Is The Original Seed
William Marrion Branham
Paraphrased by Stanley Muse
Sunday Morning, 18 March 1962
Branham Tabernacle,
Jeffersonville, IN., USA
Matthew 17:5 KJV
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Now, let us turn to the Scriptures. I am going to start in Genesis, and I will wind up tonight in Revelation. I believe the Word.
Genesis, beginning with the 1st chapter, I wish to read a portion of the Word.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herbs yielding seed after his kind, and the trees yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Now, my text is this: “The Spoken Word Is the Original Seed.” Now, if you will notice, God said, “Let it bring forth of his kind.” Whatever it was it must be brought forth of its kind.
Now, this Word of God is eternal. God, being infinite, cannot speak one thing and then later on change it to something else, to a better decision, because every decision of God is perfect. His Word, once spoken, can never die. It lives on and can never die, because It is God. His Word can no more die than He can die. That is the reason we read in Saint John, 1st chapter, that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh.” The same Word that was spoken in the beginning with His eternal purpose came on over and was made flesh and dwelt among us: God’s Word.
[What is the spoken Word, the same which is the original seed? It is the same who was in the beginning with God: in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. That is the original seed from which all things are come from.]
Some years ago, I heard that a woman accidentally licked radium while mixing it to put on hands and dials of clocks and watches; it killed her. They kept her skull for an autopsy. They said years later, that using some instrument against the skull, and with a rumble, you could still hear that radium going on in her skull after she had been dead years. Radium continually goes on.
The Word of God continually goes on too. I am told that if we could develop a special instrument, my voice that I speak today could still be picked up in the air ten thousand years from now. It is like dropping a pebble in the middle of a pond. And the tiny little waves after they fail to be seen by the eye, continue on till they hit the bank. And the air-wave of our voices continually travel around and around the world; therefore, then our voice, what we say will be our judgment. Our testimony will rise right against us. Our own voices will echo in our own ears at the judgment bar of God when His great Instrument catches every voice that has been spoken–every word that has been muttered.
There is only one way to stop that wrong voice; that is repent. God alone can stop it. If it does not, it goes on and meets up with you in the eternity. Therefore, God being perfect and His Voice eternal, His own Voice will have to catch up with it. Therefore, He must be perfect in every decision. For when He once says something, it has to go all the way and come back to the Judgment.
Now, if you will try to really understand, you will see why I have always taken the kind of stand for the Word of God; all other things must perish; God is eternal, and His Word is eternal. Now, as you study, you must know that this Bible is God’s Word.
Now, we know that we are coming to a Judgment; the Voice of God is going to catch up with us somewhere, because it was given to every mortal to hear. Ministers are responsible for taking it, and if this Voice of God has to catch up with every person, you have got to hear it either here or at the Judgment bar. So, if the church has the Voice of God, then you must hear the voice of the church as our Roman Catholic people tell us. Yet they, in themselves, are so confused in their doctrines (the Roman, the Greek and their different types), then there cannot be any place to have faith because which one is the church when there is so much difference in them?
But to my opinion the Voice of God is the Judge. And if it is so perfect, it has to come from some perfect Source; and if men bring it one way or another with their difference of denominations, then there is no way to set a faith surely in what they are saying.
[As the denominations are so many and differ from one another so that the whole thing has become a confusion, so is the Branham believers church today. She is divided into thousands of groups scattered around the world, each claiming to hold the exact meaning of the message. That is an obvious sign that none of them has the truth, because only God has the truth anyway.
As so many Christian denominations claim the Bible, yet they are all false, being led by false interpretations of the scriptures, so are all the groups that claim Branham today. None of them has the truth that Branham stood for, none of them has the Word of God today, and that is why God does not confirm any of them. For God’s mouth is His Spirit. He is represented by His Spirit, not some church claiming some messenger.
The only answer out of such a mess is to look beyond Branham for that which was to follow after him, for God is never stagnant, He is never history; for all that is based on history is as dead as the history they claim. The Spirit of God has proceeded on with what was to follow after Branham, things which were pointed to not only by Branham but by the scriptures. The Holy Spirit is the only revealer of the mysteries of God concerning any season. It is the Holy Spirit who revealed to Branham the word he preached; it is the same Spirit that reveals to us today that which God is fulfilling.
1Co 2:10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Branham followers would read the above scripture thus:
“But God has revealed them unto us by His prophet, for the prophet searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.”
That is why they have wound up into dead religious camps knowing nothing about what God promised to fulfil today just like all denominations. Instead of seeing God, they see Branham. Instead of believing Jesus, they believe Branham.]
When you take this written Word to our brethren, many of them say, “Well, those days are no longer.”
[Exactly what those who claim to follow Branham says today! When you take them back to the scriptures and show them what God promised for this hour, they says, “The days of revelation are over. There are no more prophets!” Yet you are pointing them to the plain scriptural promises such as Zachariah 3 concerning Joshua the end time leader, Isaiah 30:26 about the day whose light will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days in one, that is the day of the Lord. And many other scriptures like Rev 10:1-6.]
Another one says, “It is just a history.” The other one says, “It is a book of poems.” The other says, “The church has a right to change it.” Then where do we stand? Where is the resting place for faith?
I believe if we are to be judged by anything, it will be by the Word of God which has given the commission; then if we are to be judged by that Word, then God would be unjust to put such a confusion on earth, and the poor human mind so baffled, it does not know what to do. But if God is going to judge the world by something, it will be by His Word. I believe that.
And now, my brethren I wish you would bear with me awhile and think of that, that there has got to be some place to come for judgment. Then some of them say, “The King James Version” or the certain other version.
I believe if God is the sovereign eternal One, He has to see to it; it is up to Him. If I want to go to Heaven to His Place, it is up to Him to furnish me a place that I can lay my hand and say, “This is it.” Do you agree with that? It is up to Him. Otherwise, He would be unjust.
[Exactly the same dilemma among Branham followers… we have so many interpreters of that message, each claiming to have the truth, then the poor believer is there in the middle of all this confusion wondering who is who. God is responsible to give the blueprint! God always confirms His Word. If somebody claims to have the truth for this hour, let God confirm it. Only what God confirms is the truth! God confirmed Moses, He confirmed David, He confirmed Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Luther, Wesley, Branham. Today, we will know who is saying the truth by the hand of God confirming the same! No matter how eloquent one’s exposition is, we will not believe it until God confirms it! And when God has confirmed it, then you are duty bound to believe it, no matter how simple, no matter how contrary it is to your theology!
I remember in early 1994, just after the outpouring of the Spirit, inspiration struck me and I said, “the revival is over.” Every minister in the revival group was on my neck crying for my blood. They claimed the revival was just beginning. That what we had witnessed was only mere droplets, but that it was going to go higher and higher into torrents. I sat back and thought, “Alright, let us wait and see.” I have waited to see the torrents to date. The whole camp became drier than it was before the revival, yet none of them ever owned up to have spoken lies in the name of the Lord. They cried after my blood then, but when the going became hard, they ducked their head and went silent. Whose word then was confirmed?]
You have got to have a resting place for Faith somewhere. I do not know how you feel about it, but to me the Bible is the infallible Word of God. And I believe that God has watched over His Word that there is no punctuation out of place.
[Mainstream Branham claimers have changed the above statement to read: “… but to me the prophet forerunner is the infallible Word of God…” The devil can be sly. The Bible remains the infallible Word of God, not Branham Message. If you claim Branham message to be infallible, what of Luther’s message then? What of Wesley’s message then? For they were also messengers of God. You follow such a doctrine you drop off headlong. But I believe just like Branham believed: … to me the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Anything that goes against that is a lie no matter who says it!]
Rebecca, my daughter said, “Daddy, in school we proved that this world is millions and millions of years old; then is not that contradictory to the Bible?”
I said, “No, it is not.”
“Well,” said, “if the different studies of rocks and formations, stalactites, stalagmites and so forth prove that that dripping is for millions of years, and God said He made the heavens and earth in one twenty-four hours, does not that disprove the Bible?”
I said, “No.”
You notice that the Bible said, “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth (then period [or full-stop]).” How long that took is none of our business. Then He went ahead and began to bring in His time of putting seed in the earth. But the beginning might have been hundreds of billions of trillions of years, eons of time; God created the heavens and the earth, then period [full stop]. That settles that. He makes no mistakes.
Paul, the great preacher told Timothy to “study to prove yourself, rightly dividing the Word of God.” Study It open-heartedly, and that is what I try to do.
[And that is what we should do with Branham message, we must study it open-heartedly, not closed heartedly putting words in Branham’s mouth which he never said to defend our theology. He says clearly that God did not reveal to him the mystery in those seven thunders, but the fundamentalists (the mainstream camps) among them, claim that all was revealed to him, putting everything at their backs. If Branham fulfilled all things, then what are you waiting for! You should have already gone in the rapture! But their claim is an open lie which deceives no sincere heart.]
Now, with my faith in the Word like that, then I cannot take some private interpretation, for Peter states that the Bible is of no private interpretation.
And if that is wrong, then how much other parts of it are wrong? It is either all right or all wrong. You can not make it anything else. You have to come back again to something that faith has to rest on; and mine is on the Word of God, believing that this Bible is God’s Program for the people: always has been.
[It is the Bible, the only infallible thing! Not any other message. The message is alright as long as it goes in line with scriptures, but it does not take the place of the Bible!]
Jesus said the Scriptures must be fulfilled, all that is written in the Scriptures. Now, let that soak just a minute, class. All that is in the Scriptures has to be fulfilled. Then if God said anything, there you are; It has to be fulfilled. Or else that is not the Word of God, and therefore, “Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
Now, if that is not the Word of God, then we are all lost; and if it is the Word of God, He Who is the Fountain, Beginning and Source of all honour and Truth is absolutely honour-bound to stand by what He said. And if this is not God’s Word, then who is God? Where is God? or is there God?
But there is not one thing written in this Bible but what God has proved by somebody that it is the Truth.
[All the time God uses somebody somewhere to prove His word of promise. He has never failed, and today He will not fail to prove all that He has promised by His servants the prophets. All that is promised in the scriptures must be fulfilled, and the fulfilment is the revelation of it! God promised it, then when He fulfils it, that is the interpretation thereof! Whatever is not yet fulfilled is not yet revealed! No matter who explains it, till it is fulfilled it remains sealed.
That is why I say without any fear or apology that the seventh seal was never revealed to Branham, why? Because he never fulfilled it! It pertains to the second coming of Jesus and it is only fulfilled when Jesus is here! I don’t care what you claim with your theology, the revelation of a mystery is its fulfilment of it! God interprets it by fulfilling it!]
As I have often said, “Maybe my faith won’t climb up to where Enoch climbed, but I certainly would not stand in anybody’s way that could climb there.” Great faith…
[What of you staunch Branham followers? Do you hold the same thing? That if your faith cannot reach out into the seventh seal, into more revelation of the Word, but that you won’t stand in the way of some brother whose faith can soar that high? Yes, you claim to speak what the tapes speak, so speak that also! If your faith is so little that you cannot hear directly from God today, then follow the advice of the prophet you believe. Don’t fight anybody who can rise higher than you to get revelations from God by vague unscriptural claims… that the days for God to reveal Himself are over! What a big lie!
1Pe 1:13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ… the very second coming of Jesus Christ is a revelation, then a blind teacher claims the days of revelation are over! How blind must the fellow be. The seventh seal is the second coming of Jesus, and it is a revelation, not a geographical descending, but a revelation!]
That is why I believe the Bible, and that is where I take my text.
Next, I do not believe the Bible contradicts Itself; it is you contradicting the Bible. God cannot contradict Himself. If He does, then He is no more than you and I. The Word’s there, but It is hid from the eyes of the wise and prudent.
[So are the prophecies within the Bible concerning this hour, they are all hid from the know-it-alls! With all your knowledge you will never see them! You must just find grace in the eyes of God. For unto whom He will He reveals to, and unto whom He will not He hides. He has a right to do whatever He lists, and no one can find fault with Him, for no one has given Him anything to begin with. So, ought you to humble yourself so as to find favour in His eyes.]
Matthew 28:19, “Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit” and Acts 2:38, “Repent and be baptized in the Name of Jesus,” are not contradictory.
If you are not baptized using the Name of Jesus Christ, you are not baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. You are baptized in some titles that pertain to a Name. If that is not the right revelation, then the Bible would be wrong when everybody, every one of the apostles all down through the age baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ after Jesus commissioned them to baptize them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. But if you look at it, they did just what He said: Not titles, but Name. So, there is no contradiction.
[That is how theologians easily misses the Word. If you were told to go fill in a form the name of your father, do you fill in it the title father? The name of your father…..father. You will look more foolish than a five-year old child! So are all the theologians who claim that they are doing what Jesus said by baptizing in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is just foolishness!]
It is there, the Truth, all the Truth, and nothing but the Truth, and our faith rests right there, on what God said. Do not put any private interpretation. Just say it the way It says it.
[And to you Branham followers, don’t put any private interpretation to his words, say just what he says concerning the seventh seal:
392 Did you notice, when the Jews asked Him that? Know…When we compared the Scripture here with Matthew 24, with the six Seals, the Seventh Seal was left out. Because, you see, Christ said, “Only God Himself knowed; not even the Angels.” No wonder, It wasn’t even written. You see, they hushed; nothing take place then. Angels don’t know It. Nobody knows when He is coming.
393 But there’ll be a—there’ll be a—a Seven Voices, of these Thunders, that will reveal the great revelation at that time. So, I believe, to us who…If we don’t know It, and if we…It won’t be knowed till that time. But it will be revealed in that day, in the hour that it’s supposed to be revealed in.
63-0324E – The Seventh Seal
Rev. William Marrion Branham
… But, you notice, He omitted the revelation of this Seventh Seal.
399 And here, when the Seventh Seal, when He opened It, He also omitted It again, see. So we see that It is a complete mystery, therefore the hour is not yet for the mystery to be known. Therefore, we’re this far, and the rest of It will be known right around about the time that Jesus appears on earth again, for His Bride, or whatever takes place at that time. Now, until that time, let’s just all pray, live good, straight, Christian lives, looking forward for His Coming.
63-0324E – The Seventh Seal
Rev. William Marrion Branham
So, believe that exactly the way he says it. Don’t put words in his mouth which he didn’t say!]
I believe that whoever is guilty of removing anything in this Bible, his part will be taken out of the Book of Life: Revelation 22:18,19. I do not believe any creed, dogma, anything else, but just the literal Word of God is His Plan. Anything else is sinful and will be eternally lost: any man, any creed, any denomination, or anything that will add to or take from any punctuation of this Word. God is not God of yesterday Who wrote a Book and handed it out in to the hands of a bunch of men and let it be confused and everything else, only to judge the world with It. But God that wrote It lives, lives in It, and confirms His Word.
[Hallelujah, God still leaves today in His Word and confirms it by fulfilling it!]
This is God’s Word. Revelation says that whosoever will take from It or add to It, his part will be taken out of the Book of Life.
The Word is eternal. It must not be tampered with, added to, or taken away from. God sees to that. Nothing can be taken from It because It is eternal. What is in between Genesis and Revelation will not mix with anything else.
Here is where we are going to differ. How many will agree that this is God’s Book, His Word, according to which we will be judged? It shall not be added to or taken away from. Then why has this been done in such a rude way? We are going to find it between Genesis and Revelation, right down in our time, down through other times.
It cannot be mixed and will not hybrid with anything else. Today is a great day of hybreeding animals, corn, wheat, making a better-looking product, but it is no good. It is rotten, dead, no life in it, cannot reproduce itself. Everything that we have on earth today in its original form is a spoken Word of God.
That is why that a mule cannot breed itself back again. It is a hybrid. God made a horse and a donkey.
I want to prove that “The Spoken Word is the Original Seed.” Hear that Jesus said in Matthew 24:35:.
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Heavens and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
Now, could you mix anything with that then? I would like to read Revelations the 22nd chapter and the 19th verse:
For I testify unto every man… (That is priest, pope, bishop, state presbyter or whatever.)… that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
What about your dogmas? What about your unscriptural creeds that you are listening to, of all denominations; there is not one excused.
… if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and from the things that are written in this book.
Though he is a preacher, though he is a church member all of his life, though he is a bishop or a pope, whosoever shall take away just one word… It was one spoken Word of God that Eve doubted to be the Truth which caused all the trouble – every sickness, every disease, every suffering baby, every hospital ever built, every operation ever performed, every death – for one person to disbelieve one word.
What did Eve try to do? She tried to hybrid it with something. You have got to take it the way God spoke it. It won’t mix with anything. Jesus one time said, “If you had the faith like a mustard seed…” I am told that mustard seed won’t hybrid with anything. You can mix other grains, but not mustard seed. And if you have got that kind of faith, taking one Word of God… That is where so many evangelists crack up, how they say, “Oh, we believe this,” and they will take one word and make it work, but what about the next one? “Blessed is he that does all His biddings. He will have the right to the Tree of Life, and to enter that City, for without are sorcerers, dogs, and whoremongers”.
We believe it. God’s spoken Word is original. And everything that God spoke into existence is original. That is the reason Eve could do what she did with her own seed, because she was not in the original creation. She is a by-product of the man, not in the creation of God. God created the whole thing, and then He took a part of His creation and made a helpmate.
That is the reason you can hybrid a donkey and a horse, but it is death. But the original has got life. It comes back again. I hope you can see it now. The original has the life; that is the reason I think that cults and denominations and organizations die. History proves they are every one dead. They never did rise any more; they never will. They cannot breed themselves back. They have nothing to breed with; they are sterile. That is why Eve’s children die.
True. Stay with the Word.
Remember, every spoken Word of God is the original Seed. He planted everything in the earth by His Word, and as long as you stay with the original seed, it will reproduce itself. Hybrid it, it dies. Eve, the woman, was the first hybrid thing there ever was.
I will show you just why.
She was a hybrider, a bride. Through that (trying to take the Word of God and mixing some wisdom with It) brought death. You are not supposed to do that. Whether you have wisdom to explain it, just say, “God said it, and that settles it.” And God said so, and that is all there is to it. If you cannot explain it, leave it alone; just say it is so because God said so. See, just say, “God said it.”
It will not mix. It must not be tampered with; It will not hybreed to nothing else. God will punish the one that does it. It is God’s Word alone. He doesn’t need your word with His. We are not supposed to speak our own word; we are supposed to preach His Word.
Therefore, true life can only reproduce itself by its original breeding. Life can only be reproduced by its original breeding, the way it started at the beginning. If not, it is a hybrid; it runs out. Some of them run out in the first generation, it is gone right then.
In Genesis 1:11 God said, “Let every seed bring forth of its kind.” Now, when God said that, that settles it. It is always settled. “Let every seed bring forth of its kind.” To mix it brings forth a super crop, but of falsehood, death.
Better crop, better looking; but it is dead. It cannot reproduce itself. It is done; it is finished. Eve brought forth a hybrid crop. Look at us today, and you can look around and see that it is true. Sure, it was not God’s purpose.
Now, you can see the church right there, where we are going to wind up.
It dies there, and cannot bring forth of its kind. Why? It is mixed. You cannot do anything with it. It is dead; it is finished. That is why each generation has its own revival, a chance at the Word.
[Each generation has its revival and a chance at the Word of God spoken to it by the Spirit of truth. Each generation!]
Oh, at the Judgment John Wesley’s group will raise up, and these modern “starched-washed” Methodists will answer for it.
[So, will Branham’s original crop of the message, the real cream of his generation, will rise up and this starched-washed message believers will answer for it!]
The Catholics will rise up. Luther will rise up. This group of Lutherans that followed Luther’s revival will answer for the same thing. And behind there Irenaeus, Martin, Polycarp, and those, and will have to stand the Judgment for hybriding the Word of God to dogmas. The group of Baptists that followed John Smith’s revival will do the same thing. Alexander Campbell’s will do the same thing. And the Pentecostals will do the same thing. That original revival, when the Holy Spirit fell, called out a people, and God trying to get His Word to it, and they organized it, and set over here, and denominated, and died right there.
You say, “But look what they are doing.”
We will get to that a little later on. I am just putting the seed in now. Then we are going to show after while what happened.
[So has the Branham followers done exactly the same thing. Adding on the message their own dogmas and creeds… “Wow, there is no more prophets, no more revelations, Branham revealed all of God leaving nothing for any future generations after him. The days of “thus saith the Lord are over. No more Pentecostal times. We receive the Holy Spirit silently without any experience at all…” a mere bunch of nonsenses!]
Now, that is why each generation has its revival. God raises Him up a man, sets him with His Word, and starts him out for the Message for that age. And as soon as that man is taken off the scene somebody else catches it and hybrids it.
[So much hybridizing amongst Branham camps! So much so that the whole thing has become a babel confusion. There are a thousand and one different schools of theology upon that message creating a babel confusion in it. The only way out is by God sending as a man with the Urim and Thummim again. Some Amos to lay the plumbline on them and cut off the refuge of lies!]
That is exactly how it started way in the beginning, in Genesis. God set forth His crop of human race, and Eve hybred it. So there is a judgment for Eve.
Christ set forth. The apostles set forth. The prophets set forth. Didn’t Jesus say, “Which one of the prophets that God sent hath not your fathers persecuted?”
He taught that a King one time sent His servant [Luther], and then sent another servant [Wesley], and then another servant [Branham]; finally sent His Son [The Headstone]. Each generation receiving… because it is repeating right back Adam and Eve again, the first crop in the Garden of Eden. Half of them lost–wise virgin, sleeping virgin. One kept the Word; other one hybred It. Right back and forth just as hard as it can go, right like that, it has been right down through the age. We will prove it by God’s Word and by the history here.
Hybriding first started in Genesis. It is the beginning. And it ends up over here in Revelation at the Second Coming of Christ. That is why each generation has its own revival; it gets a chance at the Word. Then they hybrid it; instead of taking on, they go somewhere else.
I have to say some personal things today. My mission, that I believe God has called me for is to forerun the coming Word [Therefore after him comes the Word! Expect the Word after Branham, for it is obvious that he was not the Word but was sent to prepare the way for the Word], which is Christ. And Christ in Him has the Millennium and everything right there because He is the Word.
Jesus said in John 3:3-5:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of… Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Is that a seed? Every spoken Word of God is a Seed. Why must the man be born again? He is dead in the fashion he is in. He is a hybrid. He was born in sin from Eve’s sin, shaped in iniquity, came into the world speaking lies. He is a liar to begin with. No matter how smart, educated, what more he is, he is a liar; the Bible says he is. No matter how holy his parents were, he is a liar to begin with. And the only way he can tell Truth is to say the Truth through his own lips. That is the only way Truth can come. Anything contrary to that Word, he is a liar yet.
[To claim that Branham revealed the fullness of God is to speak an open lie! The fullness of God is only revealed through Jesus Christ who is the headstone. That is why Branham was forbidden to touch the seventh seal in those seven thunders. That pertains to the ministry that he was forerunning, the ministry of the Word. For the seven thunders is a ministry of the spoken Word… not even written! Only spoken… and that is the original seed!]
That is pretty flat, but that is what God says. “Let every man’s word be a lie and Mine be true.” Anything that comes from his lips contrary to this Word, or put It in some other race, or some other generation [in the past claiming God cannot do it anymore, that the days for that are over; no more revelation, no more prophets, no more Pentecost], or whatever it is, he is a liar. That is exactly. He has got to be born again, and then he sees every Word. The only way he can be born again is that Life of God in him to produce that: Life.
A seed must have water to grow. Now, you put a seed in the ground and if there is no moisture in the ground, it is dust, and it can not grow in the dust. It has got to have a certain percent of moisture or it won’t grow. The letter killeth; the Spirit giveth Life. Now, it must have moisture to grow.
His Word is a Seed. Now, to prove that, let us turn to Luke 8: 4-11.
And when much people were gathered together, and there come unto him out of every city, he spake by… parables:
A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
And some fell upon the rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.
Moisture: Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans without the water… And when he is first converted, he looks right straight to Christ; he believes. And the first thing you know, that denomination binds him up into a place, and the moisture of the Spirit is gone from him; he becomes denominational, and he is dead. Not only Baptists but Pentecost [Not only Pentecostals but Branham message believers too; they claim the days of receiving the Holy Spirit as they did on the day of Pentecost are over. That the moment one acknowledges Branham it means he has the Holy Spirit… a lie of the devil! So many do it yet are not even saved leave alone receiving the Holy Spirit]. I know many of you do not believe, but you just wait a little bit.
And some fell among thorns; and… sprang up with it, and choked it.
I am not going to pull one punch today on anything. That is just what I think the Christian Business Men, and the rest of these Pentecostal organizations, building all these big millions of dollars of things; the riches of the world have choked out the Glory and Spirit of God. Cares of the world have choked them out. [Exactly what Branham message believers do today! You can’t point at Pentecostals any longer… you are also building great monuments in cities called churches spending millions on them! You are exactly in the same boat! The riches of this world has chocked the Spirit away from them yet being blind they don’t know.]
The women want to be active, and bob off their hair, and have water head haircuts, wear shorts, and look like the rest of the world [Exactly now among believers, their women now days put on short dresses, they wear artificial hair pieces, etc.]. The preacher stands in the pulpit, practice their “ahmans” and afraid of the Word of God because of a meal ticket. If they cannot ride a Cadillac they are not even considered spiritual anymore. If they cannot dress in the best of clothes and do everything else, “They are backslid.”
Old Brother Kidd told me this morning they do not want him anymore, because he is old and he stays right with the Word. They lack moisture.
And others fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit… when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath (an) ear to hear, let him hear.
Oh what a parable. When He had said these things He screamed out, maybe something like this, “Bring forth a hundredfold. He that hath an ear let him hear.” In other words, if your ear’s in tune with God, then hear.
… his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand… (But God’s Word comes right on down to the Judgment to judge them, because they did see it. It was there.)
Now, the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God.
The Seed of Life is the Word of God. Therefore, for Life, you cannot come through a creed or denomination; you have to come back to the Word.
His Word is His Seed, and His Spirit is the Water. Now, right back to John 3:14 there. We understand what it means if you want to read it.
… as Moses lifted up the brass serpent in the wilderness,… so must the Son of man be lifted up:
Now, Moses lifted up the brass serpent so that the people that were perishing might have water for life.
Jesus is the Word of God, and He was burst open that the Life that is inside the Seed, which is Spirit, flowing over the Seed of God will bring forth the Life of the Seed. And to bring forth something else, there is some other kind of seed there then. Amen.
If the Spirit of God comes forth to water the Seed, the Seed will produce Its Life, for that is what It is given for.
I believe the Bible is the Word, the whole Truth, and Jesus is the Word made manifest; He and His Word are One and the same. He was that Seed.
He was that Seed that Eve should have produced, but she hybrid it by disbelieving God’s Word. [Eve was supposed to have conceived the Word in her virgin state and would have brought forth Immanuel, crowning God’s creation with its creator. But she missed it by fornicating against the Word. That is what every church is guilty of today including the Branham message believers church. They are now just as black as any other denomination!]
The only way that Life could come in the reproduction of Life was for that Seed to die in order to spread out the Life. That is why the Water was given: to water the Seed.
The Holy Spirit that was in the Garden of Eden was to water the Seed. Man was not made to die; he is made to live, but hybriding brought death there, rather. She hybred. Now, you deny the serpent’s seed. Then I will ask you, “What are these funeral services about?” Every one of us is hybrid from the original. That is the reason we are constantly dying. But there is a germ of Life that came from the real Seed, which God proved to be His Seed; He rose Him up again. Through that Life that is going over the original Seed like was given to Eve over His real Church; it is bringing forth Life again through the birth, through the womb of His Bride.
Oh, it is rich and glorious.
He is that Seed that was produced by the Word of God. “Be it unto me according to Thy Word.” There is the Seed.
Now, Jesus is the Word made manifest. He and the Word are One and the same, and that is why it was so made manifest in Him so perfectly. That is the reason that God manifested Himself so perfectly in Jesus: because He was the Seed Word, the germ Word Itself (the germ that is inside the seed, the life in the seed). He was the germ Word of God. The germ is the Spirit; the germ is the Water. And Jesus had to be broken open there in order for that Seed to let forth Its Life to water other seeds that were coming. In fact, He said, “Other sheep I have that are not even of this fold. They are going to see that; they are going to get that Word and stay right with It. And I am sending forth the Spirit to water it, and it will produce just exactly.”
It will produce miracles; it will produce the Power of God. And it will not deny anything, because it is a kindred seed with the Seed. It can not say, “Mr. Cocklebur, you come live with me.” It just won’t mix; you cannot mix death and life. You cannot be dead and alive at the same time.
It is the Germ that comes from the Seed. He is the Word of God made perfectly manifest. That was the thing that He is correctly, the Son that was promised through Adam to continue on the human race [God promised a son to Adam by whom he would multiply, and that was to be the Word made flesh, that is what he missed by his wife landing in fornication and bringing the same thing to him], and Eve hybrid it to the serpent and brought forth a generation of bastard children born to death without Life; Jesus came and was that Seed. He proved it. Everything that Adam lost, Jesus was. Eve would have finally brought that Child forth [the very child that Mary brought forth under the law, Eve would have brought him forth without any law, if she could have kept herself from the tree of knowledge of good and evil], but she hybrid it, brought the serpent in, listening for wisdom, understanding, knowledge. [How did she hybrid it? There was something in her womb meant to conceive the Word but instead she conceived Satan’s seed through the serpent. Yes, she had a sacred ground in her womb to conceive the Word, but she gave it to the serpent!]
Now, wait till we get into the Bride with that. That is the reason I believe what I believe. It has got to come back to this Word.
You cannot be a seed and disagree with the Word. You would be disagreeing with yourself, defeating your own purpose.
That is why God could work through Him. And what did He say when He was here on earth? “I do nothing until the Father shows Me.” Anything He did was always vindicated by the Scriptures. He said, “Search ye the Scriptures, for They are They that testify of Me. And if I do not do the things that They say, then I am not that original Seed. But if I do them, then why don’t you believe Me? If you cannot believe Me, the way I stand, then believe the Word that I say, believe the works that I do, because My Seed can only bear forth what I am.”
The cocklebur can only be a cocklebur. You could hybrid it with anything else, but it is still a cocklebur. It will express it.
That is the reason that a dual, a man that claims to be of God and deny the Word, is a hypocrite. A mule claims to be the horse, but he is not. He claims to be a donkey and is not; you are a hypocrite, bastard born, just exactly. He did not aim to do that. Man did that with his wisdom. That is where all man’s wisdom winds up: to be bastard born.
Now, that is why God was so perfectly manifested in Jesus, because He was the Word of God, and He could not produce anything but just exactly God [He is the Spoken Word of God, the very original seed]. And if God is in you, what more can you be?
Did not Jesus say that the prophets to whom the Word of God came were gods? Because God was manifested in them. The spoken Word manifested. He said, “If you had any wisdom, you would understand. God Himself called them gods. How can you then say you believe them and deny Me when I say I am the Son of God?” Why did they not see this then?
Same thing today: “I am that Seed that was to come (the woman’s Seed).” The serpent had already defiled her. “But thy Seed that I will give you shall bruise his head,” said He. It will take that thing back again. Amen. “I have come to conquer and correct what Eve did. And the only way I can do it is through a woman that believed the Seed where another woman failed to. I am that over-comer. I have come to give Life, that through My death I may pay the penalty of what she did; My Life will be given to you to flow over you, and you will be sons of God and daughters of God”, as long as the Seed’s in there.
You hybrid it and you get only a denominational bastard child, nothing else.
All of God’s sons must be the same. To be born of the Word (Water) and Spirit brings us back to the spoken Word again like in John 3, right back again to where you should have been at the beginning. That is the reason for Christ’s death: brings us right back again to sons of God. [Children of God were supposed to have been born from the Word of God. Adam and Eve should have multiplied by the Word, that was the seed of faith given them, but they rejected that and went for the seed of knowledge, the biological seed that is dead to begin with!]
Eve would have finally brought forth that Child [That is Christ in flesh. That is what Eve missed and instead brought forth Cain]. God had told her, “Multiply and replenish the earth?” But she walked over here and played the part of a whore… [A whore against the Word, not against Adam’s seed, that was still corruption. Eve sinned against the Word. She was a bride to the Word and Adam was her pastor supposed to keep her in the Word. Eve failed to keep her virginity to the Word, and Adam, as her pastor, failed to keep her in the Word. Instead of waiting for the promised Word out of the seventh seal, she took in the serpent’s knowledge and brought forth Cain, denying any further revelation of the Word, rejecting the headstone revelation, rejecting the very main messenger, the capstone messenger by claiming that the days of prophets are over. How could that be when the main messenger was yet to come! Adam was only a forerunner of the Word, not the Word. He was not her head, but the forerunner of her head! He was a natural substitute for her, to hold that place until the head comes.
That is exactly what the end time Eve has done. Instead of waiting patiently for the coming Word, she has turned back to Branham doting upon him, claiming falsely that he is her Alpha and Omega, that he finished everything, that God cannot reveal anything else. In other words, she claims that Branham is her husband who should give her seed. In that she has rejected the true seed from her divine husband the same way Eve did being deceived by the serpent. The serpent teachers among the message believers have deceived Eve to reject the promised Word. That is why she is bringing forth Cainites! That is why she is naked, blind, wretched, miserable and don’t know it.]
This brings you right back to the spoken Word. Then we are God’s Word made manifest. Jesus said the same thing. “He that believeth on Me, the things that (Who I am, the purpose that I came for, to bring a man back to believe the Word of God and take nothing else with it) the works that I do, He will do also.”
Why is it not being done today? It is hybrid, bastard children, mixed up. It is a mule; it does not know what it believes. A mule does not know who his daddy or mama is. He is no pedigree; there is nothing to him. He is an illegitimate creature.
Any person that claims to believe God and does not believe His Word will take a denominational creed and breed it with the Word. You are not of God; you are dead. You cannot be dead and alive at the same time. So, the Word of God does not even grow. You are just playing the part of a hypocrite. Let that go for bishop, priest, cardinal or whoever it might be. It has got to be the Word, or you are dead, just an illegitimate child. God’s part won’t grow. You might grow in the same field, as we are getting to directly, but you are sure not in the fold. It won’t grow.
Then we are God’s Word made manifest. God wants His Church to manifest His Self. He can manifest Himself only if His Own Seed is in that person. How can you use your own thoughts and expect God to manifest Himself through you? How can you take your own belief and say, “Well, my pastor teaches, my creed says the days of miracles…”? [Their creed says the days of prophets are over, the days of revelation are over.] How are you going to do that and then be a manifested son of God? How are you going to do it? The death of Jesus was not anything to you. “Oh, I accept Him as my Saviour.” You don’t. You say you do, but you don’t. Your works proves what you are.
Jesus said the same thing. “If you think I am illegitimately born…”
They said, “We are Abraham’s children and need nobody to teach us.”
He said, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would know Me. Which one of you condemns Me of sin (unbelief)? Show Me one thing that God promised of Me that is not fulfilled. Show Me one thing that the Father promised that I have not fulfilled. (Sin is unbelief.) Let us see you produce it then. If I do not believe, then why is the Father doing through Me every Word that He promised? Now, let Me see where you got it in yours.” That certainly de-horned them.
Who was illegitimate born then? They were. Illegitimate children professing to be God’s… Jesus said, “You are of your father, the Devil, and his works you do.” What kind of works did the Devil do? Tried to hybrid the Word of God through Eve.
That is exactly the same thing that these big denominations do today. The works of the Devil, their father, they do. They are trying to take a creed and breed it with the Word of God. That is what Satan did in the beginning.
God bless you, brethren. Come out of it. Jesus said so. If you have got one little scratch of God in you, you ought to look and see that. Oh, my.
If a man has the Seed of God in him, with the Spirit of God watering that Seed, the same works that were manifested in Jesus, Him being the Original Seed of God, His death brings you back to the Original Seed of God, and if the same Spirit that was within Him is in you, then the same works will be manifested. All right, let us turn over to Saint John 14:12.
You say, “I am a believer, Brother Branham. I sure am a believer.” All right, I am going to see if Jesus, the Word of God would call you one.
Verily, verily, (absolutely, absolutely) I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. Same Seed.
[The works of Jesus will be manifested in you if you truly believe on Him today. The characteristics of Jesus will be seen in you clearly. You will walk as He walked; you will act as He acted; you will conduct yourself as He did. His works were the fruit of the Spirit that was in Him. The same Spirit in you will produce the same works.
Many in the Branham message church camps don’t produce the works of Jesus in their lives because they believe on Branham instead of believing on Jesus. Lots of difference between the two! Branham pointed people to Jesus not to himself; those who correctly hear him go to Jesus straight and believe on Him, not on the prophet.
If I was evangelising anywhere today, I will preach the Gospel without mentioning the name Branham. I don’t have to! I simply preach the Gospel by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit according to this hour. Any person sincerely believing will be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit without even knowing Branham. To know Him (the God of Jesus Christ) is life eternal, not to know Branham. Salvation has nothing to do with knowing Branham! I have done that many times and have seen people saved without knowing Branham.
The preaching of the cross brings salvation, not the preaching of Branham. If Branham resurrected today, he would blast all those who preach him instead of preaching the Gospel. He will call them antichrists. He will trash it all!
I was never called to preach Branham. I was called to preach Jesus! Branham never called me! It is Jesus who called me! Branham will not answer for me regarding my calling, I will answer for myself!]
How can you plant wheat here and wheat here and say, “I am going to get cucumbers here and wheat here?” The only way you are going to get cucumbers is plant cucumbers. If you hybridize it, then it won’t be a cucumber. It will be a hypocrite. It is a crossbreed, and it is a bad product. It is dead right there, won’t go any farther. That finishes it; that is all.
But if you want a cucumber, start with a cucumber. If you want a church, or a Life of God, start with the Word of God. Accept the Word of God in Its fullness, every measure of It. And if that is the fullness of God in you, then the rain falling will produce exactly what is in your garden.
Then where is your Latter Rain coming up at? You see where that is going after while, don’t you? It is going over with that school of prophets up there (that denomination): gathered some wild gourds and thought they were peas. Oh, well.
Then the works that will be manifested in Him are the same, for it is the same Seed Word of God. God’s Son was His example Seed. And what His Life was when the Spirit poured upon Him after His baptism and the Holy Spirit come upon Him, that same Water of the Holy Spirit will bring forth the same kind of Life, doing the same thing that He did; if it is the same Seed. Son of God Seed will bring forth a son of God Seed.
Now, shame on you women with bobbed hair. Shame on you preachers denying that Truth. Say, “It is all right; hair has nothing to do with it.” But God said it did.
That is why I believe the Word. It is a Seed. And if the rain falls upon the Seed, it will bring forth of its kind.
Now, what is the matter with these revivals? Make a million more in ‘44: Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and whatever more. But where is that manifestation of the works of Jesus Christ. “I do nothing till first the Father shows Me.” Where is that kind of Seed coming from?
The Holy Spirit will water and bring forth that Seed. It is the Water to the Seed. If the Seed has been planted, that is exactly what the Water is for. If the Water falls on you, you say, “Bless God, let me tell you something, preacher. I am So-and-so, and I do not believe in that stuff.” You are the denominational. You are just an old hypocrite to start with. That is what kind of seed was planted.
Do not misunderstand me. I love you, honey. I believe the devil has deceived you. Frankly, I know he has. According to God’s Word, It cannot fail. That is why I preach those things the way I do: because God’s Word said it.
“Oh,” you say, “Well, Brother Branham, this is a different day.” It is the same Word though. They took some wheat out of the garner from back there that was stored in the time of Joseph and planted it here a couple years ago, and it produced a crop of wheat. It was still wheat; that is the reason. The only thing it needed was just some water.
[If the quickened Word of God once produced prophets, four prophets in the same nation at the same in times of Isaiah, Amos, Micah and Hosea; and three prophets at the same times in the days of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and three apostles-cum-prophets at the same time in the times of Peter, John and Paul; then the same Word when quickened today can produce such prophets of the Word. That fulfils the scriptures, it doesn’t break them!
Mat 23:34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Jesus promises to send us many prophets with the Word, prophets like Peter, John and Paul, though apostles but they were prophets too… God’s Word came to each one of them. Yes, when the Holy Spirit fell on the Word from the day of Pentecost it produced many prophets and apostles of the Word; and if the same Holy Spirit falls on the Word again, it will produce many such prophets and apostles of the Word again. Why? The same seed must produce the same works all the time! It produced wise men like James, like Irenaeus, like Luther, like John Bunyan (quite wise!), like Wesley… men full of the wisdom of the Word! It also produced scribes (writers) like Matthew, Mark, Luke; and writers like Bunyan, like John Ryle and many others. If the same Word is quickened today, we expect the same kind of crop!]
God’s Word is just the same as It was when He spoke It back yonder thousands of years ago. The only thing it needs is Water. We do not get a crop because we have the wrong kind of seed in.
[We don’t get apostles and prophets with the Word in the churches because the water falls on wrong seed! Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals or Branham followers plant wrong seed which produces wrong works… just intellectual men in the pulpits because they deny the Word!]
“How many of you all would like to change your letter? How many of you Methodists would like to become Baptists? How many you Baptists like to become Pentecostals? Just bring your membership over here.” [And how many of you Pentecostals would like to cross over to Branham message camps?] Oh, for goodness sake. Tommyrot, trash of the Devil, there is no Life in it at all. Twofold child more of hell than you were when you started. It is hybrid, hypocritical, dead, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.
Jesus said, “Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up?” Denomination or whatever it is will be uprooted. God’s Word alone will stand. That is what He said. “Every man’s word is a lie, but Mine’s the Truth.”
Then where are we going to go? You better come back to your senses. But you cannot hear it unless you are predestinated to hear it. We are getting into that. No wonder it falls like water on a duck’s back. He is made to shed the water, not absorb it.
The ark was made out of gopher wood and shittim wood. It is nothing but just hollow; nothing in it but hollow. Everything is taken out of it. It has grown that way, the lightest wood there is, lighter than balsam. Why did they do it? So he could soak it with pitch. You say, “Would not oak do just as good?” No, sir, it won’t soak up anything; it turns it away. It is repellent, and this is an absorbent. And a real Seed of God is an absorbent for the Spirit. All denominationalism is taken out; all unbelief is out. And when the Holy Spirit comes into that germ of Life that is lying there, it produces another Seed, just exactly. Another son of God is born (Amen.), another amateur deity, son of God.
I am a Branham because I was born of Charlie and Ella Branham. That makes me a Branham because I am their seed. Their agreement made a seed, and that made me.
When God and His Word become One (Hallelujah!) that is when God’s Spirit waters the Seed-Word of God, It produces God; and it is not the individual; it is God. For you are dead; you are not yourself no more. You reckon yourself dead, hollowed out, waiting for the Seed Germ. Then it is not you anymore; is not the man; it is God in the man. It is a Seed Germ like the beginning spoken Word. God’s Word made manifest in the man; then it is not the man; the man has died. He cannot be a hybrid and a son at the same time. He is either a son of death or a son of Life. So, if he is a son of death, give it over to the devil and let him kill it. Give it over to God a minute and let Him kill that devil in you – run him out: hollows you out. Then let God plant His Own Life in you, then it is not you anymore; it is God’s Life, because it is God’s Word, watered by the Holy Spirit it will produce the same thing.
All right. The same works manifested by us, for It is the same Word. Now, if you want to do the works of Christ, do the same thing He did. “He that believeth on Me shall have My works.” Believeth what? That He is the Original Seed Germ that came. Where is the Seed? Let me take these handkerchiefs, here. Here is the man that was supposed to be. What happened? Eve hybred it. Then what did it do? Turned to death, keep dying, dying.
Here is the Word lying here just the same. Now, what happened? The Word that God spoke to multiply and replenish the earth, It could not find a place to land.
[The seed that God commanded for the man to multiply by was the Word, but Eve was deceived to go for the seed of knowledge in the flesh, yet she had been made for the Word. So, by taking in the serpent’s seed of knowledge she hybridized herself to the serpent, and she convinced Adam to do the same thing. That is what brought death.
God never meant multiplication by the sexual seed; He meant the Word way. If Eve could have kept herself from the seed of knowledge, then God could have anointed Adam with the Word, and by her fellowship with him she could have conceived and brought forth Immanuel. Then on Immanuel being offered to God as Isaac was offered by Abraham, the seed would have fallen in the ground, and on being quickened it could have brought forth a great multitude of sons and daughters of God in the resurrection. But she missed that and brought forth a biological seed. Thus, the real seed was never multiplied. That is why the whole creation is groaning earnestly for the manifestation of the sons of God from that true seed.]
Finally, this Word got into the womb of a virgin. And what happened? From Him came forth the Germ Life, the thing, the Water that gives the kernel its chance to reproduce itself. The Spirit came out of Him and went up.
Here we are. We come along. What happened? We believe It; we believe It. Now, what did Jesus say? “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do (the manifestation of the Holy Spirit that came in the form of a Dove upon Me and did this, not through hybreeding, but through virgin born…) shall he do also.” Not the course of life, like breeding a child, husband to wife; no, not that hybrid, but a virgin born. “Now, through this, I am giving this Life that if you by faith will accept all the Father, all the prophets, all the Word of God, I will pour this Life down upon you, and you cannot do anything else but produce the same thing that I am.” There you are.
“The works that I do shall he do also.” And what did He do? Just as the Father led Him, what He saw. Saint John 5:19, “I do nothing till the Father shows Me.” He made Himself a Man. God was made flesh and dwelled among us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God’s spoken Word, through a virgin, brought forth a Body; that Body was washed by the Water of the Word, then came the Spirit and dwelt in Him, went in Him, and there came the Life of God manifesting Himself through Christ. God was in Christ, the anointed One.
“Christ” means “the anointed one,” a Man that was anointed. And God dwelling in Him, what was it? The Germ with the flesh, the anointed One, flesh being anointed with the Spirit of God produced the Word of God made manifest. “And we beheld Him, the only Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth.” There He was. He was God’s Word made manifest. And now He died in order to pay the debt of your hybreeding (my, my, there it is), that you could die to yourself until you are no more yourself and be filled with His Word, believing His Word, and then the Holy Spirit that was in Him comes down to water that Word to make It grow.
And then what is it? God manifesting, continuing the work of His first Son, His Only Begotten, that died for our hybreeding life, that He might reconcile us back to be sons and daughters of God, that through the Church, might flow the same Life by the Word, the Word continuing being manifested as It was in Christ. Christ was God’s Word made manifest. And He died, gave His Life, that He might send the Spirit: take His Body up and send the Spirit back to water, pay the redeeming Price, if we will believe it. That is it right there, if you believe it. “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do…” Then comes the Holy Spirit upon the same Word of God.
“Now,” you say, “where would He throw it upon the Bible then?” The Bible has got to be in you. The Word is a Seed, and as long as It is laying here it won’t do anything. But when It comes in here, when It comes in the heart, then It begins to manifest by the Holy Spirit the works of God. Then visions come, power comes, humility comes. All of your know-it-all is gone. You become nothing; Christ becomes alive. You die; He lives. There it is: because He died, I live. When I die, He lives again. And when I die, He promised me Life. And I died out to myself, so in order I can have His Life; and how do I do it? By taking His Word, His Seed, put in here by faith and believe It, and then it produces exactly what the Bible said.
Now, my brethren, search out across the country. We find a lot of imitations. Let us go on just a little while longer.
All right, the works are the same, manifested in His Church, which were manifested in Christ. He said so in Saint John 14:12. “Heavens and earth will pass away but My Word shall not.”
Predestinated as He was, makes the Word Seed flesh. All sons and daughters of God are predestinated. Ephesians the 1st chapter, 5th verse. All right, we are predestinated. Christ is the Original Seed, and this Original Seed was predestinated by the Foreknowledge of God, knowing that the fall would come; He predestinated Him to take our place. All sons and daughters of God are predestinated. But you say then, “Would He condemn…?…” No, sir. You are here on free moral agency, but He being God, the infinite One, He foreknew everything that would be. He knew who they were.
Now, He did not make Eve to do what she did, but He knew she would do it.
Now, no wonder He said, “They have eyes but they do not see. They have ears but they do not hear. Isaiah well spoke of you. Isaiah foresaw you.” And there they are setting with eyes, ears, and everything else, yet they cannot see. They are repellent to the Word of God. Then Jesus said, “Oh, you hypocrites. You are the children of the devil and his works you do. Then condemn Me, refuse My Ministry.” Show me where your ministry is producing the full Word of God, as His was.
Now, you say, “How does that predestination come?”
God, in the beginning, commissioned Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth. That is how sex was given; that is why it was. But what caused the hybreeding unto death? Now, we will get that in the two wombs.
Now, God foresaw and predestinated a world of sons and daughters. He predestinated them to be there. And because disbelieving God’s Word caused hybreeding, God has put it right back again that you do not have to be hybrid anymore; you can come right back to the original Word and be a son of God just like you were supposed to be at the beginning.
Christ could not help being what He was. He was the Son of God. If you were ordained, you see the Word of God, you believe It. There is something new. Have you ever heard of strain in a family? A son will kind of impersonate his father, or mother, or grandfather, or grandmother. That is a strain in the family. Well, that is the same thing from predestination. You were supposed to be here in the right way at the beginning, but being that you come the way you did, you are subject to the fall. However, since you are predestinated you hear the Word and It brings you right back where you were predestinated. Amen. Never saw that before. What makes you believe the Word of God and turn down these other things? Because there is something in you. You are made to live here forever.
Scripture for that: “All that He foreknew, He has called, all that He has called, He has justified, and all that He has justified, He has already glorified.”
“What is the use of preaching, Brother Branham?”
There is a crop out there; only thing I am doing is seining. I am just throwing it out there and see where it goes. If the repellents, the grease of the muck of the world, denominations, throw it off, I cannot help it; but if there is one out there that can absorb it, he will turn to be a son and daughter of God just as sure as the world (Amen.), because it is predestinated.
That is the reason that God could work His works through Jesus; He was a predestinated Son. He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Before a hundred billion, trillion, million years ago, He was right then predestinated to take His place. Amen. That is the reason the Will of the Father He did. He was the Word made manifest. And every one of the other sons will have the same manifestation, and those are the ones that were predestinated.
That little group in every generation will come up in the Resurrection all the way from the beginning of the world. Even Paul spoke of it in Hebrews the 11th chapter, and said that they wandered about in sheepskins and goat-skins, and were destitute, and afflicted, and tormented; of whom this world is not worthy.” Amen. Had nothing to eat, and run about, and dug out, and persecuted, and sawed asunder. Isaiah the prophet, predestinated even before the world began; he should have come through the womb of Eve. But then he came through the womb of a woman; his spirit had to come here to be a witness.
So, Jesus also came for a witness of the death, burial, and resurrection: that men will die, but live again through Him. For He is the Seed that was to come up. Amen.
Predestinated as He was, makes the Word Seed flesh in you, His Church. You say, “Sure, Brother Branham, every Word, I believe It.” Then do not back up when you get your tradition. Stay right with that Word; watch what happens. Say, “Oh, Lord, I believe It. Send the Holy Spirit.” Then watch. Then if He goes to bearing record, then you know you have It, not by some sensation; the devils do that; not by some miracles, the devils do that; but by your constant belief in the Word of God and the life that you live, never denying nothing. All right, that makes the Word becoming flesh and the same water, Spirit.
Now, wait a minute. I cannot pass this by. Fleshly speaking Jesus was the Seed of Abraham, a predestinated Seed of Abraham. And when the Spirit fell on Him, He brought a Faith Life.
“You mean He was going to be a sojourner like Abraham?”
That is where people get so mixed up today. They try to think that a man of God has to do this, and follow this, and do that. Oh mercy, no. How was Christ the Seed of Abraham? Not so much in His Body, because that seed of Isaac, finally fell and died. It backslid and hybred too. We will get to it directly. But the Faith Seed of Abraham believed God’s Word regardless of what the circumstances were. There you are. Whew. You know, I feel like shouting. The Faith Seed of Abraham is not Abraham’s body, but Abraham’s Faith in the Word of God. No matter what came, he called anything contrary to It as though it was not even there. Oh, my, that would rip these denominations to pieces.
[The faith seed promised Branham is not of the flesh but of faith in the Word that he sowed.]
If the truth of marriage and divorce was only brought out in its Light as it is in the Bible, it would break up every church. They are both sides wrong. I can prove it by the Word. They are both wrong. Whether a man should do this or do that, or a woman this or that, I am not going to say it, because I got enough confusion now amongst them. Jesus said, “Let them alone. If the blind leads the blind, why…” They would just fuss about it; they would not believe it. If they were born to Eternal Life, they will believe the Word. God will manifest Himself to them. If they do not believe it, why, they won’t believe it; that is all.
Let us get to this first. We might get to that sometime later, but let us take care of this first and see why we must believe these things, how we have got to believe them. You must believe them. If you do not, you are lost; you are.
Not to believe me. I am saying the Word. I am not putting anything here. I am just telling you what the Bible says about believing this Word. And that is what I have done, try to believe that Word just the way It is written. I do not add anything, take away anything; I read It just the way It is and believe It just like that. And by the grace and help of Almighty God, He has confirmed It, and I ask anybody to disprove It. Now, you on the tapes, come do it. Tell me one time I ever told you anything wrong, if it did not come to pass. Tell me anything anytime that God never confirmed and worked it just exactly according to the way it was said.
Predestinated as He was, makes the Word Seed the same Water on this Church today: a Bride predestinated. God said He would have a Bride without spot or wrinkle. Well, Christ was predestinated. He was a Royal Seed of Abraham; and when the Spirit came on Christ, He bore record of the Word of God. And when the Water, Spirit, falls on the Word Seed, the Royal Seed of Abraham’s Faith in God’s Word will produce the same kind of crop.
Say, “I do not believe that.” Let us see if we are Abraham’s seed.
Genesis 17:6 –
And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful… (Abraham’s seed)… and I will make many nations… (Gentiles and all)… and kings shall come out of thee.
And I will establish my covenant… (Now watch.)… between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
The seed of Abraham is not his flesh. Paul said that a Jew outwardly is not Jew; but a Jew inwardly. The seed of Abraham is those that believe the whole Word of God regardless of what denomination or papa or mama or anybody else says; they believe the whole Word of God. God said, “I will establish My Covenant with thee and with thy seed in each generation after thee that will believe it.” There you are–seed of Abraham. Now watch, God said, “I will establish it with thy seed.”
Ephesians 1:1-
Paul, an apostle… (a sent one) of Jesus Christ… (“By the will of the Sanhedrin?” I misread that, did I not? “By the will of the Lutheran or the a…”)
…by the will of God, to the saints… (not to everybody. Everybody can not take it.)… to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Those that are already in Christ Jesus. You cannot tell those babies out there about it. They cannot eat strong meat; they have to drink milk. They are stunted.
… to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from Ishi Jesus Christ. Blessed be God and Father of our Ishi Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us… (the Church)… with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places… (like this morning, those who love it are just eating it up)… in Christ: According as he hath chosen us…
Did we choose Him? “Oh, Brother Branham, I beg your pardon, I did.”
No, according to the Word, you did not. Jesus said, “You never chose Me; I chose you.” Oh, yeah. Jesus said He chose His Church before the foundation of the world.
According as he hath chosen us in him… (at doctor So-and-so’s last revival. No, no. You might read that in the creed, a text book, but not in this One.)… According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,… (We were chosen when there was no world, was no stars, there was no atoms, no molecules. Amen.)… before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children… (the seed from the beginning) … by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Who did it? God did it before the foundation of the world. Then if we come in an illegitimate birth through Eve’s corruption, making us all her children and subject to death, the sovereign God has to make a way to redeem His children, “And all the Father hath given Me will come to Me. And no man can come unless My Father draws him.” Oh, my. You never did anything. You ought to be ashamed. It is God Who did all things. The wheel is a-working just right.
Someone came the other day and said that somebody had accused me of something wrong. And I said, “Oh forget it.”
Said, “How can you take it like that? That involves your family.”
I said, “Oh, my, that was predestinated before the foundation of the world to give me a trial. So that is all right.”
Said, “How do you do it?”
I said, “If I looked right down this way, I would be falling all the time.”
That is the way with the people today. “If I accept the Truth of God’s Word, Brother Branham, they would kick me out.” Why, what are you looking here for? Look out here at the end of the road. A man who looks like this does not know where he is going. He is looking this way. But if you look out yonder, you do not care what is going on now; you know where you are going. Look where you are going. Stay lined up with the Word.
[Yes, look forward to where you are going. Keep looking ahead to what God has promised to fulfil in your day, not looking back to what He already fulfilled. What He already fulfilled has nothing to do with you. It is what He is fulfilling in your day that concerns you and your salvation. Salvation is not based on history; it is based on the present-day experience with the Word!]
Predestinated us now unto the adoption… Now, was Jesus predestinated? He was the Lamb of God already slain before there was a light, before there was a meteor, before there was a molecule, atom, anything. He was the Son of God slain. Oh, the greatness of God. Then these little peanut brains out of some little manufactured supernatural incubator over here try to debate that and say it is not right. That is a shame.
Even some of them say there is no hell, and you are setting on its pot everyday: eight thousand miles thick just below you, volcanic, and then look up and defy God and His Word. Oh, my, how great Thou art, Lord. How thankful we should be.
So, believers of the Word and Spirit must be One, absolutely One. You do not do your own thinking; you do not use your own mind. The mind that is in Christ is in you. Christ’s Mind in you will take the Word just like He did, because He was the Word. And the Mind of Christ in you, you are the Word. You are God’s living Word, representatives of Him here on earth, continuing the work. The Church should be that way.
And when that happens, the Bible is manifested again like in the early days of the disciples, just like the disciples. The Bible is living again in you.
The Bible is manifested again like in the early days of Christ, because you are a predestinated seed, just like Christ was; and when the rain falls on the seed, the life produces itself. When the Holy Spirit fell on those seeds whom Jesus told that He chose them before the foundation of the world, then here they haul themselves up in the upper room; and the Word was laying on there without Life in it. All of a sudden there came a sound from Heaven as the waters began to gush down. And it actually filled the entire house where they were setting. And the seeds begin to grow. The Word of God began to manifest Itself.
Why then has the revival fires let up?
Now, I have to call names. I have got to say things that I do not want to say, but in order to make this clear… You can see now the reason I have done what I have done. I believe this is the Word. And I believe that Christ has a Church, and the Church is the Field, and you have got to get the Word in the Field before the Spirit can ever do anything.
Why then has the revival fires let up? You do not anymore hear very much of Billy Graham, like a great evangelist should be heard. Oral Roberts is not burning the country like he used to. My meetings are not even heard of. There are just three. What is the matter?
We are going to get some real deep teaching. I am going to have to just use it now, and if this tape should fall in the hands of Billy Graham or Oral Roberts, I want you to know, my brethren, that I am not disregarding you; if you notice, I am taking myself in there as your fellow brother in the Gospel. And I think after this you will have a better understanding, brethren, of why I have done what I have done. And I hope that I find grace in the sight of God and before you, in being honest and truthful to tell you the reason why.
Now, the world was a-burning here not long ago with Billy Graham. You very seldom here of it now. He is still going, but what is the matter? Oral Roberts, why, just burning the earth up: now dying down. Tommy Osborn, all of them are good Godly men. What has happened? Believing that God called me for a ministry, what has happened to mine? Now, this is going to answer some questions.
You say, “Brother Branham, yours is the deadest of all of them.” That is true. Billy Graham is more heard of than Oral or I. Oral is more heard of in one day than I am in six months. Tommy Osborn, Tommy Hicks, any of those Godly men, they are more heard of. So as far as that turns, mine’s farther away than all of them. What has happened? “Brother Branham, you were telling us here now that you actually believe the Word and everything, well what has happened to you then?” That is what we want to know.
Remember the Bible said in Genesis 1, which we read to base our thought for the day upon, that every seed will have to bring after its kind. The earth is full of seeds and the rain makes it bring forth after its kind.
I believe it is near the harvest time. The seeds have been planted. That is what the matter with us is. Oh, God, I wish you could see what passed before me then. The seeds have been planted. There is a planting time, then a harvest time.
There have been three different kinds of seeds planted: A denominational seed and Billy Graham was a head planter; a Pentecostal seed and Oral Roberts was the head planter. And then the Word has been planted. Now, you will have to understand, folks. I want you to get this good and clear. Three seeds have been planted. That is the reason the planting is just about over, all over. Seeds must be planted before the rain (the Spirit) falls. Now, you are going to disagree there, but hold on just a minute.
Seeds must be planted and then the rain falls to water the seed.
Now, we are hearing so many organizations and everything else say we are in the latter rain. Nonsense. No such a thing.
(… Something is happening. I can just see it passing before me. It has done caught the Spirit. Amen. I know this is Truth; it is THUS SAITH YAH. Vision just moving and coming, I can hardly look down here. Every time I look, I see it just moving up in front of me like that and breaking off and moving this way and look this way. I have been trying to watch some fellows setting around down here. Look away and everywhere I look, it is like there it is.)
[Brother Branham preached this sermon under very special anointing. The Holy Spirit was very close to him because it was a very special message. The Spirit of prophecy was upon him throughout that week. It was prophetic message that finally pointed to what was to follow after him. Up to that time it was one of the greatest revelations that had come to him. It was not just an ordinary sermon. The Spirit was speaking about the past, the present (at that time) and the future. For you to get the depth of the two sermons under this title, you have to see it in the light of the three phases: the past, the present and the future.]
I do not know what has exactly happened along that line.
I believe that it is near the harvest time. The seeds have been planted. Denominational seed of the churches such as the Evangelicals, like Baptist, and Presbyterian, Lutheran. And the Pentecostal seeds have been planted into the Pentecostal organization, by great men like Oral Roberts, Tommy Hicks, and Tommy Osborn, great men of God. And I believe that the Word of God has been planted unadulterated away from any of those organizations. That is the matter.
The seed planted must have seed water before it can grows.
Now you say, “Why, Brother Branham, we have had the water.” So be it. That is correct. You have had the water. Now, I know, that is right. Catching your thought now; you just cannot hide it now. All right, so be careful what you are thinking.
What did we have in that planting time? The former rain. You say, “Oh, Brother Branham, nonsense.” Now, wait just a minute. You take the word “former” in Joel 2 and go to the Hebrew, it is moureh, which means “teaching.” Amen. The teaching rain has gone forth. The denominational teaching rain has gone forth. “A million more in ‘44,” Baptist members in the church. Oral Roberts, and those brothers with the great Pentecostal move, has done moved up into the millions. And the Seed has gone forth, the Word, for the minority, the group.
Teaching rain went forth.
Billy Graham has struck the world. The Pentecostals struck the world, and the Word has struck the world. What is the matter now? She is now waiting for the latter rain. That is when she produces her fruits. Oh, I hope you get it.
[Here is where you ought to understand the ministry of the forerunner, he plants the seed in the former rain. He ministers during the former rain. That is planting rain, and that is by the message of repentance, calling out an Exodus back to the Word, back to God. That is the ministry of the forerunner, it is to turn the hearts back to the knowledge of truth.
Turning back means repentance. That was the ministry of Elijah the Tishbite:
1Kings 18:37 Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.
That is exactly the ministry of Elijah, he is sent to turn the hearts of people back to the true worship:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Malachi 4:5-6
The theme of the forerunner’s ministry is the message of repentance, a message of correcting errors. He calls out an Exodus back to God. And that is exactly what John the Baptist did:
And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:16-17
To turn the hearts, means to cause to repent. It is the message of repentance and baptism in water that does that:
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins… Luke 3:2-3
As the theme of Elijah’s ministry and John’s ministry was repentance, that is turning back to where they had fallen from, so was the ministry of Branham. Branham’s ministry was to turn the people’s heart back to the apostle’s foundation from where the church had fallen. That kind of ministry brings on former rain, not latter rain. Former rain is just the teaching of the truth:
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Mat 3:11-12
Quite clear! John’s ministry never went beyond planting rain, and that is why he could only baptize in water. To baptize in water means immersing in water, and that means planting. For the planted seed must die before it springs up. That is how far the ministry of a forerunner goes. He can only minister in the former rain. It all ends in the former rain. Latter rain concerns the ministry of the one whom he foreruns.
John planted the seed in the former rain, then it is Jesus who brought on the latter rain, that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
John confesses plainly that he was not worthy to bear the ministry of Jesus concerning the harvesting rain. He could not fill the shoes of Jesus. Branham confesses the same thing! He preached repentance unto baptism in water preparing the way for the second coming of Jesus which is a mystery in the seventh seal.
Branham confessed it loud and clear that the seventh seal was not opened to him. He could not bear that shoe. He could not step in the shoes of Jesus. That was a ministry beyond him!
Branham stated in black and white that the bride had not been awakened yet, that there had not been any revival to awaken her, and that it was to take the seven thunders (the seventh seal, the second coming of Jesus) to awaken her. So, it is the seven-thunder ministry that brings on latter rain.
183 The—the Bride hasn’t had a revival yet. See? There’s been no revival there, no manifestation of God to stir the Bride yet. See? We’re looking for it now. It’ll take those seven unknown Thunders back there, to wake Her up again, see. Yeah. He’ll send it. He promised it. Now watch.
63-0320 – The Third Seal
Rev. William Marrion Branham
So, Branham planted the seed during former rain, Jesus comes with the latter rain ministry. He brings on latter rain unto the full baptism of the Holy Spirit. Remember, the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the seven church ages has only been an earnest, a little portion, a place holder, but we are promised the fullness at the end time. Branham as Elijah prepared the way for the second coming of Jesus to bring in the fullness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit unto perfection. Certainly, Branham could not bear such shoes, for God reveals Himself in fullness only in His first begotten, never in any other man. For only in Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Yet the latter rain that came upon the apostles only came in after the Word had been revealed in flesh, same thing happens at the end time: first the forerunner, second the Word in flesh, then finally the Holy Spirit. The shout, the voice and the trumpet.
Yes, latter rain comes after the ministry of the Godhead and that is what Branham was preparing the way for. That is why the Spirit in him insisted that the latter rain was yet to come, and that it will come when Jesus comes.]
Then the kind of seed you have planted in your field will be the crop you will reap. If the denominations want more members, that is what they are going to get. That is what they have got. The Pentecostals want more Pentecostals; that is what they are going to get. But the Word is going to produce sons and daughters of God. That is coming too. Watch, look what that great latter rain is supposed to do, how they would run over the wall, and leap over, and how they would be an army coming. Just wait a minute. The kind of crop you will get is the seed you put in your field.
The two denominational kinds will unite together to go to Sodom. But the Word will stay with the elected, the Royal Seed. Amen. Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man.” Two angels, two anointed ministers, went down to Sodom to bring out a backslidden man (had a little speck of God about him), and his wife, his bride… You know what happened to her; she was disgraced. And look at his daughters and what it hatched out after they got out. It always was a “hair in the biscuit,” a gaggy thing…; we know that.
But there was One Who stayed back with Abraham and gave a sign. Abraham and his group were called the elected seed that never went down. They were pilgrims. They journeyed here and there: inter-denominational. But the denomination went down and made himself a city; Lot became the priest, the bishop, state presbyter or whatever he became, a big man, sat in the city gate as the judge, who says, “No, we won’t have that guy in our midst; no, sir. He disagrees with our theology. We cannot have it.” There he sat, old Lot. “If he does not pack credentials from our group, we won’t have him at all.” Who made you a judge over the House of God, you hybrid? God’s Word will be preached anyhow.
Saint Martin went to a group like that; that guy would not even stand up to give him respect after God had broken the gate. God even burned his robe off his back, made him rise up and salute that prophet of God. His throne caught fire. Yes, sir. He went down there with the true Word, performed miracles and signs and proved the Word that he was. They had their own bishopric, and they had what they wanted, and that is just what they wanted; but God might have had some elected children in there, and He had to go get them.
Lot once had the choice to be interdenominational himself. He once had the choice to journey with Abraham, but the love of the world choked him out. That is what it has done today. And remember, those down in Sodom never saw one of those supernatural miracles. They had a blinding; and preaching the Word blinds the eyes of the unbeliever. That is what Billy Graham and the others have done: blinded the eyes of those unbelievers out there. Now, you cannot deny that Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming…” And here it is in the Bible. It will be the same thing at the Coming of the Son of man.
Now, watch, but there was One Who was the Word. He was the Word, and where did He stay? The Word stayed with the elected one. And the Word of God today will stay with the elected ones, the Royal Seed of Abraham by the promise.
What kind of a works did It do? When It was manifested about eight hundred years later in the form of Jesus Christ, It did the same works that the Word did at the gate at Abraham’s tent, with His back turned to the tent; He told Abraham that his name was Abraham, not Abram (what it always had been), because God met him a few days before that and told him his name was Abraham. Said, “Where is thy wife Sarah?” as if He did not know.
He said, “She is in the tent behind You.”
He said, “I (personal pronoun) am going to visit you according to the time of life, and you are going to have that baby that you have waited on. The latter rain is fixing to fall. You have held that seed in there long enough now, believing, and you are looking for a coming son, and he is coming.” Amen. That is the real Church today–that elected Seed. Amen. Who said that? The Word.
You say, “Oh that was not the Word.” I beg your pardon. Abraham called Him God; that is the Almighty Self-Existing One. He was the Word: God. Where did He come to? Abraham’s seed.
Now, remember, He had nothing to do with them denominations. He stayed right with the elected, and preached, and showed the sign. And now, wait just a little bit.
Then Sarah, in herself… Watch that pollution. Now, to disbelieve that, God would have killed her right there. And she come out and denied. She laughed up her sleeve, to herself. Maybe she never even cracked a smile but down in her heart she [Brother Branham illustrates Sarah laughing–Ed.]. See, she kind of laughed a little bit. “Me, an old woman, fifty years since the menopause. Why, we have not lived as husband and wife for twenty-five years, maybe, thirty. And you mean to say I am going to have pleasure with my lord,” referring to Abraham, her husband. (That is the kind of wife you ought to be. Paul said the same thing. Love your husband that much. Not just hybrid something out here. Remember your thoughts. We will get to that this afternoon in the womb thought.)
She loved Abraham so much she called him her lord. And the Angel showed Abraham that He was the Word. He said, “Why did Sarah laugh?”
So he called her forth, and she said, “I never.”
He said, “But you did.” What? That is grace. God would have slain her, right there, but He could not. Oh, see our stupidity? He would kill every one of us, but He cannot. To kill Sarah, He had to take Abraham, because Sarah was a part of Abraham. They were one in union. And He can not destroy the Church and because it is part of Christ, the Word being made flesh. Oh. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!” He could not take her life, because she was part of Abraham, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone.
Do not say, “Well, I made a failure.” No, Abraham made failures too. But He could not take the Church. He cannot kill the elected. He can not take your life, because you are part of Himself. You are the Word. The Word is in you. It has manifested Itself, proven Itself: love, joy, peace, long-suffering. You believe everyone of the Words of God: God working through you. You are part of the Word, which is Christ. And we are taught that He is the Word, and we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone. Now, we are coming down to something.
Moureh, the former rain, planting rain, has gone forth. The former rain was planted. The latter rain fell. Sodom and its Sodomites burned. Abraham received the promised son.
Jesus said, “Let them grow together. The tares shall be bound, bundled, and burned. The wheat will go to the garner.” The latter rain is just at hand.
The two denominations, Pentecostal and these others, will unite, but the Word will stay with Abraham’s promised Seed as It did then. Have you got ears to hear, eyes to see, and understanding to understand with?
“Is it not written that as the days of Sodom, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man,” would Jesus say if He was standing here this morning? Don’t you see the two harvests coming up here, receiving their last shower? They have come along to that last shower. Then the angels and YAH disappeared, and the rain fell.
Now, all signs are pointing to the end. Everybody that believes God’s Word knows that.
I have to call names again. I do not mean to be rude, but I told God I would pull no punches. I would come right here and just express exactly what I have known all my life, and then there are some things over here at the end I have to withhold; but I am going to express to you as far as He will let me do it. Mrs. Wood knows that after I got this and many more pages beside this, the Holy Spirit said, “Do not do that.” Did I call you, Mrs. Wood, and said He told me not to do that? So I went back and prayed, and that night He come to me in a vision and said, “Go do this. Take this and place it there, because they won’t understand this. It is not time for this yet; place this here.” And I did. That is right. “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”
Show you that we are at the end time; even the parable of the wise and the unwise virgins is with us. Now, look, the unwise virgin is going to be the hybrid. She had the Seed without the Oil, the moisture to make it grow. Now, what is she doing? The two groups, the Pentecostal group and the denominational, the Evangelical groups are merging together, going to Sodom to reap this harvest.
Even one of my great friends, a real scholar, a smart, brilliant, intelligent Pentecostal man… And I noticed my brethren in the Christian Business Men are shouting the praises of God because in there they have got Episcopalian preachers, Catholic priests. I wonder if those men are sound asleep. They say, “Oh, it is the greatest thing you ever heard, Brother Branham. Why, this Episcopalian people come over here, and they say they received the Holy Spirit. They spoke in tongues; they have done these things. Glory to God. I am telling you, why, their church has been revolutionized.” Oh, my, brethren, don’t you know that is the sign?
When the unwise virgin wants Oil, while she is buying it, that is the time that the Bridegroom comes. Oh, you Pentecostals, what is the matter? Well, you can not see it unless God shows it to you; that is one thing sure. If back yonder you were not predestinated to it, you are going to miss it. Blessed are their ears that can hear; blessed are the hearts that can understand, for the time is at hand, every sign pointing to it.
Look what kind of revivals they are having: revivals. Looks good, doesn’t it?
You say, “Well, Brother Branham, now you have got us on a limb.” That is where I wanted you. How are you going to know what is right and wrong? Give it the Word test. That is the way to tell whether it is right or wrong. See what it says about the Word. See what any spirit says about the Word. If it denies the Word, it is not of God. No matter what it is, if it denies the Word, it is not of God.
Jesus warned us of these things.
He told us that the two spirits would be so close; it would deceive the very elected. Matthew 24:35 says…
… heavens and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away.
The two spirits will be so close together… Now, it has got to be that way. The Pentecostal denomination has got to act so much like the real until Jesus said that only the elected would not be deceived. Remember only the elected will catch it. That kills me nearly. But, my denominational brethren, can’t you see why I have done what I done?
You say, “Well, how do you know that you are not right?” Then test me by the Word. Come, test your denomination by this Word. Let us see who’s right. “Prove all things,” the Bible said.
You say, “It does not make any difference how you are baptized…” It does make a difference. That is what Satan told Eve.
Some people had already been baptized in Acts 19; a good Christian man, John the Baptist, baptized them. Paul asked, “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?”
They said, “We know not whether there is any Holy Spirit.”
Said, “Then how were you baptized? If you had received It you would have known it.” How were you baptized?”
He said, “Unto John, the great man that baptized Jesus.”
Paul said, “That will not work now,” because John baptized only unto repentance, not for remission of sins; the Sacrifice had not been offered. And when they heard this, they were re-baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ.
God said, “Take off your shoes, Moses”
What if Moses said “You know I tied them a little tight this morning, Ishi. I will show more respect; I will take off my hat.” That would not have worked. He never said hat; He said shoes. It is the devil who tries to whitewash that, like he did with mother Eve. Every Word is the Truth just the way God has it written there. That is the way I believe it.
Now, you say, “Well, we have the truth.” Well you go ahead then. If you are that blind, you go right ahead, staggering in darkness. This is the Word that is going to judge you, brother, not your creed. Oh, it looks good, yes, sir.
And you say, “Well, Brother Branham, wait a minute. Bless God you, I have seen them go out there and heal the sick. Oh, I have seen them speak in tongues.” Oh, sure; so have I. Yes, sir. And I have never believed, and there is no one can prove it by God’s Word, that the initial evidence of the Holy Spirit is speaking with tongues. I want the man to come and do it. I have challenged that all along. I believe in speaking in tongues. Yes, sir; but I have seen devils, witches and wizards speak in tongues and interpret, denying there was such a thing as Jesus Christ. I have seen men speak in tongues living with other men’s wives. Stand and look at me right in the face and a vision before him, call him out to one side and made him a witness to it. And you call that the Holy Spirit?
You say, “Well, Brother Branham, don’t you believe the Holy Spirit speaks in tongues?” Yes, sir, I believe; but give it the Word test. Jannes and Jambres worked miracles. Didn’t they? When Moses went down to Egypt, everything that he did in the way of a sign, Jannes and Jambres, the two witches, could produce the same thing: two devils. Moses would say, “Fleas.”
They also said, “Fleas.”
Moses said, “A stick on the ground.”
They also said, “A stick on the ground.”
“A serpent.”
“A serpent.”
They could work miracles. The Bible said that in the last days devils would rise up working miracles and would deceive the people. Awful hard, brother, but you must know the Truth.
Jesus said, “Many will come to Me in that day and say, ‘Ishi, Ishi, have not I done this, and done that, and done that, and so forth, in Your Name?’”
He would say, “Depart from Me, you worker of iniquity.” What is iniquity? It is something that you know is wrong, and you do it anyhow. And you know that God’s Word is right. Why do you play the hypocrite? Because of your organization you pick a little bit here and won’t take the rest of it. He will say, “You worker of iniquity, depart from Me; I never even knew you.” You either wade through hell here or hereafter.
Now, remember, that is true; that is what Jesus said. Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses; and the Bible says, “As they withstood, those spirits would reappear in the last days.” Just before the liberation of the people. Hallelujah. The liberation time’s here. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that they would deceive the very elected if it was possible. Just the elected will catch it, just one here and there. “As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so will these men of reprobate mind concerning the Word, the Truth,…” and the Word is the Truth. Now, this is not skim milk, friends.
Jesus said that they would be so close that they would deceive the very elected, if it was possible; but it is not possible. That Seed is going to fall there, because it is predestinated to fall there. The seeds have gone forth. The denominations have been sowed; the Word has been sowed. And the Bible said these devils would rise up in the last days and would deceive the people by these miracles and signs that they would perform. How would you know the difference? By the Word.
Isaiah said, “If they speak not according to the law and prophets, there is no light in them.” If they deny one thing… Then show me one person who was ever baptized using the titles of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why do you do it then? A creed, hybrid, dead, bastard children, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. “Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Both heavens and earth will pass away, but My Word shall not pass away,” said Jesus. Now, you see why I have stood the way I have?
Show me one place, if it is not a curse for a woman to cut her hair. Then you fuss at me, “Brother Branham is a prophet. Oh, you can believe him as long as he is telling the people their sins and things like that; but when he goes to teaching, don’t you believe that.” Well, you poor hypocrite. You do not know anything. Does not the Bible say the Word of YAH came to the prophets? I do not call myself a prophet; I am no prophet. But you said so; I am saying what you said. And then turn around and say a thing like that. Do not say you did not do it. I have even got it taped, where you said it. You did not know that, did you? Just want you to say you did not one time; that is all I want you to say. I will let your own voice play back to you.
As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses: miracle workers, but where was the Word, the true Word? There were guys working miracles. There were guys who could do everything in the miracle. But there was one prophet and his helpmate. An anointed prophet called Moses, stood there; he had THUS SAITH THE LORD. And at the end, it was all manifested before the deliverance. The so-called miracle workers died right out.
Now, what they are trying to do is to manufacture a latter rain. Nonsense. Why, that latter rain will sweep the world, brother. Now, you will see what the latter rain produces. You will find out there will be an affiliation. The Pentecostals and all the groups will come together, and they will shut the doors on those guys who won’t listen to it; and you won’t even be allowed to open your mouth. That is when He will come. That is when He will show. That is when you will see a rain. Oh, my, lay still; be quiet; let it go.
[You can see that latter rain only comes after He has come. Latter rain follows His coming. He comes to bring in latter rain. Just like His first coming. He came after John to bring in the earnest baptism of the Holy Spirit. That was latter rain then. Now, He comes after Branham to bring in the fullness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is going to be latter rain for the final harvest. The first latter rain only came in after Jesus’ ministry. Then it is clear that the second or final latter rain will only come in after Christ’s ministry at His second coming.
The shout is the ministry of the former rain by the forerunner, planting rain. The voice of the archangel is the ministry of the Word in flesh at His second coming, then the trumpet will be the Holy Spirit in the latter rain.]
Oh, but the Word was with that anointed prophet because the Word of the Lord came to the prophet. Now, God does not change His system. There stood three again. There went Jannes and Jambres performing miracles, like those who went down to Sodom – did one little miracle, blinded people. There stood Abraham, the anointed one, Sarah his helpmate, and God. Here stood Jannes and Jambres performing miracles: anything that Moses could do. And there stood the anointed Word, the prophet, with his helper, his assistant.
In Genesis 1, remember, every seed after its kind. It must forever be that way. There are all those types. A man who could believe that the church will go through a tribulation period; I wonder where you would ever get a seed for that. You say, “Well, I believe it says that they will do…” Did you notice back yonder where the rains fell the other time? Where did it fall? Noah was in the ark before the judgment struck. Lot was out of Sodom before it ever took place. Sure, we are not going through any tribulation period; we are going in a rapture one of these days. Why do you have to be judged? Jesus Christ stood my tribulation. That is where my tribulation took place, yeah. I accepted Him, and He set me free. “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” Moses was safely protected with Israel while the tribulation fell.
Every seed must come after its kind. God made man in His Image, after His Kind, to be His Word on earth. He expressed it in Jesus Christ. God was in Christ. That is a Man after His Kind. How many know God is the Word? When the Word was in Christ, a Man, expressing Itself through Him, that was God, the Word, in Christ expressing Himself.
And God in the beginning made man in His Own Image, and that is the kind of Man that God makes today. The seminary and the incubator hatchery turn out a bunch of hybrids, the schools. But when God calls a man, he is in His Own Image: the Word is made alive in him. There he is; that is God’s man, man in His Own Image, in His very Likeness. And Jesus said, “He will do the works that I do. So, God made man in His Own Image after His Kind.
What is His Kind? He is the Word. Then if a man denies God’s Word, how can he be in God’s Image? Just ask the question. Ask yourself. “How can he be in God’s Image and deny God’s Word, when the Word is the expressed Image of Himself?”
He says, “Oh, it does not mean that.” The expressed Image of God saying that? “Oh, I said it, but I did not really mean it. I was wrong there. I back up. That was for some other time. I did not mean it.” Oh mercy, trash, slop of the devil that he fed to Eve. Do not let him try to poke it down the elect’s neck though. No, sir. They won’t believe that. “Just come and join with our gang.” Join nothing; you got to be born a new creature; not join.
Yes, in His Own Image, of His Kind, to be His expressed Word on earth. Now, Jesus was God’s expressed Word. Then we are to be sons of God too, with the expressed Word in the Church (the mystical Body of Christ), carrying on the same works that Jesus did when He was here on earth. That is the kind after His Kind.
Now, you can have the Lutheran kind after Lutheran; Methodist after their kind; Catholic after their kind; the Pentecostal, Oneness, Trinity after their kind; but if you are God’s kind, that is different. You are the expressed Image of the Word making Itself manifest. Oh, my. Why, if the water falls on it, it has got to do it.
I just don’t think I got time for this next expression; it is a dandy. All of God’s words are dandies.
Our last thought here was that God made man in His Own Image after His Kind. What kind of a Man was he? If you will look back and see what He was when He was made flesh, that is the kind of Man He makes. Amen.
He said one time to a man: “You are after My Own heart,” a man after His Own heart: David. The Spirit of God in David, a rejected king. Always the anointed is rejected. He went up the hill when his own people, his own son, dethroned him, run him off. And even one of them came out there spitting on him, that anointed king. This little old guy, crippled up in his doctrine (The Bible said he was crippled, you know.), and he went along spitting on that king. Watch Christ. That messenger by his side, an angel representing him, pulled a sword said, “Should the head of that dog stay on, spit on my king? I will strike him dead.”
David said, “Put up your sword. I have to do this.” Went up on top of the hill of Jerusalem, looked back down, a rejected king, and he wept. Eight hundred years from there the Son of David, the Spirit that was in David in a portion, stood on the same hill, a rejected king being spat on and made fun of. I can imagine that Angel was walking along there with Him when He went up to Calvary like that: “Shall the head of that dog stay on?”
“Let him alone.” Oh, my, there is coming a time.
But what about David when he come back? The story changed. He came back riding in triumph. This fellow run, screamed for mercy. Sure, let him alone. He will come someday in Power. Then the laughter will turn the other way. That is right, just let them alone.
But God said, “David, you are a man after My Own heart.” When God creates a man, he is of His Kind. David said, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I sin not against You, Lord.” Only thing he needed was the rain. David would have been all right if he just had that rain, but the Holy Spirit was not yet given. He had the Word in him, and he could know It; he said, “I have hid It in my heart, Lord. It won’t bloom out and act like It should, but I have hid It there Lord. I have hid It.” But when Jesus came, which was the Word made manifest, He took the Germ Life out of it and brought it back to the Word. If David’s cup ran over, without the Spirit, what ought ours to do? Amen. Isn’t He wonderful? You love Him?
Isn’t He wonderful, wonderful, wonderful?
Isn’t Jesus my Ishi wonderful?
Eyes have seen, ears have heard,
What’s recorded in God’s Word;
Isn’t Jesus my Ishi wonderful?
Isn’t He? How many love It? How many love Him? Oh my, He is wonderful.
Now, it is very rough, friends. I do not mean to be that myself. Yeah, I hope you understand that. But today I am expressing why I have done the things that I have done.
Now, this has been my motive, and my objective – God’s Word. My motive is to please Him. And I cannot listen to everything and believe God’s Word; neither can I listen to everything and please Him. My motive is to know His Word and to please God by serving Him by His Word. Now, every person in here that is born of the Spirit of God, who is in the elected group, was perhaps once a Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, or something else somewhere. So then you see, when you say, “Go out to them,” that is what you have to do. There is somebody in there, if you will sow the seed, there will be a harvest someday. Some of it will go by and say, “Ah, he is nothing but a deceiver.” They said the same thing about our Lord. “There is nothing to that. He is nothing but a deceiver.” Well then, why don’t you check it with the Word? If it is not the Word, then it is deceiving. If your theology is different from the Word, then it is not right.
Now, others will go by and say, “Well, you know what, I believe I will try it a while.” You will choke. But when you really empty out, say, “Ishi Jesus, no more of me, but You from this on,” Then it is going to bring forth a hundredfold. You believe that? I believe it too. Well, it is with liberty and justice for all. Yes, sir. I pledge allegiance to my Ishi, to preach His Word and to stand on His Truth, even if it costs my life. I will still go on just the same.
It would be a great thing for me, not wanting to do it, but if I had to do it, I will mingle my blood in this earth like those who mingled their blood for the same thing, like those who died in the pits of the lions, on the crosses; those who were sawed asunder, kicked out of their organizations and wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, and were destitute. It would be a great privilege for me, like the Disciples of Christ returned rejoicing because they were able to stand the reproach that was brought on His Name. They could suffer that for Him, their little suffering. I do not want to suffer; nobody wants to suffer. I would like to join my hands with all the denominations, say, “Brethren, let us go.” I would like to do that. If I do that, I take my hand out of His. Far be it from me ever to do that. If I stand alone, I stand with Him and His Word.
As Eddie Perronett said, “On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.” Christ is the Word. Every seed brings forth of its kind. The denominational seed (Pentecostal, Baptist, and others) will bring forth of its kind: organization, constantly.
We are going to show, God willing, how they started, and what caused it, and exactly what will be the end.
God bless you all. I trust that by the grace of God, I have not brought any offense. But I am making myself clear.
Now, if you believe the same thing that I have said this morning, would not you stand that way? Sure, you would. Let us bow our heads just a moment.
Gracious heavenly Father, these seeds that have been sown this morning, may they have fallen upon good fertile ground. Let them bring forth abundance, Ishi, abundance of Eternal Life. We pray, Father, that the seeds will lay there waiting for the latter rain to fall. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. God, may we not run ahead of the Word, but stay with the It. Grant it, Lord.
Bless us now. May You help me as I go to pray and come back. I pray that You will a-freshly anoint me, Lord, that I might bring what I believe to be Your Word to the people. Grant it, Father.
It is getting very close. The enemy, as we expect to speak on this afternoon, is growing deeper, bolder all the time. Since they have taken the throne; they are moving right on in. Lord, we see it on every hand. Not Communism, Lord, may the people be able to understand that it is Romanism, the old mother whore and her harlots; and we see them, Lord, an image unto the beast coming, and here we are.
Father God, be merciful now, and let us all get into the safety, into the ark and be ready for the latter rain. We ask it in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Oh, how I love Jesus;
Oh, how I love Jesus;
Oh, how I love Jesus,
Because He first loved me
Echoes From Paradise 