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Remember: just because one performs miracles, even inside a church, does not mean God is working. We should be more on guard inside the church than we would like to think. In 1 Corinthians 4:6, we are told no to go beyond what in written. If one contradicts the apostolic writings and teachings, then they are false (2 Cor.11:14). Those who go beyond the word having God speak to them directly with new revelation, become puffed up with self-deception. There is something called humility that is practiced when one adheres to the same standard that everyone else does. Isa.8:16” bind up the testimony (of the Prophets) seal the law among my disciples”. (Moses) vs. 20 “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because their is no light in them.” This standard distinguishes a believer from an unbeliever. The test of the prophet was his conformity to the word of God, he condemns sin, he comforts the brethren, and he speaks of things in the near future and later than his life. A prophet, like an apostle, not only functioned as a gift, but as an office. A prophet would declare God's will for his generation, addressing idolatry or lukewarmness. We see this personified in John the Baptist who warned and rebuked the people preparing the for the Messiah. | Remember: just because one performs miracles, even inside a church, does not mean God is working. We should be more on guard inside the church than we would like to think. In 1 Corinthians 4:6, we are told no to go beyond what in written. If one contradicts the apostolic writings and teachings, then they are false (2 Cor.11:14). Those who go beyond the word having God speak to them directly with new revelation, become puffed up with self-deception. There is something called humility that is practiced when one adheres to the same standard that everyone else does. Isa.8:16” bind up the testimony (of the Prophets) seal the law among my disciples”. (Moses) vs. 20 “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because their is no light in them.” This standard distinguishes a believer from an unbeliever. The test of the prophet was his conformity to the word of God, he condemns sin, he comforts the brethren, and he speaks of things in the near future and later than his life. A prophet, like an apostle, not only functioned as a gift, but as an office. A prophet would declare God's will for his generation, addressing idolatry or lukewarmness. We see this personified in John the Baptist who warned and rebuked the people preparing the for the Messiah. | ||
====William Branham applied the Deuteronomy 18:20-22 test to himself==== | |||
It is clear that William Branham considered himself to be an Old Testament prophet and that as a result he was not subject to the judgment of the church. He also stated the test in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 applied to him: | |||
:''“Let one speak and two or three judge,” said Paul. Now, those are the spirits of the gifts that’s in the Church. But the only person that has a right to say, THUS SAITH THE LORD, is an a vindicated prophet. You never seen anybody judging Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or those people. They were prophets, foreordained and borned in the world to be prophets. And they foresaw the thing by a vision, and then said, “THUS SAITH THE LORD,” for the Lord had already said it.<ref>William Branham, 50-0405 - Expectation, para. 16</ref> | |||
:''You can go to my hometown and find it one time, in all the times that It’s ever told anything, that didn’t come to pass just exactly the way It said. Now, you pin a sign on my back as a false prophet, and I’ll walk through your streets. Cause it’s not myself, I’m a man, but He’s God. And He’s the One Who does the saying. If I would say it, it could be a lie, ’cause I’m subject to any—any mistakes, lies, anything else, like anybody else.<ref>William Branham, 53-1106 - Do You Now Believe?, para. 10</ref> | |||
:''Prophets are foreordained. They’re prophets. Now, there’s a gift of prophecy in the church, that could be on one, then the next one, the next one, the next one, and so forth—of prophecy. Paul said you may all prophesy one by one. But there’s a lot of difference between a prophet and a prophecy. A prophecy has to be judged by three witnesses (two or three) before it can be given or accepted in the church, according to the Scriptures. But a prophet, like the Old Testament prophet, they had the Word of the Lord. The translation was right to them. And they were known, because the Bible said, “If there be one among you spiritual or a prophet, I, the Lord, will make Myself known unto him, speak to him in visions, and reveal Myself in dreams. And if what this man says comes to pass, then hear him, for I’m am with him. If it doesn’t, then don’t hear him. I’m not with him. Don’t fear him.”<ref>William Branham, 61-0205E - Jesus Christ The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever, para. 12</ref> | |||
:''And you who will not come back, I want you to do me a favor, mark a little piece of paper, and put it in your Bible, and say, “Brother Branham said, ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD.’” 42 Then if God lets us live, watch what this thing’s coming to. If God lets us live for a few more years and I pass through Phoenix, get that—get a little yellow piece of paper out, and walk up to the pulpit and say, “What about this, Brother Branham?” Then I’ll tack it on my back, and you get in your car, and drive me down the street, as a sign on my back, “A false prophet.”<ref>William Branham, 57-0306 - God Keeps His Word #1</ref> | |||
:''God always sends a prophet. The Word comes to the prophet; the written Word, a discerner of the thoughts of the heart. Did you always notice? The prophet, being that he knowed that he was a prophet, is because that the Word of God discerns the thought that’s in the heart, foretells things, forth-teller and teller-forth. Did you ever take the dictionary, the old Hebrew dictionary, and see what the word seer means? It’s the one that has the Divine revelation of the written Word. And how it’s vindicated, he foresees things that he foretells, and they come to pass. 42 Now, how does that type in with the Scripture? Just exactly. “If there be one among you, who is spiritual or a prophet, I the Lord will make Myself known to him, speak to him in visions. And if these things comes to pass, then it’s God. If they don’t come to pass, then don’t hear him; don’t fear him at all, but just ignore it.”<ref>William Branham, 64-0120 - His Unfailing Words Of Promise, para. 41</ref> | |||
:''The Bible said, “If there be one, and what he says comes to pass, then you hear him; but, if it doesn’t, don’t believe him, don’t fear him, but My…if—if My Word is not in him. But if it does come to pass, then My Word is in him.” That’s his identification. That’s the characteristic of a prophet.<ref>William Branham, 64-0320 - God Identifying Himself By His Characteristics, para. 85</ref> | |||
:''Now, prophets. There’s such a thing as “gift of prophecy” in the Church; but a prophet is predestinated and foreordained for the hour. See? Yes, sir. Now, if a prophecy goes forth, two or three has to set and judge whether that’s right or not, ’fore the church can receive it. 137 But nobody set before a prophet, ’cause he was—he was absolutely the Word of God. He was that Word in his day. You seen God reflect. Now, God has promised to send us that again in the last days, to bring the Bride out of that ecclesiastical mess, in the only way it can be done. ref>William Branham, 65-1204 - The Rapture, para. 136</ref> | |||
===Performing miracles proves '''NOTHING'''=== | ===Performing miracles proves '''NOTHING'''=== | ||