<TITLE>16. Par -</TITLE>L-25-3 Now, you take a grain of wheat, a pretty grain of wheat, but it can no--do nothing; it's dead until the germ comes into it, then it produces many grains of wheat. And Christ is that Life, that Absolute. If the wheat doesn't have that absolute in it, it'll never rise. If that wheat don't have that absolute, may be ever so pretty on the outside, but it cannot live, because there's nothing in it to live by. But when it gets that absolute, it can look in the face of all critics and say, "I'll rise again." Why? Because it's got the absolute; It's in it; it's got to rise again.

L-25-4 And when it... "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, then ask what ye will." That's that absolute. But if you got creeds and everything else tied up into it... You can't mix oil and water. You can just take and break it any way you want to; it'll never mix, because it's two different chemicals. And you can't make creed and the Bible, contrary to the Bible, mix. You can't make denomination and free-born religion--or free-born salvation mix together, 'cause as sure, God only deals... I'm going to say it anyhow.
God never breaks His program. He cannot break, because He's infinite. And I realize, you know, I--I--it goes before lots of people. See? But God cannot break His program. He cannot do something one day, and change it over and do something, and say He's wrong that day.

L-26-1 God doesn't deal with groups of men; God deals with an individual, because man has different ideas; he's built up different in nature. And God has to take that man, and mess him around, and pull him around out of his own self, till He gets him in His nature; and then God deals with that person.
Look all down through the ages, Noah, and Moses, the prophets, never two of them at the same time: one, constantly all the way down through the ages. Therefore, if you say, "In the multitude of counsel there's safety." Look at.

L-26-3 As I preached here not long ago at the tabernacle, there was Ahab and there was Jehoshaphat. And they were going up to Ramoth-Gilead to push back... Fundamentally they were right; the land did belong to them. And the--the enemy, the Syrians up there was filling their children's belly with the wheat that the Israelites should be: God-given property. So fundamentally it seemed good. "Go with me, and go up there, and we'll push them off the land." Well, that sound awful good; fundamentally it was right, but it's conditions.
Jehoshaphat, being a good man, said, "But shouldn't we consult the Lord?"
Of course, Ahab, that backslider, said, "Well, sure," borderline believer, you know. Said, "Oh certainly, I should've thought of that. I've got four hundred Hebrew prophets--four hundred of them I feed, take care of them. They're the best there is in the country. We'll bring them up."
And all of them together with one accord said, "Go on up; the Lord is with you." Fundamentally they were right, but they hadn't caught that absolute.
Then when he said, "Isn't there one more?"
Said, "Yes, there's another one, but I hate him." He said, "He's always telling evil about me (See?), always saying..."

L-26-7 How could he prophesy good, when the whole Word... Elijah, who had been before him, said to Ahab, "The dogs will lick your blood." Now, how could that a-vindicated prophet say anything that wasn't the will of God? And how that the dogs would eat Jezebel, and the dung would be upon the fields, so they could not say, "Here lays Jezebel." With a curse like that on a man, how could anybody else bless?
That's the way it is today. How can a man bless these things that's taking people further from God all the time? There's only one thing to do. If you have to stand by yourself, curse the thing in the Name of the Lord and stay with it, when you're absolute...
And you say, "Well, Brother Branham, you make people hate you."
God will love me. That's my absolute. Can't rest on an arm of flesh; you got to rest on the Word, what God said do.


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