To Enter Into Real Fellowship
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 140

"If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (I John 1:3-7).

This is what God's Prophet has said about it:

It's like the young couple that I was speaking of. When they get married, that's not the whole thing. They haven't done nothing but taken a ceremony. The minister has only said, "I pronounce you husband and wife." It's not ready yet. What does he do? He takes her to his house that he's prepared for her.

Now, many people here might disagree with me by this, but you don't live but in a three room house. Oh, you may have many other rooms, but you've really only got three rooms. That is the kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom. You may have three or four bedrooms and you may have a kitchen and a dining room and so forth, but really a person only lives in a three room house.

You live in a three room house in your body: soul, body, and spirit. God lived in a three room house: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Everything is in a three.

Now, when the woman is brought, the young bride (oh, how he loves her), but yet, they're not truly in full fellowship yet. Now the first thing... What is the kitchen to do? Is where you eat. That's like it is in the first courts of the church. You eat here. Come, set on the back seat, listen to the Word, and the first thing you know you begin to, "O God, that meant me." You accept Him as your personal Saviour; by faith you grasp it. Then you begin to eat the Word. You begin to feel that you have accepted Christ as your personal Saviour. You begin to feast upon the Word; you enjoy It. Where used to you'd get up and walk out of the building if preacher didn't say something just suited you--not right. You'd get up and walk out. But after you once accepted Christ, you've been separated then. The waters by the Word of separation separated you from your evil thinking (Eph. 5:25-27).

Then the next thing comes is into the living room where you take your little bride. She takes her veil off. You're coming a little closer. Then when you do you put your arms around her, talk to her, embrace her... That's how it comes into the fellowship of the Lord Jesus. Before you do, you are separated from your sins. Then you embrace the Lord's Gospel. You embrace the written Word. You believe It with all your heart. "God, it doesn't matter what You want me to do, whatever you have planned in my life, I'm ready now to receive it." That's in the living room. Then, still you say, "Isn't this far enough?" No, sir.

The next room is the bedroom. Then when you go to this bedroom, then you come into fellowship and relationship. You become into a relationship, then you have complete fellowship, because you cannot have complete fellowship until you become relationship. Anyone knows that.

And listen. So is it with the church today. We got too many people; we got too many of them that's ashamed to go into complete relationship with God to new life and new birth. If we're the Bride of Christ, then why can't we go into relationship, then all the shameness and backwardness and all's gone from us? If we come into complete relationship, been borned again, I don't care... The President of the United States could be standing on the street; you'd shout, "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Hallelujah." You don't care, because you're come into a relationship. You're borned again. You're a new child. You're in the Shekinah Glory with God, fellowshipping with Him. What we need today, brother, is a worship under the Blood, a worship in complete relationship, to die out.

God put His sons here, His attributes, to fellowship with Him by hearing His Word.

I was talking to a noted evangelist, my brother, T. L. Osborn. He said, "I was thinking, Brother Branham, of how that my whole objective is to save souls and give all my time to save souls to Christ." Said, "Then I happen to think, what about my own love and devotion to Christ?" Christ loves him too. He loves us. We put a lot of time and things, but God wants us to come apart, and just set down, and worship Him, and talk with Him, talk it over. I love that. Oh, that sweetness. That's the greatest time of anybody's life, is just to set down and meditate, take everything off your mind (Psalm 73:28).

If a man or woman has ever had a real Divine taste of fellowship with Christ, I'd rather have it than all the vacations and things in the world (Phil. 2:1-3). Sure. If you want to give me a relax, let me feel Christ. Let me talk to Him a little while, and my burdens roll away. It's all done. No... I'd rather talk to Him than anything I know in the world, have fellowship with Him.
Jesus only asked for one thing in His prayer to the Father. You know what that was? One thing, after all of His sacrifice that He did here on earth, the life that He lived, the path that He walked, He asked for one thing: "That where I am they may be also." He asked for our fellowship. That's the only thing He asked the Father in the prayer: your companionship forever. If you want to read this in St. John 17 and the 24th verse... Then how much should we desire Him?

Now, listen, if you really are borned of the Spirit of God, that means everything to you. It ain't some book of rules. You don't live by any laws and so forth; you live by the grace of God, the Spirit of God.

If there be some here, Lord, who has not yet entered into this great fellowship around Christ, we pray that tonight that they'll make that eternal decision, be filled with the Spirit of God.

Bro. Branham said: This is a open tabernacle. It's never been a denomination, and God grant that it won't never. Because we want this a place where we have no law but love, no creed but Christ, and no textbook but the Bible. And then, we do not have membership; we have fellowship, one with another, for all people, all denominations. Everybody's welcome and we have fellowship around the Word of God, where everybody can feel welcome as they can be (II Thess. 2:1-2). In principle, we just love the Lord Jesus. And we're not a scholarly group here. We're just plain people that try to just read the Bible and put no interpretation to It outside of what It just says.

Why did they say all men should worship at Jerusalem? For there's only one place that God will fellowship with man; that is under the blood of the sacrifice. That's the reason they had to come to Jerusalem. God will never meet with man nowhere else, but under the Blood. When you turn the Blood down, then your meeting place with God has been taken away. God made His first decision in the garden of Eden, that man would only worship Him under the shed blood of the sacrifice. And that's the only place that God met with men then; and that's the only place that God ever did meet with men; and that's the only place He meets with men today, is under the shed Blood of the Sacrifice (Heb. 10:10-14).

Now, Israel, when they come into fellowship with God, there was only one place of fellowship with God, and that was in the tabernacle. In the tabernacle is where the bleeding sacrifice was going, all the time. God never promised to meet with the people anywhere else but under the shed blood. Think of it. I'm going to let that soak a minute now.

Look. God has never promised to meet any man upon his merits, upon how good he is, or how good she is. He's never promised to meet them there. There's no fellowship with God upon your own merit. The only place there is fellowship is under the shed blood. From Genesis to Revelations, it's only through the blood, innocent substitute to cover the guilty, penitent sinner: only the blood.

Now, notice, quickly. Israel went to the building; they shed the blood. And in this building was the only place that God would meet and fellowship with the believer. In the building that's where the shed blood was. The lamb died at the altar, daily. The blood went on, and the black smoke hung over the tabernacle. And God could not see the sin, so the people went beneath the blood and had fellowship (II Chron. 6-7).

And today we have tried organization, we've tried denomination, we have tried education, we've tried scientific achievements, and everything, to try to bring men into a unity for fellowship. And it's failed, every one of them. Now, there's one place that man can meet and fellowship with God, and fellowship with each other. That's under the cross when each man accepts the Blood of Jesus Christ. I don't care, in all of his peculiarity, he can still reach over and put his hand in the next man's hand, and call him "brother," when we meet at the cross where Jesus died.

We can't meet as organizations and fuss out them creeds and things of the church. But as brothers we can meet under the Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and there we have things in common.

That's what the church needs today, is a fellowship under the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; even death can't even darken it out.

I've stood by their bedside and watch them die with a cold hand shake. I've seen them stand there and die, shouting the praises of God, because they had fellowship. They knowed where they were standing. Oh, how I could go through experiences of knowing, of experiences I've seen with people, how they...

Don't never try to get to God, anything other than to fellowship with God but under the Blood. That's the only way. God knows that's the only way God will recognize. You must first be washed by the water of the Word (John 15:3), then cleansed through the Blood, and enter into the Shekinah Glory, go into there, into the fellowship. Then you know where you're standing at.

Now, after this Holy Ghost fell upon them, It made them so much sweethearts, until everything was in common (Acts 2:42-47). Is that right? My, my, what a fellowship. We sing that song sometimes: "Oh, what fellowship, oh, what joy divine..."

But really, frankly, we have never seen each other. Did you know that? We have never seen one another. You hear something speaking out of a body here that impersonates whatever it's on the inside. So then when we talk to each other, we're really not talking to the body. It's the spirit inside, but the body is the thing that identifies the spirit that's on the inside. And therefore, when we speak to each other, we quickly can understand right away whether we are Christians or not, because there's a fellowship in the spirit that we talk from. You see, that it vibrates to one another that whether we are Christians or not. Therefore, we have never seen each other.

Outside the gates of Jerusalem He was lifted up between the heavens and earth, and died, and redeemed everything. And in bleeding He sanctified a church that He Himself might live in, and fellowship, and commune with, that lost spot of fellowship from the garden of Eden where God came down every evening, church time.

Reference:

"God's Provided Approach To Fellowship", par. 40-45, 36 / "Satan's Eden", pg. 13 / "Blind Bartimaeus" (60-0330), par. 62 / "Fellowship By Redemption", par. 170+203 / "Things That Are To Be", par. 92 / "Second Seal", pg. 177 / "Standing In The Gap", par. 9+19 / "The Indictment", pg. 16-18 / "God Hiding Himself In Simplicity" (63-0412E), par. 27 / "Paradox" (64-0206B), par. 274 / "What Is The Holy Ghost", par. 107 / "Shalom" (64-0112), par. 6 / "Conference" (60-1125), par. 30 / "What The Holy Ghost Was Given For", par. 29

Spiritual Building-Stone No. 140 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]