Thirsting For Life

1 Lord, Thou has permitted us to live in this day to see these great signs and wonders happening by Your hand. And there's no one here any more conscious that it isn't Your servant who knows these things, than I am. It is You, Lord. And by Your promise You promised You would do these things and Thou always keeps Your promise. And to this we're thankful and give Thee praise. Bless us this afternoon in the Word, tonight in the great healing service. We'll praise Thee in Christ's Name. Amen. May be seated.

2 I was just trying to think a few moments ago... [Someone adjusts the microphone--Ed.] If you'll set that just as high as you can. I... Anybody ever had the flu? Just a petting my little boy Joseph, I think I must've caught his bad cold and I got a very bad throat. I've got a preacher's throat. I haven't knowed the time in twenty-five years that my throat wasn't constantly red, 'cause I preach, pray for the sick day and night, day in and out, week in and out, month, year in and out. See? And it just keeps me constantly coughing. And so I get a little--little... It'll--it never gets sore. I don't believe I ever did have a sore throat, never did have a throat sore; it's just overtaxed. And then I get cold in there, of course, and it swells up the larynx, and then it being raw it gives the germ a chance to get in.

3 I was... Something here... Oh, yes, I was reading a letter. I wished I had brought that; I knew I should do something. Rosella, is she here this afternoon? Rosella Griffith? Yeah. Billy wants to see you and then make that arrangement for you. I was reading your letter just awhile ago. And so they...

This lady came in (She's here somewhere.), in this--this I guess that auditorium right here, this church. And the Holy Spirit told her, said, "Lady, you got cancer." And she had come in here from somewhere, the west. And she said when I walked off the platform, I said... She said to her husband, "Now, that just can't be." Said, "Now, I didn't say nothing when Brother Branham said that," said "but I--I just thought, 'Now, wait a minute. I know...'" And then said, I told her, said, who she was, where she come from, what had been her symptoms, and everything, and said the doctors couldn't find her trouble. But said, "You have cancer." And she doubted that.

And now, I've got the letters. I'll bring them tonight. That'd be a good time tonight. And now she's in the hospital just at the point of death with cancer. See? It was there; the doctor couldn't find it, but the Holy Spirit knew it was there.

Now, now, I don't say this (You see?), but perhaps if she hadn't have doubted that, the story might have been different today (See, see?) if she hadn't have doubted it. You must believe... Now, to me, you don't have to believe me; I'm just a man. But when He says anything, it's the truth (See?); it's the truth.

4 And so one time in a meeting, it was in Canada, way up here in... I can never think of that city across from Detroit, Windsor, Ontario. And there was a--a man slipped into the meeting. And he thought it was a telepathy. And he put on his prayer card, on the back of it, "I have so many diseases," and things like that. There wasn't nothing wrong with him. And when he come up to the platform, he happened to be in the part of the line, probably just going through praying for the sick. And he said, "Could you tell me what's wrong with me?" And Brother Baxter started passing him on.

I said, "Just a moment."

He said, "I want to know what's wrong with me."

Brother Baxter said, "We're not having that."

Now, he'd been better off if he'd listened to Brother Baxter (See?), went on through. But no, he had to stop. And when he did, then the Holy Spirit said to him, "There's nothing wrong with you, you have no disease at all."

He said, "Oh, yes I do." He said, "Look on my card down there that they got."

I said, "I don't care what you got on your card; you--you haven't got nothing wrong with you."

And he said, "Oh, yes."

I said, "Well, you don't..."

He said, "I've got it." Said, "I got--I got it stated on my card."

I said, "I don't know anything about your card; I never see that. You just get a card, you... Anything you want to put on it, you put on it. But I don't see that, the ministers get them." And he said... But he said...

5 I said, "You might have had it and maybe you had a--a faith and was healed."

"Oh," he said, "That's what it is, is it," turned around.

And just then I looked and there was a vision. I said, "Why has the devil put in your heart to do that?" I said, "You are..." Now, if this is a person of that is in this building, I'm not speaking against your church. I said, "You're a Church of Christ minister." They love to fuss. I said, "You're a Church of Christ preacher. Last night you set with a man with a gray suit and a red tie. And you set at a table had a little green cloth hanging over it; there was a blond-headed woman setting next to you, and you said it was telepathy. And you come to this meeting today and wrote that on there, thinking you could pass it through and make a telepathy out of it to up trip God's Spirit." I said, "You're the one exposed."

And just then the man setting up there; he said, "Mr. Branham, I'm the guy that was with him." Said, "That's my wife setting right here, was with him."

And I said, "The things that you put on your card, you have. Both cancer and TB." And he fell down on the platform. But the last time I heard him, I never heard no more, just a letter from some of the people, that he was in a serious condition. So we're not playing church.

6 The infallibility of the Holy Spirit. Not the infallibility of the man, the man has no infallibility. But the Holy Spirit is absolutely infallible. Don't pretend nothing. You be what you are. When you say, "I now accept Christ as my Healer," you mean that. Don't you just slip around the corner and say, "Well, I'll try Brother Roberts when he comes in or somebody else." Don't you never do that. That's a dangerous thing, very dangerous. And you--you be just what you are. And if you're not a Christian, don't say you are.

If you're a sinner, admit it. God knows it. And now, your--your sinful condition... Just because you belong to church, that won't help you one bit. You might have a confession, your name on the book, and living a righteous life, and you're still a sinner. You got to be borned again, not with a mental mind, but by something that's happened in your heart. See? It's got to be, friends. Don't never let the devil blindfold you to that. It doesn't come by intellectual conception; it comes by birth. And your life copes right with that. You must have it.

7 I wish to read and just take about twenty or thirty minutes of your time. I'm hoarse. But I want an evangelistic service, the Lord given it, tonight to pray for the sick.

Now, I've chosen for this afternoon, for a subject found over in Psalms 63 and the first 3 verses.

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsts for thee, my--my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in thy sanctuary.

Because thy lovekindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

8 We have the most unusual text this afternoon, the reading of God's holy Word. When I read this, it just turned me around. And I thought to say within myself, "What was the prophet speaking of when he said, 'Thy lovekindness is better to me than life.'" There's nothing no better than life. And then, "Thy lovekindness is better than life; my lips shall praise thee." Well, I thought, "There must be different kinds of life."

Now, many people begin to think on the subject of life. And now, feeling free, and I have always tried to not hold things back. Never in my life, knowingly have I ever called out a character's name or some individual's name. I have rebuked sin, preached what I thought was right, but never disregarded any brother. He could be just as wrong, and I could be wrong too. But regardless him being wrong, don't disfellowship him from my--from my fellowship with Christ with him. We are brothers.

9 But I heard a minister last night. It happens to be in our room there was a television, and I'm not much on television, as you know. If it's the right thing, all right. But there's so little right on it; I just don't have one in my house.

And so it was a famous evangelist that was preaching last night that said, "When a man is born he receives a life, and that life he will be forever."

Now, a man of that caliber. But I just wondered. If he'd ever set down to think this; the Bible said, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Yes, sir.

10 Everything that has a beginning has an end. And it's things that had no beginning that has no end. And there's only one Eternal Life. That's in God. All other life has an end. But God has no end because He had no beginning. And we being parts of God have Eternal Life with God. But everything that has any other type of life had a beginning; it has an end. Only the eternal things last.

Now, the word "forever" comes in a conjunction, "Forever and forever." "Forever" is a space of time. But eternity is no begin or end. It's just a perfect circle. There's no end in it at all. It's eternity. Forever... Like, you see, forever and (conjunction) forever. Two spaces of time. But eternity and Eternal Life means the same thing. See? It's in the same category, that it had no begin neither does it have an end; it's forever the same. Ever was and ever will be the same.

11 Now, in Brother Joseph's church, where I feel just as free as I was at my Tabernacle, and to give a little basis here before I bring my message to you from the Lord, I want to just do a little Bible teaching for a moment. There is a Spirit in the world that is real, pure, unadulterated love. And that love come from the great Spirit; it's God. There is a Spirit in the world just pure, unadulterated righteousness. That Spirit come from God. And all of the Spirits of righteousness, of love, of purity, that is God. That is the eternal, everlasting, without beginning or ending; that's God.

12 The Logos that went out of God as... No disregards to Catholic people now. But the Catholic church, I... My background, my family's Catholic. And I have the--the Catholic people here, the book called "Facts of Our Faith." And they use the word of eternal sonship of God. The word don't even make sense to me. The word "eternal" means "eternity, which had no begin or has no end." And "son" means "had a beginning." So how could it... It could be a eternal Godship, but never an eternal sonship. A son is one that's begotten of. So it had a beginning.

So... And the Logos, which was the Son of God went out, created by these great fountains of purity, God, as those Spirits went out, and it created the Logos. And it was a body. It was in the form of what we are now, which is called in the clergy way of speaking it, a theophany. It's a body that doesn't have a spirit in it. It's a body that's waiting for you Christians. As soon as the life leaves this, you go into that body. When this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have one already waiting, a theophany.

13 Now, when God was in theophany, which was Christ in the making, then that theophany become flesh and dwelled among us. Then that was to redeem. He came from there down through this to redeem this creature, give it life, and take it back up into the eternal one. See?

Now, there's only one Eternal Life, and that lays in God only. And God only has Eternal Life. And we have been privileged to become the sons of God. Then that word: "He that heareth My words and believeth on him that sent me, hath Eternal life." The Greek word "Zoe," there used for God's own life. The creature that accepts Him becomes a part of God and is just as eternal as God is. That's right. There's no reason for us to doubt that. It's God's everlasting, eternal Word. And everything that had a beginning has an end. So what...

14 Where did--where did sin begin? Sin began at the garden of Eden and sin has an end. So if David cried, "O Lord, my God, my soul is thirsty for thee in a dry land, where no water is. For thy lovekindness is better to me than life," there must be two different types of life. And there is two types of life. And when a man is borned in this world, he's nothing but a product of sin when he's born, because he's from sexual desire. He's just a product of sin. The Bible says he is. "He's borned in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies."

And yet he's got life. But that life is a perverted life. That life was...

15 Satan cannot create life. He can only pervert what God has created. Satan has no way...?... There's only one Creator, that's God. Satan couldn't heal; medicine couldn't heal. There's nothing else can heal but God, 'cause He's the only Creator. And anybody that's intelligent would know enough to know that there is not a medicine, or a drug, or nothing in the world that can create life. God is the only solemn One can in creation alone, for He said, "I am the Lord that healeth all of thy diseases."

16 Now, we see the different types of life. That's the reason that this man's born as a product of Adam, which was a product of sin from listening to his wife, and the wife was a product of sins come from Satan. And Adam followed his wife out, a perfect type of Christ, going with His--the Bride to take her sins, as Adam took the sins of Eve and left the garden of Eden, not deceived, but willingly walked out with her, so was Christ not deceived, Satan could not deceive Him. "If thou be the Son of God." He knew that He was. But He deliberately walked out and took sin for the church. He's our sin Bearer.

17 And now, everything that come out of that cycle of Eternal Life, when that goes back into its cycle again, into that ceaseless eternity, not one shape, form of sin in any way will ever enter. Now, here's one Baptist preacher believes in holiness.

Notice, that has got to be cleansed; that person's got to be cleansed. And there's only one thing can cleanse him; that's the Blood of Jesus Christ. Nothing else can do it.

18 So I wondered then, when he cried, "O God, my God, thy lovekindness is better to me than life." There must be two different kinds of life then. And I begin to study it. How could it be, two different kinds of life? Well, I begin to think that many people think when they're out here on the street running around, and to places, if they're living the life. That is the thing.

I've watched young mothers take their children and teach them tap dancing. "Well, I want her to have a little life." I've seen young ladies strip themselves down to just enough clothes that the law would let her put on, and go out, and she says, "I'm really living the life." And the woman doesn't know that she's dead while she's alive.

19 Sometime ago in another city, I was going into my room. And there was a Kiwanis Club, or some certain club, was having a meeting in this city, was having a rally, a convention. And when I went in, went up on the elevator, there was two young ladies coming down just with their underneath garment on, with a whiskey bottle in their hand, hollering, "Whoopee," going, and letting men dragging them from one room to the other. And I set back in the shadows to watch. And when they got close to me, oh, so vulgar. And they were both women, no doubt married women, with their husbands at home, maybe thinking they were having a little clean fun. There is not such a thing.

And then they was up there whooping it around, kinda relaxing, they would call it. One of them stopped and said, "Whoopee, this is life."

I said, "Oh, no, that's not life; that's death. The Bible said, 'She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she is alive.'" The Bible said that.

20 And this many times that the devil tries to tell you that that's life. But that's death. And notice also that that life becomes so miserable till people take that life, take a gun and blow their brains out. There'll be many of them in Chicago perhaps this summer. There'll be many of them jump from the towers and drown themselves. There'll be people in Chicago in the next few weeks, turn their gas chambers on, kill themselves. There'll be some deliberately drive in front of automobiles and kill themselves. There'll be some take poisons, and suicide on every hand. That kind of life becomes so treacherous till we know that the prophet wasn't talking about that kind of life. That's death. That's death in a form of life.

That's what Hollywood has done for the United States. It's perverted. It's stripped our women. It's--it's done all kinds of evil things. It's made our men... It's produced things here that's perverted the real stream of life into death. Even our nation is dying.

21 I was speaking a few moments ago with my wife, when we were setting in a little place. And there was them women coming in there, each with a cigarette, some--a little girl setting there with her eyelashes pulled out, painted like the devil, way back and hooked over sideways. And she was standing up, poor little thing, not no older than about eighteen, smoking a cigarette and drawing her mouth way out, making the awfullest thing, just scooting the smoke from her nose, not realizing she was dead in trespasses and sin. "You defile this temple, God will destroy it."

22 What's the trouble today. We've got too many weak pulpits that's afraid to preach an eternal burning hell, and to warn the people of the things, and letting the church go just as slothfully and sloppy as it can be. And I said, "Honey, where could we start from?" Our nation is corrupted. Our politics is as rotten as it can be. Our factories and our economics is just as rotten as it can be. Even the car industry, it takes you six or eight months to get the bugs combed out of your car. It's on line, assemble line, and throw it together, what difference does it make.

Our womanhood is broke. Motherhood of America is crashed. The morals is as rotten as in any nation there is in the world. What's the matter? It's because they have loved the things of the world more than they loved God, and they got a perverted. Exactly right.

Not only that, but our churches is crushed. Little old pulpit, sissified preachers that stands up in... I ain't criticizing no certain ones. But they stand up, and it's a meal ticket. It's an offering, or it's a popular name to get on television or on the air. I wouldn't sell my birthright to Jesus Christ for all the televisions and popularity there is in the world. No, sir. Life means more than these nasty ungodly things. I'd rather have favor with Christ then to be the president of the world. What a condition the world's got into.

23 Here not long ago I knowed of a church in our country, and many of them throughout the country, that they just care for--just carefree. And I'm not scolding people. But, brother, I've got to answer at the day of judgment for the messages I've give to the people. God, the only thing He could do... No, nothing could save this nation. It's gone. There cannot be no worldwide revivals in this time. There's nothing to build on. She's as rotten as it can be.

When it comes to a place that is vulgar and dirty a place as Paris, France, which has been the seat of Satan for the--hundreds of years: women, vulgarity, nastiness, when they... We used to go there twenty-five years ago and get their design to put on our women. We've got so low till they come over here and get our designs to put on their women. That's right. Newspapers and magazines picks it up. And the poor people are wading in it.

24 There's only one thing the Holy Spirit's doing; that's salvaging what He can, the elected of God to pull them out. So for me, as long as I got breath in my body, I'll call out and condemn the thing. I can't stop it. God said it would be there. I can't stop it, but I'll give a voice against it, that when God plays over His tape recording at the day of judgment, they'll know that they was told the truth anyhow by the Word of the living God. And God confirmed it with signs and wonders. Then it'd be up to them. That's right.

25 Listen, friends. God created a man to thirst. God put thirst in a man. A man was made to thirst. And do you mean to tell me that you would try to quench that blessed holy thirst with the world, and with the devil's programs. You try to quench that thirst with drinking whiskey, that God put in you to thirst after Him? There's something in man to thirst; God made that thirst for man to thirst for Him. But you try to quench it with pleasure.

And this American people has quenched it with pleasure, mad. That's right. That blessed, holy thirst... You strip yourself on these beaches. You'll lay in these pool rooms, playing cards, social drinking, all this nonsense that you do, and stay home on Wednesday night watching the television instead of going to church. What are you doing? You're trying to quench that holy thirst. You got to quench it some way. And you reject Christ, and the devil pours his slop into you. Right. And you think that you're right, but the Bible said, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death." Death is total annihilation, separation. Don't you never try to quench that blessed thirst with something the devil put into you.

26 Now, not only... You say, "Well, I'm not a drunkard. I'm not a gambler. I'm not a pleasure seeker." But, brother, if the devil can't get you one way, he will try another. And the devil has tried to quench with his type of life, the thirst that God give you for His Life. He just let you join church. He's let you shout. He's let you speak with tongues. He's let you do all kinds of demonstrations, and still, you're drinking from the devils slop pens. That's exactly right.

When a man thirsts after God, his whole being is surrendered to God. People goes around today, and joins churches, and lives like the devil. They think they quench that thirst. "I go to church; that settles it." Many times I told them when they come on Easter, that's usually when everybody wants to show their new hat. They'll come on Easter; you might as well bid them a Merry Christmas, 'cause you won't see them again till next Easter. And yet they're members of the church. They are members of that denomination. But a member of the Church is borned again of the Spirit of God and their soul cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That blessed holy thirst that God give you to thirst after Him. Then you pervert it. Give it something else. That hunger, that thing that you want to do, test out and see what it's thirsting for; see what it's after.

27 Listen to what David said here, "My soul thirsts after thee in a dry land, where no water is." Oh, could you imagine being in a dry land, where no water is. That's taking a--like taking a fish out of the water. It'd kill him pretty soon. And the real borned again saint of God, not just once of a morning when you get up, but all through the day, that blessed thirst calls out for God. And you'll smoke a cigarette to quieten your nerves instead of praying, and a member of the church. You'll take a little sociable drink and call yourself a Christian, to quieten your nerves, in the stead of letting God quieten you, love Him.

28 You'll go up and throw your arms around some other man, have a little clean fun, have a little date on the side, a little afternoon kiss at the back gate to satisfy that thirst that God put in you to thirst after Him. And you'll take another man's wife, and run off with her, and live in a hotel with her, and carry on like that. I don't say you do it; you may be here. If you are, God burn that in your soul (That's right.), thinking you're having a little clean fun. There's an all seeing eye watching you.

And the devil is trying to burn your passions after other women as they walk up-and-down the street half dressed. And your long looking, almost half wreck, at them little old dirty, vulgar, stinking women out there with them little old dirty clothes on.

And you men that'll let your wife do that, that shows what you're made out of. That shows what kind of a man you are. A man is the head of the family; he's the head of the house. But today the women's the head of the house, head of the factory, head of the church, and everything else, because it's become a conglomeration of sin. And Satan took Eve, and he's still using her. And America is a woman's nation.

29 Not long ago in Germany, or Switzerland, some lady said to me, a Christian woman; she said, "Brother Branham, I'd like to go over to America. I hear that the ladies are really... Well, they have the big sway there." Not in Switzerland. No, sir. "Well, we have no..." I said, "But here's what follows. It causes prostitution." Right here in Chicago, according to your paper, you have two thousand abortion cases every day, two thousand abortion cases. Two thousand innocent babies die every day because of filth. How can you have a revival under them kind of circumstances.

How many prostitutes hit the street last night, and men with other women, and women with other men? And little girls sell their morals, and up-and-down the street, till finally they end up on skid row down here. As I walked through the city last night of Chicago and I looked what was going on. How can you expect the Holy Spirit to sweep a revival over something like that? It's got to have a place to anchor.

30 And they go through the churches out here of a morning, and hear a little old pettified sermon about something, go back home and think they are Christians, and close the church up early. If the pastor preaches more than twenty minutes on the roses, or who will be the next president, or something like that, they will fire him and put a new one in. That bunch of hypocrisy, hell-bound, vulgar, pleasure seeking, the Bible said, "They'd be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are right."

God, give us old time Christianity, borned again experiences. That thirst--that thirst is in you, but it's for a purpose.

31 Woman was made woman for a man. Man was not made for woman, woman was made for man. But a woman was made for a man, not m-a-n, m-a-n, not men, many of them, but singular. That's right. But when they sell their morals, when they scandalize themselves, and men, the same thing, you're perverting the very cause that God made you a women or a man. Then you call that life. It's death. Then you go to church, and join church, and put your name on the church, and become a church member, and live like the world. It's perverting the very thing that God intended you to be, that thirst that God put in you to be like Him and to love Him and thirst after Him. The pastors, and the churches, and yourself, you've robbed yourself from that wonderful blessed thing that God ordained for you to use, that thirst: thirsting, thirsting.

32 Oh, if the Pentecostal church would only satisfy thirst in God instead of trying to follow some evangelist, or some emotion, or some little ism, or little sensation, how much better off they would be. You'd follow the Holy Spirit in Divine love instead of sensations, and little gifts, and things like that, how much better off you'd be. God don't want you to run after gifts; He wants you thirst after Him.

33 Notice, David said again, as being a psalmist. And he was a woodsman; he lived in the woods. He knowed what it meant to be in the woods. He always wrote of the still waters, and green pastures, and the shady places. He knowed what it was, because a shepherd has to find those things. He has to know where those beautiful places are.

Many times have I been into the desert, riding out there, just place where I'd have to lead my horse. Poor thing was so much out of water, we couldn't have any to drink, the horse or I. How we would thirst... Oh, if only I could find a track somewhere to get back.

34 And then when you get to that state, the devil begins to show you mirages. You know what a mirage is? Did you ever go down the road and look and see the sun shining on the road, looked like a lot of water? Oh, it'll fool you.

Here not long ago I seen where a bunch of geese coming from Canada, or ducks, and they seen one of those on the road, and fell in the road and they all bursted open. They thought it was a water.

Oh, the devil's got a many a pitfall for the people. It looks like it. And I've seen people thirsting, where they'd run into these places and fall into them, look, think they was in water. Looks just like a big running water, throw sand upon their head thinking it's water. And it's nothing but hot burning sand.

35 And the devil's told you little lady, and you sister, that if you do all these things, and you, brother, if you'd do all these things, and have a little social, lot of old narrow minded stuff... "Why, you don't want to listen to that old crack preacher. You don't want that Bible; that was translated four, five times; there's nothing to it. You can join church and be a good citizen." That's nothing else in the world but a mirage the devil's showed you. You're just heaping more sorrows all the time on you.

But there is a fountain filled with Blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their desire for the world. "For if you love the world or the things of the world, the love of God is not even you." It's satisfying portion of God He has for each of you. It's for whosoever will.

36 David. He wrote one time in the Psalms; he said, I believe the 47th Psalm, he said, "As the hart thirsts for the water brook, so my soul thirsts after thee, O God." Oh, when I think of that, David being a woodsman. And I been through that part of the country; you find out a lot of times there's a lot of deers that roam. The hart is a deer. And if you watch nature you'll see God. And they'll have wild dogs in that country. And they eat the deer. They would come in packs. And they overtake the deers. And one of the things they do is cut the little, what we call hamstring in the back, the leaders. And just cut out a whole pack. Then they can't run. Those dogs will eat as much as they can; then the others can't pull away very much. And then they're easier prey then to run right back and get them.

That's the way the devil does. He will cut you off from prayer meetings. He's done cut the hamstrings right then. You'll pull around from this church to that, and you'll run from here to there, but any time the devil wants to gobble you up, he's got you under his control. When he cuts your prayer life, brother, you're gone. That's right. When he cuts that thirst off of you and perverts it into the things of the world, he's got you where he wants you. He will let you gobble along here till you get to a certain place then crash your life out without God right there. Sure he will.

37 Now, the dogs, the hounds of hell, hound after the church. Certainly it does. But look, now really, a... When some of the wild dogs eat Jezebel... Did you ever know a dog won't eat human flesh? They won't even lick the blood of a human being. You can't get them near it. No, sir. But this was a certain kind of dog. It was a wild dog, not a domestic dog, but a wild dog. Wild dogs are wolves, just like a wolf. And they will eat human beings. But if you notice, this wild dogs had come in and eat Jezebel. It was a certain type of dog.

And that's the way it is today. The devil's got a bunch of old wild dogs out. They call them the wolf whistle and everything else, to you young folks. But remember, it's a hound of hell, right after you, and make you think that you're popular. The boys whistle at you because you're dressed the way you are. You poor little simple thing, you don't know what you're doing. That's right. You don't know that you're a prey of the devil. That's the devil. Listen to his voice.

38 Oh, he might talk ever so well. He might even be a pastor of a church. But let me tell you; it takes a real sheepherder to tell the difference between a whine of a goat and a whine of a lamb. They both bleat just the same. You can watch it if you're a herder. If you know your sheep you can hear his call, but if you don't, hear one of them, you couldn't tell whether it was a goat or a lamb bleating. The devil can bleat just like a lamb. That's exactly right.

39 But David, he said, "As the hart thirsts for the water brook, so my soul thirsts after thee, O God."

And you see these little deers out on the desert as they're jumping along having a good time. And the first thing you know, a pack of wild dogs will run among them and they'll grab them. Now, one of the favorite places for a wolf or a wild dog to grab a deer is just behind the fur of the ear. There's a big artery runs up there, and runs down along the neck. If the wolf can jump, hang his fangs right in, the--the--then when the wolf throws his weight down, it's them two big blood veins and just cut the deer's neck. And the little fellow staggers a couple times and he's done, covered all over with wolves, and he's eat up just in a little.

Another favorite place for the wild dogs, or wolves, to catch the deer is in the flank. He will grab him in the flank, and when the wolf throws his weight, to drop in mid center like, of the little deer, it throws him off his feet. And then down he goes. And he's got him.

40 And sometimes when the wild dog grabs the little deer, and the little deer was quick enough to maneuver, he could jump fast to one side, the dog lost his hold 'cause he jerked a whole chuck out of the little deer's side. Then the blood will spray. If the wolf missed the blood vein here, cut just a little low, the little deer, maybe if he's quick and can maneuver, he can get away from the dog. Then here he comes after him, tracking him with his blood.

And that little deer... Any hunter here knows that if you wound a deer and he can get to water, you just might as well quit tracking him. He can live as long as he can find water. But when he can't find water he's finished.

And could you imagine, as David standing there seeing that little deer. And he's cut by the wounds of a wild dog, and he's thirsting for the water brook. He must find the water or perish. If he doesn't get to that water brook, he's going to die. The hounds are right behind him. He's either got to find the water brook or perish.

David said, "As the hart thirsts for the water brook, so my soul thirst after thee, O God." I have to have You or I'll die. I can't go on. I'm at the end of my road. If I can't find You, Lord, I'll die. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for the water brook, for they shall find it."

41 Yes, there is a fountain filled with Blood for every sinner, drawn from Immanuel's veins. You who thirst and long to be righteous, there is a fountain open today for you. The hounds of hell might've wounded you. They might've cut you this way or cut you that way. They might've bursted, and drunk your blood, and sent you to these places and pleasure crazy. If you really want to get over it, there's a water brook open today. That's the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Spirit flowing free as the Holy Spirit.

"Whosoever will let him come and drink from the fountains of the water of Life freely." Whosoever will? Yes. Black, white, brown, yellow, whatever you may be, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Church of God, Church of Christ, Catholic, Pentecostal, whoever you are; young, old, middle aged, there is a fountain open. And the waters of Life is flowing freely, and the Holy Spirit's saying, "Come, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst, for I will fill you." You shall be filled. And "As the hart thirsts for the water brook, my soul thirsts after thee, O God."

42 In conclusion I say this; the trouble with the Pentecostal church, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and all the rest, it is their congregations. If that congregation really thirsted for God, it would send that little old preacher out of there and get them somebody in there that'll preach them the Gospel. That's right.

You can't go to town today, you merchants and you business men, here in this convention... And you shoe men, what if you put the old fashion button shoe, that the women used to wear? You got a shoe hook with it when you bought it. What if you tried to sell that shoe in Chicago today? You think you'd have any business? No, sir. And it's got five times the leather that these little old stilts that they build for women with the little peg like that, and her toes sticking down, and their heels sticking up. Charge them twenty-five to thirty-five dollars for about forty cents worth of leather, and they're silly enough to buy it. But why is it? Why don't the merchant... If he tells them the truth, they don't want it. That's exactly right.

43 The skirt that your mother used to wear that covered her all over, and she probably paid three dollars, or a dollar and a half for it, and you go downtown and pay thirty-five dollars for a little vulgar thing that the devil's poured you in to get out here and make you answer to adultery at the day of judgment. Look out, preacher. You say, "I never did commit adultery." I don't know about that. The Bible said, "Whosoever looketh upon a women to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart." And it don't matter how moral you live, how clean you live, how honorable you live to your husband; if you dress yourself to make a man look at you like that, at the judgment bar the sinner that answers for adultery, you'll be the one that committed it. That's right. Now, take that with you, my dear friend. Think it over for a little while.

"Whosoever," said Jesus Christ, "whosoever looketh upon a women to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." And before he could commit adultery, the woman had to present herself in that way. As she poured herself, sexy looking, out on the street. No matter how clean she is morally, she's adulterous in God's book. There's your Hollywood; there's your devil.

44 You might hate me for this, but, brother, at the day of judgment you'll see I told you the truth. That's exactly right. Now, clean up, straighten up. Teach others to do the same; in your soul will go to thirsting. "O God, I don't care about your fancies and your popularity, I want Christ or I'll die." When the Pentecostal church gets to that, God will move on the scene. And He will never move on the scene until the people begin to thirst for Him instead of the things of the world. Let us pray while we think over it.

Are you guilty? Are you praying. Everybody, a little prayer in your heart... "Am I guilty of that?" Examine your soul with God's Book today. "What kind of a life have I been catering to?"

"O Lord, O my God, Thou art my God. Early in my youth will I seek thee. My soul thirsts for thee. My flesh..." Oh, my. Don't want to be stripped off, you don't want to do this. You don't want to be filled with alcohol and stuff. "My flesh longeth for thee in a dry land, where there's no water; to see thy power..." What? "I want to see Thy power, Lord, Thy glory, Thy power to heal the sick, to magnify, Thy glory to shed over the people like a great fountain of old time religious meetings. To see Thee as I have seen thee in thy sanctuary. Because Thy loving kindness is better to me than life," little 'l', "my lips shall praise thee."

45 Are you thirsty? Do you really want to be a real Christian? If you really want to be a old time Christian, there's something in there that makes you want it. Do you want to go to heaven? You remember the animal doesn't want to go to heaven. That animal hasn't got no soul. The animal don't know what life hereafter is. But you know what life hereafter is. You long for life hereafter; the animal can't; it has no soul. But you were made with a soul. And that soul was given to you to make a decision. That heart that's within you, it makes a decision. And the animal can't make that decision, 'cause it has not that in it to make.

46 But there's something in you that longs for God, and you're trying to quench it, maybe by staying home getting in the air conditioned room, and looking at the television, and staying home from prayer meeting, and never reading the Bible, and going down to church on Sunday morning, and then maybe going back, paying the pastor, and waiting for an evangelist to come to the city. And you might set back and say, "Well, that preacher's a pretty good fellow. I'm telling you; I kinda like him. I kinda like the way he smiles. I--I--I like the little jokes he pulls." Brother that's not life; that's death. That's death.

But do you really long for a room that you can go into, set down under the old shade tree of the Bible, look up with tear stained eyes and say, "Blessed Saviour, Thou will guide me till I reach that healthful shore." Is there something in your heart that you long to love Him, and to praise Him, and to worship Him. All the things of the world become dead in you, just Christ or die. "I must have Christ or I must perish."

47 Now, I want every head bowed, and every eye closed, and everyone praying. Be honest. Be sincere. If you really mean it, and you who raised your hand to God and say, "Lord God, from this day on, please, I know, I--I--I... These things that I do is not right. But I want to love You. I want what that preacher said today about You in the Bible. My thirst is after Thee like the hart thirsting for the water brook. And the thirst, Lord, that I have, someday I expect to be a great person." Oh, I do too, but after I cross the border yonder." I expect to be God's child."

Do you really want to be that? If you do, would you just raise up your hand to Him, saying, "God, it's me; I now raise my hand saying my soul is thirsting for Thee, God." God bless you, lady. God bless you, young lady. And God bless you, and you. Someone else? God bless you. I don't... God bless you, and you, lady. God bless you, sir, and you lady.

48 You might be church members; that don't have nothing to do with it. You can be a church member and just as black as a harlot out here on the street. I know you say, "That's hard preaching, Brother Branham." If you come here at nighttime, or come any other time, and watch around the life, and see the things that the Lord Jesus does, exactly in the Word, surely, I should have some conception of what Christ means. I know this one thing, brother; the devil has perverted life; he has perverted the church action. He's perverted it so much till he's perverted the people. And it's the hardest thing in the world to get the people to see the actual truth. It's right. Oh, they miss it by a thousand miles.

49 Do you really long for Him? If you do, would you raise your hand again? God bless you. Now, just keep praying. You that's longing for Him, I wonder if you could walk down here just a minute and let me pray with you just a minute. Would you just get up out of your seat quietly? I'm going... I ain't going to call. I'm going to let the Holy Spirit call. You just get out of your seat. God bless you, sir. God bless you, lady. Just get out of your seat and come down here; let me pray with you. Stand right along this side of the altar here, if you will.

While the organ is playing. I'm just not going to say no more; I'm just going to wait a moment. Let the Holy Spirit call. Come right down here and stand. There's a fountain open. You want to be an old time Christian, do you? Is your soul really thirsty after God? Would you rather dress decent, be just a little hot, as you call it? Anybody knows when you take your clothes off you get hotter, certainly. Go to a desert somewhere where they really have heat. Certainly. You say, "Well, I'd like..."

50 That right. That's good. People just coming up and coming down the aisles. In this little group this afternoon many are gathering around the altar here. Come on up if you're really thirsting. Have you been bit by the devil? You really want to serve God. You want that thirst in you. You want it satisfied. If you do, come on, it's the time. Or have you got to a place where you've been so seared and so hard and callous till nothing can touch you no more? Then you cross between this: between life and death.

Now, remember, if I be a servant of God, God will speak that I tell the truth. There's people that actually believe that they are right, and they're wrong. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death." If you haven't been borned again of the Spirit of God, and your whole desire is to love every day, every hour, every minute of the day when you're awake, and you're on the bed, you're praising Him, and your love is for Him; and the things of the world, all this modern stuff is all dead to you, you better take your place at the altar.

While we wait just a moment longer... Now, "There is a Fountain," please, real slowly, while everybody's walking up.

There is a fountain filled... (Softly now.)

Drawn from Immanuel's veins,

And sinners plunged beneath...

You say, "Brother Branham, I'm a Christian." If your soul condemns you, you come here and confess Him. It's better to do it here than it is to do that when you're being weighed in God's balance.

Lose all their guilty (God bless you, sailor boy.)

Lose all their guilty...

51 Just be praying; the Holy Spirit's speaking. That little heart in you is moving.

... sinners plunged beneath that flood

Tonight say...?... Say, "Brother, preacher, I've longed for something; I don't know what it was." There's only one thing that longing was put in you for, that's right here. Here's where you long to be. The devil's trying to get you not to see it. But I'm praying in my heart as I'm standing here, "God, open the eyes of their understanding." I love you.

As Brother Joseph Boze said to me many time, "Brother Branham, Chicago loves you and I love Chicago."

But listen, a real daddy will be honest with his children. If he has to whip them sometime, he's--he's a real daddy. Yes, sir, a real dad will correct his children. And, friends, I want to tell you; don't you never try to get to heaven outside of that deep longing and love of God in your heart. If you haven't come acquainted with that great fountain that I spoke of at the beginning, where God gushes forth... Now, he perverts that. You see. As it comes forth, Satan perverts it, say, "Oh, well, this, and this, and this." Be careful; it's got to be genuine.

52 Did you ever hear that little song like this? Sister, just continue on your song. It's all right.

Brother apart from the Saviour today,

Risking your soul on the things that decay,

Oh, what if today God should call you away,

Then what would you give in exchange for your soul?

Listen now close. Every one of you that's not around the altar, search now.

Then when you stand at the bar by and by,

And when you're weighed in God's balance on high,

If you should be sentenced forever to die,

Then what would you give in exchange for your soul?

Think of it. And that weighing may be in the next half hour for every person in here. How do you know this is not your last opportunity? And don't come unless you really mean it. But if there is the least bit of thirst in your heart... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]... got to have You or die.

You see what's gathering around the altar here this afternoon? Probably Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, some no church at all. But there's a thirst there. They're longing. I'm going to wait just a moment longer. Got just a few minutes longer. Just been one hour. I promised to be an hour. Just a little minute longer.

53 I want to say something to you now. You want to come on, come right ahead. You've been in these meetings. Now, get all the skeptic feeling away from you. I want you here at the altar now not to depend on any emotion at all, no emotion. I want you to look at just exactly what God said.

Now, listen, I know the Lutheran said, "The just shall live by faith." All right. There's a many of them started out, but they wasn't just.

Methodist said, "Brother when you shout, you've got it." Many of them shouted and didn't have it.

The Pentecost said, "When you speak with tongues, you've got it." Thousands speak with tongues and hasn't got it. Their life proves they haven't got it.

Jesus said, "By their fruits you shall know them." What is the fruits of what? The church?

54 [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] It's a real sweet feeling in your heart, knowing that you've passed from death unto life, that you're at peace with God, real tender heart that feeds on the things of God, than to have all the... Now, remember, I believe in shouting; I believe in speaking with tongues; I believe in everything God said. I believe in every miracle, every sign. But I would rather have this than all the rest of it put together. Wouldn't you rather have it? I'd rather have that real sweet, mellow Holy Spirit moving into my life and making all the world pass away, than to have all the noise and...

Now, I believe in shouting, sure. I shout and scream myself. That's right. I believe in every gift. I wouldn't be here preaching healing. I believe in all those things. But brother, that isn't it yet. That's not it. These gifts and signs, that's not it. It's Christ in the heart. That's it. Then you'll stay. That's life.

God bless you now. Cards will be give out six o'clock. And now, the Lord bless you. I'm going to turn this service to the pastor while I go to pray to make ready for the healing service tonight. God be with you till we meet.