If You Only Knew
JOHN 4:7-10
7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. (She has taken an offence to his request on grounds of culture)
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
In other words, “If you only knew who it is that is talking with you”. This woman up to this point in her life was lacking the understanding of the channel that God was operating in for that hour, she did not know this great one that was speaking with her – if she had known, her response to him would have been to ask him for a drink of living water.
If You Only Knew
HOSEA 4:6a
6 ¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:
In this day we have access to more knowledge than that of any other age, and usually people are not destroyed by having a general knowledge of man’s education, but people are ultimately destroyed because they do not know the Lord - if they only knew the Lord.
So this knowledge that Hosea is talking about is a specific channel of knowledge that reveals Christ to the individual (a secret knowledge of the person of life and living water), and that knowledge can only come to you by God himself and by his predestinated favour.
If only people could have the true knowledge of the channel that God is revealing himself to us in this hour.
Many times during our lives we will often say to ourselves “If I had only known such and such…”. There is a saying that “hindsight is a wonderful thing”.
We can all think of many times that if we had only known before what we know now, then we would have done things different, we would have made different choices - so this proves we need the leadership and the wisdom of the Lord in our lives.
We know that God has a great purpose for our lives, a far greater purpose than even we think we have for our own lives.
Like the woman at the well, the purpose that we are here for (as the elect of God in this age) is that God is wanting to bring us to knowledge of Himself, He wants us to see the channel that he is revealing himself in in this time that we are living in so that we can also drink from the water of eternal Life.
***So (like the woman at the well), if we could only know the one who is amongst us now and that he is speaking to us in the form of His revealed word, then that would have the same effect of eternal life to us that it had upon the woman at the well when she finally realised who it was that she was talking to.
***What Christ was to the woman at the well, this message is to the bride of this day, but God has to prepare us by the things that we go through in life in order to prepare us to accept and understand the message when it comes along.
SATAN'S.EDEN_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-20 SUNDAY_ 65-0829
101 The Spirit of God is not something that, you, it's schooled into you. It's something that's predestinated into you, by the hand of Almighty God. Your experiences cannot be schooled or taught into you. It's predestinated, by God's hand and God's foreknowledge, into you. That's right.
This woman at the well had gone through many disappointments of broken relationship and other experiences in her life that was needed so that she would be able to accept and understand the word for that hour when it came across her pathway.
Look at this experience of beyond the curtain of time that God gave to the prophet of this generation…
BEYOND.THE.CURTAIN.OF.TIME_ JEFF.IN SUNDAY_ 61-0305
E-17 …The other morning I was lying on my bed. I had just awoke from sleep, and I placed my hands behind my head, and relaxed with my head on the pillow. Then I began to wonder what it will be like on the other side. I realized that I have lived more than half my life, if I live to be as old as my people. And I wanted to do more for the Lord, before I left this life.
I heard a Voice, saying, "You're just starting. Press the battle. Keep pressing." As I lay there pondering these words, I thought, that I just imagined that I heard a voice.
Again the Voice said, "Press the battle. Keep going. Keep going."
Still unbelieving, I thought that possibly I had spoken the words myself. I placed my lips between my teeth, and held my hand over my mouth, and listened.
The Voice spoke again. "Just keep pressing. If you only knew what is at the end of the road."
We know that he was then taken to a real place of life and perfection and eternal joy and peace, and that experience was placed in his life for a purpose that God would use later on in the 5th seal to open up a hidden mystery of the word to him – and also to us.
REVELATION 6:9-11
9 ¶ And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
We know that the understanding of this scripture was sealed up and forbidden to be known by man until this end time age, and we also know that the understanding of it was only to be opened by Christ himself through the ministry of the seventh angel’s message.
***But we see how the Holy Spirit placed this prior experience in Brother Branham’s life of going “Beyond the Curtain of Time” so that later on at the opening of this 5th seal, that experience would assist his understanding in the opening of this scripture.
THE.FIFTH.SEAL_ JEFF.IN FRIDAY_ 63-0322
385-2 {432} …If John looked over there, and them was of his brethren (See?), his brethren that had to suffer a little; then, see, the Lord God permitted me to see my brethren and the saints that were waiting for the coming of the Lord.
Notice, they were not under the altar of sacrifice. Mine wasn't; but these was. They were martyrs. See? Mine wasn't under the martyrs' altar. (Now, I want you to listen real close. And I'll close, honest, just about--in ten minutes, at 10:00 o'clock, if I just have to cut it off and finish it tomorrow.) Look. They--they were not my... The ones that the Lord showed me, the Bride, she was not under the martyrs' block, no, the sacrifice altar of the martyrs, but had received white robes by accepting the pardoning grace of the living Word. Christ had give them a white robe.
*See how this experience that God gave him prepaired him to be able to come into this knowledge - this is the knowledge that Hosea was talking about that we are not to lack.
***So we learn a principle from this that God allows experiences (good and bad) to take place in our lives so that later on He can use that experience to bring us into an understanding to reveal Himself to us.
**To give another example of this – the “Anointed ones at the End Time” was preached in July 1965 – but it was way back when brother Branham was just a young minister that he had the experience at the Mishawaka camp meetings in Indiana of the two men that were both used by the Holy Spirit to prophesy and speak in tongues, and yet one was a fake and one was a genuine Christian, and it confused him greatly at the time, but we know that God placed that experience in his life for a specific sermon that he would preach more than 30 years later.
**So it is with all the experiences that we go through in life, if we could only know that later on that God will use them to bring us into a greater knowledge of the fountain and channel of life.
The experience that Job went through brought him into a true knowledge of the fountain of life and the resurrection.
After that he has suffered in his trials, he writes:
JOB 19:25-27
25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
It took a portion of suffering that Job went through to open up the secret word to his understanding.
THE.PILLAR.OF.FIRE_ JONESBORO.AR SATURDAY_ 53-0509
E-2 Many times, friends, when the storms is going hard and trials besetting on every hand, I would think back about Arkansas and down in here, and the Christians who raised their hand on that night when you sing that song to me when I was leaving, pledging that you'd pray for me while I was gone. I--I was believing you were praying. God never failed to answer your prayers, for He stood with me when the heat was on, the battles are going hard, all kinds of things we had to combat.
Maybe you wouldn't understand just exactly. There's no need of trying to explain these things. They're inexplainable. God Himself is the only One Who knows. You might think that life is just a flower bed of ease. But if you only knew the battle and the trials and the things that accompanies this, you'd wonder.
Why did brother Branham suffer so much in his life? - it was so that God could make things known to him by those trials that he had to endure. If we see the way that God dealt with him, then it cannot be different for us, but if we only knew that the value of the knowledge far outweighs the temporal struggle of the trial a million to one.
We know that King David wrote 73 Psalms of the 150 Psalms. Psalms 3-9; 11-32, 34-41, 51-70, 86, 101, 103, 108, 109, 110, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138-145.
* Asaph wrote 12 Psalms. Psalms 1 and Psalms 73–83.
* The children of Korah wrote 11 Psalms. Psalms 43, 44-49, 84, 85, 87 and 88.
* One by Heman the Ezrahite wrote Psalm 88.
* Ethan the Ezrahite wrote Psalm 89.
* Moses wrote Psalm 90.
So we directly know the authorship of 99 psalms, but there are 51 psalms that have no direct identification of their author. It is suggested that some were composed by Adam, Shem, Abraham and Moses and others of such character. ***It was the sufferings and struggles of these men that gave us the Psalms and that open up to us the revelation of the character of God.
PSALM 34:19
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
ROMANS 8:18
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. The glory is when the word of God puts on flesh in our flesh.
So we cannot compare the temporal sufferings of this life to the revelation of God that comes to you after the suffering is over. The revelation of God is eternal life, but the sufferings of this life are mere fleeting moments of time.
LUKE 19:41-44
41 ¶ And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
Judgement follows a people who fail to come to a realisation of their visitation from God – if they had only known the time of their visitation, then judgement would not have followed, they would not have been destroyed though lack of knowledge, this also applies to an individual. There is a secret to this.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS.1_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823M
939-85 ..I've got precious friends, the duPlessis and Schoemans, and all, Yeager, all them fine brothers in--in South Africa. But there's always somebody that just stands right out in a man's life. And of all the men that--and I love them just as dear as I love this brother, just as dear; but Brother Jackson and his wife always stood out in my life. I just couldn't understand it; he--he stood out. Now, there's Justus duPlessis, bosom friend, and oh, so many of those fine, fine Afrikaans brethren and sisters.
Well, why did Brother Jackson and his wife stand out to me? Because he was a hunter? Nope. Because I've got many fine hunter friends down there. But why did he stand out? And why? If you only knew the secret behind this all. But I don't tell people all the secrets that I know. Well, why was it at the same hour that the Lord said, "Contact Sidney Jackson in South Africa," the Lord spoke to Sidney Jackson to come here? Sunday a week he was baptized, him and his wife, in the Name of Jesus Christ, right here in the shadowing time. See, predestinated to the cause... See?
***The secret of this is that we are predestinated to the cause of this hour – we are predestinated to carry this message on to the coming of the Lord.
***But for us to be able to do that, there are trials that are also predestinated to us in order to bring us into a revelation and a union with God.
Look at the trouble that Ruth in the bible had to go through – but it was all for the purpose of bringing her into a revelation and into a union with Boaz.
Brother Branham told us that it was the tender loving hand of Jehovah that allowed the Jews to go through the holocaust during the Second World War in order for them to be driven back to their homeland so that their Messiah could be revealed to them.
____________
**High taxes in the time of Herod caused Joseph and Mary to have to travel under harsh conditions - Mary being very near the end of her first pregnancy.
It seemed very hard conditions, but it brought the revelation of the word into flesh for that day.
WE.HAVE.SEEN.HIS.STAR.AND.HAVE.COME.TO.WORSHIP.HIM_ TUCSON.AZ V-13 N-8 MONDAY_ 63-1216
38 Now we find out, that the taxes, that this Herod said that all the people that were strayed from their birthplace, must return back. That, he thought he was doing something great there, when he done this; and not knowing that he was working exactly in harmony with Jehovah. How many of the priests probably cursed Herod at that time, in the Name of the Lord! How many stood up, probably secretly, and said, "Oh, this Roman, what a... If we could get a hold of him, we'd do so-and-so, and so," not knowing it was working exactly according to God's plan.
39 Sometimes, today, we curse Communism and all these things. Which, I guess, it deserves it. But if you only knew the truth, it's working exactly in God's hand, to do just exactly what He said it would do. He's got to raise up something to take Babylon off the earth, and He's got the instrument in His hands. You just read the Scripture, it's written right there what He said He would do.
The rough times often have to come along in our lives for a purpose so that God can take us into a greater revelation of Himself, because to know Him is life.
SIR.WE.WOULD.SEE.JESUS_ NY.NY V-18 N-7 TUESDAY_ 63-1112
152 Now, He must have grayed up a little, or something. He was sitting there, kind of a middle-age-looking man. And He... She said, "Why, it's not customary." See, there was a--a segregation among them. They had no dealings with each other. Said, "It's not customary for you Jews to ask Samaritans favors like that."
He said, "But if you knew Who you were talking with!"
153 See, oh, there it is! If we only knew, oh, when we read this, Who we're talking with, see. When you're praying, if you... Jesus said, "When thou prayest, believe that you receive what you ask for." See?
154 "If you only knew Who it was you were talking with, you would ask Me for water, and I would bring you water that you don't get from this well."
Let us ask Him for a drink of the fountain of life…
God is wanting to bring us into a greater knowledge of who it is that is talking with us in this hour.
**This woman at the well had 6 husbands, that was a rough life up to that point, but all that was allowed by God for a purpose to open and to reveal to her the seventh seal (the seventh husband) which was Christ Himself – that was the coming of the Lord to her personally.
The seventh seal to you is the coming and the revealing of Christ to you personally by His revelation for this day.
If You only Knew…
..By the grace of God we do know Him in this hour.