He that Is, Was and is to come

Greeting to the Seven Churches

Revelation 1:4-5  John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come.

Who is this? Him who is, who was and is to come? The eternal God, the one who indeed is; that is in the third person, but in the first person He says, I AM. God is the I AM. He calls Himself I AM, but we call Him “Thou Art” if we are in His presence, or “He Is” if we aren’t in His presence. Thus, that is the name of Him who has never missed being any time anywhere!

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Hebrew 11:6 

He is means I AM in the first person. Thus, true faith is that which believes in God who presently is. No matter how you believe in the God who was in the ages past with other saints, that will never please Him. No matter how much you believe strongly in the God of Luther, Wesley or Branham, all means nothing before God, your faith is still a past tense thing, and all past tense things are dead! Our God, the living God is never a past tense! It is Him Who Is, who was and is to come.

Now notice, the scripture begins with present tense, putting emphasis on it! … from him which is, and which was, and which is to come…

That is the way He is immediately with you today! Him who is, not him who was, nor him who is to come! Unless your faith is anchored in Him Who Is, it is null and void! The devil doesn’t care how much you shout about what some old saint preached and taught; he has all that in his pocket! He doesn’t care how much you quote the Bible, he has it in his bag! He doesn’t care how much vehemently you defend Luther’s stand, or Wesley’s stand, or Pentecostal’s stand, or Branham’s stand; those are all past tense things which can’t hurt him. He has already pocketed all of them into his religion! He has already produced dead religions out of all that. To him those are already spent forces.

But here is what scares the liver out of Satan, Him Who Is! Forget about all that history of religions! Stick to the mark! Seek God who presently is with us here! The God who liveth forever and ever. The ever-present God! The I Am!

And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The LORD is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Isaiah 55:6  Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 2Chronicles 15:2 

You don’t look back and rest on the testimonies of others who sought God and found Him in their day; the one who was with them those days. How was He with them? They sought Him and found Him! How will He be with you today? Not by claiming what father Abraham found; not holding on the experiences of Branham! That is a past tense thing! That belongs to Branham. Stop being lazy! Stop all that unbelief of yours! You must seek God for yourself and find Him for yourself!

Why can’t religious people walk with God today like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc.? because in unbelief they seek Him not, but instead they lazily and ignorantly claim what others sought and found. Why? God is expensive! He is quite costly! You won’t pick Him along the road! You must invest in Him heavily if you ever find Him today. Why? He is the most precious thing that ever was, an eternal treasure of infinite riches! Oh, He is beyond measure in richness, and that is why you can’t find Him strewed along any of those religious wide roads leading to hell.

In seeking Him, you must give up all pleasures; you must forsake all the world; you must forsake all people; you must forsake all friends; you must forsake all relations; you must be forsaken by all, and forsake all you have gained in this world and call it dung. Why? He comes to replace all that! He comes to take the place of all that! All those things are His enemies, His negatives, the very opposite of what He is!

So, are you ready to find Him today?

You say, “Yes!”

Then have you counted the cost? It costs all that you are and all that you have! Ready? Then take up your cross. No kidding about it! No church-kidding! No religious kidding! Take the cross and bite your lips, for today you will gonna hang on the cross at Calvary! No jokes anymore! No playing church anymore! These matters are between life and death!

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD. Jeremiah 29:13-14 

That is the bottom line! No excuses are accommodated here! There is no other bargain! You either seek with all your heart or you will NEVER find Him. Therefore, settle it within yourself whether you are truly out to find God and walk with Him or you are after some grandma religion of the dead! Get it in black and white – you only find Him after seeking Him with all your heart! That is how Abraham found Him, that is how Moses found Him, that is how Caleb found Him, that is how Joshua found Him, that is how Rahab found Him, that is how Ruth found Him, that is how Hannah found Him, that is how David found Him; that how Elisha found Him, that is how Anne in the temple found Him, that is how Zacchaeus found Him, that is how Luther found Him, that is how Bunyan found him, that is how Wesley found Him, that is how Finney found Him, that is how Branham found Him in the old shade, and that is how you will find Him today. Period!

You want to walk with God? Then meet the cost! He is for the brave, for the bold, for the courageous, for those who resolutely are minded to find Him. So precious is He and therefore so rare and costly! Invisibly rare! He will never be found strewed carelessly on those religious floors of yours! He is the most precious pearl, rare and quite noble! You have to sell all for His sake! Ready to find the ever-present God and walk with Him? Oh, just forget about it. He will never join you in that religious gaiety of yours, vain to begin with!

And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about. 2Chronicles 15:15 

That is it that I have spoken to you! That is the good old way! The way of the pilgrims! No short cut about it, rushing to bring vain offerings to some church to bribe Him to be found of you. Those stinking things of yours, forget all about them! You must single-heartedly seek after Him, if you ever found Him.

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. Acts 17:27 

Yes, He is not very far from you in the past ages or in the far future, but you have to feel after Him, seek all around feeling everything with your spirit, on and on till you reach Him, and that is only after you have accepted to count all yourself and all that you possess and would have ever possessed as dung, mere dung! All your business is mere dung! All your money is mere dung! All your learning is mere dung! All your knowledge is mere dung! All your riches are mere dung! All you are is mere dung! All people around you, no matter how honourable they seem, are mere dung! All religions around you are mere dung. All religious leaders, whatever they are and what they seem to have achieved, are mere dung! If that is how you are conclusively feeling at the bottom of your heart as you seek Him, then surely you are on the right way to find Him. Press on! He is just around you!

Hallelujah! That is the truth of the matter!

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. Philippians 3:8 

Having the knowledge of God, that means you know Him! That means you have found Him. How can you know me unless we meet and talk? How can you know God unless you meet and talk! And for you to come to that knowledge, all the rest about you and that are yours must be counted and valued as dung in your own eyes, in exchange for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. What is that excellent knowledge of Christ? God who dwells in Him! The same who makes his countenance shine as the sun.

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 1Kings 19:11-12 

Many religious people ever deceive themselves that they have found God in some strong wind, flying away from the approaching God, and upon their feet they catch the wind in their wings of emotion and away they go, flying and testifying how they have found Him, that He is all the wind around them. Many will cry all tears out of their eyes as they tell and retell the story how that they found God in the strong wind.

“Sure, I felt the power! It shook me all over! It was so powerful! I couldn’t breathe almost!”

And so in the wind of emotion they go carrying on in the world, without God, without Christ, as lost as they were before the strong wind got them and swept them away from God because of their unbelief, for they are not ready to receive the revelation of Jesus Christ preached in their very generation as the word of God!

A revival has no meaning if it doesn’t calm down and listen to the small still voice of the Word revealed and preached by the Holy Spirit to that generation. Such a revival will be mere wind. Yes, the wind should awake you and get you on your knees in fear and trembling because the Lord is nearing you. But that wind is not the Lord please! In the beginning was the …? Get it!

“In the beginning was a strong wind of revival, and the strong wind of revival was with God, and the…” stop there! You are deceived, chattering things you know not from whence!

“Oh no! yep, in the beginning was the revival fires, and the revival was with God, and the revival …” stop there! You don’t know which end of the stick you are holding!

How many religious men are deceived by some quaking feelings all over their body, as they seek for the Lord without counting the cost at all. They go about with some doleful cry thinking God will sympathize with them and allow Himself to be found of them. How deceived these miserable people are! It doesn’t cost noise, lamentations and weeping to find God, if so then all the heathens would have already found Him! But it costs your life and all you possess! Don’t dodge around! Get it straight! He costs your life and all that you possess! Not your tears and your lamentations!

Yea, after you have forsaken all, and after you have forsaken yourself and are ready to be crucified out of the world, and ready to hear Him speak to you in present tense, then cry and lament because of how much wretched you are without Him. Till then, you are simply making noise, doleful noise as you weep!

Many others are carried about in deception by strange fires; fires which they know not whence they burn from. They work up their own religious emotions producing sparks all around them, and they point out that to be the God they have found. Lucifer might produce clouds of such sparks and scare you to death! Fires, clouds, lightnings, etc. do not mean God is present with you. Those might be things being chased away from His presence. That might be the evidence of devils flying away from Him as He approaches! So, don’t hurry! A revival means nothing until the small still voice arrives! The voice of the sign revealing the promise of the hour! Hallelujah! How I love to hear the small still scriptural voice for this hour! God addressing me in present tense! God speaking to me today!

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: Hebrews 3:7-8 

As you hear His small still voice today, not what He spoke yesterday by Luther, or Wesley or Branham, no! but what He speaks today! After all the winds of the revival has quietened down, after all the quake of the revival has died down, after all the noise of the revival fires have calmed down, now expect to meet with God! Now gird your loins to be ready to hear from God. Don’t pack and go! God hasn’t arrived yet: who is that dismissing the meeting, yet God hasn’t arrived yet!

Look, when did Branham bring the message of God? During the revival fires of the 1940s and early 1950s? no! Never! It was after the revival fires had long calmed down; in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that is when there was heard the small still voice of the revelation of the word: God then arrived and started speaking. But almost all who were in that revival missed that small still voice!

So busy chasing the strong winds of the aftermath of the revival, they had no patience to sit down so as to hear from God. So busy quaking in the lies of charismatic earth movements that they could not hear the small still voice at all! So busy running after the waning revival fires, kindling sparks all around in the name of a new wave of the revival, instead of calming down to hear from God.

A revival means God is approaching us with His word! Look to the end of the revival to hear from God. It will be a small still voice, so you must be attentive enough, quiet enough or else it will pass over you. It is all in simplicity, all in meekness, all in lowliness, all in humility … small and still … see? A quiet silent voice… see? A revelation! That is how God reveals Himself, deep in the heart a revelation door opens, and then all is brightly lit with glorious light! Hallelujah!

Look at the apostolic age closely. When did God arrive with the word? At the onset of that Pentecostal revival fires in Jerusalem? No! never! It was at the end of the apostolic revivals, when all the revival winds, quakes and fires had died down, that is when the revelation of the Word struck.  Then you meet people like Paul, confined in prison, quietly meditating while writing Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 2 Timothy and Hebrews. Those are the epistles of Paul that holds the cream of the New Testament revelations, which the church was built on. Yes, then you could meet Peter (separated from the multitudes of believing Jews now led by James in Jerusalem) in Babylon writing his epistles. Yea, when the Pentecostal revival fires had long died down, and tribulation fires were now raging everywhere, then you meet John on the Isle of Patmos imprisoned, quietly meditating and being caught up in the Spirit to receive the Revelation of Jesus Christ the Son of God and the mighty prince of earth and heaven.  

Yes, it was after the revival fires had quietened down that Peter wrote his two letters in which we found the small still voice of revelation. Yes, it was long after the revival fires had died off and the church was backsliding that John received revelation to write his Gospel book and his first epistle. Oh, how they echo with the spouts of the deep revelation of the Godhead in Jesus Christ!

So, I say, God will be found of you in the small still voice of the revelation of the word according to this hour. He will reveal to you His way, His Will and His purpose today. He will also unfold to you the devil’s tricks today and give you an upper hand against him. By that revelation your faith will be strengthened to fight and overcome the world. And that is the light shining from above to show you the way home. So, I urge you to seek for the present-day God! The one who is, not the one who was, the history of what God has done for others. That history is not what you need for your soul to live, you need the present-day revelation of the Word, the bread of life for you today! That is what Branham said,

The importance of revelation by the Spirit to a true believer can never be over emphasized. Revelation means more to you than perhaps you realize. Now I am not talking about this Book of Revelation and you. I am talking about ALL revelation. It is tremendously important to the church. 
    cab 01 – revelation
    Rev. William Marrion Branham                       

How did Abel know what to do in order to offer a proper sacrifice to God? By faith he received the revelation of the blood. Cain didn’t get such a revelation (even though he had a commandment) so he couldn’t offer the right sacrifice. It was a revelation from God that made the difference and gave Abel eternal life. Now you might take what the pastor says, or what the seminary teaches, and though it might be taught to you with eloquence, until God reveals to you that Jesus is the Christ, and that it is the blood that cleanses you, and that God is your Saviour, you will never have eternal life. It is the Spiritual revelation that does it.
    cab 01 – revelation
    Rev. William Marrion Branham

God’s purpose throughout the Bible can never be made known to you in any other way, but by revelation! What God revealed through Branham can never be made known to you by any other way, but by revelation.        

… and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;  

The seven spirits are seven captains of a sevenfold host that stands before God, and that runs before Him wherever He goest. They are His heralds. Besides heralding Him wherever He goest, they are also His special messengers, a perfect ministry that attends on Him as king, eternal, immortal and invisible. They go at His biding and perform His command to the point. They are His faithful messengers sent forth throughout the earth, that is in all times.