<TITLE>30. Par 287-298</TITLE>L-287 Now, the first church fell at Nicaea, Rome, first, by one Word of Truth out of the Bible, where the Roman church had added their dogmas and creeds. There come a little priest by the name of Martin Luther, who said, "This is not the communion, this is not the body of Christ. It's a kosher. And, man, 'the just shall live by faith.'" And he threw the thing on the floor, and protested it. There comes your first star shining after the Thyatira age. Yes, sir, justified by faith! He, the great Sculptor, set up to make a masterpiece Bride that would reflect His Word.

L-288   But what did Lutherans do after the death of Luther? They met Satan, and made a denomination out of it, and died. She never done anything else after that, she was done, just become a great mass of people. All right.

L-289 Then God picked her up again, in the days of John Wesley, with another Truth to reflect. What did he do? He said, "Sanctification is the second work of grace." And what did God do? He blessed it. And he protested the Anglican church, and the Zwingli church, and all the rest of them, and all the legalists, and all the Calvin, or the--the Calvinists, rather, and protested it. And--and said, "'The just shall live by faith,' said Luther. And the second work of grace is sanctification." And that's Truth. That's right. See?

L-290   Then what did he do? Same thing, after the death of Wesley, and Asbury and them, same thing that Luther did, organize, die. Look at it now.

L-291 Went there, here not long ago, to pray for a woman in a hospital, going under an operation. I went in there. She said, "Brother Branham, I called you. You don't know me," she said, "but would you pray for me? I've got to have an operation in the morning."
I said, "Certainly, sister."

L-292 There was another man, a woman, and a boy, sitting there, about an eighteen-year-old boy, and they was watching me real close. And I turned around and I said, "Would you pardon me, I'm going to..."
She said, "Pull that curtain!"
I said, "Aren't you a Christian?"
She said, "We are Methodist!"

L-293 I said, "That wasn't what I asked you. I asked you... If you're just Methodist, I'll pull the curtain. If you're a Christian, you don't want the curtain pulled." So, yeah, that's right.

L-294 There is a lot of difference in being a Methodist, or a Baptist, or Presbyterian, and then being a Christian; not being a Campbellite, but being a Christian, see. What did she do? The same thing.

L-295   Then what happened? God picked up a little bunch down here in the South, a little colored man with a cross eye. And, He, what did He do? He poured out the restoration of the gifts, and it become pentecost. And many of you old-timers like Brother Valdez sitting back there, an aged sage, was preaching when I was five years old. He remembers the early Pentecost. Boy, don't you speak organization to them guys, they had come out of that nasty thing. And they had the Message of God.

L-296 But what did they do? Same thing the others did, organized it. Now they got about thirty or forty different organizations, oneness, twoness, three's. Till, mercy, goodness, I never heard such in my life! What did you do? You died right on the spot. That's all the farther you could go. Your organization wouldn't accept This. You, you picked your man, "This man, if he don't believe with us, don't have him in there. Our fellowship won't have it." Oh!

L-297   Look, hurrying, there must come a true Seed. There has just got to be, because He's coming for the Bride without spot or wrinkle. He is coming for it, a Word-vindicated Bride. Oh, she'll be such a little bitty group. Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, wherein eight souls was saved," (is that right?) "so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." How many? I don't know.

L-298 But, see, the Bride is going to be made up of all down through, that had the Word in their age. It's not just this last group, God is going to take the whole thing out of here. Oh, no.


<A HREF="P31">Next Page</A>