The Holy Spirit either fills or seals us

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The Holy Spirit wants to seal you as an individual

When you were born, God sealed your hands with unique fingerprints.

A seal is personal for an individual.

The Holy Spirit.  What is the  Difference between “Sealed” and “Filled” by the Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is eternal Life.

“Eternal” is something that we limited humans cannot understand. We feel that everything must start somewhere. Eternal never started and it never ends. So, we find “eternal” a baffling idea.

“Life” is something that we cannot comprehend. It is a spirit and we do not know what a spirit is. Life is invisible and trying to analyze anything that we cannot see means that we are basically guessing.

Then we come to another complicating factor.

Your life is the same as your mind because it is your life that makes you able to think.

ROMANS 8:27   And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,

EPHESIANS 4:23   And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

The words “mind” and “spirit” are used interchangeably.

“Mind of the Spirit” and “spirit of the mind”.

Thus, the mind and spirit must mean the same thing.

Your spirit operates in your brain cells which produce your thoughts and is called your mind.

At that level, you cannot tell the difference between your spirit and your mind.

But now we hit a major point that Christians overlook.

ISAIAH 55:8   For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

God’s thinking is far above what we can understand.

We tend to think that the way we think is the way that God thinks.

God’s ways of doing things are far different from what we think should be done.

And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. So, the Holy Spirit is God Himself.

God is Holy and God is a Spirit.

“Holy Spirit” is the most concise description of God that you can get.

So, we cannot expect to understand the way that the Holy Spirit thinks.

ROMANS 8:10   … but the Spirit is life

Thus, the Spirit is also life.

And life is something that we know very little about because life is invisible.

Before we seek to learn more about the Holy Spirit we must remember that we are dealing with an invisible God Who is far, far cleverer than us. So, we must not try to put the Holy Spirit into a limited box and then claim, “This is what God always does”.

Human thinking has its limits. We must be careful not to try to chain up God so that we can try to fit Him into our limited ideas.

A Seal denotes something that is the personal possession of someone.

Each person in the olden days had their own personal seal.

Consider your human body.

JOB 37:7   He sealeth up the hand of every man;

Every person has a unique fingerprint.

This shows that we belong to God and God deals with each individual differently. None of our bodies are identical to another person.

Even the left-hand-side and right-hand-side of your face are different.

Look at Einstein’s face.   The top picture is made up of two identical left-hand-sides of his face.

The bottom picture is made up of two identical right-hand-sides of his face.

So God fits our human bodies together in totally different ways from what we would expect.

How much more differently does God fit a different portion of His Spirit into each of our bodies?

Each Christian receives a different portion of God’s Spirit because God has a different role for each person in His body, the church.

I CORINTHIANS 12:28   And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

Notice the different ministries.

No mention of pastors. They were not that important in setting up the early church.

God did not want each local church dominated by one man.

I CORINTHIANS 12:29   Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?

:30     Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?

Not everyone can do the same things.

Not everybody who receives the Holy Ghost will speak in tongues

Some can teach and explain the Scripture while others can pray for the sick with great success.

The important point is that we are all different.

But our differences should combine to produce a body of believers that can glorify God in many ways.

God builds you up to be an individual dedicated to the Scriptures

There is not one individual who can do it all.

God crafts each part of your body differently because each body-part performs a different function for the benefit of the whole body.

We are not all meant to be the same. We do not all have the same testimony.

I CORINTHIANS 12:17   If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

Our eye is a miracle in order to be able to see the way it does. But it must not get too big.

In the dark of night, our ear warns us better than the eye that an enemy is approaching.

At mealtimes, it is the taste buds in the mouth and the smell sensors in the nose that make the food taste good.

So, God wants to fill us with His Spirit so that each one can occupy a unique position in His Body of believers that is just meant for you.

The church wants to turn us into identical "cookie-cutter" clones of the pastor.

Like a “cookie-cutter” cuts out identical pieces of pastry to make identical cookies or biscuits.

Man-made beliefs dumb us down and make us stop thinking Scripturally.

Notice how many churches go for an identical dress code.

The Holy Spirit baptism is a unique experience for the individual that does not have to be the same as what happened to others.

MATTHEW 16:13   When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

When Jesus asked what other people thought, the disciples were all ready to reply. We know what other people say. We just do not have a personal opinion of our own.

MATTHEW 16:14  And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

An irony of life is that we are very concerned about what other people think of us, yet we hesitate to think for ourselves. We prefer to go with the flow of popular opinion. Even when popular opinion produces different answers.

MATTHEW 16:15   He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

Jesus then put them on a spot. What did they themselves think? And they were scared to answer.

With one exception, Peter.

:16     And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Peter was not scared of public opinion. He had a revelation of Who Jesus was.

He was prepared to speak about his own personal revelation.

The Holy Spirit baptism happened in different ways

Let us consider some of the cases when God's Spirit came down.

When Solomon dedicated his Temple, God’s Spirit came down and lit the fire on the altar and filled the room so that nobody could minister. But that only happened once.

That symbolized the Day of Pentecost when God came down and dedicated His church in a once-only event.

There is no specific emotion to indicate the Holy Ghost baptism. It happens to different people in different ways.

John the Baptist was in his mother’s womb when he received the Holy Ghost.

Obviously, John could not speak but he leaped for joy.

LUKE 1:41   And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

:42   And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

Elizabeth did not speak in tongues because she and Mary were cousins and both spoke the same language.

John's father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied.

There was no need for him to speak in tongues as all the people present were Jews who all spoke the same language.

LUKE 1:67   And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, ...

God was using these examples to teach us that the Holy Ghost baptism is different for different people.

Then Peter and John laid hands on the Samaritans, who being partly Jew and partly Gentile, spoke the same language as the Jews. So once again there was no speaking in tongues.

Simon the sorcerer did not hear anything, he saw something happen. But we are not told what he saw happen.

The important issue is that it was a different group and something different happened.
ACTS 8:17   Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

:18   And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,

Speaking in tongues occurred when different nationalities that spoke different languages were present. Then the person who spoke in tongues spoke in a strange language that he or she did not know, but the listeners were able to understand what was being said in their language.

ACTS 2:4   And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

:5   And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

:6   Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

They did not publically speak in an unknown tongue that nobody understood.

The test of a Spirit-filled person is:

JOHN 16:13 When He the Spirit of truth is come He will guide you into all truth.

A Spirit-filled person is willing to learn the truth of Scripture.

Not everyone is a Bible teacher.

Thus not everyone will puzzle out the mysteries in Scripture. That is why God put teachers in the body of believers.

A Spirit-filled person will recognize the truth when a Bible teacher explains it.

Not everyone is the end-time prophet. But do we recognize the revelation of the Bible mysteries when we hear them explained? That is the main point.

The Holy Ghost is like a magnet inside you. The Mysteries are like bits of magnetic material in our hearts that begin to respond when the Holy Spirit moves.

It is the response that is important.

Jesus preached the parable of the seed being sown.

The good ground in the parable is the human heart in which the seed grew and produced more seed. Some produced 30, some 60, some 100. We do not compare with each other as long as our understanding of Scripture is increasing all the time. As long as there was a response and God knew that we had tried our hardest.

MATTHEW 13:23   But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

The secret of success is to be willing to hear the Scriptures and wanting to understand what they mean.

The Holy Spirit changes our attitude to life and the Scriptures

Brother Branham, in the next quote, was speaking of the Holy Spirit that formed a mystic Light that looked like a Star to guide the wise men to Jesus. Nobody else saw the Star. It was a personal experience for those wise men.

1963 -12 22.   GOD’S GIFTS ALWAYS FIND THEIR PLACES

And many here ... raised their hands that they wanted to receive the Holy Spirit.

... May that same light come into every heart, here tonight, that’s setting present.

There may be no emotion. There may not be this, that, and maybe no one else would know it, just like the wise men.

But may something be settled in these men, women, boys, and girl’s hearts tonight, that that gift of God will anoint their life.

From this night on, they’ll be changed.

They won’t be no more like they used to be. They’ll be a changed creature from now on.

May they, like the wise men, turn aside and not go back to the fashions of the world and Herod, in the king’s palace.

“But being warned of God, they turned aside”.  Grant it Lord.

The wise men met Jesus and then went home another way.

They symbolized that they walked differently. That is what counted.

The change in their lives was the proof or evidence of their experience with Jesus.

GENESIS 32:24   And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

Jacob had to wrestle with God. God’s thinking is so different from our own that we have to wrestle with God until we can inwardly turn our thinking to face God. Only then will we fit in with His thinking.

GENESIS 32:25   And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

To see the face of God requires the flesh to suffer.

GENESIS 32:30   And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

“Peniel” means Face of God.  Jacob means He who struggles with God.

GENESIS 32:31   And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

Jacob “halted”. He limped. He walked differently.

This is the sign of having met God.

“Peniel” to “Penuel”.  The “ i ” becomes a “u”.

A play on letters. We turn a corner

When we look inwardly at "self" we do not like what we see.

We must change from our obsession with self until we look outwards to be of help and benefit to others.

Turn. Look away from “I”  (self) and look towards helping “U” (you, others).

It is not the drama or emotions of an experience that counts. Although that may be present.

It is how much we have changed and our desire never to go back to what we were.

Keep seeking the truth.

Keep desiring a deeper understanding.

Keep desiring a closer walk with God.

We may or may not be able to puzzle out the truth.

The Holy Spirit enables us to recognize Bible truth when we hear it

62-0319  THE  END  TIME  SIGN  SEED

You become borned again of the Spirit of God, and your spirit will bear record with every Word God's written here, and every promise that He's give will make itself manifested in you. The Spirit of God will come and live in you. You are Christ's body, the representation of Himself here on earth. If you haven't got that, if you can't believe for Divine healing...

65-1204  THE  RAPTURE

You say, "I got the baptism, the Holy Ghost." That don't mean that you're saved, not by a long ways.

Looky here. You are a triune being. You are. Inside this little fellow here is the soul, the next is the spirit, and next is the body. Now, you got five senses in this body, to contact your earthly home. They don't contact the rest of it. You got five senses of the spirit, here: love and conscience, and so forth, of that. But in here is where you live. That's what you are.

Our five physical senses of the body are seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling.

Our five spiritual senses are imagination, memory, feelings, reason, and conscience.

But there is only one avenue to the soul and that is self-will (shown in yellow).

The spirit is life and the soul is wrapped up in the bundle of life (or spirit).

I SAMUEL 25:29   … but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life…

Only one thing can live in the soul. Either faith or doubt. They cannot exist together.

But human self-will, being what it is, fluctuates between faith (believing the Word) and doubt (unbelief in God’s Word).

When self-will is the only entry to our souls then we cannot be sealed into God's Kingdom.

Why?

We, humans, tend to believe parts of God’s Word but we easily do not believe other parts of God’s Word that do not suit us.

Under stress or temptation, self-will allows doubt back into our souls even if we have the best of intentions with our desire to serve God.

Then our soul looks like this.

Any tiny root of doubt or unbelief in Scripture, in our souls, and we are in trouble with God, even if we have been saved.

Doubt or unbelief will take us into great Tribulation as they have no place in Heaven.

If we cannot regard the 1769 version of the King James Bible as being perfectly infallible and the Absolute truth, then we have unbelief in our souls and we are heading for trouble.

Human self-will is a valued item as it stops us from becoming robots. But at the same time, it is the weak link in our faith as it easily degenerates into unbelief when we are stressed.

The secret of being right with God is when we, of our own free-will, surrender our free-will to God and ask Him to replace it with God’s Will.

Everything we have is given to us by God. The only thing that we have produced by ourselves is self-will.

As a result, our self-will is the only offering that we can make to God. Asking Him to take it and destroy it because self-will will never get us into Heaven.

Then we look like this:

I CORINTHIANS 15:31     I die daily.

When God's Will is the only opening to your soul, then only are you sealed into God's Kingdom.

What are the conditions which will allow God’s Will to seal our souls so that only faith in God’s Word lives in our souls?

JEREMIAH 31:13    … and their soul shall be as a watered garden;

The Holy Spirit is symbolized as water. The soul is symbolized as a garden.

JOHN 7:38   He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

:39    (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive:

So, the Spirit is poured out onto the soul to water the soul.

Thus, the entire born-again experience hinges on one major factor:

If your soul is a garden, then what seed have you planted in your soul?

LUKE 8:11   Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

God’s Spirit which produces God’s Will only seals your soul when the seed of God’s Word is in your soul.

Then the seed of God’s Word grows in your soul and that influence will enable the Holy Spirit to produce the fruits of the Spirit in you.

GALATIANS 5:22   But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

:23     Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Each seed germinates to produce its own body.

I CORINTHIANS 15:38   But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

The seed of God’s Word, when germinated by the water of the Spirit will develop the fruits of the Spirit in your mind together with an understanding of His Word.

That will bring your motives, your thinking, and the actions of your body under subjection to His Will.

God will then make you a part of His Body, His spiritual Temple or true church that has been built up over 2000 years during the seven church ages.

The three basic steps of getting saved (Justification), getting cleaned up and living holy (Sanctification), and the Holy Ghost baptism (God controlling you) are basically God choosing a human vessel, cleaning him or her up, and then filling the person for useful service. All this usually happens in a church environment and leaves the person exposed to church influences which are a mixture of right and wrong, good and bad. Churches are seriously wrong over original sin, the Book of Daniel, and the Book of Revelation.

Why did God require the blood of an animal to atone for sin? The churches know that this is the truth but they cannot explain why.

Why is a pastor the head of the church today? It never was that way in the New Testament where the word "pastors" is only mentioned once.

The Godhead and water baptism are completely misunderstood by the host of Trinity believers.

Then comes the crucial part.

Does the individual enable God to guide them out of church traditions so that they can be restored to a deeper understanding of Scriptural truth, last known to the early apostolic church?

JOHN 8:31   Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

:32    And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Freedom from the sin of unbelief and human error in the churches will only come to those who can follow truth through the Bible.

God is desperate to find individuals to whom He can teach Bible truth.

REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;
:20    Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

In the end, Jesus stands outside the church and appeals to individuals, not to the group.

The deeper, revealed truth is not in the church anymore.

Once people are saved, churches can only teach them deceptive human opinions instead of the revelation of the deeper Bible mysteries.

Churches, dominated by the opinions of the pastors, are the biggest barrier that prevents people from finding the deeper truth of Scripture.

REVELATION 18:4   And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people,

Another voice. Not a human person speaking but the inner conviction of the Holy Spirit.

The final move of the Holy Spirit is to bring us out of the church-herd-instinct that creates a fantasy of safety. As if huddling in some church group is God's final plan for mankind. That is an illusion, not a solution.

Remember there are 45000 different types of church and denominational groups. Take your pick. They are all flawed and thus all equally unsafe for any saved Christian who is seeking to escape from the coming Tribulation.

The Holy Ghost baptism enables God to guide you

If you have the seed Word of God in your soul, then the Holy Spirit baptism will unleash your ability to understand God's Word. And that will then enable you to find your place or position in God's Big Picture.

Then you will fit into God's Plan for the end-time church.

The Holy Ghost baptism is not the end of God's plan for you as that is when God takes control of your life.

Only then can God begin to guide you and use you for His purpose.

Then God can restore you back to the beliefs of the first church age. Only then will you be ready for the Coming of the Lord.

First, you must be Spirit-filled when Christ, as your personal Capstone,  seals off the seed Word in your soul in order to bring your body into submission to the Word of God. This gives you the desire for a deeper understanding of God's Word.

Then, as the next step, the Holy Spirit guides you into all truth as the seed Word grows in your soul so that you can find your place in God's great spiritual Pyramid. This is the spiritual body of believers that has been built up over the last 2000 years. Each present-day believer must find his or her personal place in God's supernatural structure that consists of the entire church from all seven church ages.

Only then will each believer be ready for the Second Coming of Jesus.

The Holy Ghost baptism is the Capstone on your personal life if you have the Seed Word in your heart.

The Second Coming of Jesus is the Capstone on the entire resurrected church of seven church ages.

MATTHEW 7:19   Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

:20   Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

MATTHEW 7:21   Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

The will of the Father is to obey the Word of God.

Calling God Lord is not enough. You must also obey Scripture.

:22   Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

:23   And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

They had the Holy Spirit in order to perform the supernatural.

Thus they could claim the Holy Ghost baptism.

But they were not doing God's Will.

They had access to God's power but not to the revealed truth of His Word. So God rejected them.

Pentecost had a great revival in Azusa Street in Los Angeles in America between 1906 and 1910. The revival spread but by 1917 they had denominated and just focused on the impressive supernatural which enabled them to make a name for themselves. They established their own denominational doctrines and rejected the revealed truths of Scripture that William Branham established between 1947-1965.

So, in our age, God says that if you have supernatural power but you do not believe the revealed truth, then you are Tribulation fodder.

Why?

If you do not know the revealed truths of Scripture then it means you have not allowed a Word Seed to grow in your soul.

Being filled with the Spirit is not a guarantee of success as the Spirit is the water that is poured out into your soul.

It all depends on the seed that is in your soul

If it is a tare seed or weed seed, the Holy Spirit will make that wrong seed germinate which will simply increase your errors and delusions.

PROVERBS 1:30   They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

:31   Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

When we forsake Scripture we set off on a journey to nowhere.

JEREMIAH 6:19   Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.

Churches interpret Scripture wrongly. Any Bible error is a lie.
PROVERBS 18:21   Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

JEREMIAH 9:8    Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.

The antichrist horse rider of Revelation 6:1-2 is a bowman who has no visible arrow. His tongue shoots out religious deception like sharp arrows. That is far more dangerous than a natural arrow because his lies, like an arrow, penetrate the soul and stick there in the form of unbelief.

HOSEA 10:13   Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.

People are fooled by big churches. Safety in numbers. Depending on impressive preachers with their mighty reputations.

Instead of being Scriptural
JEREMIAH 17:10   I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

The reins guide a horse. The reins of the human heart are the motives that steer us through life.

Choose the majority and go with the flow to keep popular. That is a huge mistake.

ISAIAH 66:4   I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.

God will tangle up their thinking with increasingly weird ideas.

MATTHEW 5:45   … for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

God’s rain or Spirit can fall on the unjust and on the just.

Gideon was God’s man. Yet God had to speak to him through two heathen Midianites. These two sinners were given a gift of a prophetic dream and its interpretation.

JUDGES 7:13  And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.

:14     And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.

:15     And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.

In our day when Truth has been revealed it is not enough to demonstrate supernatural power if you do not understand the truth of Scripture. God’s Will is contained in His Word. We need to understand His Word.

The supernatural is wonderful.

But those who received God’s Spirit into their lives but never used the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth will be rejected and thrown into great Tribulation, even if they were saved.

Believing church error that is unscriptural when the truth has been revealed outside your church, means you are in love with your church not with the Truth. That is iniquity. Knowing that something is wrong but doing it anyway.

65-1204  THE  RAPTURE

Didn't Jesus say, "The rain falls on the just and the unjust"? Put a cocklebur out here, and a wheat out there, and pour water on them, and keep them under fertilize and things like that, won't they both live by the same water? Sure. Well, what is it? One of them will bear a cocklebur, 'cause that's all he is. The cocklebur will raise his hands and shout just the same as the wheat.

Don't the Bible say, "In the last days, there shall come false Christs"? Not "false Jesus," now.

"False Christs," anointed ones, falsely anointed to the Word; denominational anointed, but not to the Word.

For, the Word will bear record of Itself. It don't need nothing else. It'll bear record to Itself.

"And there will come false anointed ones." You got my tape on that.

Oh, if you'd call one of them, say, "Oh, you, are you a Jesus?"

"Oh, certainly not." They wouldn't stand for that.

But when it comes to an "Oh, glory! I got the anointing!" And it's the genuine anointing. Remember, Caiaphas had It, too, and prophesied.

So did Balaam have It, and prophesied.

But that don't have nothing to do with this, inside.

Unless that was God's seed, His gene from the beginning, predestinated, you're finished.

I don't care how much you shout, speak with tongues, run, shout. That has nothing to do with it.

A cocklebur can count just as much as any the rest of them. I've seen heathens raise, and shout, and speak in tongues, and drink blood out of a human skull, and call on the Devil. See? Any of them sensations and things, forget it.

It's your heart in that Word, and that's Christ. Bring in there, and watch It make Itself known, just as It opens up like any other seed, and declares Itself for the age It's living in.

The Holy Spirit in you is only effective when you allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the full Bible truth to you.

When the Spirit reveals some truth that your church does not believe, and you reject that truth, then you cross a line.

Jesus told us what the evidence of the Holy Spirit baptism is.

JOHN 16:13   Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:

The Holy Spirit only SEALS you if you have a seed Word in your soul that the Spirit can germinate by revealing the mysteries of Scripture to you.

65-1207  LEADERSHIP

Many of you think, "I got the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I'm going to Heaven." That don't mean one thing that you're going to Heaven. No, sir. You can have the baptism of the Holy Ghost every hour in your life, and still be lost and go to hell. The Bible says so. Uh-huh, that's exactly right.

This person was FILLED with the Spirit but the only seed in his or her soul was a weed seed that could never enter Heaven.

65-1207 LEADERSHIP

When your spirit's anointed, It's the real, genuine Holy Ghost, and you could still be a devil.

"Oh," you say, "Brother Branham!"
False prophets! The Bible said, "In the last days there'd be false prophets." Jesus said, "There shall rise false christs." Not "false Jesuses," now, nobody stands still for that; but "false christs."

Christ means "the anointed ones." Falsely anointed; they are anointed, but they are false at the bottom of it, and do great signs and wonders, speak in tongues, dance in the Spirit, preach the Gospel.
Judas Iscariot did it!  Caiaphas prophesied! Balaam, the hypocrite! Sure, done all the signs, everything, all the religious moves.

But, you see, you put a cocklebur seed and a wheat seed in the same bed and pour the water down upon them and anoint them, they'll both rejoice. They'll both grow by it, the same water.

"The sun shines on the just and the unjust, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust, but by their fruits you shall know them."

If you are unscriptural the Holy Spirit cannot help you

What the Spirit does in you is basically irrelevant if you are allowing an unscriptural seed to develop in your soul.

Then your thinking will become unscriptural and you have lost the narrow way.

MATTHEW 7:14   Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

MATTHEW 20:16   …for many be called, but few chosen.

God calls many but chooses few because those who are called do not remain faithful to the Word and they head off in some other direction.

Distracted by the circumstances of their lives, they take their eyes off the goal which is always to be Scriptural.

REVELATION 17:14   These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

God will not choose us if we do not abide faithful to His calling.

The only way that the Holy Spirit can seal us is to restore us back to the beliefs of the early New Testament church of the apostles.

The beliefs that were lost in the Dark Ages.

Why is it essential that we should return to the first church age beliefs?

The seed that is harvested has to be identical to the seed that was planted.

All the life (Holy Spirit) that was in the plant (church) is focused on producing a final or last seed that is identical to the first seed.

REVELATION 1:11   Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

The connection here is obvious.

The Holy Spirit established the true Word of God in the first Ephesian church age thanks to the valiant efforts of the apostles.

In the end, that same seed Word would be restored and reaped in the last church age of Laodicea.

But there is a harsh reality in nature.   A seed must be buried in the ground and die before it can bring forth more seeds.

JOHN 12:24   Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

So, Jesus had to die to give us Life.

The first church of the apostles had to be killed by the pagan Roman Empire and buried under the dirt of the Roman Catholic church in the Dark Ages before the Reformation of Martin Luther could start to bring forth new Life.

Joel prophesied of four generations that would lose the truth

This represented the first four church ages.

JOEL 1:3   Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

Parents. Children. Grandchildren. Great-grandchildren.

Four generations.

JOEL 1:4    That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.

The main work of the Holy Spirit in the first four church ages was to oppose the increasing influence of unscriptural beliefs that infiltrated the church.

The Holy Spirit has two main functions. Helping individuals to grow and find their place in the Body of the Lord, the 2000 years of church history.

Then the Big Picture. Bringing to pass the Plan of God in each church age. That has nothing to do with any individual's personal plans or ambitions. Many missionaries died of disease or were killed by the heathens that they sought to convert. For many of them it was a brutally dangerous task but they willingly gave up their careers to enter the mission fields. As each one died, they passed the lamp of the Gospel on to the next volunteers who willingly put God's Will above their own personal wishes. Many paid a tragic price but the missionary age remains a golden chapter in church history that still commands our admiration. They died to spread God's love to the unsaved. Life grows out of death. Those missionaries certainly had eternal Life, as did the tens of millions of believers who were slaughtered like oxen in the terrible Dark Ages by the Roman Catholic church. Most never even knew what part of the church growth they were born into. They simply believed and bravely did their best despite the often horrific circumstances.

The seven candles on the candlestick represent the seven church ages.

The central lamp represents the start of the first church age of Ephesus from about AD 33 to AD 70 when most of the apostles were still active before they were killed.

Then the dimming light shows how this early truth was lost in the first 4 church ages until the Light was almost extinguished during the Dark Ages.

The seven church ages are also represented by the seven cities in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3.

The Holy Spirit had to try to stop the collapse of truth as ambitious men took over the churches and docile Christians submitted to the human opinions of the self-elevated church leaders rather than to Scripture.

The road from Ephesus to Laodicea moves off in the wrong direction, symbolizing the truth that was getting lost. The furthest away from the original is Pergamos, the third church age that had the Nicaean Council in AD 325. They changed Scripture by adding the words “Trinity” and “God the Son” and then removed the name Jesus Christ in water baptism.  They also removed Jesus as the name of Almighty God as they could not find one name for three Persons, so the church ended up serving a nameless Triune God. Then they removed adult water baptism and replaced it with sprinkling babies.

A major disaster was saying that “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” was actually the name of God. As if three titles were a name.

Thus deceived, they lost the name of God because they did not know what this name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost was.

REVELATION 2:13   I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is:

This was the seat of Satan. The church agreed to add ideas to the Bible and remove other ideas from the Bible. The Bible was no longer regarded as the Absolute and infallible Word of God.

So, the Holy Spirit endured seeing people forsake the written Word of God and replacing it with clever arguments that are not written in Scripture.

When the Holy Spirit began to restore the truth, a great emphasis would be placed on just believing what is written in the Bible.

JOHN 16:13    Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are secondary. You may or may not perform miracles. But if the Holy Spirit cannot teach you the truth from the written Bible, then all the miracles that you perform cannot prepare you for the Coming of the Lord.

Moses used God’s power to fill Egypt with frogs.

But Pharaoh’s magicians did likewise.

EXODUS 8:7   And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.

They performed a miracle but that did not mean that they were right with God.

Believing in the Word of God is what saves us.

LUKE 8:12   Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved

Getting us to reject Scripture is Satan's most dangerous weapon.

Thyatira was the fourth age of losing the truth.

For 900 years they organized man-made beliefs into a rigid church organization that crushed all opposition.

Tens of millions of dissenters were killed. The Popes degenerated into tyranny and disgusting lifestyles. The true seed of the first church age was now buried under the filth and dirt of the Roman Catholic church during the long night of the Dark Ages.

This tragic mess was the end-product of the church deviating away from the Word of God.

So the main thrust of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to get the people restored to Scriptural truth.

Palmerworm and cankerworm are subtle, mysterious spirits in the church

The first four church ages saw Satan attack the church in four different ways or stages.

JOEL 1:4    That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.

Nobody really knows what a palmerworm or a cankerworm actually are. They represent subtle spirits that infiltrated the church.

Nobody knows what Leviathan and Behemoth are. They are two mystery beasts mentioned in Job.

They represent the two mystery beasts or powers that rose up from the sea and from the land in Revelation Chapter 13.

The Roman Catholic church, as the beast from the sea which represented crowded Europe, rose mysteriously to power over the barbarians who had conquered the pagan Roman Empire.

Then North America rose silently and almost unnoticed amidst its sparsely populated plains (the beast from the land) to become a superpower that united the Protestant churches into a confederation of churches with its headquarters in New York. This religious organization formed the image to the beast.

So, these two mystery beasts from the Old Testament Book of Job just represented the strong but mysterious forces that would arise during the history of the New Testament church.

Stage 1 saw Satan attack small local churches that were ruled by local elders.

He wanted to replace this with a big church ruled by a single man.

Equally, like Leviathan and Behemoth, the palmerworm represents the silent and mysterious growth of an elevated Aaronic priesthood of New Testament preachers that dominated and oppressed (conquered) the congregation (laity). Believe what the preacher tells you, or else. Nicolaitans.  God hates that spirit.

All Christians that are saved are priests. That makes us all equal.

I PETER 2:9   But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,

No priest is above another priest. Only the High Priest (Jesus) is above a priest.

REVELATION 2:6   But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

The early church was wisely ruled by the example and the teachings of the apostles.

The Roman Emperor Nero launched a vicious persecution between AD 64 – 68 and most of the apostles were killed.

This elevation of human church leaders happened after the deaths of most of the apostles in the “silent years” between AD 70 and AD 120. We have almost no recorded letters or writings from those years.

History was written much later when many wrong legends, like Peter being in Rome, had already been developed. What we call the history of those 50 years is basically when later writers tell us what they had heard. We lack the hard evidence of the actual letters and writings of those times. The well-known Polycarp died in AD 155 aged about 87 and we only have one epistle of his, written to the Philippians. Even that epistle seems to be two separate portions joined together.

Somehow, after AD 70, Bishops had secretly usurped power and rose up until each one ruled a city.

The cankerworm represents the mysterious move in the third church age at the Council of Nicaea that lured the people away from Scripture as the church claimed the power to add unscriptural words and beliefs to the Bible. Then, equally mysteriously, the people were fooled into removing certain beliefs from Scripture until, unnoticed, they lost the name of God by turning God into a Trinity. You cannot find one name for three Persons.

The error started with the mysterious palmerworm, symbolic of a deceiving spirit.

In AD 70 the Roman general Titus destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem. By that time most of the apostles had been killed. Thomas had moved away to India where he was killed by the Brahmin priests.

From AD 70 to about AD 120 has a veil of silence drawn over those years. There are almost no writings by the Christian people. All we know from those dates is what later people wrote about them.

One of the best-known Christians is Irenaeus. We are not sure when he was born nor when he died. (So uncertain are our sources). He lived approximately from AD 130 to AD 202. So, if he began writing when he was about 30, then he was writing from about AD 160, which is 90 years after the apostles had mostly been killed by AD 70.

Ignatius of Antioch is said by Eusebius (who wrote in AD 324) to have been killed in AD 107 or 108, but Eusebius gives no reasons for choosing this date. Some modern scholars suggested that his death was more likely around AD 140. We only have the last seven letters that Ignatius wrote but none of them are dated with a year.

But Ignatius is the first writer to claim that the bishop of a city stands in the place of God.

That is why later writers, anxious to maintain the myth that a Bishop was always in charge of a city, pushed the unknown date of the 7 letters of Ignatius backward by about 30 years

The palmerworm is a mysterious insect and so is the cankerworm. We do not really know what they are.

So, in the silent time after AD 70, after the deaths of most of the apostles, somehow a bishop mysteriously emerged as the head of the church in that city. This was unknown to the early church.

John the Revelator died about AD 100. Then there were no apostles left to guide the church and keep a check on error.

So, Ignatius was free to spread his error about bishops replacing God in the church.

The city of Philippi had many bishops.

PHILIPPIANS 1:1   Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons

When Paul writes of bishops, then he does not also mention elders.

Elders and bishops are the same. An elder is the person, bishop is his office.

REVELATION 2:6   But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN CHURCH AGES   CHAPTER 5

Nicolaitanism destroys those precepts and instead separates the ministers from the people and makes the leaders overlords instead of servants.

Now this doctrine actually started as a deed in the first age. It appears that the problem lay in two words: 'elders' (presbyters) and 'overseers' (bishops). Though Scripture shows that there are several elders in each church, some began (Ignatius among them) to teach that the idea of a bishop was one of preeminence or authority and control over the elders.

Now the truth of the matter is the word 'elder' signifies who the person is, while the word 'bishop' signifies the office of the same man. The elder is the man. Bishop is the office of the man. 'Elder' always has and always will refer simply to a man's chronological age in the Lord. He is an elder, not because he is elected or ordained, etc., but because he IS OLDER. He is more seasoned, trained, not a novice, reliable because of experience and long standing proof of his Christian experience.:

Stage 2 represents the second church age that started about AD 170.

JOEL 1:4    That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.

Joel refers to this second stage of demonology as locusts that are very destructive.

This symbolizes the violence of persecution from the pagan Roman Empire. One historian claims that about 3 million Christians were killed by the Roman Empire during the first two church ages.

There was also the spiritual destruction caused by elevated human leadership.

The destruction of Scriptural local churches run by elders because the elevation of bishops created man-made church systems.

Marcus Aurelius who died in AD 180 organized the persecution of Christians as the second church age started around AD 170. Various emperors persecuted Christians until Diocletian organized the Great Persecution between AD 303 and 313. He attempted to destroy all Bibles and Christian literature. That is why it is very difficult to get hold of original Bible documents that were written before AD 400.

But the violent persecutions scattered the Christians and this saved certain documents as they were too widely scattered to be all destroyed.

The third church age began around AD 312 when Constantine came to power and stopped the persecution of Christians. The Christians were so thankful that they allowed him to dominate the Council of Nicaea and introduce the Trinity doctrine as well as giving his political support to the Roman Catholic church. This error was like a canker or cancer that destroyed the spirituality of the church from within.

62-0422  THE  RESTORATION OF  THE  BRIDE  TREE

But the third stage of him was a cankerworm. Hum! That's got a bad name, to start with, the cankerworm. What does a cankerworm do? It goes into the bark. That's the lifeline, there. Yes, sir. It goes into the bark and it destroys the covering of the tree. The covering!

What is religion? Covering. That's what the word religion means, "a covering."

So, this little cankerworm, after he got amongst the congregation, got them all dignified; then he took all the fellowship away from them, in the form of the locust; and now he comes around and takes their very religion and makes dogmas out of it, right, sets up unorthodox words. Forms himself a religion, and gets a bunch of men together and put a creed down there. He takes the very religion, strips it off of God's Tree, very bark that bears the sap that comes up in It, takes it away. Cankerworm! Do you see that insect? That's exactly. That cankerworm, that was Rome in that early church.

…          Notice when they got back, when these saints of God trying to hold up that Word, Rome come right in, and accepted dogmas, instead. Now let's just see what she did, some of her false doctrines, what she done.

Water baptism. Where they were commissioned... Peter said, on the Day of Pentecost, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, the Word of God, "Repent every one of you and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins."

What did Rome do with it? Turned it around, and said, "Be baptized, the name of the 'Father, Son, Holy Ghost,'" making it a creed, not a Doctrine of the Bible. What did he do? That's that cankerworm, eating. "Sprinkling," instead of immersing, "in the name of Father..."

"Father, Son, Holy Ghost" is no name. There's no such a thing. "Father" is not a name, "Son" is not a name, and "Holy Ghost" is not a name.

… The next thing that the cankerworm did, it taken away the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Cause, as long as you're going to have that Holy Ghost, It's going to shed light on that Word, as long as you'll do that.

So, they had to do it different.

The cankerworm opposed the truth of Scripture.

So the Holy Spirit will always be emphasizing the infallible and Absolute truth of the Bible.

This was the third church age of Pergamos. The city was called Pergamum but the Bible makes this the only city of the seven cities in Revelation to get a Greek ending of -os. Why?

The Trinity doctrine was introduced at the Council of Nicaea.

For the first time, an unscriptural word “Trinity” was introduced. This had to be supported by more unscriptural terms. “God the Son”, “God the Holy Spirit”, “Second Person of the Godhead”, “One God in three Persons”, “Father and Son are of the same essence”.  (Essence is an impressive Greek word that is not in the Bible. "Essence" has no real spiritual meaning. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. Thus it does not represent truth). They also claimed that "Father and Son are of the same substance". This sounds strange as God the Father is a Spirit and the Son was flesh and blood. Very different substances. Thus, by using unscriptural ideas, people get entangled in an illusion of knowledge that is not a solution.

The precision of the Greek words like "three-in-one" (three distinct species) and "eternal-Sonship"  and "Father and Son being co-equal" enabled the Trinity doctrine to be established using terms that are not in the Bible.

The cankerworm, was a mysterious, unscriptural spirit that conquered the church.

In the process, God lost His name. Three distinct species became three distinct Persons. Three Persons cannot have one name. The third Person of the Godhead (an unscriptural statement) is the Holy Spirit Who has no name in the Bible. Only two of the three People in the Godhead have names?

If the Father's name is Jehovah, that name is never mentioned in the New Testament. Trinitarians cannot explain why.

The other aspect that helped to establish error is that the Greeks were brilliant in defense of error.

The communion bread became a round wafer as the symbol of the Egyptian sun god which was not broken but placed on a person’s tongue. Sun god worshipers never broke the circular bread “wafer” as it was a symbol of the sun god. Only the priest drank the wine as this elevated him above the congregation. Nicolaitan. The elevation of a man above the laity or congregation.

Thus a major function of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to learn the truth from the Bible.

The Bible is the only antidote to the Devil who has introduced so much error into the third church age.

So, the evidence of the Holy Spirit in our day is our ability to understand the truth of the Bible by breaking away from the wrong church traditions and teachings.

By about AD 350 the bishop of Rome Julius I introduced Christmas on 25 December, the birthday of the sun god.

At the Nicaean Council the crucifixion was fixed on Good Friday.

Jesus died on a full moon, so it would not be a Friday every year.

The full moon happens on a different day each month because the lunar (or moon) calendar is only 354 days long and they have to add in seven extra months during a 19-year cycle.

In addition, Jesus had to be three nights in the depth of the earth.

So, He had to die on a Thursday in order to resurrect on Sunday morning.

MATTHEW 12:40   For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The Passover lamb was chosen on the 10^th and killed on the 14^th day.

EXODUS 12:3   Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

EXODUS 12:6   And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

Jesus was publicly chosen as King on Palm Sunday, the 10^th day, when He went to the Temple, His Father’s House.

So, the 14^th day would be Thursday.

In AD 382 the Bishop of Rome, Damasus, was given the title of Pontifex Maximus or Pontiff by his nephew who was the Roman emperor Theodosius. Damasus thus became the high priest of the Babylonian mysteries. The Roman Catholic church became Mystery Babylon the Great.

By AD 400 the bishop of Rome became the Pope. This word came from the Latin “papa” and the Greek “papas” which means “Father”.

By AD 606 the bishop of Rome was calling himself the “Universal Bishop” as he assumed power over every church bishop. This began the 900 years of the Dark Ages where the Roman Catholic church doctrines replaced Scripture.

The caterpillar was the ruthless, centralized church organization

The church got sucked into the binding and crushing spirit of political power that demanded submission to a human leader.

The fourth stage or church age was the caterpillar that represents church organization. Obey the church organization and you will be changed into a butterfly that will be caught up to Heaven, was their false claim. The nine hundred years of the Dark Ages was supposed to be the Millennium, or 1000 years of peace when the Roman Catholic Church rose to power in Europe.

62-0422  THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE  BRIDE  TREE

The Bible said, "In the last days they'd have a form of godliness, but would deny the Power thereof, the Life thereof." Why? The caterpillar sucked It out. Right. The organization taken It away. First Timothy 3, Paul said, "Know this, in the last days, that perilous times shall come. Men will be lovers of their ownselves, proud, boasters, blasphemers, disobedient, unthankful, unholy, without natural affections, incontinent, despisers of those that are good, traitor, high-minded, having a form of godliness and would deny the Power thereof." Caterpillar sucked it out.

… The Roman caterpillar started eating on that Bride Tree until it took It plumb to the roots. The same Roman tree that... What kind of a tree did cut Christ down? [Congregation says, "Roman."--Ed.] What kind of a tree that cut Christ's Bride down? ["Roman."] How? By substituting something besides the Word. So, you see, the Protestant church that don't take the Word of God is a daughter to the Roman church. God never, at any time, organized the church. The Roman Catholic church was the first organization. And every one of them are daughters, to her, that organize.

They die with her. The Bible said, that, "He would burn her children with fire." How many knows that? The Bible said so. Well, the Bible said that the wheat and the tares would grow together until the last day, then He would bind the tares first, and burn them. And the wheat would go to the garner. Is that right? The tares are binding themselves together in organization, Confederation of Churches, for the atomic burning. Exactly right. But the Church is getting ready to go to the garner, just as sure as the world, in the Rapture, for the freewoman won't be heir with the bondwoman.

So religious church organizations destroyed the truth as best as they could.

But true Christianity is based on faith in the resurrection.

So, in the next three church ages God would resurrect the truth out of the mess of the Dark Ages and restore it back to the original faith of the apostles.

The restoration of truth will show us how the great Holy Spirit works.

God works in the same way with individuals as He does with the church.

JOEL 2:25   And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

Notice how the starting point has changed.

When the Bride Tree was destroyed, the first move of Satan was the mysterious palmerworm.

But that error was too subtle for Martin Luther to oppose. With his great bravery, he was only able to make a headlong attack on the obvious error of salvation by works. This was the destruction of souls produced by the locust who ate up the Scriptures so that the people only had church superstitions left. But, getting saved by faith alone was a critical first step and it proved that Rome could be beaten.

For the restoration, God starts with the obvious damage done by the locust and left the subtle errors of the palmerworm to be opposed at the end when the Word Seed had its mysteries revealed. Then truth could be sealed in the souls of the believers. So we have to study the Bible because we have to oppose the subtleties of the mysterious unscriptural palmerworm spirit with its man-dominating church doctrines.