Invasion des Etats-Unis
1 The will of the Lord for such certain things to happen at times... We went to Denver just recently and returned. I believe they wanted to report the meeting. It was one of the best meetings I've had in years. We had a marvelous time. Somewhat a little over two thousand gave their hearts to Christ, besides those who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, besides great signs and wonders that our dear Lord Jesus did in the midst of the people there in Denver. They had a marvelous outpouring, and a great coming together of the people. We started off with around five thousand to begin with. And we had the Mammoth Gardens. And on the third night, there wasn't even any room for people to stand in the place. Had such a wonderful time, of the five nights...
2 We left there to go to
Canada, boy and I. And we got up into the mountains, and come a
snowstorm. I guess you've heard of it, over your radio. And some
hundred and eighty-eight people perished in it. And we was stuck in a
snowdrift for--for several days, up there in the mountains. And our
meeting passed by, and we had to come back home now before we leave
again. So we believe all that was maybe for the will of God, that it'll
be a better meeting and something else... He had something lined up for
us that we don't know.
We walk kindy in a dark world, but not in darkness. We just follow as
the Light goes, then we follow the Light.
And our heavenly Father perhaps had something that we know nothing
about. There might've been some danger laying up there. Or, again, He
might be working on somebody to bring... You see, God can just work on
one person like that; He change a whole nation just for that one
person, to get them in. And so we know it was all for God's good glory.
And we thank Him for it, and for protecting us. And there was many we...
5 Billy and I helped pick them up along the road and things like that, of people that were crashed and everything. But we come through without any trouble. We got off the road once, but that was just for a few moments. And some man up there on a ranch come down and pulled us out with a tractor. Just sliding, it was very slick.
6 And it was one of the things that they hadn't had for... Couldn't, the old-timers couldn't remember of ever having a storm like that in that country, at that time of year, Roundup, Montana. And we was... We know that anything real outstanding like that, our Lord had His hand in there somewhere. It was for some purpose, for--for our good. For our good, that's what it was.
7 And so I called Brother
Neville after I got back, and I said, "I'm going to be home Sunday.
And--and if you'd like for me to come down and maybe have Sunday
school, why, all right." And I said, "Then I'll--and I'll be very happy
to get to..."
He said, "Why, sure, Brother Bill." Said, "We're always so happy for
you to come," with a great big open heart and welcome, like that, and
put it on his radio program, yesterday. So we're thankful for all these
things.
9 And this morning, now, being Mother's Day. Most people, you'll hear Mother-Day sermons everywhere, and people speaking of mother, which I think is wonderful. Leave that for the rest of the service.
10 This morning I'd announced,
that, a--a subject of: "The Invasion Of The United States," that I
wanted to speak on. Which, you probably heard your radio broadcast, and
you'll hear plenty of them today. And there'll be a Mother's Day
sermon, perhaps, tonight in the services. And so I thought this morning
I would announce, "the--the invasion."
I spoke on it in Denver, here not exactly from the approach I aim to
give it this morning, if God willing. And it, had a wonderful time with
it. And the Lord just did bless in a wonderful way. It kind of
sometimes gives us a...
You have to be shook just a little bit to realize what it's all about,
don't we, sometimes? And we pray that God will do it.
13 And by the way, up there
when we got through... The Business Men of Denver was the ones
sponsored the meeting, and it was a little different sponsor than I'd
ever had before.
And usually, ministers, when they sponsor the meeting, they'll say,
"Did you announce it?" "Yep, to the church." That's just about it.
That's shepherds; they want their flock to know about it. That's just
about... That's their business.
But the Business Men were a little different. They wanted the world to
know about it, so they just flung out about three or four thousand
dollars worth of advertisement on all streetcars, taxicabs, on bumpers
of the cars, and everywhere. We had a wonderful time.
16 After the service was over,
they called me to one side, said, "Brother Branham, what can we do for
you now? What we owe you?"
I said, "Why, of course, nothing." I said, "You don't owe me nothing."
I said, "You can pay my hotel bill, down here, if you wish to."
"Oh, we want to do something for you." And they wouldn't... I wouldn't
take nothing from them.
So the manager called them around. He said, "I believe he kind of likes
to hunt and fish, doesn't he?"
Said, "Yes."
So one of the business men had a ranch up there, and he said, "I'll
just make him a present of that."
Well, Mr. Moore went up to see it, and he had to go back about
thirty-five miles by horseback. I said... Mr. Moore said, "I'd like to
see Sister Branham setting on a horse, going back to that." So he,
they, and but...
22 After that, though, they went over there to a homestead place at Silver Plumbe, Colorado. This is supposed to be on this side now. And they bought a little ranch over there, and putting up a five-room home over there for me now, to... at the Silver Plumbe, Colorado, which is right in the heart of the mountains. So you fishermen, I guess it's a good time, so it be a good place to relax, and when after the meetings and things, if God permits. That's up to Him. You see?
23 I wish now to call our
attention to the Word. And I just love the Word, the living Word of
God. It's... Inside the Word is the Life. Now, the Word, letter
killeth, but the Spirit giveth Life. And Life is in the Word, because
it's the Word of God. Life lays in Its Word.
Like if I told you, "I give you..."
You say, "I'm hungry, this morning, Brother Branham. Would you give me
five dollars?"
I'd say, "I will." Now, there's just as much life in that as there is
in my promise.
That's the same way it is by God. When God promises anything, then what
God is, His... He's got to be in His Word. See? This Word is worth
no... This Word is just the same as God. It is God.
Your word is what you are. It's your bond; we used to call it. Your
bond is your word. If we can't take your word, then I--I can't have
confidence. But if I can take your word for anything, then it's a man
of honor.
And the Bible said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God." See? See? "And the Word was made flesh
and dwelled among us."
29 If we would think, this is
the very earth that we're living on, this morning, is the Word of God.
That tree is the Word of God. And you, your body, is the Word of God.
God spoke it into existence like that, made it from nothing, which had
nothing...
Did you ever notice the human life, where it come from? One little cell
so small that a human eye couldn't see it, only through a great,
powerful glass. And out of there come a hundred-and-fifty,
two-hundred-pound man. Where did it come from? See? God just spoke it,
and it just started by nature, growing, and there it produced just
exactly. He spoke every tree, everything into existence. And it's such
a wonderful, wonderful thing this morning to view the Word of God.
31 Now, this, this morning in
the Old Testament, turning over to Chronicles. I have been just a
little bit upset... While you're turning now to Chronicles the 18th
chapter. Just a little tired...
But if the Lord willing... I'm not sure; we'll know more Wednesday
night. If the Lord willing, and the church feels led that way, I'd like
to have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as a revival
here, just a teaching revival from the Word. [Congregation,
"Amen."--Ed.]...?... Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and
Sunday, just teaching on the Word; not healing services, but teaching.
Maybe the Lord will lead us that way. And then we... I just love to be
with you and have the fellowship around the Word with you. And thank
you very much for that fine, wonderful "amen."
33 Now, in the 18th chapter of
Chronicles, and beginning with the 12th verse, we wish to base our
thoughts, just for a little while on this vital subject of the day. I
Chronic... Or, II Chronicles, I beg your pardon. II Chronicles 18:12,
and we'll read a portion of it here, and see what our Lord will have us
to know.
And the messenger
that went to call Micaiah spake to him, saying, Behold, the words of
the prophets declare good unto the king with one assent; let thy word
therefore, I pray thee, be like one of theirs, and speak thou good.
And Micaiah said, As
the LORD liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak.
And when he was come
to the king, the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go up to
Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he said, Go ye up,
and prosper, and they shall be delivered unto your hand.
34 Now, to base our thought
for a few moments, just one word to Him again, on this.
Our heavenly Father, with grateful hearts we approach Thee just now, in
behalf of lost souls, behalf of those who are needy, in behalf of the
church, that--may the Holy Spirit get into the Word quickly now, we
pray. Take It right straight to every heart here that has need. And
when He delivers His Message of the power of the Word into the heart,
may we all prosper by It this morning, going, leaving the tabernacle,
rejoicing and praising God, saying, "Our hearts burns within us because
of His Presence." For we ask it in His Name. Amen.
36 Our scene bases this
morning on a tragic. And the Old Testament to me, is always a shadow or
a--or a forecasting of the New Testament. Many times someone has said,
"Brother Branham, why is it you always take the Old Testament? Nearly
always, taking a text, you'll go back to the Old Testament." I do it
because I like typology. I like...
My education is very limited, as all know. And the only way that I know
to be somewhere near right, is to see what the pattern was, to look off
the blueprint and see what it was. And then I know what that was will
be something similar to what this is here, because it's just the shadow
of it. And I always look back to the Old Testament to see what the
children of Israel did, see what the punishment of sin was, see what
the justice of the prophets was, see what all those things were; and
then I'll have an idea what this is here, which has foreshadowed what
will be in the general wind up at the end.
38 During this time, there had been a great thing happen to Israel. It was in the darkness of its midnight.
39 In the Old Testament, if the Lord willing, maybe in the coming services, I'd like to show how that the Seven Church Ages typed out in the Old Testament. How that they began just exactly like at the--the beginning of the Church Ages of the Gentile church, and went right down through a similar dark age, and come out into the glorious time of Pentecost, at the falling of the Holy Spirit in the early church of the--in the Jewish dispensation. Then going through another period of the Gentile church, through a dark age, and then coming out again into the Millennium at the end...
40 Now, how that back in the
middle centuries there, this great king Ahab came up in power. And he
was kinda riding on the reputation of the other Israelite kings, which
was a... Ahab, himself, was kind of a--a borderline believer. I've
often referred to him that way, because he was part of the time on this
side of the fence, part of the time on that side of the fence.
You'd never know where to stand, a man that's unstable like that. Or a
person that professes to be a Christian, and that unstable, you don't
know what to do about the person. Today they're a Christian; tomorrow
you don't know where they're at. In church today they're rejoicing and
singing and praising God, and tomorrow, out drinking, carousing,
running around. Then that type of a person is hard to do anything with.
42 I remember, as a boy, once
we had a--an old horse, that he used to jump the fences all the time.
And I guess many of you men at my age, would know back in the horse
days, buggy days. I've come a many a time right down this street here,
driving a horse and buggy myself. I'm forty-five. So they... Remember
this old horse, we'd put a yoke on his neck, like you would a cow, to
keep him from jumping the fence. And he'd jump anyhow. And he would
hang that yoke and turn him around, and so forth. He'd get over the
fence. And one day, what he...
I wondered what was attracting that old fellow. And there was a big
sink hole down there. Now, he was standing in alfalfa, oh, high, but he
wanted... There was some blades of orchard grass in a sink hole. And he
jumped that fence and got in that sink hole where all these wire and
glass, where we... the... our--our dump, and get in there to get a few
mouthfuls of that orchard grass. And we had to get some more horses and
pull him out of that sink hole. When he got in there, he got hung up.
And when he stood out there, he was quivering and bleeding, and--and
how he was, just to get a mouthful or two of that orchard grass, when
he was standing in alfalfa, almost to his knees.
44 I've often thought of that picture. "A way of a transgressor is hard." He just wouldn't stay still where he was eating and having a wonderful time, but the--he had to jump the fence and go get all bruised and cut up like that, just to get a mouthful of--of grass of some other different kind. Now, that's just about the way people does that jumps the fence of God's pasture. Don't you believe that? Gets out, go out today; come in; in church having a wonderful time; then tomorrow sell out for something like that. It makes it very hard.
45 Ahab was more or less that type of a person. Every way the wind blowed, Ahab had his sail set, if it was on this side or that side. His marriage got him all messed up, with a little woman which was a little princess, a king's daughter, a Jezebel. Very pretty to look at, very beautiful woman, but in her heart she was wicked. And she was an idolater, and she caused all Israel...
46 Now, how I would like to border there just for a few minutes, as it was, and getting into the core of this on motherhood (See?), there. And when a man starts to get married, the type of a girl, woman that he... It's more than just look at beauty. You've got to get somebody, both soul and body joined together, somebody that's really going to be your friend and pal, that'll stick with you through thick and thin.
47 Now, but Ahab, he just fell for her because she was pretty, I suppose, and marry. It couldn't be nothing else about her, because as wicked as she was. And she come over there. And then, 'course, being wrapped up with her like that, and loved her, why, he caused all Israel to sin and to go against God, and to tear down the altars of God, built the altars of Baalam. And they had Baal worship all through Israel at the time.
48 Now, his wife had caused righteous Naboth... Many of you has read of him. How he took his garden, by deceit, swore a lie, and had false witnesses against him, because she wanted to do something for her husband; and killed a righteous man, in order to get a garden that joined close to the palace land.
49 All this, God was looking
down. So the prophet Elijah, which was a great mighty servant of the
Lord, prophesied and told Jezebel what would happen to her. And he told
Ahab that the dogs would lick his own blood. Now, when God has said
anything... 'Course, them days the direct Word of the Lord came through
the prophet.
"God, in sundry times and divers manners spoke to the fathers through
the prophets, in this last day through His Son, Christ Jesus." So This
is the Word. And if anything's contrary to That, leave it alone. See?
Now, secondarily, He speaks today through the prophet, the seer, and so
forth. But first is This, the Word, now.
52 And Ahab had done this
wickedness. And he went on, God blessing the people for many years. And
finally, Jehoshaphat was king over Judah, while Ahab was king over
Israel.
And then Jehoshaphat was a righteous man. He was the son of Asa. Asa
was a--a righteous man, and he tore down all the altars of--of idols,
built up the altars of Jehovah. And they having a--a revival, as it
was, up in Judah.
54 And then after while Jehoshaphat or... Ahab, rather, sent up, and he found out another piece of land in Syria, that he thought belonged to him, that he thought he'd go get. So he asked this Jehoshaphat if he would come and make an alliance with him.
55 And 'course, there is a
great danger now (See?), when they seen this great king Ahab down
there, and they seen this great one up here, Jehoshaphat: one of them,
a lukewarm; the other, a Spirit-filled man. Watch how you make your
alliance. Watch what you're doing, how you yoke yourself up with
unbelievers. Keep yourself clean, especially in the day that we're
living.
I believe, church, without a shadow of doubt, this is burning on my
heart. That's the reason I'm looking for these five nights, soon, to
once more, before it happens, give this church a thorough combing
through the Bible.
57 We're living in the shadows
of the time. It could happen any time. When we see the times come for
things to take place, the very wickedness of the enemy, the very
powers... We look at these snowstorms and everything a happening, all
these pestilences, all different things, that's all caused by these
interruptions of firing these bombs and things. They're getting things
all mixed up here. And they're messing around in God's big laboratory
to fulfill His Word. It's going to happen.
So "the man of sin" rising up, power, so deceitful... My. I heard a
minister this morning, a Spirit-filled man, taking the mark of the
beast and saying that the antichrist was Russia. What an error. Huh.
Russia has nothing to do with it. No, sir. That's Scripturally. Now,
but notice in this great time that we're living, a warning.
59 Now, this Jehoshaphat, feeling kind of good because the great king of Israel said, "Come, visit me." and he went down there. And they took ox and sheep, and so forth, done sacrifice. All the time, in Ahab's heart down there, he was a deceiver, 'cause he was not worshipping that, or offering those sheep and things with a true heart, because after all, he leaned more to his wife's religion.
60 And notice, just as Ahab married Jezebel during the time of that great dark age of Israel, he brought idolatry into Israel, a very type of today. Just in the dark age... When we come out through the early apostles, second round, third round, over into the dark age, the fifteen hundred years... Just as Ahab married Jezebel and brought idolatry into Israel, so did the Holy Ghost church marry into isms, and brought idolatry back; and today it's a form of Christianity (See, see?), just very dark. And now it's moved on down, each day; each church age moves down to that same thing to the great climax, till the lukewarm condition comes, lukewarm Laodicean Church Age. Oh, what a horrible hour that we're living in.
61 Listen. I want to confess right here, before I go any farther. I'm an old fashion preacher that's longing to see the old days again. I've seen so much of this impersonation, Hollywood glamor-izing the Gospel, till I'm so sick and tired of it. Yes, sir. I want to see the old fashion... I'm afraid we're making Christianity too pretty for people: danger line.
62 Now, Jehoshaphat comes
down, thinks, "Oh, well, this great king of Israel, I'll just... Oh,
we'll... It'll be all right." And right in the midst of all this big
glamour, what did he do? He made an alliance to go up and to fight the
enemy on common grounds, because they said, "We are both the same
people." But they wasn't. One was a Spirit-filled group; the other one
was a lukewarm group. They're not the same people. No, sir. You can't
have...
Darkness can't have fellowship with light. The--the night cannot exist
in the presence of the sunlight. And the most treacherous time there
is, is between the times. Just when the sun is a going down or rising
up, is the most treacherous time there is. There's not enough vision to
see clearly; your lights on your automobile won't show good and clear.
It's better to either be dark or light. Jesus said, "Be hot or cold, no
lukewarm." Just that's the danger line.
64 And there Jehoshaphat, when
he come down... And then this great alliance was made, which did not
please God. And notice, just in the time of his, all the excitement
now, "I have got favor with this king. And oh, I--I--I have fellowship
with this neighbor. I have..."
See, be careful that, church. See? That's what causes all the trouble
around this tabernacle here, and around others. See? Be careful about
what you're mixing up with. See? Come right out, and either be for
Christ or be against Him. See?
66 Now, this fellow made the alliance, and he thought he'd done something great. Yet, when he said, "Isn't there now, before we can go up, we should consult the Lord about this?" Now, Jehoshaphat had enough religion left in him, in his mistake, that he had went down there to this king, but he had enough religion left in him to think, "Well, we ought to at least consult the Lord."
67 Now, Ahab was going right
on out without saying a word, just his own mechanical, physical, human
way of doing things. I just wonder right here, church, if that hasn't
been, a lot of times, we've made mistakes. Figuring it out, and say,
"Well, it ought to be this a way," and we set it like that.
I think that's where a whole lot of the American evangelism is today,
that we have set it in a form of--of, I'd say, Hollywood evangelism,
whole lot about glamour. We notice the evangelist comes to the platform
today, and my, he's all puffed out, and tells a whole lot of jokes
before he starts to preaching, and things like that, and carries on and
acts like a clown in the pulpit. When it comes time to make an altar
call, the people don't even see any sincerity to make an altar call by.
That's right. That's the reason the world's got in a lukewarm condition
today, that it's in.
70 I wonder today. It's just, today, I... The church, we've tried to send our boys to school to learn psychology, and so forth like that, to know how to put over a program, to get in the pulpit and to arrange our... The message is so enticing, that it'll catch the people and catch their attention. And many a great psychologists go out as teachers like that, and dramatize, and put on a whole lot of something. And I just wonder, when they... We're always telling of the beauty and the attraction of the church. But we fail to tell them, "He that will follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me." I wonder if we haven't made the beauty of the church too pretty for the fellow that comes in.
71 For instance, the Baptist
church today has got a slogan, "A million more in '44," taking in
members by the thousands, and the tens of thousands, unconverted, just
people who walk in and join the church. And it's an indebtiment to the
Church of Jesus Christ, to take such members in. They still drink. They
still smoke. They still gamble. They still lie.
They come to the church, expecting to be entertained by a bunch of
Hollywood evangelists that gets up, put on a lot of glamour, and a lot
of big instruments setting up-and-down on the platform, when, they
ought to have an old fashion, God-first, crying out, altar call down
there; where men and women don't come to glamortize, or to run up and
act a clown, but to get down to the altar and realize that the death of
Jesus Christ there, that died for them, that they're getting back
sincere with God again.
74 I wonder if we're not
living in that kind of a time, when we take great evangelists, like
many that's crossing the lands today, of great, known evangelists who
has studied psychology and attract the people to the church. But after
you once get them into the church, then what you going to do to them?
What--what are they going to happen after they get into the church?
Just join the church, and go back with the same sin and the same desire
that they come into the church with. They go back the same way. And
that's the reason today the world looks on, said, "Well, if that man
got religion, if this person got religion..."
I'm afraid we've made it too easy. It's... I love--I think, joy,
certainly, I believe that all joys lays in Jesus Christ. That's right.
I believe it's joyful and happy. But remember, brother, it's the way of
agony and suffering and the cross. You must realize that too. That's
right. I wonder if we haven't painted a little too--a little too smooth
like.
76 I was looking, and my wife
put... Started out, and she put a rose on my coat this morning. She
said, "You ought to wear it. Your mother's a living."
And I said, "Oh, honey, I don't know."
Mother's Day is wonderful, but that's like the world, they've
commercialized the thing, just merely to sell flowers and things like
that. Why, it's a discredit to mother. Why, my mother is my mother
every day of the year, yes, sir, not just one day.
I will say, "You love your mother?"
"I sent her a bouquet of flowers last Mother's Day." Well, brother, she
ought to be mother every day. But it's commercial.
79 That flower is pretty. I
love a pretty flower. I think of that just like I do... How pretty the
flower is. It blooms. And it's got fragrance. And the passer-by smells
it. The animal comes by, smells it. But now look, it's pretty. Like the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, It's the most glorious thing: Divine
healings, and powers, and wonders, and signs, and miracles, and freedom
from sin. It's a beautiful place. But look, if that rose... We'll have
to come, the Church, like all nature.
That rose, being pretty, every cow in the country would lick on it if
she could. But nature provided little bayonets, a little spears
sticking out there, called a thorns, and they leave them away. That
protects it. That's exactly.
81 And I think, today if we
haven't got the Word of God, sharper than a two-edged sword, around the
beauty of the power of the holiness of God, we're going to let every
cow in the country lick on It and cull It. It'll gaum It. It'll be an
indebtiment to the Church. That's right.
I think, today what we need is more old fashion, God-called ministers,
raw, maybe not with much education, but'll bring the people down to an
altar, and there agonize, not with a joy and laughing, and popping
chewing gum, and put their name on a paper; but, brother, an old crying
out and dying out, until men and women thoroughly repent from their
sins and come close to God. Amen.
83 I tell you, we got, "Raise
up your hands, who wants to accept Christ," all like that. That's all
right, brother, but that don't--that don't expel sin.
You've got to repent first, get right, get down there and really cry
out. I can remember the times when the old fashion people would walk
down through the aisles, and up-and-down the roads, a crying, and
talking to their neighbors. That was Christians of that day, telling
about the things of the Lord.
And today we put our name on the church book, and go out and stay home,
and never say a word about it: Unconcerned. "Just as long as we belong
to the church, it's all right." I'm sure we're wrong there, people.
Check up. For that won't stand in the judgment. No, sir. It won't.
Nothing less, "He that will follow Me, let him deny himself, take up
his cross, and die daily." Stay dead there on the cross. That's right.
Agony... "The way, I'll take the way," you sing, "with the Lord's
despised few."
87 I think today what a time
that we're living in. That evangelism, they put it out in great big
bright lights and they try... When you see the evangelist coming to
town, you wonder. I, my meetings has been guilty of the same. That's
right. I wonder who's coming to town sometimes, the evangelist or Jesus
Christ? Why, they got...
I went into a place here, not long ago, where a certain evangelist was
supposed to come. And Jesus' Name... Why, they had the picture of the
evangelist, "the man of the hour," the man's with this, and the man
with that.
89 I, sometimes I think of my ministry, and see people come. And I'd get in a hotel room, say, "God, who--who's the people coming to see, me or You?" See? "If they're coming to see me, they're lost yet; but, O God, tear me down and take me away. I want to represent You, the One Who'll stand before someday with trembling hands and trembling, feeble body, looking at me, knowing that my soul hangs by Your decision." Let us exalt Christ.
90 Today they say, "Well, I
belong to the Baptist. I'm a Methodist. I'm belong to the Tabernacle. I
do this." Oh, that has nothing to do with it, not a thing. I wonder
sometime.
Here not long ago, I seen a--an advertisement up, where a certain
campaign was coming to the city. And the word of the man, the man's
name were in great big letters all the way around, like that. And on
the bottom, in a little corner, said, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today, and forever," way down in the corner. See?
They took all the sacredness from Christ and put it onto some man, or
some church, or some organization. Brother, I'm telling you; you can
get by with glamour, Hollywood clowning like that, and it's by the
church. But in the Presence of Jesus Christ, He's the One to be
glorified. That's right. Now, that's the truth, my dear brother and
sister.
93 Don't feel angry at me. You just remember that I'm preaching to you. I want to preach as if this was the last sermon I'd ever preach in my life. I want to preach every sermon I preach, as if I was a dying man preaching to dying men. And I am; my light's burning down, every day; yours is too. And we're dying mortals. And we got to face the living God some of these days, and we better be in deep sincerity about this.
94 And just in a glamour, and carrying on, and join the church, and go here and there, act this way and that way. We better be having old fashion prayer meetings in our homes and crying out to God day and night. The day is at hand, a time of distress, a time of trouble." The Bible said, "a dark day." And we're living in it.
96 How that this great man went down there under the excitement. He joined himself with the lukewarms, with a border line, and thought he was doing something great, thought that God was a blessing him. And not realizing that right then he was bringing in all this group with him. What? "Our little group of Judah--of Judah up here would come down and join ourself with the great bands of Israel. What a mighty people we'll be."
97 There you are. And that's
the very line of deceit the Devil's using right now to bring in the
antichrist, just as certain as I'm standing into this. "We'll unite our
efforts together." We can't do that. How can two walk together except
they be agreed?
This United States making the same, selfsame experience and the same
mistake, when it united with Russia back yonder, at the time they was
about ready to have war, and bound ourselves together with Russia. And
now you see what we got, don't you? They got our airplanes and all of
our secrets, and our atomic bombs and everything laying over there to
blow it back at us. Same thing goes by spiritual.
99 Then we find out, after
Jehoshaphat had made this alliance, and they consulted... Now, watch,
watch the outside world. He said, "Sure, we've got plenty of prophets
down here. We got a seminary full of them."
They go down and get the fellows there that had been trained, who
knowed psychology, who knowed all about it, said, "Come up now, and
we're asking and consult the Lord."
All of them, of course, in their fleshly puffed up mind, come up there
and said, "Now, look, we... You go on up. The Lord is with you, and the
Lord's going to give you that piece of land up there, that it's going
to be yours. You're going to push the Syrians all the way back. You're
going to do it." One of them even made hisself a big pair of iron horns
and begin to run around like this, saying, "This is what. You're going
to push the Syrians away."
102 But, Jehoshaphat, just a
little more spiritual to put up with that tommyrot of clowning...
That's right.
God, give us some more Jehoshaphats, sick and tired of this here
Hollywood clowning (That's right.), putting on, pretending to be
something that they're not; making out, dramatizing, drawing in. And
then when they come in, what's you got when he got in? Like asking a
man, "come swim," and in a desert. Nothing but bay sand upon your head
to cause sorrows afterwards...
104 Now, notice, what can you
bring them into? A certain lady said to me the other day, "A man said,
'I'd go to church, but what--what would I get when I went to church?'"
Said, "'All they do is organize some supper, and they--about this,
that, and the other.'"
And the lady said, "I stood speechless, for I didn't know where to send
him." There you are. Said, "I wish I could find an old church where
they really sing the old fashion hymns and live godly."
Children that are hungry, they'll eat from a garbage can. It's up to
the Church of the living God to feed them the true living Word of
the--of God.
106 There in all that glamour
and stuff, Jehoshaphat said, "Isn't there one more?"
"One more?" said Ahab. "Well, what do you need with any one more? We've
got four hundred of the best, selected, educated, top-fed, dressed men
there is in the country, standing here, every one of them with one
accord, and one heart, and one voice, saying, 'Go. God is with you.'"
108 I wonder if United States hasn't met the same thing. I wonder if the Church of God hasn't met the same thing. I wonder. "Well," say, "look, they're having success. They're having great, big meetings. They're carrying thousands at a time." But I wonder if there isn't just one more. I wonder if there isn't something different.
109 We find out, we have thirty thousand converts in six weeks, and six weeks later we haven't got a one. There's something wrong somewhere. That's right. And it's all glamour, putting on. The world, through television, through radio, through picture shows, and those outlets there, has corrupted this nation with the tommyrot of Hollywood. Right. Everything wants to be in big glamour. Isn't that the truth? You know that's the truth. We don't have any more of the old fashion religion that we used to have years ago. It's because it's been let down. We'll get to it, just in a moment, you'll see.
110 Watch. What a beautiful
picture, or a stirring picture, I should say. And here come this
Jehoshaphat, said, "Yes, I see them all. They're every one got their
degrees," and whatever it was. "They're also be prophets. They're great
ministers. They're out of great colleges. And they're all this. They're
out of the big school of the prophet, and everything. They're all with
one accord. That's true. But isn't there just one more?"
"Well, what will you need with one more, when four hundred is giving
consent at one time?"
But that man, way down in his heart, had God. And he knew that there
was something wrong about that. Yes, sir. He knowed there was something
rotten. Why? Let me give you... The Scripture doesn't quote it, but
here's what I get. I know that--that Jehoshaphat knew that that
hypocrite down there, Ahab, that he wasn't right with God. And Elijah
had prophesied the Word of God to him. And how could God bless what He
had cursed? Amen.
113 I say the same thing today, friend. And the Church of the living God, who's standing true to God, will say the same thing. You can't mix oil and water together and call it salvation. You can't. Got to separate yourself, brother. Something's got to happen. If there's any hope left, we got to do something, and do it quickly; for the hour of the rapture is at hand.
114 Things are heaping up, everything, and the church is so far away. They read all kinds of magazines, books, stories, and everything. I could go today to a... I can go to a church, and I can say, "Oh, how many know..." They know every hymn, after one of these big revivals. "Now, what--what page is certain-certain hymn on?" They know it. They know who it is. They know who's running for President, and who's running for this, and how many movie stars married, and this and that, the other. But the Word of God they know nothing of. There you are. So we're giving their... And yet, they profess to be Christians.
115 And the people is not at
blame. It's from behind the platform, where it come from. Exactly. It's
from behind the platform. They teach them all kinds of rhythms, and all
kinds of this and that, and organizations, how to make you preach, and
everything like that. I wonder if it's paid? Nothing against it, but
I'm wondering if that's God's requirement.
When Jesus said, "Except a man be born of water and Spirit, he will in
no wise enter into the Kingdom. He that will for... will follow after
Me, let him deny hisself and his own worldly pleasure, take up His
cross and follow after Me." Cross is a symbol of death, agony. "He that
will be a Christian, let him strip himself of his own thoughts. Let him
strip hisself of his own works. Let him strip hisself of everything,
denying himself, and take up that consecrated cross, and follow Me
daily. He that will come after Me, let him do that." That's what Jesus
said.
117 But today we say,
"Everybody have a big time. Everybody clap their hands. Everybody
holler, 'Hallelujah.' Everybody do this." Oh, how we got a bunch of
fuss. Amen. God... We get these new songs out and sing them so fast,
that it looks like we're going to run through the wall with them, or
something like that.
When, I think if we'd be singing "Nearer, My God, To Thee," would be a
whole lot better for the Church: the old fashion hymns.
Get a lot of dance orchestra people, some boy in a dance orchestra over
here playing, last night, and tonight over here playing in the church
of the living God? It's an abomination in the sight of God. Let that
man be proved first, and let him bring forth fruits meet for repentance
to show that he's right with God.
They bring the jazz world right into the platform. They bring the
Hollywood, glamortizing preaching, right into the platform.
121 Why didn't I set in your fair city a few weeks ago, in Louisville, Kentucky? My heart break, when they was all setting there, willing to see the miracles of God; and as soon as you preach the Gospel, they'd fill up, in a second, and turn their backs and walk out of the building. Certainly. They don't want it. Their hearts are hardened. Step out; and many of them, Protestants too, who go to Protestant churches... But they'd been fells--filled so full of glamour and everything like that, of tommyrot and churchism, until they know nothing about the Spirit of the living God: "Having a form of godliness, and denying the power thereof." What a day that we're living. Watch where it heaps up.
122 Jehoshaphat said, "I know,
Ahab. There's your four hundred preachers. They're all fine-looking
fellows, every one dressed and their hair combed neatly, and
everything, whatevermore they may be. They may have their D.D.'s. They
may have their all kinds of degrees. They may know the Scriptures from
A to Z. But haven't you got one more somewhere? Hasn't there just one
more somewhere?"
He said, "Yes, there's one more, but I hate him." There you are. There
you are. "I hate him." Remember, Ahab was a religious man, and these
were religious teachers, but they hated this man who had the truth.
Said, "I hate him." Said, "He's always bellowing out something against
me." How could he keep from doing it when the Word of God had condemned
him?
124 How can you hold still if
you're a man of God, or a woman of God, and know and see sin and things
heaped and weighted, and everything like that; and see human souls
going to hell, millions a day, and stand still? You can't do it.
Someone said to me the other day, "You think you can stop it?"
I said, "No. I can't stop it, 'cause God said. But one day at the
judgment bar, they're going to pull out the big screen, flash on the
camera yonder, and that tape recording's going to be played. And I'm
going to stand and listen at it; I want to hear my voice warning
against it. God will judge me when my voice comes against it." Yes,
sir. When we see this life, this generation, re-enacted again yonder at
the judgment... Certainly. We're living in a terrible time. And there
it is.
And we see him; he said, "Isn't there one more?"
He said, "Yes, but I hate him, for he's always prophesying evil against
me."
127 How can he keep from preaching those hard things, when he sees it going on, see Ahab living like he was and doing like he was, and bringing the people like they are? How can a man of God or a woman of God keep from hollering out and rebuking sin from every side when, they see these lukewarm preachers, and glamortizers, and educators, and so forth like that, out letting the people go to hell by the millions, under deceit? A lot of... Even in the holiness people... I'm not talking so much about Methodists and Baptists and things like that; they have it too. But it's right down in their own ranks.
129 My, coming to the platform, like everything else but Christians, living like everything else across the countries and things, then they call it religion. It's a religion, but it's a long ways from the salvation of the Lord. That's right. They just got the people till it's just a big bunch of worked-up. Then as soon as the little work-up goes over, then, the first thing you know, you can't find a one of them; the church is setting empty. But if a man loves God, he will fill his seat of the church every time. He can't stay away from it. That's right.
130 Now, notice just a few
minutes. I'll try to hurry, get straight to the point now, 'cause my
time's getting away.
Notice, then he said, "Isn't there but one more?"
He said, "Yes, but I hate him. He's always prophesying against me. He's
saying evil things against me."
"All right, said, "go get him."
He said, "His name is Micaiah."
But this man had enough religion to know that these fellows wasn't
right.
133 And any man that's ever
been touched, the least bit, by the Spirit of God, knows that these
things, what's called Christianity today, is not right. "You can't love
the world or the things of the world; if you do, the love of the God is
not in you." The Bible said so.
Now, look. He said, "Go, get him." And they went over.
And then he sent a little old messenger along, the deacon of the
church, perhaps, or somebody, went over there and said, "Now, look,
Micaiah, we're going to bring you over here before Ahab and
Jehoshaphat. Now, they're both setting out there. And they're great men
now. They're teachers and they're scholars. And they got their degree
and so forth. And every one of our seminary, every one of our churches
here, is a perfect at agreement that this is the will of the Lord. Now,
you say the same thing they say, and I'll tell, you'll dress better and
ride in a Cadillac car. I'll tell you; you'll just be a great fellow if
you'll do that. Yes, sir. You'll prosper."
Micaiah said, "As the Lord God lives, I'll only say what God says."
Amen. Yeah. Oh, there's a man after my heart. "I may have to eat bread
and water," which he did, "for doing it." You may be smote on one cheek
and the other, whatevermore, but he told the truth and stood by it. God
confirmed it to be the truth. He wasn't so popular, but he knowed God.
136 Brought little old Micaiah
over there. He said, "All right, Micaiah, what do you say about it?"
He said, "Go on up. Go on up." Said, "Go up in peace. Go ahead,
prosper, that's what I want you to do. But I seen Israel like sheep
without a shepherd on a hill, scattered. That's it," he said.
And when he did like that; and Ahab turned around, and Jehoshaphat.
Said, "What'd I tell you? That holy-roller..." or what, excuse me, or
whatever he was, that guy said that. "What'd I tell you? That fellow
would only prophesy evil against me. What'd I tell you? He'd only
condemn our church, and condemn our ministers, and condemn our way of
religion. What'd I tell you? He'd say it. I know him. I knowed his
daddy before him." Amen. "I knowed his daddy before him." Um, yes, sir,
a real man of God. Said, "I knowed he'd say that."
And so then he said, "Yes," said, "I saw Israel like sheep scattered
without a shepherd on a hill." And so then he said, "I..."
140 And then one of those
fellows that had the big horns, was going to push off, a preacher
walked over and pulled little Micaiah around, and smacked him in the
mouth as hard as he could, said, "Which way did the Spirit of God go
when It went out of me? If you knowed."
Said, he said, "Wait till you're setting in prison over here, and
you'll know which a way it went." That's right.
142 Wait till Russia is setting out here taking over the nations and things like that, and this country, because of its backsliding, and you'll see what was right and wrong. That's right. You'd see whether your lukewarm religion will pay off, or not.
143 Let this nation come to tears, not come to laughter and drama. Let this nation come to its knees in repentance. That's what we need, not a revival to get a whole lot of people in a church. We need to close every bootleg joint, stop all cigarette smoking, tear down the factories, start up a real, old fashion, Holy Ghost campaign, where men and women, day and night, laying on their face, crying. I'll tell you, it'll be the greatest shelter that this nation's ever had. That's true.
144 Let the Branham Tabernacle quit its foolishness. Let it get back here at the altar and get right with God. Make up with the neighbors, and so forth like that, and get right with God. You won't have any fusses and going on; it'll be the drawing spot of the world. That's right. Now, that's the truth.
145 Then he said, "Which way
did the Spirit of God go out of me?"
And Micaiah said, "I saw God and His host, His council, setting in
glory."
You know, God has a council up there, once in a while. He--He brings up
His--His Angelic Beings and holds a--a council once in a while up in
heaven.
And he said, "I saw Him setting upon a throne, and all the people were
standing on the right and left hand of Him." And said, "They were
discussing, 'Who can we get to go down and deceive Ahab to get him out
here and to fulfill Elijah's prophecy? God's done said so, what was
going to happen, so we'll just see who can go down.'"
149 "And a lying spirit come up from beneath," of course, out of hell, "come up before God and said, 'I'll go down, and I'll get in those preachers and cause them all to prophesy a lie.'" Oh, did that blow them up? Did that make them feel funny, when, "They said, 'I'll go down and cause those preachers, every one of them, to prophesy a lie.'" And he got down and got in those preachers, and they begin to prophesy a lie.
150 And brother, the same God
rules on the same throne today. And that same lying spirit has done the
same thing today, prophesying lies.
They kept saying, "Peace, peace, peace," after the First World War.
Let me show you where it come from. In the First World War, when France
over there turned away from God in their gay '90's, and begin...
Now, I'm going to get a little on morals, so you all just set real
quiet for a few minutes.
Look, on back there in the beginning, over in France, there's where
orneriness and filth first begin. If there ever was a rat hole in the
world, it's Paris, France. I've pretty near traveled most of it, and
that's the worst place I ever seen. And London, England, is not much of
an exception. And the United States is coming right in line with it.
That's right. There they are.
155 Every time that you break
the morals of womanhood, you break the backbone of the nation.
Here you go over in their own countries, and say you're a missionary,
they don't like... Say, "What are you going to tell us to do, how to
sing dirty songs about our wives, or about our girls? You going to tell
us how to divorce our wives? Teach us how to drink whiskey and go the
way we do?" That's what we are.
We call ourself the religious nation, the Christian nation. Well, them
"heathens" in Africa could teach us morals, how to live. The rottenest
place in the United States, or the world, nearly, is this nation, how
it's got. I'm an American, certainly. But, brother, I can't help... But
from before Ahab or Jehoshaphat, and I got to tell what God says is the
truth. That's what the church needs to stand for today. If it comes
between nation and God, it's God, always. Yes, sir.
158 Notice, in France they
started all their rottenness and going on the way they lived over
there. And then God sent Germany in to them to beat off a little bit.
Then we went over there to save their hide. And as soon as we done
that, and won the war, sent the Germans back, had peace with France,
did they turn to God? No, sir. Women, wine, debauchery, sin and filth
to the gills...
Then what did they do? What happened? Here's where we started. The
Devil set up his headquarters there. There's where he started, right
there, to demoralize the world from Paris, France.
160 Then, if you notice, he couldn't get in here through the ministry, so the thing he done was come in to Hollywood out here. He set up his Holl... He set up his headquarters over here in Hollywood. The Devil landed back here a few years ago, fifteen or twenty years ago, with his great army, and went, hit in Hollywood, California, and he's invaded the United States with his demon powers. Right. All of our fashions come from Paris. They get into Hollywood, onto the screens. These little girls and little boys, and things, get out here, they watch them screen plays. Nice little kiddies, fine little fellows, nothing against them, God bless their little hearts. My heart bleeds for them.
162 And right here in the city I was talking to my--one of--my boy, the other day, he said "Daddy, if there's just some boys around there in town, that had the Holy Ghost, and so forth." You wonder why I was getting away to Denver, Colorado, or somewhere like that? Get my children somewhere where there's a bunch of people who cry out to God. What we need, brother...
163 This country, this nation,
this city, this place, is become so demoralized till it's pitiful. If I
could only express right now what I absolutely know to be the truth
right here, it wouldn't even be presentable before a mixed audience.
Or, right here in this own city right here... not only here, but other
places, everywhere, it's begin to come a simply...
Because why? The people... Look, friends, it's got so cunning. It's
come in so easy, till it just smothers you down. The Devil used to be
in fashions. He might not have went out of fashions, but he didn't go
out of business; I'll tell you that. He's still in business.
165 Look, today. We take, like
I said awhile ago, about the little lady, a little old girl with a
rose. For instance, the rose, it's pretty; it's there to be looked at.
That's true. And that's just like the church; it's there to be looked
at. Like a pretty little woman, she's there to be looked at. That's
right. But if she... She's fine, that... She's to her husband, she--she
is all right. But if she hasn't got the moral sword sticking out there
to protect her, she becomes a indebtiment to society and human being:
get so low and scandalous and rotten till the dogs wouldn't look at
her. That's right.
And the same thing to the church of the living God. They get out here
and try to glamortize and fix themselves up, and act like... They strip
their women. Here, right... And people don't realize that these devils
are invading your homes.
167 Right in my neighborhood
the other day, a young lady which I think is a nice woman... And she's
a married woman, got a child. And the little woman come out there. Men
come down the road to do some work, and this little lady got out there
with them little bitty old clothes on, was horrible.
This is an awful Mother Day speech. But, my brother, let me tell you
something. Mother, get back to be mother again.
Even to a little bitty boy was visiting our neighborhood, come in and
told us about it, "Look out there."
I said, "Well, that's nothing."
The woman's a nice woman. I don't say she is demoralized. But the thing
of it is, there's an ornery, filthy spirit on her, making her do that,
and she don't know it.
171 What in the world would a mother want, or anybody, put on those little old dirty clothes, and stretch themself out before men? You're pretty, sister. You're pretty, mother. I thank God for you. But you're pretty, but you haven't got the Holy Spirit there to protect those morals. You'd have been better if you was so ugly nobody would have looked at you, and went to heaven. That's right. That's true. Watch what you're doing: those moral.
172 Now, what it is, the Devil
has come in, and he's told the people these things. He's got into the
preachers; He's patterning after Hollywood. The girls and the
young--young ladies, they pattern after Hollywood. The best of things
that they have in the country today, the most moralist you can hear, is
talk about on the radio talk.
Some old woman like Mrs. Kay Starr, nothing against her; but to see an
old woman fifty years old, and all, with her clothes all pushed out on
her like she was poured in a meal sack... I ain't saying that for a
joke, 'cause I'm talking against those things. But a woman act like
that, and stand up and be an example to a young American women, it's an
indebtiment to our nation. It's the Devil.
Guys like Arthur Godfrey and them running around here, doing the things
that they do, and the most noted man in the country like that, and,
why, it's a disgrace.
175 Hallelujah. I say that because I feel the Holy Spirit is here. The invasion's on, just sweeping from house to house, from place to place, from church to church, from man to man.
176 Children, in the Name of
Jesus Christ, rise with the moral stands of the revival and the Lord
Jesus Christ, and say, "I'll take the way with the Lord's despised
few." Yes, sir. "I'll be a real mother." "I'll be a real dad."
When
the whole world, and all around, all around my soul gives way,
Then
He is all my hope and stay.
For on
Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All
other grounds is sinking sand,
All
other grounds...
177 What's caused all this
stuff? What's caused ministers to act like this? What made preachers
prophesy this lie to the people? Why did it, years ago, that you
Methodist people... When old John Smith was packed to his pulpit to
preach the Gospel, and he preached a short sermon of four hours, and he
said, "The trouble of it is, that my heart is breaking." He said, "The
Methodist daughters are even wearing rings on their fingers."
And today they're dressed in shorts and little old dirty clothes. And
they'll be perfectly nude in another five years, if something ain't
done. What's happened to you Methodist preachers, you Campbellites, you
Baptists? Yes, sir. It's the Devil has throwed down his powers, and
he's got his imps out here.
And you don't realize it, you smoking cigarettes, you women, and doing
the way you're doing out there, and drinking and carrying on the way
you're doing, you don't realize that you're poisoning your system and
ruining the whole generations that'll follow you, if there is such a
thing. Eighty-five percent more chance to take cancer by smoking
cigarettes, and you deliberately move right into them. And the churches
endorse it.
181 In our great Baptist
churches here recently... I'm hitting the Baptists. I got a right to
that; they kind of lean on the side that I come from. But when they had
to give intermission between the Sunday school service and the
preaching service so that the pastor and all could go out and have a
smoke, and the street was lined with men and women smoking cigarettes.
The Devil has done that. That's right.
Then here in our own city, one of our most outstanding ministers, right
down here in New Albany, at this playground, that one of our
outstanding ministers of the city is directing a square-dance program
to bring men and women on the platform.
183 Don't care what the world
says, I don't care how you try to coax around it; brother, there is no
red-blooded man pulling up to another man's wife, and feel the same.
You know that's the truth.
They've took our women and stripped them, out yonder in the offices,
and the driving taxicabs, and up-and-down the street. where they ought
to be at home behind the stove cooking, and fixing the dinners.
185 What is it? It's the Devil.
The invasion's on. I ain't saying nothing about this individual or that
individual. I'm saying it's unclean spirits that are possessing the
people, driving them right into it.
The invasion of the United States, the overthrow of the church... The
church is overthrowed by the Devil. Back yonder...
187 They take a boy up now when he comes to a seminary, the first thing he has to learn is to get his degree. He has to take psychology. He has to take theology. He has to teach, get all kinds of stuff indoctrinated in him. If he hasn't got a real fine education, if he isn't as smart and bright as he can be, then they'll turn him out; he can't qualify. What's he to do? To go out here and present a little political talk, as it was, a church politic talk to a group of people, to a bunch of dying men and women.
188 O God, send us some old fashion, sassafras men who doesn't know A from B, that knows the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who'll preach repentance, and send men and women to the altar, to love the Lord Jesus. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
189 It's an indebtiment. He's
invaded the seminaries. He's invaded the churches. He's done stripped
our women. He's got our men into a place that you can't tell them
nothing. And men and woman, I think...
You say, "Well, the women." Yes, and you men that'll permit your wives
to do that, that shows what you're made out of. That's just exactly.
Certainly. It's a disgrace. It's a pity.
And then down to the preacher... The preacher stands in the platform
today of a modern pulpit, stands in there, with his people before him,
and preach about every little old thing in the world besides repentance
and sin, and the rugged cross of Christ. Yes.
192 When you lay the facts down, the people come to hear you in evangelistic service. You're trying to get the thing and preach the Gospel, and get people repenting and get them out; they'll blow up and walk out, they, "Don't have to hear It." No, they don't. But, brethren, they're going to have to repent or perish.
193 Demons... You go to the
school; it's invaded the school. Look around over the country today.
Looky here, you people, you Protestants. Look, there's four great big
Catholic schools and things, built up today. Why is it? You're letting
down the bars.
Nothing against Catholicism, no, I don't believe in it. I'm a strictly
a Protestant. That's exactly right, and can prove they don't... You
can't argue with them. They say, "We don't care what the Bible says. We
know what the church says."
God's in His Word. This is where God is at. But some of the Catholics,
sticking to their church, would make you ashamed of yourself as a
Protestant. If you'd only stick to the Bible, as they stick to the
church... That's right. But they're wrong. I can say that under the
authority of Almighty God, that they're wrong. Absolutely.
And you Protestants are wrong the way you're doing, 'cause you really
know better, and you do it. That makes a hypocrite out of you. Sure,
it's the invasion; churches letting down.
198 And now, instead of the
church, trying to make the church beautiful, build a bigger church, put
big spires on it, great big pipe organs, and get everything trying to
pattern like the Catholic church. You don't want to pattern like the
Catholic church, if she's doomed to go to destruction. For that's THUS
SAITH THE LORD, she's doomed to go to destructions. And you're a
pattern after her, you're going with her.
But what we need today is not a big church, a big spire; is an old
fashion altars where sins are burned up under consecrated prayers of
men and women who love the Lord Jesus Christ. You know that. That's
what we need. Hear me, friends. Hear me. It's love.
200 My time's gone. I'd just like to linger on that, where... I'll pick it up a little later on, that invasion, where it's went to. It's invaded. It's invaded our nations. It invaded United States.
201 Now, remember, I never cast
a vote in my life. See? That's nothing to brag on. That's my American
birthrights if I want to do it. But I think too much of my friends to
put them in there. Look, I've seen them go in as fine men, come out as
crooks, and I don't want that.
I have one thing. I'm here building a platform for one Person Who's the
Candidate, and that's Jesus Christ, and Him alone. I give my time for
Him. That's right. If I can get the church straightened out, the rest
of the world will take care of itself. That's right.
203 But let me tell you, when
Mr. Roosevelt (The man's dead. Let him rest; I trust he is.) come in,
and run in three or four terms, and taken over, just a preliminary
dictatorship... I can prove to you, that in the Scripture, where That
said it'd take place. That's right. We haven't got no more
constitution. She's broke to pieces. Everything's all smattered. The
Republicans is just as bad. It's six of one, and half a dozen of the
other one.
For every kingdom is going to be smashed, but the Kingdom of Jesus
Christ shall stand and reign forever. That's right. Upon... Daniel saw
the Rock hewed out of the mountains, and hit the political world back
there and mashed it into a grinding powder like that, like the wheat on
a thrashing floor in the summertime. But that Rock grew into a great
mountain that spread over the--filled the whole heavens and earth.
That's it.
205 The political world's gone.
Our nation is broke. You remember that, that Brother Branham said that,
THUS SAITH THE LORD. Our nation is debolished. It'll never rise. She's
gone, like all the rest of the nations. It's the greatest nation in the
world standing today, but the very seed of the Devil has been planted
into the hearts of the people; how it come into Hollywood, how it got
out into the people, and begin to this... And you can't tell them
nothing.
Get a President up there who'll try to close whiskey, and not have
prohibition, see what would happen. He'd be shot in two hours after he
got in there. Sure, he can't stand it; the whole world's against him.
Yes, sir. You couldn't do it.
She's gone. She's invaded, and the spirit of communism has took over.
208 Go to our schools today,
look at our school children. Our little old fellows that go to school,
you just ought to know what goes on. Little girls down here in the
schools, and things like that, at the age of fourteen and fifteen,
their mammy sent them to school, wrecked morally, mentally, dope
fiends, dope addicts, cigarette pumpers, everything else like that; and
a little bitty age, the little children like that. It'd be as hard to
find a virgin among some of them as it would be to find a needle in a
haystack, where they have blanket dates with the boys, and stretch on
these river banks and everywhere else.
And I can prove it to you, my friends. I wouldn't say it in the pulpit
'less I knew what I was talking about. Of schools right here in
our--our counties, right in here in these counties, of those little
ladies dressing, don't know... telling their mothers that they're going
to different places, and meeting boys and even prostituting on the
streets of Louisville (What is it?) and sing in choirs...
Because they got a little old social Gospel standing there, where
preachers stand and talk about little petty things, and little bitty
stories of the Bible, or something like that, instead of preaching
repentance and bringing men and women to the altar.
Her daddy walk in at night and light up his cigar, take a glass of
beer, and set down and drink it. Mother's out through the daytime with
a bunch of women at some card party, some social like that. How can you
expect the child to be anything else? Look, whatever an environment you
live in, that's what you are.
213 You take a little bitty
girl, little bitty boy, put them out here, let them live with
somebody... You take a man... I can take my boy, let him be out for a
day with somebody; let me come in, I can almost tell you who he's been
with. Certainly. Watch, that environment, that spirit catches him.
You go into a church, where the people all... You go into Holy Ghost
churches, or--or Pentecostal churches, they call it. Look everybody
be... Oh, they run and jerk their head back and forth, the pastor does;
watch the whole church begin to do the same thing. Let the men, the
people, get up and--and just carry on terrible, or something another;
watch the whole thing do that. Get into a place where the pastor's real
starchy and cold; watch the whole group do it. You come into that
environment.
You take a man that's a good moral man, and let him marry a little old
woman that ain't worth a dime; it isn't long till he ain't worth a dime
either. That's what happened to Ahab. Take the same, vice versa, let a
nice little woman marry an old man that ain't worth a dime; the first
thing you know, she's doing the same thing he is.
How could I go, this morning, and point my hands on little broken up
homes and things like that, where lovely little mothers come into a
drinking dad, and things like that, and thought they could do something
with them, and now the whole mother and all of them is a drinking and
going on. It's environment.
217 What is it? It's the Devil.
It's the Devil, the invasion. He swept into this nation like a roaring
lion. He set hisself down here in the best place they had, in
Hollywood. He said, "I can get the movies here until the television
comes on, then I'll get them." And he set down there.
And the church people, instead of shutting down the shows and not
letting their children go, they give them ten cents on a Sunday
afternoon and send them down there, so they could have a little social
card party, be out to theirself and ride around. Oh, what a disgrace.
Now they just turn the television on and watch all the dirty, rotten
tommyrot there is in the world on it. That's right.
I ain't got nothing against the movie. I ain't got nothing against
television. It's the rotten stuff that's on it. That's what it is. If
you'd have kept it moral, it'd a-had to stay moral.
220 You couldn't sell old
fashion button shoes here in town today, at all. Women don't want them.
They want the toes out of them. The rest of the women's a doing it.
That's right.
When you go to church, you can't sell them old-time religion, 'cause
the other woman, she don't want nothing to do with that. No, sir. "And
no need me going down there. I just believe; that's all there is to
it." Oh, brother, the Devil believes too. That's right. You'll repent
or perish.
222 Now, sorry... No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I take that back. I love people. But I--I love you too well to see you go into a headlong plunge like that. If God willing, I'll pick this up a little later on in the week.
223 Now, to you mothers that's mothers, just a word to you before going. God bless you. You bring your children up right.
224 We'll pick up this
invasion; we got to go into the homes yet, and a lot of places, the
schools, and out in places with it. We'll pick it up.
But the invasion of the United States, the Devil has took her over.
Don't be afraid of Russia. Russia ain't got nothing to do. We're doing
it ourselves, our own rottenness right among us. That's right.
You know, the United States has more divorce cases than all the rest of
the world? More divorces, think of it. That horrible? The motherhood
has been broken. Mothers don't stay at home no more with their
children, like they used to. They got to have a job.
227 Here the other day, a certain grocery man in this city, was talking to me about it. These women working in this public plants, these young married women with a bunch of little kids, they got babysitters taking care of their babies to work these public places. Said, "There was two of them standing in a... When they got laid off at their public works, 'Don't worry. We'll make it anyhow.'"
228 Oh, such an hour of
prostitution at hand. Sure. The Devil's done told them that they're the
boss of the house. They'll make their own way. They'll do what they
wish to. And you get it out of them, if you can.
There's only one thing can get it out of them, that's the altar, before
Jesus Christ, an old fashion, tear-streaming religion that'll break
their hearts and tear them to pieces, and make them what they ought to
be. That's right.
230 They may think I'm just an
old fogy. But the day when you're dying, my brother, sister, you'll
realize that I told you the truth. That's right.
She's on, the invasion; the hour is here. Now, yes, an hour of decision
too, a hour of decision; not to come to church, but an hour of decision
whether you're going to serve Christ or stay lukewarm in your church.
And that's right.
232 There's plenty of church
members. If all the mem--or the people of America that profess to be
Christians, would be real Christians, borned again Christians, brother,
we'd be as safe as you'd be in heaven almost from mortal troubles. Yes,
sir, diseases would leave the land, everything else.
Wouldn't it be nice to come down the street and see where a lady come
by and men, "How do you do, sister? Good morning, brother?" Walk down,
there's not... You don't have one worry in the world. Everything is
just fine and dandy. And the fellow come to the street corner; instead
of trying to run over you, he'd stop, "All right, brother. All right,
you had... Oh, you before me." You see, just prefer... Wouldn't that be
wonderful? We're going to have it, but that's in the Millennium,
brother. The day...?... coming. That's right. So now we're not...
234 I stood in our neighborhood
here the other day; nothing against our neighborhood, but I can notice
all the little children. Wife was crying. A certain doctor of this
town, his little girl was running around with my little girl, and they
loved one another, until they found out that her name was Branham, and
she was Reverend Branham's child. That settled it. The little girl
couldn't go with my little girl anymore. "Well," I thought, "well,
okay."
Some of the little neighbors run over there, and said, "Well..." It was
all right till they went to their pastor. Don't tell me. You know, I--I
have a way of knowing a lot of things. You see? So they--they went to
their pastor, and said, "You know, there's a man lives in our
neighborhood, is so good to our children." Said, "It's Reverend
Branham. He takes them, haul them in his little old truck, and takes
them out..."
Said, "Well, [Brother
Branham clears his throat--Ed.] we have nothing against
Reverend Branham. He's all right, but, you see, he's just a different
class of people than what we are." See? "We... I--I would that you
wouldn't be... You know, I wouldn't kind of... You speak to them, and
be friendly, but just let that be the end."
Oh, brother. My wife was standing there, crying. I said, "Sweetheart,
it's a separating line. As for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord."
Though all the world gives a way, still Jesus Christ... If I have to be
called a fanatic, if I have to be shunned by my kinsman, my fellow man,
and things like that, I still choose Jesus Christ. Hold to God's
unchanging hand. When earthly friends forsake you, still more closer to
Him cling. Hold to Him.
239 God, let me preach like I've never before. Let me preach to dying men, as a dying man, myself. Let me preach to people like I'd never have another sermon to preach. Let me persuade them to come to the altar with streaming faces with tears; go back home and live like Christians, and live in their neighborhood. Stop all this here frolic and running around, and jumping and carrying on, and acting this way, and blowing up at this, and going that way. Oh, don't do that. That's the Devil. Them demon spirits come on Christians.
240 Remember, those ministers down there, that was them prophets, they were prophets. They were religious men offering a sacrifice. They were just as religious as the teachers of this day, but, brother, they was a long ways from knowing the truth.
241 Don't you see how religious the Devil is? The Devil's not no anti-, great big thing like communism, all against Christianity. That's not. That's just all of the Devil, sure, but it's not the antichrist. The antichrist is very religious, very religious. It was a religious spirit that crucified Jesus. It's always been a religious world, a religious people, that crucifies. It's the religious people that was against the true Christ. It was the religious prophets that was against Micaiah. It's the religious people of the day that's against the Message of God.
242 Remember, I have warned
you. I have told you. I ain't speaking so much about Catholicism, and
Baptists and Methodist; I'm just talking about people that's holiness
people, right down these lines here. Look at it today, how it's come
across and standing in drama. Oh, my. I'd go into it sometime, and my
heart breaks within me.
Stand up there with an old banjo, beating that old banjo, and sawing an
old fiddle like that, "Is this Texas cowboy So-and-so?" I ain't got
nothing against the man; but that belongs out there in the world out
there. That's right. I'd rather stand, brother, with not even a thing,
with no nothing at all, but just stand and raise my hands and say,
"Jesus, keep me near the cross." Yes, sir.
Consecrated
cross I'll bear,
Till
death shall set me free,
Then
go home, a crown to wear,
For
there's a crown for me.
244 To you little mothers here
this morning, that's been real mothers, and I know there's many of you;
I think, every one of you. Let me tell you something. God bless you.
You're the fifth Gospel, I think. Let me tell you what's in there for
your children, just a little thing. 'Cause, Brother Neville will
probably preach on the--about mother tonight, or whoever, one of us
that preaches, all right, about mothers. But, listen, let me ask you
something.
Remember, when Moses was a little boy, it was a mother who give him his
instruction. It was a godly mother who took little Moses on her knees,
and said, "Moses..." taught him all. He was her teacher or... She was
his teacher, rather, under Pharaoh, and said now these things. Said,
"Moses, someday you're going to deliver the children of Israel. You're
the boy that's called. Keep yourself pure and unspotted from the world,
for you're the one. You're the one."
No other place do we know where he ever went to any seminary, any
teaching at all, he ever got. He stayed right in Pharaoh's palace,
which was a heathen; but his mother taught him. That's a real mother.
She taught him the precepts of the Lord. She told him how he must be
holy. She told him how and what he must live, and how, what God must
do, would do for him. And it stuck with Moses all the days of his life.
And any good, true, loyal mother that'll take her little babies,
instead of send them to picture shows and dances, and so forth like
that, and she'll put them on her lap and teach them about the Lord
Jesus Christ...
248 Here the other day, I was
talking to a mother on the telephone. And the mother said, "Oh, Brother
Billy," she said "my poor boy's in trouble." Said, "Oh, what a trouble
he's in."
I said, "Yes, I know about it, sister, dear."
And she said, "He may be wrong. I don't know." Said, "One says this and
one says that. I don't know." But said, "no matter whether he's wrong
or right, I love him." There you are, "I love him."
He said to his mother, said, "I've been so deceived by this and that."
Said, "Mother, I believe you're about the only sweetheart I really
have, a woman that's true to me, and sticks to me." That's mother's
love. That's a real mother that'll put her arms around her baby,
regardless whether he's right or wrong, she goes right on to him. And
if God... If a mother can think that of her baby, how much more will
God think that of His. You see? You stay right with Him. Go right...
251 And now let me just tell
you another mother, right quick, in the Bible, before we close. There
was a mother called Herodia. She taught her daughter to tap dance. She
wanted her to be popular. And she danced before the king, and required
the head of John the Baptist. We have record of seventy of her
offsprings, this damsel that danced before... Herodias' daughter danced
before Herod; seventy of her offsprings, they either died prostitutes
or on gallows.
One mother taught hers the things of the world; the other mother taught
hers the things of God. One became a great leader and a conqueror,
immortal among men today; and the other is botched and in hell, and
taken thousands times thousands with her. See what I mean? "Bring up a
child in the way it should go."
253 And I certainly sympathize
with you poor mothers setting here with your white roses on. There's a
heaven that a mother's gone to, today, where a good old fashion mother
that lived for God, probably has passed beyond the veil. She's waiting
for you to come. That's right.
I respect and honor you there with your red roses on. Your mother, if
you want to do anything for her, do it three hundred and sixty-five
days a year. Go to her house and offer prayer, and live for God. That's
the thing to do. And bring up your children. And when your children
come up, they'll call you "blessed," after you have passed on beyond
the veil. That's the real spirit of motherhood, and the real spirit of
mother's day. Mother's day is three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
255 This is the day they sell
flowers and pass presents. The world does it. If it passes, if the
world should stand another twenty years, they'll have son's days, and
daughter's days, and, or cousin's days, and uncle's days, and all them
things like that, just enough to get the world in a commercial glamour.
That's just where it's going, right into hell, just as hard as it can
go to destruction.
But, you, God bless you, is my prayer.
256 Shall we pray. Our kind
heavenly Father, as we view back, this morning, with our minds, back
down yonder, some hundreds of years ago, when there stood Jehoshaphat
standing there by the side of King Ahab... And a little spirit down in
his heart still left of God, though he'd made a mistake, told him,
said, "This is wrong. This is wrong. It's not clean. It's not holy. The
prophet has said these things couldn't go on like this." And the little
fire of God woke him up.
And then You had somebody to answer that little fire, which was
Micaiah, the true prophet of God. Though he might've come up there
dressed in rags, though he might've come up there despised, and all
them looking upon him as if a bunch of wolves looking at a lamb. But he
told the truth, though he had to be smite in the face, though he had to
be throwed into prison and fed bread and water of sorrow. But, yet, the
words that he said come to pass, for You was with him.
God, grant today, and we look down in this Bible. We look at the church
books, the decalogues, and so forth, of the churches, their rituals,
and see how they do this, that, or the other... But let us look into
this true Word here, and see what It says. "Without holiness, no man
shall see the Lord. Follow peace and holiness, which, without, no man
shall see the Lord. He that loves the world, or the things of the
world, the love of God is not in him."
"In the last days perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of
their own selves, proud, boasters." Oh, those great things, Lord,
that's happening. "Heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God; teaching people precepts of--of men instead of the
commandments of God; having a form of godliness, and denying the power
of the Holy Ghost" to make a man be filled with the Spirit, to make him
rejoice, to make the tears flow from his eyes, to make him go out and
pray for the sick, to make him speak with tongues and interpret, to
make him prophesy. The Spirit of the God, the living God, they just
took It off into some lodge or something like that "Having a form of
godliness, and denying the power thereof."
O God, may this little audience, on this day, wake up quickly, right
now, before the end time comes, and catches us in this condition. May
we be, renew ourselves, as the Bible said, "Rise and shake yourself,
and ask for the old way, which is the good way; and when you find it,
walk in it." God, grant that we can find the old rugged way, when we
can stand together again, as hundreds, and join our hands together and
sing.
I'll
take the way with the Lord's despised few.
I've
started in with Jesus, and I'm going through.
God, help us to live that and be that. Bless all these dear mothers
setting here, Lord, knowing that they are mothers theirself, with white
roses pinned on their coats this morning, as a memorial of a dear old
mother that's passed beyond the scene. O Master of Life, bless them,
Lord. And may they be blessed too, and may their children's memories be
as theirs is with their mother, if she's gone beyond the veil to a
glorious heaven. Grant it, Lord.
And some morning when life is shutting off from our veins, and our
breath is failing to come to us, the veil will open back; she'll come
down, perhaps, to the end of the Jordan, to help us over. Oh, to that
glorious day when we step our feet over yonder, where there'll not
be... The air will not be contaminated with cigarette smoke. There'll
never be a drunkard on the street. There'll never be a prostitute.
There'll never be sin. There'll never be nothing like that. But in the
glorious forever, will we live with peace with our Lord Jesus Christ
and our children. And oh, what a wonderful day.
O Father, while the great darkness is on, the battle, and the Devil
invading the countries, and invading the pulpits, invading the
churches, invading the peoples, invading the businesses, invading the
cities, and the schools, and the homes; O God, help us to stand, pull
the sword quickly and fight for God, as Moses and the--and the Levites
did down there when sin was in the camp. Help us, Lord.
Forgive us now, and bless us. And keep us humble, break us up, Lord. O
God, You said, "He that goes forth, sowing in tears, will doubtless
return again, rejoicing, bringing with him sheaves." O God, break us to
pieces. Mold us, anew, Lord. We're getting too much out of the way. I
am, myself, Lord, I'm getting to a place where I'm thinking about how
many will attend my meeting. O God, I want You to attend. Come, Lord. O
Christ, come, Lord. Break me up; mold me over. O Lord, don't never let
me get those things on my mind. God, keep them from me.
Help me, Lord, to preach, as I said, awhile ago, like a dying man to
dying men, knowing that we all must face eternity. We got to stand
before You, when You're not in Your pleasing manner, when You're not
with mercy, when You're standing without mercy; when You're standing
angry to bring judgment upon the nations and the people that's rejected
and spurned the love of Your Child.
God, give me mercy with Him today, that in that day I can stand
assured. May after crying out, that You'll wipe it away, to joy, at
that time, when You say, "Enter into the joys of the Lord, which has
been prepared for you from the foundation of the world." God, be with
us now, and help us, we pray in Jesus' Name. Amen.