The Ultimate.

William Branham.

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Christ is Revealed in His Own Word.

Now I'm going to speak on this subject of Christ Revealed in His Own Word-how in the Beatitudes there stands a picture of Christ, standing right out. That's where I thought of this subject.

Now, Christ and the Word is the same, see.

They say, “How was the Bible... ?” People says.... I was riding with a man not long ago. He said, “Think of it. We here on this earth, the way we are, and we only know or can only say that we're saved by some Jewish fable called the Bible.” I said, “Sir, I don't know how you say that, but I don't believe it's a Jewish fable.” I said.... He said, “Well, you pray.... What do you pray to? I asked for so-and-so and certain things; I didn't get it.”

I said, “You pray wrong. We should never pray to change God's mind; we should pray to change our mind. God's mind don't need any changing, see, see. It's right.” I said, “Not what you pray for....” I know a young Catholic boy one time had a prayer book saying prayers for his mother to live. And she died, and he throwed the prayer book in the fire. Well, see.... I don't go for the prayer book, but anyhow.... See, you take the wrong attitude. You're trying to tell God what to do. Prayer should be, “Lord, change me to fit Your Word,” not change.... Not, “Let me change Your mind; You change my mind. (See?) You change my mind to Your will, and Your will is written here in the Book. And Lord, don't let me go till You got my mind set just like Your mind. And then when my mind is set like Your mind, then I'll believe every word You wrote. And You said in there You'd make everything work together for good to them that loves You, and I love You, Lord. It's all working together for the good.”

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Notice. Now, we come back, we've got to have something another that we have to hold on to. Something has to be a tie post; in other words, it's an ultimate. And everyone must have an ultimate or an absolute. I preached on it one time years ago, on a absolute, a place that's the last word. Like the umpire at a ball game, if he says it's a strike, that's just exactly what it is. No matter how you seen it, the umpire said it's a strike. You said, “It wasn't a strike. I seen the....” No matter what it is, when he said, “Strike,” that's it, and that's settled, just what.... He's the ultimate. And the traffic light is an ultimate. If it says, “Go,” you say, “Well, I'm in a hurry, I got....” No, no it says, “You stand still while the other fellow goes,” see. It's the ultimate.

Now, there's got to be an ultimate to everything you do. There had to be an ultimate when you chose your wife. There had to be a woman you had to select. Now, there has to be a time when you're go to buy a car, what kind of an ultimate you're going to make. Will it be Ford, Chevy, Plymouth, foreign car? Whatever it is, you got to have an ultimate. And so is it with Christian living: there's got to be an ultimate.

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Well, every denomination is an ultimate to their believers. But to me and to the ones that I hope that I'm leading to Christ—and by Christ—the Bible is our ultimate. No matter.... Because God said, “Let every man's word be a lie, and mine truth.” And I believe that the Bible is God's ultimate. No matter what anyone else says, it's the ultimate. The Bible is not a book of systems. No, sir! It is not a book of systems, nor a code of morals. The Bible is not a book of systems, so many systems and so forth. No, sir! It is not a book of morals. No, sir, it is not. Nor is it a book of history altogether, or neither is it a book of theology, for it is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, if you'd like to read that—you who have your papers, marking it down—that's Revelation 1:1-3: The Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Now, notice this Bible. Some of them said, “Oh, well, it's done this, it's done that.” But let me tell you something.... Let's go into the history of the Bible just a minute and see where it come from. It was written by forty different writers. Forty men wrote the Bible over a space of sixteen hundred years apart and at different times, predicting the most important events that ever happened in world's history, and many times hundreds of years before it happened. And there is not one error in the entire sixty-six books. Oh, my! No author but God Himself could be so accurate. Not one word contradicts the other one. Remember, sixteen hundred years apart, the Bible was wrote—from Moses to the death of John at the Isle of Patmos, sixteen hundred years—and was wrote by forty different authors. One didn't even know the other one, and they never had it as the Word. Some of them never even seen the Word. But when they wrote it, and was understood to be prophets, then when they put their prophecies together, each one of them dovetailed one to the other.

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Now, say for instance, from.... What if we went now and took sixty-six medical books that deals with the body, wrote by forty different medical schools, a hundred and sixteen ... or sixteen hundred years apart? I wonder what kind of continuity we'd come up with? No, there's no continuity to that;

but not one word in the Bible contradicts the other one. Not one prophet ever contradicted the other one. They was every one perfect. And when one come in and did prophesy, and that real prophet raised up and called him down, then it was made manifest, see, see. So the Bible is the Word of God to all true believers.

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And they're going to find out someday that they're not seeing a hundred and fifty million years of light space either; they're going right around the circle. That's exactly. You're going to find out one of these days that when you go to Heaven, you don't fly off somewhere else; you're still right here too, just in another dimension faster than this. Right through this room's coming color. Every color shirt, dress, whatever you got on is eternal, laying right on records, going around and around the world. Every time you bat your eyes, it's right on record. Watch, television will prove that.

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Now, notice. And there is not any error in the Scriptures. Jesus, the Word of God, perceives the thought that's in the heart. The Word of God is stronger, sharper.... Hebrews 4:12: “The Word of God is sharper, more powerful than a two-edged sword, even a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the mind,” see—goes way down into the mind, and pulls out, and discerns. What is discern? “Make known, reveal out.” And that's what the Word of God does. Today we say, “The Catholic church is the Word of God—the Baptists, the Methodists, the Pentecostal, the tabernacle.” That's wrong. The Word is a revelation, God revealed by the Word!

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So perfect.... The Word of God is so perfect, even to the Old and New Testament is two halves and one whole. That's right. Old Testament's half of it, and New Testament's half of it. Put it together, you got the whole revelation of Jesus Christ. There's the prophet speaking, and here He is in person, see; two halves and one whole. Now, we don't want to take too much time.

Remember, the Old Testament is not complete without the New. And the New could not be complete without the Old. That's the reason I said, two halves—one whole. For the prophet said, “He will be here; He will be here; He will be here. They'll do this to Him; they'll do this to Him.” And here He is. “He was here; He was here. He.... They did this to Him, and they did this to Him.” I just preached on that a few nights ago.

Now, in order to study the Scripture— Paul told Timothy, “Study it, rightly dividing the Word of God which is truth.” Them is three “musts” in the Scripture. In using God's Word there is three things that you must not do. Now, let's study those for the next ten minutes: Three things that you must not do. And all out in the land wherever you are across the nation, be sure to put these down in your mind if you haven't got a pencil. You must not do these things. We tell you all the time how you must do; now, I'm going to tell you what you must not do. Now, you must not misinterpret the Word. You say, “Well, I believe it means this.” It means just what it says. It needs no interpreter. And you must not misplace the Word. And you must not dislocate the Word. And if we would do either of these, it throws the whole Bible in a confusion and in a chaos.

Notice. To misinterpret Jesus in the form of God in a man, you would make Him one god out of three. To misinterpret Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make Him one god out of three. Or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead. And to do that, you'd mess the whole Scripture up. You'd never get nowhere. So it must not be misinterpreted. And if you say that a certain thing, you put an interpretation on it, and you apply it to another time or it's been applied to another time, you also make an incorrect interpreting.

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These three musts, must be. Must not misinterpret or mishandle it, misinterpret or dislocate it. It must be kept just exactly the way God said it was. To the world it's a Book of mystery. The people believe it's just a mysterious Book. One time I was talking to a very famous man here in the city, that holds a great standing of Christianity, and he said, “I tried to read the book of Revelation one night.” Said, “John must've had a big bay of hot pepper and had a nightmare.”

See, a book of mystery, but...

while to the true believer, it's the revelation of God being revealed in the age we're living in. He said, “My words are spirit and life.” Jesus said that. Again, “The Word is the seed that a sower sowed.” We know that that's true. It's God in Word form, and it can only be interpreted by Himself. The human mind is not capable to interpret the mind of God. How can a little finite mind interpret the infinite mind, when we can't even interpret one another's mind. And you notice, He is the only one can interpret it, and He interprets it to whom He will. It didn't say “Mortals of old as they strode across the earth in sundry times and divers manners.” God in sundry times and divers manners revealed Himself to His prophets, see.

Read the full account in...
Christ is Revealed in His Own Word.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

Hebrews 1:1-2