Fellowship Through The Reconciliation Of The Blood

1 Thank you very much and good evening friends. Certainly a privilege to be here this afternoon in this lovely auditorium packed out with people, worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Kinda a little warm, but we can put up with that, I believe, for a few moments, as we fellowship around His Word, and be a partaker of the sufferings of the cross, the glory of God, and the resurrection that follows the cross.

And now, we are very thankful for the attendance that we've had out at the--the aud--the stadium. It's been certainly a privilege to serve out there these last two nights, the reverence of the people and the attention, undivided attention that the people give. We're so grateful for that. And everything's just going fine.

2 And now, we're hoping this next week, the Lord willing, to have some great services out there with the Lord's blessings on us, as you pray for us. For that's the only way that we can have it, is when you pray. Just one of us praying will help. But when we all pray together, that's when God will go to moving, when we all go to praying. That's His promise. And we know His promises are true.

And we're expecting God to do some great healings out there this week also, healing the people from their sicknesses.

3 Now, that is my ministry is to pray for the sick. And usually the manager of the meeting does the speaking, and I just confine my ministry altogether to praying for the sick. And it makes it better. Of course it--it... I can put more time to it and studying. Walking to the platform and just start praying for the sick is quite a bit different than what it is, when you go there and try to preach a little while, and perhaps an altar call, and then pray for the sick, and line the people up, and other things goes with it.

Usually Sunday afternoons is give to me for a little time of fellowship with the people to kinda relax and rejoice with them. And many times people has thought that I was a complete isolationist, because that I didn't get out among the people. But that--that's wrong, my beloved friend. I love people and fellowship, I guess, as good any person could do it.

But I find this, that if I'm out among the people, I'm away from God. I either have to be a servant of God or a servant to the people. And then, I--I know that all who believe on Him and accept Him, I will have all eternity to fellowship with every one of them.

4 But it's working time now. My father used to say... On Sunday we, all of us boys wanted to go swimming. Through the week, the harvest time was on and so forth. After we'd have all the... pitch hay till plumb dark, then we had to milk the cows, and feed, and so forth. I'd tell Dad, "We won't have any time to go swimming." He said, "You can do that when the harvest time is over." Well, that's right.

And I'm so glad that one day harvest is going to be ended. And then it'll be over. I want to make an appointment with every one of you. You know, I'd like to come out to your house, and visit with you, and enjoy some good old fashion southern cooking. I--I like that. I would like to do that. I can't do it now.

But I will make an appointment with you. After this life is ended, I just want a thousand years with each one of you. So we can just set around. Won't have any less time when that comes. Just set around over there, and set down on the Jacob's well as it was, and rejoice together, and have a lot of time of fellowship. Won't that be wonderful?

5 Just want to walk up to Daniel and say, "Brother Daniel, how did you feel when those lions first started roaring?" And I'd like to say Stephen's when he was stoned, "Just what did it seem like Stephen when you prayed for the forgiveness of your persecutors, when you looked up and saw Jesus standing at the right-hand of God? How did you feel, Stephen?" Many of those we'd like to have fellowship with, wouldn't we? And we will. Just as sure as there is a God of heaven, we will.

6 Now, this afternoon, I'm going to try not to keep very long, because it's hot, and I know you got church service tonight. It's getting late in the afternoon.

And now, I want to speak to you just a little er--we around the Word, fellowship just a little while around the Word of God, for a blessing. And while we do, I want to read a portion of Scripture found in the book of I John and beginning at the 1st chapter and the 5th verse.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.

How marvelous. Let us bow our heads now, while we speak to the Author of this Word.

7 Our heavenly Father, we're grateful today unto Thee, the Author and Finisher of our faith, Who came to the earth and was clothed upon, humiliated in a body made like unto a sinful man's body. There You bore our sickness, our diseases, our sins, in Thy own flesh, and there paid the full price of redemption, that man through believing on Thy great death, the supreme Sacrifice, might be reconciled back into fellowship with God again.

And some glorious day in the near future, that these vile bodies of ours will be changed and made like unto His own glorious body. For we shall see Him as He is. And it has not yet appeared just what we shall be at the final end, but we know that we will have a body like His. For we shall see Him as He is.

Oh, how we long today, seeing sickness gripping on every hand, sin, heartache, trouble... This old pesthouse, we get homesick once in a while, to get out of it all. But while we're journeying, our loved ones are here, many of them alienated from Thee without hope, without God, without mercy. And we love to speak to them about a loving kindness.

Won't You come today Father, and join in with us and circumcise the lips that speak and the ear to hear. And may we have fellowship around the Word. For we ask it in His Name. Amen.

8 Speaking just for a few moments. I believe I stand a little too close to this. It has a terrible voice.

Going back to the Word... I love the Word. For after all, that's where we said last night that faith takes its solemn basis, its stand is on the Word.

Now, someone might come in and say, "Well, I seen this happen or that happen." But yet, if it has no Scriptural background, we just can't hardly believe that it's true. But when we find THUS SAITH THE LORD, that settles it to me. When God said so, that is where it is eternally true. And we love the Word.

9 Now, there's... The greatest thing that we mortals can have is fellowship. And I want to speak on "Fellowship Through The Reconciliation of the Blood" this afternoon, if God's willing just for a little short time.

My boy and some of my associates has been telling me about the meeting. Of course it all becomes a subconscious condition to me after anointing comes on. I know maybe some of you Methodist brethren and Presbyterian and so forth, it may seem like, "Oh, I believe Brother Branham, now that's a little fanatically." Well, it would to me, if I didn't know any different. That's... But when it becomes a reality, when... If you only stood in the tracks, you'd know it was real, coming from God.

10 Last two weeks--three weeks ago it is now in Chicago, we had a great meeting in an auditorium about like this. Or it's been a little longer than that, it was on a... I don't know just the date it was. Anyhow, there was a Catholic priest's son, not a Roman, but an Orthodox Catholic priest. His son was converted in the meeting. And he was...

That night the manager closing of the service, we was out for a little time of fellowship. And he had just gave his life to the Lord Jesus. And he said, "Oh, if I could just have a few moments of fellowship." And he wanted to tell me a story. And he come from Greece. His father, being a priest, in the Grecian Catholic church...

He had another man with him that had brought him all the way from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he runs a chain of restaurants. And this man lived down in Illinois. And he told a story of how he come to get saved. This man was an architect, built great sky scrapers across the nation.

11 And he said that his friend from over somewhere around Moline, Illinois, called him and said, "John, I want you to meet me at the station. I'm coming in. I want to go down to where Brother Branham is having a campaign. I want to ask him if he will pray for my little girl who's dying with rheumatic fever of the heart. The doctors has give her up." Well, he said...

He told me, said, "I seen the piece in the paper, and I thought it was just a bunch of fanatics." Said, I said, "Well, wonder what he's doing going to a meeting like that."

So he said he met him, and he said, "Well, he'd never seen us, but he's read the book. And he had the neighbors over there, and one of them had been born deaf and dumb. They'd been brought to the meeting and was speaking and hearing, from a mute school." And said, "I thought, maybe, if I go to talk to the man he might pray for my little girl."

12 So he got... After he met his friend, why, they, the man, his friend was the one who builds the sky scrapers. They come down into the city, and said, "Well, it's some school." Said, "We can just take our time." Said, "School auditorium." Said, "It's a big one, that seats several thousand people. So I guess we have plenty of room. So we will just take our time." Said, "Probably there'd be fifty to seventy-five people there, that'd be about all." Said, "Most of the people that hang around such as that, is Pentecostals and holy-rollers and so forth."

But he said when he got to the grounds, he couldn't even get on the school grounds let alone in the building. The people were out into the streets. But said they made their way through, up till they got in the door. The book-man standing there, he said, "We want to speak to Brother Branham."

He said, "Well, that's him on the platform praying for the sick now."

Said, "Well, I'd like to speak to him about my girl."

He said, "You can't do it." Said, "Because already a praying." He said, "There's no way at all to seeing him." Said, "You'd have to go through the manager and so forth. And during the time of the meeting, they don't permit people to do that." Said, "Just write your request out, and hand it to one of the ushers, and they'll probably get it back to the manager, and manager get it over to him."

Said, "My, so that's the way it is, huh?" So he was very much disappointed. So he said to his friend, said, "Well, let's just come down along the aisle as far as we can."

13 The fire marshal wouldn't let no more stand in the aisles. So he said, "Let's move along here a little bit." About a seventy-five yards from where I was.

So one of the ushers, he gave him the slip, said, "Give this to where he can get to it."

He said, "Well, I won't be able to see him now till after the meeting, see the manager." So he took the little slip. And the usher said, "Why don't you pray?" Said, "Stand there and pray."

Said, "Well, I've prayed for about two weeks, and my baby is dying."

Said, "Well, just keep on praying."

14 So the man stood there, and he begin to notice the Holy Spirit coming out into the audience and telling certain peoples certain things. While he heard me make a few remarks, he said, "Lord Jesus, if that be of You, then let the man speak to me." Said he no more as got it out of his mouth till I turned around and said, "The two gentlemen standing there in the aisles, one of them's from Moline, Illinois. His name is so-and-so. Said, "He come here about his child." Said, "He's got a little girl who's dying with rheumatic fever in the heart. She's in the hospital. But 'THUS SAITH THE LORD,' return, God's healed your child." Said he looked around to his buddy, and his buddy looked at him. Said they stood there a few minutes.

Said his buddy said to him, said, "What do you think of it?"

Said, "I believe I will find my girl well."

Well, he said, "Well, if it does, you let me know about it, will you?" He said, "The man's just reading minds. That's all there is to it."

He said, "I--I don't believe that." Said, "How'd he read my mind back there, and I wasn't even thinking about those things. Hear him call people's sins and things, when they don't... They're not thinking of those things that they done thirty years ago and things."

He said,"Well..." Said he put him on the train that night at ten o'clock, and he got in the next morning about six. And couldn't go the hospital that time of the morning. So, he went upstairs and went to bed, he said. Got up at about 9:30 or ten o'clock and went out to the hospital. He met the doctor, the physician standing in the office. Said, "Well, Doc, how's the child?"

Said, "You better go get her. I can't do nothing with her." Said he went upstairs, and she was pillow fighting with the kids around over the place.

Said, "She's been well ever since."

And he said, "I come to give my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ." Said, "I criticized it." There you are. Saving souls, that's the main thing.

The man wanted just a little time of fellowship to say thanks for the prayer. I said, "I didn't even pray, brother. It was your faith that did it."

15 Now, fellowship. Man wants... The greatest fellowship that man could ever have is fellowship with Christ. I love to meet men. Men, we all love to fellowship with all one another, sometimes go out and have a bite to eat. The neighbor women talked across the fence, coming around having little parties where they meet together, fellowship.

But the greatest fellowship that any mortal can know is when he's in the blessed Presence of Almighty God. No fellowship could take its place.

At one time man had perfect fellowship with God. That was God's purpose. That's the reason it's a crave in your heart, is a longing for something, a contact.

16 I've ministered in many heathen nations where people didn't even know which is right and left hand. But I never seen a human being in my life, regardless of how far back, how primitive he may be but what he worshiped something. He will worship the sun. He will worship the wind. He will worship the stars. He will make an image of something. Because it's just in him. It's an instinct to worship, have fellowship. Then it's our duties to take even the message of the living God.

In the beginning when God made man in His own image, put him in the garden of Eden. He had a perfect fellowship. In the late of the afternoon, the evening time when the twilights was falling, I can see the great Jehovah come across the top of the palm trees and the roaring of the thunder, when Adam and Eve gathered out there in the great open air cathedral and worshipped God, had fellowship, talked with Him.

The lion, the tigers all coming up around in perfect harmony. Wouldn't that be a wonderful place to live, abiding place where there's no sickness, no sorrow, no way of ever being upset? Everything's in perfect harmony, God in harmony with His creature and the creature in harmony with his Maker. What a perfect time, a complete fellowship. That's the way God intended it.

17 But then when man begin to sin he separated himself from his fellowship with his Maker. Sin is what separates him. As that--that's the truth which we believe it is. The Bible only speaks the truth. And if that's the truth, then if there is some preparation made for sin, then man through that preparation can come back in perfect fellowship and harmony with his Maker again. You believe it? That's right.

We can only find the way. That's... We want to find the remedy.

18 Not long ago I was in Greece, Athens, Greece. I was looking at a--in a room practically the size of this one. The Grecian artist was supposed to paint the picture of the creation. Such a horrible thing, how wicked hearts of sinful man can disguise our--the picture that that man painted of our father and mother, Adam and Eve. Eve standing there a brute looking. My, she was a horrible looking thing. There stood Adam looked like some prehistoric animal, hairs was out of his nose way out like that, and his jaw setting sideways, and big tusks hanging down like an animal.

That's the kind of a thought that a man without Christ can think of God's creation. But a man that's ever borned again knows that God does nothing imperfect. He does all things well.

19 I think that Adam and Eve was the most perfect couple that ever walked on earth. I can see Adam in his, not a great shoulders like some barn doors, but a perfect built man, Eve, beautiful. I can see her now, as when... She woke up after the operation from Adam, and he looked at her. Her beautiful hair hanging down her back, her eyes sparkle like the stars above. Adam touching her by the flesh, and said, "She's flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone." Beautiful, never to fade out. Those lips, they wouldn't have to use this here manicure or what the stuff you put on your face now to make themself look pretty. Sin caused you to do that. God made it perfect.

I can see that she hung onto his arm, and they walked through the great gardens of God: perfect, perfect in love. No harm or danger could ever come near them. Then to see the enemy pervert that thing into a regular mess like we're in today. Just a few years bringing gray hairs, wrinkled face, funeral processions, hospitals screams. That's the devil that did that.

20 Now, when God had them in His perfect control, they walked with Him and talked with Him in the garden. But as soon as he lost his fellowship with God, he become a wanderer, wandering around, no place to go, tossed about. That's the way a man becomes today.

Here it is, now listen. When a man comes out of fellowship with God, he becomes a wanderer, going about joining one church and leaving that one and joining another. They don't satisfy him here; he goes over to the Methodist; from Methodist he goes to Baptist, and to the Pentecostal, to the Pilgrim Holiness, from place to place, wandering about, because he's lost fellowship, fellowship with God.

You refuse a church of this and a church of that, maybe it's you. Just find fellowship and anywhere is home sweet home, as long as you have fellowship with the Lord. Amen. That's kinda hard, but that's good. That--that kinda straighten you up, get...?... There's more vitamins in that, than all the drugs stores there is in the city's got. Amen.

Give you joy, peace, understanding, confidence when you have fellowship with the Lord.

21 I can see them after they had sinned. Man in his primitive condition there after fall. He wants to find himself a way of escape. He wants to make it himself.

Just like they do yet today. The very strain of it there shows that it's still on man. He sewed himself a fig leaf apron. Put one on Eve and thought that when God came down and called him, that he would be able to stand in the Presence of God with a homemade apron. But it didn't work. When he found out that he had to stand before God, he found out that the apron would not work. Because he made it himself, and any handmade creed will never stand in the Presence of God.

We've tried to substitute education for fellowship. Get a bunch of people that's educated together, think that education will bring fellowship. Education, I say this: Education has been the greatest hindrance that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has ever had. That sounds strange, but it's the truth.

22 Not long ago when Captain Al Farrar, one of the head of the FBI's was converted in my meeting after following for two years, taken it down in the great dungeon and so forth and showed me those young ladies and so forth in a revolving pens in around.

He said, "Reverend Branham, made a remark not long ago about education." Said, "It's the truth ninety percent of them in there is out a fine educated people." They get so smart they think they can outdo the law. But just a common old boy, he's afraid of the law and he brings him to discipline.

People get to a place that they can figure all about it, and God ain't got nothing do with it. They think they can get by with anything. But he that feareth the Lord shall learn righteousness.

So back they've tried to substitute education for fellowship. They've tried to substitute denominations, as good as it may be. Education's all right in its place. Denominations is all right in its place.

Membership, they've tried to substitute membership. Membership is all right in its place, but it'll never take the place of fellowship of the Son of God.

23 Notice it now. Then when they realized that they had sinned and gone away from God. God had had to kill some animals, perhaps a sheep. Because Christ was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. And when he killed the lambs, and or sheep, and throwed back the skin to Adam and Eve, they covered themselves in the skins and stood in the Presence of God to receive their judgment and their eternal destination.

Couldn't stand no other way; God couldn't look upon them without a covering. And God can't look upon you without a covering. And a covering in that day was blood. And that's the same covering today.

And I'm afraid that we Full Gospel people are getting a little too far off our track now, when we leave that out. Come back.

24 Years ago I used to come to the Full Gospel meetings and how the people acted, and then it was so much different. Now, I'm not here... You got preachers that preach to you. I come for the healing service. But I used to notice when I went to--no more than a few years ago. I used to see the ladies coming to the Full Gospel meetings with long hair, dressed modestly. And today they got bobbed hair. It was a sin then; they got all kind of paste and make-up and all kinds of stuff. What's the matter? Christ hasn't changed. Something's wrong; something happened. If it was wrong then, it's wrong now.

What we need today is an old fashion Saint Paul's revival and the Bible, Holy Ghost preached back in the church with old time conviction, men and women coming to the Lord through the shed Blood, a reconciliation, reckon themselves dead. Won't be so much fashion put on.

25 Used to go to a place the old Methodist preacher; he used to sing a little song. Old Brother Kelly, back home he said, "We let down the bars. We let down the bars. We compromised with sin. We let down the bars. The sheep got out. But how did the goats get in?" You let down the bars. That's plain.

Yes! What we need today is some good strict Bible preaching, teaching, back to the old hewing lines the shed blood. God laid out the world the map for the human family to come home, and it was through reconciliation of the Blood. He's never changed from that day to this.

Some say, "I belong to the Methodists. I belong to the Pentecostal. I belong to this." That doesn't mean a that much to God. You got to be born again. You got to come and recognize the Blood of Jesus Christ was shed for you, and you're dead to yourself and to the things of the world, and born anew in Christ Jesus, by the washing and renewing of the--by the blood.

Amen. Pretty straight, but brother, it's the truth. That's not for the church...?... to the old fashion way...?... We got too much Hollywood evangelism. You know that's the truth.

26 Out across the nation today you go to a place where there'll be Full Gospel peoples... I was here not too long ago to a meeting, the man dismissed...?... three times...?... Ladies on the platform were all saintly they said. Fellow introduced me to his wife, and oh, I ain't... I'm not here to criticize; I'm here to tell the truth. And the woman was the piano player and she looked like a Hollywood star with all the manicures, and make-ups, and things. I told him, "Is she a saint?"

Said, "Yes."

I said, "She looked to me like a haint." I said... "Don't look..."

27 Listen brother, we're just six foot of dirt, and it's too bad that we got these things back into the church. What we need is a cleaning up, coming out. Amen. Come through the Blood wash. She was just taken in. Come through the Blood, and you'll have fellowship. God's dear Son, look what...?... reconciling it back to God and you're act like you should.

Now, you can't do it without coming to Christ first. You can't tell a pig he's wrong eating slop till you change his nature. No matter how much you wash him up. See? You've got to get his nature right. And your nature's got to be changed from sin. Amen.

There pleading Adam, Eve standing in the Presence of God. He pronounced the judgment. He said, "Because you listened to your wife in the stead of God. I taken you from the dust, and dust you shall return." Said to wife, "Because you listened to the serpent instead of your husband, you taken life out of the world and you'll have to bring it in, and multiply your sorrows, and so forth. Serpent, upon your belly you'll go, and dust shall be your meat, thorns and thistles and so forth."

28 Then I can see a dramatic thing. I can see him departing out of the Presence of God. And as he started walking away there, what a condition. If it hadn't been through the shed blood, we'd all been gone. But God reckoned Adam's sin by the shedding of an innocent substitute.

You Methodists, try a little of that in your church. And you Baptists, and you Pilgrim Holiness, and all the other different ones. Christ, take Christ. Then you'll find out that these great mysterious things that's beginning to appear won't be so mysterious to you.

How can you know of God, unless God's in the heart. Man can only know Him when he calls for something. David said, "When the deep calleth to the deep..." If there's a deep in here calling there's got to be a deep to respond to it." Before there's a fin on a fish's back, there had to a water first for him to swim in to use that fin, or he wouldn't have had no fin. Before there was a tree to grow in the earth, there had to an earth first.

29 Hear sometime ago, I read where a little baby boy eat the erasers off of a pencil, eat the rubber off of a bicycle pedal. They took him to the laboratory to find out what was the matter with him, or at the clinic, rather. They found out his little body needed sulfur. And sulfur was in the rubber.

Now, before there could be a crave for sulfur, there had to be a sulfur out there to respond to that crave. And before there can be a de--if there's a desire in a human heart for more of God, there's got to be more of God somewhere to find. If a man believes in Divine healing and knows that God is a Healer, there's got to be a fountain open somewhere. For there's got to be a deep to respond to every desire. Amen.

What we need today is an old fashioned breaking up, Cleaning out the ice box and the beer and all the fandangle things, and throw the cards off the table, and an old fashioned prayer meeting back and getting...?... back arms of the living God. That's what we need today.

America needs, it's the only remedy. God's never give another remedy in the education. All these other things will never never be recognized until you come through the blood. Takes the blood to do it.

30 Perfect fellowship, Job had it, just man. Look what a fellowship he had. When he came in the Presence of God our God... Satan came up before God rather with the sons of God. Say, "Where you been?"

Said, "Walking to and fro and up an down on the earth."

Said, "Have you considered my servant Job, a just man, a perfect man? There's none like him in the earth. " What's God saying? Job, his servant, was perfect. We've all read of the trials of Job. How that he went through the distressed times. Oh I just love to read of him.

One year I was staying out... I preached the book of Job. Taking me about a year and a half to get through it. When I got him over him on the ash heap. I kept him there for about six or eight weeks. One of the members of my congregation, she didn't want to hurt my feelings but she wrote me a letter.

Said, "Brother Branham, when you ever going to get Job off the ash heap?"

31 I had him out there. That was the crucial moment of Job's life. He looked over and he seen flowers go back to the dust of the earth, Job 14. And a flower died. They had a regular procession for it. Frost hits it and kills the little fellow, bows its little head, the petals drop off, seed drops out.

Then they have a funeral procession in the sky. The clouds come over in the fall of the year, and rain down the teardrops that buries the little seed. It lays beneath the ground. The frost gets into the ground freezes several inches deep. Through the run of the winter, the little seed swells, freezes, bursts open; the pulp runs out.

When spring comes along, the petal's gone; the leaf's gone; the stalk's gone; the seed's gone; the pulp's gone. Everything that can be seen of the little seed is gone. The flower is finished, as far as man is concerned. But just let the warm sunshine rise over the little eastern horizon, begin to bathe the ground. Somewhere hid in that dust is a germ of life. That little flower will live again. And if God made a way for a flower to live again, what about a man that's made in his own image?

32 Here sometime ago an old Methodist preacher and I was having a little fellowship around some ice cream. The agriculture hour come on at Louisville on the radio in a little confectionery where we were at. And we were setting on some stools talking about the Lord, very good old brother born again.

And it said the little 4-H club had perfected a--a machine that would turn out grains of corn just as perfect as they did when they was growed in the field. Said take one handful out of the sack that the machine perfected and take a handful out of the sack that was growing in the field, there no difference in them at all. One would make just as good a corn bread as the other one would. Just as good a cornflakes, any ingredient. Cut them open in the laboratory, mix them together. Cut them open in the laboratory. Each one had the same amount of moisture, calcium, everything that goes into it was in every grain.

Said the only way you could tell the difference was bury them. And the one that the machine produced would never come up again. But the one that God growed had germ of life, and it'll raise again. I said, "Brother Kelly, take me by the hand, 'cause I will embarrass you here."

For I know this one thing, man may go to church and impersonate Christianity, act like Christianity, pay his tithes, and so forth, and live a good life in the community. But except that man's born again, he will never raise in the resurrection; he's lost. Amen. How God has made a way of escape for those who long to accept it.

33 Now, I want you to notice closely. Job then in all of his distress setting out there. Church members come and turned their back to him for seven days. Little later, about any man that come to him and said, "Job, you're a secret sinner. You've done something wrong. You've sinned secretly."

Job knew he had not sinned, because he come upon the basis of God's Word. He come upon the basis of the shed blood, knowing that God required a blood sacrifice. And blood was what Job offered, knowing that God could not refuse it. The whole picture is a perfect revelation.

34 In the garden of Eden... Many people today... Now, this may hurt just a little bit. But many people today thinks if they go to church, and worship the Lord, and pay in to the church, that that's good enough. Brother, God will be unjust to receive such a person.

In the garden of Eden after they was stricken, threw out. The first child was born was Cain. The second one was Abel. And when they both realized they were mortal, they tried to find favor with God. Both of them come to the east side of Eden to the gates where the Cherubim was with the sword of fire. And both boys built an altar to the Lord. That's a church.

If only belonging to church is all God requires of a sinner, to do penance, belonging to the church, God would be unjust to--to receive Abel and to reject Cain. Both of them had a church.

35 Then not only that, but Cain come and offered a sacrifice. If sacrifice was all that God requires, He'd be unjust to condemn Cain. Not only that, but Cain was not a infidel. Cain was a believer. He was trying to find reconciliation. And Cain knelt down humbly, raised up his hands and worshipped the Lord. He was not a communist; neither was he an infidel. He was a believer. But he didn't have the spiritual revelation.

And when Abel came... I can imagine seeing Cain decorate the altar, fine lilies and making it pretty, all "dolled up" as we call it. That's the way people think today. If they can build a great big church, that'll outshine the rest of them, plush the seats, put a ten thousand dollar pipe organ in it, and a crucifix all around it and all over it, they think that God will be pleased with it. God ain't pleased with the works of the hands of man. They're shifting sands.

36 Notice, there Cain decorating his altar, making it look pretty, thought he'd find favor with God. And he knelt down and worshipped God. If that spirit don't live today, why doesn't it? Look at it around the world.

Now, notice, but when Abel came, there was no beauty about his offer. He took a little grapevine, I guess. 'Cause they didn't have any hemp in that day as I know of. So he made a grapevine rope, and put it around the little old lamb's neck, and begin to pull him up to the altar, laid him up on the rock, pulled his little head back, took a sharp rock; I guess they didn't have a lance, begin to chop his little throat.

37 And if anybody ever heard a...?... or how those little fellows cried when they were dying... Did you ever hear a little sheep, a lamb dying? The most pitiful bleat that you ever heard. And his hands of Abel bathed with the blood, as he chopped his throat. And the little fellow bleating, bleating.

He couldn't speak English so he must have been speaking in tongues. But what it spoke of was some four thousand years later, when the Lamb of God hung on the cross in His wool over...?... all bathed over in a blood, dying without a friend on earth. God looked down to Abel, and said, "That's justification." And he was just in the sight of God. Why? Because it was spiritual revelation. He had nothing else to go by, but spiritual revelation.

38 Jesus promised the disciples when they come off the mountain. Said, "Who does man say I, the son of man, am?"

"One of them said You're Moses, and the other one You're Elias. And some said you're Jeremiah."

He said, "Who do you say I am?"

Peter standing right out said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

He said, listen, "Blessed art thou Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to you. You're never learned it in a seminary. You never learned it by any man. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father which is in heaven has revealed this to you."

Now, the Catholic church said, "It was upon Peter the confession was made." The Protestant church said it was Christ, the Rock, that He'd built His church. But if you'll notice closely it was neither one. It was a spiritual revealed truth of God to Peter that Jesus was the son of God.

And the Bible said, "No man can call Jesus, "the Christ," only by the Holy Ghost." Amen. "Upon this rock, He said, I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will build My church upon the spiritual revealed truth." Amen. By sovereign grace God calls His men and reveals Himself. Amen.

39 That's what Macon needs today. Not only Macon, but every city in the United States and the world over, needs a spiritual revelation of the resurrected power of the Lord Jesus Christ. It'll stop juvenile delinquency, make these broken homes reunited again. It'll make this country so dry that bootleggers would have to be primed thirty minutes to get enough moisture to spit.

I'm telling you what we need today is not social affair, but a Gospel that's preached in the power and the demonstration of the Holy Ghost. Back to a fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Why, I feel religious right now. Amen. Oh, to think that we have this great plan of salvation.

Job, after being a prophet, knowing that his soul was clear before God... No matter how much they accused him; he knew he was innocent. And Job offered the sacrifice, the burnt offering. The only way he had of fellowship with God. But seemingly, God had turned His back on Job. But he knew he hadn't sinned and his stayed anyhow.

40 Oh, I hope you'll get that. Every man that comes to God must first be tried. Trials, tribulations goes into category of a Christian. God don't promise a flower bed of ease. To every one of you that accept your healing, look to the devil to be right there to put whatever torment to you he can. For everyone that comes must first be tried.

Job knew the sacrifice was laid out there. He offered it through the shed blood, God's only way of reconciliation for sinners. He offered it to God, and he knew that he was just in doing so. No matter which way the waves turned, Job stood pat.

There you are. That's the way you do it. No matter what Miss Jones said, and Miss Job either one. Didn't bother him. He knew he was--he was in the line of reconciliation. He offered God's provided sacrifice, the lamb.

41 Even his wife turned against him setting out on this ash heap scraping himself with a--of the boils that was on him. His children was all killed, and his sheep gone. Everything looked like had happened to him, but still Job stayed right there. And his wife come out, said, "Job, why don't you curse God and die?"

He said, "Thou speakest like a foolish woman."

Now, he never said she was foolish; said she spoke like one. Said, "You speak like a foolish woman. The Lord gave, the Lord taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord." There you are.

42 Then down from the east came the little Prince Elihu, representative of Christ. Wish we had time to go into the Name of "Elah" and so forth. Show you that it was a representative of the Lord Jesus. He came to Job, and He corrected him.

He said, "Now, Job, look you're thinking looking at the flowers how they go into the dust and they come back, a tree falls down, it comes back." But he said, "Man layeth down here, he giveth up the ghost. He wastes away. Where is he? His sons come to mourn, give him honor, but he perceive it not." Said, "You're looking at all of that, Job." But said, "Yet you're just because you've offered the right provided way. You've come to God through fellowship. You've offered the slain beast. And you're righteous, Job." And he said, "Now, those flowers never sinned, neither did the tree sin. But man sinned and he separated himself; that's the reason he don't come up in the springtime." But he said, "Job, listen, there is coming One, a just One, Who can stand in the breach between a sinful man and a holy God, and place His hand on each one and make reconciliation."

43 Job, being a prophet, he got in the Spirit. That's the only way you going to get anything anyhow is when you get in the Spirit. Got in the Spirit. The power of God come on him. He foresaw the coming of the Lord. He raised on his feet; he shook himself. The thunders roared, the lightnings flashed.

Job said, "I know my Redeemer liveth. And at the last days He will stand on the earth. Though the skin worms destroys this body. Yet in my flesh shall I see God, Whom I shall see for myself, mine eyes shall behold, and not another."

44 We brought nothing into the world and it certain we taken nothing out. What did he see? He saw that the lamb that he slayed represented the coming of the just One. And if Job could have that kind of faith in that day upon the shadow of the Son of God. What ought we to do who come into His Presence through the reconciliation of His own death and blood? Amen.

There, he had perfect fellowship and God restored him back twofold all he ever lost. The only place that Israel had, the only place that God ever promised to meet sinners is under the Blood, not under the church, now, not under the denomination. They're all good, but under the blood.

What I'm trying to think here, friends, what I'm trying to get to you is this: Not to say you don't need to belong to a church; you do. But just belonging to the church is not enough. It's got to be a deep consecrated God given Spirit of Life in you. You just can't do it on basic fellowship with the people. You've got to have fellowship with Christ. You've got to be borned again. You've got to come under the Blood.

45 In the blood cell alone lays the life. Christ first formed a little teeny life. He was enhoused in a blood cell. But when a cruel Roman spear broke that blood cell on Calvary, then Christ was loosed, the Holy Spirit. And now, the only way that you can ever come into Christ is through that broken blood cell, through the power of God to cleanse your soul from sin and bring you into a fellowship. The only way you can do it...

Then, you've got Everlasting Life and can't come into condemnation, because you've passed from death unto Life.

46 Notice, Israel wherever they was, they had only one place of fellowship. That was under the blood. When a man come to be reconciled to God. The first he had to come into the tabernacle. That was a place where the bodies of the beast was slain. That's where the blood was on the altar and the only meeting place that Jehovah promised to meet the people, under the shed blood: the only place He ever did meet people, and the only place He ever will meet people.

Someone said thousands of times, "Brother Branham, what does it mean when you feel your own life move away from you and something sets in, takes its place?" Why it's a fellowship. It's marvelous. You know that you're not yourself any more. You've got yourself completely surrendered to God. And it's not you talking. It's Him talking. It's not you could do anything, but you're so happy to know that He is a doing it. And it's such a love about it, till you just can't contain your joy hardly. To know that God is doing something for the people.

47 And how can you have fellowship with God when you can't have fellowship with one another? When churches are different, when fussing, and quarreling, and arguing just with churches, how can we expect to love God when we can't love each other? I think it's a time that the all the barriers should be broke down, and we should all be one together, one great unit.

Notice, when Israel come in to the shed blood. The animal was taken up to the altar, was washed at the laver. The sinner placed his hands upon the lamb, his throat was cut. Where the lamb... The blood was sprinkled, and the man went out reconciled through the shedding of the blood. But every time he sinned, he had to come offer a new lamb. And there was a sin offering once a year. He that trespassed that died without mercy.

48 Now, if he'd have--sin had been committed twice in a year, no matter if he was a mayor of the city, if he was a king, whoever he was, he was stoned without mercy.

Now, in the case of Christ, the Lamb. If we once put our hands upon His head and confess our sins as wrong, and He accept us, what a sorer punishment it would be to do despite to the works of grace, and to count the covenant of the Blood wherewith we was sanctified an unholy thing.

But in that day, he went back with the same kind of a feeling he had when he come in. Now, this may pinch just a little bit to some of the brethren. Listen. The reason the man went out after offering the lamb's blood... Maybe he went out and murdered. He went out with the same murdering spirit in his heart, though he was reconciled for he was offered the blood.

But he went out with the same spirit in his heart. Maybe he committed adultery; he went out with the same spirit in his heart, because the blood of this animal... The life was in the blood. But the animal life trying to answer for a human life, it would never do it.

49 But when a man correctly one time comes in and lays his hands upon the head, by faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, and confesses his sins, then the Blood of Jesus Christ... The Life that was in that was God Himself. And that man, the life that returns to that man after he has confessed his sins and accepted Christ, he's brought into a relationship with Christ by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and there's no more desire in his heart to sin. Amen.

That's the reason Hebrews 10 said, "For the worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sin." There you have fellowship. The things of the world is dead. You don't recognize it no more. You reckon yourself dead, and your life is hid in God through Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit. And then you're looking to the heavenly things.

Used to be, you couldn't hardly set in church ten minutes. But when you really got the Holy Spirit, you can set in church day and night, for there's something in you feeding. The trouble today people has worldly spirits. They go to church.

50 Here sometime ago, I was working for a utility company. And I went down to tell the lady that she hadn't paid her light bill, and they was going to come turn the services off, if she didn't pay it. And I went down to the door, and knocked on the door, and there was a little girl come to the door, a little woman about eighteen twenty years old, about enough clothes on to wad a musket. And she come to the door, and she said, "Oh, you're from the light company." Said, "Mother told me to take the bill in a few days ago."

And I said, "Yes, ma'am."

And she said, "Well wait, I will get the money for you."

I said, "Thank you."

She said, "Can you take it for me?"

I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She started across the floor, and there was some kind of an old worldly crazy music come on of some old fiddler. You know sawing, that in that kind of a music out, of some kinda little old song that's worldly. And she was going... started playing it real fast like the devil does. And so she started across the floor, and that girl forgot I was even in the... around the place.

She started across the floor dancing around hollering, "Toodley, toodley, toodley." All around the floor, some kind of a bugs, and jitterbugs, and all other kind of rumble mumbles. And all ungodly things you ever heard of. And there she was u--upon the floor doing that. And directly she looked around.

I stood I thought, "Well, that poor kid." I thought, "My, she is really fully sold out." So I looked at her. I thought, "Well, she's nothing but a kid. That's a shame." So after while she looked... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]

"I didn't. I forgot about you being at the door." She got the money, come to the door. She said, "I just love to dance so well."

I said, "Yes, ma'am. I see that."

So she got down when this man said they was going to have some kind of an old--kind of a dance out at some kind of a greenbrier patch or something. She got down throwed him a kiss through the radio. She said, "Good-bye deary." Said, "I will be right there to see you."

I thought, "You're sure will too. There's no one at all to keep you away from it." No, sir.

51 I went on up a fine church in our city, great church, Doctor Brown, the pastor, a fine friend of mine. I was coming down a pole; I'd been taking down some old secondaries. And I was coming down the pole. Dr. Brown come over. He said, "How are you, Billy?"

I said, "Just fine."

He said, "You still having good crowds up at the Tabernacle?"

I said, "Wonderful."

He said, "Billy, you know since I been in this town." He said, "The other week," said, "I sent out." Said, "There's sixteen, I mean at least six thousand... Said, "I got six thousand members of this church around here somewhere." And said, "I sent out cards to make them people pledge that they'd come to prayer meeting at least six months out of the year." And said, "You know how many responded to those six thousand cards?"

I said, "No."

He said, "Two."

52 So I was down there one time at a meeting where they had a ministerial association met. I'm a member of it. And he got down there at the platform. He said, "Now, we got the best fiddler there is in the country. Not a--not one of the best, but the best." And this sounds shocking, but you know what they played in a pulpit? "Turkey In the Straw." Yes.

They said, "We've got the best quartet there is in the country is going to sing for us. A great church at Sellersburg just above us. You know what they sang? "Home On the Range." Why, I thought the thing was going to fall in. Why, I got up and went out. I was excommunicated for doing so.

But look, I said, "Dr. Brown..." I told him the story about that little old half naked girl. I said, "Do you think Mr. Mac Mitchum is going to have to sign a card to make that woman pledge that she will come to that dance tonight?"

Said, "No."

I said, "Why? 'Cause it's in her heart. Her soul feeds on that kind of stuff." Let me see what kind of music you listen to. Let me see what kind of literature you read. I can tell you what you're made up out of. That's right.

53 There, I said, "No, she would go if she had to pawn her shoes to go." I said, "If you'd have an old fashion altar call down there in the church and get those people filled with the Holy Ghost. When that church rings the bell, you'll not have to sign any cards. They'll come anyhow. That's right.

Why? You can't join things and fellowships like that. It's got to be the Blood of Jesus Christ bring you into fellowship with Christ, the only way. My, how we could talk all evening on these things, but friends, listen to this. You'll never never know what perfect satisfaction is.

You may be tossed about to and fro, joining churches, running trying to seek this, that, and the other. Every time a little something new happens here, you go to a new light, a new something.

Why don't you just come to Christ and settle the whole thing? Once borned again, that settles it forever. Once borned of the Spirit of God, you have Everlasting Life and cannot come into condemnation, but passed from death to Life. Then you can enjoy yourself. Then it's a pleasure to pray. You don't have to wonder about whether God's going. When you kneel to pray, you're right in His Presence. When you're walking on the streets, you're right in His Presence. Wherever you are, you're in His Presence all the time, for you have perfect fellowship with the Son of God.

54 What a marvelous victorious life. Halfway life is the most miserable thing there is. And by the way, there's no such a thing as a halfway Christian. You never seen one. You never will.

Did you ever see a black white bird at the same time? Did you ever see a drunk sober man? You never did see a sinner saint. You're either a sinner or a saint. You're on one side of the fence. If you're borned again, you're saved. If you're not borned again, you're outside of Christ, without hope, without God in the world. God's made preparations for you to be saved.

55 He's made everything, pointed everything up to this great time. In the end time, where we're living now, when the shadows are falling... Just think a few weeks ago... The church has been preaching for years that the Lord was coming; the end time was in sight. Everything--everything that I know of as a minister of the Gospel is pointing to the end time. We're right now at the end.

The great pyramid, you who study that, points to the end time, the one that Enoch made. The zodiac, it started off with a virgin, the first coming of Christ. It's ending up with Leo the lion, the second coming. It's at hand.

The scientific world screamed across the nation about five weeks ago last Sunday and said that the end time is in sight...?... any time we could be wiped off the face of the earth. We're living at the end time.

56 As it was in the days of Noah, so is it in the coming of the Son of man. Oh, don't play, friends. Well now, you don't understand, you who are--stay here in America and don't know what the circulation of things are in other countries.

Here some time ago when they took me up over the--the... In Finland when I went up over by the--the great line there what they call "the curtain." They run us through about a hundred and fifty miles there of nothing but solid tunnel made with their hands, a German officer meets him with a tommy gun in his hand. The shades pulled down in the little car that we were riding in. I said, "What's this all about?" And there was a Finnish officer setting by me (where the little boy was raised from the dead up there) and was taking me up (I guess you've read of it and so forth).

And he said, "There in behind that curtain there, Brother Branham, said, they got all kinds secret devices. They got planes that they can shoot out there on rockets, that'd bomb your nation and take about an hour's time. Nobody gets behind there."

57 A hydrogen bombs, and oxygen bombs, and everything hanging right in the scales like that. And man constantly wades right down through sin. And people will stay away from prayer meeting at night, turn on their television sets, and listen to "Lucy's" and all them other programs, and things, and call themselves Christians.

Now, I'm nothing but an old fashion sassafras preacher. I believe in an old time backwoods, sky blue, sin killing religion that washes you up and makes you white. Brother, that's the only thing saved me. It'll do you good, if you'll just receive it. That's through coming through the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only way there is, the only preparation.

58 Now, I'd say this, as a servant of the Lord, I believe that it could happen at any time. Total annihilation, it could start at any time. Look, as the days of Noah... That's how they throwed the world out of it bounds in the days Noah. When they built the pyramids, the sphinx, and so forth. We couldn't build it today if we had to. Gasoline power, electric power won't build it. But atomic power will.

So they could turn it loose, and shock the world from its orbit. And it being hot went out and caused moisture that covered the whole earth. This time He's going to blow it into the sun. Just exactly, scientifically, right across the center the way God said it would happen. Here it is now. We're at the end time. And men are still unprepared.

God's sending a revival across the nation, great signs and wonders and signs appearing everywhere. And healing of sick, the raising of dead, and everything. And men wade right on through breaking down every red light and running through every barrier, refusing...

59 Oh, you say, "I've gone to church. I'm as good as you are." That's not the question. Have you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour? Have you been reconciled?

You say, "Well, I belong to the nicest church there is in town." That's not the idea. Are you borned again of the Spirit of God? Have you fellowship, perfect fellowship? The things of the world is dead. Oh, you say, "It don't condemn me." Why, my--my brother somebody--some people don't even have conscience. They just serve do...

One time an old colored fellow, after I was preaching on the street corner, said, "Preacher, you know what your conscience is?"

I said, "I have a idea, sir. What do--what do you think it is?"

Said, "It's a little thing sets like this and got four sharp pints" Points he meant. Said, "When you do anything wrong, it cuts." And said, "You keep letting it cut, it cuts a circle around there. And after while you don't even feel it at all." And that's right. You just keep lukewarm, drifting away, drifting away, and after while you're all the way gone.

60 Let's turn our scene just before closing now, for a minute. Let's look at Adam and Eve there in the garden of Eden. Sin, alien from God without fellowship, tossed about with every wind of doctrine, didn't know what to do. God stood before them in the judgment there and pronounced the judgment upon them. Now, watch what they did.

There goes Adam and Eve with their arms around one another. I can see poor little Eve now can cry. Those great blue sparkly eyes, that looked like the stars of heaven, tears are running down her cheeks. They'll be wrinkled after while. That pretty blond hair hanging down her back will turn gray. That great shaggy black hair on Adam will turn gray one of these days. Those great huge muscles will shrink away, and come into the dust, and the skin worms will crawl through. Got to go.

Sickness and sorrow lays in his path. And there he goes going out through there, now, without hope, turned out of the Presence of God. I can see him with his arm around his sweetheart, the tears running down his cheeks dripping off on her head and it running down over her body, the tears and blood mixed together from them old bloody sheepskins. And there they start out through the garden of Eden, condemned.

61 Listen. I can hear something like [Brother Branham claps his hands together twice--Ed.] What is it? It's a bloody sheepskin beating against the legs of Adam as he walked out through there, condemned to die, God's own child, going out through there, separated, alienated from God, going to a devil's hell without mercy. When God Who covers all space and all eternity...

Here some time ago I was out on Mount Palomar looking through a glass there. I could see a hundred twenty million years of light space. Break that down in miles, you run a row of nines plumb to Jeffersonville, Indiana, still couldn't break it in miles. And out in there in the solar system, I see are world and moons and so forth and stars, a hundred and twenty million years of light space.

God, He covered all space and all time. Bottled down to a four little letters l-o-v-e, love. He could not see a child depart from him. I can hear him say, "Wait just a minute, Adam. I will put enmity between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed. Her heel shall bruise his head. And his head shall bruise her heel," promising a Saviour. What a black picture, there.

62 Let's change our camera now to four thousand years later. In Jerusalem one morning...