A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Matthew 7:18

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).  The physical body and the physical soul are not evil creations.  In the beginning, God created them, and He called them good (Genesis 1:31).  Yet, fallen man is completely incapable of pleasing God on his own (Romans 3:11).  It takes Faith to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and this is given (Romans 12:3).

The life of the Christian is marked by ‘baptisms’ (plural, see Hebrews 6:1).  We are baptized (immersion, you go down into it) into Christ, and we are baptized (immersion, you come underneath it) into the Holy Spirit.  This was depicted in the wilderness by the Israelites being baptized into the Red sea (water baptism) and the cloud (the Holy Spirit) (1 Corinthians 10:2).

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Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the substance, the spiritual substructure or foundation of a thing, that if you have it, you have it, you have the actual thing in spiritual form.  While hope is relative to the future, faith is always a “Now” thing.  Because to have the substance of the thing is to have it in actuality, while the manifestation of the material or appearance of a thing may be yet forthcoming, the presence of faith, the presence of the thing in the Spirit, is the same as having it in the natural.  True faith, when it is real faith, and it is not ever wrong.  If the thing does not appear, either keep waiting, you got off faith, or it was not faith in the first place.

However, faith is not only the substance of a thing hoped for, it is also the proof of a thing.  This is important also to know.  While the faith is the presence of a thing, simply to have faith is proof that it is so.  You cannot have God’s kind of faith in a lie, and because “faith” and “wrong”  cannot happen in the same place at the same time, you will never have faith in a non-thing.  Faith cannot be attached to a fantasy.  Faith, goes beyond substance to the evidence and proof that something is.

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John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

John 3:27

The Spirit of Revelation was Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:8, that God might grant it unto His people.  Jesus operated by a Spirit of Revelation, through the ministering of angelic messengers (John 1:51, Luke 22:43, Luke 2:9, Mark 1:13).  By way of revelation, because it is the revelation that makes it known to be followed, Jesus did only what He saw His father doing (Luke 5:19), and He spoke only what the Father gave Him to say (Luke 14:24).  Jesus was not a “free” man unto Himself, He waited for His proper timing in everything, whereas for other people, any time was acceptable (John 7:6).  In short, Jesus was a solder.  He was a man under authority with others under Him (Matthew 8:9 — think angels, which is the only possible explanation of this passage in context with the Centurion to whose house Jesus never went).  He didn’t operate as His own agent, but only out of the place of revelation to be about the business of His Father.

Not only did Jesus Himself operate in revelation, it was so important, that John the Apostle said that testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophesy (Revelation 19:10).  It was by revelation, by means of a vision, that John received the last book of the New Testament, and revelation is a key factor in all of the books in between there and the Gospels.  For, it was by revelation that Paul received all His great insights (Galatians 1:12).

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And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?  Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:  He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

Luke 6:46-49 KJV

The best advice to going deeper in Christ is Transparency.  Jesus said the verdict of men’s condemnation is that He, the light had come, and that men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).  They preferred to hide in the shadows rather than come forth and have their true selves exposed.

At the end of the Sermon on the Plain in Mark 6, Jesus said that the one who heard His words and did them was the man who “dug deep” and laid his foundation on the rocks.  The practical application of that is the progress of continually learning to trust on the Holy Spirit on every level for every thing.

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They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high. You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it. You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it. You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you.

Exodus 25:10-16

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).  What Moses built in the wilderness was a picture of an unseen thing.  He built according to the “pattern” that he had seen on mount Sinai.  That pattern was Christ, a detailed look at who He is as the Word of God and His ministry on Earth.

The entire of the tabernacle was a walk through model of Jesus.  Every facet of the tabernacle from the ark down to the very tent pegs and number of pillars represented something of the perfect man Christ Jesus.

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Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

Christ gave His life for us, and, although we can get to heaven, it is quite apparent from scripture that we can have greater or less reward when we get there.  We are saved by Grace, yet rewarded for what we do.  This is called the doctrine of Eternal Reward.

Psalm 1:5 says, “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”  We understand that the sinners will be judged, but so too will the believers, made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Matthew 7:15

Everyone knows that false prophets come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  Cult watch pages abound with calling this or that minister a false prophet, and often simply serve to spark fear in everything of God.  Many of these are either completely cessationist (believing that all the miraculous power of God has ceased), or at least non-Spirit-filled.  They all generally deny basic doctrines such as speaking in other tongues (Acts 2:4) for the church today, and should generally be ignored (2 Timothy 3:5).  They do not enter the Kingdom themselves, and shut the door in the faces of those who are trying (Matthew 23:13).

What is the mark of a false prophet?  They present themselves as something they are not.  Moreover, Jesus called them ravenous.  Not every reference to “wolves” in the Bible is an evil reference.  When Jacob blessed his sons, he called his son Benjamin a ravenous wolf  as well (see Genesis 49:27 and surrounding chapter).

Jesus also cautioned about the yeast of the Pharisees, which in Luke 12:1 He identified as hypocrisy.

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If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Matthew 7:11

It is God’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom (Luke 12:32).  Not some day far away in some millenial reign, but right here, today, at hand, where we need it.  When we need it.

Our Father knows our needs (Matthew 6:32).  He will give them to us if we are seeking after His interests.

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“This message will introduce Jesus Christ to the world.”

William Marion Branham

For all his failures, William Marion Branham was a prophet from God, accredited with signs, wonders, and mighty miracles.  His simple faith and demonstration of Jesus Christ the same, Yesterday, Today, and Forever through God’s healing power is still looked at today as one of the greatest, most powerful displays of God’s supernatural power in the modern world.  While it is still my belief that he was taken home early because he had forsaken his primary call of praying for the sick and that he was spreading doctrinal confusion by his teaching, the message of Mr. Branham still rings clear.

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It was not until after he had start preaching in 1933 that the Lord informed him of “the importance” of the ministry he would fulfill. While baptising converts in the Ohio River, the Pillar Of Fire descended from the skies and hovering over Brother Branham, a Voice spoke and said, “As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the First Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, even so, you are sent with a Message to forerun His Second Coming.” Still, there was no indication of the “type” of ministry it would be or “how” it would climax.

On the Life of William Branham

One thing we must remember when dealing with God’s servants is that they are men.  They always have been men, and they always will be men.  Legitimate men and women of God were used, some with substantial flaws, all throughout the Bible.  And, while some ended well, some did not.  Of those that ended well, most of them also had serious issues along the way.  Of all the notable persons of the Bible, there are only a small handful of which very little negative was said.

1 Kings 13 tells of a true prophet of God who was deceived by an old prophet.  Why the old prophet lied to the young prophet leading him to get killed is not indicated in scripture, but it does call both of them prophets.  Yet, the young prophet, who was told not to eat nor drink on his mission from God, listened to the deception of the old, and was killed by a lion as a result.  He was a prophet; he delivered a right word from God correctly but got side-tracked and lost his life prematurely because of it.

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