The Leadership Of God
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 114

Romans 8:14- , "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."
Galatians 5:18, "But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law."

Listen to what God's Prophet has said about it:

You must choose your leader. Choose today. You choose Life or death. Your choice will determine your eternal destination, what you choose. Remember, Jesus said, "Follow Me." (St.Luke 18:18-22). And you're invited tonight to do so. And to follow Him to Eternal Life you must come on His terms (That's right.), the Word, not upon the creed, not upon the public opinion, not upon what anybody else thinks about It, but on what God said about It.

Remember, Jesus said, "Follow Me. Follow Me. Get rid of what you've got, and follow Me." And that's the only way to have Eternal Life. That's the only remedy He give this man, was the only remedy He give this businessman; it's the only remedy He gives anybody. His choice, He makes His decision; it's perfect every time. And we must follow Him, is the only way to have Eternal Life. So the leadership of God is follow the vindicated Word of the hour by the Holy Ghost.

We've got to follow every day, every hour of the day, every step of the way. We've got to be led by the Lord Jesus Christ. If we don't, we take an organiza-tional life. And a life that doesn't follow Christ daily is not worthy.

When you're borned of the Spirit, you become a new creature, and God begins to deal with you then as sons, and you're led of the Spirit of God.

Paul was correctly a prisoner. He wasn't making any wrong statements. He was trained by the Holy Ghost again to wait on the Word. Now, he'd been trained one way (by Gamaliel), but God had trained him another way now. He was trained by the Holy Spirit to wait upon the Lord (Isaiah 40:31). No matter what his ambitions was.

Now, I'm going to by the help Holy Spirit show you something. Now, let's just take an instance. One day Paul and Silas, coming down a street in a certain city where he was holding a revival, and a little demon-possessed girl kept following him, crying out after him. And no doubt but what Paul knowed that he had the authority as an apostle to rebuke that evil spirit out of that woman; but did you notice he waited day after day until all of a sudden the Holy Spirit spoke to him. He said, "This is the hour." Then he said, "Thou spirit, come out of her." (Acts 16,16-18).

See, he knowed to wait on the Lord. And there's where so many people today bring a reproach upon the Word. They go out with an ambition. How many revivals have been left flat because of a thing like that, because the evangelist doesn't wait to see what the Lord's got to say?
But Paul just waited for the Spirit to tell him what to do. Wherever the Spirit led...

That's the reason I... Some ministers come and asked me to come to their places. I wait till I feel led to go. Then if I come, I'm just coming in my own name (if I come like that), just to be your friend. But when I feel led to come, then I can come in the Name of the Lord Jesus. Set your feet off that plane, she belongs to you. Amen. I take it all over in the Name of Jesus Christ. Then you're to meet Him out there then, because you're God's ambassador then (II Cor. 5:18-20). But now when some church, friends, here, some friends calls for you, or something, you're just going presuming again. My, presuming, I guess you're tired listening to that.

You've got to have inspiration to lead you, brother. And that inspiration comes by the Holy Ghost. Yes. Led of the Spirit, Sons and daughters of God are led by the Spirit of God. They love the Spirit. They don't try to say, "Now, wait a minute. My church, they don't say 'amen.' My church, they never raise their hands; they're very quiet.

All sons and daughters of God are led by the Spirit of God. They move by the Spirit, odd, strange. They stay right, and every action is with the Bible. They stay, all their doctrine stays right with the Bible. They won't vary on one thing. Where the Bible says it, they'll move right on into it. If they stop for a minute, they're trying to study and see which way to make; and then the Holy Spirit reveals it, and he moves right on. And he does the same thing, follows the same rules, lays the same foundation, the same God comes upon him, and the same wonders, and same miracles, and the same sign follows him, that followed Him.

God will receive what you'll give, but God wants all of you. He wants every bit of you. He wants all. He wants everything you are. He wants your life. He wants your testimony. He wants every minute you live. He wants you to live right, act right, talk right, do right. He wants everything perfectly surrendered to Him, that He can lead you, and guide you, and put you into places where He wants you to go, led of the Spirit.

The devil is a real smart shrewd bird. He knows how to hit the thing before it gets started; he knows it. See? And the only thing that you can ever do to beat him, is to rely on Christ and humble yourself and let Him lead you. You'll never do it any other way.

Your intellectual powers will never do it. You got to believe it and just rely on Him. He is the Shepherd. It ain't the sheep's business to keep the wolf away; it's the Shepherd's business; but the sheep must stay with the Shepherd in order to stay safe. That's my safety Zone, is in Christ, and Christ is the Word. That's the safety Zone.

The Holy Spirit is to lead us, not a seminary, not bishops and overseers, and so forth. The Holy Ghost is our Leader.

How many can remember when the good prophet, Samuel, when all of Israel wanted to act like the rest of the world? Do you remember that? And the prophet told them, said, "You're wrong!" But they wanted to act like the Philistines, and like the rest of them. Well, that's exactly what happened in this very first church age. It's strange that people don't want God to lead them. They want to follow... They want some man. Israel, made the greatest mistake it ever made, when grace had al-ready provided them a prophet, a leader, provided them a lamb as an atonement, and provided them food from the heavens, and all the good things that grace had provided them; and still in Exodus 19 they wanted a law. They wanted to make doctors of divinity, and have some man, they wanted to have something to do into It, too. Man's always trying to outsmart the very Creator that made him, and he doesn't do a thing but kill hisself.
But now look at Israel, had seen miracles. That's the early Pentecost: Israel, the Pentecost of that day. Now, they had been brought up out of Egypt. God had blessed them, give them all kinds of great signs and wonders, and delivered them. And when they stood upon that bank and had a Pentecostal meeting... They did. Now, listen. Moses sang in the Spirit, and Miriam took a tambourine and run down the bank, beating this tambourine, dancing in the Spirit; and the daughters of Israel followed her, dancing in the Spirit. And if that ain't a Pentecostal meeting, I never seen one.

Little did they believe that the promised land was forty years ahead of them. It was only about forty miles. But it take them forty years to get forty miles is because they chose the wrong thing. They chose to have a law instead of letting the Holy Spirit lead them, the Pillar of Fire take them on through and lead them. They wanted to have something to do themselves; they wanted to have certain priests, and certain dig-nitaries, and a little theology they could fuss about, instead of just going on and letting the Holy Ghost lead them. They were in the Spirit; God had provided everything; but they had to have something to do into it.

And I'm not an eloquent speaker, but I do love the Lord. And I can't love Christ until first I love His people. See? I've got to love His people. So if I love His people, then I love Him. And then, I want to be like He did. I want to make my objective the same objectives He had; and that was always trying to do good, to help somebody.

Now, to say I have a leading to go to any of these places, I do not, but I feel that it ought to be sowing seed somewhere, doing whatever I can for the Kingdom.

I think the Bible says that the footsteps of the righteous is ordered of the Lord (Psalm 37:23). Now, we do things that don't... We don't understand why we do it, but we just keep still. As long as you're led of the Spirit, go do it anyhow. It may be contrary to our thinking, but when the Holy Spirit said, "Go," we go.

For instance right now I've got a meeting, be set in New York; I'd have it this week, where there was three hundred Spanish-speaking people takes Madison Square Garden that seats nineteen thousand, and wanted this very week here that I'm in here, to be in New York. See? But the Holy Spirit led me over here (to Port Alberni, Canada). Seems like it'd be contrary. But I don't know why, but I'm here. You see, children of God are led by the Spirit of God. We don't understand.

Paul was a prisoner to Jesus Christ, harnessed to His Word by the Spirit. Oh, I like that. He was bound. He was bound by a chain, by fetters of love to do the will of God and that only. He was a prisoner. He was in fetters of love. He was in the yoke with Christ. He could yoke up with nothing else. He was yoked with Him, and wherever the lead went, that's where he had to go, regardless how green the path looked on this side or that side; he had to go the way the Leader and the yoke went.

Oh, tonight, if we as the Branham Tabernacle could only become prisoners to our own selfish being, to our own ambition, that we could completely surrender ourself and be yoked to Him. No matter what the rest of the world thinks, what the rest of the world does, we're yoked with fetters of love; we are prisoners. My feet is so yoked to Christ, it won't dance; my eyes are so yoked to Christ till I--when I see these modern strip-tease on the street, it turns my head; my heart is so yoked in love to Him till I can't have love for this world anymore. My will is so yoked to Him till I don't even know what my ambitions are. Just wherever you lead, I'll follow, Lord. I'll be a prisoner (Eph. 3:1; Eph. 4:1; Philemon 8-9).

I don't believe that any servant of God, led of the Spirit, can get out of the will of God. Because as long as he's led by the Spirit, that's God's will. Sometimes he does things that he don't even know what he's doing hisself and don't realize why he does do it, but it's God working it around for the good. "Everything works together for good to them that love God." said the Scripture (Romans 8:28).

My beloved friends, I've tried, in all my life, to be anything but false. I've tried to be honest in my dealings with God and with my fellow man. And I've tried it, every time, to move and do just as the Holy Spirit would tell me. That's the reason I'm carried from place to place, and stop meetings, and go places, because I follow the lead-ing of the Spirit.

Reference: "Leadership", par. 285, 289 / "Is Your Life Worthy Of The Gospel", par. 72-73 / "Five Identifications", par. 184 / "Paul, A Prisoner Of Jesus Christ", pg. 14-16 / "Concerned And Convinced", pg. 7 / "Rejected King" (60-0610), par. 53 / "The Unfailing Realities Of God" (60-0626), par. 173, 184 / "Third Exodus", pg. 33 / "God's Power To Transform", par. 177 / "Smyrnaean Church Age", par. 31-32, 59-60 / "Letting Off The Pressure" (62-0513E), par. 28-29, 16/ "A Greater Than Solomon Is Here" (62-0725), par. E-57 / "Queen Of Sheba" (60-0710), par. E-41 / "The Ark", par.186

Spiritual Building-Stone No. 114 from the Revealed Word of this hour, compiled by: Gerd Rodewald, Friedenstr. 69, D-75328 Schömberg, Germany
Phone: (+49) 72 35 76 13, Fax: (+49) 72 35 33 06

There's coming one with a Message that's straight on the Bible, and quick work will circle the earth. The seeds will go in newspapers, reading material, until every predestinated Seed of God has heard It.
[Bro. Branham in "Conduct-Order-Doctrine", pg. 724]