1 The little church this afternoon, this little auditorium that we've made into a church for these services; pray that Your blessings rest upon us in Jesus' Name, Amen. You may be seated. And good evening to you all. So happy to be here today again in the service of the Lord Jesus to give Him praise, thanks for all that He's done for us, so happy for this.
Now, it was my grand privilege to come under the invitation of our dear Brother Jackson. And I suppose the greater part of the people that's been here has been Brother Jackson's church. I want to thank each and every one of you for what you have been and meant to us. Here sometime ago...
2 Usually our services is set upon a scale of a full cooperation of all churches. That's the only way that we'll come for a healing campaign, is when all churches cooperate together. The manager comes into the city; he gets all the churches together; then they rent a place. And then they all have no services going on, and everybody comes together for the service. After that then, there's thousands come in. Sometimes our meetings right here in America has run as many as twenty-five thousand at a time. And thousands of people gather in. In that, sinners come in and get saved. Then the ministers, who are cooperating in, are sitting on the platform, each one of them knows after the altar call's made, and they get those people and invite them to their churches that's in their neighborhood.
This way... Why, coming now, we just come under the sponsorship of this one little church for--for a fellowship with Brother Jackson. I love Brother Jackson. I don't think he's present, but I--I love Brother Jackson, a very fine man. And I'm so glad to know that you've got a pastor like him. I don't know much about him, but I--I've learned to love him just in the few times I met him.
3 Brother Beeler, he's--he's sitting up here now in the balcony to my left; he was up here and held a meeting, I believe, at Brother Jackson's church. He came back and told me, said, "If you ever met a fine bunch of people, it's up there in Michigan."
And then they was some brother that comes over there, one time come by my house; I forget his name right now, I'm sorry, a very fine brother. And he brought me some things to my--to the house there from his farm and so forth, which was just nice, just real... I just appreciate those things.
I come in... I've just come from Switzerland and Germany, where we had a marvelous meeting, a hundred thousand converts, two weeks in Germany. And we just had such a wonderful time. The Lord blessed us in such a way. Come back and went over to California, and had a little rest period before I start now going back out to the west.
4 Brother Jackson come along and said, "Brother Branham, why not come to our place now?"
Well, in doing so, I couldn't hardly turn Brother Jackson down. He said, "Now..." I said, "Brother Jackson, I... You mean for a healing campaign where there's cooperation amongst all the preachers and churches?"
And he said, "No, Brother Branham, the thing to do is just come over..."
I said, "I'll come to your little church."
He said, "Well, we only seat just a few." He said, "We'll get the school auditorium."
I said, "Well, if you're going to come over there, we'll extend the time out from one night to be three or four nights." So I come through Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
And then we made it, so that being that way... Usually churches don't have services on Friday night or Saturday night, but they have it on Sunday morning and Sunday night. Therefore, I wouldn't have to interrupt with any brother's service (You see?), any service... Just come in for a fellowship, where everybody can come in, 'cause it's in my heart to always have fellowship with every man that believes in Jesus Christ, regardless. His ideas might not cope with mine, but we'll never mention that. We just, we believe him to be a brother as long as he believes Jesus Christ to be his Saviour. No matter if he's Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Christian Science, Roman Catholic, whatever he is, doesn't matter to me as long as he's a child of God, he's my brother. And I believe that. And I wouldn't lay a straw in any denomination's way.
5 I stay interdenomination. At the time I was ordained in Missionary Baptist church where I still have full fellowship. And my--my... Some of my Baptist friends was sitting right here the other night and so forth, and they're wanting to sponsor a meeting on up here a little--in the country a little piece, the Baptist people. I have meetings. I just won't come for the Baptist alone. It has to be all of them together--everybody.
And in that, many people has said, "Well, Brother Branham, you're... But we thought you were Pentecostal."
Well, one time I was preaching in--in the Roberts Auditorium in Little Rock, Arkansas. There was a dear old brother there, who had been on crutches for years, and he sold pencils on the corner. And that night, while having the healing service, his faith got stirred up and the Lord called him, and he picked his crutches up and started running through the building. And the next day, here he was running all around over the city with his crutches and a sign on them, "These old buddies, I don't need no more." Oh, he was having him a big time.
6 So I got to preaching. They was around four or five thousand people setting there then, and he said--and he said, "Just a minute, Brother Branham," he was just so happy. He said, "I don't understand this."
I said, "What's that, brother?"
And he said, "When I--I heard you preach I thought sure you was a Nazarene," 'cause he was a Nazarene. See? He said, "I thought sure you was a Nazarene, the way you preached." And said, "I looked around, and nearly all of them here is Pentecostal. So I thought maybe you were Pentecost. And now, somebody tells me you're a Baptist." Said, "I don't get this."
I said, "Oh, that's easy." I said, "I'm a Pentecostal, Nazarene Baptist." So that's just it a... That's just it.
By one spirit we are all baptized into one body. That's right. Whether you're Pentecostal, Nazarene, or Baptist, or whatever you are. By one spirit, the Holy Spirit, God by sovereign grace brings us in to one body; that is the body of believers, Christ Jesus. And I'm so thankful for that today: To know that I have the privilege of being in this body, and being your brother, and to come here to have this little time of fellowship with you.
7 I want to thank Brother Jackson and his church and--and the visiting ones with us. If you're not all members of Brother Jackson's church, we sure thank you; these pastors and so forth here. I passed by awhile ago and... I don't... I believe Brother Jackson's church is called, People's Church, The People's Church. I seen one out here called Full Gospel Church. I was riding around and seen one up here called the Assemblies of God. And I know they're all full Gospel people. And I appreciate you all. And all the rest of the churches, the Methodist, Presbyterians, or whatever you are... See? We see, and we love you.
Now, one thing you can do for me. Soon I'm to be out into the big major meetings and overseas. And I--I pray that God will lay--or lay me upon your hearts, that you'll pray for me while I'm trying to win souls for Christ.
8 I never will forget what the general overseer of the Baptist Church said to me the night that the vision called me and I was to go pray for the sick. He said, "Billy, you had a nightmare. What'd you eat before you--that night for supper?"
I said, "Doctor Davis, I don't appreciate that." I said, "If you can't cooperate with that..." I said, "God said so. And He... it'll--it'll be done."
He said, "Do you think that people, kings, and potentates, and monarchs are going to listen to a fellow with a seventh grade education?"
I said, "That's what He said."
He said, "Billy, I believe you need a rest."
I said, "All right, Doctor Davis, here's my fellowship card."
He said, "Oh, don't think that way, son." Said, "Now, you run over home and rest up a few days. I believe you'll feel better." (Like that.)
But nothing against the Baptist church, just as good as any of them. They're all in one great big bunch, and the facts of it is, God will never... You'll never come to heaven whether you're Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian, or whatever. You'll come to heaven when you're a Christian, no matter what church you belong to.
9 God will never recognize an organization, never did. It never was His plan. He never did have an organization, never did organize the people--no time. Man done that. That's right.
The first organization is the mother church, the Catholic. Out of there come the Lutheran, out of there come the Methodist, out there come on down, and on down, and on down, till the last ones and the Pentecostals, and so forth in the last days. Exactly. The Roman Catholic church is the mother church of organization. Before that they had no organization.
So, if you're organization and you don't draw a barrier line and condemn the other fellow, can reach across the fence and shake hands with the other fellow, all right.
10 When I used to pastor up there at the little Baptist tabernacle, I had a good friend below me in New Albany by the name of Johnson, and he was a Methodist. So here's the kind of fellowship we had.
When I got someone converted in my church, and he said, "Brother Branham, I want you to sprinkle me." Said, "I--I--I... My mother is a Methodist, and I--I--I was raised up a Methodist."
And I'd say, "Now--now, look brother, I tell you what. This is a Baptist church, and I'll tell you what we'll do. You're a fine brother." And I said, "I've got a good brother down at the--at the Main Street Methodist Church here in New Albany, just three miles below us. A wonderful man." And I'd say, "I tell you go down there. He will do the sprinkling. And you be a good member for him," because he'd never make a good member for my church. Certainly not, believing that. So I said, "But Brother Johnson is a fine fellow." I said, "It's kinda dry down there, yeah, ain't much water. But I tell you," I said, "he's a good man and a Christian... a lot of Christians in the church."
11 When he got a convert, he said, "Brother Johnson, I want you to baptize me. My people were Baptists."
He said, "Look. You'd never make me a good member." But said, "I got a good friend, Billy, up there at the Baptist Tabernacle up at Jeffersonville." Said, "If you go up there," said, "he's a fine boy." But said, "He will drown you. He will hold you under till the last bubble comes up."
So that's the kind of fellowship the Methodists and Baptists headed for--as Brother Johnson and I's church. And we all ought to feel that way, absolutely, Christians and brothers. And we love that with all of our heart and fellowship with each other.
Now, remember the services everywhere. And if I'm not mistaken, isn't this kind of a--a German settlement through here? It looks to me like it's... look either Swede or German, I see big sturdy healthy looking people. That looks pretty good.
And I was passing through here the other night, and the custodian said he was from Finland and his people was from Finland. I spoke a few words of Finnish to him. And I said, "Kiitos" and "Jumalan rauhaa." And he looked at me. "Kiitos" is "thank you," and "Jumalan rauhaa" is "God's peace be upon you."
And so I think I'd speak a few words in German, and they'd be a whole lot of people understand me.
12 Say, in Germany by the way, we had one of the most lovely meetings, if it is a Germ--set--settlement here, German people.
And you know, as an American... And I think, God by one Spirit has made us all one people. And everywhere you go, I... everywhere around the world, I found out, wherever they're Christians they're all the same. There's no difference in them everywhere.
And being we've had so much war in Germany and so forth, when I got over there my first time, I thought, "My, I bet we have a lot of trouble over here." But some of the nicest people I ever met, sure was. They treated me like I was a brother.
And in there we had a hundred thousand converts. I was at Hamburg and--and Karlsruhe, there's where I had my big meeting, at Karlsruhe, and then I went on down into Lausanne, and then on over into Zurich, Switzerland. 'Course, the Swiss is just a German. I said the German, his intelligence is master, we know that. He's a great intelligence. Some of our greatest science comes from Germany.
And I said, "But the trouble of Germany, they get the wrong--wrong--wrong leadership, and they're trying to make a gun or a bomb that'll--that'll destroy the rest of the world, and they'll be masters of it. And the Swiss," I said, "Well, he's the same intelligence, but he went down there and got in peace and made a watch and sold it to his neighbor," just kinda peaceful. So that's about the way it goes.
But let Christ come to them, and they're all the same. That's right. And I certainly appreciate...
13 So, I remember one night, first they's a communistic element in Germany now, which you all know. And we were pretty close to the communist zone, the Russian control. And then when I first started the meeting it attracted the attention there of many many thousands the first night. And so then the--oh, the--the Dutch Reform Church or the state church, rather, which was really by Zwingli and--and not Luther. And--and we'd disagreed quite a bit upon the doctrine of the--the supreme Deity of Jesus Christ.
Now, they don't believe in that in Switzerland. The Swiss church don't believe it. I got their own books right in English. And they say Zwingli said that Jesus was the Son of Joseph, called the Son of God. But if you--if you'd take that, that knocks every principle of Christianity out. He was a virgin born Son of God. Joseph had nothing to do with it. He was just the--the tutor to raise him, the father, foster father.
14 Well, Billy Graham come in the night before, that I was to start the next morning. Billy had a wonderful meeting there, and a good meeting. But of course, the next day the newspapers picked it up, and I never seen such a bunch of scandal they wrote about the dear brother. They said that he come to the platform like he was going to a bandbox. Said he put a manicure (What is that you put a?... Permanent. Is that right? Permanent?)--permanent wave in his hair. And said that he act like a soap salesman on a box, swinging his arms when he preached. And said, let's see, said the smell of perfume was ten feet wide. I read the paper the next morning; I thought, "Uh, oh, you're in for it, too, boy. I know that." I knowed if they would talking about Billy Graham like that, what was I going to get?
So we all, we went right on in, right back into the stadium, at right where he left off, and I--I got mine then. But Billy preached on the supreme Deity of Jesus Christ. That's right. I took right up where he left, went right on the same way. But by the grace of God, we won a hundred thousand in that country to--to the Lord.
15 I remember in Germany one night, there was such a... The communists had got up there and was going to start a riot. And when... They threatened to kill me when I come from the place. We had about, oh I guess, forty-thousand, something like that. And we were... I was coming from a place and the German soldiers, was soldiers, had to mill around and around and around me, to get me in a car to keep them from shooting me at a distance, like that is, setting out in bushes and so forth. And they--they ask me if I was afraid to come back. I said, "Never. I come here by the will of God." See?
And I went back the next night. I'd never forget that night as long as I live. I remember we was having a service, 'course inside, once inside then you--you're pretty well safe in there then, when you're like that. It's when you're going in and out, when they set in the dark and do what they're going to do.
16 And then, um, and a... and that night, they... Of course there were all gazers looking on everywhere. And they was... And in Germany there's a lot of spiritualism and everything else, you know. So they was all seated around, and they had sent them up to the platform to be prayed for. And how the Holy Spirit would know who they was, I couldn't pronounce them German names, and tell them all, tell them that, and what they had done, and what... And about the fourth or fifth person come, I was turned this way, and the ushers, and I was talking to the interpreter.
I heard somebody screaming. They'd put a little blind girl upon the platform, and she was going off the high, oh much higher than this, like that. And I grabbed her just quick, 'cause she was blind. They'd just turned her loose. And some of them turned around and never noticed, and the little thing was walking off the platform. She was about like my little Rebekah, about this high, a little German girl with little plaits hanging down her back, a very typical German dress. I--I just never forget this.
17 And she... I turned her around; the interpreter got to her, and she was feeling again for me, just blind. And she got a hold of me, and she said... 'Course the interpreter, it's through the interpreter, she said, "Is this the man that's going to pray for me?"
I said, "Yes."
And she put her little head over on me, like this, and her little hands around me, and she started snubbing like a little kid, you know, on--on my bosom, with her little head laying up there. I looked down; I thought, "Poor little thing."
And she'd been blind from birth. She'd never seen in her life. Well, as I started to pray for her... How many's ever been in one of my meetings, let's see your hands? Ever been? Well, you understand then, all of you.
18 The vision begin to come and begin to tell her what all... And then I noticed that the Lord had pronounced her sight. So when I raised the little fellow up, pulled her little head away from me. She looked out, and the first time she ever seen light in her life. She begin to scream and look at those lights, and when she begin to point, and say, "What's them things," like that. And they told her, "Lights."
And she was looking around everywhere, batting her little eyes. And it so excited her mother till she jumped up and started running and run out of her shoes. And she ran to the platform, and she took her around the waist, the little girl did and said, "Are you my mother?" Said, "Why, you're so beautiful," like that. That just stopped the communists right now. We just had a lot of them to come to the Lord Jesus then.
19 And--and then the Angel of the Lord, they'd see that, and they couldn't hardly believe it. They said they--they had the original pictures that was taken of It here in American. So the Germans ask me said, "We have good lens." That's right. Said, "Do you mind if we try to take the picture?"
I said, "Not at all. That's all right."
So we had a--a meeting the next morning, or a luncheon at eleven o'clock with the Dutch Reformed Church. And there was about three hundred ministers there. And so this German come and set his big roller camera up down there. He said, "Can I take pictures?" He said, "Now, will you wave your hand or tell me some way, that when that inspiration's a coming where I can see if my camera will take that--that Angel, that Pillar of Fire?"
And I said, "Yes, sir."
20 And so we was having breakfast, and or lunch rather. And we were talking, and he'd taken several pictures like that. And he had some kind of a roll in it, he'd turn it, then over here and just squeezed a little thing, and it would take the picture. And then he'd... I don't know what he was doing behind there, standing there with a big camera set upon a revolving affair like this. And so... Just then the Angel of the Lord begin to coming; I waved to him. I said to the audience I said, "This is the inspiration."
And It begin to speak, and I said, "The man setting there with the Roman collar on." I said, "He's not a German; he's an Italian." I said, "He's just give up his position of being a leader of twenty-two thousand communists. He picked up a Bible, and had read it, and has come to Christ. And he's from Italy, and he has a little school hid way up in the mountains." And I said, "The reason that he never eat his breakfast this morning, because he had such stomach trouble, that for years he's had this stomach trouble." And every speck of it was the truth. And I said, "Now, it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, my brother, eat your breakfast. Your stomach trouble's finish." He just started eating his eggs and things.
21 Well, all the time this German, when that was on, was snapping these pictures. See? Bringing and rolled his camera and snapping the pictures. And when he taken them out for developing, and when he come back, there It was. It just shook the whole country.
There was the Angel of the Lord coming down. There's where the anointed begin to talk. There's where the inspiration left when It went away. Every bit right there. Well, that just throwed thousands times thousands to the Lord Jesus Christ in Germany. Going back over again this summer, and we're going to have up there somewhere around Berlin, a big stadium that Hitler built out there, seats about a hundred and eighty thousand or something like that for the services in Germany this coming year, the Lord willing. Along perhaps toward the fall, after the American campaign is over...
22 Oh, my. So many things that our Lord has done. I wonder sometimes when it's all over... And we have to work today. You know, I'd like to come down to each one of you and shake your hand. I'd like to go down to your house, and spend a little time with you, talk with you. I wished I could do that. I can't. You'd be surprised, perhaps as many people as set in this building visit my house in a run of two or three days. See? And it's just everywhere; hotel's lay full. People from all over the world coming in from Finland, from Germany, from--from India, from Austria, from everywhere (See?), coming in to be prayed for from all over the world.
And therefore, I must be going from place to place. But here's one appointment I want to make with you people at Sturgis. I hope someday I can get back, sometime when we can have this little Assembly of God Church, and this other church, and all the churches around to cooperate together, and come in, and have a healing campaign. Until that time, if I never meet you again, someday where we'll won't have a healing service, never need one no more... At the other side of the river I want to meet you there. I will have the same testimony then I have now: saved by the grace of God. That's right. Saved by His grace...
23 And I know this. That one day I've got to come to the end of the road. I don't know when it will be. Most all Branhams, when they get old, many of them has lived to be old. My grandmother was a hundred and ten. My grandfather lived to be ninety-eight on my father's side. My grandfather, on my mother's side, just died a few years ago, about five years ago at around ninety something. But my father died at fifty-two; drinking killed him.
But I may live to be old. Usually they--when they get old, they get the palsy, shake, when they get old. That's just the nature of Branhams. Like it was the nature for Isaac to be blind, and Jacob went blind, and so forth like that. It's just the nature of our family.
24 And someday maybe with the gray beard hang--hairs hanging around my face, and I'm an old man; I've come to the end of the road, and I know the time is coming; I'm at the banks of the river; I can hear the breakers a roaring and know that I got to go over; I want to look back down through every brier pile that I've come through, and every mountain that I climbed, and see that I've tired to leave the footsteps of the Lord Jesus.
Then what I want to do is take off the helmet of salvation, lay down the shield, take the old sword and stick it back in the sheath of eternity, cry with all my heart, as I'm leaning on my stick, a shaking, "Push out the lifeboat, Lord, 'cause I'm coming home this morning." I believe I'll be there one day. I'll meet you. Till then, may God's richest blessings be with you.
25 Remember, if I can ever be a favor to you, write to me. I'll do anything I can to help you. I've often said, "People, I'd come; the night with..." But I can't do that. It's just too many. It's thousands times thousands. You see? I'm sure you wouldn't understand. So it's--it's a--it's... I can't do that.
And I don't tell you to write to me, radio evangelists and things, which is perfectly all right. They want people to write so they can get their address and for money. We never use a penny of money out... God knows that.
26 I could've been a ten times a--a rich man today if I wanted to. It's not what I... I never ask for a penny in my... I never took an offering in my life. And have refused to... One time a million five hundred thousand dollars, at one time, when the FBI agents brought it to me... Papers wrote it up, I said, "I don't want money." It isn't money.
I wear hand-me-down... This suit was give to me in Norway six years ago. I been wearing it ever since then, not as I have to. I could stay in better hotels and so forth, but Christians, a Christian is a life you live. You're supposed to live like... I want to be just like the people that come to me, seeking Christ. God keep me that way is my prayer. Shall we pray.
27 Our heavenly Father, testimony, songs and all glory be to Thee. It's all of Thee. We thank Thee today, because that Thou has give us this wonderful promise, that some glorious day we shall see Him as He is. Then we shall see each other, and set down with the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and the great men: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Daniel, Ezekiel, many of the others.
And I pray Thee, heavenly Father, today that You'll let that be our great intent in our hearts. Our heart's desire is to meet that hour.
Now, as we're just fixing to open up the Bible, we realize that any man or woman, boy or girl that has physical use of their hands could turn open the Bible. That's just opening the Book. But no man can really open It but You, Lord.
28 We see where John said in the vision, "One set upon a throne with a Book sealed on the backside with seven seals, and no man in heaven, no man in earth, or beneath the earth was worthy to take the Book or to lo--open the Book or loose the seals. But One, a Lamb, bleated, a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world came and took the Book out of the right hand of Him that set upon the throne, and was worthy to take the Book and to loose the seals."
And we pray, God, that same Lamb will open this Book for us today. Speak into our hearts, Lord, that which is appropriate, knowing that we are eternity bound people. We've got our heads bowed to the dust from which we were taken. And someday, if Jesus tarries, we shall return back to the dust. But we're speaking to these souls immortal, that dwells within us that shall never die and will spend an eternity somewhere.
God, if there's any here gone, heading the wrong way may they turn back to Calvary today, and be reconciled to God through Christ. For we ask it in His Name. Amen.
29 Now, to you that's got your Bibles, you might turn to Joel 2, or to Acts 2, either one, 'cause it's both the same. It's a wonderful, not a coincidence, but I wouldn't say that Scriptures was set in order inspired only like this. But it's amazing to see that Joel in the 2nd chapter wrote the same thing that Luke wrote in the 2nd chapter of Acts, both of them the 2nd chapter.
Beginning about the 15th verse we will read a portion of the Scripture. It was immediately after the coming of the Holy Spirit. And we want to read what Peter, addressing the--the congregation... The Holy Ghost had fallen upon the believers as they was commanded to go and wait for--for the power of God. Peter speaking said:
For these are not drunken, as you suppose, seeing it's but the third hour of the day.
But this is that which was spoken of by the Prophet Joel;
... it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I'll pour out my Spirit upon all flesh: your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions... your old men shall dream dreams:
And on my servants and on my handsmaid will I pour out in those days of my spirit; and they shall prophesy:
And I will shew wonders in the heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood... fire, and vapour of smoke:
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord shall come:
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
30 May we pause here for a moment and take under consideration these things that was prophesied.
Now, we know that as Christian believers... How many Christians are here today? Raise your hands. Just how many Christian believers? Oh that's marvelous and that's very good.
As Christian people, we believe that this is the infallible Word of God, don't we? We have to believe that to be Christians. There's no mistake in It anywhere. It's perfect. And every word, maybe we don't understand it, we're not--we're not suppose to understand it. And Christianity cannot be understood; it's to be lived; by faith we do these things. The whole works is by faith through grace.
31 Now, the prophets prophesied of things. They didn't know what they were talking about. They just said them. They didn't understand. Daniel said he couldn't understand, but he just wrote it out, because it wasn't for his day. The Angel told him to shu--close up the book until the end time. Many would run to and fro, and knowledge increase, and at that time he'd stand in his lot and--at the end of the time, and all these things would take place. He didn't understand it.
Many of the prophets in writing did not know what they were writing. They just wrote it down, because it was inspiration.
And now, Peter picks up Joel's prophecy here. It's in the early age of the church. Most all believers know that the church was inaugurated at Pentecost. And many times we Pentecostal people call ourselves Pentecost, and we got the wrong name. The Pentecostal people was the other side, the Jews. They were up there at Pentecost; we're the Church of the Firstborn. See? Not Pentecost, the worshipers of Pentecost was up there. We call this the Pentecostal blessings and so forth.
32 And all churches, in a measure, wants to say that they're a part of Pentecost, because there's where it--it began. Where the... And the word "pentecost" is the word "fifty," where the--the outgoing of the firstfruits of the harvest is brought together. It was a feast time of the early harvest, means "fifty," which was after the cleansing of the sanctuary. And in forty days then they had Pentecost. And many of you Bible scholars wouldn't have to tear that down, because you understand it. And as Christians, perhaps, have heard your well-trained pastors preach those things.
Well, after this great thing had happened... It had happened in a way that they didn't understand it. They couldn't understand it. They was all looking for the coming of the Christ. We're aware of that. But the way He come was so different from the way they had figured out, till it just turned them around. They didn't know. God usually does that at every junction station of His--His--His time. He's did that.
33 The people will get down, and they'll figure out, "Now, it has to be this a way. It's just got to be this a way." And they'll have it all blueprinted. Don't think we haven't got it today. We've all got it blueprinted just the way Christ is going to come, what everything. And we get charts and... I believe sometimes we know more about the charts than we know about Christ. It's all been figured out, each denomination.
Many times each individual has his own way, and perhaps it'll come different from any of us think. God usually does it that way. Because you can't figure out God. You just believe God and walk on by faith, no way of figuring Him out.
34 Look at how easy it would've been... The law when Jesus was born...?... in Bethlehem of Judaea. Why, it looks the--like if it would've anybody that would've received it, would've been Caiaphas, the high priest, and the great clergyman, and so forth. The Angels ought to have come to them, because they were ministers and told them that the Christ was born. But God turns right back around, and the first ones recognized it, was a bunch of stargazers, astronomers who came from the east, coming westward to recognize it, seen a mystic star. Nobody else saw the star; they saw it. Why? Because it was given to them.
Some people say, "I can see spiritual things." They see it. Others say, "I don't see it." But it wasn't given to you to see it maybe.
Well, they even kept time by the observatories that was on the top of the cities. And that star passed over every city as far as we know, coming eastward. And for over two years, the wise man was in journey coming from the east, 'cause when they got there Christ was two years old.
35 Now, your tradition of the wise men a finding a baby laying in a manger, you just might as well forget that, 'cause that's just tradition. He wasn't a baby. They was looking for a child two years old, a young child, not an infant. And they killed all the children, right then, from two years old down to catch it. You see? 'Cause they never come to an infant. They come to a young child.
And they were two years in their journey following this star. And do you believe they saw it? Sure they did. The Bible said so. But nobody else saw it.
Many times the Angel of the Lord appears right in, and people scream and look at it. And others say, "I didn't see it."
Say, "Well, Brother Branham, everybody ought to see it." Oh, no.
36 Paul was on his road down to Damascus to arrest the people that were having a revival down there. And the Angel of Christ came down in a bright Light. It even put Paul's eyes out, it was so bright. And there was none of the rest of men with him saw it. Nobody saw it. It was so personal to Paul that his eyes went out, and he had to be led by his hands. Is that right? And the men with him, they didn't see no light. They didn't see nothing about it. But that's how it can be so real to some people, and some people know nothing about it. See?
God reveals Himself the way He wants to, to the people He wants to. It's His sovereign will. He hardens who He hardens and justifies who He justifies. It lays in God's hands, not in my hand or your hand. It lays in God's hands to what He will do. The Bible said so, do you realize that?
37 Did you ever read over there in Romans 9, how He said before either boy was born, Esau and Jacob, said, "I hate one and love the other one." How can He be just and do that? By foreknowledge He knew what a rascal Esau was. See? And He could predestinate. Not just say--say that the word predestinate is not a good word to use, it's foreknowledge. Because He wouldn't just at deliberately turn you away because it's a--because you have... He wants you to go away. He's not willing that any of you should perish, but by foreknowledge He knowed what you'll do even before you ever come on the earth. Sure, foreknowledge...
He's infinite. He's God. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. See? He's knows all things, all wisdom, and all time, covers all space, all power. He's infinite. And if He isn't that, He's not God. If He isn't Almighty God, He... If He can't do all things, He's not Almighty God. But if He is Almighty God, He can do all things. See? So that's the way we have to believe Him.
38 So here, it'd been foretold that this time would take place. Now, here's the message I want to get to you this afternoon. There is a stir in the world today, you know that; it's started, and we been about eight years in it, a revival moving up; signs and wonders have been just taking place.
Now the scientific world can't deny Divine healing any more. Even the doctors and science and everything recognize it to be true. What's it all about? Why is it today, that you see these meetings go on, and why is it that all churches just don't join right in, and join hands, and go with it? Why don't they do it? We recognize, we...
39 Now, I'm not here as a impersonator of Christianity. I'm not here as a deceiver. I'd be home with my family today, enjoying what few days I have home. I come here because I have a message in my heart that I want to produce to you all, or to introduce to you all, rather. And that's why I come. I love you, and I realize that someday I've got to give an account for every word and every meeting that I ever held. And every word, I got to answer for it at the judgment.
And if I don't tell the truth, God will hold me responsible and not you. So there it is. But if I warn the people, then the blood's not on me. If I know it and don't, then I'm required, and you minister brothers know that. And let... Thank God for your positions and your courage to warn the people of the times to come.
40 Now, we're living... And anyone sensible knows that we're living in the shadows of some great destruction. I seen a scene one day of a lamb out bleating in a field. And the little fellow got nervous all at once. No one could see nothing. Why? This little lamb just felt uneasy and just kept looking around. He didn't know what to do. He'd reach down and get his mouth full of grass, and he'd look around. He didn't know what to do. Walking through the glass right not far from him come a big black mane lion slipping up. He couldn't see it. There was no way for him to see it, but instinct told that little lamb that danger was at hand. He was nervous. He was restful. Hadn't shot the lamb--lion, he'd have got the lamb. But there was the lion slipping up on this little, poor little fellow out there in the field. And he--he couldn't see it; he couldn't hear it. But there was instinct in him that told him that there was danger near.
41 Look at little ducks. They go up here in your northland. In the--in the springtime, they fly up there. They get on the marshy ponds, and there they lay their eggs and hatch out their little ones. All summer they're on that pond. Out of that little duck, there's a drake, a little drake born that's actually borned a leader. Every duck on the pond knows he's a leader. They know it.
And just as soon as the first little cold breeze begins to set in in the early September, and that little frost begins to hit the top of the mountains yonder in there. That little drake will run right out on the middle of that pond, stick that little honker of his up in the air, and honk four or five times, and every duck on the pond will come to him. That's right. And what will he do? He will...
42 He's never been off of that pond. He don't know nothing else but that pond; that's all he knowed. He was born there that spring. He's been raised and fed on that pond. He never was off of it. But he will raise right up there and go just as straight to Louisiana as he can go without an compass, without nothing. Why? It's instinct.
Every duck knows their leader. They know he's the leader. No matter which way he goes, they'll follow him. Ducks if with instinct know how to follow their leader, but men with the Holy Ghost fails to follow his Leader. If a duck ought to know and has sense enough to know to follow his leader from danger to safety, how much more ought a Christian to follow the Leader, the Holy Spirit, that'll lead you from danger.
43 The whole world's a shaking. I go into Germany. "Oh, what will we do." I go into India, "What are we going to do?" I go into Switzerland, everywhere. "What are we going to do?" The whole world is shaking.
The United States is shaking. The great bureaus and so forth in the great Pentagon, and all of that investigating supernatural things. Flying saucers, what are they? Oh, they say, "We seen little men in them," all kinds of stories. They try to deny it, but they're there. Why? God said that there'd be signs in the heavens above and in the earth. We got it. They're afraid.
44 Last week you seen the big lines in the paper, all through Tennessee and down there. I seen in your paper the other night where this general said that a--an attack on the United States was easy to happen. Sure, certainly. They're getting out private watchers to watch the skies for planes. What's the matter? Everybody's shaking.
They're trying now, figuring on moving the White House and all its cabinets down in Kentucky, back into them caves and things. What's the matter? The lamb is a shaking because the lion is coming up. Everybody knows that's sensible and got good mental powers and reasonings, know that something's fixing to happen.
And if you'll look in this blessed old God's Book, it predicts these things to be. We're here at the end road. And friends, it behooves you to set down and take inventory of yourself and to be sure.
45 If you went to the restaurant and took a bowl of soup and it had a fly in it, you'd kick it away. And--and what a fuss you'd raise with the man, "I'll never eat in this place again, if that's the way you cook your food."
You'll watch that little body of yours that nothing bad goes into it, but poke any kind of poison there is in your soul. That's right.
Let it come from the Word of God; don't take any petty, soft glove thing. We need to take off our shirts and preach the Gospel (That's right.), the power of God unto salvation. And stand on God's Word and His promises.
We see the Bible said that these things would happen. He said in the last days there would be scoffers making fun, and pointing their fingers, and saying there's no such things and the days of miracles is past. But He said He'd have a church that signs and wonders would be following after it. We got it.
46 Now, it's been in all ages. When God first made creation in the phenomenal way, when He spoke the world into existence and [Brother Branham makes a blowing sound--Ed.] blowed the stars and moon off His hands, as they say... Expressed the Word, and it come into existence. The very earth that you're sitting on today was the created Word of God. If He didn't speak the world into existence, where did He get the material to make it out of? Where did it come from? Sure He did. He spoke it into existence. It's the Word of God. The very dirt and things that you're setting on today, is the creative Word of God. You're here because you come into creation by the speaking of the Word of God, everyone one of you.
And notice. If you get old, die away, go back to the dust of the earth, the mother... The earth is the mother of every natural thing the eye can see. Certainly.
47 Now, I want you to notice a minute. When God made Adam and Eve and made the creation and everything, it was beautiful. God... Why, Adam had control of the powers of God. He could speak anything; it would obey him just exactly like it would God. He'd had a perfect fellowship with God, walked with Him, and talked with Him, and communed with Him. He had a fellowship.
Then--then when Adam and Eve... When Eve sinned and they went out of the garden of Eden, they come on down and on down. And the world begin unfolding. And as it unfolded more and more, the first thing you know cities begin to build. That's one great sign of the end time.
Our little city of Jeffersonville has raised from about fourteen thousand, just a little old river city, from fourteen thousand to around thirty something thousand in the last few years. They're tearing out all the farms and everything else and making housing projects. What's the matter? It's a sign of the end time. That's right.
48 In that day we find out that they begin to work with copper. They begin to work with metal. Look at today, even making ships and planes and everything else, metal workers. Great intelligence, a great time of school, great educational program just before the end of the world...
And Jesus Christ, when He was here on earth, said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the coming of the Son of man."
Look at the world... I was talking to Mrs. Wood and Mr. Wood today while we were eating dinner, upon the divorce cases and things of the United States. We have the highest rate of divorces than all the world put together. We have more divorces.
Men, the Bible said would be marrying giving in marriage, eating, drinking, the morals and so forth that they'd have, how that they, marrying and giving in marriage, the Reno, Nevadas. Men go out and live with her, marry a girl, and take her for his wife, live with her for a few days. He don't like her; he kicks her off without the courts. Ungodly people give him a divorce and a license to marrying another. but God says that's wrong. That's right. But the--they do it.
Our civilization is crumbling. We see that. It's a sign, a post that we're at the end time.
49 Notice. All these great buildings and these great things a going on, just the same way. Now, I 'm going to hurt your feelings for a minute. I tell you when you preach the Gospel you can't expect people to, but what somebody's going to get hurt. But I tell you; take it for just a little bit, then examine it by the Word of God.
Mama used to tell me when I was a little boy, we was raised awful poor. Only thing... We didn't have nothing to eat, and we'd take old corn pone. We didn't even have any meat, and Mama take some of--of shortening you put in the bread, and she'd take meat skins and--and boil them, or fry them in an old dish pan or bread pan and make the grease that went into the corn pone. And we had to live so poor.
And I know every Saturday night when us kids would come home and being in school and so forth... Mama believed in castor oil. Every night take a big dose--Saturday night a dose of castor oil. I got so, that I tell you, I--I just despised it. And I'd hold my nose, I'd say, "Oh, Mama, it makes me so sick."
She's say, "If it don't make you sick, it don't do you any good."
50 Now, that's the same thing by the Gospel. It don't... it'll stir up your gastronomics and set you ready for the week and the--the journey ahead. The Gospel will certainly sicken you up, if you're not right with God. Amen. I don't say that for a joke, but that's truth.
Now, I want you to notice, my brethren and sister, that we're at the end time. And just before the end time comes for the first junction, or the first time of the destruction of the antediluvian world, there was signs appearing in that day just exactly like it is today. And if I only had time and get off my text for a few minutes, I'd show you that how the very atomic powers that destroyed the world then will destroy it again.
51 They built the sphinx and the pyramid and all those things, that no gasoline or no other power in the world would do it but the atomic power. That's right.
And some fanatic got a hold of it, of course, and blowed it. And when it did, it blowed the earth from standing up right away from the sun. And when anything's hot and goes out in the cold, it causes--causes a vapor, and that's what causes our rain today. Certainly. The same thing, because it's leaning. And this time the Bible said it won't be water, but fire. And just a few portions out of its orbit right now, it would burn up with the atoms from the sun. Just exactly what God said would take place. Why--why the scientific proof of His coming is marvelous.
Wish we had a week or two to stay here in revival services. You could prove those things, that it's the truth, scientifically. The world's at the end time. We're here at the end.
52 Notice, that how that was in that same time, there came a guy forth by the name of Nimrod. He wanted to make a--a confederation. And he confederated all--confederation of all the churches, and all the cities, and things and built a city called Babylon. Wish we had time to go in on that Babylon.
Watch. Everything that we have today: everything we have today come out of Genesis. "Genesis" means "the beginning, the root." The grass roots of all the times, civil--that would ever come we have today, originated in Genesis. Every tree and everything else we have today originated in Genesis. The truth we have today originated in Genesis through the Blood of the Lamb. The...?... we have today originated in Genesis and Babylon.
Look, a Babylon appears over here in the first of the Bible. It appears in the middle of the Bible. It appears in the last part of the Bible. Certainly it is. That's where she's growing, like a tree coming up. And so does the church appear yonder come--appear along.
53 But Nimrod, an ungodly fellow, run out and got all the people, and confederated them together, and made one great big union. Look what they're doing today, in this nation today, confederating the churches together and bringing forth a modern Babylon, forming a social Gospel denying the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and Divine healing and so forth, are denying that it's all God's program to bring people to their knees. We got the same thing today.
And right in a time of that great confederation of the unions of that day, what taken place? God had a man on earth that was a genuine article. And his name was Enoch. He preached and walked before God perfectly.
54 There was another by the name of Noah; God has always His two witnesses. And he appeared... Both of them appeared on the scene preaching the Gospel, and remember, just before the coming of the end of that known world that day, Angels appeared on the earth at the end time. Prophets appeared on the earth at the end time. Prophets and angels, and signs and wonders, it was a warning.
And Noah himself come to the world on an ark, a miracle for him to build an ark. How would he ever build an ark? An old man out here with whiskers hanging down six hundred and something years old out there pounding away on an ark. And as far dry land where there was never been a speck of water. And yet he said, "There's coming water from the heavens."
And the idiotic unbelievers would look up and say, "Where's there any the water? Do you believe that story that that guy's talking about? He's off in his head."
That's the same thing today. But he was preparing an ark for the saving of those who wanted to be saved. And a Gospel preacher today that's preaching the Gospel of the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the second coming is pounding away on a thing that people say that's crazy. Amen. You know that to be the truth.
55 Noah was building an ark. He was not only working a miracle, but he was preparing for a miracle. Now, the church today is not only having miracles, but it's preparing for a miracle: the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the rapture of the church to be taken up.
Give me a church ready, visualized to see signs and to see the omnipotent God, the great power of God moving amongst the people. Which the rapture will be an easy thing when Jesus comes. They'll be caught up, because they believe in such. Sure, we're at the end time. We're at the junction road, the crossing time, the ending of a dispensation, the beginning of a new. There's been six of those and we're on the seventh.
56 I want you to notice quickly. Noah building away on the ark, looking forward to a miracle coming... There was miracles a happening. He was preaching the supernatural. What? Yes, sir. He was preaching that there's a God in heaven Who will destroy the world with water. "And I'm building an ark for the faith." Why, I imagine they thought he was crazy. But when the thunders begin to roar, and the lighting flash, even the birds and the animals taken their position, a miracle taking place when animals begin to come to Noah.
Is it any much lighter today, when we see opossums crawl across the road that's beat up and everything else, and taking place even in the animal realms. It's proving that Jesus Christ the Son of God is near at hand to come. Amen. We're at the end time. We're at the junction time. Certainly we are.
57 Notice again, and when... Then another thing we are that when the waters begin to fall, and they seen what that the miracle actually was taking place, the outside world that scorned and made fun of him was locked out of mercy. So will it be in the coming of the Son of man.
Many who laugh and make fun and say the days of miracles is past, when miracles happening daily in the believer's life... It'll be too late for them at that day. The doors of mercy will be closed; the sanctuary will become smoky. And there's no more intercession for sin from then on. "Let him that's filthy be filthy still. Let him that's righteous, righteous still, and him that's holy, holy still." That's what the Bible says. And we believe it, and you know it, my brethren and sisters.
58 Now, notice another thing. One of the greatest things, when all the pipes begin to fall and the--the waters begin to raise. Instead of Noah doubting, he was at rest in the ark. Amen. Noah, who had followed God, was resting at peace as the ark floated along.
And the believer today that's in Christ Jesus, don't care how many atomic bombs they talk about; that's not his interest.
Today preachers are trying to be reformers instead of Gospel preachers. They're saying, "You quit do this; you don't that. Look at my church is" That's not our business. The police are reformers; they're the ones who sends them to the penitentiary to reform them.
We're Gospel preachers that tell them of Jesus Christ and get them born again of the Spirit of God. Then God takes over the person. The Holy Ghost gets into the heart of the man and woman. You know that's true, each one of you.
59 Notice, but as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the coming of the Son of man: eating, marrying, giving in marriage, scoffers, and all these things. We're living at the end time. Signs and wonders begin to appear right amongst those people. Prophets come. And we're told by God's Word before the end time, prophets shall arise again: "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy." Is that right? Certainly they will.
And then it's also predicated there also, said "Your young men shall see visions." People call it mental telepathy. They call it everything. And call you... And Jesus said if they call the master of house Beelzebub, how much more will they call them that's His disciples. We're living in the end time. That's what we are. We see these things: a junction time.
60 Notice, after the antediluvian destruction, the world was wiped off, and God started from the chaos of that time and begin to rebuild again. Men finally become lovers of themselves; had great judges and so forth, and begin to look to the things of the world, and to explain the preachers of the ministers of those days, "Aw, them days is all past; there's no such a thing any more."
And the first thing you know, they come down to the time that when Israel had went plumb down into Egypt, and was down there for four hundred years... The leading nation of the world, because of sin and unbelief had been brought down, because they wouldn't trust God and was in Egypt because God's Word said they'd be, promised to Abraham. That they would be. And there had to come a junction time that when this segregation had to come. And we're at a junction time now, when God is separating the sheep from the goats. That's right. It's segregation time.
61 And watch. Before God though... Looked like He didn't even pay any attention to nothing, just let them go ahead and let them explain all the supernatural away, lay down their burdens, and they had other things to do. They had brick kilns to tend to and slime kilns to tend to. They had things to do to please Pharaoh, all of the supernatural had been gone. But one day God knew that He had to prepare that people for a march.
And the first thing God did when He come down... When the Omnipotent speaks, the miraculous takes place.
God spoke, and when it was, a little boy named, Moses, was born. Right. And they seen as soon as he was borned he was a fair child. He got to the best He had left on earth. God's never been without a witness. And the first thing... It was miraculous how that God had him pushed out into the--the Nile there amongst crocodiles, and things, and protected him, and brought him back, and put him right under Pharaoh's nose, and raised him up, and educated him.
62 It was out yonder on the side of the hill one day, when a man eighty years and whiskers, who had disobeyed God, and God came down in the likeness and the power of an Angel and spoke to him in the burning bush. What was it? It was time for the prophet to appear. It was time for Angels to appear. It was at the end time, the junctions of the road.
God spoke to Moses and sent him down. He sent Aaron. And when he went down there, the supernatural was done. Why? It was the junction time, the end time, miracles taking place.
And there they had the old false fighters, too, down there too. They always had them. They'd had them in the days of the antediluvian. They had them in them days. There stood Jannes and Jambres. Standing there, "Well, we can do just as much as you can. You heal one; we'll heal a thousand." That's the way they got it today.
63 We got the impersonators. We got people pretending to be, when they're not. And the Bible said, "As Jambres and Jannes withstood Moses, so will these men of reprobated mind concerning the truth," in the last days at the junction we're at now.
And there stood Jambres and Jannes when Moses threw down and performed a miracle of God. They impersonated it and done a miracle too with their stick. And Moses called for plagues, and they called plagues. It's the devils turned loose.
The Bible said, "That when the spirit... When the enemy comes in like a flood, God will raise up a standard against it."
And when in this day with a lot of impersonation, men acting like Christians, pretending to be and in their heart as black as the smutty walls of hell. There's many a pastoring today that should be out yonder cutting corn or something, be better off.
64 There's men with their theologies and great degree and things like that, and knows no more about God, than an Hottentot knows about Egyptian night. Talk to them about the power of God and the resurrection, "Oh, fanatically, preacher. That was in the days gone by." It shows what they are. They don't realize what day they're living in. You know that to be the truth.
It was in them days; I'm showing you the shadows and so forth and showing you what shadow we're in now. It's you people here will serve God... I'm not telling you what church to join; that don't make any difference. I'm saying, "Come to Christ." There it is.
65 Notice, Jambres and Jannes... What was the test? What was the final test? We're predicted in the last days that the antichrist will have power. What kind of power? He will do great miracles. Did the Bible say so? Sure he did. He said, "He will even make fire come down out of heaven?" Is that right? But not one place did the Bible predicted the antichrist would heal a sick person, 'cause he can't. God is the only One that can heal. "I'm the Lord Who healeth all of thy diseases."
That was a showdown test between the false and the real when He come down there to Egypt. They throwed down their sticks and made snakes. They did the same thing, Jambres and Jannes, before Moses and Aaron. And they performed miracles and so did they. But they could bring the plague of boils, but they broke out too and couldn't get healed.
And when Moses and Aaron had power to take it away, it proved that they said, "This is the finger of God." And today Divine healing is considered of the devil by a lot of modern thinkers--that Divine healing is of the devil. It's the power of Almighty God. It's exactly in an individual faith in a resurrected Lord Jesus. "The things that I do, shall you also; even more than this for I go to My Father. I'll be with you always to the end of the world." Their junction time was there. Miracles was performed.
66 God led them out through the Red Sea, and He opened up the Red Sea, by faith, Moses and them. Miracles was performed, and the people knowed that they was at the end time, a junction. Wish we had time to stay longer on it, but we have some more junctions coming. It was a junction time.
When Abraham and Lot journeyed together, Abraham to be heir of the world, all things. Now, he had a lukewarm backslidden church member with him, his nephew, blood relation to him, and his name was Lot, a lukewarm, modernistic, bloodless church member (That's right.), just a very type of today. They had it in every age. They got it today: A form of godliness, denying the power thereof. They got it today.
67 There was Lot going along, right along, just as religious as he could be. But when it come to the showdown, their spiritual understanding... Why, it even begin way back when Cain and Abel... When Cain, a modern man, came to the church and the altar, built a church... Cain built a church.
What am I trying to say to you? I'm trying to tell you, my friend that just going to church, and making a confession, and doing good works will never save you. You've got to be borned again. It has to come as a spiritual revelation.
Look at Cain. If you could just look at those two boys, both of them, Cain and Abel. We'll leave the text right here and go back just for a minute. Look at Cain and Abel to begin it with. Surely you see it's pro and con always, the right and wrong. And it is today.
68 Notice this. When Cain and Abel, both of them, both of them boys built an altar to God. They built a church to the Lord. Now, if belonging to church is all that God requires, then He would be [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] neither was he a communist. He knelt down an worshipped the Lord. Is that right? Cain worshipped the Lord: sincere. If sincerity is all God required, He'd have to justify Cain. But there is a way that seemeth right unto a man. Oh, let me sink this deep in your heart. Don't forget it.
Spiritual revelation, there was no Bible in that day. That was the only creatures there were. But by revelation, Abel brought a lamb, faith... Cain brought works and church membership and the other things and built a church, said, "Surely Jehovah likes beauty." Jehovah...?... with the big lilies and things laying over the altar, like you do on Easter. About the last time they see you till Easter again. What is it? God don't want the Easter lily on the altar. He wants you on the altar. Certainly.
69 And he laid these sacrifices down there. He put the fruits of the field down there. He said, "Jehovah, You're beautiful." If you only had time to go back and see that's very nature of his daddy, the devil.
But by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, said Hebrews 1, Hebrews 11, rather.
Here, what happened? Abel, by spiritual revelation saw that it was blood that brought us into the mortal realms and not fruits of the field. Some preachers even still think they eat apples. My, my, my. All right.
70 Anyhow, if... I don't say this for a joke. I don't believe in joking. But if you're right, my brother friend, that eating apples made women realize they're naked, better get some apples again. Yes, sir. Because I tell you; it's a sin and a shame the way people are living and doing, out on the streets naked young girls and old grandmas, and all together, and then go to church and sing in the choir and call yourself religious. Why, your fruits show what you are. Why do you want to strip your clothes off for? Only one person in the Bible ever did; he was demon possessed.
Now, I'm not saying that to be rude. I'm saying that to warn you. This may be the last time I ever see you or speak with you; I want you to remember. Amen.
71 Now, watch just a moment. Cain by revelation, or Abel rather, by the revelation realized it.
Watch when Jesus come down off Mount Transfiguration, the same thing He promised to build His church, not by written law, not by a bunch of creeds, not by a textbook. When He come down off Mount Transfiguration He said, "Who do you say that I, the Son of man am?"
One of them said, "Oh, You're Elijah."
One said, "No, You're Jeremiah."
One said, "You're the prophet."
He said, "What do you say I am?"
And Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you. (You never learned it in any seminary, out of any textbook.) Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father which is in heaven has revealed this to you. And upon this rock I'll build My Church, and the gates of hell won't prevail against it."
What is it? The spiritual revelation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And the Bible said, "No man can call Jesus the Christ, only by the witness of the Holy Ghost."
72 When the Holy Ghost takes a hold of you and reveals to you that He is the risen supernatural God Himself, then you realize where you're standing. Outside of that you're never born again and you don't know. You're just taking what mama said or what the preacher said. But what do you think about it? It'll never be until it's revealed to you.
The junction time is here. The Head of all things is come. The time, end of all times is come. Notice, eternity's next.
When Lot chose to go down in the well places, oh, he could build bigger churches, perhaps. That's the modern--the modern idea of it. He was in the well watered place. Oh, the big church and all the... And his wife had become the head of the ladies sewing circle perhaps. And Lot was the mayor of the city. Oh, he had things easy, everything. What did he lose? He got down there till the world got in such a ch--chaos, until men absolutely failed to have natural use of their body and become perverted.
73 The perversion was to be a sign of the end. And today the perversion in the homosexual is on the increase, that even forty percent of our national government is possessed with perversion. That's newspapers. That's right.
In California the letters that comes to me from the mothers and things up and down there, where women has become the god of the world. And they'll... Brother, those flappers will make men bow quicker than anything in the world, women with their dirty, rotten dress. And you look to your televisions and things and see some of them old girls out there that's put on all this stuff, and you go out and try to impersonate them, and don't realize they been married four or five times. And some of them ain't fit to be door rugs. And you make that your example instead of the humble Lord Jesus, Who died at Calvary to save you from sin. Take your choice today. Amen.
74 Modern half of the church members cannot tell you how Jesus was born or even many of these things, but they can sure look in one of these old love story magazines and tell you who wrote it and what time this actress done this or that. It's a shame. That's right.
You say, "What are you preaching, brother?" I'm telling you the truth, and I want you to listen to me.
Sure, it's a disgrace from the way things are going on in our modern world today: A sign of the end time.
75 That's what they were doing in Sodom and Gomorrah. The natural use our bodies... The men become so plain to women today, there's not even respect. They'll hardly take off their hat, men will in front of women, and they have no respect for them at all. What did it? The women done it theirself.
And you all talking about juvenile delinquency and things. I think it's parent delinquency. Some of you let your girls go out and run around all night with a cigarette smoking, cocktail drinking party. Come in the next morning with her clothes half off her, old make-up all over her face and that, And you call the Kentucky mothers ignorant. Write her patch down with those Dogpatch, Lil' Abner, and make fun of the Kentucky mothers. That's some of my people up in there.
Let one of them girls...?... it up there and, brother, I'll tell you, she wouldn't get out of bed for six months. She'd take a hickory limb and beat what clothes she had left on her off. And if you had something like that back in the church today, you'd have better. Amen. God give us the old time mothers. I've got two girls coming. I don't know what they'll be.
76 And I've see them laying out on the beaches half naked before man stretching themselves out there, say they get a sun-tanning. Brother, I--I may not live. But if God lets me live and keep my right mind, if one of mine does it, she'll get a son-tanning. It'll be Mr. Branham's son with a barrel slat behind her. She'll be tanned all right. She'll know where it come from too. Yes, sir.
We need the day of old fashion God sent Saint Paul's revival, and the Bible Holy Ghost, than a lot of this old chicker-chocker, halfway formal religion broke up and Jesus Christ preach in the power of His resurrection, where signs and wonders and miracles can take place again in the church before the end time. And we are going to have it. Get that. All devils out of hell can't stop it, for God said it would be here. It's going to be here. Sure it is.
77 Sodom and Gomorrah... The junction time come; evil set in. Then when evil set in, God had a true prophet appear, Abraham. Amen.
What happened? Angels come in the form of man. That's right, isn't it. Angels come up in the form of man. The end time was there, the junction time.
They preached to this kind of a crowd and without any effects. The same thing we're getting today. That's right. But God swept those cities throughout the whole plains there and burnt every city and destroyed everything. And a disgrace was left, as Lot's wife standing as a pillar of salt even to this day, of her looking back and wanting at the warning that another junction's coming on. Certainly.
78 The daughters and things even sniggered and laughed at them preachers preaching the truth. And they do the same thing today. Certainly they do; end time. Wish we had longer that we could dwell on it. We'll go to another.
There come a time where there had to be a junction in Israel, when Ahab married Jezebel, the little painted up flapper, and turned all the idols--all of God into--church into an idolatry. Just about the same thing that's done today.
When spiritual people has got so formal till they got the church to nothing but a lodge.. You know that's true. There's no need in hiding it. It's the truth. Just a lodge... Join the lodge, change your paper. You pack it from the Methodist to the Baptist to the Presbyterian. Every time any little thing comes up you don't like, you pack your paper, about wore it out. Why don't you tear the thing up anyhow and put your name on the Book of Life in heaven, where it won't be packed around from place to place. That's right.
Nothing against Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, nothing against them, but it's the way you're living in them. And a lot of it is caused by failing to preach the Gospel and warning the people. That's right. What we need is more warning, more Gospel preaching. Just a moment before we close.
79 Notice, when the junction came--time came, God had a prophet appear on earth, Elijah. He had Angels appear on earth, absolutely. He had signs and wonders to appear on earth. He shut the heavens that it didn't rain in the days of his prophecy. He done other things and miracles and signs before the people to prove it. That's another one. It's the fourth one.
Watch the fifth one coming up. They done gone all through judges and lawyers and, or judges and so forth, and lawyers, others laws, and so forth. They got down till they explained all the power away. There's no such a thing as miracles any more, and they got carried off into Babylon, and wars and troubles. That's what we having now. But there come a junction time. Hallelujah.
Now, I know you're going to call me a holy-roller anyhow, so you might as well get started. I feel good, for I know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lives and reigns. There's people who will believe Him. That's right.
80 So there, when I see that there, just before the end time come, there was an honest man by the name of Zechariah, who had prayed earnestly for a child. And what happened? A Angel appeared on earth for the first time since Malachi, hundreds of years. And an Angel appeared and told Zacharias a miracle was going to take place, and he believed it. Didn't believe it at first, but God absolutely... 'Cause it'd so...?... Oh, well. He had Abraham, Isaac, and had Sarah, and all of them back there to believe, and Hannah at the temple, but he failed to see it. "Oh, that was God a long time ago. He can't do it today."
And that Angel said, "I'm Gabriel, who stands in the Presence of God. My words will be fulfilled in their season. Because that you have doubted Me, you'll be dumb till the day the baby's born. You'll call his name, John." Amen. The junction time had come.
81 Oh, sure there was a space. All the miracles was all explained away, but the days of miracles was coming back again. There was a changing from the law to grace. The dispensations are changing again. It's the junction time. And every time we come to the junction, things happen: Omnipotent speaks; miraculous takes place. Certainly.
God spoke, and a woman that was way past age of having a child, had it. And then when he named, wrote on the slate, John, the Angel of the Lord healed him. And he had Divine healing.
There come another Angel, the same Angel, and it appeared to a little woman who had never had a baby, never was even--wasn't even married and said she was going to have a baby. And she believed it.
82 When He was borned, He started off... The first thing He started seeing visions, like the Bible said He would, telling people their wrongs and who they was. The Pharisees said, "Aw, the days of miracles is past. They ain't nothing to that guy. He's Beelzebub."
Jesus said, "If they call the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those His disciples?" Said, "If I be Beelzebub and cast out devils, who do you cast them out by?" All right.
There they started, and away they went. Signs and wonders begin to follow the Master as He went on from healing the sick; that took place then. Then after He begin to feed the fishes and break bread and turn the atoms loose and create powers and things, then then from that He went to raising the dead. Miracles begin to grow faster and faster and faster and faster as the junction time come.
83 That's the same thing that's taking place today. There was an hour coming when this world will shake with the powers of God. That's right. And you're seeing it happen right before you now.
Here it is. The miracles begin to take place, set in. It's nearing the end. Jesus begin to warn them. And as He went on, miracle after miracle starting happening. Greater and greater started happening as He went on. And finally they hung Him on the cross. Then God answered from heaven. The sun refused to shine. The moon turned dark. The stars wouldn't show its light. And the Son of God died at Calvary. And you look at the sky it taken, until the sun had convulsions and went out. Amen.
Nature had taken place, answered back. Miracles, signs, and still them hard-hearted religious people walking around and saying, "Why, He's just a spiritualist. That's all. Just Beelzebub."
84 And the same time they did that, the nervous... The earth had a nervous prostration. On Easter morning it shook so hard in the nervousness, until it throwed the dead bodies of those in the graves out. And they come out and appeared to many. Amen. Signs and wonders, we're at the end time, at the junction.
Then went forth the Gospel, fifteen hundred years of dark ages. Then come another junction, when protestantism cuts itself loose from Catholicism. That's at the early reformation with Luther. Signs and wonders through Luther and Wesley...
John Wesley, when he preached Divine healing and healed the sick. And signs and wonders followed his revival, and you know it to be the truth. You could say it in a Methodist church today, and then they'd kick you out the door.
When John Wesley right here, him and Whitefield, when he was riding on his horse to go pray for a sick woman, his horse fell and broke its leg, and he got off, and took his anointing oil, and anointed the horse in the oil in the Name of the Lord, and got on it and rode away: junction time. Amen.
Right there in England, now, where he was preaching Divine healing... And the high Church of England persecuted him as it is today. And they turned the fox horns and the foxes loose over there, he pointed his finger in their face and said, "The sun will not set on your head three times till you'll be calling me to pray for you." And he died that night with cramps calling for John Wesley to pray for him: junction time. Hallelujah.
85 Now, you become so cultinized; you become so organized, till each one of you little petty organizations believe that, "This is now. And now, I--I belong to this. I belong to that."
Oh, you poor miserable person. If that's all you've got to hang to, God be merciful to your sinful soul. The time is come when the clergyman has raised up to be some kind of actors in a skit. What's the matter today? They don't have the old fashion religion they used to have.
Today you got too much Hollywood evangelism, some little sissified guy with manicured hair, and stand up to a bunch of women with earrings hanging down like the devil's stirrups, and enough paint on their face to paint a barn, and bobbed hair, and every... That used to be a sin among you Holiness people. What happened? You did run well. The Bible still says it's a sin. That's right.
But oh, my, you saintly people, you bob your hair and you... Oh, you do all these things. Now, don't get angry. If it makes you sick, just take it anyhow. It'll do you good. That's right.
86 Oh, you Pentecostal people used to be very holy, but what happened? You did run well. Paul said, "What does hinder you?" If it was a sin then, it's a sin now. The devil might've went out of fashion, but he didn't go out of business. He's still in business. That's right.
You know that's the truth. No use squirming around about it. You know that's the truth. Yes, sir. But what is it? It's a sign of the end time.
87 Now, again the pastors... Old Brother, Methodist preacher friend of mine, old Brother Sturgeon used to sing this:
We let down the bars;
We let down the bars;
We comprised with sin.
We let down the bars.
The sheep got out,
But how did the goats get in?
Uh-huh, you let down the bars. That's what's the matter.
And old John Smith, when he was nearly ninety years stood up and... They had to pack him to the pulpit. He preached a short sermon; only two and a half hours is all longer he could preach in a Methodist Church. And he said, "Oh, such a disgrace." He said, "My heart is a burning within me. For the daughters of the Methodist church has become so foul, till they're wearing gold rings upon their fingers."
What would he think today with a pair of shorts on? My, oh God, be merciful, be... Don't you see what I mean? No wonder such people as that and such preaching as letting the bars down, and comprising, taken membership instead of fellowship with Christ. And took the upper room, where we used to go and pray... And you old fashion Methodist and Baptist fell on the floor with the Holy Ghost, till they'd dash water in your face and fan with a fan. And you old mammies and daddies know that.
But today, oh, my, my. No, the very audacity. No they wouldn't... Oh, my, no; they wouldn't believe in that. It's too bad, just too bad that you don't. So you ought to go back to the old way again.
88 But today you let down the bars, and you see what you got? You hatched out a bunch of infidels, social gospel preachers, with education instead of salvation, comprising with the world. That's right. You say, "Preacher, what's you so hard about it?"
It's time to be hard. That's right. Time to tell the truth. Woe unto a man. Could you imagine John the Baptist filled with the Holy Ghost, when Herod come out living with his brother Philip's wife. I hear the deacons comes and said, "Don't you preach on marriage and divorce. Now, I tell you who he is. He's got his Brother Philip's..."
Oh, John full of the Holy Ghost, could he hold his peace? With that old piece of sheepskin wrapped around his hairy chest, he walked out and said, "It's not lawful for you to have her." Amen.
89 God give us some more men like that who will call black black and white white, who will preach the Gospel uncompromised, the old rugged Gospel of Jesus Christ, and believe this dear old black- backed Bible to be the truth, and take Jesus Christ as Saviour. Things will happen. Miracles will come back in the church. You know that's true. It's the end time.
The social preachers has begin to say, "Oh, the days of miracles has passed. There's no such a thing as that. It's nonsense."
But God has arose on the scene again. Omnipotent is speaking. The sick's being healed. The blind sees; the deaf hear; the cripples walk; devils are cast out. Power is come. The Holy Ghost is putting gifts in the church, manifesting. Men are seeing visions. Prophets are appearing. What is it? It's at the end time. We're at the junction.
And if Jesus Christ (at He's coming to settle sin) produced such a thing as He did on that day... And remember there was tens of thousands rejected it; millions rejected it. And there will be tens of millions reject it. And now, when the devil is turned loose with every power of hell. How much more will he come with his impersonations and acting to be? As it is in that day, and so will it be in this day. We're at the end time. God's showing signs and wonders.
90 Christian people, you who have professed without being possessed of the Holy Ghost, why don't you give up that stubborn will of yours, and come to God, and be regenerated and born again of the Spirit of God. If in your heart you don't believe in the miraculous, you don't believe that God does these things today... If God is still God, He's got to be the same God. If He's lost His power, He's a dead God.
What good does the God of Elijah do you? Ask you something? What good does the God of Moses do you if He's dead? What good does the God of Elijah will do you if He's dead? If He isn't the same, then He's a historical something. But He's not a historical Christ. He is a risen Christ. And all of His power and the fullness that He ever was, He is today living among us right now, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
91 We're at the junction time. Look for everything to happen. The nervous... The world's a trembling. And ministers is saying, "Well, you know, strange that medical science is recognizing those things and writing pages about it. Why, the paper is full of miracles a happening. What's it all about?"
"Well, I tell you, Doctor Jones..." We'll talk about Divine healing. "Well, we'll see what Moody said about it."
Moody was all right. He was all right for his day, but he won't work today.
92 A French scientist, three hundred years ago, scientifically proved science, modern. He proved that if a man would ever go the terrific speed of thirty miles an hour, gravitation would take him off the earth. You think science would ever refer back to that fellow?
We're going sixteen hundred miles per hour today and still moving on, 'cause science is eating off this tree of knowledge. And we are over here, the preachers... Oh, the knowledge will only run so far, then it falls backwards.
But the Tree of Life has no end to It. We got untapped resources, and you're scared to step out and take God at His Word. I don't care if you want...
Moody was all right. He was in his day like that scientist was, but, brother, we're not traveling in an ox cart. The Church of the living God is moving to a jet plane. We're moving on up the road: signs and wonders. And we're just starting.
93 Omnipotent is speaking. The miraculous is happening. Why don't you get in and go with us? We'll be glad to have you along. Call you our brother, sister. I'm not meaning that you're not, in a sense, but I want you to get into the blessing.
One day, the Bible says, that things will break out on this earth and diseases and things, and all the people will be plagued, till the flesh shall rot on them and so forth. But the Bible says, "Don't you come near any of those who has the Seal of God in their forehead."
And the Seal of God is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Now, you advent brothers, I don't want to disagree with you on being a seventh day; there's no Scripture for that. But the Bible Ephesians 4:30 says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you're sealed till the day of your redemption."
94 And the mark of the antichrist is to reject that Holy Ghost. Which you're sealed outside of the Kingdom forever, with no, no way they'll ever be forgiven. He that speaks against the Holy Ghost will never be forgiven in this world or the world to come. There's your mark of the beast and the seal of God in one little handful.
The seal of God is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. And the mark of the antichrist is to deny it. Now, you're marked one way or the other. Don't you want to have the Holy Ghost today?
If you people here would just only believe with, oh, a few moments of prayer, signs and wonders would take place in this church this afternoon. Anything could happen.
But we're at the junction time. This is the seventh junction. What's the next, Brother Branham? We're going into the Millennium. That's right. Time will cease at this junction, and eternity will begin for us. And never no more...
95 And if they have been through all of these things, when all the world history is climaxing in this great drama... What's the matter? What makes people so nervous? Why is it even psychiatrist are coming to be prayed for? Why is it the world's in a nervous age, a neurotic age. When people can't wait. "Thrrrrp [Brother Branham makes a speeding noise--Ed.]," down the street ninety miles an hour, stop at the beer joint, two hours 'fore they go home, run over people. What's the matter?
What's everybody in such a hurry, you can't visit your neighbor? You don't have no friends. You don't know who lives next door to you. You ain't got time to do this. You're in a hurry. What's the matter?
There's a great drama being set. That's right. And the lion-hungered nation are ravishing in. But just before he gets able to take it, God will take His Church.
96 I watched an old eagle one day when she was up in her nest, stirring up her nest, the Bible said how they would do. I was herding cattle on a ranch. I was way back up the top of the mountain. It was in the springtime, and I was putting my binoculars on. And I thought, "What is that up there?" Heard a lot of squawking and going on. It was that old mother eagle taking those little ones from the old pukey nest. Them's the stinking place you ever seen, where they bring the food in there. Poor little eagles knowed nothing else but just the old stinky nest, walked on thorns and thistles.
And the old mother got them on her wings, and she went down into the valley, and spread forth her wings, and all those little eaglets run all around. And I said, "If that ain't an old time camp meeting, I never seen one."
The world being taken out of the old pukey nest, excuse that expression... But an old nest of the world, where just stink, and vomit, and everything, and filth of the world, and adultery, and tobaccos, and whiskey, and every other thing that could go on, card parties, and everything, and Christians, professed Christians do that.
97 And Pentecostal people, you're not immuned from it. I been around in your places that done it too. Now, don't think cause you belong to Pentecostal Church... God don't recognize the Pentecostal Church no more than He recognizes any of the rest of them. He recognizes an individual's faith in Him. That's all. No matter what it is. Don't call... Pot can't call kettle black.
Now, let me tell you. There when the... She laid these little eagles out there, they'd been in that old nest. They didn't know nothing but this hard life and all this, like the--the sinner does. But when just walking on this little soft grass, they were just chirping and tumbling, turning little tumbles over one another. I said, "If that ain't an old time meeting, I never seen one." Just carefree, a biting a little piece of grass here and a little piece there.
I thought, "Why are they so carefree?" Watch nature and you'll see God.
I noticed that old mother eagle, as soon as she left her little ones off, she soared way yonder into the skies to the highest rock that she could find. I turned my glasses on her. I looked at her. There she was setting up there, her big stately body framed, working those feathers looking around.
I thought, "You know what?" I thought, "That poor little eagle," and I watched her. Her eye was a watching them. I said, "Now, Lord, what's this to show me?"
98 Watching nature you can see God if you watch the way nature moves. I thought, "That's right. God taken His Church out of the old nest of the world. He's set them in Beulah land here, where's there's just shouting and praising God and having a good time and rejoicing in the old camp meeting."
I thought, "Well, what if a coyote would come up?" And I happened to turn my glasses back; I seen her eyes looking back. I thought, "That's right, Lord. You climbed the ramparts of glory. You set yonder on the right hand of God. And His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." He watches you. Oh, His eye is to protect us.
Anyway, I thought, "If that coyote would get around there, he'd get his eye flogged out in a minute." That's right. So what you got to worry about as long as His eye is on you watching? Just have a good time and rejoice. Praise God, treat your neighbor right and live right, do right, act right, be a real Christian. And be not bound down with fear, wondering what's a coming. Don't make any difference to you, you're going in the rapture. That's right. Dead or alive you're going in the rapture anyhow. Even death can't separate us from the love of God that's in Christ.
99 Then after awhile... I laid there just an hour, laying across a log like this, watching. And the the first thing you know, I heard a little thunder in the distance; a northern had come up. A quick splash of rain come. And the skies turned green back there, and the thunders rapped. And I seen old mother, she raised that head; she scented that storm. And whenever she did, she let out a big scream, and here she come.
She screamed as loud as she could. Every one of them little eaglets run together like that. She spread forth her big wings, and each little eaglet put his foot right in her feathers like that. Took his little mouth and took a hold like that. That old mother lifted them eaglets like that on her wings, the storm coming down the mountain. She pierced her way through that wind blowing at sixty miles an hour, right into that rock to the cleft.
I thought, "O God, someday You're coming. Holding on to the wings of the cross, through the storms of life, oh, God, to safety yonder to the Rock."
100 Here at Gary, Indiana, not long ago, I was down there watching something take place. They taking me through one of those mills down there, a little--great big places where they make all these machine pieces. And a man taken me up. As I'm closing now, listen. And he was showing me around the factory. They was a whole lot of machines lathes there turning this stuff. And all at once, while he was telling me, explaining it all to me... We was standing up high and just then a little bell rung. Every man laid up his apron and begin to sweep the--the--the shavings down in the middle of the floor. And I said, "What are they doing that for?"
He said, "Reverend Branham, I'll show you something in a few minutes."
And I said, "All right."
He swept it all out in the middle of the aisle, each man. Waited just a few minutes, another little whistle, "Toot, toot [Brother Branham illustrates--Ed.]." And away everybody went. Well, the place was empty.
He said, "Now, watch." And he pressed a button. And when he pressed the button, I heard something coming going roar, roar, roar, roar way back in the back.
I thought, "What is that?"
He said, "Just wait a minute." And when he come, he said, "Step back."
101 I stood back like this, and down through there come a great big magnet. And it went right down across that floor, about a foot or two off the floor, and every one of those shavings picked right upon that magnet like that. And off out yonder it went back over in there, and they demagnetized it, and dropped down in the cupola to be made new material. I said, "Hallelujah."
He said, "What's the matter with you?"
I said, "Oh, I just feel good."
He said, "What's you talking about?"
I said, "I know of another big magnet that's a coming someday." Hallelujah. "God will press the button. And when He does..." I said, "I want to ask you something." I said, "Why didn't all those shavings go?"
He said, "You see, some of them are not magnetized to that magnet. Some of them are aluminum, and that magnet won't pick them up."
I said, "Glory." Sure, you can be a shaving. You can be in the church. But you better be magnetized yonder. That's right. I said, "Why don't that other piece of iron go?"
He said, "You see, Minister Branham, it's bolted down."
I thought, "O God, have mercy."
Let's be magnetized with the Holy Ghost, that when Jesus comes in the sky someday, He will catch these little old frail bodies of humiliation, and we'll be taken to God's molding pot and come out immortal as...?... to live forever. Some glorious day, but only those who are magnetized will go. Shall we pray.
102 Our heavenly Father, in Thy precious Name we come to Thee humbly with all of our hearts, with all our souls, with all of our mind. We're at the junction time, Lord.
O eternal, omnipotent God, Your speaking signs are appearing. When Thou speakest Lord, signs appear. Now, I pray Thee, precious heavenly Father, today, that You'll speak to every ungenerated--regenerated heart in this building, and may they become Your children from this day on. Grant it, heavenly Father.
Thou knowest them, and You know all that's Yours. You said, "All that's mine will come to Me. All that Thou has given unto Me will come to Me."
And I pray, God, that there would be some here today that the Father has given You. And by the preaching, faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the Word... And knowing that we're at the junction time, the end time of the world, that the... We're weighed in the balance and found wanting. There's many, maybe, around through the world today, yet, millions and millions of people, who doesn't believe that You're the same yesterday, today, and forever.
103 They have a form of godliness and deny Your power, deny Your Word. And yet, they're swaying thousands of poor children into eternity without hope, without God and lost, with their social things about believing. You said they'd have forms of godliness. They'd belong to churches; they'd have rituals; they'd be baptized in many ways, and sprinkled in many ways and every other thing. All the forms and study catechisms, and--and be taking church papers: form of godliness but would deny the power thereof, the power to give a man a Holy Ghost to change his life and make him a new creature.
You said, "From such turn away." And we're in that day, Lord. I pray that You'll rise up thousands of voices everywhere to cry out in this day. A new ark is being prepared. Christ's body is being formed, and someday it'll be caught up in the air to be with Him forever.
O eternal God, if such a person is in here today under strong preaching and strong doctrine, I pray, Father, the conviction is come to sow. I've sowed the Word, now You water it, Father. And may they accept it today for Jesus' sake.
104 And while we have our heads bowed in this visible--this auditorium here now, if there's a man or woman here that hasn't been borned again... Now, it's up to you, friend. This may be the last time you'll ever hear my voice.
And perhaps, if I'd come back a year from today there's many of you setting here that could not be here, you'll be in eternity. And I may be myself. I don't know. That's in the hands of God. But even with this few hundred people we got right in here, maybe two or three hundred people this afternoon, there's bound to be some of you gone by next year (You know that.), that's marks and your cards ready to be took out of the rack at any time. Are you really, really borned again? Do you know it?
Jesus said, "These signs shall follow them that believe."
105 And if you're not, and you're conscious enough with your right mental condition to realize that you're without Christ then, if you're not borned again... Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he will in no wise (no matter how good you are or what you've done), no wise will he ever even see the Kingdom of God."
And if you're in that condition today, will you do as much as this, raise up your hand and--to God and say, "Be merciful to me, and give me this experience of being borned again, heavenly Father"?
Do you believe it? Would you raise your hand? Is there a person anywhere in Divine Presence? God bless you, my sister. God bless you, my brother. God bless you, my brother. Bless you, my little sister. That's sincerity, the honest, honest sincerity.
You should believe at this time. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day. Now is the time. Now is the time to believe it. Would there be another hand?
106 Remember, I might see your hand, but it don't count whether I see it or not. It's whether God sees it. What if in the morning or tonight sometime, you happen to turn over and feel a real strange pain in your side? You'd happen to say, "Oh, what's this?" You'd call for the doctor. The pain's going down your side.
Doctor say, "Heart attack. Just a few more minutes."
Then what about this experience of being borned again? What about knowing Jesus? Oh, you say, "Well, I know the mayor of the--the city. I'm well acquainted with the pastor."
That ain't what I'm talking about. What about being borned again and knowing Jesus? Don't guess at it. Just don't imagine you are, but you must be borned again. I don't mean a fanatical, emotional, mental work up; I mean a real experience. I--I can only speak as a voice. I'm only a man; that's true. And you have a right to doubt me if you wish to. I'm only bringing you the unadulterated Word of God and telling you the truth. Then it's up to you to what you do with.
107 If you believe the message I've told you today, that we're at the end time, and men without God will be cut off without any remedy at all (And that may be in the next hour for you.), and then you mean to tell me, that you won't raise your hand, say, "God, be merciful to me."? God bless you, lady.
You bringing your little baby for prayer? Now, God bless you. May He grant it to you. Someone else?
Now, just think it over. Just think. What if this is your last day? It may not be. I hope it's not. I hope you live to see Jesus come. I hope that's many, many years from now, but I don't know. There's one thing I do know. You're going, and you know you're going. And if you're not positive that you're right, will you just raise your hand to God?
All right. God bless you, and God bless you, sister. Two more people raised their hands.
108 There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
Where sinners plunged beneath the flood,
Now remember, what did they do? Lose all their guilty stains, every bit of it, all gone. You believe that you'll lose it right now? If you'll believe it with all your heart, and all your guilty stains will be wash... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
What can wash away my sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Every man that ever amounted to anything believed that. Just let's think of what Christ means to...?... What does Christ mean? If we call all the prophets together, what did it mean to them? What did they answer? What would it mean to the--the Roman centurion who put his hand over his heart and said, "Truly, that's the Son of God"?
What would it mean to Judas Iscariot? What would to mean to Caiaphas? What would it mean today to the poets of the world? What would you think it would be when this guy that wrote these old vulgar songs, that the little ladies and little boys and girls of our school are singing, these dirty old popular songs today, sending their little souls into mires of hell? What do you think it would mean to them if Jesus come? What do you think of all these here vulgar dirty pictures and things, what do you think it would mean today if they come?
109 What did Christ mean to Eddie Perronet, when he was persecuted for righteousness sake? When one day they--they wouldn't receive his letters; they wouldn't receive his poetry; they wouldn't receive them. They wouldn't even take his songs. And one day standing there he was crying, and he picked up his pen, and the Holy Ghost took a hold of him, and he wrote,
All hail the power of Jesus name!
Let Angel prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all."
He wrote the inauguration song of the second coming of the Lord Jesus. We could ask him, "What does it mean?" We could...?... one of these days, our...
On Christ, the solid Rock, I will stand;
All other grounds is sinking sand,
All other grounds is sinking sand.
110 What could I say to today to old blind Fanny Crosby? "What would He mean to you, blind Fanny Crosby? You never seen daylight in your life. What does He mean to you?"
She said:
Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.
Thou the stream of all my comfort,
More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in heaven but Thee?
Another wrote:
Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away.
Rising, He justified freely forever.
Someday He's coming--oh, glorious day."
Can you join in your hearts those melodies of God? May God bless you.
111 Now, I appreciate your fine attendance and all you done. Is there anybody here sick, wants to be remembered in prayer? Now, would you raise your hand? Is there anybody sick? Lady, one? All right, sir. That's very fine. Praise the Lord for you.
Now, the very same Gospel that I preached to you here of the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ that'll take every sin from you, will take every sickness from you. He was wounded for our transgressions. That's the reason I preach the things I do. By His stripes we were healed.
Jesus said in the Bible... Listen, what Jesus said in Saint John 3. "As Moses lifted up the brass serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up."
What did Moses lift up the brass serpent for? Because the people were chatting and backslidden again, talking about God's servant and God. And they were bitten by snakes and were sick and dying. And it was lifted up for the forgiveness of their sins and for the healing of their bodies.
112 And Jesus said, "Just as Moses lifted up the brass serpent, so must the Son of man be lifted up." The same reason... And today "He's wounded for our transgressions, with his stripes you were already (past tense) healed."
Can you believe it? Can you accept it? Your cancer will leave you. Your tumor will go away. Your blindness will go from your eyes, deafness from your ears, no matter what it is. He will do it, if you will believe. You believe it?
Where's the pastor at? Come here, pastor. I want you to stand with me in prayer.
113 How many ministers are in here, that believes in prayer for the sick? Let's see your hands? Well, God bless you. I didn't know they was so many preachers here. That's very fine. I thought you was a fine looking crowd. But my, that--that's very fine. God bless you.
I wonder if you would join with me today in a word of prayer for these people that's sick and afflicted? You who are sick again, raise up your hand so the pastors can see where you're setting. You see where they are, pastors? The ones standing near you, let's get up out of our seat, pastor and stand around and face the crowd. That's right. That's fine. Stand right around and face your crowd. Let's join in prayer. Pastor, you come here with us.
114 Listen. If you're here today and you made a decision for Jesus Christ, if you claimed you want to be filled with the Holy Ghost... Look at these pastors. They're here today, because they believe in this Gospel that we're preaching. They're here because that they love the Lord Jesus. They're here because they believe in this Gospel. And if you want to get close to God, if you want the baptism of the Holy Ghost, somebody who will stay with you and pray with you until you come through, go to their church. You know who they are. These pastors here that's standing, they're God-fearing men. They're from here, somewhere around here in the neighborhood. And you know them, and they're all God's children.
Now, you go to the closest or your choice of these churches and get right with God. Do that.
115 And these men, each one of them, believes in Divine healing or they wouldn't be standing to their feet. They're not ashamed of it. They're standing here today to take their stand that they honor a man who believes in Divine healing. I pray for the sick. These men of God, I appreciate them and love them with all my heart, and I pray that God will bless your ministries, my brother. May they increase a double to what they are now. And may you win many souls to Christ and great healing signs and wonders take place in your little churches around here, as you're preaching and standing for this full Gospel message.
Now--now, we all bow our heads in prayer. May the Lord God send His blessings to each one of you.
116 Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee for those who raised their hands a while ago saying they desired to be borned again. They wanted to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost and be sealed into the Kingdom of God.
Now, right here in the neighborhood and right around the places here where these people come from, here are pastors, Your shepherds, Lord, who's feeding their flock And they're standing here not ashamed, but standing boldly in the Presence of God to let the people know that they believe in this marvelous old Gospel. They believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They believe in the second coming of Christ. They believe that they're at the end-time. And they're trying their best, Lord, in little corners of the world to win people to You.
O Eternal God, bless their ministry abundantly. I pray that you'll anoint them with preaching power, with healing power, and the virtues of God, until their little churches will cry out, great signs and wonders will take place. And may there come an old fashion revival out of Sturgis here that'll sweep the whole state. Grant it, Lord. Give them an old fashion outpouring of the Holy Ghost. May it start from this very little gathering together.
117 Father, those who have raised their hands, may this... May the sun not shine in the morning until they have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost at one of these little church services tonight. Grant it, heavenly Father.
Now, those who are sick and afflicted, God, I pray that You'll be merciful to them. We've introduced to them the Blood of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, and praying that You'll grant their faith now will reach up, even before they leave this building, and will be made well every one of them of the diseases they have.
O Lord, some eight, ten people raised their hands or more, that they want to be remembered in this prayer for the sick. And I ask Thee with all my heart, as Your servant stands here facing this audience and this people in the Presence of God, that the Holy Ghost will come down like a rushing wind and will anoint this little group of people, Father. And that the powers that raised Jesus from the grave will quickly snatch away the darkness from around them, that they'll rise to their feet and be made well.
Grant it, Lord, as men of renown stands praying as we offer this prayer to you in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
118 With your heads bowed, your hearts bowed, your humble hearts a waiting on God, I want you to sing this song with me, as real slowly now and think of it. As we...?...
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe
That Jesus heals me now.
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe
That Jesus heals me now.
Do you believe it? If you believe it, rise up to your feet as a testimony saying, "I now take Jesus Christ as my Healer. And from this very hour on, I'll trust Him the rest of my days, giving Him praise." If you'll do it, while we sing this song again, stand to your feet.
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe
That Jesus heals me now.
I'll take Him at His Word;
I'll take Him at His Word;
He brings to me salvation free;
And I'll take Him at His Word.
For I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe
That Jesus heals me now.
119 Isn't he wonderful? Don't you love Him? Now, there's the Methodist on one side, the Baptist the next door, the Presbyterian, the Lutheran, the Pentecostals. I want you, while we sing, "Isn't He wonderful," reach around and shake the hand of your neighbor. Just a moment. We're not dismissed. We're not through with the service yet. But just shake their hand--neighbor of your hand while we can sing some song. What good song do you know here, that's real good, brother? A good one?
Isn't he... all right. Lead it for us, brother. All right, shake one another's hands.
wonderful, wonderful, wonderful?
Isn't (Shake hands with a neighbor now, somewhere.) wonderful?
Eyes have seen, ears have heard,
what's recorded in God's Word.
Isn't He wonderful, wonderful?
Isn't He wonderful, wonderful, wonderful?
Isn't He wonderful, wonderful.
Eyes have seen, ears have heard
what's recorded in God's Word.
Isn't Jesus, my Lord wonderful.
120 Now, let's say, "Praise the Lord." Now, listen. With great big strong looking men like you are, great big strong women like you are, I don't think you can say, "Praise the Lord." Let's say, "Praise the Lord!" Come on. "Praise the Lord!" That sounds more like a meeting. Amen.
Oh, my. I know you say... Like the minister was one morning, He said, "What did you holler so loud in your sermon?"
He said, "Honey, what I didn't have in lightning I made up in thunder." But you have to have lightning to make the thunder. Amen.
Isn't He wonderful? The Lord bless you. All that love you--that love the Lord with all your heart, raise your hand, "Love the Lord with all my heart."
Faith in the Father, faith in the Son,
Faith in the Holy Ghost, three in the one;
Demons will tremble, and sinners awake;
Faith in Jehovah will anything shake.
Is that right? If you got faith. "Have faith in God," Jesus said when He was here on earth. "Have faith in God. Have faith in God." March forward into victory.
All right, do you... I appreciate being gathered here with you, all your nice things. And God bless you and God bless our little pastor.
And now, while we bow our heads all over the audience, we're going to pray again. As you bow your heads, I give the service now to your pastor, Brother Jackson. All right. With heads bowed...