OUR FIRST HUSBAND MUST BE DEAD
Pastor Charles Holmes
02-20-2011
INVISIBLE.UNION.OF.THE.BRIDE_ SHP.LA V-2 N-15 THURSDAY_ 65-1125
22-5 Now, notice, the Bible plainly says here that her first husband must be dead, not just put away; he's got to be dead. Now, I just got through preaching on marriage and divorce, and you all know about that. I'm not speaking now, altogether to this congregation here, but out across the nation. All right. Now, you see what happened there in marriage and divorce, when it was...?... the Seven Seals was opened, that brought out the real truth of it.
22-6 So to be married to the second Adam, Christ, the Word, you must separate yourself by death from your first denominational husband, 'cause there isn't a one of them that can take all the Word of God. Just show me where that one's at. "Oh," you say, "mine." The other fellow says his too. Put them together, and you find out you're both wrong, as soon as you denominate. Read Revelations 17.
So, you see, you've got to be dead from that thing. (Now, I'm not speaking to this local assembly; I'm speaking altogether across the nation.) You must be dead to your first husband. If you're united to Christ and still married to a denomination, you are an adulternous. You are a Laodicea. A church across the nation... We're following Jesus Christ the Word. To be in the Bride, you have to be remarried to the Word of God, which is Christ.
32-2 Now, your old book is gone with your old union. Now, your name in your old--in your--has been transferred. Now, you say, "Do you mean to tell me, that my old book..." God put it in the sea of His forgetfulness. You stand perfectly before God.
Now, your name is now in the new Book, not in the Book of Life, but the Lamb's Book of Life. What the Lamb redeemed, not the old book of your natural union, but you're new Bride. Hallelujah! Your new Life is in the Lamb's Book of Life, your marriage certificate (Hallelujah.) where your true eternal germ from the beginning takes hold.
32-4 Now, you're not only forgiven, but you're justified. Glory. Justified: Romans 5:1 said, yeah, Romans 5:1 said, "Therefore being justified by faith..." Look up the word. The word don't mean forgiven. The word means justified. It don't mean you're forgiven. For instance, you heared that I got drunk and--and done some evil things and everything; then you come around saying to me... You found out I didn't do them. Then you come around and say, "Brother Branham, I forgive you." Forgive me? I didn't do it at the first place. See?
Now, if I did do it, I'm guilty; but you could forgive me, and I wouldn't be guilty; but yet I'm not justified, because I actually did it. But the word "justified," as though you never done it. Amen. It's not even regarded at all. How's it done? In God's Book of the sea of forgetfulness, your old book and marriage is divorced and dead and is not even in the memories of God. Amen. You are justified. Therefore being justified... it was accused... You were accused; you never done it in the first place. The old union's in the sea of God's forgetfulness. You wasn't married to it to begin with. He, the Bridegroom bore your shame Himself for you in your place. He took your place, for you were predestinated for Him to be in His Bride before the foundation of the world. The Bible said so. You are the predestinated Seed.
33-1 How did you come to do this? You were deceived into it by your first marriage--to your adulteress parent Eve. It's no fault of your own. By your natural birth, you come after Eve, who committed adultery. That's the reason you was born an adulternous. You were a sinner to begin with. That's right. You was deceived into it. You had no... No, it ain't your fault. You never did it, because that little Germ that was in you, was to be you before the foundation of the world. God put your name in the Lamb's Book of Life.
6-5 I'd like to title these few remarks that I was going to make here and some Scriptures that I would like to follow up closely behind, if the Lord willing, to the Thanksgiving message to, The Invisible--of "The Invisible Union of the Bride of Christ, The Invisible Union of the Bride of Christ."
It doesn't sound like a Thanksgiving message. Though any Scripture... We're thankful for all of It. I am thankful to God to be living in this time of the closing scenes of this world's history. I don't know, if I would've had a say so before the foundation of the world, and the--God would have laid out the whole program to me and said to me, "I--I want you to preach. And now, what age do you desire to go to the earth to preach?" I would've chose this age, for I think this is the golden age.
WHAT ABOUT THAT?
28-4 You may say, "What's this all got to do with Thanksgiving? What are you talking about, Brother Branham? Here it is a quarter to nine. You haven't said nothing about Thanksgiving." What a message for the occasion to me. Yes, indeed.
The pilgrim fathers were very thankful for their newfound way of life, being separated from the old English denominations and creeds. They could marry to the new anointed Word for their age. That's right. The new, anointed Word of their age for their day...
So can we be thankful, as pilgrims like Abraham; separated ourself from the things of the world, all of our associates. Abraham was a pilgrim. God has separated us from all the dead religions (I'm speaking across the nation now.), all the dead creeds, into what? Separated us and opened to us a new land, a new message for this day.
Pentecost dried up and died. Like Luther, Wesley, and the rest of them, it's no more than a bunch of churches pulled together. Good people in there yet, that's got to be--come out.
MATTHEW 10:33-37
33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
36 And a man's foes [shall be] they of his own household.
37He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
JOHN 12:47-50
47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
50And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
INVISIBLE.UNION.OF.THE.BRIDE_ SHP.LA V-2 N-15 THURSDAY_ 65-1125
28-8 What did He do? He opened up the Seven Seals of the last message. Did you notice that? The Seven Seals, which all the mysteries of the Seven Church Ages were sealed with Seven Seals. The reformers didn't have time to do it in their days. They didn't live long enough. But this blessed revelation of the Seven Seals is opened to us in this last days from a prophecy that went forth to Arizona.
How I asked God the other day, "What are You doing with me out here in this desert?" Did you know Moses wrote the New Testament, or Old Testament? He certainly did: first four books gives the laws and everything: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. He wrote the Old Testament. To do that he had to leave all his associates and loved ones and go into a desert.
29-1 Paul wrote the New Testament. That's right. He wrote Romans and--Romans and all the rest of them there, a Hebrews, and Timothy, and so forth. And to do that, he had to separate from hisself and go down into Arabia into a desert for three years and get the revelation of God. Oh, you say, "What about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?" They were scribes that just wrote what Jesus did. Paul separated and put the Word together. That's right.
Well, then, look if it taken that, and he had to go to a desert away from their loved ones... You remember "What--What Time Is It, Sir?" How many ever heard it, say, "Amen." Was it exactly right? Then we've got the revelation in this last days for the message of the Lord God to gather His Bride together. No other age has it been promised. It's promised in this age.
BRIDE AGE.
29-3 Malachi 4, Luke 17:30, St. John 14:12, Joel 2:38. Those promises is just exactly like John the Baptist identified himself in the Scripture. Jesus identified Himself, what did they say? "Away with such a person. John's a wild man." The church wasn't able to receive it. That's the pattern. Neither will the church receive it today.
But to the elected, God's calling. To the elected, they know it. Calling the virtuous Bride, the Word, the last day church, the elected Lady of our Lord Jesus Christ, Word. If Jesus is the Word... How many believes that? All right. then the Bride is always part of the Bridegroom. So the Bride will not be a denomination; it'll have to be the Word manifested to be the Bride of Christ. He promised to do it. He said how He'd do.
29-5 He never uses--loses His pattern. He always did it by the pattern. He's done it every time by the pattern. He does it again, calling out His virtuous Bride in the last days, the lovely Rebekah waiting for her Isaac. What a beautiful time.
37-4 Your first husband that you were married to, the world, the anointed Bridegroom, which foreordained you, has washed you by the washing of the water by the church? That don't sound right, does it? You might find that in the almanac, but not in God's Bible. By the washing of the Water by the Word, and the Word. See? You are standing completely justified as though you never did it at the beginning.
This is my message to the church now as you--as we go off the air just in a minute. You are standing, if you're standing on God's Word and with God's Word, every amen, every jot, every tittle. Where you standing? I'm trying to tell you: Pull away from them shucks and get out here in the wheat where you can get ripe before the sun. I hear the coming of the combine. You're standing complete, justified like you never did it in the first place. Hallelujah. Talk about a Thanksgiving. I feel real good. I'm more thankful for that than anything I know of.
You are the pure, virtuous, sinless Bride of the Son of the living God. Every man and woman that's born of the Spirit of God, and washed in the Blood of Jesus Christ, and believes every Word of God, stands as though you never sinned at the first place. You're perfect. The Blood of Jesus Christ...
39-3 Now, notice, you're not only that, but you're going to the wedding in the sky, and you are wearing the wedding band of predestinated unmerited grace, a wedding band of grace, unmerited of your own. God did it Himself. He knew you before the foundation of the world, so He slipped the wedding band on you there: put your name on the Book. What a Thanksgiving. Hallelujah. Praise our God.
GOD.OF.THIS.EVIL.AGE_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0801M
135 There's only two classes of people spoke of in the New Testament: the children of God and the children of the devil. Did you know that? You want to put a Scripture down for it? I John 3:10, if you want the Scripture. I'm reading it right here, got it wrote out. All right. All right.
In Ephesians 2:2 they are called the children of disobedience, like Eve was, disobedient to God's Word. The children of obedience and disobedience have nothing in common. Then how can the Bride of Christ associate in a denomination when one's disobedient and the other obedient? How can one be the Word and the other one perverted word? How can a prostitute and a clean woman walk together in agreement? They can't do it. They have no fellowship at all. Come out from amongst it. It's of the devil; it's the mark of the beast, heading right into it now, all denominations; I don't care whose it is. God's taking, not a denomination, a people for His Name. A denomination won't receive these truths, it'll take a individual person that can see God, and look at His Word, and believe It, and belong to no organization, but live for God, not for his organization of intellectual wisdom of some bishop or something has taught them. That's right.
ANOINTED.ONES.AT.END.TIME_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-3 SUNDAY_ 65-0725M
198 Notice. The Light has to come; it's not in darkness. The Light comes to the darkness, and the darkness perceives it not. Notice now, the anointed ones in this day. As Moses brought out those children of Israel, and they listened, and got all confused with that great nation up there... Now, Israel was interdenominational. It had no land, had no home; it was going to a home. We have no church; we're no--we're--we're going to a church, the church of the Firstborn, the church that's in glory, not the church that's on earth by a man, the church that's in glory, the called-out ones, predestinated to Eternal Life. See?
Going to their home, and when they come up to the place to cross over, they doubted the Word. And come back after Joshua and Caleb, and them had went over and brought back a bunch of grapes to prove to them the land was there, the Word of God's promise, "It's a good land, milk and honey." And brought it back on this side to prove it to them, and they tasted of it, and said, "Oh, oh, we can't do it though." What happened? They perished in the wilderness. They stayed right there and organized themselves, and died, every one of them, but the ones that went over and brought the--back, Joshua and Caleb. Moses was translated, a type of the waiting for the church, and the resurrection of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the raptured Body. See the three there? Have to keep them threes in line (See?) so--in the believer and unbeliever.
ANOINTED.ONES.AT.END.TIME_ JEFF.IN V-5 N-3 SUNDAY_ 65-0725M
199 Notice how it was totally... Remember, God never did forgive that sin. Now, how they going to come in? If it's thorns to begin with, it's thorns at the end. Only the predestinated will see it.
GOD'S.POWER.TO.TRANSFORM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-16 N-5 SATURDAY_ 65-0911
102 Satan's purpose from Eden was to make his ownself a Eden, and exalt himself above, so the stars of God would worship him: sons would worship him. And he has absolutely carried it out. Now, and when he's done this and brought it into the church, which I won't go in details. Any of you listening to them tapes know about it. That that's exactly the hour we're living in, and it's Satan that's done it through educational programs, better fit, better this, better that. And not knowing all the time they're walking right straight into death: Blinded leading the blind, blinded leaders of the nations, blinded leaders of science, blind leaders of the church, blind leading the blinded. Jesus said, "Let them alone, they'll both fall in the ditch."
103 Here notice the type of the two Edens so closely typed together, till almost deceive the very elected. Matthew 24:24 said that it would be that way. But I want us to stop for a few moments and consider these two Edens, and one thing especially, how the Bible tells us that God's Word did produce that Eden, and how God's Word warns us that the other Eden would come.