Manifested Sons Of God.
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Adoption #2.
William Branham.Read the full account in...
Manifested Sons Of God.Do we believe? I don't know what I could do if I wasn't a Christian. I just wouldn't want to stay any longer. There is nothing to live for, only to get others saved, is the best that I know. Now, tonight we want to just start a little background of our previous lesson. And I will try to read... because... the entire chapter, if I can, tonight. So Sunday morning.... I'll have to maybe push in both Sunday morning and night, if that's all right, to try to get in this setting of what I want the church to see. Oh, it's glorious to find your position! And no one can do anything unless you know properly what you're doing.
What if you were going to have an operation? And there was a young doctor that had just come from school, that he would.... Never had a operation before. Yet, he was young and handsome, and his hair was combed slick, and he was dressed very fine, mannerly, and everything. And he said, “I've sharpened the knives, and I've sterilized all the tools and things.” But you'd have a little funny feeling about that. I'd rather have an old doctor that had went through that operation many times before, before I want to be cut on. I want to know somebody not just out of school, I want somebody with some experience. And the best experienced one that I know to call on tonight is the Holy Spirit. He's God's great physician and great teacher.
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Now, tonight, our Scripture is dividing.... The book of Ephesians is the book of Joshua of the New Testament. It's dividing up and setting in order the “overcome ones.” Now, just a background for a few minutes, to get a place before we start reading, beginning with the third verse. Now, we find last Sunday night that God in the Old Testament had made Israel a promise of a land of rest, because they had become pilgrims and wanderers, and they were in a land that wasn't theirs. And God had promised through Abraham that he'd sojourn... his seed would sojourn for four hundred years in a strange people, and be mistreated, but by a strong hand He would bring them out into a goodly land that was flowing with milk and honey.And, now, when the time of the promise drew nigh, God raised up someone to bring them to that land. How many in the class tonight knows who that one was? Moses. Notice, a very, very real type of our one that was given to bring us to the promised land-Christ. Now we have a promise, because our promise is spiritual rest, where theirs was physical rest. And so they was coming to a land that they could say, “This is our land. We are no more wanderers. We've settled down. This is our land, and here we have rest. We'll plant our corn, our vineyards, and we'll eat from our vineyards. And then when we pass on, we'll leave it to our children.”
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Then did you notice Moses, that great miracle performer that brought down Israel down through the land, and brought them up to the promised land, but did not place their inheritance to them? He did not give them their inheritance. He led them up to the land, but Joshua divided the land to the people. Is that right? And Christ brought the church up to the place to where their possession was made to them, was given to them, just the Jordan to cross, but the Holy Spirit is the one who sets the church in order. The Joshua of today puts the church in its order, giving to each one gifts, places, position. And He is the voice of God speaking to the inner man that Christ has saved, the Holy Spirit. Now do you get that much of it? Now we're getting over into the book of Ephesians. Now, the same way, He's positionally placing the church where they belong. Now, Joshua placed them in the natural land. Now the Holy Spirit is placing the church, positionally, in the land, in the position that they belong in, their inheritance.Now, the first thing he starts off here, he addresses his letter- Paul. Which, we're going to find out after a while that all this mystery was revealed to him- not in a seminary, not by any theologian, but it was a divine revelation of the Holy Ghost that God gave Paul. Knowing that the mystery of God, he said, that had been hid since the foundation of the world, had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.... And the Holy Spirit amongst the people was setting each one in order, setting the church in position.
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But the man outside of Canaan knows nothing of it. He's still wandering. Not saying that he's not a good man. I don't say that. I don't say the man even in Egypt's not a good man. But until he has come over into this possession.... And the possession that... the promise that was given to the church is not a natural land, but a spiritual land, for we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Then in this royal priesthood- holy nation, peculiar people, called out, elected, chosen, set aside-then all the world is dead on the outside, and we are led by the Spirit. Sons and daughters of God are led by the Spirit of God. Not by man, but by the Spirit.-----
With earnest expectations the whole creation is waiting for the manifestation. See, the manifestation. What is the manifestation? Making known. The whole world. The Mohammedans over yonder, they're looking for it. All around, everywhere, they're looking for it. “Where is these people?” We've had the.... We've had a mighty rushing wind, we've had thunders and lightnings, we've had oil and blood. We've had all kinds of things, but we failed to hear that little still small voice that attracted the prophet, that wrapped the robe around him and walked out, said, “Here am I, Lord,” see?-----
When we are in Christ, we have spiritual blessing; outside of Christ, we have sensations. In Christ we have positive blessings. Not make-beliefs, not shams, not putons. But as long as you are trying to say that you're in the promised land, and are not, your sins will find you out. And the first thing you know, you'll find yourself floundering and all, (as we'd call it in the world) gaumed up. You'll find out that you haven't got what you're talking about. But when you're in Christ Jesus, He's promised you heavenly peace, heavenly blessings, heavenly Spirit, everything is yours. You're in the promised land and in full possession of everything. Amen. How beautiful! Oh, let us study. According as he hath chosen us.... Now, here is where the church stumbles so bad. According as he hath chosen us in him.... In who? Christ.-----
Now, the other night ... or, the other morning, at seven o'clock, when the Holy Spirit, by his goodness and his grace, taken me from this body, I believe (I believe; yes or no, I don't say.), and entered into that land and saw those people, and they were all young. And I seen the prettiest people I ever seen in my life. And He said to me, “Some of them was ninety years old. They're your converts. No wonder they're screaming, 'My brother! My brother!'”
[See: Death. What then?]-----
How did we get this? How do we know it? God, before the foundation of the world, predestinated us. Who? Those that are in the promised land. ... predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ ... according to his good pleasure of his will, To the praises of his glory [That we might praise Him, like He said. That's what He was, God; we want to praise Him.] praises of his glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us acceptable in the beloved. [In Christ we are accepted.] In whom we have redemption through the blood, the forgiveness of s-i-n-s....I got to go back to adoption, but I want to stop on sins here a minute. Sins, did you notice that? Did you know God don't condemn a sinner for sinning? He condemns him for being a sinner. If a sinner smokes a cigar, He don't condemn him for it; he's a sinner, anyhow, see. He don't have any sins, the sinner don't. He's just a sinner, see. He don't have any sins. But you have sins, you that's Christians. Do you notice here he's talking to the church? Keep her straight, see. “Forgiveness of sins,” s-i-n-s. We commit sins, but the sinner is just a sinner. God don't forgive him....
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So sins, s-i-n-s, we have forgiveness of our sins through his what? Blood, precious blood. ...according to the riches of his... How do we get it? Because we're worthy, we did something to have our sins forgiven? His what? ...grace; Oh, my! Nothing in my arms I bring, Lord. Nothing could I do, there isn't a thing I could do. Look! He predestinated me, He called me, He chose me. I never chose Him. He chose me, He chose you, He chose all of us. We didn't choose Him. Jesus said, “You didn't choose me, I chose you.” He said, “No man can come to me except my Father draws him first, and all the Father has given me will come to me. And none of them's lost, except the son of perdition, to fulfill the Scriptures.” You see? Said, “All the Father's given me will come to me.”-----
Having predestinated us unto.... Unto. What does the word unto mean, the word unto? It means that something we're coming to, unto. “I am going unto the fountain. I am going unto the chair.” Humes, you get that? “I am going unto the desk.” Now, He predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according as his own good pleasure of his will, How much pleasure? Whose pleasure was it, whose goodness? His own. His own good pleasure of his own will.Now, what is adoption? (Now let me get this now. I don't know whether.... I won't have time to get through this, but I'll hit it. Then if there's a question, you can ask me a little later on, sometime in the message, something.) Listen. Your adoption is not your birth. Your adoption is your placing. When you were born again (John 1:17, I believe), when we are born of the Spirit of God, we are sons of God. But we were predestinated. Now here's what I'm trying to get you to, for this sons of the last day, you see. We were predestinated to ... unto adoption. My! Now here we are. Now, this is what hurts Pentecostal a little. They say, “I got born again! Praise the Lord, got the Holy Ghost!” That's fine. You're a child of God. That's right. But yet that ain't what I'm talking about. See, you were predestinated unto adoption. Adoption is placing a son, a child....
How many knows the rules of adoption in the Old Testament? Of course you.... Look. A son was born. (I believe I got it in some sermon. What is that, Gene, do you remember? It's on a tape. Oh, what was that? I've struck on it. Oh, yeah, I got it. “Hear Ye Him.” “Hear Ye Him”-the adoption of children.)
Now, in the Old Testament, when a child was born in a family, he was a child when he was born. Because he was born of his parents, he was a son of the family and heir of all things. Now, but this son was raised by tutors. Galatians, fifth chapter, seventeenth to the twenty-fifth verse. All right. He was raised by tutors, raisers, teachers.
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Entering into this promised land, how do we get into it? We are predestinated to it. The church, by the foreknowledge of God, has been predestinated to what? To his honor, by his grace, to the glory, and worship, and glory of God. Papa, sitting back there in the beginning, self-existent, nothing around Him, wanted something to worship, so He foreordained and predestinated a church before the foundation of the world, and put their names in the Lamb's book of life when He was slain before the foundation of the world; that they might appear to his glory and to his praises at the end of time, when He'll gather all things in that one man, Christ Jesus. Whew! Glory! That's it. That's it right there, my brother, sister. Don't you never move from that.God by his election grace called you; God by his election grace sanctified you; God by his election grace and his power baptized you and put you into this land of rest. They which have entered into this rest have ceased from their going astray. They ceased from their works like God did from his. They have joy unspeakable and full of glory! The tree of life is blooming in them. They have long-suffering, gentle, goodness, patience, faith, meekness, gentleness, and so forth. The tree of life is blooming in them because their hope is anchored in Christ Jesus, the witness of the Holy Ghost bearing record with signs and wonders following the believers. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” As they go along, they heal the sick, they cast out devils, they speak with tongues, they see visions. Oh, they walk with God, they talk with God. No devil can move them. They're steadfast, looking toward a better place. Forgetting those things that are in the past, they press towards the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. There they are. There they are. That's that church!
Read the full account in...
Manifested Sons Of God.
