The Rapture.

William Branham.

Read the full account in...
The Rapture.

Psalm 27:4-5,
4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.

Now, God has a way of doing things, and He never changes His policy. He never changes His.... He's an unchanging God. In Amos 3:7 He said He would do nothing on the earth until first He revealed it to His servants the prophets. And just as certain as He promised it, He'll do it.

Now, we've come through the church ages, but we're promised in the last days according to Malachi 4 that there would be a return again, a prophet in the land. That's right! Notice his nature and what he would be like. God uses that spirit five times: once in Elijah, in Elisha, and John the Baptist, call out the church, and the remnant of the Jews; five times, grace, J-e-s-u-s, f-a-i-t-h, and it's the number of grace. See? All right.

Now remember, the message is promised. And when all these mysteries has been all so bungled up by the bunch of ecclesiasties, it will take a direct prophet from God to reveal it. And that's exactly what He promised to do. See? Now remember, the Word of the Lord comes to the prophet, not the theologian, the prophet. He is a reflector of God's Word. He can't say nothing; he can't say his own thoughts; he can only speak what God reveals. Even to the prophet Balaam when he tried to sell his rights; he said, “How can any prophet say anything but what God puts in his mouth?” It's a thing that God does that you can't say nothing else. And you're born that way. No more than you could....

If you could say, “I can't open my eyes,” when you're looking. See? You can. You can't reach your hand when you can. See? You can't be a dog when you're a human. See? You're just made thus, and God has always to ... in the ages through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the ... Elijah, and the ages gone by, when the ecclesiastical group would get everything all mixed up, He would send a prophet, raising him up from nowhere. He'd belong to none of their situations, and speak His Word, called off the scene and gone, just rugged men of the truth of God. And it's always.... The way you could tell him, He said, “If there be one among you who's spiritual or a prophet....”

Now a prophet.... There's such a thing as gift of prophecy in the church, but a prophet is predestinated and foreordained for the hour. See? Yes, sir. Now, if a prophecy goes forth, two or three have to sit and judge whether that's right or not before the church can receive it. But nobody's set before a prophet, 'cause he was absolutely the Word of God. He was that Word in his age. He seen God reflect.... Now, if God has promised to send us that again in the last days to bring the bride out of that ecclesiastical mess, and the only way it can be done.

It'll never be done.... The church can't receive Christ. The Pentecostals, we can't carry this message on in the condition the church is in today. How're we going to carry out the end time in the condition they're in today, when every one against the other, and everything else, and ecclesiastically? Oh, mercy. It's a mess. It's done gone into denominations. And any time, I ask any historian to say different. Every time that a message went forth in the earth and when they organized it, it died right there. And Pentecost done the same thing as they all did—the Pentecost that come out.

You Assemblies of God, when your forefathers and mothers come out of them organizations back there in the old General Council, shouted and praised God and talked against those things; and you turn like a dog to its vomit and a hog to its wallow and done the same thing that they did; and now so ecclesiastical you shut up your bowels of compassion, and you have to have a fellowship card before you can even associate with you hardly. And you oneness, God given you a message like that, and instead of you going ahead and just keeping humble and going ahead, you had to turn loose and organize your group. And where are you all at? The same bucket. That's exactly! And God's Spirit moving on. “I the Lord will plant; I'll water it day and night lest some should....” He ordained these things to be, and He must send this.

The first thing comes when He starts descending from heaven, there's a shout! What is it? It's a message to get the people together. A message comes forth first. Now, “Lamp trimming time. Rise and trim your lamps.” What watch was that? The seventh, not the sixth, the seventh. “Behold the bridegroom cometh. Rise and trim your lamps.” And they did. Some of them found they didn't even have any oil in their lamp. See? But it's lamp trimming time. It's Malachi 4 time, what He.... It's Luke 17. It's Isaiah.... All those prophecies that can perfectly set in order for this day in the Scriptures, we see it living right there. There's no....

See these things happen, my dear brother, sister, when God in heaven knows I could die on this platform right now, you just ought to walk around awhile. It's just.... It's tremendous, when you see God come from the heavens, stand before groups of men, and stand there, declare Himself just as He ever did. And that's the truth, and this Bible open. See? We're here! And the denominational system is dead. It's gone. It'll never rise again. It'll be burned. That's what you do with the husk on the field. Flee from it. Get into Christ. Don't say, “I belong to the Methodist!”; “I belong to the Baptist!”; “I belong to the Pentecostal!” You get into Christ. And if you're in Christ, there's not a word written in here but what you believe it. I don't care what anybody else says. And then God makes that thing manifested, 'cause you.... When He pours the Spirit upon the Word, what happens? Just like putting water on any other seed. It'll live, and it'll bring forth of its kind.

You say, “I got the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” That don't mean that you're saved, not by a long ways. Look here, you are a triune being. You are.... Inside this little fellow here is a soul; the next is a spirit; and next is a body. Now, you got five senses in this body to contact your earthly home. They don't contact the rest of it. You got five senses of the spirit here, love and conscience and so forth like that. But in here is where you live. That's what you are. Didn't Jesus say the rain falls on the just and the unjust? Put a cocklebur out here, and a wheat out there, and pour water on them, and keep them under fertilize and things like that, won't they both live by the same water? Sure! Well, what is it? One of them will bear a cocklebur, 'cause that's all he is. The cocklebur will raise his hands and shout just the same as the wheat.

Don't the Bible say in the last days there shall come false Christs, not false Jesus now, false Christs, anointed ones, falsely anointed to the Word. Denominational anointed but not to the Word, for the Word will bear record of itself. It don't need nothing else; it'll bear record to itself. And there will come false anointed ones. You got my tape on that. And that's anoint.... Oh, if you'd call one and say, “Oh are you a Jesus?”, “Oh, certainly not!” They wouldn't stand for that. But when it comes to an, “Oh glory, I got the anointing....” And it's a genuine anointing. Remember, Caiaphas had it too and prophesied. So did Balaam have it and prophesied, but that don't have nothing to do with this inside. Unless that was God's seed, His gene from the beginning, predestinated, you're finished. I don't care how much you shout, speak with tongues, run, shout; that has nothing to do with it. A cocklebur can shout just as much as any of the rest of them. I've seen heathens raise, and shout, and speak in tongues, and drink blood out of a human skull, and call on the devil. See? So you don't want any of them sensations and things; forget it. It's your heart in that Word, and that's Christ. Bring it in there, and watch it make itself known just as it opens up like any other seed and declares itself for the age it's living in.

Luther could bring nothing but sprigs. These others could bring these other things. We're in the wheat age now. Lutherans, genuine Lutherans had to bring forth genuine Lutherans. Genuine Pentecost had to bring genuine Pentecost. That's all. But we're passed that age and going on. You know the Catholic church started out the Pentecostal? And if the Pentecostal church would stand two thousand years, it'd be worse shape than what Catholic is now. That's exactly! Now, I say that to my brethren and my sisters who I love, and God knows that. But remember, friends, I got to meet you yonder at the judgment. And that may not be too long. I've got to bear record of what's the truth.

When I went forth into the meetings with you praying for the sick, it was fine, but when I come with a message.... If any message goes forth, if it's a true message, if it's a true, genuine miracles of God, and hangs right in that organization, you know it's not of God, 'cause that thing's already declared. Jesus went forth and healed the sick in order to catch the eyes of the people, then His message. That's right! It has to have something that God's going to introduce. Divine healing is ... miracles like that just catch the eyes of the people. The main heart of it is the message. There's what. It's what comes from in here. He's trying to get the favor of the people so they'll set and listen to Him. See? For there's some in there that's ordained to life. And some of the wheat fell on ground, and the birds picked it up. And others fell amongst thorns, and some went on prepared ground, pre-prepared ground, and brought forth.

Now, the first thing is the sounding—or the first thing is a trumpet or a voice—a shout, and then a voice, and then a trumpet. Shout, a messenger getting the people ready. The second is a voice of the resurrection. The same voice, a loud voice in St. John 11:38 and 44 that called Lazarus from the grave. Getting the bride together, and then the resurrection of the dead (see?), to be caught up with it. Now, watch the three things takes place. The next is what? was a trumpet. A voice—a shout, a voice, a trumpet.

Now, the third thing is a trumpet, which always at the feast of trumpets is calling the people to the feast; and that'll be the bride's supper, the Lamb's supper with the bride in the sky. See, the first thing comes forth is His message calling the bride together. The next thing is a resurrection of the sleeping bride, the ones that died back in the other ages. They're caught together, and the trumpet, the feast in the heavens—in the sky. Why, that's the thing that takes place, friends. We're right there ready now. The only thing, the church coming out has got to lay before the sun to ripen. The great combine will come by afterwhile. The wheat ... will be burned, the stalks, but the grain will be gathered into its garner.

Read the full account in...
The Rapture.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18