Enticing Spirits Versing the Word of God

This article is an excerpt from the sermon Enticing Spirits delivered 24th July 1955 by William Marrion Branham, at the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana, U.S.A.

Don't condemn the sinner; have mercy on him. Let him go ahead and smoke his pipe, let him drink his liquor, let him have his card party. That's his pleasure. Don't blame him. Coming home and everything, tired and worn out, he wants some pleasure. The thing for you to do is live such a godly life that you can prove to him that the Gospel holds ten thousand times more than that, for him. [Blank spot on tape--Ed.] And if he dies in that state, he'll go to hell, on his liquor. That's the Devil's intoxication. If he dies, dragging on that old pipe, God is his Judge. If he dies, going out here, dancing, and running around with immoral clothes on, God is his Judge.

But there's one thing, if you die under the anointing Power of the Holy Ghost, like Stephen did when he looked up in the face of God, said, "I see Heaven's open, and Jesus standing at the right hand," you're Heaven bound, like a martin to its box. Amen.

Enticing spirits versing the Word of God! Let loose, let go. "How you do it, Brother Branham?" Just let go. That's all you have to do. Take God's Word. Don't try to work up nothing. Don't get down at the altar and beat on it, holler, "God, give me the Holy Ghost! Lord, give me the Holy Ghost!" He ain't coming, you beating on that altar. That don't do no good. No. That ain't the way It comes. It's, taking Him at His Word!

Look at Peter. Peter was in a trouble, looked like he was going to die. And he seen the Lord come, walking on water. And he said, "Lord, if that be You, bid me come."

Lord said, "Come on."

Now Peter said, "Now wait a minute, Lord, let me go on a forty-day fast, to see if I can walk on that water, or not. O Lord, let me get enough Spirit on me, that I can dance in the Spirit and speak in tongues, in this boat, then I can step out"? No, sir! He took God at His Word, let loose and let go. God took him through.

What if God met Moses, and He said, "Moses, go down there into Egypt, and tell Pharaoh, 'Let My people go'"? What if Moses said, "Let me go on a forty-day fast, first, and see if I got faith enough to obey You, God. Give me something, something another, Lord. Let me tell You something, let me see if I get in the Spirit, first"? Moses never asked no questions, he just took God at His Word, and took off. That's the way you have to do it, take God at His Word. Then you know you'll be able to do it. He didn't wait till something else taken place, he just went ahead and done it.

What about Elijah, when he come down off of Mount Carmel, been up there for a long time? And he met a poor widow woman. She was a . . . She was an alien, a Gentile. And when he met her down there, she was picking up some sticks, in the yard. And God told him, "Go down there to that widow's house." What a place for the preacher to go!

Then he goes down there to the widow's house. And when she did, she had two sticks. Said, "What are you doing?"

Said, "Picking up some sticks. I got just enough meal to make a couple corn cakes. That's all I got left. There's three years since we had any rain." And said, "Then I'm going to make these corn cakes. And me and my boy is going to eat them, and die."

He said, "Make me one, first!" Hallelujah! Oh, I know I'm a little bit crazy, but I'm on the Lord's side, anyhow. Said, "Make me one, first. For, THUS SAITH THE LORD." There you are.

What is it? "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness." Not the Kingdom of God and "a little noise," not the Kingdom of God and "a little emotion," not the Kingdom of God and "a little this or that." But, "God, and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you." Put first!

Now, that widow heard that. "Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word." She said, "That's the Word of the Lord, for that's a holy man of God. That's God's prophet, and I know it's the truth. And that's the Word of God."

Now, she didn't run across to ask the neighbors how to do it. She didn't want to go to share her . . . and tell the neighbors, say, "Now, what do you think? The preacher is over my house, saying this. Susie, what do you think about this?"

She went in, begin to dump out. She let go. She let go of what she had, that she might get more. That's what the world needs today, is a good old-fashion letting-go of what you got. Hallelujah! She dumped out, so she could get filled up. She dumped all the oil she had, and all the oil she had and all the meal she had, to the preacher, to the Kingdom of God. And when she dumped it all in there, God come down, filled up the meal barrel, filled up the oil jug. She dumped it again, in the preacher's plate. And It come by, filled it up again. He dumped in. Every time she dumped, He filled.

I'll say, today, if man will dump out all of this nonsense of carrying on, and impersonating Christianity, and let the Holy Ghost take Its place, there will be a revival start on Eighth and Penn Street that will sweep the whole country. Quit the nonsense. Get back to the Word of God. Dump out, that you might fill up. You let go, and God will let come. You dump out, God will fill in. All the petty things, of, "You got to do this, and you got to do that; and you ought to do this and ought to do that." Forget it! Dump it out of your soul!

Say, "God, let me, from this wholly . . . this day, be wholly Thine. Lord, I come with a broken heart. I come with a contrite spirit. I love You. You know I love You. And I want to forget all this foolishness of all these forty-day fasts and see if I can get closer to God, and all this, that, the other, all this nonsense."

Stop it! There's nothing in the Word tells you to have a forty-day fast. Not a thing. There's nothing in the world telling you to fast, 'less God would tell you. If you fast, you ain't going to get hungry, go all these things. As you are fasting, brother, you'll be joy and happy all the time. Said, "Don't appear before men like hypocrites do, with a long, sad face. 'I'm on a forty-day fast, my plates won't fit me anymore. I've lost thirty pounds, and they told me I look better after this is over.'" Oh, nonsense! It's enticing spirits of the Devil.

Get up to the altar, and say "glory, glory, glory" till you can't hardly say anything else, and say, "You got to speak in tongues before you get the Holy Ghost." Nonsense! Dump it out!

Get that out of your system and come on the Word of God! He said, "Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." God don't keep His Word, He's not God. Amen. Dump out. Get filled up. Amen. Whew! I love that. That's His Word. God said so. That's right. And when God said it, God will take care of it. All right. All the preparations you make, all the going to church you do . . .

It's just like down here at the car works where they build a big bunch of freight, or a big bunch of passenger cars. I used to work there. And they take and build those big coaches and everything, and put hard wood, inlaid mahogany all around, and everything so beautiful, set it out there on the track, and it was as dead as a doornail. There set the engine, no steam in it. She just set there.

What it needs today is some fire in the boiler. What it needs today is some steam. What it needs today, the church, to boil; the hottest boiling thing there is to boil sin out of your life, is love. And if you can't love one another, how you going to love God Who you haven't seen? Love hides a multitude of sin. Get in love with God, then you'll love one another, then you'll love the church, you'll love the Cause, you'll love everything that's godly, and you'll keep away from the things of the world.

Enticing spirits going around telling people this, that, or the other, "They got to do this. They've got to do that." It's because that denominations has raised up, and they got a little revelation that they say, "Well, now, I believe that a man . . . I believe in such a thing as shouting in the Bible." That's right. That's the truth. They made a denomination out of it, "When you shout, you got It." But you haven't.

The next one raise up, said, "Speaking in tongues." That's right. That's in the Bible. "Well, when you speak in tongues, you got It." But a lot of them spoke in tongues and didn't have It. See? That's not It. No, sir.

A lot of them said, "Well, we got to prophesy."

Look at these prophets here with horns on their head, jumping up-and-down and prophesying. Micaiah said, "You're, every one, lying." Amen. Right. God don't come like that. God comes to the sincere heart that comes with a contrite, broken spirit. "He that goeth forth, sowing in tears, will doubtless return again rejoicing, bringing with him precious sheaves." Amen. Get that right, friend.