Godhead – Q&A #4
Tangibility of God;
Jesus and His Sonship-Body
November 5, 2000
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank
You for Your goodness and mercy to us this morning, knowing that it is by grace,
and knowing that it is not by our choice that we are in Your Presence, but it’s
by Your choice, for You have said through the psalmist, “Blessed is the man
whom Thou choosest and causeth to approach unto Thy throne.” And as Bro.
Branham said so correctly that it was
death to enter in beyond the veil, the Holy of Holies. Now it’s death not to
enter in.
And we realize, Lord, that that is what
it is all about at this hour: that You are here, and You are present, Lord,
having thoroughly declared Yourself and made Yourself manifest and known, and
You are here to take us into the Millennium. And I pray, Lord, that this shall
be our thought at all times, and our understanding, and it shall not decrease
but rather increase day by day, even moment by moment, concerning the reality,
because You are the Reality, and You are the only Reality, for we realize Your
Own Word has said, “When all is gone, Thou remainest, O God.” And being a part
of You, Lord, we remain, too, but we remain only that part, and that part in
subjection, we trust, perfectly subject to You.
Help us this morning to walk further in
that road of subjection and dedication to Your Word, that we might be approved.
In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
1. Last night we were dealing with the
question asked concerning the various principles that I had dealt with, and
when I got home I began thinking it over, and I realized part of the question
was “wanted more information concerning some of those principles that we saw
that Bro. Branham laid down,” that no other person had ever enunciated.
I’ve never seen anything like it in any
books: for instance, the principle of alpha and omega. You’ll find that usually
that is mentioned by those who go into the Book of Revelation, and their
knowledge is very, very scant, because they simply cannot put it together as
Bro. Branham did, showing us that the key was the sowing the Book of Genesis,
and the reaping book was over there in the Book of Revelation. And we found
that the alpha, what was sown, was the omega that was reaped. And there’s a
principle there, and I took a complete message on it, on the alpha and the
omega, showing that always you have to come up with the beginning and the end,
and the beginning is always the same as the end; the end is always the same as
the beginning. But it could be in a multiplied form, yet it’s the same.
2. Another
principle, of course, is the principle of the two vines, which is the two
seeds, which has been guessed at, and has been preached by different people:
that the serpent was the father of Cain, and so some of those were the
principles, but the actual fact of the matter is that if you understand
doctrine, you’ll find all those principles there, except perhaps one like alpha
and omega. That in itself is not a doctrine that you’ll find in the Bible, as
specific as other doctrines, but it’s there as a doctrine all right, because
you’ll find “I am the Lord; I change not” [Mal 3:6], and so on.
But the answer though was an
across-the-board answer, and yet it is still correct. If you understand
doctrine, you understand principles. If you don’t understand doctrine, you
don’t understand principles. Remember: the Bible says, “Precept upon precept,
line upon line, here a little, there a little” [Isa 28:10]. And by the time you
get to the place where it’s “here a little, there a little,” you’ve come to the
‘Word upon Word’, that’s literally as far as the Bible takes you. And if the
Bible takes you to that place, as Bro. Branham did in this hour, “piling Word upon Word,” you are an
invincible person.
Well, I can tell you one thing: the
people who know the principles of God, and have it “line upon line, Word upon
Word,” are truly full of the Holy Ghost, and never ‘stagger backward’ at
anything. They don’t even stagger back at the presence of God, because they’re
invited to come into It. To stagger backward, as though God repelled you, then
where are you today? What shape are you in? Why would you be repelled by your
very Source? Worldly people keep trying to find their roots or source. Our
“Source” found us, and we heard His Voice and follow It.
3. So you’re coming to the place where Bro.
Branham said, in Joel 2:7 where every man is like a troop jumping over the
wall. He mentions that as the ‘Rapture’. So we see that the people today who
are those who are truly Word believers are the overcomers. And to be a Word
believer you have to go back to the beginning, because “in the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was made flesh,” and that same Word... Well, you’re
looking at the Person of God Himself being made flesh. You’re also looking at
the children of God being made flesh. You’re looking at the Only-begotten one
being made flesh, and we the children of God, in our turn, made flesh.
And there is a dwelling place, and the
dwelling comes at the end time where all of these are gathered together.
Whatever came from God goes back to God. Bro. Branham explains that when he
talks about Jesus, and talks about actually God Himself, where there’s the
going out and the coming in, that is: going out, which is coming down, and then
going back. And that’s where you come to the place where you find God becomes
All and in all. It’s at the end time, in the new Heaven and Earth.
So if you understand the doctrine,
you’re going to understand principles. There’s no way you can get away from it.
Yet there is also the thought of those principles that are found in the Word
that are not too clearly enunciated, and yet you know they are there, and men
pick up on them: like Paul rightly dividing the Word of Truth, and Bro. Branham
followed Larkin in that particular area where you have to have these principles
to guide you.
4. There’s one that I mentioned myself so many
times: when you see the fire of judgment, don’t try to put it any place except
at the end time when the fire falls. God doesn’t have fire falling here and
fire falling there with destruction in order to cleanse and renovate. That’s at
the end time.
Many people read the Bible, and they see
those things that were done by the old prophets, and they see things that were
even done in the early church age. And they will begin to try to put those
phenomena on themselves as though this were something that everybody can do. If
it’s allotted to the prophets or a certain time, you can’t refer it otherwise.
5. The Pentecostals made that great mistake.
For instance, when the priests were all ministering at the temple’s dedication
and the glory of God was so strong, that the ministers in the temple, according
to Scripture, literally were slain under the power of God.
Well, that’s where Pentecostals get this
idea of being slain. Well, Bro. Branham actually said that that falling over was started under Loren Fox and was a wrong spirit.
Well, now if it’s a wrong spirit, it’s not the Spirit of God. You tell me whose
spirit it is. Well, there again you have your two seeds, your two vines, and
you have your two spirits, and at the end time the two spirits are so close
that there’s a razor blade difference, and you can’t tell them apart, except if
you are certainly understanding the Word.
Now the Pentecostals don’t care much
about that. They judge the Word by the spirit. I’ve had that happen in my
meetings, and I’ve watched the people that did that, and they go right down the
drain away from God: Jesus-Only, this and that. You cannot judge the Word by
the spirit. You judge the spirit by the Word, because in the beginning was the
Spirit, and the Spirit was Word, and the Word was Spirit, because God is
Spirit.
6. So many things you just normally come
across in the Word and you fail to place them correctly, but in this hour you
don’t do that, because we have a prophet, who didn’t only become a historian,
but Bro. Branham went far beyond Moses and anybody else when he went back, and
he declared to us that his ministry would open up those mysteries which were
not known from before the foundation of the world. Now, when you make a
statement like that, you’re not going to find that per se in the Bible, and yet
it’ll be there. It’ll be there indicating that this can actually happen. And it
does happen at the end time where no living person, no historian, no prophet,
no man, ever was able to trace back the actual, literal birth of Christ—where
he came from—showing that he is not God, the Son, but he is the Son of God.
7. So when you come to principles, as I say...
Look, if you’re founded in the doctrine… That’s where I started: with the
doctrine. Then I began to understand principles, of which the major one would
be the alpha and omega principle, because if you can’t start with God, and end
it all with God, “in the beginning God,” and then the Books of Isaiah and
different prophets begin to explain... well, as long as the first five books,
with Moses and all, the whole Bible explains the totality of one God... In
other words, He was the total. There weren’t three of them. There was just One
of them.
Well, where does the Son come in?
Well, there’s enough Scripture to let
you know there is a Son there. But actually how he was birthed, that is all a
great mystery. It’s because there is a suggestion, but Bro. Branham was the
only one who was able to go back and tell us these things. He was the only one
able to go back and tell us those things which have stood the test of time as
to being doctrine, and he was able to enunciate every true doctrine and, under
the Seals, correct every error.
8. So there again, you get into the
doctrine... And it’s not hard to understand doctrine, because there’s certain
words in the Bible: justification... What is that exactly? What is grace
exactly? What is predestination exactly? ‘Exactly’ now, not what people think
it is. What exactly is foreknowledge? What exactly is election? What exactly is
glorification? What exactly is the Rapture, how does it take place?
Those are the things that actually are
doctrine and they’re based upon principles which the major principle is #1: God
in the beginning, God at the end, God All in all, nothing but God, and without
Him there isn’t anything, but with Him then there is everything that God
Himself actually wanted to bring forth and has brought forth.
So even as the Scripture says that “when
all things fail, all things are shaken down, Thou remainest, O God.” And of
course you go right again, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.” Or, “In the beginning,” and the beginning... You can’t
say the beginning was God. You have to say, “In the beginning was Word,”
because when you go back to God, you go back to eternality. And there’s nothing
there of a suggestion of anything that anybody would know but God Himself.
So as God begins to open up and
illuminate Himself to the people, then you find ‘in the beginning’—that
beginning which is a part of eternity. We’re going back to it, we’ve already
started to go back to it at an accelerated rate. Not that we weren’t going back
to it from the very day one in the Garden of Eden, because that’s the
principle—from God and back to God. So now we’re going back to eternality,
where time and eternity blended and immortality has now taken on eternality in
the sense that there is no way that you could ever, ever, ever have another
lapse. If there’s a lapse, then God has not revealed it. But you’re getting
right back where God is All and in all. Those are things we’re looking at.
9. Now, before I get into other questions and
answers, going back to Jn 1:1 again:
(1) In the beginning was the Word, the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.
And Bro. Branham said, “If you make Jesus ‘the Word’, you have three
gods.” Of course that’s putting it as he said, “I’m not Trinity and I’m not Oneness,” in the sense of the Oneness
organization. But Bro. Branham was ‘oneness’ in his doctrine concerning the
oneness of the Godhead: there’s only one God, period, Who is essentially
sovereign; and any Son, or anybody, or anything is absolutely under the
dominion of that One Who is sovereign, and whether they know it or not, or want
it or not, they are at the disposition of God.
And there’s where Jesus, the
Only-begotten one outshone all others, because he knew that he was absolutely
at the disposition of God. He had God as his loving, kind Father, knowing that
he was positively a part of Him, and should abide by the complete, sovereign
wisdom of that Father of his, and never use his own thoughts, but rely solely
upon his Father, knowing therefore then that any authority and power God had
given him would be absolutely of God and that authority to be used as God
directed it.
And, you know, Bro. Branham tried to get
that far. I know he never got that far, but he let people know, “Look, you operate the gift that’s in me, I
don’t operate it on my own. I cannot use this gift as though I wanted to use
it, and I can only tell you what I know God shows me. Otherwise, I’ll be
attempting to use a gift the way Satan used it.”
10. Now there’s where your Pentecostals didn’t
understand Bro. Branham. When he came on the scene, he took authority over
devils. He said, “I command you,” and
the devils would leave because of his command. And they said, “This is the way
it was done in the Bible, and this is the way we can do it, too.”
You see, it’s true it was done in the
Bible that way, but they didn’t realize that this was the Son of man ministry
returned to earth, and this was God operating through a prophet and doing
exactly as He did through Jesus: “I can’t speak except what He tells me to say.
I cannot do except what He tells me to do.” This was not a gift given to be
used at man’s discretion.
But they went right ahead and assumed
the authority, and they’re able to do it—get the anointing upon them—and then,
when you have anointing upon you and do what you want to do, or think you’re
doing what God wants you to do, but you’re not doing it—Bro. Branham preached a
whole sermon on “Presuming”—then where are you at?
Well, you know the actual fact, I think,
the Bible says that concerning Satan: the “anointed cherub that covered.”
Well, I want to ask you one question:
what was the anointing?
“Well,” you say, “Bro. Vayle, it sure
wasn’t the anointing of God.”
Now, you tell me how you know it wasn’t.
Now come on, go ahead, you can’t do it. And I can tell you standing here: I
will stand that I believe it definitely was the anointing of God upon that one.
See? The next question is: If he was anointed, who anointed him?
God did. How many anointings does God
have?
So you see, you’re getting on very
tricky grounds. But you’re not on tricky grounds when you understand that at
the end time the two spirits are so close, they’re razor blade difference. Now
what happened to Satan with his anointing? He went off the Word.
Then can you be anointed and go off the
Word? They’ll say, “No.”
You’re wrong. Right from the
beginning—alpha is omega. There’s your principle.
11. Okay:
(1) In the beginning was the Word and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.
(3) And all things were made by him… (In
other words the Word made all things starting at that particular point.)
Now Bro. Branham in this verse of
Scripture brought out that what God was doing at this point was the ‘becoming
God’, wherein He became tangible. Now where did he get that? Well, he got it
over here in 1 John, and we read the tangibility of God. Now a ‘tangent’ is a
mathematical term in pure science: it’s a line, a straight line usually. I
don’t know of any crooked line I ever studied when I was in class. Well, you
can get curves and all, and you can plot them, and you can bring out anything
you want to bring out.
But a tangent usually is spoken of by a
straight line that touches the circumference of a circle. And so what it is:
‘tangibility’ is ‘touchability’.
12. So he says in 1 John:
(1) That which was from the beginning, (Now
John’s going right back here in 1 John 1 to Jn 1:1, and no doubt this Epistle
was written quite some time after the Gospel was written. According to Usher it
was written in 90 AD) ...That which was from the beginning, which we have
heard, (Now notice that.) which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.
Now he’s saying the same thing over here
in this Epistle, really explaining what he said over in Jn 1:1. Now Bro.
Branham said, “Back there in the
beginning, that was the source of tangibility.” Now watch what John says.
He doesn’t only put it down to tangibility, but he puts it down to the ability
to see, so he said, “We looked upon it.” Now you know that no man can look upon
God and live. There’s no way he can do that. And the Bible also says, “No man
has ever seen God.” You can’t do it. Jesus said, “The Only-begotten hath declared
him,” but no man can see God.
Now in the Gospel of John, It tells you
that no man has ever seen God or will see God. You can’t see God, yet over here
It says that (after John says over there), “The Only-begotten hath declared
him,” or brought him into full view by words and shown him exactly...and
therefore words are measurement. They’re not just descriptive. They have the
power of actually bringing to life, in the sense of your intelligence and
understanding and your acceptance, so that you can comprehend and apprehend
what lies within the Word, which God and the Word is one, because the Bible
says they’re one.
13. So therefore, you’re looking at, what I’ve
said many times, the Rhema-Logos God, because first of all it would have to be Rhema,
which would go into Logos, because Logos alone has the ability to actually
manifest Himself so the outer expresses the inner. Now we’re not dealing just
in semantics in the sense of words. This is way beyond etymology. It’s way
beyond anything that we would look at in the sense of the mechanics. This is
dynamics, because now we have the literalness of what is there, which formerly
could not be comprehended or apprehended. In other words It couldn’t be seen,
It couldn’t be touched, It couldn’t be made familiar to us. We wouldn’t know if
we were in His Presence or not. He could be there, and we wouldn’t even know
it. That’s why the Pillar of Fire is here today, and nobody knows it—except a
few of us; and we believe it.
They can’t take it, because they’re not
into Logos. They’ll tell you they are, but the farthest they are with Logos is
merely ‘logos is the expression of a thought’. And if I can express my thought,
then that’s ‘logos’. That is not true. That’s not true. It’s got to go far, far
beyond that. When I say “cow,” that’s all there is. You understand a cow,
because you know what a cow is. When I say “cow,” that doesn’t bring the cow
out. That’s merely descriptive. That’s dead language. That’s mechanical. That’s
a measurement that you and I understand by previous experience, because we’re
taught it. How can you get that in God? When were you taught ‘God’? What do you
know about experiencing ‘God’? You don’t. So when you talk about Logos, you’ve
got to talk about a reality, where Bro. Branham starts it and brings it down to
tangibility.
14. Now then: “the Word became flesh.” Now I’m
going to tell you something: Word becoming flesh in Jesus is the fullness of
the Godhead bodily and the Supreme Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. But what
about God in flesh in Adam? What about God in flesh in a prophet? What about
God in flesh in a Bride, and in the Wise and foolish virgins where God becomes
All and in all? So now you’re back to the aloneness of God, right? One God, All
and in all. A sovereign, begetting, creating, “all alone God” ever remaining
exactly Who and what He is and never changes as to intrinsicality and proffered
attributes of His Godhood.
So, even relating to the inanimate, when
God said, “Let there be light;” there had to be light, and the light was
absolutely the production of that word ‘light’. So whatever is light lay within
it, and it manifested.
15. So when Bro. Branham talks about
‘tangibility’, God becoming tangible, John went beyond what Bro. Branham said,
as the definition, though Bro Branham said it many, many times. Here’s what
John said:
(1) That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon…
Now notice he doubles ‘looking upon’ and
‘seeing with the eye’. Now he’s not seeing with the heart, and he’s not seeing
just with the brain per se. This is not just a perception which has to do with
aesthetics or the ethereal. This is just like that: grabbing it. This is a
‘grab and hold on’ deal we’re talking about, and we’re talking about God,
right? because what It says, “We have handled of the Word of life.”
16. So Bro. Branham was very, very correct in
talking about tangibility: the God Who became very, very real. Now notice he
said, “Of the Word of Life.” So if you’re going to talk about the Word of Life,
then you are talking about Life being God, and Word being…he said “Word of
Life,” so if something is ‘of’ it, then it will be part and parcel of what is
there. See? If a calf is of a cow, you can understand absolutely that that
which came forth is a part and parcel of it. Now that’s not a very good
example. The better example would be when God said, “Let there be a cow,” and
that cow actually stood there. That cow was the manifestation you could see
with your eyes, and look at it very carefully. Make sure this is not an
apparition…go over and touch it… “Yeah, that’s a cow.”
Now, doing what I’m doing, is not
demeaning God. I’m trying to show what Bro. Branham said, “You can find God in nature, in creation.”
And Paul said the same thing. If you
cannot see God in creation, and understand God from creation, you’re
disbelieving God, period, as to what is in the Bible, and particularly at the
end time when Bro. Branham now is even in a position greater than John. Yes,
his position is even greater than John’s. Why? Because Bro. Branham goes right
back to Paul, and Paul’s position was greater than John’s, because Bro. Branham
said, “The disciples…they ate with him,
they slept with him, they fished with him, they did everything…but the
revelation was given to Paul.” Right? What are you going to do about it?
Now you can argue anything you want to argue, and you can say, “Well, Bro.
Branham wasn’t there to see, and Bro. Branham wasn’t there to handle.”
Well, I’ve got news for you: Bro. Branham
was there to see, because he saw the Pillar of Fire. So did Bro. Branham see
different? By no means, no. He saw what Moses saw, and he also had a vision of
Jesus. So there’s no difference.
17. So Bro. Branham, coming along, actually
brings out the Scripture, lays It open to you and me in a way that no one else
ever has, because he goes right back to the beginning, even beyond Jn 1:1 where
it isn’t even said concerning Logos; it is only said concerning God all by
Himself: there wasn’t even anything created, and there was nothing there but
God. Not even an atom.
Now this also fills it on the grounds
that what came forth…and this is what I look at: the Logos was with him. It
shows you that nothing being there but God, then that which formed was from God
Himself and became that which would in turn show forth His visibility and His
tangibility. That’s exactly why you have what Bro. Branham said in 2
Corinthians 5, “the building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” And
if John could say, and Paul could say, right down the line, “In the beginning
was the Word, the Word is with God, and the Word was God,” that comes right on
down, line, line, line, to every Seed of Almighty God. Every single Seed would
have that waiting in the heavens.
And Bro. Branham said, “When you’re born again, you’ve heard from
your theophany.”
In other words now you’re completely
matched and completely ready, even though that was out of turn—you bypassed
it—now at this particular point, you go to that particular body. We’ll talk
about that later in the questions.
18. So here we see the Life was manifested, and
we have seen Him. Now notice: the Word of Life, it’s the Word of Life, that
which was way back there. Now John is saying, “The very Word of Life, that same
Life, that same Word, is now in manifestation.” That’s why John could say, “And
the Word became flesh.” What was there was that which God had given Himself,
making Himself available to tangibility. And I like where John says, “We have
handled the Word of Life.”
(2) …And bear witness, and show unto you
that eternal life, which was with the father.
Now notice again, he’s saying “that
eternal life which was with the father.” Now there again, if it’s ‘with’
somebody, what are you going to do about it? And the actual truth of the matter
is: it is somebody. You cannot say, “God, being Himself eternal, Eternal Life,
because He is, you cannot say for one minute then that that Life is not the
Father. But what you’re looking at here, in my understanding is, that God now,
assuming the position of Father, is bringing forth. And as He brings forth, He
wishes to bring forth the children which are tangible. And the tangibility
started right back there, the same as with him, which was the body.
19. So now you have a Word-body, you have a
Spirit-body, and Bro. Branham called it ‘theophany’.
Now I disagreed with Bro. Branham very, very strongly on the use of ‘theophany’
across the board. It won’t work, because in the Greek ‘theophanero’ means that
God Himself is showing Himself forth. And the only way that you and I can be
theophanies, or have one, is the same grounds we’re called ‘messiahettes’, and
the Bride is called ‘Mrs. Jesus’. It’s a derived term. It’s something handed
down, though in itself it is original and with God and a part of God. And there
again, you’ll see something in: if that was a part of God and with God, you’ll
see compartmentalization, you know, making compartments, and showing how this
is all worked out in peculiar history, even particular generations until the
fullness.
20. So he said:
(2) ...We show unto you that eternal life,
which is the Father, and was manifested unto us.
So now John is simply saying, as Bro.
Branham is saying, “Here is God, and God is making Himself absolutely tangible,
absolutely manifest, absolutely approachable, and absolutely seen under the
conditions of which God wants to show Himself, and Bro. Branham called it ‘veiled,’—God-veiled or God-masked. And
then he said, “God hides Himself in order
to reveal Himself.” And that’s right in Scripture, that very term. I’ve
brought it out and showed you in the Greek. I think it’s in the Book of Luke. I
didn’t look it up again, but it’s in there. It shows you what does God does:
why He hides something is in order to manifest it and bring it forth.
21. Now that’s the same way with mysteries: you
have mysteries in there. Why are they hidden? Because He wants to bring them
forth. And that which is hidden from you, that thing is actually brought forth
by the very means in which it is hidden. So God hides Himself in a prophet,
what is He doing? He’s doing it in order to absolutely manifest Himself and
make Himself known on that occasion. If God hid Himself in Jesus, what is He
doing? Absolutely doing what He wants to do for that occasion. Then if God
hides Himself in the Church—and remember this is not the ‘fullness of the
Godhead bodily’—and don’t ever think that all the Bride together compromises
Jesus, compromises God, because the fullness of the Godhead bodily is only when
God incarnates Himself in the vessel of Jesus, His Son. Let’s get that flat.
And the Supreme Deity is only when God incarnates Himself in that Son.
There is no such thing as God in His
Church, so now the church is God: God poured into Christ, Christ in the
Church…wham! Everything gone but the Church. Forget it! If that’s not of the
devil, I’m not of God. Just tell you flat: if I’m not correct, Lee Vayle’s
going to hell and going to burn. I have no thoughts at all of any God but a
Supreme God, and I’m going to tell you one thing: if God is in the Church, and
we’re all a part of God, something’s happened to God somewhere. And I’m not
interested, because I want to get out of here, and I want something a whole lot
better than what I’ve got! or anybody I’ve seen has got, when it comes to a man
or a woman in Christ. I’m vehement about that, and you better believe I am. A
billion parts from God’s Own Life will never constitute sovereignty.
22. With what people are talking today and
believe in, I can’t take it; I’m sorry. I’m not interested. If that’s God, I
don’t want it. Well, that’s not God. That’s what I’m looking at right there
[Points to the picture of the Pillar of Fire with Bro. Branham.] Pillar of Fire
above a prophet, and God in the prophet, giving us tangibility.
“He
that has seen me has seen the Father.”
“What does that mean, Bro. Branham?”
“You’re
looking at me, aren’t you?”
“No! No! Man! I can’t take that!
Sacrilegious! Sacrilegious!”
“Well, have you got the Holy Ghost?”
“Oh, certainly, I have! I’m wonderful!”
Bunch of lying heathen! I’d sooner go to
Africa where the witch doctor claims he can turn into a hyena, and I’d accept
that a whole lot more than this other junk. Why would a person demean God? I’ll
tell you why: because they’re serpent seed. That’s what the whole thing is; it
amounts to serpent seed. God is NOT a man.
You say, “What if they’re foolish
virgin?”
Well, I’ll tell you: they’re awful
foolish. Nigh unto being stupid.
23. (3) That which we have seen and heard...
(Now he’s got the ‘hearing’ in here: we’ve seen it, we’ve heard it, and handled
it.)
Hey, don’t tell me that’s not a pen I’m
holding in my hand. I’ve seen it. I can’t hear it, of course. But I’m handling
it.
Well, I’ve got a couple of cats at home.
They’re nice little cats. I handle them all the time. They go, “Meow, meow,” in
a cute little way when they want attention. I hear them, and I talk to them,
and they “meow” back. Of course we don’t talk too much. But I’ve got two cats,
and don’t tell me we don’t have. George will confess to it. We’ve got two
cats...handle them, listen to them, talk to them, feed them. If you touch them,
you know... If you get rough on them, they’ll whine or they’ll scratch. They’re
real.
Well, what about this? Now we’re talking
about God. Now the word here is ‘Logos’; so He’s a ‘Logos-God’. If He’s the
‘Logos-God’, It tells you absolutely flat that God is able to completely
manifest Himself in a form that can be applied to our senses in such a way that
we can see and hear and feel—What more do you want?—and even hear. But how do
you hear? Through the prophet. And God never changes.
That’s why It says in Hebrews, God was
in the prophets and then in the Son in the last days. That doesn’t mean there
were no more prophets. It means that is the last and the highest where God
goes. He comes all the way from Genesis 1, past Malachi, right into John
1,2,3... Well, Luke, Mark, all of them the same. And there is the pinnacle,
because Bro. Branham said, “All the
prophets were a part of the Word, but Jesus was the whole Word.” And he was
the Only-begotten, uniquely begotten. ‘Only-begotten means ‘uniquely begotten
of the Father’—no one else like him.
24. Now notice what he said:
(3) And that which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our
fellowship is with theFather, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
Now he’s telling you right there what
Bro. Branham said, “The tangibility of
God”: God, coming before us so that we can absolutely apprehend by reason
of our senses, and our senses are connected to the spirit, and the spirit is
connected to the soul. So therefore, as Seed, we have every ability to
recognize and understand God to the extent we have absolute fellowship with
Him. And Bro. Branham said, “You were in
your father and he wanted fellowship with you. And through holy matrimony and
sacred bedding ground of your mother, you were brought forth, and now you have
fellowship with him.”
So therefore, we are looking at the same
thing: tangibility. God brought us forth in order to have fellowship with us.
Now the big question is: how much fellowship are we having with Him? Now,
that’s a good one, isn’t it? And yet that’s what it’s all about. But It says,
“How can two walk together, have fellowship, except they be agreed?” [Amos 3:3]
What are you going to agree on? Well,
you’re going to have agree on what you both like to eat, what you both like to
wear, where you both like to sleep, where you both like to live, what you both
like. In other words, are you compatible with a certain standard which is not
necessarily purely mechanical, but has to do with spiritual intrinsicality of
the person? Well, you show me anything that fits that description, except the
revealed Word of God, and I’ll eat it. I’ll be happy to have it and grow on it.
You can’t have it any other way.
25. So “except two people walk together in
agreement...” What’s the agreement? Well, let’s face it, with God being
sovereign, absolutely despotic concerning Himself and His Word, you and I can
only have fellowship with God in His Word. That’s all. That’s why the Word is
the lamp and light on our path unto our feet.” [Ps 119:105] “And if you walk in
the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” [1 Jn
1:7] In other words, as God has manifested and declared Himself to you in this
hour, and you believe and walk in it, you do have fellowship, and you talk to
each other and you have fellowship, and God listens: “I like what they’re
saying. I’m listening.” See?
26. Not praying... You’re not praying. Get off
that prayer regimen for a moment. There’s too much praying done, that is,
useless praying, spinning your wheels praying, trying to twist God’s arm,
trying to get God on your side, trying to make the capitol of Ohio ‘Urbana’,
instead of Columbus. You can’t twist God’s arm to make two and two make three
and a half. You can’t make God not Jehovah-Ropha, which is God the Healer, like
your bunch of Presbyterians and Methodists and Baptists and God-knows-what want
to do, because He’s still the Healer. And He never said, “I’ll substitute
doctors for it either.” No way, shape and form. Anybody knows anything knows
the body’s got to heal itself. As Bro. Branham said, “Healing lies within you, but
don’t take that too far.” That’s what he said.
27. So, you see, when John is talking about
this, this is what Bro. Branham was telling us. And he says:
(4) These things write unto you, that your
joy might be full.
Now John is telling you: that based on
him, what he has seen, and what he knows of his absolute fellowship with God,
manifest in flesh, he’s giving you and me all we need, and that is fulfilling
Deuteronomy 18, even though this man is not a prophet. He doesn’t need to be.
Now Mary Magdalene, out of whom they
cast seven devils, I guess, she had the same thing, and the harlot that washed
his feet and dried his feet with the hair of her head, saw the same thing,
didn’t understand it—although John seeing the same, at first didn’t understand
it—but they did later.
Now here’s a good boy called John, no
doubt never caught in adultery, never caught out of the law, the same as Paul
and Peter and those men—fine, fine men, and they could handle the Word of life.
But here comes a harlot, selling herself, defiling herself, and any number of
men that would defile themselves with her, and she comes and handles God. She
washes His feet.
28. Now you tell me if that isn’t
approachability and tangibility; exactly what Bro. Branham said. You tell me
what is. Now we’re talking of reality. Now Bro. Branham said, “Condescending God.” Well, if that’s not
condescending, you tell me what is. And if that’s not making a way of
propitiation, and not just a propitiation, as though you’re propitiated, stand
way out here, and God says, “Okay, I’ve used the Blood and now that’s fine, and
you can stand over there, and I’ll let you stand there, and I won’t imprison
you. I won’t send you to hell, but you stand there.”
Oh, what good’s that? I’m going to stand
over here, propitiated, stand over here, justified, and God stands over there.
We’re still separated. What good is that going to do? Well, now I’m in worse
shape than ever, because this is the limit as to propitiation and what it does.
So what does He do? He sanctifies us,
baptizes us with the Holy Ghost, and brings us in a hundred percent unity,
causing us to approach unto His throne in order to have fellowship. Now we’re
looking at what John is talking about and what Bro. Branham was talking about.
So I can tell you one thing: the same Almighty God that dealt with John dealt
with Bro. Branham, dealt with Moses, dealt with Paul. And that’s why Bro.
Branham could say categorically, “The
same Pillar of Fire that appeared to Moses, and appeared to Paul, appeared to
me,” and Bro. Branham was in the three: one, two, three. God does
everything in three’s.
Then He finishes the whole thing in
seven’s. Everything that God does in seven’s, but God is in three’s. Not three
gods. I don’t even like the thought of ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost’ as titles,
where God manifested His Son. God manifested, in my books, in the Son. That was
God, period.
29. I’ve got an understanding of the Son, I
believe, and I understand that he was the mediator, getting us in to God. He’s
also the intercessor that keeps us in. I understand he’s on the throne right
now, where the Father is down here, bringing the Church in subjection, putting
everything under the feet of Jesus Christ till the day comes when the Son hands
it back to the Father, and the Father becomes All and in all.
I understand those things. I’ve got no
problem. And because I do understand them, I don’t have a problem. And I know I
have to approach unto God at all times through Jesus Christ. And the church has
made the great mistake in making Jesus equal to God—which he is in a certain
way—but he’s not God. He’s not Deity. I’m sorry, but he’s not, because God is
not in him. No way. What God was in him is not Deity, same as what God is in
you is not Deity, concerning Deity Himself, which is Sovereign God and Creator
and Maintainer.
I tell you: you just try for one minute
to get the God within you to create something. I’d like to see you do it. You
understand what I’m saying? It’s a matter of grace—G-R-A-C-E. Keep it there.
Keep it there. Keep it there. Grace, not presumption. Not presumption. Do you
know what happened to the boy that slept with his mother? Killed them both.
Don’t fool with God. Don’t fool with God. Don’t presume. This is serious
business we’re into, and serious because, in the end day, the full
manifestation that all Israel saw through the beloved Son, that same ministry
has appeared in human flesh in our hour. Therefore, Bro. Branham said, “You’re looking at me, aren’t you? Same
thing.” You know something? Paul never said that, and yet he did. So you’re
living in a perilous, perilous day—the day of deception—subtle deception as in
Eden.
30. Now [1 Jn 1:5]:
(5) This is the message which we have heard
of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at
all.
(6) And if we say we have fellowship with
him, and walk in darkness…we do not the truth:
(7) But if we walk in the light, as he is in
the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
This is nothing but Jn 3:16-19, where It
tells you: though Jesus died to take away condemnation, there is still
condemnation. Why is there condemnation? Because men will not come to the
light. They will not bring their deeds to the light. That’s exactly what Cain
would not do. He would not bring his religion to the light of the revealed
Word, and that’s exactly why you have today: the whole world’s in darkness, and
the whole world now is out, period, gone, and why eight people make the ark. So
don’t look for ten thousand or ten million. Get off that idea. You have to
examine your heart and say, “God, am I walking in that light?”
And if you walk in that light, you have
fellowship, and walking in the light and fellowship, as Bro. Branham said, “Two men in the boat”—fellowship. And
what are they doing? They’re talking. How many people in this Message believe
Malachi 3: “And God heard what they said. They talked to each other.”
No, it’s always screaming to God. You
can scream to God all you want. It won’t change God one iota. You have to
‘believe’ God. And if you’re not ordained to it, you won’t believe God. Now
that’s one verse almost nobody can understand. Over there in the Acts 13:48:
“And as many as were ordained ‘unto’ eternal life believed.”
Now how are you ordained unto eternal
life? When your mortality, this physical, takes on immortality because of what
Bro. Branham called ‘the theophany’. Now you’re right back, and right where you
should be, and where you were from the beginning.
31. So here’s your picture:
(8) And if we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
(9) If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(10) If we say we have not sinned, we make him
a liar, and his word is not in us.
Well, who is he talking to? The serpent
seed. Cain came before God, and God said, “Where is thy brother, Abel?”
“How do I know? Am I my brother’s
keeper?”
“Oh,” God said, “just a minute. I can
hear your brother’s blood crying from the ground. You killed him.”
He said, “What of it?”
“Well, you sinned!”
“I did not! He made me mad. If he hadn’t
made me mad, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s his fault.”
Have you heard that one before? “He
picked on me. He pinched me.”
Your kids—our kids… “He breathed on me.”
Little devils. “Born in sin, shaped in iniquity. Serpent flesh, if not serpent
seed. Well, you get the point.
So here’s what I wanted to say, and I
took a long time saying it, concerning this over here in John: the tangibility
of God—the tangibility of God.
32. Now God was not in the prophet when we
talked many times, and I know He wasn’t in the prophet when he stood behind the
door to scare me and jump on my back! That’s all right. But the thing is: I
understand ‘tangibility’. “You’re looking
at me, aren’t you?” See? The point is that people want to make God so high
and so holy that they can’t realize that in spite of His highness and holiness,
we are His children. He loves us, and He wants fellowship. And He went so far
to get that fellowship as to give His Only-begotten Son, and the obedient Son
suffered and died, shed His Blood for you and me, that we might have that
fellowship.
And this is what John is saying: the
tangibility, the humanity of God. That’s why the Bible could say, “For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God” [Rom 3:23], and are continually
coming short of the glory of God, and no man ever has, except Jesus, and even
he said, “If it be Thy Will, let this cup pass from me” [Mt 26:39]. Then he
actually sweat blood in order to endure it, but he did it. And God was
completely satisfied with the perfect sacrifice and the shed Blood. But notice
what God had to do to get it.
33. So therefore, when the clarion call comes
forth in Scripture: “Salvation is of the Lord”, that’s a hundred percent
correct. Now go through all nine titles in the Jehovah-complex. And if that
doesn’t tell you everything you want to know about God, then just go over and
over and over again, and go to your Bible, and go to the Message, and keep
looking, and keep looking and keep looking.
And remember, don’t compartmentalize as
though you’re going to put: “He’s Shepherd here, and He’s Healer over here, and
He’s the Provider over here, and He’s this over here... And let me see if I can
get.. Oh, yes, I need healing, so “Hallelujah, Lord! Hallelujah, Lord! Lord!
Lord! Lord! Healer! Healer! Healer!” Oh, yes, yes, yes…something else over here…what
was it I wanted here? Oh, yeah…green pastures…Shepherd, Shepherd, Shepherd,
Shepherd. Oh, I need a provision…”
34. No, One God…One God, having it all—complete.
Why do you think the Bible says that you are complete in Him? Completion is
completion. You can’t even scratch the ball bearing made in space, which is
perfectly true, because there’s no gravity. You can’t put a drop of water on
it. You’d have to wipe it off. You can’t even put a pin prick. Why? It’s
complete. The word ‘perfection’ means ‘complete’. That’s why we’re the perfect
in Christ. You that are perfect, and not only perfect, you are the ones who
have joined the lodge: God’s sacred Body-Bride Church, and know the mysteries.
“Well, oh, Bro. Vayle.”
Don’t ‘Bro. Vayle’ me. Look, I’ve got the
Bible for it. You believe the Bible, or don’t you believe the Bible?
“Oh, Bro. Vayle, you know, I’ve got a
thought coming.”
Yeah, you have a thought coming—right
from the devil. That’s right, honey. Just go right to papa now, and just have
it out. All it took Eve was one thought; she got right from behind the Word.
And you know what? Thoughts will
manifest themselves, not just in words. You think of a cow, you say, “Cow.”
What do you think of ‘adultery’? It goes through your whole body. You’re right
into it; aren’t you? Come on! Smarten up. Begin to understand the truth. “By
your words you are justified. By your words you are condemned.” [Mt 12:37] What
Word will justify you? Only the Rhema of Almighty God, turned into revelation,
where mechanics of the Rhema become the reality of what God really meant. Not
that He’s going to start creating and doing a lot of things that your mind and
my mind could run and fuzz into like a fuzzy mathematics or something, and
dream up ridiculous things.
No, no, no. Go to the Bible. Creation
right now is all over, period. And creation is dying, period. And the only
thing that isn’t dying is a New Creation, which you and I are a part of,
through the redemptive power of the Lord Jesus Christ, baptized with the Holy
Ghost, the outer man perishing, the inner man growing day by day, and one day
it’ll be completely manifested. We will be manifested when all the other things
are gone: New Creation. Do you know what we ought to call ourselves? “The New
Creation Church,” and watch the mud fly. Well, we’re the only ones that can
qualify. Come on! We’re the only ones. All right. The time’s going rapidly.
35. [Question #1] “Bro. Vayle: ‘Godhead #15,’
which you preached Sunday”…whatever… “not that he did not have a beginning with
the eternality of God. He did have a beginning with the eternality of God,
which was that Life, the same as you and I have. That’s why Bro. Branham said,
‘There’ll come a time you’ll realize…’”
Well, I’ve been dealing and dealing with
that, and that’s one hundred percent correct. When you’re looking at God,
there’s no beginning and there’s no end. So therefore, you do not apply ‘in the
beginning’ to God as a Person. You have to apply it to whatever God is doing as
that Person. And He, being a Father, He, being Life—and the definition of
‘life’ absolutely begins with propagation. God was able to propagate Himself.
So at the time He began to propagate
Himself is when He took on that form, and Jesus, being a part of His very Life,
as you say, “in the loins of God.” You said, “Levi was in the loins of Abraham,
his father, and he paid tithes.” Well, Jesus was in the loins of Almighty God
and he came out at a certain specified time, I believe literally after that
beginning spoken of here.
But you and I did not come out into
manifestation as Jesus did. We were in Him and that Life was placed in Adam.
Now from Adam on there comes a manifestation of these lives, which we’ll go
into. And it’s all a part of eternity, because we came out of the Eternal
One—no beginning and no end. That’s why Bro. Branham said, “There’ll come a time in your life you’ll
realize, you’ll find out you always were saved.”
36. What part of you always was saved? It’s the
saving of the soul. So what part of you did not really need saving? The part of
God that is your soul. Now if a part of your soul isn’t God, I can tell you one
thing: the part that is God doesn’t need saving. The other part does. I don’t
believe for two seconds in the ‘two soul doctrine’ and all that stuff preached
years ago by the great adulterer, Jones. He’s pulling the same thing, I
understand, that that polygamist did out there. He wasn’t a polygamist. He’s
that guy in Utah that had about eighteen wives, even a young girl thirteen
years old.
That’s the only charge they didn’t get
him on. What he did—he’s very smart—he divorced a woman, he said, “You ‘re
still my wife, and I’ll marry another.” Then he divorced her and got another
one. And he had about thirteen women, all living with him, but only one the
legal wife.
Jonesy, I understand, is pulling the
same thing. These bunch of men want to be polygamists. I’ll tell you how to do
it. Just told you right now, but you’re hypocrites, liars and devils, skuzzball
sleaze bag. You know? When did God Almighty manifest through garbage tins, and
all?
37. Now you say, “What about David?”
What about David? God said to David
through Nathan, “Look, have I ever denied you anything?” In other words, “Would
I have denied you this woman, if you would have come to me for her?”
You say, “Bro. Vayle, could that man
have got to God for that woman?”
That woman was not supposed to marry
anybody but an Israelite, even though he’s a convert to the Israeli religion.
She was supposed to marry in her own tribe. And God could have removed him. How
do you think David got his second wife, Abigail? God removed Nabal, the old
fool. As soon as he was dead and buried, she was married to David.
I want you to just think what I’ve said,
and put it in a dirty connotation, so-called, if you want to. Go ahead. He had every
right to her, and he married her. Huh? Oh my, let your brain spin and your
eyeballs turn around. Try to accuse God, and try to accuse God’s people of
something. You’re pretty silent. Just keep thinking it over, because Nathan
said, “When have I ever denied you? Why didn’t you talk it over with me?”
38. Everybody thinks David, 499 wives, for all
we know, he wanted her. Well, he did. Could he have had her? Yeah, he even got
her. What did God condemn? The way he got her. And the first baby had to die,
and the second became Solomon, beloved of God. Now figure that one out.
“Well, God just must love sin, I guess.”
No, no, He doesn’t. You just don’t
understand God, that’s all. You don’t understand His Word; don’t understand
what He was doing. People still don’t understand what God is doing. ...Maybe
six to fifteen million Jews and a 144,000 get saved. Why? Because you can’t
enter the temple, can you? unless you’re a tenth generation dyed-in-the-wool,
purebred Israelite? How’re you going to find them? The Jew boy marrying
Elizabeth Taylor.... She married two Jew boys, didn’t she? She became a Jewess.
Hogwash.
Try and pull something on God, and see
where you go. Didn’t Bro. Branham categorically say, “The virgin birth is nothing in difficulty compared to a birth right now
of a seed-child of God.” tracing trillions and trillions and trillions of
eggs and sperm and life down through a mixed up bunch of crass material… “how many fleas there’d be to make a pound of
tallow, and how many times they’d bat their eyeballs.”? Okay.
39. [Question #2]
“Bro Branham said”—This is my saying, and not Bro. Branham saying— “‘He did not
lay aside that Word-body, but he had it no doubt and brought It with him, but
you and I did not have It.’”
Now, this comes up to a question mark.
It’s a lot like where Bro. Branham said, “It
could mean one thing or it could mean this,” and where Bro. Branham
actually made two different statements concerning one thing, which he did in the
Book of Revelation. I used to have it on record, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not
accusing him of making mistakes or anything, I’m just saying that sometimes you
look at one thing one way, and look at it another way, and do you know if you
have it right either way, and the question is: he would, but I wouldn’t.
Now, when Bro. Branham said that he came exactly as we did, except he did not
bypass that Spirit or Word body... Now notice, I do not use the word
‘theophany’. All I could do if I were going to use the word ‘theophany’, I’d
say... You see, it isn’t ‘God’. He isn’t ‘God’. He’s the Son of God. So you’d
say ‘Sonship body’, because he didn’t have His Father’s body. He had what His
Father had pertaining to body, I believe, same like you and I, I believe, have,
because it’s eternal in the heavens. He never bypassed It. You and I did.
40. Now the question is: did he bring it with
him? On the grounds that Bro. Branham said, “He did not bypass it,” my logical mind would very definitely say,
“Bro. Branham is telling us, or maybe not telling us, but likely telling us,
and I’m thinking he’s telling us, that this is what Jesus brought with him. But
when I go to Philippians, and I found that He emptied Himself, “being in the
form of God,” Spirit and all, with that Word-body, “thought it not a prize to
be grasped to be equal with God,” but laid aside, [Phil 2:6] then I could say,
“No, he didn’t bring it with him.” Right? Now how do I know? I don’t! So I
could say both, under both conditions, and I’m not defiling Scripture. I’m not
changing what Bro. Branham said. I just don’t know.
And if I look at it one way, I would
say, “Then was memory within that body that he brought with him?” Not
necessarily. Not necessarily. Because when the rich man “lift up his eyes” in hell,
he never had that kind of a body, but he sure had memory. So memory lay within
his soul. That is not to say memory couldn’t lie within the spirit also, but
memory is there. So I don’t have a complete answer. If I find what Bro. Branham
said to make it definitive, I’ll sure tell you. In the meantime, the Bible
said, “He laid it aside.” I don’t know. But I do know that if that man “lift up
his eyes,” Lazarus, and his soul was in the right place, and the rich man in
the wrong place, they both had memory, they were both conscious. It could be
absolutely true that Jesus laid aside that body, Word-body, didn’t have it when
he came, but he could have. I don’t know.
41. Let’s go a step further: hypnosis. Bro.
Branham said, “Hypnosis is not spiritism.
It is a trick of the mind.” I want you to tell me how I can take Glen Ford…
He could be dead by now; I don’t know. He’s a Canadian actor from Manitoba, I
think—very outstanding actor I suppose, even to maybe…except the young people
here…the older ones saw him at one time. I think I saw him one time in a movie.
I’m not sure. He’s one of the most well-known actors that ever lived.
You could regress him under hypnotism,
and he could play classical music, never having learned a note. He could speak
ancient Egyptian language, never having studied it. If hypnotism is a trick of
the mind, and is not spiritism, how did he do it?
Well, I propounded this to you different
times: I say it lay in the spirit. I won’t even put it in soul—I don’t believe
it—although, because the soul comes from the male, it’s down, down, down, down,
down, down—a living stream. Could the soul have picked that up centuries and
centuries ago, because it’s the same life coming down? Because I don’t care if
a maple tree grows here in Ohio or grows right there in the Sahara Desert with
water on it, it’s still maple life, period. Or could it be that spirit that’s
allowed of God, and Bro. Branham categorically said, “There was a third of them swept out of heaven,” and that spirit
then could be a very wise and all-knowing spirit, and the man would only have
to be hypnotized for that spirit to begin speaking to him.
42. All I’m saying this for is to let you know
that there are things in here that are very, very difficult to understand, but
they’re very, very real. I remember years ago talking to a lady—her father was
a sea captain. He only spoke English—but in a delirium in a hospital, he spoke
Danish, and the guy beside him, who was Danish, understood him. Now was that
God? Was that the devil?
I remember years ago a man was very ill,
and he was hearing voices, and his daughter-in-law and his nephew were very
alarmed, so they said, “Bro. Vayle, I believe my uncle, you know, he’s devil
possessed here, he’s hearing voices. Would you come and check him out?
Well, I went and checked him out, and I
said, “No, I don’t find any devils here.” I said, “There’s not spiritism. I
can’t figure this out.”
And pretty soon the doctor came by, and
he said, “Oh, he’s got hardening of the arteries. That makes people hear voices.”
So how do you know your voices aren’t
hardening of the arteries, and you’re getting something from down underneath?
43. You know, you just can’t pigeon-hole all
these things. You can’t just tell all about memory. You don’t know: is it God
that spoke to you? It’s like the fellow I read in the Reader’s Digest a
while ago. His wife absolutely believed in God, and she believed in faith, and
she believed in miracles and everything else. And she believed in things
happening in the supernatural. And her husband would laugh at her. He was a
scientifically-minded man, and a very good man—and he just used to laugh, and
they’d kid each other about. you know, about her being off, or him being off.
So one day her mother phoned and said, “You know,” she said, “I had a very bad
day today.”
“What was that, mother?”
“Well, you know that beautiful emerald
ring that your father gave me? I went to town today, and I came back and my
ring was gone”...and she told her.
“Oh,” he said, “it’s under the seat in
the car. Why did I say that? That’s nuts, but,” he said, “that’s where it is.”
So they phoned the mother, and she
looked all through the car. She couldn’t find anything, and nothing…nothing.
Several years later they went back to
visit her mother, and so he said, “I’m going to go back in the car.” So he
looked in the car, and they laughed, and they said, “Well, we’ve all but pulled
the car apart,” but thank God they hadn’t sold the car. The old station wagon
was still there. So he begins looking, and he can’t find it. He gets a
flashlight and looks here and looks there, and then suddenly he just thinks,
and he looks, and he pulls, and here the ring was just inside the place where
the seat was, that could fall in there. From a little lever or something, he
pulled the ring out and brought it in.
Now he was a changed man. He still
doesn’t believe in God, as far as I know. But what made him know that? Well,
you could say: either God or the devil.
Well, that’s a pretty good answer,
because it neutralizes everything, and you’re off the hook. I don’t know. I
don’t know. But the man still wonders and laughs about it, but he knows it can
happen, because it happened to him, and he’s an unbelieving believer.
44. What about the guy that was dying of
tuberculosis? I knew his family, relatives, what have you, just casually, and
he was dying of TB, and his wife was a Nazarene woman, and his mother-in-law,
and the whole bunch were Nazarenes, and he’d laugh and laugh at the Nazarenes,
and he hated them. He didn’t have a thing to do with the Gospel, and so they
said, “Let us pray for you, and you can be healed.”
“Oh,” he said, “Ha, ha, ha, no, no. No,”
he said, “but I tell you: if it makes you feel any better, go ahead.”
They prayed. Boop! Perfectly healed.
Tell me about that one. The guy became a Nazarene preacher. So it paid off. All
right.
45. [Question #2 continued] “He didn’t have
a beginning...”
Sure he did. His beginning came just the
same as yours and mine do: when the baby comes from the womb and draws a breath
where the spirit can come in and hook up the soul with your entire nervous
system, which is twitching muscles and nerves, and now brings you to life as a
human being, not what you were way back there with your Father. Now it’s
complete. It’s how God wants you. So the same thing with this. He was in the
Father; absolutely in the Father. And that was compartmentalized as the life
that was in the Life. So that’s the way it was.
46. [Question #2 continued] “In what context
did the Son bring the Word-Spirit body?”
Well, I explained that. I don’t know
that he really did, it’s just because Bro. Branham said, “He had memory because of it,” and I figured, well, if he had that
because of that, then he brought it with him, but you go to Philippians... He
doesn’t nullify it. It just doesn’t answer your question. Did he empty himself?
Empty of what? If you emptied yourself, then would you then still be a ‘self’?
Huh? Well, if you emptied the tumbler, would you still have a tumbler? So,
emptied of what? Good question. No answers. Not interested. You know why? It
doesn’t affect me. Doesn’t affect me.
47. [Question #2
continued] “How does this tie into the original statement, made a few years
back, ‘Laid aside his theophonic form, and all other forms, then his sperm
became man potentially’?”
I told you all about it: I don’t know. I
look at one side; I look at the other side. Now I say, “Would he need his
Word-body if God wrapped Himself in the sperm?”
Well, no. But would he need it
afterward? Could be. If he laid it aside, did he go and get it? Ha! Now that’s
a question: if he laid it aside, and went down to Hades, he didn’t ascend to
get it, because he said, “Touch me not for I have not yet ascended,” yet he was
there as a complete, immortal, glorified figure. Now you tell me, and then I’ll
say, “Thank you.”
Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me. Just leave
that with the Lord. Just be happy we’re going to get ours. And you know, we
know all about ours. We’re going to go to ours if we die, and if we don’t die,
it meets us in the air. Right? Bro. Branham said it. If it does meet us in the
air, it means it’s right here.
48. Another question:
[Question #3] “Can you explain again the
application of Scripture, Heb 1:5-6 that refer to the Son of God in terms of physical
birth, his resurrection, and his original coming forth out of God before the…?”
Well, I’ve explained an awful lot of
that already, because that’s just practical understanding. Well, we’ll look at
it again, 5-6:
(5) For unto which of the angels said he at
any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I’ll be to
him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son ?
Well angels are creations. That’s all.
There’s absolutely no Scripture that God is the Father of anybody but His
children, period. Now let me show you where the fallacy comes in, and what Paul
is correcting. People are saying right now, “We are the children of God by
creation.” Hogwash! And lie from the pit of hell! We are not by creation! We
are by actual birth, which means ‘issuing forth from’, and therefore Paul is
correcting every single thing, even in our day by saying, “What are you trying
to tell me? When did God ever address an angel that He created and say, “You
are my Son.” When the Son came forth, what did He say? “You are my Son!”
And what happened in the Gospels? Where
is that over there, where Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am?” And Peter
said, “Thou art the Son of God.” He turned and said, “Blessed art thou. You’re
Simon.” [Mt 16:16-18] It’s a salutation, and the salutation was in heaven,
based on recognition. So Father said to the Son, “Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten thee.” And he said, “Father!”
And you and I, on the grounds of the new
birth, say, “Father!”
He said, “You’re my Son. You’re redeemed
by the Blood. I fill you with the Holy Ghost, and you cry, “Father!”
49. That answers your question. [Hebrews 1]
(6) …Let all the angels of God worship him.
(So angels can worship the Son, but God wants worship from His Sons.)
(7) And of the angels he said, Who maketh
the angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
(8) But unto the Son, Thy throne, O God, is
for ever and ever: (Now that’s not Elohim; you better believe that. That
means…like ‘Lord’.) Thy throne, Thou Exalted One. It’s for ever and ever: and
thy sceptre is of righteousness.
(9) Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated
iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, (Therefore Elohim, even Elohim) hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
(10) And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast
laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
(11) And they shall perish; but thou remainest;
and they all shall wax old as a garment;
(12) As a vesture thou shall fold them up, and
they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall fail not.
Now notice right in there: God doesn’t
have years. He’s eternal. Jesus has years—it’s pertaining to manhood—and so do
you and I have.
(13) But to which of the angels said he at any
time, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
(14) Art not they all ministering spirits, sent
forth to minister to the heirs of salvation?
And so he’s putting in the divine order:
God, the Son of God, and the children of God, period. Then, within that
framework, there are other orders, but this is the divine order. And you will
see there that every single angel, archangel, everything created is expendable,
and at one time could actually be withdrawn, as it were dissolved, uncreated,
and who’d remain? The Father and the Son, and whosoever and whatsoever
confirmed in the covenant, and that’s it. And it all goes back to Sovereign
God, period.
50. [Question
#4] “After the Resurrection, Rapture, are our glorified bodies of flesh and
bone, stated in Luke 24, where Jesus telling he was in the spirit?”
Well, we can go to Lk 24:39. Actually,
the answer is both, if you have my opinion on it, or what I believe.
(39) Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I
myself...
Now notice that. See? That’s what I like
about the Word being body, and you’ll be in your body, because you are your
body, because your body is the manifestation of what? Your life which is you.
And so it’s got to be like God: handled and seen and witnessed to and fellowshipped
and dwelling together in a community—the family.
(39) …A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you
see me have.
Jesus didn’t have any blood, but he sure
had flesh and bone, and both were glorified, because he went through the walls
of a building. The vibration was faster than light. It was so fast it could
pass through rock and the little spaces that are in rocks. Remember: everything
moves, even a rock; the molecules move. It might take five million years for
one molecule to move a quarter an inch, for all I know, but it’s moving. And
remember, there’s more space in an atom than there is in the universe, so to
speak.
51. You know science is declaring wonderful
things. Do you remember the little old song, “The fleas had fleas on their
fleas,” and so on? Now they’ve got Dr. Hobbes’ little piggy back on an atom or
something. Right? I read it in the paper… I don’t understand these things too
much. But you know, they’ve got little things on little things on little
things, and when you go into nanoseconds, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve gone
into a quagmire. I like that better than quasar. I can understand that.
No, when you’re glorified, as with
Jesus, the Blood of Christ was gone, but here’s your picture: Bro. Branham
categorically said that Jesus, in the
resurrection, sat down with the disciples, made them a fish sandwich, and ate
one. So that’s a glorified body, eating fish sandwiches.
Now that’s a good question: Can we eat
fish in the Millennium? Well! Everybody wants it vegetarian because of the Book
of Genesis. How do I know? I know one thing: whatever I eat, I’m going to like,
and I won’t get indigestion. Those things don’t bother me one little bit. I
just enjoy sort of thinking about them in a way that’s sort of practical.
52. So remember, when Bro. Branham said he saw
these bodies to which he was going to go, he said, “They could hug you with no sexual sensations.” They had feelings.
They had love. They had no doubt mirth, and everything else. But they couldn’t
eat, because he said he used to think they’d go up there, and they couldn’t
even shake hands, like a cloud passing through a cloud, or a little fog or a
mist or just kind of floating there, you know, because they could shake hands
and hug one another.
They’re real, genuine, real people in a
real place, doing real things, and they’re together in fellowship, but they’re
not eating and drinking. And you know one thing. There’s one thing about the
human race, above everything else in the world. When it comes down to one
thing, what is it? Eating and drinking. You even get your clothes free up
there.
53. 1 Cor 15:50. I’d just leave it at that.
Listen: I don’t deal with that too much, because I want to be surprised.
Surprise me! Surprise me! Yes, I want to be surprised, and I’m going to be,
too, because really, nobody has a real clue about the Millennium. There’s going
to be temple worship. Now what is all that going to be? Just try to figure that
one out. We don’t have it here; it boggles your mind.
How can you really deal with what you
don’t have? I’ll tell you what it’s like: you’re like the guy that went to bed
hungry. He was starving, and he had a dream he was eating roast turkey and
mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and cornbread and everything, and he
woke up, his stomach full of wind the next morning, worse shape than ever.
Like the man in the desert dying of
thirst, and he dreams he’s by waters of life, and he’s drinking water, drinking
water, and he wakes up, and his mouth is dryer than cotton. Don’t try to figure
it out. I’m just going to wait and see... I don’t have a clue, except for a
little hint here and there.
54. It says in 1 Cor 15:50:
(50) Now this I say, brethren, flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither the corruption inherit incorruption.
That’s merely telling you that in your
present state, there is no way you’re going to be part of the future kingdom.
It’s just what Jesus said to the people. They said, “Here, Master, I want to
ask you a question: there was this woman, and she had a husband, and he died,
and then she had to marry the brother, and they were lucky there was a whole
bunch of them. But she didn’t have any issue, and so she married the next
fellow, and he died. It wasn’t arsenic poisoning. It just happened he died. So
don’t get excited. And then the third one died also, and the fourth, the fifth,
the sixth and the seventh. She had a slew of them… She just got rid of one whole family of men. Now, Lord, whose
wife shall she be in the resurrection?”
And he said, “Shut up and sit down, because
you don’t know anything! You’re just shooting your mouths off, and trying to
trip me. Let me tell you something: in the resurrection they neither marry nor
giving in marriage. They’re like the angels in heaven. They’re purely sexless.
And she won’t be a wife of anybody, as pertaining to being a wife.” But no
doubt, if they all make it, she’ll be friends with all of them, just simply
brothers and sisters, even as Bro. Branham said.
So that’s what he’s saying: flesh and
blood doesn’t inherit it. There’s no way.
55. Now let me tell you exactly why: we go back
to John, and we read what John says [Jn 1:11]:
(11) He came unto his own, and his own received
him not.
(12) But as many as received him, (That’s God)
to them that God gave power, (the authority) to become the sons of God Himself,
even to them that believe on his name.
Now he tells you right there that this
is the key to knowing that these are children of God, even as Bro. Branham
said, “You know you’re Bride because you
believe the Message of the hour.” Not some physical evidence of the baptism
with the Holy Ghost, because there isn’t any. It comes without sensation,
without manifested evidence, absolutely; but you know that you have received
the Holy Ghost, because you receive the Word for the hour. Because the evidence
is: when He is come, He will lead you into all truth and teach you all things.
Now is this the truth, and is it all things? And if you haven’t got it, you
haven’t got it. So let’s go a little further.
56. Now he says here:
(13) Which were born, not of blood, nor the
will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
But remember: they had to come that way,
because you don’t have babies without sexual desire, but in there is the seed
that God ordained would come that way, and though people defile the act, the
same as Eve did, entrapped Adam. And though today it’s gone completely wild and
horrible, the Seed still comes that way, but it won’t go that way. You’ve got
to be born again. If you’re Seed, you will be born-again, and that means the
Holy Ghost has made your body a temple and every cell is touched, and your body
will come back with you in a resurrection. The only way you can call a body
resurrected is on the grounds that it goes down and comes back a body, because
resurrection means ‘what goes down, comes up again’—resurgence. So life surges,
then it stops surging.
Does your soul stop surging? Forget it!
Your soul doesn’t stop surging, and your spirit goes some place you don’t even
know about it. Your body stops surging. You know, the last surge your body
does? Rigor mortis! When the organs collapse, and your body involuntarily
collapses. Then it resurges. As Bro. Branham said, “God will create again, not through sex, but by gathering all the
elements of your body: the potash, the cosmic light, the calcium,” and all
those things upon which the Holy Ghost had descended, bringing it all back, and
even if it’s gone to gases, it will be touched, and it’ll come back, because
Job said, “In my flesh, standing on this earth, I will see God.” [Job 19:26]
And he did, too. He came back in the resurrection, and he was led up into glory
by Jesus Himself.
So there’s the answer to your question.
And it’s time to quit. So if we ever get back here, we’ll deal with some more
questions and go into Genesis in a way we’ve never gone into It before, because
some of the things that are there in that first chapter are really startling.
They’re startling, because it’s the truth. Shall we rise at this time and be
dismissed.
Our Gracious God and Father, again we
thank You for giving us this time to be together and trusting, Lord, that we
have not done anything against Your Word, but with Your Word, to bring people
to edification and to sincerity and reliance, upon You through the knowledge
which has been confirmed unto us, which You swore by an oath, having interposed
Yourself, even at this end time, by coming down and confirming It.
And this is something, Lord, that is
beyond our understanding: that You Who are holy, and never deny Your Word, have
come down and actually confirmed what was already affirmed and in effect. And
for us to know that and having made it clearer, then how could it be that we
have not seen You face-to-face and in a degree which I do not know the extent,
we know each other. We’re known of You and we know You. So we thank You, Lord,
that this is true, and again we say with Bro. Branham, “If we’re not Bride, there’s got to be a Bride out there somewhere, and
by Your grace, we will not stand in the way,” but we’ll be friends of the
Bridegroom, standing by, cheering it all on, knowing that this is right, this
is true, and this is real.
And so, Lord, we just appreciate it all
and stand before You today and say, “We know that this is Jehovah-Elohim, Who
has come unto us, This is the Father of that Son who shed his Blood for us and
is now Mediator-Intercessor, this is that One, and we give You glory and honor,
Lord, even in a little measure, I hope, Father.
We just seem so short of it all, and
yet, Lord, we have it, and we’re waiting for greater and greater quickening
upon that we have until standing, redeemed here and glorified, we will sing
Your praise with an abandon, and not just with an abandonment, Lord, but with
the true knowledge and the depth that we so desire, so that we are not moved
within ourselves as though we could possibly be doing something, but we are
moved, Lord, by the reality and all these bonds, and all the little cobwebs and
things are gone, and we know now as we’ve never known, because now we have that
capacity, that ability, that expansion, and stand there with You, and then
ascend to Your incarnation at the Wedding Supper.
Father, these things are beyond us, but
we know they are not beyond us in the sense that they will not be ours. They
are ours, and the reality approaching and encroaching upon us, overtaking us,
overcoming us, and bring us into Your glory. That is what we are grateful for,
the Shepherd looking for the sheep, and bringing Him home. Let there be glory
unto You, Lord, from the depths of our souls and our understanding; our minds,
our body, soul and spirit sanctified unto it until the holy walk in the light
and that fellowship is there, as John said and confirmed it to us and is now
confirmed again.
Unto Thee we give glory. In the Name of
Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Take the Name of Jesus With You.”