Battleground - The human mind.

William Branham.

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Greatest battle ever fought.

Now, before any battle can be put in array, they first have to choose a meeting ground or a place where the battle is to be fought, a selected place. In the First World War it was so placed in no-man's-land and places where they'd fought, and there's got to be a place selected. Like when Israel went to war with the Philistines, there was a hill on each side where they gathered. And that's where Goliath come out and called to the armies of Israel. That's where David met him, in the valley, when he passed over the little creek that run between the two hills, he picked up the rocks. There has to be a place selected.

And in this, there's a mutual ground, no-man's-land, and they fight here at this place. They just don't one fight over here, and one down here, and one right over here; there's a battle front where they meet and test their powers, where each army tests its strength against the other army- a mutual meeting place. Now, don't miss this! When this great battle started on earth, there had to be a mutual meeting place; there had to be a place selected for the battle to begin, and for the battle to rage; and that battlegrounds begin in the human mind. There's where the battle starts. The human mind was chosen for the place of the battle, where it was to begin; and that is, because that decisions are made from the mind, the head. Now, they never started it from some organization; they never started it from some mechanical affair; the grounds never started there; therefore, that organization can never, never do the work of God, because the battlegrounds, where you've got to meet your enemy, is in the mind. You've got to make your choice. It meets you. I want this little girl here that's very sick to be sure to listen now to this real closely.

Decisions are made in the mind- the head. There's where Satan meets you. And the decisions are, because that God made a man that way. Now, I have-if you was looking on my note here-a little map drawed out. I had it here not long ago on ... used on the board. The human being is made up just like a grain of wheat. It's a seed, and the human being is a seed. Physically you're the seed of your father and mother, and the life come from the father, the pulp come from the mother. So the two together, the egg and the blood comes together, and in the blood cell is life, and in there it begins to develop making the child.

Now, any seed has a shell on the outside; the inside is pulp, and inside of the pulp is the germ of life. Well, that's the way we're made. We are body, soul, and spirit. The outside the body, the shell, the inside of that, the conscience and so forth, is the soul, and the inside the soul is the spirit. And the spirit governs all the other.

Now, if you'll sit down when you get home and draw three little rings, you'll find out that the outside body has five senses it's contacted by, and that is see, taste, feel, smell, hear; that's the five senses that control the human body. Inside of the body is a soul, and that soul is controlled by imagination, conscience, memory, reasons, and affections; that's the thing that controls the soul. But the spirit it only has one sense- the spirit. Oh, let's get it! The spirit has one sense, and that sense either dominates it, is faith or doubt! That's exactly. And there's only one avenue to it, there's free moral agency. You can accept doubt or you can accept faith, either one you want to work on. Therefore, Satan begin at the principle part to cause the spirit of man to doubt God's Word. God began at the principle part to lay His Word in that spirit. There you are, that's what does it.

If this church right now could be put together and knitted together with such, that every person would be in one accord, with not one shadow of doubt anywhere, there would not be a feeble person in our midst in another five minutes; there would not be nobody here desiring the Holy Ghost, but what would receive it. If you could just get that certain thing fixed!

Now, there's where the battle begins-right in your mind, whether you will.... Now remember, it's not Christian Science now, mind over matter; that hasn't.... The mind accepts the life which is the Word of God, and there brings the life. Just your thought doesn't do it, but the Word of God brought in the channel of your thought, see. It's not the thought, as Christian Science make it, mind over matter. No! That isn't it. But your mind accepts it and grasps it. What is your mind controlled by? Your spirit; and your spirit catches the Word of God, and that's the thing that's got life in it. It brings life into you. Oh brother, when that takes place, when life comes down that channel into you, the Word of God is manifested in you. “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, then ask what you will and it'll be done for you.”

Then what does that do? From the middle of the heart, which is the soul, from there goes forth, feeding every channel. The trouble of it is we're standing in here with a lot of doubt trying to accept what's out there. You've got to stop that and come down that channel with the true Word of God, and then it goes out, itself, automatically. It's what's on the inside. That's the thing that counts, is the inside. Satan's approach is from the inside.

Now, you say, “I don't steal; I don't drink; I don't do these things.” That has nothing to do with it (see?), it's the inside. No matter how good you are, how moral you are, how truthful you are, those things are respected, but Jesus said, “Except a man be borned again....” See? There's got to be something happen inside. If you don't, that's artificial put-on for down in your heart you desire to do it anyhow.

It can't be artificial, it's got to be real. And there's only one avenue that that can come down, and that's by the way of free moral agency, come into the soul by your thoughts. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. If you say to this mountain, 'Move' and don't doubt in your heart but believe that what you have said will come to pass; you can have what you said.” You get it? There you are, see. There's the battleground.

If you'd only get that started first. We're so anxious to see things done; we're so anxious to do something for God. This little lady's, no doubt, anxious to live; she wants to be well. Others are here, wants to be well. And when we hear about that case, like the doctor, the resurrection of the dead, the great mighty things that our God has did, then we're anxious. And the thing of it is, we try to reach through these senses to grab a hold of something here, like conscience.

So many people lots of times has misconstrued the Word, and I've been misunderstood by this, by making altar calls. I said I wasn't much on an altar call; not meaning that you shouldn't make an altar call, but somebody get somebody by the arm say, “Oh, Brother John, you know what? Me and you've been neighbors all this time; come up here to the altar; get down.” What's he doing? Wish I had a blackboard here, I could show you what he's doing. He's trying to work through his soul on affections. That don't work! That's not the avenue! Certainly it isn't. Maybe he's working in what? A memory, through the sense of his soul. “Oh, Brother John, you had a wonderful mother; she died a long time ago”-a memory, see. You can't do that, it's got to come down the line of free moral agency. You, yourself, let the Word of God.... You don't come because your mother was a good woman, you don't come because you're a good neighbor; you come because that God calls you to come, and you accept Him on the basis of His Word. That Word's what means everything. That Word, if you can get everything out of the way-all conscience, all senses- and just let the Word come in, that Word will produce just exactly.

Here, see what it's covered over with? You say, “Well, now....” You say, “Well these conscience, and senses, and so forth don't have anything to do with it, Brother Branham?” Certainly it does! But if you let the Word come in and cover it over with conscience, then it can't grow; it'll be a deformed word. Did you ever see a good grain of corn planted in the ground and let a stick fall over it? It'll grow crooked. Anybody, anything that grows up will, because something has hindered it.

Well, that's what's the matter with our Pentecostal faith today. We've let too many things hinder it, the faith that we've been taught, the Holy Spirit that's been living in us. We've let too many things ... looking at somebody else, and the devil's always trying to point you to somebody's failure, but he tries to keep you away from the real testimony that's genuine. He'll point you to a hypocrite sometimes, who went out impersonating something. He didn't do it, because he was impersonating. But if it come from the true source of the Word of God, “Heavens and earth will pass away but My Word cannot pass away.” It's got to stay. You see it, sis?

It must be accepted in the mind; then it's believed with the heart; then the Word of God becomes a reality; then every senses of soul and body is just scoured out with the Holy Spirit. Then your sense of God; your conscience of God; everything that's godly flows through you. There's not a doubt anywhere. There's nothing can rise up. There's nothing can come up in the memory and say, “Well, I remember Miss Jones tried to trust God. Miss So-and-so, Miss Doe tried to trust God for healing one time, and she failed,” see. But if that channel has been cleared out, and been purged, and been filled on the inside with the Holy Spirit, that don't even come in memory. No matter about Miss Jones and what she did, it's you and God together, and nobody else but you two. There you are; there's your battle.

Read the full account in...
Greatest battle ever fought.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Deuteronomy 30:19