Il y a ici plus que Salomon
1 Thank you, very much. Good evening, friends. Happy to be here
tonight, just enjoying a little handshake and a fellowship with my old
friend, Brother G. H. Brown, I haven't seen in years. He is one of
my--my first colleagues of Arkansas, when we was at 505 Victor Street
there.
I remember, Brother Brown, the night that the lady down in the
basement, on her back, crawling on her back, with her--lost her mind,
and she--in very bad condition. Later on, I found her over around
Jonesboro somewhere in her right mind with her husband, and just as
normal as she could be.
3 A brother just met me here, just shook his hand. He was talking about
being in a certain place; his wife had a goiter, I believe, on her
throat. She was healed in the meeting. She's still healed.
God is wonderful, isn't He? We're so thankful for that. We should be,
which we are, the most happy people in the earth: God's people,
carefree in the way that we're not afraid of death. You know, Christ
conquered everything, even death, even the fear of death. Yeah. "O
death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? But thanks be
to God Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." How we
love Him for that.
5 This little sister from Florida, I believe, he said, or somewhere
here, that sang that song, "Down From His Glory." That's my favorite
song, wrote by a friend, Brother Booth-Clibborn. I think it really
expresses His supreme Deity today in the day that people try to make
Him a--just a prophet or--or some leader. And I think that expresses
what He is, and I really like that song.
Now, you know, it's so... The bad part about these things, these
meetings are not long enough. We just get to meet each other and say
"hello," and then have to leave again. But I certainly looked forward
to coming down.
7 I'll tell you a little something. I didn't say that for a hint the
other night, about me having that bucket of sorghum molasses that that
little bear got into. But somebody tonight paid me back; they sent me a
jar of sorghum molasses. Thank you, and I'll see that the bear don't
get that. I'll have my wife bake me a pan of biscuits, and I'll get
right into them. Yes, sir, I sure like sorghum.
Billy, my son, just told me, said, "Daddy, they taken for you a love
offering."
I told this preacher that I didn't want that. See, I didn't come for
that, people. I come to help you, to try to. But there's no way of me
giving it back. And if anybody knows anybody here is real bad off,
somebody, widow woman or something, they got it. So thank you very
much. You know, the Bible said, "Insomuch as you have done to the
least," that's me, "of these little ones, you have did it to Me." And I
pray that God will bless you for that, and that He'll--He will. I'll
tell you, if no person's bad off, takes it, I'll put it to the mission
work for the foreign fields. I go over myself, so I know it's used
right.
10 And so then try to bring this wonderful Message of--of the grace of
God that's been brought to us in these last days, the Message, the best
that I know how to bring it, and it's the same Message I preached many
years ago. I haven't varied from it one inch, because you can't. If I
would, I'd have to get out of the Bible. See? So it's from the Bible.
And I believe that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us." And Hebrews 13:8 says He's the same yesterday, today, and
forever. I believe that.
11 Now, I was speaking to you today at noon on a Gospel message. I was
glad to see Brother Tracy Boutliere here, and that brother over here.
And, I, and you know how I feel to stand up here? I--I kind of squeeze
away from that preaching tonight, on account of all these fine
ministers being here. So I'm just going to talk a little about the Lord
Jesus, on His, the great revelation of Him today, and about His power
to heal the sick.
And my son came over awhile ago, and he give out some prayer cards, and
we want to pray for the sick tonight. And you've got men here that can
preach the Gospel; they have, all this week. And I'm here to try to do
my part to show my appreciations of your loyalty to Jesus Christ, by
praying for the sick.
13 And now before we open the Book, let's speak to the Author of the
Book.
Sometime ago there was a man said to me. I was talking about a certain
subject in the Bible, and it was a very deep subject which there's a
lot of dispute about, and on the Logos, and so forth. And he--he looked
over at me. And I was with Brother Jack Moore, and we was coming down
Cross Lake in Shreveport, Louisiana. And this man looked over to me,
and he said, "You just don't know your Bible."
I said, "But I know the Author real well." And I said, "And I'm sure,
if I love Him and know Him real well, He'll reveal His Word to me."
So let's speak to the Author now, as we bow our heads. Now, while we
get quiet. And remember, in our hearts now, is there a request tonight
among us, that you'd want God to remember, that you're praying for this
certain thing, maybe a loved one to come to Christ tonight, maybe
somebody to be healed, or some other request? Hold it in your mind, and
raise up your hands to God, say, "Lord, remember My request." It's all,
everywhere. What a needy world this is.
17 Lord Jesus, we come approaching Thee in that all-sufficient Name,
knowing this, that we have been promised that our prayers will be
heard: said, "What you ask in My Name, it shall be given." And we bring
all these requests tonight up before the great pearly white throne
where the Bloody Sacrifice lays, Who forgives all of our sins, and
heals all of our sickness. And we are most grateful to Thee tonight for
this grand privilege that we have, and with the Word of God, which
cannot fail. Though heavens and earth pass away, the Word can never
fail. And the Word is God. And He has promised that He would hear and
would answer our requests. Now, we are sure that we get what we ask
for. My hand is up too, Lord. Answer tonight, our requests.
18 We want to thank You for what You have been to us in this
convention, back down through life. And we also thank You for what You
are to us to be in the future. And in the hour of our death, if You
tarry, we know you'll be the--the old ship of Zion; You'll be the
glossy Wings; You'll be the Morning Star that lights up the valley of
the shadow of death; You'll be the One that'll pack us over the river
into that great promised land. We are satisfied of that, Lord.
Tonight, setting in our midst are men, gray and stooped with age, and
many years ago when I was a sinner boy, was standing on the street
corners and fighting the good fight of faith for this very Message that
we're trying to contend for tonight. Father, God, we're grateful these
men are still a living as testimonies of this great faith that was once
delivered to the saints. May we ever contend for it and be loyal to our
post of duty, until Jesus comes.
20 Now, we ask You to bless the Words that we read, and what we say
tonight. May It fall into fertile ground that'll bring forth a service,
that there will not be one sinner in this building, that'll leave here,
that will not be saved. May every sick person be healed. May there not
be one feeble person among us at the end of the service. I know that's
a great mountain that stands before us. But You said in Your Gospel,
according to Saint Mark 11:22, "If you say to this mountain, 'Be
moved,' and don't doubt in your heart, but believe that what you've
said will come to pass, you shall have what you've said." Now, we
believe that.
You said, "When you stand praying, believe, forgive." And we pray that
You forgive us our trespasses, as we have forgive those that trespassed
against us, that there be nothing to hinder our prayers from being
answered.
And, Lord, may, if it so happens that we never meet again like this in
another meeting, maybe a year from now or whenever it will be, we know
there's coming one great meeting we're all going to be there, and
that's the wedding supper. O God, may there not be one of us missing on
that time. Until then, keep us healthy and happy to serve You. In Jesus
Christ's Name we ask it. Amen.
23 Now, to pray for the sick, I--I don't get off to preaching. As I've
said, it's a--it's a different anointing: same Spirit, just a different
channel you're traveling through.
And now, I want to read a familiar passage of Scripture, and a few
Scriptures here I'd like to refer to, just before we call the prayer
line. And I know it's hot, and I don't want to keep you long.
And I know the closing of the meeting, a great week, and how you're all
filled up to the capacity now and going home to have a great time.
Don't want to go home just to have a great time to enjoy the blessings
of God, but go home to take what you have learned and pass it on to
somebody else. And may the children of this meeting, that was born
again in this meeting, next year bring great-great-great-grandchildren
with them; meaning that you have won somebody else, and they won
somebody else, and they won somebody else over to the Lord.
26 Now, let's turn tonight to Saint Mark the 12th chapter. And I want
to start reading from the 38th verse of Saint--of Saint Mark 12,
reading down with the 42nd verse, inclusive. And usually, as it's a
custom many times, we stand when we read the Word of God, but being
that you're so packed in tonight, we'll omit that, and just set
reverently and listen to the Word. If you have a Bible, follow me as I
read.
Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying,
Master, we would see a sign from thee.
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and an adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall be no sign... given to
it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so
shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth.
The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and
shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and,
behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts
of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than
Solomon is here
27 I might use this for a text: 'A Greater Than Solomon Is Here." If we
read the back parts of the Scripture, preceding this, we find that it
kinda links in with what we were saying last evening.
When Christ came on earth, He came to His Own, and His Own received Him
not. And those Jews were instructed by the Scriptures, of what kind of
a character that the Messiah would be. And the Messiah was to be a
prophet according to the--their laws. Moses said, "The Lord your God
shall raise a Prophet up, like me, and to Him the people shall cling;
and if won't ear Him, they'd be cut off from the people."
See, the Scripture never leaves any age without a clear-cut
identification, that we might know what hour we're living in.
30 Even in Saint Matthew 24, Jesus speaking of the end time, He said,
"Now, learn a parable of the fig tree."
And He said what would be the sign of the three questions. "What time
will these not be one stone left upon the other of the building? What
is the sign of Your Coming, and the end of the world?" And He answered
all three questions. Many times, people put them all three as one
question, but they asked Him three questions. He answered them three
questions. But He give, along there, a sign, because the Jews seek
after signs. And why do they seek signs? Is because they were bidden to
do so. The Jew always believed in the supernatural.
32 Even under the law, that when there was a dreamer or a prophet, that
give a message that was a little bit misunderstanding, or they wasn't
too sure of it, they had a way of finding out whether that message was
right or not. They taken this dreamer, or the prophet, down to the
temple where the--the Urim Thummim, it was the breastplate that hung,
or was over Aaron's breast, that represented all of the tribes of
Israel. And this prophet prophesied, or the--the dreamer told his dream.
And no matter how real it seemed, if that dream or that prophecy did
not reflect a supernatural light, kind of a conglomeration like a
rainbow across that, which was called the Urim Thummim, the message was
turned down. The natural must answer by the supernatural, and the
supernatural must answer by the natural. Therefore, in the Old
Testament the Urim Thummim was the test, whether the words were true or
not. That was under the Levitical priesthood.
But God never left us without a Urim Thummim, because His Word tonight
is the Urim Thummim. No matter how nice the message sounds, or how well
the dream sounds, yet, if it doesn't flash across the Urim Thummim,
God's Word, in my advice, leave it alone, because God doesn't testify.
Because this Book is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ.
35 Now, Jesus had come and had performed just exactly like the
Scriptures said He would do.
And when the apostle Peter, as we spoke last evening, being instructed
by his father, by the teachers, that there would be a rising of the
Messiah, and that this Messiah would be a Prophet... Now, for four
hundred years since Malachi, they'd had no prophets. And here was a Man
that when He walked up, not dressed any different, not like some
well-renown priest or a clergyman, but just an ordinary man. And he
wouldn't know this Messiah by how He dressed, but they would know Him
by the--the Life that was in Him. And when Jesus looked at him and
said, "Your name is Simon and you are the son of Jonas," then the
apostle was ready to surrender, because that he knew that Jesus did not
know him. Not only did He know him, but He knowed his father also, so
he knew that was the sign of the Messiah.
37 We followed also Philip to get Nathanael. Brought him over, which
was a--a staunch man, great learned in the Scripture. We find
that--that perhaps Philip instructed him, on the road over, what had
happened. But when he come to Him, He called him, said, "Behold an
Israelite, in whom there's no guile."
He said, "When did You know me, Rabbi?"
Said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw
you."
And he said, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God, the King of Israel."
39 And then to the nation of the Samaritan, there this little woman at
Sychar, how that her in her condition as an ill-famed woman; but when
that Gospel Light spread across her path, and He told her of her sin
and what she had done, she said, "Sir, You are, must be a prophet. And
we are instructed, and we know that when Messiah cometh, He'll tell us
things." That was the sign of the Messiah.
Then we learned that He did not do that sign before the Gentiles, but
prophesied that it would be done here in the last days by the Holy
Spirit, and to blaspheme It, would be unforgivable.
41 As He said it would be like it was at the days of Sodom, when we
found out that the representation of God in a man, a human being, that
eat flesh of a cow, or a calf, rather, and drank the milk from the cow,
and eat bread, and he called Him, Elohim, the great God, the Creator.
God was made flesh in the form of Jesus Christ.
And today He is in His church in the form of the Holy Spirit, still
God. And that Man in flesh, represented at the end time before the
Gentile world was burnt by fire, that God would be in human flesh,
doing the same thing to vindicate Himself to the Gentiles. And we saw
Him come among us last night and do that thing.
44 So now, Jesus was upbraiding these people tonight because of their
unbelief, because they should been Scripturally taught. But the
traditions of the day had drawed the people from the Bible, the
Scripture. Jesus said, "You with your traditions has made the
commandments of God of non-effect."
And I wonder tonight, if He would stand upon this soil of the United
States, if He wouldn't say the same thing to many tonight. With their
traditions of men, you've took the commandments of God and have made
them of no effect by preaching that, "just the days of miracles is
passed," and so forth, as they do: "Having the form of godliness," that
the prophet said would be in the last days, "but denying the power
thereof."
46 We find in this, that He was upbraiding them, because they were
constrained to look at signs and believe signs. Noah give them a sign.
God always in every age dealt with men through signs, because He is
supernatural. And where supernatural God is, there's bound to be
supernatural things going on.
Then we find in the days of Noah, those who believed his message and
come in was saved, and those that rejected his message perished. He
give them a sign of building an ark.
In the days of Moses, God's speaking through human lips could call
flies, fleas, frogs, close the heavens, make it dark, by a prophet that
was thoroughly a-vindicated. Those who believed and come out of Egypt,
across the dividing line of the Red Sea, was saved. Those who was on
the other side, perished.
49 And Jesus was telling them. They called Him Beelzebub, claiming that
He was reading the people's mind. Or some today, they'd have said,
"It's a mental telepathy." But any intelligent person who knows any
iota of mental telepathy, knows that the things that we see cannot be
mental telepathy.
50 The other day in Tucson, there was a little Baptist brother, and he
was went out, bringing my little Rebekah home from school, packing her
books. And he went to the meeting. He calls his father, a missionary
down in Mexico, a fine man, a colleague of Billy Graham; and he said,
"Daddy, hurry home right quick. We have seen the power of the Lord
Jesus made manifest."
He said, "Son, what's the matter with you?" Called him on long
distance. And he told what happened. He said, "That can be seen in any
cheap carnival."
And the young man set there a minute. He said, "Daddy, I love you.
You've been my daddy, and you've tried to raise me right. But I wonder
if we could switch the switch back to the time that Jesus of Nazareth
done the same thing on the shores of Galilee, if you'd be willing to
call it a cheap carnival?" The man left his post of duty, and came, and
was convinced.
53 You see, Jesus was trying to tell them, "If I do not the works of My
Father, then don't believe Me. Who of you can condemn Me of sin, which
is unbelief? If I haven't fulfilled all the words that was written of
Me, then you can point your finger at Me; but I've done just exactly
what the Scripture said I would do."
Oh, if the church could only take that stand tonight, as a
representative of Jesus Christ, and say, "Where are we short? God, I
want to live to see the day that the church of Jesus Christ can be one
in purpose and heart and body, standing in the full anointed power of
the Holy Spirit to perform and work like Jesus Christ did, with God in
them too."
55 Now, He begin to go back and upbraid them. They knew that God in all
generations had--sends gifts. And when God sends a gift to the earth
and it's rejected, that nation or that generation goes into judgment.
And if God sends a gift and it's received, that generation is blessed.
I was thinking tonight, as I was coming over, thinking on this, that,
"What would it be if all America tonight believed the gift of God that
we have received?"
Jesus here refers to the time of--of Jonas, or Jonah is really what it
really is. And many people condemn Jonah, and they say that Jonah was
a... You say, "He was a Jonah. He did this, that," because Jonah, we
think, got out of the will of the Lord."
58 But let me try to justify that tonight. The Bible said, "The
footsteps of the righteous are ordered of the Lord." Sometimes, He
makes us do things very contrary to what we think; but we're always, if
we are following the leading of the Spirit, we're always in His will.
God does what He wants to. He raised Pharaoh up for the same purpose;
and called, said He loved Jacob and He hated Esau before they was ever
born. Now, God's purpose must be fulfilled. Can the potter--or the clay
say to the potter, as we find in Romans 8 and 9...
59 Watch, we find here that Jonah was commanded of God to go down to
Nineveh to preach, and to say that within forty days that city would
perish, because Nineveh was a great city full of sin, a heathen
country. They worshipped idols. They were... They--their occupation
mainly was the fishing, because they were beside the seashore. And
their--their occupant was to... occupations, was to fish. And Jonah,
instead of taking a ship... And perhaps the ship wasn't going out just
at that time. But he took a ship to Tarshish. And we find and
understand the trouble that Jonah got into, out there on the sea. I
believe that all that was ordained of God. The sea got troubled, and
Jonah said, "Tie my hands and throw me overboard." And God had a fish
prepared, as we call "whale," and to swallow the prophet up.
60 Few years ago, I was in Louisville, Kentucky, they--they had a whale
on--the bones of one, upon a-upon a flatcar. And this little Ricky
standing there with his glasses over his nose, and seemed to have more
education than he had intelligence to control, he was trying to explain
about this whale. And he said, "You know, the old legend of the Bible,
that a whale swallowed Jonah." He said, "That's just a legend." Said,
"Because that, you see, you could hardly throw a ball through his
swallow, it was so small, and he could not have swallowed up a man."
That was just too much for me to stand. I--I said to him; I said, "Sir,
I--I want to correct that."
He said, "What's that?"
And I said, "You see, he might... That whale might not have been able
to swallow him, but the Bible said, that God prepared a fish. It was a
special built. God made him big enough to swallow him." See? I--I just
felt I'd been a traitor to the Bible if I hadn't have give my
testimony, show the colors, 'cause people stand there laughing. I tell
you, it was a different thing when that was said (See?); it wasn't so
funny, when I said, "You don't know the Scriptures. The Scripture said,
'God prepared a fish.' He made this one special."
63 Like a little girl one time, going from church, said she was happy.
Her little hair combed back, and she was having a great time, singing
the praises of God and the infidel on the corner said, "What you so
happy about, little lady?"
She said, "I just got saved, going to heaven."
He said, "What's that you got under your arm, that thing they call the
Bible?"
She said, "Yes, sir, it is."
Said, "You don't believe that?"
Said, "Every Word of it."
Said, "Well, I guess you believe that story about the whale swallowing
up Jonah?"
She said, "Yes, sir, I believe it. If the Bible said that Jonah
swallowed the whale, I'd believe it."
And now, he said, "Now, how you going to prove that--that the whale
swallowed Jonah, any other way but by faith?"
She said, "When I get to heaven, I'll ask Jonah."
He said, "Then what if Jonah isn't there?"
Said, "Then you'll have to ask him." So it just went to show what was
going to happen; he went the other way. And that about expresses it.
69 But I believe that the whale swallowed Jonah. Now, with the hands
tied in the belly of the whale, way out upon the sea, about forty
fathoms deep...
Now, you women know by your little gold-fishes. A fish prowls through
the water to find its food. After it finds its food, and it fills its
little belly up, he goes down to the bottom of the bowl and rests his
little swimmer there. See, he's resting. His swimmers holds him up. And
now he's relaxed because he's tired from prowling.
Let's think this big fish did the same thing. When he swallowed the
prophet, he goes down to the bottom, his great heavy weight of many
tons, lays down on the bottom now, with the prophet in his belly. And
the prophet was still alive. He swallowed him up. And Jonah must've
turned over, down in the belly of the whale. And, you know, everywhere
he looked, he could see the whale's belly.
72 And I've often thought of people, say, "I was prayed for last night,
but my hand's no better. I was prayed for, and I don't hear any
better." Well, you're looking at symptoms, as long as you look at that.
If your pastor prayed for you, anointed you with oil, or whatever
system he uses of God's Bible, you must believe it. You got to believe
it.
Now, I don't think that any of us ever had as much symptoms as Jonah
had, for every which way he looked, it was a whale's belly. But you
know what he said? He said, "They're lying vanities." He's not going to
believe it. He said, "Once more will I look to Your holy temple."
74 Now, Jonah knew that when Solomon dedicated the temple, God
a-vindicated His Presence at the temple by coming in as the Pillar of
the cloud, and went in and went over behind the holy place, upon the
mercy seat and over the ark, and settled down. And Solomon prayed,
"Lord, if Thy people be in trouble anywhere, and will look to this holy
place, and pray, then You hear them from heaven."
Now, if Jonah, under those circumstances, could have faith in a prayer
of a man, a human being that later backslid, and over a temple that was
built by the hands of men that God came into; and was delivered from
such--such symptoms as that; how much more ought we tonight, under our
little circumstance, right in the midst of the Presence of the great
God Hisself, where we see people healed, saved, and filled with the
Holy Ghost... Don't look towards a natural temple; but look to the
temple in heaven, where Christ sets at the right hand of the Majesty,
and the power, with His Own Blood to make intercessions upon our
confession. We should be ashamed of our weakness. Now, until you can
have better faith than Jonah had, don't criticize him.
76 Notice, then we find that God, under that prayer and that faith...
He could've put a oxygen tent there; I don't know what He did. But he
stayed, according to Christ's Own Word, three days and nights in the
belly of that whale. And then let's think of it, about, might've been
about eleven o'clock in the day, all the fishermen was just about ready
to go in for their midday lunch, and they was about taking up their
nets. And these heathens worshipped animals, and the god of the sea was
a whale. And just about a middle of the day, here come the sea god
coming in, the whale, licked out his tongue, and the prophet walked
right out of his mouth. No wonder they repented, sure, because the god
spit out the prophet. And he went through the streets, saying, "Within
forty days this place shall be destroyed," See, God knows how to do
things.
77 Now, they asked Jesus for a sign, and He told them that, "A--a
wicked and adulterous generation seeks after signs." And, now, I know
there's an interpretation that He was meaning them. That's true. But
I'm going to just carry it on, having a compound meaning.
When did we ever have a more wicked and adulterous generation than we
have right now? A wicked and adulterous generation... They will say to
you, go out on the street, say, "Are you a Divine healer?"
"No. Christ is."
Well, if you're a healer, or you believe, you say you're a healer; I
know a guy's down here sick, come heal him. I know you say you raised
the dead, a man died and you raised him up? We got a graveyard full of
them down here; prove it to us."
Remember, that's that same old devil that said, "If thou be the Son of
God, command these stones to be bread."
81 It's the same old devil that put a rag over our Lord's eyes in the
palace that morning, covered up His eyes, and they took a stick, those
drunken, brawling soldiers, and hit Him on the head with it, and then
passed the stick one to another, and said, "We understand that you know
the secrets of hearts. We understand that you're a prophet. If you're a
prophet, prophesy and tell us who hit you. We'll believe it then." See,
that's that same old devil. See? God don't clown for nobody.
It's the same old devil that said, "Come off the cross. Let's see you
perform a miracle." That devil lives today.
83 And Jesus said that a wicked, weak, adulterous generation would seek
after a sign, and they'd get it. For as Jonas was in the belly of the
whale for three days and three nights, so will the Son of man be in the
heart of the earth. Then what kind of a sign was He speaking of? A sign
of the resurrection. And after two thousand years of Gospel preaching,
two thousand years of criticism, the Bible has rode through all of it.
And tonight Jesus Christ is in our midst in the power of His
resurrection, doing the same things He did when He was here on earth.
This is that weak and adulterous generation.
84 Saint John 14:12, Jesus said, "He that believeth on Me, the works
that I do shall he do also." See, "Yet a little while and the world
(cosmos order) will not see Me anymore, yet ye shall see Me (That's the
unbeliever, world, world order, order of church,)--won't see Me no
more. Yet ye shall see Me (the believer), for I will be with you, even
in you, to the end of the world."
And this wicked and adulterous generation that we've got on earth of
making fun of the original Word of God, making fun of the--of the
church, he receives tonight a sign of the resurrection. Because the
things that Jesus Christ is doing today in the church, there's not a
person in the world can do it outside of Jesus Christ. And it's a sign
that He's alive tonight. He raised from the dead two thousand years
ago, and is just as alive tonight as He was when He walked in Galilee.
Amen. Sign of the resurrection...
86 Then we notice on down He refers to Solomon's time. He said, "The
men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas, and there's a
greater than Jonas here." He said, "And as in the days of Solomon, how
the queen of the south come from the uttermost parts of the world to
hear the wisdom of Solomon, and a greater than Solomon is here."
See, they couldn't understand it. They were dense. Isaiah said, "They
got eyes and can't see, ears and can't hear."
I'm going to say this with love. Pentecost, it's almost getting the
same way. The thing that God promised, passes right over us, and we
just let it go. What's the matter with the Pentecostal people is this:
they've seen so much of God...
89 It reminds me of an old proverb, or a story I read once of an author
who had wrote about the sea, and he said he never had seen it. Like we
understand that Stephen Foster, the beloved folk writer, wrote about
the Suwannee River, and never seen the Suwannee River. And this writer
had wrote about the sea and had never seen the sea. One time he took a
trip to the sea. And on his road he met an old sailor, old salt, coming
up, with the gray whiskers on his face, and his corn cob pipe in his
mouth. He said, "Where goest thou, my good man?"
He said, "I go to the sea." He said, "I'm a--I'm a poet." He said,
"I--I just want to see it. I want to see its white waves as the briny
waves bounce upon the blue. I want to see a reflection of the sky in
the blue water, smell the salt in the air. I want to hear the gulls as
they holler and scream, as they go back and forth across the water."
The old salt took his corn cob pipe from his mouth and spit. He said,
"I was borned on it, sixty years ago. I don't see nothing so charming
about it." Why? He'd seen so much of it, it become common to him.
And that's what's the matter with you Pentecostals. You see so much of
the praises and blessings of God, till it slips right through you. We
must be reverent with these things and respect everything that God
gives to us.
93 Now, the days of Solomon, as any theologian, Scriptural man knows,
that that was the golden age of the Hebrews. They had no wars. They...
It was almost like a millennium to them, great day. They built the
temple. All nations feared them. They was afraid to do anything,
because they know that the people was of one heart and one accord. God
gave them a gift, and they believed it. They accepted it, and with one
heart and one accord they work with it.
Oh, if we, the people of America tonight, of all the Presbyterians, and
Methodists, and Baptists, and Pentecostal would tear down your
traditions that your denomination has built around you, separating
brotherhood, seemingly not having the faith.
94 If we could get out of that old shell that we're in, and could come
together, and accept the gift of God upon the basis that He gave it to
us, it would be the best bomb shelter that I know of. I'd rather stand
behind that, the promises of God, than all the bomb shelters that they
could build. How, what a nation, what a revival there would be, how the
others nations would be scared to do anything about it. God's give us a
gift, but we make light of it.
We try to bring it over in one little bunch, and say, "We got it, and
you ain't got nothing else to do with it, because you don't see through
my glasses." We mustn't do that. It's not right. As long as the devil
can make you fight one another, he don't have to fight.
But when you see that uniting of the powers of God, gathering His
church together from the four winds of the earth, then you're going to
see something take place.
97 We find that in the days of Solomon God gave him a gift of
discernment. It was a great gift, a gift to discern the thoughts, and
so forth, with wisdom. And the people rallied around it. They made him
king. And, you know, he become the talk of the world. Everybody talked
about Israel. Now, they didn't have telephones and televisions, and
things then; they carried news from lip to ear. And every people coming
through would see this great gift of God, working, and people would,
why, they'd--they'd tell everybody. And his fame went worldwide. And
all of them had no wars, no trouble, because they accepted the gift
that God give them.
98 We all tonight, we Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostal
sections, could all just throw away our ideas, and come back and see
what God said about it, and how He said It was supposed to be given. He
can't change it. The way It fell on the day of Pentecost, that's the
way It fell at the house of Cornelius. And every time It ever fell, It
fell the same way, under the same prescription that Peter wrote out in
Acts. And that's still the way it stands. It's got to stay that way.
Any other way... There's not another place in the Bible where they ever
received It any other way than carrying out that prescription of Acts
2. That's exactly. That's, how we get It today, that's the way it's got
to come.
99 But in sincerity, men do receive God and believe Him, but if they
would just... Then they pull theirselves off, and, "That... We got this
and that's all there's to it." Then they separate themself. Then they
won't take no new revelation. They organize it. "This is it. This is
our doctrine," end with a--a period. If you'd have a denomination would
end your doctrine with a comma, "We believe this, plus as much as God
will show us," then that's all right; I'll go for that; but never with
a period. 'Cause God's God, and time is moving on.
100 We're always trying to look back and see, what Moody said, what
Sankey said, what Finney said, what Wesley said, what Luther said. Them
were men of that day.
Science don't look back and see what science said. Why, three hundred
years ago, a French scientist proved that if a man would ever go the
terrific speed of thirty miles an hour, gravitation would take him off
the earth. Would you imagine the modern science saying that? Today he's
going about two thousand miles an hour, trying to find something to
keep from melting steel so he can go four thousand miles an hour. They
don't look back and refer to him. They look forward.
But the church is always looking back. Let's look up. For their powers
are limited. And we have unlimited power, "For all things are possible
to them that believe in God." Real genuine faith will punctuate every
Word that God give with a "amen." Not, "Well, it was for another
generation." He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
103 Now, we find that Solomon, the news spread so great till it went
all the way down into Sheba. And they had a queen down there, she
must've been a nice little lady. She would govern over her people. And,
you know, they begin to tell her that there was a--a great God up in
Israel, and He had anointed a human being with a gift of discernment
that was super human, that no man could have wisdom like that. It had
to come from a God. And, you know, "Faith cometh by hearing, hearing
the Word." And it struck her heart, like it did the little immoral
woman at the well last night. It struck her heart, and she begin to
desire to find out about this. I think it behooves any of us, when we
find out where Eternal Life laid, 'cause we're trying to live.
105 Well, every caravan came through, she'd probably stop and bring
them into the palace. "Did you pass through Palestine?"
"Yes, we have some ointments, and some jewels and things from there."
"Well, is it true about that great gift of their God?"
"It's the truth. I seen it in operation." See, faith cometh by hearing.
And then she begin to--begin to thirst. She wanted to see it, herself.
109 Now, she had a lot of difficult to go through. The first thing, she
was a pagan. Another thing, she was the queen. And no doubt, to do
this, she'd have to go to her own priest to get permission to go up to
hear this. So I can imagine... If I sound sacrilegious, I don't mean
this now. I'm just going to give a little drama here. I can imagine her
going down to the priest, and saying, "Holy father..."
"Yes, my daughter," said the priest.
"I have been hearing news that up in Israel they've got a God up there
that's anointed a man with His own discernment and power."
"Now, listen, daughter. If--if the great gods would ever move, it would
move among us." You know, they don't have to all be pagan priests to
believe that. See, see? "If they'd ever move, he'd do anything in our
organization. It wouldn't be amongst them others. (See?) After all,
they're a bunch of holy-roller." Well, I didn't--oughtn't to have said
that (See?) but you know. "They--they--they--they're not very much.
That's just a bunch of fanatics. They tell all kinds of stories about
crossing Red Seas, which is nothing but legends. So you can't believe
that bunch up there, because they're--they're just a bunch of radics.
Now, if there's any power, it's in the great god Dagon, or some of
these here."
112 I can hear the little woman think a minute; she said, "But, you
know, they tell me that this God that they got up there is a real God.
"Why," he said, "daughter that's a real god."
"But they--they tell me that this God up there has got life."
See, when--when--when something's really gripping at the heart, God
will talk with you if you'll just keep talking. See? "Take no thought
what you'll say; it'll be given to you in that hour."
Then said, "They say this God up here is a God that loves His people,
then He comes down and He making Hisself known through His people."
"Aw, there's nothing to that. Listen."
"Oh, what you say? "Now, just a minute. I'm going up."
"If you go up, you, why, you'll bring disgrace. Don't you attend that
revival. Because we're not cooperating, you know, so you mustn't do
that." See?
116 "And you know..." she said, he said... "My great-grandmother served
that idol, that statue, or my grandmother, and my mother; all my people
served them statues, and there hasn't one of them showed one speck of
life. They're just... I don't care how many scrolls you can read and
whatmore, they haven't showed one speck of life. And they say this is
life. And this is... I am concerned about it."
Well, I can hear him say, "Now, look, if you go up there, I'm going to
have to excommunicate you. I'm going to take your... You're a charter
member here, you know. And if I... And you've got some dignity, and
you'll lower your prestige if you go amongst a group like that." See?
"Well, let it be prestige, or not..."
You know, when God goes to gripping at somebody's heart, there's
nothing going to stand in their way. They're going to get there anyhow,
and God's going to see to it; I don't care if it's husband, wife,
child, preacher, pastor, whoever it is, when hunger comes for God.
119 Now, we find the little lady, when she got ready, she said, "Well,
I'm--I'm going anyhow."
"But we'll excommunicate you. Your name will not be on here."
"Well, you just might as well take it off, because I'm going." So now,
as she had to pay a price... So many of us don't want to pay the price.
We'd rather hold onto some creed.
Now, the woman no doubt had studied the scrolls of this religion. She'd
seen that that was the nature of God; and that God, the all wisdom God,
was gifted to a man, that God Himself was expressing Hisself, not
through some dumb idol, but through a man.
How that paganism is a perfect type, or an ante--or a type of
Christianity, how that the pagan worshipper will fall before an idol
and prostrate himself in such a way, that he--he believes that that
idol talks back to him.
Like the--the--the Navaho Indian. They had the turtle for a rain god,
with the mud on his back, and they made that an idol. And make a empty
shell, and they would call out, and they could hear their own voice
echo, and they thought that was the rain god talking back to them.
125 What a difference it is to Christianity though. We prostrate
ourself before a supernatural God that's not an idol, and we are filled
with Him and become His idol, His living image of Him, working and
walking on the earth as a living representation of the God that we
serve: God...?... It's in--it's contrary to paganism; they fall before
a Mary or a Joseph, or some saint, or something another like that,
that's been dead for years. And, but (You see?), the Holy Spirit comes
into the living being, not into a dead idol, but into the living being,
and works through that living being, not through an idol. "Ye are the
temples of God." See?
126 So we see that God doesn't change. He does the same thing tonight
as He was doing in the days of Solomon. He give Solomon this gift.
And we find out, now the little woman has to get ready. Now, she had
many things to confront her. She had a lot of circumstance and a lot of
hindrance, but not her faith. Her faith didn't have any.
Now, she thought this: "I'm going up there. And if I go, and if the
thing is right, I'm going to support it. If it isn't right, I can bring
my gifts back home."
You know, she ought to talk to some Pentecostal people. That's right.
Uh-huh. That's right. Go out here and call yourself Pentecost, and
support radio programs that make fun of the thing you believe in, when
it belongs among your own people to help support the program of God.
See?
Now, but she took the money, gold and frankincense, and so forth, and
she loaded some camels.
131 Now, another thing, she had a--a dangerous journey. Remember, the
children of Ishmael was in the desert, and they were robbers. And how
easy for that bunch of robbers to fall in upon this little queen with a
few eunuchs along as guards, and slay those and take all this treasure.
But, you know, when you are hungering and thirsting for God, you don't
see any danger, you don't see nothing. You're trying to get to God, and
God always sees that you arrive there.
She wanted to get there. That's her heart's desire, so God was going to
see that she got there. Now, she never thought about the danger.
You don't think about the danger. You don't think about the criticism.
You don't care what somebody else says. If your heart's a hungering for
God, the only objective you have is get to Him. Don't make any
difference how you have to get there. Just get there. Now, she had that
same objective.
135 And now, no doubt she got all the scrolls and was reading up, as
she went along. They must've traveled at nighttime, because that Sahara
Desert, that direct rays of the heat is very, very hot.
And I just think, she had how long a distance she had to go to see the
wisdom of Solomon. If you measure it on your map, it's a long ways down
there, about three hundred miles. And you know how long it took her?
Now, she didn't go in a air-conditioned Cadillac, but she went on the
back of a camel. And it took her ninety days, three months to get there.
137 No wonder Jesus said, she'll stand with this generation and condemn
it. Some of the people live across the street, won't even darken the
door where the same thing goes on. That's right. No wonder she'll stand
in the judgment with the generation now and condemn it. No, when we got
air-conditioned Cadillacs, and trains, and planes, and every way, God
just put it right in our hands and still we won't do it. And she come
all that distance to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and a greater than
Solomon is here, the Lord God Himself. Notice.
138 Then we find out that she started across the desert, reading those
scrolls, finally she pressed on until she got there.
She probably come up into the--the yard, the palace yard or wherever it
was, and pitched her tents, which was customary in them days, with her
little maids and her eunuchs, pitched...
And then let's just think, the next morning, the bell rung and--and all
the trumpets sounded, and the singing went on, and she got in, got her
a seat way back in the back. She come to find out whether it was truth
or not. She wanted to find out for herself. She wasn't willing to set
way down there. If she heard this great thing, she wouldn't take what
somebody else said about it. She wanted to find out for herself.
141 Like Philip told Nathanael in our lesson last night, said, "Could
anything good come out of Nazareth?" Or come out of... I'll think of
the place in a minute, where He come from. Said, "Could anything good
come out of Nazareth?"
Said, "Come and see. Don't stay there and criticize. Come, find out for
yourself."
If we could only do the same thing tonight. Come, see. Take your Bible,
check what you see going on. "Search the Scripture," Jesus said, "for
They are They that testify of Me." that He is the Word. And the
Scriptures Itself is the Word, so It testifies of Him when the
Scripture becomes Life to you, when It's made manifest in you.
144 Now, we find out that she'd read the scrolls, and she knowed the
nature of what Jehovah was: all wisdom. And when she pitched her little
tents, tucked her gifts back in the corner, find out whether it was
right or not... If it's right, it's worth everything she's got. If it
isn't right, take it back.
And I think the same thing tonight. If this plan of salvation that
we're contending for is right, we owe everything that we got: our life,
our time, our everything else. If it isn't right, then find out what is
right, 'cause you've just got this one life, and it'll soon be over.
Search the Scriptures first and see if it compares with the Scripture.
146 Then we find this little woman gets her a seat way back in the
back, like all newcomers try to do sometime. And after the trumpet
sounded, Pastor Solomon came in, set down. The meeting started. The
prayer cards was called. That sounds bad, but I'm trying to make a
point. And she found out. Now, she said, "I'll see what this wisdom
is." So when the first patient, however it come, or whatever the
question was, come before Solomon, he revealed it. She said, "Say,
that's right."
Now, she didn't want to say, "You know, that man has telepathy, I
believe." Her heart begin to hunger. She begin to believe, day by day.
148 Finally it come her time to stand before him. She had some secrets
too. And when she come up before Solomon, the Bible said, that there
was nothing in her heart withheld from Solomon. He revealed every
secret in her heart.
And when it was done on her, she stood as a pagan before the people,
and she said, "All that I heard is true and more." She said, "Blessed
are the men that's here to see this thing going on every day." Amen.
Oh, she--she had no more breath in her hardly. When she seen that
others had it performed on them, and she had it performed on her, and
she believed God.
No wonder, no wonder that Jesus said that she'll stand with this
generation, when there He was standing there, doing the very same
thing, only more of it, and more powerful signs; and they were standing
there, "Show..." saying, "show us a sign from heaven." Oh, how blind
can people be? He said, "She'll stand in the judgment with this
generation and condemn it."
151 And then after two thousand years of Gospel preaching, and the Holy
Spirit pouring out in this last days, upon the people, the gifts of the
Holy Ghost, and promised that this great discernment would come back
into the church again, what will she do to this generation when she
stands there, after her time plus two thousand years of Gospel
preaching in this last days to see gifts, not gift, but gifts of the
Holy Spirit? She surrendered her life to Christ. Why?
152 I have to close, 'cause I don't... I want--I want to pray for you.
Friends... She... They said, "Show us a sign. We want..." That's what's
the matter with the Pentecostals. You're looking for something, and one
of these days it's going to be too far; it passed right by you, and you
didn't know it. Remember, in the days of Elijah, they didn't know him.
In the days of John the Baptist, they didn't know him. And he was spoke
of in the Scripture that he'd be, "I send My messenger before My face
to prepare the way."
And even the disciples come to Him, said, "Why must Elias come?"
He said, "He's already come and you didn't know it."
They didn't know Jesus was the Christ until He was dead and buried.
They didn't know that Irenaeus belonged or...
157 I'll say this, that all people will know. They didn't know Joan of
Arc was a saint of God till they killed her. The Catholic church burnt
Joan of Arc for a witch, because she seen visions, and prayed for the
sick, brought the dead back to life. And the Catholic church called her
a witch and burnt that woman to the stake. And about two hundred years
later, they woke up and found out that she was a saint. 'Course they
done great penitence, they dug up them priests body and throwed them in
the river. Nonsense.
But watch out, it might happen among us, that the thing might come and
be clearly identified by God in the Scripture, and by science and
everything else, and it would pass us, and we'd know it not. Then stand
in the last day, clearly identified...
Man is still the same. Man is always praising God for what He has done,
and they're talking about what He will do, and ignoring what He's
doing. That's the nature of men.
160 Let's look at Him, what He's doing now. He's Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, today, and forever, the same Jehovah God that was made
manifest in Him. "At that day you'll know that I was in the Father, and
the Father in Me, I in you, and you in Me." God condescending from a
Pillar of Fire to a Man, and from that Man's sacrificed Life, the Blood
that cleansed us and come down into us to fellowship again to pull out
a church for an Eden again.
Why? Now, quiet just a minute. What did this to that woman? She was a
professed religionist, but her heart was hungering to see something
real. She wanted something real. And if you're hungering to see
something real, God will show it to you. You'll always find what you're
looking for.
163 It reminds me, as all you people know that I... I was talking to my
friend back here, Brother Brown, awhile ago. I remember Sister Brown's
here somewhere, he said; bless her. How I lived with them people down
there in them first days of my ministry. And Brother Brown is kind of a
full-fledged brother to me, 'cause he likes to hunt. Sister Brown
bought him a new Browning automatic shotgun. I asked him if he still
had it. He said, "Yes." I'm going to convert him to a rifle one of
these days, get away from that old splatter thing.
164 Now, notice. But in hunting, I used to go up in the north woods to
hunt deer, way up, New Hampshire and Maine, and it's the home of the
white-tailed deer. And I had a partner up there I hunted with. And he
was a fine hunter, about a quarter-blood Indian. And you didn't have to
worry about him; you ain't going to lose him; he knows where to go to.
And he was a fine hunter. We'd separate, and places we'd meet across
them white mountains and great jungles, but we'd find one another. And
we wasn't trail-walkers; we hunted. I loved to hunt with Burt.
He was a dandy hunter, but he was the meanest man I ever seen. That man
had a heart in him like stone; He was cruel. He had eyes looked like a
lizard, and he--he--he was just mean, just simply mean. And he used to
like to shoot fawns (That's the little baby deer.) just to make me feel
bad. He'd kill these little fawns, and--and I'd say, "Burt, aren't you
ashamed to do that?
And he'd say, "That's just the way with you preachers; you're too
chicken-hearted."
I said, "Burt, that's not chicken-hearted. That's being cruel."
167 Now, it's all right, the--the--the sex of the deer or the size. If
the law says you can kill a fawn, go ahead and kill it. Well, Abraham
killed a calf and fed it to God. Wasn't nothing wrong with the baby
deer. But just to kill them and leave them lay there, just to be mean,
that's murder. And I don't like that, and I'd tell him. I'd say, "Burt,
you're my friend, and I like you, and you're a good hunter. You're a
good gunman, good shot, dead shot." I said, "I love you, but--but
you're--you're--you're cruel."
And he'd say, "Oh, Billy, if you wasn't a preacher, you'd be a good
hunter."
And I said, "Listen, Burt, you can be human about this." I said,
"That's wrong."
He said, "You..." I was a game warden for years, you know. And he said,
"You--you stayed in conservation too long."
I said, "No, I never."
172 And so one day I went up there to go hunting. It was a little late
in the season. I'd been holding some meetings. And the snow had already
come, about six inches, a good tracking snow. And I met Burt, and he
said, "Say, Billy, I got something new for you.
And I said, "What?"
He pulled out of his shirt a little whistle, and he blowed this little
whistle. And it sound like the little baby deer calling for its mammy,
you know, just a little fawn, that little bleat they give.
I said, "Burt, you don't mean to tell me that you would--you'd do that?"
He said, "Oh, get next to yourself, preacher."
175 So the next day we went hunting. And we usually take a sandwich,
and--and take a little bottle of--of hot chocolate, 'cause it's got
sugar in it, you know, and kept us warm. Yeah, it gets awful cold up
there along that time of year. So we...
The season was in. And--and when you fire a couple of guns, you talk
about Houdini being an escape artist, he was an amateur aside of them
deers. 'Cause they would get away right now, crawl under brush piles or
anything, and then feed at night if the moon was shining. Then if they
didn't, they'd starve, before they'd come out, 'cause they knowed it
was death to get out there. And so the season had been in, people had
been hunting for a couple weeks.
177 And we walked all morning long and didn't even see one track. Along
about noontime, he was walking ahead of me. We was going up to the top
of the notch, and then separate and come back two different ways, and
come to the camp that night, maybe get in at nine, ten o'clock. And if
we killed a deer, we'd hang it up, so both of us go back the next day
and help get it in. So we was going up to separate, and we hadn't got
to the--above the timberline yet.
And about eleven-thirty or twelve o'clock, Burt kind of stooped down.
The snow was getting pretty deep, up high on the mountain. And he kind
of stooped down, and I thought he had reached back... He didn't say
very much. And he reached back there; I thought he was going to get his
lunch, and I went to get my lunch. I thought, "Well, we'll eat. Here's
where we separate, and he'll go around this a way, and I'll go the
other way."
179 And he set down. There was a little clearing, about twice the size
of this building, just a little, what we call, a little park-like of
grass. Never seen a track all morning. And he set down there beside
this, under some--by some trees, kind of a little snow bank, reached
down like this, like he was going to get his--his thermos bottle or his
sandwich, started to pull it out. And I reached for mine. And he pulled
out this little whistle. And he looked up at me with them lizard eyes.
And he blew this whistle. And when he blew this whistle, he could
really make it work, it sounded just like a little fawn. And when he
did, to my surprise, right across that clearing, a great big mother
deer stood up (That's the doe, the female), beautiful animal, big brown
eyes, and them ears sticking up. And he looked up at me like that, and
kind of that silly grin. Looked up to me like that, put his whistle
back. I thought, "Burt, you won't do that."
He said, "Sh." And I seen the... He blowed it again, real little, light.
182 And now, that's unusual for that deer. That time of day, eleven
o'clock in the day, come out? No. What was it? Her baby was in trouble.
She raised up. I watched her behind this bush.
And he blew it again. She made two or three steps forward, coming right
out into the open. That's altogether unusual. Yes, sir, she wouldn't do
that. No, sir. But what was it? Her baby was in trouble.
And she walked a few steps farther, them big ears, she turned sideways.
And old Burt looked up to me. And I thought, "Uh-oh." I seen him put
that shell up in the barrel of that .30-06, and let the lever down,
raised up, and that cross hair of that scope come right across her
heart. And when he raised his gun, the deer saw the hunter. She turned.
And he blowed that whistle again.
187 You know, usually that deer would be gone, but not her. Why? She
was a mother. She wasn't putting on something. On the inside of her,
she was born a mother. Her baby was in trouble. Though she knowed it
would cost her life, she didn't care. She was a mother. She wasn't
putting on some kind of a act. It was genuine, her life. She was mother.
And I seen the hunter pull his rifle; and he was a dead shot. And I
turned my head. I couldn't look at it. I thought, "How can that
cruel-hearted man blow the heart plumb through that precious loyal
heart beating for her baby? How can he blow her heart out of her?" And
I knowed that that big hundred-and-eighty-grain mushroom bullet would
swept her heart plumb through her at that distance, I thought, "How can
he do it?" And I turned my back to keep from looking at it.
189 And I started praying. I said, "Heavenly Father, how can that man
be so cruel? That precious mother, she can't help that. She isn't
putting on a show. She's genuine. And she's--and she's a mother, and
she's called, trying to find her baby. Though it cost life, her baby's
in trouble." And I was praying to myself, listening anytime to hear
that hammer fire, fall, and that gun blow. And I was just standing
there holding myself like this, praying.
I waited, waited. The gun didn't go off. I waited just a moment. And I
turned around to look, and he was going like this. He couldn't hold the
gun still. I looked around at him.
He looked up to me. His expression was changed. Them lizard eyes had
dropped to something else. Tears was dropping off his cheeks. He
throwed the gun on the ground. He said, "Billy, I've had enough of it.
Lead me to that Jesus you're talking about."
There on that snow bank that afternoon, I led that cruel-hearted man to
Jesus Christ. Why? Because he seen something real, something that
wasn't put on, something that was genuine.
193 Oh, this hungering world is looking for something real, something
that's not put on, something that's genuine, that's borned of God, that
comes from the Bible. Wouldn't you this afternoon, mother, brother;
wouldn't you, Christian, like to have Jesus Christ so in your heart, as
much of the Spirit of God in your heart, that would drive you to do
such loyal things as that deer did her baby? Wouldn't you like to be
that kind of a Christian? Would you like to have that type of salvation
that would--you--death or nothing else, and just the--the love of God
in your heart, like she had the love of her baby?
194 Now, the only way it can be, you can't do it by joining a church.
You can't do it by putting your name on a book. It's got to be real.
It's got to be genuine. It's got to be a birth. It's got to change you,
from just a make-belief to a genuine Christian.
You said, "You think the love could be that great? You think He could
love me?"
He said, "A mother might forget her suckling babe, but I can never
forget you. Your names are engraved on the palms of My hand."
197 God came to the earth in the form of Man, and--and--and unfolded
Himself, stretched His tent, from being Jehovah God to become Man to
stand the shame and curse. Little Jehovah God in a manger, under a pile
of manure, down there crying in a manger; God, the Creator of heavens
and earth, standing there in human flesh to take the death of--of your
sins upon Himself, that He might free you to be a more of a Christian
than what that deer was a mother. How can you reject such matchless
love? Then, besides that, He wrote His Word. That's enough. You
couldn't take my word, you have to... It'd be all right, but not Him.
He ascended on High and give gifts back to men. He come back in the
form of the Holy Spirit, same God to open your heart, by the atoning
Blood.
198 "Be ye therefore perfect, even as Your Father in heaven is perfect.
None of us can be that. I don't look at what I am. I--I'm not worthy.
You're not worthy. Who is worthy? I don't look at what I am; I look to
what He is. He's the One that was looked at. He is my Sacrifice. I'm
not worthy to stand here as a minister. If I counted my worthiness,
I'd--I'd be in hell; so would you. But we don't look to what we are.
You say, "I couldn't do that. I couldn't call. I couldn't touch--touch
God's garment. I couldn't do this."
Oh, you can. Look what happened. He died in order that you could do it,
that you could be saved. That's genuine. Would you like to be like
that, and like to be remembered in prayer? Raise your hand, say, "I
would, Brother Branham."
201 Let us bow our heads. With our heads bowed, come sweetly, humbly
now. We haven't room here for an altar call. There's no even an altar.
But the Bible said, "As many as believed was baptized." Altar call,
come in the Methodist day, which is all right. But in the time of our
Lord and the apostles, they believed unto Life. You were saved by
faith, through grace. And if you haven't got that experience tonight,
brother, sister...
Women, if you haven't got enough grace in your heart tonight to know
that the Bible teaches that you should stop bobbing your hair, wearing
shorts and makeup, if you haven't got that much grace in your heart
tonight... And you know the Bible teaches it, you should. He can't
change. You say, "I don't wear shorts. I wear slacks." That's worse.
God said, "A woman that'll wear a garment pertains to a man, it's an
abomination to God."
204 And you men that can't stop gawking and looking at women immorally
dressed, the idols of the day, you men that hasn't got enough real
grace in your heart to make your wife and kids quit doing such a thing
as that, the love of God isn't anchored in your heart; don't be
a--called a son of God. You're still in Sodom, a man that can't take
over his own house; God ordained him to do.
And you deacons that's married two or three times... And you men that
run out on your wives and try to hold your profession, you women that
crossed the other way... You people that hide behind the cloak of the
church, your denomination, won't have nothing to do with the next
fellow, let him be Christian or not; if he don't belong to your crew,
you'll have nothing to do with him: shame on you. May God display real
tonight to you. May you come to Him, sweetly now, and say, "Lord,
forgive me for my sins. From this night, henceforth, I'll serve You."
207 You that love television program, that you'll stay home to see some
immoral movie star like "We Love Sucy" or what of some of that other
stuff that they have, stay home on Wednesday night to watch television
instead of coming to the prayer room, the love of God's gone from your
heart.
You do that, and still you hold your membership? The love of God would
drive you from that, and drive you to your church, to your--your
brother and sister, to come together and set in heavenly places and
listen at your pastor preach. And the--the revival, or the camp is
ending now. If that still remains in your heart, let us pray together
now that God will remove it.
208 Lord Jesus, we come with humble contrition; we come with penitent
hearts, Lord. We're all guilty. We've trespassed against Thy
commandments. We've transgressed the laws of Thy love that saved us.
The church itself has went off on tantrums and building programs, and
all kinds of stuff, and left the prayer meeting and--and the Holy
Spirit for something on once or twice a week, when it should be in our
hearts and mind constantly. Forgive us, Lord.
Forgive our ministers, Lord, who'll stand in the pulpit and be ashamed
to proclaim the full Gospel of Christ. How that many of them today...
The whole world has become a Sodom. Many ministers setting in their
parish tonight and tomorrow, or in their study, trying to find words,
and run across the Word of God, and see the sins, but are afraid to say
anything about it, because they'd be excommunicated. The deacon board
will have them up, and they'll be turned into headquarters and be taken
out, when they know they ought to preach against sin. It's a Lot again,
"The sins of Sodom vexed his righteous soul." But men hasn't got the
courage. Just like Lot, he didn't have the courage to stand up.
I pray, God, You'd forgive us for things like that. May we be as Paul
of old, "I've not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God."
Forgive us all, Father.
211 As this simple little story of that cold November day on top of
that mountain there; how that man tonight, a deacon in the church up
there, a loyal Christian, because a mother deer come forth and
displayed something so real. You said, "If--if they hold their peace,
the rocks will cry out."
I pray, Father, that You'll give us something so real tonight, that'll
attract our attention to Christ to let us know that He's in the midst
of us tonight.
Penitent hands went up, hundreds of them. Forgive them, Lord. Now, I'm
reminding You, Lord, of the Scripture that You said, "No man can come
to Me except My Father draws him first." How could they raise their
hands unless You drawed them? When they raise their hands, they break
every scientific rule. Gravitation holds their hands down. But there
was a spirit in them, and there's Spirit by them, that said, "You're
wrong. Raise up your hands." And it defied the laws of gravitation and
raised their hands towards the Creator, "Have mercy on me, God."
And You said, "All the Father's given Me will come to Me. I will in no
wise cast them out. I'll give them Eternal Life and raise them up at
the last day." You said, "He that heareth My Words and believeth on Him
that sent Me, has Everlasting Life, and shall never come to the
judgment, but's already passed from death unto Life."
215 [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]... to the Kingdom of God to make loyal
members of the Body of Christ. And their churches, of these ministers,
may grow and grow with members, borned again in the Kingdom of God.
Bless my brethren, that whoever they pray for be healed; the Gospel
they preach, not fall upon hard, rocky ground, but upon tender hearts.
Grant it, Lord, that the Kingdom of God will soon be established in the
earth. You're coming for Your delegates. One day the Lamb is going to
leave the sanctuary, come forth to take the Book out of the hand of Him
Who is the deed Owner of it. When man transgressed, and the Book of
Life went back to its original Owner... Man, all life was lost; and
there was no man in heaven or on earth that was worthy. But a--a Lamb
come forth, a Bloody Lamb that had been slain since the foundation of
the world, that come and took the Book of Redemption and opened It.
God, may my name be there. May every name here be written there, Lord,
that's been redeemed in this great plan of redemption. Grant it, Father.
217 And now, we give them to You. I commit them to You. And if there's
any here that's never been baptized in Christian baptism, may they come
forward by the act of faith, and confess that they're wrong, and be
baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins,
and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Grant it, Father.
Will You hear us, Father, on this prayer, as we humbly present it to
You, in the Name, the all-sufficient Name that all heavens and earth is
named, Jesus Christ. Amen.
219 There is a Fountain filled with Blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
And sinners plunged beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stain,
Lose all their guilty stain,
Lose all their guilty stain;
And sinners plunged beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stain.
Don't you love those old songs? Continue on. Aren't they wonderful?
Penned by the Holy Spirit, I just love them. I think jubilee songs are
fine, but I like this old songs of the Blood, songs of the faith. Let's
sing another verse, the old fashion, country way, the way we sung it
back on the hills years ago.
The dying thief rejoiced to see (his last chance)
That Fountain in his day;
There may I, though vile as he,
Washed all my sins away.
Let's close our eyes and sweetly sing it to Christ.
The dying thief rejoiced to see
That Fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.
Wash all my sins away,
Wash all my sins away;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.
221 Oh, don't it make you feel all scrubbed out inside, just feel the
sweetness of the Presence of God? Now ye are the sons of God. Now we're
lifted up in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, with all authority,
heavens and earth given to us. Did you ever think of that?
Somebody says, "Have you got any power?"
"No, but I got authority."
It's like the little policeman standing out here in the street, little
fellow with the cap pulled down over his ears, weigh about a hundred
pounds, a badge sticking on him. And here comes a bunch of cars down
the road, doing a hundred miles an hour; each one of them, four or five
hundred horsepower. He couldn't stop a one of them. But let him hold up
that hand. Uh-huh. He's got authority. That's what makes the brakes
squeak. It ain't his power. It's his authority,
And we've got authority by Jesus Christ. That's the reason devils
scream. See? Not because we have power, but we have authority. The Holy
Spirit is here, God's Authority. "The works that I do, shall ye do
also." "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." I believe
Him.
224 Now, we're setting in heavenly places in the Presence of Christ,
lifted up above the cares of the world into a realm of faith. What
could happen here tonight? There could be another Pentecost. There
could be such a thing happen right here tonight, like it was in Acts 2.
That's right.
Christ is here. If we could get the hardness of our hearts away. Is He
with us? Is it true? Is Christ in our midst? He promised to be. How
would you know Him? Not by the way He looked, but by the works He done.
That's what He promised, and He said He would do it.
God, help us tonight, that when we leave here, my prayer is... And I'll
just say it with my eyes open to you people. I pray that you'll see
something so real, that God will do something so real tonight, until
you'll say like those who came from Emmaus, as you go to your homes,
"Did not our hearts burn within us?" See, they were...
227 Jesus had been crucified, and dead, buried, a rumor had been He'd
raised again, and He walked with them all day and they didn't know Him.
He's walked with many people; they didn't know it. That's Who kept you
from having that wreck coming over here; that's what healed your baby;
Christ, and maybe you didn't recognize it.
But one night He got them at Emmaus, Cleopas and his friend, and they
shut the doors, then He done something just the way He did it before
His crucifixion. They know it was Him in His resurrection. Quickly they
went to tell others.
May He do something tonight, like He did before His crucifixion, to us,
that we, when we go from Emmaus, that we might tell the others, "Our
hearts burned within us." May we see something real, not so much of
some new doctrine or something; but the doctrine, that we know, made
manifest by the power of God.
230 Last night I called a prayer line, come up, crippled lady and so
forth, healed. Testimonies... Just amateur; we just got to be here a
little bit, not enough hardly to know you. In there I could catch
feelings of people, saying, "He's reading their mind." I tried to turn
my back to the people and show you it wasn't reading minds.
Many of you old-timers here in Arkansas remember when I used to take
hold of a person's hand, how He told me, "It'll come to pass then, that
if you'll be sincere, you'll know the very secret of their heart." You
remember that, all of you? And the things that He's done, world around,
everywhere...
232 Don't forget "Life's" magazine now, last month, to see where He
predicted what would happen, and there standing there, witnesses here
tonight that was in there. Even science knows nothing about it. They're
wondering why it could be; but it is.
Now, look, I'm going to take a new Scripture tonight. The Bible said
that Jesus Christ is the High Priest that can be touched by the feeling
of our infirmities. Is that right, brethren? That's the Scripture. Now,
if He is the High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our
infirmities, now if you touched Him, He would act, if He is the same as
He was, He'd act as He did then. 'Cause He--He can't... That's the only
way you'd ever know Him, is by His action. See?
234 Any hypocrite can put scars in his hand, and blood or whatmore, but
a life is what tells it. See? I could take a tree and tie leaves on it
out here, of a different tree, but what kind of fruit does it put
forth? See?
Now, Christ's Life lived in you, then if that first Life that come out
of that branch... Now, He has no hands now but yours and mine. He has
no voice but mine and yours. See, the vine doesn't bear fruit. The
branch bears fruit. And if the branch that bore in the first limb that
come out of that grape vine, as I said, they wrote a Book of Acts
behind it. If it ever puts forth another original vine, you'll write
another Book of Acts behind it. It'll be the same Spirit, 'cause it's
the same Life in the entire vine. Every branch that bears will be that.
236 Now, I want you to notice something, as we set here. How many of
you believe that Christ is here? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] How
many of you is sick, raise your hand. How many of you believe that you
have faith enough, that if you'd touch His garment, He would act in the
same way?
I ain't going to call no prayer line. Just call it, just let it come
from here. That's quite a challenge. But you got a lot of faith, and I
believe it'll--God will honor it.
238 Now, I'm going to look over the audience, and I want to see if
there's somebody that I know in the audience. I know Brother Tracy
Boutliere setting there. This brother here, I'm not acquainted with
these ministers right along here. One minister back in the back there
that I know of him. Outside of that, upon the authority of my Bible,
and It over my heart... I don't swear, 'cause the Bible said not to do
it; but by my Bible over my heart, I lie not. I don't see one more
person that I know, outside of Jim Maguire.
And if I'm not sure, that's a brother that I met at the Tabernacle the
other day. I just met him. I forget what his name is. He does--does
work at the Tabernacle at Jeffersonville. Is that right? Now, that's
the only persons that I know, that I can see that I know.
240 Now, if Jesus was here, and you wanted to be healed, and you'd ask
Him, "Lord, will You heal me?" Here's what... If He was standing here
with this suit on that He give me, He couldn't heal you. He's already
done it. See? It was finished at Calvary. The whole world was saved;
the whole world was forgiven; everything happened at Calvary. See? "He
was wounded for our transgressions, with His stripes we were healed,"
past tense. See?
Now, the only thing you have to do. It'll never do you no good unless
you believe it, not feel it. Jesus never did say, "Did you feel it?" He
said, "Did you believe it?"
I've seen people put up their hand, say, "Feel it? Feel it? Feel it?"
He never did say that.
He said, "Did you believe it?": faith. See?
244 Notice. Now, if He is that same High Priest, He'd have to act in
the same way. No matter how much He would anoint me, He's got to anoint
you too.
Say, I do see a man that I know. There's Mr. Way, the man that dropped
dead in the church the other day, that God brought back to life,
setting right there, and a minister setting by him, that I know, he's
setting right there by him. But otherwise, this... Yes, I believe I see
this brother; this is his brother that I met down there with the
Blackwell family today, praying in the home.
246 But you people who believe Him, and believe that you can touch Him,
I'm going to ask you something. Now, I'm your brother, just a--a--a
man, just like your husband, or your brother, or your pastor, just a
man. And now, there--it's not out in some dark room, like some devil.
And the devil don't do that anyhow. Did you ever hear a devil preach
the Gospel, get souls saved and healed? "If Satan can cast out Satan,
then his kingdom's divided against himself," Jesus said. No.
But right here, you look and believe that Jesus still remains that same
High Priest that He was, and you say, "Lord Jesus, I'm sick. Or, I got
a sick mother setting here, or a brother in a home. Lord, I--I--I can't
pay my debt. Help me. I'll--I'll confess all my sins. I--I--I'm a
sinner; I--I want to get right with God." Something another, ask Him.
Touch Him as the High Priest, and see if He doesn't act today like He
did then. That shows He's with us.
248 Now, I believe He will do it. I don't... He's never failed me yet
in all these years. I--I believe Him. But you can understand what a
challenge that is. But I--it ain't... It--it...
Somebody said, "Aren't you afraid?" No, sir. How can I be afraid, and
Him right here by me? He, it's His Word; it's not mine. I'm just saying
what He said; that's my confession. "Confess" means "say the same
thing." The Scripture, which is God, God in letter form... "The Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us." And the Word still is God. And the
Word said He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's up to Him
to confirm It. It's worth me to believe It. Now, you believe It.
250 Now, I want each one of you then, quietly, silently, to offer a
prayer to God, and say, "Lord God, help me. I know that little old
stoop-shouldered man standing up there don't know nothing about me, but
You know me. And if You'll just do, and repeat a Scripture for me
tonight..."
Like the woman touched His garment. He didn't actually feel the touch
of the hand, because as I told you, the Palestinian garment is loose;
underneath garment, thick. Big heavy robes, He didn't feel it. And He
said, "Who touched Me?"
And Peter rebuked Him, saying, "Lord..." Why, he took Him and rebuked
Him for it. In other words, "It sounds insane for You to say it.
Everybody's got their arms around You, patting You on the back. 'Who
touched Me?'"
He said, "But virtue gone from Me. Somebody touched with a different
touch."
Can you make that touch tonight?
254 I surrender myself. Now, remember, I am a total mute to these
things, outside the Kingdom of God. It's just like this microphone.
This microphone can't speak; it can only speak when something speaks
through it. And we are just like that microphone to this. I don't know
you, but it takes something to speak through here.
And you believe it, and have faith in God, and God will grant it. Do
you believe it? Now, just believe. Have faith, and don't doubt. Believe
on the Lord God. Now, just pray; be real reverent, and just see.
256 Now, heavenly Father, I been speaking at length. There's people
setting here who are eternity bound people, every one of us. Our heads
are bowed to the dust, where You took us from; and if You tarry, we
will return to that dust. These spirits and souls that's in us, must
return to You for the judgment.
Now, heavenly Father, we pray that You'll honor Your Word tonight. I've
spoke of You, now speak that I have said the truth, Lord. I am Your
servant. I commit myself to You. And if there be someone in here, Lord,
that has that type of faith, that could bring forth the manifestation
of Jesus Christ, to show that the sign that He promised, the last sign
to the Gentile church, it would take place: the elect church, like
Abraham's group, called out. We see Billy Graham and those men down
there in Sodom, calling them out; but we remember the One that stayed
with Abraham give them another sign, that the coming son was at hand.
Lord, let us see that sign tonight, as the Man had His back turned to
the tent, He said, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Jesus said it will repeat
again just before the coming of the Son of man: God manifested in the
flesh, in human flesh, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the
Blood of Jesus Christ. Grant it, Lord. I commit this, myself, to You
for Your service. Speak, Lord. Your servants are listening.
258 Now, in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I take every spirit
in here under my control for the Kingdom of God's sake, for the works
of It.
[Someone speaks in tongues. Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] You may...
260 Now, let the Holy Spirit act. Now, is the things that I have said
right, or are they not right? Is He remaining Christ? Did He keep His
promises, "Wherever two or three are gathered together, I'll be in
their midst"? "A little while, and the world out yonder will see Me no
more, yet you'll see Me, for I (the personal pronoun) will be with you,
even in you. The works that I do, shall you also; more than this, for I
go to the Father." Is it true?
I see that Light hanging over the little colored girl there. She is
improving. Just remember, she's going to be well. You come from way
away from here. You have to sacrifice to get here each night, but don't
fear about the child. You found grace with God. She was called the
other night. Just believe.
262 Here, has anybody ever seen that Light? Raise your hand if you
have. You seen a picture of It. Don't you see It? Look here. Look here.
That Light, emerald color, standing right here... Don't you see That?
Moving, right here...
It's over a woman. She's suffering with diabetes. She's prayed. She
believes. God, don't let it leave her. She's going to miss It, as
sure... Mrs. Davis, believe with all your heart. There you are.
I never seen the woman in my life. Here's my hands before God. Ask her
if those things... Is that true, lady? Wave your hands, like this, if
that's true. Now, who did she touch? Not me, she's twenty yards from
me. But she touched the High Priest, Jesus Christ. Just have faith.
Don't doubt. You believe?
265 Here, look here again, right here: some woman praying. She's
suffering with stomach trouble, something wrong with her legs. O God.
Mrs. Cotton, believe with all your heart. Receive your healing; Jesus
Christ makes you whole.
God in heaven knows I never seen the woman in my life. What did she
touch? Isn't that the same High Priest? Why are you suspicious? Don't
doubt. Have faith in God.
Somebody back in this district. You pray. Believe. He's God, all over.
There's a lady setting here praying. She's not praying for herself.
She's praying for her son. He has stomach trouble. He's not here. He's
in another state. He's from a city called Pontiac, Michigan. Don't
fear. He had an ulcerated stomach from a nervous condition. It's left
him. Amen. Your faith touched Him.
269 That you might know, here sets a man here, the one that plays this
guitar, ever what it is here, suffering with a stomach trouble too. The
devil thought he got by with that, but he didn't. You're healed, sir,
Jesus Christ makes you well.
You believe with all your heart? "If thou canst believe, all things are
possible." You believe it?
Little fellow here setting, praying for his wife, with his hands up.
She's suffering with an asthmatic condition. If you believe that God
will heal her, brother, she'll be healed. Amen.
272 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." Ask them
people; I never seen them in my life.
Way back over here sets another woman. She's got tumor on the breast.
Oh, may she not miss it. Mrs. Patterson, accept your healing. Rise to
your feet; give glory to God. All right, I never seen the woman in my
life; God in heaven knows that.
What about on them stretchers down there? How about the woman at there?
Hold your head down, the woman. There sets a woman setting there; she's
on a cot. Do you believe me to be His prophet, His servant? There's a
Light hanging over that lady. She's suffering with a heart trouble. If
you lay there, you'll die. Rise up, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Take
up your bed and go home, and you'll get over your heart trouble.
275 You believe God? How many of you believe Him? Listen, my friends. A
greater than Solomon is here, the High Priest that can be touched by
the feeling of our infirmity. Do you believe Him? If that isn't the
work that Jesus Christ proved Himself to be Messiah by? Is that what
the Scripture says? Say, "Amen." [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.]
And by the way, you, you're facing a nervous breakdown. Get away from
it. Flee for your life. Run quickly. Lay the things that's in the past
in the past and look to God. You're a minister of the Gospel and you...
I talked to you this morning. You didn't know what it was, and I didn't
know what it was, but I see it now. You're coming to a breakdown.
Devil's putting everything in your mind, trying to get you to turn
against, even against me. That's right. That's THUS SAITH THE LORD.
Forget it. Tell him he's a liar. Accept it right now, and that will
leave you and it'll never come back again. You'll be a free man.
I challenge you to believe these things. The man come to me this
morning asking. I didn't know, but I see it. Right here it is before
him; look at that dark shadow just moving in and out. But now the
thing's left him. That's right. Hallelujah. "Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, today, and forever."
278 While the Holy Spirit's here, here's handkerchiefs. Let's pray,
while you hold in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we are taught in the Bible, that they taken from the
body of Saint Paul, handkerchiefs and aprons; unclean spirits went out
of people, and they were healed. And while we're conscious of Your
Presence here, we realize that we're not Saint Paul, but You're still
Jesus. And it wasn't him in the beginning; it was You; the faith in the
people, when they seen him prophesy and knowed that God was with Him.
Lord, You honor the people's prayers again today by the same means.
One writer said, "When Israel was on its road to the promised land,
that the Red Sea cut them off, right in the path of duty to the
promised land. And God looked down through that Pillar of Fire with
angry eyes; the Red Sea got scared and moved back, and Israel went on
to the promised land."
God tonight, the people wants that promise, "I would above all things
that you'd prosper in good health." And sickness has cut them off. May
You look down tonight through the Blood of Jesus Christ, and as these
handkerchiefs are laid upon the sick, in commemoration of this great
anointing of the Holy Spirit, of Christ manifesting Himself here beyond
a shadow of doubt, the same Jesus showing us that He's still alive and
raised from the dead, may the sickness get scared with these tokens are
laid upon the sick; may he run back and move away, and the people be
healed, through Jesus Christ's Name.
282 Quietly. The Bible is right. And if Jesus is willing to come here
and make this so manifested to you, so perfectly beyond any realm of
psychology, beyond any realm of emotion, a perfect miracle... A miracle
is something that cannot be explained. I can see where a men could be
a--a little lame in his foot, and could jump up, and under an emotion.
Right. But who could tell him what he's done, and where he's come from,
and what's happened, and what will be? And I challenge you; it's never
missed a time in the tens of thousands times thousands around the
world. Not a...
We got a lot of impersonations; I know that. That has to come, carnal
impersonations. But that don't... That just makes the real thing shine
better; that makes Jesus Christ real.
284 Here He is tonight. He's in our midst, the same Holy Spirit that
you received, and He lets you speak with tongues, and do the things
that you've done. That same Holy Spirit's giving you that Sodom sign to
get out of that kind of stuff; the hour of burning of this world is at
hand. A bomb lays yonder with a number on it. Flee to Christ, quickly.
He also said in the Scriptures, the last words that fell from His lips,
"These signs shall follow them that believe. If they lay hands on the
sick, they shall recover." You believe that?
286 I'm going to see if you believe it? I wonder if we could run a
good, old fashion, Arkansas fast line here for a minute. Would you
believe it? Would you like to see that, hands laid on you? Would you
like to have that?
I don't know how we'll govern it. I doubt if we could do it. You doubt
it? You think we could? I don't know how we will. But we can try, if
you'll be reverent.
288 Let those that's in there... What? Section by section... All right,
let those that are in the back there, that's holding those prayer
cards, step right out front in that line there. Right section...
Now, I want you to know, my brethren, sisters, that you don't have to
wait for some special evangelist to come by. No, no. Your pastor has
the same... Now, he--he--he may not be able to--to have that prophetic
gift; that comes one in a generation. But look, he has the same rights
to pray for you that I would. That discernment doesn't heal you; it
only brings you God conscious, that you're in the Presence of God.
290 But evangelist goes in town, does all the praying, all the
baptizing; then the people, when he leaves, the pastor is... Well, the
people think their pastor's nothing. Your pastor is a man of God. He's
led you safe this far; he can take you on. He's an instructed man of
God.
And I want you, each one of you, if you come through this prayer line
and you don't believe this, stay out of it; you'll get worse. But if
you'll really believe it, when you pass under anointed hands of God, I
want you to go home testifying to the power of God; leave out of here
shouting and praising God, that it's all over. I want you to do it.
292 I want these pastors to help me. Oh, Brother Moore, and Brother
Hooper, and many of these brothers here that I know, and these fine
bunch of pastors here, just stand and just form me a little line right
along here. This is the way we did it. I haven't done this for years.
But while the Holy Spirit's still on me... I just seen something happen
just then. While He's still here, and while I can, and while... They
have the same anointing and the same authority. That's all. We're going
to lay hands on the sick. And the Bible said, "They lay hands on the
sick; they shall recover." The Bible said so. That's God's Word. Come
out here, brethren, come out here and form me a line right along here.
I'm going to stand with these brothers.
293 Now, when you come out, you people in this place, as you go out, go
right out around the building, come right back in again. And now, I'm
going to ask someone to stand here, maybe that little brother here, the
little... Come here, and you check these lines, if you will, or some
brother that can stand here and call them by sections.
Let the ministers now, the ministers, anointed servants of Jesus
Christ, just stand right along here.
I've got a couple of brothers here that's from Jeffersonville, some of
my associates from little sister churches from the Tabernacle. Brother
Don Ruddell, great success in praying for the sick... Don, are you
here? Brother Junior Jackson, a Methodist preacher I just baptized in
the Name of Jesus Christ. He received the Holy Ghost. This other was a
Church of God minister. I want you brethren that prays for the sick
around the Tabernacle, come, stand in this line with these brothers.
That's all right, isn't it, brother? That's okay, isn't it? Sure. Yeah.
All right, come, stand around.
297 Where's Brother Willard Collins at? Another minister, Methodist
minister, just received the Holy Ghost, and baptized. I'd like for him
to come.
His little boy, the other day, was dying with--with a rheumatic fever,
and the doctor said don't even let him to raise his head high enough to
put a tube in his mouth. I come from Tucson to preach "The Seven
Seals." And when he did, he picked that baby up out of the bed and
brought it over there. And no more than got in, and the Holy Spirit
said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD. Take the baby home; he's healed. He'll play
with my little boy." Here's the brother standing right here now. His
wife's in here.
I guess Mikie is setting here himself. Right. Where you at, Mikie,
where you at? And the doctors... There he is; a mystery. The doctor
said bring... The health authorities run that child in. The doctor went
and examined him; he scratched his head, said, "There ain't one speck
of it in him."
What is it? Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.
301 Friends, the reason I called these men, they're ministers. They're
pastors. They're men that's called to pray for the sick, the same as I
am or any other man. And I want you to know that your pastor has
authority to do this. You don't have to wait for Oral Roberts, or Jack
Jones, or me, or nobody else. Jesus Christ is omnipresent; you believe
Him. Your pastor's called to do that. If you never been baptized; after
this meeting, consult your pastor, get right with God. If you ain't
received the Holy Ghost, go to his church, he'll instruct you on what
to do.
302 Now, as you pass through, pray. And I want each person in here,
each individual, I want you to pray. I want you to just march through
the line. I'm going to stand right here with this bunch of men, laying
hands on these people. This pastor's going to stand here and call the
rows. And when you pass by, and these anointed hands... I'm going to
pray for you now, and they're going to pray for you.
And when they lay their hands upon you, and remember, it's just--you're
just as healed as you would be saved. The Bible, It said, "Repent, and
be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for remission of sin, and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." That's God's promise. He'll
do it if you believe it. But if you don't believe it, it won't work.
And He said, "These signs shall follow them that believe: if they lay
their hands on the sick, they shall recover." It's done when they lay
their hands on you if you believe it.
Do you believe it? Do you believe tonight, that you've seen just as
much real as that mother deer could produce, to see Jesus Christ
manifest Hisself among us? If you believe He is here, say,
"Amen."[Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] Then, here He is.
305 Let us bow our heads now. Now, here's my prayer for you with all my
heart.
Heavenly Father, I love You. You're my Life. You're my Hopes, my God,
my King, my Healer, my Keeper. Not only that, but I express the
feelings of every believing Christian in here; that's what You are.
Here stands men, some of them standing here themselves, sick. I know
they are. I seen the--Your Spirit hanging over them a few moments ago.
Knowing them sick ministers, but their heart goes for their
congregation, the people, forfeiting their own place to stand here in
the prayer line to pray for their sheep. God, bless that man, bless
each one of them.
308 As we stand here as Your representative tonight of this Truth,
Bible Truth, may each one of these men be so anointed, and the Holy
Spirit will, when they lay their hands upon the people, that there be
such faith strike that person until they will accept the God-given gift
of healing that You've promised them, Lord. And may each one come
through, be so charged with expectation, that they'll know that they're
passing beneath the shadow of the cross, where the Blood of Jesus
Christ atones for their confession, and His great august Presence here
with us now, that proves that He's not dead; He's raised from the dead,
and a-living among us. Then our hearts will burn as we go to our
different homes tonight, saying, "Did not our hearts burn within us, as
He spoke to us along the way?" I ask that Your power will give such
faith in these next few minutes to these sick people, that there'll not
be a feeble person in our midst.
I challenge every devil that has these people bound, upon the authority
of God's Word, and the Presence of Jesus Christ Who shed His Blood to
make every Word a reality to every person that would believe. Satan,
you are defeated; your time is at hand; leave these people, in the Name
of Jesus Christ. Come out from them. We move the act of God, by laying
hands upon the sick, and they shall recover.
310 Samuel, sing "Only Believe." Start the prayer line, [Brother Samuel
Johnson begins singing "Only Believe."--Ed.] Everybody in prayer now.
Everybody, prayer.
[Brother Branham and the ministers pray for the people.
Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred mind
Is like to that above.
When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
312 Heavenly Father, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, may this--these
contact with each others hands, ministering brothers, that the Word of
God. Grant that the virtue that raised up Christ from the dead, and has
kept Him with us for these two thousand years, may it bind...
[Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]... souls for eternity, and may heal the
sickness in our midst. And may...?... every believing...?... in the
Name of Jesus Christ...?... these handkerchiefs and these parcels, may
the power of God rest on them, through Jesus Christ's Name.
313 Now, let the entire congregation, that believes with all your
heart, that Jesus Christ has--will keep His Word... If He kept His Word
for two thousand years, and said this would happen at the end time, and
here it's happened, He'll keep His Word that said, "If they lay their
hands on the sick, they shall recover." Do you believe it? Do you
accept it? Then let's raise our hands together and give...?...