Paradox

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Thank you, my brothers and sisters. This I deem indeed a grand privilege to be here this morning, to speak to these, the servants of Christ, and my colleagues in the gospel---fellow workers. I'm not much to make a speech. I have no ability to do that. And I would just like to get the men together, and sometimes that way ... especially those who have (what we would call in the world) kind of stuck out their necks to sponsor you, see---one of the meetings.
And I would like to give the reason for the hope that I'm contending for, and let you brethren see that it's not full of superstitions. It's the gospel.

2 Many years ago when I made my first trip to Phoenix, Arizona, where I was just enjoying my breakfast this morning with my good friend, Carl Williams, over here in the corner... I guess you're all acquainted with Brother Carl Williams. Would you just stand up, Brother and Sister Williams? He's the president of the chapter of the Full Gospel Businessmen at Phoenix, Arizona. Brother and Sister Williams. And so, he's been proven to be a very precious friend to me.

3 Last week in the meeting, and the week before last in Phoenix, I was telling about when I made my first trip to Phoenix. I remembered, as a little boy I watched and read everything that I could, because it was my idea some day... My father was a rider, and I wanted to be a cowboy. I'd read some Western magazines, and seen too many movies as a little boy. And so, I seen my father ride and I thought surely I could ride, too.
And my ambition was to come west and be a rider. And I'd heard of the Superstition Mountain, 'course the Lost Dutchman (which I believe is the Lost Dutchman mine, which I think is a legend.).

4 And so many people now in our country there ... it's becoming rodeo time and everybody wearing blue jeans, a big hat. They're trying to live in a past age. They're living something that ... it's done lived by. And I wonder why they do that? There's something in them to make them do that.
But you see, I think that's what's the matter with our Christian economy today. We're trying to live in a age gone by, what somebody else said in some other age. And that won't work for this age.
But it's strange that they want some old-fashioned idea---some barn dance, or some cowboy something or other like that. And that real thing in them, that makes them want to go back there, is the gospel. They want a new, decorated gospel---something to meet this day here, some fine fantastics, and fine culture, and education. But they don't want the old-fashioned gospel, where that real thing in them that makes them want to go back. That's where it should go, back to that; but instead of that, they go back to something else.
Then when something is displayed from God, it's very astounding, unusual to them, and not according to their ethics. And they don't want to accept it.

5 No one would have any more respects for John Wesley, Sankey, Moody, or Finney, Knox, Calvin, any of those men, than any of us ministers who appreciate men of God, would have for those men. But you see, we're coming on up. We're not in that age. Each one of them served in a different age, in a different measure. We're serving God today in a different measure from what they were. If there is a tomorrow, there'll be an age, there'll be a gospel for that age. That'll still advance until the whole thing is complete in God, and God becomes one with us.

6 Now, I remember the morning I took a flashlight. I couldn't wait to see Superstitious Mountain. I had to go up there. But my little flashlight was nothing. I couldn't see nothing. The great spooky shadows, and the men that's been killed on that mountain in search for gold... And it held many superstitions, truly. And as I tried with my little flashlight to look around, I couldn't see nothing. Everything was scary. You know what I did? I just sat still, until the sun come up. When that sun (which is the king of all light), when it raised up, my little flashlight didn't play anything. But all the spooks left.
I seen Superstitious Mountain wasn't spooky. I was ready to walk into it, to discover it for myself, because that great light (the sun), which is the spoken word of God... God said, "Let there be light," and that's the word of God made manifest. And when it showed, all the spooks left.

7 And I think that way today. Where I've been so misunderstood amongst brethren, may the great light, the king light... There's no other light. There's none of our manufacturing lights will shine out there today. No matter how many ball parks we throw, you can't see nothing. You have to look right into its face to see any kind of a light at all. This sun puts it all out, because it's the manifested Word of God.
And I think when the manifested Word of God rises over all of our superstitions, they fade away, see. We are wanting to know what is truth, what is the hour that we're living.

8 And brethren, we sit here this morning as many different denominations---representing different denominations. I don't think that counts.
I used to herd cattle up in Colorado. I remember the time when we would have the roundup---in the spring drive the cattle up into the Arapajo Forest. I sat there many a day, with my leg hung over the horn of the saddle and watch the ranger, as he counted those cattle as they went through the drift fence off of private property up into the forest.

9 Each ranch, to put a cow in there, has to (have) be able to produce a bale of hay. (I believe ... not a bale of hay; a ton of hay. Oh, I think it's two ton to a cow.) Depends on how much the Chamber of Commerce will let you go in there with your brand, because... In this brand, this ranch produces so much hay. Then you put a cow on grazing up there in the forest. That is, if the forest's not overrun by cattle. And then it's just enough to take care of them, 'cause everybody would be coming in.
And I noticed, it was the Hereford Association that grazes that forest---in that part of it---the Arapajo Forest. I watched the ranger. Now we ... ours is the old (Turkey Trot) Turkey. The Tripod was just above us. Mr. Grimes worked about fifteen men. He had several hundred heads of cattle. And we had a few cattle there, the outfit I was working on---four or five hundred head. But Grimes went into maybe fifteen, eighteen hundred head. It was the Bar Diamond Bar.

10 And I watched the ranger. He has to stand there and count those cows as they go through.
You know, he never paid no attention to what brand they had on them. There's one thing he checked, was the blood tag in the ear, because they had to be a registered Hereford before they could graze. That's on account of keeping your pedigree, see. Your cow must be bred. Your calf must be from a pedigreed bull. And therefore, after so many cows, you have to have a bull. And they all mixed together. All has to be registered, pedigreed cattle---thoroughbred. You keep your ... the bloodstream running right, then, of the Hereford Association.

11 I thought many times, that's the way it'll be at the judgment. He'll not notice what brands we're wearing. But He'll look for that blood tag, Jesus Christ. He'll work... If we tried to make all of us this morning Assemblies of God, we couldn't do that. We try to make them Pentecostal Holiness; we'd never do that. We try to make them United churches; we'll never do that. But there's one place that we can meet, all of us that's believers: under the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's the only place that God ever met man, or ever will meet man, is under the blood of Jesus Christ. That's where we have things in common.

12 Recently, I was reading of where a young couple was separating, and it was a pitiful thing. They had lived together for several years, and a disagreement come up among them. And the little mother, lady, and her husband was going to separate. And they were ... the attorney was a friend to them.
He said, "Now, before we have to get somebody up there and sell these things and take what you got, if you're going to have the divorce, then just divide the spoils among yourselves." They said they would do that.

13 They went into the parlor. They fussed, they fought and everything else, over what was in the parlor. They went into the living room, and they did the same thing there, and the dining room, and kitchen. Finally they remembered---up in the attic---that they had some stuff stored away up there.
So they both went up into the garret, I guess you call it here. In the East we call it up in the attic. So they went up there, and pulled out an old trunk, and they had some clothes and things that... So they were reaching, and fussing over this, and that. And after awhile when they lifted up something, they both reached for it. And their hands caught each other's hands, as they grabbed. It was a little pair of white shoes. It was to... A baby had been granted to their union, but had passed on. They were holding each other's hands. One couldn't say "It's mine," and the other couldn't say "It's mine." It was something they had together.
Just a few moments they looked at each other. One couldn't claim it, and the other one couldn't claim it. So they was in one another's arms, and the divorce was annulled.
I want to see that. We Baptists, and we Methodists, and we Assemblies, and Church of God, and whatever we might be... We might have things all different, and everything like that---that's our own traditions that's got us into that. But there's one thing we have in common, brother: Christ. He's the Word. That's what we're here to do. Not talk about our differences, but talk about what we have in common, Jesus Christ. Now let us pray.

14 Heavenly Father, Thou art our Father. We thank Thee, because that today we have the hopes of eternal life through the blessed resurrection of Jesus Christ. We see the evening lights a-shining. The tree that the palmerworm left, the caterpillar eaten; the caterpillar left, the locust eaten. And we realize that these insects are the same insect; just in another stage of its life.
And we realize that church differences is still the same old Roman insect that started at Nicaea. What one leaves, the other eats. And it looks like, today, that we're in such a chaos---and now going into the great council, the ecumenic council of churches. Looks like there would be nothing left. Hopes is gone.
But we remember the infallible Word of God. As the sun rose up to show the superstitions up, so have You promised "I will restore, saith the Lord." All the years that the caterpillars destroyed, and the palmerworms, and so forth, how they would be restored again. And that tree would live again.
We pray, Father, that You'll send down grace and the resurrection power of Christ, that You might restore; resurrect us to a living faith in the living Word of this day. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

15 I'm a little hoarse, brethren. And not being a speech maker, but just a time to get together, that you'll see what I mean, I'm here. If you catch me doing anything outside of this Word, and what's promised for the day, you owe it to me to come to me. You owe it to me to come tell me. But as I say, there's one thing we can agree upon, is Christ. We have it in common. He died for all of us. We're under that blood.
Now I'm not here to do nothing but to try to help each one of you men, that this community will be a better place after the revival, because we have come together for this purpose. We've come together for this: to get acquainted with each other, to know each other better, to have fellowship with each other. That's why I'm here this morning. That was our purpose of having this meeting here, so that we get to know one another.

16 Now, we do realize that through all ages it's always been that way. Little something phenomenal be done, or something different, you have a bunch of carnal impersonations following it. Then you have all kinds of superstitions. And it's just to be that way. That's the way it's supposed to be. And things are said about that that isn't true. We know it's always been.
Jesus was supposed to be a illegitimate child. He wasn't. He was exactly the way the Bible said. Those men who called him that... He was a manifestation of the Word of God made clear. And you notice, they said his disciples come and stole his body away, paid off the Roman soldiers. They still believe that.
But we believe, and know by his living presence now, that He raised from the dead and is here with us now. We are sure, and know that. Every word that He spoke of, and promised through the ages, has been fulfilled if you'll watch it. There's nothing could do it, only God. We are his servants.

17 And now, I thought this morning that I would just read a little text out of the Scripture, and speak to you brethren and sisters here, that we might just have a little come-together. That wind ain't doing me too good up there. I hear... That's all right. Just let it alone, right now, Brother Roy, 'cause I'm just going to stay a few minutes.

18 A few years ago (about fifteen years ago) I used to hunt with a man that was a barber. And he was also a chiropodist. That's cutting calluses from feet. You know, during those times it was hard going. There was no money. And this barber friend of mine, I ... combing my hair and had... He was cutting my hair, rather, and he had dandruff on the shoulder.
He said, "Billy," said, "you have to ... I'll have to give you a little shampoo." Said, "You got so much dandruff on your coat."
And I said, "All right, Jimmy."
And talking about coon hunting, and he reached back (I was his pastor. He taught Sunday school. He was a fine man.) to get what he thought was this Lucky Tiger Shampoo to throw on my head. And it was carbolic acid. And I wore a stocking cap in my pulpit for weeks. Today that still bothers me, see. Just that little... See, my scalp is still soft, you see. And it... No, that's all right now, because it was that last night. And I just get choked up.
My wife bought me a piece of hair to wear. I couldn't wear a hat in the pulpit. It's disrespectable to Christ. If you wear a little cap, they say you want to be a bishop. And it's just a problem. She bought it for me, but I have never had the nerve to wear it. I wish I did, but I haven't. But I'm afraid it reflects something, and you know... And I'll just have to let it go, I guess.

19 And now, I just want to read some of the Scripture where ... God's Word never fails. Mine will. But I want you to remember this, that in each age that...
God ... in the beginning is the Word. He always was the Word. And the Word is a thought that's expressed, see. Now, in his thinking, what He had---the whole plan, knowing the end from the beginning---he's just expressed it in words. And those words are manifested. Just like the sun---that's God's Word manifested. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
And there's a time of separation. There was a time when God separated the light from the darkness. He always does that. There's a time that He separated the land from the earth, or the water. He separated Paul and Barnabas. He separated Moses out of Egypt. See, He is always a separation. And there's times come, people---men who carry these ministries don't like to do that ---but it must be done, see. There was a time that the disciples had to separate themselves from their own people.

20 Paul turned to the Gentiles, away from the Jews, God's heritage. The time come when he had to do it. They talked against him, but he made that famous word, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision."
May I say that same thing, brethren, see---the vision of today, see, the vision of the promise of today, the Holy Spirit in the land today. God promised that in this day He'd pour the Holy spirit out upon us. Now, I've crossed the country back and forth. There's been phenomenal signs, as you notice. Not one time has them signs ever failed. They're perfectly the truth, 'cause it's God. Tens of thousands times thousands times thousands, and not one of them can fail.

21 They call it a devil. They call it everything. Some says one thing and another.
But Jesus said, "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his disciples." So Jesus said, "Search the scriptures. In them you think you have eternal life. They are they that testify of Me." Now, not... They wouldn't testify of me---I'm a human. But the message that's went forth, it testifies of that.
Now, God doesn't send phenomena just to show that He's God. God sends a phenomenon to do this: to declare something. A ministry goes forth in phenomena, and after it, all the carnality and stuff that follows it.

22 As I read of Martin Luther the other day, said, "It wasn't a mysterious thing that he could ... that he could take and protest the Catholic church and get by with it. The phenomenon of Martin Luther was, he could hold his head above all the fanaticism that followed the reformation."
That's what we must do. There's everything goes on. And that puts spooks before you brothers. But remember, the true light, when it rises, it puts all them spooks away, see. It puts the spooks to shame. It shows them up. And so we know that where the phenomenon is done, a mixed crowd always goes.

23 Moses done the phenomena, and there it went into the wilderness. Korah tried to say, "Well, now you try to say you're the only one that can do this. There's more holy men besides you."
You know what taken place, don't you? God said, "Just separate yourself from them," see.
We always have that. When the supernatural's done, the impersonators follows it. It's got to be that way.
And that impersonation is what brings in if... Like Congressman Upshaw---his widow flew in last night to be in the meeting here. He was healed in the services, as you all understand. He always had this expression, "You can't be nothing that you hain't." That's exactly right. You can't be nothing that you're not.

24 If we could just... Like a great symphony: if we would just follow the beats as the composer's beating it out, we would see.
Now, we come to this thought, that the hour that we're living---the time that we're in now---that we have come to the spot to where we're watching for God. When you brethren first started, your reformers, the Pentecostal move many years ago---when the restoration of the gifts, the speaking in tongues, and things come into the church, God restoring the gifts back into the church---you remember you all had a reformation too. Your fathers did.
It was hard to pull away from Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, and so forth, in that reformation. The Nazarenes were in their bloom in them times. So was the Pilgrim Holiness. They rejected your message. What happened to them? You see where they're at today? Now remember, we can do the same thing.

25 When a church ever organizes, a message ever organizes, it goes to the shelf and never rises again. Now, your historians here---I know one of you, see---and that's right. It never rises again when it organizes.
Catholicism was the first organization, called in the Bible a whore. She was a mother of harlots, the same thing---organizations. You see where it's all winding up again up here in the ecumenical council? Now, I'm put out because of that, amongst the organizations. Them brethren doesn't realize what they're doing. It's not me. I'm not put out. They're putting the Word out.
The Bible said in this Laodicean age that Christ was on the outside of the church, knocking, trying to get back in. There never was a age like that. On the outside! 'Course there's going to be no more church ages. This is the end of the... Laodicea was the last age. And Pentecost is that Laodicean age, and we know that. There'll never be no more above Pentecost. That's it.

26 Like a man... No creature ever come up from its evolution (coming up into higher species) than a man, because a man is in the image of the God who created him. There'll never be nothing higher. This is... The Word wouldn't let it go any further 'cause He is the Word. And neither can the Word climb above any Laodicea church age. And we see them, every one, there.
Jesus on the outside of the church, trying to get back in, see. That's what they done to Him when he was here first. He is the Word, and the Word... He was the Word. They say, "We got the Word." The Pharisees said, "We got the Word." But the real true Word, they was rejecting. That's the reason that Jesus said, "Search the scriptures, they that testify of Me."

27 Today we can look back and say, "How were they so blind?" Wonder if some time we won't look back and say, "How were we so blind?" See, see. It has to be that way, brethren. It's too bad. But it has to be that... Don't say, "Too bad." I don't mean it that way. God knows what He's doing, see. They don't ... they... It's the Word they are rejecting, the Word made manifest, the promise that's made manifest, the promise for this day. And the reason it's done is because people are living in the glare of another light.
The greatest robbery that was ever performed was in England not long ago---was done by a false light. A seven million dollar robbery---the world's never heard of such a robbery. Scotland Yard couldn't catch up with it. That was the greatest robbery the world ever had---was performed by a false light.
May I say this, brethren, with love in my heart for men. God knows that. The greatest robbery the church ever had was a false light too, living in the glare of some other age---what Luther, Martin Luther, Wesley, or what some of our fore-Pentecostal fathers said, see. That ain't today. Here's the promise for the day. Here's the Word and the...
You say, "Well, you got it interpreted wrong."
God's his own interpreter, when He manifests it.

28 What if they told the Pentecostal fathers back there fifty years ago that they had the Word interpreted wrong? "There's no such thing as speaking in tongues." They didn't stand still for that. God interpreted his own Word.
Peter said on the day of Pentecost, "Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you and to your children, to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." How could they get away from that? It interprets itself, see. Don't need no interpretation.

29 And today, this age that we're living now, there's a bride tree coming forth, see. Truly the tree's come up. And they... Soon as they organized, they couldn't step any farther. What happens? They organize and go out on this limb. Then the limb is pruned, according to St. John, 15th chapter. He prunes them off. They're never used no more.
But in the heart of that tree comes forth the fruit, right in the top of it, when the tree is fully matured. It can't go no farther, right on the top. The last church age is here. She's coming to full mature. It's a bride tree.
Jesus was the tree of life from the garden of Eden. Do you believe that? He was the tree of life.

30 There's a tree in the garden. And one of them was, if you touched it... Now, we have our differences on that, so I won't go into it. But let's say it was a tree of disobedience. And as soon as they touched that tree, all people was to die. And they had to put them away from this other tree. 'Cause if they eat this tree of life, they would all live knowing right from wrong. That's right.
You know that as ministers. We have our ideas on that, and we probably differ what the tree was. But we can all know that Christ is that tree of life. For one day at the jubilee there, when they was drinking and rejoicing, Jesus said about the water, He said that He was the rock that was in the wilderness.
They said, "Our fathers eat manna in the wilderness."
And He said, "And they're every one dead. But I am the bread of life." Amen. That tree of life that come down from God out of heaven: "He that eats this bread shall never die." That is the bread of life.

31 Now, to make a mockery out of it, the Romans hung Him on a tree. Cursed is he that hangs on a tree. To make a mockery out of the Son of God, He was despised, rejected. He came from the highest of heaven, and became the lowest on earth. When He was here, He went to the lowest city. The smallest man in the city had to look down to see Him---Zacchaeus. He was given the lowest name. He was treated the worst, and hung on the... Died the cruelest death that could be died. That's what people thought of Him. That's what the world thought of Him.
But God lifted Him so high, till He has to look down to see heaven. Give Him a name above every name, that everything in heaven and earth is named after Him. That's what God thought of Him. If we're sons of God, the attributes of his thoughts before the foundation of the world, we'll think the same of Him. And remember, brothers, He is the Word.
The message always follows the phenomena. Jesus, as a young rabbi, as He started preaching, healing the sick, everybody wanted Him in their church. You know that. But that was just the phenomena. What He had is producing. He caught the eyes of the people. But one day He sat down and begin to speak to them. There come the ministry to follow the phenomena. Then nobody wanted Him then. It's too bad, but it just repeats itself. You all understand from there on.

32 Let's read in the vested old Bible here just a little ... for a little talk this morning, the Lord willing. Let's read out of the book of Joshua, the tenth chapter, and beginning with the twelfth verse.
And now... What time do we get out of here? What time we have to be out of here, say ... well, I'll say within fifteen, twenty minutes. Will that be enough? That'll be all right. Just a moment.
Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand ... still stand upon Gibeon; and Moon, thou in the valley of Ajalon.
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hastened not to go down about a whole day.

33 Now, I'm going to take just a little text from there, because I told you I can't make a speech. But I think you understand what I mean by now. I'm here to put my shoulders with you, to help you to press Jesus Christ: not press organization, not press persons of the earth, but to press Jesus Christ who is the manifested Word of God---God manifested. Not just what someone interprets; God doing his own interpretation, God proving what it is. He proves what He is.
If the Pharisees had just have seen that. If they could just have read the scripture where it said these things, they would have seen that God was manifesting his Word by Jesus Christ. He was the Word. And He's still the Word.

34 Now, this subject I want to take for about fifteen minutes, and I'll try to make my talk... And I make tapes (as you all hear) three and four hours. But that's on a subject, see. And in your churches I try to make my talking at night about thirty minutes, so I can have the prayer line. It won't wear the people out. They can come back. I'm sure you like that better. I used to stay for hours, and get in at eleven-thirty and twelve. And now, I try to make my service about forty-five minutes to an hour.
I want to take the subject here, of "Paradox"---just the word "A Paradox." And I didn't know I was going to have the breakfast. Usually we do. But I thought, maybe come up about, maybe Saturday, or something like that. And Brother Borders told me last night, late, that it was to be this morning. So I just jotted down a few scriptures here that I thought I'd refer to, for a few minutes.

35 Now, "paradox," Webster says, is something that's incredible but is true. That's something that no one can explain. It's out of the realms of the knowledge of mankind, but yet is true. Paradox. And now, we find out that if you would read in Hebrews the eleventh chapter, and the third verse, that this world itself is a paradox.

36 A few weeks ago in our meetings in New York City, I'd come out one night from the Morris Auditorium, and we were walking down the street, my son and I. And we looked upon the people, and there were just thousands. And men with hair like women, you know, what they call "ratted," and earrings and leotards on, and white and colored children (you know what I mean), men and women together, and they... Poor old woman fell on the street. Nobody picked her up, just went on. And I helped her get her oranges, and picked up like that---old thing about seventy years old. And she looked at me real strange, and went down the street. I spoke to a cab driver about it.
He said, "Mister, when anybody comes to New York and acts like they're in their right mind," he said, "we know he's a stranger," see. He said, "Them are good people." Said, "But they just get into that swing." Said, "You take a man that comes here, it isn't long till he's in that same condition. He comes in here, try to do everything." Said, "You could lay down, and die on that street in a heart attack; somebody'd think you was drunk. They never touch you. Let you lay there and die, see. They don't mean to be that way. It's just getting in the swing."

37 That's the way we do, brethren, in our church life. We get into a swing of one certain creed, or one certain thing, and there we stay, see. We swing with the rest of them. We swing with our organization. We swing with our community. It's just a natural. Paint your steps red, and watch what your neighbor does. They'll do it, too.
One of you sisters get a certain kind of a dress, or hat, and watch what your neighbors does, see. It's an impersonation. It's a matching time. We don't care whether our trousers match our coats; we want our experience to match the Word, see, and God.

38 But walking down the street, Billy said to me, he said, "Dad, how does God ever know who they all are?
I said, "All right, son. Look right straight up towards the sky. Now," I said, "see those two little stars up there, almost together?"
"Yeah."
I said, "If one of them... Science tells us, if one of them would start to the earth at a million miles an hour, it'd take it millions of years to get here. That's how far it is away. And yet those two stars are closer to each other than we are to the star, or we're probably closer to the star than they are to us."
He said, "How does God ever do it?"
I said, "He's infinite," see.

39 We just heard a lecture from Einstein, this galaxy and the constellation. And he said, "If a person could leave the earth [one of his great speeches, last ones], if a person could leave the earth at the speed of light [that's 186 thousand miles per second? 186 thousand miles per second] and would travel 150 million light years, he would arrive there. And then it'd take him 150 million light years to come back. That would be so many billions of years, you could run a row of nines around the earth and not break it down." In talking about years, you know how long he'd've been gone from the earth? Fifty years, in our time.

40 We're in such a hurry. What if a little ant started from Tucson, to come up here to Bakersfield. How far do you think he would get in forty years? Probably a half-a-mile. See, it means so much to him. To us it meant twelve hours driving; to a jet plane, just a few seconds; to God, nothing. Jesus died yesterday afternoon. He was crucified. Paul died yesterday. One thousand years is as a day with God, as it was. Not even that, if you want to count the time. So those apostles, and things, died yesterday.
We're hurrying. We ain't got but a little bit of time to stay here. Then you think, when you look at eternity...

41 Einstein, the great philosopher, said, or the great scientist, said that there's only one sensible way to explain the origin of this earth. That was found in Hebrews the eleventh chapter, and the third verse: "By faith we understand God framed the world out of things that..." He spoke it into existence.
How does it stand in the skies? Never gets out of its orbit. How that everything in heaven, and that constellation... If one of those stars would move... I know you go out at night and say, "I seen a star shooting." No, you seen a weather light. A star don't move. If that star would move, we'd move with it. Everything in heaven is so much in harmony, it holds one another together.
What if mankind could be that way to hold the church together, that we could all be in harmony with the Word, see. Only one way: let God to be his own interpreter, and we will be, see. God's his interpreter of that.

42 Now we find out that in ... this is simply a paradox. There's no doubt but what that's one of the great paradoxes. Now, there's been so many paradoxes as we come. Things ... it's incredible, but yet it's true.
In the days of Noah, you remember, it had never rained upon the earth. There had been no such a thing as rain. The world stood up straight, just equal with the sun. It was disbelief and disobedience that throwed it out of its cater, makes it lean back, and cause the hot and cold air to bring up the vapor from the seas, and make rain. It had never rained upon the earth. And here comes a man out saying that it's going to rain. Strange thing, but it was the word of the Lord.
I can hear science.

43 You say "Well, now, how do you know they had science?" They built the pyramids in those days. We couldn't build them today. No. We haven't the material, we haven't the stuff to build them with, and we have no machinery to lift those boulders up there. It's still a mystery to the world. They built it.
Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." As it was in that day, so will it be in the coming of the Son of man.

44 And brethren, for a little thing that I might squeeze in here, just a moment... Peter quoted it in I Peter. He said, "Wherein ... eight souls were saved by water." Eight souls. What's an ecumenical council of tens of millions, see? That doesn't save. It's the Word. God saves. Eight souls were saved by water in the days of Noah. Look what was saved in the days of Lot. Look what ended in the journey through the wilderness---two, Joshua and Caleb, see.
As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man: a great scientific age. And no doubt they could shoot the skies and say (with a radar), and say, "There's no water up there. Where's it coming from?"
God said it will be there. That was good enough. And Noah believed it, and he saved his household.

45 You remember, God tries his people who believes his Word.
Where God is there's always paradox, 'cause He does things that's incredible to the human thinking. You know that. We all know that---incredible to the human thinking. And He tries those humans that are predicting this paradox. He gives them trials. Never does He omit or change his way. God never changes his system. Do you know that, brethren? Sure you do. He never changes his system. He always keeps it going in continuity, the way He started.
He never dealt with the world, only under preaching with one man, Noah. He never had four to go down and deliver them, or an organization, in the days of Moses. He never had two on the earth at the same time. Each one of us differ from one another---our features, our make-up. God just gets ahold. All He needs is one person that He can get in control. That's his example. He did it by Moses. He did it always.
When Elijah and Elisha was on earth, they both couldn't stay the same time. One was taken, the other one got his mantle upon him.

46 When John came upon the earth, he was the manifested word of God for that hour. We know that. He was God's manifested word. Because why? Isaiah said there'd be a voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Malachi, the last prophet, said, "Behold, I send my messenger before my face to prepare the way before the people." Now, that was not Malachi 4; that was Malachi 3. John was Elijah of Malachi 3, not Malachi 4. Because when Malachi 4, when that prophecy comes forth, the earth is to be burnt with a fervent heat, and the righteous walk out in the millennium upon the ashes. And it never happened in the days of John.

47 In Matthew 11 we find out that when John sent disciples down to there where... John paid Jesus the least respect that he could, after he had already seen the sign over Him, and said, "That's Him." He had told him in the wilderness to go baptize with water. Said, "On whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, He baptizes with the Holy Ghost." He said he was sure of that. He saw the sign.
Then after his eagle eye got filmed over, down in the prison, he said "Go ask Him if He really is the one, or another." That was disregarding the Word.
But Jesus knew that. He paid John a great respect. He said, "Who did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft raiment? They don't handle a sword. They kiss the babies, and bury the dead. They're in king's palaces." Said, "What did you go out to see? A reed shaken with any wind? When one organization offered a little more than the other, or some community ... he'll move to that community, 'cause..." Not John.
Said, "What did you go to see? A prophet?" Said, "I say unto you, and greater than a prophet."
He was. He was the messenger of the covenant. He was the breach, he was the keystone between law and grace. "What did you go out to see? A prophet? And I say unto you, more than a prophet." He said, "He was a bright and shining light for a while." Why? He was the Word made light. He was the Word manifested.
Then, when He come on the scene he said, "I must decrease, and He must increase." Two of them couldn't stay at the same time. John had to go; Jesus remained, see. It's always that way.

48 God did that in the days of Noah. We find out then, that that was the phenomenon. It was something what was a paradox: that God floated that ark, when the whole world a-rocking, with the waves probably bigger than the mountains today, when it swung from its... When them stars moved back, or whatever taken place, and that world moved out of its orbit, swung itself out there in those great waves, it was certainly a paradox---that that little old wooden ship could rock for forty days and nights on that, in that water. It was a paradox.
It was a paradox that God could bring water out of the skies, when there was no water up there to bring. But He can fix the situation to make it suit his Word. He's still... Like Genesis 22, He's Jehovah-jireh, "The Lord can provide for Himself a sacrifice," see. He remains... That's one of his compound redemptive names.

49 It was a paradox when the Hebrew children was throwed into the fiery furnace: how that three men could walk into a furnace so hot that the intense heat even killed the men that were pushing them in. And yet, they stayed in. That only delivered them. That's the only thing it did. It delivered them from the bonds that they were bound with. It was a paradox.
Sometimes in our own lives, that paradox repeats. Sometimes you're brought to a showdown, where you have to make a decision. You have to stand on that decision like they did. And it all works together for the good. What did it do? It never hurt them. It loosened them.
Sometimes we're caught in that position. First thing, we've got... Just like the man drowning in the river. You've got to get the man out of the river, before you can get the river out of the man. And that sometimes... What a man has to do is come out and make his stand. (Get the thing out) Get him out of the thing, so he can get the thing out of him. That's what the Hebrew children had to do. They had to get out of the fire. And God caused the paradox to happen.

50 David: we see David, just a kid, just a boy, with a slingshot---not a spear, sword. He was put over some sheep, to watch after them. His father's word was to care for those sheep. He was a shepherd.
Brethren, that's as we stand this morning. We are shepherds. We don't need a college education. We don't need a bunch of theology. We need the Father's Word.
It may seem simple. And when a bear or a stealer comes in, and gets one of the Father's sheep and packs it off in some kind of a ism... It's a very small thing that we seem to have, that's laughed at. But it's, oh, so powerful when God's behind it. Go after it. Bring it back.

51 How David could take that slingshot, and knock down a lion! I've hunted lion. My! Sat upon a hill here, one day, and I guess half-a-mile away... You've heard them growl, around in these circuses. You ought to hear a wild one roar once. Rocks rolled down off the hill, where that fellow roared. And to see that ferocious animal like that, and this little boy... Little stooped-shouldered, ruddy fellow goes and kills that lion with a slingshot. That's a paradox.
It was a paradox when a man with fourteen-inch fingers by the name of Goliath, a warrior from his youth, covered over with an armor---how that God took this same little slingshot, and it brought down that giant because that he was protesting the armies of God. It was a paradox.
And when we take our stand today when men say these things can't happen, don't be fussing with them. That's wrong. Don't fuss with them. But pick up the sword. Pick up what's... Look what's supposed to be this day. When God gave his promise for today, pick this up and go. All the Goliaths will fall under it. It's a paradox. What God's doing today is a paradox. How He can... Only God can do that. All right. The sling.

52 It was a Moses who was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He could teach the Egyptians science, and so forth. And it certainly was a paradox how that God equipped that man. Now look, all of his education, everything he had... It took forty years to educate him; then it took God forty years to get it out of him, see. See. Get the man out of the water, before you get the water out of the man, see.
Took Him forty years to take out of him what he had learned. He found out that what he had wouldn't deliver Israel. And that's what he was born for. He didn't have no choice of that. God called him for that. And we find out that it had taken forty years to get it out of him.
And sometimes, when men really follow the commandments of God, he does things that seems to be ... kind of, I guess, mental to other men. Jesus was considered a madman. But He was doing exactly what the Father told Him to do. He was the Word manifested. He was called a madman.

53 Look at Moses---with his wife, Zipporah, sitting on a mule, and Gershom on her hip---eighty years old, white beard hanging to his waistline, his bald head shining to the skies, with a crooked stick in his hand, going down to Egypt to take over. Could you imagine that? They'd say, "Where you going, Moses?"
"Going down to Egypt, to take over."
"How do you know?"
"The Lord told me to." To take over an army? Not an army, but a nation.
The thing of it is, he did it. That was a paradox. How with a crooked stick he brought the judgments of God upon Egypt, and delivered Israel with a crooked stick---not an army or a sword---it was a paradox. If anybody look at the things that's incredible, but yet is true, it's a paradox when you do that.

54 Now we find out, also Joshua here, that we was speaking of over here in Joshua 10:12. Joshua... The sun, we say (they tell us today), stands still. The world turns around. They say, "If the world stops, it would drop. Gravitation holds it in its spot." Now, brethren, what took place? He said for the sun to stand still.

55 My teacher in school, and teaching the Bible said, "He ... God winked at his ignorance." But anyhow, it stopped. That was the main thing. It stopped. And it said here that it stood still for most a whole day, and the moon hung over Ajalon---that the sun stood still. Whatever he stopped...
I don't know what he stopped. But because of a man saying "Stand still," and it's written here that the sun stood still. Science proves that---that a mark in the sky still says that that's the truth. Can vindicate it by a mark in the sky today, that it did take place. See, that's just been about 2500 years ago, or something like that---2800 years ago, maybe, that it did that. It hasn't had... That mark hasn't had time to trail into the stars and things yet. That was just two days ago, by God's time, see. But yet, the mark shows that and it stood still. That's a paradox.
No one can figure it out. If the (sun),

56 if the world's a-turning, then you say he stopped the world. Well, if he stopped the world, then the science says that gravitation a-turning holds it up there, then the world would have dropped itself. But it went right on moving, at the hand of God. A paradox. Why? Oh, you say, "That was a long time ago." That is today, the same God.
Jesus said in Matthew---not Matthew---it's St. Mark 11:22, "If you say to this mountain be moved and don't doubt in your heart, but believe that what you've said will come to pass, you can have what you've said." That's defy nature. But you have to have a motive and objective to that---that's connected with it. Find out in the Word if it's supposed to be done, and then God's calling you to do it. And it'll do it. When you know that it's spoken in the Word to do it, and then God's called you to do it, then it'll happen if your motive and objective is right to God.
That's why visions take place, why things going the way they... You have to know---know God promised it this hour. As it was in the days of Lot... He promised in the last days, then He calls to do that. It's no problem. God said so. That settles it. Sure, it's a paradox. You can't explain it. No man can explain how certain things will be predicted, and never one time fail to happen. It's a paradox. But God said do it. It's today. That's the day we're living in. The sun stood still.

57 Samson: it was a paradox how he could kill a lion barehanded, a little curly-headed shrimp separated from God. He was a Nazarite, separated by the Word of God. He was a Nazarite. And so he separated himself for the Word. And he didn't have shoulders the size of that door there. Any man with shoulders like that could kill a lion. That wouldn't be no mystery if he was that size. The science or the theologists of today, and artists, try to draw his picture. He was just a little bitty guy, see. And he was totally unable to do it. But when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, then he could do it.
We might stand alone. We might stand just one or two. Whatever it is, when the Spirit of the Lord is coming to confirm a Word that He's promised, and told you to do it, it'll happen. It'll be a paradox again. Certainly.

58 It was a paradox when this man could take the jawbone of a mule that he picked up on a field. Now remember, those Philistines' helmets was about a inch thick with brass. Think of it. And he had the jawbone of a mule. Now, it's laying out there on the desert. Did you ever pick up one? You can kick it with your foot, and it'll bust into a million pieces. Hit it against a rock, it just goes to powder almost. And he took this jawbone of this mule, and beat down a thousand Philistines---beat their helmets in!
How did the jawbone hold together? Why didn't his arm give out? How could he do it, and them trained men with spears? It's a paradox. God made the promise. And where God is, paradoxes always happen. Where God is, yes, sir.

59 Wasn't it a strange thing in the days that when King Ahab was king of Judaea, and, of Israel rather, and Jehoshaphat, the righteous man, king of Judaea, of Judah---and they made an alliance. There's how a believer can get connected with a make-believer.
Sometimes men gets in that kind of a fix today, mix themselves up with people who don't believe the Word. And yet they're bound into them with such ties till they can't get out. They're afraid to accept it. I admire you brothers' courage.
Now, you don't have to have that interpreted see, see. When they deny, or won't have nothing to do with it, get it away... And yet, you'll step right out and sponsor. I admire a man like that. You're not afraid of the Caesars and the commandments.

60 Believers being hooked up with make-believers...
And Jehoshaphat did that when he went down to Ahab. That lukewarm, borderline believer thought more of the social things of the world, and his wife's fine hairdos and things, than he did of God---give in to her. And we find out that Israel was a very type of this nation then, how they went over and took the occupants out, and occupied; and had great men like David and Solomon. But finally there rose up a fellow like Ahab.
But in the days of Ahab is when the prophet came on the scene. God always manifests his Word. And we find out then that this nation's done the same. We come in and drove out the Indians and occupied; and we had a Washington and a Lincoln. But where are we getting to now?
But God can still raise up prophets. He's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham when his Word requires it. Malachi said we would have it, and we'll have it. It'll be here, don't you worry. His Word will be fulfilled.
Notice. Micaiah was down in the country.

61 And Ahab, to kind of make a shine to the country, he had four hundred Hebrew prophets down there, great organization of them. They was all well-dressed, fine-dressed, educated, scholarly men---Hebrew prophets. Now, not heathens; Hebrew prophets. Jehoshaphat made this alliance. I think that all things works together. The symphony is just beating out the beat, see.
So he made an alliance to go up, take the king of Edom and go on up into the land and take the Syrians, because it seemed very good. And Jehoshaphat fell on the idea. Being a godly man, said, "We should consult the Lord, shouldn't we?"
Said, "That's right. Excuse me. I should have thought of that. Yeah. I got a seminary down here. Got the best there is in the country, most scholarly. They can say 'Amen' the prettiest you ever heard."

62 He goes down and gets them, bring them up, and let them prophesy. Here come the prophets all up, well, fine-dressed men, fine cultured, educated to the dot. They knowed all their Greek, Hebrew, and all, see. They come up, and they all prophesied. And they had a right to prophesy.
They said, "Go on up. What's the matter? That land up there belongs to Israel. [And that's true.] Joshua gave it to us. God gave it and Joshua divided it. And our children are going hungry, and the Philistines' bellies are filled with the wheat that's raised on that country."
They was absolutely on the Word, when it come to that. But they had sinned and lost that land. They'd lost it. It absolutely wasn't theirs then, see. But accordingly, if you want to go back to the foundation, it did belong to them. And them prophets were right. They said, "Go on up. The Lord's with you."

63 But you know, when a man's really... Like I said last night, about Joseph being a just man: there was something didn't ring a bell with Jehoshaphat. He was a righteous man. He said, "Haven't you got one more?"
"One more? And we got the whole seminary here? The best we got in the country, Hebrew prophets? And they're telling exactly... Look how close they are on the Word. There's ... the Word said that this land belongs to us. We got a right to go get it."
But Jesus told the devil the same thing. Said, "It's also written..." That's what they failed to see. That's what made them disbelieve Jesus. It's also written "A virgin shall conceive," see. They failed to see that.

64 So when they said, "Go on up. The Lord is with you. He'll give you the victory because it belongs to us. It's in the name of the Lord. Here it is."
But it didn't ring the bell. Jehoshaphat said, "Haven't you got one more that you might consult?"
Said, "Yes, there's another one, but I hate him. The association won't receive him. We won't have nothing to do with him. He's Micaiah, the son of Imlah."
Said, "Don't let the king say so," said Jehoshaphat. "Go get him."

65 So then they sent a forerunner, said, "Micaiah, you want to come back into the fellowship again?" See? "Just say the same thing the rest of them are saying. This is your opportunity now. You agree with the organization, all the rest of them, they'll bring you back, see, and you'll be in fellowship. And you can have your campaigns all around over the country then."
He said, "As the Lord God lives, I'll only say what He puts in my mouth." We need some Micaiahs. He said, "I'll see what God says about it first, if He wants me to go back in, yet again." So he said, "Give me tonight. Let me see what the Lord will say."
And that night the Lord showed him a vision. He compared his vision with the Word. That was right. Said, "Go on up, but I seen Israel like sheep scattered, having no shepherd."

66 So then, the one---the high priest, or the ecumenical council leader---come up and smacked him in the mouth, and said, "Where did the Spirit of God go when it left me?"
He said, "You'll see, that day when you're sitting inside."
Said, "Where did it go?"And he said, "I saw God sitting upon a throne. I saw the host of heaven gathered around Him."
And there... God's prophet---the Word always comes to the prophet. No matter how unpopular it seems to be, it's always there. And the reason they know it is, it makes it so that what the man speaks comes to pass. God said; then that proves it. Then a prophet means not only to speak the Word, but also to foretell---and a divine interpreter of the Word, divine Word written. The Word came to the prophet.
And this is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. This is the revelation, the Bible. It's revealing Jesus Christ, see.

67 And now, when the prophet came on the scene then, and could foretell things that happened exactly like that, God said, "Remember, I'm with him then." Then, when he revealed the Word (what the other prophet had said before him), it come to pass then they knowed that was true. That still remains God's way of doing it. He never changes his way, see. Remember, the great groups tried to change that, but they didn't do it.
Here's one we're talking of now, and they had a right. But Elijah had told Ahab... See, Israel had accepted the wrong man, who had made them organizations; and had turned down the true Word, see.
He said, "I seen God, and the council was held. And He said, 'Who can we get to go down to deceive Ahab?'"
Said, "A lying spirit come up, probably from hell. He said, 'I'll go down and get into those prophets, and cause them to prophesy a lie.'" Hebrew prophets that was looking right at the Word, see.
But what Elijah said was blinded to them. They thought he was a crank too, see. But when Micaiah went under the Spirit he saw exactly what the real prophet had said. That was a chance. That was it to do it. And them Hebrews was right on that.

68 So was the Hebrews right in what they was saying about Jesus Christ, see. But it was according to their shadow that they were walking in. It was a glare of another day, not the light of that day. Could the history repeat itself again? The Bible says it does, see.
Now we find out that there was... It was strange that God chose this one---little, uneducated, unaffiliated with them---to show and bring those people the Word---instead of that school, a fine cultured, educated man, smart. He chose Micaiah. That's a paradox. It sure was. And it happened just the way Micaiah said it would happen, because he had the Word of the Lord. It's always been that way. Yes, sir.

69 John the Baptist was another one. You know we don't have very much record of where prophets come from, so forth, spiritual men, see. Man-picked men, like they picked Matthias to take Judas' place, we don't hear very much about him. God chose Paul, see. That was God's choosing; and the church's choosing, see.
And the same thing: men who are filled with the Spirit are usually men who try to run from the thing, get away from it. They don't want to do it. But God just takes it, and says, "I'll show you. I'll make you do it." Paul tried to run. Others tried to run. Many tried to do it. Moses tried to get away from it.

70 We don't have much record of John. His father was a priest. It was a tradition in them days for the son to follow the father, his trade. But when John was borned a funny, odd, phenomenal birth; when he was conceived in his mother's womb... We know the story of Zacharias, how the angel said his wife would conceive. And when we find out that's what taken place---six months the baby hadn't moved.
And Mary was visited by Gabriel, and went up in Judaea to salute her, because Gabriel told her that she was pregnant. And when she got up there, she told her, she said...
She'd hid herself. And when she met Mary, she put her arms around Mary and begin to hug her as women do---really Christian women, believers---begin to hug her. And she said (she seen she was big---to be mother), and she said, "You know, the angel of the Lord told me I was to be mother too."
And Mary, Martha, pardon me ..

71 . Elisabeth said she was kind of worried, she said, because it's six months now and the baby hadn't moved. That's irregular, see. Baby is practically, what we call today, dead, see. He was good as dead in his mother's womb ---six months. It troubled her. And you know, John was six months older than Jesus which was his second cousin. Mary and Elisabeth were first cousins.
Then when we find that (Elis...) Mary looked back, her young face, and she said, "I'm going to have a child, too."
"Oh, you and Joseph are married?"
"No. We're not married."
"And you're going to have a child?"
"Yes. The Holy Ghost shall overshadow me. [Paradox, see.] The Holy Ghost shall overshadow me. That holy thing will be called the Son of God." Said, "Gabriel met me. And when he did, he said I'd have a son, and I'd call his name 'Jesus.'"
And as soon as she said "Jesus," little John begin to leap in his mother's womb. He received the Holy Ghost. The Bible said he was born from his mother's womb full of the Holy Ghost. The first time that name was ever called out of a human lip, a dead baby come to life in the womb of a mother. What ought it to do to a borned-again church? That name Jesus.
Said, (Why cometh) " Whence cometh the mother of my Lord? For as soon as thy salutation come to my ear [she heard his name], my baby leaped in the womb for joy."
It's quite a phenomenon. It's a paradox.

72 John, dead six months in his mother's womb, come to life through the name of Jesus Christ, the first time it was ever spoke by human lip---show that dead men would come to life by the name of Jesus Christ. Still a paradox. "Not another name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved." A paradox. Yes.
John was a phenomenon. Looked like he would have went and carried out his father's ... went to his school where his father was trained at, being a Levite. Levite was the only ones could be in the priesthood. So John was a Levite. So, ordinarily it was traditional for him to go to the school of his father. But God had a work for him. He was to announce the Messiah. His work was too phenomenal for him to follow the traditions. I hope you're reading right. His work was too phenomenal.
He couldn't go to their traditions and take up with their traditions. Everybody'd be saying, "Now, don't you think that Brother Jones, here, is just the man to be the Messiah? We know that you're to announce Him. Don't you think he's just the right kind of a man?" It'd been another Matthias.

73 But what did he do? He stayed in the wilderness. He had no education. John... Like many of us today, he could not speak and use the words of grammar that we would express our inspiration by---or men, not myself. Probably most of us in here couldn't do that. What did he do? He had to go to nature to parallel it, to bring out his point, see. When he had the expression, he had to go to nature. Look, he said, "Oh, you generation of vipers!"---what he'd seen---snakes in the wilderness. He'd seen that's what they were, "generation of vipers."
Now, an educated man would have had some other word, see, that he could have used instead of that. But he expressed it by a snake. Said, "Don't think within yourselves because we belong to this, that you're going to mean anything to God. For God's able of these stones...," see, not to take some theological word. He knowed nothing about any seminary. He had his seminary in the wilderness before God.
It's strange that God would take a man like that (it's a paradox), instead of all them fine educated priests that was in the schools. It was quite a paradox. God always works in paradoxes, to my opinion.

74 The virgin birth was a paradox. A virgin conceived, bring forth a child, God made flesh. God changed his strand from spirit to become a man. (Man changed) He changed his tent, his dwelling place, and tabernacle.
When Jesus was standing there, upon the shores of Galilee, John looked up and he saw the Spirit of God like a dove, descending, and a voice saying "This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm pleased to dwell in." "In whom I'm pleased to dwell," the same thing---verb before the adverb is all, see, see.
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased to dwell in," God and man becoming one, uniting together for redemption. How God, that covered all space and time, could come down and bottle Himself into a man so He could taste death for all the human race---the creator dying to save his creation! Heavens and earth kissed each other. Man and God became one (how can a man deny...), that He might dwell in man and fellowship. It's nothing but God condescending, trying to get to his man.

75 In the beginning He was a father. He was above all. He was alone. He dwelled alone. Elohim. Even when He come down upon the mountain, even if an animal touched the mountain it must die. But then He was made flesh, and we touched Him, handled Him. He did that in order to shed his blood, virgin blood, because we're born by sexual desire. He was born virgin birth.
He wasn't the blood of a Jew. Neither was He a Gentile. He was God, creative blood, see. Jew blood don't save us. Gentile blood don't save us. God's blood, the Bible says, saves us. He was God's blood.

76 Some people said that He was ... that Mary conceived, and that was ... the egg belonged to Mary; the blood cell come from the male sex, which was God. That's wrong, too. If it is, looky here: then to bring that egg down, there had to be some kind of a sensation. Then what do you have God doing to Mary?
He created both egg and blood. He was God. She was an incubator. She was only a borrowed womb, like a borrowed grave to be buried in. He made all, see; had not a place to lay his head. He become our example, what we should be. He never took sides with nobody; but did that which pleased the Father always.

77 And the Father now dwells in us by his death.
He sanctified a church that absolutely... This church, the unclean, filthy... God condescend from a pillar of fire down to be made man, and then the Holy Spirit right in us. Don't you see what it is? The same God, coming down all the time. Now, God above us, God with us, God in us, see---like the thoughts of God, the Word of God, and the manifestation of the Word---just the same thing from the beginning. God thinking: a father He was, a son He was, a saviour He was, a healer He was.
The words was spoke, and it was manifested. "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son. His name shall be called Immanuel, Counsellor, Prince of Peace, mighty God, everlasting Father," and it was. And from that come forth that He might bring forth many sons unto God.
The whole thing is God revealed. God above us, God with us, God in us. A paradox indeed, that God would dwell in man Himself. Sure. He had to become that to die, to satisfy his own laws of righteousness. He predicted, and said, "The day you eat thereof, that day you die," and He had to fulfill. There's nobody else could do it but Himself. If ...

78 today in this day I like to bring this, the deity of Jesus Christ---because that men try to make Him a prophet.
Now, if there happens to be a Christian Science sitting here, I'm not hurting your feelings---I hope I'm not. But we stress so much upon evidences. We Pentecostals put our evidence upon speaking in tongues, and how bad we've been fooled in that. And how many of them says the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence. How badly you're fooled by that. No, sir.
If you talk about speaking in tongues being the evidence of the Holy Ghost---which I do believe, the Holy Ghost speaks in tongues ---don't get me wrong...
Yeah, but you say, "A man speaks with tongues has got the Holy Ghost." We believed that for a while; but we found out it was wrong.

79 Luther said those that said they believe; we found out that was wrong. Wesley said those that got sanctified and shouted; we found out that was wrong. Pentecost said those that spoke with tongues; we found out that was wrong. The Christian Science said, the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence. We find out that that's wrong.
I've seen witches and wizards drink blood out of a human skull, and speak in tongues; and lay a pencil on the table, and write in unknown tongues and interpret it. Now, don't tell me about that. My mother's a half Indian, see, and I know. I've seen it, and dealt with it.
Yet, God does speak with tongues. But that's no infallible evidence that you got the Holy Ghost. Certainly not. No, indeed. A Christian's not...
Let me,

80 God forgive me for doing this, I'm going to put Jesus on the trial for you just a moment, if you'll forgive me. Have I got that much time? Let's see. Just a moment. Just be ... yes, I'm ten minutes past time. But I'll hurry and omit some of this, see. Let's just try this just a minute, brethren.
My heavenly Father, forgive me for this. I don't like to speak it, but it's so that people would know.
I'm going to take... I'm going against Jesus this morning. And I'm going to say you're a bunch of Jewish people, and Jesus just rose up here in Bakersfield. Let me call you men together, and talk to you about fruits of the Spirit. They believed that, too.
What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness. Is that right? Fruit of the Spirit---many people rely upon that. Sometimes that's the devil. He can impersonate that to the letter. He can impersonate speaking in tongues to the letter, interpretation of it to the letter. Any of those gifts he can impersonate it.

81 Notice. I'm going to... There's the priest. I'm going to talk to you all. Now I'm taking sides against Jesus, just a moment. Now, I've asked God to forgive me, just so that I could show you what I mean---to bring out a point, see.
I'll say, "Gentlemen, I'm here in behalf of your church this morning. I'm speaking to you all. Now, there's a young fellow in the city here, by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. He's got a strange doctrine. We know our priest. Now, we have to judge this by the fruit of the Spirit. This, your priest: his great-great-great-great-grandfather was a priest. He omitted all of his young life, for the things that you all enjoyed, when you were young men. He omitted that to be a priest to God. What did he do by this? He studied, he done everything he could be to be a right kind of a man.

82 "Who was it stood by you when papa and mama was arguing? They was going to separate. Who stood by papa and mama, and put arms around one, and one around the other, and brought them back together? Your faithful old priest, out there."
Your faithful old priest studied Jehovah's laws until he knows them in and out, in and out, in and out. He went through every seminary. He's got a doctor's degree, a bachelor of art. He's got a D.D., LL., Ph.D. He knows exactly what he's talking about. He studied for that, while you men were running around. He studied because he's your leader."
It all makes sense, brothers, if you're talking in a psychological way of it. It all makes sense.

83 "What school did this Jesus of Nazareth come from? He never had a day in school as we know of. Where did He come from? No one knows. Here He comes around.
"Look at your kind old priest. When your daddy run out of money that time, didn't have no money, who did he go to? The man that had the fruit of the Spirit, your kind old priest that loaned him the money to tide him over till his crops come in.
"Who stood by you when your mother was in labor [excuse me, sisters], as they thought she was going to die? Who held his hands upon her and prayed, while you was being born in this world? Your kind old priest. Who lifted you up to Jehovah and circumcised you, and held you, and made you ... and offered you to Jehovah? That kind old priest.

84 "And look what this Jesus of Nazareth done the other day. What did He ever do for the fruit of the Spirit?
"Now, many of you are business men. You have ... you have businesses here. You're merchants, and so forth. Jehovah requires a lamb for your sins. You don't raise lambs. So what did these kind old priests do? So that your soul would not be lost, they had some sellers to go up there in the courts, make little cages and put lambs in there, that you could take your income---that you would have (done) made out of lambs, but you made it on something else to keep our economy going---and they made a place, so you, when you got sin-burdened and you want to get released from your sins, this kind old priest had a place you could go buy a lamb. God didn't want your money. He said a lamb. And you went and bought it.
"What did this Jesus of Nazareth done? Come and kicked them things out, and emptied them up, and told them they was a den of thieves. Not much fruit of the Spirit there, is there?
"Your kind old priest never gets out of humor. This fellow plaited ropes together, and kicked the tables over, and run them out there, and looked angered upon them. That's not fruit of the Spirit. Your kind old priest---who's going to say the last words over you? Your kind old priest. Who's going to (permit) commit your soul to God? The kind old priest, see. Fruit of the Spirit, and that fellow had none of them."

85 Now, you say, "Brother Branham..." I could stay a sermon on this, but I won't.
What is the fruit of the Spirit? The manifestation of the promised Word. If they'd just stopped to look. He did not have these things that they had, fruit of the Spirit or anything; but the Word that was promised that day was manifesting Himself. That was exactly the light of the hour. That was it, see. No matter how much education, how kind, how much you speak with tongues, how much kind, gentle, and everything you are: unless you accept that Word of the hour, when it's manifested before you, you're in the same predicament. That might sound crude. I don't mean it that way. But it's truth. Let's just believe, see. All right. Now, God forgive me. You see what I mean?

86 Who had the fruit of the Spirit? Jesus. He said, "Search the scriptures. You think they... In them you think you have eternal life. They testify of Me. They tell you who I am." He never did come out and say who He was. He didn't tell them.
And when He got his congregation, that great... He said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood [as I said last night], you have no life."
Well, my! That congregation said, "That guy's crazy! What would doctors, and scientists... Well, that man's trying to make cannibals." He never explained it. It was time for them to turn Him down.

87 Then He had a bunch of preachers hanging around Him, borderline believers. He said, "Well, what are you going to say when you see Me ascend up from where I come from?"
"Come from? Why, we seen the cradle You were born in, the city You were born in. We fished with You out here on the hills. You... We walked with You, talked with You, and You come from... Oh, my. Now we know You're crazy."
But real genuine faith don't move. Them disciples couldn't explain it, but they knowed there it was. See, it has to be something that God planted---had to be his thoughts before the foundation of the world. When He planned the whole redeem... Ephesians 1:1-5, He planned the whole thing before the foundation of the world, his thoughts. And this is the attributes of his thoughts.

88 Look at Judas, standing there as a clergyman up here, just walking in the light. Had power to heal the sick. Matthew 10 proves it. He sent them out, and they come back rejoicing. And devils was subject unto them, Judas with them. That's right. He said, "Don't rejoice that the devils are subject; but your names are written on the Lamb's book of life." Judas was with them. But when it come to taking the full Word of God, he turned it down.
So does people today, see. Jesus said, "Man shall live by every Word..."---not just one or two words; every Word.
You say, "Well, Brother Branham, I can go for part of it, and I can't go..."
Then you got the interpreter Eve had. She took every bit of it, interpreted right---but one little phrase. It's got to be every bit of it. If the Bible says it that way, it's of no private interpretation. It's the way the Bible said it. And if God caused all this heartaches and sorrow, and death of babies, and crying, and wars and things, because his Word was doubted by one phrase, will He take you back in anything less than that? Think it over.
He doesn't change. His first decision has to always remain that decision. That's the reason He deals with one individual; not with a group. One. He can't change it.
Well, I got a whole lot to say here, but I...

89 Jesus' death was a phenomenon. It was a paradox. The resurrection was a paradox. We believe that. Everybody knows the resurrection was a paradox. God raised Him up from the dead. The new birth is a paradox. That's right. Can change a man's being.
We could preach a sermon right here, in a little bit, see, how a paradox... To take a man that's a disbeliever, unbeliever, has nothing to do with it; and all at once changed from a renegade to a saint, a prostitute to a sister---it's a paradox. No one can give him a medicine or a shot, or a dose of medicine or anything else; it takes the hand of Almighty God, and that alone, to change a man. It's a paradox when a man is borned again. That's right---a paradox.

90 It was a paradox, when God chose a hundred and twenty ignorant fishermen to take the news, the gospel at Pentecost, around the world, instead of the great Sanhedrin council that was trained for it; those who had trained and waited, and waited, for the thing to happen. And God revealed Himself to a bunch of fishermen that couldn't even sign their own name to a piece of paper. A paradox, that God chose such as that instead of taking the ecumenical council of that day to do it. It'll do the same thing today. He is able of these stones to rise children unto Abraham.

91 The prophet's visions has always been a paradox: how that those men by inspiration could foretell things that never fail. That's a paradox. How that something beyond the human mind, that you cannot comprehend... There is two, conscious and subconscious that... God gets into the subconscious (which is the real) and foresees; takes him out and sees things that was way back in another age; brings him down to present tense and tells the future. And it never fails any time. A paradox, indeed. Incredible, but it's true. It happens just exactly.
What we seen Him do last night was a paradox, incredible to the human being. We can't explain it.

92 A certain Baptist church my little family went to the other day (and they'd been down to the meeting at Tucson), the pastor got up... Not knowing that the boy that goes with my daughter is a member there, he said, "You know, I just learned Brother Branham's father and mother traveled in a circus." And said, "They were magicians. And that's a little trick that he does," see. I guess it was a trick that healed the sick.
I doubt whether my father and mother ever seen a circus. They never seen an automobile till I had one. They never knowed nothing about it. But you see, the devil's always got to say... They told Jesus, "They do this by Beelzebub." They had to answer something to their congregation. Why don't they search the Scripture and see this is predicted today? It's Jesus Christ, the same yesterday... As He was yesterday, He is today, and will be forever.
But that's it, see. That's just the way they try to do it. The Pentecostal uneducated, the prophet's visions... Jesus alive today after two thousand years is a paradox, too. It certainly is.
I must close 'cause it's getting late. Do you believe in paradox? Certainly.

93 May I say this. One time an old druggist friend, kind old man, he said, "Brother Branham, I'm going to tell you something." Said, "I know you're a minister." He said, "I'm going to tell you." Said, "It might sound ridiculous, but," said, "I haven't told it to people 'cause they wouldn't believe it." But said, "I'm going to tell it to you."
I said, "Go ahead."
He said, "Right in this same drug store," he said, "during the time of the depression, I was sitting here. My boy, which is now married and runs a drug store in another city," he said, "he was waiting on customers." And said, "People had..." Said, "You had to go to... You remember when you had to go get But I can't do it,' he said, 'because that we have a rule here that it's a cash-and-carry basis.' He said, 'We have to have it.'"

94 And said, "The young man walked up to my son, and said, 'I'm got an order here for... The doctor sent me down to get an order, rather, from the county agent here, to--to get some medicine. My wife needs it real bad.' And said, 'She just can't stand it no longer,' said, 'she is so sick. Doctor told me, "Get it right now and give it to her."' Said, 'I wonder if I could get the medicine, and give her the medicine, and she could sit down here?' And said, 'It's going to take me two or three hours, stand in that line, 'fore I can get my order for it.' Said, 'Wonder if you could give me the medicine now?'
"The young man said, 'Sir, I'd like to do that.' Said, 'I can't do it,' he said, 'because that we have a--a rule here, that, we, it's a cash-and-carry basis.' He said, 'We have to have it.'"
And said he was sitting back there reading the paper, elderly man. He said, "Wait a minute, son." Looked at that poor little woman, was holding like that. And so he said, "Go fill that order," and said, "Hand it here to me."
Said he took the prescription the doctor had give, and went over there and filled it. Said, "I filled it up, and thought, 'If she never pays it, all right. Don't make any difference.'"

95 Said, "I walked around to where she was at. I raised it over to give it to her hand." And said, "When I laid it in her hands, I looked up." Said,"Brother Branham, I don't know whether you believe this or not." Said, "I put it in the hands of the Lord Jesus." Said, "I seen Him standing there looking at me, and the blood running down his face, and scars upon his head."
Said, "I shut my eyes like that, kind of staggered, and I heard her husband say, 'Are you all right, doctor?'"
And he said, "Yes." Said, "I looked back, and the woman was holding the prescription." Said, "You believe that?"
I said, "Sure, I believe it. 'Insomuch as you've done it unto the least of these, my little ones, you have done it unto Me.'" A paradox, indeed.

96 Many of you brothers here has read the writings of saint ... of the saints of the early days, how that the Lord dealt with them. Paradox, how things happen. We believe in paradox. One of the... St. Martin was one I was trying to think of. See, he was a soldier. And in France it was ordered that he should follow his father's work. But he always kind of believed. His mother was a believer.
One cold day... He was a very humble man. They always furnished a man to polish his boots and keep him looking neat, like a soldier should. He polished his servant's boots. He didn't go to their traditions, and strains. He thought men were made equal.

97 So one cold day, he was standing by the gate of the city at Tours when he was going in. And said there laid an old beggar in the street (you've read it, no doubt many a time). There laid a beggar in the street, freezing to death---a real cold winter.
He was begging people ... come, "Will somebody give me a cloak? I'll freeze tonight. I can't lay out on this ground like this. Will somebody give me a coat?" Nobody. He said, "Please, somebody have mercy. An old man, I'm dying. I've served my time. I've done my best. Don't let me die. I'm freezing to death. Somebody wrap me up, will you?"
So he just stood back, St. Martin, looking. He wasn't a believer. He wasn't a Christian then. He hadn't accepted it. He just stood and watched. Nobody did it. When the crowds went on by, some of them plenty well to do it. He only had one coat, and that was his military coat. He pulled out his sword and cut it half in two, wrapped the old beggar up in it, and went on.
People laughed at him, going down the street, one piece of coat hanging on him. What a funny looking soldier they said it was---made fun of him.
That night, he was woke up in his sleep. He looked, standing beside of his bed. And there stood Jesus wrapped in that old piece of coat that he had wrapped the beggar in. Then he knowed. "Insomuch as you've done it unto the least of these, my little ones..." It was a paradox, his call.
He was a ... he was a messenger of that age, who stood for the scripture against all the wickedness of Catholicism in that day. God chose him. And He let him see Christ by a paradox.

98 Brethren, we may see paradox after paradox. The great paradox is coming ahead of us.
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound,
And time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair;
When the resurrection comes and we're caught up together to meet Him in the air. That'll be the final paradox---when we go to be with Him. Until then, let's be faithful servants to the Word of God, which is Christ. Can we pray.

99 Heavenly Father, we thank Thee this morning, for the blood that makes us brothers. We thank Thee for the Son of God who gave his life, that we might be one with Him in this great kingdom upon the earth, the kingdom of heaven that's to be established.
We're looking for that glad millennium day, when our blessed Lord shall come and catch his waiting bride away, the little bride tree. He is that tree that was in the garden of Eden, the bread of life. So is his little wife a tree, the bride tree of the last days. Where everything is tied to bring... But the great powers of God prunes the branches off, that the fruit might ripen. Grant it, Lord, that we can be included in that.
Give us eternal life. We have this one thing together while we're here in this city. We believe the Word of God. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe that He's not dead, but He lives and his Words of promise for the hour is now being manifested. This is the last hours. This is the last sign. The coming of the promised Son is at hand.

100 We see the world geographically. We see the signs: earthquakes in divers places, nations against nations. We see all the things that's predicted. We see fearful sights in the skies, men's hearts failing, flying saucers and so forth, that they can't explain---investigating judgments coming to the earth.
We see the atomic bombs hanging out yonder everywhere, and the great missiles can carry total destruction in an hour. We see the gasses hanging above us there, that would rain the fires down right out of the heaven and destroy the earth. But we see Jesus, also, who made the promise. And as we said, "this same Jesus that was taken up from You will come again in like manner, as you seen Him go into heaven." We're watching for that glad day to come.

101 Our hearts... Many of us here, Lord.
For, since little boys we put forth every effort that we knowed how, to serve you. Lord, don't let our eyes be blinded to this hour. Open my eyes, Lord, that I'll see every promise. May I be able to punctuate it with an "Amen," that it's so, everything that God has promised. Grant it, Lord.
Give us a great meeting. Bless these, my brothers and sisters here. Some of these little women standing here, grey-headed, who served and taken care of their husbands, while they worked out there in the fields, and... God, you'll reward them.
Those men who's fought to win the prize, and sailed through bloody seas, as we sit here this morning around this table, looking at one another. And our hair is turning grey, and we've battled a long time. And we may never meet at another breakfast. We don't know.

102 The coming of the Lord may be today, it may be tomorrow, may be next year. We don't know when it will be.
But there's one thing sure. We're promised that we'll meet at a supper in the skies. And the King shall come out and wipe all tears from our eyes and say, "Don't worry. It's all over now. Enter into the joys of the Lord that's been prepared for you since the foundation of the world," when we were ordained to be sons of God through Jesus Christ. O Father God, grant this.
May our hearts beat as one. And as I said a while ago to the little couple that was about to separate... God, as we separate from one another here, we found this one thing that we have in common. The Methodists, the Baptists, the United, the Assemblies, the Church of God---we all have one thing in common: Jesus Christ. We can't meet as organizations, and fuss out them creeds, and things of the church. But as brothers, we can meet under the blood of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. And there we have things in common.
And upon this common ground, Lord, I come to meet my brothers---men of like precious faith. May we together, in this coming week, work with all that's within us to see the glory of God brought back to the church again. We commit everything to you with ourselves. In Jesus' name, bless our efforts. Amen.

103 Bless you, my brethren. Brother Roy, do you have a word to say?
Just ... how infallible the Word is! Jesus was the Word. We agree on that. When his parents had forgotten Him and left Him down at the feast, and they had gone three days and they couldn't find Him, and they come back. They found Him in the temple discussing with the priests, and they was amazed at this kid. We have no record of Him going to school. But remember, He was just a boy twelve years old---about this high.
And what's the mother's statement? Now, no disregard to you Catholic people, if there's any in here, calling her the mother of God. How could she be the mother of God, see? She was an incubator that God used, not to... Look at her. If she's the mother of God, she actually had more wisdom than Him. Notice. When she's a mother, she gave Him life. She gave God life, see?

104 Look here. She said, "Your father and I have sought you day and night with tears." She discredited her first testimony. She called Joseph his father.
Now look at this twelve-year-old boy, not knowing what He said---He was just a boy. But He was the Word, see. He said "Know ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" See the Word correcting that error? See, she was giving testimony after He was raised up. It was all over now, see.
"Your father and I have sought you," going exactly what she said... She had conceived this child by the Holy Ghost; and then calling Joseph the father. And this little boy, twelve-year-old child---no wisdom at all---but just a twelve-year-old boy...
The Father didn't dwell in Him at that time, because He come on the day when He baptized Him. He saw the Spirit of God coming down, see. And when He... But look. This little twelve-year-old boy, being the Word... He was borned the anointed One, see, to be the anointed.
And here He was, "Know ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
She said, "Your father and I have been looking for you." If Joseph was his father, He'd have been with him on his business---making doors and houses.
But He was in the temple straightening out those organizations. "Know ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" See how the Word of God corrected that error, in that child? Amen. God bless you.