Taking God At His Word

1 We trust that this night will be... cold outside, and that, but we won't be cold inside. We pray that the Holy Spirit will just warm our hearts in such a way, until we'll know that His presence is so tangible. I believe He's just as tangible tonight as the light is on my hands. Don't you believe that? He's just as real as the light, or just as real as anything that you can touch with the five senses. The five senses wasn't given to man to contact God with however. Five senses was given to man to contact his earthly home. We contact God by faith, the sixth sense. These five senses control this body, but the sixth sense is faith.

Have you heard this old saying about people from Missouri say, have to "show me", and "seeing is believing"? Have you ever heard that, "seeing is believing"? I want to show you just how simple that is; that "seeing is believing". Seeing is not believing. I can prove that that's wrong.

Now, we--we have five senses that control the human body, and they are: see, taste, feel, smell, hear. That's the five senses. Now, come here Brother Williams, just a moment. I don't want to use you as an example of something, but... make you conspicuous, but...

2 Now, there's a man standing before me, that's tall and he has kind of a checked suit on, light. How many believes that's the truth, let's see your hands, everywhere. You believe that's the truth? How do you know that he's standing there? I know he's standing there by only one reason, and that is the sense of sight, says he's standing there. I see him. But now I do not see him, but yet I know he's standing there. Would anyone care to argue with me, and say he's not standing there? Would you try to argue me down? I know he's there, it's impossible for me to see him, but I know he's there, because I have the sense of feeling that tells me he's there. And it's the same man, because his arms are way up. See, I have to reach, he's a big man. It's the same man, and I know he's there because I can feel him, I cannot see him. So seeing is not believing, is it? I believe he's there and yet I cannot see him. And I know he's there just as well as I was looking at him, because I'm contact him by the sense of feeling.

Now, it's impossible for me to feel him now, he's plumb out of my reach. My sense of feeling is inactive, but I know he's there, because I see him. See what I mean? Thank you, Brother Williams. See, so seeing is not believing, feeling is believing sometime, is that right?

Now, little mus--chord on there. [Someone plays the piano--Ed.] There's music. How ba--how man--how many believes that was music? Let's see your hands. All right, now put your hands down. Now, how many seen it? Well, how do you know it was music? I thought seeing was believing. Yet there was music, and you did not see it, yet you believe it, why? You didn't feel it, did you? You didn't smell it. You didn't taste it, but you heard it, is that right?

And all that has hearing, heard that, has the sense of hearing, heard that sound because it was music and you know it. So then seeing is not believing, is it? Certainly not.

3 Now, what is faith? "Faith is the substance (not just the mythical thought), it's the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things you do not see," taste, feel, smell or hear. There's none of the senses declare it, yet the sixth sense, which is faith...

The outside man is governed by five senses: see, taste, feel, smell and hear. The inside man is governed by two senses: either faith or unbelief. If you believe it, it's just as real to you as if any of the natural senses of the body declare it. And truly, these senses of the body can be fooled, but faith is absolutely infallible.

If you go to the court, and you say you was--you saw something happen, an accident. And you were looking through a window, they won't take your word for it, no sir. Your sight sometimes is a double vision, and you can see things that is not. For instance, you go down the road in a hot summer day, or cross the field, and you look and you see a mirage. It looks just like water. Many times on the desert people dying, will run to these throw sand upon, thinking they're bathing water. It's an optical illusion. You look and you see the--the water just as plain as it can be, but it's not water, see. But faith is positive.

Look at Peter, that night when he was rowing in the boat. And he rowed all night, fishing, he had caught nothing. And the next morning... Course any fisherman knows how discouraging that is to--to fish all night and catch nothing. So he had sit down and, on the side of the bank, and washed the net, him and the other fishermen. And Jesus came by and He began to speak. And I can hear Peter say, "Let's pick up this stump and go down, sit down, listen. Man's a little different, He talks different from other men. Let's see what 'bout this here Nazarene, Holy-roller."

So they goes down, sits down, by the--by the side of it, where He was talking, and I see him move up a little closer. And first thing you know, He had borrowed Peter's boat and got in. The crowds begin to press onto Him. And He got out in the boat and begin to teach the people. And after He got through teaching, He told Peter, said, "Now, I want you to launch out into the deep, and let down for the draught."

4 Now, Peter was just not an ordinary fellow had fished one or two nights. He knowed all the signs of fishing; just how the moon's supposed to be, just how the waters are. And they'd fished all night long, and had taken nothing. Now, just think, here it is, I want you to get it. See, they had fished all night, and had taken nothing; and yet Jesus told them to go right straight back to where they'd been fishing and drop down the net, they'd get a whole draught of fish.

Now, if they'd just fished through that water, a hour before, hour after hour, all night long, and had taken not even one fish, how in the world are you going to drop the net down and get a whole bunch of fishes? They're just not running. It just doesn't even look reasonable, sensible.

But Peter said, listen at him, here's what it is, "Lord, we have seined all night and taken nothing. Nevertheless, at Thy Word, I'm going to let down the net." There you are. It's taking God at His Word, not what you feel or taste or--or what this says or that says. It's taking God at His Word. "At Thy Word, Lord, I'm going to let down the net. I don't know how they're going to be there, but If You..." If there wasn't any there and Peter let down the net with faith, believing that God would fulfill His Word, faith will put some there. And it did do it. It did do it. Fish was there.

5 And you say, "Well, Brother Branham, I've been to the doctor. He tells me I can't get well."

The man, maybe he's honest. I believe he would be, I believe any doctor that would have mercy on people. If the man's done all he knows how to do; all the intelligence God give him, he's tried to help you, he's done his part. That's all he can do. Well, he'd say, "You're going to die. There you've got cancer, you've got something, and we've operated and it won't stop it. It's still going on and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't cut any farther, we'd kill you if you cut any farther, so we can't do nothing about it."

But Jesus said, "All things are possible to them that believe."

Then if you can accomplish, or enough faith, get enough faith, not here but here, get enough faith here to believe that you're going to be healed by God. Reason it out and tell Him you're going to serve Him, and all you're going to do, and make your promises to God, and there can be enough faith drop down in your heart, that you believe it with all your heart, soul, and mind that you're going to get well; there isn't enough demons in hell to keep you sick.

"At Thy Word, Lord, I'll let down the net." You might have pulled through every thing, every hole of water, or every doctor's office and every hospital there is in the country. You might have been here, there, other places, trying your best to get well, doing all that you know how to do. But yet, you take God at His Word, no--if the doctors... Doctors are God's servants, and they try to do everything they can. They can only do what they have knowledge to do. All that God's give them knowledge to do. But if they've done all they can do and can do nothing else, and looks like your time is set and yet you can pray and tell God that you're going serve Him, you're going to do something for Him, you're going to help His Kingdom, you're going to make the world a better place, you're going to help His church, you're going to help win souls for Him, and give Him a reason, and then say, "God if You'll heal me upon those--tho--upon that, I'll serve You all the days of my life." And God drops a little faith down there that heart and tells you it's so. No matter what the doctor said, God's Word's so. "At Thy Word, Lord, it's finished." Yes sir, I know that to be the truth.

6 Oh, have faith in God, how that it--the Sovereignty and the--the mercies of God. How that He'll come to us, and we, poor, wormless people, little, old people setting here on a world, like a bunch of jellyfish, and yet we try to take our intelligence and tell God what to do. When He measured...

I was standing not long ago, out at Mount Palomar, in California, looked through a big glass there, that I could see a hundred and twenty million years of light space. Break that down into miles and see how--how many miles, you run a row of nines around Owensboro, to try to break it down in miles, of how many billions and billions and billions of miles. And beyond there is moons, and stars, and worlds, and planets, just on endless; and God made them everyone. And how can we bottle ourself down as a little, bitty, old mind like ourself, to try to say, "Well, God might have said it, but I just can't believe it's so." Oh my, I just take Him at His Word, say It's so, and believe It, make my confession, stand on God's Word, and that settles it.

Some--some time ago, a few years ago, when Mayo Brothers, one of the best clinics in the nation (been interviewed there twice since then), said to me, "It's impossible Reverend Branham, for you ever to get well."

I said, "God, if You'll let me get well, I'll serve You with all my heart," and something anchored down there. Ha, didn't make any difference what Mayos said, I know what God said. And tonight, I'm in better health than I ever was in all my life. I never did weigh, up to that time, over a hundred and twenty eight, I nearly weigh a hundred and sixty tonight.

It just goes to show that... Now the man was honest. I'm not discrediting Mayo Brothers Clinic, no sir. Them men were honest, and they were good men, and they did everything they knowed how to do, but that's all they knowed, it was just the end of their knowledge. But faith has no end. Amen. Oh, I love that, I tell you that takes a wishbone out and puts a backbone in there, that's right. Makes you stand, when you know that God is for you, and He's promised it, and He said He'd do it, and He's good to His Word. If that Word's no good, then there is no God. And if that can't--if I can't trust That, if I can't hang my soul on every phase of that Bible, then It's no good at all. I don't want nothing to do with It. If I was against, if I didn't believe It, I'd be against God tonight. I'd say, "There is no such a thing."

7 But I believe every Word of It is true, and every Divine promise is a seed that will produce just exactly what it said it would do, if you'll take the right mental attitude towards it. Remember this, the right mental attitude towards any Divine promise of God will bring it to pass.

Try it. No "try it", just go do it. If you got enough behind you to push you and say that, "I can do it, and by God's grace, I will do it," then God's with you. But if you just a wishy-washy, "Well, I'll go up and see if they can do anything for me," no.

Here not long ago, there was a man come to my place. He said, "Brother Branham," said, "I went over to" (I believe) "to Brother Cole's meeting," said, "He couldn't do me no good." And said, "I went to Brother Jaggers' meeting," said, "He couldn't do me no good. I went to Brother Roberts' meeting, he couldn't do me no good." Said, "I come to see if you could help me."

I said, "You're going away the same way, see." I said, "You're going to the wrong man." I said, "You're going to man, go to God, Who can help you." I said, "These men are all right, Brother Cole, Brother Roberts, and Jaggers and them brethren, they're fine men and they're--they're godly men; but they are men. Go to Christ, He's the One Who did it. Brother Jaggers never died for you. By Brother Jaggers' stripes you wasn't healed, or Brother Roberts. By Christ's stripes you were healed. They're just men to point you to that, as ministers." I said, "That's all I can do, would point you to..."

And any true Divine gift of God will always recognize the cross is the finished works of God, right there, forever redemption, through redemptive blessing. There's where He was wounded for our transgression. There's where He was bruised for our iniquities. There's where the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. There's is where the stripes healed us. I can say this on the authority of God's Word, that every man and woman in this building tonight, is already healed in the sight of God.

8 By His stripes, we were: were is past tense, is that right, brethren? We were healed. When? Nineteen hundred years ago. Every sinner in the world was forgiven of every sin they ever did, nineteen hundred years ago. Is that right? He's--He's the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, is that right? Then everybody was forgiven back yonder, nineteen hundred years ago, but it'll never do you any good, until you accept it as your personal Saviour. Then when you accept it, Jesus doesn't come and die again for someone, see. He just died once. We accept our--our salvation, that what He--His finished works at Calvary. Then, now by His stripes we were healed. We know He doesn't come down and heal us each time, and we just--at--it takes your own individual faith.

I've heard people talk about gifts of faith--gifts of healing. Sure the Bible speaks of gifts of healing, but what is this gift of healing? A power is being given to a man to heal another? No sir. There's not one man could heal another. Never, in all the medicine we got in the world, never did heal anybody, never will heal anybody. Now, I know you're disagreeing with me, many of you on that, but I want to ask you something. Just look this way, just for a minute, and be reverent.

For instance, what if I cut my hand tonight, there isn't enough medicine in the world to heal that cut in my hand. Any medicine that would heal that knife cut in my hand, would heal a knife cut in my coat, would heal a knife cut on this table. "Well," you say, "Brother Branham, medicine wasn't made for your coat or for the table. It was made for your body."

Well, what if I cut my hand tonight, and I would fall down dead. And they'd embalm my body with a fluid, would make me look natural for fifty years. And let them come everyday, and give me a penicillin shot, sew that up, give me penicillin, keep infections out, which is all right. In fifty years from today, that cut will be just exactly like it was the day it was made there.

"Well," you say, "Certainly, Brother Branham. That's right."

Well, why don't it heal? Why don't penicillin heal it? Why don't the salve and merthiolate and everything else you put it, why don't it heal it? There's not a salve, there's not a penicillin, there's not nothing in the world that'll build tissue. You say, "The life's gone out of your body." That's right. Well then, which--if the medicine is the healer, the medicine would heal regardless, if it's the healer, it don--won't take the life. But life is the healer; and if you'll tell me what life is, I'll tell you Who God is. For God is life. It's life that does the healing.

9 Now, you don't want to discard the medicine, the medicine keeps it clean, while li--God does the healing. If I broke my arm, and would die, and they'd come set my arm, just keep putting splints on it, and lay it there; and forty years from now, that arm would be broke just exactly like it was when it was broke, if the life's gone out of my body. But the doctor sets the bones in places, but God does the healing, life. Amen.

I'm not "amening" myself, but if you won't say it, I will. I--I--I believe, I'm just an old fashion, one of--I--I just an old fashion, backwoods, preacher that believes in old time, heartfelt, sky blue, sin killing religion. That's right. That believes the old fashion way. And I believe that man, when he's born of God, he becomes a son of God, the supernatural power of God dwells in him. We have a supernatural God. We have a supernatural life, we have a... I believe that any man that's born of the supernatural Spirit, believes in the supernatural. We got a supernatural resurrection. We got a supernatural heaven. We'll have a supernatural rapture. I believe the whole thing's built up around supernatural.

And if a man is born of the Spirit of God, he believes in the supernatural. He can't help it, because he's the Son of God. And that's the reason tonight we got so many old, cold, formal, indifferent, God forsaken, backslidden churches, because man and women are not born of the Spirit of God. They have no taste of God. They don't know nothing about God, and all they know is theology. And that's the reason you can't get them to believe a thing. That's exactly right.

10 You got to get the man right in his heart first, before he can believe. He ain't got nothing to believe on. He ain't got nothing to believe with. I'm sure the little, infant brain of a man knows nothing about belief. He's got to have something in there stimulates his faith and makes him look yonder to his Creator, and believes the very God that [Brother Branham makes blowing sound--Ed.] blowed the moon and stars off of His hand can do all things. This world was made by faith. God spoke the world into existence. This very world that we're setting on right tonight, is nothing else but the Word of God materialized. If it didn't, where did He get the material to make it out of?

He said, "Let there be..." And there was. And every Word of God has got to be so. And He's God, and He has to keep His Word. And you take any Divine promise in your heart and say, "That's my personal property. It belongs to me. I am a believer." And accept it on that basis and watch what it'll do. It'll make cancers move. It'll make blind eyes come open. It'll make cripples walk. It'll make deaf hear. I know what I'm talking about, for I put it to a test and to an experience, now for years and years, around the whole world; and the whole world knows about it.

11 But the trouble of it is, that men and women are born in this world, some born to be condemned, and you preach the Gospel, it's just like pouring water on a duck's back. Runs right off, and no--has no effect at all, that's right. The men and women who can grasp the promise of God, and say, "It's my personal property..." Every man that's born of the Spirit of God is give a checkbook by Jesus Christ, with His Name signed on every check. If you're afraid to fill it out, that's your bad luck. That's right.

Brother, anything... Jesus said, "Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, believe you receive it, and you shall have it. Whatever, whatsoever things, if you believe."

If I need healing, I just write out the check, and put it in the deposit and say, "I'm sending it to Calvary." There's where it was paid for, there's where you deposit it. Hallelujah. The first thing you know, the re--blessings will be flowing back and the sickness will be gone. I be well and rejoicing again. Amen.

12 You know what Owensboro needs down here? Is a good old fashion, God sent, Holy Ghost revival; before you can have... that's exactly. And then you can have a healing meeting, exactly right. If--I tell you if this world... America is in one of the most polluted shapes that I ever seen in my life. If there's any place in the world, that this world needs missionaries is the United States of America. An educated heathen's far worse to fool with than an uneducated. What do you think about that Dr. Bosworth? He's done learned, he'll stand, he'll look at the miracles of God, and he'll say, "Well, Dr. So-and-so said that was theology, that was mental telepathy. Well, I believe it's the Devil."

Sit there, puffed up like that, with... No wonder condemnation, no wonder judgment hangs over this nation. Is because you, call--be called by the name of a Christian nation, and rejected the very principles of Christianity. That's exactly right.

13 Billy Graham, not long ago, having a meeting, went into a certain city, and said they had thirty thousand converts. They were chased down thirty days from then, couldn't find thirty converts. The trouble of it is, you're asking people to stand up and "accept Christ as my personal testimony," stand up like that and that's all they know about it; worked up under a little mental tel--enthusiasm. And the next thing you know, it's gone. The only way that man will ever stay, is for him to lay down there and die out to self, and be reborn again by the Spirit of God and filled with the Holy Ghost. Then he's no more his own, God took him over and got full control, and moving in him. Then he can't be nothing else, for God has made a new creature out of him.

That's what's the matter today, we teaching theology and little, old, baby, petty things. They keep referring back to what Moody said, and what A. B. Simpson said. They were good men, but they've lived their day. A hundred fifty years ago, the greatest science in the world was a French scientist, said, "If a man ever made the terrific speed of twenty miles an hour, gravitation would take him off the earth." Why, how nonsense. Science has got him going nine hundred miles an hour, now in a jet plane or something like that, and still taking him farther. He never refers back to them. Moody had a message of his day, Simpson had of his day, Calvin and all the rest of them had it of their day; but this is another day. They were going in an ox cart, we're a jet plane, moving on.

14 Brother, I tell you, untapped resources of God hangs here before us, where all things are possible. It's a shame that men keep looking back this a-way, instead of looking up that way.

Jesus said in St. Matthew the thirteenth chapter, where a sower went forth and sowed the seeds and someone come behind him, a enemy, and sowed weeds. And the--the husbandman said, "Shall I pull them up?"

He said, "Them--let them both grow together. At that day, I'll make the decision. The Angels will come and take out the wheat and so forth. Burn the tares with fire."

Now, we're always talking about how wicked the world is, that's true. How women smoking cigarettes and--and--and men and drinking, and wallowing in slop, and beer and stuff, the way we're doing today and sin on every hand. Churches, and ministers and all, smoking, drinking, gambling, running to parties and picture shows, dances, hell dives, and everything else. We all talk about how wicked that is, you're always looking to that. That's the weed. But let me tell you something, brother, you forget to know that the church is growing up the same time. They're both coming together. The power of the Holy Ghost is come in, killing out sin, making new creatures in Christ Jesus, bringing forth signs, wonders and miracles. Amen.

Guess you think I'm a noisy Baptist, but I'm one Baptist that got the Holy Ghost, yes sir. I believe, brother. I believe what we need's an old fashion, God sent stirring, that's right. We'll never get anywhere till we do it.

I'm thinking here of Brother Bosworth sitting here, there in South Africa where nearly a hundred thousand people gathered out there, and they seen one miraculous turning of God, and thirty thousand was ready to accept Jesus Christ. And one prayer, one prayer, thousands raised to their feet on crippled beds and everything, on beds where they'd been crippled, and cots, and stretchers, and clubs, and piled them up by the carload. One prayer, they'd seen God, Jehovah, moving in His power. That settled it. But...