THE LONG WAY

Part 2.

Let's look at the PRINCIPLE the SHORT WAY. You know that's the world's way. Can you say Amen? That's the way of human judgement, that's the way of human appeal, Amen, everything that appeals to the sight, you know this is what we want. We always something for NOTHING. That's the Truth. We always want something for nothing. You can look at it. What do you think makes the lottery so popular? What do you think makes Las Vegas and places like that so popular, where people are gambling? What do you think gaming cards and all these things, what do you think they're all about? Because in a person's heart, they are always dreaming of hitting the lottery, they're always dreaming of getting this, they're dreaming of gambling, they're always dreaming of a jackpot. They are dreaming they can have something for nothing. That's what makes gambling popular. If it wasn't for that, the lottery would have to cease. They want something they're NOT willing to work for. They want something they're not willing to SUFFER for. In other words, they want it handed to them on a silver platter. That's the way of the SHORT WAY. And God's way is not short, it's a LONG DRAWN out process. Are you still with me? You know, you say "now Brother, well, I guess one of the quirks I guess of, Amen, of this world that we're living in, they're human nature, whatever you want to call it. In other words, you can just look at it. That's the reason so many people drink, that's the reason so many people smoke pot, shoot their veins, sniff dope and all of that. It's trying to hide their troubles, trying to get away from the hum-drum of the world. They don't want it. What it does it do? It gives an artififial thrill or excess, it's a fake happiness. Can you say Amen? It gives you a self- feel of importance, you know, I'm somebody for a while. I told a man one time, that was talking about drinking, I said, I ain't never been drunk in my life. I've never been drunk. I've done everything else under the sun, but I've never been drunk, and this guy said, "you don't know what it feels like to be rich then, do you?" I said, "what in the world are you talking about, what's being drunk got to do with being rich?" He said," man, when you get drunk, you think you can own the world, you might not have but a quarter in your pocket, but you're talking about buying businesses." It gives you a thrill of self-importance. My dad used to call me and he drank all the time. My dad used to call me and he's start, and my mama used to have a saying, he's building air-castles again. Howard, he's just building air-castles, that's all he's doing, you know, building air-castles. it gives you a self-feel, I'm something. For awhile anyway, until you wake up the next morning. He said, what are you talking about? Esau provided a good example of the QUICK-WAY, when he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. I know you've heard that all your life, hadn't you? Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, but did you look at it this way? He MORTGAGED his future....He mortgaged his future...for a dinner, where he could make his stomach to feel full. He mortgaged his future. I'm gonna tell you something. I want you to listen to me. When God's putting you through some of these things you're going through and you're wanting out of them, and some of you young people out here today, Amen, you mortgage your future sometimes by getting out here and doing some of these things that you're doing. Oh, it might seem good now, one night stands. You're mortgaging your future, just for a few thrills in the hour that we're living in. It don't work, friends. That's the SHORT WAY. You say, ah, I ain't gonna mortgage, but you will. If you're not careful, you'll mortgage your future for a mess of pottage. That's the way Esau did. Can you say Amen? In other words, most people hoping to get the things which they don't have to work for.

 Let's look at the PHILOSOPHY of the LONG ROAD, it's the reverse order and it's based upon the principle of walking by FAITH, than walking by sight. To me, it's a willingness to wait, to TRUST GOD ! Can you say Amen? To wait upon the Lord, renew our strength. Sure, you know that as good as I do. Let's go on just a little bit further; and every child of God must learn that there is n NO Success without sacrifice and no reward without LABOR, can't help that.You gotta learn that. There must be OBEDIENCE before we can have blessings. The wolderness way was the way of self-discipline. I want you to stay with me now. You say, you're just talking this morning. I know I'm just talking this morning, but I want you to listen to me. First, Israel needed to KNOW God. You said, but this is Israel. They've knowed God all their life. NO they hadn't. They've been in bondage for 33 years without a Prophet. Then they had picked up the idolatrous ways of the Egyptians. You say, I don't believe they picked up the idol ways. Yeah they have, cause they made a golden calf once Moses had left the scene. Sure, this is the God that brought us out of Egypt. Even Moses hisself, when God appeared to him in a burning Bush, Moses said, "WHO am I gonna tell them that sent me? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of....or the God of Abraham? Let me put it this way, that hadn't SAW you, they hadn't HEARD from you in 430 years, they hadn't seen NO visible means of a God that appeared to Abraham to give him a Covenant. They hadn't seen you doing no miracles. They haven't seen you do one, let me put it my way: ONE COTTON PICKING THING ! Now WHO am I gonna tell them that's gonna bring them out? No, they didn't KNOW God. They might have heard about it from grandma and grandpa, but it's kind of a figment of their imagination. I've said this over, and over, and over again, yet I'm gonna say it again. The Disciples saw God in Jesus Christ.I said the people saw God in the Disciples. I said, we saw God in William Branham. But, I'm gonna ask you a question, real sincerely, but who is our children gonna SEE God in? Well you say they see God in me and they said no, I'm talking about who are they gonna see the miracle working God that can provide every need that they'll ever have? Who are they gonna see it in? William Branham is history, as far as our children are concerned. It's like reading a history book. It's like reading about Moses. It's like reading about Joshua. It's like reading about, Amen, Isaiah. It's something in another lifetime, another area. Israel didn't know God. They didn't know His Power, they didn't know anything. That's the reason God HAD TO COME DOWN, Amen, and show them who He was, show them His Power. Bear with me. They didn't know God. So, first of all, He showed them His Power by breaking the backbone of Pharaoh with the miracles and the plagues that fell, but now He wants to get them alone where He can TEACH them His ways; where He can SHOW them that regardless of any situation they may get in, in a burning desert where there's been no water for hundreds of years, in that burning desert, He can be a Rock. Brother Branham preached the Rock in a weary land. He can be a Rock and out of that Rock can flow rivers of water.

Listen, I seen a little Magazine one time and it showed this Rock, supposed to have been Christ, and a little kid standing there with a little cup in his hand and the water dripping down in that cup. I thought, how silly of the guy that drawed that picture. It wasn't a little drip. There were two million people, there was cattle, Amen, it was a River that was coming out of that Rock, Amen, that could quench the thirst of two Million people, that could water all the cattle, furnish all the water for the cooking, furnish all the water for the wash. And He wanted to show them in a Burning Desert where there was no water, He could supply all their thirsty needs. He wanted to show them in a land where nothing could grow, Amen, I mean nothing could grow but some kind of scrub something or other that wasn't fit to eat, Amen, that every morning when they arose, Amen, that the TABLE could be SPREAD, everything that they'd ever want to eat could be LAYING there for them. He wanted to show them He WAS God. He wanted to get them to know that He was STILL God. You know what would tear this Church all to pieces and set it on Fire for God, let GOD walk up and down these aisles. Let God begin to OPEN blinded eyes. Let God begin to do what God is GOOD at doing. He wanted them to get to KNOW HIM as a God of Redemption, a God that can SATISFY every need in any situation, regardless of where you're at. He wanted them to know also. Are you sill with me?

I think of the Red Sea scene, He carried them down there and you know how they got afraid. Who wouldn't have been? He said my God, who wouldn't been. I'm gonna tell you something friends, I don't care who you are, when you're standing there seeing Pharaoh's Army behind you and the Red Sea in front of you, I guarantee you your knees would knock, your palms would have become clammy and sweaty, and the mountains on the side and you couldn't go anywhere; but God wanted to do something. He wanted to SHOW them that He could deliver them from any Army, and Situation, and He opened the Red Sea and they were gonna cross.Listen, God done done two things there friends. He opened the Red Sea to let them go across, He destroyed Pharaoh's Army, but listen to what I'm trying to tell you. He also CLOSED the Red Sea that Israel couldn't go back. You ever thought of it that way? Aw, come on Church ! Amen, I know He opened the Red Sea, I know Israel went across. They tell me when they made the Ten Commandments, it took a million gallons of jello to make the Red Sea scene of Lime Jello. But, not only did He destroy Pharaoh's Army and let them go through, but when He closed that Red Sea back, Israel couldn't RETREAT. Now God opened it for them to go forward, but God wouldn't open it for them to go backwards, Amen. They didn't have NO WAY back home. A lot of times God lets things happen to you where you can't retreat, there ain't no way back.

Like Elisha, my friends, when he had to burn, Amen, the Bible tells me that he took his plows and he'd break them in pieces and he made an alter. He killed his plow-ox and offered it as a sacfrice. He couldn't change his mind, he couldn't go back. He wouldn't had no Ox to plow, he wouldn't had no plow if he'd had an Ox. We call it burning the bridges behind you, and God is good at burning bridges behind you. God is good at shutting the door where you can't go back because He knows you. He knows what you're made of, He knows that you'd retreat if you could, but He cuts off retreats. He don't leave no opening to go back to the world. And, there's where your battle begins. Bear with Me. Thank God He didn't leave me no way back. There's been times I would have run back. Sure. You say, aw, I wouldn't never run back. Don't kid yourself. If God hadn't put a hedge around you, if God hadn't kept you, if God hadn't shut the door where you couldn't go back, you'd been like a lot of other people, you'd have went back. He wanted them to know Him. And you know something, men SELDOM come to know God in the days of Prosperity, when everything is going good. When the job is good, and you're making plenty of money, your wife is happy, she's getting new pair of shoes and a new dress every once in a while, and you know what I'm talking about, a new refrigerator every once in awhile and Amen, you know every once in a while you'll break down and put new carpet on the floor. You know what the curse of this age is? You know what the Prophet said it was? EASY LIVING 1 Easy living is the curse of this age, and men seldom come to know God when everything is prospering, when everything is going. You know when you come to know God? In DESPERATION. When there ain't nothing right and it looks like everything's wrong. You begin to look at God through the tears of your eyes and you begin to call, there's nowhere else to go. That's when you find God. That's when you get to know Him. That's when you get to know Him.

I was reading Chuck Colson, a story from Chuck Colson the other day. You know the guy that was in the watergate. I don't whether you've ever read his book or not, but anyway, it's a little book. It's not a little book, it's not that thick, called "Knowing God". And he said when they sent him to prison on that watergate cover-up thing. But, he said, "little did I know, that trip to prison and those months I spent there was a beginning of a prison ministry that would set literally thousands free and lead them to Christ". Aw you say, I don't even believe he's a Christian. Believe what you want to, you're doing more then, more and Umph. I don't understand people. The people of this nation thinks everybody is going to hell but them.

I like what old Brother Unger said, "He's the Lord of Hosts." And that word hosts means many groups. He's the Lord of the foolish virgins. He's the Lord of the five virgins. He's the Lord of the bride. He's the Lord of many groups. He said, ?But little I knew that trip to prison would change my life and I'd get to know God and have a burden for those people that were inside the prison walls." And you know sometimes in our darkest valleys, we don't know what kind of seed that we're planting. We don't know who's watching us.

I like, uh, there's another Chuck, Chuck Swindall. I was on the way, me and Jean was going somewhere to eat breakfast, whatever we were going, dinner, whatever, he was on the radio and I was listening to him. And he said this little boy was raised in church and said he always sat by the wall, the outer wall of the church, and said that wall had stained glass windows, and said one window St. Mark, and St. Luke, and St. Matthew, and St. Paul, and St. so and so, at every one of those glass windows. And he sat there all the time when he was real young and he got big now and he kept gonna get to go to Sunday School, and said the first thing the Sunday School asked, teacher asked, said, "anybody know what a Saint is?" He said, "I know teacher." She said, What is it?" He said, "Someone that the light shines through." Now that, that's true. It shined through them, coming through the window, but a Saint is also the one that the Light of God shines through and you don't know whoever is watching that Light and what you're gonna do with your life. And when you're down here in the deepest of troubles, just think, God maybe is planting a seed.

What do you think about Paul when he sat in the Philippi jail in stocks and bonds, beat, his back bloody and Silas was besides him. You probably know what went through their minds. We've, we've followed them all. Why did God let this happen? But, you know the story, how that God shook the prison, the stocks fell away, and there was jailor that night that said, "I want to know this God." Took Paul home with him, Silas with him, washed his wounds and old Paul that night, baptised the jailor and his household. See, the Light was shinning through. We just don't understand these things friends. The"LOMG ROAD !!!" God wanted them to get to know HIM and sometimes through the.......you know the tears, you can see God better then you can when the sun is shinning in your life. Are you still with me? How does the old saying go, the darker the night, the brighter the stars? Sure it is and sometimes the LONGEST WAY around is THE SHORTEST way Home.

God's purpose in leading Israel to Canaan through the wilderness, instead of the SHORT way, has many reasons and I'm fixing to get long-winded. I pray I don't.

Number one, that His Power could be displayed on their behalf. As I said awhile ago, by bringing them to the Red Sea, an order that Pharaoh and his host may be destroyed, in order also when they got through, He closed it up and they couldn't get back. And, another way, He wanted to oranize them into a nation. Right. They didn't know they was lost and so out there in that wilderness in Sinai, the LAW came down and the....how woluld I say this? God brought the CONSTITUTION and sent it by Moses for Mt. Sinai. This is a bunch of slaves, they're a new nation under God, but they have no Constitution, they have no Laws to go by, they have nothing, they're just slaves. They've always been told what to do, but Now God's sending a Constitution down from the mountain.

The End of Part 2.