Standing in the Gap Pt.4
LUKE 23:33-35
33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him (Brother Branham takes these 4 words in the message “The Indictment” July 1963. There – the most holy city, Jerusalem. They – the most religious people, the Jews. Crucified – the most cruelest death. Him – the most precious person), and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Do you think the Father answer Jesus prayer to forgive them? Yes he did, and he will answer your pray to forgive someone also) And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. (One of the worst things is to be made fun of and mocked and told that you can’t do something that you know you could easily do – yet notice the spirit that Christ was showing toward these people that couldn’t have been treating Him any worse – a spirit of mercy of standing in the gap.
We saw this same spirit back in the first Exodus of when Moses stood in the gap for a people that God’s judgement would have completely destroyed them)
ACTS 7:54-60
54 ¶ When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.
59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
We notice here again that the same spirit that we saw demonstrated by Christ on the cross is now being expressed in Stephen. Stephen is pleading for mercy and is standing in the gap for a people who are killing him without mercy. Why would they be given mercy of which their own motives and actions did not deserve mercy? This can only be showing us something of a higher form of love – a love that is unconditional. Agape love – the divine love of God.
Standing in the Gap Pt.4
From last week we saw how that God’s grace was able to stoop down to a thousand times lower beyond the limit of where Abraham thought God’s mercy would have run out.
*In Genesis 18, Abraham negotiated with God from 50 down to just 10 righteous in order to save an entire city of wicked and undeserving people, but in Genesis 19 God was showing us something of how great His character and grace actually was in that not only would He save the entire population of a wicked city by the presence of just one righteous man, but that He would even save it by a man (Lot) that was lukewarm, and half backslidden, and that was 100 times less than that of what Abraham was in the sight of God.
**So God used a man that was 100 times less than that of what Abraham was to show us that that was enough to save the population of an entire city that was full of wicked people – God is wanting to show us something of His great mercy and the willingness of how He is wanting and even willing for someone to stand in the gap for others who are clearly not worthy or even deserving.
II PETER 2:4-9 Opening scripture from last week…
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
(Peter is speaking of an event that had taken place before God had even placed man upon the earth)
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness (Noah was a man that preached what was right – he was a prophet of God that by his ministry was able to reveal God to the people. Righteousness is not sinless perfection as some of us may imagine it is – righteousness is to have the right concept of God – to be right), bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; (So from angels in heaven that sinned and were cast down to hell, to now man on earth becoming ungodly by their false concepts of God – false religions. This word “ungodly” – is to do with a person that lacks a true understanding of God)
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
(Eve walked with God as long as she was in agreement with what the true character of what God was, but as soon as she imagined to herself and became convinced that it was in God’s nature to try to deceive her, then that is what broke off her fellowship with God and she became unrighteous, she went from having a right concept of God to having a wrong concept of God.)
7 ¶And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
The word godliness in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word “Eusebeia” {yoo-seb'-i-ah} which relates to real, true, vital, and spiritual relation with God.
***Your relationship level and your walk with God is largely determined on whether your concept of God is correct or not – because by having the right understanding of God’s true character and nature will automatically cause you to come into the right relationship of respect and reverence toward God.
**But if your concept of God’s character is wrong in that deep down you think that God is unjust in some of His ways from maybe something of what you read of His Judgments in the Old Testament, and so that false concept of what you think God is like in His nature will greatly affect the way you relate to God in that you cannot relate to God in the right way.
***And so it is impossible for you to have the right relationship and fellowship with God unless your concept of God is perfectly correct, and the message of the hour that has come in this day is designed by God to bring you into the correct concept of God by the opening of the seven seals and by the mighty God being unveiled before us.
**If we take an example of many denominational Christians, if you have a conception in your mind that God is three different persons that somehow makes up the one God, then you cannot possibly have the correct relationship to that “one” God, because you will always be trying in your subconscious to have relationships with 3 different people yet somehow still trying to think of Him as one. The mind will never get that straightened out unless that thinking is corrected by truth.
***So when we look at what a righteous person is (Remember that Lot was a righteous person according to the scriptural definition), we know for sure that our righteousness (of what is accepted by God) is not determined by our conduct, but by our concept of God.
**It wasn’t Abraham’s good behavior that made Him righteous in the eyes of God, it was Abraham’s revelation of God’s character, he had faith in God because he knew the character of God, and that was what was accounted to him for righteousness – his failings along the way had no part in the equation.
*Remember – that if you have a true revelation of God, then that true revelation and concept of God will affect your conduct in that you will have a desire in you to want to live the way that He wants you to live.
**You will show your faith of what you believe by the works of how you live, but that doesn’t mean that you will never make mistakes and never have temptations along the way.
This is where we often judge ourselves by the things that God is not judging us by, and then we fail to judge ourselves in the way that God is actually looking at us – through the blood of Jesus Christ. And Jesus blood will never lose its power to wash away every sin.
The great hymn written by Robert Lowry
What can wash away my sin
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
What can make me whole again
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow
No other fount I know
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
*Your good behavior can never wash away your sin.
ROMANS 4:1-5
1 ¶ What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
***We know that the same way that God judges an individual He’ll judge a family, and the same way He’ll judge a family, He’ll judge a church, and the same way He’ll judge a church, He’ll judge a city.
And the same way He’ll judge a city, He’ll judge a nation, and the same way He’ll judge a nation, He’ll judge the whole world. Because a man, a family, a church, a nation, the world – it is only people multiplied.
*The world at the beginning started with one man (Adam), and now the world has just over eight billion people – so the world is actually just one man multiplied.
*So then the same way that God will use a person to stand in the gap for a city, is the same way for a nation, and the same way for a family, and the same way for an individual. So God is looking for people who are qualified to stand in the gap for others.
JEREMIAH 5:1
1 ¶ Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.
In the message “Standing in the Gap” Brother Branham speaks of the event of Sister Hattie Wright of how she stood in the gap for her 2 boys who were sniggering at the story of the creation of the squirrels that brother Branham was telling.
Please note - that you don’t laugh at God’s prophet and not find yourself in trouble with the Lord, that is for certain, yet we see their mother standing in the gap for them, so instead of judgement, there is mercy.
STANDING.IN.THE.GAP_ JEFF.IN V-6 N-7 SUNDAY_ 63-0623M
97 And he said that he went up the mountain. And when he did, I was standing there. And a Voice came from the Cloud, (Wasn't it, Brother Roy?) and said something on this order, "This is My servant. And I've called him to be a prophet to the age, to lead the people just as Moses did. And he's been given the authority, he could speak into existence." Or something like that, like Moses did, like speaking in the flies. And we know about the squirrels, and so forth, and things that's already took place. Little Hattie Wright back there, I suppose you know what taken place at the house. And He told him that I had done what Moses had done.
*What did Moses do? He spoke things into existence, but then he also stood in the gap for an entire nation of people who were undeserving.
*Esther stood in the gap for the salvation of her people
*Rahab stood in the gap for the salvation of her family.
*Stephen stood in the gap for a group of people that were murdering him.
*Hattie Wright stood in the gap for her two boys that had been sniggering at God’s prophet.
Hattie Wright was a believer in the prophet that God has sent to this generation – God is showing us something of the privilege that is available to every believer that will believe in the prophet that He has sent in this generation.
**But then notice how that the third pull power was only given to her to exercise only when God knew that her heart was in a place to choose to stand in the gap for her two boys of whom God would have judged for laughing at his prophet.
STANDING.IN.THE.GAP_ JEFF.IN V-6 N-7 SUNDAY_ 63-0623M
130 And then I remember this Marilyn Monroe, the girl that I saw die about a week before she died, and how that they said she committed suicide, when she didn't. I told them about it, before, what would happen, and it did.
(We must learn to be sensitive to the fact that when God causes Brother Branham to mention something or someone in a certain message, then we can be certain that there is a reason of something that God is wanting for us to know if we would only just stop and ponder and let the spirit of God open up to us a deeper level of awareness.
This girl Marilyn Monroe was certainly not a Christian girl in character or in conduct – yet brother Branham expresses a feeling for her in that he wished he could have got to her with the truth before she died because he knew that that’s what she needed – in other words his desire was to stand in the gap for her despite the type of woman that she was and the life that she had lived.
*God was showing us that He also cared for her because He took the time and effort to show his prophet a vision of how that she did not commit suicide as what was reported by the press – and He even placed this information as a part of what is recorded in the message of the hour – in other words, Marilyn Monroe features in the message in a way that a prophet of God revealed that the spirit in his heart was to stand in the gap for her – and for all we know, maybe God will accept that on her behalf, and we may even be surprised to see her saved on the other side – that is God’s business. Maybe we are a lot like Abraham – we can only go down to a certain level of mercy of what we think the limit is (“peradventure ten”), yet God’s mercy might be a 1000 times greater than what we may think He could go)
And like it did the boxers up there; one was going to kill the other one. I mistaken the girl. There's another girl there, her cousin is--is--is Danny Henry. What is her name? Jane Russell. Her cousin, a Baptist boy.
131 And I was preaching in Los Angeles, at the Business Men's breakfast. And Something there just laying down on those organizations, and there set the head man of the Assemblies, and many of the great dignitaries had gathered in there. And when I got through speaking and started to leave the platform, getting ready... Cause, the Message was being sent out across the--the--the nation, on radio, and had to change back. During this change, when they cut off the radio, then, to send that Message out, and come back and announce the station. And I was at Clifton's, where we have the breakfast. And as I was walking from the upper platform to the lower, a fine handsome-looking young fellow of about thirty years old, run forth and threw his arms around me. He said, "I'm Danny Henry." And not knowing that that was his brother doing the televising. And, uh, it televises there for the Christian Business Men. And it's Jane Russell, that movie star, her cousin. Her mother is a Pentecostal preacher.
132 And then when they started running to me, and he throwed his arms around me, and said, "God bless you, Brother Branham." He said, "I hope this don't sound sacrilegious, but, to my way of seeing it, that Message could be the 23rd chapter of Revelation." And when he said that, he started speaking in tongues. A boy who had never even heard of such a thing, a Baptist by denomination. And as soon as... He turned white, and he looked at me. He didn't know what to do. There is man setting here was there. Were you there, Fred? How many was there at that time? Yeah, there is the three here, was there at that time. And he didn't know what to say.
133 And there was a great big French woman setting down here. She raised up, she said, "Why, that don't need any interpretation. That was purely French."
The boy said, "I don't know one word of French." And she had wrote down what he said.
134 And then there was a man setting on the corner, he said, "That's correct. I've got wrote down what he said, is French." Way back in the back, a blond-headed, handsome-looking fellow, standing up against the wall, come forward and compared notes. He was the interpreter for the U.N., for French. And this man over here was Victor Le Doux, of the Arne Vick church out there, and he wrote it down. And I've got the interpretation to it.
135 Listen to this, if I can read it.
"I, Victor Le Doux, am a full-blooded Frenchman; born- again Christian, filled with the Holy Spirit. My address is 809 North King Road, Los Angeles 46. I attend the Bethel Temple, Pastor Arne Vick, pastor. A true translation that I proclaim, of prophecy said over Brother Branham, given by Danny Henry in French, February the 11th, 1961, at the Full Gospel Business Men's breakfast. A true translation of the prophecy."
136 Now, here is what It said.
Because thou has chosen the narrow path, the harder way, thou has walked in your own choosing.
Now, I can see that. Moses had to make his choice, too. See?
Thou hast picked the precise and correct way, correct decision, and it is My Way.
Underlined, "My Way," the Holy Spirit speaking back.
Because of this momentous decision, a huge portion of Heaven awaits you... awaits thee.
What a glorious decision... (Now listen close.)
What a glorious decision thou has made. This in itself is that which will make, and come to pass, the tremendous victory in the love Divine.
137 You notice, it's the verb before the adverb. See, the French. Now the U.N. interpreter interpret that. And the boy knows not one word, never heard--never heard of such a thing as speaking in tongues. He was a Baptist. Just happened to drop in there, and heard that music, and said... come up there and stand up there and listen at me preach.
138 Now, "in the love Divine," Divine love. How can that be Divine love if it isn't the--the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is Divine love.
Devine love is Agape love – it is unconditional love, that is what the love of God is made of. It is not a love that is based on whether the other person is deserving or not as with Phileo love.
So “Their Tremendous victory in the love DEVINE” is a maturity of a people of whom the word of the Lord has come to, that has then gone on into a love that can truly feel for people, a love that is able to stand in the gap for people who would not be considered worthy or even deserving of mercy.