<TITLE>09. Par 74-84</TITLE>L-74 And it's almost come to another challenge, or another celebration, when heathen gods can speak to the church, and the church stands helpless, defeated, spiritually stripped. Now there is something that's done that, that's been the cares of the world entering into the church, and it's got it no more than any lodge. We find that. I believe...

L-75   I don't know what I would have done in the case. I would have to wait to see what God said. But I believe I would have felt like the Hebrew children, "Our God is able to deliver us from this! But, nevertheless, we'll never bow to your image, whether He does or does not."

L-76 But we've lost the courage; that's what Samson had done, lost its power. The church has lost the influence of its testimony, that it is a--a living, moving, Body of Christ. It has accepted dogmas, mixed it in with their beliefs, until the Word has not the pre-eminence. As Jesus said to that helpless church that He come to, "You have taken the Commandments of God, and, with your traditions, you've made Them of no effect. Made the Commandments of God without an effect, by your traditions, to explain It away."

L-77   Sometime ago, in a school. There was a fine New York man here that come to my house, and he said to me... He was a Baptist brother, and he said to me, "Brother Branham, I am a--a Baptist." And I had him to come in and sit down, he and another brother. And we talked, for, at length. And after a while, he said, "When I was a little boy, I was called to the ministry." He said, "My precious old mother washed over a washboard, to send me to school." And said, "The day that I was going and received my degree of Bachelor of Art, my B.A. degree," he said, "I thought then surely Christ would be in that, but," said, "He wasn't." Said, "When I received my doctor's degree, then I thought, 'Christ will be in that,' but He wasn't." He said, "And when I got my L.L.D., Doctor of Literature, and so forth." And said, "I've got enough degrees and honorary degrees till I could plaster your wall with them, and where is Christ in all of it?" He said, "I'm still looking for Him." Said, "I'm going to ask you a question." Says, "Has the teachers been wrong?"

L-78   I said, "My brother," Jewish to begin with, I said, "I am in no position, as a--a--a seventh-grade education, to say that the teachers are wrong. I--I--I could not say that. I--I don't feel qualified to condemn anybody. But I'll say this, that I have found Him, and He wasn't in that."

L-79 And he said, "I hear that you were a Baptist."
I said, "That is true."

L-80 And he said, "Now I understand that you have turned Pentecostal."

L-81 I said, "No. I have just received the pentecostal Blessing, see, not the Pentecostal denomination. The pentecostal Blessing!"

L-82 And he said, "Well," he said, "I've--I've been to their meetings. And I have seen them kick over the chairs, and throw a book through the window." And he said, "You couldn't call that the behavior of the blessed Holy Spirit."
I said, "I'm still not able to judge God."

L-83 And he said, "Well," he said, "would what's... What makes them do that?"

L-84   I said, "In my travel, I find two classes of people." And I said, "One of them are fundamentals, positionally they know by the mechanics, that they are to be sons and daughters in God." And I said, "The next I find is the Pentecostals, they with the baptism of the Holy Spirit." But I said, "The fundamentals positionally know where they're at, but they don't have any faith in the Word. And the Pentecostals has got a lot of faith, but don't know who they are." And I said, "It's like a man that had money in the bank, but could not write a check; and one could write a check, but had no money in the bank. If you could just get them together!"
He said, "Well, what makes them act like that?"


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