At the instant of receiving the Holy Ghost, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is there a difference?
The Eleventh Commandment
Questions 289 (COD Page 1016)
Question for Sunday morning: (Sorry it’s this time, but…) At the instant of receiving the Holy Ghost, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is there a difference? Does a person speak with tongues? If not always, what manifestation is known?
94 Well, could you imagine a mother giving birth to a baby and not knowing it? She’d have to be unconscious not to know it. Neither can you receive the Holy Ghost without knowing it. There’s something takes place in you. See? There’s something that changes you. Your whole system, your whole spiritual system is made new again, and you become a new creature in Christ, as the Bible puts it, a new creation in Christ. You know it.
95 Now, you say, “Brother Branham, then you don’t believe that a man should speak with tongues to receive the Holy Ghost.” Not to prove he’s got the Holy Ghost.
96 I would that every member of my church spoke with tongues. I would like for them to do that, and if–I believe if you ask God, God will grant it to you. But let me tell you; I know plenty people that speak in tongues and hasn’t got the Holy Ghost. And there’s not a minister that’s true with himself and with his congregation but what’ll tell his congregation the same. The devil can impersonate that.
97 Paul said, “Though I speak with tongue of men and angels, though I give my body to be burned as a sacrifice, though I understand all the mysteries of the Word, though I give all my goods to the poor, and all these things, and have not charity, I still am nothing. I have faith that I can move mountains and so forth; I’m still nothing.” Then he said, “That which is in part will be done away with when that which is perfect is come,” or, “when that which is perfect is made known.”
Now, I’ve got a question on that. I hope I get to it tonight, about what happened when the Seals opened. And I think maybe that’ll get it right to you on this question.
