Nemenný Boh
Sú mnohé veci a prakticky všetko sa mení. Čas sa mení; ľudia sa menia, počasie sa mení; národy sa menia, ale Boh je nemenný. On sa nemení. On je vo všetkých časoch rovnaký. Boh je nekonečný Boh. Nemyslím si, že existuje slovo, ktoré by dokázalo vysvetliť slovo, alebo neexistuje spôsob, ako vysvetliť slovo „nekonečný“, pretože to je nekonečné. On nikdy nemal začiatok, ani nikdy nebude mať koniec. Preto, keď je Boh zavolaný na scénu, aby konal, aby urobil rozhodnutie, ten spôsob, akým On koná, alebo to rozhodnutie, ktoré robí, to je navždy rovnaké. On to nemôže zmeniť, pretože je nekonečný. On je dokonalý.
No, ty a ja môžeme povedať určitú vec a na ďalší rok to možno musíme zmeniť. Alebo urobiť niečo iné, pretože my sme ohraničení. My nepoznáme všetky veci. Ale On je dokonalý a Jeho prvé rozhodnutie bude musieť byť Jeho druhým rozhodnutím, bude musieť byť ako to prvé. Alebo ak On urobí iné rozhodnutie, potom nekonal správne, keď urobil prvé rozhodnutie. To Ho potom robí ohraničeným, ako som ja alebo ty.
To, čo sa snažím urobiť, pred touto službou s uzdravovaním, je vštepiť do vás vieru v Boha. Pretože to je to, čo je potrebné pre uzdravenie alebo spasenie. Musíte mať vieru v Boha a Boh nie je väčší, ako je Jeho Slovo, a nie je dokonalejší, ako je Jeho Slovo, pretože Boh a Jeho Slovo je tá istá vec. Ty nie si lepší, ako je tvoje slovo. Boh nie je lepší ako Jeho Slovo. A tvoje slovo je to, čo si ty. Božie Slovo je to, čo je On.
1Na chvíľu sa pomodlíme… náš nebeský Otče, je to veľké privilégium, ktoré máme, prísť do Tvojej Prítomnosti s týmto postojom uctievania a chválenia Teba, že môžeme vedieť, že Ťa môžeme nazývať svojím Otcom. Keď sme narodení z Tvojho Ducha, sme Tvojimi deťmi a máme tú výsadu, že môžeme prosiť to, čo chceme, a viera nám to prinesie. Ďakujeme Ti za toto.
Najsvätejší a najspravodlivejší Bože, dnes večer prosíme, aby si hovoril ku tým, Pane, ktorí sú v potrebách, ku tým, ktorí potrebujú spasenie na duši. A tí, ktorí sú chorí a v zúfalom stave, a tí, ktorí sú niekde zavretí, tí, ktorí sú v nemocniciach a hospitalizovaní a nemôžu sa dostať na zhromaždenie, ó, Ty si ten veľký JA SOM, choď dnes večer k ich posteliam a dotkni sa ich nemocných tiel, aby mohli byť schopní prísť z nemocníc a slúžiť Ti.
Odpusť nám naše hriechy, ako my odpúšťame tým, ktorí hrešia proti nám, aby sme tak mohli mať dnes večer v našom strede Tvoju priazeň. Hovor ku nám cez Tvoje Slovo. Tvoje Slovo je Pravda. Daj nám ho poznať, Pane. Urob, aby Tvoje Slovo medzi nami žilo. Lebo to prosíme v Mene Tvojho Dieťaťa, Pána Ježiša. Amen. Môžete si sadnúť.
2Tak, teraz budem len v tom posolstve pokračovať. Istotne som bol naplnený, keď som tam stál a počúval brata duPlessisa, ako priniesol to posolstvo o apoštolovi Petrovi, ako bol schopný kráčať po vode, niečo, čo nikdy predtým nerobil. A my tiež môžeme robiť mnoho vecí, ktoré sme nikdy predtým nerobili, ak len budeme počúvať Jeho Slovo a vezme k tomu Jeho Slovo. On nikdy nedal zasľúbenie, za ktorým by Sám nestál.
3No, kedy začína v nedeľu bohoslužba, brat? O 14.30. Dobre, tak to znamená, že asi o 13.30 - tí, ktorí chcú modlitebné lístky, by tam potom mali byť o 13.30, aby ste tak nevyrušovali počas zhromaždenia, tým, že sa budú rozdávať modlitebné lístky. A o 14.30 sa začne bohoslužba, a potom načas zakončíme, aby ste mohli ísť domov a mať… máte tu hlavné jedlo alebo večeru? Ja som južan, tak pre mňa je to večera. Ak to volajú hlavné jedlo, čo sa potom stalo s mojou večerou? Niekde som ju zmeškal. Tak… Choďte sa domov navečerať. Tak by som to nazval. A potom choďte do svojich zborov. A tí, ktorí sú medzi nami cudzí, chceme… ktorí sú tu na návšteve… Tieto pekné zbory budú mať nedeľnú školu, v nedeľu ráno a v nedeľu večer. Nájdite si miesto podľa vášho výberu a choďte na bohoslužbu.
A teraz, som veľmi rád za tieto zhromaždenia z viacerých dôvodov, pretože som sa na to tešil už nejaký čas, že sa vrátim.
4Rád by som dnes večer citoval jeden verš z knihy Jóba, z 23. kapitoly, 3. verš.
Oj, aby som vedel, kde by som ho našiel! Išiel by som až pred jeho prestol.
["ku jeho trónu, stolici" - podľa prekladu KJV – pozn.prekl.]
To je Jób 23:3. Budem teraz na chvíľu hovoriť na tému „Nemenný Boh“, ak by som to mal nazvať ako tému.
5Sú mnohé veci a prakticky všetko sa mení. Čas sa mení; ľudia sa menia, počasie sa mení; národy sa menia, ale Boh je nemenný. On sa nemení. On je vo všetkých časoch rovnaký.
Boh je nekonečný Boh. Nemyslím si, že existuje slovo, ktoré by dokázalo vysvetliť slovo, alebo neexistuje spôsob, ako vysvetliť slovo „nekonečný“, pretože to je nekonečné. On nikdy nemal začiatok, ani nikdy nebude mať koniec. Preto, keď je Boh zavolaný na scénu, aby konal, aby urobil rozhodnutie, ten spôsob, akým On koná, alebo to rozhodnutie, ktoré robí, to je navždy rovnaké. On to nemôže zmeniť, pretože je nekonečný. On je dokonalý.
No, ty a ja môžeme povedať určitú vec a na ďalší rok to možno musíme zmeniť. Alebo urobiť niečo iné, pretože my sme ohraničení. My nepoznáme všetky veci. Ale On je dokonalý a Jeho prvé rozhodnutie bude musieť byť Jeho druhým rozhodnutím, bude musieť byť ako to prvé. Alebo ak On urobí iné rozhodnutie, potom nekonal správne, keď urobil prvé rozhodnutie. To Ho potom robí ohraničeným, ako som ja alebo ty.
To, čo sa snažím urobiť, pred touto službou s uzdravovaním, je vštepiť do vás vieru v Boha. Pretože to je to, čo je potrebné pre uzdravenie alebo spasenie. Musíte mať vieru v Boha a Boh nie je väčší, ako je Jeho Slovo, a nie je dokonalejší, ako je Jeho Slovo, pretože Boh a Jeho Slovo je tá istá vec. Ty nie si lepší, ako je tvoje slovo. Boh nie je lepší ako Jeho Slovo. A tvoje slovo je to, čo si ty. Božie Slovo je to, čo je On.
No, ktokoľvek vie, že ak bol Boh zavolaný na scénu, aby spasil človeka, ktorý bol stratený, a Boh toho človeka spasil skrze jeho vieru, tak potom ten ďalší človek, ktorý na Boha zavolá, Boh bude musieť toho človeka spasiť, ak príde na tom istom základe, na akom prišiel ten prvý.
Potom ak je nejaký chorý človek a bude prosiť o milosť a Boh mu dá milosť a uzdravenie na základe jeho viery, potom ten ďalší, ktorý prichádza na tom istom základe a pýta si to isté, Boh bude musieť konať takisto, lebo inak konal nesprávne v tom prvom prípade.
6Tak vidíte, musíte Boha urobiť skutočne nemenným. Každá duša, ktorá prichádza k Bohu a hľadá spasenie a uzdravenie, musí prísť na takom základe. Musí prísť s vierou, že Boh je, a že je Odplatiteľom tých, ktorí Ho snažne hľadajú.
Či nepovedal náš Pán Ježiš, „Čokoľvek by ste túžili, keď sa modlíte, verte, že to prijmete a dostanete to“? Či nepovedal, „Proste Otca, čo chcete, v Mojom Mene a obdržíte to“? Tak, to je nemenná pravda. A neexistuje nikto, kto kedy Boha o niečo prosil a Boh by mu to nedal, ak ten človek prišiel s úprimným srdcom.
Tak, tá vec je, že Boh dáva niekedy veci takým spôsobom, akým to neočakávame. Ale Boh vždy dodržiava Svoje Slovo. Neexistuje, že by ti Boh niečo povedal a klamal by pritom a zostal by Bohom. Nemôže, On musí navždy zachovať svoje Slovo. Ono je pravdou. A keď Biblia hovorí, že Ježiš Kristus je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky, tak to je pravda.
Možno nemám dostatok viery, aby som spôsobil všetko, čo On urobil, znovu ich oživiť, ale nikdy by som nestál v ceste niekomu, kto má dostatok viery, aby to urobil. Ďakoval by som za takú vieru Bohu. Ale každopádne, každé zasľúbenie, ktoré On dal, je absolútna pravda.
7Môžem o tom vydať svedectvo. Ak ktokoľvek zaujme správny duševný postoj k akémukoľvek Božskému zasľúbeniu, ktoré kedy Boh dal, a bude si to nárokovať za svoje, tak On, Boh, spôsobí, že sa to stane. Ak voči tomu zaujmeš správny postoj, vediac, že ak to Boh povedal, tak to zasľúbenie je tvoje a je to tvojím osobným vlastníctvom v tej minúte, v ktorej to tak prijmeš; potom sa to musí stať.
Lebo Ježiš povedal, „Slovo je semeno, ktoré rozsievač vyšiel rozsievať.“ A semeno, ak je opeleným semenom a ide do zeme, potom to semeno v správnych podmienkach slnka a vlhkosti privedie ten život, ktorý je v tom semene.
A tak je to s Božím Slovom. Ak nejaká osoba dokáže vziať Slovo a umiestniť ho vo svojom srdci a dať tomu to správne slnečné svetlo, správnu teplotu, nie „slnko“ [angl. „sun“ - pozn.prekl.], ale Syna [angl. „Son“ - pozn.prekl.], a tú správnu teplotu viery, tak to semeno a to zasľúbenie bude pre teba žiť takisto, ako žilo na začiatku pre toho, komu bolo dané. Pretože to je Božie Slovo a On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. On nemôže sklamať.
8No, tá vec s ľuďmi je to, ako sa Boh zjavuje. Mnohokrát chceme urobiť z Boha modlu. Prosíme Boha, aby niečo urobil, a potom to On musí urobiť presne tak, ako to my žiadame, alebo povieme, že vôbec neodpovedal. Keď to tak robíme, oslabujeme svoju vieru v Boha. A oslabujeme svoje svedectvo, keď Ho neberieme za Jeho Slovo.
Boh vždy odpovedá. Nikto nikdy neprosil... Ježiš povedal, „Proste a bude vám dané; hľadajte a nájdete.“ Každý, kto prosí, dostane. Každý, kto hľadá, nájde. Každému, kto klope, bude otvorené.
No, to je ten jediný spôsob, ako som to vždy dosiahol, ako som mohol čokoľvek od Boha dostať, to je vziať Ho za Jeho Slovo a veriť to tak, ako to posiela.
No, ak to berieme len tak, ako si to my myslíme, že to je... tak sme si z Boha urobili modlu. On musí odpovedať len presne podľa našich spôsobov, alebo „No, nie je to na nič dobré. Neodpovedal nám.“ Boh odpovedá mnohými spôsobmi. On odpovedá zvláštnymi spôsobmi, tie časy a všetko je divné.
9Vezmime napríklad Mojžiša. Mojžiš mal osemdesiat rokov. Mohli by ste si myslieť, že je takmer príliš starý, aby s ním Boh konal. Bol starým mužom, nepredpokladalo sa, že Boh bude v jeho veku konať. Ďalšia vec, bol pod vrchom Horeb, neobvyklé miesto. Boh ho stretol v neočakávanom veku, na neočakávanom mieste, neočakávaným spôsobom. Boh nestretol Mojžiša tak, ako sa obvykle s ľuďmi stretáva. Stretol Mojžiša neobyčajným spôsobom, spôsobom, akým si Boh vybral stretnúť sa s Mojžišom.
To je to, ako nám Boh odpovedá na naše modlitby, spôsobom, o ktorom si On myslí, že je najlepší.. A Jeho spôsob je vždy správny. Ak o niečo prosíme, a to sa nedeje práve tak, ako Boh… alebo tak, ako si my myslíme, že by to Boh mal nechať sa stať, potom to spôsobuje, že prehrávame a odpadáme. Prosme Boha, stojme pevne na Slove a hovorme, že Ono je pravdou, a prijmime to len tak, ako to On posiela. To je spôsob, ako musíte Bohu veriť.
To môže prísť zamaskované, môže to prísť iným spôsobom, celkom z druhej strany. Ale nezáleží na tom, ako to prichádza, ak sme prosili, prijmeme to. Boh tak povedal. A tým je to naveky vybavené, ak tak Boh hovorí. Tak, ak takto budete brať Boha a budete tomu veriť…
10No, čo ak by Mojžiš povedal, "Ja som sa k Bohu modlil, aby zo mňa spravil bojovníka, a On je tu v horiacom kre?" Nezáleží na tom, ako sa mu Boh zjavil, hlavné je to, že sa mu zjavil.
To je všetko, na čom tu teraz záleží, pokiaľ Boh prichádza a odpovedá, pokiaľ rozpoznávame, že to je Boh…
Jákob, ďalšia postava, sa našiel medzi dvomi stenami. Urobil nejaké nedobré veci, také malé potmehúdske triky svojmu svokrovi Lábanovi. A teraz utekal od svojho svokra Lábana späť ku mame. A potom zisťuje, že oproti mu ide jeho brat, ktorému vykonal tie nepekné triky, s celou armádou, aby sa s ním stretol.
Pamätajte, "vaše hriechy vás nájdu." A keď Jákob, celý rozrušený, zmätený, v problémoch, posiela svoje ženy cez ten malý potok, a ide späť na druhú stranu na neočakávané miesto a v neočakávanom čase sa stretáva s Bohom neočakávaným spôsobom.
Čo za spôsob, ako sa stretnúť s Bohom: v bojovnom zápase. Ale bol to Boh. Bez ohľadu na to, či to bol horiaci ker alebo bojovný zápas, bol to Boh.
11A tá hlavná vec bola, že Jákob… on mal sny a videnia atď, ale tentokrát mohol položiť svoju hlavu na niečo a povedať, že to je Boh. A bol schopný držať sa, kým neprišlo požehnanie.
Ó, ak by sme to len mohli robiť, ak len môžeme nájsť miesto, kde môžeme vidieť Boha, či je to v Jeho Slove, kdekoľvek to je, a rozpoznať, že to je Boh, a držať sa Toho, kým nepríde to požehnanie… zápas a vybojuj to s Bohom. Boh zasľúbil, že to učiní.
Boh zasľúbil, že ak budeme hľadať, nájdeme: proste a bude vám dané, klopte a otvorí sa vám. Každé Slovo je pravda.
Keď sa Jákob uchopil niečoho, na čo sa mohol pozrieť, držať sa svojimi rukami a vidieť, že to bol Boh, tak sa toho nepustil.
12Ó, ak by to len Kresťanstvo mohlo robiť. Ak sa len môžete svojou rukou uchopiť niečoho, čo je skutočné, uchopiť videnie Boha a vidieť Jeho Prítomnosť a chopiť sa toho, až kým Boh pošle späť odpoveď a požehnanie, aké prebudenie by sa prelomilo v Tulse, ak by to len ľudia mohli robiť, mohli by vidieť moc živého Boha, niečo skutočné. Nezáleží na tom, v akej forme to prichádza, máme svoje myšlienky. Ale Boh má svoju cestu, ako nám posiela veci a odpovedá na naše modlitby.
Prebiehali tu v meste dlhý čas modlitebné zhromaždenia o prebudenie. Verím, že ak len dokážeme otvoriť svoje oči a budeme pripravení prijať to, Boh nám to pošle Jeho vlastným spôsobom. Boh to udeľuje vo Svojom čase. Ale my musíme rozpoznať, že sme prosili, a ak sme prosili, tak potom to obdržíme.
A on sa toho držal. Neobvyklý čas, neobvyklé miesto a neobvyklý spôsob. Ale keď si uvedomil, že to bol Boh, držal sa toho.
13Izaiáš, mladý prorok, mal nádherný život. Opieral sa o dobré rameno kráľa a všetko išlo dobre a on pribral a celý stučnel od prejedania sa. A jedného dňa kráľ zomrel. A Izaiáš dostal videnie. Keď videl plášť Pánov, videl Anjelov, ako lietali po budove s krídlami na svojich tvárach a s krídlami na svojich nohách a dvomi krídlami lietali a kričali, "Svätý, svätý, svätý je Pán Boh Všemohúci." A keď to uvidel, vedel, že stojí v Prítomnosti Svätého Boha, povedal, "Beda mi, lebo som človek nečistých rtov a žijem medzi nečistými ľuďmi."
A Pán zakričal, "Kto pôjde za nás?" A Anjel vzal kliešte a nejaký uhoľ z oltára a dotkol sa jeho úst a očistil ho.
Bol to pre toho proroka neobvyklý pohľad. Bol to neobvyklý spôsob, ako s ním Boh konal. Ale Boh vie, ako konať s človekom.
14Izaiáš bol vzdelaný v škole pri kráľovi a podobne. Myslím si, že mal to najlepšie, čo sa mu mohlo mentálne dostať, čo sa týka intelektu. Ale Boh z neho musel urobiť proroka tým, že sa mu zjavil, tým, že mu dal niečo hmatateľné, aby mohol vidieť, že to nie je tak veľmi v literatúre, v čítaní, v písaní. Ale tie veci, ktoré o Bohu čítal a počul, sa rovno pred ním stali prejavené.
Potom povedal, "Som nečistých rtov a bývam medzi nečistými ľuďmi." A Boh pre neho pripravil jeho dni proroctva. To je to, ako Boh robí veci. Robí to tajomným spôsobom.
Prorok Eliáš, mohli by sme na chvíľu rozmýšľať o ňom. Leží tam v jaskyni. Pred pár dňami videl moc Božiu, pred 40 dňami. Mal Božiu moc. Modlil sa a tri a pol roka nepršalo. A potom sa znovu modlil na vrchu a zostúpil oheň z neba a strávil obeť. A potom sa znovu modlil a prišiel dážď a okúpal zem. A potom, zo strachu pred hrozbami kráľovnej, utiekol na púšť, vedel, že niečo mu chýba. Bolo tam niečo v ňom, čo nebolo ešte správne.
15Keď sa utiahol do jaskyne, vonku nastalo zemetrasenie, ktoré tou jaskyňou, kde sedel, otriaslo. Potom prišiel mocný nesúci sa vietor, prišli hromy a blesky a dutie vetra. A to všetko bol Boh, ale to neupútalo proroka. To sa ho nejako nedotklo. On poznal, čo je to Božia moc. On vedel, že Boh zatriasol horami a že spôsobil mocný nesúci sa vietor a podobne a oheň z neba. Ale on čakal. A tam hlboko dolu v ňom prišiel malý tichý Hlas. To proroka upútalo. To bolo niečo. Videl už Jeho moc činiť rôzne veci, ale tentokrát cítil Jeho Prítomnosť a ten tichý jemný Hlas hovoril do jeho srdca. Potom sa ten prorok postavil a vyšiel von z jaskyne.
Niekedy prosíme o niečo a dostaneme niečo úplne iné. Chceme urobiť z Boha niekoho, kto bude odpovedať tak, ako si to my myslíme, že by mal odpovedať.
16Izrael je ďalší prípad. Izrael vyhliadal mocného kráľa, ktorý príde a pobije Rimanov železným prútom. Čo im dal Boh? Nemluvňa. Namiesto mocného kráľa im dal dieťatko zabalené v plienkach a povedal, "Nájdete Ho ležať v maštali."
On neprišiel tak, ako to oni od Neho očakávali, že príde, a odmietli Ho. "Musí to prísť podľa nás, inak to nie je k ničomu." Povedali, "Vezmi si to späť." A On to vzal. To je pravda. Musíte to prijať spôsobom, akým to Boh posiela, a byť z toho šťastný.
Boh zakotvuje niečo malé v tvojom srdci a hovorí, "Toto je to." Ver tomu. Drž sa toho. To je Božie Slovo. On zasľúbil, že ti to potvrdí. A ak On potvrdzuje Slovo, drž sa toho.
Áno, oni nechceli dieťatko. "Ak nám nemôžete poslať kráľa, no tak potom my nechceme toto nemluvňa. Môžeš si Ho vziať späť." Vidíte, my si myslíme, že sa to musí stať tak, ako si to my myslíme.
Musíme pamätať, že Boh to robí Svojím spôsobom. A Jeho spôsob je vždy ten správny spôsob. Musíme to veriť, čo Boh o tom povedal, a vedieť, že je to absolútna pravda a zostať s tým. Držte sa toho.
17Ježiš, keď sa stal človekom, bol pokorným. A ako si mohol Kráľ nebies nechať, aby Mu napľuli do tváre a omotali Mu okolo hlavy handru a udierali Ho palicou a povedali, "Povedz, hovoria mi, že si prorok. Povedz, ktorý z nás ťa udrel, a budeme ti veriť." On neotvoril svojich úst. Ako to len mohlo byť? Kráľ, ktorého očakávali, prišiel poraziť svet? Ale Boh im toho Kráľa poslal. A pretože to Boh poslal Svojím spôsobom, oni tomu odmietli veriť. Ale Boh mal taký spôsob, ktorým to poslal, a On to nikdy neposlal inak, ako Jeho Slovo hovorilo, že to príde.
Ale oni mali svoju myseľ nastavenú tak, že to muselo byť inak. To je to, kde robíme chybu, priatelia. To je to, v čom spočíva problém.
Keď ten predchodca, Ján Krstiteľ, prišiel ako hlas volajúceho na púšti, no, Biblia hovorí, že všetky vysoké miesta budú zborené a všetky nízke miesta budú vyzdvihnuté a budú sa diať všetky tieto veci. Vrchy budú poskakovať ako malé baránky a listy budú tlieskať rukami. No, oni očakávali, že toto trasenie príde od tohto človeka, ako príde koridormi z neba, oblečený v krásnom kmente a s korunou na hlave, alebo s niečím.
Čo sa stalo? Boh im poslal dolu nejakého starého kazateľa z púšte s kúskom ovčej kože okolo seba, ako nejaký chlpatý červík, tvár celú zarastenú veľkou bradou.
"Ó, preč s takýmto človekom, živí sa kobylkami a lúčnym medom. Nechceme s tým mať nič spoločné. Ako by to mohlo predchádzať Mesiáša?" Ale to bol Boží spôsob predchádzania Mesiáša.
18Musíme to prijať spôsobom, ako to Boh povedal, to sa Bohu páči. To je Jeho cesta. On je všetkou múdrosťou. On je všemocný, všemohúci, všadeprítomný, ó, On je Boh, ten JA SOM. Nie "Ja som bol" alebo "Ja budem," navždy ten istý. On je Boh a On robí veci tajomnými spôsobmi. Ale On to robí na Svoju vlastnú slávu. Robí to tak, lebo tak to je najlepšie. Musíme to prijať tak, ako to On posiela.
Som si istý, že všetky naše nákresy a kalendáre atď, ktoré sme nakreslili: Ježiš prichádza na oblaku, iný Ho má na bielom koni a podobne, to bude všetko celkom odlišné, keď On príde. To nebude tak, ako sme na to zvyknutí a mnohí to prehliadnu.
Mnohí prehliadnu vidieť tento deň, v ktorom žijeme. Mnohí prehliadajú znamenie príchodu Mesiáša práve teraz. Mnohí ľudia to nedokážu vidieť. Oni… je to rovno pred nimi a pritom oni to nevidia.
Ježiš povedal, keď hovoril, myslím, že v sv. Lukášovi, povedal, "Ako bolo vo dňoch Sodomy, takisto bude za príchodu Syna človeka. Ako bolo vo dňoch Noeho…" Všimli ste si, čo povedal, aká bola morálka za dní Noeho? "Jedli, pili, ženili sa, vydávali." Ale keď povedal, "Sodoma", On to vynechal. To bol oheň, ktorý zničil Sodomu. To je oheň, ktorý dnes zasiahne zem. Prejdime si to teraz na pár minút.
19Abrahám, ako tam sedel, neočakávajúc ničoho. Bol v najchudobnejšej časti zeme. Bolo páľava dňa, divný čas na to, aby sa niečo stalo, ale uvidel nejakého Človeka, ako prichádza, boli traja. Niečo v jeho srdci mu povedalo, že to je Boh, a on sa toho uchopil. On nedovolil, aby len prešli. Ó, Bože, nech sa to stane tu. Nenechajte to len prejsť. Uchopte sa toho.
Keď tam ten Muž sedel a hovoril s ním, sledujte, čo robil. Pozrel sa dolu, povedal, "Abrahám." Cudzinec, ako mohol vedieť, že sa volá Abrahám? "Kde je tvoja žena Sára?" Vedel, že má ženu a volá sa Sára.
A Biblia hovorí, že Abrahám Mu povedal, "Je v stane za Tebou."
A povedal, "Keď je Abrahám dedičom sveta, či zadržím niečo pred Abrahámom, keď vidím, že on je dedičom sveta?" A povedal, "Navštívim ťa, podľa času života." A Sára, ktorá mala deväťdesiat rokov, tam vzadu v stane za ním, vôbec Ho nevidela, nikdy o Ňom nič nevedela, ani On nevedel o Sáre a ona sa v sebe zasmiala, možno takto, položila si na ústa ruku.
21A tento Anjel, obrátený chrbtom, povedal, "Prečo sa Sára smiala?" Kto to bol? On takmer ani neočakával, že ten Muž bude tým, kým skutočne bol. Ale keď odchádzal, Abrahám Ho nazval Elohim, Boh Všemohúci.
Aký to bolo znak? Že Všemohúci Boh, vo forme Ducha Svätého, v tých posledných dňoch, predtým, ako tento svet zhorí ohňom, príde ku Svojim ľuďom a bude prebývať medzi Svojimi ľuďmi v tele, dá sa poznať Svojej Cirkvi tesne predtým, ako spadne oheň. Tesne pred zničením sveta, Elohim, Boh, Duch Svätý príde medzi Svojich ľudí a urobí znaky, aké robil vtedy. Ó, On je nemenný Boh. To je to, ako sa dal poznať Židom. To je to, ako sa dal poznať Samaritánovi, tak isto.
Mnohí z cirkvi verili, že "On je Belzebub." Ale tí, ktorí to videli a rozpoznali, že to je Boh, rozpoznali, kým On je.
22Tá žena pri studni, ona povedala, "Pane, keď príde Mesiáš, vieme, že On nám povie tieto veci. Ty musíš byť Jeho prorok."
On povedal, "To som Ja, ktorý hovorím s tebou."
On bežala do mesta a povedala, "Poďte a vidzte Človeka." Bolo to neočakávané, že ona nájde takéhoto Človeka. Bolo neočakávané, že ona nájde Mesiáša na zemi, ako prebýva so Svojimi ľuďmi.
Tak je to dnes, ľudia to neočakávajú. Oni očakávajú niečo iné. Očakávajú, že padnú bomby a rôzne veci, čo sa pravdepodobne stane. Očakávajú nejakú veľkú jednotu medzi ľuďmi cirkvi, a to sa môže stať. Ale uprostred toho všetkého, Boh poslal moc Svojho Syna, Ježiša Krista, medzi ľudí a oni dožívajú nové Letnice, moc Božia, ktorá sa vylieva, a tie isté znamenia a zázraky, ktoré robili pred mnohými rokmi, sú uprostred Jeho ľudu, ako Ježiš povedal, že to bude. My nevyhliadame zjednocovanie medzi všetkými cirkvami a podobne. My vyhliadame vyliatie Ducha Svätého, a to príde a bude to činiť veci, ktoré sme možno neočakávali.
Viem, že On je teraz tu. Viem, že Duch Svätý je tu na zhromaždeniach. A viem, že On zasľúbil, "Kdekoľvek sú dvaja alebo traja zhromaždení v Mojom mene, spolu, tam Ja budem v ich strede." Ježiš to zasľúbil. "Kdekoľvek dvaja alebo traja…" To je moc… to je to, na čo tá prvá cirkev spoliehala: Prítomnosť Ježiša. "Kdekoľvek sú dvaja alebo traja zhromaždení v Mojom Mene, Ja budem v ich strede. A na čomkoľvek sa zhodnú, ohľadne nejakej veci, a budú prosiť, obdržia to." To je pravda. To je Božie zasľúbenie. On je nemenný: On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. A On je teraz tu. Veríte tomu?
23Skloňme teraz na chvíľu svoje hlavy k modlitbe. Predtým, ako sa budeme modliť, ako máte sklonené svoje hlavy, či je tu niekto, kto by povedal, "Brat Branham, pamätaj na mňa. Nech sa mi otvorí môj duchovný zrak, aby som Ho mohol vidieť a poznať. Ako Ho len chcem vidieť. Ako Ho milujem," zodvihnite svoje ruky a povedzte, "Pamätaj na mňa." Nech ťa Boh žehná. Pán nech ťa žehná. To je dobre. Nech ti je Boh nebies milostivý. Niekto ďalší tam vzadu napravo. "Pamätaj na mňa, brat Branham, na modlitbe." Nech ťa Boh žehná.
Nevyspytateľné bohatstvá Kristove, zjavenie Jeho moci a Jeho dobroty… Nech Boh nebies udelí milosrdenstvo a dobrotu a milosť vám všetkým.
24Náš nebeský Otče, prinášame ti teraz v tejto hodine toto obecenstvo, pozeráme sa naokolo a vidíme všade zodvihnuté ruky. Nemenný Boh pôsobiaci tajomnými spôsobmi, ako koná Svoje zázraky. Modlíme sa, ó, Bože, aby Tvoj Svätý Duch prebýval dnes večer v každom srdci. Daj im túžby ich sŕdc. Spôsob, aby mali vieru, Pane. Ulož do nich niečo, odvahu, aby vedeli, že Ty si stále prítomný, stále živý, aby si konal prímluvu. Ty sedíš po pravici Všemohúceho Boha. A tam, na Jeho Tróne, to vzácne telo Ježiša Krista sedí, zatiaľ čo je Jeho Svätý Duch na zemi. A On je tam ako Najvyšší Kňaz, aby vykonával prímluvu na základe nášho vyznania. To, čo vyznáme, On učiní, to je to, kvôli čomu tam On je, aby to napravil. Jeho vlastná Krv je v nádobe rovno pred Ním, Jeho vlastné rúcho, skrvavené, sedí tam, vidiac, že Boh sa nemôže dívať cez tú Krv a vidieť nespravodlivosť, pretože Kristus náš hriech a našu chorobu vzal.
Ó, Otče Bože, modlíme sa, keďže On je Veľkňazom, ktorého sa môžeme dotýkať našimi slabosťami, aby sa Ho dnes večer dotkla každá slabosť, ktorá je v budove, všetky slabosti, či sú duchovné alebo telesné, aby mali uzdravenie a prebudenie v tomto meste, ó, duša za dušou vzatá do Božieho Kráľovstva. Udeľ to, Pane. Vypočuj našu modlitbu.
Milujeme Ťa, Otče, a skutočne očakávame na Ducha Svätého, aby prišiel do nášho stredu a konal to, čo zasľúbil konať. Prosíme to pre nich, v Mene Ježiša Krista. Amen.
25Milujete Ho z celého srdca? Či očakávate, že bude konať nesmierne bohato ponad všetko, čo dokážeme činiť alebo pomyslieť? On povedal, že bude konať nesmierne bohato ponad všetko, čo dokážeme činiť alebo pomyslieť. On to zasľúbil činiť.
Tak, keď bol Ježiš tu na zemi, koľkí vedia, že On si nenárokoval byť uzdraviteľom? Koľkí vedia, že On nebol uzdraviteľom? Chcete povedať, že ani toľko nepoznáte Bibliu? On povedal, "To nie som Ja, ktorý činí tie skutky, to je Môj Otec, ktorý prebýva vo Mne, On činí tie skutky."
"Amen, amen vám hovorím…" Ján 5:19, "Amen, amen vám hovorím, Syn nemôže činiť nič sám od Seba. Ale to, čo vidí činiť Otca, podobne činí Syn." Je to to, čo On povedal? Sv. Ján 5:19, keď vedel, že tam ležal nejaký človek so slabosťou, ležal na lôžku, a povedal mu, že jeho viera ho uzdravila a aby si vzal svoje ležisko a prešiel cez ten dom. A potom sa Ho Židia na to vypytovali, že On tam nechal ležať tisíce ľudí chromých, postihnutých, slepých, paralyzovaných. On povedal, "Ja činím len to, čo Mi Otec hovorí, alebo ukazuje, aby som robil. Tak, Ja robím to, čo vidím robiť Otca. Otec pracuje, i Ja doteraz pracujem." No, to je Jeho Duch.
Takže, Ježiš Sám nevykonal žiadne uzdravenie bez toho, že by Mu to prv Otec neukázal. To je Písmo. "Nečiním ničoho, čo Mi prv neukáže Otec, nie povie, ale ukáže." Potom, ak Mu to ukazuje, On ide a činí to, čo Mu Otec hovorí.
26Tá žena, ktorá sa dotkla Jeho rúcha. No, On to nikdy neučinil, nikdy nepovedal, že to On urobil. On povedal, "Tvoja viera ťa zachránila. Tvoja viera ťa zachránila." Slepý Bartimeus pri bráne, "Tvoja viera ťa uzdravila." On s tým nemal nič spoločné. To urobila viera ľudí, pretože oni uverili, že On je Boží Syn. Ona sa Ho dotkla, tá žena, a ona sa dotkla Jeho rúcha. A teraz, On to necítil fyzicky, pretože to palestínske rúcho má ešte jedno spodné rúcho a to rúcho voľne visí. A ona sa dotkla len toho okraja. Lebo povedala vo svojom srdci, "Ak sa dotknem Jeho rúcha, budem uzdravená.“ A ona sa Ho dotkla. A keď sa Ho dotkla, pocítila sama v sebe... Pretože jej viera jej hovorila, že ak sa toho len dotkne, bude uzdravená. A ona urobila, čo si myslela, že jej prinesie Božiu moc, a cítila, že to bude úplne dostatočné. A bolo, pretože ona tomu uverila.
27Ježiš sa obrátil a pozrel na to obecenstvo a povedal, "Kto sa Ma to dotkol?"
Peter Ho pokarhal a povedal, "Kto sa ťa dotkol? Veď všetci sa Ťa dotýkajú. Prečo hovoríš také niečo?"
On povedal, "Cítil som, že som zoslabol, cnosť zo mňa vyšla," čo znamená "sila". "Zoslabol som. Niekto sa Ma dotkol iným druhom dotyku." A On sa poobzeral po svojom poslucháčstve, až tú ženu našiel. A On jej povedal o jej krvotoku, že sa zastavil, pretože jej viera ju uzdravila.
Tak, to je Ježiš, ktorý bol včera. To je ten istý Ježiš dnes. To je ten istý Ježiš, ktorý bude zajtra, ak ešte bude nejaké zajtra, a On tým bude naveky.
28Keď si ľudia myslia, že Boh dáva zasľúbenia a nedodržuje ich… mohamedáni, alebo ktokoľvek iný… držal som v jednej ruke Bibliu a v druhej Korán a povedal som, "Jedna z nich je správna druhá nesprávna. Nemôžu byť obe správne, pretože sú v protiklade jedna k druhej." Povedal som, "Vy dokazujete, že váš prorok je mŕtvy. Je v zemi. Náš Ježiš vstal z mŕtvych. A On zasľúbil, že veci, ktoré On činil, budeme i my činiť." Povedal som, "Ukážte mi, že činíte skutky Mohameda." Nedokážu to.
Ale skutky Ježiša Krista sú vykonané skrze Ducha Svätého, keď prichádza pomazať svojich ľudí. Veríte tomu? Istotne, veríme tomu. Čo by nás zadržalo od verenia? Pretože Boh dal zasľúbenie. Boh tak povedal. Tým je to vybavené.
29No, človek to nedokáže činiť. To je nadprirodzené. Je to niečo, čo človek nedokáže činiť. Zatiaľ čo mám ešte pár minút času, chcem toto vysvetliť. Pozrite, človek nedokáže urobiť nič. To je Boh v človeku. Ježiš povedal, "Ja som Vinič, vy ste letorasty." Tak, pokiaľ sa letorast nachádza vo Viniči, bude niesť ovocie Viniča. No, Boh vždy používa človeka ako svojho agenta.
Preto použil Svojho vlastného Syna, aby sa Ním zahalil. Prišiel dolu a vzal na seba formu človeka, aby zomrel smrťou za človeka. On nemohol zomrieť v Duchu, ale zomrel v tele.
Potom Boh bol v Abrahámovi, Boh bol v Izákovi, Boh bol v Jákobovi, Boh bol v Jozefovi, Boh bol v Dávidovi. On bol vo všetkých tých ľuďoch tam vtedy, v tých prorokoch atď. Bol to Boh konajúci v ľuďoch.
30Tak teraz v tomto veku Novej Zmluvy, Krv Ježiša Krista očisťuje Jeho cirkev a posväcuje ju, aby tak mohol pokračovať vo vykonávaní práce Božej počas všetkých vekov. A je práve ten istý i dnes. Ak nie je, potom sme falošnými svedkami tejto Biblie. Ak to… Ak to nie je pravda, potom Biblia nie je pravdivá. Je čas, aby ľudia kázali Evanjelium. Je čas, aby bola moc Božia daná na známosť. Keď sa pohania snažia po tom Slove šliapať, potrebujeme mužov, ako boli tie hebrejské deti, "Náš Boh je schopný vyslobodiť nás z tohto…" To je pravda. Je čas. Boh zostáva ten istý.
31Boh vás nemôže uzdraviť, pretože On to už urobil. Keď bol zranený pre naše prestúpenia, zdrtený pre naše neprávosti, kázeň nášho pokoja bola vzložená na Neho a Jeho ranami si bol uzdravený… to je minulý čas. Ak by tu On dnes večer stál v tomto obleku, ktorý mi dal, On by ťa nemohol uzdraviť, keby si Ho požiadal. Povedal by, "Ja som to už urobil. Veríš tomu?" On by mohol urobiť niečo, aby ti dal poznať, že to je On. A to je to, ako to On robí dnes. On to dáva poznávať svojim ľuďom, cez svojich ľudí, že to je Boh, nie človek, ale Boh.
No, On je taký istý dnes večer. Viem, že On je tu. Koľkí z vás videli tú fotografiu Anjela Pánovho, to Svetlo? Mnohí z vás. Myslím, že to tu nikde majú. Možno chlapci to majú, Gene, a oni to tam majú na stole tam vzadu.
To Svetlo… Pamätajte, ja… ak vás už tu na zemi nikdy nestretnem, stretnem vás v tamten deň. To Svetlo nie je ďalej ako dve stopy od miesta, kde teraz stojím. Je to pravda. On to zasľúbil. A ja Bohu verím. Videl som to, keď proti tomu stálo desaťtisíce pohanov. Videl som to, keď boli čarodejníci na oboch stranách a videli, ako ich Božia moc paralyzovala a posadila. Boh buď je Bohom, alebo nie je Bohom. Ježiš je buď Synom Božím, ale bol podvodník. On je Kristus, Syn Boží. On nie je mŕtvy, ale je nažive a žije naveky. On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky.
32Koľkí tomu veríte? Nech vás Boh žehná. Koľkí z vás veríte, že On sa môže zjaviť rovno…
Nemáme už viac rozdaných modlitebných lístkov, že? Koľkí z vás ste chorí a chcete uzdravenie, zodvihnite svoju ruku. Povedzte, "Bože, som chorý, potrebujem uzdravenie." Len zodvihnite ruky, ktokoľvek je chorý a chce uzdravenie. Zodvihnite ruky a povedzte, "Modlím sa, aby ma Boh uzdravil." Ak máš niekoho milovaného, za koho sa modlíš, zodvihni ruku a povedz, "Modlím sa." Bože, buď milostivý.
V tejto budove nie je osoba, ktorú poznám, pomimo… myslím, nie som si istý, toto tu je asi Pat, ktorý tu sedí, Pat Tyler. Neviem, či ho všetci poznáte alebo nie. A brat Gene Goad sedí tam a nahráva posolstvo…
33Mužovia na pódiu, stretol som ich včera večer, najmilšia skupina ľudí, akú som kedy vo svojom živote stretol. Ale tí jediní, ktorých skutočne poznám osobne… brat tu, on ma sponzoroval, keď som tu bol po prvýkrát, brat Williams a jeho syn. Brat Borders, brat David a brat Harvey, to sú tí jediní, ktorých tu skutočne poznám.
Ale Ježiš Kristus pozná každého jedného z vás, ak On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. Postavte Ho do skúšky. Je On Bohom? Je to pravda? On pozná každého z vás.
Aj On… ak sa približujeme k príchodu Syna Božieho, ako On dokázal tým Židom, že Bohom, a že je Synom Božím? Keď povedal Petrovi, kým je. Povedal Natanaelovi, kde bol, keď bol pod tým stromom a modlil sa, a on povedal, "Ty si Syn Boží. Ty si Kráľ Izraela." To bolo znamenie Mesiáša židovskému národu.
Kňaz sa otočil a povedal, "To je veštec."
A On povedal. "Toto hovoríš o Mne, odpúšťam ti. Ale keď príde Svätý Duch, nehovorte proti Tomu, pretože to vám nebude nikdy odpustené v tomto svete, ani vo svete, ktorý má prísť." Sledujte to.
34No, existujú iba tri druhy ľudí, to je Sem, Cham a Jafetovi ľudia. To sú Židia, pohania a Samaritáni. Pamätajte, Peter kázal Židom na Letnice, otvoril Kráľovstvo Samaritánom, keď tam išiel dolu Filip a pokrstil ich, pritom ešte neprijali Ducha Svätého, tam dolu v dome Kornélia, potom to všetci počuli. Sem, Cham a Jafetovi ľudia. Duch Svätý bol potom… oni ho potom viac pre ten účel nepotrebovali, pretože Sám Duch Svätý išiel ku ľuďom.
Keď prišiel Ježiš, my, pohania, sme boli Anglo-Saxoni, ktorí nevyhliadali žiaden príchod Mesiáša. My sme boli pohania s bakuľou na chrbte. Ale tí, ktorí očakávali Mesiáša, to boli Židia a Samaritáni, ktorí vyhliadali Mesiáša. Keď sa On zjavil, aké znamenie urobil? Urobil znamenie, o ktorom hovoril prorok Mojžiš, že to bude Boh-prorok. Oni sa na to dívali. Tí, ktorí sú skutočne duchovne vedení, Ho videli robiť ten znak a povedali, "To je On."
Ale tí ostatní, ktorí mali všetky svoje intelektuálne tréningy, povedali, "Tento chlapík je Belzebub."
35Išiel do Samárie. Mal potrebu. Nejaká žena prišla ku studni a On povedal, "Prines mi trochu vody."
A ona povedala, "To nie je zvykom. My tu máme segregáciu. Židia a Samaritáni sa nestýkajú.“
On povedal, "Žena, ak by si vedela, s kým hovoríš, pýtala by si si odo mňa napiť."
On povedala, "Studňa je hlboká a ty nemáš ani…"
Čo On robil? Kontaktoval sa s jej duchom. A keď zistil, kde je jej problém (všetci vieme, čo to bolo), kde ležal jej problém, povedal, "Choď, zavolaj svojho muža a príď sem."
Povedala, "Nemám žiadneho muža."
On povedal, "Pravdu si povedala. Mala si piatich a ten, s ktorým teraz žiješ, nie je tvojím mužom."
Ona povedala, "Pane, vidím, že…" ("že si Belzebub?" Nie veru.) Ona povedala, "Vidím, že si prorok. Vidím, že si prorok. No, my vieme. My vieme, my Samaritáni, učili nás… vieme, že keď príde Mesiáš, On nám povie všetky tieto veci. To bolo znamenie Mesiáša. Ale kto si Ty?"
On povedal, "To som Ja, ktorý hovorím s tebou." Ó!
36Pamätajte, pohanom to nikdy neurobil. Nikdy to neurobil pohanom. Potom ak On je nekonečným Bohom a nechal ich s takým množstvom intelektuálneho vzdelania máme dnes…Ak by sme vyšli z tohto nášho obdobia bez tejto manifestácie, potom urobil niečo pre nich, čo neurobil pre nás. Ale On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. On zasľúbil, že to urobí.
Čo On vykonal? Mnoho miest Písma. Ale to jedno, ktoré som práve citoval, "Ako bolo vo dňoch Sodomy, tak bude i za príchodu Syna človeka." Tak bude, tá istá vec sa stane presne pred tým, ako padne oheň. Tam je, nekonečný Boh. On je dnes večer tu. To je veľká vec, povedať niečo také. Ale to je niečo, čo Biblia hovorí, a Duch Svätý je tu, aby to podporil a povedal, že to je pravda. Je to tak.
37Modlime sa. Ó, Pane, je tu niekto, kto trpí. Nepochybne sú niektorí ľudia v potrebe. Modlím sa k Tebe, Otče, aby si bol milostivý a dal im poznať, že Ty si Boh. Hovor len tie Slová, Pane. A modlím sa, aby nejaká biedna duša tu, ktorá ťa hľadá, aby bola schopná dotknúť sa toho Veľkňaza, ktorého sa môžeme dotýkať našimi slabosťami. Udeľ to, Pane, aspoň pri dvoch alebo troch, aby to ľudia mohli vidieť na jednom alebo dvoch svedkoch, alebo na dvoch alebo troch svedkoch, lebo tak bude každé slovo stáť. Udeľ to, Otče. Prosil som to na Tvoju slávu a kvôli tomu posolstvu dnes večer, Pane, a Tvoje Slovo to vyhlasuje, že je to tak, aby Ťa ľudia mohli poznať, že ten čas odkrytia a odhalenia je nablízku, že Ty si tu dnes večer ako ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. Amen.
No, chcem, aby ste sa modlili. Chcem, aby ste verili z celého svojho srdca a so všetkým, čo je vo vás, aby ste verili, že Ježiš Kristus, Syn Boží, je tu.
Koľkí z vás ste tu pre mňa cudzí, ktorých nepoznám? Zodvihnite svoju ruku? Všade po celej budove, to je jedno kde ste. No, možno ste toto nikdy nevedeli. No, ak… Budem musieť nasledovať Ducha Svätého, a ak On prehovorí, vy odpovedzte. Ja nehovorím, že On to urobí. Hovorím len, že sa modlím, aby prehovoril, aby hovoril. Nemám žiadne právo povedať to, jedine skrze Jeho Slovo. On povedal, že On to udelí, a my veríme, že On to udelí. Tak, modlite sa. Teraz je to na vašej viere. Nemôžete urobiť nič, kým sa Ho nedotknete, potom On ku mne prehovorí. Ak len môžete veriť… ak len môžeš veriť…
38Áno, tu to je. Počkajte chvíľu... Rovno tu, po mojej ľavej strane, sedí jedna žena, trochu silnejšia. Je vážne chorá. Má srdcové problémy, je zatienená rakovinou, je to duchovný démon depresie, vlastne skľúčenosti. Tá pani tu sedí so svojou hlavou sklonenou, díva sa rovno tu na mňa. Veríš, pani, že ťa Ježiš Kristus uzdraví? Veríš tomu? Veríš? Prijímaš to? Stratila si to? No, budeš to musieť poraziť.
Pane Bože, Stvoriteľu neba i zeme, nech je to dané na známosť, aby to ľudia mohli porozumieť, Pane.
Majte vieru v Boha. Tu je jeden muž, sedí rovno tu vzadu a modlí sa za svoju manželku. Má v mysli svoju manželku. Modlí sa za ňu. Mala operácie a podobne a nezdá sa, že by jej niečo z toho pomohlo. To je presne tak. Ten muž je kazateľ. Reverend Nátan, Jákob Nátan, a tvoja žena sedí hneď vedľa teba. Veríš, že Ježiš Kristus ju uzdraví? Prijímaš to, pane? Zodvihni svoju ruku, ak to prijímaš. Nech ťa Boh žehná, chod'te vpred.
39Nikdy v živote som toho muža nevidel. Majte vieru v Boha. Nech vám to neujde. On je navždy Bohom. Tu sedí nejaká žena. Práve teraz sklonila hlavu. Sedí tam a díva sa práve teraz na mňa. Tá žena je nejako chromá. Má pod sebou barlu, pomocou ktorej kráča. Veríš, pani, že Ježiš Kristus ti dá dnes večer odtiaľto vyjsť bez barlí? Veríš tomu, ako sa teraz na mňa dívaš, ako tam sedíš? Prijmeš svoje uzdravenie? Zodvihni svoju ruku. Nikdy v živote som ťa nevidel. Ale ak tomu budeš veriť, necháš ich tu ležať a pôjdeš odtiaľto po svojich a budeš zdravá. Vyzývam tvoju vieru, aby si verila. "Ak len môžeš veriť." [Zhromaždenie sa raduje. – pozn.prekl.]
Čo vy tu vzadu? Čo vy, kazatelia? Veríte, bratia, z celého svojho srdca? No, vy ste mi všetci cudzí, okrem brata Williamsa. Boh vás miluje. Ste jeho služobníci. Som tu ako váš brat. Duch Boží je tu. Hovorím to odvážne v Mene Ježiša Krista. Majte len vieru a verte. Ak niečo nie je v poriadku, pýtajte sa Ho.
40Tento muž tu sedí a díva sa rovno na mňa. Nejde presne o teba. Ide o tvojho otca, ktorý sedí tam vzadu. To je pravda. Veríš, že Boh mi môže povedať, čo s ním nie je v poriadku? Budeš tomu veriť? Na svoje nohy… Ak je to pravda, povstaň na svoje nohy. Rovno tam sedí jeho otec, starý muž, trochu plešivý, sedí tam a díva sa teraz na mňa.
Tu, pozrite tu, vidíte to Svetlo? Pozrite sa na to Svetlo nad tou ženou tu. Ona sa tiež modlí, pozná tú ženu, ktorá sedí rovno tu, taká malá žena. Veríš, že Boh mi môže povedať, čo s ňou nie je v poriadku? Budeš veriť? To je v jej nohách. To je pravda. Veríš Bohu?
Veríte, že ten Anjel Pánov, je ten istý Ježiš včera, dnes i naveky? On zostáva Bohom a nie je nič, čo by mohlo uškodiť, nič, čo by mohlo ublížiť. Ježiš Kristus, Boží Syn, žije naveky, stále žije, aby sa prihováral. Ak len budeme veriť, mať vieru, Boh vykoná to ostatné. Či veríte z celého svojho srdca?
41Veríte, že príchod Mesiáša je nablízku? Čo sú tí ľudia? Nikdy som ani jedného z nich nevidel a Boh vie, že je to pravda.
No, vy ste to začali. Teraz to ide po celej budove. Práve teraz je ten čas. Teraz je čas prijať svoje uzdravenie. [Zhromaždenie sa raduje. – pozn.prekl.] Položte ruky jeden na druhého. Položte jeden na druhého ruky a verte teraz. Teraz to máte. Teraz prichádzate do viery.
Ó, Pane Bože, Stvoriteľu neba i zeme, nech sa dnes večer dá na známosť, že Ty si Boží Syn. Ty si to dal poznať, Ty si Boh. A nech Duch Svätý padne teraz medzi týchto ľudí a nech im dokáže, že Ty si ten veľký Jehova Boh, ktorý si bol tým istým včera.
Satan, si porazený. Vyjdi z týchto ľudí, karhám ťa skrze moc živého Boha, aby si opustil týchto ľudí v Ježišovom Mene.
[Zhromaždenie sa hlasno raduje a chváli Boha. – pozn.prekl.]
1 Just a moment for prayer... Our heavenly Father, it is a grand privilege that we have of coming into Thy Presence in this attitude of worship and praise to Thee, and know that we can call Thee our Father. Being borned of Thy Spirit, we are Thy children, and with the privilege of asking what we will, and faith will bring it to us. We thank Thee for this.
Most holy and righteous God, we would ask tonight that You would speak to those, Lord, who are needy, those that need salvation to their souls. And for those that are sick and in a desperate condition, to the shut-ins, those that are in the hospitals and they're hospitalized, and cannot get to the meeting, O Thou great I AM, go to their bedsides tonight and touch their sick bodies that they might be able to come from the hospitals to serve Thee.
Forgive us of our sins as we forgive those that sin against us, that we might have Thy favor in our midst tonight. And speak to us through Thy Word. Thy Word is the Truth. Make It known unto us, Lord. Make Thy Word to live among us. For we ask it in the Name of Thy Child, the Lord Jesus. Amen. May be seated.
2 Now, for just to continue the message. I was certainly packed away, with standing there listening to Brother duPlessis bring that message on the Apostle Peter being able to walk on the water, something that he never did before. And we can just do many thing that we never did before, if we'll just listen to His Word and take His Word for it. He never made a promise but what He will stand behind.
3 Now, what time does the service start Sunday, brother, Sunday? Two-thirty. Well, that means about one-thirty: those who want prayer cards should be here at one-thirty then, so you won't disturb the meetings while they're getting out the prayer cards. And at two-thirty the services begin, and then we'll be out in time for you to go home and have your... Is it dinner or supper here? I'm a southerner, and it--it's supper to me. If they call that dinner, then what happened to my supper; I miss out somewhere. So I--I... You go home to your supper. That's what I would call it. And then go to the--your churches. And the strangers in our gates, we want to, visiting here... These fine churches will be having Sunday school, Sunday morning and church, Sunday night. You find a place of your choice and attend that service.
And, now, I'm kinda happy about this meeting for many reasons, because I have looked forward to it for some time of getting back.
4 I wish to just quote a verse out of the Book of Job tonight, the 23rd chapter and the 3rd verse.
Oh that I knew where I might find him. that I might come even to his seat.
That's Job 23:3. I'm going to speak for a few minutes upon the subject of "The Unchangeable God," if I should call it a--a subject.
5 There are many things, and practically all things change. Time changes; people changes; weather changes; nations changes; but God is in un--unchangeable. He does not change. He is the same all times.
God is an infinite God. I do not believe that there would be any word could e--explain the--the word--or any way to explain the word "infinite," because it's the infinite. He is never had a beginning, or He will never have an end. Therefore when God is called on the scene to act, or to make a decision, the way that He acts, or the decision that He makes, that is forever the same. He cannot change it, because He's infinite. He's perfect.
Now, you and I can say a certain thing, and next year we'll have to change it, maybe, and do something different, or because we are finite. We--we do not know all things. But He is perfect, and His first decision will have to be--His second decision, will have to be like the first. Or if He makes another decision, then He did not act right when He made the first decision. Then that puts Him finite like I am or you are.
What I'm trying to do, before this healing service comes, is to instill in you a faith in God. Because that's what it takes for healing or salvation. You must have faith in God, and God is no greater than His Word, or no more perfect than His Word, because God and His Word is the selfsame thing. You are no--you're no better than your word. God is no better than His Word. And your word is what you are. God's Word is what He is.
Now, any persons know that if God was called on the scene once, to save a man that was lost, and God saved that man by His faith, the next man calls on God, God will have to save that man if he comes on the same grounds that the first man came on.
Then if there is a sick man and he pleads to God for mercy, and God gives him mercy and healing on the basis of his faith, the next man that comes on them same grounds, and asks the same question, God's got to act the same way or He acted wrong when He acted the first time.
6 So you see, we must make God real unchangeable. Every soul that comes to God seeking salvation or healing, he's got to come on those basis. He's got to come believing that God is, and a Rewarder of those that diligently seek after Him.
Did not our Lord Jesus say, "Whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them?" Did not He say, "Ask the Father what you will in My--My Name and you will receive it"? Now, that is infallibly the Truth. And there's nobody that ever asked God anything, but what God gave it to them if they come with an honest heart.
Now, the thing of it is, God gives it sometimes in the way that we're not expecting it. But God always keeps His Word. There's no way for God to tell you anything and lie about it and remain God. He cannot, He must keep His Word forever. It's the truth. And when the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, that is the truth.
I may not have faith enough to make all the things that He done, live again, but I'd never stand in the road of somebody who had faith enough to do it. I would be thanking God for that faith. But just the same, every promise that He made is absolutely truth.
7 I can go on record for this tonight. If any people will take the right mental attitude towards any Divine promise that God ever made and claim it for yours, He will--God will bring it to pass. If you'll take the right attitude towards it, knowing that if God said so, the promise is yours, and it's your personal property the very minute you receive It that way, then it has to come to pass.
For Jesus said, "The Word is a Seed that a sower sowed." And a seed, if it's a germitized seed and it goes into the ground, then that seed under the right conditions of the sun and moisture, will bring forth the life that's in the seed.
And so is the Word of God. If a person can take that Word and place It in their heart, and give It the right sunshine, the right temperature, not s-u-n, but S-o-n, and right temperature of faith in there, that seed and promise will live to you just like it did at the beginning to the one It was given to. Because it's God's Word, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot fail.
8 Now, the thing is with the people, is the way God appears. Many times we want to make an idol out of God. We ask God to do something, and then He must do it just the way that we ask it, or we'll say He never answered. When we do that, we weaken our faith in God. And we weaken our testimony when we do not take Him at His Word.
God always answers. No one never asked... Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and ye shall find." Everyone that asks will receive. Everyone that seeks shall find. Everyone that knocks, it'll be opened to them.
Now, that's the only way that I've always found it, that I can get anything from God, is take Him at His Word and believe it the way He sends it.
Now, if we do not take it just the way that we think it is... We've built God as an idol. He's got to answer just according to our ways, or, "Well, it's just no good. He didn't answer us." God answers in many ways. He answers in peculiar ways, times, and everything is odd.
9 We'll take, for instance, Moses. Moses was eighty years old. He was almost, you might think, too old for God to deal with. He was an old man, unexpected in his age to be dealt with with God. Another thing, he was under the Mount Horeb, a unexpected place. God met him at a unexpected age, at a unexpected place, in a unexpected way. God didn't meet Moses the way He usually met men. He met Moses in an unusual way, in the way that He chose to meet Moses in.
That's the way he answers our prayer, in the way that He thinks is best. And His way is always right. If we ask for anything, and it doesn't happen just the way God--or the way we think that God ought to let it happen, then that makes us lose and fall back. Let's ask God, stand firm on the Word, and say It's true, and it--just receive it the way He sends it. That's the way you got to believe God.
It may come disguised; it may come in another way, around about way. But no matter what way it comes, if we have asked we shall receive. God said so. And that settles it forever, if God says so. Now, when you get to taking God like that and believing it...
10 Now, Moses, what if he'd said, "I prayed for God to make me a military man, and here He is in a burning bush?" Don't make any difference how God appeared to him, just so He appeared.
That's all that matters here, as long as God comes and answers, as long as we recognize it to be God...
Jacob, another character, he was caught between two occasions. He had done some mean things, some sneaky little tricks to his--his father-in-law, Laban. And he was running from his father-in-law, going back home to mama. And when he come to find out, here come his brother that he had done some dirty little tricks to, was coming, meeting him with an army.
Just remember, "Your sins find you out." And then Jacob, all disturbed, and perplexed, and in trouble, set his wives across the little brook, went back on the other side in a unexpected place, and an unexpected time he met God in an unexpected way.
What a way to meet God: in a wrestling match. But it was God. Regardless of whether He's in a burning bush or a wrestling match, It was God.
11 And the main thing was, that Jacob... He'd had dreams and visions and so forth, but this was one time he could lay his hand on something and say it's God. And he was able to hold onto it until the blessing came.
Oh, if we could do that, if we could find a spot to where we could see God, whether it's in His Word, wherever it is, and recognize it's God, and hold onto it until the blessing comes... Wrestle it out with God. God promised to do it.
God said if we'd seek, we'd find; ask, and it shall be given; knock, it'll be open. Every Word is true.
When Jacob got a hold of something that he could look at, hold to with his hands, and seen that it was God, he would not turn it loose.
12 Oh, if Christiandom could do that. If you can lay your hand a hold of something that's real, catch a vision of God and see His Presence, and hold onto it until God sends the answer back and the blessing, what a revival would break out here in Tulsa, if people could do that, could see the power of the living God, something real. No matter what form He comes in, we have our ideas. But God has a way of a sending things to us, answering our prayer.
There's been prayer meetings going on here in this city for a long time, for a revival. I believe, if we would just open our eyes and be ready to receive it, God would send it to us in His way of doing it. In His time God would grant it. But we've got to recognize we have asked; and if we asked, then we shall receive.
And He held onto it. Unexpected time, unexpected place, and an unexpected way. But when he realized that it was God, he held on to it.
13 Isaiah, the young prophet, he'd had a wonderful life. He'd leaned upon the good king's arm, and everything come fine, and he'd got all fat and overweight from eating. And one day the king died. And Isaiah was caught in a vision. When he seen the train of the Lord, he saw Angels flying through the building, with wings over their face, and wings over their feet, and flying with two wings, crying, "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty." And when he seen that, and knowed that he was standing in the Presence of a holy God, he said, "Woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I'm living among unclean people."
And the Lord was crying, "Who will go for Us?" And the Angel took the tongs and got some coals off the altar and touched it to his mouth and cleansed him.
It was an unusual sight for the prophet. It was an unusual way that God dealt with him. But God knows how to deal with man.
14 Isaiah had been educated, and--and at school with the king, and so forth. He had the best that could be give him mentally, I suppose, in his intellectuals. But God had to make a prophet out of him by revealing Himself to him, by giving him something tangible, that he could see it was no more so much in literature, and reading, and writing. But the things that he had read about God and heard about God, become manifested right before him.
Then he said, "I'm of unclean lips, and dealing and dwelling among unclean people." And God prepared him for his days of prophecy. That's the way God does things. He does it in a mysterious way.
The prophet Elijah, we might think of him for a moment. There he is, laying back in a cave. He'd seen the power of God a few days before that, forty days before. He had God's power. He had prayed, and three years and six months it had not rained. And then he prayed again on the mountain, and fire came down from heaven and devoured the sacrifice. And then he prayed again, and rain come and bathed the earth. And then, by the fear of the threat of the queen, he run into the wilderness; he knowed he was missing something. There was something in him that wasn't right yet.
15 When he pulled back in the cave, there come an earthquake outside that shook the cave where he was a sitting. There come a mighty rushing wind; there come thunders, and lightnings, and blowing. And it was all God, but it didn't attract the prophet. It didn't touch him somehow. He knowed what God's power was. He knowed God had shook the mountains, and he'd had rushing winds, and so forth, and sent fire out of the heaven. But he waited. And way down inside of him come a little still Voice. That attracted the prophet. There was something. He'd seen His power to do things, but this time he felt His Presence, and a still small Voice speaking into his heart. Then the prophet raised up and went out to the end of the cave.
Sometimes we ask for things, get something vice versa? We make God something that we want to make Him answer the way we think He ought to answer.
16 Israel, there's another case. Israel was looking for a mighty king to come to beat the Romans down with a rod of iron. What did God give them? A Baby. Instead of a mighty king, He gave them a Baby wrapped in swaddling cloth, said, "You'll find Him laying in a manger."
He didn't come the way that they expected Him to come, and they refused it. "It has to come our way or it's no good." They said, "Take it back." And He did. That's right. You got to accept it the way God sends it and be happy about it.
God anchors a little something in your heart and says, "This is It." Believe It. Hold onto It. That's God's Word. He's promised He'd confirm It to you. And if He confirms the Word, hold onto It.
Yeah, they didn't want that Baby. "If You can't send us a king, why, we won't have that Baby. You can just take it back." See it's got to a way that--that we think it's got to be.
We must remember that God does it His way. And His way is always the right way. We've got to believe what God said about it, and know that it's absolutely the truth, and stay with it. Hold on to it.
17 Jesus, when He become a Man, He was humble. And how could a King of--of the heavens have spit in His face, and a rag around His head, and hit Him with a stick, and said, "Say, they tell me you're a prophet. Tell us who hit you, and we'll believe you?" And He never opened His mouth. How could that be. The king that they was looking for, was going to beat the world down? But God sent them the King. And because God sent it in His way, then they refused to believe it. But God had that way of doing to sent it, and He never send it any other way but what His Word said He would come.
But they had their mind made up it had to be some other way. There's where we make the mistake, friends. That's where the trouble lays.
When the forerunner, John the Baptist, came the voice of one crying in the wilderness, why, the Bible said all the high places will be brought down, and all the low places would be lifted up, and all these things would take place. The mountains will skip like little rams, and the leaves would clap their hands. Why they was expecting a shaking of this man coming down out of the corridors of heaven, all dressed in fine linen, and crowns upon His head, or something.
What happened? God sent them an old preacher down on the wilderness with a piece of sheepskin wrapped around him looked like a fuzzy worm, his face all full of beard.
"Oh, a way was such a fellow as that, eating locust and wild honey. We don't want nothing to do with that. How could that forerun the Messiah?" But it was God's way of forerunning the Messiah.
18 We've got to receive it in the way that God said it, God is pleased with it. That's His way. He's all wisdom. He's all powerful. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, oh, He's God, the I AM. Not the "I was" or "will be." "But I AM," forever the same. He's God, and He does things in mysterious ways. And... But He does it for His own glory. He does it because that it's best to do it that way. We must receive it the way that He sends it.
I'm sure that all of our charts and calendars, and so forth, that we have drawed up: Jesus coming on a cloud; the next one has got Him on a white horse, and all like that; it'll be altogether different when He comes. I--it won't be the way that we've got, and many will fail to see it.
Many will fail to see this day that we're living in. Many fails to see the sign of the coming Messiah right now. Many people fail to see it. They--they... It's right before them, yet they--they don't see it.
Jesus said, when He spoke in--in S--Luke, I believe it was. And He said, "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man. As it was in the days of Noah..." Did you notice how He said the morals of the people in the days of Noah? "Eating, drinking, marrying, given in marriage." But when He said, "Sodom." He just left it off. That was the fire that burnt Sodom. It's the fire that catches the earth today. Let's review that for a few minutes.
19 Abraham, setting out there, un--not expecting anything. He was in the poorest of the land. It was in the heat of the day, a odd time for something to happen, but he seen a Man come walking, three of them. Something in his heart told him it was God, and he held onto it. He wouldn't let them pass by. Oh God, may that happen here. Don't let it pass by. Hold onto it.
20 "Come in, sit down under the oak. I'll fetch a little water. I'll be a servant to You. Let me wash Your feet. I'll bring You a morsel of bread. You satisfy Your soul, then You may go on. For this reason my Lord has come to me." Yet, not too sure, but he knew that there was something sparked in his heart. It must be the time.
When that Man set and talked to him, look what He did. He looked down; He said, "Abraham," a Stranger, how'd He know his name was Abraham? "Where is thy wife, Sarah?" He knew he had a wife, and know her name was Sarah.
And the Bible said that Abraham told Him, "In the tent behind You."
And he said, "See, that Abraham is the heir of the world, will I keep anything from Abraham, seeing that he's the heir of the world?" And He said, "According to the time of life, I'm going to visit you." And Sarah, ninety years old, back in the tent behind Him, never seen Him, never knowed nothing about Him, neither did He know about Sarah, and she laughed within herself, perhaps like that, put her hands up to her mouth.
21 And this Angel, with His back turned, said, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Who was that? He little expected that Man to be Who He was. But when He went to leave, Abraham called Him Elohim, God Almighty.
What was it a sign of? That God Almighty, in the form of the Holy Ghost in the last days before this world shall burn, He will come to His people and dwell among His people in flesh, making Hisself known to His Church just before the fire fall. Just before the destruction of the world, Elohim, God, the Holy Spirit will come in among His people and do the signs that He did then. Oh, He's the unchangeable God. That's the way He made Hisself known to the Jews. That's how He made Hisself known to the Samaritan, the same way.
Many of the church believed Him, "Oh, He's a Beelzebub." But those who seen it and recognized it to be God, they recognized Who He was.
22 The women at the well, she said, "Sir, Messiah cometh, we know and He will tell us these things. You must be His prophet."
He said, "I'm He that speaks to you."
She run into the city and said, "Come, see a Man." Unexpected she was to find a Man like that. Unexpected was she to find the Messiah on earth, dwelling among His people.
So is it today, the people don't expect. They're expecting something else. They're expecting bombs and things to fall, which probably will be. They're expecting some great union amongst the church people, now it may be. But in the midst of all of that, God has sent the power of His Son, Jesus Christ, amongst the people, and they're having a new Pentecost, the power of God being poured out, and the same signs and wonders that they did many years ago is in the midst of the people, as Jesus said it would be. We don't look for a unionize among all the churches and things. We look for an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and it'll come and do things that--that we might not be expecting.
I know He's here now. I know the Holy Spirit is here in the meetings. And I know that He promised, "Wherever two or three are gathered in My, in there together, I'll be in their midst." Jesus promised that. "Wherever two or three..." That's the power... That's the--what the early church relied upon: the Presence of Jesus. "Wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, I'll be in their midst. And whatever they agree upon, as touching one thing, and ask, they shall receive it." That is true. That's God's promise. He's unchangeable; He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He's here now. Do you believe it?
23 Let us bow our heads just a moment for prayer. Just before we pray, and you with your heads bowed, would there be any here, would say, "Brother Branham, remember me. Let my spiritual eyes come open, that I might see and know Him. How I want to see Him. How I love Him," raise up your hands and say, "Remember me." God bless you. Lord, bless. That's good. May God of heaven be merciful. Someone else back over to my right here. "Remember me, Brother Branham, in prayer." God bless you.
The unsearchable riches of Christ, the revealing of His power and His goodness... May the God of heaven give mercy, and kindness, and grace to you all.
24 Our heavenly Father, we bring this audience to You at this hour, looking around and seeing the hands of the people going up. The Unchangeable God working in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. We pray, O God, that Your Holy Ghost, Your Spirit will dwell in every heart here tonight. Give to them the desire of their heart. Make them have faith, Lord. Put something within them, a courage, that they'll know that You're ever-present, ever-living, to make intercessions. You are setting at the right hand of God Almighty. And there at His Throne, the precious body of Jesus Christ sits there while the Holy Spirit is on earth. And He's there as our High Priest to make intercessions upon our confession. What we confess that He will do, that's what He's there to make right. His own Blood in--in the charger before Him, His own garments, bloody, setting there, seeing that God cannot look through that Blood and see unrighteousness, because Christ has took our sin and our sickness.
O Father God, we pray, that, as He being a High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities, that He will be touched tonight by every infirmity that's in the building, all the infirmities, that whether it be spiritual or physical, that they'll have a healing, and a revival will take out of this city, oh, souls after souls into the Kingdom of God. Grant it, Lord. Hear our prayer.
We love you, Father, and we're waiting for great expectations for the Holy Spirit to come in our midst and do that which He promised He would do. We ask it for their sake, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
25 You love Him with all your heart? Are you expecting Him to do the exceeding the abundance above all that we could do or to think? He said He would do the exceeding abundance above all that we could do or think. He promised to do it.
Now, when Jesus was here on earth, how many knows that He did not claim to be a healer? How many knows that He wasn't a healer? You mean you don't know the Bible no better than that? He said, "It's not Me that doeth the works; it's My Father that dwelleth in Me; He doeth the works."
"Verily, verily, I say unto you..." John 5:19, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing in Himself. But what He sees the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise." Is that what He said? Saint John 5:19, when He knowed where a man was laying with an infirmity, laying on a pallet, told him his faith would make him whole, pick up his bed and go through the house. And He was questioned amongst the Jews, and He left thousands of people laying there, lame, halt, blind, twisted. He said, "I only do what the Father tells Me, or shows Me to do. Now, I do what I see the Father doing. The Father worketh, and I worketh hitherto." Now, that's His Spirit.
Now, Jesus Himself did not perform any healings without first God showing Him. That's the Scripture. "I do nothing except the Father shows Me first, not tells Me, shows Me first." Then when He shows Him, He goes and does what the Father tells Him.
26 The woman that touched His garment. Now, He never did that; He never said He did it. He said, "Thy faith has saved thee. Thy faith has saved thee." Blind Bartimaeus at the gate, "Thy faith has made thee whole." He had nothing to do with it. The people's faith did that, because they believed that He was the Son of God. She touched Him, the woman did, and she touched His garment. And now, He didn't feel it physically, because the Palestinian garment has an underneath garment, and the robe hangs loose. And she touched the border of it. "For she said within her heart, 'If I'll but touch His garment, I'll be made whole.'" And she touched Him. And when she did, why she felt within herself... Because, her faith had been: if she could touch it, she'll be made well. And she did what she thought that would bring the power of God to her, and she felt that it was all-sufficient. And it was, because she believed it.
27 Jesus turned and looked around the audience, said, "Who touched Me?"
Peter rebuked Him, said, "Who touched You? Well, all of them is touching You. Why would You say a thing like that?"
He said, "But I perceive that I have gotten weak, or virtue is gone from Me," which means "strength." "I got weak. Somebody touched Me with a different kind of a touch." And He look around over the audience until He found the woman. And He told her about her blood issue had stopped, because her faith had made her well.
Now, that's the Jesus was yesterday. That's the same Jesus today. That's the same Jesus that will be tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow and will be forever.
28 When people think that God makes a promise and don't keep it... Mohammedans or nothing else... I've held the Bible in one hand and the Koran in the other one, and say, "One of them's right and one's wrong. Both of them can't be right, 'cause they're contrary, one to another." I say, "You prove that your prophet is dead. He's in the ground. Our Jesus raised from the dead. And He promised the things that He did, we'll do also." I said, "Now, let me see you do the works of Mohammed." Can't do it.
But the works of Jesus Christ is done by the Holy Ghost, when He comes to anoint the people. Do you believe that? Certainly, we believe it. What would keep us from believing? Because God made the promise. God said so. That settles it.
29 Now, man cannot do that. It's supernatural. It's something that man can't do. While I've just got a couple minute's time, I want to explain that. See, man cannot do nothing. It's God in man. Jesus said, "I am the Vine; ye are the branch." Now, as long as a branch is in the Vine, it'll bear the fruit of the Vine. Now, God always used men for His agent.
That's why He used His own Son to inveil Himself. He come down and took the form of man in order to die the death for man. He could not die in the Spirit, but He was put to death in the flesh.
Then God was in Abraham; God was in Isaac; God was in Jacob; God was in Joseph; God was in David. He was in all those people back in there, them prophets and so forth. It was God working through men.
30 Now, in this New Testament age, the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses His church and sanctifies it, that His Holy Spirit might continue to carry the work of God on through all ages. And He's just the same today. If it isn't, then we're false witnesses of this Bible. If it... If that isn't true, then the Bible isn't true. It's time that men preach the Gospel. It's time that the power of God was made known. When heathens trying to step on that Word, we need men like the Hebrew children, "Our God is able to deliver us from this..." That's right. It's time. God remains the same.
31 Now, God cannot heal you, because He's already done it. When He was wounded for your transgressions, bruised for your iniquity, the chastisement of your peace upon Him, and with His stripes you were healed... It's a past tense. If He stood here tonight with this suit on that He gave me, He could not heal you if you asked Him. He'd say, "I've already done it. You believe it?" He might do something to make you know that it was Him. And that's the way He does today. He makes it known to His people, by His people, that He is God, not the man, but God.
Now, He's just as real tonight. I--I know He's here. How many ever seen that picture of the Angel of the Lord, that Light? There's many of you. It--they got it here, I think, somewhere. Boys may have it, Gene and them's got it at the table back there.
That Light... You remember, I... If I never meet you again in earth, I'll meet you at that day. That Light isn't standing two feet from where I'm standing now. That's right. He promised it. And I believe God. I've seen It against tens of thousands of heathens. I've seen It in--in times when witch doctors on both sides, and see the power of God paralyze them and sit there. God's either God, or He's not God. Jesus is either the Son of God, or He was an impostor. He is Christ the Son of God. He is not dead, but He's alive, and He lives forevermore. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
32 How many believe that? God bless you. How many of you believe that He can appear right...
We ain't got no prayer cards give out, have we? How many's sick out there and wants healing, raise your hand. Say, "God, I'm sick; I need healing." Just raise up your hands, anybody that's sick and wants healing. Just raise up your hands and say, "I pray that God will make me well." Got a loved one you're praying for, raise up your hand, say, "I--I--I'm praying." God be merciful.
There isn't a person in this building that I know, outside of... I believe, if I'm not sure, this is Pat sitting right here, Pat Tyler. I'm... I don't know whether you all know him or not. And Brother Gene Goad setting here taking the message...
33 Men on the platform, I met them last night, finest bunch of men I ever met in my life. But the only ones that I really know, personally, is... Brother right there, he sponsored me the first time I was here, Brother Williams, and his son. Brother Borders, Brother David, and Brother Harvey is the only ones that I really know here.
But Jesus Christ knows every one of you if He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Put Him to a showdown. Is He God? Is it right? He knows every one of you.
If He'll--we're approaching the coming of the Son of God, how did He prove Hisself to be God, and to be the Son of God to the Jews? When He told Peter who He was. He said--told Nathanael where he'd been when He was under the fig tree, when He saw him under the tree, praying; He said, "Thou art the Son of God. You're the King of Israel." That was the sign of the Messiah to the Jewish nations.
The priest walked back and said, "He's a fortuneteller."
And He said, "You say that about Me, I'll forgive you. But when the Holy Ghost is come, but not speak against It then, because it'll never be forgiven in this world or the world to come." Watch that.
34 Well, there's only three classes of people, that's Ham, Shem, and Japheth's people. That's Jews, Gentile, and Samaritans. Remember Peter at Pentecost preached to the Jews, opened the Kingdom to the Samaritans, when Philip had went down and baptized them, yet they did not receive the Holy Ghost, down at the house of Cornelius; then all of them had heard It. Ham, Shem, and Japheth's people. The Holy Ghost was then... They didn't need him any more for the purpose, because the Holy Spirit had went to the people.
When Jesus come, we Gentiles were Anglo-Saxons which did not look for no coming Messiah. We were heathens with clubs on our back. But they that was looking for a Messiah, there was the Jews and the Samaritans looking for the Messiah. When He appeared, how--what kind of a sign did He do? He done the sign of the prophet that Moses spoke of it, it would be a God-Prophet. They looked at it. Those who are really spiritual led, they seen Him do that sign, and they said, "That's Him."
But the others that had all their intellectual trainings, they said, "This Guy is Beelzebub."
35 He went over to Samaria. He had need. A woman come out at the well, and He said, "Bring Me a drink of water."
And she says, "Not customary. We got segregation here. Jews and Samaritans have no dealing."
He said, "Woman, if you knew Who you were talking to, you'd ask Me for a drink."
She said, "The well's deep, and you have..."
What was He doing? He was contacting her spirit. And when He found where her trouble was (We all know what it was.), where her trouble lay, He said, "Go, get your husband and come here."
She said, "I don't have any husband."
Said, "You said right. You got five, and the one you're living with now is not your husband."
She said, "Sir, I perceive that..." "(You're Beelzebub"? No sir.) She said, "I perceive that You're a prophet." I perceive that You are a prophet. Now, we know. We know, we Samaritan, we're taught. We know when Messiah cometh, He will tell us these things. That was the sign of the Messiah. But who are You?"
He said, "I'm He that speaks to you." Oh, my.
36 Remember, not to Gentiles did He ever do it. He did not do that to Gentiles. Then if He's an infinite God, and let them, with an intellectual teaching as much as we have today... If we go into the--out of this, our dispensation, without the same manifestation, then He done something for them He did not do for us. But He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He promised He would do it.
What did He do it? Many Scriptures. But the one I just quoted, "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." So shall it be; the same thing will take place just before the fire. There He is, the infinite God. He's here tonight. That's a big thing to say. But it's a something that the Bible said so, and the Holy Spirit is here to back it up and say it's the Truth. That's right.
37 Let us pray. O Lord, there's somebody there suffering. No doubt, some people are in need. I pray Thee, Father, to be merciful and just let it be known that Thou art God. Just speak the words, Lord. And I pray that some poor soul in here, that's seeking You, that they'll be able to touch the High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. Just grant it, Lord, at least one or two, that the people might know in a mouth of one or two witnesses, or two or three witnesses, may every word be established. Grant it, Father. I asked it for God's glory, and for the sake of the Message tonight, Lord, and Your Word that declares it to be so, that the people might know that the time of unfolding and unveiling is at hand, that You're here the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
Now, I want you to pray. I want you to believe with all your heart and all that is within you to believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God is here.
How many strangers to me out there, that I don't know you? Raise up your hand. All out through the building, no matter where you are.
Now, perhaps you have never known this. Now, if... I'll have to follow the Holy Spirit, and if It speaks, you answer. I don't say that It will. I'm just saying I pray that it will (See?), that it will. I have no right to say that, only by His Word. He said that He would grant it, and we believe that it will be granted. Now, you pray. Now it's your faith. You can do nothing till you touch Him; then He speaks to me. If you can believe... If thou canst believe...
38 Yes, here it is. Just a moment. Right over here to my left, there sets a woman sitting there, kind of heavy set. She's real seriously sick. She has heart trouble, shadowed by a cancer, spiritual demon depression--oppression, rather. The lady sits right here with her head bowed, looking right this way at me. Do you believe, lady, that Jesus Christ will make you well? Do you believe it? Do you? You accept it? Lost it... Now, you'll have to beat that.
Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, let it be known, that the people might understand, Lord.
Have faith in God. Here's a man sitting right back here, praying for his wife. He's got his wife on his mind. He's praying for her. She's had operations and so forth, and it doesn't seem to help her any. That's exactly right. That man's a minister. Reverend Nathan, Jacob Nathan, your wife sitting next to you. You believe that Jesus Christ will make her well? You accept it, sir? Raise up your hand if you accept it. God bless you, go on.
39 I never seen the man in my life. Have faith in God. Let that pass you. He is God forevermore.
Here sets a woman. She bowed her head right there. She's sitting there, looking to me now. The woman's lame; somehow. She's got beneath her a crutch that she walks on. Do you believe, lady, that Jesus Christ will let you walk out of here without them crutches tonight? You believe it, sitting right there looking at me? Will you accept it, your healing? Raise up your hand. I've never seen you in my life. But if you'll believe it, you'll leave them lay there, and walk out, and be whole. I challenge your faith to believe it. "If thou canst believe."
What about back here now? What about you ministers? You brothers believe with all your heart? Now, you're, every one, strangers to me, besides Brother Williams. God loves you. You're His servant. I'm here to be your brother. The Spirit of God is here. I boldly say it in Jesus Christ's Name. You just have faith and believe. If there's something wrong, ask Him.
40 This man sitting right here looking at me. It's not exactly you. It's your dad sitting out there. That's right. Do you believe God can tell me what's wrong with him? Would you believe it? In his feet? That's right, stand on your feet. There sets his daddy sitting right there, an old man, kind of bald-headed, setting there, looking right at me now.
Here, look here, don't you see that Light? Look at that Light over this little woman here. He's praying also. He knows that woman setting right there, that little woman. Do you believe God can tell me what's wrong with her? Will you believe? It's in her legs. That's right. You believe God?
Do you believe that the Angel of the Lord, the same Jesus yesterday, today, and forever? He remains God, and there's nothing that can harm, nothing can hinder. Jesus Christ, God's Son, lives forever, ever alive to make intercessions. If we will only believe, have faith, God will perform the rest. Do you believe that with all your heart?
41 Now, do you believe that the coming Messiah is at hand. What is those people? I never seen one of them in my life, and God knows that to be true.
Now, you got it started. Now, it's just going around all over the building. Right now is the time. Now, is the time to receive your healing. Lay your hands on one another. Put your hands over on one another and believe now. Now, you got it. Now, you're--you're coming into faith.
O Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, let it be known tonight that Thou art the Son of God. You have made it known; You are God. And let Your Holy Spirit fall in this, among this people, and prove to them that Thou art the great Jehovah God, that You remain the same yesterday.
Satan, you are defeated. Come out of this people; I adjure thee by the power of the living God, that you come out of this people, in Jesus' Name.
All right.
1Na chvíľu sa pomodlíme… náš nebeský Otče, je to veľké privilégium, ktoré máme, prísť do Tvojej Prítomnosti s týmto postojom uctievania a chválenia Teba, že môžeme vedieť, že Ťa môžeme nazývať svojím Otcom. Keď sme narodení z Tvojho Ducha, sme Tvojimi deťmi a máme tú výsadu, že môžeme prosiť to, čo chceme, a viera nám to prinesie. Ďakujeme Ti za toto.
Najsvätejší a najspravodlivejší Bože, dnes večer prosíme, aby si hovoril ku tým, Pane, ktorí sú v potrebách, ku tým, ktorí potrebujú spasenie na duši. A tí, ktorí sú chorí a v zúfalom stave, a tí, ktorí sú niekde zavretí, tí, ktorí sú v nemocniciach a hospitalizovaní a nemôžu sa dostať na zhromaždenie, ó, Ty si ten veľký JA SOM, choď dnes večer k ich posteliam a dotkni sa ich nemocných tiel, aby mohli byť schopní prísť z nemocníc a slúžiť Ti.
Odpusť nám naše hriechy, ako my odpúšťame tým, ktorí hrešia proti nám, aby sme tak mohli mať dnes večer v našom strede Tvoju priazeň. Hovor ku nám cez Tvoje Slovo. Tvoje Slovo je Pravda. Daj nám ho poznať, Pane. Urob, aby Tvoje Slovo medzi nami žilo. Lebo to prosíme v Mene Tvojho Dieťaťa, Pána Ježiša. Amen. Môžete si sadnúť.
2Tak, teraz budem len v tom posolstve pokračovať. Istotne som bol naplnený, keď som tam stál a počúval brata duPlessisa, ako priniesol to posolstvo o apoštolovi Petrovi, ako bol schopný kráčať po vode, niečo, čo nikdy predtým nerobil. A my tiež môžeme robiť mnoho vecí, ktoré sme nikdy predtým nerobili, ak len budeme počúvať Jeho Slovo a vezme k tomu Jeho Slovo. On nikdy nedal zasľúbenie, za ktorým by Sám nestál.
3No, kedy začína v nedeľu bohoslužba, brat? O 14.30. Dobre, tak to znamená, že asi o 13.30 - tí, ktorí chcú modlitebné lístky, by tam potom mali byť o 13.30, aby ste tak nevyrušovali počas zhromaždenia, tým, že sa budú rozdávať modlitebné lístky. A o 14.30 sa začne bohoslužba, a potom načas zakončíme, aby ste mohli ísť domov a mať… máte tu hlavné jedlo alebo večeru? Ja som južan, tak pre mňa je to večera. Ak to volajú hlavné jedlo, čo sa potom stalo s mojou večerou? Niekde som ju zmeškal. Tak… Choďte sa domov navečerať. Tak by som to nazval. A potom choďte do svojich zborov. A tí, ktorí sú medzi nami cudzí, chceme… ktorí sú tu na návšteve… Tieto pekné zbory budú mať nedeľnú školu, v nedeľu ráno a v nedeľu večer. Nájdite si miesto podľa vášho výberu a choďte na bohoslužbu.
A teraz, som veľmi rád za tieto zhromaždenia z viacerých dôvodov, pretože som sa na to tešil už nejaký čas, že sa vrátim.
4Rád by som dnes večer citoval jeden verš z knihy Jóba, z 23. kapitoly, 3. verš.
Oj, aby som vedel, kde by som ho našiel! Išiel by som až pred jeho prestol.
["ku jeho trónu, stolici" - podľa prekladu KJV – pozn.prekl.]
To je Jób 23:3. Budem teraz na chvíľu hovoriť na tému „Nemenný Boh“, ak by som to mal nazvať ako tému.
5Sú mnohé veci a prakticky všetko sa mení. Čas sa mení; ľudia sa menia, počasie sa mení; národy sa menia, ale Boh je nemenný. On sa nemení. On je vo všetkých časoch rovnaký.
Boh je nekonečný Boh. Nemyslím si, že existuje slovo, ktoré by dokázalo vysvetliť slovo, alebo neexistuje spôsob, ako vysvetliť slovo „nekonečný“, pretože to je nekonečné. On nikdy nemal začiatok, ani nikdy nebude mať koniec. Preto, keď je Boh zavolaný na scénu, aby konal, aby urobil rozhodnutie, ten spôsob, akým On koná, alebo to rozhodnutie, ktoré robí, to je navždy rovnaké. On to nemôže zmeniť, pretože je nekonečný. On je dokonalý.
No, ty a ja môžeme povedať určitú vec a na ďalší rok to možno musíme zmeniť. Alebo urobiť niečo iné, pretože my sme ohraničení. My nepoznáme všetky veci. Ale On je dokonalý a Jeho prvé rozhodnutie bude musieť byť Jeho druhým rozhodnutím, bude musieť byť ako to prvé. Alebo ak On urobí iné rozhodnutie, potom nekonal správne, keď urobil prvé rozhodnutie. To Ho potom robí ohraničeným, ako som ja alebo ty.
To, čo sa snažím urobiť, pred touto službou s uzdravovaním, je vštepiť do vás vieru v Boha. Pretože to je to, čo je potrebné pre uzdravenie alebo spasenie. Musíte mať vieru v Boha a Boh nie je väčší, ako je Jeho Slovo, a nie je dokonalejší, ako je Jeho Slovo, pretože Boh a Jeho Slovo je tá istá vec. Ty nie si lepší, ako je tvoje slovo. Boh nie je lepší ako Jeho Slovo. A tvoje slovo je to, čo si ty. Božie Slovo je to, čo je On.
No, ktokoľvek vie, že ak bol Boh zavolaný na scénu, aby spasil človeka, ktorý bol stratený, a Boh toho človeka spasil skrze jeho vieru, tak potom ten ďalší človek, ktorý na Boha zavolá, Boh bude musieť toho človeka spasiť, ak príde na tom istom základe, na akom prišiel ten prvý.
Potom ak je nejaký chorý človek a bude prosiť o milosť a Boh mu dá milosť a uzdravenie na základe jeho viery, potom ten ďalší, ktorý prichádza na tom istom základe a pýta si to isté, Boh bude musieť konať takisto, lebo inak konal nesprávne v tom prvom prípade.
6Tak vidíte, musíte Boha urobiť skutočne nemenným. Každá duša, ktorá prichádza k Bohu a hľadá spasenie a uzdravenie, musí prísť na takom základe. Musí prísť s vierou, že Boh je, a že je Odplatiteľom tých, ktorí Ho snažne hľadajú.
Či nepovedal náš Pán Ježiš, „Čokoľvek by ste túžili, keď sa modlíte, verte, že to prijmete a dostanete to“? Či nepovedal, „Proste Otca, čo chcete, v Mojom Mene a obdržíte to“? Tak, to je nemenná pravda. A neexistuje nikto, kto kedy Boha o niečo prosil a Boh by mu to nedal, ak ten človek prišiel s úprimným srdcom.
Tak, tá vec je, že Boh dáva niekedy veci takým spôsobom, akým to neočakávame. Ale Boh vždy dodržiava Svoje Slovo. Neexistuje, že by ti Boh niečo povedal a klamal by pritom a zostal by Bohom. Nemôže, On musí navždy zachovať svoje Slovo. Ono je pravdou. A keď Biblia hovorí, že Ježiš Kristus je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky, tak to je pravda.
Možno nemám dostatok viery, aby som spôsobil všetko, čo On urobil, znovu ich oživiť, ale nikdy by som nestál v ceste niekomu, kto má dostatok viery, aby to urobil. Ďakoval by som za takú vieru Bohu. Ale každopádne, každé zasľúbenie, ktoré On dal, je absolútna pravda.
7Môžem o tom vydať svedectvo. Ak ktokoľvek zaujme správny duševný postoj k akémukoľvek Božskému zasľúbeniu, ktoré kedy Boh dal, a bude si to nárokovať za svoje, tak On, Boh, spôsobí, že sa to stane. Ak voči tomu zaujmeš správny postoj, vediac, že ak to Boh povedal, tak to zasľúbenie je tvoje a je to tvojím osobným vlastníctvom v tej minúte, v ktorej to tak prijmeš; potom sa to musí stať.
Lebo Ježiš povedal, „Slovo je semeno, ktoré rozsievač vyšiel rozsievať.“ A semeno, ak je opeleným semenom a ide do zeme, potom to semeno v správnych podmienkach slnka a vlhkosti privedie ten život, ktorý je v tom semene.
A tak je to s Božím Slovom. Ak nejaká osoba dokáže vziať Slovo a umiestniť ho vo svojom srdci a dať tomu to správne slnečné svetlo, správnu teplotu, nie „slnko“ [angl. „sun“ - pozn.prekl.], ale Syna [angl. „Son“ - pozn.prekl.], a tú správnu teplotu viery, tak to semeno a to zasľúbenie bude pre teba žiť takisto, ako žilo na začiatku pre toho, komu bolo dané. Pretože to je Božie Slovo a On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. On nemôže sklamať.
8No, tá vec s ľuďmi je to, ako sa Boh zjavuje. Mnohokrát chceme urobiť z Boha modlu. Prosíme Boha, aby niečo urobil, a potom to On musí urobiť presne tak, ako to my žiadame, alebo povieme, že vôbec neodpovedal. Keď to tak robíme, oslabujeme svoju vieru v Boha. A oslabujeme svoje svedectvo, keď Ho neberieme za Jeho Slovo.
Boh vždy odpovedá. Nikto nikdy neprosil... Ježiš povedal, „Proste a bude vám dané; hľadajte a nájdete.“ Každý, kto prosí, dostane. Každý, kto hľadá, nájde. Každému, kto klope, bude otvorené.
No, to je ten jediný spôsob, ako som to vždy dosiahol, ako som mohol čokoľvek od Boha dostať, to je vziať Ho za Jeho Slovo a veriť to tak, ako to posiela.
No, ak to berieme len tak, ako si to my myslíme, že to je... tak sme si z Boha urobili modlu. On musí odpovedať len presne podľa našich spôsobov, alebo „No, nie je to na nič dobré. Neodpovedal nám.“ Boh odpovedá mnohými spôsobmi. On odpovedá zvláštnymi spôsobmi, tie časy a všetko je divné.
9Vezmime napríklad Mojžiša. Mojžiš mal osemdesiat rokov. Mohli by ste si myslieť, že je takmer príliš starý, aby s ním Boh konal. Bol starým mužom, nepredpokladalo sa, že Boh bude v jeho veku konať. Ďalšia vec, bol pod vrchom Horeb, neobvyklé miesto. Boh ho stretol v neočakávanom veku, na neočakávanom mieste, neočakávaným spôsobom. Boh nestretol Mojžiša tak, ako sa obvykle s ľuďmi stretáva. Stretol Mojžiša neobyčajným spôsobom, spôsobom, akým si Boh vybral stretnúť sa s Mojžišom.
To je to, ako nám Boh odpovedá na naše modlitby, spôsobom, o ktorom si On myslí, že je najlepší.. A Jeho spôsob je vždy správny. Ak o niečo prosíme, a to sa nedeje práve tak, ako Boh… alebo tak, ako si my myslíme, že by to Boh mal nechať sa stať, potom to spôsobuje, že prehrávame a odpadáme. Prosme Boha, stojme pevne na Slove a hovorme, že Ono je pravdou, a prijmime to len tak, ako to On posiela. To je spôsob, ako musíte Bohu veriť.
To môže prísť zamaskované, môže to prísť iným spôsobom, celkom z druhej strany. Ale nezáleží na tom, ako to prichádza, ak sme prosili, prijmeme to. Boh tak povedal. A tým je to naveky vybavené, ak tak Boh hovorí. Tak, ak takto budete brať Boha a budete tomu veriť…
10No, čo ak by Mojžiš povedal, "Ja som sa k Bohu modlil, aby zo mňa spravil bojovníka, a On je tu v horiacom kre?" Nezáleží na tom, ako sa mu Boh zjavil, hlavné je to, že sa mu zjavil.
To je všetko, na čom tu teraz záleží, pokiaľ Boh prichádza a odpovedá, pokiaľ rozpoznávame, že to je Boh…
Jákob, ďalšia postava, sa našiel medzi dvomi stenami. Urobil nejaké nedobré veci, také malé potmehúdske triky svojmu svokrovi Lábanovi. A teraz utekal od svojho svokra Lábana späť ku mame. A potom zisťuje, že oproti mu ide jeho brat, ktorému vykonal tie nepekné triky, s celou armádou, aby sa s ním stretol.
Pamätajte, "vaše hriechy vás nájdu." A keď Jákob, celý rozrušený, zmätený, v problémoch, posiela svoje ženy cez ten malý potok, a ide späť na druhú stranu na neočakávané miesto a v neočakávanom čase sa stretáva s Bohom neočakávaným spôsobom.
Čo za spôsob, ako sa stretnúť s Bohom: v bojovnom zápase. Ale bol to Boh. Bez ohľadu na to, či to bol horiaci ker alebo bojovný zápas, bol to Boh.
11A tá hlavná vec bola, že Jákob… on mal sny a videnia atď, ale tentokrát mohol položiť svoju hlavu na niečo a povedať, že to je Boh. A bol schopný držať sa, kým neprišlo požehnanie.
Ó, ak by sme to len mohli robiť, ak len môžeme nájsť miesto, kde môžeme vidieť Boha, či je to v Jeho Slove, kdekoľvek to je, a rozpoznať, že to je Boh, a držať sa Toho, kým nepríde to požehnanie… zápas a vybojuj to s Bohom. Boh zasľúbil, že to učiní.
Boh zasľúbil, že ak budeme hľadať, nájdeme: proste a bude vám dané, klopte a otvorí sa vám. Každé Slovo je pravda.
Keď sa Jákob uchopil niečoho, na čo sa mohol pozrieť, držať sa svojimi rukami a vidieť, že to bol Boh, tak sa toho nepustil.
12Ó, ak by to len Kresťanstvo mohlo robiť. Ak sa len môžete svojou rukou uchopiť niečoho, čo je skutočné, uchopiť videnie Boha a vidieť Jeho Prítomnosť a chopiť sa toho, až kým Boh pošle späť odpoveď a požehnanie, aké prebudenie by sa prelomilo v Tulse, ak by to len ľudia mohli robiť, mohli by vidieť moc živého Boha, niečo skutočné. Nezáleží na tom, v akej forme to prichádza, máme svoje myšlienky. Ale Boh má svoju cestu, ako nám posiela veci a odpovedá na naše modlitby.
Prebiehali tu v meste dlhý čas modlitebné zhromaždenia o prebudenie. Verím, že ak len dokážeme otvoriť svoje oči a budeme pripravení prijať to, Boh nám to pošle Jeho vlastným spôsobom. Boh to udeľuje vo Svojom čase. Ale my musíme rozpoznať, že sme prosili, a ak sme prosili, tak potom to obdržíme.
A on sa toho držal. Neobvyklý čas, neobvyklé miesto a neobvyklý spôsob. Ale keď si uvedomil, že to bol Boh, držal sa toho.
13Izaiáš, mladý prorok, mal nádherný život. Opieral sa o dobré rameno kráľa a všetko išlo dobre a on pribral a celý stučnel od prejedania sa. A jedného dňa kráľ zomrel. A Izaiáš dostal videnie. Keď videl plášť Pánov, videl Anjelov, ako lietali po budove s krídlami na svojich tvárach a s krídlami na svojich nohách a dvomi krídlami lietali a kričali, "Svätý, svätý, svätý je Pán Boh Všemohúci." A keď to uvidel, vedel, že stojí v Prítomnosti Svätého Boha, povedal, "Beda mi, lebo som človek nečistých rtov a žijem medzi nečistými ľuďmi."
A Pán zakričal, "Kto pôjde za nás?" A Anjel vzal kliešte a nejaký uhoľ z oltára a dotkol sa jeho úst a očistil ho.
Bol to pre toho proroka neobvyklý pohľad. Bol to neobvyklý spôsob, ako s ním Boh konal. Ale Boh vie, ako konať s človekom.
14Izaiáš bol vzdelaný v škole pri kráľovi a podobne. Myslím si, že mal to najlepšie, čo sa mu mohlo mentálne dostať, čo sa týka intelektu. Ale Boh z neho musel urobiť proroka tým, že sa mu zjavil, tým, že mu dal niečo hmatateľné, aby mohol vidieť, že to nie je tak veľmi v literatúre, v čítaní, v písaní. Ale tie veci, ktoré o Bohu čítal a počul, sa rovno pred ním stali prejavené.
Potom povedal, "Som nečistých rtov a bývam medzi nečistými ľuďmi." A Boh pre neho pripravil jeho dni proroctva. To je to, ako Boh robí veci. Robí to tajomným spôsobom.
Prorok Eliáš, mohli by sme na chvíľu rozmýšľať o ňom. Leží tam v jaskyni. Pred pár dňami videl moc Božiu, pred 40 dňami. Mal Božiu moc. Modlil sa a tri a pol roka nepršalo. A potom sa znovu modlil na vrchu a zostúpil oheň z neba a strávil obeť. A potom sa znovu modlil a prišiel dážď a okúpal zem. A potom, zo strachu pred hrozbami kráľovnej, utiekol na púšť, vedel, že niečo mu chýba. Bolo tam niečo v ňom, čo nebolo ešte správne.
15Keď sa utiahol do jaskyne, vonku nastalo zemetrasenie, ktoré tou jaskyňou, kde sedel, otriaslo. Potom prišiel mocný nesúci sa vietor, prišli hromy a blesky a dutie vetra. A to všetko bol Boh, ale to neupútalo proroka. To sa ho nejako nedotklo. On poznal, čo je to Božia moc. On vedel, že Boh zatriasol horami a že spôsobil mocný nesúci sa vietor a podobne a oheň z neba. Ale on čakal. A tam hlboko dolu v ňom prišiel malý tichý Hlas. To proroka upútalo. To bolo niečo. Videl už Jeho moc činiť rôzne veci, ale tentokrát cítil Jeho Prítomnosť a ten tichý jemný Hlas hovoril do jeho srdca. Potom sa ten prorok postavil a vyšiel von z jaskyne.
Niekedy prosíme o niečo a dostaneme niečo úplne iné. Chceme urobiť z Boha niekoho, kto bude odpovedať tak, ako si to my myslíme, že by mal odpovedať.
16Izrael je ďalší prípad. Izrael vyhliadal mocného kráľa, ktorý príde a pobije Rimanov železným prútom. Čo im dal Boh? Nemluvňa. Namiesto mocného kráľa im dal dieťatko zabalené v plienkach a povedal, "Nájdete Ho ležať v maštali."
On neprišiel tak, ako to oni od Neho očakávali, že príde, a odmietli Ho. "Musí to prísť podľa nás, inak to nie je k ničomu." Povedali, "Vezmi si to späť." A On to vzal. To je pravda. Musíte to prijať spôsobom, akým to Boh posiela, a byť z toho šťastný.
Boh zakotvuje niečo malé v tvojom srdci a hovorí, "Toto je to." Ver tomu. Drž sa toho. To je Božie Slovo. On zasľúbil, že ti to potvrdí. A ak On potvrdzuje Slovo, drž sa toho.
Áno, oni nechceli dieťatko. "Ak nám nemôžete poslať kráľa, no tak potom my nechceme toto nemluvňa. Môžeš si Ho vziať späť." Vidíte, my si myslíme, že sa to musí stať tak, ako si to my myslíme.
Musíme pamätať, že Boh to robí Svojím spôsobom. A Jeho spôsob je vždy ten správny spôsob. Musíme to veriť, čo Boh o tom povedal, a vedieť, že je to absolútna pravda a zostať s tým. Držte sa toho.
17Ježiš, keď sa stal človekom, bol pokorným. A ako si mohol Kráľ nebies nechať, aby Mu napľuli do tváre a omotali Mu okolo hlavy handru a udierali Ho palicou a povedali, "Povedz, hovoria mi, že si prorok. Povedz, ktorý z nás ťa udrel, a budeme ti veriť." On neotvoril svojich úst. Ako to len mohlo byť? Kráľ, ktorého očakávali, prišiel poraziť svet? Ale Boh im toho Kráľa poslal. A pretože to Boh poslal Svojím spôsobom, oni tomu odmietli veriť. Ale Boh mal taký spôsob, ktorým to poslal, a On to nikdy neposlal inak, ako Jeho Slovo hovorilo, že to príde.
Ale oni mali svoju myseľ nastavenú tak, že to muselo byť inak. To je to, kde robíme chybu, priatelia. To je to, v čom spočíva problém.
Keď ten predchodca, Ján Krstiteľ, prišiel ako hlas volajúceho na púšti, no, Biblia hovorí, že všetky vysoké miesta budú zborené a všetky nízke miesta budú vyzdvihnuté a budú sa diať všetky tieto veci. Vrchy budú poskakovať ako malé baránky a listy budú tlieskať rukami. No, oni očakávali, že toto trasenie príde od tohto človeka, ako príde koridormi z neba, oblečený v krásnom kmente a s korunou na hlave, alebo s niečím.
Čo sa stalo? Boh im poslal dolu nejakého starého kazateľa z púšte s kúskom ovčej kože okolo seba, ako nejaký chlpatý červík, tvár celú zarastenú veľkou bradou.
"Ó, preč s takýmto človekom, živí sa kobylkami a lúčnym medom. Nechceme s tým mať nič spoločné. Ako by to mohlo predchádzať Mesiáša?" Ale to bol Boží spôsob predchádzania Mesiáša.
18Musíme to prijať spôsobom, ako to Boh povedal, to sa Bohu páči. To je Jeho cesta. On je všetkou múdrosťou. On je všemocný, všemohúci, všadeprítomný, ó, On je Boh, ten JA SOM. Nie "Ja som bol" alebo "Ja budem," navždy ten istý. On je Boh a On robí veci tajomnými spôsobmi. Ale On to robí na Svoju vlastnú slávu. Robí to tak, lebo tak to je najlepšie. Musíme to prijať tak, ako to On posiela.
Som si istý, že všetky naše nákresy a kalendáre atď, ktoré sme nakreslili: Ježiš prichádza na oblaku, iný Ho má na bielom koni a podobne, to bude všetko celkom odlišné, keď On príde. To nebude tak, ako sme na to zvyknutí a mnohí to prehliadnu.
Mnohí prehliadnu vidieť tento deň, v ktorom žijeme. Mnohí prehliadajú znamenie príchodu Mesiáša práve teraz. Mnohí ľudia to nedokážu vidieť. Oni… je to rovno pred nimi a pritom oni to nevidia.
Ježiš povedal, keď hovoril, myslím, že v sv. Lukášovi, povedal, "Ako bolo vo dňoch Sodomy, takisto bude za príchodu Syna človeka. Ako bolo vo dňoch Noeho…" Všimli ste si, čo povedal, aká bola morálka za dní Noeho? "Jedli, pili, ženili sa, vydávali." Ale keď povedal, "Sodoma", On to vynechal. To bol oheň, ktorý zničil Sodomu. To je oheň, ktorý dnes zasiahne zem. Prejdime si to teraz na pár minút.
19Abrahám, ako tam sedel, neočakávajúc ničoho. Bol v najchudobnejšej časti zeme. Bolo páľava dňa, divný čas na to, aby sa niečo stalo, ale uvidel nejakého Človeka, ako prichádza, boli traja. Niečo v jeho srdci mu povedalo, že to je Boh, a on sa toho uchopil. On nedovolil, aby len prešli. Ó, Bože, nech sa to stane tu. Nenechajte to len prejsť. Uchopte sa toho.
Keď tam ten Muž sedel a hovoril s ním, sledujte, čo robil. Pozrel sa dolu, povedal, "Abrahám." Cudzinec, ako mohol vedieť, že sa volá Abrahám? "Kde je tvoja žena Sára?" Vedel, že má ženu a volá sa Sára.
A Biblia hovorí, že Abrahám Mu povedal, "Je v stane za Tebou."
A povedal, "Keď je Abrahám dedičom sveta, či zadržím niečo pred Abrahámom, keď vidím, že on je dedičom sveta?" A povedal, "Navštívim ťa, podľa času života." A Sára, ktorá mala deväťdesiat rokov, tam vzadu v stane za ním, vôbec Ho nevidela, nikdy o Ňom nič nevedela, ani On nevedel o Sáre a ona sa v sebe zasmiala, možno takto, položila si na ústa ruku.
21A tento Anjel, obrátený chrbtom, povedal, "Prečo sa Sára smiala?" Kto to bol? On takmer ani neočakával, že ten Muž bude tým, kým skutočne bol. Ale keď odchádzal, Abrahám Ho nazval Elohim, Boh Všemohúci.
Aký to bolo znak? Že Všemohúci Boh, vo forme Ducha Svätého, v tých posledných dňoch, predtým, ako tento svet zhorí ohňom, príde ku Svojim ľuďom a bude prebývať medzi Svojimi ľuďmi v tele, dá sa poznať Svojej Cirkvi tesne predtým, ako spadne oheň. Tesne pred zničením sveta, Elohim, Boh, Duch Svätý príde medzi Svojich ľudí a urobí znaky, aké robil vtedy. Ó, On je nemenný Boh. To je to, ako sa dal poznať Židom. To je to, ako sa dal poznať Samaritánovi, tak isto.
Mnohí z cirkvi verili, že "On je Belzebub." Ale tí, ktorí to videli a rozpoznali, že to je Boh, rozpoznali, kým On je.
22Tá žena pri studni, ona povedala, "Pane, keď príde Mesiáš, vieme, že On nám povie tieto veci. Ty musíš byť Jeho prorok."
On povedal, "To som Ja, ktorý hovorím s tebou."
On bežala do mesta a povedala, "Poďte a vidzte Človeka." Bolo to neočakávané, že ona nájde takéhoto Človeka. Bolo neočakávané, že ona nájde Mesiáša na zemi, ako prebýva so Svojimi ľuďmi.
Tak je to dnes, ľudia to neočakávajú. Oni očakávajú niečo iné. Očakávajú, že padnú bomby a rôzne veci, čo sa pravdepodobne stane. Očakávajú nejakú veľkú jednotu medzi ľuďmi cirkvi, a to sa môže stať. Ale uprostred toho všetkého, Boh poslal moc Svojho Syna, Ježiša Krista, medzi ľudí a oni dožívajú nové Letnice, moc Božia, ktorá sa vylieva, a tie isté znamenia a zázraky, ktoré robili pred mnohými rokmi, sú uprostred Jeho ľudu, ako Ježiš povedal, že to bude. My nevyhliadame zjednocovanie medzi všetkými cirkvami a podobne. My vyhliadame vyliatie Ducha Svätého, a to príde a bude to činiť veci, ktoré sme možno neočakávali.
Viem, že On je teraz tu. Viem, že Duch Svätý je tu na zhromaždeniach. A viem, že On zasľúbil, "Kdekoľvek sú dvaja alebo traja zhromaždení v Mojom mene, spolu, tam Ja budem v ich strede." Ježiš to zasľúbil. "Kdekoľvek dvaja alebo traja…" To je moc… to je to, na čo tá prvá cirkev spoliehala: Prítomnosť Ježiša. "Kdekoľvek sú dvaja alebo traja zhromaždení v Mojom Mene, Ja budem v ich strede. A na čomkoľvek sa zhodnú, ohľadne nejakej veci, a budú prosiť, obdržia to." To je pravda. To je Božie zasľúbenie. On je nemenný: On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. A On je teraz tu. Veríte tomu?
23Skloňme teraz na chvíľu svoje hlavy k modlitbe. Predtým, ako sa budeme modliť, ako máte sklonené svoje hlavy, či je tu niekto, kto by povedal, "Brat Branham, pamätaj na mňa. Nech sa mi otvorí môj duchovný zrak, aby som Ho mohol vidieť a poznať. Ako Ho len chcem vidieť. Ako Ho milujem," zodvihnite svoje ruky a povedzte, "Pamätaj na mňa." Nech ťa Boh žehná. Pán nech ťa žehná. To je dobre. Nech ti je Boh nebies milostivý. Niekto ďalší tam vzadu napravo. "Pamätaj na mňa, brat Branham, na modlitbe." Nech ťa Boh žehná.
Nevyspytateľné bohatstvá Kristove, zjavenie Jeho moci a Jeho dobroty… Nech Boh nebies udelí milosrdenstvo a dobrotu a milosť vám všetkým.
24Náš nebeský Otče, prinášame ti teraz v tejto hodine toto obecenstvo, pozeráme sa naokolo a vidíme všade zodvihnuté ruky. Nemenný Boh pôsobiaci tajomnými spôsobmi, ako koná Svoje zázraky. Modlíme sa, ó, Bože, aby Tvoj Svätý Duch prebýval dnes večer v každom srdci. Daj im túžby ich sŕdc. Spôsob, aby mali vieru, Pane. Ulož do nich niečo, odvahu, aby vedeli, že Ty si stále prítomný, stále živý, aby si konal prímluvu. Ty sedíš po pravici Všemohúceho Boha. A tam, na Jeho Tróne, to vzácne telo Ježiša Krista sedí, zatiaľ čo je Jeho Svätý Duch na zemi. A On je tam ako Najvyšší Kňaz, aby vykonával prímluvu na základe nášho vyznania. To, čo vyznáme, On učiní, to je to, kvôli čomu tam On je, aby to napravil. Jeho vlastná Krv je v nádobe rovno pred Ním, Jeho vlastné rúcho, skrvavené, sedí tam, vidiac, že Boh sa nemôže dívať cez tú Krv a vidieť nespravodlivosť, pretože Kristus náš hriech a našu chorobu vzal.
Ó, Otče Bože, modlíme sa, keďže On je Veľkňazom, ktorého sa môžeme dotýkať našimi slabosťami, aby sa Ho dnes večer dotkla každá slabosť, ktorá je v budove, všetky slabosti, či sú duchovné alebo telesné, aby mali uzdravenie a prebudenie v tomto meste, ó, duša za dušou vzatá do Božieho Kráľovstva. Udeľ to, Pane. Vypočuj našu modlitbu.
Milujeme Ťa, Otče, a skutočne očakávame na Ducha Svätého, aby prišiel do nášho stredu a konal to, čo zasľúbil konať. Prosíme to pre nich, v Mene Ježiša Krista. Amen.
25Milujete Ho z celého srdca? Či očakávate, že bude konať nesmierne bohato ponad všetko, čo dokážeme činiť alebo pomyslieť? On povedal, že bude konať nesmierne bohato ponad všetko, čo dokážeme činiť alebo pomyslieť. On to zasľúbil činiť.
Tak, keď bol Ježiš tu na zemi, koľkí vedia, že On si nenárokoval byť uzdraviteľom? Koľkí vedia, že On nebol uzdraviteľom? Chcete povedať, že ani toľko nepoznáte Bibliu? On povedal, "To nie som Ja, ktorý činí tie skutky, to je Môj Otec, ktorý prebýva vo Mne, On činí tie skutky."
"Amen, amen vám hovorím…" Ján 5:19, "Amen, amen vám hovorím, Syn nemôže činiť nič sám od Seba. Ale to, čo vidí činiť Otca, podobne činí Syn." Je to to, čo On povedal? Sv. Ján 5:19, keď vedel, že tam ležal nejaký človek so slabosťou, ležal na lôžku, a povedal mu, že jeho viera ho uzdravila a aby si vzal svoje ležisko a prešiel cez ten dom. A potom sa Ho Židia na to vypytovali, že On tam nechal ležať tisíce ľudí chromých, postihnutých, slepých, paralyzovaných. On povedal, "Ja činím len to, čo Mi Otec hovorí, alebo ukazuje, aby som robil. Tak, Ja robím to, čo vidím robiť Otca. Otec pracuje, i Ja doteraz pracujem." No, to je Jeho Duch.
Takže, Ježiš Sám nevykonal žiadne uzdravenie bez toho, že by Mu to prv Otec neukázal. To je Písmo. "Nečiním ničoho, čo Mi prv neukáže Otec, nie povie, ale ukáže." Potom, ak Mu to ukazuje, On ide a činí to, čo Mu Otec hovorí.
26Tá žena, ktorá sa dotkla Jeho rúcha. No, On to nikdy neučinil, nikdy nepovedal, že to On urobil. On povedal, "Tvoja viera ťa zachránila. Tvoja viera ťa zachránila." Slepý Bartimeus pri bráne, "Tvoja viera ťa uzdravila." On s tým nemal nič spoločné. To urobila viera ľudí, pretože oni uverili, že On je Boží Syn. Ona sa Ho dotkla, tá žena, a ona sa dotkla Jeho rúcha. A teraz, On to necítil fyzicky, pretože to palestínske rúcho má ešte jedno spodné rúcho a to rúcho voľne visí. A ona sa dotkla len toho okraja. Lebo povedala vo svojom srdci, "Ak sa dotknem Jeho rúcha, budem uzdravená.“ A ona sa Ho dotkla. A keď sa Ho dotkla, pocítila sama v sebe... Pretože jej viera jej hovorila, že ak sa toho len dotkne, bude uzdravená. A ona urobila, čo si myslela, že jej prinesie Božiu moc, a cítila, že to bude úplne dostatočné. A bolo, pretože ona tomu uverila.
27Ježiš sa obrátil a pozrel na to obecenstvo a povedal, "Kto sa Ma to dotkol?"
Peter Ho pokarhal a povedal, "Kto sa ťa dotkol? Veď všetci sa Ťa dotýkajú. Prečo hovoríš také niečo?"
On povedal, "Cítil som, že som zoslabol, cnosť zo mňa vyšla," čo znamená "sila". "Zoslabol som. Niekto sa Ma dotkol iným druhom dotyku." A On sa poobzeral po svojom poslucháčstve, až tú ženu našiel. A On jej povedal o jej krvotoku, že sa zastavil, pretože jej viera ju uzdravila.
Tak, to je Ježiš, ktorý bol včera. To je ten istý Ježiš dnes. To je ten istý Ježiš, ktorý bude zajtra, ak ešte bude nejaké zajtra, a On tým bude naveky.
28Keď si ľudia myslia, že Boh dáva zasľúbenia a nedodržuje ich… mohamedáni, alebo ktokoľvek iný… držal som v jednej ruke Bibliu a v druhej Korán a povedal som, "Jedna z nich je správna druhá nesprávna. Nemôžu byť obe správne, pretože sú v protiklade jedna k druhej." Povedal som, "Vy dokazujete, že váš prorok je mŕtvy. Je v zemi. Náš Ježiš vstal z mŕtvych. A On zasľúbil, že veci, ktoré On činil, budeme i my činiť." Povedal som, "Ukážte mi, že činíte skutky Mohameda." Nedokážu to.
Ale skutky Ježiša Krista sú vykonané skrze Ducha Svätého, keď prichádza pomazať svojich ľudí. Veríte tomu? Istotne, veríme tomu. Čo by nás zadržalo od verenia? Pretože Boh dal zasľúbenie. Boh tak povedal. Tým je to vybavené.
29No, človek to nedokáže činiť. To je nadprirodzené. Je to niečo, čo človek nedokáže činiť. Zatiaľ čo mám ešte pár minút času, chcem toto vysvetliť. Pozrite, človek nedokáže urobiť nič. To je Boh v človeku. Ježiš povedal, "Ja som Vinič, vy ste letorasty." Tak, pokiaľ sa letorast nachádza vo Viniči, bude niesť ovocie Viniča. No, Boh vždy používa človeka ako svojho agenta.
Preto použil Svojho vlastného Syna, aby sa Ním zahalil. Prišiel dolu a vzal na seba formu človeka, aby zomrel smrťou za človeka. On nemohol zomrieť v Duchu, ale zomrel v tele.
Potom Boh bol v Abrahámovi, Boh bol v Izákovi, Boh bol v Jákobovi, Boh bol v Jozefovi, Boh bol v Dávidovi. On bol vo všetkých tých ľuďoch tam vtedy, v tých prorokoch atď. Bol to Boh konajúci v ľuďoch.
30Tak teraz v tomto veku Novej Zmluvy, Krv Ježiša Krista očisťuje Jeho cirkev a posväcuje ju, aby tak mohol pokračovať vo vykonávaní práce Božej počas všetkých vekov. A je práve ten istý i dnes. Ak nie je, potom sme falošnými svedkami tejto Biblie. Ak to… Ak to nie je pravda, potom Biblia nie je pravdivá. Je čas, aby ľudia kázali Evanjelium. Je čas, aby bola moc Božia daná na známosť. Keď sa pohania snažia po tom Slove šliapať, potrebujeme mužov, ako boli tie hebrejské deti, "Náš Boh je schopný vyslobodiť nás z tohto…" To je pravda. Je čas. Boh zostáva ten istý.
31Boh vás nemôže uzdraviť, pretože On to už urobil. Keď bol zranený pre naše prestúpenia, zdrtený pre naše neprávosti, kázeň nášho pokoja bola vzložená na Neho a Jeho ranami si bol uzdravený… to je minulý čas. Ak by tu On dnes večer stál v tomto obleku, ktorý mi dal, On by ťa nemohol uzdraviť, keby si Ho požiadal. Povedal by, "Ja som to už urobil. Veríš tomu?" On by mohol urobiť niečo, aby ti dal poznať, že to je On. A to je to, ako to On robí dnes. On to dáva poznávať svojim ľuďom, cez svojich ľudí, že to je Boh, nie človek, ale Boh.
No, On je taký istý dnes večer. Viem, že On je tu. Koľkí z vás videli tú fotografiu Anjela Pánovho, to Svetlo? Mnohí z vás. Myslím, že to tu nikde majú. Možno chlapci to majú, Gene, a oni to tam majú na stole tam vzadu.
To Svetlo… Pamätajte, ja… ak vás už tu na zemi nikdy nestretnem, stretnem vás v tamten deň. To Svetlo nie je ďalej ako dve stopy od miesta, kde teraz stojím. Je to pravda. On to zasľúbil. A ja Bohu verím. Videl som to, keď proti tomu stálo desaťtisíce pohanov. Videl som to, keď boli čarodejníci na oboch stranách a videli, ako ich Božia moc paralyzovala a posadila. Boh buď je Bohom, alebo nie je Bohom. Ježiš je buď Synom Božím, ale bol podvodník. On je Kristus, Syn Boží. On nie je mŕtvy, ale je nažive a žije naveky. On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky.
32Koľkí tomu veríte? Nech vás Boh žehná. Koľkí z vás veríte, že On sa môže zjaviť rovno…
Nemáme už viac rozdaných modlitebných lístkov, že? Koľkí z vás ste chorí a chcete uzdravenie, zodvihnite svoju ruku. Povedzte, "Bože, som chorý, potrebujem uzdravenie." Len zodvihnite ruky, ktokoľvek je chorý a chce uzdravenie. Zodvihnite ruky a povedzte, "Modlím sa, aby ma Boh uzdravil." Ak máš niekoho milovaného, za koho sa modlíš, zodvihni ruku a povedz, "Modlím sa." Bože, buď milostivý.
V tejto budove nie je osoba, ktorú poznám, pomimo… myslím, nie som si istý, toto tu je asi Pat, ktorý tu sedí, Pat Tyler. Neviem, či ho všetci poznáte alebo nie. A brat Gene Goad sedí tam a nahráva posolstvo…
33Mužovia na pódiu, stretol som ich včera večer, najmilšia skupina ľudí, akú som kedy vo svojom živote stretol. Ale tí jediní, ktorých skutočne poznám osobne… brat tu, on ma sponzoroval, keď som tu bol po prvýkrát, brat Williams a jeho syn. Brat Borders, brat David a brat Harvey, to sú tí jediní, ktorých tu skutočne poznám.
Ale Ježiš Kristus pozná každého jedného z vás, ak On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. Postavte Ho do skúšky. Je On Bohom? Je to pravda? On pozná každého z vás.
Aj On… ak sa približujeme k príchodu Syna Božieho, ako On dokázal tým Židom, že Bohom, a že je Synom Božím? Keď povedal Petrovi, kým je. Povedal Natanaelovi, kde bol, keď bol pod tým stromom a modlil sa, a on povedal, "Ty si Syn Boží. Ty si Kráľ Izraela." To bolo znamenie Mesiáša židovskému národu.
Kňaz sa otočil a povedal, "To je veštec."
A On povedal. "Toto hovoríš o Mne, odpúšťam ti. Ale keď príde Svätý Duch, nehovorte proti Tomu, pretože to vám nebude nikdy odpustené v tomto svete, ani vo svete, ktorý má prísť." Sledujte to.
34No, existujú iba tri druhy ľudí, to je Sem, Cham a Jafetovi ľudia. To sú Židia, pohania a Samaritáni. Pamätajte, Peter kázal Židom na Letnice, otvoril Kráľovstvo Samaritánom, keď tam išiel dolu Filip a pokrstil ich, pritom ešte neprijali Ducha Svätého, tam dolu v dome Kornélia, potom to všetci počuli. Sem, Cham a Jafetovi ľudia. Duch Svätý bol potom… oni ho potom viac pre ten účel nepotrebovali, pretože Sám Duch Svätý išiel ku ľuďom.
Keď prišiel Ježiš, my, pohania, sme boli Anglo-Saxoni, ktorí nevyhliadali žiaden príchod Mesiáša. My sme boli pohania s bakuľou na chrbte. Ale tí, ktorí očakávali Mesiáša, to boli Židia a Samaritáni, ktorí vyhliadali Mesiáša. Keď sa On zjavil, aké znamenie urobil? Urobil znamenie, o ktorom hovoril prorok Mojžiš, že to bude Boh-prorok. Oni sa na to dívali. Tí, ktorí sú skutočne duchovne vedení, Ho videli robiť ten znak a povedali, "To je On."
Ale tí ostatní, ktorí mali všetky svoje intelektuálne tréningy, povedali, "Tento chlapík je Belzebub."
35Išiel do Samárie. Mal potrebu. Nejaká žena prišla ku studni a On povedal, "Prines mi trochu vody."
A ona povedala, "To nie je zvykom. My tu máme segregáciu. Židia a Samaritáni sa nestýkajú.“
On povedal, "Žena, ak by si vedela, s kým hovoríš, pýtala by si si odo mňa napiť."
On povedala, "Studňa je hlboká a ty nemáš ani…"
Čo On robil? Kontaktoval sa s jej duchom. A keď zistil, kde je jej problém (všetci vieme, čo to bolo), kde ležal jej problém, povedal, "Choď, zavolaj svojho muža a príď sem."
Povedala, "Nemám žiadneho muža."
On povedal, "Pravdu si povedala. Mala si piatich a ten, s ktorým teraz žiješ, nie je tvojím mužom."
Ona povedala, "Pane, vidím, že…" ("že si Belzebub?" Nie veru.) Ona povedala, "Vidím, že si prorok. Vidím, že si prorok. No, my vieme. My vieme, my Samaritáni, učili nás… vieme, že keď príde Mesiáš, On nám povie všetky tieto veci. To bolo znamenie Mesiáša. Ale kto si Ty?"
On povedal, "To som Ja, ktorý hovorím s tebou." Ó!
36Pamätajte, pohanom to nikdy neurobil. Nikdy to neurobil pohanom. Potom ak On je nekonečným Bohom a nechal ich s takým množstvom intelektuálneho vzdelania máme dnes…Ak by sme vyšli z tohto nášho obdobia bez tejto manifestácie, potom urobil niečo pre nich, čo neurobil pre nás. Ale On je ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. On zasľúbil, že to urobí.
Čo On vykonal? Mnoho miest Písma. Ale to jedno, ktoré som práve citoval, "Ako bolo vo dňoch Sodomy, tak bude i za príchodu Syna človeka." Tak bude, tá istá vec sa stane presne pred tým, ako padne oheň. Tam je, nekonečný Boh. On je dnes večer tu. To je veľká vec, povedať niečo také. Ale to je niečo, čo Biblia hovorí, a Duch Svätý je tu, aby to podporil a povedal, že to je pravda. Je to tak.
37Modlime sa. Ó, Pane, je tu niekto, kto trpí. Nepochybne sú niektorí ľudia v potrebe. Modlím sa k Tebe, Otče, aby si bol milostivý a dal im poznať, že Ty si Boh. Hovor len tie Slová, Pane. A modlím sa, aby nejaká biedna duša tu, ktorá ťa hľadá, aby bola schopná dotknúť sa toho Veľkňaza, ktorého sa môžeme dotýkať našimi slabosťami. Udeľ to, Pane, aspoň pri dvoch alebo troch, aby to ľudia mohli vidieť na jednom alebo dvoch svedkoch, alebo na dvoch alebo troch svedkoch, lebo tak bude každé slovo stáť. Udeľ to, Otče. Prosil som to na Tvoju slávu a kvôli tomu posolstvu dnes večer, Pane, a Tvoje Slovo to vyhlasuje, že je to tak, aby Ťa ľudia mohli poznať, že ten čas odkrytia a odhalenia je nablízku, že Ty si tu dnes večer ako ten istý včera, dnes i naveky. Amen.
No, chcem, aby ste sa modlili. Chcem, aby ste verili z celého svojho srdca a so všetkým, čo je vo vás, aby ste verili, že Ježiš Kristus, Syn Boží, je tu.
Koľkí z vás ste tu pre mňa cudzí, ktorých nepoznám? Zodvihnite svoju ruku? Všade po celej budove, to je jedno kde ste. No, možno ste toto nikdy nevedeli. No, ak… Budem musieť nasledovať Ducha Svätého, a ak On prehovorí, vy odpovedzte. Ja nehovorím, že On to urobí. Hovorím len, že sa modlím, aby prehovoril, aby hovoril. Nemám žiadne právo povedať to, jedine skrze Jeho Slovo. On povedal, že On to udelí, a my veríme, že On to udelí. Tak, modlite sa. Teraz je to na vašej viere. Nemôžete urobiť nič, kým sa Ho nedotknete, potom On ku mne prehovorí. Ak len môžete veriť… ak len môžeš veriť…
38Áno, tu to je. Počkajte chvíľu... Rovno tu, po mojej ľavej strane, sedí jedna žena, trochu silnejšia. Je vážne chorá. Má srdcové problémy, je zatienená rakovinou, je to duchovný démon depresie, vlastne skľúčenosti. Tá pani tu sedí so svojou hlavou sklonenou, díva sa rovno tu na mňa. Veríš, pani, že ťa Ježiš Kristus uzdraví? Veríš tomu? Veríš? Prijímaš to? Stratila si to? No, budeš to musieť poraziť.
Pane Bože, Stvoriteľu neba i zeme, nech je to dané na známosť, aby to ľudia mohli porozumieť, Pane.
Majte vieru v Boha. Tu je jeden muž, sedí rovno tu vzadu a modlí sa za svoju manželku. Má v mysli svoju manželku. Modlí sa za ňu. Mala operácie a podobne a nezdá sa, že by jej niečo z toho pomohlo. To je presne tak. Ten muž je kazateľ. Reverend Nátan, Jákob Nátan, a tvoja žena sedí hneď vedľa teba. Veríš, že Ježiš Kristus ju uzdraví? Prijímaš to, pane? Zodvihni svoju ruku, ak to prijímaš. Nech ťa Boh žehná, chod'te vpred.
39Nikdy v živote som toho muža nevidel. Majte vieru v Boha. Nech vám to neujde. On je navždy Bohom. Tu sedí nejaká žena. Práve teraz sklonila hlavu. Sedí tam a díva sa práve teraz na mňa. Tá žena je nejako chromá. Má pod sebou barlu, pomocou ktorej kráča. Veríš, pani, že Ježiš Kristus ti dá dnes večer odtiaľto vyjsť bez barlí? Veríš tomu, ako sa teraz na mňa dívaš, ako tam sedíš? Prijmeš svoje uzdravenie? Zodvihni svoju ruku. Nikdy v živote som ťa nevidel. Ale ak tomu budeš veriť, necháš ich tu ležať a pôjdeš odtiaľto po svojich a budeš zdravá. Vyzývam tvoju vieru, aby si verila. "Ak len môžeš veriť." [Zhromaždenie sa raduje. – pozn.prekl.]
Čo vy tu vzadu? Čo vy, kazatelia? Veríte, bratia, z celého svojho srdca? No, vy ste mi všetci cudzí, okrem brata Williamsa. Boh vás miluje. Ste jeho služobníci. Som tu ako váš brat. Duch Boží je tu. Hovorím to odvážne v Mene Ježiša Krista. Majte len vieru a verte. Ak niečo nie je v poriadku, pýtajte sa Ho.
40Tento muž tu sedí a díva sa rovno na mňa. Nejde presne o teba. Ide o tvojho otca, ktorý sedí tam vzadu. To je pravda. Veríš, že Boh mi môže povedať, čo s ním nie je v poriadku? Budeš tomu veriť? Na svoje nohy… Ak je to pravda, povstaň na svoje nohy. Rovno tam sedí jeho otec, starý muž, trochu plešivý, sedí tam a díva sa teraz na mňa.
Tu, pozrite tu, vidíte to Svetlo? Pozrite sa na to Svetlo nad tou ženou tu. Ona sa tiež modlí, pozná tú ženu, ktorá sedí rovno tu, taká malá žena. Veríš, že Boh mi môže povedať, čo s ňou nie je v poriadku? Budeš veriť? To je v jej nohách. To je pravda. Veríš Bohu?
Veríte, že ten Anjel Pánov, je ten istý Ježiš včera, dnes i naveky? On zostáva Bohom a nie je nič, čo by mohlo uškodiť, nič, čo by mohlo ublížiť. Ježiš Kristus, Boží Syn, žije naveky, stále žije, aby sa prihováral. Ak len budeme veriť, mať vieru, Boh vykoná to ostatné. Či veríte z celého svojho srdca?
41Veríte, že príchod Mesiáša je nablízku? Čo sú tí ľudia? Nikdy som ani jedného z nich nevidel a Boh vie, že je to pravda.
No, vy ste to začali. Teraz to ide po celej budove. Práve teraz je ten čas. Teraz je čas prijať svoje uzdravenie. [Zhromaždenie sa raduje. – pozn.prekl.] Položte ruky jeden na druhého. Položte jeden na druhého ruky a verte teraz. Teraz to máte. Teraz prichádzate do viery.
Ó, Pane Bože, Stvoriteľu neba i zeme, nech sa dnes večer dá na známosť, že Ty si Boží Syn. Ty si to dal poznať, Ty si Boh. A nech Duch Svätý padne teraz medzi týchto ľudí a nech im dokáže, že Ty si ten veľký Jehova Boh, ktorý si bol tým istým včera.
Satan, si porazený. Vyjdi z týchto ľudí, karhám ťa skrze moc živého Boha, aby si opustil týchto ľudí v Ježišovom Mene.
[Zhromaždenie sa hlasno raduje a chváli Boha. – pozn.prekl.]
1 Just a moment for prayer... Our heavenly Father, it is a grand privilege that we have of coming into Thy Presence in this attitude of worship and praise to Thee, and know that we can call Thee our Father. Being borned of Thy Spirit, we are Thy children, and with the privilege of asking what we will, and faith will bring it to us. We thank Thee for this.
Most holy and righteous God, we would ask tonight that You would speak to those, Lord, who are needy, those that need salvation to their souls. And for those that are sick and in a desperate condition, to the shut-ins, those that are in the hospitals and they're hospitalized, and cannot get to the meeting, O Thou great I AM, go to their bedsides tonight and touch their sick bodies that they might be able to come from the hospitals to serve Thee.
Forgive us of our sins as we forgive those that sin against us, that we might have Thy favor in our midst tonight. And speak to us through Thy Word. Thy Word is the Truth. Make It known unto us, Lord. Make Thy Word to live among us. For we ask it in the Name of Thy Child, the Lord Jesus. Amen. May be seated.
2 Now, for just to continue the message. I was certainly packed away, with standing there listening to Brother duPlessis bring that message on the Apostle Peter being able to walk on the water, something that he never did before. And we can just do many thing that we never did before, if we'll just listen to His Word and take His Word for it. He never made a promise but what He will stand behind.
3 Now, what time does the service start Sunday, brother, Sunday? Two-thirty. Well, that means about one-thirty: those who want prayer cards should be here at one-thirty then, so you won't disturb the meetings while they're getting out the prayer cards. And at two-thirty the services begin, and then we'll be out in time for you to go home and have your... Is it dinner or supper here? I'm a southerner, and it--it's supper to me. If they call that dinner, then what happened to my supper; I miss out somewhere. So I--I... You go home to your supper. That's what I would call it. And then go to the--your churches. And the strangers in our gates, we want to, visiting here... These fine churches will be having Sunday school, Sunday morning and church, Sunday night. You find a place of your choice and attend that service.
And, now, I'm kinda happy about this meeting for many reasons, because I have looked forward to it for some time of getting back.
4 I wish to just quote a verse out of the Book of Job tonight, the 23rd chapter and the 3rd verse.
Oh that I knew where I might find him. that I might come even to his seat.
That's Job 23:3. I'm going to speak for a few minutes upon the subject of "The Unchangeable God," if I should call it a--a subject.
5 There are many things, and practically all things change. Time changes; people changes; weather changes; nations changes; but God is in un--unchangeable. He does not change. He is the same all times.
God is an infinite God. I do not believe that there would be any word could e--explain the--the word--or any way to explain the word "infinite," because it's the infinite. He is never had a beginning, or He will never have an end. Therefore when God is called on the scene to act, or to make a decision, the way that He acts, or the decision that He makes, that is forever the same. He cannot change it, because He's infinite. He's perfect.
Now, you and I can say a certain thing, and next year we'll have to change it, maybe, and do something different, or because we are finite. We--we do not know all things. But He is perfect, and His first decision will have to be--His second decision, will have to be like the first. Or if He makes another decision, then He did not act right when He made the first decision. Then that puts Him finite like I am or you are.
What I'm trying to do, before this healing service comes, is to instill in you a faith in God. Because that's what it takes for healing or salvation. You must have faith in God, and God is no greater than His Word, or no more perfect than His Word, because God and His Word is the selfsame thing. You are no--you're no better than your word. God is no better than His Word. And your word is what you are. God's Word is what He is.
Now, any persons know that if God was called on the scene once, to save a man that was lost, and God saved that man by His faith, the next man calls on God, God will have to save that man if he comes on the same grounds that the first man came on.
Then if there is a sick man and he pleads to God for mercy, and God gives him mercy and healing on the basis of his faith, the next man that comes on them same grounds, and asks the same question, God's got to act the same way or He acted wrong when He acted the first time.
6 So you see, we must make God real unchangeable. Every soul that comes to God seeking salvation or healing, he's got to come on those basis. He's got to come believing that God is, and a Rewarder of those that diligently seek after Him.
Did not our Lord Jesus say, "Whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them?" Did not He say, "Ask the Father what you will in My--My Name and you will receive it"? Now, that is infallibly the Truth. And there's nobody that ever asked God anything, but what God gave it to them if they come with an honest heart.
Now, the thing of it is, God gives it sometimes in the way that we're not expecting it. But God always keeps His Word. There's no way for God to tell you anything and lie about it and remain God. He cannot, He must keep His Word forever. It's the truth. And when the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, that is the truth.
I may not have faith enough to make all the things that He done, live again, but I'd never stand in the road of somebody who had faith enough to do it. I would be thanking God for that faith. But just the same, every promise that He made is absolutely truth.
7 I can go on record for this tonight. If any people will take the right mental attitude towards any Divine promise that God ever made and claim it for yours, He will--God will bring it to pass. If you'll take the right attitude towards it, knowing that if God said so, the promise is yours, and it's your personal property the very minute you receive It that way, then it has to come to pass.
For Jesus said, "The Word is a Seed that a sower sowed." And a seed, if it's a germitized seed and it goes into the ground, then that seed under the right conditions of the sun and moisture, will bring forth the life that's in the seed.
And so is the Word of God. If a person can take that Word and place It in their heart, and give It the right sunshine, the right temperature, not s-u-n, but S-o-n, and right temperature of faith in there, that seed and promise will live to you just like it did at the beginning to the one It was given to. Because it's God's Word, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot fail.
8 Now, the thing is with the people, is the way God appears. Many times we want to make an idol out of God. We ask God to do something, and then He must do it just the way that we ask it, or we'll say He never answered. When we do that, we weaken our faith in God. And we weaken our testimony when we do not take Him at His Word.
God always answers. No one never asked... Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and ye shall find." Everyone that asks will receive. Everyone that seeks shall find. Everyone that knocks, it'll be opened to them.
Now, that's the only way that I've always found it, that I can get anything from God, is take Him at His Word and believe it the way He sends it.
Now, if we do not take it just the way that we think it is... We've built God as an idol. He's got to answer just according to our ways, or, "Well, it's just no good. He didn't answer us." God answers in many ways. He answers in peculiar ways, times, and everything is odd.
9 We'll take, for instance, Moses. Moses was eighty years old. He was almost, you might think, too old for God to deal with. He was an old man, unexpected in his age to be dealt with with God. Another thing, he was under the Mount Horeb, a unexpected place. God met him at a unexpected age, at a unexpected place, in a unexpected way. God didn't meet Moses the way He usually met men. He met Moses in an unusual way, in the way that He chose to meet Moses in.
That's the way he answers our prayer, in the way that He thinks is best. And His way is always right. If we ask for anything, and it doesn't happen just the way God--or the way we think that God ought to let it happen, then that makes us lose and fall back. Let's ask God, stand firm on the Word, and say It's true, and it--just receive it the way He sends it. That's the way you got to believe God.
It may come disguised; it may come in another way, around about way. But no matter what way it comes, if we have asked we shall receive. God said so. And that settles it forever, if God says so. Now, when you get to taking God like that and believing it...
10 Now, Moses, what if he'd said, "I prayed for God to make me a military man, and here He is in a burning bush?" Don't make any difference how God appeared to him, just so He appeared.
That's all that matters here, as long as God comes and answers, as long as we recognize it to be God...
Jacob, another character, he was caught between two occasions. He had done some mean things, some sneaky little tricks to his--his father-in-law, Laban. And he was running from his father-in-law, going back home to mama. And when he come to find out, here come his brother that he had done some dirty little tricks to, was coming, meeting him with an army.
Just remember, "Your sins find you out." And then Jacob, all disturbed, and perplexed, and in trouble, set his wives across the little brook, went back on the other side in a unexpected place, and an unexpected time he met God in an unexpected way.
What a way to meet God: in a wrestling match. But it was God. Regardless of whether He's in a burning bush or a wrestling match, It was God.
11 And the main thing was, that Jacob... He'd had dreams and visions and so forth, but this was one time he could lay his hand on something and say it's God. And he was able to hold onto it until the blessing came.
Oh, if we could do that, if we could find a spot to where we could see God, whether it's in His Word, wherever it is, and recognize it's God, and hold onto it until the blessing comes... Wrestle it out with God. God promised to do it.
God said if we'd seek, we'd find; ask, and it shall be given; knock, it'll be open. Every Word is true.
When Jacob got a hold of something that he could look at, hold to with his hands, and seen that it was God, he would not turn it loose.
12 Oh, if Christiandom could do that. If you can lay your hand a hold of something that's real, catch a vision of God and see His Presence, and hold onto it until God sends the answer back and the blessing, what a revival would break out here in Tulsa, if people could do that, could see the power of the living God, something real. No matter what form He comes in, we have our ideas. But God has a way of a sending things to us, answering our prayer.
There's been prayer meetings going on here in this city for a long time, for a revival. I believe, if we would just open our eyes and be ready to receive it, God would send it to us in His way of doing it. In His time God would grant it. But we've got to recognize we have asked; and if we asked, then we shall receive.
And He held onto it. Unexpected time, unexpected place, and an unexpected way. But when he realized that it was God, he held on to it.
13 Isaiah, the young prophet, he'd had a wonderful life. He'd leaned upon the good king's arm, and everything come fine, and he'd got all fat and overweight from eating. And one day the king died. And Isaiah was caught in a vision. When he seen the train of the Lord, he saw Angels flying through the building, with wings over their face, and wings over their feet, and flying with two wings, crying, "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty." And when he seen that, and knowed that he was standing in the Presence of a holy God, he said, "Woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I'm living among unclean people."
And the Lord was crying, "Who will go for Us?" And the Angel took the tongs and got some coals off the altar and touched it to his mouth and cleansed him.
It was an unusual sight for the prophet. It was an unusual way that God dealt with him. But God knows how to deal with man.
14 Isaiah had been educated, and--and at school with the king, and so forth. He had the best that could be give him mentally, I suppose, in his intellectuals. But God had to make a prophet out of him by revealing Himself to him, by giving him something tangible, that he could see it was no more so much in literature, and reading, and writing. But the things that he had read about God and heard about God, become manifested right before him.
Then he said, "I'm of unclean lips, and dealing and dwelling among unclean people." And God prepared him for his days of prophecy. That's the way God does things. He does it in a mysterious way.
The prophet Elijah, we might think of him for a moment. There he is, laying back in a cave. He'd seen the power of God a few days before that, forty days before. He had God's power. He had prayed, and three years and six months it had not rained. And then he prayed again on the mountain, and fire came down from heaven and devoured the sacrifice. And then he prayed again, and rain come and bathed the earth. And then, by the fear of the threat of the queen, he run into the wilderness; he knowed he was missing something. There was something in him that wasn't right yet.
15 When he pulled back in the cave, there come an earthquake outside that shook the cave where he was a sitting. There come a mighty rushing wind; there come thunders, and lightnings, and blowing. And it was all God, but it didn't attract the prophet. It didn't touch him somehow. He knowed what God's power was. He knowed God had shook the mountains, and he'd had rushing winds, and so forth, and sent fire out of the heaven. But he waited. And way down inside of him come a little still Voice. That attracted the prophet. There was something. He'd seen His power to do things, but this time he felt His Presence, and a still small Voice speaking into his heart. Then the prophet raised up and went out to the end of the cave.
Sometimes we ask for things, get something vice versa? We make God something that we want to make Him answer the way we think He ought to answer.
16 Israel, there's another case. Israel was looking for a mighty king to come to beat the Romans down with a rod of iron. What did God give them? A Baby. Instead of a mighty king, He gave them a Baby wrapped in swaddling cloth, said, "You'll find Him laying in a manger."
He didn't come the way that they expected Him to come, and they refused it. "It has to come our way or it's no good." They said, "Take it back." And He did. That's right. You got to accept it the way God sends it and be happy about it.
God anchors a little something in your heart and says, "This is It." Believe It. Hold onto It. That's God's Word. He's promised He'd confirm It to you. And if He confirms the Word, hold onto It.
Yeah, they didn't want that Baby. "If You can't send us a king, why, we won't have that Baby. You can just take it back." See it's got to a way that--that we think it's got to be.
We must remember that God does it His way. And His way is always the right way. We've got to believe what God said about it, and know that it's absolutely the truth, and stay with it. Hold on to it.
17 Jesus, when He become a Man, He was humble. And how could a King of--of the heavens have spit in His face, and a rag around His head, and hit Him with a stick, and said, "Say, they tell me you're a prophet. Tell us who hit you, and we'll believe you?" And He never opened His mouth. How could that be. The king that they was looking for, was going to beat the world down? But God sent them the King. And because God sent it in His way, then they refused to believe it. But God had that way of doing to sent it, and He never send it any other way but what His Word said He would come.
But they had their mind made up it had to be some other way. There's where we make the mistake, friends. That's where the trouble lays.
When the forerunner, John the Baptist, came the voice of one crying in the wilderness, why, the Bible said all the high places will be brought down, and all the low places would be lifted up, and all these things would take place. The mountains will skip like little rams, and the leaves would clap their hands. Why they was expecting a shaking of this man coming down out of the corridors of heaven, all dressed in fine linen, and crowns upon His head, or something.
What happened? God sent them an old preacher down on the wilderness with a piece of sheepskin wrapped around him looked like a fuzzy worm, his face all full of beard.
"Oh, a way was such a fellow as that, eating locust and wild honey. We don't want nothing to do with that. How could that forerun the Messiah?" But it was God's way of forerunning the Messiah.
18 We've got to receive it in the way that God said it, God is pleased with it. That's His way. He's all wisdom. He's all powerful. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, oh, He's God, the I AM. Not the "I was" or "will be." "But I AM," forever the same. He's God, and He does things in mysterious ways. And... But He does it for His own glory. He does it because that it's best to do it that way. We must receive it the way that He sends it.
I'm sure that all of our charts and calendars, and so forth, that we have drawed up: Jesus coming on a cloud; the next one has got Him on a white horse, and all like that; it'll be altogether different when He comes. I--it won't be the way that we've got, and many will fail to see it.
Many will fail to see this day that we're living in. Many fails to see the sign of the coming Messiah right now. Many people fail to see it. They--they... It's right before them, yet they--they don't see it.
Jesus said, when He spoke in--in S--Luke, I believe it was. And He said, "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man. As it was in the days of Noah..." Did you notice how He said the morals of the people in the days of Noah? "Eating, drinking, marrying, given in marriage." But when He said, "Sodom." He just left it off. That was the fire that burnt Sodom. It's the fire that catches the earth today. Let's review that for a few minutes.
19 Abraham, setting out there, un--not expecting anything. He was in the poorest of the land. It was in the heat of the day, a odd time for something to happen, but he seen a Man come walking, three of them. Something in his heart told him it was God, and he held onto it. He wouldn't let them pass by. Oh God, may that happen here. Don't let it pass by. Hold onto it.
20 "Come in, sit down under the oak. I'll fetch a little water. I'll be a servant to You. Let me wash Your feet. I'll bring You a morsel of bread. You satisfy Your soul, then You may go on. For this reason my Lord has come to me." Yet, not too sure, but he knew that there was something sparked in his heart. It must be the time.
When that Man set and talked to him, look what He did. He looked down; He said, "Abraham," a Stranger, how'd He know his name was Abraham? "Where is thy wife, Sarah?" He knew he had a wife, and know her name was Sarah.
And the Bible said that Abraham told Him, "In the tent behind You."
And he said, "See, that Abraham is the heir of the world, will I keep anything from Abraham, seeing that he's the heir of the world?" And He said, "According to the time of life, I'm going to visit you." And Sarah, ninety years old, back in the tent behind Him, never seen Him, never knowed nothing about Him, neither did He know about Sarah, and she laughed within herself, perhaps like that, put her hands up to her mouth.
21 And this Angel, with His back turned, said, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Who was that? He little expected that Man to be Who He was. But when He went to leave, Abraham called Him Elohim, God Almighty.
What was it a sign of? That God Almighty, in the form of the Holy Ghost in the last days before this world shall burn, He will come to His people and dwell among His people in flesh, making Hisself known to His Church just before the fire fall. Just before the destruction of the world, Elohim, God, the Holy Spirit will come in among His people and do the signs that He did then. Oh, He's the unchangeable God. That's the way He made Hisself known to the Jews. That's how He made Hisself known to the Samaritan, the same way.
Many of the church believed Him, "Oh, He's a Beelzebub." But those who seen it and recognized it to be God, they recognized Who He was.
22 The women at the well, she said, "Sir, Messiah cometh, we know and He will tell us these things. You must be His prophet."
He said, "I'm He that speaks to you."
She run into the city and said, "Come, see a Man." Unexpected she was to find a Man like that. Unexpected was she to find the Messiah on earth, dwelling among His people.
So is it today, the people don't expect. They're expecting something else. They're expecting bombs and things to fall, which probably will be. They're expecting some great union amongst the church people, now it may be. But in the midst of all of that, God has sent the power of His Son, Jesus Christ, amongst the people, and they're having a new Pentecost, the power of God being poured out, and the same signs and wonders that they did many years ago is in the midst of the people, as Jesus said it would be. We don't look for a unionize among all the churches and things. We look for an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and it'll come and do things that--that we might not be expecting.
I know He's here now. I know the Holy Spirit is here in the meetings. And I know that He promised, "Wherever two or three are gathered in My, in there together, I'll be in their midst." Jesus promised that. "Wherever two or three..." That's the power... That's the--what the early church relied upon: the Presence of Jesus. "Wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, I'll be in their midst. And whatever they agree upon, as touching one thing, and ask, they shall receive it." That is true. That's God's promise. He's unchangeable; He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He's here now. Do you believe it?
23 Let us bow our heads just a moment for prayer. Just before we pray, and you with your heads bowed, would there be any here, would say, "Brother Branham, remember me. Let my spiritual eyes come open, that I might see and know Him. How I want to see Him. How I love Him," raise up your hands and say, "Remember me." God bless you. Lord, bless. That's good. May God of heaven be merciful. Someone else back over to my right here. "Remember me, Brother Branham, in prayer." God bless you.
The unsearchable riches of Christ, the revealing of His power and His goodness... May the God of heaven give mercy, and kindness, and grace to you all.
24 Our heavenly Father, we bring this audience to You at this hour, looking around and seeing the hands of the people going up. The Unchangeable God working in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. We pray, O God, that Your Holy Ghost, Your Spirit will dwell in every heart here tonight. Give to them the desire of their heart. Make them have faith, Lord. Put something within them, a courage, that they'll know that You're ever-present, ever-living, to make intercessions. You are setting at the right hand of God Almighty. And there at His Throne, the precious body of Jesus Christ sits there while the Holy Spirit is on earth. And He's there as our High Priest to make intercessions upon our confession. What we confess that He will do, that's what He's there to make right. His own Blood in--in the charger before Him, His own garments, bloody, setting there, seeing that God cannot look through that Blood and see unrighteousness, because Christ has took our sin and our sickness.
O Father God, we pray, that, as He being a High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities, that He will be touched tonight by every infirmity that's in the building, all the infirmities, that whether it be spiritual or physical, that they'll have a healing, and a revival will take out of this city, oh, souls after souls into the Kingdom of God. Grant it, Lord. Hear our prayer.
We love you, Father, and we're waiting for great expectations for the Holy Spirit to come in our midst and do that which He promised He would do. We ask it for their sake, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
25 You love Him with all your heart? Are you expecting Him to do the exceeding the abundance above all that we could do or to think? He said He would do the exceeding abundance above all that we could do or think. He promised to do it.
Now, when Jesus was here on earth, how many knows that He did not claim to be a healer? How many knows that He wasn't a healer? You mean you don't know the Bible no better than that? He said, "It's not Me that doeth the works; it's My Father that dwelleth in Me; He doeth the works."
"Verily, verily, I say unto you..." John 5:19, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing in Himself. But what He sees the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise." Is that what He said? Saint John 5:19, when He knowed where a man was laying with an infirmity, laying on a pallet, told him his faith would make him whole, pick up his bed and go through the house. And He was questioned amongst the Jews, and He left thousands of people laying there, lame, halt, blind, twisted. He said, "I only do what the Father tells Me, or shows Me to do. Now, I do what I see the Father doing. The Father worketh, and I worketh hitherto." Now, that's His Spirit.
Now, Jesus Himself did not perform any healings without first God showing Him. That's the Scripture. "I do nothing except the Father shows Me first, not tells Me, shows Me first." Then when He shows Him, He goes and does what the Father tells Him.
26 The woman that touched His garment. Now, He never did that; He never said He did it. He said, "Thy faith has saved thee. Thy faith has saved thee." Blind Bartimaeus at the gate, "Thy faith has made thee whole." He had nothing to do with it. The people's faith did that, because they believed that He was the Son of God. She touched Him, the woman did, and she touched His garment. And now, He didn't feel it physically, because the Palestinian garment has an underneath garment, and the robe hangs loose. And she touched the border of it. "For she said within her heart, 'If I'll but touch His garment, I'll be made whole.'" And she touched Him. And when she did, why she felt within herself... Because, her faith had been: if she could touch it, she'll be made well. And she did what she thought that would bring the power of God to her, and she felt that it was all-sufficient. And it was, because she believed it.
27 Jesus turned and looked around the audience, said, "Who touched Me?"
Peter rebuked Him, said, "Who touched You? Well, all of them is touching You. Why would You say a thing like that?"
He said, "But I perceive that I have gotten weak, or virtue is gone from Me," which means "strength." "I got weak. Somebody touched Me with a different kind of a touch." And He look around over the audience until He found the woman. And He told her about her blood issue had stopped, because her faith had made her well.
Now, that's the Jesus was yesterday. That's the same Jesus today. That's the same Jesus that will be tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow and will be forever.
28 When people think that God makes a promise and don't keep it... Mohammedans or nothing else... I've held the Bible in one hand and the Koran in the other one, and say, "One of them's right and one's wrong. Both of them can't be right, 'cause they're contrary, one to another." I say, "You prove that your prophet is dead. He's in the ground. Our Jesus raised from the dead. And He promised the things that He did, we'll do also." I said, "Now, let me see you do the works of Mohammed." Can't do it.
But the works of Jesus Christ is done by the Holy Ghost, when He comes to anoint the people. Do you believe that? Certainly, we believe it. What would keep us from believing? Because God made the promise. God said so. That settles it.
29 Now, man cannot do that. It's supernatural. It's something that man can't do. While I've just got a couple minute's time, I want to explain that. See, man cannot do nothing. It's God in man. Jesus said, "I am the Vine; ye are the branch." Now, as long as a branch is in the Vine, it'll bear the fruit of the Vine. Now, God always used men for His agent.
That's why He used His own Son to inveil Himself. He come down and took the form of man in order to die the death for man. He could not die in the Spirit, but He was put to death in the flesh.
Then God was in Abraham; God was in Isaac; God was in Jacob; God was in Joseph; God was in David. He was in all those people back in there, them prophets and so forth. It was God working through men.
30 Now, in this New Testament age, the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses His church and sanctifies it, that His Holy Spirit might continue to carry the work of God on through all ages. And He's just the same today. If it isn't, then we're false witnesses of this Bible. If it... If that isn't true, then the Bible isn't true. It's time that men preach the Gospel. It's time that the power of God was made known. When heathens trying to step on that Word, we need men like the Hebrew children, "Our God is able to deliver us from this..." That's right. It's time. God remains the same.
31 Now, God cannot heal you, because He's already done it. When He was wounded for your transgressions, bruised for your iniquity, the chastisement of your peace upon Him, and with His stripes you were healed... It's a past tense. If He stood here tonight with this suit on that He gave me, He could not heal you if you asked Him. He'd say, "I've already done it. You believe it?" He might do something to make you know that it was Him. And that's the way He does today. He makes it known to His people, by His people, that He is God, not the man, but God.
Now, He's just as real tonight. I--I know He's here. How many ever seen that picture of the Angel of the Lord, that Light? There's many of you. It--they got it here, I think, somewhere. Boys may have it, Gene and them's got it at the table back there.
That Light... You remember, I... If I never meet you again in earth, I'll meet you at that day. That Light isn't standing two feet from where I'm standing now. That's right. He promised it. And I believe God. I've seen It against tens of thousands of heathens. I've seen It in--in times when witch doctors on both sides, and see the power of God paralyze them and sit there. God's either God, or He's not God. Jesus is either the Son of God, or He was an impostor. He is Christ the Son of God. He is not dead, but He's alive, and He lives forevermore. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
32 How many believe that? God bless you. How many of you believe that He can appear right...
We ain't got no prayer cards give out, have we? How many's sick out there and wants healing, raise your hand. Say, "God, I'm sick; I need healing." Just raise up your hands, anybody that's sick and wants healing. Just raise up your hands and say, "I pray that God will make me well." Got a loved one you're praying for, raise up your hand, say, "I--I--I'm praying." God be merciful.
There isn't a person in this building that I know, outside of... I believe, if I'm not sure, this is Pat sitting right here, Pat Tyler. I'm... I don't know whether you all know him or not. And Brother Gene Goad setting here taking the message...
33 Men on the platform, I met them last night, finest bunch of men I ever met in my life. But the only ones that I really know, personally, is... Brother right there, he sponsored me the first time I was here, Brother Williams, and his son. Brother Borders, Brother David, and Brother Harvey is the only ones that I really know here.
But Jesus Christ knows every one of you if He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Put Him to a showdown. Is He God? Is it right? He knows every one of you.
If He'll--we're approaching the coming of the Son of God, how did He prove Hisself to be God, and to be the Son of God to the Jews? When He told Peter who He was. He said--told Nathanael where he'd been when He was under the fig tree, when He saw him under the tree, praying; He said, "Thou art the Son of God. You're the King of Israel." That was the sign of the Messiah to the Jewish nations.
The priest walked back and said, "He's a fortuneteller."
And He said, "You say that about Me, I'll forgive you. But when the Holy Ghost is come, but not speak against It then, because it'll never be forgiven in this world or the world to come." Watch that.
34 Well, there's only three classes of people, that's Ham, Shem, and Japheth's people. That's Jews, Gentile, and Samaritans. Remember Peter at Pentecost preached to the Jews, opened the Kingdom to the Samaritans, when Philip had went down and baptized them, yet they did not receive the Holy Ghost, down at the house of Cornelius; then all of them had heard It. Ham, Shem, and Japheth's people. The Holy Ghost was then... They didn't need him any more for the purpose, because the Holy Spirit had went to the people.
When Jesus come, we Gentiles were Anglo-Saxons which did not look for no coming Messiah. We were heathens with clubs on our back. But they that was looking for a Messiah, there was the Jews and the Samaritans looking for the Messiah. When He appeared, how--what kind of a sign did He do? He done the sign of the prophet that Moses spoke of it, it would be a God-Prophet. They looked at it. Those who are really spiritual led, they seen Him do that sign, and they said, "That's Him."
But the others that had all their intellectual trainings, they said, "This Guy is Beelzebub."
35 He went over to Samaria. He had need. A woman come out at the well, and He said, "Bring Me a drink of water."
And she says, "Not customary. We got segregation here. Jews and Samaritans have no dealing."
He said, "Woman, if you knew Who you were talking to, you'd ask Me for a drink."
She said, "The well's deep, and you have..."
What was He doing? He was contacting her spirit. And when He found where her trouble was (We all know what it was.), where her trouble lay, He said, "Go, get your husband and come here."
She said, "I don't have any husband."
Said, "You said right. You got five, and the one you're living with now is not your husband."
She said, "Sir, I perceive that..." "(You're Beelzebub"? No sir.) She said, "I perceive that You're a prophet." I perceive that You are a prophet. Now, we know. We know, we Samaritan, we're taught. We know when Messiah cometh, He will tell us these things. That was the sign of the Messiah. But who are You?"
He said, "I'm He that speaks to you." Oh, my.
36 Remember, not to Gentiles did He ever do it. He did not do that to Gentiles. Then if He's an infinite God, and let them, with an intellectual teaching as much as we have today... If we go into the--out of this, our dispensation, without the same manifestation, then He done something for them He did not do for us. But He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He promised He would do it.
What did He do it? Many Scriptures. But the one I just quoted, "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." So shall it be; the same thing will take place just before the fire. There He is, the infinite God. He's here tonight. That's a big thing to say. But it's a something that the Bible said so, and the Holy Spirit is here to back it up and say it's the Truth. That's right.
37 Let us pray. O Lord, there's somebody there suffering. No doubt, some people are in need. I pray Thee, Father, to be merciful and just let it be known that Thou art God. Just speak the words, Lord. And I pray that some poor soul in here, that's seeking You, that they'll be able to touch the High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. Just grant it, Lord, at least one or two, that the people might know in a mouth of one or two witnesses, or two or three witnesses, may every word be established. Grant it, Father. I asked it for God's glory, and for the sake of the Message tonight, Lord, and Your Word that declares it to be so, that the people might know that the time of unfolding and unveiling is at hand, that You're here the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
Now, I want you to pray. I want you to believe with all your heart and all that is within you to believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God is here.
How many strangers to me out there, that I don't know you? Raise up your hand. All out through the building, no matter where you are.
Now, perhaps you have never known this. Now, if... I'll have to follow the Holy Spirit, and if It speaks, you answer. I don't say that It will. I'm just saying I pray that it will (See?), that it will. I have no right to say that, only by His Word. He said that He would grant it, and we believe that it will be granted. Now, you pray. Now it's your faith. You can do nothing till you touch Him; then He speaks to me. If you can believe... If thou canst believe...
38 Yes, here it is. Just a moment. Right over here to my left, there sets a woman sitting there, kind of heavy set. She's real seriously sick. She has heart trouble, shadowed by a cancer, spiritual demon depression--oppression, rather. The lady sits right here with her head bowed, looking right this way at me. Do you believe, lady, that Jesus Christ will make you well? Do you believe it? Do you? You accept it? Lost it... Now, you'll have to beat that.
Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, let it be known, that the people might understand, Lord.
Have faith in God. Here's a man sitting right back here, praying for his wife. He's got his wife on his mind. He's praying for her. She's had operations and so forth, and it doesn't seem to help her any. That's exactly right. That man's a minister. Reverend Nathan, Jacob Nathan, your wife sitting next to you. You believe that Jesus Christ will make her well? You accept it, sir? Raise up your hand if you accept it. God bless you, go on.
39 I never seen the man in my life. Have faith in God. Let that pass you. He is God forevermore.
Here sets a woman. She bowed her head right there. She's sitting there, looking to me now. The woman's lame; somehow. She's got beneath her a crutch that she walks on. Do you believe, lady, that Jesus Christ will let you walk out of here without them crutches tonight? You believe it, sitting right there looking at me? Will you accept it, your healing? Raise up your hand. I've never seen you in my life. But if you'll believe it, you'll leave them lay there, and walk out, and be whole. I challenge your faith to believe it. "If thou canst believe."
What about back here now? What about you ministers? You brothers believe with all your heart? Now, you're, every one, strangers to me, besides Brother Williams. God loves you. You're His servant. I'm here to be your brother. The Spirit of God is here. I boldly say it in Jesus Christ's Name. You just have faith and believe. If there's something wrong, ask Him.
40 This man sitting right here looking at me. It's not exactly you. It's your dad sitting out there. That's right. Do you believe God can tell me what's wrong with him? Would you believe it? In his feet? That's right, stand on your feet. There sets his daddy sitting right there, an old man, kind of bald-headed, setting there, looking right at me now.
Here, look here, don't you see that Light? Look at that Light over this little woman here. He's praying also. He knows that woman setting right there, that little woman. Do you believe God can tell me what's wrong with her? Will you believe? It's in her legs. That's right. You believe God?
Do you believe that the Angel of the Lord, the same Jesus yesterday, today, and forever? He remains God, and there's nothing that can harm, nothing can hinder. Jesus Christ, God's Son, lives forever, ever alive to make intercessions. If we will only believe, have faith, God will perform the rest. Do you believe that with all your heart?
41 Now, do you believe that the coming Messiah is at hand. What is those people? I never seen one of them in my life, and God knows that to be true.
Now, you got it started. Now, it's just going around all over the building. Right now is the time. Now, is the time to receive your healing. Lay your hands on one another. Put your hands over on one another and believe now. Now, you got it. Now, you're--you're coming into faith.
O Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, let it be known tonight that Thou art the Son of God. You have made it known; You are God. And let Your Holy Spirit fall in this, among this people, and prove to them that Thou art the great Jehovah God, that You remain the same yesterday.
Satan, you are defeated. Come out of this people; I adjure thee by the power of the living God, that you come out of this people, in Jesus' Name.
All right.