DEWITT TABERNACLE
TEACHING SERIES
THE FAILURE
OF
HUMAN ABILITY
By C.W. Wood April
2009
A PERSONAL NOTE
TO OUR READERS: “The last three months have been, without question, the
hardest trials of my life. Many of you know the pain and suffering of losing a
loved one. We are finding out first hand the meaning of the Scripture in I
Peter 5:10-11, “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his
eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you
perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
11 To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
We as Bride members are called on to rule and reign on this earth for our
Lord, in these flesh bodies and in this very hour. II Tim 2:10-12,
“Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also
obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also
live with him:
12 If we suffer, we shall
also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:”
These are hard sayings and the flesh hates the word suffer! Therefore,
God has given His Bride the Holy Ghost Token that we may overcome the flesh and
the Devil, who is our constant enemy. But thanks be to God, the Devil cannot
overpower the Spirit of our God.
This sermon will deal with how our God is producing a great weakness
in our natural flesh-man. It has to come because the Word declares that such
weakness must always come before spiritual strength!
II Cor. 12:9-10, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient
for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore
will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon
me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in
necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am
weak, then am I strong.” It is the grace of God that leads us in paths that
will produce this weakness, for we would never choose such paths for ourselves!
It is in our fallen nature to choose the easy road. “No man ever yet hated his
own flesh.” (Eph. 5:29)
Having been experiencing this God-produced weakness, I feel led to teach
on it as best I can. May the Lord Jesus guide this pen. Thank you, dear Readers,
for all your cards and letters and gifts. I read everyone and send my heart-felt
thanks to each one of you, though you may not hear by a personal letter. My
heart yearns to fellowship with you, but time does not permit, and for now I
must speak to you by way of our monthly sermons. I love you.”
Br.
Wood
In our last sermon, we spoke of the
Real Faith of God that can only come to us from the heart of God, and as He
delivers it to us as it was once delivered to the Saints (Jude 3). We
want to show that our intellectual believing, although it is most certainly
required, does not of itself or by itself bring the miracles that we so
desperately need.
The great revelation is that we do not have, and cannot have, the
God-kind of Faith until He drops it into our heart. Our problem is that we have
tried to use our human faith, and by it alone see the miracles that God
has promised. I want to examine a most powerful Scripture and use it as our
text. Please read in your Bible Mark 9:14-29, the story of a man whose
son had a dumb spirit. He brought him to the Disciples and they could not cast
out the Devil. Yet, they believed in casting out devils. However, they were
having to learn by hard experience (through failure) that it takes more than
human faith to cast out devils and heal the sick. The point is that the father
of this afflicted child had somewhere along the road received a powerful
revelation, one that the Disciples needed to receive and we must also receive.
His conversation with the Lord will bring out this revelation! Jesus said
to the father, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that
believeth.” Now notice carefully the father’s answer, “Lord, I
believe, help thou my unbelief.” This was said through tears, and
the Lord did not deny that he was a Believer. Truly the man was a
Believer! He was a Believer just as many of us are Believers. He, no doubt,
believed that this Jesus was the son of God, Messiah, God in flesh. He no doubt
believed that He was Perfect God, Perfect in all His ways, yet in a body like
ours!
Do not you and I believe the same thing? Surely, we do. Yet, as this man
confessed, we need help with our unbelief. Can we, as this man did, confess that
we believe with our human faith, yet we need help to rid ourselves of every last
doubt? Have we learned that we cannot use only our human faith and declare a
thing done, although we believe in casting out devils and healing the sick? Can
we be as honest and sincere as the father of this poor child, and declare that
we need that Gift of Faith that only God holds? This father had come to
the end of human ability, and he knew it. He was ready for some help from the
Master, help that he could not produce in himself. He needed that supernatural Gift
of Faith to be dropped into his heart by the one who is “The Author and
the Finisher of our faith.” (Heb. 12:2) His struggles to see his son
delivered though his human believing had brought him to a place of desperation.
The Grace and Mercy of our Lord has brought some of us today to this same
place of desperation! We too have believed, and then struggled to believe
harder, yet the answer has not come! Can we believe that the Lord has “Ordered
our steps” through these times of failure so that He may show us our
error? The error is common indeed. It is to suppose that we can manufacture or
produce the God-kind of faith in our own heart. The truth is that although we
can believe, and must believe with our human faith, we can never produce the
Real Faith of God in ourselves. It is Grace that sends it, once we come to the
end of our struggles to produce it ourselves. God never requires the impossible
from us. He reserves the impossible for Himself to do! He has given us the
ability to believe with our human faith, and with our mind we choose to believe.
Then God honors this kind of believing by sending us His reward of supernatural
faith.
Examine Heb. 11: 6 with me: “But without faith it is
impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Without the
God-kind of Faith coming into our heart, we cannot please Him. He that comes to
God must believe with his human faith that He is, and that He will
eventually honor that human faith by sending the reward, which will be
His own Supernatural Faith that will bring the answer. Remember, He is the
Author and the Finisher of this powerful faith, and it cannot come except as His
Grace will deliver it to us.
When the Lord has produced the desired weakness in us concerning the
failures of our human faith (ability), He then gives a deep revelation of His
Grace which we call faith. The real God-like Faith is Grace alone. Grace and
God’s Faith are kinfolks.
QUOTE: PERFECT
STRENGTH BY PERFECT WEAKNESS, PAGE 9-10,
“When we are insufficient, ourselves, then we are subjects to yield to God’s
Spirit. As long as we think that we can do it, then we can’t do it. But when
we get to a place where we know we can’t do it, then we yield our self to God
and He does it. So then if it’s us trying to do it we’ll fail, but if
we’ll just yield ourself to God then God can’t fail. There’s only one
thing that God cannot do, and that’s fail. He can do anything else but fail.
But, He cannot fail.
So as long as we are trying in ourselves and depending on our own
abilities, and so forth, well, we’ll do nothing. But when we get to a place
where we know we’re nothing, then God can use us.” (End of quote)
We pray for God to send us His God-kind of Faith. This is what He expects
us to do. It’s not that we do not pray until it comes, but we pray for it to
come!
CONTINUING QUOTE: “The important thing, one of the important
things that we must master. Now remember this, and especially you young
preachers, and lay members alike. There’s one thing that we’ve got to master
if we expect to fulfill God’s desire in our life, that is, we have to master
the thought of human ability. If we ever get to a spot where we think
that we can do it with our own intelligence and our own abilities, we’ve got
to master that in such a way that we can get rid of the thing and lay it aside
so that God can use us. That’s right.
And make a complete surrender! We cannot use one ability. We’ve got to
make a complete surrender!” (End of quote)
QUOTE: PERFECT STRENGTH, PAGE 10, “No ability, I don’t care
whose it is, will never be usable in the sight of God. God has to get all of our
abilities out of us before He can achieve His purpose. If He’s got something
for us to do, and as long as we feel that we’re doing a pretty job out of it,
then we’ll never be able to be used of God. Now, you say, ‘You’re making
an awful broad statement there, Brother Branham.’ And that—that is a broad
one, but just look around and find out if whether it’s right or not.
Look around today at all of our great achievement we think we’ve done,
and where is Christianity in
QUOTE: PERFECT
STRENGTH, PAGE 11, “Then God can
achieve His purpose by sending…not a revival, but, Brother, what He needs to
do first is, send a killing, that’s right, so we can revive. You have to die
before you can be born again, and you have to…He needs a killing of ourselves.
This Tabernacle needs a killing, and me with it. All of us, we need a—killing
so that we can be revived in a new life, a new hold, a new hope, a new
experience. We need first a day of mourning. We need a place of yielding to the
Spirit instead of so much depending upon schooling and upon our programs, and
we…our campaigning and all that we have. We rely upon cooperation with so many
different ministers to cooperate. We allow so many…. ‘If we can’t get so
many, why, we won’t do it. We won’t go to the cities without that.’ And
then, when we do that, we’re making it in a great big machine that’s got a
carbon knock in it, see.
So we got to get away from that, that human ability. We got to get to a
place where we can surrender our souls and lives, even to the housewife, to the
farmer, to the mechanic, or whoever we are, we got to surrender completely to
God and know that “we are nothing.” Then let God start from there. Then He
starts moving. Working. And that includes all of us, everyone. That’s
the—the thing that we got to do.” (End of quote)
These are the words of a mighty Prophet, who was speaking from
experience! He went through a time of mourning that no man can understand unless
he has been there. The Lord took his wife and baby daughter, and this produced
such grief and sorrow, that except for God, he would have given up. But, Grace
prevented him, and out of such terrible weakness came strength and faith in
Grace such as is seldom seen on Earth! That same Grace is holding some Bride
members up in these last hours. The message to you and I is, “Be not
dismayed.” The Lord is only showing us our helplessness, our human weakness,
and the failure of human ability. This He must do in order that He may cause us
to turn to Him in fervent prayer, asking for His Faith to be sent that brings
the miracles. This is so He may finish the Bride Revival. We have groaned and
struggled to believe the thing done without the Faith of God having been
delivered to us. It takes the Faith of God, and He must send it. It is not our
mental ability to claim the work is done. To believe “in God” is one thing,
but to have the God-kind of Faith delivered to our heart is quite another thing.
God requires both the mechanics and the dynamics!
It is easier to call on the Lord and ask Him for His Faith, than to try
and manufacture working faith in our own heart. We cannot do the impossible, but
our Lord greatly desired to do it for us.
Br. Branham’s parable about the two Cadillacs is a master piece. It
explains in worldly terms exactly what the Lord wants us to see concerning the
difference between human faith and God’s Faith.
QUOTE: IT IS THE RISING OF THE SUN, PAGES 16-17, “But now, for
instance, what if we were going to go back to Tucson this afternoon (now) and
each one of us had a—was going to go in a big Cadillac, brand new; and all of
the seats were made out of—of doeskin (softest of the leather, soft and easy
to sit it); and the floorboards were plush; the steering wheels were
nickel-plated and had diamond studs all over it; and the engine was mechanically
tested to be exactly the right engine; and the wheels were—--all had bearing
and greased up; and the tires were all puncture-proof and blow-out free, all
been tested scientifically. They had been pushed off the assembly line, both of
them, and both of them filled up with gasoline. That’s the running power, the
gasoline, because in it is the octane. But now, when you’re going to start
them, although both of them look just alike, but there’s one of them don’t
have any spark—any firing power.
“Well,” you say, “the power is in the gasoline, Brother Branham.”
But I don’t care how much power is in the gasoline, unless there’s a spark
there to manifest that power, less there’s a power there to confirm that
that’s gasoline, it just might as well be water.
Until … no matter how much theologians claim, how well you got your
church set, how much education you got, how much like the Bible, until that wave
Sheaf, until the Holy Spirit comes upon that person to quicken that Word (the
gasoline represents the Word: It’s the Truth); but without the Spirit it
won’t move!
CONTINUING QUOTE: PAGE 12, “We’ve put too much stress on the
mechanics and nothing on the dynamics. It needs the dynamic power of God, the
Resurrection power of Jesus Christ upon the Church to manifest and to bring to
pass that this is gasoline! It might be in a gasoline can; it could still
be water. See? But they only proof of it is put the Life on it, and it’ll
prove whether it’s gasoline or not.
CONTINUING QUOTE: PAGE 17, “There was the first Sheaf come up
from all the prophets which was the Son of God, the King of all prophets. There
has been churches, churches, brides, brides, churches, brides, brides, but
there’s got to come One! Hallelujah! There has to come a real Bride! There
must come One that’s not only got the mechanics, but the Dynamics of It, makes
that Church live, move in the power of His Resurrection. Until we come to that
place, until we find that place, what good does it do to polish the hubs? What
good does it do to give her a face-lifting or a simonize job, when there’s no
Dynamics in it? No matter how much the mechanics prove to be right, there’s
got to be a Dynamics to make it work.
PAGE 18, “That’s the Easter Message: The Dynamics and the
mechanics together. The mechanics without the Dynamics, no good, neither is the
Dynamics without the mechanics. You can scream and shout and jump up and down
all you want to, and deny this Word; it won’t do any good. You’re just
cranking around the—pistons of—got spark there to fire, but no gasoline to
fire it by. They only work as they come together. Amen! So one will set still
and the other one’ll go up; that‘s the only thing there is to it. Yet they
both might look like, both claim to be churches, both claim to be brides, but
one has mechanics and Dynamics. It brings it to pass. But what He said is the
Truth.
It just won’t move, no matter how good the mechanics is, until the
Dynamics come. When the Dynamics come, that Fire is made to connect with that
octane in the gasoline. And when that explodes it, it causes a combustion, and
that combustion moves every motion, every move, for He is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. That’s the resurrection; that’s the real Power of
God—mechanics with the Dynamics.
Notice, it’s the Spirit that quickens; it’s the—It’s the spark
that fires. It’s not the gas that fires; it’s the spark that fires the gas.
See? “You can do nothing without Me, but with Me you can do all things.”
(End of quote)
To those who continue to give money for the publishing work, even though
you do no longer receive a personal note of thanks from me, I want to say from
the bottom of my heart how we love and appreciate you. What ever good the Lord
may be able to bring forth from our work here, you will have a definite part in
it. With all my heart I believe that the work God has given the Bride to do is
just about over. Our president has denied that we are a Christian
nation (Hal Lindsey Report). He has warned
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