So far be it from me to judge
William Branham and where he went wrong and
all that, I'd like to lay that to
one side.
I believe he did the work that God
authorized him to do to prepare the hearts
of the people, and I know it had
a great impact in my own life by
way of showing me the simplicity of the
ministry of Jesus in the flesh, that he
would stand before the people very humbly and
the people who were sick and infirm would
come before him and he would take their
hand or in later years he wouldn't even
touch them, but the angel of the Lord
would reveal the things concerning them that were
wrong and he'd pray for them and many,
many times they were healed.
Not always, no.
And some are troubled about that, but I'm
not, because I know that there's many reasons
why people are not healed or if they
are healed they don't retain their healing, even
though it's a valid healing.
Living as we do in a realm where
it's so hard to retain true faith.
There's so many crutches we can fall back
upon if faith doesn't work.
If faith doesn't work, we've got all these
crutches.
It seems that faith is failing so back
in the crutch.
So I'm not here to exalt William Branham
or to denounce him by any sense of
means, because I believe he was a true
follower of the Lord who did the work
God wanted him to do, and it was
through his influence on these brethren who were
seeking God for a restoration of the gifts
of the Spirit, through his influence, though he
had no contact with them, that they were
praying and fasting for a mighty move of
God.
And in the spring of 1948, the Lord
began to break through in prophetic utterances, I
will at this time restore the gifts of
my spirit to the church and they will
be restored through prophecy in the laying on
of hands.
Something that had happened to me a month
before and I didn't know what it was
all about.
So I was ready to go up there
when I heard about it and to see
what God was doing and was greatly amazed
and humbled and blessed to see a very
sovereign move of God in the people, in
the ministry and in the people.
That there'd be an anointed word and that
all over the congregation there'd be a oneness
and a flowing in the spirit and prophecies
coming forth anywhere in the congregation.
Not just that moving of the gifts of
the Spirit, but a strong teaching that God
was beginning to restore the body of Christ,
that he was beginning to pour out gifts
of the Spirit through prophecy in the laying
on of hands, and that in the ultimate
God's intention was to bring the body of
Christ together to prepare for the coming of
the Lord.
So to me that was a life-changing
thing for myself.
It changed me in a whole new direction.
I shouldn't say a whole new direction, it
gave me new hope, new vision.
Though I had a certain vision and hope
of great and mighty revival and expected that
I would be anointed with the true anointing
of the Lord in whatever God would do,
to me it clarified that vision, it confirmed
it, it gave me much assurance that God
was going to have in the church a
people who were walking with him, a glorious
church, and without spark or wrinkle or blemish
or any such thing.
And that became, it wasn't just a personal
revelation, it seemed as something that came to
the congregation.
They knew it.
And so that was my background.
A year later they invited me to come
and stay there and help in the office
and answer the mail and minister in the
local church a little as the Lord might
lead.
But I always want to point out that
I was not one of the leaders of
the Lateran movement, that I was not recognized
as one of the leaders even there.
I did help in the local church.
While there I wrote the first book, Feast
of Tavernas.
And from that, many who were not familiar
with what happened take it that I was
one of the leaders there, but I was
not.
And two or three years after I wrote
it, I felt I had to leave the
movement, not knowing what I would do, and
greatly discouraged because I felt that that was
a move of God that would go on
until Jesus came.
And in a sense I believe it did.
And they never called it the Lateran movement,
they just called it this move of the
Spirit.
And so people who consider I was one
of the leaders in the Lateran movement, I
was never in the Lateran movement as such.
That's what the name it took on when
it went through the states here.
And many, many revivals broke out all over
the United States, especially in the bigger centers.
At first, Portland and Seattle and Detroit and
St. Louis and San Diego and down in
those areas, the first thing you know out
from those bigger churches, there was revival all
over America, particularly a little bit in Canada
and other parts of the world.
There wasn't a nationwide revival, it wasn't a
worldwide revival in that sense, but God was
meeting, primarily at first, Pentecostal people, people who
had a Pentecostal background, that's what I mean,
and established something in the hearts of people
that was fresh and new and vital and
brought them into a new and living relationship
with the Lord.
It was never organized as the Lateran movement,
but it got that name, a sort of
a name that was tagged on.
And so I've gone along with it in
the sense that I refer to the movement
that I was in as the beginnings of
that which became known as the Lateran movement.
But they never called it that, and I
never belonged to it, I never belonged to
any movement in my life, really.
I did partake of that in a little
bit.
Helped in the office work, was considered sort
of a deacon around the work that was
there at North Alvord, the little town where
the revival started.
Never traveled in Lateran circles, maybe locally to
a few little groups nearby, but so I
was not one of the leaders of the
Lateran movement.
Nevertheless, I accepted what God did there, but
I never went along necessarily with what went
on after it left there and went around
to the various churches, and nor did I
ever try to figure out what really happened.
When I left there, I was discouraged, and
I wrote the Brethren.
I didn't feel I could go along anymore
because of the control that was coming in
under the guise of apostolic authority, and I
felt I would lay down my ministry, and
that was it.
I just went back to work, stayed carpentry
on then on.
In the meantime, Dale Britton wrote and asked
if he could keep my book in print,
and I told him to go ahead.
So I just, that's what happened, and I
went into sort of a wilderness, I guess,
in a way, because I didn't find that
fellowship that I had known there for those
two, three years, the real flowing of the
Spirit.
Never found that fellowship, except off and on
for the next 20, 30 years.
You find here and there sort of a
remnant of it, you might say.
And so it wasn't until recent years, really,
that I began to do some more writing,
because I felt the Lord was beginning a
new thing in the earth again.
I never got involved with the charismatic movement
either, because I saw what it was.
As the latter rain movement began to go
forth, it was rain.
I'm not saying it was THE latter rain,
the only rain, or the major rain of
the end times, but I think it got
its name from a course that was given,
I believe, by the Spirit in those days.
This is the promise of the coming latter
rain.
Lift up your eyes, behold the brightening grain.
Many signs and wonders done in Jesus' name.
Drink, O drink, my people, for this is
latter rain.
And one of the teachers up our way
pointed out that the course began, this is
the promise of the coming latter rain.
They refused to call it the latter rain.
So we never called it that.
Not denying it was a foretaste of what
God would do.
And so having, you know, gone through a
sort of a wilderness and you're out of
it all, I thought at the beginning of
ministry, instead of that I was there two
or three years, just beginning to minister a
little in the local church.
Traveled very, very little, maybe once or twice
I went out to some of the smaller
groups.
And then realized I had to lay it
down, and troubled about it, and in those
days God began to speak to my heart.
Remember ye not the former things, nor consider
the things of old?
Behold, I do a new thing.
And now it shall spring forth, shall ye
not know it?
And so I sort of clung to that,
and went back to work carpentering.
And I wouldn't say, you know, people write
me, you know, and sort of wonderful how
you've retained this truth of God all these
years and stood for it.
Well, I guess I have tried to in
a way, but I was just, I was
just a carpenter doing my job the best
I knew, and finding very little fellowship or
any moving of the Spirit in my own
life.
And nevertheless, I think what might have kept
me steady in a sense was the vision
of it.
In times of great temptation when I could
see, looking back, I could very easily have
just dropped it all and forget it.
Not that I didn't believe it, but the
trials of the wilderness, you know.
And when I was studying and wrote the
book on the way through the wilderness and
the journeys of the children of Israel, I
could see myself in those places.
And I find that people were blessed in
reading about it.
And here I had to go through those
things to be able to write about it.
And I know what it is to come
to the bitter waters of man and to
try to drink and find them bitter and
grumble and complain against God.
And then to go on and further and
further away from the land of Canaan.
All the time they were journeying south instead
of going, instead of going north where Canaan
was.
Going, let's see, what was it?
West, I guess it was.
When they came out of Egypt, instead of
going straight on to Canaan, God says, turn
south now.
Canaan's over there and we're going south.
But God was leading them.
So I think I've been able to encourage
people that God was leading, we didn't know
it.
God said, I'll lead you in a way
you know not.
And so down to Sinai, to learn of
God's holiness.
And so is the way of the pilgrim
as they would go to Canaan.
It's not the direct route to Canaan.
The direct route is called the way of
the Philistines.
You look in the map, the way of
the Philistines is a more direct route to
Canaan than any other way.
The highway of the Philistines.
Philistine means to roll in the dust.
Roll in the dust.
God would not let them go that way.
He didn't want them to see the wars
of the Philistines.
And after it's all over, I was thankful
that God did not allow me to stay
in ministry.
The only one thing I wanted to do,
from the time I was five, six years
old, it was all over.
I'm glad he didn't get involved too much.
And then it was revealed in prophetic voice
after that God wouldn't let me feel comfortable
in many of these moods of the spirit
world I had been.
God wouldn't let me feel comfortable because he
didn't want me to feel comfortable or whatever
the phraseology was.
Feel a part of it.
He didn't let me feel a part of
it because of what he would do in
the end time in which I would have
a part.
And so I thank him for the way.
When it's over you can thank him more
readily than we're going through it.
Thank him for all the way he's led
us.
Yeah, devastations and that.
And you look at times and I could
have fallen in the fields of Kibra Tava,
called the graves of lust.
They were on their way to Canaan.
And the temptations come in by the daughters
of Moab and many of them went and
fell.
And there was a great slaughter in Israel
and I could see.
If I was in ministry, I think I
would have made total shipwreck.
I don't condemn those who made shipwreck in
ministry.
In a system where there's no flowing of
the life of God and you're trying to
keep things together.
The burdens on the shoulders of a pastor.
He fails, everybody fails.
I mean it's all thrown on his shoulders.
Carry the load and Babylonian system.
God wants his people to be flowing in
the spirit.
All of them that if there's a weakness
anywhere in the body of Christ, the rest
of the body can heal that wound.
And it's not that way.
And how could I survive?
I don't think I could have.
So I thank the Lord for bringing me
to this hour.
When they came from Kibra Tava, having buried
the young men in Israel that fell in
battle, they called the place the graves of
lust, where they buried those that fell in
battle.
It should have been a resting place for
the people of God.
God went before them to search out a
resting place for them.
But because their hearts were not conditioned of
God and they did not know God's ways,
they fell by the wiles of the daughters
of Moab.
And the false prophets who could not curse
Israel taught them, you get the daughters of
Moab to call you to a party and
that way they'll get you.
They were not false prophets.
God sealed his, circumcised, no I shouldn't say
circumcised his lips.
He motivated his lips to declare a true
prophet concerning the goodness of Israel, the greatness
of Israel and God's favor for them.
And that false prophet went out and told
the people of Moab, I can't curse them,
but you can defeat them if you'll get
the daughters of Moab to go over there
and invite them to your parties.
They'll fall that way and it worked and
it happened.
I'm afraid there's a lot of the doctrine
of Balaam in the church.
You just live it up and have a
good time.
God wants you to, if it feels comfortable,
do it.
If you like it, do it.
The philosophy almost embraced by the church.
When I say the church, I mean that
structure, that old system.
I don't mean that true church of the
living God.
Doctrine of Moab is there.
God is preparing a people to take Canaan
because he's sworn to them, I'm going to
take you in.
Your fathers failed me, but when your fathers
failed me, I swore to you, younger generation,
I'm going to bring you in and I'm
going to do it.
And for his oath's sake, he brought them
in.
You say, would he bring in a corrupt
people?
No.
He prepared them for Canaan.
And though they weren't any better than their
fathers, because God swore him with an oath,
God had to do it.
You say, was he going to bring in
a disobedient people because he swore with an
oath?
No, because of God's oath, he would exercise
his great power to bring about that circumcision
of the armies of Israel that was required
for them to take Canaan.
And they crossed over the Jordan, ready to
take Canaan.
And they camped at Gilgal.
And the inhabitants of Jericho were terrified to
see the Israelites, God having swept back the
river Jordan to provide a passageway for them
across the Red Sea.
And they were terrified that God had done
something he did when they came out of
Egypt.
He opened the Red Sea, now he opened
the river Jordan, and there they are.
And the Israelites there, right at the gates
of Jericho.
And God says, go through the camp of
Israel and circumcise all the young men for
battle, that are ready for battle.
Circumcise them all.
Totally crippling, totally crippling the armies of the
people of God for the conquest of Jericho.
Totally crippling them.
Not just half of them, so they'd have
a little bit of strength in the army.
He crippled the whole army in one single
stroke at Gilgal before the conquest of Jericho.
By how we've got to learn God's ways.
He's not raising up a dynamic young army
in this day and hour to go forth
to battle.
And I know maybe some of you young
people were caught away with the thrust.
Get into this thing.
And I'm not going to name them.
You know what I mean.
Get into this eunuch group and let's go
forth in the nations to preach the gospel.
God preparing an army of cripplemen.
Crippled people.
For his army.
Crippled.
I say it, and I mean it.
They were totally crippled.
They were totally incapacitated for battle.
But because God was doing it, and because
that speaks of the circumcision of baptism, whereby
we are baptized into Christ and baptized into
his death and crucifixion, baptized into his suffering,
which is God's way of victory.
That's why God allowed it there in type
to cripple the army in circumcision.
That they might know that it was not
by might nor by power, but by my
spirit, says the Lord, that they might take
the land of Canaan, not by the weapons
of carnal warfare, but by the ark of
the covenant of God going before them.
So with a crippled army, they stood ready
to attack Jericho.
One day, Joshua was out there looking at
the walls, no doubt meditating upon God full
of zeal.
And he had the authority of God to
take the city, but he wanted to know
God's way.
He saw a man with a drawn sword
in his hand, and he walked up to
him, bawling, who are you?
Are you for us or for the enemy?
He said, neither one, but as captain of
the Lord of hosts have I now come.
Joshua fell on his face and said, take
the shoes from off your feet.
Joshua was to be the new leader, but
no, not really.
The new leader was to be the Jehovah
God of Israel.
And that's God's message to ministry in this
day and hour.
Much is made of leadership.
God has a true and tested and tried
leadership, but he's not sending forth leadership into
battle until they take their shoes off and
fall on their face before their general, henceforth
being totally in subjection to the captain of
the hosts of the Lord.
Not saying to you and I, I've given
you gifts now.
You go ahead and establish my church and
bring my body together.
But retaining his position as head of the
church, as the captain of the armies of
the Lord, and any other leaders there are,
they're only leaders in as far as they
are moving under the direction and orders of
the captain of the hosts of the Lord.
And when he moves away from that headship,
he's no longer a valid leader.
So Joshua got the blueprint for the conquest
of Jericho.
Strange weapons that God uses.
Let the priests of the Lord take a
trumpet and the Ark of the Covenant and
walk about the city.
What about the sword?
Forget your sword.
Let the priests of the Lord take a
trumpet and walk about the city.
As they were walking in obedience, stupid and
foolish as it looked, the inhabitants of Jericho
were totally terrified of the people of God.
You're not going to strike terror, terror into
principalities and powers and heavenly places by victory
marches around your church.
By waving banners made of fine tapestry and
all decorated with colors.
By marching on Washington and telling, we're the
church of God, we're going to do something
about this.
But when we get priests of the Lord
who know how to talk to God and
carry the presence of God with them around
these strong works of Satan, just carrying the
presence of God with them, you're going to
strike terror into the hearts of principalities and
powers and heavenly places.
Because you carry the Ark of His presence
and that's simply the presence of God clothed
upon you.
The Ark of the Covenant, which is the
mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled.
You'll overcome by that blood that's sprinkled on
that Ark and by the word of your
testimony.
That's God's way of battle.
That's God's equipment for battle.
Instead of sending out a bunch of young
people with their drama and their mime and
their pantomime, it kills me with a holy
anger.
We put on a drama there in our
little city portraying the toy maker and Jesus
and Lucifer.
I met a man who did an audition
to be Satan in this drama.
He didn't qualify.
He laughs about it now but with regret.
He's glad he didn't qualify.
He didn't qualify to be Satan in a
drama that young people were going out supposedly
to preach the gospel to the nations, conscripting
one of the young people to take the
part of the devil.
What kind of nonsense goes on in the
name of Jesus.
It kills me with a righteous anger.
Instead of going as a priest of the
Lord bearing the presence of God upon your
shoulders.
Not by might.
Not by power.
By my Spirit, sayeth the Lord.
Cripple our young people, Lord Jesus.
Those whom you have called upon whom you
have laid your hand.
They know they have a calling.
They're trying to fulfill it, Lord, in these
stupid ways.
Yes, Lord.
Quicken them, Lord, to know, Lord Jesus, that
their only victory is in the blood of
the Lamb and the word of their testimony.
Yes, Lord.
The witness of Christ in their lives because
of the blood.
God, that's your way.
That's your only way.
And as they went forward bearing witness to
the blood surrounding Jericho with the witness of
the blood on that mercy seat.
But that's where God dwelt because of the
sacrifice and the blood of the sacrifice that
would be sprinkled upon that ark every day
of atonement.
The inhabitants of Jericho were terrified.
The walls fell flat as they blew the
trumpets which speaks of the word of going
forth from the anointed hearts of a priesthood.
The trumpet give an uncertain sound, Paul says.
Who's going to prepare for battle?
God wants that trumpet.
God's beginning to blow the trumpet.
And the trumpet's going to have a certain
sound.
We're not always going to have this confusion
in the church.
We're not always going to have this uncertain
sound.
I heard a trumpet sound.
Yeah, but I hear another sound over there.
God's going to have a priesthood that will
have a certain sound that people will know
this means a sound for war.
That's right.
They had it in Israel.
When they blew a certain sound, they said
this means we're in trouble.
This means battle.
Prepare for battle.
And they knew how to prepare.
They knew the order of it because there
was a captain at the head of them.
The Lord of Hosts Himself.
One of God's titles in the Old Testament.
The Lord of Hosts.
The Lord of His warring hosts.
He's the Lord of it.
The battle is the Lord's whenever the battle
is the Lord's.
God's strategy is entirely opposite to the strategy
of man.
God's preparing for that sure and certain sound
to go forth from the trumpet of His
priests.
That encourages me to know that God is
going to have a sure and certain sound
going forth.
In the midst of all the confusion.
God has enabled us somehow to filter it
out.
That doesn't quite sound right.
You hear a sound, you know it's right,
but He's going to make a certain sound.
That God's people have ears to hear will
know this is the voice of God.
This is a certain sound.
He does that.
He does it in times of apostasy.
I encourage people with that.
We think when revival comes, well, yeah, we
can expect to hear this real certain truth.
But He does it in times of apostasy
when people don't know what to listen to,
what to hear.
Eli was corrupt.
I shouldn't say Eli was.
His system was corrupt.
His sons were corrupt in ministry and God
said He's going to deal with it.
He warned them first.
He gives them plenty of opportunity.
He warned them, but all the time God
was warning them.
He knew His warnings would go unheeded.
And God was preparing, right in the time
of the dying, someone selfish.
When I say selfish, I don't mean it
in a wrong sense, because it is natural
that a woman in Israel would desire a
son.
It seemed to be something in them, perhaps
from the promise that God gave in the
beginning that the seed of the woman would
bruise the serpent's head.
It seemed to be a great passion in
women in the Old Testament to have a
son.
And God deprived her of that because He
loved her.
The Lord loved her and deprived her of
that inherent longing for a season.
And if you have that real longing for
God and God deprives you of the longing
of your heart, thank Him for it.
He's only depriving you of that which you're
longing for, that you will not settle for
anything less than that.
That your longing will become more and more
refined, more purified, until you long for that
which is the longing of God's heart.
You don't long for ministry anymore so much
as you long to bear fruit that's pleasing
to God.
Not just to be a minister, but you
long for true fruit, whatever the pathway might
be.
And so God kept Hannah waiting and waiting
and waiting.
She was always loving Him and always going
to the temple to worship Him.
Oh, lamenting the fact that she was barren,
while her rival was fruitful, taunting her a
little, perhaps.
See, I'm fruitful, I'm doing things for God.
You just forget all these crazy ideas you
got, you could be fruitful too.
But the Lord loved Hannah.
She sat there before the temple gate at
Shiloh, mumbling a prayer under her breath.
But it was the most eloquent prayer she'd
ever prayed.
But only her lips were moving.
I like to hear that dynamic prayer, what
we call a powerful prayer.
And I know there can't be a powerful
prayer that's audible, but the most powerful prayer
Hannah ever prayed was when nobody heard a
sound except God.
And only her lips moved.
And the minister in charge thought she was
drunk and said, put away the wine from
you, lady.
And she says, no, my Lord.
And Handmaid has a grievous spirit.
He realized immediately that she was praying and
he says, the Lord grant you the desire
of her heart.
And she recognized it somehow as a sure
promise from God.
And she went home and she was no
more sorrowful.
But, you know what she was praying?
Lord, if you'll give me this man child
that I'm asking for, I've been asking you
for this man child for many, many years.
If you'll give him to me, I'll give
him back to you.
And it's going to take that before God
is going to give us our heart's desire.
And I don't mean just to say we'll
pray that prayer, but I think we should
do that too.
But that we should seek him for grace
to really mean it.
Whatever you give me, Lord, it's going to
be yours.
We want fruitful ministry.
Whatever it'll take to bear fruit that's pleasing
to God.
And I think in my own heart I
was more concerned about ministry than I was
about doing something for God's glory.
And I think if we examine our hearts
we'll find that maybe that's often the case.
I want to be a successful minister of
Christ.
I want to be that successful minister.
Instead of I want to be something that
will lead to the praise of his glory.
If you'll give me this man child, I'll
give him back to you.
We have to walk in God's ways to
know how to do that.
I think we covered that last night.
That was in Jesus, the burden of Jesus'
heart to give the Father all the glory.
But in walking in God's ways he was
able to do that.
And God was pleased in the manner in
which he did it.
Because he walked in the Father's ways so
that all the glory God gave the Son
immediately reverted back to the Father.
Because he took a place of helplessness.
He deliberately took it.
He wouldn't try to promote anything that he
had in mind.
Always in union with the Heavenly Father knew
what the Father had in mind.
And that's the way he went.
Fully so it seemed in the eyes of
the disciples, in the eyes of the populace,
in the eyes of the religious leaders.
He had an ear that was tuned to
the Heavenly Father.
And so in saying, Lord you give me,
make us to be this fruitful son in
the house of God and we'll give him
back to you.
We ask the Lord to show us how
to do that as we go along.
That we will never seek to retain any
of this gift that God gives as something
that is ours.
For our benefit, for our glory, for our
honor, for our enlargement or for our success.
But it's his only.
His only.
So Samuel was that boy.
Samuel was the result of clear word, clear
prophetic light in an apostate Israel.
God's going to do it again.
Clear prophetic voice coming forth from the congregation
of his people.
Clear word of prophecy.
Testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of
prophecy.
Coming forth from God's people.
We're asking for that.
We're asking the Lord to make that commitment
so real that we'll know how to do
it.
God gives that voice.
It's yours Lord.
It's not for our sake.
That he gives that gift.
Gift of healing.
Gift of miracle.
No it's not resident in me.
I give it to you.
Maybe you give me a gift but Lord
I give it back to you.
Give it back to you.
Give myself to be holy and acceptable to
God.
So let us not lament anymore but let
us humbly, what shall I say, let us
not condemn people who have fallen.
People who have great ministries who seem to
have spoiled it somehow.
Without necessarily judging them we can't help but
feel that many have spoiled the beautiful gift
God gave.
Let there not be any thought of condemnation
but fear rather that Lord we're looking for
a greater enlargement from you.
And God you give it to us and
we could go the same way.
We will go the same way if you
don't show us Lord how to give it
back to you.
We'll go the same way.
I don't think there's any question of that.
Man cannot stand the adulation of the people
and somehow God must show us when he
begins to glorify himself and his people.
Show us how to so react, is that
the word, so committed, so dedicated to God
that the glory of a modest people will
go back to him.
Can't just say God I'm going to give
you the glory.
I don't know.
There's got to be somehow a working of
God in our hearts that we'll know how.
And so what?
Shouldn't we pray?
I do.
Lord don't give this power, this authority, this
glory, whatever we might call it, until we
know and are disciplined of you that it
will go back to you.
Keep it promised until we're conditioned that way.
Keep it promised until, Lord you prepared us.
We're circumcised with the circumcision at Gilgal.
We're helpless and we know we're helpless.
We're proven to be helpless.
That the victory is in the ark of
the covenant in your holy presence.
You can sing that Lord.
I think it's very simple.
I give myself to thee.
Holy and acceptable to God.
I will give myself to thee as a
living sacrifice.
Holy and acceptable to God.
Thank you.