Ewald Frank

1984-08-15 19:30, Krefeld, Germany

broadcasted on 2024-10-23

Subject: 1 Cor. 16:22: If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him accursed! Maranatha!

Bruder Russ 

Before we stand up together for prayer, I would like to read a short psalm.

And here the psalmist cries out, in psalm 130.

1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

2 Hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

3 If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord. My soul does wait, and in his Word do I hope.

6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.

7 I say more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption, 

8 and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

…and also us, dear brothers and sisters.

We believe it with all our heart, and therefore we will look up to him.

3 If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, who shall stand?

I believe there is no one among us who feels so righteous that he has no sins, no faults. Rather, we all want to come to him, just as we are.

I and you and all of us would like to offer him honor and praise and ask him to continue to speak to us through his precious and holy Word.

Before brother Frank comes to the front, let us stand up and pray together.

Faithful God, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Lord, you see our desire, you know our desire, you see how we mean it. Lord, when we are lukewarm and sluggish, take it from us, Lord. Give us your good Holy Spirit, give us fire in our hearts, that they may burn for you, Lord, that we may praise you, O God, that we may also worship you in the right way, O Lord.

Lord, we have sung these marvelous songs, we ask you to have mercy on us. Draw us nearer, Lord, to your faithful Father heart. Have mercy, O Lord, tonight and bless us, O God, for we have come, Lord, not out of habit, O faithful God, not just that we stand here, Lord, and that we want to perform here, but you see our hearts, you know us, you know how we mean it, each one of us, O God.

We ask you fervently, have mercy on us, Lord, and help us tonight, and then we will be helped, Lord. Bless us and then we are blessed.

Lord, you know our hearts. Perhaps we have joy, perhaps we have sorrow. You know everyone, Lord, how each heart feels. But you are able, Lord, to give it what it needs, Lord.

And so we look up to you and ask you to take away everything that stands in your way in my life and in all our lives, Lord.

Be nigh to us now, Lord, as we continue to hear your precious and holy Word.

We pray that you bless our dear brother, Lord, bless us all, Lord, and open our hearts to receive what you have to say to us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Amen.

Br Frank

Praise and thanks be to the Lord.

We believe that with all our hearts: On the other side of the shore, there will be no trace of all that is here on earth. The old will be gone and forgotten, and everything will be new. Our bodies will also be new. All frailty, everything that caused us trouble, will be no more.

Paul expresses this in Romans 8 and says that "Not only the whole creation, but also we groan in this body, waiting for the redemption of the body." [Röm 8:22+23]

There are always so many things you want to say that are on your heart. But we have already taken many things to heart in the songs and in the comments. The only question is whether there is a real desire to not only talk about Bible doctrines and insights.

And I have to admit it quite honestly, every time I meet people who feel like debating, I feel a very deep sorrow inside.

That's not what it's all about today. Today is about coming closer to the Lord. Whether someone knows a lot or a little. The important thing is that he can say, "I know that my Reedemer liveth and that I will see Him, even my flesh is all gone, I will see God." [Job 19:25+26]

You simply have to say that clearly:  We are grateful for all the teaching because we believe that we have a right to be taught correctly. But we also have a right to all blessings, a right to the fulfillment of all promises.

And sometimes I have the impression, whether it concerns me alone or all of us, that we have somehow grieved the Lord, be it through unbelief, be it through something. But God doesn't get his due as he would like to and our connection to him and fellowship with him is not as intimate, as hot as it should be.

If we take our brothers in the early church, they cried out, "Maranatha, the Lord is coming!" There was an expectation of the Lord's return in their time. They let the outward things be outward things, let them stand to the right and to the left, and did not stop, but served the Lord.

And as I said before, they received the blessings and were ready and were waiting for the coming of the Lord.

What good would it do us if we knew everything correctly, had the right knowledge and everything, the right teaching, thank God for that. I wouldn't want to do without it. It is part of it. It is the foundation on which we can build.

But all of this is first of all the foundation and then we have to build on it.

As we have already looked at here, all these virtues, but they cannot come by themselves. They are divine qualities that we do not bring with us, but receive from God. If we could bring just one of these virtues, listed in 2 Peter 1, with us, then we wouldn't have to try so hard before God to be blessed by Him and receive all these things.

But I believe that we are meant to let our love for God and for one another become more intimate in these last days.

And our Lord says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." [Joh 14:15]

And then He added one more to all His commandments and says, "A new commandment I give to you." [Joh 13:34]

This practicing and living out of divine love is now required. Not just to talk about it, but to let the Lord show us what it can look like in practice.

In the last lines of 1 Corinthians 16, Paul has spoken a few words that are very blatant, that are harsh, that are almost incomprehensible. He ends these first 16 chapters to the church at Corinth with the words:

21 The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand, 

22 if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha. 

23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 

24 My love be with you all, in Christ Jesus."

You might say, "Paul, you've been a little harsh here."

But I think I also said it here a little while ago. We looked at the word from the prophet Malachi, where the Lord says, "In that day you will then see the difference between the one who serves me and the one who does not serve me, between the one who loves me and the one who does not love me, between the one who follows me and the one who does not follow me." [Mal 3:18]

Paul knew that all who do not love the Lord remain under the wrath of God and that they will be cursed in the end.

How thankful we can be! And we do not look down on anyone – those times are gone forever.

Instead, we look up to heaven, to our Lord, who has gone before us and prepared the place and will return very soon to take his own home.

When Paul says here, "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed," that is a strong statement.(1Cor 16;22)

Do we love the Lord? Do you love the Lord? Do I love the Lord? How do we stand in the eyes of God?

Not in our judgment, where we say, "Lord, I love you," and go our own way. Whoever loves the Lord will serve him, will cling to him with all his heart, will walk obediently in his way and let himself be blessed and used by God.

23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

We all want it to be with us.

In Psalm 105 we have a comparison of the way that God walked with the people of Israel. In these two Psalms in particular, we have a record of the highs and lows with and among the people of God.

It says in Psalm 105, verse 5:

5 Remember his marvelous works that he has done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth.

6 O ye seed of Abraham, his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen.

When we read these statements, we are reminded of them. And not only that, but we should always remember what God has done.

God's ways with his people did indeed go through ups and downs, but precisely because God bestowed all his love and grace and care on this one people, he was concerned about this people alone.

He gave nothing for the Amorites and Jebusites and for all these people, especially the seven nations who lived in the land of Canaan, because he had no plan for them. They were not in his program.

God had mercy on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and went his way with these people. (Psalm 105;6)

6 Abraham was his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen.

7 He is the Lord, our God. His judgments are in all the earth.

8 He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, 

9 which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac, 

10 and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, 

11 saying, "Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.

God has allotted, he has divided, he has made sure that all things were right.

I remember the sermon where brother Branham talks about when the car was stolen from the one man, that the enemy has no right to lay his hand or to make a claim on anything that belongs to the believers.

And when we consider what God has given us in terms of promises and blessings, when we consider what really belongs to the life of the church, that it is not an earthly club or association, not a lodge, not a cemetery, but the living organism of the body of the Lord, which is to serve so that God can glorify himself again and again.

That is one side of it.

The other side is probably that the enemy always wants to dispute what has actually been rightfully regained and purchased for us.

Not only are we ourselves the rightful property of God, because the blood was paid as a ransom, as a price, but also all rights, everything that was promised and intended for us as sons and daughters of God belongs to us.

And sometimes we have to realize with deep sadness that the enemy still wants to assert his power or his rights, even though he has lost every right to us.

I am particularly moved when I hear that people have actually been believers for 30 or 40 years and have listened to all the marvelous sermons and sang along the precious songs. And suddenly, as happened today, a call comes and it says, "Brother Frank, we are in great need." And then it starts.

And then at the end of a conversation like that, you ask yourself the question, "What has God and God's Word, what has the blood of the Lamb and the Spirit of God been able to do?" If you then don't call it unbelief…

And brother Russ asked, "What is our desire?" Only one thing: that God might endure us with the power of the Holy Spirit, that the devil is put out of business in everything and everyone, that he is not just appeased a little, but that he must give way, that he must go out.

There is no other way.

You all know that we who believe in our Lord with all our hearts and love him dearly, we know that he has conquered death.

And at a funeral this always comes to the fore again. And we say, "Lord, you have conquered death, but the time has not yet come when your victory will be fully realized, "when death will be no more," as it says in Revelation. [Rev 21:4]

And it will be from that time on, when the cause of God, the work of God with the church comes to an end.

But we know it, that death is a thing that has lost its right to us. And yet, death has reigned over all the prophets, over all the apostles, over all to this day, and has asserted its right.

One thing we know is, that a person who believes does not actually die. For this is what our Lord said in the Gospel of John, in chapter 11, [Joh 11:25]

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die."

Believers only go home, they do not die. Death does not swallow them up, it is swallowed up for them. For them it is the door and the entrance from time into eternity.

And yet everything rears up inside us, because we have been ordained for eternal life as sons and daughters of God.

We know that death rules over us unjustly, sin, sickness, bondage, possession, and whatever else it may be, rules over us unjustly.

For if we believe what the Holy Scriptures say, then through the second Adam, through Christ, all the damage done by the first Adam must have been made good. This is how Paul explains it in his letter to the Corinthians [1Cor 15:22]:

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

We must begin to rebel against everything that is not of God. And then we will succeed in giving faith the necessary divine dynamite to set or lay an explosive charge somewhere, so that those who are bound will be set free.

When I heard the words today, "Brother Frank, that must be possession" and so forth, oh, that tears the heart apart.

Our Lord had a ministry and no one will overlook that and no one will overhear that and ignore that. The Lord's ministry was "to set the captives free, to pardon the sinners, to heal the sick, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." So we read in Isaiah 61, so we read in Luke 4. [Isa 61:1] [Lk 4:18]

If the church continues this ministry, then we have to reckon with the fact that it won't be a nice service with three songs at the beginning, one at the end, a few choruses in between and a sermon and then we go home again.

We can no longer do that, no longer with a clear conscience, in the face of all the hardships, all the problems, all the effects of the power of the enemy.

Are we here to talk about what the devil is doing or are we here to be something to the praise of the grace and glory of God?

What are we here for as children of God? That the enemy can play football with us?
Or that God can use us and that he can glorify himself and confirm his Word?

We have seen that the people of Israel were destined to be the bearers of the divine words of revelation and believe it or not, everyone else served their gods.

And I read that here not long ago: "Terah and Nahor" and all, whether father or brother of Abraham, "they served strange gods." And Abraham had also served strange gods up until then.

But when the living God appeared to him, that was all over. The gods were just idols to him and he turned away from them and believed in and served the living God. He looked at him, the invisible one, as if he saw him.

Here we read, "He has remembered his covenant forever." (Psalm 105;8)

That is the beauty of God.

What we agree to is always limited in time, dependent on circumstances, what God does is done for eternity.

8 He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, 

9 which covenant he made with Abraham and his oath unto Isaac, 

10 and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, 

11 saying, "Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.

That was the promise, the covenant already made with Abraham, this covenant with God, and then with all Israel at Mount Sinai.

What was it?

God's covenant did not just contain words. There was more to it. It was divine promises. It was a divine confirmation that he would stand by his Word.

The hour and the day had to come when the Jordan could be crossed and the land taken, because that was what God had promised.

And he always had people with whom he could go on, who were not among those who murmured and looked back, but who were grateful and went forward.

God leaves himself a remnant.

And I tell you, I always blame myself, and that sometimes brings me into deep inner distress.

But we must also come before the Lord as the overall church and as individuals and simply tell our God… say to your Lord, and everyone do it with all their heart, "Lord, you have spoken to us in these days, you have revealed yourself to us, you have made the promises for this time come alive before us and placed them in our hearts. We have heard and seen that you are the same yesterday, today and forever. 

Lord, grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done. [Acts 4:29]

Someone may say, "Huh, there are so many evangelists who perform signs and wonders."

Let us stop all such comparisons. They make us sick, somehow it doesn't fit.

Why should we make comparisons with false anointed ones, with this or that?

Is it not our honest task and our duty before God to compare ourselves with what was in the early church, to see if God can go the same way with us, if the same things are happening?

Imagine if we would spend our time this way, and that could be 24/7, drawing comparisons and then picking out the examples we need and then we turn our head away and go on our merry way.

We are not helped by drawing comparisons with evangelists or believers or churches or brothers and sisters we know or whatever it may be.

We are only helped if we look into the mirror of the Word of God and say "Lord, this is how it was and we have heard the message of restitution. This is how it should, must and will be again. Here we are. Help us. We can't help it."

And then God will stand by His Word. But this must really happen in perfect faith.

I repeat: If we look at others and say "Yes, they have experienced the blessings and look what is today," then we have not yet understood how and what God has spoken to us. Then it is the enemy who wants to distract us by means of a diversionary tactic from our own miserable state, from our falling short. And he has, as it seems and probably is, succeeded quite well.

But it can't go on like this.

Something arises in us that we can no longer suppress.

"I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, Thy love dwells in me," as the song goes.

The love for God, the love for His Word, the love for one another, God's love in which we are embedded, must become active and all the gifts of the Spirit must also find their place. God has put everything in the Church and Brother Branham said it plain and simple.

I can show you where God has promised it and where He has given it.

You can show me where He has made the promise void and where He has taken it away.

And there is no such thing.

So, I don't want us to see such a contemplation as unbelief or little faith, but that we simply say, "Lord, we are only human, we can't help ourselves or others, but we want you to help us, that you come into your own."

And one day, all demons of sickness, all powers of darkness, the devil must realize that we speak in the name of the Lord and that God's Word is also legally binding for him and that he must submit to God's Word in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

There is no other way.

We cannot possibly go on like this.

We do not know exactly what path God is taking with us, but we do know one thing: It must be a biblical path, with no ifs and buts, no excuses to the left and no excuses to the right.

We face up to this divine task and say, "Lord, we are not yet what we should be, nor are we what we once were. We are ready to believe you, to serve you, to obey you and to love you. We are ready to be at your service. Take us and do with us and through us what you have promised."

I don't think we need to talk about the idea that someone would seek their own honor in the process. He would have to be a bit stupid. For who among us would not have realized long ago how pathetic we are, what a heap of misery we represent, how helpless, how powerless, how hopeless each of us is. There is no one left who could tear out trees, spiritually speak, or accomplish deeds.

But we have a God in heaven.

We have the Lord who sits at the right hand of the majesty of God and who waits until all enemies have been made His footstool. And the earth is the footstool of His feet, for heaven is His throne. God is that great. He reaches from heaven to this earth, because that's what it literally says (Jesaja 66;1):

The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.

That is why God is not only in heaven. God is on earth. God is present.

And when faith becomes a living faith, then God comes into His own.

If all enemies are to be made His footstool, then not only in heaven, because the earth is His footstool.

Here on this earth, Satan has plunged people into misfortune. It was here on this earth that the Lord paid the price with His blood and took the curse upon Himself.

It is here on this earth that God's victory, which took place on the cross of Calvary, is to be revealed.

There is no other way.

That is how it must be.

And that is how it will be.

With the help and by the grace of our God.

Amen.

Let us stand up and pray.

Br. Russ

Faithful God, we thank You with all our hearts for Your mighty speaking, even tonight. And we recognize, Lord, that we are nothing before You, Lord, and that we are able to do nothing.

But You are able to do everything, Lord. And we come to You as we are.

We are not able to take anything, Lord. We are not able to improve ourselves, Lord. But look down in mercy. Accept us, Lord. Draw us closer, Lord, to Your dear Father's heart. Especially me. Have mercy on me, Lord.

I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Br. Frank

Heavenly Father, with all my heart, I thank You for Your holy presence, for Your holy Word, for Your holy Blood, for Your holy Spirit.

And together we ask You, come into Your rightful place in our lives and in our midst.

Let us see with our own eyes that You are returning to Your Church, revealing Yourself, confirming Your Word, saving sinners, healing the sick, setting the captives free, that the Word of the Cross become the power of God for all who believe.

O Lord, we thank You in Jesus' name.

Amen.