It Wasn't So From The Beginning

1 ...?... Thank you, Brother Moore. Good morning, people. I was certainly happy to be here this morning again, and I wouldn't have missed this for anything, hearing the prophecy of our sister, having the privilege of meeting Brother Kidson last night again, an old associate, one of my first associates in the Pentecostal realms. He was the one who brought me here to Shreveport the first time, I believe it was, Brother Kidson, years ago when I had the services at the--the old tabernacle. I believe that's when Brother Moore's mother was healed during that time, and of stomach trouble and many things the Lord did.

2 You see, the same message is still going on. We don't bother that prescription. We just leave it just the way it is and take it the way it's dosed out to us.

I appreciate this Irish brother. Certainly we got good Irishman. That the... Sing the "There Is A Balm In Gilead," just perfectly blending in with last night. This fine little choir, David, and Brother and Sister Moore, Anna Jeanne, and all of them, oh, my, it's such a wonderful thing to be here in fellowship with you people again.

Standing in the room a few moments ago, a long distance came in from a man that was a minister somewhere, that doctors had give him up and didn't know what was the matter with him. He got to the phone, and he called, and somehow or other through the office at home they got him... Knowed we'd be at the tabernacle at this time, and right while we were in there, Brother Kidson, and I, and Brother Moore, and some other brethren. I didn't know who is was standing there...

3 But he wanted to know what was his outcome before the Lord, was he going to die? And the Holy Spirit in the building there, just in the office a few moments ago revealed back to the man about him and all about him, and what he was, how he was dressed standing there, and what was the matter with him, and pronounced him healed. He liked to tore the phone off the hook how the Lord healed him.

Oh, aren't we happy that we still have the Lord God Who still knows the end from the beginning. And it's good that there is a Balm in Gilead, and there's plenty of it. There's doctors there and what more the Lord has provided for us. So why should we go to anything else, when God has so richly provided every joy that we have need of, and every blessing that we need is in the household of faith with the children of God.

4 Why should we refer, or refrain from this, and go to smoking for joy, drinking for joy. Those things only bring death. That... Our joy is the Lord. So I'm so happy to be enjoying that.

Now, what time do you dismiss your services? Eleven-thirty? [Brother Moore replies, "One-thirty."--Ed.] Oh, that--that... I... You couldn't put up with me that long. So happy to see this group out here. And I won't be long.

Now, tonight at six o'clock the boys will be giving prayer cards, and we're going to have the regular prayer line. I'll be speaking tonight, the Lord willing, on something on along Divine healing, or something like that, because we're going to dedicate this service tonight for Divine healing.

5 Billy and I were sitting in the restaurant this morning eating and we were noticing and he said, "Daddy, can you tell Christians when you just meet them anywhere?"

I said, "Sure."

He said, "You see that man and his wife coming in there." Said, "They're Christians."

I said, "Yeah."

And just in a few minutes someone else had come in. He said, "Huh-uh."

I said, "That's right." So in a few minutes someone else come in, I said, "How about that?"

6 He said, "That's right." You can always tell a Christian. Many of course are women not with manicure, or ever what that stuff is they wear, not wearing that, but I mean you can tell it otherwise. See? They're--they're just marked. And a Christian has an atmosphere, because though he is a son and daughter of God, he is a creator.

Ever who that little fellow was teaching Sunday school here this morning, I sure appreciate that message. He was all right. I liked it. You the brother? Well, right here. Well, that's fine. You formerly must've been a Baptist because I could tell the way you was talking. That you... We... It kind of puts a little mark back there but we'll outlive it. You see? So... Now, Baptist brethren we just kindly one to each other but I could...

7 When he said, the expression he made... I jotted it down on a piece of paper. I'll pick it up out in the office there, two omnipotents met. That's true. When God and a believer meets, there's two omnipotents. 'Cause God... A man is a part of God. He is a son of God. See? And what little he is joins with the entire body.

And Jesus said over in Mark 11:22, "If you say to this mountain, 'Be moved,' and don't doubt in your heart, but believe what you have said. You can... It will come to pass." See? Believe that what you said, and a Christian is so marked that around him is an atmosphere.

8 Did you ever meet people that you just loved to be with? You've had that, and why, they create that atmosphere by their--their life, the way they live, and the things they think about, and the love they have for you.

You've heard my message on the--the opossum, you know, and on the bees trying to sting me, the bull trying to kill me, animals... See? It--it'll do... You create an atmosphere, and that's the atmosphere you have to be in to pray for the sick. See? It's the same thing. It's love that casts out evil spirits.

I won't call the name. It's one of the converts to the Lord that I led. It was an infidel and he was coming down the Alcan highway on a truck line, and--and he seen my name up there, and he said, "That's fanaticism." So he just stopped, and he was up in Canada, way up near Dawson Creek. That night, it was so cold. And you Louisiana people would've died up there, 'cause I was about to freeze to death, and I got all the air conditioners on everywhere now trying to keep--to keep cool, this hot weather here. And I... Sir? You like it. All right. So...

9 We went in--he went in there, and that night, Indians and everything... So he seen the discernment of the Lord, not knowing the Scripture. He goes back out and gets an old Indian up on the--an old trapper, brought him in. And we couldn't give out prayer cards. So he just had to push him on the platform as he could, and finally he got this old Indian up there, and he was going to... He knew this old Indian; he said, "That man's got people following him." He--he speaks out like that.

So he set this old Indian up on the platform. Just as soon as he come up there, the Holy Spirit told him who he was. Said, "And you live at a certain place, and you're a traveler. You got five children, three of them boys and two girls." Said, "One of them setting back there is studying to be a minister." Said, "You're suffering with TB."

"Right."

And said, "The man that brought you is this little fellow setting here by a certain-certain name." Said, "He's suspicious." That done it. He became a servant of the Lord.

10 Not long ago we were going together across the country, and he said to me, said, "Brother Branham, you know my wife don't believe in this," and said, "every night when I go to church and come home," said, "oh, she just starts bawling me out when I hit the door," and said, "I get her by the hand; she's little and hold her, and I try to cast that devil out as hard as I can."

Remind me of your message this morning, sir. Said, "I try to cast that devil out, and I said, 'Devil, you come out of my wife. Devil, you come out of my wife. Honey, you're possessed with the devil. Come out of there, devil.'"

"Oh," I said, "that's fine, Brother Fandler but you--you go at it the wrong way."

And he said, "Well, how do you do it?"

11 I said, "When you come home, buy her a box of candy. Give it to her when you come in at the door. Put your arms around her." I said, "That's the way you cast out a devil." Love casts out fear, doesn't it? Love...

Friends, the whole world is dying for love. That's one of the great things that we leave out of our Pentecostal blessing too much of it, is love that mixes it together, the mortar that makes gifts and all the things of God operate perfectly is love one for the other. "This will all men know that you're My disciples."

Let us, before we approach His Word now, bow our heads just a moment.

12 Almighty and omnipotent God, we thank Thee this morning above all things for Jesus, Thy Son, and for His love to us, that when we were yet sinners He died in our stead, reconciling us back to the fellowship, back to sonship through His Blood.

And we pray this morning, that the going forth of the Word will catch every heart, my heart too, Lord. Prepare us for the coming of the Lord as this little lady has just prophesied that He's done left His Throne on His way. We truly believe that Lord. Rebekah watering the camel that would take her to meet her lover, yet she had never seen him, but it was love at the first sight. We thank Thee, Lord. We believe that we... When we see Him, it'll be love when we know that He was the One Who died and redeemed us.

13 Then in that great field somewhere between here and glory when we crown Him King of king and Lord of lords, and Angels stand with bowed heads not knowing what we're doing... They never was lost like we were. And when we sing the songs that He redeemed us, what a glorious time that'll be. We're looking forward for that time. May our hearts be prepared.

Sanctify the Word that will be read, and may It become Spirit and Life to us, that we might correct our lives and live for Him Who died for us. This we ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.

14 Turn with me for just a few moments. I want to read a little Scripture here to see if I can draw from It some context for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, and I... Let's turn to Matthew the 19th chapter as we read.

And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;

And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.

And the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he said unto them, Have you not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Wherefore they are no more--they are no more twain, but one... What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

He said unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

I want to take a little subject this morning or--or text, if we should call it that, of the text, "It Wasn't So From The Beginning."

15 Now, Jesus when He came to the earth here to make His earthly visit for the purpose of redeeming that which God had foreordained, He found teachers in those days teaching things that wasn't truth.

I wonder if He wouldn't find some of the same things going on today if He come, things that wasn't truth. And He told them and the reason that I have chosen this certain text, "It Wasn't So From the Beginning," because we'll have to go back to the beginning to find out what the real truth of it is. Everything that we have on earth today, there's nothing new. It started in Genesis. Genesis is the seed chapter.

16 Therefore when God once does anything or makes a decision, as I've often quoted, that He always has to stay with His decision. How that ought to enlighten our faiths. See? When God says something, all heavens and earth will pass away, but that cannot pass away. Therefore it should give us character. It should give us faith to take that Word which He has said, and with all of our life hold on to it, because He cannot change it. It's true.

Now, God in the beginning He made all things. He made it in form of seed first. It was a seed, and He said in Genesis 1, "Let every seed produce after its kind." And I just wonder as men always tries to pervert what God has did because man in his fallen state, thinks that he can do something better than his Creator did it at the beginning. He's always trying to turn something that God did around and make it something that it isn't.

17 I was speaking on that just recently on a sermon of, "Hybrid Religion." And science in working in the field of science, those who claim evolution has taken their own scientific reproofs and or, proof and disproved their own theory of evolution, because anything that is hybrid cannot breed itself back again. Therefore, if He made a certain seed, it has to remain that. If you cross it up with something else, it cannot breed itself back. That ends it as soon as you--as you breed it.

A mule--a mule can never produce another mule, and don't nobody ever lay it onto God of making a mule. He never done it. That's what man done. It's--it's a... Reminds me right smart today of the nature when you hybreed anything, you spoil its nature.

18 When you take a horse that's a good pedigreed horse, that horse has character about it. It's gentle. It'll hold his head up, and you can call him. He will put his head over your shoulder and nicker, and--and you can make him... Put him in the show and he will almost like a human. He can... He's got high characters and something about him that's real.

You never seen a mule do that. He's just--he's just a work animal. He's--he's all in works and no grace.

It reminds me of a lot of people today. You... They're all doing works, and that's about it. As Brother Jack was saying this morning about the churches, that it has the structure but not the... It's like the... You got a good engine but no steam in it. You got a dynamo, but it isn't running. Main thing is the steam in the engine. That's what the church needs. It's got the structure.

You take a mule. He--he's--he's the dumbest thing in the world because he's hybrid, and you can call a mule and he will just stand there, and throw those big ears out, and look at you.

19 You know I--I hope this doesn't sound sacrilegious, but it reminds me of too many people today that's got mule religion, a hybrid religion. "Our church, we know all about it." And you can tell them about the baptism of the Holy Ghost and give them the formula to God, and they just stand with their ears out, never make a move. A good hybrid brings forth... "If My sheep hear My voice," they know what's true because they like sheep food.

A hybrid seed like corn, you see it looks beautiful, because it's a hybrid. I seen on a sign the other day, "hybrid corn." Well, it's no good. You know what it's doing? Hybrid cattle makes a better cow. Hybrid chickens... They got chickens so hybrid now, till the chicken ain't got no legs or wings. It's all breast, but the poor thing can only live a year and it dies. It's practically dead when it's born.

20 So people's got to eat and that, and now on those cells it's hybrid. Science... "Reader's Digest" wrote an article on it recently that in twenty years from now if that keeps up, the human race will cease. Women and men are being perverted. Women are getting wider shoulders and narrower hips. Men are getting narrow shoulders and wider hips. The woman will not be able to have her child, eating a cell that's perverted.

Chickens, and these chickens that you eat is so--is so mushy and soft, the texture in them till people don't want them any more. Why, you're... They're killing themselves with their own ideas, trying to pervert. We were made to eat these cells of--of things just the way God put them.

And there's also a hybrid church. It's prettier today than it used to be, got better members. The Pentecostal church, they got finer buildings, finer pews, better scholared preachers and so forth, but they've hybrid it.

21 Let's go back to the real first light, the old Pentecostal blessing and the power of the Holy Ghost back in the church. They put it all on the preacher today. It ain't the preacher. The Holy Ghost is just as much to the laity as it is to the preacher. He ain't got all the religion. They got it out there, and I--I'm one today that believes that we ought to get the Spirit of God back in the church, where we can have the gifts of the Spirit operating with unction and power; but today we find men wherein the beginning in the church ages that I'm teaching on next week at my tabernacle at home, to write a little commentary as my own comments on it...

22 You notice it started a deeds of the Nicolaitanes. After while it become a doctrine. Well, what it is, they've taken all the Spirit away from the congregation and made bishops, overseers, popes. Put it all in the pulpit, and the pulpit got intellectual. There you got a hybrid church again (See?), under intellectuals. God send us back to the Holy Ghost amongst the people. Let the unction of the Spirit move among the people, giving forth messages, and power, and manifestations, if we have to stand on the street corner, or get in a chicken house, or a barn somewhere.

We don't want any of this hybrid religion, come out of the seminary. We want it to come like a rushing, mighty wind from on high that fills all the house, not just one man, all the house where they are seated together. Perversion, that's what man did in the days of our Lord Jesus. That's what he's trying to do today: take the things that's original and pervert them by his own ideas and he ruins himself.

23 I like to ask the evolutionist this. If you cannot breed back hybrid corn, how can they ever teach evolution. God said, "Let every seed bring forth of its kind, every seed of its kind." And if you cross that seed up, it settles it. It cannot go farther. It goes right back to its original again.

I'm so glad that I believe that God planted a Holy Ghost seed on the day of Pentecost that hybreeded into denominations but after while It's going back to Its original again, back to the real Holy Ghost, back to the Gospel Message, Back to Acts 2 again, back to the formula, back to where It begin at.

There'll rise a man one of these days that'll be against these things and blast it just as hard as he can.

Notice. Now, to the original, go back to the beginning. Jesus told them, "Go back to the beginning to find out. It wasn't so at the beginning."

24 Well, people say, "I'm Presbyterian. I'm Methodist. I'm Baptist. I'm this. I'm that." That's all right, but let's go back to the beginning and see where it started from, see what it was at the beginning. That's the way God set His church up on the day of Pentecost. That's the way it's to forever remain that way. If you cross anything else up into it, denominations and all these other things, and sprinkling, and all these forms and things, you hybrid it. You get a better looking church, but it ain't got no life in it. It can't reproduce itself again.

25 The revival that come forth in the days of Luther, it cannot reproduce itself, because they hybrid it. The days of Wesley, they cannot reproduce it. Tell me one of them ever raised when they fell. When they hybrid the church, it goes right back again. It's done. It can't reproduce itself. It can bring members in, make an organization, but it can't reproduce itself again. What we want is something to reproduce, to bring sons and daughters to God. You can't do it from a seminary. It's got to come from the Holy Ghost above like a rushing mighty wind, like it did at the beginning.

Hybrid religion perverting things, changing things, men perverting, and when Jesus come in His days, He said, "In vain do you worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of man." What have they did? They've taken the commandments of God and hybrid it to their own ideas, and have brought it back, and it said, "Thou shalt not and thou shalt this and so forth," but they with their traditions makes the commandments of God of none effect because they had hybrid it.

26 People wonder today how these things take place. How can a person stand, and look out across an audience, and draw a man or a woman and reveal the sins and things of the church? What's the matter? Why ain't all the churches doing it? They're hybrid. That's right.

There's only one Church, and that is not a denomination. You can't denominate God's Church. There's one Church and one Body. That Body is the mystical Body of Jesus Christ here on earth, and by one Spirit we're all baptized into that one Body, whether we're Methodists, Baptists, or Catholic, or what.

No matter what a man's denomination is, if he is depending on his church for salvation, he's lost. If a Catholic's depending on the Catholic church to save him, he's lost. If a Baptist is depending on the Baptist church saving him, he's lost. If a Pentecostal is depending on the Pentecostal church saving him, he's lost; but if those individuals are relying on God and on Jesus Christ, "By faith are you saved, and that not of works but of grace."

27 Jesus found teachers in His days also perverting things, and He told them that in the tr--in the beginning we find the same thing today. They say, "Oh, yes, the Bible does say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but we don't believe He still performs miracles. We believe that Jesus said, 'The works that I do shall you do also,' but we--we believe that those things ceased with the apostles." See what you're doing. You're hybriding it. You're perverting it, saying something that God did not say.

The Bible says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." I believe that to be the truth. I don't believe we should mess with that a bit. Just say it's there. If you haven't got faith to go on with it, don't stop somebody else that does have faith to go.

28 I've always said I wished I had faith to walk like Enoch home with God without death, but if I haven't got that kind of faith, I certainly don't want to stand in somebody's way that does have that faith to walk. I'll let him walk on. Sure, and I'll pray that God will give me grace and power to walk on. Sure.

Jesus found the church when He came trusting the church for salvation. That's the same thing He--He does today when He's come in the form of the Holy Ghost in this last days. He finds the people trusting the church for salvation. What did the people get in the days of Jesus when they come trusting the church for salvation? They got a bunch of creeds, man-made dogma, perverting the Word of God back to a creed.

29 That's the same thing we got today. When the Holy Spirit's here, the Person of the Holy Spirit, hunting out, searching out the Bride of Christ, what do we get? What does He find? People accepting creeds for salvation instead of going back to the original for it. You got a--a prayer book, or some kind of a textbook of some sort that "we so-and-so believes this so-and- so."

Why do you take a textbook for it? God's Bible is the Textbook. Go back to the beginning. You adopt a handshake instead of the baptism. You adopt sprinkling instead of water baptism. You adopt forms and creeds and so forth instead of taking the formula the way God wrote it. That's the reason we got a dead, hybrid church today, because it can't produce any more. A Lutheran can make a Lutheran. A Baptist can make a Baptist. A Presbyterian can make a Presbyterian, but God makes a saint when He comes in, the original Holy Ghost, Pentecostal blessing.

30 They were expecting the church to give them salvation. Then they find out they didn't even know the very root of their salvation when He come, because they were hybrid. They looked at Him like a bunch of mules. "Huh, who are you? Illegitimate born," like an old braying donkey somewhere, you know. Out there, "Days of miracles is past. Moses done so and so but who's this guy? He don't belong to any of our organizations. Aw, it's telepathy. That's all. He is Beelzebub, the devil."

That same thing has happened again. They don't know Christ in the power of His resurrection. They know Him by a creed but not in the power of His resurrection. Christ lives in the person, and if He'd come today and we'd heard people say the things they do, Jesus would simply say, "It wasn't so from the beginning."

Why, he'd say, "Lord, I was sprinkled in the holy so-and-so church."

He'd say, "It wasn't so from the beginning."

"Well, I shook hands with the preacher and made a profession."

"It wasn't so at the beginning."

31 They waited at the beginning until the power had come from on high, a rushing, mighty wind that changed the whole course of their life, and set them afire with Something that evangelized the world.

How can we do it through reading, writing, and arithmetic? Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel," not teach reading, writing and arithmetic. "Preach the Gospel." What is the Gospel? The Gospel is power and demonstrations of the Holy Ghost. Follow the next words, "And these signs shall follow them that believe."

32 How you going to teach a man to speak in tongues? How you going to teach a man to cast out devils with power? How you going to teach a man to do these signs that Jesus said he would do? How you going to teach a man to be able to stand on the platform and--or somewhere and foretell things that's coming and things that has been and will be? How you going to teach him? You can't. It's a gift of God. When we get away from that, we get into hybrid condition. We're back... We just go back to the beginning, every seed.

I wonder. I'd like for science to answer this one. If there is such a thing as evolution, and they claim it could come some other way. Why don't something rise higher than a man? We have no species higher than a man, because he's in the image of God. Nothing can go beyond its Creator. I like for them answer that one. They can't do it. Why? It's the highest species.

33 Why can't we produce something in our ethics, and education, and our great seminaries that'll beat what they had at Pentecost. You can't do it, because that's God's way of doing it. Nothing will ever come forth that'll--that'll thrill the heart of people that'll produce these signs. You'll never educate the people into it. You'll never be able to teach them into it. They've got to be borned into it.

So our denominations is hybrid. We need the Holy Ghost, the mystical Body of Christ being formed on earth. That's the way it was at the beginning. It breeds itself back and comes right back to the beginning.

34 In all these years of denominations, finally, God is bred His Church back to the Holy Ghost again. I'm so glad to be in it. Let the old seeds and carnality die out. Become a new creature in Christ Jesus. We're setting together today in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit breeding out. Oh, I'm so glad of that, breeding out doubts, breeding out isms, breeding in Himself sons of God, not breeding back mules, crossing it up, but breeding sons and daughters of God that don't look at the Word, and stick out their ears and say, "Well, my mother was Presbyterian."

That's all right, but we need first to make us sons and daughters of God, breeding out the unbelief, and the creeds, and things and bringing us back to the original sons of God by the Holy Ghost. That's exactly. That's what the Church is in the process of doing today.

35 Then people today are as past, they hybrid the church to organizations to creeds and mix up people's minds, and then they say, "Where is God? Where is the God of the Old Testament? Where is the Lord Jesus that promised these things?" That's what Billy Graham was confronted with not long ago by a Mohammedan. Where is this God that you speak of? You said He healed the sick. I'll take thirty, and you take thirty, and see what we can do about it."

Oh, what we need today is man gallant, filled with the Holy Ghost to call his hand on it. That's right. God's still the God that was with Elijah on Mount Carmel; He's still the same God today.

36 We need a bred-in Holy Ghost religion, Holy Ghost power. Where is God? God is in His Church. God is in His Word. God is in His people. God is in His universe. He's everywhere, but we can't hybrid Him into something, because He won't cross up with nothing. He's God and God alone. You can't breed Him in five or six different things and--and four or five different gods. He's God and God alone. He won't hybrid. He's God. You can't make intercession of saints and say, "This saint did this and that saint did that." No such a thing. There's one Mediator between God and man, and that's Christ Jesus, the only Mediator.

What's the matter with the church then? If He was here on earth, which He is, and we find the church today in the same condition He did, teaching for doctrine the commandments of man. He said, "It wasn't so from the beginning." Now, we find out what it was at the beginning.

37 It reminds me of one day when the... Joseph and Mary had been up to the feast, and they had started on their road back, and they'd went three day's journey, and they missed the Lord Jesus. They didn't know where He was. Now, three days without knowing where He was at, and come to find out they begin to search for Him. The church has gone almost two thousand years and don't know where He's at. Talking about their three days...

"Oh," they just said, "perhaps, He's amongst our kinfolks out there somewhere." That's what the church has been thinking. "Oh, He's around somewhere. If He ain't with us Baptists, He will be with the Methodists, and He... Oh, He's around somewhere. He's with some of our kindred. You know way back yonder our--our Methodist forefathers had, and our Lutheran forefathers..." Don't just take it lightly like that. Let's find Him. Where is the God of the Bible? Where is the God that made these promises? Who is He? What's His Name?

Why can't we do the same things that they did back there if they promised it? Why isn't it the same?

38 Not long ago I was hunting squirrel. I trained my rifle at fifty yards. If I can't shoot the squirrel's eye, I'll leave him alone. If I'm thirty yards at him, I back off to fifty. Be sure that I get him. And my rifle got out, and I sent it back to Winchester Company, little cheap rifle, and they sent me word back, said, "Reverend Branham, this rifle will--will group a inch group at twenty-five yards. In a model seventy-five Winchester that's all you'll ever get out of it."

I knowed better than that. I've been down on the official range at fifty yards, drove eight carpet tacks with it straight, and I knowed they were wrong. See? And there I was. I'd done ever thing, loosened screws and tightened them because a five thousandths vibration here will throw it out an inch out yonder at a fifty yards. And I'd glass-bedded it, and floated the barrel, and done ever thing I knowed to do. And I--I knowed the same rifle... Gene Goad setting here, my friend, knows the other day I put eight, nine tacks, nine bullets in the same hole with that gun, but the company that made it said the thing--the thing will only shoot a group (that's a group, you know, of shots) around a inch at twenty-five yards and this was driving tacks at fifty yards.

39 I was setting up under the tree, and there was Brother Woods and the rest of them up there banging at squirrels, hit him anywhere they wanted to, back, front, anywhere. Didn't make any difference just so they hit the squirrel, having a big time and I was sitting under a tree. I started crying, and I said, "Lord, why did You make me a little nervous wreck. Why did You make me like this? Why can't I go out there and enjoy hunting like they do and have to have this gun in a super condition?"

I waited there for about a half hour, and laid down on my face, and begin to cry. The Holy Spirit come to me and said, "I made you that way for a purpose. That's for a purpose. When one says one thing and hit loosely like that, you can't stand it less it's zeroing. It has to be on the dot or it's not right."

I said, "I see, Lord." See?

40 Just church denomination don't satisfy me. If the Scriptures says one thing, and the church teaches another, that don't work. If Jesus Christ lived in the apostles, and done the signs that He was here on earth, it'll do it again if we'll get zeroed in. We got to get zeroed. I don't care what the church says it'll group this or that and oh, Father, Son, Holy Ghost and all this other kind of stuff and all these creeds and things. One way or the other is all right." It ain't all right with me.

If the apostles hit the dot, we can hit the dot too if we'll get zeroed with God's Word. Let our experience zero with His Word. They did it. If they did it, why can't we do it? If we'll zero in, it'll do the same thing.

Oh, the church says, "As long as it's hitting, as long as you join church. Shake hands with the pastor, and put your name on the book, and say this creed, this apostles' creed, so what difference does it make?" It makes a lot of difference.

41 The Holy Spirit zeroes you in to God's Word. Jesus... They expected Him to be with His kindred. That's the way we've expected. "Oh, He's with--He was with Martin Luther. He was with John Wesley, John Smith, Calvin, and Alexander Campbell, or some of them. He was with them." That won't work. Is He with us?

So they started looking around one day. You know where they found Him? Not with their kindred, not with their organization, not with their denomination, with those that they expected Him to be. That's what we been doing.

42 We've been trying to have a revival. Billy Graham has crossed the country. Jack Shuler, oh, many others tried to have a revival. What are they doing it? Upon intellectuals, bringing all the Baptists together, all the Methodists together, Presbyterians together, putting them together, bringing the organizations, making the leaders, giving them talks and spurring them up and so forth like that to shake hands, be all right. That's--that's good.

Like the colored man eating watermelon, he eat a slice of it. Say, "How was that, boy?"

Say, "That's good but some more of it."

43 That's the way it is today. To get together and shake hands is fine, but there's some more of it. Amen. There's more of it than that. No matter how much intellectuals we get together, how we do, the life isn't there. We've got to go back where we left Christ.

Martha--or Mary and--and Joseph went back to where they left Him. Where did they leave Him? At the Feast of Pentecost, not at the Lutheran church, not at the Methodist church, not at the foundation in--in England, not Calvin, Knox, Finney. Them men were fine. We never left the... beginning of our organizations. We left Him at the Feast of Pentecost. There's where the church has got to come again. That's where you'll find Him, not in your church, not in your organization, not with your mother's religion, your daddy's religion; you'll find Him at the Feast of Pentecost.

44 I know you think I'm crazy. Maybe I act that way, but I feel different. Look, brother. Back to Pentecost. We've long gone too far now. We've took Pentecost and organized it, and organized it, and organized it, and organized it, made this denomination, split hairs on this, that and the other. Joining hands is all right. That ain't enough. Let's get back to the original. Get back to the beginning. Get back where we left it. Amen. Hear me. I speak in the Name of the Lord: Back to the beginning.

"You say I'm a Methodist."

"It wasn't so at the beginning."

"I was sprinkled."

"It wasn't so at the beginning."

"I'm a Baptist."

"It wasn't so at the beginning."

"I'm Presbyterian."

"It wasn't so at the beginning."

45 At the beginning, it was Pentecost, not an organization but a Pentecostal experience that brought the Seed of God down by the Holy Ghost, made men and women speak in tongues and stagger like drunk man, Spirit operating in the Church, showing signs and wonders. "Wasn't so at the beginning."

You say, "Well, I belong to the great, holy church."

That wasn't so at the beginning.

"I belong to the holy Romans."

I... it wasn't so at the beginning.

[Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]

[Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] branch... If it ever puts out another branch, it'll be a Pentecostal branch. It'll have the same fruits, same signs, same wonders that the first branch put forth. You say, "I'm a Lutheran."

"It wasn't so at the beginning." You're grafted in and living on the Name of the Lord Jesus when you're not bearing that fruit. The signs of the believers don't follow you.

"These signs shall follow them that believe." And they went forth preaching everywhere, the Lord working with them confirming the Word with signs following. If we got anything different from that, "it wasn't so at the beginning," the way they got the Holy Ghost at the beginning, that's the way we get It today.

46 You say, "Well, I don't--I don't know. I got... I believe maybe when I believed I received the Holy Ghost."

"It wasn't so at the beginning." They believed and then received the Holy Ghost.

Paul said in Acts 19 to them Baptists up there who had that converted lawyer for a preacher, Apollos. He said, "Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?"

When you say you've got it when you believed, then it wasn't so at the beginning.

You say, "I've been sprinkled and I say..."

"It wasn't so at the beginning."

"I joined..."

It wasn't so at the beginning. Never joined no church at all at the beginning. They were borned into the Church at the beginning, and if that... That's right.

47 You're born into it, and if this Vine ever puts forth another branch, it'll be like a branch... If the Vine ever puts forth another branch, it'll be the same kind of branch that Acts was wrote on. It'll have the same doctrine. It'll have the same power. It'll show the same signs, because that's kind of the Church they had at the beginning.

Let's stop hybreeding ourselves. Let's go back to the Word like it was at the beginning. You like that? I live on that.

Let's speak to Him now that wrote That while we bow our heads.

Is there any in here this morning that feels like that you've been crossed up somewhere and you'd like for the Holy Spirit to come in this morning through a birth?

48 And hybriding was such a horrible thing in the Old Testament. He said, "A bastard child shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ten generations." There's nothing to breed him out, only that sin. Think. Ten generations, four hundred years before a illegitimate child could ever come into the Kingdom of God. There was no serum to take care of him. He had to just breed it out through the family. Four hundred years 'fore a illegitimate child could come in the congregation of the Lord.

But today, since the Blood of the Jesus Christ has been shed and you've been interbred by all different kinds of ideas, the Holy Spirit is here this morning to breed you back to the original, bring you back to Pentecost, breed you back. And we sit together this morning in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, letting the Holy Spirit [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]...?... work. What is circumcising? Cutting off all the hybrid, the surplus, the things of the world, the things of the church age, bringing us back to Pentecost like it was at the beginning.

49 Would you love to receive this experience and would desire a prayer that you would receive it and go back to the beginning and have the very Life of Christ living in you producing the signs that He did when He was here on earth? Would you raise your hands for prayer just before we pray? God bless you. God bless you, just hands everywhere.

Gracious Lord, we thank Thee this morning for Thy Word. It is sharp. It is true. But it is a--a sword and a corrected sword is sharpened, and it's powerful. It's a discerner of the thoughts of the intents of the heart. And we thank Thee this morning for Thy Word. Though it cuts, it circumcises. That's the reason that It is the sword. It's to circumcise us from all the things of the world and to bring us into fellowship with Thee as sons and daughters of God setting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

50 God ordained it before the foundation of the world that we might be holy and without blame before Him, living in holiness in the realms of purity, professing that we are pilgrims on this earth. We're strangers. We do not belong here. Our inheritance is of above. We're looking for that City to come whose Builder and Maker is God. We hear from It daily and hourly, while the blessings of the Holy Spirit showers upon us while we're setting together teaching and praising Thee.

We pray now for these hands that was raised up. God, this is the hour of sincerity. It's the hour when men looking upon the earth and fear upon them for the things that's coming. They don't want just something that's a fly-by-night. They want something solid. They want something that's real. And Father, when they see their life that they've been grafted in, they're not bearing the fruits, the signs of the first Vine isn't in them. They've raised their hands. "Lord, take away this, and let me come through the true Branch."

51 God, I pray this morning that the Holy Spirit will breed them back, breed them back from all their doubts that Jesus heals, the doubts that the Holy Ghost is just a fanaticism worked up and as people say it is; and let all doubts go away and know that It's the blessed Lord Jesus in our presence. He's proving Himself.

And open the eyes of the people. Don't let them live like they did in the days of--of the apostles, in the days of the prophets. No prophet was hardly known by anyone till after his death. Jesus wasn't known. Many of the saints beyond that was never known. The message goes by and they miss it. This Church will be raptured one of these days and taken away, and then they'll scream, "Give me of the oil." But there's no more to buy then. May they not miss it this morning, Lord, but in humility, may they seek Thee with all their heart.

52 Now Father, I cannot bring You to them or them to You. I can only speak what You've said and the plan that You said. "He that will hear My Words and believe on Him that sent Me, has Everlasting Life." I pray, God, that ever person in here without the Holy Spirit may go back to the beginning this morning. Not... Don't have to leave their church, just go back to the beginning and get grafted, or not grafted but borned into. A grafted vine is by denomination will never stand. I pray that they'll be borned into the Spirit, into the Vine, like it was at the beginning.

I commend them to Thee, Father. I pray that You'll bless them through this day. Help us. Sanctify our thoughts and hearts. And tonight when the prayer meeting goes on for the sick, may there be power unspeakable in our midst. May there be hearts that's purified by the Holy Ghost, all doubts and flusterations gone. Jesus Christ lives, and He's is with us now. Grant it, Lord.

53 Bless this church. Bless Brother Jack, Sister Moore, and--and Anna Jeanne, and Don, and all that's associated here. Brother Lyle, Brother Brown, and so many of them, Father, I couldn't name them. Every minister, Brother Kidson, all the other ministers here. Brother Bootlayer, and the many that--that even we don't know.

Lord, set our souls afire. God, let us go back quickly. We're talking about it, but talk won't work. Let's go back. "He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it's sin." It's unbelief. Sin is unbelief. We don't believe it if we say it and don't go back. Let's go back to the beginning. Pick up the message, Lord and throw it out to the people. See the Holy Spirit operate again like He did on the day of Pentecost.

Hear my prayer for them, Father, in Jesus' Name I pray. Amen. God bless you and your pastor.