and began to make their little medallions and secretly wear them; and begin to influence people to be baptized in the name of William Marrion Branham. When he came home, and it was announced that he had something he wanted to say to the people, this is what it was about. I have the book, and I am going to read that portion when I reach a certain place in this message, because I want others to know how it was, from his very own words. That spirit is not dead today. Instead of being dealt a death blow, it has spread around the world. It is like a huge snake. It has wrapped itself around the soul’s of people. It has many people under the spell, completely bound up. There are people today that are doing that, some in Africa, some in India and other places. When Bro. William Branham came to the pulpit, I saw a man so depressed, having such a sick look on his face, because he knew that was an antichrist spirit flirting with a revelation; as the people, not knowing how to take the revelation and use it to benefit themselves spiritually, took it and went the other way with it. Standing there like that he first told about the dream he had, how he saw himself shoot this snake because these brethren were playing with it. He saw the thing after it was shot, crawl off into the reeds. He said, Well it will die. He told the people, if I would allow myself to go on, letting people believe that I am the Messiah, or anything like that, it would make me antichrist. He said, I would rather leave the field a quitter, than to go off the scene as a man that is an antichrist, having presented that type of image to the people. Temporarily it did bring about certain actions of repentance; but after God took the man from the scene, that spirit came to life again, right back in those same people. Those same people today will advocate that he is the Messiah. That was just his way of dealing with it. That has become a spirit that has wrapped itself around multiplied numbers of people around this world. Let me say it this way, There is not a preacher in that movement that will lift his voice loud enough with whatever means God has given him to speak against it, and tell the people that all of that is wrong. Remember saints, I have said many times, Gentile people are silly people. They are! As Paul would say, The Greeks are people that seek after wisdom. They like to work everything through the mental, what they understand through the intellectual realm, is what the Greek’s will accept. But it says the Jews want a sign. Well in these last days when God gave the Gentile people a sign, that He truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever, it is Jesus that is the same. That does not make William Branham the same. However people do not perceive it in that manner. They look at it, they have something they want to play with. They seem to forget all the things the man taught through the years of his ministry; like what was said at the Ohio River when he was baptizing, As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Christ, thou will take a message that will go around the world, a message that will prepare the way for my second coming. Let me emphasize, if the man had a message, then it has to be something that is destined to put you and me back in the Bible. I say many times, Back in the book, and that is exactly what I mean, back in the book. What do you mean, Bro. Jackson? Simply this: Most of our Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and such like, have forgotten what the Reformation was all about. When Protestantism was reaching a point in time that they were slipping away from the purpose of the Reformation, and headed for spiritual death and chaos, that is what made it necessary for God to send that prophet of Malachi 4:5-6 in this later fulfillment. To do what? To wake up an end time generation of Gentile Christian children who actually are the spiritual children of the apostles of old. That is why they are called children. When our understanding of the gospel and the epistles that were written back then, had so deteriorated from our understanding that we were likely to take off after just anything, God sent us a wake up message. At that time, the Reformation looked like it was coming to a close. The Lutherans could no longer see the faith that Luther brought forth any more than the Baptists, the Presbyterians and so forth, could see the teachings of Calvin and Knox. Then the Methodists had John Wesley’s message that carried them right on into the Pentecostal hour. Each movement had a certain, particular scriptural truth they acknowledged and copied their form of belief after. Most of the rest of the Bible, if they did not understand it they would just explain it away. That is exactly why you cannot get Methodists to believe in eternal security of the believer; and why their congregations today prove their own teaching. They are in a mess, and they are sick. You can mention the doctrine of predestination, and your Methodists, Church of God, Nazarene, and a lot of others do not want anything to do with it. They say, It is of the devil. Every bit of it was taught by the apostles who wrote it in the Bible; so how could it not be Bible doctrine? I have said many times, and I repeat again, This man we refer to as a prophet messenger to the age of Laodicea, this man who was of the Gentiles, was the first man this side of the Reformation that ever dared to take what Luther taught, what Calvin, Knox, Wesley and all of those Reformers taught, and what the Pentecostals had, and put it all together in such a unique way of teaching, that if you were truly a seed of God, you could not help but see the picture God wants His children to see. A true seed of God would not try to deify another man. We are to give proper recognition and respect to God’s called out vessels; but to God alone belongs all glory, worship and allegiance.

KNOWING HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND RESPECT GOD’S TRUE MINISTERS

The ministry God had put Brother Branham into was such a ministry that it was actually a vindication in itself. It was a drawing card, to draw people to it, that the purpose of God might be worked in those who came to investigate. It was something God put in the man so it would draw you and me to his ministry; and that was so we would have an opportunity to hear what he taught, in respects to the word of God. He had the calling and the investment of God, to reach into the scriptures, which is like a store house, or a treasure chest, and begin to bring out of that treasure chest, things new and old, new revelations, as well as old ones that had been forgotten. For the old, he would go back and get Luther’s message, Calvin’s or what Knox, or Wesley taught, and begin to show and end time people that are destined to be God’s Church, the called out bride of Christ, His body of people He is coming after, how those teachings are still for us today. As God began to use the man like that, there was an element of people that were not interested in anything other than making him God. On the other hand there were those who would never try to make him God. They would not make him the Messiah. Somehow or other they are restrained from going that far with the devil; but do you know what they do? Here is what they do? They say, That man is a prophet; therefore every word he speaks is thus saith the Lord; and should be regarded as another scripture. That means, it is the same as, or like the Bible. Then when God took the man off the scene and his sermons began to be put in print, a spirit fell on those who thought like that, and those people began to say among themselves, and to others, We no longer need the Bible; it has already been fulfilled. Holding up those Spoken Word books they will declare, This is our Bible now. This is the word of God for our day. They take his sermons, and in various way they compile quotes, thoughts, and put together a picture that pleases themselves. This is the Bible for my day; they will proclaim. This is why I have to say, God gave Gentile people an opportunity to really see something. Then in seeing they had access to everything they should have needed to get the right revelation and the right picture; but just like that bunch of Jews back there in St. John 6, that tried to take what they saw, and put the cart in front of the horse, so to speak, they took what they saw and painted a carnal picture with it. That was a testimony. They got a revelation from that. But with that revelation they carnally wanted to reach out and set it in motion to please their own fantasy. We have people today that do not want you to get up and read the Bible. It has lost its interest to an element of people. Some of you may be wondering, Bro. Jackson: Is that really the truth? You have not been there, to see their reaction; but I have had it said right to my face, If I had to give up either one, I would take this and give up this; and they held up Spoken Word books as that which they would choose to keep, books of Bro. William Branham’s messages, and the Bible is what they would give up. These are things that have gone on for 26 years now. For 26 years, God has left the letter of this message lay over society until it has been heralded around the world. It has been printed. It has been preached. It has been put in many forms around the world. It is in Russia now; but wherever it goes these spirits follow it. The denominational world which is headed for chaos, is headed up by big shot doctors of divinity that look upon this movement as a whole, and condemn it as a cult. They do not see the Bride of Christ being made ready for the coming of the Lord. All they see right now, is this great mass of idolaters roaming the earth trying to convince people that one of God’s true servants was none other than deity himself. All of those denominational people know better than to believe a story like that, even if they are in error themselves. I have to say though, If you and I will walk with God, the hour is going to come somewhere between here and the rapture, that the little Bride of Christ is going to be lifted up in such a way it is going to make some people in this world recognize that she was not a cult after all. Right now though, people of the world in general are not able to tell the difference between the one’s who believe Bro. William Branham is God, and those of us who just simply honor and respect the memory of him, knowing he was a true servant of God, and that he brought us a message that turned us from ritual to reality. God is going to shut the mouths of some critics eventually, because He is going to make them say with words that will humiliate their own attitude, This is a people that has walked with God. The early Church did not leave the testimony they did without first suffering rejection by the masses and much persecution. However they left a testimony that is vindicated in the scriptures. Even their critics, the law officials and so forth had to confess that they were dealing with a people that had been with Jesus. That is a wonderful testimony if you will just think about it. When it becomes obvious to people that you have been with Jesus, that in itself vindicates that what you believe and hold to be the true revelation of the word of God, stands out above all of this foolishness. Brother Branham is not here to take a stand against this element of idolaters that have taken from his many sermons such a vast number of quotes and put them together according to their own choosing, and made doctrines out of them; so it is up to those who do have a revelation of what his ministry was destined to do, to help those who want to follow God in truth. They use those quotes to belittle others who have also heard the message and received a proper understanding of it; and their very attitude about it all, is all the proof one should need to know they are not true servants of God. They will say of the teaching of those who do not go along with them in their perversion of the true message, That is antichrist, this and that and so forth; when the real fact of the matter is that what they are doing is what the Bible calls antichrist. All of that used to trouble me very much, knowing how wrong they were to do what they are doing; and I know Bro. William Branham himself, if he were still alive, would never have tolerated such nonsense; but God took him off the scene just exactly the way he was destined to go; and we can rest assured that all who are foreordained to walk by this truth will eventually hear the message the right way. God knew He would deal with the movement and the rest of the people by another means. We look at the scriptures, how that in the last day there is to be a great separation and so forth; but what we need to realize, is that there is a separation going on in this earth right now; and that separation is shaking people away from the continuity, the consistency of the flow of revelation that gives a true understanding, and that lifts people up and helps them to know how to live and walk in personal fellowship with their God. No. It is not shaking the true seed loose from anything they are supposed to have; it is shaking everything loose that has been hanging on to God’s true people; including many tares and such like. However I must admonish every one of you, Do not get to the place where you look to me saying, Bro. Jackson, what am I to believe today? You as a child of God, have got to reach a place spiritually, that you begin to have a little insight personally, of how the Lord can relate and commune with you. It is one thing to listen to me explain something; but it is another thing for you to get to the place where you just sit back and say, Let Bro. Jackson tell me what to do; and then you just give your mind over to something else without one thought about allowing the Spirit of God to lead you. Don’t do that! That is wrong! If we do not have a personal walk with God, we will never be able to overcome what Satan constantly bombards us with. Therefore it behooves us to make our personal commitment to God in every aspect of this life. Learn to recognize God’s true ministry; and allow them to feed you spiritual meat in due season; but above all else, do not become obsessed with some private interpretation of the word of God, and allow that thing to wreck your life. If what you receive is a true revelation, it will withstand all opposition and God will eventually vindicate it; so you do not have to do anything foolish. Just hold steady and allow God to do whatever needs to be done. Later on, toward the end of the message, I want to have some of the old timers, people that in years gone by have had their names mentioned in some of Bro. William Branham’s messages, say a few words. I am going to have them give a few words of their personal testimony concerning their acquaintance with Bro. William Branham. It will be on the video as well as the audio tape. I want the people around the world to know that there are some old timers here that remember Bro. William Branham in his person. They are not just here because they are filling space, but they are here because they were witnesses of something that took place in this area; and because of that, God led them here. I want to thank the Lord for His grace that has allowed me to have such a people here to support this ministry, knowing that they have come here because God led them to. I want you to know, it has not always been easy to stand for this truth, especially since it is a truth that has been known throughout the world; but has been very badly represented at times. Your name is like a target someone is always shooting at. It is shot full of holes; but I know it is something that must be done. As I began to hear some of the stuff that is going on, and especially after I received a certain letter from Africa, I said, That lets me know, I have to say something. I just pray that I can put everything together in the right way. There are people wanting God to do something; but they want Him to send that prophet back to do it. He is not sending that prophet back. His earthly job that he was called to fulfill, has been fulfilled already. Furthermore God is already doing something and they are too blind to recognize it. If any of them ever do get their lives straightened up before chaos hits the road they are traveling, it will be because God in His mercy sees fit to deal with them by some kind of circumstances. Maybe some of them will be dealt with in a very disastrous way, to wake them up and make them realize, they have played around with this message far too long. There is salvation in it, eternal life; but you do not just walk into it and keep going your same old way. As a matter of fact getting into it is sort of like a rabbit trying to get through a chain link fence: there is something in it that will not let you in unless you are first prepared for it. There is no way a rabbit can get through such a fence; and neither is there any way a person can get into this message of truth unless they are supposed to be there.

FALSE DOCTRINE EXPOSED BY TRUTH

There is something else I have to be sure you understand also, as we deal with the subject of “MEAT IN DUE SEASON.” I want to first get the overall thought projected, of God’s true ministry giving the people meat in due season; because that is what we are dealing with; that and the opposite of it. I want to say emphatically, That Bro. William Branham is not the white horse rider of Revelation 19! There is no way Bro. William Branham could fulfill that scripture. It is completely obvious to anyone who has any spiritual understanding at all, that this white horse rider is none other than Jesus Christ coming back to earth with His Bride which is also seen on white horses. Keep in mind, from the first verse right on through the 9^th and 10^th verses, you see the Bride of Christ in heaven, clothed in fine linen. She is not on earth; she is in heaven. His bride is the Church; and the Church is in heaven. Then in verses 11 through 15, we see heaven opened and Jesus sitting on a white horse, and His wife also on white horses, all descending to earth. Rev. 19:15 “And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He (Jesus) shall rule them with a rod of iron.” That is a picture of Jesus coming back to earth in a military fashion; but it is to execute judgment on the earth, to bring an end to sin and rebellion. That is when Isaiah 13, Isaiah 24, Matthew 24, and all of these scriptures will be fulfilled. That is when the mountains shake and move out of their places; and wicked and evil men of the earth cry out for the mountains and the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne. “And from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” God will use nature to express to the world how He looks upon the way they have been living; and at that same time Jesus is coming with His armies from heaven to execute the wrath of God upon the whole rotten mess. In all of that though, there will be a remnant of the mortal people from all nations saved alive, that will escape the catastrophic judgment God will judge this planet with. That is why we have to see Jesus in that scene. Those that are spared, are the ones He and His bride will rule over, on earth. It is true that Bro. William Branham was given a white horse symbolically; because God bestowed upon him the authority to use His (God’s) word with authority in his unique ministry. The power of the word in Bro. William Branham’s case, was in relationship to the gospel of Jesus Christ and his calling of God to proclaim it in a way that people would be delivered from the clutches of denominational systems of religion, and returned to the revelation the first apostles of Christ preached. In other words, The power of the word of God in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ is altogether different than the power of the word of God in judgment of the wickedness of ungodly mankind. We can see a symbolic white horse in both instances; and there is nothing wrong with that; but when you start attributing to a man born into this world with a fallen nature just like all the rest of us, something that belongs only to deity, you have missed the boat. You have taken the wrong track. Only the begotten SON OF GOD can fulfill the picture seen in Revelation, chapter 19, where He is seen coming in judgment. I have no way of preventing that other element out there from presenting Bro. William Branham and his ministry the way they do; but I can show you scripturally the error of their ways, if you will allow me. When I have finished the message, some of you will know the truth about a lot of things that have been talked around; but I beg of you, Wait until you hear it all before you start telling it. I am warning every one of you in here, If you think for one minute that because you come to Faith Assembly you can take everything I say and run the streets yak, yak, yakking, just telling everything you think you know, without being sure of what you are presenting, God is going to trip you. You are somehow going to have to wake up and begin to realize that there are certain things you just do not tell until the right time. God has a purpose in everything; so let Him lead you. For now though, Please listen to me! I have to get some things said before a certain shaking takes place; a shaking that is going to make some people hang their heads in shame. That is why I said, Do not hit the road and start yakking until I am finished with this message, and you have a picture yourself of what is going on. It may be that you will not want to tell anyone anything, after you have been made aware of the whole picture. From July in 1965 to December 1964, was just about five months. Bro. William Branham was taken of the scene, coming back to Jeffersonville, in a car wreck. Therefore because there seems to be a misunderstanding as to what was meant in the statement, I’ll ride this trail one more time, there are a few things I want to point out to you. I want to try by the help of the Lord, to show you how this movement is handling the Bible in the light of the message. We will look again at Matthew 24:44, where Jesus said, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. (45) Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? (46) Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” MEAT IN DUE SEASON, is what we are looking at, along with what Jesus said about an evil servant. We printed a message back in the earlier years when we first started printing titled, And Knoweth It Not. Within the ranks of those who claim to be in this message, people are saying that this wise servant is Bro. William Branham. Well I realize a lot of people might think, Bro. Jackson, you are walking on thin ice; but no, I know exactly where I am walking. In fact I do not have to give an inch of ground for any preacher or any person, no matter how important they may think they are, nor how much money they may have, nor anything else. The Bible will back me up. We can use a verse of scripture for the basis of a text many times; but remember, somewhere that verse of scripture may have an absolute point of time when it is applicable, and at no other time can it be rightly used, except to establish a point. I will show you why. First, they say this wise servant has to be the messenger to the age. I say to them, and I will say it as humbly as I know how, You are reading the Bible wrong, and I will show you why. We do not deny the fact that Bro. William Branham was a wise man. His life and ministry vindicated that; but keep in mind, he did not have to fulfill this particular passage of scripture to be a prophet of God. With Malachi 4:6, in its later fulfillment, and Revelation 10:7, pointing to him as a messenger, you do not have to have ten dozen other scriptures to prove that he was a man sent of God. No. There are certain scriptures in the Bible he definitely fulfilled; but when people start jumping around through the Bible trying to make him fit into a lot of others, that is where they begin to wrest, twist, and distort the scriptures, and lose the meaning. “Who then?” This is a question. “Who then, is a faithful and wise servant?” It is a question meaning, When the time comes for there to be such a thing as a wise servant, who then is wise? The very question and comment in that parable, lets us know that when that time does come, there will be conditions in the religious world, and pressures that will necessitate, that the true called out man of God prove himself to his God and to his people, that he is a wise servant. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, (This really means he has been called into the ministry) to give them meat in due season?” In other words, a wise man will know exactly what people need in an hour of crisis and confusion, when things have been left hanging in the air. It was necessary for there to be a man come on the scene at the time when the whole religious world was heading for apostasy. There were already people in a minority realm beginning to wonder, Where are we headed? If God doesn’t do something, what will all of this come to? Because of that, God sent a man forth to sound an alarm and bring forth a message to turn those people around and get them heading back up the road of life, back to the same apostolic truth that the apostolic fathers established in the beginning, at the birth of the Church. Nevertheless we still have need of the wise servant Jesus was speaking of here, because that servant, or those servants will be busy feeding the church what she needs, right up to the hour Jesus comes for her. Notice this next verse. “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” Meaning when He comes to take the Church away, not coming in power to rule and reign. The preachers that will be coming back with Him then, will not be preaching. They will be riding white horses, coming with Jesus to execute God’s wrath on the earth. Therefore we have to separate the mystical coming for the Church, from the visible coming when the Church comes with Him. If we cannot see the mystical coming, we may not be a part of His visible coming. Be assured though, His mystical coming is what He is talking about in this parable. “Verily I say unto you, That He shall make him ruler over all His goods.” As I pointed out earlier, That will be in the Millennium; and it will not be just one man, but many. Here is the part that is going to catch a lot of so-called preachers off guard. “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming; And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The key that unlocks the meaning of this, is this part that shows the evil servant has set a date for the Lord’s coming. He would not be saying, My Lord delayeth His coming, if he had not been holding to a fixed time that he thought He should be here; so to you who insist that Bro. William Branham was the wise servant of this parable, I ask this question, Who was the evil servant that had a prefixed date for the Lord’s return, running counterpart to Bro. William Branham? They both have to be on the scene at the same time, to fit the parable; because it speaks of the Lord returning and finding one wise and the other evil. I hope this helps some of you see that this parable is to be applied only in the days leading right up to an including the Lord’s return for The Church. Pentecost was certainly not setting dates for the Lord’s return. Who then were the date setters? After God had definitely done something to turn an element of people around and get them started in the right direction spiritually, it created such an expectancy within the heart’s of that realm, that once God saw fit to take His anointed instrument off the scene, these verses in this parable began to be applicable; because shortly after his death, certain one’s began to project their dates for the Lord’s return, based entirely upon statements made by Bro. William Branham in his sermons. Well those dates have come and gone; and the Lord has not returned yet; so who do you suppose is saying, THE LORD IS DELAYING HIS COMING? You certainly have NEVER heard me make any such statement. Neither have I ever agreed with any projection anyone else has made to that effect. Do you know why? My first reason is that we have no scriptural authority to do so; and secondly, I have never had any reason otherwise to set any certain time for the Lord’s return. I can only say, I do not believe it will be long now; because we have all the signs and conditions working in this hour of time we are living in, that Jesus said would precede His return. You that have been against me for 26 years because I would not agree with any of your date setting, where are your dates now? God has let Gentile time outlast every one of them. You know they have set the dates; and you know they were wrong; so where is your apology for all those things you said about me, simply because I said, I will not be surprised if we are all still here when those dates come and go? As for the disagreement about whether the Jews have 3 ½ or 7 years of time left, of the seventy weeks of Daniel, One of the men working for Spoken Word publishing back some years ago questioned me, Don’t you believe the prophet? I said, Yes. However because he has read our article on the seventy weeks of Daniel and the way we laid it out, he wanted to tell me, Bro. Jackson, you know the prophet said there were only three and one half years left. I said to him, I know all about that. He said, Well how do you feel about 1977, what Bro. William Branham said about that? I said, It would not surprise me one bit when 1977 has come and gone, if we are all still here. His reply was, Oh Bro. Jackson, I believe I would be careful. These are the words he said to me. If he should ever hear this tape or see this video, I want him to hear me say, I have been very careful since that time when we talked; but I see that we are both still here. My words have come to pass. Where have your words gone? I do not say these things just for the sake of being critical; but I do hope I can cause someone to put their thinking cap on and realize, There are things in God’s Bible that men have overlooked simply because some of you thought Bro. William Branham said enough that you did not need to read the Bible any more. He said enough to get you straightened out, if you could have heard it right; but it is obvious you did not. If you had heard it right you would be in the Bible, and by now you would know how to read it. Did not the apostle Paul in his epistle to Timothy write these words, (2^nd Timothy 2:15) “Study to shew thyself approved unto (WHO?) God, (Not the world, and not the Branham movement, but God) a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” When you rightly divide the word of truth, you know where to place certain things, and you keep them there. You do not constantly change them from place to place, from day to day, and from year to year. Therefore “THEN” is the future tense in the hour when God has sent a messenger, he has brought his message and left it here, and others have the responsibility of feeding the flock of God with the revelation. God took the man; but He left his message; and it left a movement with many questions in their mind, and they cry, Oh God, why did you do this? Because God, from right then on, was going to shake people and deal with people in a manner they had never been dealt with before. One thing you need to keep in mind though, This wise servant in the parable we have been looking at, was not William Marrion Branham; because there was no evil servant on the scene with him, to fulfill the other part of that parable; and scripturally they both have to be here at the same time, just prior to, and when the Lord comes for His bride Church.

DEEDS OF THOSE EVIL SERVANTS

Let us just see what this evil servant is doing. I beg you brothers that have been against me these many years, I plead with you, because this evil servant that is mentioned here in the scriptures does not apply to men like A.A. Allen, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart nor any of them; so wake up. It applies to some of you that have been so critical. You have been ready to justify every kind of interpretation of a quote. You hide behind the shield, The prophet said so. I know what the prophet said, and you know what he said; but do you know what he meant? If you do not know what he meant, then neither do you know exactly how to read your Bible. The evil servant says, My Lord delays his coming. Why would a man ever say such a thing if there had not been something come about some time, so unique it stimulated a thought of expectancy in the heart of an element of people. This expectancy as it would be stirred up in the heart of people, would cause them to begin to calculate. Because of what they have been given a chance to see and hear, they think they have all the answers; and away they go. Then God takes that instrument they have been depending on so completely; and they are left hanging in the air; so they cannot help but begin to set their times. No other movement on earth this side of the Reformation, has ever produced a category of men like the followers of Bro. William Branham. Time would not allow me to begin to mention names of individual; and what they have said and promoted, putting together calculations about the coming of the Lord. Every last one of those calculations has run its course and they are now out in a period of time way beyond their points they have set; but they still do not repent of their unscriptural ways. They are left hanging; but they are too proud to admit, I made a mistake. If their heart’s were right with God they would say, I was wrong brother, I missed God. Please forgive me Lord. Then they would apologize to the ones they have belittled, the one’s they treated as though they thought they were stupid and knew nothing. The one’s they treated as though they knew nothing, have kept their feet on a solid rock. That of course is the revelation of God’s word in its true understanding. God has always had a few somewhere. As for the evil servant of this parable, I will emphatically say to you once again, the evil servant has to be alive and actively fulfilling his part at the same time the wise servant is fulfilling his part; and that has to be right up until the hour the Lord comes for His bride Church. You just have to look at both of them in the plural; because there will be more than one of each. Just as there will be wise servants around the world, there will be the counterpart, the evil ones also, harassing, judging by their own carnal interpretations, doing just like Jesus said. Then when times runs out and they have nothing else to hang on to, sooner or later they have to begin to say, The Lord has delayed His coming; because it says right here, “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart,” Thus and so on. He will not say publicly, It looks like the Lord is late. No. It is in his heart, that he says it. That is how a man thinks. When the whole picture has gotten away from him, he begins to go about saying within his heart, Well it looks like the Lord has delayed His coming. He is too proud to make it known in public. He only says it in his heart. When you meed that kind publicly, they will always try to avoid the conversation that would make them have to say a little more on the thought of Jesus’ coming. He will begin to avoid that. Therefore it is what he says in his heart, that the Lord hears. Feeling like that in his heart, watch what he does. He begins to mistreat his fellow servants. “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Fellow servants is the word that links the evil ones with the wise ones. It means that at one time they were in the same fellowship, brought together in the same scope of the word, to fellowship and recognize one another; but we will say, Sooner or later conditions and understandings began to divide them and cause one to go that way, and the other this way. You have got to keep this whole picture in the future tense of time; and in the plural sense. There is no way it could have been applicable when Bro. William Branham was here because the counterpart was no where on the scene. The instruments involved were just as anxious to get where they could hear the word taught as anyone else; because at that time they did not even know they were destined to fulfill the part of the evil servant. No one back then even thought anything about setting dates for the coming of the Lord. Everything comes into focus at a precise time, according to the plan of God. That is how we ought to look at this, as well as other things. Do you think the pope or Rome is sitting over there in the Vatican plotting how he is going to go about fulfilling his role as The Antichrist that is destined to come upon the scene at the end time? I can assure you, he is not. Neither do these evil servants plan ahead of time how they will fulfill their role; time and circumstances just seem to go together to bring it all about. (49) And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken (50) The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of.” He will begin to smite his fellow servants. Therefore he is not talking about the world. He is not running the president down. He is running down the guy he has formerly fellowshipped with, that has by the grace of God, been able to keep his feet on the ground and in the right paths, without calculating all this nonsense concerning the coming of the Lord. That kind just simply cannot stand to see the wise servant stand. He has to harass him and beat down his image wherever he goes. Every time he has his back turned, this character is taking shots at him. Only a dirty coward will act like that; but I hope you will believe me when I tell you there are plenty of them around. We always called that kind of people bushwhackers; because they do not have the backbone to come right out and state their case to your face. I have put my name to everything I have preached for the last number of years: not because I am proud of myself, but because I am thankful for the grace of God in my life. I am not ashamed of what He has called me to do; and I have no desire nor reason to do otherwise. It is one thing for God to call a man; but it is something else if that man does not remain in his calling. God does not call every preacher to the exact kind of ministry as ever other one. That is why the apostle Paul emphasized that the five fold ministry in the true Church: they each have a job to do; but their duties are not exactly the same. Also, I have stressed the fact that both the wise and the evil servants are to be thought of in the plural sense; but I may not have given you the reason why I say that. Even though Jesus spoke of them in the singular at first, verse 49 shows us there is a plural to consider. “And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken”, says to me that if wise servants are in the plural, so are the unwise. That one verse proves to you that the wise servant was in the plural; so you just read between the lines and see that the other is to be plural also. That will keep you from trying to single out just one man that is doing what that verse says; and allow you to see that there are many. The dirty rascal could not be against just one servant of God, he (those that are like that) has to be against all that are doing right. He begins to smite his fellow-servants, plural. That is why the movement cannot read their Bible right. They will take every scripture and try to pin it on Bro. William Branham, and ignore all other things that it would seek to bring out. The evil servants get sidetracked themselves for one reason or another, and then they start trying to destroy the image of those who are still true servants, men that they used to call fellow-servants. Because of that very thing, I say some of them will eventually end up going back to the world. God will force them back to the world, if they do not find a place of repentance. There is no middle ground. You cannot stand neutral forever, concerning the word of God. You are either right or wrong. This is the hour God is going to prove to this world that there are some that are right; no matter how many are exposed as deceivers and outright crooks. While I am on this point, let me say this, We have wondered for twenty some years, Why does God tolerate all this religious nonsense you see going on? Well saints, it is because God is merciful, and longsuffering, and as it says in the epistle of Peter, “Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Even when we deserve no mercy at all, if we can truly repent and turn from our former ways, God will forgive us and show us mercy. Then, when He finally does judge sinful man, no one can protest saying, You did not give me a chance. God is longsuffering, therefore He has allowed men to do what they have done, while He was not pleased with it, yet His Word will never return unto Him void; but for whatever purpose it has been preached, somewhere, some time God will get His end results out of it. Jesus revealed in the interpretation of the second parable of the 13^th chapter of Matthew, that at the end of the world, (which is the harvest time, when God gathers all of His true one’s in, and the rest are bound together to await judgment) He will send forth His angels to gather together out of His kingdom all things that offend. Angels are ministering spirits, but these ministering spirits have to have earthly men to work through. They issue the authority and the earthly vessel carries it out. Everything that is contrary to the word of God, He is eventually going to eliminate it. That is why we are seeing Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, all these other guys, one by one, exposed, put to an open shame. God is coming down the line. He has a list of them all. He is going to check them off. He is making known their fallacies. It is going to be published abroad. (Matthew 13:41-43) “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” No. These that are being bundled together for burning are not being burned right now; they are set aside, with this condemnation already assigned to them, and held in that state until the great white throne judgment is completed, then cast into the lake of fire. They will have to go right into that great tribulation hour and suffer here on earth first, before they are finally burned alive. What if they die first? Revelation 20:12-13, shows us that God is going to resurrect all of the wicked dead to stand before that judgment throne, just prior to being cast into the lake of fire. The Bible calls this the second death. After that, is when the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. They that know their God, because they are the true seed, will remain when God separates the trash away. Using the threshing floor as our example, like Jesus did, when God blows the chaff away, He could not care less which way they go. He does not care which way the chaff goes, just as long as it leaves the seed. If they go back to the world, it is probably because they were still of the world. At least that is what the apostle John said of that kind. God’s true children are first going to shine down here, before they start shining in glory; because when the Church was born, (in the book of Acts) it shined. It was the beginning of what God wanted the Church to always be. The Devil was allowed to come in and do what he has done; but as the Lord brings it back to its original picture, we can expect house cleaning, shakings, disturbances, upheavals, every kind of thing one could image. God will use all of that if necessary, to eliminate everything that works offensive to His Word and His plan. These evil servants shall begin to smite, belittle, try to ruin the character and destroy the image and influence of the wise servants. They eventually end up eating and drinking with the drunken; therefore sooner or later they have to take up their abode back with the crowd of the world: because in the heart of such a person he will say, Well they have all missed it. If I have missed it, we have all missed it. Being without a true revelation, that is how such a person will rationalize their predicament.

FINAL DISPOSITION OF EVIL SERVANTS

According to the parable, (Matthew 24:50-51) “The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he (the evil servant) looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Time runs out for them. They have nothing left to calculate with. They will lose all interest: because they will have nothing left to work with. Therefore the only place he can go is to the world to hide. What does it say the Lord will do? “The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of.” (To do what?) To cut him off and reserve him for the great tribulation. In the meanwhile that dirty rascal is going to keep on shooting at the wise servants, throwing mud balls, doing everything he can trying to ruin their name, until the day the Lord comes and takes you away. You will have to say, He had a chance to do right; just as good a chance as I did. He heard just as much as I heard; but something inside of him made him interpret it wrong; and that is the mess it got him in. That kind of servant will have no part in the rapture of the Church. No matter what the evil servants do though, the wise ones will keep right on giving the people of God meat in due season, right on up until the very hour the Lord comes for them. This is how we have to read the Bible. This wise servant was not William Branham. It is pointing beyond the hour of William Branham. It is pointing beyond the hour of William Branham when there would be a people that would fulfill both categories: both wise and foolish. You cannot have on time when the wise servant was here, and then when he leaves the evil servant comes on the scene. That is not the way the parable is written. Both categories have to be here at the same time, to fit the scripture. The wise servants have to be alive and on the job, so the evil ones have something to throw at. That is how we have to look at the scriptures; but the movement as a whole does not see the scripture that way. They have their own private interpretation of everything; and anyone who differs with them is headed straight to hell, if they could have their way.

WHAT THE EVIL SERVANTS LIKE TO HEAR –

AND WHAT THEY DO NOT LIKE TO HEAR

Let me show you what those people who have not a complete revelation like to hear. We will look in Luke’s gospel, Luke 17:30. As I have said before, Luke was not a disciple as Matthew, John, Mark and Peter were at that interval of time. He was a historian, but a historian that claimed to have perfect understanding of the things he determined to write about, the things you read in his gospel. He wrote what Jesus said about the days of Noah and Lot and so forth, just like Matthew did; but keep in mind, Matthew was a disciple, walking with Jesus when those words were spoken; and Luke was not. He gathered his information from the reports of others. Nevertheless here is what Luke wrote. We will read verses 29 and 30 together. “But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Many times people do not understand what it means where it says the Son of man is revealed. It certainly is not talking about us going to meet Him in the air. We have to realize here in the end time, the Lord is revealing Himself to the true Church through His Word. He does it in such a way it draws the attention of the predestinated children of God. As that revelation of Christ in His Word begins to enlarge and stand out, it creates an understanding. It creates an interest. It begins to excite an enthusiasm in the heart of the elect. The elect begins to see how the Lord is actually looking at them, and talking to them. They do not see His flesh though. By the Spirit, they see the spiritual character of the man called Jesus. Keep in mind, we Gentiles have never known Christ because we saw his fleshly person standing out there some place. We have had to believe on Him because of the spiritual revelation we have of Him through His Word. It is here at the end time while these other things are going on out there, things that to the Church are signs we are to watch for, that the Son of man image will begin to project itself. Therefore I want to show you something from the word of God. We understand that Malachi 4:5-6 has a two fold application: the first was John the Baptist; and the second was William Branham. John the Baptist was a forerunner of the first advent of Christ. We all know that. That is why it was spoken by the angel Gabriel to Zechariah in Luke’s writing, Chapter 1, that his wife would have a son in her old age; and that his name was to be called John, and how John would go before the Lord in the power and spirit of Elijah, to turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. John, the forerunner, in that sense, stood as a man at the river; and everyone that went out to hear him saw only a man. The things he said to them prepared a way in their hearts. We can say, That was the spirit of Elijah in that manner. He was not a writing prophet. He was a preaching prophet. When I say he was not a writing prophet I mean, I could not get up here and say, Now we are going to turn to the epistle of John the Baptist for our text tonight, because he never left us an epistle. He never left us any writings. All we have of him is what someone else wrote about him. That is why, when we come to the last days where Malachi 4 was again to be effective, we need to link it with Revelation 10:7; because he was the angel messenger to the Laodicean age. We know it is the Holy Ghost in any man that causes the man to be anything. With that Holy Ghost out of the man, the man is nothing. He cannot say one thing to change the course of events. On the other hand, as God anointed this man with the measure of the Spirit He had imparted to him, He literally anointed him from one standpoint to fulfill Malachi 4:5-6 in its later fulfillment, just as John the Baptist was sent to forerun (announce) the coming of the Lord the first time, he would be used to prepare a people for the Lord’s next coming. It was said to him by the Spirit of God at the river in 1933 when he was baptizing, just like John was baptizing, almost an identical setting, As John the Baptist was sent to forerun my first coming, thou will take a message that will go around the world, that will prepare the way for my second coming. Keep in mind though, John the Baptist did not forerun a universal coming of Christ; his ministry was just to one nation. We can readily see how easy it was for one man to forerun the coming of Christ in the first advent; because it was just one nation of people in particular; and not to the whole world. In the last days, it is not to the Jewish nation a messenger was sent; it was to a universal Church. Therefore when the Spirit spoke to Bro. William Branham in 1933, it was expressly spoken in this fashion. His message is what would go around the world to prepare the way for the Lord’s return. Why would the Spirit put emphasis like that? All because it was utterly impossible for this man physically, to stand before every nation in the entire earth and fulfill it in the same manner as John the Baptist did to one nation. On the other hand though, if he speaks a message, then time will last long enough, and God will let time spread on long enough until that man’s message will penetrate the barriers of every nation, and break down every obstacle standing in the way of God getting His elect out of there. There was something else done in this man’s life that was not done in the ministry of John the Baptist. John the Baptist did not do any miracles, yet he saw things in the Spirit, things that were relative to his calling, and how he fulfilled prophecy for the hour. That is why he testified that the Spirit had already shown him, On whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is the one; so he had to see something in the Spirit that others did not see. In the Spirit, John recognized Jesus that day when He came walking down the river bank. He saw the sign of that anointing hanging there in the air. As Jesus stepped into the water with that sign hanging over Him, John knew that was the man he had been clearing the way for. John fulfilled what he was anointed to fulfill; and so did the prophet to this age fulfill what he was anointed to fulfill. They both had that God identifying spirit of Elijah upon them; but their way of ministering was different the one from the other. In the anointing upon Bro. William Branham, was a gift praying for the sick that John did not have. Also there was a gift of knowledge that actually penetrated the barriers of everything that is hidden from man’s carnal conscience. Just as Jesus demonstrated when His disciples were bringing Nathaniel to meet Him and He looked at him and said, “Behold an Israelite in whom is no guile,” Bro. William Branham kept his audience captivated the same way. Nathaniel looked at Jesus and said, “Whence knowest thou me? (In other words, How do you happen to know me?) Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. (That was all Nathaniel needed to hear.) Nathaniel answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these.” What I am saying to you saints, is that this same anointing rested upon Bro. William Branham, giving him the ability to see things others could not see; but that in no way made him anything other than a servant of God. A lot of people today think he was more than a man born in sin and saved by the same means as the rest of us; but that does not make it so: it only proves that they are too blind spiritually, to understand the workings of the Spirit of God in a human vessel, without trying to attribute deity to that vessel. It is true, God had a special work for him to do; but he fulfilled that work being a sinner saved by grace: without any deity being attributed to him. You just have to realize, God can place that anointing upon any of His children at any time; but I personally have never witnessed it upon anyone else in the measure he had it. God does nothing without a purpose. His purpose in that anointing upon Bro. William Branham, was to vindicate him as the prophet messenger to this Laodicean age. Did it take that? Some may say. That was God’s way of giving His Gentile Church the same sign He gave to the Jews in the beginning of this dispensation. Why did He wait 1900 and some years to give that sign to the Gentiles? Because this is the closing years of this Gentile dispensation, when the true believers are to be restored back to the same faith and doctrine the first age believers had. In no other Gentile Church Age, were there any saints that would be alive to see Jesus, when He comes for the bride Church. They are all resting in Paradise, awaiting the time of their change into immortality; and their faithfulness to live according to what God revealed to them in their day, guaranteed their part in the next phase of the first resurrection. You do not have to be concerned, that Grand daddy, and Grand mommy were not baptized in the name of Jesus, if they obeyed according to what they knew to do in their hour of time. It is this present generation that must follow God according to the truth that has been revealed to this age. They are without excuse. God gave us the same sign He gave the Samaritan woman; but the sign was not the man himself. Oh no. It was what was manifested in the man. These are the things that when you begin to talk about them, some people get all shaken up. That is why they would rather believe he was the Messiah. They cannot separate the anointing of God from the flesh of the man. The flesh of the man was a sinner like anyone else. Keep in mind, Jesus was not a sinner. God dwelled in Him, in the fullness of His attributes; but in Bro. William Branham God dwelled only in a measure; but it was a measure greater than we have seen in any other man since the days Jesus walked upon earth. Through that man God manifested His power from coast to coast, and in the various nations he was privileged to go into. He would stand looking out over audiences and speak to individuals that were far beyond the human ability to see the features of those people; and tell them things about themselves he could not possibly, as a human person know.

THINGS MANY OF US HAVE WITNESSED IN BRO. BRANHAM’S MEETINGS

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard Bro. William Branham say, You, sitting back there behind that post, thus and so. It might have been in an auditorium, where, if the person would have stood up, it would have been impossible for him by his own natural ability to describe how they were dressed: because that person was that far away. The Spirit speaking through that man would tell such a person where they came from, what ailment they had, or what the concern of their heart was; but when that anointing would leave him, he knew no more about anyone than anyone else would know. Many times, we have seen him stand in front of an audience just talking about first one thing and the other, and would finally say something like, I am waiting for Him. Why did he have to wait? Because without that anointing, he was just like any other man would be: limited to what he knew naturally. When that anointing came, you might hear, You, back there in the back row, you are from Seattle Washington. I see you from a mountain country, where a lot of blue spruce grow. He would describe the geographic background of the country they were from. I will never forget years ago in the Church of the Open Door. A man and his wife were sitting about three rows back from the front. On this particular night as Bro. William Branham was praying for the sick, he stopped praying for those in line and looked back there to them and said, You people sitting there: You are not from this country. I see ocean water. I see a boat. If I remember right, he said, You are from Sweden: Is that not right? That man’s hand went up in the air; and Bro. William Branham said to him, You are suffering from something like a bad liver condition. Even the doctors have said they cannot do any more for you. Is that right? The man began to weep. By this time his wife was screaming; because he told audibly what was wrong with the man. As the man put his hands in the air, he asked, Do you believe me to be God’s prophet? The man said yes. Then go on your way, may the Lord make you whole. And your wife there, she is suffering from gall bladder trouble. Do you believe that God can heal you? By this time she was screaming so loud, you can hardly hear a thing. This was not some hocus pocus trickery like you see on TV; this was the real thing. We have a lot of critics today that think this was concocted up by previous interviews and such, like you have seen exposed in other ministries; but I assure you saints, It absolutely was not. I am a witness of what was done by the Spirit of God working through that man. I went to his house one day, it was in the afternoon on a cloudy day with a fine mist of rain falling. As we began to talk, he said, you know, I got a letter today. (The man that wrote it did not sign his name to it.) He thinks I will not know who wrote it: but I know who it is. They are trying to get me into a trap. It was some kind of ministerial association that wanted to get him to agree to some kind of meeting and he refused to give any concrete conclusion to when, how, or anything. He said, they are always trying to get me to commit myself to something and I want to go by the leading of the Lord. Just then the telephone rang. He answered the telephone and talked a few minutes and I heard, Yes brother, that is right, yes. When he came back he said, He does not know that I know he was the one who wrote that letter. By the things he asked, I knew he was probing to see if I had already received that letter, and if I had an answer to it. Anyway, I tell these things just for the sake of saying to you, The Gentile Church had never seen the power of God manifested in that manner before this time. Now when we read the book of Acts, yes we know that Peter had certain manifestations like that, but see, it is not written in the book of Acts how often those things were done like that. It was mainly that God would manifest Himself like that from time to time; but from then on it was how those men prayed the prayer of faith, that deliverance was brought about, devils were cast out, and folks were healed. That is how we have to look at those things. But here at the end time as God sent this man, the person of the man himself was just like John the Baptist, he was a forerunner. Being that forerunner though, it took the anointing God placed upon him to make that applicable. Then, with that anointing was a gift that caused him to say things, to discern things, to expose things that had not been done in such a fashion since Jesus Himself ministered on earth. At least we have no record of such a ministry. Let me tell one other incident. Some of you older people can remember when Bro. David Faust from Canada, along about 1957, in the fall of the year, if I remember right, came through here on their way to Cuba. This was before the fall of Cuba. I remember meeting them at the Tabernacle. We were there that morning. The Faust family, Bro. And Sis. Faust, their son and daughter came; and they stayed in the area and fellowshipped with us for awhile before they went on to Cuba. The story behind it was, Bro. David Faust being from the upper part of western Canada, and he was a farmer that raised wheat and so forth. God had dealt with him for a long time about him going to the mission field to be a missionary. However because of his farming he just kept putting it off. Bro. William Branham was also up in the north country, up in the mountains on a hunting trip. Out in California there was a certain person that had take sick. To show you how the Spirit of God works, the people in California had called Jeffersonville to find out about Bro. William Branham. They told them he was in Canada, up in the northern part, back in the mountains somewhere in a hunting party and they had no way of reaching him. Nevertheless, those people called into Canada. They called the Canadian Mounted Police and asked, Can you help us locate this man. We want him to at least come to a phone somewhere and pray for this person. Bro. William Branham and the party had gone back to this hunting cabin for the night. One person had taken a small portable radio with him. So as they sat the radio up in the window and it was playing music, all of a sudden the station interrupted the music and said, We interrupt this program for just a moment. We have received a call from the Canadian Mounted Police to send this announcement out. If there is a man in the area that hears this announcement, please can you come to the nearest phone available and pray for such and such a person in California, you know the person. There, Bro. William Branham was, sitting out in the wilderness, in a little cabin, and all of a sudden that comes over the airways. The next day they had to ride out so far by horseback and get into a car. The closest place was like an old traders cabin, like a backwoods store, a general mercantile store. As Bro. William Branham makes his way to that point, in the meantime Bro. David Faust had something break on his combine, so he is making his way to that same place, knowing that they sold repair parts, groceries, and every other kind of supply. Bro. William Branham had already been in the store, used the telephone, prayed for the person and was coming out toward his car. David Faust pulled into the parking lot, started walking toward the store, and recognized Bro. Brahma even though he had a beard that had grown out since he had been in the mountains for several days. He stopped him and said, You are the Bro. William Branham. Bro. William Branham looked at him and said, You haven’t been obeying God, have you? Just like that, it hit him just like a ball pin hammer right between the eyes, you haven’t been obeying God. Your name is David Faust. You are a farmer. Things have not been going well for you, things have not been successful. By this time Bro. David Faust was all shook up; and Bro. William Branham said, They never will until you first obey God. So from that very event, he began to phase out the farming, and went to Cuba where he ministered until it fell to Communism. He did a wonderful work. Saints: I just say these things, knowing that the person fo the man was a forerunner; but the way the Spirit of God worked in him, was a sign to the Laodicean Age. That is why he himself was not the Son of man, but it was that ministry that worked in him, that made you feel you were sitting in the presence of the Lord Jesus Himself. All of this had to take place, and the Church restored back to the original truth the apostles of Christ taught, before the Son of man could be revealed. This Branham movement as a whole does not know where to place these favorite scriptures they like to use.