Questions & Answers
Questions 24b
Do you take the day to think up these things you’re going to say at night?
It’d sure take quite a day, wouldn’t it? No, Christian, my brother, I never take one thought of what I’m going to say in the pulpit. I’ll read a Scripture somewhere. And I-I’ve made announcements many times that I would go to the pulpit, I was going to preach on a certain subject, get there, the Holy Ghost turn me right back around, make me do something else.
I’ve tried it two or three times to write out notes and preach on notes. Long as I’m looking at them notes, I got my mind off of God. So I just have to go ahead and crumble them up and throw them down and just whatever He says. Sometimes I start in Genesis and wind up in Revelation, I... So I’m not very much of a-of a minister just to-to... I have to get my messages from Above.
And I-I read a Scripture, like I said, on the mark of the beast. I... My wife, my mother, and them that knows, my mother-in-law setting here, which is at the house of a time, I just, along about three o’clock in the afternoon, I start praying. I go in, start praying. Then I just go down, I think, “Well, I said I’d speak tonight on The Mark Of The Beast.” I’ll go over. And I brought, tonight, for the answer a-a Cruden’s concordance. And that’s to get answers, or, not-not answers, but you know what a concordance is: it’s all the words of the Bible wrote out. So, I just hunt the concordance to find out, sometime, where the person’s question is at.
But being mostly, as I see one of my friends here I met in the store, or by a store this afternoon, he... we were talking about these questions, and so forth, like that. Now, all my life I’ve had, since I been a minister, I’ve had to battle with pretty near everything. I never went to any seminary school. And the only thing I’ve ever learned has been what He’s told me. And then I just stayed on it and-and believed it. And I’ve had to combat pretty near everything that I-I believe, around the world. I... They... Over in Africa, in different places and the foreign field, you find isms that America never thought of. And that’s throwed right in to you. But the main thing I’ve always tried to stand just on this Word, right here; see, not just on one Scripture, it has to come all the way through the Bible.
Now, you can take one Scripture and make it say anything. Do you know infidels use this Bible for their textbook of debate? Sure. But it’s got to be the same all the way. Now, if you’ll excuse the expression (I’d, just, so, for the way of education to us), the Bible is like a jigsaw puzzle that’s been cut up. Exactly. And you’ll have to look to Christ Jesus, the Pattern, to know how to put it together. If you don’t, you take your own opinion, you’ll have in your scene, a cow picking grass in top of a tree, the first thing you know. It just won’t work right. But if you’ll just let the Holy Spirit; just don’t use your own mind when you’re studying the Bible. If you try to use your own knowledge or your own mind, you’ll certainly get turned around every time. See?
For as Christ said, “I have hid it from the eyes of the seminary, wise and prudent, and will reveal it to babes such as will learn.” See. “I have hid it.” So there’s no schools, and boards, and-and church boards, teach the Scripture in the way it should be. Now, that’s a great thing to say. They may have lots of truth, but the Holy Spirit reveals it to individuals. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is for individuals. That’s the reason organization get the people out of the line of God every time. Cause God gives something new constantly, He’s moving on like that. And, but this is always the background. Watch and see it as it peels off in the Bible, look at it how it’s peeling off in time. Then you can see where you’re getting to.
Now, in these answers, as I have said, I’m a very poor teacher. But I want to say that what I know of it, I wish to-to explain it to others. And if you differen and say, “Well, Brother Branham, I just don’t believe it that way,” that’s all right, that doesn’t break us from being brothers anymore, see. We’re just brothers. I... If you want to be a-a-a... belong to the temple of continuity, you know, that’s all right with me. See. And if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we’ll still be partners and go right along. And-and I believe good old-fashion sanctification will make you feel that way about it. Don’t you? That’s right, make us agree. As this man standing last evening, standing right here, with a position of that type. And-and I’ve met... Here’s the archbishop of India here, over four hundred and seventy million people. And he come, and he heard about it and he come over here, he said, “Is this the truth?”
I said, “It is.”
He said, “How do I receive the Holy Ghost?” “Laying on of hands.” Laid hands on him, and the Holy
Ghost come on him. He stood in Chicago, here, a few weeks ago, at the big Christian Business Men meeting, said, “I had all the cardinals and everything else laying hands on me over there; the great men, the great bishops, and so forth, laying hands on me when they ordained me the archbishop of India, Episcopalian archbishop of India and the president of the Christian Fellowship of India.” The greatest religious mark in India. And he said, “There wasn’t nothing happened when they laid hands on me.” Said, “I come over here to a guy that didn’t know his ABC’s, hardly, and he laid hands on me, and I received the Holy Ghost.” That’s right. That’s strange, wasn’t it? See. So, it doesn’t come by education or knowledge; it comes by humbling yourself before God. That’s right. And then, here’s how you’ll know that you’re a Christian: By the fruits you bear. Now, not by the way you shout. I believe in shouting, but it’s not whether you shout, or not, I... or-or whether you speak with tongues, or not. That...
I believe in speaking with tongues. It isn’t whether you heal the sick, or not.
I believe in healing. But here’s the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, gentleness, patience. That’s the fruit of the Spirit. See? And if those signs follow you, then I-I kind of believe that’s what Jesus told me to look for.
He said, “This will all man know that you’re My disciples, when you have... ” [Congregation says, “Love one for another.”-Ed.] That’s right. “When you have love one for another.” Although the man might differen with you, yet you love him just the same. See? Oh, if you just love those who love you, what reward have you? Sinners do the same thing. See? See? But you must love those who hate you, not just make out you love them, but really love them. [Congregation says, “Amen.”-Ed.] Think of it. That’s right. “Amen” is right. See? If a man really hates you, and he’s proved he hates you, and still in your heart you love him, you’re getting pretty close to the Kingdom. That’s right.
Now just don’t love him, say, “Well, I know I’m supposed to do it.” But you love him anyhow. If you don’t love him from your heart, if you say you love him when you don’t, you know what that makes you? Hypocrite. See. So don’t walk up and tell him you do ’less you really do. And if you don’t feel that way, just stay right here until you feel that way. Cause I’ll assure you, there’s sufficient grace to make you feel that way. That’s right. It really will.