CARNAL REACTIONS TO A MIRACLE

I expect that this message is going to be quite lengthy; but I want to cover it from every angle; and especially from the historical standpoint, because I realize the hour we live in, there are many people who are totally ignorant of what God has done and what He will still do. They would not know for sure that God was doing anything because they have failed to become acquainted with what He has done in the past. That is just how ignorant they are when it comes to the bible in its overall application. They know certain scriptures; but they even take them out of context many times, seeking to justify their own attitude about things. Saints, we cannot do that. We have to be willing to let God do anything He sees fit to do with us. These things called manifestations of the Spirit, shouting, dancing, trembling, drunkenness, speaking in tongues and such like are all in the Bible. There are yet many people who do not know that. I have to say it again: I did not know anything at all about these things years ago. When I got interested enough to start searching the Bible, I had no trouble finding these things in there. When I read the 4th chapter of Acts, I found something very interesting. Let us read it. A miracle has just taken place. Peter and some others have been in jail, and then they have been let go. In the 23rd verse it says this, “And being let go, they went to their own company, (which means they went where the Christians of their hour were assembled) and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. (They had threatened them, and forbade them to preach any more in this man’s, meaning in the name of Jesus.) And when they (the assembled company, or congregation) heard that they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God.” Now please, these are people that have been assembled, no doubt praying for Peter and those that had been locked up, and they considered them still locked up; but here they are coming right into their midst and telling of all that had happened to them; and as they are told this, these people with all with one accord lifted up their voices and began to pray, quiet the opposite of our traditional way of church worship in most places today. They are so worried, afraid something is going to be too loud. I used to think like that. I was scared to hear anybody utter something too loud. Then I realized, God is not deaf, but neither does He object to people expressing themselves to Him. He is not something you are going to traditionally throw a few moments of your time at Him and expect that this is what will please Him. No, He requires more than that. Let us read some more of this. (Acts 4:24-31) “And when they heard that, (what the apostles reported) they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: (25) Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? (26) The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. (They were actually praying and speaking of how society, rulers, governors and so forth had done the Lord Jesus.) (27) For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, (28) For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. (29) And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, (30) By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. (31) And when they had prayed, (Listen to this. I have been in Israel, and most all building structures are stone. Very few are of a wood nature; but this place was shaken.) the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” Now why did I choose to read that? Simply because that word shaking, can absolutely be a manifestation of the spirit of God as He gets hold of people. When you talk like this, people will say, Do I have to do that to be a Christian? No, you do not; but if your heart is right you will be willing to receive whatever He gives. We all know how the Jews were in the hour of Jesus. Pharisees, Saducees, Zealots, Herodians, all of them held to their traditions. Traditionally they all had their own school of thought; but Jesus bypassed all of their traditions; and out of all those that heard Him teach, came a small number that were willing to forsake their traditions to follow Him. Traditions, most of the time are just a short cut through the word of God, to reach a finished purpose that pleases those who hold to them. I believe you will all agree, that this is not the way God wants true believers to walk. What am I saying this for? Well that place where those disciples were assembled praying, was shaken; so I do not believe those people were sitting in there like Catholics, Lutherans and such, so very pious and quiet. Now heavenly Father, you know how they have threatened your servants, so Lord, would you grant that your hand might be out stretched, and that they be allowed to speak the word to them boldly? Lord, you know we do not want to be fanatics and scream and yell like some others do, but please manifest yourself in this matter. Can you see that kind of a prayer causing God to come upon the scene and shake the whole building? My point in saying it that way is this, If this building we are assembled in today would begin to shake like that, and there was nothing going on that moved you, five minutes later there would not be a one of you left in here. You would say, There is an earthquake: We have to get out of here. My point is, I can take you back in the Old Testament and show you that there has been these manifestations all down through time. Maybe not in every century, nor every day of the week, but there has always been generations that somehow or other when a certain world event is near, God prepares an element of them for that event; and when He does, He usually begins to deal in their lives in an extraordinary way, a way that bypasses tradition and all the other rituals of religion. It tears tradition all to pieces. That is why we can say, when Jesus came down the road of life of Judaism, He had very little to say that was pleasing to Judaism. They said, He is mad, He has a devil. Gentiles have accepted this man who some say had a devil; and they believe He is the Savior of lost mankind; but when the same God who worked centuries back in Judaism, before Jesus’ hour, starts doing something to get an element of people ready for the next coming of Jesus, then many religious Gentiles want to take the same attitude those Jews had back then: This cannot be of God. Well it can be of God; and it is of God. He is not coming down the road as a person, He is coming in Spirit form to those who have a revelation out of His word. He is speaking to the heart’s of His people. He is going to have an element of people on earth that can move and walk with Him. No, they are not going to be fanatics: just people that are going to break all the ranks of tradition to be led by the Holy Spirit. They are going to be just like the people that were in the early Church, as seen in the book of Acts. That is what Jesus is coming for; and what we see taking place in various places was designed to get us ready for it.

Let us again read St. John 6:65: For that is what lets us know that a lost sinner cannot come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ until the Holy Spirit first begins to draw that person. He causes conviction to come upon us and gives us the desire to answer the gospel call. This is the only way on earth you as a person will ever become a child of God. What does that Spirit do, Bro. Jackson? That is that Spirit that gets a hold of you and begins to deal with your heart and tell you that you need to accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour. This is Jesus speaking.  “And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” Then when that part is taken care of and you receive the Holy Spirit in your life, here is what He is in you to accomplish: (John 16:12-15) “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. (13) Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. (14) He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. (15) All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Other people can teach you what is written in the scriptures; but only the Holy Spirit can give a true revelation (or understanding) of what they actually mean. He is also the ONE that operates the gifts listed in 1st Corinthians 12: the gifts we have been witnessing in our Assemblies for quite some time now. Therefore as we look further into what the Spirit of God is doing among believers in these last days, let us every one be aware of the fact that it is all leading to our perfection. We cannot continue on in our former traditions of religion and expect to be taken to glory with the bride saints when Jesus comes for them. We can no longer accept any other form of water baptism except what we see in the book of Acts: The baptism administered by the apostles of Jesus. Water baptism is not some traditional thing like we have in the denominational church world today, sprinkling, pouring and all this traditional, ritualistic form of make-believe religion. Sprinkling never had any place in the early church in the book of Acts. Wherever the early Christians went for their water baptism, you can be assured they were immersed. You do not bury people by sprinkling a few drops of water on their head, nor by putting a damp wash cloth on their forehead. That is not burial. Otherwise, why would the Bible read like this, (Romans 6:3-5) “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? (4) Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (5) For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, (There, is your picture of scriptural water baptism: being planted.) we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” If we are buried, or planted, in the likeness of the death and burial of Jesus, then that literally speaks of being put under. When you bury a dead body, you immerse it, put it under the surface of the topsoil. You do not just sprinkle a little dirt on the head. Sprinkling is a Catholic tradition that has dominated the world for hundreds of years now; but was never established by the New Testament teachings of Christianity. Traditional Christianity, (that which is in word only) says, Well I do not see anything wrong with sprinkling. The thing that is wrong about it, is that it is not according to what the Bible teaches. Let us ask God the question, What do you think about man wanting to change water baptism from immersion to sprinkling? What do you think His answer would be? Would He not say, You already have the written record of it: Why are you asking now? God has no reason to change any formula He ever set forth. If someone should start changing something you had set in motion, would you not want to do something about it? That is the point I am looking at: Immersion is the only form that represents being buried; and that has to be administered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No other form is sufficient. When you come to God according to the provision of His word, (Acts 2:38) where those who had fallen under conviction asked the apostles, What must we do? “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” you are then in a position to receive the Holy Ghost; and then you have Him inside of you, that Jesus spoke of in John 16:13, to lead you into all truth. Inside of us, He not only will lead us into all truth, He will also show us things to come and operate all or part of the nine gifts of the Spirit the apostle Paul spoke of in 1st Corinthians, chapter 12. This is where the Church is going to be as she prepares to move out of here. That is what she was in the beginning; so that is what she is going to be in the end. The denomination which calls themselves “The Church of Christ,” is always ready to argue with you about the gifts of the Spirit. They deny the fact that they are for our day: Saying that those manifestations were for the days of the apostles of Christ only. Where do you read anything like that in the Bible? That is tradition; and not very popular tradition in this hour of time when God is showing Himself in so many ways and in so many places. That is what they have told their followers; and they just blindly accept what they are told. History shows us the route of Christianity from what we read in the book of Acts. You and I would have to be ignorant if we did not know what God has been doing in the earth in the past forty or fifty years. Everything that God has been doing, it has been done to eventually bring His bride Church back to the original, spiritual structure of His word. He is not coming for Catholicism. He is not coming for any kind of ism: simply because He did not start the Church by any such foolishness. He is coming for a body of people that are knit together by the baptism of His Spirit, and are seeking to walk according to the true revelation of His word. Their lives have been molded to fit the scriptures, instead of man’s traditions. When God really began to deal in my life, I soon began to realize I did not want to be just a traditional Christian. I wanted to be a Bible Christian. I said, Whatever is in this book, Lord, I want it. I say also to every living person that has ears to hear, Do not jump in the pond of any man’s teachings, mine nor anyone else until you search the Bible and become convinced by your own study that what you are hearing is in the book. We were talking about sprinkling, but saints, it is not in the Bible. It has never been a part of the Christian faith. Why play around with it then? Why entertain it? Why short cut God? That is exactly what those people do. Knowing that the Spirit of God has been manifesting Himself in many ways, in the supernatural realm, we need to be very concerned about getting our lives in line with His written word. There were times when the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans and many others persecuted what they call the holy roller type of people; (which is what we refer to as Pentecostals) but now, instead of persecuting them and saying, We want nothing to do with that kind of people: That is all of the devil, many of them are having manifestations of the Spirit of God right in their own gatherings and they do not know what to think of it. The Charismatic move today, has come right through the pulpits of Catholicism, right through Lutheranism, right through the Methodist Church, and the pope and his bunch are now allowed to come into every denominational pulpit of high ecclesiastical recognition. To them, that is putting the body of Christ into unity. Methodist clergymen, Baptist clergymen, Lutheran, all of them are exchanging pulpits in this late hour of time. When you pick up a newspaper on Monday morning, you read about who preached from such and such a pulpit on the past Sunday. It is either Cardinal So and So preached at such and such a Protestant Church, or this pastor of some denominational Church preached at the Catholic Church. They are not straightening anything up when it comes to the actual teachings of the Bible. They take certain things of the Bible and put them together to justify what they are doing and that becomes their message. That becomes the thing they speak so boldly about; but in reality it is a short cut that bypasses the scriptural things that the true body of Christ need to grow on. Nevertheless as I began to hear of all the various manifestation that different ones are reporting, and as I began to realize there are spiritual manifestations in the Bible which are ways God makes His introduction to the human individuals He is dealing with, I began to make a study of all I have been hearing about. That is why I read certain things from John Wesley’s hour, and from Luther’s hour. People sit in these systems of religion today, and they hear of how God led their founder in a by-gone era of time; but they know very little about what went on in that hour of their founders. My point in saying that is this, Through the centuries of time, as Christianity had finally been stripped of everything that had a spiritual impact to it, Catholicism became the leader of all that was recognized as the Church from 500 A.D. coming up through the next 1000 years. Praying just simply became a tradition, a ritual of hail Mary’s, praying the rosary and all such nonsense as that. That is why there was a Martin Luther. God was concerned about His true children being subjected to such paganistic rituals. He was getting conditions set to restore His Church to the reality of a personal relationship with their God. It was not going to be an instantaneous restoration though: It had to be done in a gradual way. Christianity had been stripped of truth and molded into a traditional structure of myths; and after so many generations, what was referred to as the Church was just people that were totally ignorant of what truth sounds like. TRUTH IS REALLY LIGHT. You know how it is when you are standing somewhere in the dark: Your eyes will automatically focus. The center of the pupil will open up to take in all the light possible, so that you can identify whatever is there; but if light suddenly floods the place where you are, and you look right into the light source, do you know what happens? It totally blinds you. You cannot see a thing. That is why light came little by little back to the true people of God. Here came Martin Luther with the truth that the just shall live by faith. You ought to read some of the things that went on in Luther’s hour; and also in Calvin’s hour, and Knox’s hour. God was very much on the scene. He is sovereign: He does what pleases Him; and then carnal minded mankind builds a wall around it, gives it a denominational name and goes to sleep with it. Well we can be sure of one thing: God is not asleep. He knows our circumstances and every heartbeat of our lives.

LOOKING BACK THROUGH TIME

I want to come across the English Channel to the life of John Wesley: a man out of the Church of England. Methodists are always wanting to look back. I looked back to John Wesley. I was told he was a great man; but I knew very little about him. I finally got busy finding out what went on in John Wesley’s hour. Some of these things right here on the chart we are using, dancing, shouting, shaking, trembling were manifestations of that move of God. I ask you older folks, Is that right? You have heard reports from that hour. They sure did have those things taking place. All you have to do is get a hold of some of the old writings of Methodism. In many of those early meetings people would be sitting there in their pews, just worshipping the Lord; and all of a sudden the Spirit of God would come upon them and they would pass out and fall to the floor. They would go into a trance. At times, they were in that trance so long others had to haul them home. They did not have Cadillacs to haul them home in either: just old horse drawn wagons and buggies. Lying in the back end of an old wagon can be a pretty rough ride home. When we come from Wesley’s hour, as the new world is being discovered, certain things began to develop in this new world. In the country of England, along with Wesley’s hour, there was another movement called the Quakers. Do you know why they call them Quakers? They were not very different from Methodists in their other beliefs; but as they sat listening to the word being preached, or at times, even in the song service, the power of God would come on them and they would begin to shake. However in this sophisticated day of high tech learning, people automatically say, I do not want anything to do with that kind of religion. Well I am sorry for them: They are not going to find anything better than what God is doing. You may find a program you like better; but if what they stand for is not a Bible truth you are just playing church: God is not in it. I realize those movements, regardless of what God was doing, there always has been a carnal element of people that will make-believe: simply because they like to get where the Spirit of God is; and they will imitate whatever God is doing: just so they can be there. They can sit among true saints and participate in whatever is going on; but usually, whatever they are faking will never hold out: simply because they cannot live up to the principles of what really is being preached in such a gathering. However the very fact that there has been fanaticism and error in various assemblies of saints of God does not put a black cloud over everything else. None of that affects truth. God is still God and truth is still truth; and true saints are still being blessed when they yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit. What does it say right here in 1st Corinthians 1:25-27, concerning what the world looks upon as foolishness? The apostle Paul wrote, “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (26) For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: (27) But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” The weaker things, or as Paul said, the baser things many times are what shuts the mouth of the prudent and the educated and ecclesiastical big shots of this world: Therefore when a confrontation is all over with and we have a chance to reflect back on the occasion, we cannot pat ourselves on the back and say, I am a pretty good fellow: That is why that turned out as it did. No saints, It is not because of our goodness that we are victorious in spiritual conflicts: It is all because of the grace and mercy of God. He loves us; and we are declared righteous, not because of our goodness: but because the righteous ONE paid our sin debt at Calvary and His righteousness has been imputed to us based upon only one thing, our belief in, and our dependence upon the word of God. It is called faith. Hebrews 11:1, says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” If we can believe that Jesus paid our sin debt and that we appear righteous before God, then we are able to do as the apostle Paul wrote in another Epistle: Come boldly before the throne of Grace, (Hebrews 4:16) “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” I am looking to Him as I preach this message; and whenever I do get it finished, we are all going to be made to realize Jesus was, and is the fountain of life. Jesus was not ashamed to associate Himself with people who acted like some of us do when the anointing comes upon us. Let me go back to John Wesley for another incident that was recorded. There is one story told concerning John Wesley preaching in this particular town. A critic in the town made fun of what he saw taking place in the meetings. (Most of the critics were men of the old established Church of England.) This critic came to the meeting and saw some of the people passing out in the seats. They did not all fall to the floor when the Spirit dealt with them in that way: Some would fall to the floor; but there were others that would just lay over in someone’s lap. This critic made fun of it and had to learn of the power of God the hard way. The story goes, that the next day after making fun of what he saw taking place, early in the day he was attacked with seizures of the stomach. He went to the doctor for help. The doctor gave him what he had but it did not ease the pain one bit. The man was rolling in the floor and suffering terribly. (God had him down where He could talk to him. He had him right where some of the other folks were the night before. Some of them were probably rolling on the floor.) There he was, on the floor; but it was an altogether different picture than what he had made fun of: They were happy and feeling fine. He was suffering terrible pain and begging for someone to do something. The pain was tearing him to pieces. They called in people that prayed for him and did everything they knew to do; but to no avail. Finally someone said, Let’s go get Mr. Wesley to pray for him. When they went to where Wesley was staying, he was out of town. Then someone said, In the days of Paul they brought handkerchiefs and aprons that Paul had touched and laid them on those who were sick and possessed with devils and they were delivered: Let’s find something Mr. Wesley has touched. Someone came up with the bridle that went on his horse. Oh Bro. Jackson, please don’t talk like that, some may say. I am only pointing you to things that are written; but I assure you, I believe the reports. (You doctors of divinity, you ecclesiastical big shots with all your Greek and Hebrew, shame on you. You preach Jesus; but you refuse to walk where He walked.) They brought that horse bridle and laid in across the man’s stomach; and in just a period of time the pain was gone. When the man got up, he confessed: This happened to make me realize I should not criticize the works of God. Another story from the same hour of John Wesley’s period goes like this, A certain woman was pregnant with child and when her hour of delivery had arrived she was faced with a problem. As she entered the travailing period, birth seemed to be so far away. They did not have the medical facilities back then that we have today; so she also was a person who was screaming, and begging for help. When the doctors were unable to do anything for her, someone said, Let us see if we can get Bro. Wesley to come and pray for her. Again, he was gone and could not be reached. Someone said, Let us find something he had his hands on. They found a horse bridle, brought it and laid it across her stomach; and in a short order she gave birth to the baby. Why is that so hard for some people to believe? Ecclesiastical, traditional Christianity has lost the true picture of Jesus Christ. Their vision has been blurred by studying theology. Here is Jesus coming through Jerusalem one day with His disciples; and when they came upon a man the Bible says had been blind from birth, what did Jesus do for him? He did what a doctor would say not to do. He did what hygiene technicians would say not to do. He stooped down and spit on the ground and made a little dab of mud. Then He raised up and put that on the man’s eyelids and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The Bible says he went and washed and came seeing. There was no healing virtue in the mud. Neither was there virtue in the spittle of Jesus. The virtue was in his obedience to do what Jesus told him to do: Go wash in the pool of Siloam. When he got there he washed his eyes. When he came back, the Bible says he came seeing. Does that not just tear man’s theology all to pieces today? If people do not believe what is written in the Bible, why do they profess to be Christian’s in the first place? How do such people sort out what to believe and what not to believe when they read the Bible? Either the Bible is the word of God and we can trust it totally, or we are without hope of salvation: for it is our only source of learning what God has done in the past and what He will do in the future. Oh yes, there are other writings around that give some history of the past; but how can anyone who claims to be a believer put anything else ahead of the Bible? I believe what is written in it; and I believe God is on the verge of bringing about a great change in the way He will deal with many who have looked at His written word with a question mark in their mind’s in the past. We are less than six years away from the year 2000; and then, another four and one half years will put us to the end of the two thousand years of prophetic time that is mentioned in Hosea 6. I have to believe there is a move of the Spirit of God in the earth today that before He is through, He will do things to break man’s tradition all to pieces. There is a generation of people on earth, from which He will perfect a bride that will be caught up to glory when Jesus comes for her. He will deal with this generation in many ways; but the main purpose is to gather together into one belief those who will make up that number. He will get His foreknown people. That is why I feel like He is going to move on young people in a very special way. The reason I believe He will move on young people at first, is because their minds have not been programmed with a lot of traditional junk from denominational theology. Their minds are sensitive and they seem to know more how to be susceptible to the moving of the Spirit in whatever God might do. I have to say to you older one’s though, Do not just sit there and say, Well I don’t believe He will touch me like that. I still remember the day I said, God forbid that I should ever act like that. Well I am now seventy years old; and I have been acting like that for quite a few years now. I am alive by the grace of God. Really, I have already lived my Biblical time. I have had a physical checkup; and other than being minus some teeth, getting some gray hair, and spot on top, I feel pretty good. I feel like preaching for a good while yet; and I intend to go very slowly as I deal with this message: We are not going to leave one stone unturned. I intend to preach this in a way that even if Catholics were sitting present they would have to listen. I just say to them, You can pray your rosaries all you want to, it is not going to do you one bit of good. It is not my purpose to send anyone to hell: I will do my best to stop them from playing around with that mess by telling them, Mary is not coming to get you up out of the grave. We have only one intercessor between us and our heavenly Father: Jesus Christ the righteous ONE that gave His life at Calvary and then arose from the grave and ascended to heaven where He continually intercedes for those who are to be partakers of this great salvation.

A WORD ABOUT THE FALSE AND THE GENUINE PRODUCT

Let us now go to the 8th chapter of the book of Acts. We want to read this now, before going further in the message. As I said earlier, I do not know when we will get this finished: because God is doing something among us and we know it is not designed to glorify human flesh; so we need to examine every aspect of it. God Himself will be glorified in what He is doing to get His Bride Church spiritually ready to meet Her Bridegroom. If we can believe that; and believe it because we see it in His word, then why not be part of it? If we want to be part of it, then we have to realize there are certain things God requires of us. He supplies everything that is needed; so all we need do is furnish ourself to Him. First though, I want to point you back to this passage of scripture we read earlier and read some more of it. (John 16:7-14) “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. (8) And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (That is first and foremost. Without that, there could never be a Church that would follow on into this phase of perfection. It takes that convicting power of God to deal with the sinner. If it was not for that convicting presence of the Spirit of God that first deals with the heart of a lost sinner, nothing anyone could say to such a person would do one bit of good: All your words would be fruitless because they would just instigate an argument. However if the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, the invisible Spirit of truth first deals with them and brings them to their knees weeping, they will gladly hear what you have to say.) (9) Of sin, because they believe not on me; (10) Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; (11) Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. (12) I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. (13) Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. (14) He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” That same Spirit that can convict a sinner and bring such a person to repentance will also lead that person into all truth and reveal to him or her, things to come. That literally means His objective is not to let you be a traditional Christian. The objective is absolutely to make us be a word loving Christian that will eliminate traditional things from the picture. We have certainly been made to realize that the Holy Spirit in the last number of years, has been doing exactly that. That is why first there was a message. If this message is heard and understood right, then the Holy Spirit is going to see that it is anchored in the heart of every true believer in the right capacity, giving that person the right meaning and insight of what God’s will is for their particular life. After thirty years of this message traveling around the earth, some people have said, If this message is truth, and if all of the bride Church is to believe it, then why is there not more manifestations than what we have been seeing? There have been just enough manifestations within it to confirm to those people God is dealing with, that He is present, He is working, and He is leading those who will follow. It has just not been something that would draw the attention of this religious world out here. God does not want them coming into our assemblies just to see a show. However after this number of years of God observing the heart’s of people, and seeing their sincerity and loyalty, God is going to finish the picture. Remember this, God IS that Spirit we have been enjoying in our services in recent months. God the very Creator, is that Spirit we are feeling. He is that spirit that is eternal life. He is everything we need. He knows what He is doing. He knows exactly how to do it. He has ways to apply certain things that are designed to bring about His ultimate objective. We have to understand that in the plan of God He will many times move to tear down tradition in the lives of people that are still holding on to certain old beliefs. There has always been some that will criticize everything: simply because they are hard hearted, hard headed, and stubborn. Their minds are already made up. At least that is what they have thought before He got hold of them. I will never get involved in that silly stuff, they will say. When you open your mouth to criticize or put something down, just be sure you do it with an open heart. Then if what you are criticizing is really of God, nine times out of ten you will come walking backward and admit that you have been wrong and say, I am sorry: I was wrong. As I go further into this message, there will be things that I will feed into it that will be helpful to those who are still examining certain things. As I look back even in my own experience there were things in those earlier years that I did not understand; and I did not know how to read certain passages of scriptures in the light that I felt God was dealing in my life. I was totally ignorant: I guess you would say. I now realize that in the hour we are living in, God will give to His true people something to steer them through such events. Having said that, I have to say also, that what the young people, as well as others are experiencing lately in these sensations, and the effect they are having upon their lives, THAT IS ONLY THE INFANT STAGE OF WHAT GOD IS PREPARING TO DO FOR, AND THROUGH YOU. Most of you will remember the dream I had last year, about the little bottle of oil. Well what I saw in that dream then, is now in effect. It is going on just as I saw it in the dream. We all know this restored message of truth will absolutely go around the world, so everyone has their opportunity to hear it; and when the time is right God is going to see that every person in the Bride has their personal experience in the Holy Spirit. It will not be just some little bottle of oil to carry around, That is only symbolic of an experience we all must have in order to be bride saints. In other words, there is an anointing for every person that is to be in the Bride of Christ. Otherwise, why would Jesus use the parable of Matthew 25, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto ten virgins going to a wedding. What did He use. He used the symbol of their lamps. But we all know what it adds up to. The lamps were none other than their own experience in receiving, and being led by the Holy Ghost. It goes to show here in the end time that there is in the Christian world a lot of people that are ending up, (we have to say) as foolish virgins. The true bride of Christ is not going to be in the foolish virgin category though: every individual one of that number will be a wise virgin. God is going to see to it that every person has their personal experience in the Holy Ghost. Young, old, small, or large, if you are destined to be in the bride of Jesus Christ, you will have your own experience: What mother and father has is just for them. They are charged with the responsibility of giving leadership and direction to their children to make good citizens of them; but only God can give them that new birth experience and supply them with wedding garments. Remember this though, as long as we are still here in this mortal body of flesh, and as long as we have contact with this world of human society, there will always people that hear what God is doing in our midst and they will come around to see for themselves. They want to get on the band wagon for the thrill of what is going on; but they do not have what it takes to go all the way with God. Therefore knowing this, let us be very alert and spiritual people who know our place: For this other element out here in the world, the minute they hear that God is doing something, they will rush in and grab the front row seats. You are the ones that should be in the front seats; but the Spirit of God in you will enable you to conduct yourselves in a proper manner until God Himself separates them from us. In the meanwhile, they like to get right up front and show off. Nine times out of ten they only bring reproach upon the genuine demonstration of the Holy Ghost; but God allows them to do that until their cup is full. Yes, they can get under the anointing, carry on and do the same things that you are doing; but the end effect is that sooner or later they will wash out. They will prove by the end results, that the motive they had in their heart’s all along was superficial; and that their pretense of being so genuine was nothing but fake. I know there are a lot of people who do not like to hear talk like this; but we are too far along at this point to keep quite any longer. WE HAVE THE SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY TO JUDGE PEOPLE’S ACTIONS: We just do not have the authority to pronounce their final destination. Only God Himself knows for sure who His true seed are. Ninety percent of the life of people like we are speaking of, has been lived just for personal attention.

PHILIP IN SAMARIA AND WHAT IT LED TO

Now let us go to Acts 8, and read what I announced earlier. Philip had gone to Samaria. He had preached the gospel to the Samaritans and many of them had believed. They had accepted the Lord in repentance; and they had been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ; but there was still more for them; so let us begin reading in verse 14, which says, “Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, (Pay attention right here; and you will see the guy who wants attention drawn to himself. He has already been baptized along with the rest of them; but his actions reveal the true motive of his heart.) Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” Down through the years of the Pentecostal denominations, they all latched on to this traditional teaching of theirs, that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of receiving the Holy Ghost; but right here we have a passage of scripture that does not say one thing about anyone speaking in tongues; and is says nothing at all about prophecy; but it does say something, if we will look at it right, that lets us know Simon saw something that convinced him that those others had received the Holy Ghost. I have to say, He saw this. (Pointing to the first column in our chart.) That is what he saw; and it convinced him that God was on the scene. It is just as real as can be. I want us to realize as we look at this scene in our mind’s eye, This is the gateway, the entrance into this realm over here. (Pointing to the other side of the chart.) This is not actually where God wants the Church to stay: just enjoying these manifestations: He wants the Church to be over here: In the place where those things He has given us can be used in service in the body of believers. Over here, is where God, by that Spirit, introduces Himself to us as individual believers. He gives us something that not only makes our own lives richer: He also gives us the opportunity to do something for the rest of the body as a service to Him. That is why by one Spirit have we all been baptized into one body, and have been made partakers of that one bread and so forth. The end result is that it eventually puts us over here: ministering to the body with the gifts of the Spirit. Now as we pass through this experience, keep in mind, In the apostolic hour when the truth was preached all of this was part of the results; but immediately afterwards, it began to bring them right into this other picture: They did not just go on forever enjoying the moving of the Spirit in a selfish way: they reached out to touch others. Well we are living on the opposite end of what we are studying about. We are coming to the end of what started back there; and God has been putting together, restoring little by little, all of that back to His body of believers. The big difference is, (for it was not like this in the beginning) Out here at the end of the Age, He is that Spirit that can take of Himself and deal with people on different levels: to fulfill what He has purposed in His word. That is why He can give that bunch of people out there in denominations a certain amount of the same manifestations of His Spirit, like praying for the sick and so forth. Sure those crowds of people are dancing, rejoicing, and singing in the Spirit; but I have to say again, They have no revelation of the word: so in the end, they are going to come up short. Therefore God can manifest Himself among them to fulfill certain scriptures and we have no right to question God, why did He do it? Because He knew exactly what they were; and He knew exactly what they wanted. He knew before hand that their mind’s are closed to truth. They do not want truth: They just want the blessings of God. On the other hand, I not only want the blessings of God, I also want to be sure I am standing firmly anchored in truth. Unless I am standing in truth, I know the blessings I receive, in the end result, are not going to benefit me nor take me anywhere: When the bride goes up, if the blessing side of God is all I have ever known, I will be left standing right here wondering what happened. I have to go back through the years past to look at the whole picture of what is taking place: simply because I was ignorant of a lot of things for a long time. There were a lot of things I did not know. As I said earlier, In those early years of my introduction to the Pentecostal experience I was privileged to experience a lot of these things in my own life. That does not in itself make me anything; but if God dealt with me in that manner so that I would later be able to help some other people along the way, then I will have to tell my experience in this fashion. When I was ever under the anointing presence of the Spirit of God for the first time, as I said earlier, I had never seen a lot of what is going on in Pentecostal, Charismatic realms today. The only thing I had seen was how Bro. William Branham would lay his hands on people and pray for them; but on that particular night, when I was in that meeting, when I got up to that evangelist, he just lightly touched me on the forehead. He did not push me down: I know that much. It was like something just suddenly took my legs out from under me. I was lying on the floor, flat on my back. As I stated earlier, when I tried to get up, every muscle in me felt like it was just like butter. Not one ounce of strength could I muster up. I could not even make a finger wiggle. When I then said, Lord, I realize you have your hand on me, just have your way, there was a drunken sensation came over me. I have never been drunk on liquor in my whole lifetime; but there was a drunkenness that began to settle on me and every light in that school auditorium began to merge together and become one huge light. That building began to spin and I felt like I was just floating around in a state of drunkenness. It seemed like everything was a million miles away from me. There I lay, on that floor; and there was nothing I could do about it. Bro. Jackson: Weren’t you afraid you were getting the wrong spirit? No, I was not afraid I was getting the wrong spirit. I did not go there to get a wrong spirit: I went there to get whatever the Spirit of God had for me and I was sure it would be the right thing. After I realized I could not move a muscle, then I said, Lord just have your way. I do not know how long I lay there; but in process of time, I heard someone say, You can get up now. When I tried to get up, I could not get up: I was so drunk. That is why I have to say today, There is a drunk sensation that can get hold of people and it is God’s way of introducing Himself to the spirit of those person. It is scriptural. It is every bit scriptural. There is nothing shameful about it. Otherwise Joel the prophet would not have said what he did about it. (Joel 1:5) “Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.” In other words, Hear this, you bunch of drunkards, the new wine is cut off from your mouths. You drink that wine and wake up with a hangover that makes you feel awful. That is why on the day Pentecost, when they came out of the upper room, they had heard the wind blowing up there, and they saw the cloven tongues of fire resting upon them. In other words, They saw, they heard, then they felt; and then here they came, down into the street reacting to all of that. They come down those steps into the streets acting just like they were intoxicated. That is all the home bunch of fault finding Jews could think of as they tried to address what they were witnessing there that day. As they were talking in other tongues, as they were staggering, and no doubt reeling around, what else do you think the home bunch that was void of understanding could say? Oh they are just drunk on new wine. That is what they said; but they were talking about the kind people drink out of a bottle: not the new wine of the Spirit of God. I have heard drunks who were so intoxicated they could not speak plain enough to be understood. Did any of you ever hear a drunk carry on like that? I was in an old outfit in the army. I was one of the new draftees in that outfit; and 80 percent of those other characters drank ever chance they had. When they got drunk, some of them did not even know which way was up or down. Nevertheless, my point is, This experience of being drunk is not necessarily what God has saved you for: It is just an introduction, an invitation into a realm of His Spirit where there are greater things for you to experience than just feeling drunk. It is just God’s way of getting your attention. As you open your heart and allow Him to have His way, He is not always going to make you drunk. I used to think so: after I had been under that spell two or three times. I got to the place that I thought, If I did not get drunk when I went to church, I had not been to church. I really did feel like that for a while: I felt like I just have to lay on the floor again. I finally came to realize this was just an introduction to the realm of the Spirit, and that there is a depth we must be willing to allow Him to lead us into. There is always something He wants you and me to learn, as we go on with Him. He will keep enticing, keep anointing you in different ways; but always for a greater purpose than what we experience at these times. There will be times you begin to see a change in some things. If we are honest and sincere with Him, His main purpose, as He sees we are willing to learn how to entertain the Spirit, is to lead us and direct our lives so we grow in spiritual stature.

SOME DOUBT THEIR STANDING WITH GOD

May I say this to you who are just now experiencing this anointing of the Spirit for the first time, If the Holy Spirit is in you, do not ever think He is going to leave you. He is there to stay. He only comes in to dwell in those whom He knows to be His true children and He makes no mistakes. There can be different times that He will activate something in you and you can move under that anointing; but the mere fact that He does not move upon you in that same way later on, does not mean that He has left you. Do not allow yourself to think because you have been drunk two or three times before, Oh if I do not get drunk again He surely does not love me any more. God’s love does not change like that. Only human beings conduct themselves in that fashion. People may think, I just don’t know what has happened: I never get drunk anymore. Well, He is going to teach us something from these times: because that Spirit is in you to do more for you than just make you drunk. I want the young people especially, to realize that the Bible teaches us that we just have a measure of that Spirit in us; and it is that measure we have, that makes us act like we do. Therefore I say to you, If just a measure of that Spirit can make us act like we do sometimes, then think about this, as I take you to the river of Jordan almost two thousand years ago. The day that Jesus, your Saviour and mine, went down to the river, walked out into the water and was baptized by John, the Bible says the heavens was opened unto Him and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him. (Matthew 3:16-17) “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: (17) And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Of course we know it was not the dove that went inside of Him: The dove was only a symbol. It was the Spirit that the dove represented, that went inside the man named Jesus, the only begotten Son of God. We do not know how Jesus the man, as the person, acted when He received the Holy Ghost; but we do know what happened shortly afterward: The Bible says that Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. (Matthew 4:1) “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” We know He for forty days and nights; and that He was approached by the devil when He was at His weakest point after fasting, and how Satan tried to get Him to use the supernatural power of God to satisfy His human craving for food, and how He resisted the temptation; but it says nothing at all about any sensations He experienced in receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. My point is, when we really begin to receive the baptism of the Spirit and God begins to deal with us in the anointings, somewhere along the way let us learn to be very sensitive to the Spirit we now have in us. We must learn how to cherish it, how to respect it, and how to guard the attitude of our heart’s concerning the natural things in life and how we are affected in our surroundings. That in itself many times, determines how we are going to take this anointing. In other words, are we going to allow it to affect our every day lives, lead and direct us, so that we will grow in character, and in spirituality to be like the Lord Jesus Christ? In this realm of the manifestations, there are many that will follow you right on through life as you grow in spiritual stature. Take dancing for instance, is it not written in the Psalms, Enter into His courts and sanctuary with praise, thanksgiving, praise Him in the dance, praise Him on the musical instruments and so forth? I will never forget the early years of my life: going to Sunday School in the Church of Christ. They had the silly idea that because the New Testament says nothing about musical instruments in the church, there should be none. They said, We speak where the Bible speaks; and we keep silent where the Bible is silent. Well I have not thrown the Old Testament part of my Bible away, and I can see by reading it, what pleased God in that way; and I am persuaded that God Himself does not change. Naturally they had no musical instruments at all: believing as they did; and that was generally accepted. Then when we started going to the Methodist Church, they had a piano in that old country church and it was not so bad; but after my wife and I were married and began to go out into some of the various meetings from time to time, we went to a service down here in a little mission on State Street in New Albany: It was a little Methodist mission, and like I said, I had already become accustomed to having a piano in the church; but that night there were two sisters got up to sing a special song and one had a guitar. I thought, What have I got myself into? I traditionally thought having a guitar in a church bordered on blasphemy. I thought like that because of the way we were raised: just not knowing any better. It just goes to show, when you are totally ignorant of what is in the Bible, you will think a lot of things; and you will let it affect you in a negative way. I thought a guitar was alright for those country and western singers out here in the world; but certainly not in the church house: A piano is enough. However as time passed and we were privileged to attend services at the Branham Tabernacle, when Bro. William Branham talked about different instruments and such like, I thought, My goodness: I never thought of anything like that! Then we began to be pointed to the Psalms and that changed the whole picture. When you go into the Psalms, you cannot help but see, trumpets, drums, cymbals, stringed instruments, pianos, organs, loud sounding cymbals and all of that. I could just see cymbals about so big around in some fellow’s hand, Bong! Bong! How can that have any place in a worship service? Now I can see that they all have their place when directed by the hand of God; and I have to cover the whole picture in a message like this, to try and take out of peoples mind’s the traditional ideas that adversely affect them. Many times, a hang-up like that will cause a person to close their mind to the Spirit of God. They find it hard to get over those hurdles and get where the Spirit can deal with them. As we move along then let us just say, This man Simon, saw some manifestations among those people that believed; and it made him realize they had received something he did not have. Therefore for the sake of making a point, I want you to try and imagine this setting to be as traditional Christianity has portrayed the new birth experience. Those people were all sitting there, they have already been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, Peter and John comes in, passes down the line laying their hands on them, RECEIVE YE THE HOLY GHOST. Then, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus is all anyone heard. That would have been nothing for Simon to be attracted to. They had the same rituals in the Baptist Church. Well my point is, While it is true there was nothing written about them speaking in tongues or prophesying, I have to believe the power of God came on at least some of those people and Simon saw some manifestations that he was attracted to. Time and history has proved that wherever God has moved in a dramatic way to restore a truth or to bring about an event that is going to affect His church as a whole, there has been a manifestation and working of His Spirit that was noteworthy. When He does it, He never does it to suit people. He does it and expects people, sooner or later, as He deals with them, to get their eyes open. Through the years, people have said, Bro. Jackson, I received the Holy Ghost years ago: I was just sitting in a service and the Holy Ghost came on me and I felt myself begin to speak in tongues. I never felt anything like this. That can be true. It plainly tells us here in the book of Acts, on the day of Pentecost they were sitting together. They were not lying on the floor, and they were not standing. They were sitting in the upper room, just waiting. But whether sitting, standing, or what, God has the right concerning any of these manifestations, to deal with people in the manner He chooses. He is a God of variety: He is not bound by man’s traditional methods. If you do not believe it, go back to the Old Testament and read for a while. Take David for instance: When he was bringing the ark of the covenant home. (You can find it in 2nd Samuel 6.) When the singers and all the musicians got in place, David girded himself in a white ephod, and in front of that ark he came dancing, leaping, and praising God. He was a spectacle to behold. Yes, a king conducted himself like that. When they brought the ark of the covenant in and put it in the Holy Oracle and everything had been set in place, David went out, and they sacrificed animals. They brought wine and everything. He dealt out to everybody a portion to feast on for the day. The Bible says he took a portion to his own household. His wife Michal, which was Saul’s daughter, had looked out the window and saw him dancing and leaping and she did not like it one bit. No sooner did he enter the door when she said, You were some spectacle to behold today. She began to criticize him from one standpoint because somehow or other there must have been a little jealousy there. She could see all those Israeli maidens on the fringes of the crowd literally rejoicing and leaping to see their king acting like that; so she made sure he knew she did not like it. His reply to her was, I will yet be more vile: I will be base in mine own sight as I rejoice before the Lord. Of course we realize we are in the New Testament age and things are somewhat different. God has not necessarily asked us to get out on Main Street and parade up and down acting like this. Many of the things you read in the Old Testament was out in a public way. There was no building in the Old Testament period, other than in a synagogue; for they did not enter the temple building. Only the priests went in there. But when the people did assemble before the temple and the altar, they worshiped in the court. There, thousands of people could stand. With the singers on the wall and the musicians in place, they worshiped the Lord. They could dance in a public display in the outdoors. In my opinion we Gentiles would be ashamed of ourselves if we could have seen those Jewish gatherings for worship in that period of time. When we look at all of this in that light, we have to realize that coming down through time, God has had a people in various generations that He dealt with in peculiar ways. People have always responded likewise. Take the latter part of the 1800’s: when there was a movement in the eastern states they called the fire baptized Baptists. That is what they called themselves. It started from north eastern Georgia, and came up through eastern Tennessee, through eastern Kentucky, and on into Virginia. Those people, the reason they were called fire baptized Baptists, they got to praying for the baptism of fire, because they read it in the scriptures. As this experience would come upon them they would have a sensation like they were literally on fire, with burning sensations especially in their hands. You may think that sounds is silly; but it is a fact. If you saw somebody in here acting like that you would say, I don’t know whether that is the right spirit or not; but my wife has a family tree of her people on her father’s side; and it tells about a man in that family structure that had this very experience. They wrote about him in this record. All the neighbors said he was a strange man. They heard him at times out in the corn field on a hot day, and all of a sudden he would have these spells. They would hear him yelling Hallelujah, and shaking his hands. Yes, they thought he was strange, but it also told how that many times when people were sick, they would call for him to come and pray for them. Oh I tell you, when the critics are down and out and don’t know what else to do, they eventually say, Well let’s go get that strange character and see if he can do anything to help. It said they would get this brother and he would come into their house, kneel down by the bedside and there he would lift his hands to the Lord. God would come on the scene. No, in that period of time there were no big displays in Newspaper Publications about it; but it sure left a testimony in the community. These experiences have been manifested with groups of people all down through the ages and there is no reason to think God will not still move in whatever way it takes to accomplish His purpose. When people get so complacent, so set in a traditional rut and they are ready every day to go through the same ritual, after awhile I have to believe God gets tired of this traditional nonsense and does something to change things. God got tired of the Israeli’s, how they offered sacrifice in such a humdrum way continually. He said, With burnt offerings and sacrifices, I was not well pleased. Why would He say that, when He was the one who commanded it? It was because of the way the people were going about it. They got in a rut: so that what they were doing, even though it was according to God’s prescribed way, it had no meaning, no stimulating, rejoicing affect. That is why God many times, is determined to change things; and when He does, people say, That is completely out of order; and the way tradition looks at it, you would have to say it is. That is the very way traditional folks feel about this thing of dancing in the Spirit; but I want you to know, that can be just as much of the Spirit of God as anything else Christians do in worshiping God. The anointing of the Spirit can have different effects on people. As I said earlier, being drunk in the Spirit can lead to being slain in the Spirit. Being slain in the Spirit means the sensation has affected the inside of you to the extent that you no longer have a sense of balance and the nearest thing to you is the floor or the ground. You are not going to be able to move in any other position until that sense begins to be lifted. I have to say also, The effects of it can be just as real as the man going downtown and getting drunk on beer or some other alcoholic beverage. The only thing is, you are drunk on the Spirit of God and when you come out of it you feel good: you do not have the heartbreaking hang over those others usually have. When God is allowed to have control everything turns out right.

EXAMINING MANIFESTATIONS

At this time, I am going to share with you an experience that happened many years ago at the Branham Tabernacle. I am sorry to say there are people in this world journeying down the pathway of life, and at the time you meet them, they may look entirely sincere; but deep inside that heart there is something God is looking at: Something that is not quite right. That is why we have to examine everything by the scripture: He rains on the just and unjust alike at times. He will anoint people that He knows good and well will never have the proper respect for that anointing; but they can never say He did not give them their chance. He will let people receive an anointing and they will go through all kinds of emotional dances and things and wind up years later, doing just the opposite of what you think they ought to be doing. Does that mean any of this is not a true experience with God? What God gives is genuine: It is how you treat it that makes the difference. You just have to be wise enough, spiritual enough to realize how certain things can happen because of wrong motives and say, Lord, don’t let that be my lot. Help me walk in your light. Years ago, at the Tabernacle one night after the service had ended, this happened. Bro. Neville was finished preaching and most of the crowd had left the building. There were a few of us standing in the center aisle talking: when a certain man standing there said, (I will not mention his name.) Pray for me: I want the baptism of the Holy Ghost. He no sooner said that, and that wind came swishing through the building. I heard it with my own ears, swoosh, as it came through. It caught me and spun me around and through a row of seats, and sat me down in the seat next to the wall in that row. There I sat, It all happened that quick. All the man said was, Pray for me: I want the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Bro. Glenn’s mother-in-law said, The Holy Ghost is here: He wants to do something. That brother knelt in the aisle and began to pray, and we all prayed a good while. Finally, it was getting late and our children were small and needed to be in bed, so we stayed a little while longer and then left. That fellow kneeled there, and after awhile the anointing came on him and he began to speak in tongues. They said he spoke in tongues a good while. But listen to what he did a little later. Keep in mind, Even though the anointing of God can be on us, we have to learn to entertain that anointing. We have to learn how to cherish it and at the same time keep the divine order set forth in the scriptures. The apostle Paul, when talking about tongues, interpretation, and prophecy, laid down a divine order for the operation of these gifts. Therefore if those who operate these gifts have to be restricted or disciplined to a divine order, and you have to be under the anointing for those to operate as Paul taught, then if these people are to be subject to scriptural discipline, or control, knowing when or when not to do this or that, they have to learn it somehow. Well right here is where God is going to school us: to bring us into proper order in this realm; but you yourselves judge what this man did. That man got up off that floor, no doubt feeling good. It is one thing to feel so good that you are rejoicing within; but he got up, Praise God, then walked over and rammed his fist right through the wall. Did the Holy Ghost tell him to do that? No, the Holy Ghost did not cause him to do that. The man’s fleshly zeal did that and anyone should have known better. Well Bro. Jackson, explain that to me. That just goes to show that the man became so excited he thought anything he did, God was going to be glorified in it. No. God is not going to be glorified in everything we do unless He leads us to do what we do: because in this experience, He is going to begin to teach us and see how far we will go in this thing of being led. It is one thing for us to obey the Spirit; but I assure you, God will never anoint you to go around knocking holes in walls. No. That is not what it is all about. I hope all of you understand me. Many times people get so anointed, and so carried away they really forget what they are doing. That is why when we are coming through these experiences: God will bless us; but after awhile He is going to watch us to see how far we will go with it. I remember an old man I met years ago at the Tabernacle. He was from Houston Texas. He knew a lot of the old Azusa Street people; so he said to me one day, Bro. Jackson, there were some of the most wonderful things that took place in the Azusa Street meetings. What little I have read, how the power of God would settle in there, they said Bro. Seymour, the black preacher, would come and sit in the chair, many times with his head in his hands, praying. Everybody would just pray, then the Spirit would start moving. Many times critics, people who wanted to create commotion and cause trouble, would come in. They would no sooner start to create trouble, when the power of God would hit them and take them to the floor. One man in particular came to do that; but the power of God struck him to the floor immediately. Then, because he had displayed himself in that way, no one would even get around him. There he was, lying on the floor begging, Pray for me. That man literally crawled, you might say just like a mole, up the aisle. What a humiliating position to be put in: all because you tried to interfere with the work of God. Some people think they are so smart; but God already has their number. That man crawled until he got to the front; and it was only then, that people became concerned enough to gather around him. They said they had hours when certain fanatics would come along and want to run. Well running is part of it: That is just an extension of dancing we might say. Not only was King David dancing, he was not just dancing in one spot. As the priest were carrying the ark of the covenant, he was in the lead, having himself a spell. The sad part of it is, once in awhile here comes a character all set just to show off. Their attitude seems to be, I want the world to see me. That attitude is not of God. When the Spirit of God begins to move, I do not care who God wants to use to lay hands on someone. It is wonderful to know God can use a child if He chooses to do so, and how beautiful that is. It says in the Psalms, 8:2, and Jesus repeated it in Matthew 21:16, “Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” God knows how to move upon those young hearts, and they respond because their mind’s have not been programmed with man’s traditions. Their minds are sensitive, willing to receive and accept whatever God has for them. It told of one particular character that wound up with a broken arm. Did the Holy Ghost do that? No; and I am sure he did not come to church to wind up with a broken arm; but if he came to show off, then God knows how to deal with him. He was running alright; but he ran into something. Friday night, one young sister over there was still dancing when I left the building after ten o’clock. I made the remark, Dancing on a dime and never touching anybody’s toes. That is the way it is supposed to be. You have to be in good physical shape to do that for over two hours if you are not under the anointing. Yes, you have to be in good shape if you are just doing that in the flesh; but if you are doing that in the Spirit, He is the one doing it. When we are talking about shaking, when the Spirit of God gets to moving, if you see somebody, all of a sudden their arms are going like that, (shaking) do not feel that there is something wrong. I have been that way down in the barn. The reason I say that, is because God’s Spirit can get in your body and manifest Himself in you and through you, many times just for your own edification. There does not have to be anyone else around. It is all in how you want to look at it, and in what your attitude and motive is toward it, whether you will entertain the Spirit of God for a furtherance of His moving in your life. Believe me, I have to say this, God is not exhausted in the things He can do in dealing with people. There are many things He can do and will do before we get out of this life. When we begin to see the Spirit of God moving on people, many times older people can be a little more reserved about it, because through their life time they have seen things get out of hand and then go off into a fanatical realm; but if we will enter into this thing with one desire, and that desire is to be a spiritual child of God, spirit filled and spirit led, we will eventually be used of God. Right there, in service in the body, is where you are used. Sometimes these things are what God will use just to speak to some people who have been a little slow catching up with where the Spirit is moving. If I would have found myself in a service like we have had here today when I was first venturing out into the Pentecostal realm I would not have been there very long: This would have scared the daylights out of me back then. I do have to thank God that it is not scary to me anymore. It is enjoyable and very refreshing to me. As the apostle Peter said one time: It is joy unspeakable and full of glory. Just think: This even gets hold of little children. There in Norway one night, we were going around from place to place praying for people, and three young sisters were standing close together at the back of the aisle. We prayed for one of them and there was a wave of the Spirit moved in there and all three of them at the same time, began dancing. I had not seen any of them dance before that; but that night they just kept dancing and dancing. You have to smile when you see something like that. No one told them to dance: The Spirit just moved upon them to dance. Out among the Charismatics, people are many times told what to do: Like, Say these words. Say them faster and still faster; and then someone would say, Now you have it. That is nonsense: God does not need that kind of help. If God can lay you out in the Spirit for hours at a time without the help of mortal man, He can do anything else He chooses to do; and He can do it without some other person’s scheming tactics. It is as we pass through these experiences, that we begin to develop a proper attitude within ourselves; and that attitude begins to position us and allow God to see that He can trust us. That is why I said years ago when we first started going to the Tabernacle, Lord, let me be honest in my heart toward you. Bro. William Branham had said that the Church, in the end time, will be a Spirit filled Church; and that all nine gifts of the Spirit will be operating in it; and there I sat, a Methodist, and he looked over toward me and said, It is good for you Methodists to. That could have offended some people; but it did not offend me: It drove me to my knees: either out in the cow stable, or out in the woods at night. I said, Lord I want this experience; and He heard my prayer. After that first experience, when I finally did get up, I realized there had been something come inside of me that I had never felt before. Then for a long time I said, Lord, if you will just let me speak in tongues, I will never teach that evidence thing like so many do: because I know it is not right for anyone to teach that. I felt like if I could ever get somewhere that I could see the gifts in operation and just be in the environment I would get what I wanted. That does have a lot to do with it: just being in that environment. There was a meeting in Evansville in the fall of 1953, in the month of September. We went to that meeting and got there late. The platform was full of preachers. There was a moving of the Spirit that began to settle in there though. The tent was packed solid. It was a huge thing. The evangelist that was preaching there, came to the platform and said, let us pray: There is a mighty presence of God in here tonight; so let’s just let Him have His way. He stood there silent for a moment. Then over to the right there was a message in tongues; and way over to the left was a message in tongues, then there was a preacher on the platform that stood up and gave the interpretation. He no sooner sat down when another preacher stood up and gave a prophecy. As he sat down another person stood up and gave a message in tongues and another preacher on the platform stood up and gave the interpretation. In one of the last messages it said this, If you came here tonight desiring a blessing in your life then believe with all your heart and thy heart’s desire shall be granted. I said to myself, THAT IS FOR ME! I had already heard what I felt like I needed. The first call was the invitation to sinners and there was a huge crowd that rushed to the front. A mass prayer was made for them and then they were sent with the personal workers into another tent for personal counseling. Then they asked for people that were there for spiritual needs and so forth, and said they should line up in the center aisle. I made my way to the center aisle and by the time I got in it I was about number 12 back in line. All the preachers were asked to come down from the platform and line up facing each other. The line of people passed through, and they laid their hands on them and prayed. When that line started moving and I got up to a certain position, I felt that dizzy, drunken feeling settling over me. I felt myself sinking to the ground, going down to my knees and everything. Then I heard the evangelist say, Carry him out. I felt two sets of arms grab me under my arms and they literally dragged me, my face down and my feet stretched out, to get me out of that line. The ground was covered with straw. They got me over to a certain place and laid me down in the straw. There I was, face down in the straw; and I thought to myself, Oh Lord, I didn’t know it was going to be like this. However about that time, right in the pit of my chest, there was a sensation beginning to materialize; and that began to move. I am saying that for this reason: THE BIBLE SAYS THERE ARE DIVERSITIES OF OPERATIONS, AND THERE ARE DIVERSITIES OF ADMINISTRATIONS. It is the way the Spirit of God delegates Himself to you. He works on the system of your body because that is the means and ways you will understand He is anointing you with His presence. Without it being like that, you would not know whether God is here or a million miles away. One thing is sure, He knows who you are; and He knows exactly how to manifest Himself to you. As I felt that sensation begin to move, shortly it was in my throat and out of my mouth came a word. From then on it felt like little rocks rolling out my mouth, but they were words. For about fifteen minutes, face down in the straw, I lay there speaking in another language. In my mind, I was saying, Praise the Lord! It looks silly to the world, but the foolish things of this world hath God chosen to confound the wise. When I got up from there, I asked myself the question, Will this ever happen again? I went home and spent all week praying. I was praying that I would have the same experience again; but it seemed like I was as dry as a bone. Saints I am saying these things to let every one of you know this, PLEASE, if you have ever tasted of that precious anointing, and then you feel yourself passing through some kind of dry period, and feeling like God has forsaken you, DO NOT BECOME HYSTERICAL. Somewhere up the road ahead, something else is coming your way. He has just introduced you into that realm and after that, it is up to you to begin to understand how to receive and how to react, to entertain that anointing. On that next Saturday night we went back to the same meeting place. We got there late again. We were almost all the back. I did not go there asking for any particular blessing. I just wanted to be in the meeting. When the preaching was finished, they gave the altar call for the sinners and there were people lined up to be prayed for. He said, Now I am going to ask all you saints to stand and lift your hands and pray for these. I no sooner lifted my hands, I began to pray in another language. All week long I had been praying, Lord, will it ever happen again? Like I said, Sometimes it is the environment you are in. That is where God begins to school you. It is where you begin to shape your thinking about certain things. I did not speak out loud: I just prayed very softly; but oh, it made me so happy inside. We stayed all night in a motel. The next Sunday afternoon we went back for the afternoon service; and what I am going to say now, I am saying it for you to listen and learn from. That Sunday afternoon as the crowd gathered and the service started, all of a sudden the evangelist said, I feel led at this time that there are certain people here that need prayer. I want you to come up right now before we go any further in the service. There were several people got up and went up to be prayed for. Then the preacher said, I am going to ask certain ones, if you feel definitely in your heart that you would like to pray for these, come and form a circle around here. Well I felt like God had been so good to bless me, Lord, I want you to bless them now. Here I was standing in that little circle of people, getting ready to pray for those that had come forward. All of a sudden the organist hit the note for a song, and a chorus was started; and I started singing that song in another language. Keep in mind, I was just learning. In learning, it is for us to be able to know how to say and do certain things in line with scriptures. There is a place however, for singing in the Spirit in another language and it does not have to be interpreted; because it is a type of service that is shaped and designed by God for that kind of worship. Before I get finished with this message, we are going to understand some of these things. There I stood with my hands in the air. I had just come up to pray for those other people: not even expecting anything like that; but there I was singing that song in another language, and all the time I was thinking, What am I singing? what am I singing? All of a sudden the volume of the organ began to die down. It was then I was able to gather my thinking, and I heard these words, Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay. We are going to see some services on up ahead, when we will have to be able to understand the moving of the Spirit and discern what is the Spirit is wanting to do. Keep in mind, In the early church they did not have the New Testament Epistles to refer to like we do today: they just simply submitted themselves to the leading of the Spirit when they felt that anointing come upon them. We know what the apostle Paul taught concerning divine order in the Church, when he wrote that first epistle to the Corinthians. It is found in 1st Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. That is for normal services where it is all believers and you are not dealing with sinners or unlearned people. These are instructions for an orderly service in order to keep from having mass confusion. That is what he was dealing with in those three chapters. We do need to realize that there is a place within the Church for the Spirit to override everything else, if the Church is to continue to grow collectively by God bringing in other people. We must open up our mind’s and realize that He has to give them the same thing you and I have. Therefore if there are twenty people in here today and God wants to anoint them, and this is their time, then up to a certain point we sing, we pray, and whatever else we do in a normal service; but after awhile the Spirit of God wants to minister to them. If all of a sudden the Spirit of God comes on them and all twenty of them begin to sing in the Spirit or prophesy, you do not bring them back under the divine order of the scriptures. You just have to allow the Spirit to control the order of the remaining part of the service. Otherwise you are out of the scriptures yourself. Let me take you to the 19th chapter of the book of Acts for a look at an occasion the apostle Paul had. When Paul found certain disciples at Ephesus, the number of them was twelve: He asked them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? They said we know not whether there be such a thing as the Holy Ghost. He said, Unto what then were you baptized; and they answered, Unto John’s Baptism. He explained that to them and took all of them out and rebaptized them: then laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. What does the Bible say then? They all spoke in tongues and prophesied. It says nothing about it being interpreted. Well my point is, the Corinthian Church was made up of people who had come right out of paganism into this wonderful experience with the Holy Ghost and they had no real concept of how they ought to conduct themselves in the house of worship. They had passed through the first phase of what we have listed here on our chart; and they were over here wanting to operate all of what they had received. That is why Paul had to put in a divine order: so they could all be partakers of this wonderful experience without everything going completely out of control. Some of them had passed through here (pointing to the chart) without learning very much about the purpose of God in giving them those gifts. That is exactly why you read in the 14th chapter of 1st Corinthians, these specific instructions concerning the operation of the gifts of the Spirit. We will not try to read it all: but will try to select key verses; and let you read the entire chapter later. Notice verse 12, in particular. “Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the Church.” He did not scold them because they were so enthusiastic about the operation of the gifts: he just admonished them to learn to conduct themselves in a way that would edify the whole gathering. Let us read a few more verses. (13) “Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. (14) For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. (15) What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. (16) Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? (17) For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified.” As I was saying, These have already been through those times when the anointing fell upon the whole Assembly and they all just worshipped God in the Spirit, singing, praying and rejoicing; and now it is time for them to begin to minister to each other instead of just enjoying the anointing. (20) “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, (or be as children) but in understanding be men. (or be as those who have matured) (21) In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. (22) Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.” In other words, Prophesying only benefits believers; but it can serve as a sign to unbelievers: that God is among you; so Paul said, Be wise: Do that which serveth the whole Assembly; and discern what the moving of the Spirit is ordained to accomplish. (23) “If therefore the whole Church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? (24) But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: (25) And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.” Now here is the part I want you to pay special attention to. (26) “How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. (27) If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. (28) But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the Church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.” You have to be wise enough, and sensitive to the Spirit: so you will conduct yourself in an orderly way without becoming so legalistic you leave no room for God to bless some people when He chooses to do so. Paul said, When you come together, one has a tongue, one has an interpretation, one has a prophecy, one has a revelation, one has a song, and all such like. There is nothing wrong with that; but it must not be allowed to turn into just a lot of confusion. On the other hand, if we expect everything in a service to be under divine order, then our minds become locked up and fixed to the point, Well if somebody is going to speak in tongues around here, it is going to have to be interpreted. If that had been a strict rule years ago when I stood in that tent on that afternoon, and it had been said openly, Nobody sings in the Spirit around here unless they follow it with an interpretation, I would never have had that wonderful experience I just described to you. There are a lot of people that will never have anything as long as they are bottled up with some kind of traditional thought. However if you can understand what I am saying and why I am saying it, and you can get a picture in your mind, I promise you, we are going to see God put together a people that knows how to follow His leading. He is not moving like He has been, just to get two thousand people all dwelling strictly in this realm over here. (Bro. Jackson is pointing to the two sides of the chart) After they have passed through this realm there is going to be much of this that will come on over here as people enter this realm, that is why many times in a regular worship service when everybody as a body is rejoicing, there can be two or three on the floor dancing. They are not going to dance an hour and half. That is not the point. When they are over here being dealt with by this, they might dance an hour and half, two hours, or three hours. That is where God is introducing Himself to them. But as they become sensitive to that Spirit, how the Spirit is urging them or prompting them, that is where they begin to learn. Then when they begin to learn, then is when they begin to understand where and how to let the Spirit use them. I realize I have never talked like this before; but it is because I have never seen an hour quite like the hour we are living in. Notice this, (29) “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. (30) If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. (31) For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted. (32) And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. That simply means, even though you have the anointing to prophesy, you still wait for a proper opening for it: you are not out of control in such instances.) (33) For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” This whole thing is hanging right over us just like a cloud. There is not a thing in this world that I can do to stop it, even if I wanted to. I have no intention of stopping it; and I have no intention of trying to be a big shot in what is taking place. If anything, I would rather go sit in the middle of the floor and say, God, pour it out on all of us! Have your way! Do whatever pleases you! I have seen so much of men wanting to be glorified in something God is doing: It is a shame. I want to see the beauty of God and the sovereignty of God move on people, and see the people filled with such joy they have to know it is God. It is not something carnal mankind has manipulated them into. I have got to preach it this way, because as this goes out, wherever it goes to, I know somewhere there are hearts waiting just to be touched. No doubt as they see something in the video, it will inspire them to yield to the moving of the Spirit for their own personal blessing. I do not know what all, various individuals may have received or experienced in life; but I do know there is an anointing coming, and it is hanging right over God’s people. It is not going to be a big explosion: it is just coming in a way to slowly lift people up and introduce them to a realm they are not altogether familiar with: how to discern the moving of the Spirit, and recognize the workings of the Spirit. Every bit of it is designed to bring people closer together. We are going to see God do some things that are literally going to astonish us. We will be able to go home at night rejoicing because God has done some things we had not been accustomed to. You could not stop this with bull dozers: because God will not allow it to be stopped. This building will not contain it. That barn in Harrison County, where some of the young people first began to be blessed will not contain it. God is bigger than all of that; and He knows what He wants to do. There in Norway, I have known this one particular man for twenty years. He is a brother to two of the brothers that have been over here in our conventions. He lives in the south. He came to Verdal for the meeting. The brother has given messages in tongues in the services while we were there, but other than that he is a quite unemotional person. So my point in saying that is this, it does not matter if you already have the Holy Ghost: there is an anointing coming that will go beyond what you have experienced already. It is not just to give you the Holy Ghost if you already have it; but it is an anointing like in the book of Acts: where those that had already received the Holy Ghost, when Peter came and gave his report, (You see it in the 4th chapter.) they all lifted their voices together in one accord and began to pray; and then it says the whole house was shaken and they were again filled. What it really was, they were freshly anointed again. Another manifestation of the Spirit designed to strengthen those saints. It was a blessing of God poured out on people to stimulate and encourage them; and in our case, to get us out of our traditional rut. On one particular night, this man was sitting way in the back on my left. We had been down on the floor praying. We had already prayed for everyone and Bro. Strommen and I, and the other brother were standing in front: They started singing a chorus, and all of a sudden it felt like to me, that in the ceiling of the church there had been a giant fan just let down over the people. When it did, it literally lifted people into that Spirit of singing, and that man, it was like it picked him up: I really do not know: He might have floated up the aisle. I do not know exactly how it was, but the next thing we knew, he was running across, shouting, yelling, screaming with all his heart, Hallelujah! He just simply could not contain himself. Now if any of you are thinking, Bro. Jackson, surely you do not think that is how we should act, just wait until that anointing comes upon you and then see what you have to say about it. When the Holy Ghost gets inside of you and starts pumping you up like a balloon there has to be some expression, so who is to say what we may be led to do?. Oh yes He can pump you up. He can pump you up until you feel like you are going to lose your breath unless you do something; and when it happens, I dare you to open your mouth. When you do, He will let something come out of it. It will come out one way or another. It will come out in a scream, in a shout, in some manner of praise, or you may just simply take off running. Whenever He pumps you up inside, no, you do not see anything, but you sure feel something. God has more than one way to move upon you; and it usually depends upon your own emotional makeup, as to how you will respond. You may be a person that has always been just as still as a mouse, as unemotional as you could possibly be; but if for some reason He wants to prove to people that He can take the unemotional makeup and make it emotional, He sure knows how to do it. For about five minutes that man just rejoiced, and when he was finished, he went back to his seat and that was it. Bro. Strommen said, I never saw him move like that before: He has the Holy Ghost; but saints, it was just a different anointing. That is why I can say, We may already have the Holy Ghost; but if He wants to anoint us in a special way to begin to show He is moving, then let us just open our heart’s and allow Him to have His way with us. May He be allowed to do with each of us whatever He desires to do.

WHAT IS GOD’S PURPOSE IN MANIFESTATIONS

I am sure there are many things we as humans do not yet see or understand, as to the purpose of what God is doing among His bride Church as He moves among them universally, getting them ready for the catching away. Keep in mind, Revelation 19, shows the Bride in heaven after she is raptured; and the rejoicing is all over the fact she has made herself ready to meet the Bridegroom while she was still down here. I am sure there are experiences, circumstances, situations we will be faced with, that we never even thought of as we began this journey. If we are living in that approaching hour of time, there are things in the world about us we are going to see take a drastic change. There is no doubt things in the world will begin to create circumstances that will cause the Spirit of God to move through us, or with us, to guide us and show us what time we actually are living in. I want to read again from 1st Corinthians 12, verse 7 As Paul spoke here about the gifts of the Spirit, remember, as we have tried to illustrate on our chart, there is a service to be performed in the body, for that is where the Spirit is seeking to bring us to, that we may function as the body of Christ; and function in a manner that the body is complete. It says in the 7th verse. “But the manifestation, (The word manifestation, means the public demonstration, or the public display.) of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” That means as the body of Christ reaches its completeness, it is then in a state that the Spirit of God is allowed to lead, to work, and to manifest whatever purpose He has for the situation at hand. Certain conditions will necessitate in that hour, that some of this is given to every man, or every bride saint. That means we cannot just sit back in our seat with a complacent attitude and say, Well God has never done this or that to me: I have never felt this and I have never seen that. That can be true, but keep in mind, as we say that, we have never reached the end time before; and that is what all of this pertains to in this hour of time. We may say, I have never felt this or that before; but does that mean you never will? Not if you are a true bride saint. Otherwise this would not have been written like this. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man. It does not say to some men. Even though the scripture says, (1st Corinthians 12:30) “Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?” We do know there is something for everyone: even though that is not the picture portrayed in this verse. This verse just speaks of the fact that not everyone has the public manifestation of all of these gifts; but somewhere there is a public manifestation of the Spirit placed within every member of the body of Christ, that eventually every member will function and profit thereby. As I said the other day, This thing is definitely in the state of infancy in most assemblies. I have been reading the historical writings of Azusa St. In fact, I did not realize I had read the book years ago; but when I started reading it again it was almost like I had never read it: because of the way it struck my attention this time. It seemed like things came out and just stood there so large in my mind. As we read about what took place back then, we have to notice the fact that it was not something that came rumbling down a mountain side one day and nobody knew what was going on. They had been praying months in advance of it, for God to move by His Spirit among them. Not necessarily that He would do what He did at Azusa Street; but at least do for them like what they had heard about what took place in the Welsh Isles, in the British chain. They just wanted God to do something of that nature. The main thing was for people to get on fire for God; and pray that lost souls would be saved. What took place at Azusa Street was the aftermath of their seeking something from God. What took place at the Azusa Street mission was altogether different in one sense than what took place in the Welsh revival. They said what took place in the Welsh revival was mainly that the convicting power of the Spirit of God would just grip the heart’s of sinners in a way that they just simply could not get loose from it. There is such a thing as a convicting power that can grip a sinner’s heart and bring him or her to their knees in repentance. It takes that many times, to touch the heart of masses of people. However we do realize that in our day and hour we cannot expect that God will keep on endlessly, saving, saving, saving unsaved souls, and just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Somewhere, if we are truly at the end of the Age, the saving of souls has to come to an end: so those last one’s have a chance to grow in spiritual stature before the Lord comes for His bride. Jesus is going to come for His bride: which by that time will be a finished product. That finished product is absolutely going to be perfected, glorified, and beautified and it is going to be just exactly the way the Lord wants it to be. Only He, knows for sure what He is going to do among His true people; therefore as I feed into the message some of what happened at the Azusa Street meetings, it is just to familiarize you with the way the Spirit moved back then: It is not intended to use that for our pattern, or way of conducting our services. When the outpouring of the Spirit came to them, there was no particular message being preached. Very few people even knew what to expect. When people did begin to speak in tongues, then they had to run to the Bible to see if what they were doing was in harmony with the Bible. That is when they began to say, Yes, this is the same thing that happened on the day of Pentecost. That is why they began to say, This is Pentecost; because it was the same thing that took place back then. As soon as it began to be noised around what God was doing, here came everything, form everywhere, wanting to get in on the show, to get in on the experience and try to tell people how to get it done. In these writings, it says preachers fell the hardest. Some of those men that came, were men who at one time had great ministries in other phases of the gospel work of Christ; so they would come and many times want to preach; but only to literally fall flat on their face. They would get up before the people and try to preach and all of a sudden everything would just go blank. They stood there in humiliation, then fell flat on their face under the power of God: Just as if God said, Shut your mouth, I am doing this. As we go along in this message, I put myself in a position of learning: We are all going to learn together. We do not necessarily have to learn by their mistakes: even though we probably could; but we will learn by our own mistakes, that things we just assume are a certain way, and things we have always taken for granted, do not necessarily have to be that way at all. In the Azusa revival, and those others, God was not yet setting His church in order: He was just re-introducing them to certain things He was bringing back into the Church. They had a lot of things doctrinally, that were all messed up; but the point is, God was restoring into accessibility a moving and an infilling of His Spirit for that hour. Basically, everything in the total religious structure back then was Trinitarian. Therefore those who had those experiences back then were Trinitarian minded people out of all the denominations; and it says in the history of it, that they came from all over the earth, out of every religion, and even out of witchcraft, spiritualism and everything else, with the idea of trying to have an affect on what was happening, only to be met by the power of God, and to be shut up. Many of those experiences that the people had, as they testified of what God had done for them, it took place when nobody seemed to have any particular plan for the service. They came, they sang, they may have even started preaching; but sooner or later when the Lord felt like enough had been said, He would just move on the congregation and many times the Spirit of conviction would just fall on people, and sinners, unlearned people of all walks of life would be overcome by it. They would feel so needful of something, they would make their way to an altar of prayer. It said never was there an altar call made by any man: God made it Himself. As they would get up to leave their seats, it said many times it was like giant trees of the forest falling. They just fell prostrate in the aisles, working their way toward the front. That is the way the power of God went. This book tells how in that hour the fundamental churches persecuted the whole thing. They wrote articles in the daily paper condemning it, even trying to collaborate with the police department to shut them down; but the more they persecuted and ridiculed it, the more God exalted His power to show them, I am running this thing. While they became aware of many things they could see was the devil trying to create fear tactics within the people, there were still times when they could not detect which was the Spirit of God or which was the spirit of Satan working. That is true many times, but I have a feeling inside, if we are coming to the hour that all of this is God’s introduction of Himself to His people, to get them into the final stages of perfection, even though this is not the finished product, He is still making His entrance recognizable to His people. This is how He acquaints people with His power and anointing and teaches them how to entertain His anointing presence, how to recognize it and accept it. Everything God is doing is serving to produce a finished product. If we can come through this looking at God the right way, honoring God with the right attitude, then we will see this thing turn into something so beautiful. Not ten years later, but much sooner than that. I believe with all my heart, as this thing builds, God will build it in such a way, He will not out run you, if your heart is right. That is not His purpose. His purpose is to give you and I the opportunity to learn and grow. Here is where He is going to complete the thing and is going to perfect it and manifest Himself in and through it, based on the hour we are living in. I believe He is going to show the Church how to shine. If in that prior hour of time, in other meetings of bygone years, the devil has always tried using fear tactics, create deception and all sorts of things, he is still out there, and still trying to disrupt the plan of God; but here is where I believe we will begin to see discernment, knowledge and wisdom in the body of true believers. At Azusa Street it was tongues, some prophecy, dancing shouting, slain in the Spirit and all of that; but without these other attributes. In the apostolic hour of the early Church, we read much about when the Holy Ghost came upon them, how they either spoke in tongues or prophesied. That seems to be the general way the Holy Spirit made His introduction in the hour. Very little do we read about the dreams and things that people would have had. I am convinced in this hour, since tongues has been used and counterfeited so much, and reproach has been brought upon it, this will not be a peak we reach and then rest. That does not mean God is going to do away with speaking in tongues: He will still keep it in the body, but preeminence will not be on it as much as on some of the other things God can use. Here is where we can say, If the church as a whole is moving toward an hour that she is not only to be complete, and she is not only to be perfect, then God is going to display Himself through it in such a way as to show an element of people, THIS IS MY TRUE PEOPLE. THIS IS MY CHURCH AND YOU ARE NOT COMING INTO IT WITHOUT COMING THE RIGHT WAY. In the early apostolic hour, it plainly tells you, no man durst join himself among them for fear. That had to be because there was something there that exposed every false thing, every hypocritical, carnal minded person that even dared to darken the doors of their assemblies. Sooner or later the Holy Ghost will expose that type of person and they will be asked, Please make your exit or else get right with God. As we go along with this, I have to feed into this, various experiences, things that God has done through the years, to acquaint people with what God has done in days gone by, so they will not be afraid of what He is doing now. It is true, the devil many times can fake a lot of things and produce a lot of false sensations and experiences; but if we are going to feed on that, if we are just going to live on that, then what are we really doing for God? God Himself is a God that created all things; and it has always been the devil’s business to imitate and pervert the things of God; but it is God’s business in the end to always out shine what the devil does. Whether we are talking about shaking, trembling, falling on their face, whatever it is, God can be in every bit of it. We are aware also that there can be people that will fake every bit of that; but remember, if there are people in our midst that fake these things, sooner or later God will let them fall over something and expose themselves. Back in the 1930’s, it is true in certain parts of the world God moved in many strange ways. Azusa Street was the beginning of the outpouring and manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit as the 20th century was introduced; but for a long time, American people did not embrace it as enthusiastically as people in other nations did. That is why in Stockholm Sweden, the country of Sweden accepted the Pentecostal message as the country of Sweden became burned over just like a forest fire. That is why Stockholm Sweden became the headquarters of the World Pentecostal Movement. You would have thought Los Angeles would have become the headquarters of it: But no, they did not. Norway, as a country at that time, never seemed to be open to the Pentecostal revival. When we first went to Norway in 1972, this Baptist preacher was the man in charge of the camp facilities that they had rented to have this convention. This Baptist preacher was the man that had been in Bro. William Branham‘s meeting. Well let me say this, Stockholm Sweden received the Pentecostal message; but when it came to Bro. William Branham‘s message, they shut the door on it. In Bro. William Branham‘s hour, when he was to pass through into Finland, I believe it was in 1952, the government of Norway, through influence of the state church would not let him pray for individual people. The only thing they would allow him to do was pray a mass prayer. To think they shut the door to the gift that God had to manifest for them, yet the country of Norway today has received the message of the man. However this Baptist preacher had been bothered for years with a skin disorder. He went to that meeting that night, and sat in the back of the church building. He said as he sat there and listened, knowing how the government had not allowed him to pray for these people personally, yet as he sat there he prayed, Lord, when that man prays for the people in a mass prayer, you see my condition, Lord I pray that you will do something for me. When that hour came and Bro. William Branham made the mass prayer for all those that were sick, he said it was like a bucket of warm oil came pouring down over him. In just a short order my skin condition was all cleared up, he said; and when we were there in 1972, he showed me his hands and said it had never been like that again from that day until then. He gave me his own testimony, and I want to put this into the message. Back in the 1930’s, not knowing what God might do, this man ran a little mission. The mission was downstairs in an old store building. He and his wife and daughter lived upstairs in an apartment. He took care of building the fire, keeping the place clean, opening it up and so forth.

TESTIMONY

On this particular evening he went downstairs. He built the fire in the stove, and as was his custom, he stayed long enough to be sure the stove fire burned and would warm up the place, then he would shut it down some and go back up to their living quarters. On this particular afternoon after he built the fire and was waiting, he said I felt led to pray. I had my Bible and I knelt down at the front pew. He said, Lord, they say there are so many promises in your word. Lord, I just pray, he took his Bible and placed it on top of his head. Lord, would you just bless me with one of these. Instantly the power of God laid him back on the floor. He began to talk in another language. He said it was such a surprise. He said the sensation that went through me, I lay there utterly helpless. Something was coming out of me, I could not control it. I do not know how long I lay there; but I kept talking in another language and praying. After awhile the anointing seemed to lift. I got up and said, I must go upstairs now, I have been gone a good while. I wonder what my wife will think. (This is why I have to say, Do not ever think God is some ancient old man that needs our help. He does not need our help. He only asks for us to move in His plan, be willing to cooperate, and be receptive vessels that He can use and work through.) As he went up the stairs, suddenly the door opened and his daughter, he told here age, maybe between two and three, stood at the top of the steps and said, Mommy, come look at Daddy. He heard his wife say to the daughter, Honey, Daddy has been with Jesus. (Evidently she had opened the door and heard what was going on.) By that time he was at the top of the steps, so the little girl just threw herself into his arms and said, Daddy, take me, I want to see Jesus. So he picked her up and started back down the steps; but before he reached the bottom, that little girl, not knowing one earthly thing about what had been going on, suddenly began talking in another language.

END OF TESTIMONY

Only God can do that with a child like this little girl was. I say though, If He can do that with a child whose mind is so innocent and helpless, then we as adults should realize God can be with us the same way. That is why Jesus said, when He blessed little children, Except ye receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, you can in no wise enter in. When we come to God we have got to be willing to forsake our pride, our preset ideas and attitudes as to what God can, will, or will not do; and just let Him have His way. God is an unlimited God. I have to believe, that in an hour such as this, when we see the world of atheism, crime, and evil of every sort on every hand, and even the church world as a whole all gone into apostasy and formalism, Our God is still in control. What is supposed to be the power of God in those places, they take it and program it, channel it into an avenue where they can commercialize it. God will not allow what He is doing in His true Church to get into a place where it can be commercialized. It is what He wants to do for His Bride in this hour, that He is concerned about. No doubt to many people there are many things He will do in a repetitious way. As we say these things, let us also keep in mind, God is in no hurry. He knows exactly what He is doing and when He intends to have it finished. I believe He is moving precisely right on His schedule. Young people, I have to say, You have it all lying right before you. Everything God has and God is, you have it all before you. I also believe many of the older ones are no doubt going to receive a new anointing, an anointing like they have never felt before. It is God’s way of confirming to them that He is doing something with a body of people, helping unite them, pull them together and show them His power is real. We will either move with Him in His spiritual power or we will find ourselves cut completely out. There are individual experiences that have been recorded down through the ages; and I feel that it could be helpful to some if I feed some of these into this message. I know people, as they come in a public sense, in a public meeting, and as they pray, they sometimes feel like, I do not feel a thing; but everyone else is getting blessed. Always keep in mind, God knows exactly where you are. He has a certain thing for you, He is going to deal with you in a certain way; but it will be in His time. That is why when you see the Spirit moving, and some are dancing, shouting and falling prostrate, just do not get so excited that you say to someone, What is wrong with you brother? Why are you not doing something? Do not do that; because you are not the one that is giving the blessings. God is the giver. He is the supplier of every good thing. There is not necessarily anything wrong with a person who is not feeling what you are feeling. This is where we many times allow our own carnal mind to get into the picture and make a mess. Sure it is wonderful for me to feel good. I can get as cocky as a rooster and say, What is wrong with the rest of you? But if I do that, there is something wrong with me. God can bless one person and leave a hundred sitting there wanting the same thing. He can turn around and bless the hundred and leave the one sitting there, not feeling a thing. That is God. That is how He is. He is sovereign; and knows exactly how to work with His people. Just let Him do it His way. It is only when we try to manipulate it, saying, But I want my brother to have this also, that we get in the way of what God is doing instead of helping Him. Sure you want him to be blessed also; but I ask you, Who saved him anyway, you or God? It has got to be done God’s way in order to accomplish His purpose. If God does not put conviction on a person, you can cry all you want to, beg and plead, and try to force him to an altar; but it will never do one bit of good. He will only come to God when the Spirit draws him. We are going to see some leadings of God, that no doubt will have some startling affects from time to time; but just keep your spirit submitted to His leading and let Him use you if He chooses to. If there is something God wants to use you for, He will deal in your heart in a certain way, strictly for someone else’s benefit at times. You may not understand it, but He knows why: so let Him have His way.