Episode 261: The Family Altar Audio Devotional – Day 227

Episode Summary:

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me. Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress. (Psalm 71:1-3)

74 The Word of God, there’s no way around. Fortified, all way around, everywhere, “THUS SAITH THE LORD. THUS SAITH THE LORD.” Your walking, your talking, your business, your associating, and everything, put the Word of God first.

75 Say, “I believe I’ll go tonight, and this little dance just won’t hurt anybody.” Could you take THUS SAITH THE LORD with you? See? See? “I believe if I could pull this little deal, oh, it’s just a little bit shady.” But could you say THUS SAITH THE LORD with it? See?

76 Always take Him first, keep fortified, for He is our fortress, its strain.

77 But do you know you have to ignore, before…In order to believe the devil’s lie, you have to ignore and deny God’s Truth, first, before you can believe the devil’s lie. You ever think of that? You have to deny the Truth, first, before you could believe a lie. Right. Have to deny It!

78 Eve got from behind It, and lost the battle. As soon as Eve…Satan was standing out there, shooting his targets. She said, “But the Lord said…” And then he shot again. She said, “But the Lord said…” So then he shot again, another way. “But the Lord said…”

79 But Satan raised up back there, said, “But wait just a minute. If the Lord did say That, let me just tell you something. You see, you’re not wise like God. You don’t know right from wrong. But if…Listen. Wouldn’t you love to be wise like God?”

80 “Why,” Eve said, “yes, I—I—I—I believe I would.” Maybe something like that. “I believe I would like to just know all the wisdom of God. I’d like to know what’s right and wrong. I don’t know it.”

“Well, I’ll tell you.”

Now, she said, “But, but, the Lord said…”

81 “Well, but, surely, you know He’s a good God. He won’t do that.” See?

82 Right there she broke the hole through, so he could shoot. Right there she made the wrong stop, right there, stopped a little bit.

83 Now let me say something of you Christians down here. Don’t you never stop one second for the devil. Don’t stop to reason It out. When you start to reason It, the devil comes right in. You cannot reason God. You cannot understand God. You’ve got to just believe God. See? I can’t explain God. Nobody can. I can’t explain many things. But, the only thing, I just believe It, because He said so. Now, there’s none of us can explain It. Don’t try to explain It.

84 Don’t get with these unbelievers who say, “Well, now look, your pastor out there, Junior, I hear him pray for the sick. Now you’re all crazy down there. There’s no such a thing as Divine healing.”

85 Say, “All right, there isn’t for you, then. You’re an unbeliever.” And just walk right on. See? It’s just for believers. See? Don’t…

86 “Well, you all say you got the Holy Ghost. There’s no such a thing as the Holy Ghost.”

Say, “It isn’t for you, then. It is for me.” Just go on. See? See?

87 Don’t reason. Don’t try to reason It. It hasn’t got no reasonings. You just believe It. You don’t reason a thing. Because, remember, the only way that you can accept God is by faith, not by reasons, not by understanding, not able to explain. You don’t explain nothing. You believe Something. Not what you feel. Jesus never said, “Did you feel It?” He said, “Did you believe It?” That’s right. You just believe what God said. I can’t explain to you how they…How could a…The greatest miracle that I could think of, is a man who…

88 Just like, take a pig, and tell that pig, “You know, you’re no more a pig. You’re a lamb,” and he becomes a lamb. See? That would be hard to believe.

89 Well, it’s the same thing takes place when you become converted from a sinner to a Christian. See? It changes your own opinions. It changes your own will. It changes everything that’s in you. And it brings you into another life, and gives you another Spirit, that bears forth another record. See? Then your old life has to die, and the new one has to be born again. And then, see, you’re no more the creature you was, at all. That’s when you become behind the Blood, fortified with the Word. Don’t try to explain nothing, just believe it and go on. “Lord, I believe. Saviour, raise my faith in Thee, till it can move a mountain.” See? “Lord, I believe, for all my doubts are buried in the Fountain.”

90 What if Abraham had been asked, the doctors had come, said, “Abraham, you’re a hundred years old. Your wife is ninety. How you going to have a baby?”

91 Now, Abraham say, “Well, now, I’ll tell you, it’s like this. You see, there’s going to be a time that we’re going to drink a certain thing, and this is going to do this. And this kind of change is going…” Abraham couldn’t explain that.

92 Abraham would have said something like, “I don’t know. I don’t know no more about it than you know. The only thing that I’m resting on, is, He said we would have it. And I’m looking for it.” That’s it. Yes, sir.

93 Now, that’s all it takes. Just take It, believe It. “God said so.” And that—that settles the whole thing, because God said It.

94 Now, we find out, Eve losing the battle, she got from behind the Word, raised up on top of the trench and say, “You don’t say so? Is that the Truth?” She’s lost, right there.

95 “Well, you know, we don’t teach That over at our church. We believe in what He said here.”

96 “Yeah, but, listen, dear, you know better than That. Your own common sense would tell you that That’s not right. Why, I heard them people just cry and cry. What they crying about? See? Now, own common sense would show you that they’re just worked up. They’re emotional. See?” If you stop to listen to that, you’ve lost the battle.

97 If they say, “Oh, now, wait a minute. Your doctor said that, that you had TB. And it’s—it’s in an advanced stage. There’s no way for ever you get over that TB. The doctor said there wasn’t. Now, don’t common sense say that?” Well, if you’re going to rely upon reasonings, you might as well make ready to die.

98 But if you’re going to what the Lord gave, the promise, and you can believe It, It changes the whole program.

99 Now, the same way It changes, is the same way It changed for me down there. See? I just believe It. Don’t know how It done, but there was a new creature come. I used to, I’d shun church. I…

100 A guy told me, when I used to box, we was…I was fighting my fifteenth professional fight, down here at—at Evansville, Indiana. And Howard McClain, many of you New Albany people knew him there. And we was walking up the street. And Howard was a welterweight, and I was a bantam weight. I was fighting Billy Frick from Huntington, West Virginia. Had on a blue suit, like this. In them days, I had a little hair. And I was walking up the street. We’d eat supper about three o’clock, get ready for the fight that night. We was going in then to rest, and then have our hands wrapped. And Howard said to me, said, “You know what, Bill?”

I said, “What?”

Said, “You look like a little Baptist preacher.”

101 And he could have called me anything. I never…I turned around. I said, “Now, wait a minute, Howard. Now, you laugh when you say that.” [Brother Branham and congregation laugh—Ed.] Me, about that high, but I was ready to climb right on him. I wanted nothing to do with no preacher.

102 And now the greatest compliment that he could have give me, oh, when somebody said, “Brother Branham, you look like a preacher.”

I say, “Praise God!” See? See?

103 What’s the matter? I died. And I’m a new creature. How did I do it? I took His Word. “Brother Branham, what kind of medicine, what formula did you take?” I didn’t take any. “How did He do it?” I don’t know. But, anyhow, I believed It. I never took nothing. I just believed It. And He raised me up from what I was, a sinner, to a Christian. He did it because I took His Word. He’ll do the same thing by sickness. He’ll do the same thing by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He’ll do the same thing by any promise He give.

104 But, see, what, what’s my subject? The conflict. The conflict. Satan tries to get you to reason about It, and don’t you do it.

105 But after you become a Christian, then you are fortified by the Word and any promise in the Word. Whew! Didn’t know I was going to say that. See? You are, when you become a Christian, you’re placed behind the Word of God. See? Now, there’s your fortress, safety. Oh, my! Every promise in That is yours. Only thing you have to do is just reach and get it, and go right on with it. “How you know it’s going to work?” I don’t know how it’s going to work. “Explain to me.” I don’t know. Only thing I know, that, God gave His children the best attack that they could have, and the best thing to attack with, ’cause He knows the working of the enemy.

62-0531 – “The Conflict Between God And Satan”
Rev. William Marrion Branham

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