<TITLE>09. Par 42-46</TITLE>L-42 Now, the Bible is an Oriental book. It is not a western book. But we are a western people, western ideas, western civilization. And the Bible becomes a new book when you take It in the light of the Oriental customs. They never change. They are just the same.
Now, when the Holy Spirit was given a few days, forty days after this commission... For they were commanded by the Lord not to preach or do anything until first they were endued with power from on high. I think that that's much to blame today for our confusion. Is because we haven't waited for the commission of God. We have went to school and learned theology. That's all well. But theology alone won't produce what Christ said it would produce. Even the teaching of the Word and rightly set in order will not produce these signs.

L-43 So no matter if you farmers--if you have ever such good wheat, until that wheat has fell into the ground, and there perish to itself, it'll never spring forth a new life. And so is it with the believer. No matter how well he's instructed, until he can perish in his intellectuals, he will never be borned again.

L-44 I was talking some time ago to the great, famous evangelist, Billy Graham. Our paths has crossed many times in the world-wide ministry. In Zurich, Switzerland, he closed on Saturday afternoon; I begin on Sunday morning. And in Louisville, Kentucky, I heard him at a breakfast say, "This is the standard." And how I admire Billy Graham. He's got many of his own kind and his own church against him, because he's took a stand on the Word.
But I admire a man that'll stand for his convictions of God's Word. And he said, "This is the standard. When Paul went into the city and got two converts, he returned the following year and had thirty from them two." Said, "I'll go into the city and have what they call twenty thousand converts, and when I come back the following year, I can't find twenty." Something taken place.

L-45 Oh, how I wanted to say something. But of course, I did not. But I wanted to say, "Mr. Graham, you are so right. But here's what it is, they only have the intellectual conceptions of Christ, and Christ cannot function in the intellectuals. It's got to go beyond intellectual. It's got to come to the heart. And the heart is the different mental faculty.

L-46 Long ago the old scientist used to say, "There is no reasoning in the Word of God, so-called. Because God said in His Word, 'As a man thinketh in his heart... '" And He said, "There is no mental faculties in the heart to think with. So He meant in the mind." But if God would have said that, He'd said, "As a man thinketh in his mind." But God doesn't mince any words. He said, "Heart." And He meant, "heart."
And then two years ago in Chicago, Mr. Mattsson-Boze, which was a--a personal, bosom friend of mine. His little girl brought a newspaper and said, "Brother Branham, as you was speaking the last time here about the heart. Their medical science had found in the human heart, science had found a little compartment. Animal doesn't have it, just a human. And they said it was the occupant of the soul." So then God's Word is right. Man has the thinking in his heart.
And as he thinks with his mind, he reasons. And the Bible said, "We must cast down reasoning." So if you're believing Christ in the reason realm, how can you ever take His Word when you got to cast that aside, and let that Word that you have caught with your mind, come down into your heart to a living faith. There's the faith.
"Buy of Me, gold tried in the fire," said the writer of the Revelation, God speaking through him, "the gold that's been tried and put to the test." There you are.


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