Paradox #1 (1961)

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for the joy that we have in coming to your house of worship, knowing, Lord, that always you illuminate our hearts and our minds and you give us more understanding, more grace, increase our faith, Lord, in all those things that lie in your word and makes us realize how much more we ought to take time in our daily lives to... Get into your word more and more, for there is where real life is. We thank you, O God, that you administer grace and mercy to us, but we'd like at this time to have you minister more sincerity and that which causes us, Lord, to gain greater strength for the race and more determination and enter in more fuller before knowing that this race is fast drawing to a conclusion. We commend ourselves to you therefore tonight, Lord, seeking your blessing, believing we have it, your face shining down upon us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Now, I thought perhaps I might just go back and check into Paradox as preached in 1961. And I'm going to deal with it just as rapidly as I can on Wednesday nights because we don't need to take a great deal of time with it. But I instantly discovered one thing. I've always been saying, look, I'm not a prophet. And there's no way that I can arrive at truth just by suddenly it coming to me and I have the whole thing laid out before me. And I have to sort of bide my time and just work at it. And I could make some little quiver -divers in between. Or is it quiver -divers or something in between? and not be 100 % right, but later on get the thing ironed out. Well, I notice that Brother Branham here, and you'll follow, is that 1961 was not one -tenth as definitive as it was in 1965. And it's not that he doesn't say exactly right in 1961. He does, but it's more or less a message taken from many things in the Word. that does not strike to the doctrine as it did in 65, which goes to show that Brother Branham also had a revelation that was increasing in its depth, intensity, and its magnitude. So, this is going to be good to just go into this to be a big help to you all to realize, don't get too excited. that if you're not getting everything in your understanding the way you want it, it takes time. And you'll get what you need regardless. What's necessary for you to have, you'll have. I think that was brought out three Sundays now as I took the Holy Spirit in Ephesians, showing you how you have a very special place. And I didn't take all the thoughts relative to it, such as... There's a measure of faith beyond the simple measure of faith for salvation and the baptism. And there's a God -given ability. There's a God -given understanding. All of those things you have, and of course, they're there in a seed form, and you progress in it. And let's face it, if you're more or less in what you might call not a lesser gift, so much as... what we might term as one not so illustrious. You have everything you need so that what appears not to be so illustrious will shine just as greatly as that which seems to be more or most illustrious. So, you just listen along here now and I think you'll find this interesting in that light. Now, he talks first of all about visions. And I'm starting at page 8. Now, in the vision, I might say this, I mentioned it once. That's the vision he had. I was going to cut it off the tape, but I believe I'll just leave it on. It was about three o 'clock in the morning, I suppose. I had gotten up and I looked where in front of me and I was coming down to the Jordan. Now, Jordan, of course, we know spells different things. Number one, most people think going over Jordan has to do with dying. Go down to Jordan. And it does. Number two, people think of Elisha and Elijah. Elijah crossing over Jordan, Elisha going also, and then Elijah being caught up in the rapture. Then, of course, we think of Jordan where we're crossing over into the promised land. Now, you can look at many features here, whichever way you want to look at it, but you'll find basically this will be more in line with the thought of going over into the promised land. So, he said, It looked like I was standing on the map of Palestine and I was coming down to the Jordan. And it seemed like I could hear the song, I'm going down to the Jordan. Someone was singing it. And as I drew near the river, I looked back and saw which way I had come. And I was two -thirds of the way there to the Jordan. All right, two -thirds. That was sometime he had that vision. It would be maybe 1961, I suppose. Now, we won't worry too much about dates, but it's interesting. And I looked across Jordan and I said, oh, praise God. Now, listen, just on the other side is where all the promises lay. So, all right, we're looking in terms of Jordan promised land. Going across to the promised land and that's it. Every promise lays in the promised land. Then I said to myself and I thought, could I possibly have, could have been that I was dreaming. Because it's nighttime. See, a vision is something that you see with your eyes open, just like a dream. You're looking right at it. And you're conscious that you're standing like right here on the platform. You're standing here. But yet, you look like you're in a dream. You can't explain it. There's no way to do it. See, it's God's works. And God's ways are unexplainable. They have to be accepted by faith. And then, as I sat there a little bit, aside of this chair, then all of a sudden, here it come back again. Then I knew that it was a vision. And then when I came into the vision again, it seemed I was lifted up and sitting on a highway, a narrow highway with some brother. You see, this vision is changing, but it'll be running in continuity. There has to be something to it. I never knew who the brother was. I looked around and said, now I'm sure and know this is a vision. The Lord is here. And it seemed like everybody was afraid. And I said, what's everybody so afraid of? And a voice came and said, there is such danger in these days. There's a great hideous thing that's death when it strikes you. And I heard the weeds a smashing and down. And I looked and here came a huge monster snake crawling through the weeds. And I thought, now, knowing this is vision, then I shall see what this animal or beast is. And he crawled up in the highway. And as soon as I got sight of him, I knew it was a mamba. Now, mamba is an African snake, which is the most deadly bite of all things there is. There's nothing as poisonous as a mamba. And the snake, of course, now let's remember now, he says, the snake, of course, represents sin and death. All right, now that's what it says. He's down here two -thirds to Jordan, and that's the promised land. And remember what we found in the other paradox, that there is a day of grace that signifies the promised land. Now, that's not in here. See, so this vision and what he's saying here,

well, it's almost child's play to what you get into in 1965. You can see the difference in four years that people would have to have progressed greatly in their understanding of the man and his message and ministry to apprehend what he said there in contradistinction to this very minor dissertation. It's not minor in the sense of, but it's certainly not as strong in its input, represents sin and death. Now, you look now, this is coming down to where you want to enter in. You want to get into that day of grace. The book of Ephesians in view again. Now, he puts this here right up in front of us. See? And there we have in this country the rattlesnake, copperhead, cottonmouth, moccasin, many snakes. That if you're in bad health and one would bite you, perhaps kill you, if you didn't get ate of some sort right away. When we go to Africa and India, we find the cobra. There's a black cobra. He's a bad snake. He's a death bite too. There's a yellow cobra, which is far beyond him. With the yellow cobra, the patient dies with such a horrible death. He dies from suffocation. The bite paralyzes the breathing system. They can't breathe. They just open their mouths and gasp and try to breathe and die like that. And that was the type of snake with just one lick from getting Billy Paul when we were in Africa. And then comes the mamba. He's dead. He's so fast you can't see him. He goes over the top of the weeds and propels himself with the back of his tail. And just, he's gone. Hits you in the face usually. Stands up high and strikes hard. And when he hits you, you've just only got a few breaths and you're finished. It don't let me paralyze, gets in the bloodstream, gets the nerves, everything. Usually die in a few seconds. Those native boys and track boys, you say mamba, they'll butt their heads together and scream, cause their death just in a few seconds, see when one hits you. And here he was on the highway, and I thought, well, this is it. So I looked at him, and he looked angry at me. He licked his tongue, and here he comes. And when he got right close to me, and he would run up fast, and he'd get slower and slower and just quiver and stop. And then something would hold him off. He couldn't bite me, and he would turn around the other way and try to approach on this side, and he would get back and get a start and switch right toward me, get slower and slower and slower, and then to a stop, and then he would shake like that and move back. He couldn't strike me. And then he turned and looked at my friend, and the way he went after my friend, and I saw my friend just jumping in the air and over him and over him and over him trying, and the thing was striking at him. I thought, oh, if it ever hits him, he'd be instant dead. No wonder everybody's so scared because this thing hits you with an instant death. And it was just striking at him like that. And I threw up my hands and I said, Oh God, have mercy on my brother. I said, If that serpent ever strikes me, I'm going to kill him. And just then the serpent turned to me when I said that and looked at me. And a voice came above me and said, You have been given power to bind him, the worst or any. Now notice, bind him who is the worst or anything which would be below him in category of power. You'll find that's explained. And I said, well, God, what must I do? And he said, there is one thing you must do. You must be more sincere. See, you must be more sincere. All right, now, going down to the Jordan, going to promised land, the day of grace given, we're in the hour of promise right now, and sincerity is what he has to have. Otherwise, death will strike. And it seems as though he is the only one who has power to ward off death, sin, and death, right? Okay.

I said, well, God forgive me for my insincerity and let me have sincerity. And when I raised up my hands to him again, there was a great something came over me, just lifted me up, seemed like my whole body was charged with something. I looked at the serpent, then he started toward me, and he couldn't do it yet. And I said, Satan, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I bind you. And the serpent, a blue smoke flew out of him, and he curled up and made that sign like an S, capital S made backwards, an and sign.

You know that little sign there. And means bind this one or anything below him. Because he was the worst. See, that's what he's explaining what God said there. Blue smoke fell out of him.

And his tail choked his own self to death around his head. And he made this backward, when he made this backward S. And that and sign, like a conjunction, you see, choked it to death. And the brother was free. What's that word? Ampersand, isn't it? That's what it is, that little sign, ampersand. I think it is. They call it the sign. Now, notice what he said. It formed the sign, what he did himself, and literally choked himself to death. Now, that's good thinking. It's interesting. And the brother was free. I went over and mashed on it, and I said, now I've got to find out what this is about, because it's a vision. And I hit on the thing, and it turned like that, looked like a handle. on a glass handle on a pitcher, just made solid crystal. And I said, think of that, how quick. That blue smoke was light. You notice what blue is? Blue is a bad sign. You know that? Blue is a very bad sign when it comes to spiritism and things. Christ is never in a blue light. He's an amber light. These pictures people have of all these blue lights. Good night, you can have them. See why things don't get to me? I don't care what people say, this light, this picture, that picture. I make light of the whole thing unless I do it with Brother Branham. I don't understand. You just wait a while and see what comes out of this hogwash. Brother Branham is different. Blue smoke was light. Everything had left it, all the elements, and it's turned to glass. Just then the voice came again and said, You can unbind him also. So I said, Then, Satan, that I might know, I unbind you. In other words, I'm going to know now. It can be done. And when it did, he started coming to life wiggling, and I said, I bind you back in the name of Jesus Christ. When it did, the smoke flooded him again, and he choked himself right back again and turned to crystal. And then when he did that, the voice said, Now you must be more sincere than what you are to do this. Then it left me, and I was standing in the room. Now, we're back here, remember, on page 10. That serpent, the snake, represents sin and death. Okay? Now, over here, He tells you here that when he bound him, he just literally destroyed himself. All right? Then, when you're looking at two kingdoms, you're looking at the fact that what Brother Branham was coming into was a sincere word of God that was going to fall back on the enemy, which would cause the enemy his own destruction, because Satan has always perverted the word. And it would take a sincere man, such a sincere man, and I believe his sincerity would lie in his ability to get his own thinking and himself out of the way so that he could just be a literal fool. And notice there's just one difference in one letter being tool and fool.

And there's just one word to make all the difference. Two words make all the difference. One is God and one is the devil. You can be the tool and the fool of God or the tool and the fool of the devil. It just depends which way you want to go. And it takes great sincerity for this man to get where he's supposed to go, because remember, he's got something to do against the devil, sin, unbelief, death, for the sake of the brethren, because that's what it's all about. You notice that he couldn't be touched, but the others could be touched. All right. A few moments after, in a few moments, I heard a clock go off. And my wife was getting up. The children knew how it is, I guess, at your house. One says, what am I going to wear today, Mama? Where are my books? And what do I do? You know, just like any home, you can't hear yourself think hardly. All of them trying to get ready once. And so I slipped off into the den room and I got down on my knees and said, Lord Jesus, I don't know these things. What must I do? And the children will be calling me to take them to school and finish. What must I do? I looked around and my Bible was lying there. And I said, Lord, if you'll forgive me. Now, you're going to play scriptural roulette is the term that they use. You know, because many people make it like a roulette game instead of something that is really sincere. It can be very sincere if you're careful, but no one ever advises it. I do not believe in just opening up the scripture and taking something out of the Bible and saying that, but there are times when God can comfort you by such a thing. And I said, Lord, in this case of emergency right now, before your spirit leaves me, and I don't know what to do, the kids will be an hour yet before they'll be gone. Would you show me? If that was something you're trying to get to me, Heavenly Father, let me know. And I took this Bible, just pulled it open like that, and my thumb was lying at 1 Corinthians 5, chapter 8, verse. Well, let's go to 1 Corinthians 5 and 8, and maybe we'll just read the verse above that too.

Purge out therefore the old leaven, verse 7, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. Now, remember above that it said, your glorying is not good. See, your glorying is not good. Know ye not a little leaven leavens a whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Or the unleavened feast is what it really is. There couldn't be leaven in the bread. All right? With sincerity.

Read something like this. Now he's sort of paraphrasing. When you come, I was planning on taking a fast to the Lord. I told him I'd gone fast. Said, when you come to this feast, which is a fast in the body, is a feast with the Lord. We know that. I remember that. So when you come to this feast, don't come with the old leaven or the leaven of malice and so forth, but come with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Just exactly what he told me in the vision. Come. God is my solemn judge. Come with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. That is the word. Then I saw what he meant. I said, then I saw what he meant. Now, he's going to tell you something else now by giving you another vision. Here's the goal, and I saw the Bible come down. I got it wrote right here, come down. And a hand came down from heaven and pointed to Joshua. Now, this is much more in depth in 65 than in 61. Remember, we took the paradox the last time. Hand came down to him and pointed to Joshua and read the first nine verses and stopped there. That's Joshua. Come to the wilderness. He was ready to... He just breaks his sentence up. When he got near Jordan, God called him and said, This day I'll begin to magnify you before the people. And he took the children of Israel across Jordan to the land where he gave them, divided them the promised land. All right? Let's go back to Joshua, the third chapter. It's not too... but we'll go there anyway. Now, Joshua said in verse 5 unto the people, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. And Joshua spake unto the priest, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. They took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people. The Lord said to Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that I was with Moses, so will I be with thee. And so on. Now, you'll notice what God was doing. was putting Joshua in absolute charge over everything that God gave to Moses, which was the Word, in order to bring Israel into the inheritance. So therefore you find William Branham as the Omega of the Alpha, Paul, would of necessity have to be the one who would lead the Gentiles into everything that they were supposed to be led into in the realm of the physical at the end time so that this hour would bring about The bride in preparation and readiness for immortality so the dead could come out of the ground. So, all right. We're going to see. That's what we're looking at. Now, then he took the children of Israel across Jordan to the land where he was going to divide to them the word. Now, remember, Brother Branham would be dividing to us the word of the hour. That's what we're looking at. I went to the woods and prayed and prayed and fasted. And now I went back to that tree where I had met. where those squirrels were, that you've heard another message to see where those squirrels were. And standing there along there about three or four o 'clock in the morning after I staggered through the brush with what light I could see to get to the tree coming early because I was led there, then I met him. God helped me ever to live true. Now, I didn't look that vision up, but I think that's the one where he talks of the rainbow. I'm not positive. You'll find that, I think, about the... having to do with Abraham's covenant. I think because they had something to do to each other. I'm going to read my text now. So, therefore, he's got his visions. He's lining them up. And he's talking and meeting with him. All right, now then, if he's meeting with him, somebody's got to be on the scene. So, here we're talking about presence. We're talking about a day of promise. We're talking about dividing up. All of these things that we saw in the other paradox. which was much more enlightening. Now, here is my text in Joshua, the 10th chapter, 12th verse. He begins reading. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord cleared up the Amorites before the children of Israel and said in the sight of Israel, Son, stand thou still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Agilon. The sun stood still and the moon stayed till the people had avenged themselves upon their enemy. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven. And hasten not to go down for a whole day. Now, you notice in here, of course, that they avenge themselves. We don't. When Christ comes, He is the avenger. And that word avenge doesn't only mean revenge. It means to vindicate. And so, therefore, God is here vindicating a bride. And the vindication lies in God Himself. That's why we take such stress upon presence. And what we say concerning presence. We don't merely believe that there was God and a prophet. We believe it very personal that this is something of the hour that wasn't previous.

So the son stood still and hastened not to go down a whole day. No day like it before or after it that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of the man for the Lord fought for Israel. And Joshua returned and all Israel with him unto the camp of Gilgal. Now notice the voice of the man. May God add his best to his word. Now I wish it would be the will of the Lord that you carry with me for a few minutes. I want to take up a subject strange, odd, upon reading such a scripture. I want your attention and prayer during this time. I want to take this subject, one word, paradox. And first, I'd like to explain what a paradox is. Webster's Dictionary. Paradox, something that's incredible but true. That is a paradox. Something that's almost completely out of reason. Couldn't be so, but it is. That's a paradox. I want to rest a few minutes on those words, these words, a paradox. Now, we have many things that we could refer to as a paradox. One thing I'd like to refer to is this world itself is a paradox. Its standing is a paradox. Last night I was talking to my daughter, Rebecca. That's in high school. And I was studying here in the scripture and telling her about reading this verse here. And she said, Daddy, Joshua actually stopped the world, didn't he? I said, I don't know what he stopped. He stopped the sun. She said he could not stop the sun because the sun doesn't travel. I said the reflection of it travels across the earth, though, and he stopped that. She said, well, then God stopped the world. I said, then to the agnostic, what happens if the world happens to stop and lose its gravitational pull?

It would shoot through space like a star or a missile. It'd be like falling 100 billion years in space. But the Bible said the sun stopped and held its place for a whole day. I believe it. I believe it. It's unreasonable and incredible, but it's the truth. Now, here's where you can get in a lot of trouble. because people don't believe these things. Science says, well, there's no way this could happen. What do you and I know about science?

See, poor old Galileo, they had him over a stump when the Catholic Church said, look, the earth's flat. Now, if you don't say it's flat like we say it is and stop calling it round, off goes your head. Well, he said, I certainly keep my head. So he said, it's flat. He wanted to put it round just the same. That's right, he did, out of the corner of his mouth.

But, now listen, let's go a little further, Brother Branham. Pray tell me which is the top side of the world, the North Pole or the South Pole. Now, science will tell you categorically that North is the top. And you'll find, really, that the Bible seems to bear that out more than perhaps something else. What I was going to say about old Galilean, those guys, you see, they didn't begin to take the whole of Scripture together. They'd find out that the world isn't flat because the world's not square. It doesn't say the world's scary. It says the four corners of the earth, the astronauts found out the land masses make four complete corners. So now after all these thousands of years, the Bible's been correct after all. Never said it was flat. In fact, the Bible says it's round. He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, a circle is round. So, you know, Brother Branham is saying the truth here. And you see, the Bible's not a scientific book. When it speaks, it speaks the truth. I think most people understand that if they go into it. Now he said, which is the top side of the world, the North Pole or South Pole? How do you know if you're in space? You say the South Pole is down under us. They think the North Pole is down under them. Well, how would you feel if you're down under the South Pole? See, it's just the same as that fellow on the North Pole. It's very good. Then what's up to you?

Well, that's the truth. In standing in a space in a little circle of air, as it's turning some thousand -something miles per hour, because there are 24 ,000 or 25 ,000 miles around it, and it turns around in every 24 hours. He's talking about the equator, the circumference. 25 ,000 miles, I think it is, roughly around the world. Like if you stretch the belt around a fat man or an apple, you come up with 25 ,000 miles. 24 hours in a day, one revolution, that'd be 1 ,000 miles per hour. That's pretty speedy. Now they're breaking the sound barrier, and they're going well over 1 ,000 miles per hour, and yours is turning 1 ,000 miles per hour. Everything's going thousands of miles per hour. What's going on anyway? Good question. I'm just trying to say everything is very complex here, and there isn't anything that doesn't end in a paradox, which really boiling it down is, in plain English, it's not being able to be explained, but it's standing right there. How much do people know about electricity? What do they know about light? Well, not too much. Take the firefly.

He's got a coal light, and he turns the generator on. They can't figure that one out. We're into hot light. But there is a cold light. See? Now, he said here, going a thousand miles an hour traveling around and never misses striking exactly. It's on the equator where it goes around. Never misses a minute perfectly time standing in the air. If that's not a paradox, I don't know what one is. Now, how that is all the heavenly system, how there's so time so perfectly till that in years that's to come. 20 and 30 years from now, a whole lot more than that, be hundreds of thousands. Science can see the coming of the eclipse with the sun and moon passing and can tell you to the moment when they will pass and when the eclipse will start. No matter how fine a watch we have, one of precision. I've got one here that was given to me in Switzerland. As a president, when I was there, the value was about $300. That's a lot of money back there. Given to me. Isn't it weak? But it has to be retimed. All clocks. Nothing that man can make is so perfect. Within a few years, it will be worn out and gone. As it gets older, it gets worse all the time. The jewels will wear down. The accuracy will leave it. There's nothing that can be ground or fixed up by man or honed up by man that can stay perfect. Now, that's right. They're trying to make ball bearings and things in space. They're trying to put industry up there to make everything all the better. By the time they get there, we will have been gone quite some time. Thank God. So, I always said nuts to the ball bearings. And you know, there's always somebody who can make a better bearing. And nobody ever beat God's bearings, as the prophet brought it here. A little play on words won't hurt any of us. But this world stays perfect. What controls it? Well, you see, I don't know what controls it, what holds it in its place. It's truly a paradox. You cannot describe how God does it, but he does it. So that's the main thing that he does it. And we know that it's so. It's incredible how you could spin a ball in the air, it will not make one complete revolution in the same place. It can't, of course, unless it was held up. by some means. I was thinking here some time ago when I was in the desert, and one of these little old jumping tactics is that the acid in your blood will draw right to you. One of those fellows jumped onto me. I haven't seen one yet, and I don't want to, but they're there. And you can't pick it off. You have to take something to rake it off. He'll tell you why. It's got little burrs on it. And no matter how well you sharpen a needle, a needle will have, will be blunt on the end. A perfect sharpness of a needle will be as perfect as you get it. It'll be blunt to one of these jumping cactuses. And yet it's a leaf. It's a leaf itself, rolled down tight. How could it be that nature could roll a leaf tighter and sharper on the point than a fine machine could grind one? And yet, plumbed down on the end of that point is a little fish hook burrs, like that, little burrs to keep it and hold itself as it goes in. Oh, a paradox right beside. It's incredible, but it's true. I would like for someone to explain this. I could not tell you exactly the miles or how many miles science sends the moon from the earth. How could that moon, I would say, standing thousands and thousands of miles away from the earth and yet control that tide of the earth? What does it? How can it be done? It's a paradox. But yet we look and see that it's done. It happens. The moon controls the tide. I think myself, what he's driving at here, there are too many things that we ought to wonder at and we don't wonder at them in nature. We do them and walk on. And you get, it's the things of God. Like the man finally told his brother, I wouldn't care if he said, if you raised the dead, they wouldn't believe you. He said, certainly not. You're an unbeliever. One man said, well, he said, why'd you strike me blind? He said, it's too late. Your father's already stricken you blind.

Resurgency.

Now, the moon controls the tide. When the moon rocks out like this from the earth, the tide goes with it. And God has put the moon over the tides and set the boundaries. And they cannot pass that boundary where God drew a line and said, see, you can come this close, but you can't take the rest of it if I put my guard over you. You know, I think it was a King Canute that they tried to make such a great king one time in England or somewhere. Oh, they said, man, he said, you're so great you could stop the sea. He said, he laughed. He knew they were a bunch of idiots. Well, he said, let's go down to the sea. Okay, see, he said, stop rolling in. She kept on anyway.

You know, just... If somebody thinks they want to flatter you that much, just put them to the test. They're going in. See? Now, that's a paradox. You can go so far, no further. For I'm the guard of God. I'm the watchdog that sits here. You cannot pass these boundaries. Explain that. That's a paradox. That's how God does that.

That's a paradox, how God does that, but yet he does it. It cannot be explained. Now, you can take a lot of things in nature, and you can explain how they work.

But that's a whole lot different story from making it work.

See, you can take these, you can find out what the genetic codes are and splice the DNA and the RNA and everything else. I don't know how they do it because you've got to work on their microscopes or something. Doctors even make incisions to work on their microscopes to do certain type of fine work on your body even. Little tubes and veins and things, I guess. They've got to have some kind of magnifying glass. Very, very, oh, I don't know how they do it. You talk about someone being a... The terrific artist or seamstress, how can a doctor sew so carefully and get those things in there just right? That's tremendous. Now, that's wonderful. But go ahead and make something that you're going to make something out of. You can't. Man can't do it. He's got to always find something out there to make something with what's already there. But they didn't try to produce something of something that isn't there. Well, it's impossible. Well, they say, well, you make me an idiot. I say, you are an idiot. Your voice is already proof. You say, there's no God. I remember Brother Brandon even called men fools for not just being atheists. We've got wintertime snow on the ground, cold ground, freezing, a little seed, and in that little seed is a germ of life. And that little seed will freeze and burst open, the pulp will run out of it, and that germ of life will be laying there in the dust, gross in a sheet of ice that would kill any life. How is it preserved and then come again in the springtime? Couldn't explain that, could we? It's a paradox. Well, I'll let someone tell you. The ants don't, you know, they don't explode in the wintertime because they've got antifreeze in them. They're the first ones that found that they're smarter than men. Man put antifreeze in the radiator so the radiator won't bust open. But man put in antifreeze for centuries. Thousands and thousands of years. Now, man can take care of antifreeze because he makes it. Give it a dog, it'll kill him. You drink, it'll kill you. Man thinks he's pretty smart. You see, man can look at nature. There's all kinds of things that's there. But you get back to what intelligence did it. I would sooner go down if there's no God. just go down believing there is one than without believing one. At least I would consider myself a little sharper idiot than the other guy.

Now, Brother Branham goes into what I've been saying here. We take Hebrews 11, chapter, the third verse. We understand there the Bible said, Paul speaking, the word was framed and put together by the word of God. A paradox. That a word could speak and out of that word would form material things. Now, of course, remember about the squirrels? So that things that do appear were made out of things that do not appear. Things that we see were the spoken word of God. They were the unspoken word of God. That's what he's trying to tell us here. Things that we see were the spoken word of God. The earth is the word of God. Now think of that. The trees are a word of God. Why would we be afraid to trust one that's given such a word with such power and authority? Why would we be afraid to take that word to ourselves and apply it to ourselves? Now remember, this is based on the fact that he has this vision and between the time he has the vision, he's standing there before the people explaining something. Now he couldn't have said that before he had these visions and gone and met God alone with his fasting and praying and come back with something on him. Now he's coming back telling you. Putting the vision together, putting the squirrel... episode together, all of these things and telling you something right here. See? It's to our own self. Why would we be afraid to take that word and apply it to our own self? It shows where we have fallen in unbelief. Unbelief is sin and death. Now, the challenge goes out in the paradox. Are you prepared to believe me when I'm going to tell you these things?

Have you seen enough to let you be satisfied when I said squirrels came into existence? an act of creation of God, are you prepared to believe that based on what you've already seen? Because if you cannot believe me in what I tell you I know to have happened, which is far greater than what you've ever seen happen, you will never believe me when I begin telling you the word which all of this comes out of. Because this, what you see, is a word that you don't see. See? Truly a paradox, God's word. Also, I'd like to show a paradox right quick. And that's when God called Abraham and told him when he's 100 years old and Sarah was 90, 40 years past the time of menopause for her. And Abraham's life was as good as dead it was. There's no way he could even copulate. Sarah was barren to begin with. And her womb was good as dead it was dead. There's no way. It was sterile. They both were. And yet God said he would bring through them a child. That's a paradox. Now, he's saying neither one was actually dead physically in the sense that they were not molding in the ground. But seminally speaking, they were dead.

Ask the doctor if a woman 100 -year -old could raise a baby or have a baby. It's impossible. It's incredible. But she did because God said she would do it. It's an incredible thing that a man could sit with his back turned to a tent and a stranger would dust on his clothes and tell a woman who was in the back of the tent what she was thinking about. A paradox. Incredible, but it's true. Now, I wouldn't care if even the devil did that. Your eyes would blink and your ears clap.

Now remember, the devil is also a seer in the sense of the word. He's a false seer. I've seen men stand just like Brother Branham, but they couldn't do what Brother Branham did.

Read your thoughts. Tell the future.

Tell the name of the person who stole your suitcase 20 years ago. Tell the people in town the hiring man killed the old farmer and hid him in a manure pile behind the barn. He didn't go down to California after all. Had to have him in Kansas, Saskatchewan. That man's name is Professor Gladstone. Stand right there and tell it to you. The great Myrus. Stand right on TV, time to dance. People walk up and throw questions, tell you in a big fishbowl. He'd pick it up, didn't even read the thing. Tell you what's on it, tell you what's going to happen. How is it done? The great Creston. I think I saw him once on TV a long, long time ago. Remarkable person. Tell us. Nobody knows. Well, see, I can read their thoughts. That's wonderful. Whose thoughts are you reading now that you know it's going to take place down the road? Whose thoughts are those?

All right. Now. You've got the witch of Endor. You've got a real prophet. A real prophet stands here. Always a prophet that's real, stays with the Word. Now, that'll get attached to whether he's a false anointed one or whether he's right with old Father who did do to the devil himself. See? All right? Incredible. All that's incredible is done being done. It's incredible that Abraham took Isaac to the top of the mountain. His only begotten son took him up to the top of the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice. When he got to the top of the mountain and he lay Isaac on the wood, was ready to take his life, and when he was coming down with his hand, something caught his hand, and there was a ram hooked by its horn, the wilderness, on the top of the mountain. The paradox, where did the ram come from? How could it be hundreds of miles of civilization without being killed? Lions and jackals and wild dogs and beasts, where did it come from? How did it get there on the mountaintop where there's no water? Why was it there and he picked up the rocks? He called the name Jehovah Jireh. Now, what's he talking about? He's talking about what God provided at that instant. That's why with the squirrels at Jehovah Jireh. The Lord has provided himself a sacrifice, incredible but true, for he is Jehovah Jireh. Incredible things to our knowledge and science, but it's true, a great paradox. Now, what about the time the Indians lost their horses? What, 20 foot of snow up there or something? Brother Branham up there? No way the horses could have lived. Yet they found the horses. Did you say created new horses? No, just took them through in a way that only God knows. It was a paradox and will be when Jesus, Mark 11, 22, 23 said, if you say to this mountain, be moved and don't knock on your heart, but believe that what you said will come to pass. You can have what you said. It's incredible. It's true. It's a paradox. Now, remember, he said, now watch this language. It was a paradox and will be. When Jesus said, mountain be moved. Who said it? William Branham. Remember, Joshua said, sun stand still. Jesus said, from henceforth let no man eat fruit of you. And he said there'd be a time coming when a man would say to the mountains, fall in the ocean. And that's exactly the word. And you'll see it come to pass. May I stop here to say yonder in the woods, sitting by the side of that tree that morning, no squirrel in the woods. But when a voice spoke and said, Say where they'll be. And there's what helped me if I die before I finish this message. Pointing my finger to a bare limb walnut tree said, He'll sit right there. And there he was, incredible but true.

Well, that's not too hard. Now, you see, that's Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. See, that's the compound meaning.

That's what Hebrews 13 and HDU means. It's no longer Mark 16. It's no longer the healings and things. That's in Pentecost. We've returned to the giver. See? The gifts are fine. I'm nothing against gifts. Look, if you want to build a little room here, I'll go in there with you and see what happens. I haven't lost anything God ever gave me. I'm not worried about prophecy. I'll see what happens. If nothing happens, I'm sure I'm not going to force it. I'll tell you one thing. If something's there, it'll come out. And you say, well, what about you sitting there? Well, if I'm on the spot, what about you on the spot? We're not talking about five -fold ministry now. We're talking about sporadic amongst the whole bunch of you. Anybody can talk in tongues and props or anything else. Just go ahead and get yourself a room.

That's all. And don't make it a prayer room. Get your weight for gifts.

But there's a few strings attached. First of all, you've got to have faith for discernment of spirits.

Number two, you've got to know you've got something before you go in. Which I don't think I've got anything. Now you're sitting right there and you're wrong. Everybody's got something. I'm going to put you right in the spot. See, I'm not worried. I'm not afraid. I've been all through that. See, to be through it doesn't mean I can't start over. I'm certainly not going to do the things the prophet said I wasn't supposed to do, but I certainly don't mind trying to do some things that they're still around to be done. See, Brother Branham, in that picture of those licks of fire, he said, see, those are all nine gifts. He said, I've still got them all. I haven't lost one. He said, as long as there be a true bride, there'll be a true gift of tongues. So we're not against these things. They just put them in order. See, people don't want to put things in order. That's why I've got to keep talking about love until one day we iron the whole thing out to show just what love is and how it works and where it's going. See, I can't hit this thing all at one time because I wouldn't know where to hit it all at one time. I'm going along with you people. See, I've got faith. I'm kidding myself. I don't kid you any. I'm not up here talking like a big mouth. No way of shaping form. I just know whom I have believed. That's all.

Now, say, where are the meat? Say, help me before I finish this messy part. I'm thinking of Berlin. Sat right there, incredible truth. He said, where will the next one be? I said, over in that clump, that bunch of clumps of stuff. Never took my finger down, but there he was. Where will the next one be? Out in that snag, out over the field. There he was. It's incredible. I asked my wife the other morning, I said, honey, have I lost my senses? Am I becoming a madman? What's the matter with me? Why do I say the things I do? What do I do the things I do for? What makes me? I love people. He had just ripped them apart. And I fast and pray to get rid of it. And the more I fast and pray, the worse it comes. Incredible, but it's true. It's true. What's the incredible part? The incredible part that this man has these great phenomena? Or the incredible part is this, that he's to the place where he has come and overcome. Then is his rough language a sign? That he's just some big shot. Big, big, big. Because

that's what he'd be. If he just roughed by himself.

I can swing my way. You know. Hey, you bunch down here, Fosnoy. Ricky's Rick Kidd. Rats and cats. Elvis's.

And Elvita's, I think Brother Branham called him. I think I called him Elvisina's or something. Elvita's. Got a little Spanish there, don't we? Elvita. Brother Branham was down in Mexico. He

wasn't some kind of a smarting off person.

See? The way he was was the way he was.

Incredible that a man of his stature would stand up and preach the way he preached. Someone raised their hand just then back in the building, praising the Lord. It was Hattie Wright sitting down there. She had two boys, excuse me, and saying, this renegade boy's the world. A little woman sitting there that day, a widow, said, Hattie, The Lord God, you said the right thing. He provided those squirrels. He's Jehovah Jireh. She said, that's nothing but the truth of God. She said the right thing. It seems incredible a human being could speak. As Brother Booth told you, dirty, filthy as we are, who is he that sits back yonder beyond the moon and stars and all space and time and eternity? Even as Booth said it, and I read the same thing that he read in Uranus, even the angels are dirty in his sight. Who are we? But a woman said the right thing that calls the heart of Jehovah, said, ask her what she wants and give it to her. Amen. Incredible the truth. Right here now and in our sight is visible evidence she asked for the boy's soul to be Christians. God gave her desire. Incredible. That was more of a miracle than healing a sick person. That's changing a man's life, his soul body, all he is. It changes makeup. Incredible the truth. It was a paradox. We see it everywhere.

Okay? You notice here he's saying that we're not angels. We're not in that category. And that's a great paradox that God even uses people. Paradox in Noah's time. When Noah's man, just an ordinary man, became a prophet or was a prophet of the Lord, perhaps farming, God said, prepare for rain to come from heaven. When there was no rain. There never had been rain. There was no way to get rain up there. There never rained on the earth. There were no seas. No water. Yet God told him to make an ark for the saving of his house. God brought the rain down. Paradox. Unscientific. Sure. It was a paradox anyhow. Yes. It was a paradox that the Hebrew children had decided that would stay with God's word regardless of what happened. The king built the furnace seven times harder than it had been heated to and threw those men in there. The intense heat of the furnace killed the men who walked up the gangplank with them to the mouth of the furnace. They died. But yet those men walked in the furnace for perhaps three hours. There would be no more even dust of them, for the human life that was in them would have perished. if it made one human life perish by coming close to it, what would it do to another human life that was thrown in there for three hours or maybe five? He might have gone and had lunch and come back and said, open up the furnace door. There won't even be dust of those fellows left. We opened the door. There they were walking around unharmed, incredible but true. He said, how many did you put in? And they said, we put three in. He said, I see four. That's what made the paradox. And that one looks like the son of the gods. He wasn't son of the gods. He was the son of God. They were heathen. Oh, God is in his great word. Now, you're going to understand that the heathen can take these red -hot stones. I guess they're literally hundreds of degrees temperature and just walk on them, just blip right across them. And they don't hop, skip, and jump. They take their time. They pull carts with fish hooks that are embedded in their flesh, their tongue, and ears, and even their eyelids, and just pull the cart across. And it can be done by a controlled basis. But try to get him in a fiery furnace and close the door.

I never saw anything so funny as when Jack Parr put that picture onto that Hindu that he fasted and he prayed and he prayed and he fasted and sold tickets. He's going to walk on water. And the funniest thing he ever saw, he all psyched up and he took one step and bloop, he goes right down. I laughed, but the people are so mad they're going to kill him because he had their money. They paid to see him just bloop out like anybody else can bloop out and send up bubbles. Didn't even do a decent dive.

There come a time when God's army got coward. He was afraid of a man and stood on the side of a hill. When they let one man that was three times any of their size stand on the hill and say, now you trust the real God, you say. Or one of you fellas come out and fight me and we won't have any bloodshed. The enemy of God had backed the church of God against the hillside and they were taking it. They were afraid they were cowards. In the camp come a little lady, be the fellow. Little sheepskin wrapped around the shepherd's coat. Smallest man in the whole army, not even a soldier. But it was a paradox when God took that one man, little fellow, that one little unconcerned fellow. The Bible said he was ready. That one little man put the whole army, the enemy, to flight. That was the paradox. Looks like God would have given that great marching army enough courage to go fight. They were servants of God. Why not go fight the battle of God? That's God's enemy. Take it. Looks like he would have given the courage. But God took one little individual. And remember another paradox. He never took a sword. Saul tried to put his armor on him. He tried to put a sword in his hand. The poor little fellow couldn't hold up. And he took a slingshot. A little rubber or leather. There's no rubber in those days. It was leather. And a slingshot is made of two pieces of string. One of which is longer. And you have the little kind of a place that's wide, you know, in between. Between two thongs. You wrap, run around your hand here. And the other, you bring the string up with your finger to hold it even. And you whirl that thing around your head. And you let the one string go. And if you're a dead eye, You know that you can just about knock the hair off of a fly's eyelid. The Bible talks that Benjamites, left -handed, could take a sling to a hair bridge. You talk about skill. You think you're good at the 22 because you've got a peep sight. You ain't peeped at nothing yet.

Say, these guys were good, believe me. Here's old David going to that sling. That kid, he just wheeled that thing around and around. That giant coming. And there's just one peephole. He goes right through that peephole. Sinks in the giant stone. He's gone. So David, he just runs up and takes the fellow's sword. No, he's having his own sword. You can get the other fellow's sword.

Actually, there's no prettier way to die in disgrace than somebody take your own sword and cut your head off. That's why these policemen, you know, their guns are grabbed by convicts and they're held up with their own guns. I don't know how they would keep them on the police force. I think they ought to resign there. You know, they can go down and just pretend you know this.

Now, this wasn't just a paradox. This was insult to injury. I like this. It can really triumph over the enemy. He took a little piece of leather, two pieces of string wrapped on it, and he defeated the whole army of the enemy, put them to rout. It was a paradox how one little boy could put an army to running. It's a paradox. Sure, God does it. He's just full of it. Yes, sir, sure he is. That's what he does. That's his way of doing it. It's a paradox. When Egypt had a great army that they had the whole world was conquered by them. They had every nation under their hands. And when God decided to destroy that army, destroy that nation, it looked like he raised up some nation, some Amorite army or some great army somewhere. Would have put them down there with better equipment or put in a consolidation of all denominations together to go down and to fight together so he'd get full cooperation. Now he's hitting himself with a prophecy. God used a paradox. Took an old man 80 years old, never put a sword in his hand, but an old crooked stick that sunk each of the bottom of the Dead Sea. Incredible. That's the Red Sea is what it really was. Incredible what God can do. But that's the way he does it. He uses paradoxes to do it. See, he brings it to a paradox, a crooked stick of a shepherd instead of a marching army to defeat a nation that ruled the world. How are we going to come back and take over? Just as simple. Oh, the only thing God is waiting on now, I believe, Russia don't mean a thing to God. He wants to get one man. What's he waiting on? One man. He doesn't have to have big organizations. He doesn't have to have big denominations. He wants to get one man that he can wrap his spirit into him that will tell the rest of it. There will be another paradox until he can get someone completely surrendered that will do it. That's the way God does his works. He uses paradoxes. In other words, he's telling you here that the more the man, the more the man is less of a man in the sight of men. And I don't mean that he's not an upright person and a strictly physically well -developed person. I'm talking about the world considers. The big go -getter. the great organizer, the great brain. Ha! You know, they talk about England had a brain drain because they didn't have any money to take care of their doctors and their big shots brought them over here. Well, I'm going to tell you what. America's had a bigger brain drain than ever thought because they let the brains of God go and put the brains of the devil in. When they had the chance to use God's brains over here, that's when this country really lost out because we had God's brains here. You can say what you want. But Paul the Apostle said he had the mind of God and so did William Branham. It was a paradox when a great soldier of God by the name of Jehoshaphat stood in the gates with a bachelored man by the name of Ahab and said, before we go to this battle, is not it a good thing that we consult the Lord? Now, if that man's heart is hungry to know the will of God, there's got to be will of God somewhere. Not always in the multitude of counsel is safety.

You know, that's a statement, you know, that a certain fellow made to me. When he wanted me to leave the church I was led to to preach in so he could put somebody else there. You know, he said, in the multitude there lacketh not wisdom. I looked around for the multitude and I saw him. Why, you take a man, a man's got, look it, a man has got to be spiritually defunct. Now, you know how the language I use, I'll just refrain tonight because I don't want to use that language. My X -rated sermon, I don't want triple -rated. But you can read my thoughts, what I'm really thinking down underneath. What kind of a person would sit in one room with one man and say, in a multitude there lacketh not wisdom?

Who had he consorted with? Who had he talked to?

It's just the devil all over again. Just the devil all over again. Now, let's look at this picture here. Always in the multitude of counsel, not always is it safety. Ahab said, I've got all my ministers. They're prophets. I'll call them up here. And you know if I bring up 400 prophets, we'll find the word of the Lord. Not always you do. Not always. Let's put it this way. Hardly ever.

Who would you trust to go to unless you really went to a regular prophet to really get an answer? You know, years ago I learned, when I first started out where I was saved, of course, I was never too embarrassed in the sense of speaking. I always had a lot to say about nothing conversely. Nothing to say about a lot. And so, first thing I find myself that... Aren't I supposed to teach, supposed to do a little preaching to young people? Which is, you know, that's how they get you coming to church and you know how it is, they butter you up.

That's what Greece is, what it is. And hybrid corn oil. And, you know, to make you stay and be part of the gang. So this, this, and then you can, you can see how, how far, how, where I was swimming and what waters I was swimming because the preacher was a woman.

Don't get insulted, Mary. When you get your ordinations, we'll classify you. But anyway, this woman was a nice woman, though. She didn't do any better. And I figured if I had her pray, it was pretty good. It helped me out. I used to have her pray. But I'm going to tell you something. The day came when I did Moan praying. Because nobody could pray for Lee Vale like Lee Vale can pray for Lee Vale.

Nobody can outside the realm of the supernatural. So, anyway, here's this. You all go to this place here. He said, now look, he said, I got 400 prophets. Now, I don't care if there are 400 prophets. I better know myself.

If it's not with the word, then stay away from it. I don't care how many there are. Stay with that word. God can't take that word back. Now, he's talking about himself, a Kentucky hillbilly, talking about his background, his father and mother, all those things, all these things, and now he's looking at the denominations, and he's going to show you the paradox of William Branham. I brought them all out there and they all prophesied in one accord that the Lord was with them. Go up.

You're all saying the Lord's with us. We're all going to make the rapture. Even those who claim to be this message have not read Breach, page 71, have they? That I read last Sunday. This particular coming of the one that came down. There he is there. He said this coming.

I still ask the question, what Lord do we meet in the air and what Lord is here? And if you can't figure that out, You're back with the Pharisees and scribes. I'm sorry, this is Lee Bale talking and I'm going to put it down.

Because you can't have your cake and eat it.

Now, let's not try to make God up and down at the same time because even God doesn't say that.

Right? Don't get all kinds of crazy ideas because God's God. Let me tell you one thing. God cannot out -God God or deviate from being God. He cannot change essentially all His ways. And He's told us all about both.

All we need to know. Then why don't they know?

I'll tell you, it's too many in one group. They get together. Who do you think I phone and ask questions of? Nobody.

I don't ask anybody.

And I happen to write. And I'm not an authority. Or I might say, hey, can you tell me where this quote is?

I've got to get my own answers. I've got to get them from this. With that book. Now, I know people don't like me to think that this book is on par with this book. Because this book is that book. In the vernacular.

Yeah. Never mind the coin of Greek that this is in. Let's talk about the William Branham Greek that this is in. William Branham, Americanese. There's nothing to your heart if you just, you know, sit with this. Because we know enough about William Branham and the things of God today to know what he's saying to all these things here. Perhaps not as well as we ought to know, but come on, we're far enough down the road. They all prophesied. They said, the Lord's with you. Go on up. Yet something wasn't right. Well, anybody knows. That something's got to be wrong if the whole world, just about all, is getting saved. And there's going to be such a bare minority at the end time.

It makes me realize I can't have one million bricks of gold bullion if there's only 13 available anywhere in the whole universe.

Now, a lot of fool's gold I might have. Alloys and gross misrepresentation.

What am I saying? The Scripture says the world is going to follow the Antichrist. Then how can it follow Christ? Oh, I'd like to see somebody go north and south at the same time. Oh, I can help you do it. I just put a bomb right in the middle of you and point you north and south and you'll be gone.

But I'm talking about a sense of direction.

We're going to know which way is up pretty soon. We're going to be caught up. You know what? We're going to be caught into a dimension. What do we care? I don't have to worry about these things. Like Brother Brandon said, coming on a white horse or coming on a cloud, what does it matter as long as he comes?

I don't care if that cloud of light comes down and picks me up or a chariot comes by and picks me up, as long as it gets picked up. I'm a prime candidate for being taken out of here in a hurry. I'm not saying I'm going that fast, but I hope so.

There's something that wasn't just right. How can it be just right when some people preach from the heart out and say, oh, I tell you, saints are going to go through the great tribulation. Somebody comes and says, saints ain't going to go through the great tribulation. Oh, I want to tell you, you're going to fall away and be lost. I want to tell you, no, sir, you can't fall away and be lost, please, God.

Oh, there is an eternal hell. No way, shape, and form can't be eternal hell. That's all this stuff about services, what happened to Eve anyway.

People are still just as stupid and naive. The devil's got Eve completely suckered, and she's got everybody else suckered. I kid you not. I can prove this. Biologically. There's no problem. Traps were approved biologically. Just read between the lines what Brother Vance said. Isn't there one more just here? Haven't we got somewhere? Another one somewhere? Oh, we got one, but I hate him. Oh, don't let the king say so. God chose one illiterate boy, a little renegade to the nation, despised and rejected one to bring the message to the hungry heart. And instead of all denominations together speaking with one accord and union, God brought one person. A paradox. But one man had the truth. And it proved to be the truth because he was with the Word. It was a paradox exactly. Now you say, you mean you disagree with all this and that and that? If it's not the Word, I disagree with it. That's right. God's Word will never fail. Now you see, I could have read your preface back here.

You'd almost swear Brother Brand's going to have you lick everybody's boots. I'm

going to ask you one question. How do you fellowship in what condition? You say, I fellowship with him on condition of the Word. And what if somebody hates the word that you stand for?

Well, I guess they can't fellowship and worship. That's right. Now, you can love him. You can help him. But your love never goes past that word. If it does, you've betrayed God.

Eve can say all she wants. She loved Adam. She messed up with the serpent. You know, I think he was a more handsome specimen. I guess you figure that out. It wouldn't be hard to figure out at all. Women all over the great big... Well, not every woman, but you know.

Talking to a priest not long ago, he said, Mr. Branham, we are trying to argue a point from the Bible. He said, we believe the church, nothing but that. We believe the church. What the church said, God is in the church. I said, God is in his word. And he is the word. That's right, the word. That's the reason Micaiah took the word. And God used a paradox to put every denomination to shame and brought to pass the word of the servant of God. One man despised, rejected, hated. What? Hated by his own people? No, he wasn't a communist. Or he wasn't something else. Let's say he was Pentecostal. And the Pentecostal groups hated him. They didn't like him. It had nothing to do with him. But he had the word of God. God made a paradox out of it. Who's talking about himself?

Why wouldn't he, if all these other fellows are prophets and ministers and so forth, why can't, in all this whole big group, decide something better than one person?

Well, there's all kinds of it. Why does God want to use one? Seems unreasonable. God would just take one man's word right, make one man's word right, and then the rest would make... One man's word right than the rest of it. In other words, he would take one man's word against the others. Or use that one man. Because that man's word was God's word. There you are. That's the reason God brought the thing to pass because the man was with God's word. The man was with God's word. It was God's word with the man. The others were prophesying a lie. Yet it was a paradox when God took one little fellow's word and made it true because it was his word. Now there's your answer. God has to stand by his word, not the council's word, not any man's word either. But God's word, that's who he stands by. He took Micaiah instead of Oaltree School of Ministers. They were men who believed in not another god. They believed in the same god Micaiah believed in. But they acted like they believed in it, but wouldn't take his word because they wanted to be popular. They wanted to find favor with the king. And their blindness overlooked the true word of God. How could God bless what he had cursed? I see Ahab was in the picture. How could God bless Ahab? No way. You ladies and men, both, don't think that I do this to be nasty. I do it to be honest. That's the reason. How can I say that women should have, all right, let them cut their hair off and things like that, wear their clothes, that ain't got nothing to do with it. God's Word says it does. She's shameful and disgraceful as long as she does it, and God will never deal with her. I don't care how much she speaks in tongues or how much she shouts or jumps. She's not got anywhere with God yet. That's the word of the Lord. Okay, let's go back to 1 Samuel 16 and 17. Let's just see something here. I think they might be happy to get a verse of Scripture like this. Of

course, we'll look at it. And it came, verse 6. It came to pass when they came, they looked upon Eliab, and Samuel said, Surely the Lord's anointed is before me. But the Lord said to Samuel, Look not in his countenance or the height of his stature, because I refuse him. For the Lord's... seeth not as man seeth. For man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart. People say, well, what does it matter? Then this woman cuts her hair and wears these clothes because God looks on the outward appearance. He doesn't look on the outward appearance. Well, you see, that's exactly what he looks on the heart. He knows what the heart is. If the heart was right, she wouldn't wear those clothes.

She shows what she is. See? All right? Man. Man, you who can't rule your own house and then try to be a preacher or deacon. How are you fit to be a preacher and the pope to lead the church of the living God and divide for them their inheritance? Okay. Let's just take a look at that. 2 Timothy 2 .15.

Now, come on, let's see if there's stumbling blocks in these things we look at here. See, people don't like to believe the word of God all the way through. Try to show yourself approved unto God or work when the need is not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth. It tells you right there that the man that cannot judge and take care of his household so that his word is really final because he's going to have to deal with the church.

He'll never work out in the church. Because why? He's going to stumble on the word. He's going to louse up on the word.

Because that's what he's dealing with. He's loused up already.

I don't care if the man many times might seem to be not too nice to head. I've had my kids in arms up against me. And that's why we have a problem right now. That's why I believe the one boy had to be taken out of the world the way he was to get really right with God. In rebellion.

That's what the kids are. They never could take it. They couldn't stand to be the whipping kids. Some of you people said, I won't look at anybody. I'll close my eyes and tell you. How many of you could actually stand up here knowing your kids are down there and didn't do one thing, but you make them an example for the sake of others? I close my eyes so I don't look at you.

I close my eyes because it takes grief and tears inside to say.

You make up your mind what you want to do. But not up to me. Not up to you. You do what you want.

But see, look. How did William Branagh feel?

Away from home all the time. He's away from home. What he went through. And then he rose up against it. She paid her price. And she didn't mean any harm. She's a good woman. All right, listen. How are you fit to be a preacher and a pulpit to lead the church -living God and divide for them their inheritance?

I have people come to me from distances. They phone me. It's always the same story.

Preacher will believe his wife and make everybody a liar.

I believe my wife. But I wouldn't have believed anything she told me of certain experiences I had except I was there.

I'm not an unbeliever. I hope I'm not a bad person. I don't know. Maybe I'm... I guess I'm far worse than I think I am because sometimes I think maybe I'm not, you know, any more than 10 miles below hell level.

I'm going to tell you something. Your honesty in this field will make you whether you get that word right or not. Just like a woman who doesn't wear clothes right. There's something wrong with her. Men who don't... And I'm not talking about being hard -bitten and hard -boiled now. Just honest. You can be kind, sweet, generous. All those things bring you. You should be. They cannot divide the word unless they stand right in the balance to bring people together. I am not a pastor per se, but I'll say this without fear as though I boast, and I'm not afraid to boast, that I have more success holding people's hands than the majority of people who call themselves pastors per se. Because I'm determined not to lose any of you. And I won't. There's no way.

See, this is what William Brown is bringing here in the paradox. bringing out and showing people can talk all they want, but there are certain things that cut across all lines. You've got to stick with them. And William Branham did. When you think more of your meal ticket and the offering that comes in and you do the word of God and ashamed to say it before the women afraid you won't be popular, God have mercy on your sinful souls. Now he's telling the people I had a vision about how I stopped the power of sin and death. I had a vision over here that has to do with 1 Corinthians 15. When this corrupt would be put on incorruptibility and so on. Death is swallowed in a victory. Death, where's your sting? Death, where's your victory? Where is it? I said, I'm telling you that what I have here takes

a sincerity that you don't believe I've got. That I'm not grinding an axe with anybody. Now, I could up here because I'm a pretty punk person alongside Brother Bannon. I could use this word as the club over people's heads. I've done it more than once, I'll be honest with you. I've been a hypocrite. But this man couldn't do that.

Laying his paradox right out there. Everything you think you want to look at, I cannot produce one thing that you want to see. Unless you've got a certain connection that I'm connected with. Unless there's something in there that makes you say, hey, there's got to be some one person somewhere, like the voice that spoke to me, though not a voice. If there's anybody you should listen to. That'll be the one. That's the one. See? Now, he calls her sinful soul. Speak the word of God in truth. John said the ax is laid to the root of the tree. The ax is the word of God. Now, what's the root behind all the sin and death? Satan.

What is laid against him now to put him out of commission? That word.

That word delivered by one person. Not a dozen, but by one person. And when you get the ax laid to the root, that's why cutworms are so diabolical. Those dirty stinkers, they're so fat and greasy down there. I've been killing about a dozen of them around where they come from. Man, they're under the chips and the bark and everywhere. I dig anywhere and see these big old fat greasy things. I know what they're going to do. They get around, they'll cut that plant down. They're cut, what they call cutworms. They're cutting apparatus. You ever seen one of these saws that get the grass? One day I heard a strange thing, a zzzz sound, and I looked, and a piece of grass fell over. Here's something called a sawfly. The sawfly had a saw, like, you know, these sawfish, I guess. Did you say sawfish? You said sawfish. The planks of the ship, that's a lot of hogwash. I think they just looked like they could do it. But this sawfly, zzzz, and he

did it. See? All right. You get the root of that thing, there's going to be no more. Now watch what Brother Branham did. Absolutely showed, The power of Satan, and Satan bound, and he turns, as it were, unbinds. That's another vision, of course, bringing that deity doctrine. Leaves the thing so we understand Satan is finished. It's all a bluff, but just the same, he's still operating. But he isn't going to operate very long anymore. I think we're running out of time now? All right, we'll just close off then. Now, he says here, speak the truth of God. Every tree that don't bring forth right fruit, hew it down and cast the fire. He's talking to preachers. God bring us another paradox. It's already here. And why did God take John the Baptist instead of a well -trained priest that day? He took a man that never went to school to the end of his life. So you understand that John was a nurse at the age of nine and was alone with God. Okay, that's as far as we're going to go. That's a good place to stop our review here. Brother Branham concerning himself. And I think we can well finish a little bit of speed next week. We should be able to finish the full 45, 43 pages. All right, paradox. You can understand then how that 1965 is vastly different. And yet it is the same subject, but the illumination was so much greater and so much more specific. So in this hour, we can see paradox. In the eyes of God, as we've never seen it before, that we saw the incredible, but it's true. And you know what? Like the Queen of Sheba, who said, the half was not told me. And I wonder if we are aware of one half, what God did that is true.

Incredible, not necessarily, but it somehow passed us by. I believe as the days go on. we'll be more and more aware. Let's rise and pray the same prayer that Brother Brannon prayed, maybe not fasting and praying, but asking the Lord to help us. Heavenly Father, what other prayer could we pray in the light of this man of God bringing us this message based upon visions, based upon word, and the reality of this hour of the living word of God in this moment coming through a prophet, in a prophet, and to us and in us. We know, Lord, we are not nearly as sincere as we ought to be. We know, Lord, just coming together here and talking about it just does so many good things with the joy bells and decisions of uprightness and righteousness and demeanor and nature and all those things, Lord, just seem to come together with the Spirit of God. What would it do, Lord, if we took more time with ourselves with this word, meditating? and looking at it as never before, just giving way to it, realizing the great paradox, and in the paradox there'll be things hard to understand, even as Peter said, hard to be understood, and then rest to their destruction. Lord, tonight we will not be in that class. No, not at all. But we will be in that class of the more sincere and the sober. Father in heaven, I know there's a nervousness and all this and all that. But there is a God who is bigger than any nervousness or any little twirlings and merry -go -round or carousel tactics within us. Father God in heaven, just help us as never before to just burrow right down within the confines of this word and see it umbrella over us, pavilion us. And until we just become in a oneness with You. And Lord, we'd not have that oneness without the sincerity and sobriety as the prophet said. Father, we believe that we're coming into it. We were asking tonight and You said by John the Beloved and he was certainly a fine example. Your servant, he said, if we ask anything in his name, concerning his will, we know that he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, we know that we have the petition we desire in heaven. Now, Lord, this is your will because we know that if you brought a man that you wanted more sober and sincere, then you would want us likewise. So here we stand tonight knowing we're asking something in your will and we know that you hear us. We know that because we know already from experience and what the prophet said that the... Thoughts of our hearts speak louder in heaven than the words on our lips. So, Lord, here we are with our heart in our mouth saying, if there's anything we need, oh God, it is sobriety, it is sincerity, it is chucking these other things and just getting rid of all the nature that's completely outnatured now since we've come into the presence. We've seen the light. Darkness doesn't have any place anymore with light, although we can't claim that in ourselves we are free. But, Father, we are acknowledging. to a place of repentance, to a place, Lord, where we confirm your own word that the night is past, the light comes now, and the darkness is being dispelled, certainly concentrated, as the prophet said, into one place. Shuck it out of us, Lord, we pray. And with it, then, we get this real sober, sober seriousness and this wonderful... attitude and atmosphere, Lord, that the prophet spoke of. And here it was way back in 1961. And then we saw it come in 65, just at the first of the year, wherein, concluding, Lord, the great message on the rapture, he was taken away. We love you tonight, Lord. We know that we do because we love the Word. It's been so good to have seen you revealed. And love it all the more. We appreciate all these. And bless every family here, Lord. Let there not be one here and even those that aren't here, but what is signally blessed to God. The joy bells ringing in the heart, the mind, and all uplifted, Lord. And a determination, not a determination to do good, but a life that does good. As the prophet so clearly said, when people say we ought to do...