The Voice

I love him, I love him because He first loved me. Like Adam, in the garden, He came down and called to me. And I heard His Voice. The Trumpet sounded for me and I was “caught up” to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, my Lord. I entered into my Sabbath when I sat down with Him in His Throne. He came to me and cried “come up hither”, “come away my beloved, come away” and He gave me a Token of His love when He possesed me. He is my life, my breath, my all. Blessed be the name of the Lord, for He has hidden me in the secret of His Tabernacle and I abide with Him in His Pavillion. He set me up upon a Rock.

Let’s take a look at what we mean when we say the Voice of God. The Apostle Paul said that there are lots of voices and that they all of some significance, or, they have meaning. A voice is to get your attention. We hear a voice and it attracts us....gets our attention, if just for a moment. So, no voice is without signification. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and another they will not answer...they will flee from the voice of strangers.” Bro. Branham, speaking of God sending His Angel before Moses, said; “He could have let the Angel come Himself. but instead of that, He sent the Angel to speak thru the voice of a man. God always used man for His work. Is that right? He don’t use orginizations, or so forth, and mechanical devices, but He uses men. The Holy Spirit fell upon men. That’s God’s intrument here on earth.” And, in another place, he said; “God don’t take an idol; He takes a man. And if a man will prostrate himself in the Presence of God. God puts Hisself in the man, and the man becomes the living creature that God’s a living in, not a dead idol, but a man. God never used idols. He always used man. God don’t use machinery, mechanical devices, it’s...He uses men, individulas. Excuse me. I didn’t to holler that loud. Notice. I’m not excited though. I know right where I am. That’s right. i just feel good.”

I. too, feel pretty good right now! I am seeing something that is wonderful. I have preached it for years but never quite saw it as I do now. I told you that the events that took place in Haiti had made me different. I can never be the same, again. God’s Voice was in Haiti. And He vindicated it with many signs, as He promised when He said that “signs follows the Word”.

We don’t follow after signs. Oh, no! That is where Petecost went off...following after signs that were unscriptural and took them away from the Word. But bro. Branham said that Christ in the True Church would be a continuation of the Book of Acts, Mark 16 in action. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” If the Voice of God speaks, true signs will follow to witness that it is God speaking. Not a man, now. God speaks thru men, always Bro. Branham said, but it is not the man speaking. We aren’t to look at the man (‘course he must show a Christian character...anyone should) but we are to listen to the Voice. Let me get another Scripture.

“There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men tru him might believe.” Without John’s witness men could not believe. “He was not that Light, but was SENT TO BEAR WITNESS of that Light.” John was the one who bore witness of the Light. A man sent from God without whom no man could believe.

Did you know that God’s mouth is the believer today? Notice, “,,,here’s the challenge. Now, if He would come. how would He? Jesus has no hands on earth today, but your hands and my hands. He uses my mouth and your mouth, my eyes and your eyes. And the whole thing is submitting yourself to the Holy Spirit of God. And God works through the individual. Do you believe that?”

When God does something He does it so humbly, so quietly that man most always misses it’s importance. See, God is not like man. No, sir! His Ways are not our ways. But it is most important to know His ways. In Psalms 103 (I think it is) it says that God showed His acts to Isreal, His Ways to Moses. And that is why they failed. The saw His acts and they followed His prophet and they performed the works of the Law, but they never knew His ways. Says so in Hebrews. Said they could not enter in because of unbelief. God said it was because “you have not known My ways.”

Do you know what ‘Manna’ means? The definition of “Manna”? Manna means, “What is it?” When the Isrealites first saw it and tasted of it they did not know what it was. And so they said, “What is it? “MANNA” And that became the name of it. And they feasted on it daily and they lived by it for forty years, and it was their health, their strength, their salvation during all that time. But FORTY YEARS later they still said, MANNA....”What is it?”

No, Israel did not know His ways. They washed pots and brought offerings and worshipped according to all that their prophet said. They recorded and remembered...memorized his words. They could tell you hundreds of years later just what the prophet Moses said and what acts God performed in the wilderness. But they still did not know what it meant, nor what that MANNA was. It took a New Testament teacher, an Apostle-Prophet, Paul, to reveal what it all meant.

God don’t make a big showing when He does a great thing. He does great miracles everyday and most of them go unnoticed. Some folks used to come to this Fellowship and go away and say, “Well, they said the giftts were working. Huh! I never saw nothing.” Remember how we showed that? Some of you will recall how God would speak thru someone and tell things, or, like that time with Sister Carolyn, when I told that story that Bro. Branham told and then it happened to her that very week and she knew what she should do. Sure. You all remember, the ones who were here then. But no one rose up and turned white and screamed out, “Thus Saith the Lord!” No one spoke it out in tongues................we just spoke His Word. Wonderful!

See? God does great things without making a big fuss about it. Not like man. Man can do something today and then he can do something better tomorrow. And when he does he wants everyone to notice. But God don’t ever need to improve and He don’t ever change. And, EVERYTHING GOD DOES IS A MIRACLE! But He don’t announce it in the same way that we do. We boast because we are nothing trying to be something. But God is so great that He don’t need to boast. He just performs because whatever He does will be great. Amen!

Did you ever hear a sunrise? How many did? None? Sure. You may have seen a sunrise, but you never heard it come up. God never sent a great loud proclamation saying, “Hey, look! I caused the sun to rise this morning.” And, it came as no surprise to you that it was up. Happens all the time, right before our eyes.........couldn’t see without the light. (Hallelujah!) Now, I went out and watered the lawn one time with a sprinkler. (I’ve told you.) And all day long I heard that thing outside my window, and it closed, going, “SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!” Made noise all day. It was mechanical and it was modern and it was man’s way....so we expect that there will be some noise. But I can go out into that same yard at around 5:00 AM and it is soaked with dew. God dropped millions of gallons of water onto the Earth and NEVER MADE A SOUND. You try to dig a posthole, or transplant a bush. That old Arkansas ground where I live...MY!, You can hear the spade or the posthole digger chopping into those rocks in that hard ground a quarter mile away. But millions of blades of grass punch up thru that same Arkansas ground everyday and never make a sound. You couldn’t hear one if you tried. The wind blows thru Kansas and causes a billion wheats to bow, and all the sound it makes is a gentle, “Swushshshsh!”. The King passed by and even nature bowed before Him...the wind is a type of the Holy Spirit, and a type for the Word....both the same King. See, how different God’s ways?

Oh, God makes Himself known. Oh, yeah! But He does it His way. He announces what He will do, then He just quietly does it. Sometimes He will do something really outstanding to the natural way, man’s way of understanding or expectations, just to remind us that He is God. But, mostly He just does great things in His Own God Way....and then we miss it. Now, you may think I have changed the subject but I never. Let’s continue on with The Voice.

Our text says, “God Who at sundry times and in divers manners”, or, other words, Who at various times and in different ways, “spake in times past by the prophets, hath in these last days” (Paul’s Day) “spoken unto us by His Son...” Curious statement. Bold and, no doubt, controversial. Let’s see if we can understand this statement.

He was, of course, speaking of the past times as being the Old Testament Covenant. God, throughout the Old Testament spake at various times and in different ways by the prophets. From Moses on He spoke only throught the prophets. Over 300 times in the Old Testament it is stated that “the Word of the Lord came” to the Prophets. These prophets were special men, men sent from God, who were anointed with the Holy Ghost. God would come onto certain men and anoint them in a special way to speak as His Voice. They did not have Jesus in them as in the New Testament (or Covenant...which is what Testament is, a Covenant) because they were under the blood of bulls and goats. It took the coming of the Just One, the Lamb of God, to wash the world with His blood and redeem it from the curse and make way for the ‘literal Life’. God anointed certain men, prophets, to act as His Voice. This all came about at Mt. Sinai when the people refused His Voice and chose Moses to represent them. We all know the teaching on it. (Deuteronomy 18, Exodus 20...etc.) This was God’s Covenant to them at that time.

Now there is much misunderstanding concerning Amos 3:7. “Surely the Lord will do nothing , but He revealeth His SECRET (singular) unto His servants the prophets.” Does this mean that God will always and forever speak only thru the prophets? How then do we hear Him speak through the New Testament saints? He revealeth His secret to them. He makes them privy to His presence and His Voice.

Paul was referring to the Seven Ages of the Old Testament. The Old Testament Church had Seven Ages. (Now, for my brethren who have studied it out, the Church was not so called until the Exodus. They were the people of God until they were “called out”. Ecclesia, the called out ones, the Church.) Now I want you to notice how it ended. Did you ever notice how different John the Baptist was from the rest of the prophets? I have preached it over and over again as I typed him with Bro. Branham but I only saw this recently. In my heart, as He speaks to me, Something said, “Don’t you see that John was different? He was leading into another Covenant....The New Testament.” Now watch

John the Baptist was , indeed, different from the other Old Testament prophets. Which of them went out preaching? Which of them did what we would call ‘evangelistic work’? Which of them baptised new converts? But John testified saying that the One Who sent him told him to do these things. God told John to “do the work of an evangelist?” Could it be? What would that show? It would preview the plan for the New Covenant. John said, “I, indeed, baptise with water, but the One Who cometh after me shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and fire” Could John have seen ahead by revelation the innauguration of the New Testament Church? Did he, perhaps, hear Peter say, “Repent, and be baptised, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall recieve the Holy Ghost”? Whether or not he did, he was instructed to act out the New Covenant. And Paul indicates that John had a foreknowledge of the correct Plan for he said, “John verily baptised with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” (Acts 19) Just how much did John see of the New Day coming on? And how much did he know that he did not tell? The angel to the Seventh Church of the Old Testament, coming at the end of the Age, introduced that One and then closed out the Old Testament (Covenant). But he foreshadowed the New Testament (Covenant) that was to come. Hallelujah! (MY! I could stop here and preach on Bro. Branham’s ministry for about three hours...but let’s go on.)

"Now, watch. Now, He has appeared to us in the same form that He did to them in the Old Testament, and in the same as He did in the New Testament, and has showed by the same Word, the same Christ. And I declare to you that Christ is the Holy Ghost. The--the word "Christ" means "the anointed one." Just a person that's anointed, that is the Christ, the anointed one. How many knows that's true? That's the interpret. The anointed one, there would be a man that would be anointed: anointed with what? The Bible said in Acts 2 that Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God, anointed with the Holy Ghost, went about and done great works and things (See?), that God manifested, proved that He was in this man.

And now, we become anointed with that same Spirit, anointed messiahs, messiahs of the last day to shine forth the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to show that He is not dead; but in the form of the Holy Ghost He's in His people, moving among His Bride with a love affair to Her, pouring out into Her, Himself. They are becoming one for the wedding supper; and the same signs, promised by the same God, in the same Word, is making His same manifestation.

Now, let's see. Has He done all things well? Has He ever told us anything, but what happened just exactly the way He said it? Hasn't He performed, and hasn't the great Pillar of Fire been among us and done just exactly like He promised to do? Haven't we seen It? Hasn't science taken It, having been predicted what would happened; go right there and happen even in the papers and magazines pack it right back and show it, when it's told you months before it happened? Hasn't He done just exactly the way He did in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and It's just exactly the same One? The same Holy Spirit comes as a Discerner; and the Word of God, which is quicker and sharper than a two-edged sword, a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart... Isn't that right? Isn't that the same God? Now that same One, it's not a stranger off somewhere else; He's here. He's here, does this to create a perfect faith. I feel Him. I know He's here now. I know that His Spirit is here. I know that He knows all things. Amen. And I know He wants to--to do something. He's been doing something to--to create this perfection of faith in the people.

Are we going to walk into eternity like it was in the days of Noah, with eight souls saved? Are we going to come like Lot, with three out of Sodom? Are we going to come, like in the days of John the Baptist with six believers? Let us believe, for His works is perfect. They're manifested daily and perfectly before us, showing that He is the Word: the Word. Hebrews, the 4th chapter, says the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, and--or even a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Think of that! The Word of God is That, a Discerner of the intents of the heart. For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and of spirit, and of the joints and of the marrow, and is a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Word made flesh (Hallelujah.), the Word operating in human flesh by physical signs, by material signs, by Scriptural signs, perfectly, to bring to you a perfect faith for a perfect rapture."

He said, “a person that’s anointed, that is the Christ, the anointed one.” Then he told us that “we become anointed with that same Spirit, anointed messiahs, messiahs of the last day to shine forth the ressuerection of Jesus Christ...etc”. Then he said..”there’s nothing left for us to do but believe It, and “believe it” is the substance, and that creates a perfect faith." OH, MY! That’s it. Only Believe! We MUST believe for perfect faith! Bro. Branham challenges us to believe it saying, “Are we going to walk into eternity like it was in the days of Noah, with eight souls saved?..........Lot, with three....John the baptist, with six believers? Let us believe, for His works is perfect.”

That is what happened in the Book of Acts. For twenty years the Church was pure because “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Prophets? Not necessarily. Paul was a Word Prophet. Bro. Branham, however, refered to him as an Apostle-Prophet. He was, first of all, an Apostle...part of the five-fold ministry. Peter, it could be argued, was a prophet ‘because he wrote the Word’. But Peter was an Apostle, and he certainly preached the first evangelistic sermon on record for the New Testament Church. John saw visions, so he could be termed a prophet. However, seeing visions was common to many in the New Testament Church...it was a part of the Promise. (Acts 2:16-17) All these men wrote the Scripture...or, their writings became Scripture. But what about Jude and James? Where do we read they were prophets? Let us not presume. That is where Pentecost got off...........”three out of five makes it so”. What about Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Luke was not listed among the disciples who became Apostles, and he was contemporary with Paul. It was Luke who wrote the Book of Acts. (Acts 1:1)

Now, let me ask a question. Did these men know that they were writing Scripture? Perhaps Paul did, since he said “if any man be spiritual or a prophet, let him acknowledge that the things that I WRITE are the COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD.” But surely Jude, when he sat down under the anointing and in plain and strong words admonished the Church, was not aware that this letter would be placed on the same level as the words of Jeremiah or Amos in the Scrolls he studied as a boy. Imagine Peter, who couldn’t even read knowing he was writing Scripture with his words. Or, I ask you, was Stephen aware that his rebuke spoken under the anointing just moments before he died had the same power and eternal quality as that delivered by John, the Baptist, or Isaiah who was ‘sawn asunder’? All of these, and more, were anointed messiahs for the day. 20 years after Pentecost these men found it necessary to write and speak out against the apostosy that had come into the Body of the Lord. In just 20 years the most powerful Church in the history of the world....only twenty years away from the witness of the ressurrection of Jesus and the appearance of the Old Testament saints....twenty years after the Light had come and shined and foretold these things...anointed men, messiahs, spoke by the Voice of God. God was speaking in “these last day” by His Son.”

So Apostle Paul, preaching to the Jewish Church, typing out and explaining the ‘manna’ that they failed to understand, declared, first of all, each that God’s Voice was coming from another source now. It was coming forth in a ‘divers manner’. He says that, whereas God had IN TIME PAST spoken by the prophets, that IN THESE LAST DAYS He hath spoken unto us by His Son. How was God speaking at that time? Was He not still speaking by His Son as He spoke out thru the various men whom He had sent?

On page 211 of the Church Age Book, Bro. Branham spoke of the ministry of this day. And he said these words: “Now in age, I say, the messengers recieved hidden truth. But they did not recieve it for themselves only. But it is as it was when the disciples were asked to serve the multitudes loaves and fishes; Jesus gave tehm the broken food. but they in turn gave it to the people. God gives His hidden manna to the overcomer.”

In Haiti the crowds were very large and could you imagine giving communion to, say, 1200 people? Yet they do. Now serving the communion is an orderly and well practised ordinance, and needs to be in order to accomplish it within any reasonable time. I am told, though, that even with this practised order it takes about an hour to serve 1000 people. Here, in the example given us there were 5 times that many and they were undisciplined to the thing that was taking place, they were scattered all up and down a mountainside (perhaps, or in a field. Whatever). This was not a known occurance and it was an incredible event. Also, while the Bible says that there were 5000 men present it does not say how many women and children may have also been there. Could be the number 5000 is only a fraction of those fed. Now, may I ‘read between the lines?’ If Peter, for example, was given a piece of bread and a portion of fish...enough to satisfy the hunger of an adult male who had traveled a distance and had been listening for most of the day, at least, and then had to walk out and deliver it, and then, return for another piece which he would then deliver, it would hqve taken an incredibly long time to feed that multitude of people. There were only twelve disciples to do the work (in the type now). But, here is the picture that Bro. Branham is painting by the words he speaks with the example. If Jesus gave those “God called” men to whom He had given Holy Ghost power and who He “sent” to do the work a piece of bread and a portion of fish to distribute, and they were “anointed” for the job, then the bread and fish would have broken off in their hands, also. Thus would the Church be fed.

In Exodus 35-36 we see the type for the five-fold ministry. Moses, the prophet of that day, went up into the mountain apart where no other man could go....because they refused to obey the call of God to “come up”. Moses, alone, had the ‘blueprint’ for the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, a type of the Church. (The Church is called the “true tabernacle” by Paul in Heb. 8) But Moses did not do the actual building. It tells us that God “called” (and by name0 certain men. That He filled them with the Spirit of God (same Spirit Moses had), gave them various “gifts” and abilities to do the work of the Tabernacle and put the thing together. They could not buiild anything, however, until they had studied the blueprint given unto Moses...for He alone had that Pattern. They had to become thoroughly familiar with the blueprint...and they had to see it as Moses saw it on the Mount, that is, have a CLEAR UNDERSTANDING of what Moses told them, in order to get it right and complete the work. Is that not what is needed today in order to complete the work begun by our ‘Moses’? Let’s go on.

Now, what took place on the Day of Pentecost? Jesus Christ, the same One Who went away, came back in Spirit form, the Son of God, and got into those same disciples and others. Some of them were “called” to preach. Others wrote the Word. All did Acts of the Holy Ghost. (THe Book of Acts is not the ‘acts of the apostles’, but, rather, the acts of the Holy Ghost in the apostles...and the prophets and the evangelists and the pastors and teachers) Let’s stop for a minute and go back.

When we spoke of John the Baptist I was wont to say that while he was a prophet, he was not as the others and actually was more of an evangelist than a prophet. He was holding evangelistic services right up until the coming of the Lord. It was only after the Lord had come and been identified that John left the field of evangelism. John was the Voice of God for that day. And God was speaking thru him to introduce the Light. When the way had been prepared, and the Light of that ‘evening time’ Seventh Age was made known, John decreased until he was no longer on the scene. They were both there together for a time but the prophet had to decrease to make room for the WORD.

After Pentecost, the Church was led by the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ (the Son) Who was in them and speaking thru them. Not just the prophets any longer...but all those called of God and sent. (Apostle means ‘sent one’) Paul spoke as an Apostle and his writings were to become Scripture. Paul had THUS SAITH the LORD, or he kept still. (Gal. 1:8-12 and 1 Cor. 14:37)

You will say, “Bro. Paul, Apostle Paul was a prophet. Bro. Branham said so.” Yes, and so was John the Baptist. But the New Testament also tells us that the “testimony of Jesus Christ IS the Spirit of prophecy”. It was Christ that was in the prophets enabling them to speak as the Voive of God. Christ, the Holy Ghost. Let’s read some quotes.

150 That voice... Let's speak on that voice a minute. I got some Scriptures wrote down here. Let's go to I Thessalonians 4, and just listen over here what this voice is going to say. Oh, we all know what it's going to say, without--'fore we read it, don't we? We know what's going to happen. "The trumpet of God shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise." Is that right? You who are putting it down, in I Thessalonians 4:16 and 17, "the voice." That voice was the voice of Christ. Is that right? The voice of Christ.

Also, the same voice that summoned John to come up, is the same voice that summoned dead Lazarus out of the grave, that same voice of the archangel. Christ is the voice of the archangel, "voice of the archangel." See? Oh, that trumpet voice of Christ summoned John to come up, the same voice summoned Lazarus. Did you notice at the grave of Lazarus, He spoke with a loud voice. (Not just said, "Lazarus, come forth." [Brother Branham imitates weakness--Ed.]) "Lazarus, come forth!" It summoned him from the dead.

That same voice that shall sound when the dead in Christ rise, "For the trumpet..." The trumpet... What is a trumpet? The voice of Christ, the same One sounded and summoned him up. He heard the voice like a trumpet sound and said, "Come up hither." See how the resurrection will be? It'll be in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. That clear sounding voice, and He'll summons the church, calling, "Come out of it." That great summonsing voice, God, help me to hear it that day.

As I've often said... I know, as a mortal, Rodney, I know that there's a big dark door set before me; it's called death. Every time my heart beats, I'm one beat closer to that door. Some of these days I got to go into it. But I don't want to go in like a coward, screaming and hollering. I want to go in there, wrapping myself in the robes of His righteousness, and knowing this, that I know Him in the power of His resurrection; that someday when He calls, I'll come out from among the dead, when He summonses me to appear on high, when the trumpet of God shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise. If I'm alive, I'll be changed in a moment, in a twinkle of an eye, and shall go with the rest of them, up to meet the Lord in the air. That trumpet voice, sound, clear, loud. Hm. Oh, it will be the same, the same at His coming.

When Lazarus, in the dead, in the grave and his soul four day's journey somewhere... I don't know where it was at; I don't think any of us does. Wherever it was, it didn't make a bit of difference. He just made one summons to a man that the skin worms had eaten his body up, stinking, in the grave. That clear sounding Trumpet said, "Lazarus, come forth." There a man, dead and rotten, shook himself and come out of the grave, walking. Nothing uncertain about that, is there, brother? No uncertainty there.

I'm a witness that it's true. There's other witnesses, millions of them throughout the world today, that's a witness that it's the truth. When the Bible comes, the Words of God, every Word of God is a trumpet. Every sound of the Word is a trumpet, the Gospel trumpet. And when It sounds, it's the truth. When it said, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever," nothing uncertain about that. He's the same. Yes, sir.

"Trumpet, trumpet" is an "announcement." Gabriel, at the coming of the Lord, shall sound the trump of God. This was God's trumpet blowing. In other words, He's fixing to announce the eternal destination of the world. A trumpet, what is it? "Get ready. I'm going to give you the revelation of Jesus Christ, to give to the Church. I'll speak to you, what'll be the destination of the world, for those who receive and those who reject."

"Now, a man and his family could go back to their original inheritance if they could hear the jubilee, a trumpet sound, and know that--what it meant to them. Now, if they heard the priest sound the trumpet, the minister... The trumpet is the Gospel. And when they hear It, and they know what It means, and they know that that's their inheritance, no matter where they'd lost, how far they went back, whatever they had to do, they had the privilege to come and receive again their inheritance. The whole family could come and receive their inheritance.

So is it tonight that men and women here of Louisiana, that knows the things that we do know and have heard from our brother and different ones, of our Pentecostal experience of years ago, and find that we have walled off... We haven't walled ourselves away from it so far that we got to hear what somebody says instead of what THUS SAITH THE LORD is, and can hear what the Word of God's got to say about it... Now, is the hour of jubilee. Come back to your original inheritance, to a real Holy Ghost again."

Revelation 1:10, "... And heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet." John was in the Spirit, and when he was, he saw the great and wonderful day of the Lord Jesus and all His holy power. The future was about to unfold for God was about to teach him. John did not say it was a trumpet. It was like a trumpet. Now when a trumpet is blown it has an urgency about it. It is like the herald, the king's messenger, coming to the people. He blows on a trumpet. It is an urgent call. The people gather to listen. (Israel was always assembled by the sounding of a trumpet.) Something important is at hand. "Listen to it." So this voice had the same urgency of appeal as did the trumpet. Clear and strong it was, startling and awakening. Oh, that we might hear the voice of God as a trumpet this day, for it is the 'Gospel Trumpet' sounding forth the 'Word of Prophecy' to make us aware of, and prepared for, what is coming upon the earth.

"And in the days of the voice of the seventh messenger, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." There it is. He is sending a vindicated prophet. He is sending a prophet after almost two thousand years. He is sending someone who is so far from organization, education, and the world of religion that as John the Baptist and Elijah of old, He will hear only from God and he will have "thus saith the Lord" and speak for God. He will be God's mouthpiece and HE, AS IT IS DECLARED IN MALACHI 4:6, WILL TURN THE HEARTS OF THE CHILDREN BACK TO THE FATHERS. He will bring back the elect of the last day and they will hear a vindicated prophet give the exact truth as it was with Paul. He will restore the truth as they had it. And those elect with him in that day will be the ones who truly manifest the Lord and be His Body and be His voice and perform His works. Hallelujah! Do you see it?

A momentary consideration of church history will prove how accurate this thought is. In the Dark Ages the Word was almost entirely lost to the people. But God sent Luther with the WORD. The Lutherans spoke for God at that time. But they organized, and again the pure Word was lost for organization tends toward dogma and creeds, and not simple Word. They could no longer speak for God. Then God sent Wesley, and he was the voice with the Word in his day. The people who took his revelation from God became the living epistles read and known of all men for their generation. When the Methodists failed, God raised up others and so it has gone on through the years until in this last day there is again another people in the land, who under their messenger will be the final voice to the final age.

Yes sir. The church is no longer the "mouthpiece" of God. It is its own mouthpiece. So God is turning on her. He will confound her through the prophet and the bride, for the voice of God will be in her. Yes it is, for it says in the last chapter of Revelation verse 17 "The Spirit and the bride say come". Once more the world will hear direct from God as at Pentecost; but of course that Word Bride will be repudiated as in the first age."

So. we see that at Pentecost the world heard DIRECT FROM GOD. Peter, the Apostle, preached the first Gospel Message...and God spoke directly. Then, some twenty years later, or so, so many had gone out and spoke by their own voice that Paul had to admonish the Church to beware of them. The Holy Ghost came in portion thru the Seven Ages and in full measure at the end of them. God, once more spake by a Prophet as in "times past" but with a difference. This Prophet, like John, worked thru the Pattern of the New Testament. Like John, instead of comeing forth and pronouncing THUS SAITH the Lord and going back up, this angel remained to preach the Gospel Message even until the end of his ministry.

"Now, here we are then, right up here to the end of the time when... If God did call me (Now listen, this is not to be repeated.), if He did call me to be His prophet, then I'm certainly not holding the office of one. Prophets don't evangelize. A prophet hides himself in the wilderness alone with God, until he gets exactly directly what God wants him do, and he stomps right out and gives his Message, and back into the wilderness he goes again. He's not an evangelist, holding meetings and getting cooperations and all these things like evangelists do. He don't teach like evangelists. He has THUS SAITH THE LORD, and that's it, and that's all. He gives it, throws it out, and lets the chips fall where it will, and then away he goes again. Nobody knows where he's at, and he's in isolation somewhere.

When I come back for the Seven Seals, then I... One morning he got ahold of Billy, and he wanted to talk to me. And I was busy, under prayer for the Seven Seals, and then he told me of... It happened again and repeated again. Brother Roy, if I get this wrong, you--you call my attention. And he said he--he got up again in--in the morning, I guess early again in--in the morning, and there he looked in the room, and he saw this big Light, or a Cloud upon a mountain. He asked me not long ago, "Was there something about a cloud being on a mountain?" And I said... "In the Bible."

And he said that he went up the mountain. And when he did, I was standing there. And a Voice came from the Cloud (Wasn't it, Brother Roy?) and said something on this order: "This is My servant. I've called him to be a prophet to the age, to lead the people just as Moses did. And he's been given the authority. He can speak into existence." Something like that like Moses did, like speaking in the flies. And we know about the squirrels and so forth, and things that's already took place. Little Hattie Wright back there, I suppose would know what taken place at her house. And He told him that I had done what Moses had done.

Before leaving here, I might drop this in. And we'll hurry. I dreamed a funny dream, an odd dream. And I hope if my brother-in-law ever gets ahold of this, it doesn't hurt his feelings. And I hope I don't hurt my wife, who's setting present now. But she knows that about many months ago, right along, well, it was around about October or November I dreamed that I--I was a-roaming out in the dark, and I... Well, I--I had no place to go and nobody cared for me. And I'd become a bum, just a--a bum. And I was cold, and I looked in the distance and I saw fire. And when I got over there, it was a--a city dump. And they had ditches, and the fire was in these ditches. And the--between the ditches was slick were bums would sleep there to keep warm (keep from freezing) between these fires on a cold winter night. And I--I was cold. And I--I walked up to this fire to get warm, and it was laying full of bums, and they were... I didn't see any of them, but they all like had stalls or places where their sleeping places was. And I saw my brother-in-law, Fletcher Broy.

And Fletcher, how I remember him. He's a good kid. But this might be a lesson to the young children. I remember a few years ago a handsome young man of James Fletcher Broy, and he got with the wrong crowd, and he took his first drink. I remember he called me behind the curtains in my house. And his daddy has gone on to glory years ago, was out there picking a guitar, "On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross."

And when I woke up... Before I woke up, Fletch said to me, said in the dream... He said, "Billy, I'll--I'll hunt you a place, Brother Bill. You fed my children when they were hungry." Said, "You was a daddy to them. Now, I'll find you a place here to keep warm." And we went walking by the bums' places and finally come to a place, he said, "I'll sit down here."

And I walked up and looked out into the dark, cold night. And I thought, "Think of it. One time, God Almighty let me lead His Church. One time He let me preach His Gospel and see souls saved. Men and women come from around the world to speak with me for a few minutes. And here I am now, a bum; nobody wants me. And I'm cold. And what must I do?" Then I woke up.

So I come back down now from Canada with Fred and them the other day. And in my mind, I had it made up, "If these people didn't want to hear my message, all right, they didn't have to." I'd preached now for about thirty-five years. And the last fifteen, eighteen years I've done nothing but just... The Lord... I've tried to live so close to Him and not say a word till He told me first. Everything...

People say, "Now, if Brother Branham tells you he's coming, remember, look out for a meeting, because he's coming in the Name of the Lord. He won't do nothing till the Lord tell..." That's right. I waited till He told me. I didn't move till He told me. And then He got so for the last few months, He didn't tell me nothing about places to go.

So I--I got up at about four o'clock and got started driving. And Billy was sleeping. We went into a place, and I was thinking on my mind, "You know what? One of these days, as soon as I can get the wife up there... And I won't tell her what I'm going to do. But I'd get up there. And then I'm going to tell her, 'I love this place so well, no need of us going anywhere else. Let's just stay here.'" And that's back from civilization eleven hundred miles from anywhere (See?), way in the wilderness. I thought, "Boy, won't that be fine? I won't have to get a haircut, and I--I--I won't have to dress up. And I'll just be a--a regular mountaineer, what I always wanted to be." And I said, "I'll got some guns, and some people give me... And I'll be a guide like you never heard of. I'll just love it. Then if the Lord tells me go down and tell somebody something, I'll run out and tell them and come back again. And I'll help Bud, and we'll really have a real place here." I was thinking on that.

We went into a restaurant to eat (a little place in the mountains) just about seven o'clock. It was getting a little late, so I woke Billy up. We was out of gasoline, so had to get some gasoline, and went into this little place, this little restaurant. And while there, a man come across the street, maybe a teeny bit older than I was, but he looked like a man to me. He had on a pair of overalls, overall jacket, riding boots, a black hat, whiskers down on his face like this (snow-white), and hair hanging out from under back of his hat. I thought, "That looked like a man," to me, not some soft, lazy, with a cigar in his mouth about that long, setting with a pair of shorts on, around some patio or swimming pool, some pot-bellied easterner, like... Excuse that expression. But, however, the guy looked like a man to me: hard, rough. Looked like he lived where God made man to live. And I was admiring him.

He come into the restaurant and ordered some pancakes. Was about fifteen, twenty people. He had to sneeze. You know how some people [Brother Branham imitates stifling a sneeze--Ed.]... (Pardon me.) But he let out a great big, healthy wood sneeze: Ker-choo-ee! My, it looked like the wind was blasting. And when he did, nobody dared to say nothing. No, sir. I said, "Billy, there's a man after my own heart."

And I set there a little bit, and Billy looked up at me and kept on eating his pancakes. And I--I was finished with mine. In a few minutes, somebody in a booth right around from of us, with the boards this way, a back of the booth, I couldn't see around. A man got up that looked exactly my profile, about seventy-five years old, little bitty fellow, and his clothes tied on him, ragged. And the buddy that got up with him was Fletcher Broy, exactly: gray hair hanging in his face. And Billy looked around and he said, "Daddy, that looks like you and Fletcher." You could imagine how I felt. And the little fellow, looked like me, wobbled up. You... And had been standing over a campfire with smoke all over them, faces dirty. I think their breakfast together... The man must've paid twenty cents: maybe a cup of coffee or something. My heart bounced within me. And I watched. And Billy said, "What's the matter with you?"

So he went to sleep, and I went speeding down the road about fifty-five miles an hour in the truck, over the mountains, coming on towards the--the border, down to--coming home to Arizona, but I was coming now into Utah. And as I got there, just coming down from the mountains about twenty miles out of the city... Just as it... You've heard it, as I told you, about the morning about the squirrels and all these things, how something... Somebody went to talking to me, a voice just the same as you hear mine. I know it sounds neurotically. But as I've just got through expressing, "Have I ever told you anything but what was right?" And a--a voice got to talking. I was talking to it.

And He said, "But that was the prophets of the Old Testament. You've been called to be there in a much higher office than that." He said, "You have more gifts besides that; you was called to pray for the sick and to preach the Gospel in--in the apostolic forms, you know of--of greater things, many great gifts." He said, "Why do you wait for Me to move you every time you move? Where is your reward?" Then I seen. And then said, "Do you remember? (I told you...?...) You remember what Brother Roberson told you in your dream, in his dream, or vision? That you had done like Moses; you forgot the feeling of your people. You forgot the call that I called you to."

I let the sick lay. I want Lord to tell me where to go and not to. That's wrong. I'd built myself a complex, because the people didn't hear my message. And if you'll... And God forbid that I've tried to compare the life of now like Moses, but it's exactly what Moses did. The people wouldn't listen to him when he come to deliver them, so he just left them alone and went into the wilderness, but God turned him around. And he'd long forgot the suffering people.

And then I said, "Lord, if... How could I... That's right. With no education but a grammar school education, be able... And the people would stand in rows and everywhere to--to hear the simple Gospel." It's more; it's greater now than it was under the old covenant. He ascended on high and give gifts unto men (See?), Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Then it all begin to come to me. I begin to--to wonder. Then He reminded me again of the--of the people. How, doing what Moses did, how could Moses reach the people in the wilderness? And how could I reach the people in the wilderness? Exactly the same thing. Then it come this II Timothy 4. Remember when we dedicated the church that morning thirty years ago (some of you old-timers), when He showed me them trees and I planted them on both sides? You remember that? You remember the vision. It's all wrote in books and on tapes and everything. Been years ago, how I seen these, and I--I never crossed up the oneness and the trinity. I stood between them and planted these trees, and they were the only two trees that had fruit. And I... All the trees growed up about thirty feet and stop. These went plumb into heaven. Broke off of the same branch... See? One on one side and one on the other, and I broke them. You remember the vision. See? It's wrote in books and it's in my life story and all. And they went plumb up into heaven like that, quickly. And He said, "Hold out your hands for the fruit." And then I found the same fruit in the cross when I run down there. And He said, "Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry. The time will come when they'll not endure sound doctrine. Don't quit then; keep going." That all come into my mind.........."

But be it known to the church here and to the church hereafter: If God pushes a man through a pipe and he don't move at all until God tells him, there's no faith connected with it. It's God pushing you to something. And it's built the ministry to a place to where there's nobody can say one word against it. But from henceforth, let me first speak to you in the Name of the Lord, before you listen, because I must go out by faith. I must do it by faith whether I think it's right or wrong, or what... I do the best of my choosing and then go do it. Because it hasn't been wrong, it's 'cause I've waited till He told me to go do it. I've waited for Him, so it wasn't me; it was Him.

"But, you see, even the great Saint Paul got between the straits one time. And many times that God has did things or let His servants do it, that was mistakes, in order to prove these things. Now, we know that human beings can make mistakes, but God can make no mistake. But now, if I get into the field of preaching and going the way I--I do, then I have to set up meetings ahead and--and get things lined up. And perhaps this is that great time coming that we been looking for. And surely, if this in itself is a tremendous thing that will bring to pass, and make come to pass, the tremendous victory in the Love Divine (and that's the verb before adverb), then it's Divine Love which is God. See? And it takes the love of God to dash out there on the front line and stand in the gap for the people.

And these Rickys and Rickettas that have so sassed the words, that I've called them "Ricky" and "Ricketta," God gives me to understand I shouldn't do that, because that's... Many of them are still His children. I must... They can't help because they act so much different. Some of these old, cold formal churches that's got them, that spirit upon them, and they're as much in--in prison as Israel was in prison, just as much as Moses went down to deliver them from slavery: human beings that love Jesus Christ, would serve Him if they only know what to serve Him by. And they're in bondage under denominationalism that tells them, "Don't you do this," and "Don't you do that."

But the call of God must come, "Whoever wants to march towards the promised land, let him march." We're on our road to the promised land. Amen...?... Let them come, march. We're on our road to meet Christ at the end time. And I wanted to bring this to you so that you would see, and show you that the mistakes that a man can make, yet being sincere.