Questions & Answers
Questions 378 (COD Page 1148)
Romans 7:14-18, “We know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I would do–not: for what I would, that I would not; but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I (c-a-n-...) un–unto the law, consent to the law, that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that doeth it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” This I cannot understand.
26 Well, they wrote out the Scripture; that’s Paul speaking to the Romans. Now he said...Let me just kinda polish it up so you can see. He said, “In me is two persons: right, one wants me to do; wrong, the other wants me to do. And every time I start to do right, then the wrong hinders me.”
27 How many of you people on the interviews this afternoon has run that same thing, and this morning (see?), same thing? I spoke on it this morning, temporarily.
28 You are an outward man which is controlled by six senses; you are an inward man controlled by one sense which is faith. And this faith disagrees with all six senses if the six senses doesn’t agree with faith. But one is contrary to the other. Now, as long as the six senses agree with the faith, wonderful; but when the six senses disagrees with faith, then leave the six senses alone.
29 Now, for instance here, Jesus made a statement, a promise. The inside man says that’s true; the outside man reasons that it can’t be true to you, then ignore the outside man and accept the inside man. Now, that’s the same thing Paul’s speaking of. He was sold under the law to carnal sin. Every one of us is the same. That’s the reason we are...have the troubles we do, of married four or five times, and this, and that, and the...all kinds of sin, and adulteries, and everything else along in our lives, is because of those things. We are carnal, and that part must perish; but then, inside, we are a spirit man, soul inside, and that’s faith in God’s Word; then we bring our outside body under subjection to the Word by faith, by accepting what God said.
30 How can I take a cocklebur and make a grain of wheat out of it? It’s impossible for me to do it. The only way it can be is because inside that cocklebur has been transmitted from a cocklebur wheat...a cocklebur to a germ called “wheat life.” Then you bury that cocklebur, and it’ll produce a grain of wheat (that’s right. See?), because there has been a life of wheat put in the cocklebur. And the life of the cocklebur has been taken out; but the nature of the cocklebur is still sticky (see?), and it will be until this new life has fully been developed out of the ground and raised up again. When it comes forth, then it’s no more cocklebur, but wheat–but wheat. But while it’s here on earth and the...in the...out of the earth...And a cocklebur, it’s still sticky, but it’s got the nature on the inside of it of wheat.
31 And as long as you’re in this life, you’re going to be sticky and have a carnal nature that’s going to bother you as long as you live; but the inside of you, you’re borned again. And when you’re raised up, you’re in the likeness of Christ and all the sin has gone from you. See? That’s–that’s the thing.
32 May I says this? It sounds like a joke. An Indian...They’re very funny people. And I...They’re not funny; they’re odd to us; but they seem all right to themselves. And if you get to knowing them, they’re all right. A Indian was asked one time when he was saved...
33 I remember one in Phoenix, Arizona. Billy was going down to give out prayer cards. And he would just stand there and give out prayer cards. And them people that’s able to run up there and grab the prayer cards...While the–the well people really had a headache, toothache, or something wrong with their toe, they got–they got the prayer cards, Brother Ruddell. And when–when they did, then in a prayer line, the only thing I got, somebody with a headache, somebody had something wrong with toe, and something like that. And there was people setting there dying with cancer and things that didn’t get the prayer line. I said, “Billy, go down there and ask those people what’s wrong with them. And if they haven’t got cancer, or some horrible disease, or something that’s going to kill them, don’t give them them prayer cards. Get them people up there in that prayer line that’s going...that’s ready to die if not helped from the Lord. Let them others just wait. Let them come in a fast line or something. But let them people that’s ready to die...”
I said, “Ask them.”
He said, “Well, you said, ‘Just shuffle up the cards and give it to them.’ That’s what I was doing.”
I said, “But you’re getting them people run up there ahead of them, and they get...Them poor cripples and things can’t get them.”
“All right, I’ll do it.”
He goes down; there was an old Indian (and they’re very odd), he wouldn’t set down in a chair. They give him a chair, but he set down on the floor in the tent. He had a hat on; he wouldn’t take it off; had a feather sticking in the back of it, just setting there. Billy walked up to him, and he passed by, and he said, “You want a prayer card?”
“Hmm.”
He said, “What’s wrong with you, Chief.”
He said, “Me sick!”
He said, “But what’s wrong with you?”
He said, “Me sick!”
He said, “But I want to know what’s wrong with you!”
He said, “Me sick!”
34 That’s all he could get out of him, said, “All right, I’ll be back after while.” So Billy went along asking people. The old Indian kept watching them prayer cards getting thinner and thinner. Every time he’d draw them out of his pocket they were a little bit thinner. So after while, the old Indian got up, and walked over, and tapped Billy on the back to remind him he was in this too. He said–he said, “Chief, what’s wrong with you?”
He said, “Me sick!”
He said, “Well, Chief, you have to tell me. Daddy said not to give these cards to people that would...just had, like tummyache, and headaches, and things. ‘Give them to people that was real sick.’” Said, “How sick are you, Chief?”
He said, “Me sick.” He set him down again and before he...his cards was really about gone. A couple minutes...He kept watching them cards. He come back and tapped him again.
He held out his hand. Billy put the card on his hand, said,
“Chief, go write on there, ‘Me sick.’”
35 He got in the prayer line, and I was praying for him, and I said, “Do you believe, Chief?”
He said, “That right.”
And I said, “Well, you believe that God will heal you?”
He said, “That right.”
I said “You’d be a good boy?”
He said, “That right.”
I met him about a week later. Brother Fred Sothmann
I believe was there. It was when they...and when the tent meeting was going on. It was Phoenix. And I met him a little later on in the week; I said, “Are you doing all right, Chief?”
He said, “That right.” Come to find out, I talked to...
What was that missionary’s name up there, that old man withma white mustache, up there to the Apaches? I can’t think of his name. Oh, he’s a fine old fellow. His wife was healed of cancer, you know. He said, “Brother Branham, that’s all that he can say.” Said, “I taught him to say, ‘Me sick.’ That’s the only thing he could say, ‘That right.’” So that’s–that’s about it, you see. “That right. Me sick!”
36 Somebody told me he had, one, one time, was converted, received the Holy Ghost, and he said to him, “How you getting along?”
And he said, “Pretty good and pretty bad.”
He said, “Well, how do you mean pretty bad and pretty good?”
He said, “Well, since me receive the Holy Ghost,” he said, “there’s been two dogs in me, and one of them a black dog and one of them a white dog.” And said, “They argue all the time.” Said, “They growl and fight at one another.” And said, “The white dog wants me to do good; the black dog wants me to do bad.” Said, “Well, Chief, which one of them wins the fight?”
36 Said, “That depends on which one Chief feeds the most.” So I think that’s a good answer here. See? There just depends on the warring of the body that’s in you; it depends on which one you cater to, which nature you cater to, the carnal nature after the things of the world, or the spiritual nature after the things of God. That does it.