It is Also Written Pt.3
PSALM 10:1
1 ¶ Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
Notice - Two questions of human observation toward God – why does it seem like the Lord stands afar off in certain times of when troubles enter into our lives.
PSALM 42:7-11
7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts (waterspouts = waterfalls): all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. (That’s what life can feel like at times - like you are drowning under the billows of waves. And notice how that the psalmist called these waves “thy waves”. And so there is a deep within us that God wants to satisfy, but that often requires a period of billows and waves – it often takes crisis to pull that deep out of us)
8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me (And so we also see the LORD’s love and goodness being poured out upon our lives), and my prayer unto the God of my life.
9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? (Look how that it flip flops from like good to bad)
10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? (Look at the contrasts of our lives – at times there is no doubt that God is with us, and it makes us feel that we are invincible, and then all of a sudden, it seems to go the other way and we feel that we are being conquered by our enemies and the Lord is far from us)
11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: (When you feel like you are cast down, the answer is to hope in the Lord, and to continue to give Him thanks knowing that He is working all things out for your good. Like Joseph in the bible, the prophecy that was written of him at the beginning had to take a negative pathway for a season in order to work out of what was written of him at the end – the billows of waves had to go over his head for a season in order for the deep to be made manifested in his life) for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
It is Also Written Pt.3
We are living in such an age of advanced reason and access to vast amount of information of so-called scientific education – the reality is that for many it has become so much harder to reach a level of substance faith in the word of God that could enable them to unlock the supernatural.
We hear the doctor explaining the “numbers” related to a certain disease, and what those numbers should be and what they are not – and that is very convincing and powerful reasoning, and it affects people’s ability to believe the word and promise of God even though they desperately want to, and the reality is that we would probably be better off not knowing all of this scientific stuff because it mostly only works against our faith – and this explain why at times God cannot do the mighty works among us because of our unbelief that is being fueled by all of the education of this modern age - and God understands this struggle that we all have as believers. And this is why our reasoning has to go up higher into the thought of God of where all things are possible – of where we know that the things that are seen are made by the things that do not appear.
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E-15 …That's the way we do God today. We don't try to scientifically this and scientifically that; we just take God at His Word and call the things which were not as though they were.
We don't need any laboratory test. God's Word is sufficient for the test. It's been proven through the years to be right every time. That's all we need.
But in those days people were used to miracles. They never questioned it. But today, it's a constant question, which makes it hard on the believer or the weak believer.
I just want to inject this scripture in here to show us something – we want to notice the language of Jesus in this scripture.
JOHN 11:1-4
1 ¶ Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death (in other words, he will not die from this sickness), but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
The waves that were billowing over that little family, it was going to reveal a deep that was deeper down.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterfalls: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Psalm 42:7
God uses times of trouble to bring out the deep within us.
JOHN 11:14-15
14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.
Notice – from saying that he wouldn’t die from this sickness in verse 4, to announcing that he had died from that sickness in verse 14.
*We want to pick this up later because this is a different language to how we talk or reason as human beings, because where we place a full stop on something and consider it a total disaster and failure, God does not.
In 1962, Brother Branham preaches a weekend series of three services at his home church in Jeffersonville on the 8th and 9th of September 1962. On the Saturday night he preaches “Present Stage of My Ministry”, then “Countdown” on the Sunday morning, and then “In His Presence” on the Sunday evening.
And his scripture reading for “Present Stage of My Ministry” was 2nd Timothy 4:1-5.
II TIMOTHY 4:1-7
1 ¶ I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
(this is the place and verse of where Brother Branham would stop his reading of 2nd Timothy 4 – and this is important for us to note, because he explains this to us in the message present stage of my ministry, because that was his ministry up to that point, but then in the vision the Holy Spirit told him to read on, because it was also written concerning his life)
6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: (Paul was now nearing the end of his ministry, and by this stage he has already written much of the New Testament, but if we study his life and look at his condition of what it appears to the natural reasoning of man – he looks like that he is all washed up and that he has lost the power of what he once had in the earlier days of his ministry. And so Brother Branham is comparing the stage of Paul’s ministry here in 2nd Timothy 4 with the current state and position of his own ministry in 1962, and so up to that stage he had only preached up to verse 5, but now the rest of the chapter was going to be applied to his life because there was a deep that had to be pulled out of his ministry of what we now know was the opening of the seven seals)
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13 And then this circling of Fire called out, said, "The harvest is ripe, and the laborers are few." (he is telling of a vision of the Lord showing him about the fruit of what his ministry had produced up to that stage) And He said, "Now, when you come to yourself again, or come out of this, read II Timothy 4: II Timothy 4." And then I came to myself. And I stood there rubbing my face in my hand. And just then, in the corner of the room, sun shining high, then I must've been under the vision for some hour or more, and It said, "II Timothy 4." And I reached quickly for my Bible and read II Timothy 4.
14 Now, I wish to read that now. And as strange as it seems, as I read this II Timothy 4, the place that I stopped, and many times that I've preached on that here in this Tabernacle, it seems strange that I'd always stop on that. Now, in II Timothy 4, the first five verses (Which, five is the number of grace.)
And then he reads the first 5 verses
… Preach the word - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine (they will eventually reject your teaching on the Godhead and the serpent seed etc.); but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (haven’t we seen the truth of this message be totally rejected by the Christian world). But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
But then there is the rest of the verses that are written of him of what he is now to endure, in other words, it was also written of his life in the continuation of 2nd Timothy 4, and this is the part that explains the present stage of his life and ministry and of what lay ahead of him of the rejection that he would have to endure.
II TIMOTHY 4:10
10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
(Paul’s longtime friend and support ministry had forsaken him – and we know that many of whom had supported Brother Branham in the early days of his ministry also left him)
II TIMOTHY 4:11a
11 Only Luke is with me. (He is having to have a doctor with him all the time – Brother Branham also had his doctor friend Sam Adair, and he also visited Mayo’s Clinic with a stomach condition that he had had to suffer with all of his life – and yet he preached divine healing)
II TIMOTHY 4:13a
13 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, (Paul only has one coat – and Brother Branham also finds himself not even able to afford to buy a nice suit for himself, and so his church has to buy him his clothes)
II TIMOTHY 4:14a
14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: (His enemy seemed to have the better of him – and it looked like that also for Brother Branham)
II TIMOTHY 4:16a
16 ¶ At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: (All of the men that first stood with him in the ministry had left him)
II TIMOTHY 4:20
20 Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.
(Paul had left his friend sick – no doubt he had probably prayed for him, but he remained sick. This is where the human mind puts a full stop, but not so for God. If we could only realize that all this weakness is a sign of an event of something great that God is about to do)
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119 But all men has forsaken me because I've took a true Word, and stood by the Word. I've stayed right here to what He said to me, preached the Word, not a denominational philosophy. "Preach the Word," that was my commission; "stay with the Word." And, brethren who's listening to this on tape, I was a great guy when I come among you just healing the sick, speaking of visions, and showing things. But when I went to tell you the Truth about the Word, what did you turn your back on me for? Do you realize it's just fulfilling what the Scripture said? Yeah, it does that way. Now, I can hardly get in a place.
120 Letter comes all the time. One come the other day, said, "Brother Branham, I had the greatest of confidence in you, but I heard you say that a certain denomination which I belong to was backsliding." Said, "I have no more confidence in you at all now, from now on." Said, "There's about twenty-five of the brethren of my denomination setting in one of your meetings"; said, "we just got--got right up and went off when you said that."
Well, all men has forsaken me, but there's one thing, He stood by me...?... one thing. I'm not... I wasn't disobedient to the heavenly vision that's happened down there on the river. I've stayed true to it. He's been true to me. I'm trusting in Him, someday; I don't know when, for a crowning of my ministry. I'll stay just as true as I could be. I don't know what it'll be; I don't know when it'll be. And I... But when He's ready, I am. Now, look here. I hope He'll crown my ministry with this, of letting me take the clothes of the Word and dress His Bride in the clothes of the Word and for His righteousness. I hope He'll crown me and let me stand there on that day, say, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world."
He is quoting John the Baptist who introduced the first coming of Christ, and now his ministry was about make known and introduce the second coming of Christ – as John the Baptist did, so will you do, but it looks like his ministry had come to its lowest point ever.
***The problem was that the people had become so focused on the gifts that when the giver of the gifts was made known to them, they ignored Him, because all they really wanted was the gifts of the giver and not the giver Himself – the word.
But when we get to the next message (after he preaches the present stage of my ministry), is the “The Countdown” of which he is talking about the bride leaving the earth and going into “the presence of the Lord” because that is the very next sermon – “In His Presence” on the Sunday evening.
***So from what looks like the failure of the present stage of his ministry, into the presence of the Lord – the crowning of his ministry.
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69 But Wesley was one of God's great scientists. Luther was one of God's great scientists. They didn't care what the churches said, what the organizations said. Luther didn't care what the Catholics said; he believed the just shall live by faith (Hallelujah.), and he took God's chemicals of the Word and put it together, and the church moved by faith. Wesley put it together by the Blood, and proved it by the Blood, and the church got sanctified. The Pentecostals believed that the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that the promise is to you and your children and them that's far off, and they put the chemicals together out of the Word, and they moved it into the air. Hallelujah. They moved out, because they were able to be able to accomplish such.
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72 …They were spiritual scientists. Amen. They seen the thing; they believed it. Man did it by education, the natural scientist. The spiritual scientist done it by revelation: one by education, the other by revelation. Oh, if we can just open up. There's all kinds of material laying here. That's right.
So the opening of the word that was to accompany the third pull phase of his ministry was going to contain material that (if we could put it together by revelation) would enable us to be able to leave the world completely – and so this was such a greater thing of purpose then the platform healing campaigns that entertained the people.
And so God had to cause the public show part of his ministry to fall away in order for the attraction of the word to be able to take its full effect among the true elect – and this is what the vision of the rainbow trout was all about, because God’s program for this age was not to have perpetual prayer lines, but a resurrection and rapture.
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E-24 …He said, "I'll meet you in there and this time it won't be a public show." And the vision left me.
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18-6 …He said, "I'll meet you in there, and this is the third pull, but nobody will know nothing about it."
And I said, "Well, I don't understand why in there. Why there?"
He said, "It will not be a public show this time."
And I said, "I don't understand going into that closet, like that."
And He said, "Is not it written by our Lord, 'when thou prayest, be not like the hypocrites who like to be heard before men, but enter into the secret closet and pray to the Father Who seeth in secret, and He Who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly?'" It's perfectly to the Scripture; every time it is.
So his ministry was changing from a public to a private ministry, just in the same way of what happened to Jesus after his crucifixion in that we have no account of the healing campaigns of the first and second pull being repeated after Christ’s resurrection – after the rising of the SON.
Remember that it had looked like that Jesus ministry had washed up and had come to a failed and miserable end, but that was actually the beginning of the greatest event of all – the resurrection.
This is why when we look at what we would call the “disasters” of our lives that looks to us like our worst failures, that these are often the times that usher us into a much greater stage and ministry of our lives, because “It is also Written”. In other words, there are more verses of the bible to be lived out in our lives – it is just that we have never read the rest of the chapter, like how the Holy Spirit told brother Branham to read the rest of 2nd Timothy 4.