Good morning, kind friends and brethren present, and those who are connected through the Amazonas satellite in different nations. May the blessings of Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, be upon all of you, brothers and sisters present, ministers, and congregations, brothers and sisters in other places as well.
It is a great blessing and privilege to be gathered on this occasion, worshiping God, glorifying His Name, and hearing His Word.
For this occasion, let’s read in Saint Luke, chapter 12, verses 4 to 7, where our beloved Lord Jesus Christ tells us words of wisdom, of Divine knowledge; and He tells us the following:
“And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”
May God bless our souls with His Word and allow us to understand It.
“FEAR GOD.”
Both the Psalmist as well as the Proverbist Solomon tell us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs, chapter 9, verses 10 to 11, says:
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”
Also in Proverbs 24, verse 21, it says:
“My son, fear thou the Lord and the king.”
And in Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, it tells us, verses 13 to 14, says:
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
Notice that the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, is the whole duty of the human being. Therefore, to begin life on this Earth, we must begin with wisdom; and therefore, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
That is why God commanded Moses to tell the people to teach about God. Moses taught them about God and pointed them to God, and he taught them the commandments that God gave him for the people; and he told them to keep the Divine commandments, and to serve God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, with all their spirit, and with all their might, to love Him and serve Him, and their neighbor as themselves.
Therefore, it is very important to fear God in order to be able to respect God and to recognize the Work of God for the time in which the person is living, to recognize the Work and love It, respect It.
We find that throughout the Scripture there are cases where it shows that many people respected God: by honoring and loving the Message of God for the time in which they were given to live, recognizing the messenger that God sent them in that time; and therefore, they were respecting God, they were loving God, they were fearing God.
The fear of God in the soul of every human being is important, because the purpose of living on this Earth is for every person to fear God and respect God, and to recognize the Work of God for the time in which he lives; and thus, to come in contact with God and obtain the Eternal Life that God has for the human being; which God grants through Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, who died on Calvary’s Cross bearing our sins; He died as the Lamb of God, which was typified back then, in the paschal lamb that each father of a household sacrificed to preserve the life of the firstborn who were in the house.[1]
The father could be a firstborn and one of the children could be a firstborn; and the preservation of their life depended, at that time in which God would pour out the judgment upon all the firstborn in Egypt, it depended on that Passover lamb that was sacrificed by each father of a household on the eve of Passover, which and from which, the blood was applied on the lintel and the doorposts of every Hebrew family’s house there in Egypt.
And the lamb was roasted (it couldn’t be cooked in water or any other way, but instead roasted on fire) and put inside the house, for everyone to eat it there before the exodus from Egypt in that great deliverance that God would carry out by His Spirit, the Pillar of Fire, manifesting Itself through the prophet Moses.
All those who feared God and honored God (therefore), because they loved God and respected God and His prophet Moses, and the Word, the Message that he gave them: the firstborn in those homes were preserved alive.
The son of the king – of Pharaoh, and the firstborn of Egypt, who didn’t have that knowledge and that fear of God (because they didn’t know God, they didn’t fear the God of Israel), the firstborn in every Egyptian home died that night; and even their animals, the firstborn of the animals also died. Unlike those of the Hebrews, which feared God, which respected God, who respected the prophet Moses and the Message that he brought them from God.
We also find that Pharaoh and the leaders of Pharaoh’s government didn’t respect God, because they didn’t respect Moses nor the Message that Moses brought for the people. We also find that, since they didn’t respect Moses and his Message, they didn’t want to let the Hebrew people go; that is why ten plagues had to come down, which were brought by God; and He announced them beforehand, each one of them at the relevant time; He announced them by revealing them to Moses, and Moses would say what would happen.[2] And despite that, they didn’t fear God.
Whoever doesn’t fear God will have a sad end, and he will not be able to enter into the Kingdom of God. And that must be taken care of while he is alive; after the person dies he can’t say: “Now I fear God, now I want to serve God, now I respect God and His Message and His messenger.” The person can’t do that after he dies; it has to be while he is alive on this Earth.
We find that there is no distinction of persons. Notice, we find different kinds of people loving God, fearing God, and therefore, respecting God; but there are also even families, family members of God’s messengers themselves which God has sent throughout time, who didn’t respect God, and therefore, they didn’t fear God.
The case – one of the cases also includes Moses’ brother: Aaron, and his sister Miriam or Mary.[3] Therefore, even the family members of the different prophets and messengers are called to fear God and to respect God.
And how is that done? Through love and fear of God by loving and fearing the messenger that God sends, and respecting him, and respecting the Message that he brings. Because whatever a person does in favor of or against that messenger and his Message is considered as if he were doing it to God; and he is doing it for God, because the messenger is sent by God, he is in God’s hand, and his Message comes to the people from God.
It reached the point where… because they were by Moses’ side, and Moses had put them in a good position under the direction of God: with Aaron as his helper… because Moses asked for a helper because he had a speech impediment: he stuttered, and he feared that the people would either not understand him or would laugh at him;[4] for there are always those who mock others because they see some defect in the person (and especially someone with a stutter or who has difficulty walking).
Miriam or Mary, Moses’ sister, who was older than him, and who had helped Moses when he was a baby, and they had put him in a basket, she and her mother, under her mother’s direction;[5] notice, at that moment, that didn’t count for her to not be found guilty of mocking Moses; she and Aaron, the high priest, the second most important person after Moses.
But perhaps Aaron thought that because he was in the position of high priest he could mock Moses, speak about Moses, without having any problem. And Miriam and Aaron spoke about Moses’ wife, who was Ethiopian (and therefore, she was darker or somewhat darker-skinned) and a Gentile; and they hadn’t realized that God was the One who had worked so that the young woman would become the wife of Moses.
The people had rejected Moses when he was about 40 years old and tried to deliver them, and Moses was in a good political position; and he was rejected. And Moses had to flee because he had killed an Egyptian to defend a Hebrew.[6]
And that Hebrew, that Jew or Hebrew (perhaps along with other people; but he, of course, is the one mentioned), the day after that happened, the next day, Moses sees two Hebrews fighting, and he goes to make peace between them, for there to be peace between them; and the one who had witnessed what Moses had done, that he had killed an Egyptian the day before that to defend a Hebrew, now says to him: “Do you want to do what you did with the Egyptian (meaning: ‘that you killed him and buried him’)?” And Moses realized that the matter of the previous day was known. And the news spread and it even reached Pharaoh.
The Hebrew said: “Who has made you judge?” In other words, he didn’t even want Moses to intervene in the case; what he wanted to do was fight, abuse the other person.
Moses had to flee because Pharaoh issued a warrant for Moses’ arrest, to judge him and kill him.
And Moses went far away, to Midian; and he remained there in Midian. They were also descendants of Abraham, but not from the line of the Divine Covenant that came from Abraham to Isaac, and from Isaac to Jacob, and from Jacob to the patriarchs.
Moses had to flee to save his life; and he spent 40 years there in Midian, shepherding sheep, while God was preparing him, because he was the deliverer chosen by God before the foundation of the world, and they had rejected him; just as they would also reject the Prince Messiah in His First Coming, the Deliverer.
And now, we find that when the 40-year cycle starts again, God sends him again, now as an eighty-year-old elderly man, for the deliverance of Israel.
That is why, notice, the promise was that they would be enslaved, in bondage, for 400 years, as God tells Abraham. In chapter 15 of Genesis, verses 13 and on, it says:
“And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”
The promise was that after these 400 years, they would be delivered and taken to the promised land. At any moment, after the 400 years were fulfilled, the deliverance would be carried out; and Moses was there 10 years beforehand to prepare everything for the deliverance; he knew that promise, his mother had taught him. Remember that his mother was the one who raised him until a certain point. In the stage in which a child is taught, when everything sticks, he received all of that teaching of the Divine promise.
Now, we find in Exodus, chapter 12, when the deliverance had already been carried out, in chapter 12, verse 40 and 41, it says:
“Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.
And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”
In other words, after they rejected Moses when he was 40 years old, they had to wait another 40 years.
Remember, when Moses was 40 years old and Israel had been there in Egypt for 390 years. In other words, these 40-year Divine cycles in the life of Moses are very important.
They missed the 40-year cycle for him to be the deliverer when he was already 40 years old; and they had to wait for another 40-year cycle, when Moses was already 80 years old, to go through another 40-year cycle in the wilderness; to then, after 40 years in the wilderness, enter the promised land.
In the last 80 years of Moses’ life, notice, we find that two 40-year periods were repeated. The second 40-year cycle of Moses’ life was because the people displeased God on different occasions; and when they asked for water the second time, Moses also smote the rock,[7] and the people had a serious problem: God said they would wander in the wilderness for 40 years, until that generation died.[8]
And the children (whom they said would fall victim to the serpents and to other animals or reptiles, scorpions and so on) would be the ones who would go into the new land, into the promised land; and therefore, a new generation would enter the promised land; a new generation later on, which would be born after those 40 years in the wilderness, they would be the ones to enter the promised land.
And those who didn’t fear God and didn’t respect God, because they didn’t respect Moses nor did they fear God manifested through Moses: they weren’t able to enter the promised land.
Notice how when 40 years pass, every time 40 years are fulfilled in the life of Moses, a time of blessing opens, a Divine cycle opens; and if the people miss it, they have to wait 40 more years; when those 40 additional years have been reached, that same cycle begins again.
There, for the entrance into the promised land, notice, Moses’ third 40-year cycle began. He wasn’t able to go in because he displeased God by smiting the rock when God told him to speak to the rock; in other words, even the messenger had problems on that occasion when he should have done things as God told him to do them; he acted out of anger, out of rage, because the people troubled him and the people tried to stone Moses ten times; in other words, he had grown tired of the people already.
May God have mercy on us.
In the life of Moses, in the years of Moses, 6,000 years are reflected. In 120 years, there are a number of jubilees; and therefore, in those jubilees (which are represented in the life of Moses) the Divine Program is reflected. The thing to do is divide 6,000 years by 50, and you’ll get 120 jubilees.
Those cycles of Moses’ life are important; just as Reverend William Branham tells us that he also had 7-year cycles in his life, and the 7th year was always a moment, a year, that was very difficult.[9] Messengers all have those cycles in the Divine Program.
Now, we find that in the life of Moses, a dispensational prophet with whom God spoke face to face, God tells Mary or Miriam, when she became leprous because of the Divine judgment that fell upon her; and He says to Miriam and to Aaron: “You did not fear God, you did not fear, and you spoke against Moses”; and He told them that he was a man with whom God spoke face to face,[10] as a friend speaks to someone; as friends speak with one another, that is how God spoke with Moses; He says He didn’t speak with Moses as He spoke with other prophets, through dreams and things like that, but rather face to face.
He was none other than a dispensational prophet; therefore, he also reflected the Messiah, who will be a prophet like Moses, in whom the Word of God will be put in the mouth of the Messiah, to speak It to the people.
“I will raise up unto them a prophet like you from the midst of the people,” God says to Moses in Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verses 15 to 19, and also in chapter 13 of Deuteronomy.
This promise will be completely fulfilled in the Prince Messiah. In the rest of the prophets it is partially fulfilled (in a lesser form), but it will be completely fulfilled (to the greatest extent) by the Messiah, both in His First Coming as well as in His Second Coming.
His First Coming was two thousand years ago to the Jews, His First Coming as the Lamb to bear the sin of the people, the sin of the human being. And in His Second Coming, He will come in His Claiming Work to claim everything He has redeemed through His atoning Work, He will come to His Church.
The Jews will see Him coming to His Church, because He comes for the resurrection and in the resurrection; and to carry out the resurrection of the dead believers in Him and to change those who are alive.
It is the greatest mystery in the Bible: the Coming of the Messiah at the Last Day, the Coming of the Lord to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the mystery because of which there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour. Revelation, chapter 8, verse 1 and on, and Saint Matthew 24.
That is the mystery that Christ spoke of and said that no one knew when the day and the hour would be, the day and the hour of the Second Coming of Christ; no one knew, not even the angels, Christ says;[11] and He also says that not even the Son knew,[12] not even Jesus: before He was resurrected, He didn’t know when the day and the hour would be; but afterwards He did know, because in the glorified body one knows all things.
The mystery of the Coming of the Messiah, of Christ to His Church at the Last Day, that hour and day in which that would take place hadn’t been revealed to Him yet; but once He is already glorified, yes, He does know that mystery, He understands that mystery.
It is the greatest mystery in the Bible, that is why there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour. When the Seventh Seal was opened in Heaven, it was opened, and therefore, it was known by the angels, archangels, cherubims, seraphims and all those who are there in Heaven, who appear there in Revelation, chapter 5. They were silent so that the Divine Program wouldn’t be interrupted, so that the enemy of God, the devil and his army, wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t know, so that they wouldn’t imitate what Christ will be doing and what His Coming to His Church will be; that is why there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour.
But that mystery will be revealed to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to give them the faith to be changed and taken with Christ to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
That mystery will be revealed in what Reverend William Branham called the Third Pull; and the Third Pull will be the spoken Word, that is, Christ speaking to His Church at the Last Day.
He spoke through the ages by His Spirit, through the messengers He sent, and through them He spoke to His Church. That is how it will always be because God always works the same way. God doesn’t change, that is how it has been from Genesis to Revelation.
Therefore, we must watch. Where? In the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the one that has that promise. And in which stage of the Church? The first stage of the time of the apostles already passed; the stage of the time of the Church in its first age among the gentiles, there in Asia Minor, already passed; the second also passed, which was in Europe; the third, and fourth, and fifth and sixth, also passed, those were in Europe.
And just as the Holy Spirit went from Israel to Asia Minor, to the Gentiles, then He went to Europe, and in different nations in Europe He fulfilled five stages of His Church. And then He went from Europe to North America, and there He fulfilled the seventh stage of His Church, represented in the Laodicean church.
And the next stage will be wherever the Holy Spirit goes, from North America to another territory; and that is where we have to watch the promises made for the Last Day to His Church; that will be the territory to which the Holy Spirit will have gone.
Wherever He has flown from North America, we have to see where He went; because wherever He has flown, wherever He has gone, that will be the scene for the fulfillment, in the fulfillment of all the promises relevant to this end time. Simple.
And after that… and the Jews will see Him there; and from there He will fly with His Church to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb; and then, from there, He will return with His Church to Israel. In other words, there are different stages for the fulfillment of the Divine promises for His Church and for Israel.
The greatest manifestation of Jesus Christ through His Spirit is promised for this end time; therefore, there has to be a stage that is identified as an eternal age, which is the Golden Age of the Church, the promised Age of the Cornerstone, which is parallel to the Age of the Cornerstone of the First Coming of Christ; and there has to be a forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ, because there was a forerunner for the First Coming of Christ in the spirit and power of Elijah, which was John the Baptist.
And the forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ, in the spirit and power of Elijah, already came, and it was Reverend William Branham; therefore, he was in the stage parallel to that of John the Baptist.
Likewise, we also have the promise that everything that he said will happen in the Church, everything he foreran, will be fulfilled in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Last Day; and there will be a territory, and that entire blessing will come forth from there to other nations.
Therefore, it’s important to know in which direction we have to keep our eyes open and so that we don’t miss what God will be doing by His Spirit at the Last Day.
We still can’t speak very plainly, very openly, so that the enemy of God doesn’t imitate the things that Christ will be doing in the midst of His Church; but be on the lookout for what God has been promised to do in the midst of His Church, and therefore, He will use His Church to carry out all that Divine Program relevant to this end time.
That is why it is so important to fear God and to respect God and His Program. The things of God must be respected.
Those who didn’t respect God and the things of God, the Program of God and the instruments of God and the people of God, in past times, in other dispensations: they perished.
Those who didn’t respect Noah and the Message he had from God: perished in the flood.[13]
Those who didn’t respect God and His Program that He had for the time of Abraham, those who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, and nearby cities: perished with fire and brimstone that came down from heaven.[14]
The Archangels Gabriel and Michael, who appeared to Lot in Sodom, said that God had sent them to destroy the city.[15] In other words, Angels come with commissions for blessings or commissions for divine judgment, upon individuals, upon nations… and even upon all nations, as it was in the time of Noah.
But what is also important is that they come with blessings for those who fear God and respect the things of God. Those who don’t mock but are reverent, respectful, and fear God.
“Fear God, for this is the whole duty of man.”
“Fear God, and keep His commandments.”
We all know that there are great blessings from God for those who fear God, who respect God and His Word and His messengers, and love God.
A person can’t respect God and God’s servants and God’s people if he doesn’t fear God, if he has no fear of God.
A person without fear of God doesn’t respect God and the things of God, the spiritual things, and even the physical things that belong to God.
There was a person, Antiochus Epiphanes, who didn’t respect God, who didn’t fear God and who didn’t love God’s people, and he sacrificed a pig in the temple of God. In other words, a person who doesn’t respect God, doesn’t love God, doesn’t fear God: he doesn’t respect God and does things against God.
But he who respects God, who loves God and fears God: he fears God, and therefore he loves God, and therefore he respects God and the things of God.
God demands respect from every human being. God demands that everyone fear and respect Him. And that is not voluntary; it is a requirement that God has established for every human being who lives on this Earth in the time he is meant to pass through this planet.
Whoever doesn’t fear God and doesn’t respect God, will not be able to live eternally. Therefore, the words of Jesus: “Do not fear those who can kill the body, and then (what happens?) they can do nothing more.”
“And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.”
(Saint Luke, chapter 12, verse 4 and on.)
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him (that is, God).”
“FEAR GOD.”
Whatever you don’t understand about God, about the Divine Program, about the Bible, about the Work of God: do not criticize it, stay silent, pray to God so that He opens your understanding; and then, what you don’t understand at the moment, you will understand later on.
Lest you lose fear of God and then begin to criticize the Work of God, thinking that you are doing something good, and you start to lose respect for the things of God, and cross the line between mercy and judgment, and then there is no more opportunity for repentance.
Those who have criticized God and His Work and the things of God, have had that problem; therefore, my recommendation is the same as that of Jesus: “Fear God, who is able to take away life and cast a person into hell (meaning, in soul and spirit).” Because when a person dies physically, what dies is the physical body, this earthly house; but he continues to live in spirit and soul in another dimension.
Therefore, my advice is: Fear God, the One who can take away life and can cast the person into hell, in soul and spirit.
And the advice of King Solomon, who tells us: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.” And he shows us that that is the whole duty of man, of the human being, that is the whole duty: Fear God and keep His commandments; because that is what God requires, what pleases God:
“My sheep hear My Voice, and they follow me, and I know them, and I give them Eternal Life.”[16] Those are the people represented in the good ground, who listen, read, understand, and bring forth fruit; some a hundredfold, others sixtyfold, and others thirtyfold. Saint Matthew, chapter 13, verse 23.
Therefore: FEAR GOD.
Until we see each other next Sunday, God willing.
“FEAR GOD.”
[1] Exodus 12:1-13, 21-28
[2] Exodus 7:14-25, 8:1-15, 8:16-19, 8:20-32, 9:1-7, 9:13-35, 10:1-20, 10:21-29, 11:1-10, 12:29-30
[3] Numbers 12:1-16
[4] Exodus 4:10-16
[5] Exodus 2:3-9
[6] Exodus 2:11-15
[7] Numbers 20:1-13
[8] Numbers 14:21-35, Deuteronomy 1:34-40
[9] 65-1128E – “On The Wings Of A Snow-White Dove,” pp. 21-27, paras. 137-213
[10] Numbers 12:6-8, Exodus 33:11
[11] Matthew 24:36
[12] Mark 13:32
[13] Genesis 7:21-24
[14] Genesis 19:24-25
[15] Genesis 19:12-13
[16] John 10:27-28