DEWITT
TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES
PEACE
AND REST
FOR
THE BRIDE
By
C.W. Wood
December 2003
In the midst of Satan’s Eden, and while the Bride of Jesus Christ is
being made to pass through the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual,
there is a peace and a rest reserved for Her. This rest is contained, for the
most part, in two major revelations that our Lord gave to the End-Time
Prophet, William Branham. In this sermon, we want to touch on both these
powerful truths, and pray that the Holy Ghost will tie them together.
Revelation number one is the teaching on the Sovereignty of God, and
revelation number two has to do with God’s Elective Love.
Since our last monthly sermon dealt with God’s total Sovereignty, we
will ask you to review it in connection with this one, and with this sermon
deal mostly with God’s Elective Love. If the Lord will be gracious and
reveal both these powerful truths to us, it cannot help but move us into the
place of peace and rest that we speak of. When we understand that our God is
in control of every detail concerning His Creation, ordering every
circumstance that touches our lives according to a plan He made before the
world was, and add to that the revelation that He also decided who He would
love before He ever created, then the result of these two powerful revelations
bring a Faith that cannot be overcome.
This would be a Perfect Faith, would it not? And, is this not the place
that the scriptures and the Prophet say we must reach in order for the
Rapture?
QUOTE: PERFECT FAITH, PAGE 28, “He is here,
He does this to create a perfect faith. I feel Him. I know He is here now. I
know that His Spirit is here. I know that He knows all things, Amen. And I
know He wants to do something, to create the perfection of faith in the
people……..The word made flesh. Hallelujah! The word operating in human
flesh, by physical signs, by material signs, by scriptural signs, perfectly. To
bring to you a PERFECT FAITH, FOR A PERFECT RAPTURE.” (End quote)
Col. 1:27-28, “To
whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:” Verse
28, “Whom
we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we
may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
Since
we know that the perfection spoken of here does not refer to the flesh, then
we must conclude that it speaks of perfecting the Inner Man, our character,
which includes our Faith. Let us now look at revelation number two, the fact
of God’s Elective Love. Brother Branham taught that the proof we need
concerning the fact of God’s Love, lies in the truth that He elected
(decided) to love us before He created the world.
QUOTE: ADOPTION – PART TWO, PAGE 46, “There you are,
entering into this Promised Land. How do we get into it? We are predestinated
to it, the church, by the foreknowledge of God. Has been predestinated to
what? To His honor, by His grace, to the glory and worship
and glory of God. Papa, sitting back there in the beginning,
self-existent, nothing around Him, wanted something to worship, so He
foreordained and predestinated a church, and before the foundation of the
world, and put their names in the Lamb’s Book of Life when they was slain
before the foundation of the world, that they might appear to His glory and to
His praises at the end of time, when He will gather all things in that one
Man, Christ Jesus. Whew! Glory! That’s it. That’s just…..And that’s it
right there, my Brother, Sister. Don’t you never
move from that.” (End quote)
In the preceding quote, the Prophet points us to the fact that God
decided who He would love in the beginning, before there was an atom or a
star. Then he said, “Don’t you ever move from that.” Or, “Don’t you
ever forget that the proof of His loving you is that He elected to love you.
We know that God never changes His mind once He has made a decision. His
decision to love those He elected is an eternal decision. That is why the Holy
Ghost could say in Rom.
In our daily walk before God, there are many things the enemy points to
trying to use them as proof that God no longer loves us. But, because of the
teaching of a Prophet, we know better. Our sins and failures, our wretchedness
in this flesh, are all things the Lord saw BEFORE He chose us as His Beloved.
He saw the end from the beginning, and after that He chose those He would love
with an eternal, everlasting love. The powerful revelation is this; God cannot
be made to change His mind concerning His love for the Elect. It is forever
settled in Heaven.
QUOTE: ADOPTION, PART 2, PAGE 46, “God,
by His election grace, called you. God by His election grace,
sanctified you. God, by His election grace and His power, baptized you and put
you into this
Now, let’s ask the Lord Jesus to help us tie these two powerful
revelations together. First, we are to understand that our Great Jehovah
controls everything that He has created. Nothing that happens in Heaven, on
Earth, in Hell, or anywhere in between is ever beyond His full control.
Everything is moving according to the plan He made before Creation. How could
it be otherwise, since He has promise that, “All
things work together for good to those who love the Lord, and who are the
called according to His purpose.” (Rom.
Revelation number two is the fact of God’s choosing to love a certain
group of people, a people that He saw in His Mind before Creation, and that
this love was, and is, unconditional. It had not one thing to do with any
merit He saw in them. As He looked, He saw “no difference in the clay.”
(Rom.
Some will question His choosing of those to be saved, while others were
not so chosen. But, those who question God are those who do not really know
Him. Those who know Him understand that He can do no wrong. There is no degree
of sin in Him. Whether we understand it or not, He can do no wrong, He has
never done a wrong thing. The revelation is that our God is perfect
in Love, Power, Knowledge, and Wisdom. Therefore, while we don’t understand
it, we accept the fact that He chose some to love above all others, and that
it was not wrong for Him to do so! It was not wrong because the Perfect God
did it!
We read what He declared in Eph. 1:1- 8 and believe it. Let’s
read, “Paul
and apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at
Yes, it is eternally true that our God and Father has
chosen some, out of His millions of created people, to be a peculiar people
unto Himself. The preceding scripture declares that He made this choosing, “Before
the foundation of the world.” They also declare that “HE
MADE US TO BE ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED” (Made us to be accepted by
Himself). They tell us that His choosing was according to His own good
pleasure, meaning that there were no circumstances outside of His own will
that caused Him to choose them. He tells us that it was the “RICHES
OF HIS GRACE” that motivated Him, and that alone.
Now, we will state the powerful revelation found in the doctrine of
Election, and try to do so in simple terms. To have been elected
by God means that the most powerful force in the universe, God’s love,
surrounds us at all times. We are enveloped in it, and nothing can penetrate
it that would not be beneficial to us spiritually. To have been ELECTED by God
means that He will, “Finish
the good work He has started in us.” (Ph. 1:6) It means that He
will see to it that we leave this Satan’s
It means that having seen the end from the beginning, God saw every sin
and failure we would ever make, and after that, chose us to receive His love,
throughout our life here, and on through Eternity. Having been elected means
that nothing can ever change God’s mind concerning the love He has for us. (
Once we see that God’s love for us is a choice He made before the
world was, and that He has sworn to never change His mind concerning it, then
we begin to rely on, and lean on that undying love. It causes our love for Him
to greatly increase, and the scripture comes to pass in us that declares,
“Love
casteth out fear.” (I John 4:18) Verse
19, “We
love Him because He first loved us.” In looking at Election we
must consider the Cross, which is undeniable proof that He gave His own life
for us. Isa. 49:16 says, “Behold,
I have graven thee (Bride) upon
the palms of My hands……” The nails
that the Romans drove into His hands, to hold Him on the Cross, also engraved
our names there.
Look at Him hanging there between Heaven and Earth. Sharp, poisonous
thorns pressed down into His scalp and brow, cramps tearing at the muscles in
His arms, legs, and chest, and His bones out of joint. His heart was like wax
because of the terrible pain, and His strength was dried up like a potsherd.
His tongue was glued to His precious jaws from loss of blood and the thirst
that results. (Ps. 22:14-17) Yes, look at Him hanging there, and never again
doubt the Love that held Him there. He could have called the Angels to set Him
free, but He had Elected a people to love and He was proving that Love with
His last breath. Can we do less than devote every part of our life to Him?
Putting our two revelations together, we have every reason to put our
all in the Hands of our Redeemer. He has total power and is constantly in
control of all things that He has created. Do you believe that, in connection
with our health, he is in control of every cell in our bodies? If he has the
hairs of our head numbered, then He also controls everything about this human
frame of ours. He controls every sickness and pain and controls the degree of
it all. Submit to God, resist the Devil and we will be healed.
It is His Godly love that compels Him to exert such control and
watchful care over us. In all of our frailties, impurities, and failures He
has never once stopped loving us. He cannot change His great Mind about it.
That would be to violate His own Word, and that
will never happen! How safe are we then Bride of Christ? We are as safe as if
we were already with Him in that other dimension. All that remains is for us
to play out our role here in Satan’s
This is the assurance that the Faith coming from these two revelations
has given us. We are perfectly in the Hands of Him who controls all things,
and who is guided in exercising this control by an Eternal Love that will not
fail. This means that we are constantly receiving exactly what we need, in the
right amount, in the right places, and at the right time.
We will close with this thought. God’s Elect Bride Children were born
“Children
of wrath even as others.” (Eph. 2:3) And if God had done nothing
more than come down in a flesh body and die for us, leaving us sinners to
decide, on our own, to serve Him, then all of us would have been lost, because
every man born of woman by sex is at enmity with God (God’s enemy). (Eph.
2:12) Therefore, a special work
of the Holy Ghost had to be done in our heart. God had to COMPEL the Bride to
come in. (Lk.
Had we not been COMPELLED (moved upon in such a way that we would not
continue to resist), then we too would have been among those who were
“CALLED” but not chosen. (Mat. 22:14) The great point is this: since God
put forth His special effort (power) to see to it that His Wedding Supper
would be furnished with guest, and we (The Bride) are those guests, how can we
not trust that He will most certainly “Finish the work He started in us”?
(Ph. 1:6)
God is sovereign in the exercise of His power, and as “The
wind bloweth as it pleaseth,”
so the Holy Ghost COMPELS whom He pleases to be the Bride of
Christ! Therefore, the most important question on Earth is this, “Do you
know you have been called, and have you answered the call?” If you can
honestly answer “Yes” to these questions, you are among the most blessed
people on planet Earth. If not, then fall on your knees and repent of all your
sins, and be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts
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