THIS ISSUE IS STARTING WITH BROTHER ALLEN’S STATEMENT ABOUT THE POPE VISITING ISRAEL, AND THERE WAS NOT ROOM TO FINISH THE FULL STATEMENT IN THE NOVEMBER 2014 ISSUE.

When the pope was over there the other day, he called it Palestine. He stood on the other side of the wall there, which is the wailing wall, and standing on the other side of it, while he was on the Palestinian side, he called it Palestine. This upset Netanyahu and many of the Jewish people, because they knew this was wrong. God’s promise to Abraham was as follows. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. I want to go from there on down to verse 15. And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. See? God is changing the order of things. I have a point to get to in this because God is going to do something in the lives of both of them that needed a change. Can you see what I am pointing to? When we get to the New Testament we will see. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?See? There is a little bit of doubt in his heart because he had settled in on things as they were. Sarah had already passed the age of bearing children. He looked at things as an impossibility. In this hour, there are so many things that God is going to do, so do not look at any of it as an impossibility. As Abraham was, we have never seen the hour we are living in and that we are beginning to come into. Here, God has not only changed the names of two people, He has changed their body. Sarah thought she would never nurse a child. Abraham did not think so either at this point. But when God spoke to Abraham, He said, is anything too hard for God? I know Bro. William Branham seemed to think that God had changed Sarah back to a young woman. I will not say this in disagreement, but God does not have to change the body back. We take it back to, is it too hard for God? God is not looking at circumstances. We get ourselves in trouble by looking at circumstances, instead of looking at Gods Word. God is speaking to this man. Abraham and Sarah have both had a name change. They both have a body change, not necessarily to make them look young again, but Abraham was not looking at anything different when he was looking at the promise of God. Sarah still looked the same, but there had been a change inside her. When we go into the baptismal pool, that should change our outlook because there is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved. I want to read verse 16 again. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. He was looking at things like Moses did, when he was standing by the Red Sea. He sees the Red Sea in front of him, he sees Pharaohs army behind him. He cries out to God. God said, Dont cry: Speak to the water. He had never seen anything like this before. We are getting ready for a rapture. The time is drawing nearer every day. Are we looking at circumstances? Or are we looking in faith? Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, shall a child be born unto him a hundred years old, and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear? He is not looking at a young woman. He is still looking at a ninety year old woman. But God does what seems to mortal man, the impossible. It even goes further with Abraham. And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! The Bible says Abraham believed God, but here is a time that there was a doubt. Don’t we all sometimes have that little doubt? Does that make you an unbeliever? The Bible says that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Little children used to sing, He is still working on me. That did not make God say to Abraham, forget it. He has not said that about us either, forget it. God keeps on speaking. Let us hear what He says. And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac. There is a difference here in Abraham’s name, when he was Abram, than it was with Isaac, because God named him. He never had a name changed, because this is the type of Christ. About a hundred years after Christ had died, then they were already baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That is when God began to leave the Church. In the year 325, under Constantine, then the whole thing was lost. Look at what they called the Church. I am not going to call it a church. There were believers, but the church so-called from that time on, never matched up to the promises of God. Not until you come into 1500 and something. Then Martin Luther got hold of a little truth, the just shall live by faith. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. Isaac never had the dramatic life of Jacob and Abraham. You do not read that many dramatic things about him, but the covenant was there. I will establish my covenant with him, which is talking of circumcision and so on. Let us go to Genesis 32, starting in verse 23. Jacob has now come to face his enemy. Tomorrow he is going to face Esau, whom he fled from. He is talking about his family here. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. He sent everything he had. He is going to face this thing alone. There are times we have to face our problems alone. The husband cannot do it. The wife cannot do it. A child cannot do it. There are times when it is just God and you or me. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. (He wrestled all night.) And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. My, think about the sweat and the tears, of an all night wrestling match. This was not just a man. Why? He needed an answer. He has been gone twenty years and God told him to go back home. What does he face? This is a dilemma in his life that he has never faced before. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. He did not just get humble, he got serious. As time goes on, the seriousness will be there. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. See? This is a name that man had gave to him, his mom and dad were godly people. But God was not going to suffer that name to be a part of his promise. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. (I-s-r-a-e-l, el is God. God gave him a part of His own name.) for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. Sure. God could have blown the lid off this thing if He had desired to, but God is aiming for us to prevail. Sometimes we just cut ourselves short, we do not stay long enough until everything is settled, until all the dust is settled. Jacob was facing his greatest eneenemy. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. Jacob felt that he had seen the face of God. We know that no man has seen God at any time, but God was able to appear in a man’s form. He did to Abraham. This was not an ordinary angel that Jacob wrestled with. When you are wrestling over a situation, it is not angels that you are wrestling with, it is God. Angels are your protectors. God is your Savior. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.This is something he is going to remember the rest of his life. Because it left him with a limp. But he got down to business. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the high, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank. For my last reading this time, I want to go to Ephesians, the 4th chapter. You might think we spend a lot of time in Ephesians, especially in the 4th chapter. There is a reason for that. Verse 14, That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Look at the first few words in the 16th verse, from whom the whole body fitly jointed together and compacted, by that which every joint supplieth. That is the working of the body. That is what we are in, the gifts, the working of the body. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus. Taught by Him, that is the Spirit of the living God in the ministry of this hour. That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. That is what I was referring to in Abraham and Jacob, the name was changed because God had dealings with them, which, when we come to Christ, our motive, our life is as Paul said, the life that I now live, I live to the glory of God the Father. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man. See? He is putting some things up to us, that we put off the old man with his deeds, and that we put on the new man that we have taken instead, which is Jesus Christ. You never hear Abraham referred to, except in preaching or something, as Abram anymore. You do not hear the land of Israel called the land of Jacob, because it has all been changed. We do not just refer to each other as Jack, Bob, and call our sisters by a name, they are our sisters and brothers, because something has been changed. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. The devil works through thoughts. He works through the flesh, that is all he has to work with. He works through doubts, and through things that we know we live in the midst of. But then we remind him of who we are. That way, you are not giving place to him. If something is wrong, that comes into our mind, to our thinking, we put it off. We do not have to be drug down by the devil. God has given us a better life than that. He has given us a better hope. He has given us faith. There are brothers and sisters that are further along than you think you are, but you have to recognize it. You have got to claim it. We cannot entertain doubts. We cannot entertain fears and negativity. Paul said, in Jesus Christ, it is yea and Amen. So whether the devil likes it or not, we are new creatures in Christ. That will take away our doubts, and our unbelief. If you are believing God, you have more going for you, than you have against you. God has not brought us this far in order to shove us down. I have tried to illustrate from the Old Testament, what God did in the lives of Abraham and others. Isaac was another, of course, but he did not have his name changed, because God gave him that name. Jesus did not have His name changed. God gave Him that name. So the name of Jesus Christ is still just as prevalent as it was two thousand years ago.

THE GIFTS AND CALLING OF GOD

6-8-14 AM

God is good, we know He is. He is not just good some times, but He is good all the time. We appreciate the goodness of the Lord, for what He means to us in this hour of time. I am still on the same subject. It all has to go back to the 11th chapter of the book of Romans, the 29th verse. This is speaking here, concerning the Jews, but we realize God does not change His mind about anything. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. So God makes no mistakes. He does not do something and then say, oh I was wrong. No. The obligation is on us when He calls us to do something, and what we do with it is our responsibility. God is not responsible for what we do, just like, as I referred last Sunday, concerning Ezekiel 33. He commissioned the watchmen standing on the wall, to warn the people. When he does, then there is a reward for him. But if he does not, then peoples’ blood is on his hands, even sinners, because you never know who is going to be warned. You never know who is going to take the warning. So as the watchman on the wall looks at that, of course he is speaking to the house of Israel. The gospel message had not gone out yet, at that time. But we find these are carry overs into the day and time we are living in. Because it said they were written for our admonition, our learning. Then it becomes our responsibility. As I speak of this, I have been, more or less hitting on the gifts, but I really have not gotten into it that very much, but I do want to go to the 12th chapter now. I was on that somewhat Thursday night, but I want to go further into it, concerning the spiritual gifts. He has talked about the body here, but the body is also in relationship to the gifts, as he is looking at it here. The way he is looking at it, he is looking at it as it works in the body. One gift cannot say to another one, I have no need of you, because there are nine spiritual gifts listed in there. As he looks at it, many times we look at those that are more vocal, as being more important, but that is not the way Paul was presenting it here, because he is talking about some of the gifts are not seen like others are, but they are just as important. As we wind up the time we are living in, I think it is needed for understanding, of what is expected of the body of Christ. When Paul looked at this, he was looking at a Corinthian people that had worshipped everything. He calls it, these dumb idols. But when he begins to examine it, let me look at this just a minute here, there are things in this I had not picked out, and that I had not seen, but just like the 4th verse of 1st Corinthians. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. He is not wanting people to look at this like, I have a different Spirit, I have more Spirit, I have more Spirit than someone else. It is the body working together, to have these gifts in the way they should be here at the end time. He said, there are diversities of gifts, or differences of gifts, but the same Spirit. This was important in that hour of time and it is important in this hour of time. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. See? He is using three different references here, but he is wanting everybody to see there is no difference. And there are diversities of operations, (different operations) but it is the same God which worketh all in all. Now he has mentioned in these three verses here, he has mentioned Spirit, he has mentioned the second one, Lord, and then in the third verse, he mentions God. This is all the same. There is no difference in what he is saying here. It is all the same Lord, it is all the same Spirit, it is all the same God, there is not a trinity like many believe. Of course the trinity minded people would look at it in that way, well there is Spirit, that is the Holy Ghost, there is Lord, that is Jesus Christ, and then there is God. They are looking at a triune God, and He is not that at all. But he is wanting people to understand that it is the same God that is over all this. This was established in the Corinthian people, to which he said, you have been connected with these dumb idols. I went over that last Sunday, how they worshipped different things. It is like America today, they worship the female. That is what is going on in America today. They may not have statues, but they have it on television. You see News men, they are fully dressed. The women have hardly anything on. That is no different than it was in Rome, in the time of the Caesars. America today, the United States has stooped just about as low as it can get without judgment. I see Peres is in Rome now with the pope, and Abbas is also there. The thing about it is, it does not mean anything because Peres is just a figure head, just trying to make a name for himself, an old man that ought to have been somewhere in a rest home. I am not speaking of older people, but the man’s mind is gone. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. We could say, it is given to every man to profit all the body of Christ, the gift of the Spirit of Christ is not to profit one person. It is not to profit the person that has the gift. You see that in the 14th chapter. It is to profit withal, every one. Really, the working of the Spirit of God in the gifts is to edify the body, to build it up. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom. The denominational world would look at this as being something insignificant, because it is not always so outward that everybody can recognize it. This is the gift of wisdom. But it really says the word of wisdom, that is not speaking of one word. The gift of wisdom, sometimes we do not recognize it, or the word of wisdom. It can be a whole message, or it can be something that someone says that is going to edify some. As I said, these gifts are not something to just edify the person that has it. Here is another gift that is related to it. To another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit. The word of knowledge, by the same Spirit. The word of knowledge, let me put it this way, it is God giving you understanding of something that is getting ready to take place. That is what happened to Paul when he was warned not to go to Jerusalem. This prophet comes in and takes the cloak of Paul, not knowing who it belonged to, he said whose cloak this is, will be bound in Jerusalem. It is the farthest thing from my mind to try to say something that is going to elevate me, because it is not me. If God shows me something, it is for everyone. That is the way I have used it. There has not been a subject that God has given me, that I have kept to myself. I have mentioned this before, three weeks before that thing came up in 2008, a man called me, that was against me, but he gave me some information. He said, when this meeting takes place, which was our fall convention, there are some preachers coming here to straighten you out. When the time came, I could see how things were progressing from the very first message on Sunday morning. I knew there was something wrong. I said within myself, there is not going to be a meeting with preachers. I knew I did not need any straightening out. It may never happen again, but that was a gift of knowledge that God gave to me. The meeting went on, and I decided when I began to hear things, when things began to feed into my understanding, I decided I was going to let every one of those preachers preach. Like I say, this is not for me. One preached on Thursday night, Friday night things were building up. Saturday morning, machine gun preached. Then Saturday night, the preacher preached that I was Saul and Bro. Bud was Jonathan, and he was David. I did not say anything to any of them, but I did say my answer will not be to a bunch of preachers, but my answer will be Sunday morning. I had no idea how this thing was going to turn out: I just knew that I had a message I had to preach. I used two Contenders to preach my message. It was not my message, it was already written. When I preached that Sunday morning, I said you preachers have more or less downed me in this meeting, but it will never happen again. Comment after comment came to me by my brothers, asking how did you take it, knowing that they were preaching against you? I will tell you how I took it, I knew that I had to. If I had stopped it, if I had interrupted it in any form during this time, then nobody would have believed me. There was no get-together, there was no argument. There was no argument when Sunday morning service was over. The one preacher came to me and said, forgive me. He walked over to Bro. Bud and said, I have sinned, please forgive me. By the next weekend, he had changed his mind. I am talking about gifts this morning. I had to use myself as a reference, but the thing about it is, it is not my gift. God may use something one time. He may use a gift in somebody’s life one time, but that should not keep you from seeking for the gift that is suited for you. When I speak like this, one half of the church cannot be spiritual and the other half be carnal. We have to be one in this hour. Just to know how close the coming of the Lord is, sometimes, almost makes you shiver. Bro. Jackson used to talk about, before the end, that there would still be Holocaust victims that would be alive. Do you remember that? They are dying, 18,000 to 20,000 a year now, and there are 175,000 left. See how long that is? I just heard that on the News yesterday. There are not many Holocaust victims left. Another thing Bro. Jackson would say, God would keep body and soul together to fulfill His purpose. We are all getting older. I realize that within myself, I am getting older, especially when somebody on the News talks about somebody the age of sixty one as being elderly. Some of you younger people are not very far away from sixty one. The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. That bothered me to have to tell all of you what I did, because I am referring to myself. To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge. It is not just the Spirit, a word goes with it, something you can understand, that is going to help you. When that Sunday morning came, I did not know what was going to happen when it was over, until a sister got up and began to clap. Then the entire congregation began to clap and to rejoice. It made a bunch of preachers look very foolish. We look at some of the gifts as something that would not be that significant, but every gift is. These gifts must be working in the body, because they are of the Spirit of God, and there are some people in here that have gifts, that do not know how to use them yet, but they are learning. This message is to help people know the workings of the Spirit of God. I am not going to get up here and shake your chin to make you speak in tongues, like some have done in different places. They will have a person say Jesus backwards many times real fast, teaching people how to speak in tongues. Bro. Bud preached a message one time, and he said, if you say the same thing over and over and over, the next time you get up and you say it over and over and over, he said it is going to be the same message. I do not necessarily say that about Faith Assembly, but there are people that do that. He goes on, by the same Spirit, To another faith by the same Spirit. That is a gift, it is something that you know for sure when it comes concerning a certain thing, or praying for somebody, when this works in your life, you know it is going to work. Faith is not discernment, but it is somewhat related. The 13th chapter tells you how these things work in the wisdom of God. It is through love, love of the Word, love of God, love of the saints of God. Only God can put that love in you by the Holy Ghost. It is not how you love your dog. It is not how you love your child. You love your child because that is a part of you, and you protect that child, that is not the love of God. It is to love Him when all the chips are down. You would not trade what you believe for the whole world, because Jesus said if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul, then what has it profited you. Faith is speaking it and believing it, taking God at His Word. It is a gift. Jesus said if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, be removed, and it would be done. That is a gift, but you are going to know how to use it. You do not use faith just to blast something, nor to cut somebody down. Faith works in these gifts. Faith works in the gift of healing. To another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit. See? Every time he is speaking of here, he is saying by the Spirit. He is wanting those Corinthian people to understand that you are not doing this on your own. It is not a gift unless it is by the Spirit. As I repeat, it is to edify the body. The gifts of healing by the same Spirit, I mentioned some time before, a week or two before the spring meeting, about having a sore throat and laid my hand on my throat and prayed a short prayer. My sore throat left. That was something I was supposed to say because Bro. Svein had cancer. I knew he had cancer. He had it in different parts of his body. So he began to lay his hand on his body and pray, after I had said that, and it struck faith in him. We are talking about healing now because it says the gifts of healings. He laid his hands on different parts of his body where he was hurting and where he was having this trouble with the cancer. He prayed and it left. You heard his testimony. I had said something, and the word I said was to benefit somebody else with a worse problem than I had. Our young sister Rebekah testified about her throat condition, how bad it was, she laid her hand on her throat and prayed and it left. Brothers and sisters, these things are to build faith in a congregation. They are not just for me, nor for a single person, but it is for everyone. We must get ourselves to a place, I am not saying holier than thou or anything like that, we must get ourself in a place of sacrifice, here I am Lord. The reason it says gifts of healings, because when Jesus was here, there were many ways He healed people. He spit on the ground and made mud, that He rubbed on someone’s eyes. I wonder what that man thought when He was putting mud on his eyes? He did not know who Jesus was, he had never seen Him. Jesus told him, go wash and see. When Peter, in the 4th chapter of Acts, was preaching, he was just preaching and his shadow, as he walked up and down the street, gave faith to some people on sick beds and they got up. There are a lot of stories on television, miracle water, miracle oil, I have something you need, but you have to pay me for it. You have to keep me on the air. Faith Assembly has never begged to stay on the air. We have not begged for the Contender to go out. I stand here this morning with nothing to complain about concerning the finances of Faith Assembly, nothing, because God has provided. Bro. Jackson said, when our ability dries up, to where the Contender cannot be printed and sent free of charge to all that request it, I will stop it. It is still being printed. It started in 1969. The internet is still going to many different countries. No one is ever asked for even a penny, because we have people that love God and pay their tithes without anyone begging them to. Anything about tithes is hardly ever mentioned, and it is never mentioned in a way to say, you need to give more. Naturally I believe in paying tithes and I believe in making offerings, but I am not asking for it. I am not standing here asking, give more. I know God will provide a way for the truth of His Word to get to hungry souls. All of this greed and carnality is going to be burned one of these days.