Godhead #14 Heavenly Father, we are grateful of Your Presence, and we pray that we may be truly respectful of You, Lord, giving our love and our admiration for Your Godhood ability amongst us, redeeming us, and now, preparing the people to go away into the Millennium. We realize, Father, that that could be far more accomplished than what we realize, because we still look too much at ourselves in the flesh and world conditions, rather than at the Word, which You have set before us and given us with such clarity that we know the very hour, yes, the very minutes, in which we live. And, Lord, we know that destruction comes upon the earth, but there is salvation for us. And, may we rejoice in that daily as we see these things approach, gather ourselves together more and more, and speak Your Word daily, with understanding and great appreciation, for we know You hear us. You hear us in our speech far more than you even hear our prayers, because many times we know, our prayers are simply hopes—something we’re wanting, but Your Word endures forever, because You are Your Word. And we thank You for that, the Solid Rock upon which we are built. Bless us this morning, we pray; and we give You the glory in Jesus’ Name. Amen. You may be seated. 1. Now last night we went into the sovereignty of God; and, if we can’t understand sovereignty, we can’t understand the Bible. And, if you don’t understand serpent seed, you can’t figure out why God in His sovereign ability, elected or chose one, and then did not want the other, even as we saw and read in the case of Jacob and Esau. 2. Now, looking at the fact of God’s sovereignty, we have to realize that God is not sovereign as people are sovereign. We talk of a sovereign state; we talk of a sovereign ruler. The closest that a person could come to the understanding of sovereignty is a dictator. And a dictator assumes absolute power. But a dictator, of course, in assuming absolute power, is not able to do what is right. He can’t even do always what is wrong; he is limited. And the reason he is limited is because he has his boundaries, and he can only go so far. There are certain things that bind him. Those things are natural. They’re those things where people would rise up against him, and even the Word speaks of God restraining the wrath of man. 3. When you talk about sovereignty, you’re talking about benevolent dictatorship, but you’re also talking about one who is not bound by anything external. And that’s why we talk about the essentiality of God. The essential is what lies within, and is not bound by anything on the exterior. And that’s what you call also an intrinsic quality. They’re the same words, really. They just throw a little better light upon the subject so that you can get a more definitive answer or description of what you are talking about. For instance, ‘intrinsic’, comes from the word meaning ‘to be in’. And ‘essential’ is the same idea. But ‘intrinsic’ means ‘that which is with inside’, and what is inside is actually the real nature—the actual real nature. Then, when you look at the word ‘essential’, it’s what constitutes the intrinsic. So, ‘essential’ brings it all together, what is already there. For, if we talk about God... I do anyway, and I don’t know any theologian who has ever done it—Bro. Branham’s never done it. I haven’t read anything by anyone else—but I’m not saying I’m smart. I’m just saying this is my own way of saying things. And, when I say ‘them’, I mean certain things. Like I know some didn’t grasp Godhood; because, if you simply just don’t understand it, then you’re not getting an idea, an understanding, of how I understand. 4. So, when I say the ‘essentiality’ and ‘intrinsicality’ of God, I’m narrowing it down to what God is within Himself, and what He has always been, and cannot change. So therefore, we find that, if God always has been, always will be, and cannot change, then He is bound also. So that when people say, “God can do anything but lie,” you know that isn’t right. That isn’t right. For instance, let’s look at eternal Life: God cannot create eternal Life; because, if God created eternal Life, then who created Him? See? Eternal Life is without a beginning. It wasn’t created. It didn’t have a start. And It doesn’t have a stop. Now that boggles the mind, but that is the intrinsicality and the essentiality of Almighty God. He has boundaries, of course—not like ours. That’s why Paul said, “If there were a law that could give eternal Life, then there would have been a law.” But there isn’t any law that can give eternal Life, because that means God would create eternal Life. He can’t do it. See? God is eternal Life, and God cannot be created, because God already is. So, to understand what I’m saying here and get this down really pat, we’re going to go to 1 Tim 1:17. (17) Unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. (Now It tells you right there that God is eternal, so therefore, He is eternal Life.) 5. Now, let’s look at what Jesus said. So, we go to Jn 10:27-28, which delineates mostly what we want to look at; and It says: (27) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (28) And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (29) My Father, which gave them is greater than all (and so on). In Jn 14:6 he says: (6) I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. And then, in Jn 10:11, starting: (11) I am the good shepherd: and the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. (12) But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flees: and the sheep get scattered (and the wolf catches them). (13) The hireling flees, because he is an hireling, and cares not for the sheep. (14) I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. (15) As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father: I lay down my life for the sheep. (Now, notice that.) (16) Other sheep I have (and so on. And then, It says here—verse 17:) (17) Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. Now, you see, God has to give eternal Life; He can’t create It, because It’s already created in the sense that It’s already there. And you’ll notice each time it is a giving. That’s why there’s no law, there is absolutely no way anybody can have eternal Life, unless he’s got a part of God. “I ‘give’ eternal Life. I don’t create it. I don’t ordain it. I give it. It’s part of me.” 6. So therefore, God is going to give eternal Life. He has to give a part of Himself. And this is where you have Seed, and you have the beginning where Bro. Branham categorically states how God giving birth to Himself as God, and giving birth to His Son, the Light formed; God had to form a part of Himself, and that became the Only-begotten Son. And the word ‘only-begotten’ means ‘uniquely-begotten’. And no other person was begotten that way. Then, notice: when God created the spirit form of Adam and Eve, and they were male and female; and then, He molded and formed a body. But, when He breathed into that body the Breath of life, Bro. Branham said, “That was not artificial respiration, as ordinary breath.” See? That’s where Mr. Clinton is all wrong and a wrong leader for this nation. His belief in God is nothing but sheer hypocrisy. Now it might not be hypocrisy to him, but it’s sure not going to go down with God and those that know the Truth. So, his tutor taught him wrong. 7. When God breathed into Adam the breath of lives, Adam became a living soul, which positively meant the Life of God, the Holy Spirit, went into a human form and that was the Breath of lives. And thereby, He said to Adam and Eve, “You must now populate the earth.” And God passed on to him and her the responsibility of bringing forth every single child of God, which would be without sin. See? Now it was given; God had to breathe it in there. There’s no way that you can have eternal Life, except inherit it. It is given to you, and whereby, God is giving a part of Himself. And, since salvation is of the Lord, we start, as Bro. Branham said, “With this Life of God, a part of God, the real you, the real me, is from God, a part of God.” 8. Now then, that‘s an actual part of God, breathed in the body, not the spirit allowed of God, but the Life and very Spirit of God, for he said, “You’ll come to a place and a time when you understand you always were saved.” And that’s true, because a part of God, the Seed of God, cannot sin. And sin is unbelief. Never mind the action. Like I said last night: I’m not here for morals. I’m here for what gives you the right thing, which gives the right morals and get us from the things that keeps us from the wrong morals. So, if I start preaching on morals, what good does it do? You’ve got to have eternal Life! So, what does God do? He sends the Holy Spirit to seal in the body unto Himself to the day of redemption. And Bro. Branham categorically said, and we have to believe it, “When you’re baptized with the Holy Ghost, you have that which is now commensurate to a body that doesn’t sin.” You say, “What about the fact of sex?” There is positively nothing wrong with sex. It is a righteous act done in a righteous manner, because it’s necessary for propagation. See? That’s why they’ve got to the place where they want to sow without reaping. And so, let’s all sow without reaping, and we’ll have an abortion. You’re killing somebody! See that pure and simple; that’s all there is to it. 9. So, don’t try to pervert the Word of God. God Himself is bound by Himself. You are bound by yourself. Never blame anybody. If your father’s a drunken bum and your mother’s nothing but a prostitute, you have to face God on your own two feet when you stand before God and answer for what you’ve done or haven’t done. Never mind mammy and pappy! And get that stupid complex out of your system! And, get it out now. You say, “Sure, it bugs me!” Yes, and you do things that are wrong because of that; but your parents aren’t doing it. You’re doing it! You say, “Bro. Vayle, how can you say that?” Because “Visiting the sins upon the children the third and fourth generation.” [Ex 34:7] And the Bible distinctly said, “We are not judged for Adam’s sins. We’ve done our own.” 10. So, let’s get wise and understand the sovereignty of God. God cannot do other than He is doing, because He is bound by His Own essentiality and intrinsicality. You try to change anything, and you’ve got a changed, unlawful idol. You don’t have God. You are not worshipping in Spirit and in Truth, because the Truth is not in you, because God is not in you. You have to worship in Spirit and in Truth, the Truth Himself. We are Truth worshippers, as well as worshipping in Spirit and in Truth, because our God alone is true. As the Word of God distinctly says, and Bro. Branham said it so many times: “Let every man’s word be a lie, but let God’s be true.” See? We understand, then, when we’re dealing with sovereignty, we are dealing with the inescapable fact that God is absolutely sovereign according to what lies within Him, and He will employ it and manifest Himself one hundred percent according to what He is in His Godhood. Now you understand that? ‘Godhood’? What does that mean? ‘The state or quality of being God.’ So then, when you worship God, you worship God according to Godhood, providing you have taken the time to listen to the prophet, who is the Voice of God, who was God to us, and he has defined it. And you’ll find that in about every single thing I’m saying, you’ll find that Bro. Branham said it in some way. And I don’t believe for one minute I’m wrong in what I’m saying this morning. You try to find one where you can get eternal Life, except It be given to you, and that’s a part of God Himself. 11. So then, that soul within you never did sin. It always was saved. What went astray? Your body went astray. That’s why the Holy Ghost comes in and seals you to the day of redemption, that you can get your body back. And you’ll get it back perfectly glorified like unto the body of the Son of God, who was that great Prophet, the great Redeemer. You’ll have that, guaranteed. So, when the Holy Ghost comes in, as I said, and seals you back, you will find then: salvation is of the Lord. Right? So therefore, then you have your soul perfect of God. You have a body which was made by substances created by God. The Holy Ghost comes into that body of substances created by God, puts His seal upon it, guaranteeing immortality to that... It’s all of God. Now, you tell me something’s of you. “Well,” you say, “Bro. Vayle, I had to repent.” Well, so what? “Then, I had to get baptized in water.” So what? Wouldn’t you repent when you found yourself a sinner in the sight of God? “Well now, that’s me!” No, it ain’t you! Because the Bible says God grants repentance. Except for God, you wouldn’t repent. Except for God giving somebody a revelation and strength, you wouldn’t even be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You’d have to baptize yourself, and that wouldn’t work. You show me where salvation is not of God. 12. So therefore, you understand that eternal Life is God Himself. And it has to be given to us, just the same as your birth. Something had to be there, or you and I would not be here. So, eternal Life, then, is inherited. And inheritance comes from somebody who either earned it or had it. And in this case, God didn’t have to earn anything. He had it. Then, when it came to Jesus, he didn’t have to earn anything in that particular instance; but, if he wanted to earn something in the category of inheritance, which was in creation, then he had to stand the test. And God does not need to stand the test, because God is perfect. And woe unto him that puts God to the test. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” [Mt 4:7] I might have told you years ago about a certain guy; his name was Leonard Thursk. He’s a Pentecostal boy. Really a nice guy, but kind of shiftless in many ways. He got delivered of smoking. Well, he knew God was so powerful: he spoke in tongues, and hallelujah, he could have picked up that piano in one hand and swung on the chandeliers. Yep, he could have done that. So, he said, “You know, God can keep me from smoking a cigarette.” He put it in his mouth, took a puff—he never quit smoking. Go ahead, tempt God. Be my guest. If you die, I preach good funeral sermons; I’ll bury you. I’m kind of kidding, but I’m very serious at the same time, because each one of us had within us the propensity of Eve to tempt God. And Adam, like a nut, had to fall into it. 13. So, here we find sovereignty. And you find in sovereignty, also, the gracious goodness of Almighty God as revealed within Himself, as we took up last night. He’s Provider, Healer, Banner, Peace, Shepherd, Righteousness, Presence, All Sufficient, and Sanctifier. In other words He’s everything. The people sing this song, “If He’s not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all,” and they put it down to a human level. Bring it up to the higher level. Try to take one of these things out of God, and see what happens. Try to add one thing to Him, and see what happens. God Himself can’t do it. He’s a finished product: He always was. The only way He can become (as Bro. Branham told us) is the constant revelation of Himself concerning the ages, until finally we see Him in the Pillar of Fire above the throne and the glory attendant, because He did it all. We sing, “All to Him I Owe.” We’re going to find out in that day exactly how much we do owe, in the sense of God doing it all, and His glory and majesty. 14. So, we have to learn like Job. How many has ever come to that place? I don’t suppose all of us put together, haven’t come to one-tenth of Job’s first little fingernail he bit off. He came to the place: “God is in the driver’s seat. And whatever happens, I know there’s nothing can happen to me.” Paul came to that place. Let’s read It over here in the Book of Romans and just begin to understand that the Book of Romans is the same as the Psalm 91. The people always want to say, “Yeah, ten thousand fall at thy right hand, and it will not come nigh thee,” and they want the idea, “Oh, yes, this won’t happen to me, and that won’t happen to me, and that won’t happen to me, and the other thing won’t happen to me.” But I’ll tell you what: these things all happen to us by the Will of God, the God in us willing and doing of His Own good pleasure. He’ll get glory in the vessel. And that’s exactly why Jesus went through it. And Paul, going through it, says in Rom 8:35: (35) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, or persecution, or famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? (It doesn’t say these things won’t come; It says they will come! In the sovereignty of God, you can rest in It.) (36) As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (37) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. (God in us, willing and doing of His Own good pleasure. And God in us willing and doing of sustaining and staying with the Word to glorify Him is what This is talking about.) (38) For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, (39) Nor height, nor depth, nor any creation whatsoever, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (In other words the love of God which was manifested and proven to be true, and absolutely efficacious to bring us to the presence of God sinless and without blame, completely glorified. That’s what He’s talking about.) 15. And he says over here in Corinthians also. He said, “We endure these problems and these things that beset us, knowing that the invisible, the things we don’t see, are getting clearer and clearer.” And one day it’s all going to burst forth to the glory of Almighty God, and to our glory also, because it is a shared glory: God, receiving glory and sharing with us. And so, understand; in sovereignty we have a gracious and good God, Who is all the time looking for our benefit and helping us. This essentiality absolutely demands a ‘predestinating’ God. 16. Now in Rom 6:23, which is a very, very famous verse, It says: “For the wages of sin is death; but the ‘gift’ of God… Now notice: there is a law of sin and death, but there isn’t any law of life, as a law in itself. What does Paul say about the law of life? Listen: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” [Rom 8:1] What law is that? He says, “It’s not a law, as a law, it’s the principle and the revelation.” There isn’t any eternal Life outside of God! So therefore, that Spirit within you that’s eternal has to have the eternal seal of God upon it, because you can’t mix it with carnality. You can’t mix God with anything but God, and you’re a part of God. So, the Holy Spirit comes in, seals you to the day of redemption, proving there is no law whatsoever as a certain thing that God could have spoken. God, of Himself, had to give of Himself, because God alone has eternal Life. The Bible says so. And, if He alone has got it, it’s uncreated. 17. There’s a part of you that is not created. There’s a part of you that is created—and me also. There’s a part that is formed, and it’s all put together, and the only thing that I don’t have to account for, and you don’t have to account for, in the sense of what happens, is the spirit that God allows us, but is not of Him. Whatever He does, that’s His business. But we know one thing: the soul comes clothed in the resurrection with the Word-body, picking up its own physical body, now completely glorified and made immortal. It doesn’t say it’s eternal; it’s made immortal, because it was a substance. The rest is not created. The rest is a part of God. Why? Because that Word-body is eternal, as It says in 2 Corinthians 5. It’s a mystery, but don’t let it bother you. It’s just simply a part that God had of Himself that He set aside, because nothing but God is eternal. 18. I don’t understand everything, but I can understand this much as I go more and more into the sovereignty of Almighty God: I find… And we’ll try to read a chapter of it later on, concerning how the sovereignty of God, and the election, and predestination, is what gives us great rejoicing; and the world hates it. The Catholic Church with roughly one billion, condemns it. And the Protestants, with close to a billion, I would say that… I doubt if a million understand predestination or have any use for it, because they have a god of their own free will and their own free mind. And they like to limit Him, and they like to make Him say what they want Him to say. Brother/sister, we don’t do that. If we do, we’re not Bride. Plain and simple, because we understand sovereignty; we understand headship. How do you think that Rebekah and Isaac felt when God said, “I hate Esau, and I love Jacob?” How do you feel when God smacked poor old Isaac down? You know Jacob didn’t have to fool his dad. If he’d have fooled his dad when his dad prophesied and blessed him, the blessing would have been revoked. But as soon as Isaac blessed him, and he knew he’d blessed the one he did not want to bless, he said, “What have I done? I can’t take it back.” Why? Because he knew that God spoke through him. It wasn’t Isaac; It was God, and he felt bad. 19. How many times have you and I felt bad? Well, let’s face it, after it’s all over, I have a feeling that Isaac was pretty happy. And you won’t find anything in the genealogy that says Abraham, Isaac and Esau. It’s Isaac and Jacob. And you won’t find one thing about Cain in the genealogy. Oh, they can be in the Book of Life, but the names would be taken out. Why? Because it’s one great big Book, and the Lamb Life was here in the original. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t he slain from the foundation of the world? Wasn’t he that one that formed from God, the Only-begotten? Wasn’t he the one that came down here and gave his life. And what life was that? It was the God-Life that was given. Wasn’t any other kind of life. He was that one, and that Lamb Life was in the garden, because we were in God, then we were in Jesus, then we were in Adam. “As in Adam, all died.” The soul didn’t die; that wasn’t spoken. It was the flesh that died. No man lived to be a thousand years old. Methuselah came the closest. Even Adam did a very good job; he lived 930 years. But that Life was there, and that eternal Life, that’s a part of God. And there’s where Dr. Pink, and nobody else, understood the truth, outside of William Marrion Branham, the Elijah of this hour, prophet of Almighty God, Malachi 4:5-6—the only one. And I’m going to tell you something: until I understood from Bro. Branham, after talking for roughly four and a half hours, that the baptism with the Holy Ghost and rebirth are one and the same thing, I did not know that minute the truth about Seed, and then the whole revelation became complete. It is only ‘Seed’ that is reborn. You must believe what has been vindicated, and that’s the eternal, sovereign God Who said, “This is how I do it; and, if you don’t like it, it’s too bad; because this is the way I have to do it, because I am God!” 20. He never made Himself. He was there. Listen, this is so inexplicable that the hypocrites that call themselves scientists will tell you that no true scientist believes in creation, and they are liars. And they know they are liars. They’re like our politicians that lie in our faces. They’re like the media. When I hear these guys, my stomach begins to get upset. I want to puke—in plain English, because I see their mealy mouths rolling, and I hear their words that are based on lies to destroy. Why do you think only eight people make the ark? Smarten up! You think the Muslims are going to make it? The Hindus are going to make it? The heathen are going to make it? Few Christians will make it, because all they do is bear the name of Christ, and the Bible says, “Thou shalt not bear the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” “In vain do you worship me, having for doctrine the traditions of men.” 21. There’s only one true Word, and that’s William Branham’s Word that God brought through the prophet, which is William Branham’s Message. And It stands with Paul’s Gospel. William Branham did one thing: he was like Moses in the truth of the matter. He sowed the seed of the entire Bible, from the serpent in the garden to the prophet in the former rain. In other words he brought the Bible right up to where William Branham stood. That’s exactly what he did. Then, in Rev 10:7 he declared the whole Word of all the prophet said, which entailed the Gospel. I’ll go and read It to you here. I used to quote It so many times. It is: (7) But in the days of the voice of the seventh messenger, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. It actually says in there it’s the Gospel that has been declared. 22. So, William Branham actually stood in the place of Moses as a historian, and then as a revelator, to bring us the entire Truth of the whole Bible as concerning the Gospel. And there’s a lot of history in there. But the major thing is the theme that was brought to the Bride, which ended in what the Bride was waiting for, and received on December 4, 1965, when he preached “The Rapture.” And “The Rapture” is the greatest message that struck this earth since the time of the apostle Paul and John the Revelator. Bro. Branham said a lot of things in “The Seals,” and that’s fine. But, if he just preached one sermon, it would have had to have been “The Rapture,” because that’s what the Bride was waiting for. We were not waiting for all these other things. We were mystified; we would like to have known them. We’re like the cat: curiosity killed the cat. We’re like the bunch of cats, in our curiosity; where satisfaction brought the cat back, it wouldn’t have brought us back. That wouldn’t have done it. The revelation of the Rapture is the great revelation. It is the epitomization of everything that Bro. Branham said and everything that Bro. Branham did. 23. Now with the subject of sovereignty, what I wanted to do was to bring to you the understanding that Jesus is not Deity. When Bro. Branham said, “He’s God, but he’s not God,” in our minds we placed that with the incarnation, and that is true. But, when you realize that in the incarnation, which is to come, when that Spirit that’s in our midst, and that’s the Spirit of God, He will become incarnate to us again. Let’s just take a look at It. It’s over here in Ephesians, so we know exactly what we’re saying. Eph 1:15: (15) Wherefore I also, when I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, (And like Bro. Branham said, “You who believe this Message, how you ought to love one another.”) (16) Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; (17) That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Now, what is that? That is actually the baptism with the Holy Ghost in the sense that, when He comes, He will give revelation and knowledge and wisdom concerning Himself. But, remember: the baptism had already come, and it has to expire. So therefore, this is on top of the baptism with the Holy Ghost where God Himself personally visits the church through a prophet as He did with the apostle Paul. So, this is God. 24. So, when Bro. Branham said: “When that Spirit that’s in our midst becomes incarnate to us,” that means ‘takes on the human form’, “we’ll crown Him King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That would be the Son of man, the Son of David, the Son of God, the Rose of Sharon, the Altogether Lovely,” so on and so on. So, that would be God Himself incarnated in Jesus, just prior to the Wedding Supper, and there the Wedding Supper will be. There are great mysteries in all of these things: how there are various crossovers, how that the Bride is presented to Christ; and yet, God is in Christ; and yet, at the same time, we understand that God is in Christ, and Christ is in God, and we are in Christ, and He is in us, making the dynamics of the perfect family of Almighty God, where there is nothing but God Himself, fully expressed in all of His essentiality and His intrinsicality as He purposed within Himself and of Himself and for Himself. So, what I’m talking about, then again, is the immutable, unchangeable, sovereign God, Who must, within Himself, produce exactly that, and only that, which is within Himself, because He’s bound by Himself, just the same as you and I are, and all else in nature is. 25. So, we get a picture of God. And that picture that God gives us by revelation and understanding by Him is what we ought to spend our time on, as we think about Him, and advance ourselves within the understanding, so that we grow in grace. And the growing in grace, there again, are free gifts of Almighty God. Now, remember: Jesus is the image of God, and he freely gave himself; and the Bible said, “God so freely gave His Son. And, if He freely delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with him freely give us all things?” [Rom 8:32] 26. So, we see we ought to importune God to cause us somehow to stand still long enough to understand grace and imbibe in it continuously; because, if He’s the God of grace, and cannot change, then everything that God does for us, with us, and to us, must be of grace. Now your minds are not going to take that too easy, because you don’t like a boil on the back of your neck any more than I like a stiff cord on the back of mine. Well, you can pall it off by saying, “Well, that’s of the devil.” You can give the devil a lot of credit for a lot of things. When Job burst out in boils, it was true that the devil did it to him, because God allowed it; but God was behind it. He said, “Go ahead.” And Job came out the better for it. And Job could have only learned the lesson of the sovereignty of God by the way that Job went. Now you ask Job, and say, “Job, listen: was it worth it for you to suffer what you suffered in order to learn sovereignty?” And he’d say, “Absolutely, I’d go through it again.” See? That’s the purgatory that the Catholics talk about so foolishly. Your purging is right here now. Whether you want to get before Him with wood, hay, and stubble, or go to precious stones, that’s your and my choice. And our choice is believing in a sovereign God Who backs His Word. If we really believed that God is sovereign and backs His Word, and that He is the Word, (We’ll talk about that.) you and I would welcome the opportunity, every single moment, to sow the Word of God in order to reap the Word of God. 27. My question, then, is: how interested are you and I in the Word? How interested are you and I in God in us, willing and doing of His good pleasure? How interested are you and I laying up treasures in heaven? When people can’t even pay ten percent of their earnings back to God… Listen, I don’t want your money. I’ve got plenty of my own that God gave me by following the laws of God. What are you doing anyway? People bug around, they won’t pay their taxes, they won’t do this, they won’t do that… They won’t even do little tiny things. If they’re straining at a gnat now, how are they going to get on a camel? How are they going to ride a log down the Colorado canyon? How are you going to get through the white waters—the rapids? See? Bro. Branham distinctly said, “Don’t you worry about the big things; it’s the little things that get you.” As the Bible said, “The fly in the apothecary’s ointment maketh it to stink.” [Eccl 10:1] As one fellow said, “It wasn’t a dead horse in a slough.” Years ago, when I was walking down the Elbow River in Canada—Calgary, the city, got all its water from that Elbow River—to my astonishment, I saw a dead horse in the river, decomposing, and nobody pulled it out. And I thought, “I’m drinking that!” Well, not really. It was filtered, ran over sand and a few other things, and put in some chlorine, whatever, so it wouldn’t get me too much. But here’s the point: that horse in the river actually made me sit up and take notice, when I could have been dying from the bite of a mosquito, giving me sleeping sickness… It wouldn’t bother me one little bit; I wouldn’t notice it. But I’d be much deader from that little thing than I would be from the horse in the slough, and all the bacteria, and all the junk flowing from it. It’s the little things. Yeah. Jesus mentioned that. He said, “Why do you try to pull a little thing from one guy’s eye, when you’ve got a saw log in your own?” 28. Now we’re leaving that. We’re going to talk about, as I said, in the fact of sovereignty, Jesus cannot be Deity. Now Jesus can’t be Deity when we consider true Deity. And that’s the way we’re doing last night and this morning. We are considering the one and only, uncreated, living God, Who is a mystery, Who Himself was not created, Who stands inviolate, Who cannot change, even if He wanted to. How can God change? 29. Now the other night Dershowitz—he’s a brilliant lawyer, criminal lawyer, teaches in Yale, I guess. And he wrote a book on the Bible being the background for the law, and he goes back to Genesis where Abraham said to God, “Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?” And God said, “There is no way the righteous will ever be destroyed. It’s only the wicked.” That’s why he hates the death penalty, unless it’s absolutely proven that the man is guilty. Bro. Branham was the same way. And anybody in his right mind knows that. And there’s where Bush is messed up, and it’s too bad. He’s a Methodist Christian. Like Bro. Branham said, “They’re all clubs, and they all proselyte each other,” so that’s about all there is to that one. But the fact is, when you put to death a man, on the witness of one person, you are contrary to the Word of God, period! In the mouths of two witnesses, at least. [Dt 17:6] So, Dershowitz was talking, and he said, concerning God, that when God talked to Abraham and Moses and different ones, God Himself was learning! And I thought, “Isn’t that like a Jew?” He’s likely a Wall Street Jew, maybe more Kazar than Abraham. 30. Now, how can God be learning? Didn’t the vindicated prophet of God say, “God can’t have one more thought than He already had”? Bro. Branham also said, “If God did one thing a certain way one time, He’s got to do it all the time, because that’s the way God is.” And he spoke, he said, “If it took blood one time, it takes blood all the time.” Do you understand why? Because animal life cannot come back upon the seed. That life cannot come back upon a man. Jesus said, “I give my life. It’ll come back upon you.” He said, “I put my life down; I take it up.” But at the same time, when he said that, it had to be God in him speaking, because Jesus could not lay his life down and just take it up again, because God alone raises the dead. So, there’s a duality there, a consultation. So, all right. 31. Jesus definitely is not God. He is the Son of God. And his form, as I’ve mentioned already, Bro. Branham said, “The only difference between God and His Son is that sons have beginnings.” What do you mean, “sons have beginnings?” Well, sons are procreated. The thought of having a son does not give anybody the ability to create one. The substance must be there in order to be passed on to that person, to bring that person in the likeness of the progenitor. So, Jesus was the Son of God, which he was. That life had to be already there, and that life simply had to be passed on in a mold, and that mold would have to be what was ever within the intrinsicality and essentiality of Almighty God. That’s why Jesus was the image of God. And that’s why, when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” it was made in the image of Jesus, and it came out a man. That’s why Bro. Branham said, “God was the first man; Jesus, the second; and Adam, the third,” because God comes in threes. What for? Not as persons: one, two, three gods, but in God doing what He did to bring forth Himself through children. As it is said by people, “Men and women achieve a certain immortality by having children.” But, if the line suddenly dies, the immortality is gone. 32. So, Jesus can’t be Deity, when we consider true Deity. He is the Son of Deity, Son of God, and since elevated by God, he is worthy of worship, but not as God is worshipped. He can’t be. It is wise to regard Jesus, Son of God, in the light of Hebrews, as written by Paul, and glorifying God for His wisdom and power, for so setting us all in divine order. 33. So, let’s just take a look at Jesus. We’re going to read from Hebrews, and we’re going to read a lot. In Heb 1 1-14: (1) God, who at sundry times and divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, (He spoke unto the fathers, in the prophets. He spoke unto them through the prophets.) (2) Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son (or in His Son), whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; (Or He made the ages. In other words we’re talking here of the becoming God. It’s not a matter of God having created all things; it’s how God has operated through those days and those ages.) (3) Who being the brightness (That’s the effulgence, the outflowing.) of his glory, and the express image of his person, (Now the expressed image of His person…what do you think that God looks like? Well, I’ll go to the Bible afterward and show you, pick it all out and show you.) and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, and had sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (All right. He didn’t sit down beside Himself. Then, Jesus is not the ‘Majesty on high’. He sits there because of the ‘Majesty on high’, the ‘Majesty on high’ having elevated him, the ‘Majesty on high’ being God.) (4) For being so much better than the angels, as he hath inherited (by inheritance) obtained a more excellent name than they. (Well, you can be Michael, you can be Gabriel, you can be this, you can be that, you can be the other thing; but you can’t be the Only-begotten Son. There’s no way. And you can’t have the Father’s name, because God is not your father. You’re a created being. And the Father’s name was what? Jehovah-Savior—just one of them.) (5) For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son ? 34. Now there are two of them, right? Oh, my! The Jesus-Only bunch, especially in Canada, they go completely haywire. And they’re just as bad down here. “Oh, Lee Vayle’s preaching two gods!” I’m quoting Bro. Branham; I’m quoting the Bible. How deeply can your mind be possessed by the devil? “Oh, Bro. Vayle, don’t say that. Hold it. Just a minute. How hard was it for Satan to get to Eve and possess her mind? Come on, answer me. Come on, be my guest. You’ll be my friend. Tell me she struggled. Oh, she struggled! Oh, she fought! It took years and years, and the poor woman finally succumbed! Hogwash! You’re sicker than the mental hospital out there, if there is one. (6) And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith… (Into the world! Well, God already was there. So, the Father and the Son can’t be the same person.) Let all the angels of God worship him. (He doesn’t even have his own angels. These are God’s angels worshipping him. So, Jesus can be worshipped. So, he’s God, but he’s not God.) (7) And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. (8) But unto the Son, (And this is absolutely misquoted.) Thy throne, O God, is for ever and a sceptre of righteousness, a sceptre of thy kingdom. (9) Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hth anointed thee with all the oil of gladness above thy fellows. (10) And Thou, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands: (That’s not quoted exactly right, but it’s okay by me. We’ll talk about this in a minute or two.) (11) They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they shall wax old as a garment; (12) As a vesture thou shall fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. (13) But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, I’ll make thine enemies thy footstool? (14) Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Now right here he’s telling you those angels don’t really have any authority, or very much, because they’re simply servants. Now Jesus was not a servant, Paul says, as Moses was a servant. He was the one that built the house. Right? That’s over there in Hebrews 3. All right.) 35. Reading in Hebrews 2: (1) Wherefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. (2) For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; (3) How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (4) God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracle, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? (Sovereignty of God. See? In other words God said, “This is the way it’s got to be done, because I’m God, and I’m limited by my Godhood.” How can God step beyond Himself? Can’t do it. And we’re told the same thing, “Don’t step beyond yourself.” Bro. Branham explained that. He said, “Don’t you go where angels fear to tread.”) (5) For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. (That’s the Millennium and down the line.) (6) But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visited him? (7) For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; and crowned him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands. (Now here is somebody set over the works of the hands of Almighty God, and as far as I know, the works of the hands of Almighty God are when He fashioned His children. So, Jesus is set over us. And that’s a hundred percent true. And he also has dominion over the earth, because he redeemed it.) (8) Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he had put all in subjection unto him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. (Now that’s what Paul said: that time is yet to come, and that time is today. According to 1 Corinthians 15, which I’ll read to you.) (9) But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every… (The word ‘man’ should be in italics. He did not taste death for every man. He tasted death for every Son, for every born one, because the word should be not ‘son’ in the Greek. It’s ‘born one’. You’ll find that by the context, as I read verse 10.) (10) For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons (or born ones) unto glory, to make the captain of their (the born ones) salvation perfect through suffering. You tell me that God has to make things by suffering. You’re a part of God. Is the God in you made perfect by suffering? Don’t be ridiculous. If you, in combination with your spirit, soul and body, and your body’s suffering makes your mind begin to say, “Just a minute, let’s get this thing straightened out. Let’s begin to go the way of God.”… 36. Do you think I didn’t have to do that to go back preaching? I quit preaching. Believe me, I was happy to quit preaching. Oh, sure, I was rebellious as all get out. It was a big mistake, but I suffered for it. And I was determined I’d would never suffer again, and I don’t have to suffer for that one. I’ll be gone pretty soon. (11) For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one source: (So, that puts Jesus and us on par—as to source only.) for which cause he is not ashamed to call them breathen (or born ones), (12) Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. (13) And again, I’ll put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. (14) Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; (He didn’t take it all. He took part of it, which was a chemical operation of the virgin, Mary. And the elements of which he was made are the same as ours, but the sperm and the egg were created. They were different, in that they were different, but brought forth a human being.) that through death he might destroy him (or bring to nothing) him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; (15) And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (16) For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. (Exactly true. Trace his geneology.) (17) Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. (18) For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted. 37. So, Heb 3:1-6: (1) Wherefore, holy brethren, (That’s what he calls us: any man full of the Holy Ghost is holy. He becomes the righteousness of God.) Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus Christ. (2) Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also was Moses faithful in all his house. (3) For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, (Now notice: ‘this man’ was counted more worthy. ‘This one’ was counted more worthy than Moses.) inasmuch as he who hath buildeth the house hath more honour than the house. (4) And every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. (5) And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; (6) But Christ as a son over his own house; (And he’s a human being, like us.) whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. And that’s what the house of God has to do is believe what Paul said in every age. And it’s always been consistent, though great amounts of light, pertaining to the very essence or the little, tiny thread of reality, God in the Scripture. Not that It all wasn’t real, but just that thread hung on, the vision of Christ, of whom the Bible spoke from Genesis right to Revelation. 38. Let’s go to Philippians now. Bro. Branham used Philippians, everybody uses Philippians, but the other people make this as though it were Jesus is the second person in the Godhead. Phil 2:5-11: (5) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (6) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be grasped and retained, to be equal with God: And, how was he equal with God? Because he was the First-begotten Son of God. So therefore, positively, he was equal in the inheritance, because it split the kingdom right down the middle. But God didn’t split Himself down the middle. God didn’t split His sovereignty down the middle. He had an equality, the same as Bro. Branham says, “Satan was one time equal with God and led in the worship.” Was he equal with God as per Godhead? Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Was he equal, then, in the majesty and the glory and the power? Don’t be ridiculous. He had to be a controller of some description, as the great CEOs are of all the money you’ve got invested in stock, and they act as though it were their own, with their golden parachutes, and their divvying up, and their perks, and God knows what. And that’s what the devil did. He came down and walked in Eden and took that over, too. Why do you think the heavens had to be purified? Just put it all together, and you’ll see where Bro. Branham spoke, and he spoke the truth. Certainly. He always spoke the truth. 39. (7) But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: Well certainly, he would be made in the likeness of men. If we were made in his likeness, then he’d have to be made in our likeness. Otherwise, you’ve got a botched up job somewhere, and he couldn’t be our High Priest. He couldn’t represent us. See? Unions and governments, they have representatives, but oh, God... They don’t represent us; they just take over. Well, I’m waiting for the government of God. Well, He’s in my heart. I’m just waiting now for the rest of it. (8) And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, even became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (9) Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, (Who’s the ‘him’? The Son of God, who became the Son of man, became flesh.) and given him a name which is above evry name: (10) That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; (11) And every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (But Jesus is not Deity! I’m talking now of sovereign, supreme, one-and-only God, period! And the Son refused worship, and said, “Put it on God. Don’t worship me; worship God.” Yet God raised him to the place of where he can be worshipped. So, is he Deity? In a sense, you might say ‘demi-God’— ‘demi-Deity’, in a particular way. (11) And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord… And the Bible said, “When God raised him,” Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, “He hath made him both Lord and Christ.” [Acts 2:36] In other words God made him; he came from God, a part of God, and God said, “You will be Lord and Christ, but you’ll pay a price for it.” And God doesn’t change. He says the same thing to you and me: “Take up your cross and follow me;” “He that loves the world doesn’t love God;” “Crucify the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life;” “Put your house in order.” How many are doing it? Loving order in the home is the way. 40. What about Eph 1:19-23? We’ve read It so many times we could memorize. I suppose I might almost say it by heart: (19) And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, acording to the working of his mighty power, (20) Which he wrought in Christ, (We’re talking about God.) when God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and set Jesus Christ at God’s own right hand in heavenly places, (21) Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also that which is to come: (22) And has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, (23) Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all and in all. In other words, if it didn’t come from God, through Jesus Christ, it’s all over, because this is what’s going to fill everything. This is what’s all that’s left. And anything outside of that is going to be allowed of God to be attendants upon God and His Only-begotten Son and the Bride and all the children of Adam outside of the Bride. No matter how wonderful the four beasts are, they’ll not equate to Jesus. They’ll not equate to you and me. They’re created. All of them are just servants. The Bible says they’re ministering spirits. A ministering person is the guy that ministers—not a preacher preaching. Ministering: for example, the woman ministers to her husband, the nurse ministers to the patient. I minister here: I’m serving you the best I can. Well, not the best I can, but I’m serving in some way anyway. I’ve got to be honest. I don’t know how I could be better actually, because I’m me. 41. 1 Cor 15:20: (20) But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. (21) For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead (or life to the body. Now listen:) (22) For as in Adam all die, even so (or in identical manner) in Christ shall all be made alive. (That’s where every single seed comes in: wise virgin, foolish virgin, every part of God.) (23) But every man… (Now, watch:) But every man in his own order: Christ was the firstfruit; afterward they that are Christ’s at his presence. (24) Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall… (Watch now, this is tricky: this part here:) Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when God the Father shall have put down all authority and all power and all rule. (See?) (25) For he must reign, till all enemies are put under his feet. (26) The last enemy destroyed is death. (27) For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is left out, which did put all things under him. So, when you’re talking about the work which is being done since Jesus finished his work upon Calvary, and is now the Mediator, Intercessor, and so on, God is now working to put everything under the feet of Jesus—except Himself. Why? Because He is sovereign God, and Jesus is not God. This is part of the elevation of God, Jesus’ Son, God’s Son, Jesus, for what he did. Remember, he is worshipped, not for who he is, but for what he did, and he wouldn’t have done what he did, except for who he is. Right? Well, figure it out in your own. I’m not doing double talk. I’m just giving you straight talk from the Word of God. (27) But when it is said all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted (or left out), which is putting all things under him. (28) And when all things shall be subdued unto him… 42. And that’s the ‘keleusma’, and this is the time. The Shout is ‘keleusma’, the root word for ‘subjection’. So, the last subjection is the Bride being subject to her Husband. She is the faithful, sinless virgin, who doesn’t commit whoredom, who is not an idolator of the Word, and whose mind is a womb and is shut up to any word but the Word of the Living God. Right? It is right. (28) …Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under the Son, that God may be all and in all. Now that’s coming. Jesus, then, is not sovereign God. He is not Deity. He is only Deity insofar that he is the Son of God, and he acts just like God, speaks just like God, and maybe even looks just like God, dresses just like God, or whatever God wants. Now, if you have a son that manifests you completely, you can step out of the way and let him go ahead. You just give him the key. And that’s adoption, and that’s exactly what Bro. Branham spoke of. His name on the check is as good as the Father’s. 43. Heb 5:5-10: (5) So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, (That’s unto Christ.) Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee. (6) As he says also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. (7) Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (8) Though he were a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. How in the world can you have Deity, which is God—Godhead—sovereign, suffering? In love and compassion He can pity, and He can yearn, and in it deliver. And He does. But, how can you have God learning? Now you’re right back to Mr. Dershowitz. They’re all a bunch of criminal lawyers. That’s very nice of you. Now, tell me, will you please, when God has finally learned enough, so that I can trust Him; because, if He hasn’t learned to love, He might just whip me. I wouldn’t be happy. Now you see how ridiculous you can get when you step out of line with the guidelines and the principles, when Bro. Branham said, “Listen to me: if you make Jn 1:1, the Word, ‘Jesus’, you have three gods,” and no man, but no man, except those that believe in a trinity, can fool with that and try to shift it and turn it around, because you can’t. Because the Bible said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God,” which absolutely said, “In the beginning was God,” and He’s identified by the Word. I can prove that. We won’t have time this morning. It will give me something to talk about, if I get back. 44. (9) And being made perfect… (Perfect, completed, absolute. Do you mean to tell me God had to come to the place, like Dershowitz said, He made perfect? I wonder if He’s arrived. And, if He has arrived, how will I know He’s arrived? Hogwash! You talk about infidel stupidity.) (10) …He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; (The author of it; the writer of it.) (11) Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. And you have got to be a man to be a priest. So, he’s a man. He’s a prophet. But he’s not as man as a man and a prophet is a prophet. Much, much, much more. The ‘Only-begotten’ puts him apart, period. And, if that was enough for God to do that for Jesus, that’s enough for me to repeat it. Because I believe that Jesus would not like me to exalt him above where God exalted him, and God would not like me to keep Jesus lower than God exalted him. So, I’d better come to the mind where God is. It’s my responsibility, because it’s all here open before us in the Bible. 45. Now again, in Jn 14:6: (6) I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (So, he’s not the Father, and he’s not God. “There’s one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” [1 Tim 2:5]) And It places it right there that Jesus is not God. See? I’ll tell you: I believe calling Jesus ‘Deity’, which we’ve had people here do that, is an entire misunderstanding or no understanding of Seed: that God is the Father, the Progenitor, the Author, the All in all of a race of His Own children, genetically, legitimately, spiritually, physically, every single way. God is not our Creator; He is our Father; He is our Source; He is our Progenitor. Call it what you want. Out of the Great Fountain, God, came every one of His sons, and nothing else came from that Lifeline, because the Bible says, “In him was life.” Now, how do you do this with peoples’ minds that already know that God is the living God? “Now,” you say, “I have a great rev-e-lay-she-on [--as pronounced by Bro. Vayle; The word is ‘revelation’]. This God is living.” Oh, boy. Your revelation is as flat as a preacher who convinced me that he was perhaps one of the world’s greatest preachers, and I went to hear him. And he would rev it up, higher and higher, more and more; then suddenly the big shot came. Pffght! [Bro. Vayle makes noise like a popgun shot.] Where was the cannon? Then, “Rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat!” Pffght! Where was the cannon? So, now, “God is this Living God, the Great Creator. I want to tell you, “He’s living.”” Pffght! So, what else is new? I know He’s living. I’ve been singing the songs for years, “Because He lives, I’m living, too.” 46. Then, why does the Bible put in there, “In him was life, and the life is the light of men”? [Jn 1:4] Because within Him there was that life that He was able to transmit to human beings like male transmits sperm to the egg, and the thing lives, and comes right on down, and the man is no more diminished than nothing. In fact, he is exalted and multiplied. If you didn’t have that life in you from God, that soul-life from God, there’d be no life in you. And then, He sends the Spirit. “The Spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching the inward parts of the belly.”[Prov 20:27] So, you are linked up to God, and I am linked up to God in every way, except the body, and we’re put in that to be tried. And one day we’re going to come forth as gold, if we like gold. But, if you like pigpen, like the prodigal son, you’ll have the husks, and it’ll go up in flames. That’s for me, too. It’s not just for you. 47. Oh, let’s go a little further. I hope you like this kind of preaching, because that’s what you’re getting. Heb 9:11-15: (11) But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; (Now you notice in here that this is a very peculiar statement concerning his birth.) (12) Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. (13) For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: (Notice: “to the purifying of the flesh.”) (14) How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (In other words there’s not just a purging. It transforms the very life within you to now serve God, wanting to serve God, desiring to serve God, fighting the flesh, the world, the flesh and the devil, and all of these things.) (15) And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. But, notice, it’s only of the ‘Called.’ And who are the ‘Called’? The Foreknown, Elected, Called, Predestinated. That’s again in Romans. We know that to be factual. 48. Now also, Heb 10:4-13: (4) For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. (That’s true.) (5) Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he says, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: (Well, at one time then this one had to go into the body prepared. So these are the cells that were wrapped around God Himself in order to get the very blueprint of Almighty God, the very blueprint, the essentiality of God in those cells, the blueprint, came forth as a man, a little baby boy. And that was the body Jesus got into. (6) In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. (7) Then I said, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. (8) And when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; (9) Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. He takes away what? Everything that was before they came on earth. It’s all gone. The bruised reed he [broke], the smoking flax he quenched. It was all over. But, when He came here in a prophet, the bruised reed He did not break, the smoking flax He did not quench, but He takes us to victory—now that He’s here: God in human flesh. God in human flesh! The prophet isn’t God; he’s ‘God’ to the people. Jesus was God, because God indwelt him. And, when God indwelt this human body of Jesus, that was the fullness of the Godhead. In plain English, that was intrinsically, essentially, absolutely without doubt, the One and Only God completely within that man. Yeah. That’s why it’s Emmanuel—God with us. 49. (9) Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, and establishes the second. (10) By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once (And it means ‘once and for all’. It should be in there.) (11) For every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: (12) But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Did he sit on his own right hand? That’s pretty stupid, isn’t it?) (13) From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. We already went into that. And the completion is going right on now. The final wind up is starting now, because God is down here right now, making the Wife subject to the Husband, and she can only be subject by Word. So, now the Bride is under the command, totally, of Almighty God, completely redeemed, her judgment is past, declared the ‘perfect, sinless, righteous, virgin Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, Messiahettes, Mrs. Jesus. 50. Now, how’re you going to believe that except William Branham is vindicated? That would be nothing more than Joe Smith coming on the scene with polygamy, Mohammed coming on the scene, talking about Abraham, the one God, and taking the devil’s name; it’s be no more than Confusious, or the Hindus or anybody else. See why I preach vindication? That’s where I stand. If William Branham is vindicated, and he is, and I believe him, then I’m believing God, I’m believing His Word, I am one with that Word, God is in my life, I am His Life, and He will not let me loose, because I don’t have just waters to swim in anymore, but waters to carry me over. That, I am telling you, brothers/sisters, is God’s truth. And I’m telling you, knowing this Bible is open before me, that there is a God in heaven. You stand with this Word, this Word will stand with you. I have one hope: He is that Word. We’ll not start talking about it. We’ll get more as time goes on. 51. (14) For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Well, how do you get sanctified? By the Blood. So then, you’re perfect. ‘Sanctification’ is kind of a peculiar word. It goes back to the Old Testament, I understand, and it really means ‘to come with open hands to receive from God’. In other words you don’t come with anything of your own. You get what God has for you, because you’re already equipped to get from God what God wants to give you. Certainly. For how could He give you anything? You’d have to have a couple of rebirths and anything else; I don’t know. “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy Blood was shed for me. And that Thou bids me come to Thee. O Lamb of God, I come.” Remember though: “Blessed is the man whom Thou chooses and bids to come unto Your throne.” Not anybody else. Predestination. Sovereign God. How far do I go? 52. Here: (15) Wherefor the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, (16) This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And what he’s telling you here is: that the Blood is efficacious, because these people received the Holy Spirit, sealing them in. Pentecost had an expression years ago, “The Spirit answers to the Blood,” and that is one hundred percent Scriptural. If you are truly under the Blood, the Holy Ghost must come in. It can’t help it. It cannot help it. There’s a vacuum otherwise—something unfulfilled. Because only to the Elect repentance is granted, and only those that are ordained believe. So, that puts it right down where it belongs: sovereignty. One hundred percent. 53. Now I guess I read far enough on that. Okay. Let’s go to John 20. This is one that I simply cannot understand why people have trouble with. This question was asked some time ago, it still seems to linger. It’s in 20:17, as far as I remember: (17) And Jesus said unto her, Touch me not; (No, this is not the one, but this is the one I want to read you.) for I am not yet ascended to ‘my’ Father: but go to ‘my’ brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto ‘my’ Father, even to ‘your’ Father; and to ‘my’ God, even ‘your’ God. Jesus is right on par here as not Deity. Now what we see here; I want to read this other verse. The verse I wanted, I wanted to read to you because of the fact of Jesus not being Deity, as people want to place him, because he is given great authority and power by God, and equality to God, but he is not God. And, then, in verse 21: (21) Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you: as ‘my’ Father hath sent me, even so send I you. (22) And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. And right on down the line, you can see through the Gospels that Jesus is not Deity, but he is definitely the Son of Almighty God. 54. So, that’s pretty well as far as I’m going to take you at this particular point. And so, now you have a better understanding, I trust, of sovereignty. And you have a better understanding of what we are talking about when we say that “Jesus is not Deity.” And at the same time, remember: that He has elevated him and given him a Name that is above every name. And to give him a Name that is above every name is very fine, but there’s no place where he’s been given a position above God. See? And remember, when it comes right down to the Name of God, that God revealed Himself, there can be names or name that we don’t have a clue to, concerning Almighty God, that lies within the mystery of Himself. I don’t know that, but I’m saying we cannot say, “Well, hey! Now we know everything,” because we do not. Even as Bro. Branham quoted Scofield and those that believed of his ilk, there were mysteries revealed, there was still always an element of that mystery that is remaining. And I agree that that is true; but, remember this: there is no mystery remaining, even an element, where God wants to make it absolutely clear to us. And I believe that Bro. Branham has removed just about every single little dent and wrinkle, or any minute veil that might lie there in the revelation. As we study what he said, not trying to find something whereby we might know something more than somebody else, or we may have a better understanding and, therefore, set us apart—that would never be my attitude. I read and study to know for myself, for my benefit: what is he really saying, what really stands there. 55. And, as far as his dissemination is concerned, my attitude should be no different from yours, except I teach. And that is: you want to know, for you, yourself personally, for your good, what you need to know, ought to know, what God wants you to know. You want to. And it has to do with you. And though you may testify and are willing, it doesn’t mean that you’re taking advantage of anybody, or you want them to believe in you. No. You want them to see what you see, and that is all there is, too. Because you can’t go beyond that, because whatever comes from you, or from me, or from God Himself by vindicated prophets and all, that God Himself has not revealed it and made it real to you, there is no way that it is going to have the depth that it has to have in a child of God. So therefore, when Bro. Branham spoke of “Only God can give you revelation,” that is exactly true. But remember this also: the depth of your revelation, that is, the deeper truth of it, can only be known by you desiring, not for any particular reason, as though you’re going to do something with it, but for your own satisfaction of knowing God Who is the Word, and can only be defined by the Word, for a closer relationship, to settle your heart and your mind, to augment your faith, to build you up in the most Holy Spirit. Then, you are on the right track. You have the right attitude. You’re doing the right thing. But to want something, like I’ve seen it around here. And it doesn’t work: that you want something that you can pin on to and say in my mind... Like one fellow admitted. He said, “Perhaps it’s my brilliant mind that causes my problems.” I said, “Yes, it is, exactly.” 56. I don’t have a brilliant mind. I don’t want a brilliant mind. I want a mind that’s like the screen that’s in a movie theater, and the screen doesn’t run around and jump around. It stands still for the operator of the camera to focus on the screen. “Be still and know that I am God.” [Ps 46:10] See? That’s what we’re looking at, and that’s what I hope we have learned this morning, that this Sovereign God is Sovereign God essentially and intrinsically, and you will even find that in dictionaries, the worldly dictionary. Isn’t it strange that some people with fine minds, but not subject to God, will come up with that which is correct, but when you realize what Paul said, it is not strange. Because he said to the Jews, “If the heathen do by nature what God has commanded to you in His sacred law, and you don’t do it, but they do it, then God must be dealing with them, even as He’s dealing with you.” 57. So many times we find great things come forth, because God makes the wrath of man to praise Him. He makes everything in this world to finally come out to His glory. Like serpent seed: you can’t deny it. You can’t duck it. Two fathers, one mother; and the actual ratio is almost infinitesimal. And still, in the great mysteries of God, those who understand will not be looking around for signs to do one thing for us, because by revelation we already know it’s by one lump of clay. And God in His sovereign grace saw His Seed come down in that one lump, when the races mixed the seed of the serpent and God’s children mixed. And He said to Abraham, “I’ve called you out from all, and in thee only shall all the nations and the earth be blessed.” Now Abraham had ten children by Keturah—ten sons. Where are they? How do you know that Hagar wasn’t descended from Abraham? She was a Gentile. What about Ruth? What about men that came in, and were baptized in water into the tribes of Israel and counted? Well, what about it? You think for one minute today that God hasn’t brought that line down. He’s brought it down. As Bro. Branham said, “The virgin birth is absolutely unspectacular as compared to a normal, natural birth,” where I often say, “The computer mind of God,” greater than any computer—all the computers combined. How many ejaculations of sperm are there, and how many sperm in a teaspoonful? How many sperm across the width of a hair? You’re getting into trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of sperm and eggs. And God picks them out and brings them on down. And God put that in human vessels. 58. Now, do you see why He’s cursed sex out of wedlock? And do you understand we have not been taught right? Have fun. Oh, brother/sister, I tell you what: this world is going to face judgment. Thank God we’ll not be judged for what we didn’t know, but we’ll pay a price. We’re doing it now. How many have loved ones here that aren’t touched by AIDS, for all you know? that aren’t already H-m-o-s-x-u-a-ls, for which God must curse the earth, yet they want to shut every mouth, destroy the Bible, so they can have their fun, fun, fun? It’s what it all amounts to. Never mind the reaping; just keep on sowing. 59. I’m going to tell you something: my life is an open book in some areas, but I would to God it were twice the open book that it really is. Yeah…or maybe three times. You only learn by experience if you won’t learn from God. Let me tell you something: your experience will destroy you. Only experience that is wrought by God and His Word will come to the perfect and beautiful harvest. Let God sow His Word in us, and that’s why I’m always preaching vindication and preaching His Word. Word, Word, Word. Because your emotions and your feelings don’t mean one thing. If there were an earthquake going on right today in Turkey, and was going to wipe out three million people, does anyone feel it this morning, if that were going on? You have any clue? Do you know what’s going on under the tablecloth that Bro. Branham spoke of, till it’s ripped off the table, and the table is all exposed? Only a fraction, but we know everything we need to do. 60. So, let’s dine upon the Word of God, feast upon the Word of God, and take It as never before. And believe me, brother/sister, I know from where I am coming, and where I am going. You are going to find this revealed Word is all you need. This Word is what’s going to take you into the Millennium, and when you see your brothers and sisters from the other generations, they’re going to say, “You were the people that had that Word.” That’s it. That’s what God said to Moses, “When you go in that land, the people are going to say, ‘What a wonderful Word these people have.’” See? It was a wonderful God Who gave the Word, the vindicated Word, and they believed that Word, and said, “What a wonderful Word;” and God is the Word. All right. The Lord bless you. I trust that you’re older in the things of God and more understanding in the sovereign grace of the Lord, which is our privilege and our opportunity this morning. So, let’s rise and be dismissed.
Most gracious God, eternal Father, omnipotent King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Who alone dwells in immortality and eternity, and that Light unto which no man can approach, but Jesus approached for us, and now through him, we have that same approach. And now, Lord, through the shed Blood and Jesus, You are down here in our midst this morning and have been here for a long time now. And perhaps people are fainting and wondering, “When are You going to lead us in the Millennium?” And our answer to that is, “Lord, hopefully the faith in our hearts says, ‘When You want to do it, You will lead us in.’” And, if you take us by way of the grave, we’ll be back here to march in with the rest of the Saints. But surely we know that we are Your Seed and Your Children, because we have received the Word and we believe the Word abounds and lives in us, not just lives but abounds, and shall come forth in such great exuberance of Its own health and life, that It’ll carry us over. Waters, not to swim in, because we’re not very good swimmers, but water to carry us over. And it may be in troublous times; it may be in darkness; it may be in the depth; but we know we’re going to go with Your comfort, Lord. We do know that; that somehow You will comfort us, and You will take us over, because nothing can separate us from Your love, and we know that that is true. You have shown it unto us, and we appreciate it. And now, Father, we know that your prophet has said that people should be healed listening to the Word. They should be healed. Father, we’re praying that this healing Word, that was delivered, O God, and constantly delivered in this church, will heal people this morning who need healing. Deliver them, we pray. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Lord, we ask that no one amongst us be sick, Father, even as Bro. Branham said, and we’re trying to believe it, Lord. We want to get to the bottom. And, if You help us, we’ll be so grateful, for he said, “The servant of the Lord is entitled to a healthy body.” And that word ‘entitlement’, Lord, if he used it right, is a strange and tremendous word. People use it today in government. They use it all over the place, and they’re all screaming for ‘entitlement’: what is due, what is theirs, what has been set aside for them. Lord, help us today, as your servants, all of us, because we want to be clear to your service and obedience to Your Word, receive our entitlement, Lord, for Your honor and for Your glory. Not just for the satisfaction of being at peace and within our bodies, because although that is very wonderful, and Christ hath born our pains and our sicknesses, but, Lord, really, above all that we could say, we would expend this energy that we have, the last day in Your service, doing Your will, loving You, loving Your Word, believing Your Word, living Your Word, above all, to the glory of God, and to the honor of the kingdom of our great God and Savior, and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ Name, we ask these mercies, which we believe are according to Your Word. Amen. “Take the Name of Jesus With You.” |