The Pillar of Fire.

William Branham.

Read the full account in...
  The Pillar of Fire.

Now, in the days that He led Israel through the wilderness... I want to read some Scripture. I want you to notice closely: God commissioning Moses to send him, now. Over in Exodus the 23rd chapter and the 20th verse. Listen closely now.

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. (Watch who this Angel is.)
Beware of him, and obey his voice, and provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou will indeed obey his voice, and do all that I have speak; then I will be an enemy to thy enemies, and an adversary to thy adversaries. For mine Angel shall go before thee.

Let's see what the Angel looked like. In the 13th chapter of Exodus we read this in the 21st and 22nd verse:

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them by a pillar, a cloud in--in the way;... by night by a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by... night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, neither the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.

That's God's Word. Now, what was the Angel? Was the Angel of the covenant. And He led... And all the old things was a type of the new things to come. You believe that? Scripture says so, being a shadow, Hebrews. Now, as God led the Church in the natural in that day, He's leading the Church in the spiritual in this day. Do you believe it? They were the people of God until they were called out of Egypt, and then they become the church of God; for the word "church" means "called out." They were called out of Egypt, and we're called out of the world, a peculiar people to serve God.

And the same Angel, if Jesus is the same, the same Angel, the Angel of the covenant was Jesus Christ; for the Bible said that Moses esteemed the riches of Christ greater than the treasures of Egypt. So he forsook Egypt, leaving all to follow and serve Christ. Christ is the Logos, of course, the One that went out of God in the beginning, which was the Pillar...
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God's wrote three Bibles: one, the Zodiac, one in the pyramids, one on paper. Now, He's writing His first, the Zodiac. It starts off with a virgin, ends up with Leo the lion: Jesus' first coming and His second coming. If we had time to run down through it, you'd see it. But He writes that because He... Man is to look up. God is above. And then after He gets all of every... all the heavenly, the solar system written out, then I see Him move over here, and over a clinker was this world. It was nothing but a iceberg hanging out of it. He moves it over around the sun. And as he begins to revolve it around, He melts all the water, the ice on it. The icebergs come flying down through. Texas is formed, Louisiana and down through there, where it's scraped off, as chronologists tell us that the icebergs went on into the Gulf and so forth.

Now, the world's without form and void, and water was upon the deep. We're in Genesis 1 now. See? Then He made all the plant life. Then after while, He made man in His own image. And if He made man in His own image, He had to make Him something on a order of that supernatural Being. That's right. Then there was no man to till the soil, Genesis 2. Then He made man out of the dust of the earth, not in His image, but out of the dust of the earth. He might give him a hand like a monkey and a foot like a bear. I don't know what He give him. But he put him in five senses to contact his earthly home.

And then He made a--a wife for him. And man fell. I have my idea of what it was. You can have yours. But--but he fell, anyhow, from grace. And instead of--of Adam running up-and-down the garden hollering, "God, God, our Father, Father, where are you?" Adam was hiding and God was hollering, "Adam, Adam, where art thou?" That's still the same nature of man--hide, get away from God. And he tried to make hisself a covering out of fig leaves. Man today tries to make hisself a religion, always trying to do something to save hisself. You couldn't do one thing to save yourself. You're just as hopeless as you can be. That's right. God has to save you. Jesus said, "No man can come to Me except the Father draws him." And you can't be a daughter unless God has foreordained you to be so. "And when he comes, I will in no wise cast him out. I will give him Everlasting Life, raise him up at the last days."

The biggest trouble there is in the church today is a bunch of fear. People's always scared, and that's of the devil. Don't be scared. Be brave. You don't have nothing to be... There ain't nothing to be afraid about. We'll get into that this coming week, see, in there and we'll bring God on down and see what He was. So you can see when man marred hisself, he sinned. And then the only way it was, is for God to be manifested here on earth in a body of flesh to take away the sin out of that man and bring him back in fellowship with God, makes him a son of God again. It's the only way he can be.

Now, when He brought the children of Israel out of the wilderness, out into the wilderness, He led them by a Pillar of Fire. Is that right? The Bible said He did, and He went before them. That was the Anointing, the Holy Spirit, Christ, that went before the children of Israel. Well, if He's the same as He was then, He's the same Man, the same Person; He's everything that He was then, He--He is now. And as He led the Church then in the natural, He's leading the Church today in the spiritual. Is that right? Do you believe that we're in the wilderness? We are. Are we on a road to the promised land?

Now, the... When they got over into Canaan, did not represent Heaven. They had wars in Canaan and so forth. It represented the Millennium. See? So we're going into that. And we're on our road now to the Millennium. I believe it. And I believe the same Jesus Christ that led back there, leads today. He's in a spiritual form. "I came from God; I go to God. A little while and the world seeth Me no more, yet ye shall see Me, for I will be with you even in you to the end of the world." Is that right? "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." Now, then if He is, then He's going to make Hisself manifested and known.

Now, sometime ago, coming through here... Now, all of you know the story. Now, please, dear Christian friends, God, Who is my sovereign Judge, with this Bible over my heart, knowed I... may have to stand before Him in Judgment before morning. See. I only say this in a humble way that you might thoroughly understand, that we're... the Church, the people is not trying to deceive anybody. We know what the truth is and we're trying to get it to you. The only thing will rob you from it is the devil. See? That's all. Now, just to confirm your faith, I want to use this for proof, to show you that it's the truth.

Now, God leading His Church today... Now, on the road. Now, when I come out when I was a little bitty boy, my mother told me when I was about three minutes old... borned in a family which did not go to church, formally back behind that was Catholic. But they never went to church. That morning up there in the mountains when they opened up the cabin door, little old door... It wasn't a window; it was a little door you push out. It didn't have any glass in it, pushed it out. A Light, about so big around, come whirling in and went down on the bed where mother was holding me in her arms.

That's unadulterated; that's without unmerited grace; that was God. See? Nothing that you can do or nothing I can do. That's God's plan. It's got to be just what He said. See? He's determined. If you notice, gifts and callings is without repentance. You believe that? Here... Jesus Christ was the woman's seed from the Garden of Eden, that was promised. You believe that? It was. "Thy seed shall bruise the serpent..." Moses, he couldn't help because he was Moses. He was born Moses. Is that right? John the Baptist, seven hundred and twelve years before he was born, he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness by Isaiah the prophet. Is that right? Jeremiah, God told Jeremiah, said, "Before you was born, I knew you and sanctified you and ordained you a prophet over the nations, before you even come from your mother's womb. Who taking thought could add one cubit to His statue?" See? You have to go on back and say it's the sovereign grace of God.

Now, notice. Then when a little bitty fellow, then the Holy Spirit spoke and said, "Don't never smoke, chew, or drink, defile your body in any way. There's a work for you to do when you get older." And then, many times and down through life, I'd try to tell people with the sincerity of my heart and they would misunderstand it. They'd called it everything in the world. Well, one night up yonder in Green's Mill, Indiana, to a cave where I was at in a place, the Angel of the Lord appeared and said, "You're to go pray for sick people." And told me what would take place. He said, "Do not fear. I will be with you." I took off, and come through the country, and down through Jonesboro, telling what He said was and what would come to pass. And it's been that way and proved now plumb around the world.

Read the full account in...   The Pillar of Fire.

And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.

Acts 7:30