Questions 74 (COD Page 339)
Where will the saints be after the one-thousand-years’ reign? And what kind of a body will they have?
821 I think that’s the sweetest question, I just love that. Now let’s look right straight into it.
822 In the beginning, God… We’ll go back to our Hebrew teaching just for a few minutes. God was this great, big fountain of seven colors. How many knows that? See? And how many knows that God has seven Spirits? Absolutely, seven Spirits. And there was seven eyes in the lamb, and so forth, all that coming together now. See? Now, that was God.
823 Now when He (the Logos) went out of God, which was God coming from this one big fountain into a body in the form of a-of a man; and it made the Logos, which we call theophany.
824 Now, if you take the theophany when you are looking at that, that’s a man. Now that we… Now, that’s where we were in the beginning. Now, you do not understand it now, but you was back there in the beginning that way. When man made… When God made man in His image, He made him a theophany. And He only placed him in flesh… When God made man in His image, in His likeness, they were… In
Genesis 2, there were… or Genesis 1:28, I believe it is, “There was no man yet to till the soil,” and God had done made male and female. That’s right, “No man to till the soil.”
825 Then God brought man a little lower down and put him in animal life, that’s this body, just like the animals so that he could till the soil, could touch. That theophany doesn’t touch, it doesn’t see, taste, smell, hear; these senses that we have. So God put man down there in order to-to touch and to feel.
826 And-and as he walked through the Garden of Eden, first as a theophany (like the Holy Spirit is in here now walking in here), it led the animal life. It controlled everything, but it couldn’t till the soil, see. So God put him in flesh so that he could till the soil. Give him his five senses, to till the soil and fix up the-the vineyards and-and so forth, and then the man still looked lonesome. Oh, this is a beautiful picture.
827 Look, for when he was first made, he was made two people together. He was made both male and female, the man was. The Bible said he was. God made man both male and female, “created He him.” Notice now, when man was separated from the theophany and put in flesh, he was-he wasn’t just altogether there; part of his being was still a theophany, so it didn’t look right.
828 There went the male and female in the cow, there went the horse, and there went the ox, and there went everything else, pairs. But Adam, he… it was… See, there was something lacking. That very crave showed that there was a mate waiting for him. You get it? And the very thoughts that we have to die here, that we’re troubled and perplexed, and we long for a Life that has no death, it shows it’s waiting for us. See?
829 And Adam was lonesome. And God, to show that they could not be separated… Now I’m going to get back into this same thing, just a second.
830 Look, He never went and got dirt and made a Eve, but He made from the original dirt, Adam. He took a rib from his side and made him a helpmate, and that was Eve. She was made for the man, and part of the man. She was part of him in the beginning, in the creation, in a theophany. She was part of him down here in this creation. She could not be divided in another creation, she had to be made in the same creation.
831 That’s exactly why Christ and God had to be the very same Person, it could not be anything different. If He had been a good man or a prophet, He wouldn’t have been a Redeemer; He had to be the Creator Himself. But He’s still a theophany now, you see, and the way He was then.
832 Now a man come down here and he-he was wonderful; and God loved that, He said, “That’s beautiful, let them be on earth and live there forever. That’s all; for-for Eternity, on and on and on. Let it just grow, and every plant bring forth, and everything like that. And let the man live, and the beasts live, and everything else, forever and ever. That’s all right.” See?
833 And then sin entered. And I want to make this statement. In the… So many people make such a terrible mistake on this one Scripture, and that is on the 23rd Psalm. They read It like this, “Yea, though I walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death.” Now, there is no such a thing. The Bible doesn’t say, that, “The dark shadow of the valley… the dark valley of the shadows of death.”
834 Says, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Now, before it can be a shadow, it has to have light to make the shadow. See, David being a prophet and under the anointing, he didn’t make a mistake, he just said the Truth: “Yea, though I… ” not, walk through the dark valley, but, “through the valley of the shadows of death.”
835 Then you have to have a certain percent of light to make a shadow. And that’s the way it is here. We are both natural and supernatural. This body is subject to death, and was brought forth by a woman; not by nothing but through… Not by God, you’re a reproduction from Adam and Eve. Be black, white, or whatever you are, you are a production, an offspring from Adam and Eve. That makes your body “born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies.” You’re damned and condemned at the beginning of your life, not even, without a chance.
836 Now, because the spirit that you have come to you by nature, and by nature coming from sexual intercourse, desire by man and women produces a earthly child. And let that child alone, and don’t teach him nothing right, he’ll go wrong. Don’t teach him neither right nor wrong, he’ll take wrong. Because it’s his nature to do such.
837 Watch a little ol’ baby, not over higher than that, just get so mad; he’ll just… he-he’d wring his hands, and turn red in the face, and hold his breath. Sure. What is it? It’s his nature. He got it from his pappy or his mammy, one; she had enough temper to fight a buzz saw, or his daddy. If they didn’t, his grandfather or grandmother did. See, it’s offspring.
838 So that makes… You’re borned in the world. You come by nature, and your whole being is black and smutty, and damned, and cursed and going to hell. That’s right!
839 But when you’re borned again, then the Light of God shines down into that soul (hallelujah) then it’s no more a dark valley, but it’s a valley with a shadow in it. You may be veiled here with the flesh, and the things over our face, but there’s enough Light in there. And someday that Light and darkness has to separate! And when the light shines, darkness flees. And when we go to be with Christ in that body, darkness and death vanishes, and we burst out into perfect Light. Glory to God! There we are; no more sickness, no more dark mixed with it.
840 Right now we have both sickness and joy, and have health and strength, and we have ins and outs, and ups and downs, and joy and sorrow, so forth. Well, it’s just a shadow. We
got enough light to know that there’s Light there; and we’re still in the body, in flesh. But someday the Day’s going to break. That’s when the death angel sets at the foot of the bed, that’s when the doctor says it’s all finished; and this natural comes away from the supernatural, and the light springs back to Light, and darkness goes back to darkness. Then this mortal puts on immortality. That’s when this corruption puts on incorruption. That’s when this mortal puts on immortality, and we become from a creature of time to a creature of Eternity. You can not go out there with total darkness, you’ve got to have light in the darkness. There you are. That’s that body you receive.
841 What do we do? Well, my dear sainted brother, my dear sainted sister, before the foundation of the world, when God created you in His image, or created the-the man in His image, and created the woman in the image of the man for the glory of the man, He made you a theophany. Just like Hisself, when He said “let us” to the creatures that He had made, “let us make man in our own image, in our likeness, a theophany.” God had never become flesh yet, He was in a theophany.
842 And Moses saw Him. Moses cried, “Lord, let me see You.”
843 He said, “Go yonder and hide in the rock, in the cleft.” And Moses got back in that cleft; and when God passed by, the lightning and thundering… And as God passed by, He had His back turned like this. And Moses said, “It was the back of a Man.” Hallelujah!
844 Who was It? The Melchisedec that come down, the King of Salem, with no father or mother, no beginning of days or ending of life. That’s Him! And He come down. That’s the
One that talked to Abraham; that gathered Him up a little body of flesh like that, and “Whew!” breathed into it, stepped into it, and come down and eat a calf, drank milk from a cow, and eat some butter and some corn bread. And the two Angels.
845 And when they walked out there, and all of that stuff just, “Whew!” vanished and went away.
846 I never thought of that. Here sometime ago, loading a rifle shell, I had a .22 rifle, it’s a .220 Swift. And you rifling brethren in here know. The little bullet, it’s a forty-eight grain bullet, just about that long, regular .22 bullet. It’s loaded almost on a chamber power of a .30-06. Now I… The factory only loads that to about forty-four hundred feet per second. All right, but you can put enough… load it yourself, and you can put it up to five thousand feet per second. And-and otherwise, if you were shooting… We were shooting, the other day, at two hundred yards, and the bullet was hitting the dust, it’d fly before the gun would ever echo. That’s how fast it is.
847 Then you take a tooth pick (you know, the flat part on a toothpick) and reach down in your powder and get that thing full of powder, just about four or five little grains, and lay it on top of there, and then put your bullet in there. Stand here, and you got a bullet in your hand in a second. And shoot it out there at the ground hog setting two hundred feet from you, and the ground hog never even moved. The bullet turns back to its original conditions, back to gases. Here’s a bullet that’s copper and lead mixed together, and one split second, it’s back till you’d never find it again. It went back like it was a hundred billion years ago, back to gases. Those gases have to form and come back into copper and into lead, and so forth, like that. Those gases has to settle.
848 Now, there you are. That’s the way we are here, we come from a higher being. In the beginning we were in the image of God. The veil and the darkness keeps us from knowing it now. But Jesus told his disciples He “was with them before the foundation of the world.” See? We were! You can’t know it now, but you was in the beginning. “And if this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have one already waiting!” Hallelujah! And then we move into this theophany, what we once lived, so we can eat and shake hands. And the souls under the altar cry, “How long, Lord?”
849 There’s seven steps that goes to God, for the seven Spirits as-as It comes down. All right, as you go under the altar of God, they was crying, “Lord, how long? Can we go back, through down here?”
850 God said, “Just for a little season, until your fellowman suffer the same thing that you’ve suffered.” See?
851 And then the souls return back, and they become man and women again, and live forever when all the darkness and death and sickness and sorrow of the blackness has faded out; there’s no more shadow, it’s absolutely sunlight!
852 Listen. Here’s what. Let it get as dark as it wants to get; it cannot get too dark until the sun will smash every bit of the darkness. Darkness and light cannot dwell long together. For the… Which is the most powerful? Is the light. And when the light shines, darkness flees. Amen. Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy that you know? No doubt, there’s not a shadow nowhere. But this blessed Light that’s in our hearts right now, something testifying back: the Son of God, the power of God.
853 And we walk here, watch the power of the Holy Spirit come down and go out into a meeting, and say, “You was Mrs. So-and-so, that you did a certain thing, at a certain place. You’ve been plagued with this so long, but THUS SAITH THE LORD, ‘Stand to your feet, you’re healed.’” And a cripple and blind rise to their feet. And a shadow of a man, eaten up with cancer, rise to life and new health again.
854 There’s no doubt, Jesus said, “These things that I do, shall you also.” And He said, “I do nothing till the Father showed Me.”
855 What is that? That’s the Light that’s come mixing into this darkness, you see, to redeem us. Get what I mean?
856 Now, someday goes right back to there, and then when the theophany becomes immortal flesh again like it was in the beginning, then Jesus comes, and God… when Christ will be one. Christ will set on the Throne, and all the people will be human. Christ will be on the throne of David, a man, the Lord Jesus; never to die. Never will we die, never will we be sick, have no more sorrow, and we will live through the thousand years.
857 And when the thousand years are expired on this earth, then the devil comes up; and the second resurrection comes, the resurrection of the unjust. They gather a great army like the sands of the sea, and they come up to compass the camp of the saints, and when it does, God rains fire and brimstone out of the heaven and destroys them.
858 And John said, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth was passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, descending from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” There you are.
859 There he said, “The wife… The Lamb and the Bride will be there forever.” There’ll be a new earth, millions and millions of square miles. Oh, my. The City, the Bible measures out the City of fifteen thousand square miles. It’s fifteen thousand miles long, fifteen thousand miles wide, and fifteen thousand miles high. That’s exactly the description the Bible gives of the City. No wonder there’s no more sea, there wasn’t no place for it.
860 Oh, there’ll be such beauty! And in there, there’s a fountain right at the Throne of God, that flows before the Throne. There’s a tree on either side of the tree… of the river of Life. And in this tree dwells twelve manner of fruit, and yields its fruit every month.
861 There’s the twenty and four elders. There’s the Bride. There’s the forty and four thousand, the temple eunuchs. Oh brother, we’re going somewhere! Things lay ahead for us. The four… The twenty and four elders. The hundred and forty-four thousand eunuchs. The Bride setting with Christ. My, you talk… My Home, sweet Home! Amen.
862 To think that I have the privilege of going there, and you have the privilege of going there. And why would you choose to walk in this darkness and see no Light, and die and go into chaos and become nothing? For when Light takes its supreme authority, there’s no place for darkness. Go find where the darkness went when light comes. That’s when it is, when all things are turned back to God. It had, darkness had a beginning, darkness has an end. Light never had a beginning or it never has an end. God never had a beginning or never has an end. So, someday, the whole debauched world with all of its sin and its beauty, so-called, and all of its fantastic and sensations, and all of its glamour and everything will fade out into nothing, and it’ll be no more. It’ll be no more, no more thought of! It said, even, “It won’t even come into the remembrance anymore.”
863 But the blessed of the Lord shall always be with Him. We’ll have a body like His own glorious body; and live with Him, and eat with Him, and set with Him, and dwell with Him forever and forever and for the aeons of time; and the Eternal ages will roll on with world without end.
864 And you have a choice tonight. If you’re not prepared to meet that place, no matter how much you go to church, how good a member you are, you’re lost until Christ has give you new Life in that darkness that you walk in. You may be religious. Religious, listen, friends, religion is intellectual. See? All the Cain’s children has always had religion. Those Jews had a religion when Jesus come, but they rejected salvation.
865 You may be very religious tonight. You may be Presbyterian,Methodist, Pentecostal, Nazarene, Pilgrim Holiness. You maybe just as religion; go to your church and testify, you may singand shout and praise the Lord, you may bring your tithes to the church, you may treat your neighbor right, that doesn’t have one thing to do with your Eternal destination. Cain did every bit of that. Absolutely.
866 The Bible said that “the wheat and tares come together.” The little ol’ wheat set, it’s starving for rain, and the-the briars is too. When the rain come, the briars are just as happy to get the rain as the wheat is. “But, it’s by their fruits, you shall know them.” Now let us pray while you examine your fruits:
867 Now, Father, God, there’s been some stiff questions here tonight. I may not have done the right thing, but the best of my knowledge; You know my heart. I pray, God, that You’ll receive it. And now, maybe, in some of these questions, if I haven’t made them right, then You speak to the people’s heart, and You make them just where they should be. I feel that You told me. But if I could be wrong, then You forgive me.
868 And I pray, God, that each one of these will take these things in their heart, and may they ponder over them and think like this, “Yes, there is the church, there is these things. That’s what the Bible said.”
869 Maybe the ladies, Lord, You know I didn’t mean anything personal by telling them. But, God, I-I love my sisters, and You know that, Father. You know how I think of them. But to stand and tell them something wrong, I’d be a-a deceiver to them. I do not wish to be a deceiver to my sisters, I want to tell them the Truth. And, Father, I take It right from Your Word.
870 And now I don’t condemn my brethren, but, Lord, I say that they been wrong when they permit these things. And if the lady knowed different and went and done it, then it’s up to her, the pastor’s not guilty.
871 The Abba Father, those things are Your Word, and they’re to You. Now You speak to the hearts of the people. I commit them all to You. I’ll see what You’ve done, Father; You know. Speak to each heart. We ask in Christ’s Name. And with our heads bowed:
872 I wonder if someone would raise their hand, say, “Brother Branham, just remember me that I can be a complete overcomer, and at the last day wear the wedding garment and be with Christ.” Will you raise your hand, say, “Pray for me”?
873 Everybody keep your head down now, and just bow. God bless you, that’s fine. There, God bless you, my sisters; and my brothers, too, raising your hands. That’s wonderful.
874 Now, Father, You see their hands. (I know, sometime you think, “Well, just a little prayer like that?”) God, I’m thinking about that mother, said yesterday, “Just a little prayer there in her house that day when that boy was dying, three weeks to live, that malignancy on the brain, and now that changed things.”
875 I think of Hezekiah, leaning his face towards the wall, and crying, “Lord, I beseech Thee, be merciful to me. Consider me, for I’ve walked before You with a perfect heart.” It changed from death to life.
876 One scream from the Son of God, “Lazarus, come forth!” and a dead man came forth.
877 O God, You said, “Speak, ask, and it shall be given. When you say anything, believe that what you say comes to pass, you’ll have what you say.”
878 Now, Father, I pray that each that raised their hand will receive what they raised their hands for. And may they be blessed. And God, I pray that You’ll help our sisters, that they’ll be… let them conduct themselves, that Satan through television and True Story magazines and so forth, that’s been so loosely handled, and uncensored programs, how the dirt and vulgar on the televisions and so forth, which would… Could be an instrument to win millions of souls to You, but how they’re not censored, and put out all these ol’ dirty things that they… Oh, how pitiful! And to know that the spirit of the devil has got in and around our sisters, and are trying to make
them fashion and dress like that.
879 And we find out that in the… in our brothers, also, Lord, that how they figure that they can smoke and drink, and carry on like that, and still be Christians because they say they “believe.” Let them know that “the devil believes, also.” And he is not saved, “he believes and trembles.”
880 And now, Father, we pray that You’ll be merciful to us all, and forgive us of our sins, and maybe some didn’t raise up their hands, O God, be merciful. May the next opportunity they have, may they raise their hands.
881 We’re fixing to take the communion, Lord. Forgive us of our trespasses and our bygones of life. And may we receive of Thy blessing, for we ask it in Christ’s Name. Amen.
882 The Lord bless you. I’m sorry to keep you like this. I just wonder, just before communion, if there’s anyone come to be prayed for, would want to be prayed for, well, we’d be glad to do that just at this time, if there’s anybody to be prayed for.
883 All right, brother, you bring her right on up, that’ll be fine. And just a moment, and then we’re going to-we’re going to dismiss. And then when we dismiss, then those who wants to stay for communion, can stay. But right now we’re going to offer prayer for the sick. What did the Bible say?
884 If the brother can’t raise up… That’s all right, just let him set there, we’ll come to him. That’s all right, just let him set right there. And we’ll come down and pray for him. That’s okay. All right, sir, just let-let him set right there. It’s hard for him to stand here, why, we’ll be glad to come right to him.
885 Now I want to make this one little mention, my dear friend. See, I-I know that the Lord has proved this over and over so many times. See? I’m not much of a preacher, I have not education and so forth. I love the Lord Jesus, God knows that I love Him. But one thing I was called to do, pray for the sick. Do you believe that? Even before I ever knowed about the gift, I used to go out here at the hospital; and I remember them nurses saying, “Now you’re going to get well.” See? And just something, that God has been so gracious to honor my prayers for the people.
886 I imagine, tonight, if it would be called, just a whole world-wide blast to everywhere in the world. And say, everybody that Brother Branham has prayed for, come here, I’d like for you to give an answer to the United States government, with a letter. And that would be a world-wide broadcast. I guess, maybe four or five million people would answer that call if it were known. See?
887 And them people, or some of them were already been dead, laid out by the doctor, and-and the undertaker. Some of them has been killed in accidents; some of them died a natural death. Some of them are blind, halt, lame, twisted, afflicted, mentally… in hospitals, didn’t even know we was in the hospital to pray for them. Bring them in, have to take them. They’d fight their way through and cut theirself to pieces, not even know where he’s at. In a five minutes, be normal, sweet, loving people, and sane the rest of their days. See?
888 It’s… What is it? It’s not Brother Branham. It’s Jesus Christ, He sent me to pray for the sick. Now here’s what it is. It’s not been too successful in Jeffersonville, because, here’s why. Now, I want you to know I got some of my closest and best friends is right here in this city. Although the city itself, the state of the city, I do not like it. I do not like this situation, and never did; when I was a little boy, setting, reading my history books, I said, “Someday I’ll leave here.” See?
889 I don’t like Jeffersonville, it’s a swamp, it’s down in here. It’s just real swampy, and-and it’s very bad. Go up here on top of Spickert Knobs or somewhere, and look off down towards New Albany and Jeffersonville, if you want to see. Look here, the doctors are even saying now, that, “The people of this valley is becoming anemia because of the condition.”
890 A little lady up here, Mrs. Morgan, was healed of cancer, took her dog out here to the clinic, thought it had mange. You know what it was? The settlings of Colgates and things on the weeds where it went through. It’s the most unhealthy place.
891 A fellow was in the Army, went down here and got… He had asthma. Went down here in Florida and his eyes become real black, and he went over to the doctor, and he said, “Doctor… ”
892 The doctor said, “Now, you been in a fight, haven’t you?”
893 He said, “No, sir, I haven’t.”
894 If you want to know who it is, his name is Herby. Now, if I can just think… It’s-it’s in Union National Bank, in New Albany, he’s a teller. Just go there and see the one says “Herby,” ask him.
895 And he said… He went, he said, “Doctor,” he said, “I’ve got sinus.”
896 And he examined him, said, “That’s right.” He said, “I thought you had been in a fight.” Said, “Boy, where do you live?”
897 He said, “You might not know the place,” said, “I live in a little city across from Louisville, Kentucky, called New Albany, Indiana.”
898 Said, “You mean to tell me that you taken sinus trouble off this salt water here in Miami, from coming?” Said, “If you could live in Jeffersonville, Indiana, or New Albany, Indiana, you can live anywhere in the world the United States army would send you.” That’s all. See?
899 It’s the most unhealthy place there is in the world, that I know of, ’less it’d be in some malaria swamp. See? And I-I-I-I’ve got friends here.
900 Look here, I can just go to call them like this. Look at Dr. Sam Adair, my buddy. All right, there’s Mike Egan, setting there. Oh, my, how many could I name! Just hundreds of real good buddies, my old chums, that I’ve chummed… No matter how many new friends I find, there’s nothing will take a place from an old buddy. You know that.
901 There’s my old mother setting back there, not many days for the earth, she’s in her sixties now. There’s my wife’s mother, seventy, going on seventy-one; setting back here somewhere, I think, tonight. And there, leave her. My daddy’s buried up here; the wife buried out here on the Walnut Ridge; my baby laying out there. See what I mean?
902 I-I-I don’t like… I-I-I-I don’t want to stay here, and I believe that soon, right away, I’m going to have to leave. See, ’cause it’s been coming to me, I say this over the pulpit and my Bible, constantly.
903 When I told my wife, when they give us the money to build that parsonage which I turned over to this church… This church owns that parsonage; go down here, find out if it isn’t. See, I wouldn’t take it myself.
904 Now, when I was going to build there, Meda said, “I want to stay here on account of my mother.”
905 I said, “Honey, just as sure as we do, we’ll be sorry about it. See, it just won’t work. God has said, ‘Separate,’ I’ve got to do it.”
906 And said, “Well, my mother!”
907 I said, “My mother, too. ‘But he that won’t forsake his
own, and follow after Me, is not worthy to be called Mine.’
And that’s true.”
908 Someday, shortly, I feel I’m going to have to move, that’s, go away. But here’s the way, the meetings won’t work here. It won’t work like it does anywhere else, and anybody that’s ever been in the meeting knows that’s true, because it’s right here in my own home town. That’s it.
909 Jesus said the same thing when He come.
910 They said, “Who is this guy? Isn’t that the carpenter’s boy out here? What school did he ever go to? Where’d he get this learning? Now let me see you do… You said you did miracles over here, let me see you do the same thing here. What you done in Capernaum, let me see you do it here.”
911 Jesus said… “He marveled at their unbelief.” He turned and said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, a prophet’s not without reward unless he’s amongst his own people in his own county.” Is that right?
912 And we know… look at… Take Finney, take Sankey, Moody; take John Wesley, never could make a go of it, see, till he left his country. Look at-look at-at-at Moody. When Moody, a Boston shoe cobbler, couldn’t go at all, he come to Chicago before he ’come famous. See? He had to get it from his own. You’ll always have to do it.
913 But now, here, God will answer prayer if you’ll forget it’s William Branham (See?), if you’ll forget it’s William Branham has anything to do into it, only just one to stand and pray for you. It’s Jesus Christ that’s already did what you’ve asked to do, if you’ll just believe it. See? It isn’t anything to do… I have nothing to do with it, just to witness. But seeming like after raising here with you, and you know every weakness I have, and every fault I have… And you know what God has done, right in this city.
914 This city, at the day of judgment, will answer a great price someday, for there’s been hundreds and hundreds of outstanding healings right here (That’s right.), right here. Signs and wonders, and the appearing of the Angel down there, and the papers blasted forth and everything, and still people don’t… Why is it?
915 Now someday, I’m going to leave here. I’m wondering: “What will be my end? Is it over? Is it just about? I’m fortyeight years old. Is it just about over?” I wonder this. If it is…
916 Look, why didn’t the world realize that picture there? Why didn’t they catch that right quick? Why don’t they catch these other things? Why don’t they catch these prophecies and things? You know, they can’t do it now, but one day I’m going to leave the world, and when I leave, then they’ll recognize It. Some of you young people will realize that after I’m gone. See?
But God wouldn’t permit it to be done now.
