To Fall In Love With Jesus
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 145

Romans 5:5, „... the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

That love of God's ringing in your heart, and you know that you've passed from death unto Life; you love everybody; and the whole world has become different to you; and she's anchored right there; nothing moves you. Just be happy and move on. Glory to God. Let nothing turn you around. Oh, you might get out, and get cold, and get shook up a little bit; but that Seed of God will remain true (I John 3:9-10). The Bible said, "Though we disbelieve, yet He cannot. He's true; He stands faithful." (II Tim. 2:11-13). [1]

Listen, first you've got to be borned again of the Spirit of God (John 3:3). If you're not, you'll never understand the Word of God. God has said so. God said, "I have hid this Bible from the wise and prudent, and will reveal it to babes such as will believe." (Matt. 11:25). If you want to get anything from God, just be a baby. Open up the Bible. Fall in love with Jesus.

The Bible, you must read between the lines, because God has hid It from those who just read the word alone. I am quoting Scripture that He has hid It from the eyes of the wise and prudent, and will reveal It to babes such as will learn (I Cor. 3:1-2). All that's ever read that in the Bible say, "Amen." Then it's the baby that'll humble himself, not be puffed up, but be humble, and say, "Lord, I believe It." [2]

That's what the evidence is, brother; you've passed from death unto Life (John 5:24). And all the things that you once done, passed away, because the Life of Jesus Christ has put the Holy Spirit into, controlling you a new creature (II Cor. 5:17). And once purged has no more desire of sin as long as you live on earth (Heb. 10:2).

So if you're constantly weak and falling up-and-down, remember, you might have a mental acceptation of it, but never an experience of being borned again, when meekness, gentleness and patience takes the place of this mental theology... Oh, you say, "Listen here, Mr. Branham, I study the Bible. Our pastor and so forth, I took Bible lessons."

Yes, the devil has too. He knows more about it than you'll ever know. That's right. But there's one thing: he can't get the Holy Ghost. You can. That's right. So as long as he can't get to you... For you are dead, your life is hid in God and sealed by the Holy Ghost (Col. 3:1-4). How could he ever get you? The first thing, you're dead. Did you ever hear a dead man tell a lie? Did you ever hear a dead man fuss back at you? Stand at the casket and fuss at him all night, he will never say a word. Why? He's dead (Gal. 2:19-20).

And you reckon yourself dead (Rom. 6:5-11), and your life is hid in God through Christ, and sealed by the Holy Ghost. The only way the devil could ever get you, he'd have come through the same washings that you came through, and receive the same Spirit you did, and then he'd be your brother. See? So he can't get you. It's you that's never come to Christ right in the first place. You get to a place, say, "Well, Brother Branham, you know the Lord never did sanctify me from this."

If He sanctified you from one thing, He sanctified you from all of it (Heb. 10:10,14; 13:12). He takes your whole soul, body, and spirit (I Thess. 5:23-24). That's right. Don't be deceived, brother. So if your constantly on the up-and-down, remember brother, you have never correctly ever come to Jesus Christ yet.

The Bible said, "Love not the world, and neither the things of the world." And if you love the world, the love of God's not even in you... (I John 2:15-17). You're only emotionally, mentally worked up for some kind of a churchanity, some kind of a theology that's been taught you, and never in your life have you ever come face to face, and met Jesus Christ, and been born again. For if you once fall in love with Christ, the world dies right then for eternity.
For you're sealed by the Holy Ghost until the day of your redemption, and you're dead, and your life is hid in God through Christ, and sealed there by the Holy Ghost (Eph. 4:30). Your destination is determined right then, when you're sealed by the Holy Ghost. [3]

Many times we get mixed up on what goodness is. We get mixed up on what sympathy is, compassion. Watch this just a moment for compassion. How many believes that Jesus Christ was compassion? Why, certainly He was.

Now, He went down to the pool of Bethesda, and there laid multitudes. It takes two thousand to make one multitude. So there was multitudes of people laying there, lame, blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. And Jesus looked around through that multitudes of people until He found a man that was, well, he wasn't crippled. He said, "When I'm going down to the pool, somebody steps in ahead of me." (John 5:1-15).

His disease, he'd had it for thirty-eight years; it wasn't going to kill him. It was retarded, perhaps TB, or prostate trouble, or something. And he was laying on a pallet. And Jesus made him whole, and walked away, and left that great mass of people withered, and halt, and lame, and blind (Is that right?), and yet had compassion, a compassionate Saviour.

Did you notice what He said when they asked Him about it in the 19th verse? He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing in Himself, but what He sees the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise" (John 5:19-20).

Compassionate is to do the will of God. And that's what real Christian compassionate is, is do the will of God. We mix it all up today. We try to put the human element to it.

Like in love, we try to use love, God's love, like we do human love. You cannot fall in love with God like you do your wife. You cannot fall in love with God like you do your husband, or your girlfriend, or boyfriend. It's two different loves altogether. Even in the Greek words are different. One of them's called Phileo; that's the love you have for your wife. That kind of love would make you kill a man over--jealous... But the Agapao love, which is the godly love, instead of killing the man, it'd make you pray for his sinful soul. That's right. That's how much difference it is.

And we get the human element mixed up with the Christian, godly element, and then we just get a mess out of it. Because we only know by inches, feet, miles, and so forth, by ounces, and pounds and so forth; that's all we know. We're time people. God's eternal; He has no inches, no miles, no yesterday, nor tomorrow. It's all eternity with Him. And we try to bring God's great infinite mind down to our little finite mind. And, oh, we just get mixed up. So the best thing in doing, is reading His Word; and remember that His Word will not contradict Itself. [4]

So you know what He did? If you'll notice... Now, I know many might disagree. If this is all right to make this statement, see I... It will be just my own thinking. See, the Bible is a supernatural Book. It's written so that It's hid from the schools, theologians. How many knows that? Jesus thanked God. He said, "I thank Thee, Father, Thou hast hid it from the wise and prudent, and revealed it to babes such as would learn."

It's a Book of love. When the love of God comes into the heart, then you fall in love with God. Then He reveals Hisself. The Bible, meaning the interpretation of the Bible is God Himself, interpreted in His promises. But the Bible is written between the lines.

Now, like my wife, oh, she's the most wonderful woman in all the world, and I really love her. She loves me. So when I'm away from home, she'll write me a letter, say, "Dear Bill, Tonight I've just put the children to sleep. I've washed today," and what all she done, and so forth. Now, she's saying that on the letter. But you see, I love her so much, and we're so much as being one, till I can read between the lines. I know what she wants to say, whether she tells me that or not. See, I know what she means, because it's my love for her, and my understanding.

Well, that's the way the Bible's wrote. See? The scholarship will go right over the top of it. They'll never get it. See? You've got to be in love with the Word, Him, to know Him (John 17:3). [5]

Now, I'll admit that people study too much, and try to go too far ahead, and try to think too hard, and sometimes have mental breakdowns and things on account of studying about the Lord. You must quit that. You don't have to do that. The only thing you have to do is fall in love with Him, and just go right on loving Him. Amen. It's not trying to push into something or make yourself something you're not; just go ahead and let God use you the way He wants to use you. Just yield yourself; commit yourself and walk on, happy, singing, rejoicing (Prov. 8:17). [6]

That's the way it is with God. We're not trying to study from some newspaper standpoint, some theological standpoint. But fall in love with Him. Get down and really get Him in your heart. The love of God's shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost (Rom. 5:3-5). Then go to reading the Bible. You'll see it coming right out between the lines. See, you know what He's saying. He never said that right out in a word.

Now, no one else could read my wife's letters like that, 'cause I love her that way. See? And that's the way she writes to me. That's the way God writes to you; it's between the lines. You read it. [7]

But if you are reading between the lines and try to make it say something, that in between the lines says something different than what the lines says, then it is wrong. But it’s got to agree, all the way through it. [8]

If you want to be a real outstanding person in your church, wherever church you go to, you just fall in love with God with all your heart (Mat. 22:34-40); and when you do that, you will fall in love with every member of your church, and every member of everybody else's church with all your heart.

Now, you can't bluff that. Now, there's something about it that people know. If there's anything I can contribute the success of my meetings to, earthly speaking, is to know that people have a conscious to know that I truly love people. I just love people. And they know that. You can't fool them on that. If you are making out, or pretending...

Just like Christianity, if you're pertaining to be a Christian--just pretending, rather, to be a Christian, you will never make a go of it. No, sir. It's absolutely got to be there. That's all. Love will do it (I Tim. 1:3-5). [9]

The Prophet of God spoke about a man when his wife was about to die with cancer, he knowed that God could heal her. If God could heal the wife, God can heal the boy. It throws it into a state of desperation. See? You must come, and when you're desperate, then God's going to listen to you. But if you're just slothful, you don't care whether He does or not, well then, that's different. You say you do, but it takes desperation to do it.

I believe that the reason we don't have desperation is because it's a lack of love, the love of God. I think that the love of God causes desperation. If God is in you, the Token inside of you, and you see the conditions of times and people wading in sin the way they are, it'll throw you into desperation. I believe it will.

Now, the Word plainly states in Galatians 5:6, that faith worketh by love. See? Faith worketh by love. And the only way that you can have faith, is have love first. Because after all, faith is love's incentive. Incentive, that's exactly what faith is, is an incentive to love. Now, if you don't have love you can't have faith.

How can you have faith in your wife if you don't love her? That's in Phileo. Now, how about Agapao to God? How can it be if you don't love God? If you said you love your wife and never tell her about it, and never set down and make love to her, expressing it to her, kiss her, hug her, and tell her she's the best cook in the country, all the things that you know, and how pretty she is, and how much you love her; if you don't do that she'll never know it. That's the way. If you do love her, you express it.

That's the way we do to God. When we love Him, we tell Him about it. We set down and we adore Him, and worship Him, and... See, love drives us to that (II Cor. 5:14). [10]

"Ephesus" means, the very name "Ephesus" means "let go, relax, backslidden," called by God, "The backslidden church." God acknowledged first their works, their labor, and their patience. God rebuked their leaving their first love, for backsliding, and for no longer bearing Light. Ephesus was not a deceived church; it failed itself by not continuing in perfect love (Rev. 2:2-6).

"Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." To understand this you must realize that the Spirit is not speaking to the original saints of Ephesus alone. This message is to the entire age which lasted about 120 years. Its message, then, is to all the generations in that span. Now history keeps repeating itself. In the generations of Israel we see revival in one generation, only to see the fires fading in the next. In the third generation, embers may be glowing slightly, but in the fourth there may be no vestige whatsoever of that original flame. Then God lights the fire again, and the same process is repeated. It is simply the manifestation of the truth that God has no grandchildren.

Salvation is not passed on by natural birth any more than is there any truth to apostolic succession. It isn't in the Word. You start out with truly born-again believers, and when the next generation comes along they are no longer just plain Christians, but they have taken a denominational name and are now Baptists, Methodists, etc. That is exactly what they are, too. They are not Christians. You have to be born of the will of God, not the will of man, to be saved. But these folks are all coming together now by the will of man. I don't say that some of them aren't right with God. Not for a minute do I say that, but the original fire has died down. They are not the same any more.

The fervent desire to please God, the passion to know His Word, the cry for reaching out in the Spirit, all begins to fade and instead of that church being on fire with the fire of God it has cooled off and become a bit formal. That is what was happening back there to the Ephesians. They were getting a bit formal. The abandonment to God was dying out and the people weren't too careful about what God thought of them as they began to be careful about what the world thought of them. That second generation coming on was just like Israel. They demanded a king to be like the other nations. When they did that, they rejected God. But they did it anyway. That is the history of the church. When it thinks more of conforming to the world instead of conforming to God, it isn't long until you see them stop doing things they used to do, and start doing things they wouldn't do initially. They change their manner of dress, their attitudes and their behaviour. They get lax. That is what "Ephesus" means: relaxed--drifting.
That cycle of revival and death has never failed. All you have to do is recall this last move of God in the Spirit when men and women dressed like Christians, went to church, prayed all night, took to street corners and weren't ashamed of the manifestations of the Spirit. They left their old dead churches and worshipped in homes or old store buildings. They had reality. But it wasn't too long a time until they began to get enough money to build fine new churches. They put in a choir instead of singing unto God for themselves. They put gowns on the choir. They organized a movement and ran it by man. They soon began to read books that weren't fit to read. They let down the bars and goats came in and took over. The cry of joy was gone. The freedom of the Spirit was gone. Oh, they kept on with a form; but the fire had died down and the blackness of ashes is about all that is left.

A few moments ago I mentioned that John understood what it was to love God. That great apostle of love would certainly see it when the church began to lose that first love of God. In I John 5:3, he says, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments (His Word)." One little deviation from that Word was a step away from Christ. People say they love God, they go to church, they even shout and rejoice and sing and have a great emotional time. But when it is all over, watch and see if they are in that WORD, walking in it, living in it. If they go through all the other and then don't walk in that Word, they can say they love God but their lives tell another story. I wonder if John didn't see a lot of that before he died; people saying they loved God but not obeying His Word. Oh, Ephesian Church, something is happening to you. Someone is trying to either add to that Word or take from it. But they are doing it so subtly that you can't see it. They haven't made a move so big you can see it out there in the open. It is under cover, and they are bringing it by way of reason and human understanding and it will take over unless you refuse it. Go back to Pentecost before it is too late!

But as usual people don't heed God's warning. That revival fire built upon the sacred Word is so wonderful, and the manifestation of the Spirit so blessed, that a little fear creeps in and a whisper in the heart says, "How can we protect this truth we have? What can we do to see this revival goes on?" That is when the "antichrist spirit" comes in and whispers, "Look, you have the truth now, see that it doesn't get lost. Organize and set up your creed of what you believe. Put it all in a church manual." And they do it. They organize. They add to the Word. And they die just like Eve did for taking One wrong word. It's God's Word that brings life. And it's not what we say about the Word that counts, but it's what God said. [11]

It's been so much to me since that what happened to me [when the Prophet of God was beyond the curtain of time], I don't know. When I think there, when I stood there for those few joyful moments, and thought, "There's no tomorrow." There was no yesterday; there's no sickness; there's no sorrow. There's no little bit of happiness, then a whole lot of happiness; it's all happiness. Oh, my. Oh, when I stood there, and I said, "What is this?" (I Cor. 2:9-10).

That Voice said, "This is perfect love, and everything that you ever loved and everything that ever loved you is here with you now."
Thus saith the Lord, it'll take perfect love to put you in that place, for that's all there was there. No matter how many, how much religious demonstrations, how many good deeds you done or whatever you done, that won't count nothing on that day. It'll take perfect love. So whatever you do, you lay aside everything else until you are just so filled with the love of God till you can love those who hate you (Matt. 5:43-48). [12]

But I don't serve the Lord because I think He'd send me to hell if I didn't; I serve Him because I love Him. I serve Him because there's something in me. If you go out and say, "Well, I have to quit doing this because my church don't believe in it," you're just playing the part of a hypocrite. That's right. But if you do it because that you love it, and it's a contribution to God, and something in your heart making the love of God so greater to you than these things, now you're on the right line. But if I didn't drink, smoke, chew, cuss, do nothing else, I'd still go to hell. Sure. I joined all the churches, was baptized, and had my name on all the books, and played a good part, and lived a good life: "Except a man be borned again, he can't even see the Kingdom of God" (John 3:3). That's right. [13]

Now, God knows every one of us. So if He will come tonight and reproduce the Life of His beloved Son in the Church, then you love Him more and more all the time. Just fall in love with Him and keep Him on your heart. And just don't notice what people say. Just keep in love with Christ Jesus, and He will lead you into the shady green pastures. God bless you. [14]

Reference:
[1] "Israel In Egypt", par. 136
[2] "Abraham" (55-0624, Zurich), par. 22-23
[3] "Law Having A Shadow", par. 57-59
[4] "Hear Ye Him" (60-0712, Klamath Falls), par. 5-7
[5] "Possessing The Gate Of The Enemy" (64-0322, Denham Sp.), par. 9-10
[6] "Questions & Answers" (54-0103M), par. 140
[7] "Jehovah Jireh, Part 3" (64-0404, Louisville), par. 44
[8] "JehovahJireh" (59-0417), par. 23
[9] "Do You Now Believe" (55-0610, Macon), par. 28-29
[10] "Desperation", par. 66-69
[11] "Ephesian Church Age", ROJC par. 73 + CAB pg. 88-89
[12] "Adoption" (60-0522E), par. 89-90, 104
[13] "Questions & Answers" (59-0628E), par. 114
[14] "Healing Line" (53-0907E, Chicago), par. 4

Spiritual Building-Stone No. 145 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“, page 724]