Preservice Comments
Rest! The Judgment Is Over!
1. It’s
good to see everybody. Nice crowd tonight. And, as much as I can see, you’re
kind of a blur to me. So if I don’t pick anybody out... I can see John there,
of course. I couldn’t miss him. He’s sitting tall in the saddle there. So I
look around, and it’s good to see everybody, and I appreciate you all coming
out.
2. I
was just thinking tonight that it gets pretty dark now. They got the light
coming in a little brighter in the morning. It’s much darker at night. And
that’s always a sign of harvest. I remember when we were kids, we had to get
out there and dig the potatoes and the carrots and turnips and everything we’d
put in, because that was harvest time.
3. And,
you know, the world is not aware of harvest time. If you don’t think that’s
true, we can look at Israel; and remember, Israel was God’s people, one flesh,
under one God, one priesthood, one people all in one place; and that made it
very, very unique. And if they missed God and missed harvest as a people all in
one place, and they’re at that right today.
4. And
they don’t realize that they, Israel today, is a philosophical religious
people. I mean, you can read the Old Testament, and they can talk all they want
about the Torah, but the more they read about their divisions, they don’t have
an actual religion, because religion means to ‘bind back’. It comes from the
Latin word ‘religio’—to bind back. Well, religion and ‘bind you back’; what’s
it binding you back to? To God. Supposed to be, right? Everybody says, “We come
from God. You know, we come from God.” And that’s all right for some people,
but it’s not right for other people.
5. So
they’re religious, but they’re philosophical. And they’re no different from
what they were two thousand years ago. And here’s what It says here in Jeremiah
[8:19], way back there in the days of the prophet Jeremiah. They were given to
graven images, you know. They provoked God to anger, and strange vanities.
Well, what are strange vanities? That’s your philosophies. You know, what’s a
vain thing? A vain thing is: it doesn’t do you any good, even if you use it.
It’s no good. So vanity, of course, has to do with pride. So here they are with
vain things and pride.
6. Now,
as I mentioned, it’s just a bunch of philosophies. That’s all it is. And
there’s nothing to it. But here’s what It says now: at that particular time,
they find out something.
(20) The
harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
(21) The
hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt... (That’s God speaking for the
hurt... a prophet speaking, God speaking.) For the hurt of my daughter of my
people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment has taken hold of me.
(22) Is
there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the
health of the daughter of my people recovered?
Now,
what you’re looking at here is: there comes a time when it’s over. It’s useless
to attempt to do something at harvest time, when you haven’t done anything to
bring in a harvest.
7. Now
harvest is going to come upon every one of us. I doesn’t matter who we are,
because whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You can’t deny that.
That’s the fundamental principle of the kingdom of God. It’s the basis of
dedication to the principles of Christ. It’s the basis of every thing we do
that we want to turn out right, and it could turn out wrong. It’s the primary
principle of life. Now you can say what you want, but I know what I’m talking
about. You sow to reap.
8. Now
these people wanted to reap, but, suddenly, summer’s over, the harvest is past,
and we are not saved. Now I want to read you something over in here in my
favorite portion of Scripture that Bro. Branham never used. This is my favorite
one. It says over here concerning… [Matthew 12]
(18) Behold
my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I
will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. (He
shall show judgment to the Gentiles. That’s what he’s going to do. Now It
says:)
(20) The
bruised reed shall he not break, the smoking flax shall he not quench, till he
send forth judgment unto victory.
(21) And
in his name shall the Gentiles trust.
Now, everybody puts that somewhere in the
Seven Church Ages from the first age, progressively, to the seventh. And I have
no doubt that that has a certain element of truth there. But you cannot have
judgment until harvest time.
9 It’s
the same time... For example, the word ‘fire’. Don’t talk to me about fire,
until the fire of God hits this earth. There can’t be any fire, until fire is
due. There cannot be any harvest, until harvest is due. And there cannot be any
judgment, until judgment is due. And when judgment and harvest come it could be
too late, and people will be wanting a harvest for which they have not sowed
and don’t want to reap the harvest for which they sowed too late.
10. Now
remember, in harvest every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted, shall
be uprooted. But that’s not God’s harvest. The harvest he’s going to take when
he reaps is the one vine, which is the true vine, and they’ll all be there with
Him in two parts of two resurrections. The first Resurrection has two parts:
Old Testament saints, second is the New Testament saints. They’ll all be caught
up, just like the Old Testament saints. They’re already somewhere in their
bodies eating and drinking. They’ve got to be, because resurrection bodies eat
and drink. So they’re somewhere, having a great time. The others that aren’t
for they haven’t resurrection bodies, they’re in their bodies, that Word-body
or Spirit-body, reserved for them, eternal in the heavens. They’re there.
They’re not eating and drinking. They’re very sensate. They can feel. They can
hug. They can touch and move around. They’re very sensate. So, you’re looking
at that, see?
11. But,
you have to realize, there comes a time when God reaps, number one, His Own
plants, and number two, He reaps the vine of the earth, because they’re two
vines. Now, within the two vines there are two types. You’ve got the wise and
the foolish virgin. You have them going into the exodus. Now, It tells you
right here, and I read it, he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall
show judgment to the Gentiles. Now how you going to show judgment until it’s
time for judging? Now, as I see it, you can put this down through the ages,
fine. But that’s merely a progressive, looking forward to, as Bro. Branham
said, “God sends His prophets, His
messengers, His angels,” and they bring the message. They’re turned down
flat. The children of God, wise virgins, are brought into the Bride. The others
are brought in also into the second resurrection. They’ll be coming up. Then
God says that he removes His servant, and He brings judgment. And that’s true.
Very true. We have no problem there.
12 But
you can’t put that in line what I’m talking about. We’re talking about the end
time judgment. Now watch what happens. He says he’ll show judgment to the
Gentiles. Now:
(19) He
shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.
(20) The
bruised reed shall he not break, the smoking flax shall he not quench till he
send forth judgment unto victory.
(21) And
in his name shall the Gentiles trust.
13. Now
what I want to bring out there is that word ‘judgment’ is the same word used
all the way through in judgment. And it means, actually, ‘put to the test’ and
‘to show just which side you’re on’. So now It says here, he’s going to send
forth judgment unto victory. So now, there comes the judgment then, which
Israel could not have back there. It wasn’t sent forth unto victory. Only the
Gentiles are going to have the escape, which, of course is, in the first
Resurrection, the Rapture. And he’s going to send them forth into victory.
14. Now,
if you understand carefully over here in 1 Thessalonians, which we looked at
hundreds of times, which, you know, our very favorite verses. And 1 Thes 4:16:
(16) For
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, trump of God: the dead in Christ shall rise first:
(17) And
we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: so shall we ever be with the Lord.
It
tells you right there, that’s separation. Now you can’t have the separation, and
you can’t have the catching up, until a certain judgment sets in. And the
judgment that sets in is going to send forth the Gentiles into victory. Now
what victory did you have? You had the victory of the Psalm, where they said
“Who is this one ascending on high, this one that’s bringing all these people
up into glory? You know, its that shout over there in the Psalms: “He’s the
Lord of hosts, mighty in battle,” and he’s coming now, ascending up into heaven
with all this number of great hosts or small hosts, or whatever it is, that are
rising at that particular time. Now you see, at that particular time, a
judgment had set in.
15. Now
watch carefully. The judgment that hit Israel at that time, that did not give
victory to them, had already set in at the appearing and the ministry of the
Son of man, God manifesting through a prophet. And they turned it down. They
were destroyed in 90 AD and scattered throughout the whole world, and now
they’re going back. And only 144,000 out of the millions and millions will be
saved. What about us, though? When the Lord descends with a shout, God Himself
came down with a message to put the Church in order. And Bro. Branham said, “You people singing that song, I’ll go with
him through the judgment, you have already gone through the judgment.” And
remember, It is the Judge Who comes with the Word; and remember, the Judge is
supposed to be the interpreter of the Word, so the judgment is just.
Now
right here in America everybody’s talking about who you’re going to vote for. “
Well
we get to vote for the man that’s going to give us the liberal judges.”
That’s
not adjudicating; that’s politicking, because the people are saying, “We are
going to have people who endorse legislation, and if they don’t endorse it,
they literally pass it themselves and confirm it upon the people,” because the
Supreme Court’s doing it just like the President does. He issues his
presidential orders. Nobody even knows about it. Within thirty days they’re
effective, if you don’t boot them out.
So
here’s what we’re looking at today: a picture in America, corrupt as can be.
The prophet of God came here. They don’t have a clue who came down. There’s a
fellow recently, and I think James DuCharme’s wife is here tonight. James
phoned me the other day, and he said a certain man was preaching in Flagstaff
on the Presence, and didn’t even know who came down. Well I won’t tell you who
the man is. Maybe you already know about him any way. He didn’t even know who
came down. America does not know the hour of their visitation and judgment.
16. Now
what’s the next thing going to fall? The next thing’s going to fall upon the
earth is the great tribulation. All these things are coming. But my point to
you is this: do you realize that you have passed through the judgment? Now
realize that the same as those who receive Christ. The twelve apostles received
him. Well, we know that one didn’t, Judas. He was a make believer from the end,
and the rest of them with him. I don’t know what those seventy were doing,
whether they were make-believers or not, but they’re a pretty good picture of
it anyway, because you don’t find anything more about them. Once the anointing
wore off and they couldn’t, you know, cast out devils and turn everything
upside down and look wonderful with their hoopla… That’s what it was; it was a
hoopla rather than the real things of God, although God was, you know,
manifesting. They drifted off.
17. So,
you had then, at the death and resurrection of Jesus, thousands and thousands
come in: three thousand, five thousand, maybe altogether twenty-thousand
people. You see, they were the ones, and they didn’t go through 70 AD. Now down
the road they had tribulation and trials. That’s very, very fine, but they went
on. They were not caught up. But today, we here have the assured understanding
that we have passed through the judgment, and Bro. Branham came and said—God
speaking to him, “You are the righteous,
sinless, perfect Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then he said, “You didn’t even do it.” And he said there’d
come a day when you’d realize you always were saved, because he knew that
people didn’t understand seed.
18. Now,
at that time, when he said that, that was just before the end, and it was just
before the end having sat with him for four and a half hours to really
understand that the baptism with the Holy Ghost and the rebirth was one and the
same thing, back in 1964. And by 1965, there was hardly anybody outside of
myself that had a clue to seed. I understood Galatians perfectly, because you
are seed—not going to be seed, not becoming seed, but because you are seed—God
has sent forth His spirit into your heart whereby you cry Father. Without that,
you can’t recognize paternity. You can’t recognize it.
19. So
here’s the thing, what I’m trying to get across. I know it’s difficult. It’s so
difficult to put things in the past tense concerning ourselves when we’re all
waiting for the hammer to fall. Right? We’re all waiting for the signs to come
in. We’re all waiting for what’s ever going to happen: close our church doors,
squeeze comes down, ... I don’t know what’s all going to happen. But we’re all
waiting, and because of the knowledge of the impending, which we know,
absolutely, the stock market’s going to go, the dollar’s going to go, Jews have
the paper, Rome has the gold, ... We know all of these things, and we are
waiting, and it’s a quandary. And in that waiting period that Bro. Branham said
is neither light nor dark, it’s fuzzy, it’s misty, the mind has a job as never
before.
The
greatest battle, is to put ourselves at rest once and for all. Did it happen,
or didn’t it happen? They say, what happened? That He came down, that He put
the Church in order, He’s waiting to bring forth the dead, to change us and
take us up. It’s going on now, and it’s been going on for years and years, and
it may even still go on for another fifteen years, twenty years, God knows. I
don’t know.
20. I’m
only interested in knowing one thing: am I one hundred percent with this Word?
Am I one hundred percent with what we are taught by Bro. Branham himself
concerning the end time of which you and I are a part? And that is right over
here in the Book of Malachi in the last chapter, and It tells us very simply:
(2) But
unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in
his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. (Now you
say, “Well, I know his name.” Well do you know that the Name of God is the Word
revealed? And we’re not just talking now about Logos, we’re talking about the
great Rhema-Logos. Do you really know God? Do you really understand who He is?
And all those things that Bro. Branham taught us.) And he shall rise with
healing in his wings; (Now, of course, we—that’s brother… talking about the
rapture taking place.) and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves in the
stall.
(3a) And
ye shall tread down the wicked; and they shall be ashes under your—soles of
your feet… (That’s coming back after the great tribulation, the fires falling,
as Bro. Branham said, a portion of the earth, at least, will be renovated for
the Bride—for all the saints to come down on, that’d be your complete first
resurrection, both parts of them all coming down, are going to come down here,
that’s when the reign of Christ is established on earth, temple worship all of
those things are going to take place.)
(3b) That
I shall do this saith the Lord of hosts.
(4) Remember
ye the law of Moses my servant... (Now, just a minute, what is he? Why is he
saying this? This is for you and me and the end time people. It’s not for
somebody else. This is the bringing forth through judgment the Gentiles into
victory. They don’t end being scattered. They end in a victory.)
(4) Remember
ye the law of Moses my servant... (Bro. Branham described that, Deuteronomy,
the twice-written law, the twice-given. And, as I think Bunyon pointed out,
that if you look at all the Books but Deuteronomy, it’s condemnation,
condemnation, condemnation. But Deuteronomy is blessing, blessing, blessing.
Well, now, you’re looking at the picture, Bro. Branham endorsed that.) ...the
law of Moses which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with statutes and
judgments.
(5) Behold,
I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful
day of the Lord:
(6) And
he shall turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, (That’s already taken
place, under John the Baptist. This will take place for us:) and the hearts of
the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
21. Now
you see, right in there, the Bride gets out of here before the curse. But what
I’m trying to look at though, that you might understand, in your minds and my
mind, we all know, look, we’re going to get out of here. But the getting out of
here is fuzzy because of one thing: the instability of the mind to accept the
Word of God completely vindicated, exonerated, completely proven.
“You
have gone through the judgment. It is over.”
Well
you say, “What about the judgment seat of Christ?”
What
about it? What about it?
“What
about the great White Throne?”
What about it? That’s no problem. What about
this one? is what I’m talking about. What if there are seven or eight
judgments? What has that got to do with Bro. Branham standing and declaring
that “you’re the righteous virgin Bride
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You didn’t even do it?” It’s all going to fall
back on Satan. And he has to account for it, because he led you into a trap.
Well,
you say, “Well, just a minute, but I still got to go down the road.” See?
That’s
what I’m driving at. And that is what’s wrong with every single one of us. We
are mixing up the Word and not dividing It correctly, and that goes right back
to Cain. Oh yeah, Cain. You offered right... Look for yourselves; you will find
the first-fruit offering in the Bible, but it comes after the blood. And God
said, “If you have not rightly divided, have you not sinned?” So what is sin?
It’s unbelief. What then is our problem?
Our
problem is the unbelief in the fact we are not dividing and standing with what
is ours at this moment—“has judgment passed?”
Did
Bro. Branham say, “You that sing this
song, you’ve gone through it?”
“Well,
Bro. Branham, you know, you’re a nice guy, but, you know, really, you know, I
can…” “Yeah, I know, I know, I know.”
That’s
the pride of Satan. The heart that’s rebellious—in rebellion against God—and
will not admit to the fact: yes! Yes! It’s vindicated. We’ve gone through it.
22. It
doesn’t matter what judgments lie ahead. This judgment is present and not like
the future ones. This judgment, my brother/sister, is based upon Jesus Christ
himself and his covenant with his Father, wherein he died and rose again, and
the promise was made to the Gentiles, hundreds of years and hundreds of years
ago, and reiterated in the Book of Matthew by Matthew, a tremendous servant of
Almighty God, that the Gentiles will not go through what Israel went through.
The bruised reed will not be broken; the smoking flax will not be quenched; and
in this judgment, they’ll go forth in victory. In other words right today,
there is a judgment, and that judgment is actually over, because God has come
down, to set His church in order, and we are free.
23. What’s
down the road? Now let’s watch again, Bro. Branham said it so clearly, “Always looking down the road, always looking
back. Can’t look at what’s going on.” Now I want to ask you a question: has
the judgment already come?
Now
you ask the world, and they say, “Oh, no, well, oh, well, maybe something’s
going on.”
No.
If that’s the best we can do, I’m afraid we’re just a little bit out on the
limb at this particular point. We have not perceived that God has revealed His
Word by bringing it to pass. This is vindicated to us according to Deuteronomy
18.
24. We
have to come to grips: harvest is literally past. In other words the frost that
had to come and kill all this stuff around us to get a Bride free and dried
out, ready for the garner, has taken place, because Bro. Branham said, “All you’ve got to do now is lie in the sun
and ripen.” Dry out. And people came along and said, “Well, the prophet
didn’t say to lie in the sun and rot.” Who changed Bro. Branham’s words? Henry
[Underwood], tell me, do you know anybody that changed those words? Maybe I can
name a name or two. Find where Bro. Branham said about lying in the sun and
rotting. Huh? Always the negative person. Oh, the lemon pie’s too sour; oh it’s
too sweet; oh it’s too thick; it’s too runny.
Have
you ever met a satisfied person in your whole entire life? Mae [Malinowski],
you’re a little older than me. Be honest, Mae. I think you’re here somewhere.
You know somebody really, really satisfied. Nope, nobody. I’ve got the little
itch for something, and haven’t we all? Huh? Well, Bro. Branham said, “Oh, yeah, we need a real scouring out, and
it makes you feel good.” Makes you feel good. Lightens the load, makes you
feel good to get scoured out. Let the Word of God rule in your hearts—not
creeds and dogmas.
25. And
now, sure, there’s a lot of judgments. It’s a judgment every single day of your
life. Maybe five hundred judgments you’ve got to make. But there’s a judgment’s
been made for us already, and the prophet said, “You that sing that song, I’ll go with him through the judgment, you’ve
already done it.” Why? Because you judged him faithful Who promised, and
you know he’s true. And you know Deuteronomy 18 stands a billion miles above
Deuteronomy 13, because if there’s no real, there’s no counterfeit. But they
all sneer and snarl about the counterfeit, the counterfeit, the counterfeit,
the counterfeit, the counterfeit. I don’t care two bits about a stinking
counterfeit, because I’m tired of it. But if I’ve got reality, then there’s
going to be a lot of counterfeits. There’s going to be a lot of them that
aren’t going to admit that this has been the judgment. It will be too late when
they find out by “looking back.” But if you can’t tell the real from the
counterfeit, there is no light in the soul.
26. All
of them are going to say we’re looking for this and that. well, I’m going to
tell you, if this isn’t so, aren’t you very afraid to look? Why aren’t you
doing something then? See, I’m pinning you down to where you’ve got to either
believe, and stand with it, or start sliding around, digging down backward, or
trying to climb up into some place you’re not supposed to climb into. Being
your own prophet or some kind of authority needs more than just thinking you
know the true revelation of the Word.
You
know, Leo Mercier tried to do that. It’s right on a tape. Don’t worry, I’m not
spilling beans. Leo Mercier tried that. Yeah, Leo had a dream where Bro.
Branham was way up in a beautiful cloud, I think it was, like a shining cloud
above a mountain, and Leo’s scrambling up on top. And when he got up there, the
cloud was way, way higher. And the voice said, “You can’t come up here, unless
it’s meant for you to come up here.” So what would you like to do? Would you
like to be meaningful tonight, all of us tonight, meaningful? and claim what
God has done for us, and what is truly real? Or are we going to try to climb up
some place—gnostics—trying to add to the message, trying to go here and go
there, and some day, looking back like Israel, say, “Summer’s over, the
harvest’s past, and we’re not saved. We’re not saved. We’re not saved. We’re
not ready.”
27. Well,
brother/sister, I want to tell you something. Harvest has got to be passed one
of these days in the full reality of people coming out of the earth, and of
people being changed. Now I want to ask you something. What’s going to do it?
It’s already been done. It’s into effect, and it’s effective. Only believe.
28. It
takes a long time sometime to say these things, but that’s all right. When I’m
in a mood to say them, I’m going to say them, because I know only too well
we’re all tarred with the same brush. We’ve all come out of the same lump.
We’re all too eager to tell everybody else, you’re always looking back and
always looking forward, never looking at what’s now. So every now and then we
just have to bring you up to date and say, “Just a minute, now, are you looking
at the reality of what’s already in our hour?” The judgment is past. The long,
long night is past; the morning breaks at last. Yeah, and hushed the dreadful
fury. And, you know, the fury of the blast, because why? The Comforter Himself
is come; the baptism with the Holy Ghost is given way to God Himself, the great
Baptizer. And if He isn’t here doing It, then brother/sister, somebody lied.
Somebody lied. But I never found one time in Scripture and one time in history
that I know of, where that God made a promise, and He Himself didn’t bring it
to pass. So God’s down here raising the dead and changing the people. That must
satisfy you and me, and nothing else matters. That’s what counts.
29. So
you just bear with me now, and you pray with me that the Lord will keep us.
He’s patient. Don’t worry. He is, but you know, it’s time we grew up, as calves
in the stall. I don’t think that there’s such a thing as an immature person
reaching those glorious shores where maturity is demanded. Here is our training
ground now. Let’s make God no longer a giver of a Word that’s not “Yea and
amen; like maybe yes or no. No, no. Amen and amen. Every single word.
30. So
the Lord bless you. We’ll be back after a bit to answer your questions, but I
just wanted to just share that with you tonight, because it’s so desperately
important to all of us to remember that Bro. Branham never lied to us. And he
went over there with the same message he left with us, and he’ll be back with
the same message he left here, and we’ll be with him there forever. And that’s
the vindicated Word of God: God Himself coming down in this hour, bringing us
through the judgment, right into victory, right into the promised land, right
to the Wedding Supper. [Bro. Vayle returns to the study as the song service
continues. After the song service he preaches the message, “Godhead - Q&A
#3.”]
Godhead – Q&A
#3
Fullness,
Supreme Deity, Attrition
November 4, 2000
Shall we pray?
Heavenly Father, we remember so many times that Bro. Branham would say, “Believest thou this? Or “Now do you believe?” And we know, Lord,
as far as believing is concerned it is true we do believe but we also have to
understand that faith can turn to sight. There comes a time when faith turns to
knowledge and hope turns to knowledge on the grounds that what we’ve had faith
for, what we hope for, has arrived and is here. And we know so many things Bro.
Branham brought to us that are now here, and that is our problem tonight that
we have not actually apprehended them, made them ours as we should be in that
secure knowledge, which we have, by a demonstration of Your powerful and
vindicated Word.
Help us, Lord, to
understand that vindication goes way and beyond the fact that something has
been proven; it goes in to the very depth of our souls, giving us life and
securing us to the rock, of which we are a part. Even as Jesus said, “I am in
the Father, and He is in me and you, I’m in you and you’re in me,” enunciating
that great reality and confirming it to us. We know that is true, Lord. Help us
to know tonight in the sense we’ve never known it before, because we must. We
must go on as we’ve never gone on before, because time is short, and we have
such little time left. Whatever way, Lord, is necessary to teach us, just teach
us. We can trust You, and we love You, and we know You’re going to see us
through. We only want to come through the way You want to see us come through.
And we’ll give You glory in Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen. You may be seated.
1. I’ve
been making mention every now and then about what’s coming here in America. And
I took my little premise or thesis from the Bible where, at the time of Herod,
the time of Jesus’ birth, was the slaughter of the innocents. And in that I see
the murderous, political situation in America which has, I believe, even
outstripped the European and, almost, the Asiatic nations also by their
constant clamor for abortion as the woman’s right. And we see a lot, therefore,
of the slaughter of the innocents. And we, not just see that, but we see the
literal command of God, which He gave in the beginning (to be fruitful and
multiply and plenish the earth), has been turned into such a farcical thing and
what you’d call true disobedience to God that, as far as I am concerned, it’s
one of the last things we are to see, which parallels the actual time of
Jesus—his first coming. So we’re at the end time.
2. I’ve
mentioned that my own pessimism directed me toward Gore, because he has stood
flat footed with the women’s rights, and I notice, also, what I never knew before,
where Nader is even more vicious than Gore is. And I see where Mr. Bush is
doing his best to take a very good stand, and I appreciate that. I’m glad that
he is. But, it doesn’t matter in America here, who gets to be President.
There’s nothing that Gore will do to stop abortion, and there’s nothing that
Mr. Bush can do to stop it. There’s nothing anybody’s going to do, because the
people are rebellious, and they’ll pack the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court
will no longer adjudicate, they’ll legislate, which they’ve been doing for a
long time since Brandeis suggested that, but that was already thought of, I
think, by Andrew Jackson. Wasn’t he the one that kicked out the Supreme Court
one time, because they were legislating instead of adjudicating? I think,
something like that. I’m not too great in American history. But just the other
day, I ran across that.
3. So,
no matter which way you’re going to go, this is the devil’s world. He’s in
command. And remember, he was a murderer from the beginning. Now, you can’t
find any place in Scripture where the devil actually murdered. The one that
murdered was Cain. And remember, Jesus said to Israel, “You are of your father
the devil, and the works of you father you will do, and he was a murderer from
the beginning, and the truth did not abide in him.” Well, you understand
perfectly that he’s talking about Cain there. And Cain was identical to his
father—actually, the devil in the sense of a surrogate father, or you might
say, a surrogate—a type of mammal, individual, to do his dirty work for him.
And so, he did what Satan did, which was iniquitous, which was to pervert the
Word to Eve, and then the act followed.
4. And
you can pervert the Word so many, many ways. You can add to it; you can take
from it. What it is is changing it. You could take it out of it’s context, you
can misapply it to something else, you can put it out of it’s time element, you
can put it on somebody it doesn’t belong to and take it off, where it does
belong. There’s so many, many ways you can pervert the Word. It’s just not
adding one word or taking one word, though Bro. Branham used that all the time.
But one day he did say, “changing the
Word.” And that’s where I really came out strong, and always have been
strong, that adding a word or taking a word, that’s true, but what is He
talking about? Changing it. Adding or taking one word will do it, and that’s
what you’re looking at. Don’t ever change the Word. Like Bro. Branham said, “Say what I say.” Well fine, you say what
he says and misapply it; where you going to go? You’ve got a bad thing there.
Iniquity all over again.
5. So
I look, today, that no matter what we do here in America, we’re on the slippery
slopes, and there’s nothing going to stop this generation in its final descent.
Nothing whatever. And I don’t want to be here when it happens, that is to say
all these things that are coming upon the earth. But if they do, I know one
thing: I’d be more than ready to answer to the Lord. I’ve been trying to serve
Him for a long, long time; I haven’t quit preaching for over fifty years. I
gave more than that. And I’m not quitting at this moment though maybe the next
moment. But He’ll take us through.
6. Now
I’ve got questions and answers to go into tonight. And, before I do that, I
want to read from Bro. Branham and make sure that everybody knows, one hundred
percent, what certain things Bro. Branham said, and what he meant when he said
it. And the first one is: “What does it mean when the Bible says, ‘The fullness
of the Godhead bodily?’” Now, I’ll read what Bro. Branham said, and I’ve read
it time and time again; but I want to read it this time with the emphasis that
this is a definition that must be actually taken as ‘set in stone’.
Now,
you say, “What is a bird?”
Well,
a bird is the creation of God that is meant to fly. And you define it. What is
an atom? What is okra? What is mud? What is coal? You have a definition. But
many people who take what Bro. Branham said, do not arrive at definitions. And
so, if you don’t arrive at a definition, then every time you read something
that sounds a little bit obtuse or a little bit moving in one direction or the
other concerning the Father particularly, or concerning the Son, then the mind
doesn’t go into gear properly.
For
instance, if you were in school and you were studying certain things in
chemistry or physics, what they call pure science especially—and pure science
is where one and one make two and three and three make six for sure. There’s no
gradation in there. It’s either three and three make six or it makes nothing,
because everything in nature is in a precise form. So, now I want to read this
to you. And this is about the fullness of the Godhead bodily. What, a hundred
percent, does that mean as a tie post so that you don’t start thinking, “Well,
the fullness of the Godhead bodily could be: three and three make five,” or “I
just don’t know.” How do I handle it? So we read.
7. “The great Jehovah came down and was made
tangible (that’s so you could touch him) by living in the body of His Own Son. Declaring and reconciling the
world to Himself. Christ was nothing short of God, and God was nothing short of
Christ. The two together made the Godhead bodily. Made a little lower than the
angels so that he could suffer. Angels cannot suffer. Jesus was the tabernacle
that God dwelt in.”
So
what is simply the fullness of the Godhead bodily? God indwelling Jesus,
period. Now Bro. Branham embellished this. He didn’t need to. You don’t need to
say, “Three and three are six, let me see, one, two, three, and three more,
one, two, three. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six; at last, I got it.”
Forget it; forget it. What is the fullness of the Godhead bodily? God, Elohim,
Jehovah, indwelling Jesus Christ, His Son, period. You want to go further, but
you don’t need to, because you already know he was born of the virgin Mary. You
know how the virgin birth took place; you understand that. So what is the
fullness of the Godhead bodily? God indwelling His Son, Jesus Christ. One
person indwelling another. The lower is the body, which the Son is dwelling in;
the upper came in at the River Jordan, stayed in there three and a half years
roughly. He left Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. In other words the fullness
of the Godhead bodily is God incarnating Himself in His Only-begotten Son.
Right? That is the definition. So, all right, let’s take the next thing we’ve
should look at.
8. The
next thing we’ve got to look at is the Supreme Deity of Jesus Christ. And this,
again, is one that rocks people. Now he’s talking about the Supreme Deity. “Oh, my, how I like to preach the Deity, the
Supreme Deity of Jesus Christ. If you could ever realize who he was and what he
did for you men and women, your hearts would rend within you—that would be
just torn apart inside of you—and you’d
be willing to throw away the trash of the world to live for Him. Oh, how
marvelous and what a person he was. If you recognize the condescension of God
Himself, unfolding Himself, coming down till He could get into your heart.”
Now that sounds very good.
Now
God coming down to get into your heart sounds as if God Himself would come
down… How could God get into the heart of every single person here? So God’s in
me, and God’s in John [McRae] and every one in this front row and back and
forth and… I’ve got God, He got God, and so on… that’s impossible. The fullness
of the Godhead bodily was the only place that God ever came down and actually
stayed in the body that He wanted to be in, and that was the fullness. And you
could not put that on any prophet no matter how much God was in any prophet,
you cannot put that anywhere else. The fullness of the Godhead bodily is only
when God came down, personally—God Himself, Jehovah-Elohim—and indwelt that
Son. He came in and tabernacled Himself at the River Jordan. And John saw that
Spirit descending like a dove, lighting upon him and staying there. And the
voice said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And as Bro.
Branham interpreted, “who I am pleased to
dwell in.” And He was. So that’s the fullness of the Godhead bodily. All
right.
9. Now,
Supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, “That same Almighty, Great Being humbled Himself and unfolded Himself
and came into a body of flesh that any man could touch with his hands.”
That’s very, very good. So we understand that. Now let’s go to some more places
here. Now, he’s talking about Billy Graham’s talking about the Supreme Deity of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But let’s face it, brother, Billy Graham’s understanding
of Supreme Deity was not what Bro. Branham’s was when it came to the Lord Jesus
Christ, because Billy’s a Trinitarian.
So
we’ve got a father and a son and a holy ghost. Well, I can’t understand the
holy ghost part, because the Father is the Holy Ghost. Remember, as Bro.
Branham pointed out, “No baby can have
two fathers.” That’s utterly impossible. Jesus said God was his Father, and
the people recognized that, the Israelites and all. But the Bible said the Holy
Ghost came upon her and she conceived. So the Holy Ghost is not one person and
the Father another person; the Father is the Holy Ghost, because God is Holy
Spirit.
Now
this one here, Jesus, cannot be Deity. He’s the Son of Deity. God is the King;
this is the Prince. One is the Father; the other is the Son. And the Son has
the life of the Father in him, and the Father had that life before the Son had
that life though it’s the same life. Well that’s how it goes, isn’t it? I never
saw any boy or girl that ever got born of themselves, and then began looking
for a father.
“I’ve
got to find some one now to beget me and another one to deliver me.”
Oh, forget it, it’s too stupid. So Bro.
Branham hollered “Amen” to Billy as
loud as he could, because he knew it was true.
10. Now
what did he say the Supreme Deity was? “The
Supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah God manifested in the flesh
of Jesus the Son. Again, talking about the Roman centurion, and the centurion
said, ‘You do so, you,’ he said, ‘do like I do, just give the Word and anybody
under authority—my authority, has to obey me and diseases are under your
authority, then you give the word and…’ What was the Roman doing? He was
recognizing the Supreme Deity of Jesus Christ. See? You just speak the word and
my servant will live. What did Jesus say? Now I’ve never seen faith like that
in Israel. That’s what I’m trying to get you people to see. Christ is here,”
he says.
Now,
again he says, “Then we find out the real
Supreme Deity of Jesus Christ. The whole book here is just a revelation of
Jesus Christ. He came. We find that in sundry times and diverse manners, God
spake to the fathers through the prophets. In this last day through His Son,
Jesus Christ, He has revealed Himself. And the book, from Genesis to
Revelation, is nothing but one constant, perpetual revelation of Lord Jesus.”
Now again he says, “The great Jehovah
came down and was made tangible.” So that’s the same thing we’re looking
at. When you look at the Supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot
separate the Father indwelling the Son.
So
the Supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is none other than Almighty God,
Jehovah Elohim, tabernacling in His Son. And the fullness of the Godhead is
none other than Almighty God tabernacling in the Son.
11. So
there’s your definitions, and that’s what you stand by, because time after time
you’re going to run in to the things that Bro. Branham said, and the mind, not
carefully looking at every single thing that he says, but having been trained
in the realm of the Trinity and the Oneness people, has one terrible job: it’s
simply understanding that Bro. Branham was not Trinitarian, he was not Oneness.
He stood in between, not believing there’s two gods, but that God, when He
wanted to, and as He made provision for it, enabled Himself, to indwell His
Only-begotten Son who also came here like you and I did, except for the fact
he, in his pre-incarnation, had a much different experience and a much
different way to go because he was uniquely begotten and then embodied also
different from us.
So
if you were back there when Jesus walked the earth, and you saw him raise
Lazarus, and knowing Jehovah-Elohim was indwelling the Son, you could say,
“There is Supreme Deity.” But you could not say that as you saw him on the
cross. The Supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is God manifest in “Jesus
flesh”, when you contemplate the “Father-Son” relationship in flesh form. After
all, “He” should be called “God with us.”
12. Now,
before I get to answering questions, I want to say that, because I know what
I’m saying (at least I think I do know what I’m saying), it is too easy for me
to think that everybody follows along with what I’m saying on the same basis of
my own understanding and what I would be saying concerning certain conditions
that may obtain or may be there which could be related to the very thing I have
been discussing. Now you don’t know what I’m talking about, but you will as we
get into it.
13. The
question came up from last time: “…in attrition, which means when the job is
over, or the person is dead or retired, nobody else follows.” Now that’s only
at the last day. When Paul left Ephesus, being thrown in prison—even got
killed, John the Revelator took over Ephesus for some time. And after Paul left
the scene as messenger, Irenaeus came on the scene. And after Irenaeus, it was
Columba, and then Martin and right on down the line. Now, at the end though,
you’re coming to the place where there’s going to be not only Bro. Branham off
the scene, but nobody’s going to come and take his place, in the sense of there
being another church age messenger.
Now
I know there’s a big hue and cry that Joseph is going to follow, and people
say, “I find him in the Bible,” and this and that. You can’t find it. It’s only
in your imagination and your own waywardness that you want to find it, because
you don’t want to settle for reality: It is over! Judgment has passed! We’re
either going in, or we’re not going, period! Now that’s all there is to it.
See? That’s Matthew 12 where It speaks of the Gentiles and the presence of God
and what occurred as relative to the Gentiles. We covered that many, many
times.
14. So
all right. We look at a five-fold ministry. Now there’s only so many five-fold
ministers; good, bad, and indifferent. Let’s say that there’s… Oh, let’s say
that there’s maybe thirty churches that certainly worship a certain way, and
they love to hear the Word explained from Bro. Branham’s messages the way they
have been taught it and understand it. Let’s say that there are two evangelists
that are like-minded, and they go to these churches. So all right, one of those
evangelists dies. Well, does it mean that nobody can rise up and take his
place? Well nobody’s going to rise up and take his place, but it doesn’t
mean that somebody can’t be put on the field by God to be the evangelist until
it’s all over. And He may be like Bro. Branham, who said a long time ago, over
thirty-five years ago (because he’s been dead for thirty-five year just in a
few days now), he said, “I just
crisscrossed America, and it’s all seined out.” He said, “Fifty people maybe, came to the altar, and I
don’t know if any of those got saved.” Yet after that, when I was going to
New York, he said, “Win all the souls you
can.”
So
maybe one of the evangelists dies, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t keep
sowing the seed as an evangelist in case there should be just one more. Now
what happens, then, to those thirty churches? Well, it may be that they’d have
to wait to get that one evangelist in if one more wasn’t raised up, which
possibly one could be raised up. Who knows? I don’t know. I don’t know the mind
of God. Whatever God wants. Those churches might have to wait their turn and
get the man in once every two and a half years or so. That might be the best
they can do.
15. What
if there’s a couple of teachers going to those thirty churches? I, myself, used
to go to a lot of churches. And when I went to a church, I was careful to let
the people know that I wasn’t the authority. The pastor was. And if I preached
on a subject like the Presence, I would warn them and say I was going to teach
something that perhaps they’re not aware of, and they might not agree with me.
And if the pastor doesn’t agree, you come right behind me and say, “I don’t
agree with Bro. Vayle. I don’t believe that at all.” And I’d tell the people
here then, “You listen to your pastor; he’s here to see you through. I’m not.”
So if he doesn’t like my teaching, fine and dandy. He just says no way, and
that’s it. I never had one church that didn’t receive the message of the
Presence. What they did with it, I haven’t got a clue.
But
anyway, let’s say there’s a couple of us on the field, and there’s maybe
twenty—thirty churches out there. And we’ve got two men teaching the same as I
teach. We have the same understanding of presence and Godhead and these various
things that Bro. Branham declared to us so thoroughly and faithfully. Well,
what if I should die tomorrow; which is a very pleasant thought, and I would
like that except for my wife.
Well
now what if I did pass off the scene? Or the other fellow passed off the scene?
Well, either God would raise up somebody else, and this, to me, although I
wouldn’t tell God what to do, I would say this in this late day based on Bro.
Branham’s own experience; it’s very important to have teachers helping the
people mature with the Word of God so, we hope, there would be others. But I
don’t know that God would raise anybody up. But He could; it doesn’t mean that
He won’t, because that person has been taken off the field. But we know it’s
going to get less and less. It’s going to get less and less until there is no
further need—the children are in and trained.
16. Now
let’s get back to the pastor. Okay, what if a pastor dies? And pastors do die;
we’ve seen that happen. And also, pastors have to retire, because they get so
terribly ill, there’s nothing they can do, so they have to go. Does that mean
that that church cannot now have a pastor? No means, no way, because God can
raise up pastors. How are pastors raised up? They’re raised up in the local
assembly, so are teachers, so are prophets, so is everybody else. But the local
assembly is where they are born-again, they get their teaching, their training,
and there’s where they learn; and it’s always been this way. They learn to
bring the Word to the people.
So,
there could be at this time, pastors that have retired and pastors that have
died, but their churches could well receive a pastor that is coming up and has
come up from the ranks, or, another pastor that feels he should move. Now it
doesn’t mean, because the pastor feels he should move, that that church is
going to take him. But if that church wants a pastor, and the pastor is
qualified, and the pastor feels (that’s the incoming pastor, providing he comes
in) if that applicant or that, you know, the one standing there, says, “Okay, I
will come. I feel led of the Lord, because my ministry is finished over here.
It’s all over. I feel it is. I want to come here, because I feel God is
leading.” And the spiritual bond is strong enough where they know that this man
is faithful and a good pastor and having pastored for some time, say, “Yeah,
we’d like you to come.”
17. But
I realize there are churches who will take what I said the other day and say,
“Aha! There you are, no more pastors. We’re going to get along without one.”
And those people, I feel sorry for them, because they are heading for trouble.
What is likely to happen is someone will rise up and take over. Read Acts 20.
Now
there’s a very sad situation I know of, but it doesn’t affect too many people,
where this one fellow left a certain church, and he went to a certain town, and
he told three different stories. One story was financial, one story was family,
and the third story was, “Well, I came back to help you people in the message.”
And so he took over lock, stock, and barrel; and you can’t even sit in a
restaurant, but they’ll move you around... If he’s in another man’s house, he
runs to the door and shake hands. He’s the big wig.
Now if you people that get this tape hear
this, and you want that to happen to you, be my guest, because I am not going
to be sweet and kind from this point on, because I have cleared the air for
everybody who thinks they knew what I was saying, and this is what I am saying,
“I ain’t saying what you think I’m saying.” You can get a pastor… Why do you
think we tried so hard here? Well this church was built on one thing, and you
know it: I’m a teacher. And you people came to me, and you said—and I’ve got
enough people here, sitting here, and I can call your bluff right now, because
there’s a bunch of you sitting here—“Bro. Vayle, if you will just preach your
sermons here first before you go on the road, we will take care of everything.
We won’t have you as a pastor. We’re just happy to have you.”
Isn’t
that right, Bill Graham? Isn’t that right, Lloyd [Lusk]? Come on. All right,
that’s how this church was built on a solid Word teaching ministry. But the
minute I saw that we needed help I desperately worked for help. I don’t say I
didn’t make mistakes in doing it all, but you have a pastor right today. What
happened? John left where he was. Did they find somebody? To a degree. Other
ministers are leaving. Will the people find somebody? They can believe God. God
will raise up somebody.
18. Now
if somebody’s not there to be raised up in assembly, and you cannot get
anybody, the people should stick together and work as a democracy. And here’s
what Bro. Branham told me as I worked with him, and we worked on this principle
where there was no pastor. What do you do? You simply elect, democratically, a
man in whom you have confidence as a good sincere Christian, not as a preacher
now, but as a good sincere Christian that you know you can call on him to pray
the prayer of faith the best he can. He won’t be a hypocrite. He won’t put on
airs as though, “Oh, I’m here to pray, hallelujah, everything’s wonderful,” you
know. No, no, a man just godly, concerned, and sincere and a fine brother. You
elect him. He’s not even an elder. He doesn’t have to be a deacon or an elder,
although that’d be fine if he was. You elect him and then you also elect a
secretary-treasurer. Now what that man does that you elect as the head, he will
appoint a song leader to help him if he wants one, but he will open in prayer,
see the meeting is in order, people are comfortable, needs are met the best
they can possibly do it. Homes are used to minister in, or you rent a hall
someway, somehow.
Now
the man that’s with him as the secretary-treasurer, collects the tithes, and in
America, it’s very simple. All you got to do is apply to the IRS and you get a
number and you can open a bank account. And what the brethren do then is take
the tithes and put them in a bank account. And the man that’s in charge then,
after the song service and the prayers and all the requests are taken, plays the
tape, whatever what you want to do with the tape, and the meeting is dismissed
after the needs are met.
19. Now
the next thing is, with that tithe, they pray, and they ask the Lord to send an
evangelist or a teacher or someone to them. Now what Bro. Branham categorically
said was, “The tithe will be sitting
right there in the bank so they can pay brethren who come in and really take
care of them.” Now, as you pray, it may be that someone already is very
good with the Word, like we have somebody in this church here that I would not
hesitate for one minute to entrust the pulpit to, that is the present
congregation as we have it here now. We
have others that I would certainly trust to come in and stand in this pulpit
here. I’m not talking as though I’m the pastor now. John is. But I’m just
telling you my own feelings about this subject, because I’m involved in this
subject, because it was brought up, the question answered, and I’ve got to go
very thoroughly with it. But there are those who are capable, not perhaps
preaching every Sunday, but are capable of teaching very well and helping the
people learn to the best of their abilities what Bro. Branham has said and how
to apply it and keep within the framework of the word.
20. So
I’ve taken a long time to explain what I said about attrition. Don’t think for
one minute that we’re going to die off, one by one with the ministries gone off
the scene, because Ephesians tells you… And let’s go to Ephesians and read this
so that you’re going to get an understanding of the five-fold ministry. After
reading Ephesians, I don’t know how anybody can say there’s no five-fold
ministry. Or they don’t need a pastor, this or that. This is the most flagrant
abuse of Scripture that anybody could ever use in the light of common sense,
ordinary reading. So, It says here in the Eph 4:11 that when he ascended up on
high;
(11) He
gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and evangelists; and pastors and
teachers (a full five-fold ministry);
(12) For
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ;
(13) Till
we all come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect (that’s a mature) man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ:
(14) Till
we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with
every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive; (Now Paul brought that out in Acts 20.)
(15) But
speaking (or holding) the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things,
which is the head, even Christ:
(16) From
whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every
part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
21. And
that simply means, here, that God enables a five-fold ministry, endows it with
every single thing it needs to bring the church to the perfection that God
wants, because God is in it. He gave it. So how in the world can anybody deny a
five-fold ministry? A living ministry at this point. And who in the world would
want to sit around and not try to get a pastor or an evangelist come in, or a
teacher, or a prophet if we’ve got one? I’d love to have one around. I know Joe
Branham is, but he doesn’t go anywhere; so, no use inviting him…
But
I just don’t understand where people are coming from, if they don’t follow
this. I can tell you one thing: you can’t come against this Word and against
what Bro. Branham taught. There’s no way, because Bro. Branham said, “If a preacher doesn’t preach doctrine, he
ain’t worth having.” And the Bible distinctly says: you can’t worship
without doctrine. And doctrine is teaching. And teaching is where you get all
your headaches or all your help, because it’s all in the mind, because there’s
where the spirit connects down to the soul. Don’t ever forget that. We’ll talk
about some of those things another time.
22. So
that covers the question very thoroughly, and if anybody misunderstands me, I’m
sorry, because you are willfully misunderstanding me, whoever you are, if you
are. Have I made that clear? Huh? Now if we didn’t have a pastor here, now…
Let’s take Bro. Joe White for example. He’s not in good health. I’m not trying
to get rid of you Joe, but the thing is this: he followed Bro. Miller. Right?
Bro. Miller died. If Joe goes off the scene; are you’re finished? Now isn’t
that silly? Isn’t that ridiculous? Say, “Well, now, Bro. White, you couldn’t
take that pastorate.” Who says he can’t? He felt led. The people felt led.
They’ve got a good pastor. He’s got a nice little group. What more do you want?
They’re going down the road worshipping God, doing fine. And, what good would
it be to say, “Oh, well, I think attrition set in. Bro. Miller’s dead and, so
we’re just going to let it be there.” What kind of a nonsense is that? Well,
you know, I’ve got to talk this way, because if people talk the other way...
I’m sorry, but I’ve got to answer them in kind.
23. Okay,
here’s some questions I’ve been neglecting. [Question #1] “He comes in three
names of the Son, three names of Son, that’s exactly right: Son of man
(prophet), Son of God (Holy Spirit), Son of David (the King). Bro. Branham
said, “When he comes again, he’s Son of
David.” I would like to better understand why...” Well this... He’s projecting that to the Millennium.
You
see, Jesus returns to earth physically three times. And when he does come that
third time physically... This time, this great second coming that people think
is the Rapture, that’s the appearing. But when he comes in immortalized,
glorified human flesh, he will come back upon this earth as the Son of David,
because he is supposed to inherit the throne according to David being in the
tribe of Judah. And remember, David was the prophet King. And Jesus is the
prophet King. So when he comes back and sets up the millennial reign, there
will be temple worship. And a temple will be built. And what else there will
be? I don’t know. But he will sit upon the throne of his Father David.
Now
Jesus is on his Father’s throne. That was never David’s throne. David had an
earthly throne. And Jesus never had an earthly kingdom. He said, “My kingdom is
not of this world or my people would fight. Why,” he said, “I could call on my
Father now and get many legions of angels and just wipe the whole thing out and
take over.” Again he said, “If you’d a believed this was Elijah to come, the
kingdom of God would come unto you.” Again, when he cast out devils, he said,
“If devils are cast out, the kingdom of God is come unto you.” But Jesus
couldn’t take the kingdom then. It wasn’t his for the taking. It has to be a
redeemed kingdom, blood washed, purified and peopled with the immortal saints.
So
he’s coming back as the Son of David, and he’s called the greater Son of David.
He’s the great Son of David; he is that one of whom it is predicted in the
lineage of David. So he’s coming back as the Son of David. And remember, Bro.
Branham said that Jesus would be called that at the great Wedding Supper. He
would have all those titles in there—Son of man, Son of David, Son of God.
24. [Question
#2] “In the Bible, in the message, our Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as
Jesus Christ. In other places he’s referred to as Christ Jesus. Is there
significance in these names or titles being revealed?”
I
believe, absolutely, there is, but I’ve never figured it out. I don’t believe
for one minute that you called Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, under the same
identical circumstances. If they are, there still has to be a meaning as far as
I can see, because Christ means the anointed one, and Jesus is Jehovah-Savior.
And so, then, when you find Jehovah-Savior the anointed one, then you’re
looking at, even beyond that now, you’re looking at Christ is—as a form of the
spirit, you would, in my understanding, since the Bible is so precise, that
they even use an article, like ‘t-h-e’ to bring it out into sevens, and when it
comes like, Holy Spirit, the I think that’s Haggionai, something like that,
they have to use the article ‘the’ as definitive, making you know that this is
referring to Elohim. So there’s something in there. I never did know what it
was. I remember years and years ago, somebody told me a little bit about that,
but he didn’t tell me enough to make any sense to me. But I agree that there’s
something in there.
25. [Question
#3] “Is the Christ the God indwelling William Branham, where it does, does
William Branham become the Christ when God indwells him?”
No,
William Branham simply remains William Branham, but he becomes God to the
people. He simply becomes God to the people. And that’s based on the Bible
where, in Deuteronomy, they told Moses, “We don’t want to see the Pillar of
Fire again. We don’t want to feel the earth trembling. We don’t want to feel
the earthquake. We are absolutely terrified at the presence of God. Moses, you
go up there and you stand for us, and then, when you come down here, you stand
for God, and we will listen just as though we were listening to God.” So Moses
goes up and God said, “They have well-spoken what they have spoken. Never more
will I appear to them again, but I will use a prophet like Moses. However, I
want to make a stipulation about Moses, he’s not like every other prophet.
Other prophets I can deal with dreams and in visions. But My prophet and
servant, Moses, is not so. I will deal with him even apparently, beyond the
visions and the dreams, which means I will appear to him in a visible form that
he can comprehend and apprehend what I am saying.” Then He went so far, as Paul
says, God was in the prophets.
And
Bro. Branham spoke of God being veiled in Moses, Moses veiled with the Word.
Moses was God when veiled with the Word. When God got through with Moses and
stepped out of Moses, Moses being alone, so it was no longer God in Moses.
Moses was Moses. And then, Bro. Branham talked that...concerning Jesus, he was
greater than a prophet. And some people want to make that refer to William
Branham. That’s not true. You can’t compare or parallel William Branham to
Jesus. And nobody can, because every one of the prophets were born through sex,
conceived in sin, shaped in iniquity and just put that right down – period.
Jesus was different—absolutely different. Like I explained to you, when they
worshipped Jesus—that’s the Book of Revelation—they did not worship him for who
he was, but for what he did, and he never would have done what he did except
for who he was. Now you try to get around that. I’m being very, very
definitive, like I was in the beginning: you know, the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, and the supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. So don’t ever get away
from your definitions.
26. [Question
#4] “You have often said the baptism with the Holy Ghost runs out. When does it
run out?”
Well,
that’s in Ephesians over here. In Ephesians, is the Bride from God to back to
God so that there’s no slip-up; and you notice, it runs the whole gamut... Well
look; I’m just going to read it, because I’m not in any big rush.
[Eph
1:1] “Paul an apostle” (the whole chapter) “of Jesus Christ by the will of
God.” Now notice, he’s an apostle of Jesus by the will of God. Doesn’t say he’s
an apostle of Jesus by the will of Jesus. So there’s two people here: one is
God and one is Jesus. Calls him Jesus... And remember, when it’s Jesus Christ,
it could also say “Jesus who is the Christ,” which means this one, the
Only-begotten Son, in whom God dwelt, actually came down to be their Messiah,
because Christ is Messiah. The Hebrew word for Christ is Messiah.
All
right, an apostle of Jesus who is the Christ, but by the will of God, that’s
the way I got there. I’m telling you saints at Ephesus, even the faithful in
Christ. I’m addressing you Bride. Just like John did to the elect lady. Grace
be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
notice grace and truth and grace and peace always come together. If there’s no
grace, there’s no truth; there’s no grace, there’s no peace. But when you get
grace, you’re entitled to truth and peace, and the truth shall set you free and
that means you’re at peace. That’s what I was talking about to you people here
in the church before I began dealing with these question and answers which go
out to the people who get the tapes. And I’m going to tell you now, send them
the whole thing, everything I’ve said here before I started questions and
answers. We’re going to send the whole thing out. ([Bro. Vayle queries the
brethren operating the recording equipment.] Did you get a tape of that first
part? Okay, you’ve got a tape here; you get that video. Okay, send it all out;
give them the whole thing, because it’s important to understand what I’m saying
now from what I said previously.)
27 Notice,
“blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Parse that: “blessed be God and Father,” or,
Who is the Father, of our Lord, that’s master, Jesus, Jehovah-Savior, who is
Messiah. Who hath blessed us… Now who’s done the blessing? God! See? In
heavenly places in Christ.
(4) According
as God hath chosen us in God before the foundation of the world, (And also in
Christ, we’ll talk about that later.) that we should be holy and without blame
before God—before God (Now, so that’s how we should be.) in God.
(5) In
love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
God, himself, according to the good pleasure of God,
(6) To
the praise of God’s glory and God’s grace, wherein God hath made us accepted in
the beloved.
28. Now
you say, “Jesus did that.” No, Jesus made the way for God to accept us. That’s
called the satisfaction of God. He’s perfectly satisfied with Christ. And if
He’s perfectly satisfied with Christ, then He’s perfectly satisfied with us
under the covenant of the Father with the Son. In other words, as I’ve told you
in Romans many, many times… Rom 5:1: “Therefore having been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That doesn’t mean that
you and I have peace, “Oh, we just got peace now toward God.” God is at peace
with us. We are no longer in jeopardy of being judged. There is no longer
warfare—fighting against God. It is grace, peace, truth, everything. Now people
get mixed up on that. That’s what I said some time back: perverting the Word is
where you apply something to yourself when it’s applied to God. And people
today are applying things to themselves as Bride, which were applied to Bro.
Branham, as in “Perfect Faith”—one of his messages.
29. Look, I’m not interested in getting
people’s tapes. I haven’t got time to listen. I wouldn’t listen anyway. But if
you want to get them, get anybody’s tapes you want on ‘Perfect Faith” and see
if they believe what I believe about it, and you’re going to find one big
difference: they’re a majority laboring to be somebody. And I’ve already told
you, perfect faith is where God gave you the perfect revelation through a
vindicated message and now, with your perfect revelation, you have perfect
faith, because faith is revelation.
Do
you know something? If you believe that, or anybody here really preaches it,
you’ll see people healed left and right. All the big things people want to do.
Get rid of it! Put it in God’s hand. Give God the glory. See that God does it.
Oh, I could tell you some stories. They wouldn’t be bad stories; just for the
glory of God what people have suffered for the sake of Christ, and not given in
to the evil things that are in this world.
30. Now
all right:
(7) In
whom we have redemption (verse 7) through Jesus’ blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of God’s grace;
(8) Wherein
he had abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
(9) Having
made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure
which he had purposed in himself:
See?
This is what I’ve been preaching all along to you people, the essentiality of
God and His Godhood (which I call ‘Godhoodedness’) in order to get you to
understand that every thing that God did was in Him according to what and who
He was. And it couldn’t be different, so why try to change Him? Oh my.
(10) That
in the dispensation of fullness at times he might gather together in one all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth; even in
him:
(11) In
whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
That’s
what I’ve been teaching you, trying to get you to see: God is God, and He’s
going to act like God. He’s going to do what God wants, and He can’t help
Himself, because He can’t change. Isn’t it good we’ve got a God like that? See?
That’s where people don’t understand: predestination is a loving act.
“Oh,
you mean God will take this and not take that? Oh my, that’s not love.”
Oh,
hush up! It’s says it’s in love that He predestinated us. Love
predestinates. Predestination is the manifestation of love. Now listen.
(12) That
we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
(13) In
whom ye also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation: in whom also after ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit
of promise,
(14) Which
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Now
what is the redemption of the purchased possession? Bro. Branham said, “You’ll find a time when you always were
saved.” That’s your soul. What needs redemption? Your body. So this speaks
of the resurrection. Now it’s not that God hasn’t brought us back as to our
souls, but this speaks of ‘bodies’.
31. Then,
when will the Holy Spirit run out? Now that’s a term. Let’s change it. When
will God finally stop breathing upon people the breath of God or the Holy
Spirit, so He won’t do it anymore? When the last child is in; the elected one.
Now that could be right now. Now the Jews have 144,000 that will come in. Now
remember, the foolish virgin don’t have the Holy Spirit. You know why they
don’t have the Holy Spirit? Because their vessels can’t carry it.
What
is the vessel of the Holy Spirit? Tell me, somebody, loudly? Word! Conduit of
the Holy Spirit is the Word! They don’t have the Word, and they can’t have the
Word. No, they’re in organization. They’re in bondage. They’re missing it.
They’re good people. They’re virgins. They’re part of the mix. They’re part of
the cloth. But they weren’t cut out in the pattern, and in the pattern, these
wise virgin are brought to perfection by a ministry, five-fold, of whom
apostles, prophet, teacher, evangelist, pastor, every single one with the Word
and nothing but the Word. [End of the first side of the tape.]
So
okay, that’s your answer right there.
32. [Question
#5] “Has God, at this point, stopped baptizing with the Holy Ghost?” Not that I
know of, but when the last ones in, that’s exactly what will be happening, no
matter how many are baptized, how many times, under what title, under what
names, under whatever. Now they could be foolish virgin, but the Holy Spirit
will not come upon them by the baptism with the Holy Ghost. No. But those that
are, will be child trained, as they were when they were crossing over into
Canaan land. The Holy Spirit is not only given to place or baptize you into the
body of Christ, but It is given to teach you and lead you into all truth, and
that’s especially for today.
And
what was It God said? “Oh, when the people come into this land, the people
around them are going to say, ‘Oh, what a great Word you came in with.’” Same
with us. We’re the only ones in two thousand years with the literal fulfilled
revelation, even those which were not known from before the foundation of the
world, because Paul or nobody ever explained outside of William Branham how
Jesus the Son was born. Find it. You can’t find it in the Bible. You have it
hinted; you have it shown he is, but you don’t know how, and only Bro. Branham
told us. Only Bro. Branham truly explained seed.
Find
me a book written by anybody, Puritans and all, the great authors. Show me one
person. And there’s only two books I know of that will hold water. I’ve had
them both. One’s Dr. Pink, the other’s a great big one. I’ve got it at home. It
isn’t worth reading. Doesn’t understand seed at all. If you really understand
seed, you’ll know what I’m talking about tonight. If you don’t understand, you
won’t know. It’s just that simple; just that simple. See?
33. So,
all right. When does it run out? When does God stop giving of His
Spirit—sealing people in? When the last one... And there won’t be one too
little. There won’t be one too many, because ‘perfect’ means ‘consummation to
the point where it is completely finished’. ‘It’s over.’ I often illustrate the
bowling ball. Let’s say you made a bowling ball in space, or a marble in space.
With no gravity, it’ll form a perfect marble. Now you bring it down on earth,
and if you drop a speck on it, it’s no longer perfect. If you put a pin in it,
it’s no longer perfect. Can’t do it; can’t do it; can’t do it. Perfect;
perfect. Consummate. So, you can’t add one, and you can’t take one. And Bro.
Branham said, “There won’t be one too
little, one too many.” That’s understandable.
34. So
when that last one’s in, and child trained, what Irenaeus said, He will come.
When the last elected member of the Bride, the body of Christ is in... Bro.
Branham added ‘child trained’. And Bro. Branham was more right than Irenaeus.
Irenaeus only got taught by Polycarp, a student of John; William Branham got
taught by God. Now what are you people taught by? Oh my, now we’re getting to
really feel good, aren’t we? Well doesn’t the Bible say, “All of your children
shall be taught by God?” Absolutely, that’s Isaiah. All of God’s children are
taught by God.
35. [Question
#6] In Jn 1:1, we know that the Word is God. What does the does “the word was
with God” mean?
Well,
we went into that. And, let’s go back to John 1:1. It’s always interesting,
because people just don’t want to believe Jn 1:1 the way Bro. Branham taught
It. That is some people. I don’t mind, you know, it’s up to the person. I just
teach here in St. Paris.
“In
the beginning was the Word...” Now let’s begin, right there, and understand
that God never had a beginning; He always was. It’s illustrated by a circle. If
somebody showed you a circle, could you tell me where the circle began? Can’t
tell where it ends. It’s a picture of the infinite. The wedding ring that you
exchange when you’re married, if you do exchange them, what does it signify?
Same thing. So, when you talk about a beginning, you are talking about
something that has to do with the eternal God, which He did, He Himself, and
nobody else, all alone, right there. He did it. So something within eternity
which we call ‘time’... Evidently something started what we call time.
36. Now,
let’s understand this. If you don’t understand what I just said, please explain
Bro. Branham when he said, “Time and
eternity have blended.” Well, go ahead, somebody. Got some smart guys here.
Now, hey, Bob [Simpson], you’re working on a PhD. You’re a pretty clever guy. I
guess you [Peter Gatchell] aren’t bothering to work on yours anymore? We’ve got
some people here that are slightly more than clever. Tell me about it. You
can’t do it. So why try to do something about this? This is when time evidently
blended with eternity. Now when our time blends, it simply means ‘it’s run way
out’, ‘gone back to where it came from’. So here’s, evidently, a segment of
history. I wouldn’t put it any way. I don’t think anybody could put it any
differently. You can say, “I believe this started when God gave birth to His
Son.” That is fine for all I know.
37. “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
So all right, I told you here, by parsing this, just leave part of it out. “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.” Pure and simple. So, read it
this way: “In the beginning was God and the Word and God was with the Word and
God was the Word.” No different. If the whole thing’s God, because that’s what
It says, except you’ve got to remember, there’s some information here that does
not change one thing about God Himself, but that God is evidently coming forth
into some type of manifestation that is required for His glory.
“All
things were made by Him.” All things were made by whom? By God. Who’s He? He’s
the Word.
(3) All
things were made by the Word and without the Word was not anything made that was
made.
(4) In
the Word was life and the life was the light of men.
Or,
in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So
It tells you right there what ever was there at that particular time,
positively had to be something which would be perfectly a part of God or having
come from Him in such a way that it couldn’t be anything but God. Well, you
know, that’s not hard to understand. If I had a bucket of pure water, H2O,
nothing but hydrogen and oxygen, and I opened the faucet, and I poured out
water, and I laid that right beside that flask or that bucket of water
(whatever you want to call it—that jug of water), that would be simply what
came out of there, and it would be what was in there. Now, this is not what Jn
1:1 says. I’m just illustrating to show you that if... All the H2O
was there in that one place, that’s all that there was. For you to have any H2O
at any time, you’d have to literally take it from there. That would be H2O.
38. So,
if there’s nothing but God there, what would there be then except God at the
time when this says, “In the beginning was the Word,” or God was there, and at
that time, the beginning, Word was there, and It was God? So in other words,
whatever actually came forth had to be essentially what was there to begin with
as to what was there, as the core or the substance, for this to come out of, so
that literally, this is the same thing here that’s in there. That’s about all I
can tell you. That’s how I’m looking at it. Because when it says ‘with God’,
and ‘being’ God, It shows that the two are actually one. Because you can’t have
something that ‘is’ and is ‘with’ and ‘be’ what is that actual primary core
without it being indivisible, union of one. Bro. Branham said it was difficult
to explain this, but it to him was a part of God. Good.
39. In
other words I put it this way: If I had a seed, and in that seed was life—let’s
say it’s a radish seed—that radish seed has everything in it to produce a
radish so that when that radish is formed, you can say that is a radish, but
you’re not really one hundred percent correct; and yet you are one hundred
percent correct, because that is a radish, and what is in that radish is a life
that was in the seed that produced a radish so that the radish is actually now
the visible part of what was invisible, but it’s still the radish. Difficult,
but I think it is so.
Well
now, what if God decided to do the same thing? Now with a radish you’ve got to
have elements. You’ve got to have earth and all these things in there—chemicals.
But he’s not talking now about chemicals, and he’s not talking now about His
Son, He’s telling you right here in the beginning, God began to literally
display Himself, and He never created. No, no, no. He did not. No sir. It’s all
that was there was God. So when God now began ‘to become’, as Bro. Branham used
the term—or come in to manifestation, or the declaration of Himself, the
projection of Himself, God moving—what was there positively had to be God,
because there’s nothing else there but God. God showing Himself, you might say.
40. Now,
go back to your radish. Radish is a life. it’s a seed life. You can’t see it,
but it’s there. You go back to horse life, dog life. You can’t see it. It has
to have a carrier. And that carrier is whereby the actual life that’s there
comes in to manifestation. So what are we talking about? I’m talking about
specifically that when you talk about, “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God,” you are talking about the expression that you see here contains
the Expresser and is the Expresser. So when you look at a radish, same thing.
Now
this is a terrible example, but Bro. Branham said, “You can find God in continuity in nature,” and that’s just what I’m
doing. So the Lord help me and forgive me if I’m not saying the thing precisely
and reverently, as it should be, because I don’t want to denigrate God. But I
want you to get the idea that you’re so familiar with nature, and the nature
you look at you say, “That is a horse. That is a cow. That is a pig. That is a
gnat. That is a fruit fly. That is a Tsetse fly. That is a housefly. That is a
butterfly. There’s a thousand kinds of butterflies. You can name every single
one of them, and every single one of them is what you’re talking about and is
the life or the seed, and seeds have lives, but they’re not like animal life
and insect life and all, but it’s all a life. Every single thing is there.
41. And
when the Bible said, “Let the earth bring forth the beasts.” The earth can’t
bring forth the beasts; that’s been proven. There’s no such thing as
spontaneous generation. Years ago they thought that these little flies and
things that formed and little bits of fungus and mold, that was something that
just spontaneously came. So what they did one day is they sterilized a bottle
and sterilized some things, and they put them in the bottle, and it just stayed
there. Nothing. So you say, “Well, life’s got to have a source of life.”
Anybody understands that. So when you talk about this: “In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” you’re telling
exactly what John wanted you to know: there was an expression. God the
Expresser. He expressed Himself. He was the expression. Now that’s the best I
can tell you.
42. Now
let me see, if I can find it written down here. All right, I wrote this down
from the students. ‘Logos’, according to the scholar, comes from the Greek and
was better than the Hebrew word for this same thing which was ‘memra’. Now the
‘memra’, ‘menorah’ (Whatever you want to call it. It’s just has different
spellings and different ways of saying it. But I just say ‘memra’. That’s easy:
m-e-m-r-a.) was a nine-pronged candlestick that represented God. So now we have
the candlestick, and I had it on the board here; and I’d draw it again, if I
had a board. Nine of them, here, like that, is that right; four and five; nine.
Three threes, perfect; every one a title of Jehovah.
Now
that was God in a symbol, and when they saw that, they visualized
Jehovah-Elohim, healer, provider, shepherd, banner, peace, right down the line,
sanctifier, redeemer and so on, up to nine. Now that was all right, but John
found something better. And it was the Greek that said, “Now just a minute,
this memra here, which is sterile, is just a symbol. It is literally, something
you look at and gives you the understanding God is a dynamic, sovereign
individual, compartmentalized in a way in order for us to understand, having
demonstrated absolutely, that He is provider, healer, redeemer, and right down
the line. And that was all right. But that didn’t contain God. That wasn’t God.
Now if they’d a made that God, that’d been idolatry. Couldn’t have done it. It
was just a representative. But this word is better. Because the memra could
not, under any degree or shape, have anything more than just say, “Yeah,
there’s a God there, and He’s got these great properties.”
43. So
John was saying, “Look, in the beginning was the Word, which was the
expression,” as they say, “of a thought.” But you can’t do that here with God.
He’s not an expression of a thought. God is literally expressing Himself as to
Who and exactly one hundred percent of what He is. So, what is He doing? He’s
taking upon Himself, from within Himself, so that He can show from within
Himself, thoroughly manifesting, exactly what He is. And It starts out by
saying: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God,” telling you that at some point, there came from God, and nothing else
there, as the radish seed, the life in it, begin to produce that which was the
truth. And so therefore, now you’re looking at this, which is absolutely God
Himself, and what is He? He’s the creator. And It says all things were made by
God, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
44. But
up here, again, reading, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God, or It says, “In the beginning was the expression;”
in the beginning was that which was there that could not be literally handled
by man, but was there in order to make God, or start to make God tangible, to
make God where He could come down and be touched, and so on. And then, It says:
the same was in the beginning with God. It’s repeating It.
45. So
what he’s telling you here, in repetition, is making you understand that this
is absolutely a hundred percent sure, like verily, verily, truly, truly, you
can’t escape it, I want you to know way back there, nothing but God, now, there
came this, there came from within, and that’s all there was, that which started
the whole thing which ended in the magnificent God indwelling the wonderful
Son, Jesus. God had become tangible. Exactly. Seen, heard, handled.
Now,
in between that and the flesh, there’s a Pillar of Fire; there’s a whirlwind; I
don’t know what else. Different things. Oh, God coming down in an angel form,
God coming down in a human form, blew into a bunch of dust, stepped into it,
stepped out of it. God coming down indwelling in Moses. God doing it. Word. God
manifested.
So
this is what John is saying here, the Expression contains the Expresser. Than
can be no manifestation except what was there in the first place to initially,
and of itself, bring forth the expression. So It tells you, God is absolutely
sovereign in this Expression here. We see God.
46. Now,
all things were made by Him. Now I don’t care if the Bible says that God
created all things by Christ Jesus. That’s simply telling you God did it, and
He had a way to do it, and He did it by His Son. It says God was in the Christ
redeeming the world, or reconciling the world. That doesn’t matter if it was
done through the Son; it was God doing it. Do you understand? That’s what we’re
looking at here. God—Jehovah-Elohim. Give Him the glory.
Now,
if you don’t believe the accuracy, I want to ask you a question. Where did
Jesus come from when there was nothing to come from except God, because God
hadn’t created one little single thing? Well, there’s your answer. John is one
hundred percent with this.
47. Now
we’re reading in here again, the memra is just a cold figure that is solidly
unrelated to God, except that God told them Who He was, and they tried to do
something about it in order to do, what? to keep Him in mind. That’s why they
made little boxes, called phylacteries, and they put little verses of Scripture
in there and bound them on their foreheads, and they’d walk, the box would go
boing, boing, boing, and they think, “Oh, yeah, the Lord is my life, the Lord
is my light, the Lord,” boing, boing, boing, “The Lord is my light,” bang, bang,
bang, “The Lord is my shepherd,” boing, boing, boing. Yeah, bind them on your
wrists—every time you move. What do you think the bells and pomegranates were
in the robes of Aaron? All of those things were to make you remember. What? God
the Word.
48. So
the memra was out there. So they’d look at it and say, “Oh, yes, yes, this is
the great God, Jehovah-Elohim. He’s my shepherd, He’s my provider, He’s my
healer, He’s my sanctifier, He’s my redeemer, He’s my peace, He’s my banner,
all the way down the line. See? But, when you come here, you’re coming now to
where you are not looking at a life that is intangible by looking at something
you simply feel or is here as a representative; you’re looking now at LIFE, and
the life is of God, because watch. It says:
(4) In…
God was life; and the life was the light of men.
(5) And
the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (Now
notice,)
(6) There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John,
(7) He
was a witness of that light and bare witness… Well what are you talking about?
You’re talking about Jesus. See?
(8) He
(John) was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
And
at the same time, remember, John’s mission was to go before the Lord God of
Israel, and make straight paths for His feet. Now that’s the supreme Deity of
Jesus Christ right there, because God’s in him. That’s the fullness of the
Godhead bodily that John had to go before. And John did go before. Why? Because
John baptized Jesus at that time, and God came in. The way was made. “Suffer it
to be so now,” the washing of the sacrifice, and so on to a ministry and then
the life given for sin.
49. Now,
[9] “...and that was the true Light, that lighteth every man that cometh into
the world.” Now there again, I think that I could take exception to the thought
here of every man as though every man is included and you are including men as
children of Cain. Huh?
Now
you say, “Brother Vayle, why are you confusing us?”
Because
I want to confuse you, and at the same time, I want to enlighten you.
I
want to ask you a question. Who did God say was a man? Adam, right. He called
‘their’ name Adam. Man is a genetic term. It’s a term of species. What God made
was a man after He made a monkey and a gorilla and a orangutan and a rhinoceros
and a platypus and a whale and a horse and a mule, and everything else. He’s a
species.
And
am I wrong to think—and I don’t know. I’m not William Branham. I’m just
talking, and I can make mistakes. But you show me one person outside of seed
that is lighted. And I mean real light now, not just where Bro. Branham came to
India, and he said, “Now, which of you
people call on your god and give this man his sight? Oh,” he said, “You’re awful quiet. Oh, you were making a
lot of noise a little while ago, one of you come on up.” They wouldn’t do
it. But he said, “Now if I pray in the
name of Jesus, to my God, and He gives the sight….” And you know what
happened? They thought, correctly, that God was in William Branham, and that
did it. And if the cops hadn’t rescued him, they’d a torn his clothes off, his
shoes off and everything, because they wanted to touch God, touch God, touch
God. And they had more on the ball than the Christians do, and yet they had
nothing on the ball at all. Well, that was said the way I wanted to say it. I
hope you understand.
50. Light.
(10) He
was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
(Now that could go for Jesus and the Father both in the sense that Jesus is
given credit as an agent of creation but God did the creating.)
(11) He
came to his own and his own received him not.
(12) But
as many as received him, gave he power or authority to become the sons of God,
even them that believe on his name. (And that word ‘sons’ is wrong. It’s ‘born
ones’ of God. So therefore, ‘man’ is not a term which designates the masculine.
It designates the race, right? Sure it does.)
(13) Which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but
of God. (Now, Cain was not born by the will of God, but by the will of man, I
can tell you that. Now Abel was born by the permission of God, absolutely; and
by the will of God, because they were to procreate and bring forth children.)
(14) And
the Word (God) became flesh and God dwelt among us, (and we beheld God’s glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
It
wasn’t the sons. But the Son had it, because it was produced through him. And
let’s face it; don’t you eat the life of the apple by eating the apple, the
life being in the seed, which you don’t eat? Huh? Did I lose you? Now surely I
haven’t lost you. I’ll read it again. And God, or what It really is saying
here, God in that...starting back, the becoming God—as Bro. Branham always used
that term, and I love it, the becoming God—started way back there. Now from the
beginning, what it all started, comes right down here becoming flesh and dwelt
among us, (tabernacled) and we beheld God’s glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
So
the man strutted across the platform like a peacock, but he wasn’t a peacock.
And Jesus manifested God, but he wasn’t God. God manifested through him.
Understand what I’m saying? It tells you It was God’s glory. But who got the
credit? Since they saw only Jesus, Jesus was acclaimed—glorified!!
51. All
right, let’s go a little further. Jesus said, “Heal the sick, raise the dead.”
No man can heal the sick and raise the dead, but they’re told to do it. So they
did it. And how was it done? God did it through them. That’s why you’ve got
such a terrible time at the end time, the true anointing and the false word. So
the people are under Trinity and Jesus-Only, the sick are being healed,
everything... “Oh, there it is. There it is. We’ve got a connection. There it
is.” That proved different. It wasn’t so.
(15) John
bear witness of him, and cried saying, This was whom of I speak, He that cometh
after me, preferred before me: for he was before me. (And now you could talk
right about Jesus there, because that’s true. And of his... And we talk about
God.)
(16) And
of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
(17) For
the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
(18) No
man has seen God at any time; the only begotten, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him.
. Now
It tells you right there, “No man has seen God at any time.” So what’s all this
about this body being the Word? The Word is with God, and the Word was God. And
telling you now, it’s become flesh. But yet, when you saw the flesh of Jesus,
you saw God. Oh, but you didn’t, because you would not have known except Jesus
told you. So the Only-begotten led him forth by words, and he said, “The Father
in me doeth the works.” The Father in me tells you all these things, I don’t
have a thought of my own, I don’t have a power of my own. It’s God doing it.
And
they said, “Oh, my...” Well? It’s nice, but I don’t know. Who are you?”
“I
am the one of whom it is spoken.”
“What’s
that?”
“Well,
if you’d a studied Moses, you’d know. I’m Messiah, the Son of God.”
“Blasphemy!.”
As
soon as he was ‘declared’, which means ‘to be led forth by works’... And I’m
going to tell you something, I said this many, many time, many… on my thirty
years, thirty-five years and better I’ve been preaching this message: you
cannot understand anything that God does unless somebody explains to you what
it is, and why it’s being done.
52. So
when Jesus came and God was in him, and these great things were happening, like
the sun coming down in blazing fury upon mankind, solar storms, thunder
rolling, that’s how cataclysmic it was. And all they could do was stand back
like Moses in the mountain, “Huh, something’s wrong, I don’t understand.” Of
course you don’t unless somebody tells you.
Do
you think I’d understood Bro. Branham, except he explained it? Why do you think
I keep explaining to people how I keep explaining and hoping I’m doing a good
job, so they catch it? Because you can’t get it until you’re told.
Well
I know you probably say, “Well, Bro. Vayle, I’ve got the Holy Ghost.”
I’ve
got something higher. I’ve got an office from God as a teacher. So go ahead, be
your own holy teacher or whatever you want to do. That’s fine by me. I have no
fight with anybody. In fact, I’m glad to have people reject any responsibility
I’ve got here. That’s why I love small crowds. The smaller the better. Then at
least I know I’m sure that I’m right for size. You follow me? Eight people made
the ark. I’m not trying to turn people off. I’m just trying to tell you, “Look,
you’ve got to face it as it is written and stop wiggling.”
I’m
going to tell you one thing flat, if I’m not Bride, there’s nothing under high
heaven going to make me Bride. I don’t care what I do. And I don’t care what
God does to me and for me, it won’t work, because I’ve got to be a seed of God
to begin with.
Now
you know I’m up here and who I am ,and I know you’re down there and who you
are. We understand each other, we’re seed or not seed – period. And of the
seed, we’re wise or foolish virgin. Who knows? But I tell you one thing: if you
belong to the small crowd, you’ve got a better chance of being wise virgin. And
I believe with all my heart, if you understand, as we believe it here, you are
a wise virgin. I know people don’t believe that.
53. I
believe before it’s over, you’re going to find the people that believe in
Jesus-Only have turned down Bro. Branham’s true understanding of one God and
His Son, are going to end up saying, “We are God. We’re a part of God,” because
already, I’ve been told that. All a part of God. You know, that’s the same
hooey that’s been taught all through the ages from Cain, who refused to say he
was serpent seed.
“We’re all children of God. We’re all
children of God.”
Now the Mohammedan comes this way, and the
Catholic comes that way, and, of course, the Jew comes that a way, and the
Hindu comes that a way, and the Confucians come this a way, and others come
that a way, and, “We all go unto God.” They’re all going to hell. I’m not sad
to say that, and I’m not gloating over it. I’m just telling the truth. I can’t
help it. I’m not condemning anybody. They’re fine people, no problem, like Bro.
Branham said, “You go to church to become
better people.” I’ve got no problem with that. The thing is, truth is
truth, and as Bro. Branham himself said, and I stand with, “If we’re not Bride, there’s a Bride out
there somewhere, and by the grace of God, I won’t stand in her way.” Now I
can’t say that, because I’m not a prophet. I could stand in her way, but I sure
hope I don’t.
54. And
I’ll tell you, I think its so great that, if I miss it, and I’m up there, at
least getting a chance to say “Hallelujah,” I will say “Hallelujah” to this
wonderful thing that God did, because you... Listen, if you see what I see,
there’s no way that you can say anything but this is incomparable. This is
utterly incomparable, absolutely. Now, [vs 18] “...the only-begotten is in the
bosom of the Father that declared him. And this is the record of John when the
Jews sent priests and so on down the line. Okay, that’s what I said there.
55. So
okay, Logos, on the other hand, is animated but not the memra, and Logos is
related to us, for God condescended, or He condescends toward man, rather than
He is aloof. ‘Logos’ signifies both the outward form by which the inward
thought is expressed and the inward thought itself. That’s exactly why Logos is
a perfect word. He says, “Look, God has begun to express Himself, and He hasn’t
done it by creation, although you can see God in creation. This is going beyond
God doing something that you see and you work with. This is God Himself now
manifesting. And you can understand what He’s saying, because it ends up in God
indwelling human flesh. But not human flesh like yours and mine. No, no, that’s
wicked.
56. Where
are the rest of the questions? It says here [Question #7]: “The covenant made
with His Son, is it that God promised to redeem the seed that is in Christ?
Would you explain?”
That’s
exactly true. The redemption is in and through the Son. The blood shed is for
the sheep. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. “I am the good
shepherd, and I lay down my life for the sheep.” And that’s exactly true. That
was the covenant. Like it said, “Who will go for us? Lo a body has thou
prepared for me. I go to do thy will O God.” And what was the will? It was the
sacrifice. Why? Because that was the blood of God that was shed. Acts 20 tells
you that.
I’m
a very, very strong believer in the covenant of God with His Son. I believe in
it above every other covenant, because if that one didn’t hold nothing would
hold. You know why? Because every one of us that were in God was placed in
Jesus. I can go to 1 John, and I can find that there too. The light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world—every man being a genetic term,
every man being the species of God, every single one then has a part of God.
Every bit of that life was placed in Jesus, then came down and placed in Adam
and then processed through Eve to come on down. We’ll talk about some of that,
but not right now. That’s another question. All right.
57. [Question
#8] “This is in reference to the principle that Bro. Vayle told us about years
ago, what were they and are there more principles which we can use to study the
message and the Bible?”
Well
I don’t remember those principles too well, but Bro. Branham used Larkin’s
approach. But here’s what I call the principles. The principles, to me, are
doctrine. Like, as I said, before we started the questions and answers, there’s
no use you talking about the fire of God falling, before it’s time for the fire
of God to fall. There’s no use talking about a rapture, until it’s time for a
rapture. There’s no use talking about anything, unless it is that time for it.
In other words you have to have all the events in which makes you to
understand. You have to understand doctrine. And part of that is eschatology,
which deals with prophecy and those other things which are there in the Greek;
and if you want to study a lot of Greek stupid words, you know, you can make
yourself a theologian. A plague on the Greek, and a plague on the theologians.
As far as I’m concerned, eschatology is more or less heaven and hell and what’s
in between. That covers everything.
58. But
you have to understand, number one, the great doctrine is Godhead. Absolutely!
Number two; you have to understand Jesus, and what he is all about. You
absolutely have to understand seed, which even precedes Jesus on the grounds of
why do you have to have him. You wouldn’t except there was seed that needed
redeeming. And then you have to go back again to Godhead and understand the
workings of God Himself, His essentiality and intrinsicality. And that’s where
Bro. Branham used the terminology. He said, “Deep calleth to deep. The little boy wanted sulfur in his body, so he
chewed on a bicycle pedal.”
I
didn’t have that theology. My theology was to express it this way: there’s
nothing lost; it’s just misplaced. Furthermore, there’s never a question
without an answer. So therefore, the answer’s there before the question. I
think mine was a little better than Bro. Branham’s. Finally, one day, I ran
across Iraneaus. And Iraneus said, “God being a Savior, it was necessary to
predestinate a sinner in order to give Himself reason and purpose of being.”
That’s Ephesians. And I took it to Bro. Branham. He said, “That’s it.” And from
that time on, that’s exactly what he used. And if you don’t understand that,
you would get nowhere in the study of your Bible, because you’ll end up saying,
“Well now, just a minute, God took this one, and He hated this one. Now here’s
poor old Isaac, and here’s Rebecca, and here’s the same man with the same
sperm, and she’s with the same eggs. Well, there’s no difference. And God hated
Esau before he was born? I can’t buy that.”
Well,
if you don’t understand seed, you won’t receive it. And Bro. Branham said, “God didn’t say, ‘I’ll take this and leave
that; I’ll just choose this and leave that.’’” But he didn’t go any
further, but he didn’t have to, because you and I sitting here understood what
he was saying. We were in Him, or we weren’t in Him. See? That’s why Cain
refused to believe he was serpent seed. I am not serpent seed. And when he said
that, he said, “I don’t need a blood offering. I’m a son of God.” And Abel
said, “I’m a son of God, but I’m born in sin. I’m going to die. I’ve got to
have the blood offering.” He shed the blood of the lamb and even had his own
blood shed.
59. [Question
#9] “When Bro. Branham talked about the father of James and John, he would say
the Old Testament is the foundation of the New Testament, and that we’re not
Judeo-Christians.”
I
don’t remember him making that statement so much, we’re not... Well we
certainly aren’t Judeo-Christians on the ground that we believe like the Jews.
We’re Christians, period. The Judeo-Christian is used only on the term that the
New Testament comes out of the Old. And the God, Jehovah, of the Old Testament
is Jesus of the New on the grounds that you understand that Bro. Branham was
talking about Jehovah manifested in flesh. See?
And
they said something like this, “We do not have the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. We have the God of Paul, which was not the same God.” Well, we do have
the same God. We have the very same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But what
the Jews did not realize, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the God of
Paul. No way would they accept that. Paul was, to them, absolutely a mad man.
60. But
when you go down through history, study the genealogy, and you will find that
if you can trace yourself back to Abraham, you go right back all the way to
God. No problem, period. And it’s got to be in the genealogy, and Esau’s not in
the genealogy.
Now,
you take the genealogy of Joseph and Mary; although, mind you, Mary was the
incubator. Joseph provided nothing except the name for his wife and the tribe
of, which they were, Judah. And Jesus after the flesh had to be born in the
tribe of Judah so, conveniently, she’s married to Joseph to give the
respectability, and she brings forth the child of God who is Jesus. And that’s
very respectable and wonderful, but the people didn’t understand. They wouldn’t
know. That’s why Joseph was minded to put her away privily.
The
angel of God appeared and said, “No.” He said, “No, no, no, don’t do that.
Marry the woman, because she is your wife, and the child is by the Holy Ghost.”
So
he said, “Fine, that’s exactly the way it is.”
And
that’s the way it was. And so, after the flesh, when you trace them right back,
you go right back to Abraham and right back to God. This is a FAITH principle
and Romans 5 and 6.
61. So
it’s the same God. There’s only one God. The God of the Lord Jesus Christ is
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; is the God of Paul; is the God of William
Branham; is the God of you and me. And I like the terminology, although, better
than ever, to say, like the Lord God of our prophet William Branham. I cannot
disassociate God from William Branham, because if I did, I’d have to
disassociate Deuteronomy 18 from him, and then automatically, right away say,
“Well, the God that William Branham represented was not Jehovah-Elohim.” Well
he had to be to be Deuteronomy 18.
62. So
that’s what I’m looking at here in my understanding, we go all the way back:
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but, we do not use those terms as Israel
used those terms. We know it; we understand it. But we understand higher than
that. We understand with John about the Word or God. In other words, whatever
was there with and was now is with and was flesh. And God “became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, which he manifested through his
Only-begotten Son.” So people stood back and said, “Oh, what power this man has
with God.” Not, “Oh, God is within this man.” See? Big difference right there.
So that’s what I’m looking at here. I hope that answers your questions on that,
because that pretty well takes us through—except for a few questions for
another time—which we could see what happens.
So
all right. Let’s bow our heads in prayer.
Heavenly
Father, we come to You at this time thanking You for the fellowship we’ve had
together, and for the love You’ve shed abroad in our hearts for Your Word and
for Yourself and for the realization how that even so many things can come to
our intelligence spiritually revealed, and we can see how good it is. We can
see, therefore, how that You, Lord, were in the prophets. And we saw the
tangibility. And we saw the declaration so that You were thoroughly led forth
as it were, by Words and You were manifest there.
But
the prophets were not God. We know Jesus was not God, yet You manifested, and
You blazed Your glory through him, and people didn’t understand—just a very
few, but, as even as Your own servant, Daniel, said, “The wise will
understand.” And those wise virgin did understand. And today, thank You, Lord,
that we are wise virgins who do understand, and that’s where we have our
credibility within ourselves concerning You, because we believe the evidence,
Lord, of You indwelling us by Your spirit is saying “Amen” to the words that
the prophet brought and believing the message of the hour and thanking You for
the messenger whom we dearly loved and loved to be with him, and soon, Lord,
hopefully, he’ll be back here at the command of You, Father, in order to stay
to be with us until we’re caught away. We appreciate all tonight and we love
You and may the people amongst us be healed, may they be lifted up tonight in
their spirits and thankful and stand firm as never before. And we give You glory
in the Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Now
that’s the reason you’re here tonight, to be strengthened. I hope you’ve been
strengthened. It’s been admitted even by my enemies, and I think I have a few
of them, that no matter how I preach, how rough I am at the beginning, I bring
it right down to the end and show you just who you are and how you stand, and
it’s all in Christ, the good things of God given to us. [Brother Vayle
continues with the communion service]