23-1023P_THE COMFORTER

Joh 14:12  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. 

Joh 14:13  And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 

Joh 14:14  If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. 

Joh 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments. 

Joh 14:16  And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 

WHO IS THIS COMFORTER THEN? JESUS…"YOU KNOW HIM, FOR HE DWELLETH WITH YOU IN A BODY OF FLESH NOW,"

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  46    Isn't that plain? Who is this Comforter then? Jesus. See? He said, "I'll pray the Father; He'll send you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth; Whom the world cannot receive, because it knoweth Him not, neither seeth Him; or, seeth Him, neither knoweth Him. But you know Him." See, He's talking about Himself. "You know Him, for He dwelleth with you in a body of flesh now," talking to the disciples, "and shall be in you; and will abide for ever," never leave.
Oh, isn't He a good God? Jesus is so good to us. And it's well expressed, that, "Our God is a good God." He's so good to His children. He has provided every good thing for us. Everything that we have need of He's provided it. Truly you could say, "Our Father, Who art in heaven," because He is a Father. And though we be disobedient, though we be arrogant, He still provides for us just the same. Whether we are good or whether we are bad, He gives us food to eat, clothes to wear, house to dwell in. Oh, He is so good.
 
 
BUT THEN, IF WE'LL JUST LIVE CLOSE TO HIM, HE'LL PROVIDE SOMETHING ELSE FOR US.

 THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  48    If we would just look around and count the good things that He is to us... We don't stop to consider that. What if you had no eyes? What if you had no nose, you had no mouth, you had no ears? What if you had no feet or limbs, and could not walk around? But you... But, see, He provided you feet. What if you had no eyes and could not see, and yet, you could hear noises, but you knew not what they were? Now, them's all in the five senses that He provides.
But then, if we'll just live close to Him, He'll provide something else for us. There is an insight, that we can see what the ordinary person never sees. When we're borned again, we see Him. See? "You know Him. You have seen Him. He will abide with you forever." Oh, He's a good Father. He is the... He's the Fountain of goodness; the great resource of all goodness and Fatherhood belongs in our God. He's so good to His believing children. But now perhaps...
 
 
THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E
  50    One thing that He provides for us is sunshine. Oh, how that... You know, you couldn't live without sunshine. You couldn't live but a little while, because there'd be nothing growing. And sunshine is such a great thing and so needful, yet we just look and say, "Oh, it's the sun," and go off. See, we so look over it. But that sunshine is important to our life. It helps us, and it gives us strength. And now, that's to the natural man. And then there is a spiritual Sunshine that we can live in.
All the natural are types of spiritual. Like we had good food that we eat at the table; it's a type of the good Food that we eat from the Word. See, it's just a type. It's the outward expression (the physical part) of the spiritual part, which means more to us than the physical part. See?

 
THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  52    It's just like a little baby. When a little baby is conceived in the mother's womb, it's just flesh and blood, jumping, quivering. But as soon as it's born, you don't see it, but there's a spirit and soul hanging near that mother to come into that baby just as soon as it's born. Just as soon as that baby is born, God has created a soul and created a spirit to be in that baby just as soon as it's born into this world. That little baby becomes matured, and it begins to learn; then it becomes a living soul when it knows what's right and wrong. Then it's got, just like Adam and Eve, set before a tree of right and wrong. It makes its choice. And then it becomes intelligent. It's growing all the time in God's great economy.
And finally it comes down to the end of the road, for this physical body. And just as this body is deteriorating and going away, there is one being prepared to receive it. Just as soon as it leaves here, this soul that's in us now and this spirit leaves this body and goes to another, a young one, a good one, a better one, a one that won't get old, or one that won't pass away. Why, He's a good God. But certainly He is.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  54    But now, take for instance, what if a man that knows about sunshine, and it shining, and then he just refuses to acknowledge that sunshine? He said, "I just don't believe it." And he goes down into his basement, and shuts the door, and just refuses to know the sun is a-shining: "I do not believe it."
Someone said, "Oh, it's warm. It's healthy. The people who live in the sunshine has color, and they're healthier if they live in the sunshine."
"I do not believe it," he'd say, just shut hisself in. Now, that man is in a pitiful condition. There's something wrong with his mental powers, if a man does that.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  57    And if a man will shut hisself from God's spiritual sun--Sunshine, there's something wrong with his spiritual condition; for when a man refuses to walk in the leading of a good God, like our God, Who is our Comfort and our Strength... And to live in His Sunshine is spiritual growth. It's spiritual strength to live in His Sunshine, the shining of His glory. Why, it's the greatest privilege that we have, to live under the Sunlight of God's glory. Look at the good, healthy Christians.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  58    Take the man or the woman that would put--put himself down into some cellar, and would not see the sunshine, the natural sunshine that God has provided for him, but he refuses to believe it. And because of selfishness, he shuts hisself off. That man will soon become anemia. He will become pale. He won't have good strength. He won't have health. And he'll soon... Because that he has shut hisself off from the very privilege that God gave him. That's right. He did it willfully.
Then if we shut ourselves off from the glory of God, from the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the fellowship of the Spirit, the first thing you know, we become pale, sickly Christians. Our experience is growing out and dim. And when the great trials come, we shrink and go back.

It takes that soldier who's lived in the Sunlight of God; it takes that spirit who knows God, where there's not a wave of doubt; they can stand in the midst of trouble, and cry out, "My Redeemer liveth." Hallelujah. That's it. See?
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  60    We shut ourselves off. And they do it automatically; we do it because that we want to do it. But God's good; He provides it for us. But too many today don't want to get into that healthy place with God, a healthy Christian, have a healthy spirit. You'll certainly would rally for a healthy body, anybody would. Well, that body, no matter how much health you put in that body, it's going back to the dust.

But, oh, my brother, that soul cannot get too healthy. And every time it grows, it grows in the strength and grace and power of God. We need to walk in the Sunlight of God, because He is good.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  63    We have a great heritage, a great sacred trust that's been given us. You might wonder now, "Brother Branham, you're talking about Sunshine, great Sunshine of God's glory to make healthy spirits, to make us strong Christians?" That's what we're here for tonight, is to find out. "How do we get those things? Where do they come from? What are they? Show me what it is, Brother Branham. Can I buy it at the drugstore? What kind of a vitamin is it?"
You don't buy it at a drugstore. But there is plenty of it right close to you, if you'll just receive it. It's just knowing the formula, how to receive it.

There'd be drugs in a drugstore, but there's got to be a doctor to diagnose the case. If he didn't, you--it might kill you. So therefore, you've got to have a diagnosis of the case. You just can't go and take a sinner and give him the Holy Ghost. He's got to repent first. He's got to be washed, his sins away. He's got to be prepared for this great Vitamin that's going to be given him.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  68    Now, we have a sacred trust. You know what a trust is. And we have a inheritance, a heritage that we inherit as believing children. It's a sacred trust. And that sacred trust and our sacred heritage is the Word of God that's been given to us, the full Word of God. The Word Itself is the Vitamin, the Word Itself, God's Word.

That's where, reason I'm so dogmatic, as I would call it, on standing on this Word. No matter what anything else says, if it's not with the Word, then I don't believe it. See? If you want to believe it, it's all right. But to me it takes the Word, 'cause, "Heavens and earth will pass away, but My Words shall never fail." Therefore, it takes that Word.

 
THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  70    I live by the Word. Jesus said, "It's written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'" And this is It. And That is given to us as a heritage. It's our inheritance, the Word. O God, let us think of It in the deepness of It.
It's--it's our privilege. It's this sacred trust that God has put to His Church. God gave His Word to His Church. And that sacred heritage is ours. It's a gift from God, not to just compromise on this, and cut this out, and throw this out, and add this in to suit our own taste; but to preach the full Word, the whole Gospel. We are duty bound as Christians to take It and believe It. When we know, "If our hearts condemn us not, then we know we have favor with God."
But when we know we're bypassing Something, that some great heritage that belongs to us, that we bypass It, because our church said they don't believe in this today; it isn't for us today. If we bypass That, then we spoil our inheritage.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  74    God help me. God help you, as Christians, never to compromise one Word of God's Word. This sacred trust was handed to the Church, and it's a glorious thing to have this Gospel, the full Gospel, to preach It without compromising anywhere. Preach It just as It's written. Live It just as It's written. What a sacred trust.

And if we ever expect this Word to ever come to pass, if we ever expect God to keep His Word, we've got to stay with It just the way God wrote It. That's the reason, if you stay with It the way God wrote It, there'll be all kinds of things happening among you; every Word will be fulfilled.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  76    I'm under expectations just now myself of seeing a shaking power come, that'll shake the nations pretty soon.
God can ever get a people under His Own control, if He'll get a man or a woman that won't compromise on His Word, but will stand there like the Rock of Ages, that'll believe every Word of It, and believe that He's behind It... And a man who believes It, you must act like It. If you don't act like It, then you don't believe It. But if you believe It, act like It. And you can put It to work, and the Word will be in you.
 

THE.COMFORTER_  JEFF.IN  V-15 N-5  SUNDAY_  61-1001E

  78    We lost our heritage because that we--we just compromise. And when we compromise, then we cannot expect to--God to keep His promise to us; because we have broke in upon the sacred trust, and defiled the trust that God gave us. Let us keep that trust; keep it sacred; keep it holy. Keep every Word of It, and compromise nowhere. Take God at His Word and believe It, act like it, stand on It; don't move. That's what we must do. That's what God's looking for.

As I said this morning in the message, in our message this morning, speaking of, "It behooveth us," or, "It's becoming to us that we fulfill all righteousness." It's up to us to whom the Word's been delivered to. It's up to us that we stay with that Word. And as we stay with It, we see God working among us. So it's becoming to us to stay with It. It's a heritage that God has given us.

*HE KNEW THESE SKEPTICS WOULD RISE AND TRY TO TWIST THE WORD IN AND OUT AND LIKE THAT. SO HE SAID, "I'LL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS…..

BELIEVEST.THOU.THIS_ NEW.YORK.NY WEDNESDAY_ 51-1003

E-23    Now not only the Word, whatever they want to say about It, that's one thing or another. But we know we have the Scriptures right for we have the Holy Ghost as a Witness. That's the Witness. So God looking down through the--the optical eye, as it was, and looked down through the--the--the magnifying glass and seeing the end from the beginning, why, He knew these skeptics would rise and try to twist the Word in and out and like that. So He said, "I'll not leave you comfortless, but I'll pray the Father, and He'll send you another Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. And he will abide with you until (1950...?) forever, (amen, that's right, forever, all right), and He would declare and testify of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever." So we have a wonderful witness of that tonight don't we? That's right.

So what kind of a people should we be then? Why, we should be free and happy, and my, no condemnation, living above sin and disgrace, not by our own...?... but by Him. See? Not what we are but what He is. God don't accept me for what I am. He accepts me for what Christ has done for me. It isn't my holiness, my righteousness; it's His. I have none to offer, but I just accepted His. Amen. So I know He's pleased with that, for He said, "This is My beloved Son in Who I'm well pleased." And He raised him up from the dead. And just as He raised Him from the dead, so shall we be raised, for we are his Bride, flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone, and we shall be with Him.