Stewardship
#6
God Is the Faithful God
Shall we pray. Heavenly Father we respect Your
Presence this morning. Actually knowing we do not respect You as much as we
should, Lord. We should be in some measure in terror and awe. We would be if we
were prophets like Bro. Branham but that same reverential awe ant that, fear
should be in us to a greater extent we believe where we come to the place of
such great appreciation and such admiration as to be really in awe at this
moment as we should be.
Help
our hearts, Lord, to be stilled before You, as many [ ] so-called authorities
in the Word have said that You cause us to fear in order to stop us; then, once
we are stopped, You reveal Your great love and compassion, which we understand
that to be true in the measure that the law was given in order that we might
understand and know what sin really is and what the negativity of this life is
all about, and then, come to the positive, to come to reality of the truth in
which there is no darkness, there is no variableness there is no shadow of
turning. But it is exactly just like You, the constant perfection. And we have
that today. We know, according to the vindicated Word of the prophet, that we
have come to that beautiful place of face-to-face with You, and we now have the
place the perfect revealed Word of Almighty God.
May
we, therefore, be full of joy with Him, full of energy and zeal concerning It,
but truly filled and truly energized by the same Spirit that we might actually
fulfill our places here as ambassadors for Christ. Grant our plea this morning,
Lord, because this is what we desire: the depth of It all. In Jesus’ Name we
pray. Amen.
You
may be seated.
1. Now, we may do some rambling this
morning. We ramble quite a bit anyway. But we’re talking about “Stewardship”,
and we found that ‘stewardship’ actually is the same as ‘servitude’, or the
bond slaves. The sons are bond slaves; they’re bond slaves of love. And also,
the others are slaves, because they were created by God in order to do the will
of God. And the will of God is not too peculiar, if we let our thinking go and
simply believe. And that’s the thing that Eve didn’t do, and Adam was wrong in
taking her side, but he did that. But we have to let our own thinking go, as
Bro. Branham said. And one time he said, “You
don’t have a think coming.” And it’s true: letting our own thinking go.
And
we go back to Bro. Branham’s quoting of Irenaeus, which I believe was the most
definitive statement that anyone could ever make in the Holy Spirit. And that
was that God, being a Savior was necessary that He predestinate--and notice the
word, predestinate--a person, a sinner who would require salvation, in order to
give Himself a reason and purpose of being.
2. Now
you must remember that word ‘purpose’ is in the Word of God, absolutely in the
Word of God. Paul uses it [in] Romans 9: “For this purpose have I raised thee
up.” And then, again, we have a complete purpose in creation. In other words
God is a God of complete purpose. And being a God of purpose and at the same
time being a God of love, omniscience and omnipotence having their particular
places, there is nothing that He cannot do and will not do in conjunction with
His omniscience. And the omniscience, of course, is completely tempered by love.
So, we have this wonderful God. We have Him
illustrated up here on the board. And He has purposes. And those purposes have
to be within Himself, because nobody gave Him council. He is the complete
author of His purposes. Now His purposes of course, can only come from what
lies within Him. Now we know that, because that’s in nature. And Bro. Branham
said that God is in nature, and He’s in continuity in nature. So as you look
around, you can begin to see that there is a very definite line of progress, [or]
a very definite line of confirmation with everything that has been created in
this earth. And especially that, and you might say only that, which has within
it the power to replicate or duplicate itself.
3. Now,
if you really want to get to the honest to goodness factor at the end time,
we’re looking at cloning. And actually, we are clones of God, because what we
are actually comes from the life of God. And that life of God, of course, like
every life we have in the universe, takes upon itself a form in order to
materialize and give a position to and what you might... an affinity and a
cohesiveness in the whole realm that God has brought forth, because that’s how
God is. God Himself is sovereign completely. No one has ever added a thought to
Him; no one can take away a thought. And in Him, according to what He is, as
I’ve said, lie these purposes.
Well,
the purpose of Holy Spirit, and we can’t even use the word ‘holy’, because
‘holy’ is only useful when there is a comparison. Like Bro. Branham said, “It takes a bad woman to make a good woman
look the way she is,” and “It takes
sickness to make us really appreciate health.” [ ] In other words there’s a negative and a
positive.
4. Well,
there’s no negative in God. Everything is a complete positive. There’s no way
there can be a negative, because in Him there’s neither variableness or shadow
of turning. And when you get negative/positive, you can have things that go
awry. That’s why you’ve got free radicals in your body. And some of the very
things that you and I take, that we think and should be very good for us,
something happens to them, and there’s a charge in there--maybe a positive
charge against a positive, instead of a negative. And we have free radicals
running around in our body. You can develop cancer and die. See?
But
you don’t find God that way. There’s nothing in Him that in any way has any
consideration of that negative. Now Bro. Branham mentioned our negative here is
going towards the positive. Well, he’s talking about the negative situation,
the negative atmosphere, the negative body. But there could not be the
definitive attraction to God except there is like: like Him, like Father, like
Son. There’s got to be that in there.
5. So,
God has His purposes. And His purpose, of course, is to give Himself expression
and meaning, because that’s exactly as God would be. And you find that all your
psychologists and psychiatrists and your social workers and everybody else,
they’ll always try to bring out the real you--the real you. Well, the real you
they’re bringing out is the wrong real you. It’s the rebellious characteristics
and all, even though they try to put it to a positive slant and make it
positive. There’s no such thing as that, bringing out the real you, unless you
have the laws and the strength within those laws and the compatibility within
you to bring out the real you--which who are you? As Bro. Branham said, “My ears, my nose, my eyes. Who’s me?”
Well, now you got a choice here. You
can be either a born one of God, birthed by God, or you can be one that has
been injected into the human race, which is entirely animal.
Now here’s your missing link. Your
missing link is the beast. And he wasn’t any four-footed creature. He was a
very tall, handsome individual. And, maybe he was as many as ten, twelve,
thirteen, fourteen feet high, because that’s where the giants came from. They
came from those genes. And the boa constrictor, of course, is, without a doubt
in my understanding, [proven] scientifically, biologically, he (and his mate)
is the one that were rigidly the beast, because the boa constrictor has remnant
of hips. And no other snake has that, showing that he was the one that was
reduced down.
6. So all right. That’s the interjection
into the human race. But God being a Savior, God being a Healer, and God being
a Sanctifier… And remember, all those compound titles of Jehovah, they show you
the actual, what I called in my little talk to you before service, like a pie.
And, if you go in this line here, if you’re going to look at mercy, there’s
only one place you’re going to find mercy, and that’s going right into God. If
you’re going to find redemption, the only one place you’re going to find it, is
you’re going right into God. If you’re going to find sanctification, the
separation from the herd, unto that which is notable and good, you’re going to
find yourself going right into God. If you want to be truly empowered, with the
empowerment that is truly positive, and truly right, that is never misleading,
that is always in balance, you got to go right into God, the baptism of the
Holy Ghost. And there, the guide lines of the Word, and the impressive Word
working together within us, brings us forth.
So
God being a Savior, it was necessary that He predestinate a person who would
require salvation. God, being a Healer, it was necessary He do so. And this is
where you get the negative, which never came from God, but it came from Satan.
7. Now
remember, let’s watch this very, very carefully: Satan himself was a very
positive person. He “sealed up the sum.” There wasn’t anything or anybody
higher in a created form. There simply was not. He was chief. And even
archangels could not dispute with him over the body of Moses. When Michael
contended, he could not contend with Satan. There was no way he could do it. He
had to respect the authority and the rank, even though he was very rank, and
you get what I mean. He had sure gone down from a gracious, nice ripe plum to a
decaying plum, a rotten one. But, at the same time, Michael and no angelic
being and nobody, could argue with the position that God gave him. Now,
remember then, he sealed it all up. Beautiful, brilliance, shining there with a
glory that God allowed him to have. He was absolutely fabulous; wisdom next to
God’s, as it were; right down the line with tremendous power.
And remember, Jesus, the Son, only manifested
in an archangel. He never manifested in a cherub. Notice that God manifested in
the cherubs, and there were the seraphim. And you’ve got the same thing in the
Book of Revelation. It’s a wonderful, wonderful setup.
8. So
therefore, you’ll notice, he was perfect, even in his ways. He led in the
worship. He was fabulous in every single thing that he did--just like Judas:
Judas out there healing the sick and praising God and being part of the twelve.
Wonderful. Wonderful. And some[thing] just suddenly… Boom! Right in there, he
went right off the Word. You see? And we can talk about what took him off the
Word in stewardship a little later on, because remember, he had the bag; he
carried the money. But anyway, he was perfect, the outstanding creation of God,
until iniquity, which was the bending of the Word[, was found in him].
9. Now,
you’ll notice up here, [Bro. Vayle refers to material on the board from
Stewardship #5.] we have that God Himself is called the faithful God. Now, when
he’s called the faithful God, that’s taken from the Book of Deuteronomy. Deut
7:9:
(9) Know
therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God.
Now,
you cannot, at any time, ever talk about God without taking into consideration
Deut 7:9. Now, you might not be thinking about it, and I might not be thinking
about it, but we should be thinking about it. When we talk about omniscience,
omnipotence, and love, then you got to throw in there: faithful. Now, let’s
just look at the thought here, and It tells you, as you read:
(9) The
faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep
His commandments in a thousand generations;
Now a thousand generations will put you to
twenty thousand years. That’s plumb over into eternity, because every twenty
years, and yet Bro. Branham says, “Every
day starts a new generation.” Now, if you want to go back to when the
generation was a hundred years, that’s very good. That ended with Moses coming
out of
10. Now,
He’s talking about faithfulness. And, if we come out of God, Who is the
faithful God, we are going to have the same attributes, not in the same
measure, but we have those same attributes in us. We have within us part of
omniscience. We have within us a part of omnipotence. That’s right, because
death cannot overtake us. Like the Word of God [says], “I shall not die but
live.” That’s exactly right, we shall not die but live. The human body goes to
the grave. We go on living in another form, and when the Resurrection comes,
that form comes back, picks up the body. We are a chip off the old block. And
every single thing in there, we have in our own form.
11. Now
Jesus, that Son that came from Him, He was a part of God--just absolutely a
part of God, period. You can’t do a thing about it. And within Him was, also,
those attributes. And He said, “If I wanted to, I could call seventy legions of
angels right now.” He said, “I’ve got the power. I can lay my life down. I can
take it again.” He said a lot of things absolutely within His control, and He
could have done it, but He didn’t do it. Why? Because He knew His place in the
sovereign plan of Almighty God.
Like Bro. Branham said, “I could take diseases off you. What if it
was against the Word of God for me to take a disease off you? What if God
didn’t want that done?” He said, “I
could do this; I could do that.” But he said, “I’m restricted, I’m confined.”
So, what I’m saying here is this:
we’ve got a God who is faithful--the faithful God--concerning His covenant with
the people, who themselves are faithful.
12. Now,
let’s look at the word faithful. Now, is God faithful within Himself? That
would be the biggest joke in the world, to think that God has to declare
Himself faithful as God. A dog is a dog, is that right? Could the dog ever be
unfaithful? Don’t be ridiculous, a dog is a dog. Now, a horse is a horse. Can
the horse become unfaithful, in other words, to his genes, and to his form, and
to his disposition, and to what he’s created for? Don’t be ridiculous. You
can’t do it.
So therefore, could God ever be anything but
God, as God is? Don’t be ridiculous. In Him there is neither shadow of turning
or change. “I am the Lord, I change not, or you sons of Jacob would be
consumed.” He said He’s of one mind, and who can change Him, Who can give Him
council? God is not faithful concerning God Himself as Godhead. He is faithful
concerning His Word. He said, “I stand behind my Word to perform it.” He said,
“My Word sent forth. It’ll never go forth and come back void.” But He said,
“It’ll do exactly what I want It to do.” Why? Because He’s going to make It do
It.
13. When
He foreknew somebody, on what ground... How did He foreknow them? Because He
knew exactly how many children that He put into Jesus. And then, they went down
to the garden, and He said, “Let us make man in our image--after our likeness.”
And they made a spirit man. They made a spirit man and a spirit woman as one.
Then Eve did not have a life of her own. She was in there with that life. It
was one life. And the separation came afterward; male and female, strictly for
propagation. But the life is the life. And then, there’s a power beyond that
life determining which sex is going to come forth. Then people get... I don’t
understand people’s theology, and you don’t either, I guess. But the faithful
God, as we see here: love, omniscience, omnipotence, Rhema, Logos, faithful,
predestinating. So, you have to understand those things.
14. So,
God is faithful concerning His Word. And notice, He reciprocates to those who
are of the same faith. And that is why the seed can never go off of the Word.
And they might not have it all. Do you think for a minute that I don’t know the
Word better than some people do by revelation given by Bro. Branham? And, if
you think I know the Word, given by revelation of Bro. Branham, better than
Bro. Branham, you are certainly sitting here with a false impression in your
minds. That I have the authority, by his request and by the Word of God, to
take this same Word and break it down and show you what he is saying, to a degree
that you of yourself could not capture it, because you absolutely were not the
one predestinated to it. And that’s nothing. That’s just simply following God.
Because, if He is a Savior, He is already within Himself predestinated to
manifest that particular thing.
Then,
is it wrong if there is an evangelist comes by with something that people do
not have and don’t. Would it be wrong for the apostle to disseminate and goes
in a missionary? Would it be wrong for a teacher to come by then? Would it be
wrong, then for the pastor? Absolutely not. Because they have their positions,
which are authoritative, and were found in God Himself and by God, through the
essentiality of God Himself, because they were in Him. And His purpose is now
being fulfilled. And the purpose has to be fulfilled by what was in Him,
therefore coming forth. And it must be brought forth in Word.
15. That’s
why we are the only ones, human beings, who have a language and can talk it.
The dolphins are smart; we understand that. Even the apes over there in
So,
human beings are the ones who can communicate. And the communication was also
granted to a certain individual an entity, which was called the beast. And in
his communication, and without that communication, there could not have been
any fall whatsoever in the garden. Neither without communication could there
have ever been any fellowship in the garden. And without communication, neither
today, the One standing at the door, could have entrance and communicate with
you and me.
And
that’s why Michener said--and I never understood where he got it. He had to get
it by divine inspiration when he wrote on
And when this Word here lost its
meaning, and Satan was the one that did it, it was gone. It was gone. It is no
longer the Word of God. Even when the Word of God is fulfilled, it is no longer
the fresh Word of God. It’s mildew. “It’s
full of wiggle tails,” as Bro. Branham said. You can’t live on it. It’s
like the manna that was good for a day, and then over the week, and good for a
couple of days, I guess. And then it got... And what happened? It got worms in
it.
16. It’s
like when the settlers went to the west, over the land, and they would see a
clear pool of water in the rocks. And they’d say, “Oh, this is great to drink.”
And
they got killed with arsenic and poisons in there. There was no wiggle tails in
it. There was no life in it. See, it was death. Then sometimes, it’s the wrong
kind of life in the water. And they didn’t know what leaches could do. And a
horse would run to the slough, the pond out there in the nature, and take a big
drink, and the leaches get in his throat, and pretty soon the horse is
strangled and dead.
Hey,
the Bible speaks of living water: water that doesn’t have things in it to
strangle you, to kill you; water that doesn’t have poisons in it. It’s a living
water. But, I’m going to tell you, soon as this Word… And there’s only one
Word, and that’s this Word. Let’s get that flat. There’s only one Word, that is
this Word. The minute you change it, it’s dead. And it’s no longer the Word of
God, even though it is the Word of God. See?
So
we talk about the faithful God. That’s why He’s a Rhema-Logos God. And every
single thing that God is, He purposes to manifest the marvelous traits, or the
abilities that He has within Him. And remember, the whole thing is predicated
upon Who He is essentially, which is love. And love, of course, is the Holy
Spirit. That’s why you have 1 Corinthians 13 written, “Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, and have not the Holy Ghost baptism, I’m merely
anointed.” And I showed you what that was, and showed you how it is.
17. Here
was Eve. She could come right along here, and she could take an anointing, as
it were, a life from a serpent, and join with that egg in there, because it
would... Evidently the two DNA’s work in the nuclei of each, or the nucleus of
each, was purely compatible. [It was] compatible in the sense that it brought
forth a hybrid. And it did bring forth a hybrid. And, you notice, in a hybrid…
And the greatest hybrid that we talk about today is not necessarily wheat and
oats and those things that hybridize, but you go right back to the Bible, and
you find the ass and the horse. And the ass and the horse combined brings forth
a mule. And a mule is a hybrid. That’s [why] many times it’s called a ‘hinny’.
Now,
the next thing is, you understand, that they cannot procreate; they cannot
produce themselves. But you see, the two animals together will produce certain
traits in there. And you’ll notice that the horse being normally much bigger
than the ass, you have the combined results, of which you have a bigger animal.
And you have an animal which is able to work harder and do more. But you get a
mule like that, like I’ve often times said, and Bro. Branham said it, you begin
working him, and he [gets to the point he] won’t move, so you just build a fire
under him. And all he’ll do is take a step forward so that he doesn’t get
burned, but the cart burns down that he’s pulling. He won’t take the rigors of
life, if he can help it. And they can jump fences and run very fast, everything
else.
So,
they have a combination in there. And when you have a combination in there, you
have a mixture, and that thing is living, then what you have--because it cannot
produce itself again—[is] it becomes a living death. And there’s the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. That’s why it was sex. It produced, right then, a
creature that was death bound.
18. Now
remember, at the same time, the stewardship of Adam and Eve were there to, not
‘replenish’ the earth, but ‘plenish’ the earth, which means ‘to fill it’. And
[they were to] ‘be fruitful’, which means ‘to bear fruit’. And that bearing of
fruit doesn’t necessarily mean child bearing. It means to show forth a
fruit--shows forth what you really are. Well, Eve never showed forth what she
really was, which was a child of Almighty God, and the wife of Adam, whereby
that he was to reproduce himself, because he contained the life which,
actually, passed on to her. So, therefore, it is the same life but in a
different capacity, which in itself cannot produce of itself. But neither is
the man without the woman, even as the woman is not without the man. You got
that in the Book of Corinthians. It’s a necessity there.
So,
God, then, in the beginning, being exactly sovereign, and Who exactly what He
is: the faithful God. And, if He’s the faithful God to the faithful people--and
that depends upon a Word—then, God is obligated to give His Word to His people.
That’s right.
19. So
therefore, all through the ages, it doesn’t matter how much corruption came
into the church. And it came in. And look how it came in. Right over here. It’s
just like a...Well, first of all, we go to the Book of Romans, one of my
favorite portions of Scripture.
And
It says in Rom 1:18:
(18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold (back) the truth
and unrighteousness;
Now
remember, that unrighteousness is the negative of righteousness. And, when Bro.
Branham talked about it--righteousness--he talked about God giving an absolute
vindicated Word, as in our hour, though not vindicated under reformers, but
coming back, even to the time of latter rain, when the former rain appears,
which started in about 1906. And he talked about the fact of people believing
the vindicated Word for the hour, and he screams out, “Righteousness!”
That’s
exactly why he paralleled 1 John, when it speaks of Cain, who was unrighteous.
And it talks about the seed that cannot sin, and the seed that does sin, and it
talks about the acts that follow them. And you’ll notice that Cain did the
unrighteous act, the evil act, the terrible act, which was turning down the
Word of Almighty God in worship. It was not killing his brother. He was no
different from Eve. Eve got from behind the Word.
20. Now
remember, God stands behind His Word to perform it. Where does God stand? He
stands here. Where does He put His Word? He puts His Word out here. Then Eve,
as Bro. Branham said, as long as she stayed behind the Word, she never had one
bit of trouble. But the moment she got out from behind the Word, she was a gone
duck. She was finished.
Now, let’s get that flat. People
think they can fool with the Word of God. They think they don’t have to stand
behind it. They think they can do things on their own. That’s not the child of
God. That is the devil’s child, because it’s just like the devil. It’s serpent
seed.
Now come on, just get it flat. He
stands behind His Word to perform it. Always. It’s right out there in
front--the faithful God. God is not faithful outside of His Word. And you can
not pin God down to being faithful outside of His Word, because you and I never
seen Him, and can’t see Him, and don’t know the first thing about Him without a
revelation, which is Word. And it’s got to be vindicated Word. And that’s where
Bro. Branham screams out, “Righteousness!”
So, the man that’s a seed of God, he
cannot sin. He’s a righteous, sinless Bride, part of it, of the Lord Jesus
Christ, because He himself is a part of God. Then, if God Himself stands behind
His Word, every part of God stands behind His Word: love, omniscience,
omnipotence. There’s nothing that doesn’t.
21. So
therefore, in the beginning they got away from the reality of the vindicated
truth, because that which may be known of God… In other words, be aware of,
something in there that pulls them right into the arena, where God is, into His
Kingdom, the invisible part.
(19) ...for
God hath shewed it unto them.
(20) For
the invisible things of Him... (and so on. You find how they actually left
that.)
Now Paul, preaching to the Romans, lays it
out.
22. Now,
look what happens right under Paul’s nose. This is ancient history, but look at
present history, in 2 Corinthians 11. And we’ve seen it many, many times. This
is one of my favorite portions it positively brings it out one hundred percent.
And
It says here in verse 1:
(1) Would
to God ye would bear with me a little in my folly:
In
other words they think that he’s a very foolish person. So he said, “All right,
I’m a fool. So bear with me in my folly.” In other words, “You think I’m an
idiot. You think I’m a fool. You think that I don’t have reality here. You
think, when I told you, if you are born again, if you are a prophet, you will
acknowledge, which means that you will superimpose every single thing that I
say, as the Word of God, over every single thing that you think, and consequently,
will say. You’ll be thinking what I’m thinking, and you’ll be saying what I’m
saying, because I am telling you word for word, as God’s mouthpiece, what God
is saying.”
Hey, let’s throw that at the church
today in the world. But you know what? Satan’s going to come on the scene with
all signs and wonders. They’re going to fall for it a hundred percent. They’re
going to lap it up. They’re going to love it. They’re going to end up in the
23. All
right. Let’s go on.
(2) For
I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy:
Say, what for you idiot? We don’t even need you. Oh, we
know, Paul, you got a great ministry. So what? There’s a lot of us got that
too. See, there’s where your gifts take you.
Person could say to me, “Well, you
know, I don’t smoke anymore. I got healed of this and I got healed of that.”
Well, that means that person really got something now because they’re going to
a Jesus only preacher, something else. They got all mixed up. But now they’ve
got healing.
Let me tell you something. Daddy
Bosworth--and I knew him personally. One of the greatest men of God I’ve seen
ever lived, and Bro. Branham called him an old giant oak, and loved him very,
very dearly as a father. That man could go to
And
I can just see the old guy just laughing and a shaking. Mmmm. Couldn’t wait to
get his hands on them. Not one time did they fail to get a new ear drum and new
bones, and hear perfectly. Daddy Bosworth died of prostate cancer. Makes you
think, doesn’t it honey?
As Bro. Branham says, “Something’s got to take you out of here.”
And
I added to his saying, my own little cliché, “Diseases come and diseases go,
till the last one comes and you go with it.” I’m a little more accurate, you
see in my enunciation. Yeah, Paul. Yep.
But, you see, “We know better:”
gnostics. Satan came, he says, “God said, I know better.” Gnosticism. There
aren’t any atheists. Not even two percent. Agnostics? Sure, a lot of agnostics.
But billions of gnostics. They know it all. They got something better.
24. Here’s what Paul says:
(2) For
I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin
to Christ.
(3) But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent
beguiled Eve, through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted...
What did Satan appeal to Eve? Not to
her sex appeal. He wanted that, certainly, and he got it. But that’s not what
he was appealing to. He appealed to her mind.
Now, the mind age has finally come in
this hour. It’s the mind age. It started with Paul, who had the perfect mind of
Christ by vindication, or the perfect mind of God. Now we’re back to it. Bro.
Branham said, “Just think, how wonderful,
the same Pillar of Fire that brought the Word to Paul is here revealing it.”
So, we’re right back in this hour, which is a marvelous hour, which is now
another example, and the last example of the faithful God, the covenant keeping
God, for those who have the covenant, and keep it.
25. And
remember, Paul warned and Bro. Branham warned, that the crucial test is whether
we stay with that Word, or let the cares of this life and other things come in
upon us, to leave the Word. You may want your healing so bad, you’ll go see
Benny Hinn. And he’ll touch you; you’ll fall prostrate, right on the floor.
Where angels prostrate fall, this guy here, he’ll just go plumb on the floor,
absolutely prostrated there. And Bro. Branham categorically said, and it’s
true, “It’s an evil spirit that does it.”
But the man’s anointed with a healing gift. So messed up in his mentality that
for a while he was preaching nine gods - three with threes, till the assemblies
of God called him in. And they didn’t want to lose him, because he was a great
drawing card. For what? To glorify the Lord with healings, hallelujah! What
else?
Paul wouldn’t even tell a lie to
glorify God. It’s right in the Bible. You couldn’t get him to budge and make
one little concession, or one little change, period.
And these guys will take the devil’s
lie and make a doctrine, and spread it and spout it and prove it by a fallible
proof. The doctors do a double blind test. And they take a placebo, which means
they give you sugar water, or injection of sterile water, or God knows what
they’re going to give you. And the other person gets with a genuine article,
and they’ll see who responds. And you know, so many people respond to the
placebo, that it’s known that most of our problems are psychosomatic, and a
right attitude will soon cure just about every disease we have. So, let’s go
for placebos. And that’s what the devil gave, a placebo.
And that’s what he’s doing right
today. He’s giving with the gifts on the double blind test. And you can go on
your double blind test, and the real child of God, who believes in healing, can
get it. The real child of God, who believes every single word, can get it. Yes.
And multitudes more that have turned it down will get it also. And all they got
was sugar water, really.
Because
gifts are merely anointings. They’re energies of the Holy Ghost, not the Holy
Ghost himself. But the Holy Ghost is there manifesting His Own properties. And
they’d have converts, so called born again. He’ll have them thoroughly
sanctified. Oh, there’ll be no trouble giving up smoking and drinking and
everything else. Oh, no no. There’ll be no trouble being sanctified. There’ll
be no trouble being baptized. When it comes to that Word, they’re off that
Word.
26. Now,
one Word off is death. Now let’s get that flat. The devil was not an atheist.
The beast was not an atheist. He was not an agnostic; he was a gnostic. He
certainly believed in God, but he didn’t tremble. He was that much lower than
the devils, because the devils believe in God and tremble. He didn’t even
tremble. In other words, his superior was absolutely the devil, and his
controlling officer with the blue print the officer handed him was of the
devil, because it was the devil, because there was no fear. Now, the Bible said
there was no fear of God for certain people. Before their eyes, there is no fear.
That means they’re positively devil children.
You know, the strange thing is that
Pillar of Fire was in the room, and there was a poodle dog lying over there. It
isn’t necessary to believe that the poodle dog would suddenly rise up in
terror, although animals do get afraid of spirits and can sense them even
quicker than some people can. Why should a dog fear God? On the other hand, why
shouldn’t he? But the point is: why should he? I’m talking now about
intelligence. [I’m] talking about something inside.
27. The
devil doesn’t fear. He stands [right up] to Jesus. He tried to con Him into
worshipping. See? We’re going back to Paul here now. And I just read it.
(3) For
I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty
(his cleverness, his reasoning, his ability),
Now the point is this: how can
anybody reason with the devil, when he has the sum of wisdom? The pope doesn’t
argue with the devil. He goes right along with him. Why, he says science is
proving, conclusively, there is a place for evolution. So therefore, if you
believe in the divine spark, and you do not criticize that, but say God created
the divine spark, and He’s a Creator. Now we’ve got evolution.
“I can go with that,” says the pope. Yes, he
can go with that, and he’s taking millions with him. He’s going right with the
devil. And you know where they’re going. I could be boiled in oil for what I’m
saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, and I’ve said it.
And that doesn’t go for this pope. It
goes for the system, because I’ve got nothing against this pope. He’s done a
lot of good things. And I’ll stand for some of the things he stands for.
Absolutely. But, you see, it’s a perversion. He doesn’t go all the way. On one
side the devil goes ahead, and he says, “Oh yes, fine, do go ahead and do it.”
Next place he says, “Oh no, don’t do it.” So the Catholic church and their...
And that’s the great harlot and all the daughters.
28. Now,
the harlot church, mother says, “Oh, abortion is wrong.”
Now,
the Catholic people themselves say, “Oh, that’s fine for you to say, because
you don’t bear babies. And you got to know the celibacy so women don’t bother
you. At least they shouldn’t anyway. You said they don’t. So, all right. We’re
fine, for we believe abortion.”
Now, the whore’s daughters come along; they
say, “Ah, we’re for abortion.” So, now the devil’s controlling both sides of
the fence. This side says, “I’m for abortion.”
That’s like the bat. You know, when
the birds and the animals had a war. When the animals were winning, the bat
says, “I’m an animal.” And the birds winning, he says, “I’m a bird.” You know,
that’s an Aesop’s fable, so to speak. See, that’s how he did it.
29. Now,
see here:
(3) ...minds
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, (which is in that Word).
(4) For
if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus (and they certainly did), whom we
have not preached,
In other words, the description and
the reality of the one that Paul preached was denigrated, bypassed, or changed,
by a man that followed him. Or you receive another spirit, which we have not
received. That is under my ministry. Paul said, “Now look, if you got another
spirit coming in you, or another gospel...”
Now, how was it all done? It was all
done, not by taking away the Word. That’s not the pattern. Absolutely, [it’s]
not the pattern. The pattern is coming with the Word, and putting a different
interpretation upon it, other than exactly what that Word says. Now, that got
so complicated that God [finally] had to send prophets--vindicated prophets
that you could not argue with.
30. Paul
himself said, “I cannot even judge myself. There is no way that you can judge
me. There is no way I can judge myself, because positively God has put His Word
in my mouth. This is not my Word; this is not my thinking. I have nothing to do
with it, and God Himself has vindicated that He is giving it to me as I gave it
to you.”
And Bro. Branham said, “You can’t judge a prophet.” How can you
judge a prophet, when he’s vindicated? You got to be sick. You got to be the
devil. That’s all; you got to be a devil.
You
say, “Brother Vayle, how can you say it?”
Because
he’s a spirit, and he’s got to have some body to manifest through. So he like,
took your body, if indeed you are that kind of person.
See, listen, I’m going to tell you
something. These people go around saying, “Christ is Lord of all, or He’s not
Lord of all.” They have it right to one degree. The statement in itself is
correct, if they knew what they were saying about it. Huh. But they’ve got
another Jesus and another gospel.
So therefore, I’ll put it this way,
the Word is exactly as it is stated, or it is not the Word. Now, you’re going
right to the place where God is the Word, the Rhema-Logos God. See, that’s why
God’s on the board up there the way I’ve got it. That’s for a purpose. And you
see the left hand side; we’ve got the coming down, the life of God, where He
becomes the Father now, through the Son of God. In the garden, “Let’s make man
in our image.”
31. Now
He’s going to have many sons, and those were put in Adam, which was the son of
God. And now they have to be propagated. How’s He going to propagate? He’s
going to take the life and make a female, in order that she can propagate. And
she’ll have men that can propagate through other females that she has down the
line. But it’s life, and in Christ there’s neither male nor female.
You say, “Well, that’s in the church.
That’s how you come in.”
Just
a minute; in Christ goes way back. If you didn’t have representation back
there, you ain’t got it now. See? You’ve got to nail this thing down.
In other words, “Live, die, sink,
swim.” Heaven or hell. The New Jerusalem or the
And you say, “Brother Vayle, you’ve
become a hard-shell Baptist.”
You’re
a liar. You don’t even know what a hard-shell Baptist is. A hard-shell Baptist
is a man who says, “We have a hope.” He eliminates the means of salvation. He’s
an anti-nominalist. He’s a hyper Calvinist. I am a Calvinist. I am not hyper. I
am not anti-nominal. I am a son of God. I’ve been born of the Holy Ghost,
through the Word of Almighty God. I have an understanding. I recognize His
presence, His prophet, and who He is and what He is doing. I have a means to an
end. And I am that end of the Gospel. And you had better have the same
testimony, or you don’t know what we’re talking about this morning. See? It’s
just that simple.
32. Paul
knew. Why shouldn’t I know? Did Paul know for himself? No. Did Paul have a
miracle ministry for himself? Never. Never. No man, a prophet, has a ministry
for himself any more than Jesus did. Jesus fulfilled His Own life according to
the script that God had written. And that script was for others.
And He positively said, “No man can
come to the Father, except by me.” Absolutely right. No dead would’ve come out
of the ground to His resurrection, except for Him. No one. He’s the full
manifestation of Almighty God, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. You looking
for something else? Don’t bother looking. That’s the fullness right there. “He
who has seen me has seen the Father.” You want to know what kind of person He
was? Bro. Branham said, “You’re looking
at me aren’t you?”
Ah, that’s too much for people. “I’m
full of the Holy Ghost, bless God.” They’ll say, “Oh yes I...oh ya.” Oh, you
are what, are you? Come on, give me some proof.
I’ve said dozens of times, I could
put you all together to shame by my past record, and I’ve got nothing, in the
sense of vindication. But I have the earnest of my redemption, and that
redemption is drawn nigh to the point, now, where I wonder if any more is
coming in. I wonder if they’ve all come in and becoming child trained. These
people weren’t child trained. But you see what happened? They went against that
Word; they went against the faithful God.
33. Now,
when we talk about that Word of the faithful God, we’re looking at the fact
that this God is absolutely sovereign. And when He put man in the garden, He
said, “Now of every tree...” Let’s go back to that. He said it in Genesis 2; He
put them in a human form. He gave them His commission, in the form of a spirit,
in Gen 1:28. He blessed and said:
(28) Be
fruitful, and multiply, and (refill) the earth, and subdue it: and have
dominion over (all these things).
And then It says here that God said:
(29) I
have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the
earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed); to
you it shall be for meat.
34. Now
the man’s not even in a human form yet. But he’s right in here, at this
particular point. Now, over here in the human form, in Genesis 2, he said:
(8) God
planted a garden; he put the man (in there).
(9) And
out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree, (that’s Jehovah Elohim,
that’s what He always was and will be. He made every tree to grow) that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of
the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Now it doesn’t say that they came out of the
ground, because they didn’t. The only trees that bore good fruit, that you
could actually eat, being a human being, came out of the ground. And, if
there’s a tree there that you could eat of, and would kill you, that didn’t
come out of the ground. That tree was not a planting of God.
God said, “Every plant my Heavenly
Father did not plant is going to be destroyed, ripped up and destroyed.”
And this tree is ripped up and
destroyed at the very end time. It’s all gone. [It’s] superseded in the New
Jerusalem by only the Tree of Life, which has its roots on both sides of the
river of life, flowing through. Which, of my understanding, is purely symbolic,
although there could be a deeper meaning to it than symbology; of course, I’m
not a prophet, and I can’t tell. All I know is [that] Bro. Branham said, “The healing was in the leaves for the
keeping peace,” which I don’t understand. I just leave it sit.
35. But
anyway, this one tree then, which was a Tree of knowledge and good and evil,
did not come out of the ground. Now, let’s look at this tree. If it’s a Tree of
knowledge and good and evil, (And it is; you’ve got to face it) then that tree
contains a negative and a positive in such a way that it’ll destroy you. Now,
positively it will, because it’s good, and it’s evil.
Now we saw in the Book of John what
evil was. The evil deed was that which defined, or which came out of a man
called Cain, who had an entirely wrong concept and division of the Word of
Almighty God, and yet attempted to serve and to worship God by his own
understanding or interpretation or revelation from the very Word that was set
before him, wherein he had that pattern that he was to follow.
That’s
why God said to Moses, “Seeing you make everything according to the pattern I
showed you, and don’t you deviate.”
And
neither can we. So where did the death come in? The death could not have come
in from the good. The death had to come in from the evil, but it’s a mixture.
36. Now,
isn’t it a fact that Satan did not come presenting entire evil. He did not. He
came and he said, “Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat.’” That’s exactly what
God said. And he turned around and said, “Now, hold it, you don’t need to worry
about what God said therein, because though he said it, and we agree that God
said it, I want you to know this: you will not surely die. Now, what’s really
going to happen is that you’ll be as God, knowing good and evil.”
Now, if you think God didn’t know
good and evil, you are certainly in error. Otherwise, how could God know that
Satan had iniquity within him? So the devil just took and twisted it. Now,
there’s the twist. So what are you looking at? Now, he didn’t say you couldn’t
take the tree of life.
37. Now,
the tree of life must’ve consisted of a single solitary element, whereas the
other consisted of a dual element. Sure, that’s exactly what it is. So here you
have the tree of life. What is life? It’s spirit. Where is the spirit? It’s in
the Word. So what is the Tree of Life in the garden? It’s Christ. You have to
put it right down straight as Christ, living Word, the Rhema-Logos. Absolutely.
And they could have gone plumb to the Rhema-Logos; but you know what happened?
Satan took the Rhema and changed it so the Logos could not come forth, right?
Brother Branham said Eve should’ve
born the Logos Christ. But she didn’t do it. What’d she do? She bore a hybrid.
And in her disobedience, you know what happened? Adam took her, but should not
have taken her. He never should have done it, but he did. And when he took her,
she now had the twins. And in her womb was a son, was a genuine son of God. And
in her womb also, was a disgenuine [son]--if you want to put it that way--but
he was a genuine animal. He wasn’t even a genuine animal. He was a hybrid, but
so close to [the] other [human] that he himself could actually breed and bring
forth children. And [with] Mendel’s law you’re going to find that the negative
always supersedes the positive.
38. In
other words you look at the Bible, you’re going to find that there’s more weeds
and more tares than there is oats and anything else. And when you go out in the
field, you see wild oats out there. Now wild oats is good for something, I
suppose. I used to think it was wonderful. I though, “My, we could cut this
down, it looks nice and rich and everything, and the cattle and the horses
enjoy it, and even let it go to seed, you can harvest it. [There’s the] puniest
little chunk inside those seeds, and animals don’t seem to want it. Wild oats:
look like the real McCoy. Here’s a picture of your wheat and your tares, right
down the line.
So,
here you see this Tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and in here, now,
they have gone away from the Word of the living God. And therefore, now, they
have death, because twisting the Word of God means death. Now listen, the
Scripture distinctly says, “Thou was perfect in all thy ways until iniquity,
the changing of the Word, was found in thee.”
39. Now,
what happened? Satan, from that time on, is death doomed. And Satan, being
death doomed… And he knew he was death doomed, but he knew that he wasn’t dead,
and he knew that he didn’t have to die and go to the
So, now he could come and say to Eve,
“Now just a minute. Let me tell you flat. Yes, there is, I won’t deny there’s
death. I won’t deny that God said it.” But he said, “Look at me, you aren’t
going to die. I’m not dead.” He said, “You can know good and evil, and you can
get away with it.”
And you know something, people have
known good and evil--billions of them--over the last 6,000 years. And they’re
getting away with it--until the
“Oh,”
he said, “come on, don’t worry about this adding or taking of Word.”
This
is what the Baptists and the fundamentals call the plenary addition. ‘Plenary’,
which means ‘it’s completely full’. You can’t take from it; you can’t add to
it.
40. “Oh,
we’ve got the Holy Ghost, we’re of God, we can understand, we know.” And
they’ll argue in the face of absolute vindication from the Word of Almighty
God, from God Himself, proving what is the truth. They’ll hold the truth in
unrighteousness. They’ll hold it back in unrighteousness, which means that they
are worshipping God apart from the Word, and thereby holding the truth from the
people. And you’ve got the Catholic church; you’ve got the Protestant church;
you’ve got the whole mess right today doing it. They’re worshipping. They got
gifts in the assembly. They got everything under high heaven, every single
thing that God gave. And there’s a great perversion given to it.
So, Paul back here then, is telling
these people… Now look, he said, “There is a change.”
Now,
this change did not come through the true five-fold ministry. It came through
the elders, which Paul defined as those that are very fine men in the church,
but they desire an office. Now they’re qualified because of the exterior
presented to the world and to the people. They’re a husband [of] one wife, keeping their children in
obedience. They live model lives. They’re not boisterous and tough. They’re not
hard-minded; that is, they keep it under control. They’re not given to anger.
They’re not given to liquor. They’re not given to deeds of passion and those
things which are ungodly: adultery, fornication, and all those things. They’re
good fine men.
41. Now
over here in Acts 20, where Paul calls the elders together, he said, “Now, I’ve
given you (in verse 26) the pure Word of Almighty God.” He said:
(27) For I
have not shunned to declare unto you all the council of God.
In other words he says, “I am not shunned to
tell you every single thing that God wants you to be told, absolutely none.
See, therefore, I am pure, I am free—absolutely--from the blood of all men.”
(28) Take
heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made you overseers,
Now an overseer is not a part of the fivefold
ministry. As Bro. Branham said, they have to have character and character
traits that are far above even the five-fold ministry, because you’re looking
at a record of conduct. You’re looking at what I said was a job description for
the job that is described.
Now you’ve got to have the qualifications to
meet the job description. You don’t find that in the five-fold minister. Nobody
knows, except the person that God calls, and he’ll find he can’t get away from
it. He won’t want to go. He won’t want to do it. But he’ll find he has to do
it.
Now
Satan’s got the same thing in his group. Don’t worry, there’s a parallel
ministry a hundred percent.
42. Now,
all right.
(28) …to
feed the
Now, what was the purchase for the
church? The Blood of God. What was the Blood of God? Jesus was the Blood of
God. All right.
(29) I
know that after my departing shall grievous wolves (shall) enter in among you,
Now, what did Jesus say? Jesus said,
“A wolf in sheep clothing, inward they’re ravening wolves.” Paul says the same
thing. What did Jesus say it about? He said it about people that manifested
gifts and signs and wonders--legitimate. And they have one purpose, [and that
is] to take you off the Word.
And remember in Mark 16, before the
gifts ever came into the church, Jesus denounced those gifts and told you that
they had a negative side, that they could be given to officers in the church,
not even full of the Holy Ghost, manifesting those energies, not a child of God
whatsoever. And It says right here the same thing, as Jesus said it.
Then,
He set the gifts in the church, already set in order. The gifts set in order
before they were given. Their history was detailed. The record is found in the
Book of Numbers, when Korah, Dathan, Abiram rose up against Moses and said,
“Look, we got the Holy Ghost, we’re prophesying, we’re as big and good as you
are. Don’t tell me you’ve got the authority, we’ve got authority also. Don’t
tell us you’re the great leader. We’ve got God. We’re being lead too.”
43. That’s
the first time Moses got mad. He took every stinking thing that they threw at
him, but this is one time he stood his ground. And he said, “God, you had
better come on the scene like you did yesterday.” And he said, “If you people
have God, I don’t. And if I have Him, you don’t. Now, we’re going to call a
showdown right now. If you die a common death, it shows I don’t have it.”
And fire came out of the ground, the
earthquake took them right down, they and all their families. And Moses did not
die a common death. You notice, God sweetly came and took him away in such a
condition; the devil came and tried to get his body. Is it possible, as Bro.
Branham once said on a tape?… Now he said two things; so, I don’t know which
way to go, except that I look at it very intently and say, “That’s good
thinking.” In one place he said he was gone four hundred years. The next place
he tells us how that that body was taken by angels. That’s why Satan went after
him. Is it possible that Moses is up there in a certain condition, ready to
come back and, then, in the great tribulation will be destroyed? After all,
Moses and Elijah are the ones that come back. Is it the two people themselves,
or is just the same spirit? We have a question. I’m not interested in answering
the question. I only know this: that Satan came and wanted that body. He did,
therefore, not die a common death, although he was willing to die a common
death. [He] said these people can’t do it (die a common death). They died an
uncommon death, and Moses had an uncommon death, because he was just as hail
and hardy and frisky.
The time he was taken, his eye had
not dimmed. I believe he had every tooth in his jaws and every hair on his
head. [He was] vigorous; [he] climb[ed] a mountain like a billy goat, age
twenty years or so. Strong. If you think Caleb was tough, you better believe
Moses was a whole lot tougher. You talk about a fellow that had real genes.
Remember, his genes came from God, and ours do too. That’s why we’re going to
get real tough bodies coming up--real immortal bodies in God. Okay.
44. These
people here were grievous wolves. They acted like sheep. See? And they didn’t
spare the flock, and they had one thing in mind: to destroy them.
(30) Also
of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things
He’s telling them right there, “You
are going to deny or modify the things that I have proven to you, that are the
Word of Almighty God.” And they’re going to draw away ‘disciples’, which means
‘learners’.
And, at the end time, there’s a
plethora of teachers. It says at the way back there, “There were false
prophets.” At the end time there’s false teachers. Number one, why are there
false teachers in existence? Because number one, there are those that were
around the prophet, and now have gone back on the prophet.
Like
one guy I know. He’s the first fellow that ever intimidated to me. And
absolutely, I knew that he knew, that he knew that Bro. Branham was infallible,
and now Bro. Branham is not infallible. He’s teaching all kinds of googly gock
gunk you ever heard of in your life. He divorced his beautiful wife, and
married a young girl for whom he evidently had intercourse with, they tell me
as long as seven years; which, my God, he should have believed in polygamy,
which is better than the other. But, they’re both wrong. The whole thing is a
complete mess. And so you got the picture right here.
45. In
this Book It tells you there are those absolutely that are ravening wolves, and
they’re teachers. They don’t have vindicated ministries, but they pull right
away.
Now, the other bunch have a bunch of
teachers. Why have they got teachers? Because they don’t dare to believe the
vindicated prophet. It’ll destroy them all; take away their organization,
because organizations are built strictly upon gifts, ministries, and offices.
[They are] not built upon the Holy Ghost.
Remember, Jesus Christ is the chief
cornerstone. If He is that One, then we have to be in the same image that He is
in, and of the same stock. If we’re going to worship, we have to be of the same
priesthood that He’s of. It’s not an Aaronic priesthood. It’s a Holy, glorious
priesthood--kingship, for kings came out of
And as Bro. Branham said, “As the
hand does it,” he said, “the body does it.” Which referring to his self, as the
great ministry of Almighty God, returned to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but was done through William Branham.
There’s people dancing around right
now, thinking they’re going to have a great big ministry. There’s a church
right now that phoned my good friend over there in
Do
they have a clue to what the prophet taught? Do they have a clue to the Bible?
46. Listen,
if you want to produce Mark 16 here, I’ll show you how to go about doing it.
But count me out. Just count me out. I can tell you how to do it, sure. You’ll
produce it. Don’t think you can’t, because you can. But you can major in a
minor, and you can have leanness in your souls. But I’ll tell you one thing,
when you go to Mark 16 as a vindication…because that’s what you’d be looking
at. I’ve been all through it. [ ] As I told you time and time again, I can
still prove it.
Although I’m eighty-two years of age,
there’s people still living, and one man who is now dead. If he were living his
wife would tell his words, and he would tell you, they called me a second
Branham in
And Bro. Branham said, “Yes Lee,” he said, “You had a lot of real discernment, but you did make mistakes.” And
I know I did. I’m not kidding myself. I merely had a gift in energy. I did not
have the administrative office of a prophet, wherein discernment is the key
word, according to Hebrews 4 and 12, Relative then to Hebrews 12, and going on
into eternity. Oh yeah. But the strangest thing is: the more I got to the Word,
the less and less I had of the other. Today I couldn’t discern if you paid me a
million dollars. But, if you want to learn the ropes I can tell you about it. I
can tell you how things are done. I haven’t lost my marbles and lost my memory,
but I’m not interested.
I’m with a little girl in
She said, “I would sooner die than
defy the prophet, who said stay away from that stuff.”
47. Daddy
Bosworth died of cancer of the prostate. I’m not saying you and I have to be
sick; I’m not saying you got to die of diseases. I’m just telling you something
today. Listen, watch what the Word of God says and get in the frame work,
because if you and I really believe, and we’re sick, we can and will be healed.
That should never have gone into the discard; it never will go into the
discard. But you better be careful where you stand, and don’t say, “Well, bless
God, I don’t do this anymore, and I’ve been healed; therefore, [ ] when I
didn’t get down there or down over here, hey I really got it now.”
No
you ain’t, because you’re still going to die. And the cancer can still come
back, because the Bible says, “Sin not lest the worst thing come upon you.”
Sister Thomas and Sister Hilrid were
good friends of mine. They’re both dead now. They were healed many years ago.
They went to Doctor McKrecrin in
48. I
had TB in the pituitary of my lungs. When the TB goes, it doesn’t go. It goes
some place else. So, and I left preaching, and I went against it. I didn’t go
against God. Don’t worry. I didn’t say there was no God, I didn’t do this and
that. I just got tired. I said forget it. If people live like this, and I’m
supposed to live a better life, and they don’t want to live any kind of a life,
the people there, I’m not preaching to anybody. And I quit preaching. So the TB
hit me again, because of the pituitary gland. Yeah, I was just as good as dead,
but God healed. And you know what? I’m never going to get it back.
You
say, “Don’t boast.”
There’s
no reason to get it back. No reason. I’m not sinning. I’m departed of the
world. I’m not looking some place else. The curse causeless cannot come.
There’s got to be a cause.
The man born blind was born blind to
glorify God, because God healed him, because such a miracle was never known in
all the history of the world, that a man born blind got his sight. My case is
not that case; your case is not that case. How’d the boy get born blind?
I sowed; I reaped. Not anymore. What my
parents conferred upon me, by weakness of the lungs, that was taken care of
naturally. It went to a bad place. Only God could do it. I talked to a doctor
not long ago, and I said, “I would be dead.” I said, “God healed me.”
He
said, “You must’ve been healed by God, or you would be dead.”
I’m
not making a major out of a minor. That doesn’t mean anything in the light of
this vindicated Word, and the presence of God taken there by a camera, the
reflective glow. See?
49. So,
what we’re looking at here is what we started with on the grounds of
stewardship. Now, these men weren’t faithful stewards. What did Paul say over
here in 1 Corinthians 4:
(1) Let
a man so account of us…
He said, “You want to give a summary;
you want to sum me up; you want to give a description? Okay. You want to know
what I stand for; what it’s all about?”
(1) Let
a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, even stewards of the
mysteries of God.
Now he said, “You understand that?”
He said, “Fine.” He said, “I’m the mouthpiece of God. When you listen to me,
you’re listening to God. When you hear what I say, you superimpose it, and it
takes precedence over every single thought you’ve ever had or ever will have.”
This is it. Because God does not change His Word, He does not change His mind,
He does not change His thinking, He doesn’t change anything. He’s a predestinating
God, and He’s a faithful God. And He’s faithful to [His Word].
50. Now
watch what Paul said.
(2)
Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
Faithful to what?
“Oh,
I’m faithful to God. Hallelujah. I love my wife. I’d never cheat on her. She
loves me. She’d never cheat on me. Got a nice family. I tithe. I do this; I do
that. See? I’m a Christian.”
Well,
just a minute. Explain the Godhead.
“Well, the Godhead is really a
mystery, but there’s three of them.”
What steward are you of? You’re not a
steward of God--the mysteries of God.
Well, you see Bro. Vayle, there’s
really only one; there’s Jesus only.”
Oh come on. Bro. Branham said, “Now, there’s two of them: One’s Father;
one’s Son.” You’re not a steward that’s faithful. You’re a steward, but
you’re not faithful. You’re not part of the faithful God. You understand?
Because faithfulness has to do with the Word, the Covenants.
And Paul was faithful. He never
changed one iota. In fact, the tougher they got, the tougher he got. The
rougher they got, the firmer the stand. Now, he was a fine man, and understood
office and dignity.
51. One
day a man reached out and slapped him, and he said, “God will smite you, you
whited wall.”
And they said, “Just a minute, how
dare you talk to the high priest like that.”
He said, “I apologize, I didn’t
understand he had an office.”
Michael understood Satan had an
office. He just drew back [and] said, “God’ will take care of you.” Paul was
like implying a curse. He said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that he was a high
priest.” He went right along with Peter: obey and understand the authorities,
because all authority is of God. This man was an absolute steward.
52. Now
the point is this: years ago I talked to a man. I really loved the guy, real
Pentecostal fellow. He said, when he was born again, or full of the Holy Ghost,
(which he believed was after he was born-again) he said he was in this prayer
room, (And I don’t know if he was flat on the floor or what was going on) but
people in the room saw angels sweeping in the room and descending upon him. Oh,
marvelous. Just like Jacob’s ladder, but I think… How was Jacob? Upright,
downright. I don’t know. I’m just kidding, of course. You know I’m being
sarcastic. But anyway, these angels all came in and people saw them. And this
man had a fine healing ministry. See, it smacks, doesn’t it? Right smacks of
the other side of the fence. Smacks of the anti-Christ--of the devil.
Now,
I liked the guy; he was a real fine fellow. And one day we got discussing
predestination. Well, he said, “Brother Vayle, I believe that certain people
are predestinated, and the rest then follow.”
In other words, he was right on track with the first part
of it. But he didn’t express it right. The first thing is: prophets are
predestinated to bring the Living Word of God, which you yourself have nothing
to do with, as to its giving and presentation. But you, as a seed, follow right
in line, being predestinated to it. See, he left out that other part.
53. Now,
you could take this right here, and you could say, “Well, Paul was that
steward.” And you will find that the fundamentalists, which are the Billy
Graham type, and your Southern Baptists and all of these: Pentecostals, the
rest, the Trinitarians, that talk about being born-again and believing in God.
And you can find that they will take predestination to a point--perhaps like
this friend of mine did--but they don’t take it to the full extent of the Word
of Almighty God that says, “The sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.”
See? They are not true stewards to
the Word of God. They are stewards to the organization.
54. Now
gifts and offices always tend toward organization. See? Bro. Branham said it
takes only three years to organize, and it’s all over. But he said this will
never organize, and it has not organized, and will not organize. The closest
this can come to organization, which is not organization, is simply organized
financially to turn out the tapes and the sermons, and anything we can to
propagate the Gospel. From then on, it can tend to organization, in the hands
of the people that get the books, in the hands of the people that do preach, in
the hands of those that do want to say something concerning this ministry. And
they do it. And they do it in the sense that they are going to be leaders, in
the sense they are going to have it their way, although Bro. Branham said
opposite.
Like
the man that said we’re going to make… He said, “I prayed and fasted “twelve
days, but,” he said, “I know Bro. Branham only said three days.”
In
other words, “I will bend the arm of God. I will make it work. I’ll bend the
arm of God. I’ll make this work.”
They
can’t do it. There’s no way, because it is God Himself in you, willing and
doing at His Own good pleasure. See? And, [ ] His Own good pleasure means His
Own good purpose, right down the line. And these men here have not been
faithful stewards to the Word of the living God.
55. Where
does that place us then, as Christians, this morning? We have only one
obligation, and that’s as Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” And
remember, Christ is known as the faithful one, the faithful and true witness.
There’s only one; that is Jesus Christ. He was that faithful One.
You
and I are faithful in our own way, in our way is this: that we are faithful in
believing the vindicated, true Word of God. We will not add a word; we will not
take from it. Our major problem is the problem that Paul set forth, that as
stewards of the mysteries of God, keepers of the Word of Almighty God, we are
living in the Spirit. The next thing is then, are we walking in the Spirit as
well as living in the Spirit? See?
56. And that’ll bring us to a little word
found down the road, which I’m going to conclude now, this morning. [ ] We’re
going to find, as I already said, that this message on stewardship is actually
parallel to sowing and reaping.
You are absolutely, and I am
absolutely, even though in ourselves fallible, in God we are not fallible. We
can absolutely do that which is in the Word of God, the sowing of It in our
lives, and reap what God Himself has sent that Word to do, because no Word of
God will return to Him void. And God does not plant His Word out there in a
garden. He does not plant it in an animal. He does not plant it in a church. He
plants it in His Own individual children, in their souls, deep within their
heart, via the mind. Reasoning is now put entirely to one side.
57. Eve,
the First Church Age Bride, reasoned. Today, there isn’t any reasoning. It is a
mind that is absolutely blank and barren of what was there. And now we have
taken the Light of God, even as the original Gentile church did, a hundred
million miles from reality, only knowing there is a God, and now God has
presented Himself, and shown Himself, revealed Himself, and we have the
revealed will, and the revealed Word of Almighty God. We now have the mind of
Christ. Now, let’s keep it that way. And with that mind of Christ, is revelation.
There is a walk.
And
remember, when Jesus came here on earth, and the disciples tried to pull Him in
a certain direction, He knew that there was a direction that He must go. Paul,
the apostle was going to go in a certain direction, and an angel of God appeared
and said, “No don’t go that way. Go west; don’t go east.”
There is a walking in this Word, and
that walk is absolutely a walk of sowing. And it’s down the road we go, it
turns into a reaping. But you cannot reap without sowing. Now, if I sow oats, I
can never reap oats…wheat. And if I sow oat…reap, ah rather sow rye, I can
never reap barley.
58. So,
if I don’t sow the Word of God, in an active walk, wherein the predestinated
are told in their job description, in the category which they’re placed, what
they are to do and how they are to do it… If they do not do that, the Word
within the Word, then they will be tried at the last day. And it will be found
whether we have sowed wood, hay, and stubble, or gold and silver and precious
stones. Because those that sow the wood, hay, and stubble, it goes up in smoke.
But those that sowed for the gold and the silver and the precious stones, it
does not go up in smoke. That is what makes the crowns, and the diadems, and
those things that are passed out, where the Bible said, “Let no man take thy
crown.”
59. So,
you see, all the way down you can see the predestinating power of God, and what
He laid in there, where the responsibility lies, what He does and we can do
nothing about. But what there are things that He’s given us that we can do
something about, pertaining to His Kingdom, and fitting in with it, and
building it up. And that is predestinated to us on the grounds that we must,
and we should do it; and we really must do it, or we don’t get a gain.
Paul
himself said, “If I do not continue in this Gospel of grace, I do not preach
it, I do not live it,” (He said a dispensation.} “the same thing is turned, and
it comes against me.” In other words this very Word here, that I’m talking
about this morning, and I haven’t gone much into the life, which we’re going to
have to go into the life to get into this Scripture even more thoroughly. If I
do not do what the Scripture says concerning me, this very Word has already
judged me. This very Word that I claim that I’m depending upon for my
salvation, and see the reality of knowing that the revelatory power of God is
necessary to reveal It. And I have that revelation.
60. Now
I’m come right back to the statement of Paul, “If you live in the Spirit, see
that you walk in it.” And remember, Paul said, “You are in the Spirit, and not
in the flesh, if you are full of the Holy Ghost. So therefore now, the Holy
Ghost is empowered me, that I may have this Word.”
And
Bro. Branham brought us “The Stature of the Perfect Man,” where he said,
“You’re living, breathing statues of Almighty God.” Whew, man I tell you what.
He laid it out there that I got to believe it, I got to believe it. If I can’t
see myself apart, if I can’t see myself in the right light, and see myself a
part of that, then brother/sister, there’s something wrong with me. There’s
nothing wrong with the prophet and his Word because It’s vindicated. I can tell
you that. But what does it do? Does It give me a negative problem? It
shouldn’t. It should give me a positive attitude toward life that these things
are there.
61. So,
there we have again, little further along the trail, this morning, of
understanding more fully the predestinating power of God. Understanding
stewardship, which [has] been committed unto us, which we are liable, which we
have been given everything by God to see it successfully through, which we have
been given to turn into something great for us down the road, eternally.
Remember,
Jesus the Lamb. Lamb signifies the bleeding hands, the bleeding side, the
bleeding brow, although Blood isn’t flowing now. He’s in the eternal City, upon
the eternal Throne. Right? Paul, the apostle, is there. The twenty-four elders:
the twelve elders of the sons of Jacob, (the twelve sons, the elders of the
tribes) and the twelve apostles.
Bro.
Branham said, “Who are they worthy,
sitting there.”
You
think they ever change? No. Do you think Timothy’s ever going to change? No.
What about Mary, the mother of Jesus? There going to be a change? Nope. She’ll
still be that one. Still there.
62. In
other words we are now upon a path to fulfill our sacred, eternal, and
wonderful destiny. Tell me, what is worth in our lives so great that we cannot
lay it on the altar and go to the Word of God and ask that same Word of God…
The life [ ] in it could be released, and we become that living Word of God for
this hour, and this day in which we live. And it’s going to start,
brother/sister, with a recognition what I’m talking about. There are those
sons. You can’t change who you are. You can’t change what you are. But with the
help of God, we can be changed suitable to the office and the conclusions of
that which God wants in the New Jerusalem.
Because
It tells you the resurrection is just like the heavens. There [are] stars;
they’ve got one glory. The sun is another glory. The moon is another glory. All
up there you can see, there are, as you call tiers, their strata. Where are we
going to fit? Let no man take our crown. I trust that you and I will lose
nothing.
63. I
look down and I wonder, if [in]all my years have I not lost a whole lot more
than I gained. But then, I really don’t know how to keep telling myself, I
don’t know so much of what God would give, because I look and I may see
something that I think God would give a credit for, but there might not be any
credit there.
Something
like the man that gave the glass of cold water, and didn’t know that God was
watching. The person that visited a jail cell, and didn’t know that God was
watching. The person that went to the hospital, and didn’t know that God was
watching. And God was keeping a memorial book.
David
had a little inkling, when he said, “All my tears, thou hast kept in a bottle.”
Yeah,
all the tears the man endured, all the agony, God had already kept and put
aside for him.
64. So,
God is the faithful God. God is the faithful God. And we have it in our power
to be faithful with Him, and see the end of the goodness of God.
Let’s
rise and be dismissed at this time.
Our gracious, Heavenly Father, we
want to thank You again for Your goodness to us, Lord, as we pursue this, the
thoughts, Lord, that there is a destiny that we can fulfill, and we will
fulfill. But wonder at times, in what state we arrive, other than a state of
glorification. Will there be as it was said by many, and we know it is true,
that if we have a crown, it’ll be ours to cast at Your feet. And what, Lord,
would it be then, if we stand there, multitudes or many crownless, and someone
else is casting a crown that we could have had, casting at Your feet.
Help us, Lord, in the remaining days
of our lives, to… Perhaps we cannot retrieve some of those things that we might
well have lost by now. But help us, Lord, not to miss out on anything which now
lies within the strength that you have given us, that we might accrue to
ourselves as that great day, [that] we might present as trophies at Your feet,
trophies of grace and the goodness of Yourself.
Help us, Father, to be more diligent
and more sure of our lives than ever before, and more secure in the knowledge of
who we are, and what we are, and the presence of Your power, to see that we do
come forth as that which You desired for us. And even from before the
foundation of the world, admirably fitted to it by You Yourself, to receive it,
and then forth in worship and glory.
Father,
this is what we really desire. Help us to clear all the cobwebs away and all
memories of those things which have obscured the truth that we might, Lord,
just not only live in the Spirit. God help us to walk in the Spirit and see
that the Light coincides until that hour where You take us away to the
fulfillment thereof.
Lord,
we pray for the sick amongst us. We hope that no one thinks for one minute that
we denigrate Mark 16, or we take way healing from anybody. We know, Lord, that
that’s up to us. We can have it. You haven’t taken anything away, Lord. Neither
do we. It’s up to us. But we pray that we may approach these things in a proper
manner in the Spirit of the living God with the understanding whereby they’re
written and to whom they’re written and under what conditions, and we apply it
to ourselves and walk therein, and we receive the end of it which is our
healing, even as Bro. Branham said--if we take this message and we know it
includes the whole perfection, all of it—“Take
it for your healing”. He even said, “Healing
lies with us,” Lord. We know that, but he said, “Don’t take that too far,” but he never said for one minute that
we had to take away anything of that Word, but rather to stay right with It.
So,
Father, we stay with that fact that healing and Your goodness and people Lord,
need many things done for them, and we believe, Lord, that people here have
been preparing their lives by sowing for exigencies and these things which are
new in their lives and will come to pass as times grow darker and deeper, and
they will be ready for it, because Your Word has come to make ready a people
prepared. And we are the prepared people, Lord. And we are getting ready by
Your grace. We may not understand it even as the apostles didn’t, and I have no
doubt many of them died without understanding some of the things they wanted to
understand--perhaps even Paul, (There were elements of mysteries there.) but
that doesn’t matter. We know, Lord, that You’re taking care of every single
thing according to truth, and we are part of that. We are taken care of in this
hour and the days to come.
Now
unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be all power and
honor and glory through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
“Take
the Name of Jesus With You.”