GREATER.THAN.SOLOMON.IS.HERE_ TUCSON.AZ WEDNESDAY_ 63-0605 E-6 And we're thankful for the--the faith, the evidence, the something with us that tells us, and we know. There's no more guess work in it. We've had for years the Word of God. Now, we got the God of the Word (See?), and right here living His Word out. So it's true, one of the last great signs that's promised to the church before the coming of the Lord. THIRD.EXODUS_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-21 SUNDAY_ 63-0630M 32-4 Reason will try it's best to recognize... "Well, this system's bound to be better. This is that." It looks better because you're looking with a intellectual mind. You can prove reasonings, but you can't prove faith; 'cause if you could prove it, it's no longer faith. But faith knows only the Word and the promise, and it looks to that thing that you do not see. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." You can't reason. I can't prove how it'll be done. I don't know how it's going to be done. I don't know it, but I believe it. I know that it's so, because God said so. And that settles it. That's the reason I know that this is right. I know the Word's right. I know the message is right. For it's in the Word, and I see the living God moving among it to prove it.

THIRD.EXODUS_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-21 SUNDAY_ 63-0630M 33-1 We're at an exodus, certainly true. Even death itself can't shake faith. A man can stand right in the... death--in the--right in the face of death and shout the victory of the resurrection. Paul... "Oh, death where is your sting, grave, where is your victory?" (See?) 'cause Christ raised up, and those that are in Christ will come forth with Him at His coming. See? Can't change. Yes, faith makes the Word of God its sanctuary of its eternal rest. It lays in the Word of God. UNITING.TIME.AND.SIGN_ JEFF.IN V-6 N-10 SUNDAY_ 63-0818 104 What did He say in Malachi 4? Would restore, restore back the original Pentecostal faith, back to the people with the same Pentecostal message, the same Pentecostal sign, the same Pentecostal evidence, the same God, the same power, the same teaching, everything exactly, with the vindication of the same Pillar of Fire that struck Paul down on the road, down to Damascus; among us today, doing the same things He did in that day. Uniting... We see the nations uniting; we see the world uniting; we see the churches uniting. We see the Bride uniting, uniting with the Word. Why? The Word is God. And as the Word... As the Bridegroom (being the Word), and the Bride (being the hearer of the Word), they come together in a union. They unite like a wedding. See, they're getting ready for a wedding, and they--they become one. The Word becomes you; you become the Word. Jesus said, "At That day you know that all the Father is, I am; and all I am, you are; and all you are, I am. In that day you'll know that I'm in the Father, Father in Me, I in you, and you in Me." See? At that day. What day? This day. We find out the great hidden mysteries of God being revealed. Oh, how I like that.
DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 18 Now, now, there's just not... No certain evidence. See? You say, "Brother Branham (I feel it in your minds. You see?), why will I know?" Look. What were you? And what are you? There's how you know. See? What was you before this Token was applied? What are you after It's applied? What was your desires before, and what is your desires after? Then you know whether the Token's applied or not. And these other things just automatically go with that. See? It--it isn't...
DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 19 Like, talking about it and say, "Tongues is the evidence." Now, I will bare--buy a pair of shoes; the tongue isn't the shoe. It just comes with the shoe. See? It just comes with the shoe. See? Now, the same thing is the Token. The Token is Christ. But speaking in tongues, and casting out devils, and doing those things, and preaching, and whatever, is the evidence It's there, true; but it's--it's not It. See? It's a gift of It. If I told you that... You say, "I want you, Brother Branham," and I'll give you a gift (See?), well, that's not me, that's my gift. Tongues is a gift of the Holy Ghost, not the Holy Ghost, a gift of the Holy Ghost.
DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 21 And the devil can impersonate any of those things. But he cannot be the Holy Ghost. See? He can impersonate these gifts, but he can't be the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost is the Token that the Blood's been applied, because It follows the Blood all the way from the Book of Redemption. See it? That was the purpose of Him coming. That's what He followed in every age. Every age He's followed that to see that It's brought forth. And they could not be made perfect without us. And now, the entire Holy Spirit visits the church making God in human flesh as He did before Sodom, the burning there, which was a type. Then Abraham, He appeared to him. And all the things that He hasn't done down through the ages, in the church ages, He is now doing. Back to the Word, because the messages, and the messages, and the messages has to wind up in the entire Word. And in the last days, the Seven Seals being open, was to pick up every straggle that's been left off in it and make the whole thing in one great big body of the Bride, that them who lived back there was not perfect until this church be perfected, the Bride group in the last days, to bring them in and all together be taken up. See?
DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 23 The Token, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, is among us. We should reverence that. We--we--we can't humble ourselves enough. Taking off your shoes or getting on your knees wouldn't expel it, it would--it wouldn't satisfy; it wouldn't suffice us, but a life that brings forth the fruit of the Spirit... Now, what is the fruit of the Spirit? See? Love, joy, peace... Remember this morning? Preparation, sent the messenger with the message. Next thing He done after He sent the messenger with the message, He sent the Pillar of Fire for a vindication. Next thing was after that, was consolation. See? You knew that it was right; you was at peace. We have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. See? DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 26 Now, tonight we're going to pray for the sick. And I think they have Communion. [Brother Branham speaks to Brother Neville--Ed.] You--you don't have baptism, baptismal service? Just Communion--Communion. And we want you to stay for Communion, and with the--within thirty-five or forty minutes we aim to be finished and ready for the Communion. And now, tomorrow is the time of Labor day, so you can kinda rest up. Now, I said that was our intentions. You see? We don't know what the... I want to be sure to make that right.
DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 28 Now, this morning I told you, being not with you, I--I think we had another two or three hour message this morning. But--but I--I just got started, and I thought I'd just carry that over for tonight, but it was just too tremendous. I don't know whether the people got it or not. I hope they do, everywhere. I hope there was some good tapes on it, so it can be carried out to be known that I believe of all the message that I ever brought, that absolutely was ordained of God, outside of the--course the regular commission, like the Seven Seals and things--that was directly the Word of God. I'm talking about a message to preach; I believe that one was it (See?), the--the--the one that's needed to follow those Seven Seals. DESPERATION_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-1 SUNDAY_ 63-0901E 29 Now, watch what's come after the Seven Seals: the uniting of the people, united signs, the red light flashing in the last days; the sign of women getting prettier; and men, what they would do; all these signs of the Holy Spirit leading up; and then come right back here to the capping-off of all those messages since the Seven Seals. It's capped off in this one thing: the Token that we are all right. See? Just check ourselves and see if we're in the faith.
PARDONED_ TUCSON.AZ MONDAY_ 63-1028 E-27 But today when the Blood of God's own Son was shed at Calvary for our pardoning, and released... The life that was in that Blood was God Himself. And the Holy Spirit returns upon His church, upon His believer, and it's a token in these last days. And He'll pass over the man or the woman that's accepted the death of Jesus Christ as their substitute, and the Holy Spirit bears record. You might say, "I've accepted it." And you still live in the world, you still live like the world. Then there's no evidence that that life was for you, until that evidence of the Holy Spirit has struck into your life. There's God's requirement, that every man or woman must have that evidence as a token in this last days. "When I see the Blood..." Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again of the water and of the Spirit, he will in no wise enter into the Kingdom." Therefore it's been God's program all the time: Blood.
PARDONED_ TUCSON.AZ MONDAY_ 63-1028 E-28 It was blood in the Old Testament. It was Blood in the New Testament. In the Old Testament was the chemistry, which was the type of the life that is to come. It showed that there was a substitute taken. But the worshipper went out with the same guilty conscience that he had when he come in and offered his lamb. But this way, when the worshipper, once purged from sin, has no more conscience of it, the thing is dead, passed away, and you've changed from death unto Life. And you're alive again in Christ Jesus with Eternal Life, the Holy Spirit resting within you bringing forth the Life of Jesus Christ again. For the Bible said, Hebrews 13:8, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever." God is waiting the hour to see His church come to that position, regardless of denomination, regardless of creed, color, whatever it may be, that His entire church would come to the place that they're displaying the token of the death of Jesus Christ. "For a little while," He said, "and the world sees Me no more; yet ye shall see Me: because I live, you live also. I'll be with you, even in you to the end of the world," Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119 132 Turn to what? To Brother Branham? You--you'd be foolish to do such a thing. Turn to Christ, and He is the Word. Turn to Christ. Get away from creeds. Get back into... I don't care, you might started your creed five hundred years ago, that--you just... That don't mean one thing to God. Them Sadducees and Pharisees started long before you did and were condemned. Oh, you try to place your evidence of the Holy Spirit upon different actions. I believe in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. What does it do? The Pentecostal says, "Speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of the Holy Ghost." I've seen witches and wizards speak in tongues. I've seen them to speak in tongues and drink blood out of a human skull, and prophesy and deny there was such a thing as God. I've been in the witch camps where they lay a pencil on the table and make it jump up-and-down, and write in unknown tongues, and interpret it. That's right. That don't have a thing to... Yet, I believe God speaks in unknown tongues through His people. But you put so much stress on that, "Why should there be an interpreter? Why should it have to be a message to the church?"
SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119 135 Then you other people, you say, "The fruits of the Spirit, that's how we know. Love, joy, that's how we got the evidence." It is? Then the Christian Science has got you all beat. They exercise that more than all you Pentecostals, Methodists, and Baptists put together. Watch what happens. Let me show you the fruits of the Spirit, and see if you could go for that anymore. Let's take Jesus. God forgive me for these words I'm going to say; I'm going to turn against Him for a minute to show you, take these council of men here, and this council of men here this afternoon.
SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119 137 I'll say, "Sirs, there's a young Fellow around here by the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, have nothing to do with Him. Who was the first... What does our Bible teach us? God is love. Who was the first with you when you were born? Your kind old priest. That's right. Who come to you when you was in need, didn't have no money, and loaned you some money? Your kind old priest. It's exactly. Who put his hand on your shoulder and on mother's shoulder, when you was about to separate, and prayed you back to God? Your kind old priest. Who was it took sides with you, when you and your neighbor was in fussing, and brought you back together in fellowship? Your kind old priest. That's right. Who is it, is the last words they're going to say over you at the day out yonder? Who is it? They let you lay there and rot; but your kind old priest comes, and blesses you, and sends the Word of God along with you. Your kind old priest." "What about this Guy called Jesus of Nazareth, then (See?) what school did He come from? Your kind old priest had to sacrifice all of his life. His grandfather was a priest. His great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was a priest. He put his whole time in the organization. He's trained to the Word; he knows what he's talking about." Now, we're talking about fruits of the spirit: kind, love, joy, peace, understanding, long-suffering, patience (See?), fruit of the Spirit. SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119 140 "What about this Jesus, where'd He come from? We haven't got a word that He ever come out of any school. All He does is try to tear up the schools that we've built." Not much fruit of the Spirit there, is it? "What did He do up there where them poor merchants down there, and businessmen that had to... They--they don't raise sheep, so they--they set a little pen out there so the man can bring in a sheep. That poor businessman, he--he wants to offer a sheep, 'cause it's God's requirement. He brings in the--the sheep to sell to the businessman, so that he can offer for his soul. What has this Jesus of Nazareth done? Kicked over his tables, took some leather and plaid it together, beat them priests out of there, and called your kind, old priest, a snake in the grass, a hypocrite."
SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119 142 Now, you call that fruit of the Spirit? Certainly not. Then where is your fruit of the Spirit landing up at? No more than you think of compassions, and Him going through a multitude of people there, multitudes laying, blind, crippled, afflicted, withered, halt, lame, and never healed any of them: full of compassion. People with a carnal mind will never know it. Seminaries don't teach it. It's a revelation. Certainly. Fruit of the spirit drops off there, doesn't it? Them priests had ten times the fruit of the Spirit. How would you know what's right? The manifestation of the spoken Word of God being made manifest, Light of the hour. Certainly. There is what the evidence of the Holy Spirit is, believing the Word of God when It's manifested. He was the Word, manifested. And some of them denied It, laughed at It, made fun of Him and called Him a--a fortuneteller, some evil spirit; there's evidence, speaking in tongues, there is evidence of the fruits. The only evidence there is, is when man believe the written Word. When It's vindicated, walk in the Light of It. Jesus was the Light of the hour because He was the promised Word of the hour, and tried to tell them so, but they were too--too much in darkness to understand It. So is it today.
SHALOM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-1 SUNDAY_ 64-0119 144 Now, now, creatures of time, we are. Commit your ways to Him, and He will bring the future out right, because we just see Him as He is in the Word. You've seen Him vindicate the Word promised of today. You see it in the signs in the moon. You see it in the churches. Remember. "You said, 'in the church,' what does that have to do with the church?" Just a moment. The moon represents the church. Jerusalem is the oldest known church city in the world. Melchisedec come from that city: King of Salem, King of peace, King of Jerusalem. That's right, the oldest city in the world. And that was a moon, like where the law was established, and here come this wave of Gentile darkness coming over it. He said they'd--the church would trod down the walls of Jerusalem till the Gentile dispensation was up. And here she is. We're living right into it. She's going right back, just as certain as my name's William Branham. Yes, sir, we can see it. She is shadowed, foreshadowed, foretold: calling the elect out. They grope right on in darkness, the rest of them, as they go along. All right.
TURN.ON.THE.LIGHT_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-3 SATURDAY_ 64-0125 148 You can't judge by speaking in tongues, neither can you judge by the fruit of the Spirit. But it's a manifestation of the Word of God brought to Light. It's the Light that does it. The man that walks in that Light... Jesus Christ was not failing upon speaking in tongues, though He did it. He was not the fruit of the Spirit, though He did. You couldn't judge it. But He believed It, punctuated It, God lived every Word of the promise of that day through Him. That's the Light of the hour. That's the evidence.
TURN.ON.THE.LIGHT_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-3 SATURDAY_ 64-0125 149 When a man tells me that the Holy Ghost falling in them will deny the Word of God being so, there's something wrong with it. There's something wrong with our seminaries, and so forth, when they teach men all this here brainwashed theology and stuff of today. Them men would done the same against the Word of God and leading them right into that ecumenical slaughter down there? Why certainly, it's wrong. I speak that in the Name of the Lord. You watch and see if it isn't true: the Light, the Light of the hour. Those cold creeds can never bring a harvest. We've got to have a Church that's washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and become one with the Word, be the Church. Church glares of this day, Jesus said, very deceiving, almost the elected if it were possible. Just the elected... "But as it was in the days of Noah, when eight souls were saved, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." Very, very few will be saved at that time.
WHAT.SHALL.WE.DO.WITH.JESUS_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-4 SUNDAY_ 64-0126 109 The evidence, as I said the other day, we try to place evidence. Luther said, "Believe and walk out." The devil believes too. Wesley said, "Shout, and you got It," but he found out he didn't. Pentecost said, "Speak in tongues, and you got It." They didn't. Christian Science said, "Love, and you got the fruit of the Spirit," but they haven't. They deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ. What is the evidence of It? When that spirit that's in you can punctuate every promise with a "amen," and God will confirm it. That's exactly the way it was with Jesus Christ. Oh, yes. They had--they had more fruits of the spirit. They had all kinds of evidences. You can't pin any evidence down to anything but God Himself manifests His Word. That's the only true evidence that there is that you're a Christian. How can you be a Christian when...
WHAT.SHALL.WE.DO.WITH.JESUS_ PHOENIX.AZ V-22 N-4 SUNDAY_ 64-0126 111 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us," the same yesterday, today, and forever. He was the same God that was in David. He was the same One that was in Moses. He was the same One was in all the apostles. And He's the same One that was in Jesus Christ to manifest Himself there by that promised Word. And He's the same God today, the same Word, throwing Light upon the Word of the hour. God be merciful to us. Yes, sir. Believing God to interpret Himself, every Word to be vindicated. Yes, He is His Own interpreter.
JESUS.CAME.AND.CALLED_ TULARE.CA V-22 N-11 THURSDAY_ 64-0213 22 You say, "Then Brother Branham, what is the evidence? What is the evidence?" The vindication of the Word in the hour. They had the Bible. He was exactly what Jehovah said would happen. It don't need any interpretation. It interpreted there. There was your priest; there was all they had, and everything else just so routined and everything. But, yet, they failed to see the Word. And He made that Word live out for that age. That's the evidence of that age. Luther had the evidence of his age, Wesley of his age, Pentecostal of this age. But we're in another age. Those things are good. But it's like the baby's got a finger, a eye, a nose, after while he has to become a human being. He has to become a matured child, then be born, have a soul, body, spirit, can move around. JESUS.CAME.AND.CALLED_ TULARE.CA V-22 N-11 THURSDAY_ 64-0213 25 Now, we find out that all this Jesus had declared. And just a few, just those who He had ordained to Life saw Him. It's not great crowds. His crowds could nothing like be like Caiaphas' crowd. Why, Caiaphas could've called the whole nation together. Jesus called just a few together. Not many knew Him. Thousands times thousands when He came on the earth, He went through the earth, and they never even knowed He was here. So will it be again. He'll come to those who are called to Life. He knows who's called to Life. And He'll not... It's His business to take care of that. SIRS.WE.WOULD.SEE.JESUS_ DALLAS.TX V-19 N-8 WEDNESDAY_ 64-0304 52 That's what those Greeks wanted to know, what the hour was and what that Messiah should be. The portion of Scripture that was made known for that day, if that Messiah fulfilled that, that's the evidence. The a-vindicated Word of the hour is the evidence; not that He had to have fruits of the Spirit, He had to be a--a lawyer in the courts of--of justice, for His, or one of the Pharisees or Sadducee organizations. He was the manifestation of God's promised Word of that hour. You want to see what the fruit of the Spirit is? Watch what the Bible promises for a certain hour, then watch for that to be vindicated. That is the evidence. Jesus said, "Search the Scriptures, for in Them you think you have Eternal Life; They are They that testify of Me. That's what proves Who I am." WHEN.THEIR.EYES.WERE.OPENED_ TAMPA.FL THURSDAY_ 64-0416 E-42 But what is the evidence of a believer? That one will believe the identified Word of the hour. It's always been that way. The people get it scrupled up in all kinds of traditions, and religions, and denominations, and educations, and so forth. But God comes along with His Word and confirms It for the hour. That's the evidence. Look upon Him and see. He said, "If I don't do the works of My Father, believe Me not. Search the Scriptures; in Them ye think you've got Eternal Life. They testify Who I am. And if I don't do what the Scripture says that I shall do, then don't believe Me." See? And still they didn't know Him, after walking with Him, and here identifying Himself back after the resurrection, and showing that--that it was Him by the Scriptures.
WHEN.THEIR.EYES.WERE.OPENED_ TAMPA.FL THURSDAY_ 64-0416 E-43 Still, you know today, after that Jesus has raised from the dead, and has appeared to the people in the last days... When they said, years ago, when the Pentecostal group first started, there was no such a thing as that. It's the fastest growing church in the world, the Pentecostal. It's the message they've had now for fifty years. They said it couldn't be done. But it was done anyhow. They said there was no such a thing as the Holy Ghost. The people went on receiving It just the same. God promised He'd pour out His Spirit. How you going to stop it, when He promised He'd do it? They said, "Nobody will believe it." But they did believe it. God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham that'll believe His Word. They went right on, till they become the mightiest church there is in the land. FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M 16-1 And Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Lot, so will it be at the coming of the end of the world, when the Son of man, not Son of God, when the Son of man will be revealed." Hadn't had it through the age. See that perfect continuity of the Scripture? (Here we live in it.) The mysteries, even of the baptism in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and away from the Oneness idea, and these other things, how the Holy Spirit has moved that in and showed it perfectly; and the true baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Token, and everything, and placed it; and how He placed every reformer, and everything just exactly, and see right before our own eyes. And it's not in a corner; it's world known. Jesus, the Son of God revealing Himself by the Scriptures, making that Scripture, that had been predestinated to this day (like it was to that day, and all other days), live. And to believe It is the evidence of the Holy Spirit: righteousness.
FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M 16-3 You can't pronounce that just going to church is the evidence of the Holy Ghost. If you do, then them Pharisees had It. See? You can't pronounce shaking or jumping being the... Or if you do, the heathens has got It. If you say speaking in tongues, what--what devil worship doesn't speak in tongues? Tell me one. Brother Jackson setting here for Africa--from Africa, he could tell you that. I've been into the Indian camps here, see the witches and wizards cut themselves, and pour their own blood, and speak in tongues; and--and the witch doctor interpret it; and see them lay down a pencil and write in unknown tongues. So that's not Ii. But if it... What is the true evidence? Jesus said, "That you believe that I'm He." And He is the Word.
FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M 16-5 Why didn't they get it? Why didn't the Jews get it? They were righteous men; they were good men; they were holy men, and there were all kinds of people. But to whom is predestinated to hear the Word... And how do you know whether it is the Word? Each one says this. It's the promise of the Bible being vindicated of that age. There you are. Then you come back to where the Holy Spirit is. Watch the sound of the Trumpet in a few minutes, what it declares. The Trumpet, the Gospel Trumpet, see who can hear it. Remember those in the walled cities could not come out in the jubilee. No, sir. They were in the walls; they stayed there. It was over; they were slaves the rest of their life and had to be marked.
FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M 17-1 Now, as we see all these patterns, notice. Now, these acts, Malachi 4, and all this and Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever," He remains forever the Word, the Word made manifest. That's exactly what He declared the prophets. A prophet doesn't only mean "a seer, a forthteller," it means "a revealer of the Word that's written in his own life." His own works reveals and vindicates the Word of that day, like Noah building the ark, Moses down there, whatevermore, then you...?... the promised Word for that hour.
FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M 17-2 Now, we know that He's with us; we believe that. You see His Word made manifest by photographs, by Scriptures, by declarations in the heaven on earth. Everything else that He said, not one time has it failed. I ask any person to show me, from the different parts of the country or over the world, you're--you're obligated to write me and tell me where one time they ever failed: perfect, word by word. Now, that's a promise.
FEAST.OF.THE.TRUMPETS_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-16 SUNDAY_ 64-0719M 17-3 Why was He to appear in this last days? If you go back (and you tape listeners) to the Bride Tree and bring up where Christ was that Tree that was in the garden of Eden. The first Adam that fell, and this Second Adam was cut down by sin; they hung Him on a Roman tree. And out of that drew the--come out the Bride Tree, that He promised, that we see in the Scriptures. Now, in order to get the Bride... Like the pyramid, how it comes in minority all the time, from the great wide, from Luther, Wesley, Pentecost. And then the capstone in the top of it is so honed; and each one of those stones are so perfectly put together (and we don't know yet how they did it); but it's so perfectly put together in that pyramid. And we're not pyramid teaching now, we're just... Enoch and them built it years ago, and it stands for a symbol. Just the same as the sun rises and sets, just the same as the tree drops its life--its leaf, it comes back again, as a fish, and the cattle, and everything else symbolizes it, that pyramid stands as a symbol. BROKEN.CISTERNS_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-13 SUNDAY_ 64-0726E 66 Today I was talking with my good friend Dr. Lee Vayle, who's present now. And he's a--quite a theologian. And so we usually have some--have some pretty good discussions on the Scripture. Very smart, and he asked me one time what I thought about the initial evidence of the Holy Ghost, was it speaking in tongues? (It's been many years ago.) I said, "No, can't see that." He said, "Neither do I." said, "though I've been taught that." He said, "What would you think would be a evidence?" I said, "The most perfect evidence I can think of is love." And so we got to talking on that. And then I thought, "That sounded pretty good." So I just held that: If a man's got love. But one day the Lord in a vision straightened me out, and He said that the evidence of the Spirit was those who could receive the Word, neither love nor speaking in tongues, but it's receiving the Word.
BROKEN.CISTERNS_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-13 SUNDAY_ 64-0726E 68 And then Dr. Vayle was saying to me that that is Scriptural. He said, "Because in John 14 Jesus said, 'When He, the Holy Ghost is come upon you, He will reveal these things to you that I've taught you, and will show you things to come.'" So there is the genuine evidence of the Holy Ghost. He's never told me anything wrong yet. That it is; the evidence of the Holy Ghost is he who can believe the Word, who can receive It. 'Cause Jesus never said, "When the Holy Ghost is come, you'll speak with tongues." He never said, "The Holy Ghost come you'd do any of those things," but He said, "He will take these things of Mine and show them to you, and will show you things that is to come." So there is the genuine evidence of the Holy Ghost according to Jesus Himself.
BROKEN.CISTERNS_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-13 SUNDAY_ 64-0726E 69 So all these sensations and things that people have and still live on, you can see why they do it. See, it becomes a denomination or a stagnated pool, and there'll never be a denomination made upon the--the perfect Word of God. It can't do it, because you can't nominate--or denominate God. No, sir. The reason it is, you get a bunch of men who can believe the Word, let them start an organization; the first thing you know, in a year's time there's a bunch of Ricky's in there that you couldn't do nothing with. They got a hold, and you can't do nothing about it. It's not God's system. It isn't. So we know that that thing's died and becomes a cistern and becomes a place where each one will compromise on this, that or the other to get members in there, or let people come in.
BROKEN.CISTERNS_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-13 SUNDAY_ 64-0726E 71 We find out this system started one time back in the Israelite's days when they was digging these cisterns. And there was a man and a bunch of Pharisees who had dug some cisterns. And they had a man named Herod, and he was a proclamator, governor of the state. And he come down to hear a man that didn't fool with their denominations. He was a prophet. And no prophet ever had anything to do with a denomination, but hated it. This prophet begin to say, "Don't you begin to say within yourselves, 'We have Abraham to our father,' because I tell you that God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." And they brought out a dignitary to hear him, and this dignitary had took his brother's wife away from him and married her. And what did that man walk out to his face and say? They thought he would compromise and say, "Now, sir, you--you have you a nice seat over here. And you ought to... I'm so glad you're here to hear me today." John walked right up in his face and said, "It's not lawful for you to have her." The very first thing he said, he bawled him out for his sin.
FUTURE.HOME_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-5 SUNDAY_ 64-0802 30-1 There that's what we was talking the other day, the evidence of the Holy Ghost. See? The evidence of the Holy Ghost is when you can receive the Word, not some system, but have a clear understanding. How do you know the Word's clear understand? Watch It vindicate Itself. "Well," you say, "I see this do it and that..." Oh, yes, weeds live the same way (See?), but it's got to be the entire Word. To be the Bride you have to be part of Him; He is the Word. See? And what part of Him is it? The Word that's promised for this day when He calls His Bride. You're a part of that. You get it? Now, don't--don't lose that now. Notice. And He makes it a fit place to live through eternity.
PROVING.HIS.WORD_ JEFF.IN V-9 N-6 SUNDAY_ 64-0816 69 So seeing is not believing. I can prove that by the senses of the body (See?), that seeing is not believing. I cannot see this bottle of oil. I could not see it because it's behind me, yet I have a sense of--of feeling that tells me I've got it in my hand. See? Now, I couldn't see it; it's impossible. And now I cannot reach it; it's impossible, and yet I believe it. This, seeing is believing; this, feeling is believing. Now, I close my eyes, I neither could see it or feel it, but if I get it close and could smell it, I still believe it's there. So faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence not seen, taste, felt, smell, or heard. You believe it. And faith must have a resting place. And anything that's contrary to the Word of God, faith in God can have no resting place unless it's a promise of God. And there it takes its eternal stand. PROVING.HIS.WORD_ JEFF.IN V-9 N-6 SUNDAY_ 64-0816 70 But in the face of all these undoubting ages and things that we have went through and live in today, the worst of all, in the face of all this doubt, God does go right on proving His Words to be right, as He has in every age. He... Unbelief doesn't stop God; it doesn't hinder Him. I don't care how much the world unbelieves, It's still going to happen. Unbelief doesn't do nothing but condemns the unbeliever. The unbelief will send the unbeliever to hell. It'll rob him of every blessing God promised to him, but it doesn't hinder God from going right on with the believer. See, unbelief doesn't stop God; it only stops the unbeliever. You say, "I... The sun ain't going to shine tomorrow; I'm going to stop it." You try it. See? All right, you can't do it. God has set it in order and said it would shine, and it's going to shine. That's all. He said it would. There might be some clouds under it, but it's still shining just the same. And you can't stop God with that. He, what...
PROVING.HIS.WORD_ JEFF.IN V-9 N-6 SUNDAY_ 64-0816 72 How does He make His Word known to the people? First, God knowing that there would be unbelievers... Now, watch the wisdom of God. Knowing there would be unbelievers, and how the majority would be unbelievers, He by foreknowledge predestinated a seed for every age that would believe it. Now, if you'll notice in there, for each age goes right on with His Word, everything right on time; nothing hinders God. He goes right on, and every click is moving just exactly right. We think sometimes it's not going to work right. But don't you worry. His clock is timed just exactly to the split instant, and everything's working just exactly right.
PROVING.HIS.WORD_ JEFF.IN V-9 N-6 SUNDAY_ 64-0816 73 When I look around sometime and see these Rickys and Rickettas that we got today, and on the streets, and how everything's going on, I think, "O God." "Wait a minute," He says (See?), "My timepiece is turning just exactly right. I've got to put you upon the same basis I did the first man, them days. And I put you on the same basis of Luther, and on the same basis of Wesley." Because, you see, sin wasn't known then like it is now. And when we got more knowledge now than we had then, and when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God raises a standard against it. See? And now, today we've got more knowledge, more understanding, so the rivers of unbelief is flowing in hard, but God raises a standard against it. But remember, He's always... The reason that He--He predestinated these things to happen, He foretold them by His prophets they would happen. And when the righteous see these things confirmed, then they know it's right. Regardless of what anyone else says, they know it's right.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1001-Q-281 281. Dear Brother Branham, I have been baptized in Jesus' Name. The Word says you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Does this--does this mean the baptism, the Holy Spirit, or does it mean I should receive the gift--definite--I should receive a definite experience with the baptism? I am anxious to be--to be filled with the--the Spirit. Please excuse the long note as I have been wanting to ask you this question for a long time. Thank you. And the person has their names signed. They're out-of-town people. Now, there's a good question. Now, the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience that a person must receive. Now let me kinda clear that up just for a minute. See? Now, many people have the--the idea... I believe it's twisted. And maybe right here to the church and to the church that's listening, there might be a question. Now, when I speak of not believing the initial evidence of the Holy Ghost is speaking with tongues (I--I do not accept that) I believe with God's help I can prove it in the Bible that that's wrong (See?), 'cause the speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Ghost. How many knows that? Divine healing is a gift of the Holy Ghost, and here Beatles are doing it. See? Satan can impersonate any of those gifts. Witches, wizards can speak in tongues and interpret it. The jungle lands, many times a wizard will speak in tongues, drink blood out of a human skull, and interpret unknown tongues.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1002-42 Out in Arizona when they have the old festival dance of the corn dance, the Indians wrap these bull snakes around them when they're trying to pray to God to send them rain for their corn. They call it the corn dance. They take the tassel of the corn, place it around them, and make a little clout, and they dance. And the witch doctor comes out with horns on his head, buffalo horns. And they dance with these bull snakes around them, and the wizards and many of the pipe smokers and things around the place... They won't let a white man around at that time, but I've watched them through binoculars, and have Indian friends who's went to their dances; that's the ones that not Christians, of course. And they dance this corn dance holding these snakes. And the wizard comes out, and cuts hisself with knives, and everything else, and finally they get into the spirit, and speak in tongues and interpret it. I have--could take you right within three or four hours from now, where a medium will lay a pencil on the table, and go into a trance and all kinds of things, and wave their hands; and that pencil will raise up and write in unknown tongues, and the wizard will stand and tell you what it says.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1002-44 Now, that's no evidence of the Holy Ghost. See? You can't rely upon that. You can't rely upon the fruit of the Spirit, because the first fruit of the Spirit is love. And the Christian Science exercise more love than anybody I know of, and they even deny Jesus Christ being Divine. See? There's only one evidence of the Holy Spirit that I know of, and that is a genuine faith in the promised Word of the hour. Now, those Jews come; they had more religion than the disciples had. They were better trained men in the Scriptures than the disciples was, because they were fishermen, tax collectors, and so forth. And they had real faith and genuine faith in what they were doing. Now, listen closely now; don't miss this. See? When it come to being fruits of the Spirit, kind and gentle, I guess there wasn't a one of those priest but what could outshine Jesus Christ in it. He went to the temple, plaited ropes, looked upon them with anger, and turned over their tables, and run them out of the place. Is that right? The Bible said He looked upon them with anger. The Bible said that. That's exactly right.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1003-46 So see, those priest were gentle, meek, understanding men. When it come to the fruits of the Spirit, they could show more fruits of the Spirit than Jesus ever could. When it comes to theology, they didn't know--have a school that He come out of. "Whence cometh this man? Where did he come from? What fellowship card does he have? What organization does he belong to? We don't know where he come from. He was just absolutely an outcast Guy that was borned a illegitimate birth. Why, we could down him here in a few minutes and show you by the laws..." They had a right to do what they did when it come to that. Why? Because they failed to see that He was that promised Word of the hour. The only way they recognized it, when Jesus performed the Word by being able to tell them what they had in their hearts, what they'd been doing... He was a Prophet according to the Word of God. What He said come to pass, every word, word by word.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1003-47 He was God's Prophet, Servant, God the Prophet. Not... It was--was--was before there, the prophet of God, and this is God the Prophet, not the prophet of God. That was Malachi, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, and Elijah, and so forth, but this was God the Prophet, not the prophet of God. You get it now? All the prophets that portrayed His life in portions, played their part, but in Him was the Fullness of all the prophets. The prophets, the Word of the Lord came to them, the prophets, but This was the Word and the Prophet, the same Person. See?
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1004-48 Now, now, when a man receives Christ in the manner that He is in, you can't accept it as being... See? Now, some of them say, "Well, I'm a Lutheran." Well, there's nothing against that, but the Eagles don't feed on that. See? That was as far as it was; that was fresh food of that day. "I'm a Wesleyan." That's all right, but you're living in the past. See? Now, those people said, "Why, we have Abraham unto our father." That prophet said, "God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." See? "We belong to this. We belong to that." That had nothing... He said, "You generation of snakes, who's warned you to flee from the wrath? Don't begin to say, 'We have Abraham to our father,' 'cause God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." See? So being a well trained theologian had nothing to do with it. Being meek and gentle had nothing to do with it. What made Him different? He was the Word made flesh, not the Word for the day of Moses; Moses was that day--Word; not the Word for the days of Noah, Noah was the Word for that day; not the day--the Word for the day of Elijah, Elijah was that Word for that day; but He was the present tense Word, and they were living in the back.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1004-50 The same thing repeats. That's the evidence of the Holy Ghost, when God reveals to you and you see it, THUS SAITH THE LORD and accept it. Not what you are, what you was, or nothing about it, it's what God has done for you now. There's the evidence. Jesus said... He give us the evidence of the Holy Ghost, John 14. He said, "I have many things to tell you. I haven't got time to do it, but when the Holy Ghost comes, He will tell you, bring to your memory the things that I told you about, and will also show you things that is to come." Don't you see? There's the evidence. That's forthtelling and being--having the Divine interpretation of the written Word. Now, isn't that the evidence of a prophet? A seer in the Bible was a man that could forthtell and it'd be perfectly, exactly, not somebody laid hands on him, that's a gift. A prophet is predestinated and born to be a prophet. See? All the whole life it was a prophet; that's a office. That's where the people...?...
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1005-53 Many of the questions here on: "Well, will the Bride... Will this? The church and..." See? You--you can't divide what they are. The Bride is the elected of God. The church goes through... That's the ones It says, "Whosoever will, let him come." But the Bride is the elected of God. There is five offices elected of God. "For God has set in the church apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, evangelists." God did that. Man has deacons and so forth, and everything else, but you see, but God set in the church for the perfecting of the church--can't divide it. Now, the Holy Spirit, when It comes, It is a witness unto you (See?) that this Word is right, the Word for today, not the Word for Luther, the Word, not for Moses. We witness It's the Truth, but it's another day.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1005-56 Now, what if Jesus would come and said, "Now, as Moses come taking you all out of Egypt, I've come taking you somewhere else"? What if He said, "Let's go to work and build an ark. I--I'm the Lord God, I--I'm going to float the world away now. I'm going to drown the world, all of them"? Why, He'd been out of the... See, the Scripture never said He'd come like that. See? He wouldn't have been the Messiah. No matter how much ark He'd built, or whatever He had done. He's still not--He'd have not qualified the Messiah. Hallelujah. There you are. It's qualification. Yes, sir. I Corinthians 13 says this: "When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away with." So all these little things of jumping up-and-down like a kid, trying to talk in tongues, and all these other things, when that which is perfect... And we do have today, by God's help, the perfect interpretation of the Word with Divine vindication. Then that which is in part is done away with. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child; but when I become a man, I put away childish things." Amen. I go to preaching and then don't get to these things.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1040-Q-318 318. What is the evidence that a person is really filled with the Holy Ghost? John 14:26: He will... "When the Holy Ghost is come (See?), He will show you things to come." See? He'll be a... He'll perfect it; manmades won't do it; and He is the Word. When He the Holy Ghost is come, He will identify Himself in you with the Scripture. And that is the true sign that the Holy Spirit is in you, because It is the Word. Now, look. What if you spoke with tongues? I just want to ask you that. Jesus said when the Holy Ghost come what He would do. And what if you spoke with tongues, jumped up-and-down, shouted, and everything else, and then come to the Word; and I'd tell you the baptism of--prove to you by the Scripture as I have, that the baptism using the title of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is absolutely a misunderstanding in the Scripture; nobody was ever baptized like that, and you go ahead and hang with it anyhow? Could you tell me the Holy Spirit in you would do a thing like that? How can It deny It's own Word? QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1041-214 When I show you what's supposed to take place in this day, how that the Son of man is to reveal Himself, and what He's to do, and all these Scriptures that's been now, and then see Him come right down and identify it, and you hang right on to a denomination and say that you're borned again? Could you make sense out of that? Could I tell my wife I love her, and--and have a date with another woman, and run around, and then tell her from my heart I love her? You think that'd be true love? Could she tell me she loves me, and while I'm gone away, her run around with some other man? That's exactly what Israel done to... You know the Bible there, how He said, talk... Israel, said, "You have set your limbs apart and taken in every man that come by, and you've played the part of whoredom with Me; and I'll put you away in divorce." Exactly. What is that? You're committing adultery against your own body. And when a woman goes out and lives with another man, or a man with another woman, when they're married to them, they are defiling their own flesh. And when a person says that he is a Christian and will absolutely deny the Scripture being right, he's committing adultery against the Body that he claims to be in. See? So it's a mark of antichrist, so much that would deceive the elected if possible.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1041-Q-319 319. Brother Branham, is it all right for a--a young child to wear slacks and shorts? How young? Just let you be the judge of that; if you're a Christian. A little girl or any little bitty kid, I imagine, I don't know, I... Only thing I know, the Bible says it's an abomination for a woman to wear a garment that's--that pertains to a man. See? "A woman," didn't say, "a child." But now, I just... You just suit yourself about that, I... For my part, I see nothing wrong with a little bitty kid, little bitty girl four or five years old with a... When they're little fellows, you know how I mean, they'll run around out there in the yard. If she's wearing, what you call slacks or whatever, is a little bitty kid, I--I don't see nothing wrong with it. Maybe... See, I'm just telling you what the Word says. It's an abomination for a woman to wear a garment that pertains to a man.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1042-Q-320 320. Where are we to gather ourselves together? And you said to gather yourselves on the Trumpets. I believe, partner, sister, whoever it is, you're--you're wrong there. I never said gather yourselves on the Trumpets. I said Israel gathered on the Trumpets, not the Gentile Bride. No, no. The Trumpets, the sounding of the Seven Trumpets was to gather Israel (How many knows that?) from all over the... Yeah, not the... No, no. Huh-uh. No, not--not--not Israel. So it's not that... We don't gather on the Trumpets with the at--the Bride doesn't. The Trumpets comes after the Feast of Pentecost. See? And the rapture comes... And that... not this question now...
WHO.DO.YOU.SAY.THIS.IS?_ PHOENIX.AZ V-6 N-9 SUNDAY_ 64-1227 218 Is there any here that hasn't received the baptism of the Spirit, yet? Now, you say, "Brother Branham, "I tell you; I shouted one time." That's very good. "I spoke in tongues once." That's very good too. But still that ain't what I'm talking about. How can you shout and speak in tongues and deny the Word? The evidence of the Holy Ghost is believing His Word, always been, every age, if you can receive the Word. Those priests had Jesus beat a million miles when it come to fruits of the Spirit: gentle, and peaceful, and meek, and lowly. He tore up churches, kicked them over, and tore the people out, and called them snakes in the grass, and everything. See? But He was that Word. He was that Word. That's it: believe God. God is the Word. Believe It.
WHO.DO.YOU.SAY.THIS.IS?_ PHOENIX.AZ V-6 N-9 SUNDAY_ 64-1227 219 If you never received Christian baptism yet, there's a pool here. You never received the real Holy Ghost yet, that makes you know that every Word of God is the Truth; you say, "amen" to It and believe It with all your heart, then you can receive It this morning. And then you won't wonder Who this is that makes people act the way they do. You'll know what It is. If you haven't that experience, would you say, "Brother Branham, remember me in your prayer, and I'll raise up my hand"? And you say, "And I'll--I'll..." God bless you. God bless you. You, you... God bless you, that's fine. God bless you, fine.
THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 20-3 The Pentecostal church is in a Laodicean condition. Oh, they still jump and holler and carry on when the music's beating. When the music stops beating, or the beatnik music some of them play and call it a Christianity, and whenever that stops, all the glory's gone. If it's a real praise of God, there isn't enough whistles and enough the power in the world to stop it. When it really comes from God, it don't take music to be beat up; it takes the Spirit of God to come down, that does it. And they've long forgot it, because they classed the gift of the Holy Ghost, initial evidence of speaking in tongues; and I heard devils and witches speak in tongues. The Holy Ghost is the Word of God in you that identifies Itself by accepting that Word. Outside of that it can't be the Holy Ghost. If it says it's the Holy Spirit and denies one word of that Bible, it cannot be the Holy Spirit. That's the evidence whether you believe it or not. THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 20-6 Notice another great sign. the Jews are in their homeland, their own nation, their own money, a member of the United Nations; they got their own army; they got everything. They're in their homeland which Jesus said, "Learn a parable of the fig tree." There they are, right back in their nation. This day this Scripture's fulfilled. The Jews in their homeland, this day this Scripture is fulfilled. The Laodicea church age, this day this Scripture (Matthew 24) is fulfilled. The world is in corruption (the whole thing), nations against nations, earthquakes in divers places, great whirlwinds coming down, shaking the nations and so forth, great disasters everywhere: this day this Scripture is fulfilled. THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 21-2 Now, we found out the condition of the world. We see where the church nominal--normal--organization, denominations, we see where they are. We see where the nations are. And we see that this day these promises is fulfilled. Now. But in this day there is to come a super, Royal Seed of Abraham. That's exactly what it'd be, would be a Royal Bride to the Royal promised Son. As I spoke last night, it won't be a natural seed; it'll be a spiritual Seed. There's to be a spiritual Bride raise up, which will be the royal Seed of the royal faith of Abraham's Royal Son. She is to come on the scene in the last days, and the time and the place is a promise that's given to Her. According to Malachi 4 (a Scripture) there is to rise a Message that will shake the hearts of the people right back to the apostolic fathers again. There is to rise one on the scene in the power of Elijah, that'll rise on the scene; a wilderness man that'll come out and will have a Message that'll come right straight back to the Word again. That's the hour that we're living in. THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 21-4 Then consider. Now, I ask you at this hour, you people here at Jeffersonville, in 1933 the supernatural Light that fell down yonder on the river that day when I was baptizing five hundred in the Name of Jesus Christ (I was about a twenty year old boy.), what did It say, Jeffersonville? What was it at the foot of Spring Street there, when the "Courier Journal" (I think it was the "Louisville Herald") packed the article, and it went plumb across the Associated Press, plumb into Canada. Dr. Lee Vayle cut it out of the paper way up in Canada in 1933. When I was baptizing my seventeenth person under this Witness (and you know the rest of the story), and when I was standing there baptizing that seventeenth person, a Light come down from heaven, a shining down above there like a star falling from heaven. A Voice said, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Christ, your Message shall forerun His second coming into all the world." This day this Scripture is fulfilled. Thank You, Lord.
THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 22-1 This day... God promised it. What happened? This day It's went around the world. And when God came down there and said that (when I was a little boy) in a burning bush or a bush up yonder on fire with a Pillar of Fire--up here at Wathen's place on the Utica Pike, packing water back there from that barn to a moonshine still. You know the truth of it. He said, "Don't you never smoke, or drink, or defile your body, for there's a work for you to do when you get older." I testify to that being the truth that I saw it. And God, as He did with Moses, spoke out before the congregation down yonder and said, "This is the truth." This day this Scripture is fulfilled in the midst of us. Watch what He said about the discernment and how it would be, from laying hands upon them to knowing the secret of the heart. This day this Scripture is fulfilled before our very eyes. These promises that was made. THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 22-4 Notice, all these promises have been vindicated and fulfilled by the God of the promise. Look, hanging in Washington, D.C. tonight, the picture of the Angel of the Lord. As George J. Lacy, the head of the F.B.I. fingerprint and document for the United States Government, examined it from Houston, Texas, and said, "This is the only supernatural Being that was ever photographed in all the world." He ought to know; he's the best that's in the world for it. Notice, there It hangs as the Truth, the same Pillar of Fire that led Israel back yonder in the wilderness. We seeing It again today, the same kind of a message of "Come up out of Egypt...?..." This day this Scripture is fulfilled. You know the Message that He said.
THIS.DAY.THIS.SCRIPTURE_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-8 FRIDAY_ 65-0219 22-6 Look at the vision of Tucson three years ago. When standing up there on the lane, when five years before that He said, "The day that the city drives a stake down in front of that gate, turn yourself towards the west." My tabernacle folks that's here knows that that's prop--at that time. That's right. And the day that Mr. Goyne and them was up there and drove that stake down, I said to the wife, "There's something about this." She said, "What is it?" And I went in and looked in my little book; there it was. And that next morning at ten o'clock, setting in there in my room there about ten o'clock, the Angel of the Lord came down and He said, "Go to Tucson. You'll be northeast of Tucson and there'll come seven Angels in a cluster that will shake the whole earth around you." And said, "It'll be told you from there." How many remembers that here, way before it happened? There's men setting right here in this building tonight was standing right there when it happened, and said the Seven Seals of the hidden mysteries of the entire Bible would be open and fulfill Revelations 10, that in the seventh angel's Message these things should come to pass. This day this Scripture is fulfilled before our eyes. This day this Scripture is fulfilled. DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 155 You know, Thomas, one time he just couldn't believe it. No, he--he said, "Naw, I can't believe that. If I could take my hand, stick it in His side, put it in the nails of His hand, well then--then I--I--I'll believe it then." He said, "Come here, Thomas." See? "Now, put your hands in here." "Now..." Oh, Thomas said, "Now, it's my Lord and my God." Said, "Yes, you've seen, and now you believe. How much greater is their reward has never seen and yet believe." People sometimes won't receive the Holy Ghost unless they speak with tongues. I believe in speaking in tongues. Certainly. He's a good God; He'll give you the desire of your heart. But no matter how much you speak in tongues and deny this Word, you're wrong anyhow. See, see? You don't go in by speaking in tongues; you go in by keeping every Word. That's the evidence of the Holy Ghost: when you believe the Word of God. See? DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 157 I believe in speaking in tongues. I believe you can be quickened, like I said this morning, till you'll speak with a new tongue. I have myself, and I know it's the truth. I know it's true, but that's not the sign you--that you're God's selected child. See? No, indeedy. He never... Said, "Many will come to Me and say, 'Lord, haven't I prophesied and done all these great things in Your Name?'" He'll say, "Depart from Me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you." You speak with tongues and then refuse to be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ? Something wrong somewhere. Yes, indeed. Any of those things, any of those orders God give... There's something wrong. Just search your own conscience and see what--see what the Bible said. Show me some place where somebody was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost. See? It's not there. But, you see, sometimes for your conscience' sake... You say, "Well..." You say, "God speaks to the women about how they must do, not wear shorts and things, but you know, the pastor said... So they take the easy way.
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 159 They know what God said about it here. See? Sure. God said so, so they--they--they want to do it anyhow. See, they try to find an excuse. "Well, I think it's much better; it's--it's not... The wind don't blow..." But God said for a man to dress different from a woman. If a woman put on a garment pertained to a man, it was abomination in His sight. So it's not right. Yes. You shouldn't do it, no. See? So therefore, it's wrong. But you see, they try to find an excuse that "the Lord told me to do this." I don't say He didn't, but look, it ain't His perfect will. It's got to be His permissive will. You see what it'll do? It'll pollute the whole bunch. It polluted all the camp.
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 161 Notice here, God never changed His mind, His Word. But He is a good God, and He'll give you the desire of your heart though it be against His will. You believe that? Look. God told Moses, "You go down there (this anointed prophet)..." Said, "Go down there and speak to that rock. It's already been smitten." Moses went down there in his anger, picked up the rod, and said, "You rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?" and smote the rock. The water didn't come; he smote it again. It come. It was against God's will. It broke every plan in the Bible. Christ had to be smitten second time. See? Christ was smitten once. It broke the whole plan. But He give him His permissive will. Then after, he said, "See, we got the water for you. See, I brought it for you, you bunch of rebels." DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 163 God said, "Come here, Moses. Come here. Come up here on top. You're been a faithful servant. (like the woman with the high heels: "You've climbed..." See?) Look over yonder. See the promised land?" "Oh, Lord..." "But you're not going over. You took My permissive will down here at the rock. You glorified yourself (See?) and not Me. You sanctified yourself. You didn't sanctify Me. You didn't keep My original Word, what I told you to do." Yet the waters did come. You can lay hands on the sick and they recover; you can prophesy or speak with tongues, but the thing is, keep His original Word. God don't change His mind, friend. You got to keep His commission, His will. DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 164 "Oh well, that was for the disciples." He doesn't change. If He's still got a disciple, that's the same commission: "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel. These signs shall follow them that believe." It's never change; He can't change. Now, you can say, "Well, I tell you, it ain't for this day." Oh, you Balaamite. You see? See? God don't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Just look at the Balaamites today: "Oh, I know in the Bible they baptized in Jesus' Name, but look, all the people..." I don't care what the people's done. There's not another Name under heaven given among men whereby you can be saved. No remission of sin, only through the Name of Jesus Christ. What--how good you are, what you do, that don't have one thing to do with it; it's God's original Word. You got to stay with that. Whew. All right. Obedience to His Word is better than sacrifice. You remember that time when Saul came back.
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 167 Balaam had a gift of faith and could've used it to the perfect original Word of God. Many men on the field today with gifts of healing could do the same thing. Many men out here, people speaking in tongues, people prophesying, a gift--could use it for the Kingdom of God, but they don't do it; they take... And God blesses them anyhow, gets the permissive will. But for popularity, and pleasures, personal gain, sold their birthrights as Esau did (See?), sold out to a organization, sold out like Balaam did. See? And so many are doing today the same thing. We know that's right. They sell out their birthright. Women professing the Holy Ghost, wearing shorts, men permitting them in the pulpit, bobbed-haired women in the pulpit, paint on their face, with religious gowns on, it's the biggest stumbling block the church has ever had.
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 168 If you want to know in political powers what time it is in the Kingdom age, see where the Jews are. Watch how the Jews are, because they are a nation. If you want to know where the nations are standing, watch the Jews. If you want to know where the church is standing, watch the women. Watch the morals among the women, 'cause she's a representation of the church. When you see the pollution amongst the women, you find a pollution in the church. What she become a painted-up Jezebel, just exactly what the church has become. See? Now, that's the truth and you know that. See? If you want to know where the church is, watch the morals among your women, 'cause she is--the church is a woman. If you want to know of the national status, watch the Jews. DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 169 Notice, as God said to Balaam, after he had heard the true cut decision Word, "Don't go"... Yes, then He told him after He seen it in his heart, what it was to do, He give him His permissive will, so He said, "Go." And you can do the same thing. If you don't want to walk in the truth... You can go to have--have to have a great ministry. Certainly you can. But you're taking His permissive will; you're walking over His Word. He'll prosper you (certainly); the--just like He did Balaam. He was a success, but he couldn't curse that people. He couldn't do it, 'cause every time he started to curse, he blessed. See, he couldn't do it. But when he come to being prosperous in his achievement, he taught those people, through Balak, to commit adultery. He brought in the camp of Israel and married them off. He said, "Why, we're all one. Why, you worship the same God. We got a prophet up here; you got a prophet down there. And we have the same sacrifice, the same Jehovah as our fathers. Now, why not you all just come and associate with us." The Bible said, "Don't join yourself up amongst unbelievers. Don't yoke up with them at all." If they don't believe it, stay away from them. See? "Come out, be separate," saith the Lord, "and I'll receive you. (See?) Touch not their unclean things." That's right. Their filth against the Word and things like that, stay away from it; don't listen to it.
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 171 And here we find out that Balaam went down there and he begin to teach the people, and he had an error. And he--he run in the way of Balaam, how that he did, and taught Balak, and the children of Israel committed adultery, and a plague struck the nation of Israel, the people, and thousands of them died in one day. And while they were all there before the altar of God praying, here come an Israelite man with a Midianite woman, a denominational woman, and went into the tent. And the priest's son walked over there and took a javelin and killed them both. And that stayed God's wrath. You know that's the Scripture. Is that right? See?
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 172 But what happened? Balaam. He succeeded in weakening Israel. What did he do? He weakened their camp. God let him go and weaken their camp, and it polluted the whole camp. And when some doctrine starts that's not the Bible truth, it pollutes the whole camp. Somebody raise up with a different idea, like Korah, and say, "Well, this, that, and the other. And I got a different idea," it pollutes the whole camp. And that's what's done the whole church camp today. That's right. Teaching, as he did, weakening the whole camp for Kadesh Barnea, the Word showdown... When they got to Kadesh Barnea, then in the weakening of the camp, they come back, said... Went right... After... Remember, they'd eat Angels' food; they had the Word of God every night made manifest, and they eat the food. They drink from the rock. They did all--seen the miracles; they watched Moses and seen his word, seen his prophesies, everything. And then finally when they listened to this false teacher come in among them and teach wrong, he weakened the camp, and prospered by it. He might've built a million dollar buildings; he might've had great denominations; he might've added thousands times thousands, and done great works, and mighty works, and was a prophet. That's all right, but as long as it's not with the Word of God, you'd better stay away from it. God don't change His mind. Stay right with His Word, 'cause that's what's going to come out in the end: the Word, word by word. "Whosoever shall take one word away from It or add one word to It..." It's got to stay that Word.
DOES.GOD.CHANGE.HIS.MIND_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0418E 174 Now, listen closely now. When the Word test came, when they went over and seen the opposition so great--the greatest opposition they ever seen, the Amalekites was--was ten times their size--they said, "We look like grasshoppers. Their fences are--or their cities are so walled till they can run a chariot race around it, two chariots, as hard as they can go around the walls (See?) of the cities. Why, their spears are way out there, long. And they're giants. Why, we look like grasshoppers. We can't do it." And two men stood on that Word. Caleb and Joshua said, "Wait a minute. You two million people, shut up just a minute; we are more than able to do it. (See?) We are more than a match for them." What was they basing on? God said, "I've given you the land. It's yours." And there they stood. But the people had gotten married off amongst other things and all kinds of creeds and rituals among them, and they just weaky, wishy-washy, didn't know which way to turn and what to do. That's right. There come the Word test. THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 121 When you come in this world, you were borned in sin. You didn't even come with a fighting chance. You were borned in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, within your own spirit the desire of sin, a lover of sin, because you were borned in sin. You didn't have a chance. But down inside of you somewhere (Here you come.) there was something in there that begin to draw. If you knowed it was something that told you there was a God somewhere, and you read His Word, then you took the church, you took their ideas when you was told better, then you never used a thinking man's Filter. But when you use God's Filter which is a thinking man's Filter, because "all other filters will pass away, but Mine shall not."... And when you take God's Filter and draw your life, your desires... If you draw your desires through God's Filter, a thinking man's Filter, there's nothing left but the Holy Ghost. Now, if you want the evidence of the Holy Ghost, there it is. When that soul of yours will line with the Word of God in every respect, it shows you've drawed your life through the thinking man's Filter--God's Filter. THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 123 Notice. Is that God's filter? He said we was washed by the water of the Word. And when God gave Adam and Eve a Filter in the garden of Eden, He said, "Don't you draw none of this in there." But Satan punched a hole in it, said, "Oh, it's... A little bit won't hurt." Just one drop too, it's all it took to set death into the human race. That's all it takes, just one taste of nicotine, then they're gone. There's nothing left but the Holy Ghost. And then, that shows that in you was that predestinated seed down in you that makes you hunger for God. "All the Father has given Me, has given Me to redeem, they died with Me at Calvary; they raised with Me in the resurrection; all that He has given Me, will come to Me. They'll be placed in the body (whether foot, arm, nose, mouth, whatever it is). They'll be placed in there, and they will come to Me in their season."
THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 127 Oh, my. There is that real filtration. Of all the sin of the world and the love of the world is dead and this soul is drawing only one thing. Here it is, don't remember it--don't forget it. All you out there on the telephones, set this down in your mind. When a thinking man begins to think Who he's going to stand before and what the Word of God is, when he begins to think, then when he draws through that, there's nothing can get to it but the Holy Ghost. What is it? It's the germ, seed Word from the beginning, that you was in God at the beginning, standing here drawing the seed Life. The seed is in your heart by foreordination. Hallelujah. The seed is already in there by the foreknowledge of God, predestinated. And when it draws, it can't draw through nothing else but the Word. And then it's the taste of the thinking man, the righteous man, the holy man who sees the Bible, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What comes into that place down there? That Word that's in the heart "I've hid Thy Word in my heart that I sin not against Thee." What is it when it's drawing through the Word? There's only one thing will pass through the Word; that's the Holy Ghost. That's the only thing that can pass through the Word, is the Holy Ghost. And a thinking man's Filter gives a holy man a taste.
THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 128 Then he's tasted of the heavenly things. He's got the Word of God in his heart; he sees It manifested before him. And his whole soul's wrapped into It, and the world and all things is dead around him. A thinking man's Filter of religion... And I'm thinking of filtering religion now. When a thinking man's Filter gives a holy man's taste (See?), It satisfies his taste. He sees that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There it is. See Him right before us doing the same things He did; it satisfies the holy man's taste, his thinking. He knows then that he's passed from death unto Life. And he loves... And--and--and it loves for the world--to be confirmed--and wants the Word to be confirmed and vindicated. In each age he waits for It, for he is a holy man and he's got a desire to see God. Others just wants to join church. This man wants to see God. He don't see Him in a bunch of creeds. He don't see Him in big fine pipe organs, or cathedrals, and high crosses, or polished up scholars with their collars turned around. He doesn't see Him in--in a theologian; he sees Him in the confirmation of His Word. I've seen Him in the watch-fires of... My eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord; He's tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He's loosed the faithful lightning with His terrible swift sword; His Truth keeps marching on. (It will to the end. Yes, sir.)
THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 131 See what I mean? A filter man--or thinking man's Filter. A man that wants to stand in the presence of God... What was God's Filter? His Word. "The day you eat thereof, that day you die." I don't care what's happening out here; don't you pass that Word. Washed by the waters of the Word, a thinking man's Filter: not a denomination, not a creed, not a church, not a cathedral, but a thinking man's Filter. For you're going to be judged by the Word. A thinking man will think that. A foolish man or a taste of the world will just take anything, a substitute. Why substitute when there's a real one? THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 132 Think. Just think of it a minute. A woman speaking in tongues with bobbed hair and lipstick on, and then the church still holds to it that that's the evidence of the Holy Ghost. Or a preacher from a seminary or some Bible school using the trinitarian baptism or compromising with the Word to some creed or denomination, is that a thinking man's Filter? Not the way I see it, brother. It's a foolish man drawing through that. It's right. Could you imagine that? Instead of using God's Word as a Filter for his soul, letting that old creed and denomination pile in on top of him like that, instead of taking God's Word for a Filter... And then he's all contaminated and let them induce into him doctrines of men, doing things, almost deceiving the very elected and neglecting the Word when he could draw to his own soul, if there's anything in there to draw by. But if that predestinated seed (Don't miss this.)--if that predestinated seed is not in there, it will not draw through there. Because it'll draw for it's desire.
THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 134 If a smoking man wants a smoking man's taste, and if he's got ahold of a stick... I say, "Suck your finger." and he stood there sucking his finger, why, he'd say, "That's silly." Why? His taste is for nicotine. So he's not a thinking man. See? But you say, "Well, I don't--I don't taste nothing... I want to taste the world. I--I want to taste tobacco; I don't taste a thing." Give him a clothes pin and let him suck on that. See? Sure, let him suck on that. He says, "I don't taste nothing." What's you sucking on it for then? You've got a desire to taste nicotine. And when you're sucking on a church creed and still you women wear bobbed hair, painted faces, and is sexy dressed, and you men look at them and all these other things and carry on the way you do, what is it? What's in there? The world's still in there, and you got a taste; you're pulling on it for a taste.
THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 137 "I can go to this church; they don't never name that thing. They don't say nothing about this, nothing about that. None of these things are brought up. Our preacher is more wide-minded than that. We don't say things like that." What is it? You've got the taste of the world you're sucking for. That's right. But a thinking woman won't take that kind of a thing. She knows she's got to be holy. And the only thing that you can draw through God's Word is the Spirit, the Quickening Power, to make the Word Itself which is in you live to manifest Jesus Christ in the age you're living. Hallelujah. Brother, if that ain't the truth, I don't know what the truth is. I've lost my mind if that isn't the truth. It is the Word Itself in your heart, predestinated there, that's drawing. And it spits out that world; it don't want it. But when it gets over here in the Word, it begins to draw. And when it draws through the Word, it can be nothing else but the Holy Ghost to quicken that Word.
THINKING.MAN'S.FILTER_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-6 SUNDAY_ 65-0822E 140 Then a thinking, religious man's Filter is the Word, and it satisfies that holy taste that's in his heart: "A thinking man's filter, a holy man's taste." Oh, my, what we're into. Instead of using God's Filter for his soul, he's letting Satan deceive him by some denomination or creed, just exactly like the tobacco companies are deceiving you people that smoke cigarettes. You just get more members, and that's all. Oh, let me close in a few minutes saying this. 35-1 REVELATION.OF.JESUS.CHRIST - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.1 Now don't get tied down again by traditions and creeds and organizations. Don't be led astray by listening to those that deny the power of the Word and deny that Jesus saves, heals, fills with the Holy Ghost and power. You are God's free men, loosed by His own blood. If you still hold your faith to creeds and denominations, it is certain by the evidence that you have lost your faith in the Word.
128-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 They are like all the rest. The revival is over. They are trying to live a name and are dead. They took organization, all the while talking about the Spirit of God. They talk about the evidence of the Holy Spirit. But they forget that the devil can talk in tongues, too. The utter confusion of Babel is in their midst and they call it the Spirit of God. Once again we see man telling God, instead of God telling man.
128-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now you might desire to scold me right here for what I have said. All right. They call themselves Pentecostal and Full Gospel. Let them prove it. At Pentecost the fire came in a cloud and separated over each of them like a tongue, and fell on each one. Where is the fire? They spoke in tongues at Pentecost and the people who listened understood. Where is that? The whole multitude of believers acted like one family. Pentecostals are as badly divided as any group in history. No man durst join himself to the early church but only God added. They have as many goats among them as any. They claim to be full Gospel but they can't prove it. Their churches are as empty of power as any of them. If they are full Gospel then we had better admit the Bible made a mistake when it describes the full Gospel men at Pentecost. They sing, "There's been a great change in me." They are right. But the change has not been for the better. It is time to get back to God. They have a name that they live but are dead. Tongues isn't the evidence of revival. It is the evidence of death. Tongues proclaimed the evidence that the ceremonial religion of the Jews was over, that a new era had begun. Tongues today is ringing down the curtain on the Gentile church ages and the Gospel is going back to the Jews. People are talking about tongues heralding in a great Spiritual move. They have missed the boat. The truth is that it is writing the finish to all of man's ideas, programs and kingdoms, and the kingdom of God is being ushered in. Wake up people of God. Wake up.
129-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 If you don't think this is true, just listen to this. All over the world in both Pentecostal and fundamental groups they are organizing the businessmen. They have invaded the pulpit without a call from God. They have styled themselves the fishers of men and the founders of a move of God, and they say the gifted ministry of Ephesians 4:10-13 that God gave the church has failed, so they are taking over. Here we are right in the midst of the fulfillment of prophecy, called the gainsayings of Korah, and they don't even know that they have fulfilled it. They are blindly going on preaching experience for truth. May God have pity on them. May their eyes be opened before it is too late. Oh, listen to me. When did the prestige of money, social leadership, business ability, or sheer mental prowess ever qualify a man for spiritual leadership, or give any weight to the Word of God? And when in any way materiality or human values begin to show as the media by which God works instead of the Holy Spirit ALONE, then we are fighting against God, not for Him.
129-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now I want this on record right here. I am not speaking against elders in the church. No sir. And that elder can be as poor as any man was ever poor, or be the richest man in the world as long as he is an elder in heart and deed. I would not hesitate to ordain any man that has the real Spiritual qualifications as an elder or deacon regardless of his finances or social position. But when you see a social or financial structure come into the church that divides the folks in any way--that is not of God. It is another sign of the time in this physically rich, but Spiritually impoverished Laodicean Age in which we are now living.
129-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Start side 8."I know thy poverty." Did you notice that their poverty is linked up with the synagogue of Satan in that same verse? Yes, it is the rich powerful organization that has the wealth and always pushes out the little people that serve God. When the Spirit of God moves in the hearts of men, who is it that leaves the buildings and property? The little flock always loses out to the big organization. And where do the people then go? They worship in homes, old store buildings, and basements, just as they did when they went to the catacombs. These people were poor in this world's goods. Certainly. But they were rich in Spirit.
130-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 "I know their blasphemy." Now it isn't the thought here that these liars are blaspheming God, though that goes without saying. But they are blaspheming the true church. It is always thus. The Jews of Jerusalem blasphemed the church at the beginning. The Gentile polytheists did likewise. If anyone is going to be evil-spoken of, it will always be the true seed. In Nero's day the Christians were blamed for every calamity--even for the burning of Rome. In communist countries the little flock is always the first to be exterminated though actually insignificant in size. Though the Christians are fine loyal people, who do only good, they will always be persecuted to the end that they might be physically destroyed.
To further bring out what we have just said, and to also use a Scripture that should be borne in mind as we talk about who it is that is baptized with the Holy Ghost, see what Jesus says in John 6:45, "It is written in the prophets, And they shall All be taught of God." But turn to Isaiah 54:13 whence this is taken and it reads, "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord." The ALL of God are the CHILDREN of God. Thus it is that the evidence of being a true child of God, (he whom the Spirit has come upon and in-dwells) is again set forth as one taught the Word by the Holy Ghost.
140-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now you can begin to see why tongues is not the evidence of being baptized with the Holy Ghost. It doesn't say in any age that "he that hath a tongue let him say what the Spirit is saying." That puts tongues, interpretation thereof, and prophecy, etc. aside as an evidence. The evidence is HEARING what the Spirit says. The Spirit is talking. Yes, the Spirit is teaching. That is exactly what Jesus said He would do when He came. John 14:26, "He will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." And that is just what happened. That is how the Gospels were written. These men had recalled to their minds by the Holy Ghost the very Words that Jesus spake. That is why the Gospels are accurate. They are perfect. But the Spirit did not only bring all things to their minds but He taught them further on the truth they already had. That is how Paul received his revelations. He said concerning it, "But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it (of man) but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Galatians 1:11-12. He was taught by the Holy Ghost.
141-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 One day when Jesus was upon earth, a certain important man came to visit Him. This man said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher sent from God." But you will notice that Jesus cut him short. He turned to Nicodemus and the words He spoke may well be paraphrased thusly, "I am NOT a teacher. I am the Sacrificial Lamb for sin. I am making possible the New Birth by My Spirit. But there is a coming One Who is the Teacher. He is the Holy Spirit." When Jesus was upon the earth He came as the Lamb, and as the Prophet. But when He came back upon the church by His Spirit He became the Teacher.
141-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 And to every age we hear the same truth. "He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." But only a Spirit-filled man can hear the revelation for that age. None other can. No sir. They cannot because that is exactly what Paul said in I Corinthians 2:6-16.
141-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now this ought to make you rejoice. There is a most peculiar doctrine in the air that is causing much misunderstanding and hard feelings. For when the Pentecostals say you MUST speak in tongues or you haven't been baptized with the Holy Ghost, they are either denying that great men like Knox, Moody, Taylor, Goforth and others did not receive the Holy Ghost, or saying that they all secretly spoke in tongues and were not aware of what was going on. Now that is not true. No sir. That is gross error. Tongues are not the evidence of being Spirit-filled. It is simply one of the nine manifestations mentioned in I Corinthians 12. There is no Scripture that says you receive the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues or that you receive the Holy Spirit by speaking in tongues. But it does say that "After they were all filled with the Holy Ghost they spake in tongues," and later on it says that they prophesied.
142-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Today amongst many folks it is taken for granted that all who claim to receive the Holy Ghost by speaking in tongues speak in a genuine Spiritual tongue. But this is not so for many people speak in a known tongue but under the influence of a wrong spirit. Now let's say we are in a meeting and people are all speaking in tongues. How can you know which tongue is from the Spirit and which is from the devil? I have been amongst the heathen where their wizards drank blood out of a skull, spoke in tongues and interpreted and prophesied. They can even write in tongues. Now if tongues is THE evidence of receiving the Holy Ghost, then every tongue would have to be of God. But it has been admitted by tongues evidence people that there are false and true tongues for God has the genuine and Satan has the false. So my question is, "Who knows what is real? Who understood the language to know what was spoken? Who has the gift of discernment to know?" Now when we get those answers we will have something to go on, but until then, we have to wonder about the source of the tongues. You can see right now that if you back up a tongues evidence and don't know what is being said, you have to finally come to the place where all tongues have to be of God. That would lead us then to believe that the devil cannot speak in tongues. That is not so; no, not for a minute. Any true missionary on a foreign field knows only too well that devils speak in other tongues, the same as I know it by experience.
142-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Pentecostal theologians admit that they have no Scripture setting forth that people speak with tongues when baptized by the Holy Ghost. They admit that they infer it from the experiences set forth in the Book of Acts wherein three out of five times the people spoke with tongues. And they also say without any Scripture that there are two kinds of tongues. One is the tongue you speak in while receiving the Holy Ghost and it is the 'evidence', while later on if you believe, you can receive the gift of tongues whereby you may speak often. However, they say, once having spoken in tongues as the evidence of receiving, you may never speak again. Once more we are anxious to know where this is found in the Word. If it isn't there, then God hath not spoken it and woe unto him who would add to that Word. But there is something in the Word about this very subject that they ignore completely. I Corinthians 13. It mentions tongues of men and angels. These would be known and unknown tongues. Modern Pentecostals say that they can receive the Holy Ghost speaking in unknown or angelic tongues. They have the cart before the horse, for in Acts 2 the people spoke in a perfect dialect which even unbelievers heard and understood.
143-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now when God is silent we had better be silent. But where He has spoken we had better speak, too, and say what He has already said. He told us the evidence, or what would happen after being baptized with the Holy Ghost was that we would have the Teacher come and teach all truth. But that Teacher was an INSIDE teacher, not an outside teacher. If the Spirit wasn't inside, you wouldn't hear the truth and receive it by revelation if you heard it every moment of the day. That was the sign of the indwelling Spirit in the days of Paul. Those who were filled with the Holy Ghost heard the Word, received it and lived by it. Those who did not have the Spirit heard it only as carnal men, put a wrong interpretation on it and went into sin.
143-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 In every age, (and every age is the age of the Holy Ghost for the true believer)--I say, in every age the evidence was the same. Those who had the Spirit, the Teacher, heard the Word, and that Spirit in them took the Word and taught it (revealed it) to them; and they were of the group that heard the messenger and his message and took it and lived it.
143-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 I know it is a great temptation to refer back to the day of Pentecost and also to the day when the Holy Ghost fell in the house of Cornelius and then set those two identical experiences as the evidence of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. But on each occasion the tongues were understood by the listeners. This is a far cry from the modern babel of confusion of Pentecostal meetings. And if this were not enough to persuade us to leave off such reasoning, what will we do when we are confronted with the fact that people who have never spoken in tongues have some of the other eight manifestations in their lives, such as word of wisdom, the discerning of spirits, a word of knowledge, faith, healing and even miracles? And this observation is even more interesting in the light that tongues is the least of the nine gifts; so when we see people who do not, nor ever have spoken in tongues, use greater gifts than those who do speak in tongues, we must discount such a doctrine even more completely than before.
144-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 So you can see now, that we cannot afford to say what the Bible has not said. When Scripture teaches us that the work of the Holy Spirit, and the manifestation of that Blessed Person is to bring the truth of each age to the true seed of that age, then we know that the Spirit has to be abiding in the person or he cannot receive the truth for that time. Amen. That is exactly correct. And if these ages bring out anything, they surely bring and bear out this truth.
144-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now before we leave this subject I want to make myself very clear on what the Baptism with the Holy Ghost is according to the Word. It is not according to me, and it is not according to you. It has to be according to "Thus saith the Lord," or we are falsely led. Amen.
144-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 To begin with you will notice that in my meetings when I have finished preaching an evangelistic service, or some teaching message, I cast the net and invite a response from the people. I ask them to come forward and receive the Holy Spirit. My Pentecostal friends, upon hearing me say this believe that I am inviting people to come forward to be baptized with the Holy Ghost because they are already born again. So when I invite those who are Spirit-filled to come and deal with those who have answered the invitation to receive the Spirit, these dear ones surge forward and deal with the people in such manner as to encourage them to yield to God and believe to speak in tongues. This has caused a great deal of confusion and I want to tell you exactly what I mean. I mean for the sinner to come forward and be born again, which is to be baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Ghost which is exactly what took place at Pentecost when the church was launched. In other words, to be born of the Spirit is to be truly baptized with the Holy Ghost. It is one and the same.
144-4 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now I realize that it is going to be confusing for a moment here, as most people know that I was ordained a Baptist preacher and I have steadfastly declared that the Baptists have missed it for saying you receive the Holy Ghost WHEN you believe, for that is not so. You receive Him "SINCE you believed." Acts 19:2-6. "He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him Which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came upon them: and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." There it is. Paul asked, "Have you received SINCE, NOT WHEN you believed." And there is a great difference there, for it is AFTER we believe that we receive. Ephesians 1:13 is an exact word repeat of what happened in Ephesus according to Acts 19, "In Whom ye also trusted, AFTER that ye heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in Whom also AFTER that ye believed (not when ye believed), ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Now here is my point. Too many of our modernists and even our fundamentalists (so-called) believe unto salvation at a certain specific time which in many cases is called "making a decision," and that has been called receiving Christ or being born again. Now to receive Christ is to receive His Spirit. To receive His Spirit is to be born again. To receive His Spirit is to be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Amen. These folks believe. That is wonderful. But they stop there. You receive the Holy Ghost AFTER you believe. It has always been that way and always will be. The very first word of direction to the people was by Peter at Pentecost and he said, "Repent and be baptized everyone of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."
145-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 These directions came as a direct answer from Peter relative to what had actually happened at Pentecost. What came to pass was that God according to Joel was pouring out the promised Holy Spirit upon all flesh. He was not poured out before that time or given before that time. This was it. But THIS was to come from now on by repenting, being baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then God was duty bound to fill the ones who came. Peter, or any of the apostles never said, "Ye must be born again, and then filled with the Spirit."
146-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 That this is the pattern of experience relative to receiving the Holy Spirit, note carefully the very next time that the Spirit fell upon a people. Acts 8:5-17, "Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain man, called Simon, which before-time in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that himself was some great one: To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the Name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also; and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done. Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. According to verse 12, THEY BELIEVED THE WORD. They were then baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus. But according to verse 16, in spite of all that, they had STILL NOT RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT. It was only AFTER believing and being baptized correctly that they received the Holy Ghost. That is the exact pattern as set forth by Peter in Acts 2:38-39.
146-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Start side 9.Another Scripture that casts wondrous light on this is found in Galatians 3:13-14, "Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that (in order that) we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Now by no means can it be said that the "blessing of Abraham" is the rebirth, and that the "promise of the Spirit" is the Baptism with the Holy Ghost as two separate events. For the Scripture reads thus: "Jesus died on the cross, and by means of that death and resurrection, the blessing of Abraham came on the Gentiles, leaving the Jews. This transpired in order that the Spirit might become available to the Gentiles."
147-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 To understand what I have just said is to clear up why students have never ever found Paul saying at any time, "Be born again and THEN be Spirit-filled." They have inferred it is there, and they have put their own meanings to make it say it, BUT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY THAT. Jesus never said it either. Look at John 7:37-39, and read it now with understanding. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the SPIRIT, Which they that believe on Him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given: because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" Now it says here distinctly and emphatically that the believer upon drinking by coming unto Jesus in faith would have rivers of living waters pouring out of him. And it places this experience at Pentecost. Now keeping this thought in mind we read John 4: 10 & 14, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." This same living water is mentioned, but this time it is not called a river; it is called an artesian well. There is where the people make their mistake. Because it is called a well and a river, they think that in one place it is eternal life given by the Spirit and in the next place where it is called a river (implying a great dynamism) it has to be the Spirit now given as an enduement of power. Not so. It is one and the same. It is the Spirit that gives life and power, and that came at Pentecost.
147-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 What is it that caused this misunderstanding? The answer is, "EXPERIENCE". We have gone by experience and not the Word. Away with experience as your measuring line. There is only one plumb line, only one rod, and that is the WORD. Now watch carefully and get this. Peter said, "Repent and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Paul said, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost SINCE ye believed?" This is the whole of our problem right here. People repent of their sins, they get baptized in water, BUT THEY DON'T GO ON AND RECEIVE THE HOLY GHOST. YOU BELIEVE UNTO RECEIVING THE SPIRIT. Believing on Jesus is the step in the right direction which is toward the Holy Ghost. But the people stop there. They go as far as water and then stop. They believe, and then stop. The Bible does not say that you receive WHEN you believe. It is, "Have you received the Holy Ghost SINCE you believed?" The exact and literal translation is: "Did ye, having previously believed, receive the Holy Ghost?" The people believe and then stop. You don't receive the Holy Ghost when you believe UNTO Him, having repented. You go on and receive the Holy Ghost. Do you see it? That is what is wrong with our fundamentalists. They have no power for they stop short of Pentecost.
148-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 They are like the children of Israel who came out of Egypt and stopped short of the Promised Land. Now those children of Israel left Egypt about two million strong. They all journeyed together, all saw the same miracles of God, all partook of the same manna and water from the smitten rock, all followed the same cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night but ONLY TWO reached the Promised Land. ONLY TWO WERE TRUE OR REAL BELIEVERS. That is correct because the Word tells us that the rest died because of unbelief; and because of unbelief they could not enter in (Hebrews 3:19). Then since that is so, and only TWO ENTERED, then the rest were not true believers. What made the difference? Two stayed with the Word. When the hearts of the ten spies failed at Kadesh Barnea, Joshua and Caleb did not stagger for they believed the Word and said, "We are more than able to take the land." They knew they could because God had said, "I have given you the land." After all those Israelites saw of the power and goodness and deliverance of God they did not enter into rest, which is a type of the Holy Ghost. So you can see right now that very few will ever believe all the way to receiving the Spirit of God.
148-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 All right, we have come this far. Now I want to go further, and when I do I know I am going to cause some emotions to rise. But that is something I am not responsible for. I am responsible to God and His Word and the people God has sent me to. I have to be faithful in all He gives me to say.
149-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 In John 6:37 & 44 it says, "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to me; and him that cometh to Me I shall in no wise cast out. No man can come to Me except the Father draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 1:12-13, "But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD." Ephesians 1:4-5, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him. In love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." Now without getting too involved in the subject of the sovereignty of God (for that would take a book in itself) let me point out here that according to these verses, Jesus Christ is choosing His own bride just the same as men choose their brides today. The bride today does not simply decide she is going to take a certain man for a husband. No sir. It is the groom who decides and chooses a certain woman for his bride. (John 15:16, "Ye have not chosen Me; but I have chosen you.") Now according to the Word of God, the bride was chosen before the foundation of the world. This choosing of the bride was purposed in Himself. Ephesians 1:9. And in Romans 9:11 it says "That the purpose of God according to election might stand." You can't read it any other way. The heart purpose, the eternal purpose of God was to take a bride of His OWN choosing, and that purpose was in Himself, and being eternal was decreed before the foundation of the world.
149-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Watch carefully now and see this. Before there was ever a speck of star dust; before God was God (God is an object of adoration and no one was there to worship Him, so He was at that time only potentially God.) and He was known only as eternal Spirit, the bride was already in His mind. Yes, she was. She was existing in His thoughts. And what about those thoughts of God? They are eternal, are they not?
149-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 The eternal thoughts of God! Let me ask you, "Are the thoughts of God eternal?" If you can see this, you will see many things. God is unchangeable in both essence and behavior. We have studied that and proven that already. God is infinite in His abilities so therefore He as God must be omniscient. If He is omniscient, then He is not now learning, nor is He taking counsel even with Himself, nor is He at any time adding to His knowledge. If He can add to His knowledge, then He is not omniscient. The best we could say is that sometime He will be. But that is not Scriptural. He IS omniscient. He has never had a new thought about anything because all His thoughts He has always had and always will have, and knows the end from the beginning because He is God. THUS THE THOUGHTS OF GOD ARE ETERNAL. THEY ARE REAL. They are not simply like a man with a blueprint he has drawn up and which one day will be translated into substance and form, but they are already real and eternal, and part of God.
150-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 See how this works. God always had His thoughts for Adam. Adam, as His thoughts, was yet unexpressed. Psalms 139:15-16 will give you a little idea of this, "My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book were all my members written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." That, as I said, was not written about Adam but it gives you the idea and knowledge that the thought was there in His mind, and that thought was eternal and had to be expressed. So when Adam was formed of the dust of the earth and his spiritual being created by God, then Adam became God's thought expressed, and those eternal thoughts were now manifested.
150-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Down through the centuries we could go. We find a Moses, a Jeremiah, a John the Baptist, and each one of these were God's eternal thought expressed in its season. Then we come to Jesus the LOGOS. He was the perfect and complete THOUGHT expressed and He became known as the Word. That is what He IS, and forever WILL BE.
150-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now it says that "He hath chosen us IN HIM (Jesus) before the foundation of the world." That means that we were right there WITH Him in the mind and thoughts of God before the foundation of the world. That gives an ETERNAL quality to the elect. You can't get away from that.
150-4 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Let me inject a thought in here. Even our natural birth is based upon election. The female ovaries produce many, many eggs. But why is it that at a certain time a certain egg comes down and not another one? And then amongst the male sperm, for no known reason a certain germ attaches itself to the egg while others that could have just as easily attached themselves, or had a better opportunity to do so did not do so and perished. There is an intelligence behind all this, otherwise what determines whether the baby is a boy or girl, blond or brunette, light or dark type of eyes, etc. With these thoughts in mind think about Joshua and Caleb. Did not Jesus say in John 6:49 "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead?" Those parents that died were necessary as the forefathers of the people to whom Jesus was speaking. They perished, yet they were in the election of God naturally as Joshua and Caleb were Spiritually.
151-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 But to go on. These elect were not only the eternal thoughts of God which were to be expressed in flesh in their due season, but these same elect are called by another name. Romans 4:16. "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." Romans 9:7-13, "Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebekah had also conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him That calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Galatians 3:16, "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." Galatians 3:29, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." According to Romans 4:16 we find that God has given a Sure Promise to ALL of Abraham's seed, and Paul puts himself and all believers under that designation because he says "Abraham who is the father of us ALL." Then he goes on to not only narrow down his definition, but rather to finalize it for in Galatians 3 he identified the SEED (singular) with Jesus, and counted "the seed children" as children of promise, and promise as having to do with "election", or "the choosing of God". And that is exactly what we have been saying. These who are of the Royal Seed are the elect of God; are the predestinated, fore-known of God, and were in the mind of God and His thoughts. In very plain language the True Bride of Christ was in the mind of God eternally, though not expressed until each came forth in the designated, decreed season. As each member came forth it became EXPRESSED and took its place in the body. Thus this bride is the literal SPOKEN WORD SEED BRIDE. And though she is feminine in designation she is also called the "body of Christ". It is very apparent that she ought to be called that for she was predestinated in Him, came from the same source, was eternal with Him, and is now manifesting God in a many membered body whereas once God was manifested in ONE MEMBER, even our Lord Jesus Christ.
152-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now then, here we are coming to a conclusion. As the eternal Logos (God) was manifest in the Son, and in Jesus dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and that Eternal One was the Father manifest in flesh, and thereby gained the title of Son, even so we, eternal in His thoughts in our turn became the many membered Spoken Word Seed, manifest in flesh, and those eternal thoughts now manifest in flesh are the sons of God, even as we are so called. WE DID NOT BECOME SEED BY THE REBIRTH, WE WERE SEED AND THEREFORE WERE REBORN FOR ONLY THE ELECT CAN BE REBORN. Because we WERE SEED is the reason we could be quickened. In NON-SEED there is nothing to quicken.
152-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Hold this carefully in mind. Now take the next step. Redeem means to buy back. It restores to the original owner. God, by His death, the shed blood BOUGHT BACK HIS OWN. He bought back the Spoken Word Seed Bride. "My sheep hear My voice (Word) and they follow Me." You always were a sheep. You never were a pig or a dog turned into a sheep. That is impossible for every kind of life produces the same kind and there is no change in specie. As we were in the thoughts of God and then expressed in flesh, there had to come a day when we would hear His voice (the Word), and hearing that voice become aware of our Father calling us, and recognize that we are the sons of God. We heard His voice and we cried out as did the prodigal son, "Save me, Oh, my Father. I am returning to Thee."
152-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 A son of God can go a long time before he recognizes that he is a son. In fact a lot of true Christians are like the story of the baby eagle that was hatched out under a hen. You know that the eagle is a type of the true believer. Well, a farmer took an egg from an eagle's nest and he placed it under a hen. In due time all the eggs under the hen hatched out. The baby chicks got along fine with the mother hen but that little eagle could not figure out the clucking and scratching for food in the manure pile. He managed to make a living but he was pretty confused about it all. But one day, from way up in the air the mother eagle that had laid the egg spied that little eagle on the ground. She swooped down with tremendous speed and screamed at the top of her voice for him to fly up to meet her. He had never heard an eagle cry, but when he heard that first scream something in him stirred and he longed to launch out toward it. But he was afraid to try. Again that mother screamed for him to arise in the wind and follow her. He screamed back that he was afraid. Once more she called out, screaming that he try. Beating his wings he hurled himself into the air, and answering the cry of his mother, he soared off into the blue skies. You see he always was an eagle. He acted like a chicken for a little while but he could not be satisfied. But when he heard the call of the great eagle he came to his own place. And once a true son of God hears the cry of the Spirit by the Word, he too, will realize who he is and run to the Great Prophet Eagle and be with Him forever seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
153-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 NOW COMES OUR TRIUMPHAL CAPSTONE on the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. Galatians 4:4-7, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." There it is. Jesus Christ came forth, died upon the cross, and accomplished Redemption (restoring to original owner by means of purchase, or paying the price) and thereby PLACED US AS SONS. He did not make us sons, for we were already His sons, but He placed us as sons; for as long as we were in the world, in the flesh, we could not be recognized as His sons. We were held captive by the devil. But we were sons, nonetheless. And hear this: AND BECAUSE YE ARE SONS, GOD HATH SENT FORTH THE SPIRIT OF HIS SON INTO YOUR HEARTS WHEREBY YOU CRY, FATHER, FATHER." Upon whom did the Spirit fall at Pentecost? Sons. At Corinth? Upon Sons while they HEARD THE WORD.
154-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 What is the Baptism with the Holy Ghost? It is the Spirit Baptizing you into the body of Christ. It is the new birth. It is the Spirit of God coming in and filling you after you have repented, (having heard His Word) and been baptized in water as an answer of a good conscience toward God. 154-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 What we have just set forth would be much easier for all to understand if all believed the doctrine of the oneness of the Godhead. For there are not three persons in that Godhead but ONE. Thus we are NOT born again by the Spirit of Life of Jesus coming in, and then subsequent to that the Holy Spirit coming in to give us power. If that were true, why are we dishonoring the Father by not giving Him a part in our complete salvation, for if salvation is of the Lord and there are three Lords, then HE (Father) must have something to do, too. But surely it can be seen that Jesus made this very clear that it was He and He alone Who is God and it is He and He alone Who is coming into the believer. John 14:16 says that the Father will send another Comforter. But verse 17 says that He (Jesus) dwelleth with them and should be IN them later. In verse 18 He says He will come to them. In verse 23 in speaking to the disciples He said, "We (Father and Son) will come unto him." Thus it is the Father, Son and Holy Ghost all coming in at the one time for IT IS ONE PERSON comprising the Godhead. That advent took place at Pentecost. There aren't two comings of the Spirit, just one. The trouble is that people don't know the real truth, and they simply believe in Jesus for remission of sin but never go on to receive the Spirit.
154-3 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 What is that Mormon doctrine of the pre-existence of souls? Voice Of God Recordings Inc. has obtained permission from Bookcraft Inc. (the largest Mormon electronic publisher), to include excerpts from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism on this topic. This can be found in the Library of Books infobase. Search for "Mormon" in the BOOKS infobase. Before I close this subject, I know there is a question in your minds. You will want to know if I believe in the doctrine of pre-existence. I don't believe in that What is that Mormon doctrine of the pre-existence of souls? Voice Of God Recordings Inc. has obtained permission from Bookcraft Inc. (the largest Mormon electronic publisher), to include excerpts from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism on this topic. This can be found in the Library of Books infobase. Search for "Mormon" in the BOOKS infobase. Mormon doctrine of the pre-existence of souls any more than I believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls. Be careful here and see this. It is not the person that comes predestinated eternally from God, IT IS THE WORD, OR SEED. That is it. Way back there, too far back for the human mind to grasp, the Eternal God with eternal thoughts, thought and decreed, "JACOB HAVE I LOVED, BUT ESAU HAVE I HATED, (Romans 9:13) AND NEITHER WAS BORN, AND NEITHER HAD DONE GOOD OR EVIL." See, it was the THOUGHT, and then that thought became expressed, and God bought back Jacob, because Jacob alone was SEED. Jacob, alone had the seed; that is why he had respect to the birthright and covenant of God. If you are true seed, you will hear that Word; the Spirit will baptize you into the body of Christ, filling you and empowering you, and you will receive the Word for your day and age. See how clear the true evidence becomes when the Word is revealed to you? Again, note, Jesus was the Royal Seed. He lived in a human body. When the Spirit called to Him (the Word-Manifested Thought), He went to Jordan and was there baptized in water. Upon obeying the Word, the Holy Spirit came upon Him and the voice said, "This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him." The voice did not say, "This has become My Son," Jesus WAS the Son. The Holy Ghost positioned Him as that Son before them all. Then having been filled thus (and the same pattern holds at Pentecost and ever after), He went in demonstrated power, receiving the full revelation of God and from God, for that day.
155-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now we have been constantly saying that the true evidence of being baptized with the Holy Ghost is for the believer to receive the Word for the age in which he lives. Let me show you most clearly. 155-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 The Seven Ages as set forth in Revelation Chapters 2 & 3 take in the whole span of the Fullness of the Gentiles, or the whole time in which God is dealing with the Gentiles unto salvation. In every single age, bar none, it says the very same thing in opening and closing the message to each age. "Unto the messenger of (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea) write; These things saith He, etc., etc. "... He that hath an ear, let him (singular) hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." Notice here that Jesus (by the Spirit) in EVERY age addresses Himself to ONLY ONE person relative to the Word for that age. Only ONE messenger for each age receives what the Spirit has to say to that age, and that ONE MESSENGER is the messenger to the true church. He speaks for God by revelation to the "churches", both true and false. The message is then broadcast to all. But though it is broadcast for all who come within range of the message, that message is received individually by only a certain qualified group in a certain way. Each individual of that group is one who has the ability to hear what the Spirit is saying by way of the messenger. Those who hear are not getting their own private revelation, nor is a group getting their collective revelation, BUT EACH PERSON IS HEARING AND RECEIVING WHAT THE MESSENGER HAS ALREADY RECEIVED FROM GOD.
156-1 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4 Now think it not strange that this is the case, for Paul set this pattern under the hand of God. Paul alone had the full revelation for his day as evidenced by his confrontation of the other apostles who admitted that Paul was the Prophet-Messenger to the Gentiles for that day. And also note by actual illustration in the Word, that when Paul desired to go to Asia, God forbade him, for the sheep (His children) were in Macedonia and they (the Macedonians) would hear what the Spirit had to say through Paul, while the people in Asia would not.
164-3 PERGAMEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.5 Remember now, John the Baptist was both the prophet and the messenger of his day. He was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. When he was baptizing in Jordan the Word of God (Jesus) came to him. The Word always comes to the truly Spirit-filled. That is the evidence of being filled with the Holy Ghost. That is what Jesus said would be the evidence. He said, "And I will pray the Father and He will send you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive." Now we know what Truth is. "Thy Word is Truth." John 17:17b. Again in John 8:43, "Why do ye not understand My speech? even because ye cannot hear My Word." Did you notice that Jesus said that the world could not receive the Holy Ghost? Well, in this verse I just read, neither could they receive the Word. Why? Because the Spirit and the Word are one, and if you have the Holy Spirit as the prophets, the Word would come to you. You would receive it. In John 14:26, "But the Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall TEACH you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Here again we find the Word coming because of the Spirit of God. Again in John 16:13 "Howbeit when He the Spirit of Truth (Word) is come, He will guide you into all truth, (Thy Word is truth), and He shall not speak of Himself: but whatsoever He shall hear (Word of God), that shall He speak (Word): and He will show you things to come." (Spirit bringing the Word of Prophecy). I want you to note very carefully that Jesus did not say that the evidence of being baptized with the Holy Ghost was speaking in tongues, interpreting, prophesying, or shouting and dancing. He said the evidence would be that you would be in the TRUTH; you would be in the Word of God for your age. Evidence has to do with receiving that Word.