Keeping Our Balance
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Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Introduction.
Introduction.
Introduce Noley and Levi Engaged.
You must be born again translated into Arabic. Other churches are beginning to join with us.
Try to be here for Bro. Malachi Sunday afternoon.
New AC Unit set as soon as next week.
(We have more on Jonah but I won’t be here this weekend so I wanted to preach this while it was on my heart.)
Men die but Spirits do not. The Pharisees were the Pentecostals of their day, the Sadduccees were like Baptists.
One party denied miracles and the resurrection, the other believed they were saved by their works. Both were wrong.
The Pharisees in particular lacked balance because they neglected the weightier (important) matters.
It’s disheartening to see folks today settling into camps on certain issues. Why can’t we just be for the Bible? Why can’t we just believe the Message?
The truth is you can take scriptures and quotes and become an extremist who fights with other extremists who also have scripture and quotes.
This is a serious issue, especially for the next generation. When adults act like idiots and claim the Message made them that way, children believe them, and leave.
I was just reading the history of Martin Luther, one of his books was wrote on him, here not long ago. They said, “It wasn’t so mysterious that Martin Luther could protest the Catholic church and get by with it, but to hold his head above all the fanaticism that followed his revival.”
And that goes, there’s a mixed multitude with every revival. You know that. But now, remember, that only indicates that there is a real one.
When you see a bogus dollar, or somebody is making out like they got something, just remember there is one genuine that’s made off of. If it isn’t, that’s the original. So you know that that can’t be the original, so there has to be original.
And that original is the real Jesus Christ, the One that’s here, that knows every secret in your heart right now. 64-0404 - Jehovah-Jireh #3
What is Balance?
What is Balance?
Balance is maintaining your position in the middle of truth. Not the middle of two extremes but the middle of the Bible.
Bro. Branham praying for Pastors and Officers.
And we pray that He’ll give these men understanding, that they’ll never get off on the wrong side but stay right straight in the middle of the road with It. Never be exalted or anything; whenever you do, you’re finished right there, you see. Just stay humble with It. 61-0618 - Revelation, Chapter Five #2
Paul put it this way.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
If we want to do a service for God, before doing it there are 5 things we must consider.
If we want to do a service for God, before doing it there are 5 things we must consider.
119 There is your five musts. It’s got to be that way. His time, His season, when He said it would be; and the man that He chose; and it must come to the prophet; and the prophet must be a vindicated prophet. We find out, many of them in the Bible, it come to the prophets and it wasn’t vindicated. Our Prophet is Jesus Christ.
65-0718M - Trying To Do God A Service Without Being The Will Of God
Examples.
Moses building an ark.
Jesus bringing the law. (He was the Law)
A lot of our balance problems would be solved if we knew where we were at.
Notice, “The Book written,” when this angel finishes all these loose-end mysteries that through the battle they fought, Luther fought, and Wesley fought, and the Pentecostals fought. “But there’s coming one,” says the Bible, “that in the days of his sounding, all these mysteries…”
The oneness run off on Jesus Name; the trinity went off on Father, Son, Holy Ghost, just like they did at the Nicaea Council, same thing; they both was wrong. But, now, in the middle of the road, in the Scriptures, lays out the Truth. 62-1230E - Is This The Sign Of The End, Sir?
The Book has been opened, the Message is rightly dividing the truth, it is the balance God requires for this day. If we would keep our focus on the Message instead of on others, we would maintain our balance.
We’ve fought skirmishes over Christmas trees, battles over the seventh seal, wars over the Son of Man ministry, world wars over whether or not we should play tapes in church. Most of those have been put behind us.
These things are necessary, you must work to keep your balance. Study to show yourself approved.
Without an absolute, there is no hope of resolution. The nominal church fights the same battles, but there is nothing to agree on. We’ve got to take someone’s word for it.
If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.
Moses did the same thing.
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
This was Moses speaking to Israel, after he had been vindicated by God, by a Pillar of Fire, and knowed he was proven to be God’s servant to lead them out.
And before they went into the land, before they entered, Moses said, “Now, the words that I have spoken to you, I call heaven and earth to witness against you. If you add one thing to It, or take one Word from It, you’ll not stay in the land where the Lord God gives you.”
So say I, in the Name of Jesus Christ: Don’t you add one thing, don’t take, put your own ideas in It, you just say what is said on those tapes, you just do exactly what the Lord God has commanded to do; don’t add to It!
He has ever, keeps His promise to us. Every promise that He has made, He’s kept it. Has He told you what would happen, and did it happen? I bring heavens and earth before you today, in a challenge: Has God ever said anything that He has not fulfilled and done exactly what He said He would do for us?
Hasn’t He done it just the way He said He would do it? That’s exactly. So will He continue to do it. Just don’t add to It. Don’t take from It. Just believe It and walk humble before the Lord your God, for we’re nearing the going into the Land. 65-0718M - Trying To Do God A Service Without Being The Will Of God
I’ve presented people with things a prophet said, and their response was “I know you have quotes”. As if it’s no big deal to cross the Word of a vindicated Prophet. We’d better be careful, God sent a prophet for a reason, because people like you and me had the whole thing messed up.
Each Pastor has the right to preach whatever his church will listen to, every church is sovereign. But we are all under the same Messenger, and if we won’t be corrected by the Message, it shows we’re out of balance.
Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
The controversy of the day is worship in the church. Being humans, we want to make every church in our image, which is impossible to do.
Not all of the early church was in the same place spiritually. A church is affected by its history, its culture, its location, its pastors and even its name. We are very different.
Let me say something that’s gonna shock you. GOD WANTS IT THAT WAY.
Why don’t you just do it the way this other church does? God didn’t call them to pastor this church. I’m not responsible for them. What if they are wrong?
Our standard is the Word. Yet should not use our differences to destroy one another.
It’s okay to have traditions, the Pharisees problem was they elevated their tradition to Word status.
Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
What an indictment.
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
The problem with legalism is that it forces you to make allowances for your own particular brand of sin.
Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
They made allowances for themselves. The Pharisees were pros at this.
Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,
Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.
But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
Example of honouring parents.
Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
They made their personal preferences doctrine, and doctrine isn’t something you play with like that.
There are three areas of the service that cause controversy today.
Music
Preaching
Altar Call or Prayer Line
What we are dealing with is not the same as Paul dealt with or Bro. Branham, because as a group we do not have a problem with gifts taking over our services. There have been isolated cases of that, but most of us agree that preaching should always take precedence in a service.
Let’s just take Music, we’ve talked about the altar call before.
Some say only old songs bring the presence of the Lord, some say only new. Some say only fast songs, some say only slow. Why can’t we stay in the middle of the road and have both? Let each song stand on it’s own merits? Elvis sang Amazing Grace, I’m not going to quit singing it because of that. Lets not be silly.
But, today, we say, “Everybody have a big time. Everybody clap their hands. Everybody holler, ‘Hallelujah!’ Everybody do this.” Oh, how we got a bunch of fuss!
We get these new songs out and sing them so fast, that it looks like we’re going to run through the wall with them, or something like that.
When, I think, if we’d be singing Nearer, My God, To Thee, would be a whole lot better for the Church; the old-fashion hymns. 54-0509 - The Invasion Of The United States
The same prophet.
Oh, my! Don’t you feel good? Think, friends, this is pentecost, worship! This is pentecost. Let’s clap our hands and sing it. Pentecostal people, everybody, now loosen up, get that old Methodist formality out of you now. Come on, let’s sing it! 61-0806 - The Seventieth Week Of Daniel
Here he says both.
And now, may God bless this little group here that gathers, and just keep having these breakfasts, and above everything keep it spiritual. Never let that Spirit die. Sing those old fashion songs, clap your hands, praise the Lord. That’s the way you’ve got to keep…
I’m a Southerner. I’m emotional. I can prove to you anything without emotion is dead. And if your religion hasn’t got a little emotion in it, you’d better bury it, and get one that has. It’s dead. So we got to have emotions; Jesus said, “If they hold their peace, the rocks will immediately cry out.” 58-0517B - Zacchaeus
Sometimes it’s not appropriate to sing Nearer my God to Thee. Paul Rader
But when he was dying out there, Moody Bible School had sent down a quartet. They was standing there with the shades all down in the hospital, singing, “Nearer My God to Thee.”
Paul raised up and said, “Hey, who’s dying, me or you?” Said, “Raise them shades, and sing me some good snappy Gospel songs.” Amen. 62-0610M - Presuming
There’s a time and a place for both. Aren’t you glad God sent a prophet?
And there is, also, just people who live upon the emotion, upon the…Some people say, “Well, we got a lot of that in our Pentecostal movement.”
And they will go in, which is fine, they’ll pat their hands and play the music. [Brother Branham clapped his hands—Ed.]
The music stops, “sh, whew,” a bucket of water went over everything, see. Now we do that, we got in a habit of doing that. We got, we…It’s just become one of our customs.
Let me tell you something. When you’re worshipping God, in the Spirit and in Truth, when it becomes a custom for you to do it, because you think you ought to do it;
because you think, if you don’t shout, or jump up-and-down, or dance with the music, your neighbor is going to think you’re backslid; you are drinking from a stagnated stream. Right!
Until It fills every fiber, until the Holy Spirit Itself bubbling in you; I don’t care whether the music is playing, whether they’re playing Nearer, My God, To Thee, or whatever it is,
the Holy Spirit is still ringing the glory bells in your heart. That satisfies. That’s God’s satisfying Portion. Anything less than That, you’re done. 65-0919 - Thirst
Why can’t we have one service that’s solemn with an altar call, another where people are rejoicing, another where the gifts are operating, another where we are encouraged?
There is one side that’s highly intellectual, cold and indifferent, they deny everything there. And the others get on the other side, on the other side with a radical bunch of an emotion, and deny the Word.
But the real true Church stays right in the middle of the road. Now, if you notice, it’s got the Bible knowledge of what God said, and it’s spiritual enough to be warm in its heart, and it’s just the road. 63-0317M - God Hiding Himself In Simplicity, Then Revealing Himself In The Same
Lord help us to be spiritual enough to respond to the Word. You want to know if you are in the middle of the road? Can you say Amen to all of it, or do you try to explain it away?
Look at Bro. Branham’s sermon titles in 1963 after the seals were preached. Now the Book is open, lets see what the prophet does from the Seals through Christ is the Mystery.
The World is Falling Apart
God Hiding Himself in Simplicity
Victory Day
Look
Come Follow Me
Jesus Christ the Same Yesterday, Today and Forever 2x
Greater than Solomon is Here 2x
Show us the Father
Be Not Afraid
Conferences
Standing in the Gap
The Flashing Red Light of the Sign of His Coming
Why?
Oh Lord, Just Once More
The Third Exodus
Is Your Life Worthy of the Gospel?
The Indictment
Communion
Why Cry? Speak!
Humble Thyself
A Prisoner
He Cares, Do You Care?
God Doesn’t Call a Man to Judgment Without First Warning Him
Christ is the Mystery of God Revealed
That’s Balance. Lets quit trying to hatch out preachers and churches in our own image, and see what God will do.
He is not a God of one thought.
Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, And thy thoughts which are to us-ward: They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: If I would declare and speak of them, They are more than can be numbered.
Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; Mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
Then said I, Lo, I come: In the volume of the book it is written of me,
I delight to do thy will, O my God: Yea, thy law is within my heart.
Conclusion.
Once the Devil was walking along with one of his cohorts. They saw a man ahead of them pick up something shiny. "What did he find?" asked the cohort. "A piece of the truth," the Devil replied. "Doesn't it bother you that he found a piece of the truth?" asked the cohort. "No," said the Devil, "I will see to it that he makes a religion out of it."