A Virgin out of Nazareth Pt.3
REVELATION 21:9-11
9 ¶ And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. (We know that this particular angel that revealed to John the lamb’s wife is the same angel that God has sent to the bride for this hour. The same Moses that delivered a people in an exodus was the same one who called down the plagues on Egypt)
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain (I trust that we have been carried away in the spirit by the revelation of the message of what God has sent in this hour. Notice here - In order for this angel to reveal to John the Lamb’s wife, John had to first go to the angel upon his invitation, and then the angel had to carry John to another place – a high mountain. God has to sometimes move us into a different place spiritually and even sometimes geographically in order to reveal Himself to us), and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
*There was a certain place that John had to be before this revelation of the bride could be made know to him.
LUKE 1:26-27
26 ¶ And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, (An angel was sent to a city because of a certain woman that was living in that city)
27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
A Virgin out of Nazareth Pt.3
*We know that God is the great orchestrator of all the complexities and details of our lives. He is the potter, we are the clay – He is shaping us, that is what this life is about.
*And so the timing of our birth, and our location on earth, and the culture that we are born into, and even the cities and towns that we live in during our lifetime – God has a purpose for every detail of it because nothing of it is by chance, we only think it is by chance because our minds are not big enough to grasp the complexity of how that God can bring about these things of His leadership to pass in our lives, but He does, and that is the supernatural part of His great unseen hand that we mostly don’t recognise in our own lives because it looks like everything is happening by chance and we don’t see anything that looks supernatural about it - but it is all supernatural if we could only realise it.
*Like we spoke of Jonah of how that God already knew that he would rebel against him and so He had already prepared this special fish maybe many years before hand, and then He had to have that fish swimming right under Jonah’s boat just at the same time that Jonah was thrown in – so there was no guess work or chance with any of that, and so this is how God deals in your life also because nothing in your life happens by chance.
MATTHEW 11:20-24
20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
*Cities played a big part in the ministry of Jesus. He had many different experiences in different cities. Each town and city had a different type of spirit that was upon the people. And the bride of Christ is also called a city – the lamb’s wife. When the bride was shown to John by the angel, she was a city whose light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal – that is symbolic for her character, a crystal reflects an scatters light.
*We notice that Jesus speaks to cities as though they are people, because cities are really the people that make up the city and the spirit that is upon those people is the spirit of the city.
21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.
**Mary and Joseph found themselves living in this certain geographical location on earth of this city called Nazareth, and it was in this city that Mary received the revelation of the message that came to her from the Angel that God had sent, and so we know that God doesn’t change His ways of dealing with his elected people, and so this applies to us of where God has placed us in our towns and cities also, and it is for the same purpose of revealing to you a revelation by an angel’s message of this hour to show you the lamb’s wife – To reveal the bride to you.
*So by the wisdom of God, each one of us have been placed on earth at a very precise time of history and into a very specific geographical location on earth that God has purposed for us to be when the angel came to visit us also - the seventh angel of this day.
WHY.LITTLE.BETHLEHEM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-9 N-9 SATURDAY_ 63-1214
9 We're glad to be here in Jericho with you brethren this morning, and we invite you, Monday night, up to Jerusalem, at Tucson, to at the banquet down there. See, Phoenix is in the valley, like Jericho. Tucson, where I live, is on the mountain, that's--that's Jerusalem.
**Brother Branham called Tucson Jerusalem and Phoenix Jericho, because we know that the ministry of what Jesus was to Israel has repeated itself again in our day throughout the cities of America, (we spent a bit of time explaining that last week).
Different spirits reside on different cities (just like there are different spirits resting on different people), and so God has to deal differently with each person in relation to their makeup and spirit, and so he places people in different locations on earth so that he can work with them and their lives in the way that he wants to in order to reveal Himself to them.
*So why would God have this virgin Mary living in Nazareth, and Nazareth being such an evil city?
THE.GOD.OF.THIS.EVIL.AGE_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0801M
182 Look, there wasn't a meaner, wickeder, lower, prostituting city in the world, than Nazareth, and out of there God chose a virgin. "Could any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
And out of this evil age, where the god of this age has blinded the eyes of the people, with their dogmas and denominations; out of that very age, God is choosing a people for His Name.
**He is showing us that as a virgin was called out of Nazareth, so will a virgin bride be called out of Laodicea – there was never a worse age than Laodicea.
*It was in this city of Nazareth that God revealed to Mary this great revelation that came to her by an angel’s message, and it was a revelation of the coming of the Lord, the seventh seal, the resurrection seal - God was able to raise up life without the assistance of man’s denominational seed.
**So the place where God is revealing himself to you, that is the place you want to be even though it may be a harsh place to live in compared to other places, because all through the bible we see how God has had his people living in harsh situations and in harsh environments in order to reveal himself to His people.
***St John had to go to Patmos to receive the revelation of Jesus Christ and write the book of Revelation.
*Abraham had to leave Mesopotamia and go to a different geographical location for the revealing of God in human flesh to take place for him.
*The three wise men had to go to Bethlehem in order to witness the revealing of the son of God for their day.
*The queen of Sheba had to travel 2000 miles to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
*The Jews had to go back to the land of Israel in 1946 in order for their true messiah (Christ) to be revealed to them.
*Brother Branham had to go west from Jeffersonville to Tucson for the last three years of His ministry in order for the word to open and for Christ to be revealed. So how can it be any different with us of how God would deal with us?
*For Christ to be revealed to us, it takes certain ingredients to come together - God has to maybe lead you to a certain church, or lead to a certain ministry that preaches the revelation of the word in a way that your mind can catch it, or to some geographical location that is a harsh environment, or some job that is a hard job, or a hard trial, or a mountain top like John.
*Moses was lead out into the wilderness for 40 years before Christ revealed himself to him in the burning bush – this is how God deals with His people, and this is how God deals with you and I.
JOB 38:31
31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Pleiades is a group of 7 stars that are also known by some as the Seven Sisters.
It was a star that led the wise men to Bethlehem – and so it was to a specific location that the star led them to in order for Christ to be revealed to them.
*We also know that it was the seven stars in God’s right hand that he sent to the earth in order to influence the people of God during the seven church ages to lead the people to the light for their day.
*So God is in all of these things, and it is He that will often lead His people into harsh geographical places for the purpose of revealing himself to them when they get there.
***Jesus was conceived in Nazareth, then He had to be born in Bethlehem, then he had to live in Egypt for a season, then he moved back to Nazareth (the city where his mother had been raised).
Then He had to go to Samaria for the woman at the well and many other cities also, and then at the end of his ministry He had to go to Jerusalem to die. Jerusalem was the last city He went to, and it was there that they treated him the worst, just like Brother Branham was treated the worst at Tucson.
*All of these geographical locations of the journey throughout Jesus life was all a part of the plan of God for his life that had been foretold of in the scriptures hundreds of years beforehand. Yet when you look at each time Mary and Joseph moved town, it looked like it was the cause of circumstances that were beyond their control.
*They had to go to Bethlehem to register for tax, then they had to flee to Egypt because of the threat of Herod, then they ended up in Nazareth because Archelaus reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod.
*All these events in their lives caused them to be where God wanted them to be and to fulfil scripture.
LUKE 4:42-44
42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them.
43 And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.
44 And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.
**If you are a believer in this hour – then Jesus had to have also visited you in your city in this day to where you were, because that is the only way you could have come to the truth of this hour – he must needs go by your city.
***Brother Branham tells us that eternal life is a person and not a geographical location – so we know that your geographical location has nothing to do with your eternal life, but your geographical location will play a very important part in your growth in the revelation of the light for your day.
*This is why that many times we question why certain things in our lives look wrong of maybe where we live or the things that come across our way.
Mary probably questioned her own life many times of the background of where she had been raised up in Nazareth, because Nazareth wasn’t the sort of town that you would pick as being a good place for this young virgin to be raised in.
*Just like we see brother Branham being raised in Kentucky with a drunk as a father, and him having to cart water for his dad’s illegal moonshine whiskey business – and yet it was at this very place when he was carrying the water for this still, that the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a poplar tree and told him where he would live a good part of his life and not to drink or smoke.
LIFE.STORY_ PHOENIX.AZ SUNDAY_ 51-0415A
E-39 On down through life, many times I... You seen in my little book there how the Angel of the Lord appeared back in those days when I set right on a keg, when I was only about eight years old, or nine, watching the whiskey still run all night long, and get right up and started down packing water back to this still.
And it was right down my road back from the pump where the Angel of the Lord spoke to me, said, "Don't you never drink, or smoke, or defile your body in any way; for there'll be a work for you to do when you get older." Like scared me to death.
That was at the beginning of his life – but then at the end of his life we see how that he had had to moved west to Arizona – his life had to move geographically from east to west because this was how that God was dealing with him and showing us that the light of the word was moving, and it was in the west that the revelation of the word came to him in a much greater way over the last three years of his life.
So geography played a big part in the word being reveal to us in this day.
SOULS.THAT.ARE.IN.PRISON.NOW_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-22 SUNDAY_ 63-1110M
71 I've always felt, you... All people that's knowed me all these years, knows I've always wanted to go West. You know how it is. It's always been something to the West. But because an astronomer told me one time, the same thing, that I should go west... The stars, when they cross their cycles and so forth, I was born under that sign, and I'd never be a success in the East; I'd have to go West. And last year I took off, West, to fulfill what a lifetime's desire has been, see, to--to do it.
72 Why I'm there? It's the most ridiculous thing. Setting out there in the desert, paying a hundred and ten dollars a month, rent, and here is a house sitting up here, a parsonage, furnished to me, see. But it's following the Lord, see, that--that's all I know to do. And you know the visions and what has taken place out there. Now--now in this I want to say to...
So we can relate to many things in our own lives that are also like this, and that we can struggle to understand why God had allowed for those things to take placed in our lives.
ISAIAH 12:2-3
2 Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.
3 Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
George Muller once said that from what he had seen among the children of God, that many of their trials arose either from want of confidence in the Lord as it regards temporal things (our daily needs), or from carrying on their business in an unscriptural way.
In other words, from what he observed, most of God’s children struggle to trust God fully for their everyday needs, and so this lack of trust is often what brings them into troubles in their life.
And then the other thing is that they can also find themselves doing some business in a contrary way to what the word teaches, and so this can also bring a lot of troubles onto our lives because a man will reap what he sows regardless of his belief.
*But the good news is that God foreknew about all your mistakes in life, long before you were even born, and so He has prepared a way for you through all of those mistakes to work your mistakes out for the good in the end just like how we saw with the life of Joseph. God had to move Joseph to Egypt for the purpose of saving life – and yet all the circumstances of that move seemed so wrong and confusing at the time.
BELIEVEST.THOU.THIS_ HOUSTON.TX SUNDAY_ 50-0115
E-27 Six months later, the Angel came down again to a little virgin by the name of Mary, lived in the meanest town, worse than Houston, Texas. Come down into a city there named Nazareth, and...
BELIEVEST.THOU.THIS_ NEW.YORK.NY WEDNESDAY_ 51-1003
E-29 About six months later I can see a little virgin by the name of Mary. She lived in the meanest city there was in the world: Nazareth, worse than New York.
I.AM.THE.RESURRECTION.AND.THE.LIFE_ CHICAGO.IL SUNDAY_ 52-0810A
E-21 Then watch, just down in Nazareth, the meanest city in the country, worse than Chicago, probably. Then, pretty near as bad as Jeffersonville, where I come from.
Nazareth was worse than Houston, worse than New York, worse the Chicago – what is he trying to tell us? He is showing us something of this day of when God is calling out his virgin bride out of all these cities of this evil age and of this generation of Laodicea.
EXPECTANCY_ OWENSBORO.KY SUNDAY_ 53-1108E
E-11 …Look at the little virgin Mary down in Nazareth, wicked town, worse than Owensboro, real bad, the wickedest city in the world.
THE.PRESENCE.OF.THE.LORD.JESUS_ MACON.GA SUNDAY_ 55-0612
E-33 …At this same time, there was a little virgin living in the city of Nazareth, meanest city in the country, way worst than Macon.
THE.GOD.OF.THIS.EVIL.AGE_ JEFF.IN V-4 N-9 SUNDAY_ 65-0801M
181 …Now look, if you want to know what stage the church is, watch what stage the women is, see, 'cause she is the church. Watch what she is doing, see, and in this evil prostitute age.
182 Look, there wasn't a meaner, wickeder, lower, prostituting city in the world, than Nazareth, and out of there God chose a virgin. "Could any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
And out of this evil age, where the god of this age has blinded the eyes of the people, with their dogmas and denominations; out of that very age, God is choosing a people for His Name.
The last three years of brother Branham’s life was what he described as the hardest time of all his life, and that was largely because of the geographical location of where God had sent him and the spiritual condition of the city of Tucson that he and his family were living in, and the rejection by the people in that city and that area.
**We may also wonder why things are so hard sometimes of were God has placed us – It is for the purpose of God revealing himself to you.
**The conception and the growth of the word in the womb of your mind and heart in this age is taking place in your experience and in the city that you live in, just as it was with the Virgin Mary that was of Nazareth.
VICTORY.DAY_ SIERRA.VISTA.AZ SUNDAY_ 63-0421
135 Don't despise where God has got you. But, serve your purpose. There's coming a great victory day, one of these days, where the battle is over.