Paradox #2 (1961)

of your mercy, your kindness to us, and we know it, Lord, just in a little measure. We have not even got to know it any way we ought to know it, Lord, even though we have had certain revelation, understanding, through comparison, other ages and what has gone on. We have a minor revelation, but we're looking for a greater revelation by far, Lord. to apprehend what has already been done with revelation knowledge. So, Father, we would love that tonight and increase in it. Be with us in the study of your word. We pray you'll subdue all thinking to the word of Almighty God, which you gave us, Lord, yourself by a prophet. So there's no guesswork, but indeed the word, the voice of the Lord for this hour, strange is it, may seem to other people who... have been so thoroughly taught that there isn't any other word, or by their own ignorance have accepted that from within themselves, not having been taught. But, Lord, we have been taught of you and learned otherwise, and we're very grateful for that. It shows your love to us, your marvelous mercy. So help us tonight that you might receive honor and glory, and we might be thoroughly edified. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated.

And next Sunday morning, I don't anticipate being here, but I have some tapes picked up for the next little while. Some tapes I think you should hear. And I think it's kind of good to actually get into more tapes than I've been doing, even sitting and listening myself with you. So I'll be away Sunday, likely Wednesday, and maybe the next Sunday. I'm not positive. We'll see what happens, how things work out.

Now, this is the second time we're looking at the paradox of 1961, and it's greatly, vastly different from the paradox that Brother Branham preached in 1965. You'll also notice that Brother Branham preached the same sermon, that is, not the paradox, but the same title sermon. Another subject many times, such as a greater than Solomon is here, is one of them. And you'll find that as he preached the same message, maybe years later, I think one was maybe 10, 12 years later, that it took on a breadth and a scope that was missing in the first one. There was nothing missing in the first one. It's just that the revelation and the impact was that much greater. We've looked at this paradox, and Brother Branagh starts out by bringing us particularly a vision of the binding of the serpent Satan, which appeared as a mamba, and he was able to bind in the name of the Lord and to loose it, and he was warned to be more and more serious concerning the things of God. Well, coming on down, we've got down close to about page 18, 19, actually a little further. And in there, Brother Branham was illustrating a paradox by looking in the lives of various men, how that these men would seem to be ill -equipped to do the job that should have been done. And actually, when you would look at them in the contradistinction to what was there that God could have used, you'd say, well, God must have made a big mistake, but he didn't. The last illustration pretty well we were looking at was where Ahab had called all the prophets together, the 400 prophets of Baal and of Jehovah. They were a mixed group is what they were. It was really an illegitimate religion what they had. And those 400 men were well educated and they were well versed in the Word of God and they knew the Word of God. And they knew really what was supposed to be in that hour, understanding the conditions and all those things that pertain to the word. And they launched out on the word of God. And they said, well, it's perfectly all right, Ahab. You go up there and you're going to take the land back. Everything is fine because the Bible says it's your land and we're going to get it. And so the king of Judah stood back and And somehow he had a little more spirituality than the others. I think that's the way we were when Brother Brannan came on the scene. The Pentecost pretty well were the cream of the crop, and there were a few of us that had already just begun to move away. And, you know, actually, we stood there with that.

I know I was one of them, and I wasn't in too good spiritual condition when I saw Brother Brannan. Almost instantly I knew that that was the man you listened to. That man had something. And the others knew something was there. And you'd think, well now, this man will go to them and this is the people that will take this great man. And no, they turned him down flat on a fritter. They walked off on Brother Branham. So we got a case here where Brother Branham said God chose one illiterate boy. A little renegade to the nation. That's Micaiah. A despised and rejected one to bring his message to the hungry hearted. And instead of all the denominations together speaking with one accord in union, God brought one person. Now, you'll notice that back there the 400 prophets were typing ecumenism of this hour. See, like Protestants all getting together and getting under. the headship of a devilish religion, which was Ahab. And here one man comes out against it. A paradox, but the 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 with the Word, I disagree with it. That's right. God's Word will never fail. Talking with the priest not long ago, he said, Mr. Branham, you're trying to argue a point from a Bible. He said, we believe the church. Nothing but that. We believe the church. What the church says, God is in his church. I said, God is in his word, and he is the word. That's right, the word. Now, I want to stop right here and just say something. People think right away, well, God's in his word, and they talk about a Bible or a printed page.

I'm not so sure that that's what it's all about. Because in Psalm 68 and 11, it says, or somewhere in that area, the Lord gave the word and great was the company that published it. Now, this is the word that the Lord gave by the prophets. Now, we'll have to read some more what Brother Branham said to get back to this. But just don't be too sure that... When you hear Brother Branham say God's in his word, that this is what he's talking about. That this book. See, in one place he said this is the letter form of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's just read on a bit. Now, I believe paragraph 133, which I'll read now following 132, explains 132 and so on. 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. Hated by his own people. Now, he wasn't a communist. He wasn't something else. Let's say he was Pentecostal, and the Pentecostal group hated him. They didn't like him. They had nothing to do with him. But he had the word of God, and God made a paradox out of it. Now, see, we started back there with Ahab. that these were trained men that had the word of God. Now, they were actually prophets, weren't true prophets, but they had the word. Now, you've got the same things delineated here before you. You've got a bunch of people that got the word. Now, 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? It seems unreasonable that God would just make one man's word right than the rest of them. And just put the rest to one side of what he's saying. Because that man's word was God's word. Well, look, what book did the other fellas have? What did this man have? And how come they didn't have the word of God, though they did have the word of God, and this man really had the word of God? You see? What you're doing, this is where so many people are still entirely confused in the paradox of William Branham, the prophet, and where I feel we stand as a paradox to people. They don't understand that we stay with a certain understanding, which we call, hopefully, believing, the true revelation that Brother Branham brought us.

Now, they're using the same sermons Brother Branham preached. They're using the same Bible that we use or Brother Branham uses. And there's a big difference. See, a tremendous difference. Now, because that man's word was God's word. That's the reason God brought the thing to pass, because the man was with God's word. The others were prophesying a lie. Well, that's very strange that they prophesy a lie. Was it a lie that God said the land was theirs? See, Brother Branham brought that out. He said the land was theirs. And it was. All those things were there, but there was something missing. See? Yes, it was a paradox when God took one little fellow's word and made it true because it was his word. God has to stand by his word, not the council's word, but God's word. That's who he stands by. All right. Let's just go back here to the beginning. God is in his word, and he is the word that's right. The Word. All right? That's fine. What you're looking at here, really, so that you'll get the picture, is that Brother Branham said that a prophet comes at a juncture. Now, if you let your cardinal understanding of a prophet go by the board, there is no way you can understand the things that God's Word has laid out through William Branham and vice versa. There's just no way.

You simply cannot cope with it. Now, let's go back to the time of Noah. That was a juncture. And God said, Noah, I want you to build an ark. And you are going to float the people above disaster and all this chaos. And you're going to save them. I'm going to save them through the ark. Well, amen and hallelujah. The word of the Lord at that time was... The firmament was divided, and the waters above it, and there was no water on earth, and there was no rain. There was nothing like that going on. There were no seas as we know them. There was a mist that came down, as it were, from up from the earth, rather, like a dew, and everything was wonderful. Now, we are in a juncture, and everybody could have come by, and they said, Noah, his brother Brian said, you are crazier than a coop that hit his head diving too deep and struck a rock at the bottom of the mud lake. You're just... There's no water there. See, I've got news for you. There's water now.

There will be. See, a juncture. Now, let's go a step further. God says to Moses, there's a juncture. I'm going to bring you out of Egypt. I'm going to destroy the Amalekites, the Amorites, and all those people. Now, the time isn't quite ready, but it'll be pretty soon now. And we're going to bring you in. and we're going to go ahead now and bring you over here into the promised land. All right, Moses goes back to the Israelites, and he said, Hallelujah, bless God. We're going to build an ark and float down the Nile, and we'll float across the Red Sea, and we're going to get right to the promised land, and we didn't

do it. What happened to the word of God?

It was finished. The juncture word couldn't repeat. It was for that particular hour. Now, here's Moses. He couldn't use what was Brother Branham called dead manna. The life was out of the word. Now we come to the time of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus say? He said, if you'd have known Moses, you would have known me.

You would have understood I was spoken of. And with my coming as Messiah, there was going to be a radical change.

So therefore, Jesus couldn't take Moses' message. He couldn't do it, see? Now, you get to the time, however, of this day. You've got a juncture here where William Branham comes on the scene. Now, let's face it. You cannot go back to Pentecost because that's the start. You are now to the place from the feet up. You are coming to the very head. Remember the statue of the world empires was from the head down, but the bride is from the feet up. From what comes from the head, starting at the feet, filling up, goes back to a headship. All right. There is a juncture period here. Just as there was back there at every time that God sent the prophet with the word. And when the prophet came with the word, it was for the necessity of, number one, sin had come to a place where it had to be dealt with.

See? Now then, number two, when sin is dealt with, it is only dealt with on the principle of light and life and righteousness.

Because that's all that's going to illuminate and make you know what sin is, is to have light there to do it. That's why the Bible says that men don't want to come to the light because their deeds are evil. They don't want to come and test the thing out. And find what is there. So, we're looking at the fact here that it wasn't that the people didn't have the Word. They've always had the Word. But what has happened, having left the Word to such an extent that no longer is the Word a redeemed Word, but it's literally gone into creeds and dogmas and the reasonings of man. Which is where original sin started. Back there with Cain. Because he will put him rather than Adam and Eve even. Because John doesn't use Adam and Eve. Paul does. But John doesn't. When he speaks of righteousness and unrighteousness. So we go back all the way to the perversion. We see that men did not understand. They didn't handle the word of God right. Until pretty soon. The Word of God was so far away, it wasn't Word of God anymore. So they could quote all they wanted, and what they were doing was putting their own interpretation on it. So therefore, when it came to the promise, they put their own interpretation on the promise, and they died. Do you understand what I'm saying? That's what they did in Moses' day. They did it in Ahab's day. They did it in Jesus' day, and they're doing it today.

Now, the paradox is this. Anybody can read the Bible. And the more education you've got, the better verse than the Greek, the Hebrew, and all the history and understanding of the ages. You should get a good bunch of people come together, and they'd be able to tell you, say, it's going to be this.

Yet William Branham came on the scene, and speaking of this very hour in the rapture that we've gone into, he said, we know he's going to do it, but we don't know how he's going to do it. Then

you get people come along, they say, ah, bless God. Don't give me that stuff. I know how it's going to be done. Well,

I've got news for you. If there comes a time of a juncture which is predicated upon the mounting of sin to where God has got to deal with it,

and judgment begins at the house of God, so the righteous scarcely be saved, and in this hour he's going to destroy root and branch, then you try to tell me. that we are going to be able to apprehend a promise under those conditions? No, it's going to be a paradox.

Now, right today, Brother Branham came on the scene to explain the rapture, and people still don't believe it.

They don't believe it.

Your Pentecostal Branhamites are still so inured in their own unbelief that when Brother Branham said, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, that was the Lord Jesus Christ doing all three, and the shout was a message, and he called it his message. and said he is here on earth now, and it's in the form of the Spirit. And they're so blind, they try to tell you and me that we're preaching, especially the evil is preaching, a false doctrine of saying that Jesus is not going to come in the flesh.

Paradox. I'm going to tell you, they never will see it.

See, that makes you so sure. Well, I'm not, but I'm saying it anyway, because

I've said things before and they came to pass. You know why? Because look, if you don't see the prophet, and understand that He is the sole authority on the Word, you don't see anything. Because it means your thoughts have got to wonder. And if you've got one thought that's original, that's maintained itself from your original concepts, you'd better examine and re -examine and re -examine and re -examine and re -examine and re -examine and re -examine and re -examine. And that's still not enough. You'd better come to understand you're wrong.

The prophet's right. Paradox.

They got the same Bible.

There's no problem there.

Now, because that man's word was God's word. You mean a man come on the scene and that's God's word? Well, bless God, I got the word of God right here. That is not the word of God.

Unless it's spiritually revealed. It's just a word of God, so to speak. Something written.

But you've got to have that life in there. Now, Brother Branham, we all know a lot of this word is gone.

The Bible said the word of God shall not pass away until it be fulfilled. When it was fulfilled, it passed away. Brother Branham said it was worming. Wiggle tails were in it. He said you've got to have fresh manna. And there's manna for this hour. As he preached spiritual food in due season. He took my kind and said, oh, I'll train school of ministers. Renowned men. Nothing against them. They were great men. 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.

All right, if you act like you believe in it, what can you be? A wolf in sheep clothing.

I'm hitting pretty hard, but that's my nature.

I'm not about to give in. At least not at this point, because it's too easy to stand up and be counted.

So, Brother Branagh said, the great thing coming is not fruit, it is not character. It is not gifts. It is not obedience.

Now, these people can have all of that. Now,

it says they acted like they believed in it. They believed in what? The Word of God. But

when God sent a word prophet on the scene, a vindicated man at a juncture, it showed what they did believe. They

believed in dead manna. They believed in an unrevealed Word. See? They acted like they believed, but they 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. What was the true word of God? This is the true word of God. But it isn't until

it's vindicated, revealed by vindication. Now, here's a showdown.

God's dealing with Israel. And this juncture's not as serious as other junctures like yours and mine is at this hour. So he said, all right, the

land, it's yours, go ahead. Oh, and then they got mad. Because they knew now he was being sarcastic.

But he said, listen. King said, I'll tell you what. Show them in prison and I'll get back. He said, if you get back. She said, I'm a liar. Because he said, you're not getting back. I saw Israel's sheep, as sheep scattered upon the hill. Now the point is, who was right? Who had the word? They both had the word. That's

right. But one man. had a word that was built upon a former vindicated prophet who said the dogs are going to lick Ahab's blood. And he knew that had to happen. He prophesied right in line. Not because he knew it would happen did he prophesy, but he knew the prophecy because God quickened and his prophecy lined up. Now listen, who was proven to have the word of God? The man was vindicated by the thing coming to pass. Now in our case it would be too late.

We're like the woman at the well. We're looking for a Messiah.

That's what the rapture is all about. That's what everything is all about. Is this the hour? If it is, there's a juncture.

All right. Then like Moses, which is in Exodus, the word must be prefixed by a demonstration of vindication.

Like Jesus began to do and to teach. He did it before he taught. So William Branham came on the scene and he said, God gave me two signs. He said, I'll tell you what they are. Come on, let me lay your hand in mine.

Sure they did. He told them what it was. Now I'm going to read your thoughts. I'm going to read your heart. He said, that's discernment. That's the sign of the Messiah. And they said, that's very entertaining, but it's no sign of no Messiah. Now

you do what you want with it.

You can sit here and say, well, look, my mind. See, your minds are turning wheels now because you're trying to figure just where that is in Scripture.

Anywhere it is in Scripture, it ain't in Scripture. It's a correlation of Scripture. And the correlation of Scripture belongs where Brother Branham correctly said. that Jesus Christ is obligated to do for the Gentiles in the form of the Holy Spirit at the end time, what he did for Israel in the flesh at the beginning. The sign of the Messiah is too common. Paradox again. So men turned it down.

All right, you ladies and men both don't think I do this to be nasty. I do to be honest. That's the reason. How can I say women should have? All right, let them cut their hair and things like that. Wear clothes. They 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 know how much she speaks in tongues or jumps or shouts. She's got nowhere with God yet. She'll not get anywhere. That's the Word of the Lord. And that's the paradox. Samuel came before the sons of the old boy, let's forget his name, Jesse. I guess it was. And here he looked and he lied. The firstborn, he said, now that's the one that should be the king. And God said, just hold the anointing pot back, boy. I'll tell you something. Man looketh on the heart. God looks on the heart. Man looks on the outside. A woman comes by, and she said, now, just a minute. She said, now, God looks on the inside, and man on the outside. That's the whole trouble. Man looks on the outside, and he sees your flesh pot. He desires you, too.

So what's on your inside?

See, there you are. Why would a woman wear men's clothes?

Why would she cut her hair when the Word of God's against it? See? The old paradox comes up. She didn't prophesy and stand right there and say, look, I didn't say she'd be more spiritual.

I just said she's not supposed to do it.

Now, men who can't rule their own houses then try to be preachers and deacons. How are you fit to be a preacher and the purpose to lead the church living God and divide for them their inheritance? Well, let's just check it out a little bit. Let's begin to see some of these things. And you say, people say, I ain't got nothing to do with it. Now, listen, come on. Now, look, I'm not here and I'm not scathing. Because what I say here in this church here doesn't matter too much to anybody in this church. Some of the things I say, you just get a little knowledge from what I tell you. It's people picking the tapes on the outside. And I just think that if we put out the proper number of tapes every single week, we'd be putting out, I imagine, 90 to 100 tapes a week. That'd be over 5 ,000 tapes in one year.

So I'm going to read 2 Timothy, the second chapter, verse 15. Study to show thyself approved unto God. A workman needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now, we're dividing. So, therefore, these men, they're dividing the inheritance. They're dividing the word for the hour. They're in there working, these ministers, and so on. Now, it says here, if you don't rule your own house, how can you be a preacher or deacon? How are you fit to be a preacher? The church of living God. Now, I tell you what, I looked at that. I don't just look at the fact that this man sets his house in order to the extent that, you know, say, well, I'm the head of the house and you watch, that, you know, my family listens to me. Sure they do. Check it all the way down the line and find how much. See, that's the point. Where does the man, the preacher and all, put his family relationship to the church?

They said, Jesus, they said, now your mother and your brother's outside. He said, who are they?

I've heard many a preacher say, well, my family, my family. Why did I give up my family? I wonder, why did William Brandon give up his? Are we a couple of jackasses?

Are we stupid or something?

Great sermon, Brother Brandon preached on a good Friday, that day on Calvary. He said, well, people say, I ought to do this, I ought to do that. He's just an indie, he said. You ain't got nothing when you put it that way. You ought not to do nothing. You just do it. It's there.

Brother Brandon talked to King David going down that road. crying, weeping. He said, the same son of David came down 400 years later, weeping, bearing his cross. I'm trying to get something across here, my brother and sister. You're still a million miles off the mark to what you've got to be at.

Sure.

You wonder, where shall I be here with this, that, and the other thing for my family? Well, I'm not preaching to preachers, but I say it's on tape. Maybe somebody's going to get a little vision someday to understand. There's a few prices you pay, but they're nothing really. But I tell you, and what am I driving at is this. You say, well, Brother Bill, that... Shut up and listen! That does count! A woman cuts her hair and wears men's clothes will never understand this message. You've got a revelation. And a man that doesn't properly have his house in order and his heart in order never gets a revelation. It's

not because you ought to do it, you will do. That's funny, I'm tougher than, I don't know, Hogan's Gold, I guess, and crazier, and I'm talking up here in a way that you perhaps don't understand, but I'm sincere and honest before you.

I just tell you, you're not going to get it. Paradox.

One place it isn't character, one place it's not fruit. Ah, listen, that's exactly right. It's not fruit, it's not character, it's not all of those things. Even though you've got the Holy Ghost to help you get this, I think you do to have this and the other thing. There is something in there that goes way beyond what we're talking about. And it becomes an absolute paradox. In other words, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't add, it doesn't line, it doesn't anything, but suddenly there's God and how God moves. I wouldn't trade it all for hundreds of billions of dollars. Not for hundreds of billions. There's no way. There's not enough money in the universe. Forget it. Yuck.

Anything about Laodicea makes you learn to know one thing. Money isn't anything. They say everything is money, but money is not everything. Money ain't nothing.

You've got to have it, just like Brother Ben said, education. But see, it says here how you're going to be fit.

Now the fitness is right here.

You've got to have the truth of the Word of God.

And there's a great paradox with that.

See? I know it's hard to understand. Like Brother Brandon said, look, I know what I'm talking about, and yet nobody else knows, I guess, because maybe I can't put it just right. But I think you get what I'm talking about. Begin to understand.

There's a lot of seriousness. There's a lot of cost counting. We align everything up in divine order.

Now, it doesn't mean you run off and don't take care of your family. I've seen preachers run around and don't take care of their family. Ain't got nothing on the ball than a pinhead has.

Another man running around making gimmicks, that isn't going to work either. I told you years, I gave up my gimmicks years and years ago. If you need gimmicks to serve God, you don't serve the God I know. You don't need gimmicks. It ain't going to work anyway. Can't work a gimmick against the Word of God. Nothing you can do. See, with this paradox, Brother Branham reduces to the place, and we'll get to it in a little while, reducing us to the place where God begins to move in people's lives. It's part of that great sealing in. It's part of that great portion of Peter.

You know, we often think temperance is this and temperance is that. And patience is this and patience is that. Better check a lot of things the prophet said about all those things. We might be a little bit enlightened to know. All right, speak the word. Now you see, when you think more of your meal ticket and the offering that comes in and you do the word of God and shame to say it before the women afraid you won't be popular, God have mercy on your sinful soul.

Now weaving the whole thing in here. Preacher's wives not lining up. Women in assemblies not lining up. Men in the homes. The whole thing. See? Not receiving the revelation that a prophet brings through vindication. Not turning it down. He said, okay, all these things in there that you take this same word of God that I've got. He said, let me tell you something. You're wrong. It brought death to you instead of life. Why? There's a perversion. There's a misinterpretation. Speak the word of God in truth. Now listen. John said the axe is laid at the root of the trees. The axe is the word of God. See? Notice, not great gifts. It is not great gifts that bind Satan.

No way, shape, and form. It's the word. People think it's gifts. It isn't. It's the word. Every tree that... Why, certainly, in this hour, When Brother Branham saw the mamba, he said it's sin and death. It's Satan. And the binding proves that sin is bound. The binding proves that death is bound. The vision of both I'm talking about. Showing that life is going to be right here. Somebody standing here for the rapture, death is bound. Every tree that doesn't bring forth right fruit, hew it down and cast the fire. Now, what did Brother Branham say that fruit was in the book of Matthew? He said it was word.

Every tree that doesn't have word, it's got a wrong word. No, he said, God bring us another paradox. He's speaking of himself now every time he said a thing like that. Why did God take John the Baptist I was just speaking of instead of a well -trained priest of that day? Took a man, never went to school a day in his life. Understand that John went to the wilderness, age of nine, was alone with God. A few days ago reading the Nicene Council, a long time after death, the last apostle, St. John. When those men came up here, so the Nicene Council, some of the old brothers embarrassed the rest of them. They come up dressed in sheepskin upon those robed emperors. They came up to them, I guess. Like Cosset and Bishop of Rome, old sheepskin wrapped around them, living with us on herbs. But they were prophets of the Lord. The little church, the Greek side, went on. The Roman side went back. But it goes to show when you compromise, you can't be a servant of Christ. John, in that day, the church was very orthodox. They had the priests, the well -trained men. But God chose the man that had no education at all. Took him out of the wilderness with a piece of sheepskin wrapped around him. His whiskers all buried out, his hair hanging over his neck. No pope to preach from, no church to invite him, but he promptly stood in the mud, half to his knees and preached. The king of God's at hand. God chose that man. There again you notice that Brother Branham was talking about conditions in America more than he's talking about conditions over there. How much rain water you have to stand in mud to your knees.

How many times did Brother Branham talk about a little thin guy, knobby knees and bald head in the beard in his face? Why was it always bald headed?

If you couldn't figure that out, you better take another lesson in figuring. You'll never get the algebra, I can tell you that. You know he's talking about himself. Right there.

Preaching the King of God is at hand. God chose that man. When Jesus said, Who do you want to see? A man that can speak at all the schools. A man that's finely robed and so forth. He said, There in King's palace. He said, Where do you go to see a prophet? He said, Mourn the prophet. This is who the prophet spoke of would come. I send my messenger before my face. And he was the angel of the covenant. He was the great forerunner. You notice in this place, Brother Branham puts John the Baptist as the angel of the covenant, which he was. But he also put Jesus the Christ as the angel of the covenant, which he was. You notice you have a compound understanding here. All in Scripture, there are compound understandings. And we're learning those. One of the greatest compound of all is Hebrews 13 and 8. That's one of the truly big ones. We have the true understanding. The others have just the casual. But it was a paradox the way it came. Why didn't he come down to that big school of Jerusalem up there? Maybe that's a chameleon school. Why didn't he come to Caiaphas, the high priest? Well, he was the high priest. Why didn't he not come to those great trained men who had been trained from childhood? Their fathers trained before them. Their fathers before them, generation after generation after generation, trained, schooled, fine, high cultured, educated. Then pick an old man out of the wilderness. Never had a day of school in his life. Set him up there on Jordan and said, this is him. A paradox, exactly. Incredible. But it was true. God did it. Now, there again, of course, Brother Brown is bringing out the fact that God can use, might not necessarily turn down an educated man just for the sake of education, but God cannot use education per se. It can't be done.

The virgin birth of our Lord, incredible. For a woman to bring the child without knowing a man, God did it. God did it. See, it's a paradox. Took a little woman down there, a little old girl, engaged to some man of 45 years old, she herself being 16 or 18, engaged to this man as the widower of four children. That's tradition. Brother Branham will tell you that. You say, did Brother Branham get that from God? Not to my knowledge. He spoke of this before. It's historically said that Joseph was a widower. And then took this woman overshadowed by the Holy Ghost and conceived in her womb the body, the tabernacle of God. A paradox. A paradox how that heaven can't hold him. Earth is his footstool. Heaven's his throne. And yet could bring the fullness of the Godhead bodily. and embody it into a man. Oh, when you can measure for hundreds of billions of miles into the eons of time and never measure God, and yet a little baby laying in a manger contained the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now, let's keep reading. Jehovah Paradox. That great God who sits back yonder to control a hundred million suns shining on planets who never began and never ended and would embody himself in a manured stable. Okay. What's he saying here? This is one of your great mysteries. One of the great paradoxes. We can talk a little bit about it. Maybe not much.

And yet could bring the fullness of the Godhead bodily and embodying to man. How did God do it? Brother Branham categorically said when it came to the theophany, the logos, the manifestation, that which came from God, the veil, the covering, God one day took that. and reduced himself down to the size of a sperm and an egg. Now, the question comes. Could God literally take of himself and make of that a sperm and an egg? Certainly. Why not? Then if God did that being God... Now, let's go back a minute.

That's not hard to understand. You understand if you do understand creation. If you understand creation, God made male and female as one in the spirit. And he put them in one body. And they were only separated later on. And later on, through act of procreation, a child could come forth. But let us just consider the male himself and the female herself being one in Adam. And he called their name Adam. Just one. Not two members now, but they're just one. All right. Everything, therefore, was of Adam. Okay. Now the separation comes, and therefore everything still is of Adam. So therefore Adam is literally able to make another in his image through what was in him, and he producing both, which would be egg and sperm, coming together under chemical conditions would bring forth that one, which would literally be another Adam. Now, you step this up into the high realm of God. This transcends billions of times what we're talking about. And you take the omnipotent God, able to take of himself, and with that literally produce an egg and a sperm that will be sympathetic to a womb. Now, the womb can't reject it. It could reject the womb. Oh, yeah. It's picked its womb. So that means that every womb was rejected. except one womb. Right? That's like a transplant. All right, now you put that in there through the chemistry of Mary, we now find a baby brought forth which was God truly manifested in flesh. This being physical. So this would be the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Not fire, not cloud. Not in a wind, not in a rainbow, not in something else. This would be that body. Then at the River Jordan, God completely filled him, and he become Jehovah, Almighty God, Elohim. There he was, the Lord God of Israel, in a human being, human form, before the very people. Now, here he is then. Now, this was his birth, Brother Brown is talking about. And then we get out and dance and drink and carry on in a celebration. That's Christmas Eve. It's not a celebration. It's not supposed to be. It's a worship. We do celebrate Christmas. Sure we do. Not supposed to. How did God did that in order that he could die to take the place of a sinner? Now you don't celebrate that, you worship. Why do you worship? Because you understand what God is doing. So therefore God becomes his own mediator. God becomes his own sacrifice and redeemer. God becomes his own high priest. So that the whole of salvation has... devolved upon God, and he's responsible for all of it. And the human race gave only a body which came by chemistry.

That's all. In other words, Mary was the laboratory. That's what she was. She was the incubator. She was the human factory whereby all the elements that lay in the egg and in the sperm. All it required was a nourishing. And God allowed the nourishing to come to humanist mentality. And therefore, that truly was the Son of God. Now, I can't go beyond that, but I understand that much, how God became all of that to us in his own way. Just the Bible says, it says it takes a mediator to get between two people. Therefore, there's three. But it said, when God came to man, it was only one. God was his own mediator. And a man to have mediation does not become a mediator. That's dictatorship. And how did God become a mediator? Coming in the form of a man.

That's not too easy to understand, yet not too hard. Just let your mind go and accept it. Don't try to get all the ramifications, because that's where you lose faith. Anytime faith questions, it's no longer faith. The less you ask questions about anything, the more your faith will grow. The minute you start asking questions, that's the time your faith blows out the window and the whole room gets dark. You ever think of that? Well, start thinking now.

I saw a little seed right in there about divine healing and the whole thing. The whole gamut of faith lies in one perception. And that perception is, yes, Lord, I believe. It doesn't ask questions.

Faith does not say how we're going to get him down. Faith does not say how we're going to get him up. Faith says in your heart, your faith in your heart will produce on your lips. You just say the word, and that's it. It was a paradox, a little curly -headed boy, little stoop -shouldered fellow, probably five foot tall, seven locks of hair hanging down around his head like a little sissy, on the road down one day to see his girlfriend, a lion roared against him. Anyone ever hear a real lion roar? Probably having these cages and things around here, but I want to tell you, they're just mewing then. You ought to hear a wild one really roar. Rocks will fall off the hill and half a mile away. Pebbles roll down the hill. Just vibrates the ground so. Where that roar comes from, I don't know. And I saw one one day. He was hanging his head down. A big old yellow mane lion roared at a black one because the black mane one had picked up a piece of meat that the yellow mane lion had left there. And he just as much said, now you leave that alone. I'm going down to get a drink of water. He went down to lap the water and he come back to the black mane and the lip was licking on it. The old pappy just stopped, put his head down. Let out a blast, and I say the rocks rolled off the hill. Oh, my. He'd shake the city if he roared like that. The roar of a lion. Oh, he's ferocious. What's he talking about? Amos. A lion roaring.

See?

That roar ran out against that little curly -haired shrimp, we call him, and then something happened. The little shrimp walks over and gets that lion by the mouth, puts one hand this way and one that way, not nervously, just pulls him apart and lays him down there. That's a paradox. What caused it? If you'll notice, The reading just before. And the conjunction, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. That's what made the difference. He slew the lion. See? Now, you'll notice in here that Brother Branham is beginning to bring out that the Spirit, it's a paradox, the Spirit always works contrary to men. And what men would believe would do the job. Always. That's why the Bible said, if you got into disputes amongst you, don't get the big shots in, you know, the smart guys that know all the answers. Call the dumbest one of the whole bunch. Because he's the only one that knows that he is dumb and needs some help. Chris, you guys got too much on the ball. You think you're too smart. So everybody sit down while the humblest and the meekest and the dumbest one gives you the answer. That's the Bible. I'm just quoting a 20th century Lee Vale to get my point across. Then one day some Blistons came after him. He's unarmed. There was a thousand. They had long spears and big shields just like that door in front of you like that. Those shields were so big. Just think of a great big brass shield now all the way in front of you. That's what they had too. with helmets of brass, big coats of brass, and all over the shins and everything, you know, of brass, you know, like the gold tenders out there in the hockey team. Great big long spears, long as a pole, maybe 15, 20 feet long, brass heads on them, sharp as a razor. Found this little curly -haired shrimp coming down from Palestine to visit some girlfriend down there. And they said, there's that little fellow, let's go get him. One man could have took him by the end of that spear, lift him up and shook him a little bit, and he'd have fallen right down his hand, down to the heel of the spear. Just a little bitty old guy. Some people, artists, try to draw Samson with shoulders. He couldn't walk in this tabernacle. Well, there wouldn't be any mystery a man that size. Samson, a little bitty old thing. But the Spirit of the Lord, that's what was big, see? It's dishonoring the Scripture to say he was a man of that size. You know, like some giant. That's right. People like to make Samson like Goliath or Gath, didn't they? God always takes the foolish and ignorant things like that to do His work with, you see. He takes something that's nothing. So we're learning here what God does. He deals in the humble. God always just takes the load. He deals in the humble.

Then you send the thing as if God uses a man like Brother Brannon. Then, of course, he's got to have a gimmick, you know. You know, what's he doing? What's he got a gimmick there? The world never understands these things. So this little fellow was standing out there and all at once, here come these Philistines, surround him, they kill him. And he took the jawbone of a mule that was laying there. A wild one, a little donkey picked up the jawbone of that mule. The Spirit of the Lord came on him and there was the paradox. How did he beat down with the jawbone of the mule through half -inch thick helmet on the top of the head with the jawbone of the mule? Why, the first, that old dry jawbone laying there, the first lick he would have hit it would have broken a thousand pieces over the top of one of those helmets or big shields. When a thousand rushed in on him, he beat every one of them to death. Paradox. Now, when you think that over, can you really believe that happened?

I mean, you might if you put your own thing into it. Now, you put Brother Branham's, the jawbone of an ass, and you know, listen, they become pretty brittle. They're pretty brittle. Lying out there just like he said, brittle. And just bang like that, there it goes. You ever tried to drive in there with a pop bottle? Sure. What happened to the pop bottle? You lost your hammer. Well, this fellow here would have lost that jawbone to the ass too, evidently. Well, something happened. Oh, if we could only be jawbones in the hand of God, there would be another paradox. See, what he's telling you there, in the economy of God, when it comes to God, God will reduce every single thing he can to the common denominator, which is next to nothing or nothing, so he can be all of it. See, what he's trying to tell you, the man and the mechanics always are reduced to the place if God is going to use the person. He's going to have to get out of the way. It was a paradox when Jesus our Lord took five biscuits and two little fish and broke them and fed 5 ,000 people and took up baskets full of remainders, little parcels of them that didn't eat. They lay four or five fishes down on this table and four or five loaves of bread and then go over here and lay four or five loaves of bread and some of them couldn't eat it all. Just left them laying there. So they picked them up, baskets full of them. See? Oh, how did he do it? It's incredible that a man could take five biscuits and two little fishes and feed 5 ,000 and take up seven baskets full of leftovers. Incredible, but he did it. Why? It was God. It was a paradox. It's incredible, but he did it. Now, that's pretty mind -boggling. Just stop and think about it.

You see, you can go to Sunday school for so long that you'll believe that.

Then you get right back to the place where Jesus stood before Moses. And they said, Oh, we've got Moses. And he said, Well, if you'd have believed Moses, you'd believe me. Oh, they say, nah, come on now, you're just pulling our leg on that one. We can't believe that. Well, if Jesus Christ has to appear today, the Gentiles in the form of the Holy Spirit to do in the Spirit the very things he did when he was here in the flesh, then would there not be something that absolutely you can't explain in this man's ministry because God had to have a prophet. Now, there's another thing right there where people are going to cavil and they're going to pull their horns in and say, oh, no way, that can't be done. They won't pull their horns in over that, but they'll crawl back on their shelves and make you a fool and a liar. Because they're not going to believe in a prophet. No way, shade, and form. They can't do it. They've been so thoroughly schooled against it. You don't need prophets. We've had the book. Have you had the book? Then why is everybody still arguing?

Oh, there's something wrong somewhere. You see, that's why I say you can call this the word of God if you want. But you see, that's what others do, but it's not really true. We use it in a very special way because we understand what we're saying. We're talking about word for this hour. We understand.

Now, what about that? When Jesus stood there and he said, now he said, if you'd have known Moses, you'd have known me. People there are saying, oh, Paul, Paul, Paul. Oh, Paul, Paul, Paul. William Brown can say, oh, Paul, Paul, Paul. William Brown can say, if you'd have known Paul, you'd have known me.

They don't know that, see. I just thought when I read this here, Brother Branham preached it about those fishes and loaves, and I thought, now you know that is something. But I'll tell you what is different. Look at here. See where my finger is here right now? I told you about the time that he was standing there at the microphone cord like this, see? And he makes two whirls just like this, you know, whirl around. And here it is like this. And I wiggle that thing and it comes right down here. And I suddenly said, oh God, don't let him move. And he didn't move and my eyes didn't move and suddenly here it was. Now remember, I moved and this moved here, but that didn't move back there in 1953. You tell me. You explain it. You say, well, Brother Vail. Well, you, Brother Vail, you explain it all you want. I saw it.

It's nice. I'm a nice person. I'd say something. It was incredible. And never before or after on a stormy sea, notice on a never before or after, and he's right, the waves so high that it was sinking the ship, a man came walking down across those waves. Now, Jesus walked on the water. Remember I told you I saw that film clip that Jack Parr had where this Hindu fakir had psyched himself up to walk on the water? And I didn't really know what was going on. And here this guy, he comes out with a huge crowd. They paid a big sum of money. And he'd been psyching himself for months. He's going to walk on that water. And he goes to the diving board and he puts his will in. He's going to walk and he goes plop down in the water. He just plopped right down. And you know something? Nobody has ever walked on water. But how come a certain man that says he believes this message went over to the Philippines or somewhere, maybe it's Borneo or somewhere. And there are people over there. They do not walk on water, but they walk in the water.

Yeah. They don't sink. They walk in the water.

I'm not lying to you. They go slosh, slosh, slosh. And they don't sink. They go right across the river sloshing in water with lots of water under their feet. And they don't sink. I want to ask you a question. Is that the same? Stop this now. So I'll ask you another question.

Is that a genuine miracle they're doing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? I don't know.

I don't have any faith in it.

And I know a man went over and he came back and he was just on fire that they had way more than we ever had because you were just looking to the prophet.

Some of you know the man's name, but that's all right. No big deal. No big deal. It just makes you wonder.

You see, Brother Branagh said, never before or after.

So, all right.

On a stormy sea, the waves so high it was sinking the ship. When a man came walking down across those waves, I can just see every time the big white caps come around and burst and fall down towards the bottom. He walks right on just like he was on a piece of concrete. He wasn't going swash -slosh. Walking upon the sea in a time of storm, let science figure that one out. What held him up there? What kept him on that sea? What is a mile deep right in there? Half a mile deep. When those great waves, many times bigger than a tabernacle splashing wide, filled a little boat and waterlogged it. It was wet inside. No, it was sinking. The mast poles broke down. Oars gone. All hopes of being saved gone. Here comes somebody walking on the water. Paradox. Sure, incredible. Cannot be explained, but he did it. Oh, yes, he did it. Come walking on the water. It's incredible that this same one. Oh, God, I hope this drives home. He breaks his thought off. Incredible. A real paradox that this same one, Jesus of Nazareth, would choose a bunch of ignorant fishermen for his church. Instead of the well -trained priests and denominations of that day. Well, I would ask this question in that very thought. How many well -educated men could walk on the water?

They wouldn't do any better than the dumb, humble ones.

Then let's ask the question, who'd believe that Jesus did walk on the water outside the dumb fishermen that was out there when they shouldn't have been?

You know? Educated man would have been home and said, Hey, boy, that sky doesn't look too good. Better hit for the shore.

So I'm going to vote for the paradox every time. Choose a bunch of ignorant fishermen for his church instead of a well -trained priest in nomination that day. How that a God that had all wisdom, that could walk on water, could turn water into wine, could take five biscuits, feed five thousand, take up seven baskets left over. How that same one, the God that sets an eternity yonder, that's so bright till the suns hide their face from him, the very pool of wisdom and purity, of understanding and knowledge, supreme of the supremes. And he'd come to a place where a great organization of churches had all gathered together and trained all the men. And he'd go down and pick up a bunch of dirty, stinking fishermen that couldn't even write their name and choose that type of man to set the church in order for his bride. Strange thing, isn't it? Looks like at least he would have took somebody else that was trained. Now he answers his question. He's the trainer. He's the one that does it. Strange that he had done it. Instead of taking some church men, he took fishermen to do it. Very odd, but that's the way he does it. It's true. It's a real paradox. Now, what is he talking about here? He's talking about God's training has to be left in God's own hands. See? We learn, as Brother Branham said, how to get out of the way. That's the great thing right there. And it doesn't mean that you have to be plum ignorant. Many people believe that Brother Branham put a price on ignorance. They believe that you have to be thoroughly uneducated and act like an idiot to be qualified as a bride. I do not believe that the word in the Bible could be wise virgin.

You've got to have some kind of a wisdom. Maybe the world doesn't understand it. And maybe you don't either. But it's wisdom of the highest order to recognize. Don't worry. Remember Abraham sat at the tent door? Three men came down the road and he said, there's God. How could he spot him just like that? How could he spot him? Two of them weren't God. They went down to Sodom. He said, Lords, God was flanked by two men, two angels. People said, That's the Trinity. No, no Trinity. It was God, period, with two angels. That's what the Bible said. Believe what your Bible said. The two angels went on down and God stayed with Abraham.

Then God destroyed Sodom. All right. When God took a bunch of ignoramuses that we would call today holy rollers, poor of this world's goods. Pull out the Holy Ghost in them in the upper room instead of pouring it out upon the Sanhedrin council where all the theologians sat, where all the great men were, where the heads of all the churches were, the ones that studied Scripture and had made a great school, well -trained, waiting for the coming Messiah and knowing that they would be the one who'd walk out and meet him and say, Messiah, you came down as if on airplane wings. You sat right down here in the temple steps. We saw you come down from heaven, from the golden corridors of heaven. Now we're all ready and trained to go to work. We got a schooling, got a bachelor's, Ph .D., LLD, and all this. We're trained. Here we stand, 10 ,000 strong. We're ready for you. Come on. We're waiting. Call and come. Instead of that, he goes down and gets a bunch of people who didn't really hardly know right hand from left. That's right. Put them in the upper room, pour out his spirit. Oh, God, upon a bunch of people like that. Instead of taking the Sanhedrin council, he took fishermen. Isn't it strange that he didn't use their education? It pleased God.

It seems to please God to make His own church a paradox. The same thing He's doing right now, making a paradox out of His church, bypassing all the great highfalutin and all the stuff that's out there that's called the church. And use anybody He can get in His hand that will open their eyes and see what's true and test it with the Word of God.

We get a lot of flack because we go right to the Word of God the way the prophet did.

I just can't believe for one minute that we're any different from the prophet and how God would have us use our understanding as ministers. Any different from his. If he checked everything out, we do not go to the Bible to check him out. We go to the Bible to see that we understand even as he understood. And there's nothing wrong with that. And all those in the upper room come out there speaking another language, staggering like drunk people, staggering, carrying on. Women, his own mother, all in the upper room come out there jabbering something that nobody could understand what they were doing at first. Had cloven tongues set upon them. Cloven means pardon. No one understood what they were doing. They're jabbering around. They're acting like they were drunk. And there stood a bunch of people who were trained, scholars of the gospel, theologians. But God chose God, not Nancy, to take and leave them, sit in their ignorance, with their highly smart and education, and come over here and pick up this bunch of guys that didn't know ABCs, poured his spirit upon them, made a paradox out of them. Yes, God does that. He does that for his own purpose. He makes his church a paradox. I believe in him. I believe it. I believe it. Now, why does he go against the trained mind? Well, I'll tell you why. If you learn a certain thing, that becomes a rigid pattern to you so that your thoughts are constantly dominated by the pattern that you've been trained in. All right, if you haven't had any training, then whoever comes along to give you the training, you're wide open. You don't have to throw away a lot of things. You don't have to break a lot of patterns you once had. You're wide open. to receive what is fresh. That's why that you can take a good old heathen, Roman Catholic, who really went to church once in a great while, maybe Christmas time or Easter, or their mother got in their tail or their wife or somebody, or one of the kids needed to be blessed or something, which is a very wonderful occasion, to dedicate them to the wrong sources and all those things, thinking you're doing right. So we take a raw heathen, and I prefer the Catholics above any. Because they're the best of the works. Because when they come to this word knowing nothing, because they really don't, and believing, it's nothing to just drop what the Catholics taught them, because they didn't get taught much anyway. And the mind is wide open, without question, to listen to what Brother Branham said. So basically, they automatically know far more than what most people know because they've had backgrounds.

That's your trouble. That's been my trouble. Everything is analyzed and evaluated in the light of a previous conception.

Now, let's just talk about conceptions for a second. Let's say that a woman has her fertile time and she conceives. And somehow, somehow or other, nature gets into the act in a wrong way and this has happened. Six weeks later, she's pregnant the second time. You know what will happen most often? An abortion and a tragedy.

She can't carry two seeds. Not meant to. Well, if you've got really what should have happened was the second seed should have killed the first seed or vice versa.

Now, we've got something wrong in the first place. That's got to go.

And if that thing's got his tentacles in there so strong, it takes a longer time to pull that rascal out and get all the goody in there. So that's what he's telling you here.

If God wanted to put a church on fire and do it in 30 minutes, he sure couldn't have gone to the Sanhedrin.

But you get a bunch of bimbos like they were.

Brother Brandt said they couldn't read or write even. Ignorant fishermen, most of them. Nothing to it.

Sure. What if you'd never known that was an organ? Somebody came along and said, let me tell you. You said, what is that? Well, you know what that is? That is a jukebox. What's a jukebox? Well, a jukebox is something that you open the door and you can put things in to keep them cool. That's a nice box. What I'm trying to show you is you can fool the guy because he doesn't know. We had a fellow come over hungry years ago. He was a carpenter. And the neighbor's kid, he's one of these practical jokers, the kind that I hate because I don't like practical jokes. Where you sit on people's hats and think it's a good joke because you ruined their hat or something like that. So, don't be practical jokers. But this joke wasn't that bad. So, this old guy, he whistled. And he said to the boy, what's that? And the guy said, groan. He didn't tell him what's what. He said, that's groan. So, old Sam was groaning some tunes. He started whistling some tunes. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's just that simple.

See, the simplicity floors you.

That's why Paul had to go through the process. Of reducing the fruit of his mind to dung. The waste. Well, you blow your nose. That's waste, right? Might have been good at one time or something. No doubt it was. But now you blow your nose. You got news for it. All right. That's you got to do with your brain. Blow your brains. Get rid of your thinking. See, that's what's behind this. And people don't realize it. See, that's why always, listen, study your church history. You'll see the same pattern.

It's the common folk badly here. The age of the man, he has a smart man. But normally speaking, there's no way, shape, and form. They had to get rid of their own thinking, the churchianity. Now let me see. So help me God, I believe the word. Let every man's word be a lie and this be the truth. What this word says do, let's do it the way the word says do it, no matter how funny it seems or odd you get to be or anything like that. Stay with the word. You're called old -fashioned. You're called this, that, and the other. Why do you care anyhow? Stay with the word. This is it, the truth. Don't take what somebody else says. Take what the word says. Now, I can tell you something right here. Paul the Apostle said, Brethren, I came to you not with any speech or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. Now, he said, I'm going to stand up here and tell you about God. He said, I'm not going to do all kinds of refined education. I'm an educated man. He said, I had to just let it all go as done. Now, what do you do as done? I'll tell you. If you're smart, you know of horses and cows. Now, I'm going to tell you something. I don't know too much about horses and cows, except that we had some horses and cows, and I was elected the king of the barn. And the longer I put off cleaning the barn, the worse it got. Until one day I said, phooey, phooey, phooey. I will clean this barn and I will really clean it. And from this time on, every day will be a cleaning process. And you know something? I got somewhere from that time on. It's the same with your spiritual and your religious and your knowledge condition in this word. Clean the barn and do it every day. Make sure you've got something. Fresh from God, so to speak, without pushing it.

Any little thing you don't believe in or think you don't, lay it out before God, try to get rid of it. All right, now see, he got rid of that. I determined nothing among you save Christ and crucified, with your weakness and fear and much trembling. Speak not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So he's trying to tell you right there, I never converted you. Through the weight of my words, you were converted by a gospel that was quickened by the power of God. It became the living word to you. So there you are. All right. Here's some time ago a minister friend that I want to just tell. This hot afternoon down in Georgia, he was visiting his druggist. The old druggist, a fine old Christian brother full of the Spirit of God. And he said, come in and sit down. Let's have a Coke. They were sitting there drinking a Coke. And he said to the preacher, I want to say something to you and perhaps you'll not believe it. And the preacher said, well, let's hear it first, and I'll tell you if I do or not. He said, I've always tried to do my best for God. He was a deacon in the church. I always tried to live to my calling, do that which is right. I never cheated anybody, testified to my Lord everywhere I could. And I got my drugs here, and I said, I've tried to carry on the highest class that could be bought. I never overcharged anybody, tried to do the right thing that I knew how to do to serve the Lord. I'm going to tell you what happened. My son's studying to be a druggist, too, and to follow me. He was in the front of the building there one day, and he said it was during the time of depression. A little lady walked in through the door, and she said, He said, you can see what her trouble was. She used to be a mother and husband, both in poorly dressed. They gave the prescription to my son to have it filled for the woman who was in need for this certain thing. The doctor prescribed for her and said, this will be so much such and such. And when the father -to -be asked, how much will it be, so and so, he said, sir, I'll not be able to get the prescription filled because I don't have any money. Well, he said, my son said, go right down the street there half a block or a block and turn left and you'll go to the place where they have charity. You go there to the county and... Perhaps they'll give you the money for the order and pay for the prescription because the lady's got to have the medicine right away. And so he started to go out of the place and said he listened to his son and something said, oh, don't do that. And the boy said the woman needs that. He said he happened to think that that long line of people down there, it's hard for a healthy man to stand in line, let alone a mother in that condition. So I said to my son, go call them back. Tell them to come on back. And he said and rushed to the door. And they said, come on back, come on back. And they came back. And I said to my son, fill that. There's no charge. And said, my son came in the prescription. I went over and had it filled. And filled the best that I could. And brought the lady and tell her that. There'd be no charges on this. That was all right. Because she was in need of real bad. I'd get by without it for the money. So, I just started to lay the medicine in her hand. And when I did, I looked at the hand that was scarred. And I looked up and I was putting it in Jesus' hand. I said, I learned then that the scripture, what it meant in so much, you've done the least of these. of these, my little ones, you've done to me. He said, do you believe that? This fellow said to me, why, sure, I believe that. It was a paradox, incredible, but true. And he goes on to talk about incredible things in the lives of people like Martin the Tourist. Being a soldier coming down one night, cold, dark street, and there was a bum lying on the street freezing. His blood was freezing his veins. Martin was not yet a Christian. Anyone who has read Bible history knows St. Martin. The historian the other day that was trying to get this card, that's the book for him out of the library, And St. Martin looked down there. He was a soldier and this old man was lying in the street freezing. And St. Martin had just one coat. The old man didn't have a coat. And he would freeze without one. So he took his knife and cut it in two. He wrapped the bum in one half and put the other half around himself and went walking on. That night when he got to his room and sat down, he heard someone come into the room. He looked up and here was Jesus wrapped in a piece of coat. That was the call of his ministry. He became a saint, spoke in tongues. School was well trained. He trained his people right by the word of God. He didn't care. about what the first church of Rome already had to say. Stayed right with the word of God. He taught them speaking in tongues, laying on the hands of the sick and so on. They raised the dead, cast out devils. One man, his friend, had been killed. Went and laid his body over him. And he and his buddy come walking out together. Why? It was a paradox. Sure. God did it. Now, I believe in paradoxes. Yes, sir, I believe. I believe in them with all my heart. Now, Brother Branham, I think, is making a point here where he says, you've got to do the right thing and God responds.

There again, the right thing, of course, would be consistent with Scripture. And, of course, it would always be doing good. And it doesn't always mean because you would do good that there would be an answer back of this caliber. But you can see here that you initiate by doing something so that God moves back on the scene to further enhance and bring to fruit what you have already done. Like the woman who had a little bit of meal left. and a few sticks to make a little fire. And Elijah came by, and he said, well, he said, I see you've got a bit of meal there, and you're going to do some baking. She said, yes. She said, I'm picking up a couple sticks. How much can you cook on two sticks, you know? She said, bonfire sounds pretty good, but a couple of sticks, you know, she didn't have much. Maybe she's going to make a little bit of lukewarm water and stir the stuff in it. I suppose that's what all is going to be, something like that, a little bit of gruel or porridge. And what he said, I'll tell you what. He said, first of all, he said, you make me a cake. And he said, and then he said, everything good is going to happen. He said, the Lord will continue to bless you. And she could have said, no, I'm going to tell you something, that old swindler. I've been around these fast -talking, mouthy preachers, man, and I, they don't care. Just as long as they get what I got, they wouldn't care if I start. She went right down and made them a cake. And from that time on, the meal and the oil never wasted. She just had plenty all through the famine when other people didn't have it. So, he's showing you here there's a paradox. And I think that paradox might be based upon the scripture that says, there is that which scattereth and yet increaseth. And there is that which holdeth more than meat intended to poverty. And you know there are people who never learn the laws of proper spiritual giving and doing unto the Lord in order that God may move back on the scene in those various realms. It's like the law of psychology. I've often talked about it. That Dr. Crane brought out. He was the great marriage counselor. And he saved so many marriages, so many from going into divorce and all because they lost the... the glow of their marriage. And he said, look, he said, there's nothing to it. All you do is go through the motions and the corresponding emotions will come. I know right away the man said, well, how can I, how can I pretend I love her and embrace her? And it's like Brother Branham said, the guy said, Brother Branham, he said, I wish you'd come and cast the devil out of my way. Well, he said, I'll tell you how to do it for yourself. He said, how do you do it? Well, he said, tonight, he said, before you go home and work. He said, buy her a great big five -pound box of chocolates and a lovely bouquet of red roses and wrap on the door. And when she comes to the door, sweep her in your arms and kiss her and give her the bouquet. My wife likes this. Go get your own bouquet. Grow your roses. He said, sweep her in your arms and kiss her and give her the bouquet and the box of candy. I don't think I ever did that. I don't think he did. But you know, so many people don't believe the Bible. See, that's the Bible. The Bible says, Lay not up for yourself treasure on earth, where moth and rust, corrupt and thieves, break through and steal. But rather up for yourself treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not, corrupt and thieves, break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. See, the heart, the seat of the emotions, will follow. You see? That's why there's so many things people just ought to do. And as you do them, you'll learn to love them. They'll become a part of you because you know they're spiritual things. And it's not simply because you ought to do them. It's because now you know to do them. You see, it's a part of life, the spiritual life. So some of these things people don't understand, but it's good to understand them. And that's a paradox. You see, like it's right in the Reader's Digest about this woman tells you how to completely change everything in your house in five weeks time. She was, her husband was the kind of a guy that, he's a good husband. He brought the paycheck in, but what he brought in, I guess he blew. And she was a little more conservative. There's people like that. I can name names. They're not here, so it's all right. Way down further south, in an actual interview, I was there and Brother Bradham had it. They wouldn't mind me telling, but I could do without names. But anyway, she's the one that was better with the money than the man was. And, you know, she was always nagging and nagging and on to him, and the marriage was sour. And so one day she realized that, hey, you know, what's going on here? And so she knew the man had some good qualities, that they really had a good marriage. And so she began thinking of all the nice things that were the man qualified, where all the time she was nagging him for all these bad points. And you know that that's the law of psychology, too, that we think of the bad more than the good. It sticks with it because we've been hurt and offended and so on. You know, really. So anyway, she began deliberately against her own, well, her mouth in gear so much at the time in the wrong manner. She had to learn to take it out of gear. And so she had to learn to take it out of gear and then put it in a better gear, which was to praise him. And so she began talking nice and saying nice things. And pretty soon the whole atmosphere changed. And within five weeks, one day he said, you know, he said, you sure have been right, he said, about this money bid. He said, I noticed a big change in it. But he said, I sure am wrong about the money. I'm going to see that you, you know, do something about it. And here the whole thing was changed. because of what was done. Now, you see, almost everywhere there's a paradox. See, there's a paradox. There's a paradox here in this message where people took Brother Branham to mean, well, if your wife isn't obedient, kick her out. Do this. Do that. Slap her out. Well, you've got to be jerks. I mean, you've got to be plum jerks. That's all. Take the rest of the things he said. You know? And if things mess up, whose fault is it? Well, so, what we're looking at here, There in life, the laws of God are paradoxes. The things of God are paradoxes. In other words, we have a tendency to do things that we think are the right way, and they are absolutely the wrong way. Then God comes along and does things the right way, and we say, that can't be right, and it is right. Paradox. Paradox. Boy, listen, this thing is really rich and real. I guess our time's about gone, you know. But all gone. Okay? All right, he says here, I believe in paradoxes. Yes, sir, I believe in them. I believe in them with all my heart. There's a paradox in all the smart men were there in the world. God put the keys to the king in the hand of one that was considered ignorant and unnerving. That was Peter. That's right. One of the smartest men of that day was Caiaphas, the high priest. Another were the emperors and kings, the great men of the earth, like presidents and so forth, great men. And what's the most important thing in the world is God's church. God made the earth. He made it for purpose to take a church out of it. Sure, a bride. That's what he's doing. Now he made it to take a bride. What's he going to do? He's going to remake it and bring a bride back. Right? The smartest men, the man he had were emperors and kings, potentates, monarchs, high priests, churchmen. We can take a look at those. But there's a paradox when he called a man who couldn't even sign his name. I'll give you the keys to the kingdom. Whatever is bound in earth is bound in heaven. What you loose on earth, loose on earth, I'll loose in heaven. All right, now listen. Then he goes to vision. But you know something? That word in the Greek is literally this. What has been previously bound in heaven, you can bind in earth. And what is previously loosed is therefore loosed. In other words, what God has set in pattern by his word, man never needs to fear. Line up, and it'll bind, it'll loose. You don't need to worry. Now, if we're one with this word today, brother, sister, the paradox is this. We are going to get out of here living right into the millennium. Now, the other guys say, no way, no dice. They'll just tell you and me, hey, you're just really wrong. Old Valen had that bunch of, that cracked up stuff he's teaching that the prophet never taught. Why, they believe in a spiritual coming and they don't believe in a physical coming of Jesus. You know what those guys are? They're foolish. They just come ridiculous. There's no place I've ever said it. I say what the prophet said. When that spirit's in the midst of us and that's not the baptism with the Holy Ghost for 300 trillion billion gadoolions or whatever they are in God's mighty name, I don't know. Trillions and trillions can be full of the Holy Ghost. That will never constitute God.

When that Spirit, not that's in us, but in the midst of us, becomes incarnate to us, we'll crown Him King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that'll be the mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That one now, Elohim, when we go to that body, I'm going to meet Him in the air as a person. What nonsense people talk. Sure, it's a paradox. How can He be here and not the way we say He's here? How can he be here and not according to our thinking? I don't know. But he's there. Because God takes the man and not the spirit.

Paradox. Did he come up or did he come down? Paradox.

Did he leave and then come back? Paradox.

Who cares?

Whether it's a horse or clouds. Or both. Or two different occasions. Paradox. But I believe what the prophet said.

We're going to get out of here. Let's rise.

Heavenly Father. We worship You, we hope for in spirit and in truth, O God. We feel Your love, Your warmth, Your lovely nature, Lord. We know, God, we're not ours. We're bought with a price. We know, Lord, we're in Your hands to do what You want. When You died and rose again, prove that You own the whole world. Maybe the songwriter said he's got the whole world in his hands. They don't know how true that is because they don't go the rest of the way to teach the truth that You can do with Your own what You want and no man can say no. Neither does any man have to approve or disapprove. It doesn't make any difference. As far as what man says is what you say counts. And those, Lord, who understand are wise. They've been given the spirit of wisdom, the revelation and knowledge of you tonight, and we thank you for it. We cannot praise you enough, Lord. We feel very much relaxed and very much at peace and very much at home with what we know, what we have in this hour. we're grateful father god bless everyone in divine presence here knowing that divine presence is not only here but it's everywhere where