E-1 Thank you, Brother Neville. It is understood that the Neville trio is one of the best trios in the nation. Sure, that’s right. That’s right. [Brother Neville says, “I doubt that.” Brother Branham and congregation laugh—Ed.]
E-2 And how many heard the broadcast yesterday? I am an old veteran preacher, over twenty years old, and I’ve heard lots of sermons. But I believe I heard one of the most appropriate sermons for the day that we’re living, I heard it yesterday, by our pastor, Brother Neville. You who missed that, missed a great treasure. That was dearly in my heart. And when my wife was washing dishes…
E-3 Junie, I was helping her, so that won’t hurt. Delores makes you wash them, too. So…[Brother Branham laughs—Ed.]
E-4 While I was helping her wash the dishes, we both had to stop, to just to—to remark to each other, how that the Lord was using our brother, and yesterday’s message on the radio. And it was a marvelous masterpiece, if I ever heard one. And I was so happy to know, that the—the one who the Lord was using to bring the message, I was associated with, in the work of the Lord. And, so, and the quartet, or the trio, yesterday, was just marvelous; and they are, all the time, and so is our pastor. And we appreciate this with all of our hearts. And pray that God will continue to be with our brother, and grant these great powerful messages both in song and in the Word, as the time goes on.
E-5 And now, too, for the sake of your prayer, that—that you have prayed for us while we were in the field, the Lord has blessed abundantly, greatly. And we are very happy to report that, that many things our Saviour did out in the services; saved souls, and—and the people’s faith met the requirement of God’s healing power, and they were healed.
E-6 And now as we have moved up just a notch farther, now we are going out again, plunging out in the field this coming week, to Lima, Ohio, to the Baptist people, which we certainly desire your prayer for—for the Lima meeting this week.
E-7 And then we go from there, come back and go to Evansville, Indiana, just for one night, that’s the third of—of February, to the Christian Business Men’s. They are setting a new chapter, and I’m to speak in the morning. And then in the evening, if it’s not snowing or bad weather, so I can get back, well, I’m to stay for services that evening. If not, I’ll be here at the tabernacle for that night, the Lord willing, February the third.
E-8 Then, the tenth through the seventeenth, is at Minneapolis. And the sixteenth, morning of the sixteenth, is the Christian Business Men’s breakfast. And so we’re—we’re expecting a great time at this—at this breakfast, at this breakfast, and also at the meeting.
E-9 We come back, to go to Shreveport; then to Phoenix, Arizona, to the Madison Square Garden. And there with full cooperation, with all the ministers of the Maricopa Valley Association, at the big, beautiful Madison Square Garden, there at Phoenix, we have the services.
E-10 And then, from there, to the San Fernando Valley, with Brother Espinoza, with all the Mexican people. And then up to some lake, (I forget), Lake Clear, for three nights up there. And then over into Oakland, then, to the beautiful big civic auditorium which seats nearly ten thousand people, with the Twin City Ministerial Association sponsoring the meeting. Which, we thank God, and pray that He’ll give us a great outpouring of His blessing.
E-11 Just a note from my secretary, just a moment. You see, I have to push it away from me. I’m…All right. Yes, it’s someone to see me after the meeting. Some ministers have come in, Martin brothers. All right, brother, we’ll see just immediately after service, in the deacons’ room.
E-12 Now, I love the Word, because the Word is the Truth of God. And I was talking yesterday to my…our Brother Cox, and Sister Cox. And I think that brother…Yeah, he is present this morning, and I don’t know whether Sister Cox is, or not. But we were discussing some things of Christian life, as Christians usually do when they come together. And, in the discussion, came up, on the speaking of, against other fellowcitizens of the Kingdom. How that we hear broadcasts some time, that just cuts the other fellow to pieces, and calls their names, and—and tells them they are not Christians, and so forth. Which, is just children. That’s all. They are just children. And we should be grown up. That’s right. And, so, grown-ups don’t talk like that. We…
E-13 But, we were talking, and Brother Cox and I. And I said, “Well, I have determined in my heart to preach against sin, just sin. And I just lay it out. And wherever it—it—it belongs, God can—can place it in its right place.”
E-14 A little—little boy, one time, down south, there was a—a saying, that he was kneeling in a row where he had been plowing. And as a—a clergyman passed by and heard the little fellow repeating the alphabet, “A, B, C, D,” so forth, and he was on his knees, so the clergyman was very much disturbed. So he heard the little boy repeat the alphabet, and then say, “Amen.”
E-15 And as he got up, why, the clergyman spoke to him, and said, “Sonny, I am a…the servant of the Lord. And I heard you praying, but you were only saying the alphabet. And I—I don’t understand why that you were just saying the alphabet.”
E-16 He said, “Sir, I—I can’t pray.” He said, “I—I had never prayed. But, I had a praying mother and father, which has done gone on to Heaven.” And said, “Mother, I…She died when I was such a little boy. But I remember of hearing her when she was in trouble, she went to the Lord, and she prayed. And she died when I was so young, she couldn’t teach me to pray. And I have been given into the hands of an unkind person, who beats me and mistreats me. And I—I was…thought, maybe, after I had learned my ABC’s, if I could take all the—the words and say all the letters, maybe He could put it together and understand what I meant.”
E-17 That’s the prayer of sincerity. Certainly He could put them together. It’s not how we pray, in our lips, it’s the motive of our heart, is what God hears. He sometimes don’t hear our lips; He hears our intention, what the motive of our heart.
E-18 So, in doing so, yesterday, I was very stricken on this time, and being that it’s in the tabernacle, I might express some things that I was thinking, that it might be a help or a benefit. And if I would ever say anything that would be unkind, I—I certainly wouldn’t want to mean it that way, if it was contrary to somebody’s belief. But I would only express it as a—as a love, and would want, maybe, to try to straighten it up. Like people who doesn’t believe in Divine healing, and so forth. And you didn’t believe in it, why, I…and me saying I do believe in it, it would—it would not be that I were trying to fuss at you, but I was trying to express it to—to those who do believe in it; if you understand just what I mean.
E-19 Now, praying that God will understand, I know He does. He understands; we know that. Now, I was speaking to a very scholarly man from Canada. And as we know, the Canadians are…If you know them, have ever had personal acquaintance with them, they are scholars, very deep, most of them. And they do not have the troubles up there that we have here. And in there, I found that this man, yet, not much older than I, he’s probably fifty, and he was completely grayed, and his mustache was gray, and, yet, not over fifty years old. And I said to him, “My brother,” when he came to the—the room where I was staying. The pastor of a—a church, I said…looked at him.
E-20 And just a few years ago, in Saskatoon, when we had a great meeting together at the big arena, when I first started into the evangelistic meetings, he was black-headed. His mustache was black. And he was…had two young daughters, and they are married now and got children.
And so I said, in my heart, “Oh, what has happened?”
E-21 He said, “Brother Branham, about two years ago, I thought maybe the Lord had called me to the United States for—for work.” He said, “I went to the West Coast, and got connected with a certain broadcast that goes national.” And he said, “When I seen the dishonesty of the way they misused the finance that was sent in,” he said, “I just, as a Christian, couldn’t stay there any longer. I left. And I got hooked up with another.” And said, “It was out of the frying pan into the fire.” And he said, “Then I just kept and found out so many things,” and said, “to find the weakness of the American pulpit!”
E-22 And I said, “Brother, that is true. We have no middle class here, to speak of. We—we either have the real cold and formal and indifferent, or the extreme fanatic. And we don’t have the middle ground.” And I said, “It’s—it’s too bad.”
E-23 And he said, “Then I come here.” And he said, “Brother Branham, as soon as I got here, and my first message, I found out it was beating the piano, and turning over the chairs. And,” he said, “then I begin to wonder.” And said, “Then, through it all, I tried to preach the Gospel, just in the Word. And when It did,” he said, “I…There was something another, that after while the Lord let me break through to the anointing and brought the…The Holy Spirit came into our midst with a love. And the peace of God begin to flow over the building.”
E-24 And said, “Then I said, ‘Now, the Holy Spirit is here, and we will now worship the Lord and concentrate our lives unto God.’”
E-25 And said, “Some young boy, with not enough wisdom to hardly get in the door, runs up to the pulpit. He said, ‘Amen, preacher! That’s right. Look, oil has been dripping out of my hands, all morning. Hallelujah! Let people come up here, and I’ll get this anointing oil for healing.’”
E-26 He said, “Brother Branham, I said, ‘Sonny, find you a seat and sit down.’”
E-27 And said, “You know what happened? The presiding elder said to me, ‘You find you a seat and sit down.’”
E-28 He said, “How will we ever…How can you, or preachers who try to hold that position between the two fanatics, balance the load?”
I said, “Just the grace of God.” Oh, what a place!
E-29 And the man threw his hands in his face and wept, till, the wife and I standing there, and the tears dropping off on his trouser leg. He said, “Brother Branham, I’m heading for Saskatoon, to get out of this mess of evil spirit.”
E-30 And I said, “That is true. The American, social, intellectual groups, has become so against the other group. And the other group has run forth into fantastics until, the true Gospel, it’s hard to find a place of approach, and to get a pre-eminence.”
E-31 But, and as I left the house, speaking to Brother Cox, on my road down. He knows nothing of this, as he sits here. Down the road, I said, “Lord, how true that is! And how hard that it’s been, to try to get the true Gospel to the people, pulling from both sides, and trying to hold in the middle of the road, as we’ve contended from that since the hour the cornerstone was laid. See? Now, and some…
E-32 I said, “What about these Americans down here? What will happen to them?” And seem like Something said, just spoke to me, and said, “What are you doing? What is this to thee? Follow thou Me.”
E-33 And then the vision returned to my mind, the day that I laid the cornerstone. On return home, I was quoting it to my wife. How many remembers the vision of the morning of the cornerstone? It’s laying right there in the cornerstone now, twenty-three years ago, I think. And it was…
E-34 I was just across the street here, just waking up one morning, about seven o’clock, in the June when the cornerstone was laid, I believe, or July. And on the morning, looking out towards the rising of the eastern sun, I was praising the Lord, because the tabernacle would then be…have this cornerstone laid. Mr. Marcum and them had been here, and many of them had digging the foundation, and so forth. And I was to lay the cornerstone. We have the pictures, and so forth, of it. And each one was to place in this cornerstone, a certain little token, and even Catholics come by and dropped their little beads and so forth, whatever they had, into the cornerstone.
E-35 But that morning, the Holy Spirit said to me, as I was laying there. I went…In them days, I didn’t know to call it a vision. I just said it was a trance. And I saw a vision which spoke and said that my work would be between the two faculties of the Pentecostal, the trinity and the oneness, and there was an empty place on each side to be filled. I did not cross them up. I just broke from each tree and planted it down. And up into the heavens went the great trees, a growing quickly, and their fruits fell down, and they were delicious. I was eating them. And at the cross, just ahead of me, lay all covered with fruits.
E-36 And then when I got to the place, the Holy Spirit come down to the top of the trees and said, shaking and roaring, and It said, “Do the work of an evangelist.” Said, “When you come out of this, read Second Timothy 4.” Said, “Do the work of an evangelist. This is not your tabernacle.” And I said, “Where…” And I seen the tabernacle as it is today.
I said, “Where is my tabernacle?”
E-37 And He sit me down under the bright blue sky. And He said, “Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry. For the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine; but shall heap for themselves together, teachers, having itching ears, and shall be turned from the Truth, to fables.”
E-38 If that hasn’t happened, word by word! That is why I have tried to strictly stay with the Word. And that’s my subject tonight, “On the Word!”
E-39 Now, this morning, by God’s grace, I wish to approach another subject. But before approaching that, while you’re turning to Ezekiel the 6th chapter. I would like to say this, That, in approach. Everywhere, I have tried hard to keep the Word in line. So, pray for me that I will always be faithful to the Word. That’s it: to the Word! All right.
E-40 Now, in Ezekiel, the 36th chapter, and we wish to begin to read the 26th verse.
A new spirit and a new heart…will I give thee,…
E-41 And then in the 27th:
And I will put my spirit in you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,…
E-42 Now shall we bow our heads just before we approach this.
E-43 Our Heavenly Father, today, it’s with grateful hearts, as we quietly and reverently approach this sacred moment, that when, how do we know but what this very hour may determine the Eternal destination of a soul sitting present! And the value of that soul is compared with many thousands of worlds. So we pray, Father, that You will let us approach reverently, solemnly, and in the attitude of prayer.
E-44 And also, there may be sick people sitting present, who, this day, in their attitude that they receive through this Word, may determine how much longer they stay on the earth. So we realize the solemnity of this very moment.
E-45 And we ask that Your great Presence will anoint us all, seeing that we are earthly people, Thou has taken us from the earth, and earth shall we return. And only while we’re living in this earthly vessel, do we have the privilege to serve Thee, and to win others to Thee. So we ask that You will let our hearts be yielded to Thy Word, and may the Holy Spirit take the Word and deliver It to us as we have need. For we ask it in Jesus’ Name, Thy beloved Son. Amen.
E-46 If I should name…for a few moments, this morning. My wife told me the other day, said, “Billy, if you could cut your sermons to thirty minutes, instead of two hours and thirty minutes, I think it would be more effective.”
E-47 And I said, “As much as I love you, and as much as I know that that is the truth, but, you see, I have no other to lead me but the Holy Spirit.”
E-48 And I don’t know no more than just keep talking as He keeps pushing it on, so that’s the way I have to do it. And even when I stop, when He’s blessing, and when He’s not, then I’m a miserable person, and my audience is also; and every other minister that speaks by inspiration.
E-49 But if my subject would be, this morning, if I should call it that: The Impersonation Of Christianity. Impersonation of Christianity!
E-50 In the Scriptures here, which is the Word of God, we read here that the prophet, which had spoken of a new day. Now, Ezekiel was prophesying, or foretelling what would take place in an age to come, not in his age.
E-51 But, a prophet is a seer, and is referred to, in the Bible, as the eagle who goes way high in the air. And higher you go, the farther you can see.
E-52 So, the eagle soars up much higher than any other bird. There’s no bird can go with the eagle. And there’s no eye like the eagle. The hawk hasn’t got a chance in his sight. And the hawk could not stand the—the altitude of where the eagle can soar. He would die. He doesn’t…He hasn’t got the make-up that the eagle has.
E-53 Now, the hawk is a bird, and so is the—the other birds, but the eagle was made thus because he is a high-soaring bird. And he can go way so high until he can see things that the other birds cannot see, because he’s higher. And, God, in making the eagle, made him for that purpose, because his nest is higher than the others. His little ones is up in the nest, and they feed on the ground. So, in order to see the storm, or the trouble coming, the eagle, to survive, must go higher, so he can protect his little ones.
E-54 And God likened the prophet to the eagle that would go in the make-up of a prophet. He is a—a seer, that, in the Spirit, climbs beyond the emotion of the church. He goes beyond the rhythm of the music. He goes beyond the clapping of the hand. He goes beyond the joy among the saints. He goes beyond all that. God brings him up into a realm alone, alone. Then He opens his eye, and He lets him look around and see things that is to come. Then He brings him back down, among the members of the body, to foretell them of what is in the making.
E-55 So, God had took Ezekiel, high, far up, and let him see around, about twenty-six hundred years. Think of it. Now, and let him have…
A—a prophet is also a gift of knowledge. A knowledge is…
E-56 Like an attorney, who studies the books. And when you go to hire an attorney to plead your case, he is only taking what he knows, and you’re paying him for what he knows, to present your case before the judge.
E-57 And, now, a gift of knowledge, in the Bible, is prophecy, which goes up and finds out these things that are to come, and brings them back down. But they must compare with the Bible, with the Book. If they’re out of the Book, then they’re not received, because the Judge judges by the Book. You see it? So it must be on the Word.
E-58 Then, the Word that God has spoken before the foundation of the world. It isn’t that God speaks and says something to the prophet at that time. It is that the prophet catches what God has already said, for the Word was before the foundation of the world. God spoke the Word, and It’s laying way out, stretched out, in time. And the prophet goes up and sees the time coming. So, it’s only a gift of knowledge, that he brings down, and puts it on the paper.
E-59 Now, Ezekiel, the prophet, goes up and sees the day that we are living in. Oh, what a trip up Jacob’s ladder! To foresee what will be, and he brings it down, and in these last years, the last two thousand years, which Ezekiel lived some six or eight hundred years before the Coming of Christ.
E-60 They had a stony heart. And, that was, the Holy Spirit could not enter that heart. He had no way of entering that heart, because it was sinful. And there was only the atonement of blood of an animal, laying between that stony heart and the Creator. But when that animal blood, being substitutionary, of course, but only a shadow, or a type, of the true Blood coming. Which, the life in the cell of the blood was an animal life, which could not coincide with the human spirit, because the animal life has no soul in it. But human life has a soul in it. So, therefore, they could not mix; like oil to water. But when the Christ came and died, and now the Blood of Christ, which was shed at Calvary, inside that Blood cell lays none other than the Life of God. See it?
E-61 Notice. Then the worshiper comes before God with this appropriate Blood, appropriated, it is the Blood of a Redeemer that redeems us. You put yourself in the pawn shop, by sin; Adam put you in the pawn shop. But Christ came, and He’s your Redeemer, and you belong to Christ. God gave you to Christ, as a love-gift for His sacrifice. And you are brought to Christ by the Holy Spirit Who wooed you through the Blood of the Lord Jesus, and presented to Him as a gift. And God loves His gifts, and He will not stand to see them destroyed.
E-62 A minister asked another one, the other day. Which, now pardon this, this has just a little bit of my own Doctrine in it, but in the tabernacle we do that.
E-63 Now, one fellow asked another, the other day. He said, “Do you believe…Don’t you believe if a man was once a child of God, born of the Spirit of God, washed in the Blood and redeemed thoroughly by God, by the renewing of his heart, by the washing of the water, by the Blood, through the Word, and becomes a child of God; don’t you think that person could sin and get away from God, to where he would be lost?”
E-64 And the minister, who talking, being a very good Bible student, said, “I’ll answer your question when you answer mine. Do you think that a man could be so good, that he wouldn’t lie, steal, or do anything bad, but he would be so good that God would receive him into Heaven without the Blood of Christ?” No, of course not.
E-65 You could not go to Heaven without the Blood of the Lord Jesus, no matter how good you are. It’s only self-made righteousness. And we’re don’t go to Heaven on self-made righteousness, no matter how good you are. It’s totally impossible for you to get to Heaven on your goodness.
E-66 It’s the mercy of God that bought you at Calvary, and you are God’s love-gift to Christ. And if God gave a—a gift to Christ, Christ keeps His gift. “All that comes to Me, all the Father has given Me will come to Me, and none of them are lost. I’ll raise them up at the last day.”
E-67 Now, you might be emotionally worked up. You might have oil through your hands, or speak with tongues, or dance in the Spirit, or join the church, or some of the fantastics of the day, and you could be lost, certainly. That’s right. But if you are God’s love-gift to Christ, you are safe.
E-68 Now, your life will prove what you are. “By their fruits you shall know it.” If you’re trying to make yourself act sweet and humble, and so forth, then you are still outside the Kingdom. It’s not…It’s your own works then.
E-69 And that’s where the church, the people, so-called the church, have so miserably failed, because it is in their own personal work that they feel that they merit the goodness and grace of God, by what they do and how they live. But that has not one thing to do with it. It is a gift of God. You’re own conscience to shun you from hell would try to make you, or you would shun from hell, rather, would try to make you to live good and be right. A good citizen will do that, and not necessarily be a Christian. I’ve seen many men, who even denied the Name of the Lord Jesus, were fine people; that means, humanly.
E-70 Look how much better man Esau was than Jacob. But he didn’t have the conception to know that he had sold his birthright. Cause, he despised them, and was rejected in the sight of God; which was far more of a gentleman, and a neighbor, and a—a man of works, than what Jacob was. Jacob, his very name is supplanter. You know what supplanter is? Is a deceiver. So that—that…And, but, Esau was a gentleman, in every respect.
E-71 But, Jacob had recompense to that birthright. And regardless of what anyone called him, if I would say it, you excuse the expression, they could call him, “holy-roller, a fanatic,” or whatever they wished to, but he had respect to that birthright. That’s his whole motive. No matter what it cost him, he wanted the birthright.
E-72 Now notice, now, in the bringing up of the church. Now, if the church only consists…If the Body of Christ is only to be controlled by intellectuals, theology, mental conception, then we are wholly depending upon the intellectual knowledge of man. If I make that clear…If the church only rests upon the intellectual, or how that man could set the church, and build big places, and plush the seats, and the thousands-of-dollar pipe organ, and how he could preach his message in such a way that would—would get the people into the church, and join the church; and the more members on the book, the—the more, the greater it is in Heaven.
E-73 Now, I—I want you to get this, and never let it slip. If we only need the intellectual conception of man, we don’t need the Holy Spirit. If the church is to be run and governed upon the intellect, the educational program, and upon the intellects of mankind, we do not need the Holy Spirit. And if it’s to be run by the Holy Spirit, we do not need the intellectual. It’s either one or the other.
E-74 Now, mental emotions, now, if we only, “The smarter the man would be, the more intellect he is, the more schooling he got, the better grammar he can use, then the better off the church is, better off the people are.” If he can present the program, and say, “Now we’ll build a great church. We will call it a certain name. We will attract the attention of the people, all through the city, when we can play chimes every Sunday morning, on our spire. We shall attract the attention of the poor, lost sinner, in the gutter, when he sees that we wear the better clothes; when he sees that our women can fix their hair, the poor women can see how our women can do their hair, what nice hats they wear. And when we present this to the people, the poor and hungry will then come to our—our meetings and will desire to be as these women are. And the men will see what nice suits we wear, and how we dress, and how…what cars we ride in, and what we do, and how we stand in the social ability of the city, with the Kiwanis and other clubs, and the things that we join. They’ll see that, they…and then the—the poor and the illiterate will come and desire to bring their children and educate them, so that they can become a member of this great society called the church.” Now, if that is God’s program, they’re right. But Jesus never quoted it that way.
E-75 Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men unto Me.” So, through the world’s educational program, which is all right, it’s all right if it don’t leave This out. But man is not drawed to Christ by intellectuals, by theology. The Holy Spirit, alone, is God’s drawing power. The poor will never receive it, and the rich can’t, until they become poor of these things of the world. Christ, being rich, become poor, that through His poverty we might be rich. “He that exalts himself, shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.” They have got the thing topsy-turvy. They are trying to get men into church, by intellectual speeches. What we need is not intellectual speeches. But, it’s baptism of the Holy Spirit, with power and demonstrations and manifestations of the Spirit, is what we need to bring men to the church. It’s the drawing unction of the Holy Spirit.
E-76 Schools and seminaries are wonderful, I have nothing against them, but that’s not God’s program. God chose the ignorant and illiterate, men who couldn’t speak well, men who couldn’t even read their own name. As the Bible said, “They were ignorant and unlearned.” But they had been to a far better school. For when they healed the man at the gate called Beautiful, they took knowledge that they had been with Jesus. [Brother Branham knocked on the pulpit six times.—Ed.] There’s the School.
E-77 And in this, being the intellectual type of churches that we have today in America and all over the world, when we get to that type of school, then the Christian, the believer, the church member, reading their Bible, sees that he must try to act humble, he must try to be this way. But, in doing so, he only makes a carnal impersonation. Let that soak deep. A carnal comparison! He’s trying to act something that he really isn’t in his heart. In his heart he is thinking one thing, and trying to act another. Which, in real genuine language, that makes him a hypocrite.
E-78 Jesus said, “You hypocrites, how can you speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart speaketh the mouth.” If you don’t speak according to what’s in your heart, your heart thinks one thing and you speak another, that makes you a hypocrite.
E-79 The very word Pharisee means “actor.” They acted out their religion, for they had a stony heart. They come and said, “Good Master, we would see a sign from Thee, to prove that You are what You’ve said.”
E-80 Said, “How you call Me good, when there is none good but God?” He said, “The weak and the adulterous generation seeks for this. And there will be a sign given them. As Jonas was in the belly of the whale, three days and nights, so the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth, three days and nights.”
E-81 Now, to try to place this new program, this new deal that God has with the church, that was presented at Pentecost; not an intellectual, at all. But, a hundred and twenty (fishermen, tent makers, and housewives) went up in the upper room and waited until God’s prophecy was fulfilled, and they received the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
E-82 Jesus said, “Stop your preaching. Don’t go any further. Don’t do anything more about it. But wait at the city of Jerusalem, until, until you’re endued with Power from on High.”
E-83 Not, “Until you have received your B.A., or your D.D., or whatever it may be; until you have become a Ph. D., psychology.” Not, “And, become, you become an intellectual teacher, but wait until you get your diploma.” Not, “Wait until you have been given a degree.”
E-84 But, “Until you’re endued with Power from on High,” not from the school, but, “from on High. Then you shall be My witnesses, both in Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, and to the utmost parts of the world.”
E-85 His last commission was, “Into all the world; preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. And,” conjunction, “these signs shall follow them that believe; in My Name shall they cast out devils; and they shall speak with new tongues; or if they should drink a deadly thing, or take up a serpent, it would not harm them; and if they should lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.” In similar, such as that, was to be the sign of the believer, instead of the educated and intellectual, because the intellectual cannot produce that.
E-86 Now we find out, then, to take…He was going to make a new Church. He didn’t want…You can’t polish up the old church. You only give it a face lift, and it doesn’t do any good. It is a new heart. “I’ll take the old stony heart away.” Not, “You’ll throw it away.” But, “I’ll take it away.” Do you see the difference? It’s an act of grace. “I will.”
E-87 And you people, Baptist, and you Presbyterian, who preach Eternal security and act like the world; shame on you! What are you preaching? Certainly.
E-88 “I will take the old stony heart out and put a fleshly heart in.” Now watch. He said He would do that. If you can’t put That, talk That, in the old intellectual church.
E-89 And that’s why America is in the condition it is today, because it’s been calloused with the old intellectual idea. That’s the reason it has to go forth, and—and it has to have every person sign papers, and so forth, for its little Hollywood revival that’s coming. And all of them come out, and like glamour girls and boys, and put on a little program. And when they leave, they go back and find out that about ninety percent that accepted Christ as Saviour, they’re not there anymore.
E-90 What’s the matter? It wasn’t a revival. It was an intellectual illusion. That’s right. It only presented something, as the American people folly and clap their hands, and—and a Holly-…a television article. We have turned it into a—a television. The pulpit has been brought into a Hollywood fashion box. When, the old-fashion Gospel preacher, that used to drink cistern water, and preach all night by a lamp light; it’s changed. But, we have changed it, and that’s why we’ve got the intellectual group.
E-91 And how are you ever, in a place where every home is televised with Who Loves Lucy and all these other ungodly programs over the air and in the television, and such as that, how are we ever going to present this new Gospel the way that Christ told us to do, into such as that? If the mind still remains carnal, it’ll run through fantastics and fanaticism. It’ll by-pass the Word of God and run off into oil-drippings and everything else. Now how you going to stop it? The Bible said it would be that way, so you can’t stop it. Right. God said it would be that way. Now where we going?
E-92 The intellectuals! The old lady, they give her a face lift; she is still the same old woman. The old man, they give him a face lift; he’s just the same old man. “I’ll turn my new page, on—on New Year’s, and I’ll start life new. I’ll throw away my pipe,” and pick it up the next day. See? That’s just you. It isn’t a face lifting; it’s a Birth, the church needs.
E-93 Now you can’t preach This in the old church. She won’t stand It. Jesus said that in Luke, about the 5th chapter, about the wine in the bottles. He said, “You can’t put new wine in old bottles. If you do, they’ll perish.”
E-94 That used to wonder me, that used to startle my—my boyish mind, when I used to think, “How could the bottle perish?” Now what we call the bottle, being old, it makes no difference, because it’s glass.
E-95 But, in Jesus’ time, what He was speaking of, was the bottle that they used then, which was made out of an animal hide. And an animal hide had been tanned. And when the animal hide was old, why…When it was new and young, and just had been tanned, it was flexible. But when it got old, it got dry. Now, many of you people know what a hide is when it gets dry. It gets old and dry, and it’s all shrunk up and real hard. Now, if you put new wine in that, it hasn’t got any life in it; it’s going to burst.
E-96 It’s just like trying to preach the baptism of the Holy Ghost, in the real genuine power of the—of the resurrection, is trying to place that before the people. When you do, what happens if you put it in? The new Wine has got Life, and the new Wine is still fermenting. Oh, I hope you see it. The new Life is fermenting.
E-97 The new wine is still fermenting. And if it’s in a new flexible bottle, where the oil of the animal is still in the skin, when the new wine goes to pushing out, the skin will stretch.
E-98 In otherwise, when the Bible said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” the new skin will say, “amen,” stretch out with It. And when the new Wine says, that, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, “I am the Life of God that’s working in you,” the new skin will say, “amen,” stretch out to It. When the new Wine says, that, “the Holy Ghost is sufficient for our healing today,” the new Wine will stretch itself out, the Wine being the Word. And when It says that, then the new bottle will say, “amen,” stretch out to It.
E-99 But what will the old body do? “Days of miracles is passed and gone on.” Then, what are we doing? What are we accomplishing? We are…He said, “The old bottle will perish, and the wine will perish with it.” And it’s almost like casting your pearls before swine. They turn and tramp under the feet. Do you see it? [Congregation says, “Amen.”]
E-100 Now, Christ doesn’t anoint ministers to preach the Gospel just to have It return back to Him void. But, He expects you to receive the Word. And when receiving the Word, be ready. Take that old cow hide you been living in over there, that old formal condition, and swap it off for a sheep skin that’s flexible to the Word of God. [Brother Branham knocked on the pulpit six times—Ed.] And everything the Bible says, you’ll say, “Amen.” But it must come from the Bible.
E-101 For, the new wine only ferments wine. It only verifies the—the elements that’s in there. The yeast only presses forth the bulb of the alcohol, which makes it a bursting procession, as the yeast bursts this little bubble, to make it a more perfect; to give it the better taste, to give it the better substantial holding, to make it more stronger, to make it so it can’t sour. Amen.
E-102 And when the leaven of the human element, that’s brought into the new Wine, that seeks to burst the bubble, to spread forth its strength of the alcohol; it shoves, from the church, all the worldly elements like that, and preserves the church.
E-103 Grape juice will sour in twenty-four hours, but wine will never sour, ’cause the germ of life is in the wine, fermenting, and pushing, and sterilizing. And the older it gets, the better it gets. So much for that.
E-104 The new Wine, It can only be put in new pentecostal bottles. God had a hundred and twenty of them gathered into the upper room; after He had oiled by His Word, and had softened up, and had renewed and got all the old orthodoxy out of them, of the old system. And God had a hundred and twenty bottles laying in the upper room, when, with their necks up, and a funnel on the top.
E-105 And when the Holy Spirit begin to rain, these bottles got so alive, until they begin to run outside, preaching the Gospel, bouncing from place to place. And one jumped on a stump and said, “This is that,” right back with the Word. “This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel, ‘It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I’ll pour out My Spirit, My new Wine, into My new Body.’” What a revival they were having! That’s God’s order.
E-106 Here come a couple bottles of it, bursting by, and there laid an afflicted man. And when this afflicted man touched the hand of one of these, why, his affliction left him. And he got some of It, and begin leaping and praising God, and running into the temple, shouting, and glorifying God.
E-107 That’s God’s order; not a big school with a degree, but a living, acting experience of the Holy Spirit; not fanaticism, but the real, genuine Holy Spirit put in action. May you see it, is my prayer.
E-108 Now notice the order of the Scripture. It’s perfect. God said, “First, I’ll take away the old stony heart; you can’t receive nothing. Then,” He said, “I’ll give you a new spirit.” Now, that ain’t the Holy Spirit.
E-109 And there is where the mistake has been made. A lot of people, many people, rather, come to the altar to pray, and they get down there to pray, and, in praying, they get to feeling a little better. They might get up and go on, and jump around a little while, and after a while you find out they just bounce, bounce, bounce…?…back again. They never received the Holy Spirit. No matter how much they bounce, or how much they screamed, or how much they…oil had run out of their hands, or they had bloody faces, or how much they spoke in tongues, or how much they shouted, or—or what they did. That has nothing at all to do with it. That was only human emotions. They got a new spirit, and they rejoice with it.
E-110 I’m going to say something, and I want it to sink deep, and may God help. There is the—the emotional side of the so-called Holy Ghost church today. They get a lot of build up of fanaticism, and run off out there, because they disregard the Word. They go only, together, “Oh, we had a great meeting! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Now, when you do that, and don’t bear the fruit of the Spirit, then…You’re in the new spirit. You didn’t used to do that, that’s right, but God had to give you a new spirit. Why, the spirit you had, you couldn’t even get along with yourself, so how you going to get along with God?
E-111 So, God had to give you a new heart, not a patched up one. A new heart; that’s your intellects that you think with, a new way of thinking. Then, when he give you a new way of thinking, “Yes, that’s right. The Bible looks to be reasonable. I used to didn’t believe That. I believe It now.” Now, there is your great revival. See? They say, “Yeah, sure, I don’t want to go to hell. I want to accept Christ.” That’s all right. That’s good. That’s just your first step.
Then He said, after that, “Then I’ll give you a new spirit.”
What’s that? A new desire. “I want to do right.”
E-112 “Now, I know I’m a Christian. I got to…I’ll smoke one more, and then I’ll throw it away.” See? “And I’ll—I’ll—I’ll just see. I’ll—I’ll—I’ll just stay home tonight, you know. I’ll just…” All these little “just’s, just’s,” that’s exactly. Eve stopped just for a moment. That’s all she had to do.
But, now, that’s the new spirit.
E-113 Then notice the order of the Scripture. After He give a new heart, and a new spirit, He said, “Then I’ll put My Spirit.” Now what? That’s what the Scripture says here. That’s the order, the pneumatic and numerical order of the Scripture, “A new heart; a new spirit; and then My Spirit.” Then, God’s Holy Spirit…
E-114 God’s new heart that He put in you, sets right in the center of you. That’s your—your impulse, where you—you…your—your emotions goes out. And the new spirit sets right in the center of the new heart. And God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, sets right in the center of your new spirit. And, there, It controls your emotions.
E-115 It’s just like the—the main spring in a famous watch, and it’s self-winding. You don’t have to wind it every day. God wound it once, for all. And it’s set right in the middle of the…of your life, of your new life. And as the main spring, as it relieves, and ticks away, the watch, it controls every little organism of that watch, to perfect time.
E-116 And when the Holy Spirit…Not the new degree, not the new church, not the new thought, not the new emotion, not the new oil, not the new dance, not the new lips, not the new tongue, not the new this, not the new hat! But when God places His Spirit in the middle of your new spirit, then you don’t have to act meek, you don’t have to act like a Christian. It controls everything that’s within you. It puts you decent, makes the church act orderly, makes the gifts work perfect. And if you have to be taken from a place where you think you should be, and put down somewhere else, It controls you.
E-117 Not flopping, “I’ll never come back again.” No, sir. That shows that the main spring is not in there. When you blow up at every little thing that happens, poisons that disposition. And when the pastor happens to hit something that’s in the Word, and you, [Brother Branham makes a spitting sound—Ed.] “Well, I don’t believe That.” Look out, old cow hide! See? Watch out. The new main spring hasn’t been set in there right, yet.
E-118 But, It controls. It makes you believe. It makes you act in such a way till you become salty. And the whole world thirsts to be like you. That’s the Holy Spirit sitting in the middle of your spirit. It’s the main spring. It’s then that the yoke, that you are yoked with…
E-119 “Oh, I just hate to go to church, tonight. I don’t…And, that preacher, if he wasn’t so long-winded, I’d like to hear him a few minutes. But, I tell you what, the last time I went, when I went down to the card party, Susie said to me, ‘Do you mean to tell me, the very audacity, that you have belittled yourself, to take your hair down? You mean to tell me that you’re not going to wear those shorts anymore, Lydia?’” Well, you see, the thing of it is, if you just got a new spirit, it’ll just kill you. That’s right.
E-120 But when you’ve got His Spirit, it makes every emotion tick just right to the Word of God. It’ll tick right with the Word. You’ll say, “Well, now, Susie, just a moment. The Bible said, ‘It’s an abomination before Him, to do that.’ And the love of Christ has come into my heart, and I love Him too much to do it. See, I love Him.”
E-121 “John, do you mean to tell me that you’ve been associated with that bunch of fanatics, and you won’t take a cigar because there was a new boy born in my house?”
E-122 “But, you see, John, it says that we must…The Holy Spirit, in my heart, tells me that we should abstain from all filth of the world.” See? See?
E-123 Not, “John! Hallelujah, John! Glory to God, John! Praise the Lord! See that oil on my hand! Glory to God! John, I can speak in tongues. Hallelujah! I will…” No, no. That ain’t the way the Holy Ghost behaves Itself. No, no.
She ticks her off in decency.
E-124 As Paul stood before Agrippa and brought the Word, he said, “O Agrippa…”
E-125 And Agrippa said, “Paul, thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian.”
E-126 He said, “Agrippa, is it strange to you, being a Jew, that the Bible has already said and talked about Jehovah? Is it a strange thing to you that God would raise the dead?”
E-127 Not, “Agrippa! Hallelujah! Glory to God, Agrippa! Hallelujah!” No, that was crazy.
But, “Agrippa, the Scripture says.”
E-128 See where the main spring ticks you to? Right back. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s all in God’s program. It ticks you right back. “Don’t take no thought what you’ll say,” said Jesus. “It’s not you that speaketh. It’s your Father that dwelleth in you. He is doing the speaking.”
E-129 “Agrippa, you being a Jew, and know all the laws in the Old Testament, is it a strange thing to you, Agrippa, that God should raise the dead?”
Agrippa said, “Paul, too much learning maketh thee mad.”
E-130 He said, “I’m not mad, Agrippa, but I’m only here telling you what God has did in the Word.” See?
“Oh, you’ve become a holy-roller, Paul.”
E-131 “No, Agrippa, I’m only saying what God said here in the Scripture, that He would raise up His Son, Christ Jesus, in the last day. And now, Agrippa, would it be a strange thing to you, that Jehovah God, Who opened up the Red Sea, Who brought the miracles in that day, that He wouldn’t perform miracles today?”
E-132 He said, “Paul, thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian.”
E-133 Paul said, “I wish you was as I am, only these chains that I’m wearing here on my hands and leg.”
E-134 There is when the spring, in the middle of the new spirit in the new heart, is making every emotion control itself. See what I mean? There you are. It’s then, that, when you slip your head from the yoke of the world.
E-135 Say, “I’ll go over and join, but I tell you…” And stick your head in the yoke with Christ? You say you yoked up with Him? And then you begin, “Oh, it chaffs my shoulders. It hurts my social prestige. The people I once associated with, pass me by and say, ‘Yeah, there she is! She’s a holy-roller.’ ‘There he goes. See, he, John don’t come to the pool room anymore.’ Oh, it just…Oh, it humiliates me, Brother Branham.” No. You didn’t get the right thing.
E-136 When that main spring is in the middle, clicking it off right, then the yoke is lined with feathers. Oh, my! No matter what the world calls you, it don’t make…
E-137 “Oh, I backslid, because, I tell you, I just couldn’t stand for them to call me this, that, and the other.” Well, you never got the main spring put in the middle of the…His Spirit in the middle of your spirit. See, you had a false impersonation. You, you cried. You had a—a—a—a foul conception. See? You, you just—you just accepted the emotional side, and never got the real side. You just heard the watch tick and got the noise, and went with it, started ticking, too.
E-138 But if the main spring is doing the ticking, if It’s—It’s controlling every emotion, then the yoke becomes easy. They can say, “You know what? There she goes. She used to be a doll. But, look at her now, her hair is straight back, her make-up is gone. She wears these modest-looking…” I don’t mean to be now like something out of an ark. But I mean—I mean this, that you should dress decently. “Why, she used to be the cutest little thing. We’d see her laying out in the yard, with her shorts on, taking a sun bath, but she don’t do it no more.” Something has happened. The main spring has got in the place where It ought to be. That’s right. “Oh, he used to come down. He was a pool shark. He could play cards, a hand of this. And he could rake the chips from here, and so forth. He was a…But he don’t do it no more.” The main spring! “Oh, he’s a holy-roller.”
E-139 But, the yoke is easy. You know what you do with it? You just like to bear it. It’s just like Samson when he took the braze-… brazen gate of Gaza. The big brass gate, he just picked it up on his shoulders and bore it away. That’s right. And when the yoke is lined with the joy, and peace, and sweetness of Christ in your heart, then you just pick up all the burdens the world casts on you, and bear them to a certain hill called Calvary, and there you kneel down and pray for that one that was persecuting you. Not rain fire out of Heaven and tear up the church, but you bring peace to them. “God, be merciful to them.”
E-140 Now, the Bible said, that, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks in new places and returns back.” And when the devil that once brought you down to the alley, and when he comes back and find his old alley has been changed; my, God sent His big bulldozer down. You know what He done? He dug up the earth. He turned things upside down. He just made a different view out of it. And where the devil returns back to his old tin-can alley, where he used to have beer cans laying all over everything, and cards on the table, and cigarette places all over the house, and Love Story magazines, and True. He come back and find it swept, garnished. Hallelujah! God sent His bulldozer down and cleaned it all off.
E-141 Here is His bulldozer, brother. You compare with This. Sweeps her all out, bulldozes it all up, and He begins to plant garden. And he finds, there, a great, new modern home is built there. Amen.
E-142 The Holy Spirit has moved in. And the Holy Spirit took the place of the beer can. [Brother Branham knocked on the pulpit two times—Ed.] The Bible took the place of the modern-day literature. The Spirit of God took the place of modern theology. The prayer meeting returned to the home, when the Holy Spirit come in. All the other things has gone out.
E-143 And, listen, friend. In the beginning, the Bible said…Look. Now I want to introduce to you…All of our intellectuals and all our manmade creeds…As I close, I want to introduce to you something.
E-144 In the beginning, when this world was laying here, void, it wasn’t nothing but a big ball of water, where the great ice glaciers, and from the heat from the sun, as the flicker of the earth went off like that and moved into space, along, the millions below zero. It formed moisture.
E-145 Heat and cold, together, creates a moisture. You can see it on the windows, and so forth, from the house, in here and the outside.
E-146 And when the earth spun out from whatever orbit it come from, which, the sun is claimed to be the mother of all, and these missiles that flew out. When it went from there, it froze to one big solid thing. Then, as it begin to move in, and God taken a notion…Listen close now. As He begin to move it in, close to the sun, it begin to thaw out.
E-147 Then, God commissioned the Holy Spirit…The first Person, is introduced, is God. God! “In the beginning was God,” in Genesis. And then the next, is introduced, is the Holy Spirit, or the Logos, which went out of God. Yet, it was all of God went out, into a Person. And the Bible said, “It begin to brood over the earth.” Brood means “to make love,” to coo like a dove. It begin to brood over the earth. What happened?
E-148 Mortal being, fellowcitizen, human men and women, like I am this morning; human beings that’s got a soul, an immortal soul within you, who are you? Where did you come from, and whence are you going? Think just now, a minute.
E-149 The other night, when my…You seen in the paper. One of my cousins, who was a druggist, or a doctor, in Louisville. When he went down to his work, and come home, and laid down to have his dinner. And asked his wife to bring him an orange, stiffened and died in a heart attack; Raymond Branham. And his brother, Georgie, (my own blood cousins, both; my father’s brother’s children), went to see his brother. And on his road, returning, five minutes after he had left his brother, they noticed the car a-wiggling, slowing down, and they seen a man pitch over in his seat. And he died in a heart attack.
E-150 And I went to the funeral home the other night, and I looked, at Brother Doc there, and we walked in. And I looked over the rooms, at the tokens and the flowers that was hanging on the walls and around. And I looked down, and memories came into my mind, as a little boy, playing with these boys, when I was just a baby boy.
E-151 And I thought, there’s the people, the home is crowded, and for blocks you couldn’t even park your car, from friends and relatives coming. And the…And I walked in, and there my cousin Agnes grabbed me around the neck and begin screaming. And as I got from her, to console her, then here come Dorothy, the baby, and she begin to hug me and scream, and saying, “Billy, what will we do?”
And as I said, “Where is Aunt Lizzie?”
E-152 Said, “She is in a heart attack, real bad, and may die at any time,” the mother.
E-153 So I thought, “What is happening to this great Branham generation?”
E-154 I thought the same thing when I seen my daddy, as I held him on my arms, and his curly hair dropped over in my arm, and I there seen him as he looked at me and smiled, when I was praying for him, and he went out to meet God.
E-155 I thought the same thing a few days before that, when Doc, my brother there, picked up his own brother, cut through the throat, where a fellow, drinking, hit a post, and broke the car and killed him. And he died in my brother’s arms. And seeing dad come down the street, from Mrs. Kelly’s…Mr. Kelly’s house over there, crying, with his old black hat in his hand. In a few days later, holding him in my arms, as he was dying.
E-156 I stood there and watched the old rocking chair, without anyone in it, begin to rock back and forth, as Ruth my sister-in-law was going to meet God. And I said, “Honey, shall I hang the picture of Jesus over here?”
She said, “Billy, no. He is before me, always.”
E-157 Then when I stood by the side of my wife, Hope, the mother of my boy, Billy, and my little girl, Sharon. And seen her take a hold of my hands, while her dark eyes looked to me, and spoke of the Place that she had just returned from, and desired to go back, and told me, “Never fail to preach this Gospel, Billy. You don’t understand what a joy it is to go like this.”
E-158 And a few hours after that, laying my hands on the head of my little, dying baby yonder, and placed it in the arms of the mother, when I said, “O God, I know that You raise the sap in the trees, in the spring, and bring forth the bud and the fruit, and hide it in the ground while the winter is going on. You’ve got to be God. And I believe with all my heart that this phenomena Boy that was born in Galilee, twenty hundred years ago, that, as He walked around, according to the Scriptures, to me, He was the promised Messiah. No matter what they say, I believe it. And I know that there is Something within me, that shows me things to come, that a supernatural Being appears and I see things before it comes. And He warns me of such. But here I am, without warning, up against this thing here. There lays the mother, dead, there. And there is papa laying out yonder. And now You’re going to take my little baby from my arms, God? Are you going to do that, take my darling?” And the black sheet begin to fold before me. I knew He had done it. If the main spring hadn’t a-been there then!
E-159 Satan said to me, “Now what do you think of it? Even your darling little baby, He is going to take it from your arms. How cruel!” That was the new spirit, that was the…all the intellectuals.
E-160 There I stood, and my bones beating together. I thought, “Where would I go?”
E-161 “I would go out and get on a drunk. You never drank in your life, but I’d do it, anyhow. He told you not to, but I would do it, anyhow. I’d show Him who was boss.”
E-162 I said, “Satan, I can’t. He is the Boss.” It was all down to the main spring. I’m so glad there is a main spring.
E-163 When I walked up the road, and Mr. Isler…My family gone I was going to walk up…I couldn’t go to the grave. I just walked up the road. Flood had just decending, not long.
E-164 And Mr. Isler come up the road. He jumped out of the car, and he said, “Billy, I want to ask you something. I’ve seen you crying out here in that tent. I’ve heard you preaching. And how you was so enthused on the Message that you were bringing, and you were bringing to the people. Now what does It mean to you now? Do you still love Him? Would you still say you would serve Him?”
E-165 I said, “Mr. Isler, if He sent me to hell, I’d still love Him. For, there has been Something placed in here, see, that it’s not no longer I, but it’s Him.”
E-166 I was satisfied at this, that, laying in the different graves, from here, over to the Walnut Ridge, strayed my family, my papa, my brother, my wife, my baby, and they were turning back to the dust of the earth from whence they come. But I realize this, that they must have been here when the world was made, because they were taken from the earth. They were here when the earth was made.
E-167 Our bodies were here before the earth was made, for we are of the earth. All that we are made of is calcium, potash, petroleum, cosmic light, atoms, holding us together. And somehow, by some master Mind, we were made thus what we are. Not just a heaping together of potash, and calcium, and petroleum, but Something got into the inside and begin to create, and I was made thus.
E-168 In the beginning, the Holy Spirit begin to brood over a bleak desert; excuse my emotions; but when there was nothing, and had never been nothing. But the Holy Spirit was sent from God; not an intellectual. But the Holy Spirit was sent from the Presence of God, to make love over the earth.
E-169 And, as it was, He stretched His big wings around the earth, and begin to make love, or to brood, coo over the earth. I can see calcium and potash coming together, and a little Easter lily stood up. The Holy Spirit brood it out of the earth. And He kept brooding. And as He cooed and brood, I begin to see trees come up, birds begin to fly from the earth, animals begin to walk.
E-170 And then He kept cooing, and a man came up, called Adam. And Adam looked lonesome, so He made a by-product for him, and took a rib from his side and made him a sweetheart, Eve. And He loved Adam and He loved Eve. And He takes them…
E-171 And I can see little Eve, as she laid her little head against the shoulder of Adam. And she was everything that a woman could ever expect, and more. And as she laid against the big, strong shoulder of her sweetheart, Adam, and they walked through the garden, perhaps, maybe, the—the lion roared. She couldn’t be scared, ’cause there was no fear. So he said, “Sweetheart, that is the lion. I will call him. Leo, the lion, come forward. Cheetah, the tiger, you come here and lay down.” And they followed them, like kittens.
E-172 The winds begin to blow, and little Eve’s hair begin to blow. And she said, “Ooh, that wind.”
E-173 “Peace, be still.” And the winds obeyed him. He was the son of God. She was his sweetheart.
E-174 And then I can hear him say, “Dear, do you see the sun setting? It’s time that we talked to Father.”
E-175 So, they went up to the cathedral, the great Tree. And as they knelt down, all of a sudden, a Heavenly, glowing Light came down, the Logos. The Holy Spirit that had brood them out of the earth, came down; Father, God. And He said, “Children, have you enjoyed yourself today?”
“Yes, Father.”
E-176 “I have come down to kiss you ‘good night,’ and to lay you down to rest, tonight.” He kissed them on the cheeks, and laid them down. Nothing could harm. He was right in the bushes with them. The lion, He laid the lion down. He laid Cheetah, the tiger, down. He laid them all down, to rest. And Father was so pleased.
E-177 Then sin, by knowledge, intellectual…I hope you’re getting it. By intellectual, sin entered the world, by trying to find more light, getting something that wasn’t in the Word of God. God said, “The day you eat thereof, that day you’ll die.” But Eve wanted something new.
E-178 Oh, can you see, from my heart, that I am not trying to cross up someone? I am only trying to lay out, in view, THUS SAITH THE LORD, the Word, nothing but that; not fantastics, and big churches, and intellectuals, but to listen to the One who brood us from the earth.
Sin entered.
E-179 And now, friends, if the Holy Spirit was the only instrument that God used to brood us out of the earth. And we did come from the earth. And we were here before there was an earth. Remember, here is encouragement for you people that’s to be prayed for. If the Holy Spirit, by brooding, made the physical being, who is the architect of our bodies?
O God, may people see it!
E-180 The Holy Spirit gave you your appendix, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your heart. And put a new spirit in you, and then come to live in you. Do not, by any means, accept intellectual things, theologies that’s contrary to the Bible, but stay only with THUS SAITH THE LORD. “He was wounded for our transgressions. With His stripes we were healed.”
E-181 The Holy Spirit brooded His Own body, to live in, Jesus Christ; when He overshadowed Mary and created, or brood, a Blood cell in the womb, that brought forth the Son, Christ Jesus; where God Himself tabernacled, on earth, for thirty-three and a half years. And was made a propitiation for our sins, to redeem us, and to bring reconciliation between lost man and a holy God, to kiss them and reconcile them together. That, in the cool of the evening, when the sun is setting over our brow, when my life’s journey is run and my race is finished, I want Him to kiss me to sleep, as He did Stephen when he was baffled from hand to hand. Said, “I see the heavens open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” There you are.
E-182 Now, how can that come about? And if God made us what we are, without us having any knowledge of what was going on. If God made me, a man, and put me up at my right age before death set in…At about twenty-three years old, I was strong and healthy. And if Satan didn’t interfere…He tried to cripple me and shoot me down, and many things. But God seen so…
E-183 And you, when you were young, and when you were pretty, you—you women that’s got old. And you men who were young, and strong, and healthy. And how you enjoyed being a man, and your little companion. If God did that without you having any say so in it; you never said, “Make me thus.” “Who taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?”
E-184 But if He made you thus, without you having anything to say, how much more can He, through His brooding, give you a—a choice. And you’re on the basis of free moral agency. You can turn This down, or you can accept It. To turn It down, is to be lost, and remain potash, and calcium, and petroleum. But, to accept It, and to have a new heart, a new spirit, and His Spirit; part of the Logos, in you, controlling your emotions! And when He coos through His Word, you coo back, in answer to Him.
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
“Amen, Lord.”
“I’m the Lord that healeth all thy diseases.”
“Amen, Lord.”
E-185 How much more will He raise you up, though your body be blowed from east to the west, by the wind! How much more can this Holy Spirit, after the total annihilation, by this atomic bomb that’s going to drop on this earth one of these days, blowing holes, and sending her out through the space. But the calcium and potash will remain here. And then the Holy Spirit brood again. Every bone will go to bone, every limb will go to limb, and there will be a Church of the living God stand up in the last days.
E-186 Friends, only by the brooding, or the cooing of the Holy Spirit can you ever do it, will God ever promise to raise you up, as you listen to His Voice, that still, small Voice that speaks in the depths of your soul.
E-187 And, friends, in closing, just one moment longer. And I want you to be thinking deeply and sincerely. We’re going to leave, one day. And why, oh, please tell me, why would you try to accept any counterfeit, any church theology, any intellectuals, any emotions, anything contrary, when the pentecostal skies are full of the genuine Blessing, the real Spirit of God that controls you and makes you a real Christian. You don’t have to impersonate a thing; you just be a child of the living God. Why, tell me, why would you try to accept anything different, when God is willing and waiting, and has brought you this far; and then trying to make love to you, through the Holy Spirit; would you just accept a declaration of creeds, and so forth, to try to get you to Heaven, or some fantastic, a mental emotion, which not even recognized in the Bible?
E-188 Won’t you receive It? Oh, people of God, to your knees and to your God! May God have mercy, is my prayer, while we pray.
E-189 And with our heads bowed, just in this solemn moment, when maybe, at this very moment, there may rest upon you, upon this church, upon many here…Think deep. Do not let it be shallow thinking. Are you making love to the Holy Spirit? And is that—that spirit that’s in your life, ticking out your emotions, exactly with the Bible? Have you longsuffering, gentleness, goodness? Material is not—is not tested…
Listen, as you pray.
E-190 Material is not tested by its quantity, how big it is; how big a church, I’m meaning here, see. It’s not tested by its quantity, but by its quality. Metal is tested by its strength. And the church is not tested on how big a church, or how many members. Its tested by its strength, by the Bible. How can it say “amen” to every promise that God has given? How does your life move? With kindness, and meekness, gentleness, patience? What is it when something riles you? There’s a little wheel there, ticking right away, keeps you under control. His love moves right down through your heart. Are you only trying to put that on?
E-191 Oh, think now. And while you’re thinking seriously and the Holy Spirit dealing with you, brooding over you, saying, “Child of Mine, I’m talking to you.”
E-192 Now, in Christ’s Name, with heads bowed before God, not me, will you raise your hand? Say, “God, put Your Spirit in me. This is my hand.” God bless you. There’s many, many hands.
E-193 And, Father, God, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, Thy Son, the ever brooding, wooing, cooing, Holy Spirit, I ask that You, today, will take Your place in the heart of every person that raised their hand. They’ve signified to You that they need Thee. Oh, how they need Thee! And if they recognize it now, what about the hour when the heart is refusing to beat? How about the hour that they feel the cold vapors of death floating in? How much more are they going to recognize it then! And what are we? Whence did we come from, and where are we going?
E-194 And, Father, we are tired of impersonations of Christian life. Create in us, Lord, today, a new heart, a new spirit. And put Your Spirit, according to Your prophet’s Word, in the middle of our new spirit. And control us by love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, gentleness, patience, and faith. And all the fruits of the Spirit may be found in us, as we humbly yield ourselves, our souls, the innermost part. The life that brings all this earthly potash, and calcium, and petroleum, together, and holds it thus; when it leaves, we go back to the dust. And we yield our spirit; we yield them to You. And create in us the right kind of spirit. And let the Holy Spirit, Thy Spirit, control us, and lead us and guide us, as we journey on.
E-195 Bless these dear people. Heal the sickness in the midst of us, Lord, also. And may we say, as we left this building this morning, “It was good for us to have been there. The Holy Spirit did a work in us, that’ll change our emotions, that’ll make us a different person than what we were when we come in.”
E-196 Renew the hope that’s in the saints. Strengthen them, Lord, against the day that’s coming. Oh, the corn is fully matured. Jesus shall come for the harvest soon. And I pray this blessing in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
E-197 [Brother Branham pauses and the pianist plays I Need Thee—Ed.] I think it’d be good just to set still, just a moment, while she plays.
I need Thee, oh, how I need Thee!
E-198 I wonder what Georgie was thinking the other night, when he had just left his dead brother; as he went down the street and felt his heart moving away, getting black in front of him; as he was pitching into the seat in front of him, leaving his wife and loved ones?
Every hour I need Thee;
O bless me now, my Saviour!
I come to Thee.
Let’s sing it, together.
I need Thee every hour,
O…(To everyone!)
…when Thou art nigh.
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Every hour I…
Let’s raise our hands to Him.
O bless me now my Saviour!
I come to Thee.
E-199 O great Jehovah, move now. Seal each one by Thy Spirit. Place in our hearts that Something that’s been lacking so long. Give us that victory, Lord, that overcoming victory that we so graciously need. Will You do it, Father? We wait on Thee. And now we pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
E-200 I wonder now, is there some here to be prayed for? A lady called me from New Albany, and someone. Was there a lady called me from New Al-…That’s all right. All right, just here to be prayed for, if you’ll just…while we…
Go ahead with the song you were playing, sister.
E-201 And, then, right over on the side here, for the prayer line. If you’ll be reverent for a few moments. Line up, to the righthand side here, so we can pray for the needy.
…side of Jordan,
In the sweet fields of Eden
Where a Tree of Life is blooming,
There is rest for…?…
Jesus breaks every fetter,
When He sets you…
E-202 Get a chair, maybe, for the brother, if he wants to set down. You’d rather set down, brother?
I will ever, ever praise Him,
I will ever, ever praise Him,
I will ever, ever praise Him,
For He sets me free!
E-203 Now, what’s happened? These who are standing in line now, to be prayed for, have come solemnly upon their own faith, believing. They have come to say that Wine has come into new bottles, that they are willing to say “amen” to THUS SAITH THE LORD.
E-204 The Bible has said, which is THUS SAITH THE LORD, “If there be any among you, sick, call for the elders, let them anoint them with oil, and pray over them. The prayer of faith shall save the sick.” And again, it is written in the Scripture, “These signs shall follow them that believe: they’ll lay hands on the sick; they shall recover.” And we’re taught to do this, and constrained by the Holy Spirit, that this is God’s order of ministering to those who are needy.
E-205 It does not mean that the individual, that is praying, must be a saint or an angel. It means that the person, that’s coming, must have a faith, in their own being; that the Holy Spirit and His cooing, by His Word, has dropped a little something in there, that makes them believe that He will brood over them until they are well.
E-206 As Abraham of old, when God appeared to him in the name of El-Shaddai, the bosom, the breast of a woman, like. And said, “Abraham, you are a hundred years old, but I am the ‘breasted-One.’ Just lean against Me, like the baby, and nurse, and I will confirm My Word.”
E-207 And Abraham, being a hundred years old, laid against the bosom of God; he and Sarah being one, of course, begin to study and to brood, and to accept the Word of God. And what happened? God turned him back to a young man, him and his wife, and they brought forth a child, Isaac; who through Isaac come Christ, Who blessed the world. He was made a father of nations.
E-208 Because, “Abraham called those things,” listen, “which were not.” The case of Divine healing, in Abraham, was not…When he accepted the promise, it taken twenty-five years for it to happen; twenty-five years. When Abraham was seventy-five, he was given a promise; at one hundred, the baby was born. But, all through these twenty-five years, him continually making love back to the Holy Spirit that brood him out of the earth, and calling the Holy Spirit’s Word, “Right!” Calling the things which are, as though they are not, because they were contrary to the Holy Spirit’s Word. He was made a young man, and brought forth the child.
E-209 Now, that’s how we come. We are Abraham’s Seed. And we called the things, the symptoms, our afflictions, our diseases, as though they were not, because we are obeying what the Holy Spirit, through the prophet, the seer, has said to be the Truth. And all men through the ages, accepted it, and has come out right, every time.
E-210 Now we are calling these things “right,” and accepting them as our personal property, and wooing back to the Holy Spirit, “Your Word is true. I’ll refuse any other symptom, anything else. I believe that You’ll make me well. Because, Thy Word, Lord, says, ‘The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and God shall raise them up.’ That’s all. That’s the Truth.”
E-211 I’m wondering, this morning…I know Brother Jackson; I heard him say “amen,” somewhere back there. And I wonder if there’s other ministers here, this morning, who believe in Divine healing, that would like to come, stand with us, for these people. They are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Would you like to come here and pray with us, while our pastor comes forward, here, if so be that he will pray this morning for the sick. Any the rest of you, come, take your position right here with us, while we minister to the—the needy in the building this morning. Any of you ministers that wish to come. And I believe I saw Teddy there, a while ago, I’m not mistaken. And any other ministers, whoever you are, it matters not; we’re only happy to have you up here, if you’re a believer, to join your faith with us, as we pray for the needy.
E-212 Now, I want the elders to come, Brother Higginbotham and those who stand here, who could bring the line along, as we pray for them, and we’ll minister right along.
E-213 Now, ministering brethren, come right over here, if you will. We’ll pray for these two people sitting in chairs, first, then we will minister to others.
E-214 And everybody here that’s on speaking terms to the Lord Jesus, (and you all should be, this morning), I want you to join with us. What if this…And it may be your brother, your sister, your papa, or mama, and you want them to be well. And it’s your faith, your projecting of your faith, going out like a great dynamo, in here, that brings down the Shekinah Glory of God, that anoints the individual to have faith. “Faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the Word.”
E-215 Now the Holy Spirit is here to inject, or the Word of God into your heart, that you’ve accepted. And that, then, when you believe It, you come.
E-216 Now what’s my duty, and these ministers? To lay hands on you. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick,” said God.
E-217 Then you’ll just take that, and make love back to the Holy Ghost. “O Holy Spirit, Your Word is true. I am not sick, anymore. I’m just getting better, all the time. I thank You, Heavenly Father, for Your kindness to me. I am constantly getting better, each hour, each hour.” Watch what takes place, as you—as you make love, as you brood back to the Holy Spirit that’s brooding to you, through the Word.
Now I shall pray, then we’ll come, lay hands.
E-218 Now, Father God, Thou seest the need, and most surely You are more than able to supply every need; You, Who could take Daniel out of the lions den; and the Hebrew children out of the fiery furnace; that could open up the Red Sea, and the people walk on dry land; that could raise Lazarus from the dead; and take Elijah Home, in a chariot. O God, Thou has never failed.
E-219 And these new bottles with new Wine, these with new hope and new Life, come forward this morning to be anointed, to have hands placed upon them, in commemoration of the Word.
E-220 And, Father, we stand as men, to lay our hands, as Thou has commissioned us. “If they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.” That commission is just as vital, in the Gospel, as it is to preach the Gospel, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”
E-221 And we pray, Father, that You will grant Your Word to be fulfilled this day. As we, upon the confession of these people, who are bringing forth their faith, to test it against the power of the devil. Let them go, delivered, each one, in Christ’s Name.
E-222 Your heads bowed, as we walk forward now to minister unto these.
E-223 Our beloved sister, in the fellowship of the Lord Jesus. As ministers of the cross, we now, as Divine partakers of His blessing at the resurrection. In commemoration of His Word, we ask the evil to leave you, in Jesus’ Name. And may you be healed. May your faith never wave. But, may you sucker from God, the wooing of the Holy Spirit. Your Strength, that brought you from the dust of the earth, and put every part into your body; He is more than able to repair that which He has made, where Satan has tore down. We present you to God, as a believer, in the Name of His Son, Jesus.
E-224 And our brother, upon whom we lay our hand, with the same prayer, before God our Father, and by the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and the commission that these things should be done. We, as believing ministers, we present you to God, the Holy Spirit, that who succored you from the earth, and put into your body every organ. And seeing that Satan has come down and has interrupted, broken your body, therefore…?…That upon the…?…of these people coming down at this altar. Or, upon any…?…We ask that God will give you…?…Upon this solemn obligation. We lay our hands upon you, in commemoration of the Word, not knowing your heart, but ask that God Almighty, who brood you from the earth, will repair, or strengthen the weak, vital places of your body, and will bring you back to the…your perfect health, in Jesus’ Name.
E-225 Our beloved sister…?…we lay our hands upon you and ask that…?…and she will not be…?…Holy Ghost…?…someday…?…only for the praise of God. Now, our sister, as we stand with bowed head and we ask that God Almighty, send forth the Logos from the beginning…?…and those different colors…?…We are all… we all prayed for that one…?…And now we commit the Holy Spirit to let us bring forth of God…?…to Him a church without spot and…?…of those days, brought back the Bride… Oh, Holy Spirit, may…?…and I pray this woman to her health and strength as we commend her to God, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
E-226 Almighty and omnipotent God, the infinite One, the omnipresent, the omnipotent, Thou who fills all the space! We lay hands upon our sister, introducing her to Thee, with the same prayer that we have prayed over the others, that You will perform in her body, that which is lacking and has been robbed by the devil. And…?…for the glory of God.
E-227 Father, God, we likewise lay hands upon our sister, with the same prayer, that…?…This blessing we ask in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
E-228 Father, God, upon the body of this man, who, through the wear of years, has stooped shoulders, wrinkled in face, and has injured his body. But Thou, O God, Who are the brooding Holy Spirit, we commit him to Thee, in Jesus’ Name. That, may the Holy Spirit turn with a great love. And may It cause in us, and recognize that the One who took him from the earth, can also repair that which He has created!