Who Is This
Melchisedec? # 5
Bro. Lee Vayle
August 14, 1988
Shall we pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we take great
comfort in the knowledge of the fact that Jesus Christ is here in the form of
the Holy Spirit, both as a person and as an indweller, giving part of His
Spirit to those who are His own. We pray
Lord, that we shall acknowledge Your Presence Lord, and also the teaching voice
of the Spirit within us, O God, to teach us the things of truth Lord, to utilize
gifts that You send among us Lord, all those things we would draw on from You
this morning and ask You to help us in the study of Your Word Lord, where we
know we’ve come together not simply for fellowship--though we do appreciate the
fact we have that--but above all for correction of the Word Lord that the right
Word might dwell in us by faith O God, and the life then released according to
Your own heart’s desire Lord to mould us and make us into the Christians we
ought to be.
Help us Lord to resume
our responsibility but with the faith that You put in us, and not only that,
but actually Lord, the strength and the power that You give us that we might
perform that which You ask us to perform.
So Father, we commend ourselves this morning, each one of us. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen. You may be seated
Now we’ve been studying
of course from the sermon preached by Bro. Branham, that we take as
authoritative, as a God given theologian, prophet, from the book of Hebrews
where it says in Hebrews 7,
(1) For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;
(2) To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace;
(3) Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.
Now, of course Bro.
Branham brings out the thought that there are those people who believe that
Melchisedec was simply an earthly priest without a genealogy and they claimed
that when the words are used, “With out father, without mother, without
descent, and neither having
beginning of days,” terminology like that would suggest that this King
is unknown historically, there is no genealogy for him.
But, when you consider
the fact it says, “Neither beginning of days nor end of life; but made like
unto the Son of God,” you’re getting on
very dangerous ground to simply put that down as an ordinary human being, and,
or as a priesthood because it couldn’t hold water when you begin to check the
names which are King of Righteousness, King of Salem, King of Righteousness and
King of Peace, positively refer to God Himself.
Also, “Not having beginning of days nor end of life,”
could only refer to the fact that this would be God in some manifested
form.
Now, we realize also it
says,
“Made like unto
the Son of God.”
Which also is God in a manifested form because Isaiah
says that, “He would be God with us,
Emmanuel, God with us or God manifest in the flesh.”
So Bro. Branham’s attestation as to who this is, I
would concur with most heartily on the grounds that it is absolutely
Scriptural, plus the fact of course that we know that Bro. Branham was
vindicated as we see the picture on the wall. But most people wouldn’t really
appreciate even though it is understood that George G. Lacey said,
“That this is
an absolutely a phenomenal picture and that is a supernatural being.”
And
he was head of the FBI documents and photography and all those things that are
so vital in courts of law.
Now, of course this
picture was taken when Dr. Best presumptuously shook his fists under Bro.
Bosworth’s nose when Bro. Bosworth was showing forth that Divine healing is a
part of the Word of God, is not necessarily tantamount to salvation, it’s not
necessarily on the same level as the rebirth, but it is part of the Word of God
that which is paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ where it says in Peter,
“By whose
stripes we are healed,”
And also over in Isaiah where ..?.. positively show,
“Surely he had born our sicknesses, not merely our
griefs and our sorrows, but our sicknesses and diseases,” where those original
words in the Hebrew come from. And of
course he had this photographer all lined up to take the picture of him shaking
his fist. Here’s a young preacher shaking his fist under the nose of a
venerable old man that’s in his what? Sixties.
Can you understand? That’s real
Christianity, that’s what I’d call real Christianity.
They tell me that
there’s a certain sister that I know a little bit of, and her aunt I think it
was, made the remark,
“She’d like to slap her in the face.”
I would suggest this sister, if she could hear my
voice at any time, would write the aunt a letter and say, “My dear aunt, if
this is the Spirit of God in you, I will help you to bring it out. Shall I come to your place or you come to my
place, or go to your church, you can slap me soundly.”
You
think God’s that kind of a God? That’s
the Spirit of Jesus Christ?
That is [Bro. Vayle points to the Picture ]
the Spirit of Jesus Christ to my understanding, the Pillar of Fire that Moses
saw, that Paul saw. The same voice that
spoke to him as a tiny child who says, “Don’t ever drink or smoke and never
defile yourself with woman. I’ve got a
work for you to do.” The same one who
thousands, thousands and thousands of times said,
“THUS SAITH THE LORD,”
By vision and prophecy, never one failure. I never knew a more kind and honorable and
wonderful person than William Branham.
And I’m not here to eulogize him, but I want to tell you some little
thing brother/sister, God dwells in the prophets.
I want to ask you,
“What kind of men are those prophets?”
If God should
give a little of His life to you and me and dwell in us, what kind of people
should we be? Somebody’s messed up in
this life, and it sure is not God. Trouble is people just don’t understand the
way God does things.
So anyway, Bro. Branham
telling us about this Melchisedec, his understanding of this man. And remember, Paul could not reveal the truth
about Him in his day.
He said, “They were not mature.”
And you cannot become a mature Christian until the end
time. People can say what they
want. We have little girls in our
congregation here, they’re growing up.
One little sister in particular, we say,
“She’s very mature for her age.”
That’s very,
very true but I’m going to tell you, she’s not mature as a twenty-six year old
person is. She’s not mature as a person
down the road is of the next generation.
And when you speak of knowledge and understanding, though they had
tremendous understanding of the Word for their hour in the days of Paul, they
could not have possibly had what comes by the maturing of the church over the
centuries, of the suffering, the deprivation and all those things that count
for something in character.
And so God has reserved
to the end time and any Bible student knows it that under the Seven Seals, or Seven
Thunders and sometime they must be revealed and this then is one of those
things that cannot be revealed until somebody reveals what’s in the
Thunders. And who’s going to do it? It would have to be a vindicated man. I wouldn’t let anybody sell me a bill of
goods and say,
“Well I’ve come to tell you this is true.”
I’d say, “Hogwash.”
Let’s show you’ve got some authority to tell me these
things.
You know how it is,
people come and they get bilked every single day. Well it was just the other day in
“Heh,” he said, “I’m from the FBI.”
He comes by and flashes a little card and a
badge. I think a badge or maybe it was
the Dayton Police anyway, but it’s always the same old story.
And say, “Look
here, we suspect that somebody is going to write money on your account and you
know, we’ve got to check it out. So what
you do is you take the money out.”
Or some foolish thing like that. And the poor old boy takes his money out and
loses four thousand dollars.
You come to my place,
I’d just keep you hanging long enough to phone the police and get out my double
barrel shotgun to hold you--if I had one.
Don’t be stupid. Because somebody
flashes a badge? Let him have,
“THUS SAITH THE LORD.”
You sit in a meeting where I sat under that man. And I
just like you here, it was very few people in Vermont, hardly anybody turned
out--yet every night he stood there and told many, many people exactly who they
were and all about them, and he said,
“THUS SAITH THE
LORD.”
Now I remember one
woman especially, her husband was in the hospital, he was in the services and
the doctors couldn’t tell one thing wrong with him. They couldn’t find it,
whatever. And she was terribly, terribly
sick with worry and Bro. Branham looked at the sister and he said,
“You worry about your husband. He’s in the hospital now in
And he was. How
did he know?
What about that lady in
“Sister,” he said, “Your sister’s been insane, a raging maniac
for twenty-five years,” I think it was, “in
the hospital in
My wife is a psychiatric nurse, been for thirty solid
years. You get up and tell them, would
any doctor in your knowledge ever allow a raving maniac to get out the next
day, the next morning? No way, shape and
form. He’d have to be the raging
maniac.
Now, not that there
aren’t enough stupid ones to pull a stupid deal as they’re doing today like
Dukakus and the rest of them. But back in those days which is thirty years ago,
thirty-five--let’s see, what is it? From
forty-six, that’s forty-two solid years ago--that couldn’t have happened
forty-two years ago that a doctor would allow a raging maniac out. And she was in the meeting the next night.
Telling world-wide
events that never failed. So we believe
in a man that’s a prophet. You say,
“Well Bro. Vayle, a lot of folk have believed those things.” Yes that’s true. I have no cover up. But how come the religious historians say,
“Never since the time of Jesus Christ was a man like
this one.”
Go read the books.
I knew him very well. I knew many
of the men of the Twentieth Century, and some of the great men. Never was a man like this one. God took him, of course, as God takes all His
prophets.
Now, this man telling
us that this was God in a form of a man that was not a human form which would
marry, beget children, and have a lineage.
You say,
“Well I don’t think that God did that.”
Who was the fourth man who was in the fiery furnace,
honey? You think God can’t take a form
and walk into it? You made a big mistake
because God took His own form in the form of Jesus Christ, created the egg and
the sperm, placed it in the womb of Mary, and she became the mother--not of
God, she became the mother of the vessel that harboured God.
And because you and I
can worship Him, and God’s an object of worship, we can make Him God there’s no
problem. There aren’t two gods, three
gods, there’s one God. Always has been
one God--He’s Spirit. You try to cut up
the Holy Ghost and give Him to a Jew in three parts and see what he does to
you. Yet funny thing is the Christians
say,
“Well we believe in Judaeo Christianity.”
And they claim
a kinship to Judaism, which is a very farcical word anyway. Claim a kinship to the true doctrine of
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon Mary.”
Then he said,
“God was His Father.”
So now He’s got two fathers? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard
of. A child having two fathers? Oh brother.
A child having two fathers? Who
was it then that caused Mary to bring forth a child? Insanity, utter insanity.
God in human form. God in a form. If God who made the first Adam cannot make
another Adam, so to speak, but not physical to the extent He would procreated
them, then you don’t worship the same kind of God I worship. You don’t have anything to do with the God
I’ve got to do with because my God can do anything. And he tells us what He does. It says distinctly here,
“That this One without father, without mother, without
descent.”
Jesus had a
Father, Jesus had a Mother--this is not Jesus.
It said, “Made like unto the Son of God.” A pattern.
What was the Son of
God? He was a human being, not a hundred
percent human as you and I are because He came from created egg and sperm, the
life from almighty God, that’s a little bit beyond you and me, it’s quite a lot
beyond you and me, but He got born. This
is not--this is the type of the one coming in flesh and that would be, there’d
have to be a body for God to step into, as the same as there was a body for God
to step into at the River Jordan. And
then this same Jesus on the cross said,
“My God, my
God, why has Thou forsaken Me.”
God was no
longer indwelling Him. He was left there
was a human being to suffer. And then
Scorcesse has the nerve to have Jesus
Christ hallucinating having sex with Mary Magdalene. And the church thinks it’s great that this man’s
marvellous imagination.
I’m so happy that this
world is going to be blown higher than a kite into smithereens, and if I
deserve it let me go with it brother/sister.
You say, “Why Bro. Vayle?”
Because one day there was a man under the leadership
of Joshua and they went into the promised land and God defeated everybody
around but one day they couldn’t defeat anybody and they said,
“There’s something wrong in the camp. What is it?
What is it? What is it?”
They begin
going down, “Who is it?”
They took Achan and his family.
“What did you do sir?
Well I took a Babylonish garment. I took the silver, I took the gold. I did a wrong thing.”
See? And do know what Joshua said before that man
confessed?
He said, “Give God the glory and confess.”
And as soon as
he confessed and gave God the glory--whatever that means, you figure that one
out--and they took him out and stoned him and his whole family..
I say the same thing,
let’s give God the glory and honestly say,
“This world is not fit to live in, in the eyes of God
anymore.”
“Well my son is a real Christian, born again.”
Is that a
fact? If he’s born again, I don’t want
to be because in my wildest hallucinations and nightmares of sin I could never
believe that claptrap and balderdash.
Neither could you.
Prophet of God. I believe in him implicitly, base my whole
doctrine and life upon it. And he taught
here in this wonderful message, “Who Is This Melchisedec?” which comes under
the Seventh Seal, which was opened by a man like him, to give forth these
mysteries which even the great Dr. Bloomfield who is now deceased said,
“Somebody’s got to come sometime and tell us.”
He’s revered,
respected man from Indiana, Hoosier.
This Bro. Branham tells
us, that this is a mystery and it is because Paul could not explain it, nor did
he explain it, tell us all about it. He
just let it sit there, that at the end time we would know all about it. And Bro. Branham explains thoroughly how this
man, which we call a man Melchisedec, was on the scene and how that this man we
call, King of Righteousness, King of Peace, actually was indwelt by Almighty God.
And this should not be
strange that people believe that you and I can be born again, which rebirth
comes by the Baptism with the Holy Ghost.
If that is possible that God Almighty could give us, even a little
modicum, an iota, of His Holy Spirit, what in the world is wrong with man’s
thinking that they cannot believe that if God prepared this, could He not also
prepare that, and in His entirety move within that vessel? That’s just what He did with Jesus. So you see, our type is all laid out
here. This is God Almighty who has made
Himself a tabernacle.
Now, Bro. Branham has
been describing this and I’m going to start reading on page...I’m going to go
into my notes here a little bit to give us a background so that you’ll
understand what we’re into. Now,
concerning the question then as to who Melchisedec is, Bro. Branham
unequivocally testifies that Melchisedec is God in what is called a Word form
body. In other words, He simply spoke a
Word, it formed a body. Why not?
If He said, “Let there be light,”
There was light.
If He said, “Let there be a fish,”
There was a fish.
He could say, “Let there be a body.”
There was a
body and He could step into it. A Word
formed body which is called a Theophany and a Theophany comes from the two Greek
words, ‘theo’ means God, and ‘phanero’ to show forth God in a manifested
form. So concerning the question as to
who is Melchisedec, Bro. Branham unequivocally testifies that Melchisedec is
God in a Word form body which is called a Theophany. That’s absolutely true.
This is one example of
the process whereby God enters into the worship and communion by men. Listen again.
This is one example, there are many in the Bible where God did something
like this, to enter into worship and communion by men wherein God makes Himself
known by some visible manifestation. He
uses some form that conforms to His purpose for that occasion.
He used the Pillar of
Fire to keep
Now let’s look at Heb
l: l.
(1) God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past (Not unto the fathers--that is not the original Greek. It’s in the fathers. God was in the prophets.)
And if God was truly in
the prophets, then the prophet or prophets had to be God to the people. Now you know that’s how authority is
relegated and delegated in our society.
The president of the
Then you say, “You make Bro. Branham God.”
I do not make him God.
No way, shape and form, anymore than I make the ambassador as the
president, or the government, or the people.
But if that ambassador is obligated to stand for, and speak for, and to
visualize, and conceptualize, exactly the American people concerning them, and
remember government is by the people, and for the people, then that prophet
would be the same for almighty God.
There’s no big hassle there, you know, if you really want to be just
commonsensicle, you know. What does it
say? Commonsensicle. That’s just a word I’m coining in a hurry..
Let’s go to John the
10th chapter. We’ll find out what the
Jews actually thought of prophets. And
you’ll look at the 13 verse.
(30) I and my Father are one.
(31) Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
(32) And Jesus said, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?
(33) The Jews answered Him saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
(34) Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
(35) If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
(36) Say ye of him, whom the Father hath set apart, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
There it is right
there. Now the question is, to whom does
the Word of God come? It has to come to
the prophet. So
Now people today in
Christianity don’t believe in vindication.
They say, “Who needs prophets?”
Well, where to you find that God said we didn’t?
They say, “Well just a minute now. There’s no such thing as a prophet that’s not
a Hebrew.”
Then Noah...Noah wasn’t a Hebrew. What are you going to do with him? See, you don’t make your own rules up. You don’t make your rules up. What you do, what you’ve got to let your mind
go an become like a little child and go to the book like Bro. Branham. He didn’t conceptualize this thing and
fantasize about it and say,
“Well I think maybe this Melchisedec, well he’s got to
be some kind of a myth. He’s got to be
some kind of a personage that’s really not a personage, it’s kind of an order,
and it’s got to be this.”
He said, “Look it, here’s what the Bible said. No Father, no mother, no beginning of days,
no end of life.”
“What are you talking
about?”
“Well I’m talking about
God.”
And those say, “Oh come
on now, far be it from that be God.”
Well then you tell me,
and stand up here and give me some sign that you can prove to me I should
listen to you. Fap! I’m likely the smartest guy in the room when
it comes to theology, I shouldn’t be standing up here. And I should have the glibbest and best
tongue of anybody amongst you. Would you
take anything I can give you against the Word of God that’s just simply, plain,
doggedly says--I’m going to change that around?
Where would your contract with God go?
No, it’s Word by Word and don’t take a Word, and don’t add a Word.
The Bible said, “This Man did not have a father, did
not have a mother, He never had beginning of days, He never had end of life.”
Who was the fellow
inside the shell? Jesus had beginning of
days. He was born, yet He was no
different from God except in the fact He had a beginning. But He wasn’t God. No--He became God on the grounds that God was
in Him. We’re talking about a man. See?
Okay, no matter what form God used He is always the one and the same and
the only God there is, and He’s the One that does it. There are not two gods, or three gods, or any
number of gods, just one God. He uses
different offices and forms, f-o-r-m-s,
the En morphe, to suit His revelation.
As Bro. Branham deals with God progressively declare Himself in this
message, God becomes a man.
Now what Bro. Branham
does, he takes us in this message and he shows progressively how God did it,
removing a mystery, how God became a man, indwelt a man. How that you could point to Him, and say,
“This man is God and yet he is not God.”
And Jesus Himself said, “The Father in me doeth the
works.”
Now did He lie, or didn’t He lie? Why did He pray? Do you think God would pray to God? I thought two or three gods together might
argue the point unless one god had a bigger club, or a bigger say than the
other guy. I can’t buy the three god
symposium, brother/sister.
No, no.
God said, “In whom did I take council.”
With my son, or
my friend or something?
Would you become a
gnostic, the next thing you’d
become. You turn that down, you become a
gnostic. Not agnostic but a gnostic, which means; I know
everything. And pretty soon you hear a
female voice from heaven say,
“Shut-up. You
forget I’m up here and superior.”
I’ve got the
books on it honey, I’m not telling you a bunch of hogwash, there right in my
library. No, no, no, come on, don’t be
fooled by people that go around with their trinitarian doctrine and dogma, and
the apostle’s creed. Find me the apostle’s
creed in the Bible. See, I’m an old
trinitarian from way back. It just won’t
cut brother/sister.
Bro. Branham deals with
God progressively declaring Himself in this message until God becomes a man,
comes down through certain steps. From
the thought form, which was merely God in omniscience, determining to bring
forth what lay within Him as the omniscient God, to the Word form body where
God begin to speak things into existence, to the human born body. Then he traces our position in Christ to our
present earthly abode and then on into our spiritual embodiment just after
death, and finally at the resurrection of New Jerusalem.
Now if you didn’t follow what I’m saying, I’m saying
this, that Bro. Branham traced how God did it through Jesus Christ, turns right
around and traces us right from God into the same pattern. Do you understand what I’m saying? Whether you do or not, I’ve said it, don’t
worry about that. And I think you know
what I’m saying.
Now to begin with we
are genes of God. Now let that thinking
come into your mind. Genes--actually you
could use the word ‘seed’, attributes.
To begin with we are genes. I
like that expression just for the minute.
God has thoughts about these genes, or future sons, so He brings them
forth according to His thoughts and they enter Adam’s race through Adam’s race,
through natural generation. Want me to
read it again? To begin with we are
genes, we are actually potential sons of God as male sperm with the XY
chromosomes can unite with the female egg with X chromosome, she has doesn’t
she, to bring forth either a daughter or a son.
So you have a life line in God which contains seed that God breathed
into Adam the breath of lives and Adam became a living soul and from that time
he was able to propagate with what came out of him, which was Eve.
You’re looking at the
same with God. Within God are the genes,
or what we would call seed or sperm. In
the Greek, for concerning God it is ‘spora’ for mankind it is ‘sperma’ and God
likens us to the grass, or to the seed of the grass. Okay?
To begin with, we are
genes, or sperm, or seed of God. God has
thoughts about those genes or future sons.
So He brings them forth according to His thoughts and they enter into Adam’s
race through the natural, normal channels that God started way back there in
the garden. Even before the garden when
He said,
“Be fruitful and multiply and bring forth sons and
daughters unto Me.”