A Negative Confession

Bro. Lee Vayle

1.	… Saying he was perfect, is not describing Jacob as he once was;
because he was pretty much of a naughty little individual, until he got
straightened out by God. He was human. See? temperamental and all. But
this Bible describes him, in the sight of God, as he matured.

	This is Israel. This is a history. Do you follow me? It is not a moment
by moment account where someone wrote a record. It is Moses, the
historian, going back in the Spirit of God, and knowing what transpired,
and God just fills it in quickly; because otherwise, we’d have this
room more than filled with books just on the history of Israel. See what
I mean?

2.	Genesis 25:27-28:

(27)    	…He was a perfect man, dwelling in tents.

(28)    	And Isaac loved Esau, (This is that phileo love.) because he
did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.

	“But Rebekah loved Jacob.” Now, you will notice here that Esau was
a good boy towards his family. He was a very good boy. He certainly did
take care of his daddy. It was nice of him. “Rebekah loved Jacob.”
See? That’s true.

3.	Now: [Gen 25:29-34]

(29)    	And Jacob sod (cooked) pottage: and Esau came from the field,
and he was faint:

(30)    	And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same
red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

(31)   	And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

(32)    	And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what
profit shall this birthright do me?

(33)    	And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him:
and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

(34)    	And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did
eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his
birthright.

	Now, listen. In spite of what you have just heard, this is honestly the
first real record, and the most important record in the Word of God, of
what is a negative confession. Now, notice carefully: In spite of the
fact that we read this lightly, (and we don’t think that conditions or
anything was so grim, at that time) that this man, Esau, should come in
and sell his birthright for a meal. But that’s not true at all,
because you see the Bible was never written in chapters and verses.

	A Catholic priest, I understand, in France, understanding how the
eye-span is and how you can rest the eye better than looking at one
mass, broke it up into chapters and verses. And he pulled a real boo-boo
here, because Chapter 26, verse 1, explains what I just read. “There
was a famine in the land.”

4.	Now you know that a famine is grim. There are very real, desperate
conditions in a famine. India’s got a famine right now, and we’re
trying to relieve it. In fact, there is no Communist country or
pro-Communist country that has an abundance today. And America could get
rid of Communism by stop selling her wheat—and Canada and the Allies
the same thing. And we could starve the Communist right today—kill the
whole bunch of them. We don’t need the atomic bomb, (You know that?)
to kill a man. Just don’t feed him; he’ll die. 

	You know the President said there is not too much wheat in America;
we’re going to increase it fifteen percent. We’re going to wish to
God, some day, that we hadn’t sold our wheat and that we had more of
it; because God wants to bless us to be the granary of the world. And we
want our own way. 

5.	Famines are grim! You don’t just die like that! You waste away
nervously, pondering, pacing, wasting; dying! “There was a famine in
the land.” We read this story like as though there was no famine,
don’t we? And we say: “That fellow, Esau; my, look what he did. One
day he was out hunting, and he didn’t take any food with him, and he
over-extended himself, and he came in hungry. And he said, (like you and
I say) ‘My! I’m so hungry; I could eat the horse and chase the
rider.’”

	Oh, yeah! That’s how we read It. Sure we do; because we didn’t read
verse one of Chapter 26, because It said “There was a famine…”

	Listen! There was a famine in the land, and Esau was not fooling when
he said in Chapter 25, verses 30 and 32: “I am faint…and I am at the
point of death…”

	This scene described here describes the reactions of men that are set
forth when they meet these conditions. The conditions were grim and
desperate. Did you hear me? The conditions were grim and desperate.

6.	But! (I said BUT!) I want you to notice that there were also some
very real promises of God in the face of those conditions and in spite
of those conditions, and they were given to the people of God, who were
Esau and Jacob by birth to Isaac and Rebekah: For Genesis 25:32 says,
“…and what shall this birthright profit me?”

	There was a birthright involved, which was not material but was
spiritual; and the birthright was the Word of promise, which God said
He’d back up and stand behind. And, when God doesn’t back up His
Word, He’s no longer God. Do you understand that? He’s no longer
God. God and His Word are One, and He’s got to back up that Word. He
has exalted that Word above His very Name: And He says He stands behind
His Word to perform It.

7.	Then, in Heb 12:16, 17, (describing what Esau did in the face of
these grim circumstances) the Holy Ghost said, “Lest there be any
fornicator or profane person.” Do you know what a fornicator is?
It’s to have illicit relationships; and that’s what this man did. He
entered into an illicit relationship, or profaned it. ‘Profane’
means ‘heathenish’. It doesn’t say ‘he was a heathen’. It says
he acted like a heathen. And what does a heathen think of? His belly. 

	Now we’ve got a ‘belly’ religion right here in Laodicea. Sure we
have! We are rich, increased in goods and lack nothing. We throw more
food away in our swill barrel garbage cans than people in Europe eat. We
are wasters, wasteful, squanderers; and God said this man Esau, was a
fornicator—a heathenish person, who for a morsel of bread sold his
birthright. “For you would know that how afterward, he would have
inherited the blessing…” What does it mean to inherit the blessing?
To get what the blessing called for.

8.	Do you know what people did to Bro. Branham? The same thing. The
Bible says “He that receives a prophet in the name of a prophet,
receives a prophet’s reward,”—what the ministry gives. And, when
they wouldn’t call and give him the title, (and which he was, the
prophet of God) or they gave it with tongue in cheek, they lost his
ministry. Today they are in their same blind sins and ignorant.

	And the Scripture also distinctly says here that the man Esau could not
receive what God’s Word said was his. He couldn’t inherit It. Why?
Because he rejected what God said was his in the face of conditions
which were grim. And “He found no place for repentance, though he
sought it carefully with tears.”

	Now God’s Word says: (Heb 10:35) “Cast not away your confidence,
which hath great recompense of reward.” But he did it; he threw it
away.

9.	Now, from this we can learn, or come to the conclusion, as to what
the negative confession is, or what is the confession of unbelief in
God. It is to admit to a condition, considering and believing in its
natural conclusion, rather that to confess what God has already said
about the conclusion of that condition.

	It’s on tape, and you’d better memorize it. 

	Esau said there is a famine; and there was a famine. He said, “I have
hunted and found no food. I am faint, and I will die.” And that’s
exactly true.

10.	You see, Esau was a hunter. And, when there’s a famine, there’s
a famine because there’s no water. The brooks dry up; the plains
become parched and burned; the animals move further and further and
further for water. They moved so far that Esau couldn’t find any, any
more; and he lived by hunting. Do you follow me? Do you get it?

	He lived by hunting. And there wasn’t any hunting. 

	How many of you have ever fasted? (Don’t raise your hands. Just think
it over.) It didn’t even feel good the first day, did it? Most of you
got headaches and wanted to go to bed. The second day you felt weaker,
and that didn’t feel any good either. You try to really work on a
empty stomach. 

	And this man was hunting and walking for days, and pretty soon the
empty stomach began rubbing, lining against lining, and the gas began to
accumulate, rumbling, and he got weaker and weaker, and he finally
stumbled home and said, “I am at the point of death; I’ve got to
have food.”

	And he wasn’t lying. It was absolutely true; because, when you
don’t have food; you don’t eat, and when you don’t eat,
malnutrition sets in; and in the final stages you die of hunger, because
people do starve. Millions have starved in this world and millions more
will, and it’s not pleasant. It is one of the worst deaths in all this
world.

11.	The situation was grim! It was desperate! But he had no right to say
it; because God had said something else. You know what God said? Let’s
turn to the Book of Genesis, which we are all familiar with. [Gen
15:1-6]

(1)    	After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a
vision, saying, Fear not Abram,  I am your protector and your provider.	

	And, remember; the promise was made not only to Abraham, but to
Abraham’s seed. The revelation God gave to Abraham was to every one of
his issue: I am your protector and provider. I’m God; and I’m your
God.

(2)    	And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go
childless, and the steward of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?

(3)    	And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo,
one born in my house is mine heir.

(4)    	And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This
shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own
bowels shall be thine heir.

(5)    	And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward
heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said
unto him, So shall thy seed be.

(6)    	And he believed in (the Lord); and he counted it to him for
righteousness.

12.	Now God said he was going to have issue, and he was going to have
seed; and, if he was going to have multiplied seed, then those boys had
to live and not die, because nobody dead can have children. And they had
to come by Isaac. They couldn’t come by Ishmael or the sons of
Keturah. They had to come by Isaac, and these were Isaac’s children.
“In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” (Gen 21:12)

	Esau and Jacob were born of Isaac, so they had to live. God swore by
Himself that they would live and not die.

13.	Genesis 15:18-21. This is the vision of Abraham. 

(18)   	In that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,
Unto thy seed (Unto thy seed: These two boys were the seed of Abraham.)
have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river,
the river Euphrates

(19)   	The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,

(20)   	And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,

(21)   	And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and
the Jebusites.

	I have given all their land to these boys.

	Now, look; the land is no good if you’ve just got six feet down and
three feet across, seven feet this way, or whatever you’re buried in.
God never said “I’ll give them a hole in the ground”. He said,
“I’ll give them the land where people live in it.” God gave them a
promise. The promise of God to Esau was life, not death,

14.	Do you get it? Your measure of faith is reposing in a God Who raises
what? The dead. And death is often a symbolic word. It doesn’t simply
mean that you are going to cease and be covered up. It means ‘death to
your plans’; ‘death to your ambition’; ‘death to your hope’.
It means ‘pressed out of measure’. God promises life coming out of
death. And, when this man, Esau, faced the extreme conditions of life,
he threw up his hands in the face of what God said—denied what God
said, denied what God would do, and said “gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme,
food at any price. Never mind God and His promises. I’m going to take
things in my own hands now. Give me food, or I’ll die.”

15.	But Jacob wasn’t like Esau. No, he wasn’t like Esau. He said,
“I’ve got food, and all that stands between me and death is what
I’ve got here.” Now he said, “I don’t have to take a chance on
God, because I’ve got what it takes already.”

	But, he said, “Here, you take what I’ve got, what I’m depending
on, and you eat it, and you live, on one condition: You exchange my
ability to live apart from God for your ability to live with God. Give
me the birthright, and I’ll starve, if I have to. I’ll take a chance
on God. I’ll deliberately put myself in the position where, if God
doesn’t work for me, I die; because you don’t want God to work for
you.”

	That’s the way the Book’s written. I didn’t write it. I’m just
preaching it.

16.	And God called Esau a ‘fornicator’, because he left the Word of
God. When you leave the Word of God for anything else, you’re a
fornicator. You’ve broken your vow, because the only vow at the
marriage altar you gave was your word. Isn’t it? Huh?

	When you listen to your own mind, you’re fornicating in the eyes of
God, and you are acting like a heathen. The Bible says a fornicator and
a heathenish person.

	You say, “Just a minute now. Isn’t this kind of rough for God to
say such a thing for a man that was starving?”

	No sir, because we’re dealing with God. He made a promise, and He
won’t lie. He said: “I want you to honor Me.” Thou shalt honor the
Lord, thy God. (Mt 4:10)

	You honor your parents, don’t you? You’d better honor God a lot
more. Just as soon as the chips are down, and we see something which
seems to be contrary to God’s Word, we reserve to ourselves the rights
to think what we want to think, say what we want to say, and say,
“God, bless me now. God bless me now.”

	You’re never gonna get it, honey! You fornicated. And you act like a
heathen, you lose the blessing. Don’t presume on God, my
brother/sister. Don’t presume on God!

17.	The Bible says “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God
in vain.” That doesn’t mean ‘curse’—that means ‘to bear’.
We bear one of the names of God—Lord Jesus Christ. We are called
Christians. The word in the Greek ‘Christos’ means ‘the Christ’,
‘the anointed One’, or the ‘Holy Ghost’. The ‘i-a-n’ in the
Bible comes from the Latin ‘eo’, which means ‘to walk’. It means
we are walking christs. Are we? Not a lot of the time. We bear His name
in vain.

18.	Esau had the name of God and the birthright in vain; and, when the
chips were down, he sold out to human reasoning, and he said what God
did not say. 

	He said, “I’m gonna die.” 

	God said, “You’re gonna live.” 

	He said, “I’m gonna die.” 

	God said, “You’re gonna live.” 

	But he lived, and so did Jacob; and the day came when Esau began to
cry. It was too late, and he went from bad to worse, because his brother
legitimately—legally—had the birthright, and he tried to kill his
brother. For the chain of events that he set off, he turned against God
and mankind.

19.	The first step to back-sliding, brother/sister, is, in the face of
circumstances and trials, when you and I analyze them and say, “I can
see where it is going,” when God said, “No, it is not going there;
it is going here.”

	“Oh, any fool can see where it’s going!” 

	Call God a fool, eh?

	“But I didn’t mean to.”

	But you did! Huh? 

	So, you went your own way—not the way of the Word, because you said,
“It’s too rough. It’s too hard. If the preacher says that once
more, I’m gonna quit.”

	Listen, if you have said that, please leave the room right now, because
I’m gonna say it just as sure as you’re sittin’ there. Go ahead!
Beat it! God will deal with you.

20.	I said it when I was 27, and He did it, and I did it; and for nine
years He beat the daylights out of me. I mean, beat the darkness out of
me. If I’d had daylight, I wouldn’t have got beaten. Sure! I did
what Esau did. 

	Surely you’ve done it too. That’s why you’ve got trouble today.
That’s why you’re not using this measure of faith that will move
mountains, because you reserve to yourself the rights to use your human
reasoning against the Word of God and say like Esau: “There’s no
food, and I’ll starve.” And that’s exactly true. But, if God said,
you won’t starve regardless of no food, then start looking for food,
because it will be there.

21.	Now God didn’t say, “Go outside and take a deep breath of air,
and that will fill you.” No. He didn’t do it to Elijah. He had the
ravens come and feed him. Now some people say they were nomads. I
don’t care if they were nomads or some-mads, or anything else. He got
fed by God, and that’s all it took. Then, one day God couldn’t find
any nomads, ravens, or whatever they were, so He just sent an angel, and
the angel cooked something, and he went forty days and forty nights; but
he didn’t die. See what I’m driving at?

	You see, we say: “Well, if I had been Esau, I wouldn’t have done
it.”

	Oh, wouldn’t you? Let’s just pretend, this morning. Let’s get
real serious. Let’s just say, “All right, there is no food! What are
we going to do?”

22.	Now, some of you are just kids and are too young to know about the
“Hungry Thirties”; but I want to tell you I saw Christians
(so-called) cut each others throats in the hungry thirties to get food.
There is coming a day, perhaps, when there will be no food. In the
Depression there was no money but an amplitude of food, so they burned
the food and the clothing and all so you couldn’t have it, to raise
the prices. Like the government went and said, “Now look, you
farmers...” If a farmer had been raising two chickens at 25 cents and
buying two shirts at 25 cents a pieces… So, the government went to the
farmer and said: “Now, look; this is the way the economics run:
Don’t raise so many chickens, and when you raise one chicken and sell
him for 25 cents, you see, you will have more money.

	Then he snuck around to the manufacturer, and he said, “Now look,
raise the price of shirts (don’t make so many), and you sell one shirt
for 50 cents and the farmer his chicken for 50 cents”

	So, what happens? The farmer now has one chicken, and he gets one
shirt. Before, he had two chickens and two shirts. That’s the
government: nuttier than a hoot owl! Crazy! Built upon the god of this
world—the insanity of the devil. Sure, that’s what happened. You
know I’m telling you the truth. That’s exactly what has happened in
the United States. You curbed the beneficence and goodness of God, and
you’re worse off than before.

	But now, if we get to starvation, then what happens? If there’s no
food for anybody, how’re we going to act then? Like dog eat dog?

23.	Years ago I belonged to a union—a railway union. I used to work in
a ticket office. And I had a man who said he wasn’t going to lower his
standard of living for anybody. I said I would.

	He wanted everything he could get his clutches on. 

	“If a man needs help, it is my job to help.” Well, I sound pretty
nice saying that, because everybody had something. What if we’ve all
got nothing, maybe? What’s going to be our attitude then? “Misery
loves company?” No! We’ve got to trust God. See?

	When the chips are down, it’s too easy to say what you have already
solved in your mind than to say what God said about it. Esau said what
God did not say; Jacob said what God said. Esau was guilty of a negative
confession, or the confession of unbelief. And we are too prone to come
along and say, “Well, if I’d been there, I’d have done so and
so.” Oh no, you wouldn’t! I wonder if we would!?

	Oh, what would you act like in a famine? Well, I’ll tell you how
you’re going to act. How do you act when somebody crosses you? Can you
turn the left cheek, having been smitten on the right? Can you commit
judgment to God? Can you trust Him in the valley? Are you doing it?
You’ve got the ability, you know!

24.	Now, God would not have said one thing against Esau, if he hadn’t
had the ability. He had the ability, because he had the birthright; and
he put it to one side. Your birthright is the promise of God that He
will do what He said. Are you going to despise it when the chips are
down, or are you going to say what God said?

	You see why this Message helps you from last night? It really makes of
clear, doesn’t it? Don’t you dare say what God hasn’t said.
You’ll regret it, because your word could be in opposition.

25.	Esau said “I’m going to die.”

	God said “You’re going to live!”

	 He said, “What profit is this birthright?”

	God said, “The whole land is yours. That’s what the profit is.”

	He said, “forget it. I’m hungry! I’m starving!”

	He was!

	You see what I’m trying to show you, brother/sister? Listen, get this
picture: This is real and crucial. This is no bedtime story. This is no
Aesop’s fable. Two people were in the midst of a famine: one had a
little of this world’s goods, the other had nothing. But he had the
promise of God, and he said “Give me the goods of this world;” and
the other fellow said: “I will, if I can just have God’s Word,
because that’s what’s real.”

26.	And he (Esau) said, “I’ll trade any day. Just give me the
food!” And the one man, calculatedly, absolutely knowing what he was
doing, deliberately put his trust in God and became a prince. The other
man had the goods from God already and turned it down. That, my
brother/sister, is what the birthright and promise of God is. The
promise of God stands. Never mind what you think helps to stand. You get
the picture? I’ve got to give it to you strong. These conditions were
real! Don’t look back and say, “I’d have done so and so”
That’s what Israel did. They said, “If we’d have been back there
in the days of those men, we wouldn’t have killed the prophets.”
Jesus said: “You liars! You would have killed them. You’re just like
your fathers: you garnished their tombs, and you’re a partaker by the
same spirit.”

27.	Now, have we got the spirit of Esau this morning, to turn on God’s
Word, or have we got the Spirit of Christ? Have we got the spirit of
Eve, to turn away from God’s Word, or have we got the spirit of Mary,
who said “Be it unto me according to Thy Word”?  Remember, the Bride
is a Word Bride. This takes discipline, my brother/sister. 

	I remember years ago I talked to a man that’s world famous. I won’t
mention his name. I sat in his office in Ohio, and I taught him on
discipline. I said “The most important thing in this world is a
disciplined mind, because we are not born spiritual, we are born
mental.” Adam was born spiritual; but, when God took Eve from him, it
took a step between spirit and mental—the mental. She gave way to the
mental, then Adam gave way to the mental, and we ceased being spiritual:
we became mental.

	And we are ninety percent mental and ten percent physical, because you
can lose anything in your body that it can function without. They’ll
even take away your liver now to rejuvenate it; like they put blood
through machines and give your liver a chance to get better. They are
going to use kidney transplants, and they’re doing it.

28.	In other words I am trying to show you this: You can lose your legs,
your eyes; you can lose your power of speech, you can lose your hearing,
and you can lose your legs (like DeCoursey did) and still be great and
famous. But, if you lose your mind, you are nothing but a cucumber, or a
melon or something. The toughest thing in this world is to bring your
mind and your tongue into subjection, and that is exactly what the Word
of God says. “Casting down the high things...” And, don’t let this
thing, the tongue, get bitter and sweet at the one place, because
you’ll reap what this tongue sows. Life and death is in the power of
the tongue. See what I mean?

29.	And I said to this man, “Discipline is the secret in renewing of
the mind.” He never said one word, until three years later, he
apologized and said “Lee, I want to confess and apologize to you.” 

	I said, “What for?” 

	He said, “When you told me what you did, I sat there with tongue in
cheek; but,” he said, “You’re right!” 

	And he gave me Hudson Taylor’s little book on discipline, and he
said, “This changed my life, because it proved what you taught!”

30.	The renewing of the mind and your tongue is to think what God thinks
about the condition and say what God said. Now, listen brother/sister;
you can do it and live, or perish without doing it. 

	This is a hard message; this is not popular, because we are all the
time saying, “God’s on my side! God’s on my side! God’s on my
side!”

	No sir! Moses said, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” God always was
for you; God ever will be for you. He’s never stopped being for you.
But are you for God? You know, you’ve got to be agreed, if two walk
together.

31.	Jesus said, “What I hear my father say, that I say.” It had to
be in His mind and, then, in his tongue. The prophet said, “...and his
word was altogether in my tongue.” (2 Samuel 23:2) It wasn’t what I
thought; it was what He put there.

	How do you think this morning? Do you think this is worth listening to,
or do you want to go home now? It’s up to you, because I can quit
right here. I can’t live your life for you. God won’t even live your
life for you. You’ve got to let Him. If you don’t think I’m
preaching you the secret, brother/sister, I challenge you to read your
Bible again, and I challenge you to read the biography or the
autobiography of every major Christian; and it’s all what I’m
preaching right here: men who refused to let go of the Word of God.

	Like Paul… They said: “Paul, for God’s sake get us off the boat;
Paul, don’t trust God! Don’t stick.”

	He said, “Stay with the boat, or you are going to die.”

	“But Paul, you said ‘Even the boat is going to pieces.’”
“STICK WITH IT! STICK WITH IT!”

	“But Paul...”

	“Don’t but me! God stood by my side. Stay with the boat. Don’t
you change!”

	“But Paul...”

	“SHUT UP!”

32.	You remember this! Listen brother/sister, you talk about knowing
Bro. Branham; you think you know him? I was there the day the Pillar of
Fire wrote on the wall “Go back to Arizona”. I never saw a man look
so hunted, his eyes dashing here and there: “What’s God gonna
do?”—looking back and forth like a hunted creature going to be hit
on the head.

	“Oh,” you say, “This presence of God… O glory!” 

	Shut up with this glory stuff, brother/sister. You’re been sold a
bill of goods. I mean God’s loving. I mean God’s kind. You can
praise Him. You can get wafted away on cloud number nine. You can have
ineffable glory in your soul. But the most of your life, my
brother/sister, is not knowing which way it’s going to strike. But be
aware, God is in it all! “Let the boat go down!”

33.	Sure you’re scared. These people that say they see God standing by
the curtain way, smiling and smiling! If God walked into this room,
I’d crawl under the very linoleum here. Hah?

	Certainly, there is no fear of God before their eyes; because we can
take His Word, and we think and do what we want and think what we think!
And God, brother/sister, is the biggest dictator this world has ever
seen—He’s SOVEREIGN! And He said, “Don’t you dare think, when
I’ve thought it through; and don’t you dare talk, unless you think
and talk what I’ve said”

34.	And to Esau, in the midst of starvation, God said, “You profane,
you heathenish person.” Why? Because a heathen will do anything to
save his life.

	The devil said that about Job. He said, “An eye for an eye; skin for
skin; all that a man has will he give for his life.” 

	And God said, “That’s a lie. That’s a lie! Job is my righteous
servant. He’ll stand up for my Word.” 

	And Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” 

	And the sacred record of God says: “In all this, Job sinned not with
his tongue.”

35.	Listen, this is serious today. It’s so serious—so serious. I
have often said: “Oh God, can I even go to a hypnotist? God let... Can
there be something happen to help me get this down pat?” 

	And God won’t answer, because it’s something you’ve got do on
your own. You’ve got to steel yourself. You’ve got to look up to It.
You’re not gonna have any outside help; but, if God’s gonna
seemingly desert you and say, “Now here it is. Will you trust Me?”
How will you answer? 

	“Yea, though I walk through (in two step-by-step) the valley of the
shadow of death, thou art with me, and I will fear no evil.” [Ps 23:4]

	“God I’m afraid. I’m gonna starve.” 

	“NO! You can’t starve, because I said you’re gonna live and
inherit the land.” 

	God never said you’re like women without strength to bring to birth.
He never said you’re like a man who dreams he eats and wakes up
empty—not like a man who painted a fire without heat. God said:
“Though I try you, you’re gonna come forth as gold.” 

36.	Listen to me. I want to give another illustration, the illustration
that I call the twelve presbyters of Israel, because they were the
twelve presbyters of Israel, in a sense. In Num 13:30—and these are
those elders who searched out the land for Moses—and reading three
verses, then continuing in 14.

(30)   	And Caleb stilled the people (Now, they had come back. And Caleb
stilled the people) before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and
possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.

(31)   	And the men that went up with him said, We are not able to go up
against the people; for they are stronger than we.

(32)   	And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had
searched unto the children of Israel, saying, (Now, listen. They brought
up an evil report of what God said he was going to give them was the
most wonderful, blessed land in the world; and they came back and said,
“Fooey!” Yeah.) The land, through which we have gone to search it,
is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people
that are in it are giants of stature.

(33)   	And there we saw giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the
giants: and we were in our own sights as grasshoppers, and so (they
looked upon us as though we were grasshoppers). 

(1)    	And the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the
people wept that night.

(2)    	And all the children of Israel murmered against Moses and
against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that
we had died in the land of Egypt! Would God we had died in (the)
wilderness!

(3)    	And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall
by the sword, that our wives and children should be a prey? Were it not
better for us to return to Egypt?

(4)   	And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, we’ll go
back to Egypt (and become slaves again. It isn’t worth it.)

	And then, Moses and Aaron, knowing the truth of the goodness of God,
and that God was only testing the people, fell on their faces and cried
to God. Oh God, how they cried!

(7)  	And they (said to) Israel, the land, which we have passed through
to search it, is (a) good land.

(8)   	If the Lord delight in us, he will bring us (to the) land, and
(he’ll) give it to us; (this wonderful blessed land of) milk and
honey.

(9)   	Only (don’t rebel) against the Lord…

37.	Rebellion starts in thinking what God has not thought and saying
what God has not said. WHY? Because the organ of the mind is the organ
of thinking. It’s the organ of consciousness preceding the act, and
what you think and say, YOU WILL DO! Don’t you get it?! Ah, come on!

	You say, “Bro, Vayle, you’re preaching psychology.”  

	You bet your (sweet) life I’m preaching psychology; God’s
psychology. Because you’ve got a psyche called your soul. God wrote
this book for your soul. So, I’m preaching God’s psychology. Listen
to me: What you think and talk about, you will do. You’ll do it. You
can’t help yourself, because the mind is the organ of consciousness
preceding the act. And the Bible says, if they had kept in mind and
talked about the country from whence they came out, they would have gone
back. But they wouldn’t think about it; they wouldn’t talk about it;
they went on. (Huh?)

38.	“Well,” you say, “Bro. Vayle, I don’t like your
preaching.” 

	I don’t say you do. But people don’t like my preaching, because
they say, “Well, Bro. Vayle, we’ve got the dear, sweet Pentecostal
spirit where God just comes down; and, ‘la,la,la,la, and we’re just
carried along.”

	Well, where have you been carrying to, honey? Come on; show me what
you’ve got this morning!

	I have been stomping America, and for the last five years I’ve seen
it get worse and worse and worse and deader and deader! Where have you
been carried to, kid? The whole bunch hasn’t got enough faith to get
off the height of a cigarette paper off the floor in the Rapture. And
yet, the Word of God distinctly warns: Enoch walked by faith, because he
had this testimony: he pleased God walking by faith, and God took him.
And without faith, you can’t please God. Without dynamic, virile faith
as Enoch, you’ll not get off the ground. You’ll be right here. Now,
come on! I read my Bible. You can read your Bible.

39.	Where’s the big revival they told us about? Where is it? I want to
know about it. A woman said to me in Southern Pines two years ago:
“What do you think of this move of God?” 

	I said, “What move of God?” (She thought I was facetious. She
almost tumbled her off the steps.) “I mean, where is it?” Huh?

	God leads His sheep; doesn’t pick ’em up and carry ’em, boss
’em around, make them do things. Sure, I see the sovereignty of God;
but, I’m gonna tell you right here: men have a choice, and the
conditions are real.

40.	Now, listen to me: I want you to notice something, brother/sister.
We look back, and we say, “Oh, wasn’t that terrible back there!” 

	Israel… You would think they would have learned their lesson out
there in the wilderness, and you’d think they would have learned their
lesson in Egypt, and you’d think they would have known better when
they saw God deliver them by killing every male in Egypt except their
own males, and take them through the Red Sea and kill Pharaoh. And then,
He fed ‘em on manna, and nobody’s clothes wore out.

	You say, “Oh my, they sure would have known their lesson. Now, if
I’d been there, I’d have made it.” 

	Would you?

	You just read a bedtime story—a bedtime tale. You didn’t read the
Word of God. Listen, let me show you the facts. What does the Bible say
about Israel? It says that Pharaoh took away all their weapons, so they
couldn’t rise up and fight. They didn’t know the first thing about
handling a sword, or a spear, or an arrow. They were shepherd people,
ignorant of war. They were slaves. They were meek and humble. The cities
of Canaan were walled. What are you going to do? Walk around it and say,
“Hi, let me in and take over.”

	And they say, “What did you say?” 

	“Hi, let me take over.” 

	Bong! Millstone dropped on your head, and you’re crushed to a
fritter. 

	“Take over this way, they say.” Laugh at you! 

	“Well, lay down your instruments and let’s have some Indian
wrestling.”

	“Are you kidding!”

41.	What would you feel like, if God told you: “Go against that walled
city,” and you don’t have any weapons” 

	God said, through His servant, “Go on and fight ‘em!”

	You’d say, “Are you crazy? The first thing they’ll do is open the
doors. There are giants in there and they’ve got weapons—they know
how to fight; we don’t. They’ll come on out, and they’ll take our
women and our girls and rape ‘em, and they’ll kill us, unless they
keep us for servants. You think we’re nuts? Oh, brother, how kooky can
you get, Moses, and Joshua, and Caleb? You must be sick!”

42.	Oh, come on now! We’re not here for bedtime stories. We’re here
for reality; because, listen, some of you people need help this morning.
Some of you are going broke; you’re losing your homes, you’re losing
your minds, you’re losing God knows what, and you need help; and
there’s a ‘busting up’ in your face. But God’s got a promise for
you this morning. He’s got His Word for you, if you’re a child of
God!

43.	Now, it strikes home, doesn’t it? You say, “I want my kids to
grow up right; I want my sons to be men and my daughters to be women.”
You never thought your daughter could be taken by some rotten skunk,
two-timer, and bring home an illegitimate child, did you? But it happens
to almost every family these days. You did not think divorce could hit
your family, but the records prove there is not one family left in
America that divorce hasn’t hit. Huh?

	You don’t cover your head up anymore. We are in the midst of
sin—the awfulness of sin. This is the show-down. This is the age of
the ripening of sin, and the man of sin will appear. We are in the midst
of it. We’re about ready to go up, if we’re gonna go up.

	We live in a day when we need to get down to business and stop fooling
around and reading this Bible like it was a bedtime story.

44.	Israel had it tough, and everything they said, humanly speaking, was
one hundred percent correct, because an un-armed people who don’t know
war, going against giants in a great big land that could swallow them
up: they rush out of their walled cities, take their girls; and take
their boys and emasculate them, make them slaves and all—use the girls
for prostitution or anything else they want. Listen! They were tough in
those days, and they are just as tough today, but they do it
subtly—only business uses ‘call girls’ and God knows what. But
you’ve got the same rotten, stinking filthy mess, because man’s
never changed. Only it’s worse today, because we’ve ‘refined’
it, so to speak.

	We’re not as rotten in our attitudes, physically, out in the open, as
the Romans ever were, but under cover we’re just as rotten as the
Romans ever were. We are as vile as Sodom and Gomorrah; but none of us
want to learn the lessons, that everything in the Bible was given for
out admonition here that we may understand that the life of a Christian
is tough, and it’s real. Sure it is.

45.	You’ve got problems; I’ve got problems. What do you do with
them? What are we going to do with them? Are we gonna go to God’s Word
and see the answer, and then say, “Well ha! Pooh! Too tough!” and
walk off?

	Well, come on! Well, come on!! I never wrote the book. Do you think
I’d write a book like this? Don’t be ridiculous! My book is eat,
drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. I’m human just like you.

46.	I’ve got one more illustration I just talked about. I won’t even
read it. Samaria had a famine—Samaria had a famine! A quarter million
Syrians stood outside the city, and they laughed with glee as they ate
the food which was almost inexhaustible in its supplies. They said,
“Watch those stupid Israelites starve.” And they gloated and laughed
as women took their own babies and barbequed them and ate them. Do you
think conditions were real? Do you?

	Do you think they were real when you eat your own kids? Many of us do,
without eating their flesh, when we destroy them, because we haven’t
got time for them. Oh, it was fun to bring them on the scene. We wanted
to sow without reaping. Then, we reaped when we brought our kids; then
suddenly, it wasn’t so funny any more. There wasn’t so much joy,
because kids mean responsibility.

47.	Do I talk rough? I mean to talk rough; because a spade’s a spade.
It’s too late now to talk pretty words. I want to hit everybody and
myself right where we need to be hit, according to the actions we act.
And we’re pretty gross people as far as I can look around this world.
Huh! We literally eat our kids, because we’re too impatient just like
the Bible says. But we sock ‘em and knock ‘em, not because you’re
trying to correct them, but because you get mad at them; you’re
thinking only of yourself. God doesn’t do that; He corrects us in
love.

48.	They consumed their own flesh. It’s real, and you are a
‘cannibal’. It’s pretty real, when that’s all you’ve got. 

	And one day the prophet of God came on the scene. He said, “Listen to
me: as much as there is scarcity today, there will be an abundance
tomorrow.”

	And the man said: “Oh, you must be nuts! What’s God gonna do? Open
up the heavens and plop it down? Sure, if He opens the heavens and plops
it down…”—ridiculing God!

	The prophet said, “Look! I’m gonna tell you something. You’re
gonna see it; but you won’t have a part in it. You’ll see the good
come.” Remember; I read in Jeremiah a few nights back: “He will not
see when good cometh.” He said, “Good will be there, but he’ll
never see it. He’ll never possess it; it’ll never come into his
hands.”

	And the king, the nobleman, who should have known better said, “Ha!
What’s God gonna do? How’s He gonna do it? Where is it gonna come
from?” I told you before, faith doesn’t ask questions; faith says,
“Praise the Lord; I’ve got God’s Word on this thing. That’s what
counts.” He sneered; he snorted right in the midst of death. All the
nerve! Like an Esau; facing death and reviling God. What a nerve! One
more step, and he’s dead. 

	And the man of God, Elijah, said: “Listen—you laughed at God.
You’ve held His Word in ridicule. You’ve esteemed your own thoughts
above God’s thoughts, and your word above God’s words.”

49.	And that was the Word of God, and the thought was in the prophet. 

	O God, help the men that turned their backs on John the Baptist; they
went under. And those that turn their back on our prophet called by the
name God gave him, William Marrion Branham, God help them!

	You say: “I’ve got a right to this book.”

	You prove you’ve got a right, honey. You prove you’re vindicated!

50.	No man’s vindicated that comes to you and says: “I believe what
you believe.” That vindicates him? You think organization vindicates a
man? Why, oh brother! Organization kills a man. You’re dead!

	They came to our churches in Canada and said “Organize; and, when you
are organized, we’ll keep ‘em pure.”

	So, what happened in that out-reach in Alberta, Canada? They sent a man
in who thought he was God’s gift to women. He seduced how many women?
I don’t know. And then, they said, “Get him out of here.” And they
got another man, who did the same thing. That’s organization. Ho, ho.
And they love each other, because they say the same thing.

51.	You send a prophet that rises up against common knowledge, common
thinking against man and preaches God’s Word, and they’ll crucify
him every time. They do what their fathers did. And this prophet said he
was God to the people. It was God speaking by the prophet. The prophet
wasn’t God—but he stood “God to the people”, because they had no
other way to get through. This was it. This was what God said. He said,
“Tomorrow you will get plenty, as there is scarcity today.” And the
man said, “Ha! Don’t be a fool!!”

	He said, “All right, you’ll see it, but you won’t have a part in
it.”

52.	And you know what God did? He used the most miserable circumstances
under heaven. He didn’t send down the theological seminary. He
didn’t get out the king’s great retinue. He didn’t call an army.
He took four little old lepers who sat there. And they said, “Well, if
we go in, we starve; and, if we go there we could die; but I’ll tell
you one thing about it, there’s food down there. So, let’s go and
see if maybe we won’t die. Let’s go see if we can get it. Why go
back to death?”

	So, they went down there, and God said “Hallelujah! That’s REAL
faith!” And He sent a whirlwind, a noise, and a chariot. And they [the
Syrian army] got so scared, they all ran away and left everything they
had.

	And they [lepers] went there, and they went in the first tent, which is
faith in God, repentance, and they ate their stomachs full. And they
went in the second tent, which is baptism with the Holy Spirit, (once
having been baptized in water in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ) and
they ate their full again. 

	And they said, “Hallelujah!” And they said “Listen!” (You see,
it was the second tent that got them all stirred up—the baptism of the
Holy Ghost.) They said, “We do wrong in being here all by ourselves.
This is so good; so wonderful!” 

	You see! God does do what He said! It takes the Holy Ghost to make His
Word real, when you act upon it. If you’ve got the Holy Ghost you
will.

	And, listen brother/sister. They went back to Samaria, the city of
Israel, and they said, “Oh, boy, isn’t it wonderful! God took care
of the Syrians. God took care of the salvation of all from start to
finish: come on down and eat!

	They said “Could it be a trap?”

53.	How many of you folks thought it was a trap when somebody told you
about the baptism of the Holy Ghost? Ha, ha, ha! You old Israelite, back
there starving. But, once you got to the place where you knew you were
so thin you couldn’t live without something, you said, “Maybe,
maybe—just maybe; let’s send somebody down to find out.”

	So, the king sent a few people down there, and they found it was real,
and they said “It’s real!” 

	And they went out, (And, listen!) and everybody got so excited, they
made a rush for the gate. And the man who wouldn’t believe got tramped
on and killed.

54.	I’m going to tell you, there are a lot of Christians are going to
get tramped on and killed in the Exodus. They think they are Christians,
but they’re not. Why? Because… Listen, brother/sister: If you are
born again, you are born again of the Word of God; and, if you are born
of that Word of God, then you’ve got to have the Word of God or
perish. If you’re a born-again Christian by the Word of God, which is
what you are to be born of, if you are real seed, which is the thought
of God expressed, (After all, a word is a though expressed.) and, if God
had a thought concerning you, and today it is expressed, you are that
living Word. And you have got to live by the Word the same today, as you
lived by the sperm in the life, which your mother and father gave you.
It is the same life. You didn’t take on a new life. That life that was
implanted in the mother’s womb joined with that living egg, and the
substance, brought forth a living child. And, when you die, that life
goes out of you. You live by that very life that brought forth your
life.

55.	And so it is I’m showing you: If you are born of the Word of God,
you have got to have that Word of God to exist by, because that’s what
the Bible says. And you, as an ordinary creature, you love the things
that every other human being loves: you’re made to respond with
certain stimuli, the same as all else; you’ve got the same
understanding, the same passions, compassion, and God knows what. Then,
if you’ve got the Word of God, being born of that Word, you’re going
to want that Word, brother/sister. You’re going to want it. But, will
we do it today? It means bringing the mind under captivity.

56.	I’ve preached a hard sermon, but I’m not going to change it.
I’ve prayed and fasted, looking for short-cuts. I’ve read every book
I can get my hands on. I believed in gift ministries. I thought that was
the answer. There was a time when God gifted me with such a ‘word of
knowledge’ I could take twelve couples up here at one time, praying
for twelve people; and when they got stuck, I’d say, “The problem is
so and so.” I’d challenge the ministers and the priests to come and
stand beside me, if I couldn’t tell them what’s wrong, I’d leave
the platform and prove that God was God. And, do you know all I bred in
those meetings? The fiercest bunch of carnality I’ve ever seen in my
life!! Because they thought, as long as they had a gift, “Pooh on the
Word!! Never mind!”

57.	And you’ve got the same thing right here in America with the
tents. Men will use the gifts and not preach one word of the Word of
God. They will demonstrate a miracle and say it’s gotta be God.
That’s a lie; because Judas was a devil, and he could manifest in the
Holy Ghost, too. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it!) They leave a
trail of dissipation and mungering that... I’d be ashamed to have
connection, even with a man downtown, let alone a man of God called a
man of God.

58.	A man came to me in Chattanooga and said, “You and Bro. Branham
don’t know how to take an offering.” 

	I said, “Is that so?” (I thought I’d have a little fun.) 

	He said, “I can see you are not making any money. You don’t have
enough coming in.”

	I said, “Well, could be.” 

	He said, “I’ll tell you how to do this.”

	I said, “How?”

	He said, “Here’s what you do: You hand out envelopes and tell
everybody who gives a five dollar bill, you’ll pray special, five
dollars or more, see?” He said, “Now you see, it’s not that you
won’t pray for the rest; but this is a special list.”

	I said, “Thank you! Bro. Branham will be glad to know
that.”—tongue in cheek.

59.	So, I said, “Bro. Branham, I’ve just had a word from
headquarters. You and I are wrong.”

	He said, “What’s that?”

	I said, “We don’t know how to take an offering.” I said, “You
know the way to do it?”

	He said, “So?” 

	I said, “You know the way we need to do it?”

	He said, “No. How?”

	I said, “What we’re going to do is pass some envelopes. For
everybody that puts in five dollars we’re going to pray for them
hard—a little special.” 

	And we got to laughing. But, before God, it’s no laughing matter,
brother/sister. 

60.	That same bunch in Chattanooga pulled money out of people right and
left. I stood up there and said, “Folks, don’t do that. Don’t do
it! We’d sooner go in the hole. Don’t do it.” I said, “Bro.
Branham’s not pleased; I’m not pleased. I said, It’s not right!
Look, if we’ve got a need, we present it; you do your best to give and
help, because we’re not here for ourselves. God knows we’re not here
to try to please ourselves and make money.”

	And a man got up after me, and he said, “Bro. Vayle doesn’t know
the south!”

	And I stood up, and I said, “Yes, but I know God!” 

	I’m glad I do.

61.	What are we going to do? Are we going to be Word Christians? Listen
to me; never mind the conditions; they only point you to the answer. Get
your eyes on God. Say what He says, even if it costs you your life!
Think what He thinks, and say what He says; because, if you die,
you’ll get a martyr’s crown. And, if you live, He just wants to give
you the answer.

	May God help us to see this Truth, because this is serious. I
couldn’t preach a more serious sermon if I tried.

62.	You say, “Bro. Vayle, wouldn’t you preach a more serious sermon
talking to sinners?” 

	No sir! No sir! Because, if you’re ordained, you’re going to come
in anyway. If you’re predestinated, you’ll come in. But,
brother/sister, listen; the predestinated have to learn God’s ways.
That’s what is serious. We may fail. Let’s not fail of one good
promise of God. Shall we? 

	God bless you. Let’s rise and be dismissed.

	Gracious, eternal Father. Oh, God, I’m asking You especially at this
time for this people that they haven’t misunderstood me, because I
really don’t know anybody here in this building—[to really know
then, I don’t, God. I don’t know how they act or react. I’ve just
preached, O Lord, according to what I know is going on all over the
country, of how fallible we are even though we’ve been born of Your
Spirit; we’re bone of Your bone and flesh of Your flesh.

	Father, I’ve only preached it this way in order to help people. God,
may they realize that I’ve tried. O Lord, it’s not for me to judge
nor be like that. And I’m not judging anyone here. And You know it.
Forgive me if I’ve even intimated to the people I am, because that’s
not it; but judging the attitude, the atmosphere, the reaction, not the
person, in order to come into a place of proper understanding that will
produce attitude atmosphere and reaction, the favors of God. That’s
all I want.

	Father, they’ve been a good people. They listened hard to a hard
message. Now, Lord, You Who are dove-like and the lamb, descend on them
now, Lord, somehow through the spirit of meekness, which is the real
spirit of strength, that they may from now on in every circumstance,
remember the Word and receive It as the answer and stand in the gap
until the answer comes.

	Let each one this morning, Lord, somehow associate himself with Esau
and Jacob, who, though they do not demonstrate the dual nature of the
Christian, this morning, may it be an illustration and not a doctrine.
But, as these two children could have been one child coming from
Rebecca, yet they were two, and we, though one, are still two, (We are
children of both the earth and of the heaven.) Lord, may the child of
the earth be put to death so that the child from heaven, the spirit of
God, may have full control. May the voice of the human nature be stilled
and silenced in the grave. May these bodies be a tomb unto the natural
man, but let them be temples to the Holy Ghost. Let Him have His way.

	And Father, I don’t care in this last day how rough You’ve got to
treat us to wake us up. Only do it. What You do, Lord, we’re in Your
hands, please do. Do it, O God, that we may be counted worthy, like
Jacob, a righteous man. That’s all we want.

	And unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only-wise God, be
all power and honor, and especially, may You get glory by these lives,
completely submitted to you. Amen.

	The Lord bless you.