The Two Thieves Pt.3 and Paradise Explained
LUKE 23:39-43
39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. (This word “malefactor” = evil doer)
40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. (Notice – an unrepented sinner and a repented sinner - At the beginning they both spoke against Christ, but this other thief repented and took sides with the word of that hour – I am so glad that we have also repented and taken sides with the word of this hour at this time when the word is being crucified again in this day)
42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. (Notice that it is how you end that counts and not how you begin)
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
This reply that Jesus answered the thief could be considered quite an unusual reply of the many answers Jesus could have given, but we know that in all scripture there is always deeper truth hidden beneath the surface of the text if we are prepared to dig down. So we want to look at this word “Paradise” as a few obvious questions arise from this reply like where is this paradise and in what form would that gathering together be.
REVELATION 2:7 (This is the message to the Ephesian Church age)
7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
The Two Thieves Pt.3 and Paradise Explained
97-2 EPHESIAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.3
THE REWARD PROMISED
Revelation 2:7,
"... To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree Of Life, Which is in the midst of the paradise of God."
This is the future reward to all overcomers of all ages. When the last call to battle has been sounded, when our armour has been laid down, then we will rest in the paradise of God and our portion shall be the Tree of Life, forever. *Remember that this same tree of life was in Eden – so what Adam had lost in Eden that is now restored back again – redemption is to purchase back that which was lost.
*This word “Paradise” is only referred to 3 times in the bible and all 3 times appear in the New Testament - The very first time was with this thief at the cross, and then in:
II CORINTHIANS 12:3-4 (Paul writes)
3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) (Paul is actually speaking here of himself and of his own experience beyond the curtain of time)
4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
***So the truth about this place of Paradise that this thief went to and that Paul also tells about here would remain a mystery that would not be uttered until this end time age when all the mysteries of God would be made known by the ministry of the seventh angel’s message of Revelation 10:7.
So when Paul came back from that place he was forbidden to speak of it – but in this day when Brother Branham came back from that same place, he told us all of what Paul was not permitted to speak of.
THE.EVENING.MESSENGER_ MESA.AZ V-8 N-5 WEDNESDAY_ 63-0116
138 I don't... I wouldn't hurt you for nothing, but I had a vision not long ago of being in the Paradise of God. I cannot but tell you the Truth.
Brother Branham’s first wife (Hope) also describe entering that same place… remember when he goes beyond the curtain of time he sees her there.
LIFE.STORY_ PHOENIX.AZ SUNDAY_ 51-0415A
E-100 …She said, "Oh Bill." She said, "You've talked about it; you preached about it, but you don't know how glorious it is." Said, "Just before you called me, there was something in white was taking me home. I was going down through a great big place where there was pretty trees and big birds and swings. I was at perfectly at peace being taken my home." I believe she seen paradise as sure as I'm standing in this platform.
This next slide is of a painting by Thomas Kinkade called “Stairway to Paradise”
The next one is called “pathway to paradise”.
Paradise is what we would imagine of what the creation of God was like in its perfection as a place of beautiful gardens and parks of trees and flowers and waterfalls along with all the different kinds of animals and bird life and everything living together in harmony and peace. The weather conditions are always perfect, there is no sin, no sadness, no pain, no death, just perfection and joy and peace and life and fellowship and perfect harmony with God and man and the animal kingdom just like what Adam had before the fall.
114-2 SMYRNAEAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.4
THE SALUTATION
...Man (Adam) took life and turned it into death.
But this MAN (Jesus) took death and turned it into life.
Adam took innocence and turned it into guilt.
This One took guilt and turned it into righteousness.
Adam took a paradise and turned it into a waste howling wilderness; but this One is coming back to turn an earth rocking and reeling with destruction into another Eden. Adam took a life of fellowship and joy with God and turned it into a desert of spiritual darkness that brought forth all sin, moral decay, pain, suffering, delusion, and corruption that wars within the souls of men. But this One, from all the tragic death and degradation that filled mankind, brought forth a life of righteousness and beauty, so that as sin once reigned unto death, even so might men now reign in righteousness by One, Christ Jesus; and not as the offence was, though terrible indeed it was, but now much more is His gift unto eternal life.
**Last week we began to talk about the categories and the different types of bodies that we will have in that eternal land (our new eternal house of our new bodies that we will dwell in and inhabit for eternity). Your earthly mother and father furnished you with this body that you are dwelling in now that is only a temporal body that didn’t come by the spoken word of God, but God will furnish you with that eternal body – a spoken word created body.
***We saw how that even Brother Branham’s horse and dog were on the other side in their new eternal bodies that were in the same image of the bodies that thy had been reflected in upon the earth – these two animals had both received eternal life and were robed in bodies that they will live in for eternity.
*Both of these animals had been associated with brother Branham on earth, and so we know that their earthly association with him was only the negative of the positive of them being associated with him for eternity – this is what the mystery of the fifth seal opened up to us of what Paul could not utter.
****That is why I know that even if my small ministry has been associated with the ministry of William Branham on earth, it can only be because I am also associated with him in the mind of God in that eternal land. And the same with all of us – we are associated here in this life because we will be associated there for eternity.
*These truths have been sealed since the foundation of the earth but are now being understood in the bride age by an end time people who are under an eagle anointing.
**The only reason those animals were here was because they were first there in that eternal realm in the mind of God.
HEBREWS.CHAPTER.FOUR_ JEFF.IN HEB SUNDAY_ 57-0901E
147 Every time I see a tree, I think, "That tree is the negative. There is a positive somewhere." That tree was made off of something. An intelligence made it. And all this earth does is reflect the Heavenly. The Bible said so. And if there is a tree here that has to perish, there is one in Glory that won't perish.
148 If I see a man, I see a lovely little young couple, man and his wife, walking down the street, sweethearts together. What does it reflect? Blessed be the Name of the Lord! There is one in Heaven that'll never perish. "If this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have one already waiting, the theophany."
*That is why when Brother Branham’s first wife (Hope) died and he called her back, she told him that she saw the most beautiful big birds flying from tree to tree – we can only have birds here in this negative realm because there were already birds there in that positive eternal place. This realm is just the negative reflection of that one.
MY.LIFE.STORY_ LA.CA FOOTPRINTS.BOOK SUNDAY_ 59-0419A
215 I had to work. We was way in debt and hundreds of dollars of doctor bill, and nothing to pay it with. And I just had to work. And I seen her two or three times a day, and every night, and then when she was in that condition.
(Look at the terrible trials that he had to go through in life in order for his character to be molded into what it would take to bring this message to us)
I said, "What do you mean, 'Call' you 'back'?"
216 She said, "Bill, you've preached about It, you've talked about It, but you don't have no idea what It is."
I said, "What are you talking about?"
217 She said, "Heaven." She said, "Look," she said, "I was being escorted Home by some peoples, men or women or something. They was dressed in white." And she said, "I was at ease and peace." Said, "Big pretty birds flying from tree to tree."
THE.MASTERPIECE_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-7 SUNDAY_ 64-0705
11 So we--we realize that we're here in a negative form. And as long as there is a negative, there has to be a positive. There cannot be a negative without a positive, see, because it's because of the positive that makes the negative. Like you had a negative picture of some object. There has to be an object somewhere, or to strike, the light strike that lens, or there wouldn't be any--any negative. So when we see that our life here is in the negative, and knowing that we're in the image of some life somewhere, then we know that there is a positive somewhere that the light has struck, and it's reflected something here on earth. And we are only that reflection. The genuine object is somewhere. If that isn't, I'm the worst deceived man in the world; I've spent my life in vain. But I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it's there. See? That's why we're here. See?
He had gone beyond the curtain of time and had seen that place himself and told us these things – this is not some conspiracy theory, that is thus saith the Lord that there is land that is the positive to this life that is all negative – but in this negative, it is a reflection of that positive.
REVELATION 6:11 (5th Seal)
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. This is speaking of the Jewish people of the Holocaust and of all the Jews who have stayed true to the word of God that have been persecuted and have suffered down through history since the death of Christ that would be given white robes and new bodies at the great white throne.
**So when we look at these two thieves, we notice throughout the bible that there are so many accounts that God uses two people to show us of the nature and characteristics of the saved and the lost throughout the bible – those that will be with him in this paradise and those that will not.
***The bible begins with Cain and Abel – and we know that they both went to their respective places when they died, but the scriptures relates to us of how they acted and responded to the word of God that showed them of what place they were reflecting on earth of where their eternal destination would be.
And right through the bible, there are many many places where the bible is contrasting these two.
*There was Cain and Abel
*Ismael and Isaac
*Esau and Jacob
*Orpah and Ruth
*Judas and Jesus
THE.MARK.OF.THE.BEAST.AND.THE.SEAL.OF.GOD.1_ LONG.BEACH.CA THURSDAY_ 61-0216
E-35 Look at the smoke coming up from the altar, come right on up and settle down on Calvary. As Cain killed Abel at the altar, Judas killed Jesus at the altar. Right.
Notice again, you only see three crosses, don't you? There were four, four crosses. There was Jesus in the middle, a thief on one side and a thief on the other, and Judas hung hisself on a sycamore tree. And Jesus was hanging on a tree too. "Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree." And He was made a curse for us. Judas was on just as much cross as He was, 'cause he was on a tree. Jesus on much a tree as Judas was. "Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree."
Watch here. There was the Son of God: God made manifest, came down from heaven, returning back to heaven, taking with Him the repentant sinner. And there was Judas, the son of perdition, come from hell, returning back to hell, taking back with him the unrepentant sinner, going back again. Oh, it's beautiful.
As God opened up the side of Adam in the garden and took out a part to make a bride, God opened up the side of Jesus at Calvary and took out the Bride, out of His side. Oh, it's beautiful. At the cross, how it is, and how them two spirits, how they come up through Cain, Abel: the crow, the dove.
*We also see this contrast with the rich man and Lazarus – one went to the bosom of Abraham, and the other went into torment. And we know that it was to do with the characteristics that they expressed while they were both on the earth – the rich man who started out as the rich young ruler that met Jesus and turned down the opportunity of a loss that would have actually dealt with a selfish problem in his nature that actually developed greater over his lifetime that in the end caused him to not even share a crumb with the beggar Lazarus.
*Then there was the woman caught in adultery verses her accuses – remember that the judgement should have been death for her, but Jesus took that punishment of death for her on the cross to satisfy the justice of God.
Even with the categories of the Lambs section of the book of life and the book of life – both are saved groups, but one group is elected to be a part of the bride group and will respond to the word for their age and be associated with the messenger for their age.
THE.SEED.IS.NOT.HEIR.WITH.THE.SHUCK_ JEFF.IN V-6 N-4 THURSDAY_ 65-0218
58 Here the seed starts then in a promise, slightly doubted. Isaac being the seed of the free and promised woman, brought forth, as Paul was trying to explain here in Galatians, he brought forth the natural, promised seed. And he goes on to say here that the--the bondswoman's children cannot be heir with the freewoman's children, because they are of two different categories.
59 And, that is true, the unbeliever cannot be heir with the believer. There's no way, at all. That's where the trouble is today. You can't make a denominational chicken believe with a eagle. You just can't do it. There is where the trouble comes. You've got to believe every Word of God. You just... You're not heirs together. Neither will you--will you join with it; you cannot do it. You've got to be eagle or a chicken.
Opening scripture:
LUKE 23:39-43 Look at the confessions of these two men in the very final stages of their lives of their attitude toward the word for their day…
39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.
42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
One thing about this thief that was saved in the final hours of his life is that it shows us how that he was destined to this point in time where he would come into an opportunity to acknowledge the son of God and to express his request to be remembered by Jesus when he came into his kingdom.
This is showing us the grace of God on this man and of how ready the Lord is to save a person regardless of the life that they have previously lived.
**We notice here that it only took just a small expression of words and the right attitude of heart toward God for this thief to enter into that Paradise.
***The bible is the book out of which the entire world will be judged from. So if God made a way for this thief to go into eternal life on the account of him standing up for the word of his day by just one little acknowledgment of showing the right attitude to God just before his earthly life ended, then this shows us the limit of what God will accept and that he will have to let anyone else in that is within the limit of this same boundary if they will also show the right attitude to the word for the day that they live, even if it is just 5 minutes before they depart this life.
What grace is this…? What grace is this…?
No one has to be lost – God showed us that here by the example of this thief.
*It was by his association with the word and his attitude to the word while in this life that qualified him to be in Paradise, and this is also what qualifies us in this day or in any of the ages. This thief received the word for his day of what little he knew of it – that is always the qualification in every age.