<TITLE>04. Par 12-14</TITLE>L-12 He's not willing that any should perish, but He knew by foreknowledge they would perish. So therefore, listen at the Word. The Bible says, speaking of God... Now listen, the Bible said that Christ was the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world. The Bible say that? Why, listen now. If He was slain before the founda... How was He, until He was only slain four thousand years after the world had existed? When God spoke it, it was the, a finished work when God spoke it. And in the sight of God in the heavens, when God spoke the Word before the foundation of the world, seeing what He would have to do, Christ was really slain when God spoke it. See it? Four thousand years later, it was manifested. How infallible that Word is. God speaks it. Our little finite mind can't fathom it. Because we're got a finite mind, and He's infinite. But when He speaks anything, it has to come to pass. Though it linger, though it goes on, yet in God's ordered time it's got to be fulfilled, 'cause God spoke it.

L-13 And this might encourage you a little bit, you Christians. The poet used to sing the song. We sang it many times in Baptist church, "There is a new name written down in glory tonight," you know. Someone wrote, "Oh my name was wrote in the Book of Life tonight." The poet was fine by saying that, and it's led many souls to Christ, but how wrong he was. The Bible said that our names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world. When was it? When the Lamb was slain, every person that was ever to be saved was associated with the Lamb in the slaying before the foundation of the world. That's the only one thing I find with the Christian church today; It's a scare. It's afraid. It backs up. It doesn't understands it's privileges.
We're living far be--under the--under the privileges that God has ordained for us to live. We are now, not will be, but now you are the sons and daughters of God [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] Now. And we try to put it in the millennium somewhere. But, now you are.

L-14 I was thinking the other day, on when the Lord Jesus... A man was speaking to me, and he said, "Brother Branham, I don't like to disagree with you, 'cause I like you." He said, "But you try to put Divine healing and powers of healing in the church today, when it is not."
I said, "Well now, brother, that's only according to what people think, and the way they look at things." I said, "Perhaps we'll do this. I'll show you in the Bible where God gave the church power to heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils. I'll show you in the Bible where He gave that power. Now, you show me in the Bible where He took it back from the church." See? It isn't there. He gave it, and once given it, He cannot take it back; He's God. If He would...
The man said, "Why, it's such a privilege for people who set in wheelchairs and suffer and show God's goodness and so forth, in suffering..."
I said, "Then Christ defeated His very purpose when He healed the sick then, if God takes pleasure in people being sick, for He healed the sick whenever He come in contact with them. He healed the sick. Then if it's God's will for people to suffer, then, if He did, Christ defeated His own will when He come..." Oh, my, what kind of a Gospel would you have. See? God doesn't run His off... You wouldn't run your office like that. I wouldn't mine, and you wouldn't yours. How about God running His? See?
God works at one purpose: that's to save, and to be good, and to do everything He can. It's His pleasure to give His blessings bountifully to His people. But we fail, not because the power is not in the church; because the power is not in the Pentecostal church, the Methodist church. You Baptists, Presbyterian, Lutheran, whatever you are, you've got the power, but you ain't got the faith to move that power.


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