Queen Of Sheba
South Bend Gospel Tabernacle in South Bend, Indian
Sermon translation in French: 58-0208 - Shp
E-1 ...?... Now while we bow our heads. Gracious Lord, we come to Thee humbly in the Name of Thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, to pour out to Thee the adoration of our hearts, trying to express our love and gratitude to You for sending Him to the earth, that while we were yet sinners, Christ took our place in death, dying the innocent for the guilty.
On earth He was given the lowest name that there could be given men. But when You taken Him into Your hands and raised Him up, He received the highest Name that could be--be given. He had no place to lay His head when He was on earth. But now, He looks down to see heaven from His throne. We pray, God, that while You're looking down tonight, that You will remember us. Let Thy grace rest upon each of us.
Desperately in need of Thy Spirit, we would pray for mercy for the sinner, the unbeliever, for those who are--have wearied themselves away from the house of God. May they wind their way back tonight. Heal the sick, Lord. Show Your Presence among us. And may there not be a feeble one in our midst when we leave tonight. Hear us, Lord, for we pray in the Name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. May be seated.
E-2 I could say one thing, that people certainly didn't come out to church tonight just to be seen on a night like this. We Southerners would stay home on a night like this. But it shows that you love the Lord. So I'm so thankful for that, that you do love our blessed Lord.
E-3 And now, the services tomorrow, I think I'm to be with a brother in his Bible class for a few minutes just before he preaches. And then, tomorrow afternoon is an evangelistic service. And tomorrow evening is the closing of our little get together. And I just trust to God that everywhere I go, from henceforth across America, I could find faith and people like I have found here. That's right.
So I got several big meetings booked and then for overseas. And so we'll--you pray for us.
E-4 And now, if you're visitors here, out of the city, I'm sure that Brother Sommerall would be very happy he's got--for you to be here tomorrow, and he's got perhaps classes for the children and for all. I'm sure you'd be welcome here tomorrow morning if you're not at your own church. Have a church of your choice to go to why I'm sure you'd be welcome here.
E-5 Now, tonight would be the last night on the tapes. You people that have tape machines and like to hear your name and what the Spirit said to you in the line... Brother Mercier here is one of my associates in the meeting. He's a--a recorder and Brother Goad; they tape these tapes and the books and so forth. Now, tomorrow they won't have them, because we've never permitted them to sell or do any transaction of business like that on Sunday. So, we'd be glad if you'd take care of that tonight if you desire them.
E-6 Now, I wish to turn for a Scripture reading in this blessed Bible. If the Lord willing, tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow night I'm asking this an evangelist singer, I believe he's a home singer here, this Brother Golden. I got his record this morning. I certainly like his singing. Pardon me.
And the little ladies that sing too, remind me of my wife and my sister-in-law when first started preaching, the little Baptist Tabernacle. They sang all the time, the little trio like that. It's brought old memories, while the brethren was talking, I couldn't keep my eye from that scene. And so, I want him to sing tomorrow night and ask him if he will before the message, "The Keys." And I want to preach on "The Keys To The Heart," the Lord willing, just before the healing service.
E-7 And while this afternoon, thinking in my hotel room, just a little text that fell on my heart that I have used before, but I thought it might be good tonight just to bring it up. See, after being in the room praying, coming to the pulpit here, praying for the sick under anointing of a vision, it's a different Spirit than preaching. See? It's all the same Spirit, but a different gift. And so, when you shake yourself around like that from one anointing to another, it's never got the value to it that would have if you just walked right in and start the prayer line. It's too flat that way when we have these little meetings. I like to preach to them about three nights and let them get their prayer cards and get them, hold them and wait and be in prayer and then start the healing service. Then you come right in, walk right at the platform, go to praying for the sick.
E-8 But now, many times you might wonder why we don't get too many. Well, it could be so that we could run a little longer in the prayer line, but there's another meeting coming. You don't have to put up with me like my wife does and my associate. It certainly is a wrecking thing. Now, anyone who knows the Scripture realizes that a man, a mortal man like we are to have something in the line of Supernatural certainly does take the life out of you.
E-9 You know what a--what twenty minutes of preaching under inspiration tears you down. It's been tested. It tears more out of you in twenty minutes of inspirational preaching than eight hours with a pick and shovel. Twenty minutes, think of the difference.
Then what about a vision. One vision will do more to you than two hours of preaching. See? Because it gets you to a place where... There's no need of me trying to say that I do understand it, because I do not understand it and no one else does. Just something we have to say, "Lord, You're good to us and we thank You." That's about all we can say. There's no way to explain it. We just have to accept it.
E-10 Now, I want to read from St. Matthew's Gospel, the 12th chapter, 42nd verse. Very familiar little text, perhaps maybe your pastor has preached on it many times.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
E-11 Jesus had just been called Beelzebub. His ministry had been questioned, and He had discerned their thoughts and know what they were thinking. Isn't it wonderful and such a consolation to know tonight that He still knows our thoughts and what we're thinking? Your thoughts is louder in heaven than your voices on earth, for He is a discerner of the thoughts of the mind. His Word is sharper and quicker than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the--to the thoughts of the mind. And He--He knows all things; therefore He can deliver all things as God will permit.
Now, Jesus said, "I do nothing except My Father shows Me first." And the Father would show Him things and He would speak it.
E-12 Did you ever stop to think what a privileged people we are of this day? Living in the closing of this world's history, and living in a time that when all kinds of isms, and all different creeds, and all that's going on, and yet in the midst of it all, our God rides in on the waves and confirms His Word right before us.
E-13 Mohammedans, they're the greatest religion in number in the world. Mohammedans outnumber Christianity about three times. Buddha worshippers are greater than Christianity, that's throwing in Catholic and all. Christianity is either the third or fourth place in the religions of the world. But there's not a one of them that can prove any more than just psychology of believing it. Well, Mohammed was a great man. He died and He's coming back again. But there was only One that ever said, "I have power to lay My life down and power to raise it up again," and then prove it after He's risen up.
E-14 There could be fiction stories and say, "Oh, well, He never rose." Sometime ago when Brother Reedhead, what's his first name? [Someone says Paris--Ed.] Paris, Paris Reedhead came to my house.
Now, Paris Reedhead is a Baptist. And he came to me and he said, "Brother Branham, knowing that you were a Baptist, you ought to know truth as the Baptist think it, you know." He said, "Um, what's these Pentecostals got?"
I said, "The baptism of the Holy Spirit."
He said, "I was called of God when I was about six years old." And he said, "I've went everywhere; my mother schooled me." And said, "When I got my a degree, my bachelor of art," said, "I thought I'd find Christ there." Said, "When I got my doctor's degree, I thought I'd find Christ. When I got my L.L.D., I thought I would find Christ." But said, "I've got enough degrees till I could almost plaster your wall with them." He said, "But where is Christ? I didn't find Him in any of it." Says, "Has the teacher's been wrong?"
I said, "As an illiterate person as myself, I certainly wouldn't want to say that the teachers was wrong. They told you truth, but not all the truth."
Christ doesn't lay in degrees, He lays in faith, believing Him in the Person Christ.
E-15 He told me a story of a Mohammedan that had been a reared, I believe, in their missions, I think in Sudan missions, wasn't that, the great Sudan missions.
And this Mohammedan on his road back, Brother Reedhead said to him, said, "Sir," going back after being educated for something another in India. Said, "You're going back to work in your nation as maybe a electrical engineer, whatever he had taken." Said, "Why don't you take back with you a Lord Jesus instead of that dead prophet that you're worshipping?"
He said, "Kind sir," he said, "what could your Lord Jesus do for me any more than my prophet can do?" He said, "They both wrote books; we--we call ours the Koran; you call yours the Bible. And we both believe the books."
E-16 Why, he said, "Mister", he said, "our Christ has raised from the dead and your Mohammed prophet is still in the grave."
He said, "Did he raise from the dead? I would like to see Him." Oh, he said, "How do you know that He raised from the dead?"
Mr. Reedhead said, "He lives in my heart."
He said, "So does Mohammed live in my heart."
He said, "Well, we have joy of knowing it."
He said, "Now, Mr. Reedhead, Mohammedan religion can produce just as much psychology as Christianity." Said, "We can shout just as loud, and scream just as loud, dance just as hard, and everything as you can." He said, "But we Mohammedans are waiting to see you teachers prove that Jesus raised from the dead." He said, "Mohammed never promised nothing but life after death." He said, "But Jesus promised to His teachers that the works that He did, they would do also. We're waiting to see those works."
He said, "Well, maybe you're thinking about in the Scripture there of a Mark 16?"
He said, "That's one place, yes, sir."
He said, "Well, the better teachers know that Mark 16 from the 9th verse on is not even inspired, so that was..."
He said, "What kind of a book are you reading? All the Koran's inspired."
E-17 And Mr. Reedhead said that he kicked the dust and changed the subject. That's right. Because that He knew, just talking to the Mohammed, he was defeated. He said, "And, Brother Branham, I'm here to find out something about God."
And there Morse or Brother Reedhead has re--Paris Reedhead has received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and is preaching the Gospel with signs and wonders following his ministry because that he believed, was hungering and thirsting for righteousness. God said, "They shall be filled." The Word is true.
E-18 And Jesus in His teaching here, He just had a lot of criticism, and they had been talking about Him, as every time where the supernatural's done, there's a mixed multitude. When Moses did the Supernatural, a mixed multitude went with him and it caused trouble. Always when the Supernatural's done, a mixed multitude goes. This revival's going on now, there's a mixed multitude.
The historians said it wasn't a strange thing that Martin Luther could protest the Catholic church and get by with it, but to keep his head above all the fanaticism that followed the reformation.
So you find it... But what does the bogus claim? It only proves that there's a real one somewhere. When you see someone mocking religion, just remember there's somebody got religion. When you see somebody pretending to have the Holy Spirit, there's somebody who's really got It. That's right.
E-19 When you go into India, you find all the clowns laying on the spikes and doing little things for money. That's clowns, some honest person back in the interior there is really cutting himself and bruising himself to try to appease his gods.
There's always that pro and con, false and true, day and night. And Jesus was the Light of the world when He was here. And He's the Light of the world tonight. There's no other light that can lead you out of the shadows of death, but the blessed Lord Jesus.
E-20 And in all ages God's had men and He's had His ministry in every age. God is supernatural. And when God comes on the scene, supernatural takes place, for He is supernatural. And His people always look for Him in the supernatural. Because when they become sons of God, they become the nature of God. And in that they pick up that believing Him; by faith they believe that what God says is the truth, no matter how contrary it may seem.
Like Abraham of old, he called those things that was not as though they were, because God said so. And as he got older... The baby was promised for twenty-five years. And the Bible said he got stronger all the time waiting for the promise because it would be a greater miracle. And we call ourselves the children of Abraham and can't wait overnight for God. If He doesn't perform an outstanding miracle on us...
E-21 That's why we don't catch what faith really is. Faith is something; it may not take place in your hand if it's crippled, may not take place in your eye if it's blind; but faith takes it's solemn stand in the heart, and from there you call anything contrary to what that faith says as though it was not.
E-22 But the mixed multitude... And Jesus said--begin to speak to them of other ages, how that God down through the age has always done the supernatural. And He was referring back to the prophet, Jonah. Then He came down to the one that we wish to base these few thoughts around for the next fifteen or twenty minutes.
That was in the days of Solomon. In all ages when God sends a gift to the people, and they refuse it, it only makes the people go into chaos. But when the people believes and accepts what God sent them, it--it is a golden age for that people. What He said in His own ministry, "How oft would I have hovered you as the hen would her brood. But you would not." They didn't know their day. And I'm just wondering if we as America know our day of visitation.
E-23 And I might say this just now because the Holy Spirit seems to be putting it on my heart. Be careful, Satan will try to tell you of something great way off in another age to come, or another coming along of another revival, and you may be living in the last part of all you'll ever get. It may be now. It's always been that way. They come, and the revival's gone, and they don't know it. Myself, I believe we're at the end. I don't look for nothing else but the coming of the Lord. I believe that everything that He has promised in the Scriptures has been fulfilled.
E-24 And I believe we're getting our last call. That's the reason, tired and weary I stand at the platform night after night. And you know it's not for money. It's not for popularity. I shun those things. But it's because it's something in me is driving me, and I know it's the Holy Spirit, that the message combs through the country back and forth until every fish has been caught in the Gospel net.
E-25 Notice, if the people receive it, then there is a great revival and a great time of jubilee.
Now, He was referring to Solomon. God raised Solomon up as a type of Christ, a son of David, and gave him a gift. And, oh, how all Israel rallied around that gift, how they loved that gift because it come from God to them. And any gift is not given to a man, only for service; he becomes a servant of the people to whom he preaches, and ministers the gift which God has given him. It isn't for his benefit. It is for the people's benefit.
E-26 And God raised up Solomon and gave him a great gift and the people all rallied around it: Pharisees, Sadducees, whatever they might be. And whether he come from a Pharisee group, or a Sadducee, or whatever denomination that it was, they with one accord all rallied around the principle: what God had did. And one told the other, and another told another until all the passers-by begin to hear of it. And they took it off into their country.
E-27 Would it not be a wonderful thing, if we in the American church tonight would only pass the good news from one to another like that? Would it not be wonderful if it didn't sweep from nation to nation of the goodness that God has showed us here? But we, oh, we're very clannish. It's not in our denomination, so we don't know whether it could be truth or not. God always picks an individual to work in, not a denomination. Tell me one time that God ever clanned off to a denomination. God in all ages has worked through individuals. Exactly.
E-28 And in all times in all history, God always raised up a man outside of the denomination, and blessed that man, and give him a ministry: Martin Luther, John Wesley, on down, just bring them down through the age, someone outside of the church, because it--it gets itself to a clan like, and then God can't move in it no more. It gets callused, brings up its doctrine, and ends it with a period. "This is what we believe and nothing else." Your tables of doctrine would be all right if you'd end it with a comma. "We believe this plus as much more as we can hear from God." That would be all right then. It would be--then you'd be interdenominational. And, oh, how the people get, and that's the reason the message can't strike the place that it should strike.
E-29 And I was thinking there of how Jesus spoke of Solomon and how the people coming and going, hearing the message. And way down in the utmost parts of the known world, there was a little woman that was a queen, a pagan, way down in Sheba. And she heard; everybody coming by said, "You should go up into Israel. Their God has raised them up a man with a great gift, and this gift works marvelous. It's a gift of discernment, and you should see it work."
E-30 You know the Bible said, "Faith cometh by hearing." And everyone going through and watching this great miracle being done by Solomon on his discernment... Finally, the little queen begin to hunger. She wondered if that really could be true.
Then somebody else come by. "Oh, you should see it. Oh, we've never seen anything like it. They've got a mighty God up there in Israel, and around this gift they're in one accord. No one says anything against it, but everybody believes it." Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful if the church could do that?
E-31 Then notice, the little queen begin to hunger to see it. She wanted to see it. And you know, there's just something about the power of Almighty God that when the supernatural's done, every heart that's really right with God, longs to see it. Man is a supernatural being. He come from behind a dark curtain there. He's going out behind that dark curtain. He longs to look across the curtain and see from where he come and where he's a going. It's only natural that a man would do that, because he longs to do it.
E-32 Here some time ago in California, I was setting in a meeting disguised (That's right.), because a brother was preaching. And I was just setting there dressed a little different, and I happened to be setting by a Episcopalian minister.
And the minister on the platform, after he had spoke about a hour and a half, went back behind the curtains and the valet changed his clothes and come back out because he was perspiring. That's just what that Episcopalian minister wanted. He said, "He doesn't behave himself like a servant of Christ." Well, I didn't think it was too much myself, but I was sure going take up for my brother on the platform.
I said, "I think he's all right.
He said, "Are you one of these?"
I said, "I don't belong to this church. No, sir."
He said, "You know what," he said, "years ago..." I bet it wasn't a Episcopalian; it was a Presbyterian. He said, "We had the greatest churches on this west coast. We had the whole thing sewed down." And said that, "That cult of Christian Science come along." And said, "They broke up our churches." And says, "Looks like this fellow's going to break up the Christian Science."
Oh, I thought that was just a good place for me to put my little bit in. So I said, "Sir, if you Presbyterians would've fed the children the Bread of Life, you'd still been the leading church; but if you won't do it, God's able of these stones to rise children unto Abraham. He will feed His church. He promised to do it."
E-33 Oh, the great works of the living God. And then this little woman, after she'd been hearing about this, she thought she'd go see this for herself. That's a good way to find out. Don't take somebody else's word for it. Go, find out yourself. Set with an honest heart. Open up your heart and say, "Lord, now deal with me." And examine it by the Scriptures to see if it's right.
And she decided to go because the Word had been planted and she desired to see it.
I want you to notice, as it was with that little woman, so is it with every person that comes to God. It costs you a price. The first thing, to begin with she was a woman. And she had to cross a desert, not in a air-conditioned Cadillac, or not in some great beautiful plush car, but setting on the back of a camel.
Look at the space between Jerusalem and the country she came from. It taken her at least three months to come to Solomon on the back of a camel. And we will hardly, in a nice car, drive a mile to get to prayer meeting. What a difference.
E-34 And a gift of God, most of the time we say, "Oh, nonsense, nothing to it. Dr. Jones said so-and-so, and that settles it." That's the reason we get nowhere. That's what's the matter with the world tonight. That's what's the matter with the church tonight: if it had only knowed its day.
E-35 Now, notice, in the desert in them days the children of Ishmael was there, and they were robbers. She had to think about that. She could've been robbed. So she said this, "I'm going up to see for myself, and if it is the truth, I'm going to support him with all I got." And she ladened her camels with gold and frankincense. She really brought an offering.
If it was truth, she wanted to support it. If it wasn't the truth, then she could bring her gifts back. But then what a--a shock that would've been for those Arabs in that day in the desert to have caught that little caravan coming through there with her little soldiers, and this little queen woman setting up on top of a camel, and her little maids around her; just to rode in and shot them down and taken all that great treasure to themselves.
But if there is a hunger in your heart to see God, there isn't enough devils in all torment to keep you from seeing Him. He will make a way where there is no way if you really want to see Him and honest in your heart.
E-36 She had to think of those things. But when faith takes the preeminences, there is no more room for fear. It casts it away. She had one alternative: that was to see if that gift was right. So she ladened her camels with gold and costly things, and she got up on the camel and started perhaps traveling by night, being cooler across the great Sahara desert, as she come up through the sand. Oh, what a price, what a journey, but what an ambition tops it all, because in her heart there was something hungering and thirsting to find if there really was a God that could answer.
E-37 Now, she wasn't a Christian. She was a pagan. So she was coming up to find out about this God. It had been represented to her in a marvelous way: One Who performs supernatural. So here she come. And then when she got to the palace gate... She never come just to set fifteen minutes and say, "I'll watch and see how it goes on. If I don't like it, I'll turn back." She unloaded the camels, pitched the tents, and stayed till she was convinced.
Oh, if man and women would only do that instead of drawing your own opinion and slipping out in a few minutes 'cause the preacher said something just a little different from your theology. If you'd just believe and set there, God will reveal Himself to you. "Oh, I attended one night; I didn't think much of it so I just come away."
Not her, she said, "I'm going to see it through." I like that. See it through; prove it. Find out whether it's the truth or not. If it's not the truth, have nothing to do with it. But if it is the truth, it's worth every ounce and every effort that we can put forth to serve the true and living God.
E-38 So she got up there, unloaded her camels. She came to stay till it was over. And I can see the little queen, as it was. On the first morning when the meeting was set, Solomon came out and took his seat. And while he was setting there, they brought to him hard things. And I can see her as she stood back in the corner or somewhere in the great palace yard there. And Solomon setting and the people come, she seen the Spirit of the living God moving in human hearts and giving the discernment of right and wrong.
E-39 Oh, it must have thrilled her heart. She said, "The morning meeting was so great, I believe I'll just stay till the evening meeting." So when Solomon set again, and she seen the Spirit of God moving in that man, oh, it kept building more confidence and more confidence. And finally after while, she was so convinced until she went and got her offerings and laid them down and presented herself. And here's what she said, "All that I have heard is the truth and more that I heard is been done." She stayed. What happened?
Jesus referred to that woman. Never heard the Gospel before, but upon hearing she come and examined it and found it to be so. So Jesus said she'll raise up in the day of the judgment and will condemn you bunch of self-styled educated Pharisees who should've knowed different and has turned it down.
E-40 And I say this humbly as Christ's servant. I believe that the Hottentots in Africa will rise in the day of judgment and condemn this United States. For if the mighty preaching, and the mighty revivals, and the great signs would've swept Africa as it has this nation here, they would've repented a long time ago, and victory fires would be built on every hill.
But we stay home on Wednesday nights from the prayer meetings to watch a some television program that we should not even let be turned on in our house. And in spite of all the things that's done, we wade right on into sin every day. "Denying, having the form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof."
E-41 What will be in that day when that little queen rises up in this generation, when some won't come across the city or across the street to examine anything and see if it's right? If it is right, let's put our whole heart in it. If it's not right, have nothing to do with it. If it isn't in the Word of God, then it's wrong. If it is the Word of God and His promise, God's obligated to His promise, and He will keep every Word that He said. Then if He does that to us, it shows that truly He has given to the church tonight gifts and callings and wonders that He might bring Himself before the people.
E-42 He's healing. Every person in here is healed right now. The Bible says you are. Every sinner inside this door, and every sinner in the world is already saved and been saved since Jesus' death at Calvary.
You say, "Brother Branham, I was saved ten years ago." No, you accepted it ten years ago. He took away the sin of the world nineteen hundred years ago. But it's your personal faith in a finished work that brings the results. If you never accept it, you'll die and without mercy because you judged the Son of God thus.
If you are sick tonight, "He was wounded for our transgressions and with His stripes you were healed." It's the past tense. It isn't that I lay hands on you, or any other minister lays hands on you; it's your personal faith in a finished work that Christ has did. Certainly.
E-43 In the Bible times when they seen this manifestation of Spirit they laid people in the shadow of a fisherman who couldn't write his own name, known as the apostle Peter, and they were healed. They believed it. There was nothing in that man that could heal them, for he was just a man. But the healing lay in their personal faith in Christ that was in the man.
Oh, God, grant tonight, is my prayer, that every person in here will see the Lord Jesus in His great power and His manifestation of His Spirit, and receive Him and be healed and saved, while we bow our heads just a moment for prayer.
E-44 I'm wondering tonight as we sit with our heads bowed in the Presence of His majesty, could you be as that little queen? Could you show the simplicity? That woman had never read no scrolls of Scripture. She just had to believe a testimony, and taken her three months to get to it to find out whether it was true or not. There her heart was satisfied, and today she's immortal among men. She's in glory and will rise in the judgment with the generation of people who has had the opportunity to receive it and did not.
What did Jesus say? "Verily, I say unto you that a greater than Solomon is here." And even tonight... And I say this with respects and with a humble heart. And I trust that you'll wait just a moment and don't think I'm sacrilegious by my remark. A greater is here among us tonight than there was who said the Words, because it's a glorified Jesus. He said, "You might say something against the Son of Man and it would be forgiven you, but a word against the Holy Ghost when He comes to do the same thing, will never be forgiven in this world or the world to come."
E-45 So One that has been among us, died and rose again, is glorified in the Presence of God tonight, comes back in the form of the third Person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, and dwells in us, and moves, and proves Himself to be the same Lord Jesus. "A little while and the world sees Me no more; yet ye shall see Me for I'll be with you, in you. The works that I do, shall you do also. More than this shall you do, for I go to My Father." I wonder in the light of this Scripture, if you've come tonight, if you're not a Christian would you raise your hand and say, "Brother Branham, pray for me just now. I here want to raise my hands to Christ and say I haven't lived the right life. Be merciful to me, Lord Jesus."
E-46 Is there a person in the buildings, anywhere in the overflows or anywhere just raise your hand, say, "Brother Branham, I'm not a Christian. Remember me, I want to get right. I come here tonight for a purpose. I come here; I heard about this as you've been preaching about a gift that the Lord God had given to the church. And I certainly don't want to be left out at that day. I don't want no trouble down at the river when I come down to the river. I want to be sure that I'm right. Remember me, Brother Branham in your prayer," as you'll testify by raising your hand. Backslider... God bless you, lady. Someone else? Just a moment. God bless you, sir. God bless you, sir. That's good. Someone else? God bless you, lady. Bless you.
E-47 "I here will raise my hand, Brother Branham, to God. And I say, 'Lord God, I've come, maybe, through the snow tonight as the queen come over the desert. Maybe this is my first night here. I've heard about these things. I want to know if it's truth or not. And I want you to pray, Brother Branham, that my heart will be humble, that I'll be willing and able to receive the Spirit of Christ. Pray for me." God bless you.
E-48 Now, heavenly Father, we ask for mercy for these who have raised their hands. Circumcise every heart now, and I could--might stand here hour after hour preaching, and yet one Word from Thee, Lord God, would count more than all the preachers in the world could say in years: just one Word from You.
And, O Lord, our hungry hearts do thirst as the hart panteth for the water brook, our souls thirst after Thee. Many coming in tonight raised their hands that they wanted to be remembered. God, I pray that You'll give to them tonight the exceedingly abundance of Thy grace.
E-49 Bless every sick person in the building. And as I just said to them, I pray, Lord God, that it did not go over their head, but it went into the heart that they are already healed. Your power produced that in that all sufficient Sacrifice at Calvary. There's where the purchase and power was given and the great supreme Sacrifice was made, and the requirement of an angry God was met. They're justified, the believer, in accepting Your propitiation for his sins and his sickness.
O Immortal and Creator, stand near in these next few minutes that Thy Word will not be found to be untrue, but that Thy Word might be made manifest.
E-50 O eternal, blessed God, hear the prayer of Your servant as I pray for this little group that's dared through the snowstorms tonight to come to the church hungering, and thirsting, and longing. They know they come from somewhere, and they're headed somewhere.
O Lord, anchor every person's faith there in Calvary. And to our blessed Lord, when He was on earth, and the--how He performed the miracles, and showed that He was the Messiah by discerning their thoughts, telling Philip where he was. And when He got Nathanael and how He told Nathanael that he was under a tree, told Peter his name. The woman touched His garment. The Samaritan woman couldn't understand Who He was. She said, "I perceive that You're a prophet, but we know when the Messiah cometh these things will be done." How she could say after that, "Come see the Man that told me the things I've done. Isn't this the Messiah?"
Grant, Lord, that that'll be the testimony of this church after the next few minutes.
E-51 Father God, take the Words now and sanctify them and grant now that they'll become life in every heart. For if You stood here in the form of Your being, the people would have to have faith to get the benefits of Your Presence.
When You come into Your own city, Capernaum, and to Nazareth, and to Galilee and around in many places; they said, "Oh, we heard You done it somewhere else. Now do it here." And many mighty works You could not do because of their sin, their unbelief. And we know that that's the original sin: is unbelief. And really the only sin.
E-52 I pray, Father, that You will bless now as we commit ourselves to Thee. And this little gift that Thou has permitted me to have of... I pray that You'll just work extremely great tonight. And what good would it do, Lord, if somebody out there couldn't touch it right quick and believe?
May it thrill the hearts of ministers. May they rise and lift up them feeble hands that's been hanging down. May the church rejoice, for we know that redemption is nigh. Mercy has revealed itself and next will be judgment for those who have spurned mercy.
Grant it, Lord, now we are in Thy hands. In the Name of Jesus Christ, be merciful to us. Amen.
E-53 Real slowly on this song. I love that. How many loves that song, "Saviour, Saviour, hear my humble cry, while on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by." No wonder old blind Fanny Crosby could write that. "Whom have I on earth beside Thee, or whom in heaven but Thee?" Let's sing it quietly and slowly and inspirationally to the Lord now. All right, somebody can lead it for us.
... not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Oh, do not pass me by. (Now, quietly and slowly now.)
Saviour, (in the Spirit of worship) Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by. (Do you love Him? Just raise up your hands. Slowly.)
Saviour... (God's a Spirit and He longs to be worshipped.)
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by. (Now, hum it slowly.)
E-54 Lord God, Thou sees the hands, the faces, knows the heart. Somewhere along amongst these prayer cards I got to call someone. They'll be called to the platform. And if it pleases Thee tonight to manifest the resurrection of Thy Son, the blessed Lord, to us, grant that these out there will not be passed by. May everyone receive the benefits of Thy atoning grace tonight and Thy healing power. For we ask it in Jesus' Name, for His glory. Amen.
Oh, I just--I just love this kind of a meeting. Don't you feel just real scoured out like. Just something that just took all condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, but walk not after the flesh (what their eye sees and their ears hear) but after the Spirit." The Spirit giveth life.
E-55 Now, believe Him tonight, friend of mine. How many was here last night? Let's see your hands. How many this is their first night? Let's see your hands. Oh, my. Then you last-nighters will just wait just for a moment. I'd like to talk to the ones that's here for their first time in the meeting.
My beloved friends, I do not claim to be a healer. If I said that, I would be telling something wrong. I'm just your brother. I do not heal the sick; I pray for the sick. God has already healed them. They've already been healed when Jesus died.
Now the only thing that God can do to make His Word real, is to get some good preacher who can preach the Word. That's the official and the--the initial way. "Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word."
E-56 If it was you trying to give a enemy, that's been your enemy... I've often thought: "If God will forgive His enemy's sins, won't He heal His children's sickness?" And then, if you'd place before your enemy, or whoever, and told them your word, and they didn't believe it, and walked away from it, that would settle it with you and I, but not God. He's not willing that any should perish. So He sends gifts into the church to make known His Presence. And I believe that we have been a partaker in this last days in the past thirty, forty years, have been partaker of every spiritual gift that's recommended to us in the Bible that Jesus died for. I believe that this now is the end time.
E-57 When Jesus was here on earth, He did not claim to be a healer. (to the newcomers?) He said, "It's not Me that doeth the works, it's My Father that dwelleth in Me. He doeth the works." St. John 5:19, He said, "The Son can do nothing in Himself, but what He sees the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise."
And when He manifested Hisself to Israel... First was to Peter and He give him his name. He didn't know him and never seen him before, but He told him who he was, and what his father's name was. How many you people believe that's the Bible? St. John the 1st chapter says.
E-58 When Philip got converted, he went and found a friend, Nathanael, under a tree. He told him, "Come see Who I've found, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph."
He said, "Now, could there be any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
He said, "Come, see."
On the road around, he instructed him, like your friends has you coming tonight. And when he got in the Presence of our blessed Lord, he looked down and the Lord did and said, "Behold, here's an Israelite in whom there is no guile."
It so surprised him that he said, "Rabbi, when did You know me?"
He said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you." What eyes: thirty miles around the mountain...
E-59 But He can see right down into your heart. He's omnipresent. Do you believe that? Omnipotent, infinite, sure He is. He knows--He knowed everything before the foundation of the world. He's all present, has all knowledge, all power. That proved that it was God in Him.
He said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you."
He said, "Rabbi, You're the Son of God. You're the King of Israel."
See, they had a spiritual conception. Oh, I wished I had just a few minutes here. Would it--would you bear with me if I say I'll watch the clock for about three to five minutes?
Did you know the entire body of Jesus Christ is revealed through revelation? Did you know the things that's written in the Word, you have to read the Bible in-between the lines? It's a love story. You believe that?
E-60 Now, my wife setting over there, I love her. God knows that. And when she writes me a letter when I'm overseas, and she knows I'm tired and weary, she'll set down, "Dear Bill, I've just put the children to sleep. And tonight I'm thinking of you and been praying for you." Now, that's what she's saying, but I love her so much, and she loves me that I can read between the lines. I know what she really means. See? It's a love affair.
And if you love the Lord like that, you read the Bible not as a newspaper, not in some theological seminary interpretation of it, but as a love letter. The Bible said so. Now, how many knows that? Some of you.
E-61 Well, Jesus said, "I thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast hid it from the seminary students--the wise and imprudent, and revealed it to babes such as would learn." It's hid from the eyes of smart and educated. It's revealed to babes such as will learn.
Notice, when Job was in trouble and he--he was fixing to die, he thought. And the angel of the Lord came, and the Spirit came on the prophet, and the thunders roared, and the lightnings flashed. And he stood up and said, "I know my Redeemer liveth. And at the last days He will stand on the earth, though the skinworms destroys this body, yet in my flesh I'll see God." You know where he was buried?
E-62 Along come Abraham. And when Sarah, his sweetheart, when she died, did you notice where he buried her? In the promised land right with Job. When Abraham died, he was buried with Sarah. Abraham begot Isaac, when Isaac died, he was buried with Abraham. Isaac begot Jacob and he died down in Egypt, but made his prophet son put his hand on his limping hip, and said, "Swear by the God of Abraham, you'll not bury my bones down here." Why? What difference did it make where he was buried? They were prophets: spiritual revelation.
E-63 And when Joseph died, he said, "Don't you bury my bones down here, but someday God will visit you. You take my bones out of this Egypt up yonder in the promised land and bury them." Why? Nothing wrote in the Word about it. But it was a spiritual understanding. They knowed that firstfruits of the resurrection, that Redeemer, that Job saw, would rise, and on Easter morning when He rose up, there come Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the saints that slept under the dust of the earth come out and went into the city and appeared to many.
E-64 Go ahead, have the world. Take all your unbelief. Everything you want. Bury me safely in Jesus. For those that are in Christ will God bring living at His coming.
All the formals, the rituals, and so forth, just give me the plain old Gospel just the way it's written. Let me believe it in the simplicity that it's writ--wrote in, and believe it just as a child would believe it. God made the promise. God keeps His promise. Certainly He will; every Word, He keeps it. And He's got to.
E-65 And how He made Hisself manifested there to the Jews, and they with the spiritual revelation. And Nathanael saw it. Peter saw it. The apostles saw it. They said, "That's the Son of God." But what did the educated Pharisees and Sadducees say?
Now, I'm not trying to make crutches for my ignorance, but speaking... Education is a wonderful thing, but it's been the greatest hindrance the Gospel's ever had. There'd never been a barroom that hindered the Gospel like a somebody that's got more education than they got common gumption to know how to control it. That's right. You get so educated, you know more than God knows about it. Just take it the way it's written and believe it. That's the way God wants you to do it.
E-66 Then the Pharisees and Sadducees said, "That's a evil spirit. He reveals that by Beelzebub, the chief of the fortunetellers." Then He went up to Samaria, and a woman that had lived in ill fame, as we believe here in America... So she went out to the well to get some water, and there set a middle-aged Man. He was only thirty, but the Bible said He looked to be fifty. His work must've broke Him down. You believe the Bible says that? Sure it did.
Said, "You say you seen Abraham; you're not even fifty years old yet?"
And how long... And He said, "Before Abraham was, I am." Sure He was. The... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
E-67 Called Jesus the Son of God. There, He was there at the well. And this woman said, "We have no such dealings. No, it's not customary for you Jews to ask Samaritans such."
He said, "But if you knew Who was talking to you, you'd ask Me for a drink." He was catching the Spirit. And as--why remember, He's never manifested now only to the Jews; this is the Gentiles--or to the Samaritans. Which there's only three races on earth, Ham, Shem, and Japheth's people: Jew, Samaritan, and Gentile. Half Jew and Gentile mixed was Samaritans.
E-68 Now, and watch. After come in them three sons--He has to manifest Hisself here. You heard of Peter with the key? He opened it at Pentecost; He opened to Samaria at the house of Cornelius. And then go to the world. See?
Jesus manifest Hisself under a discerning spirit, telling the secrets of the heart and where they'd been. To the Jews they believe. The others did not believe.
Now, to the Samaritans, He said to the woman, "Go, get your husband and come here."
She said, "I have no husband."
"That's right, you've got five, and the one you now live with is not yours." Watch what the woman said now, newcomers.
She said, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. We know when the Messiah cometh, He will tell us these things." She didn't know Who He was.
He said, "I'm He that speaks to you."
She run into the city and said, "Come, see a Man that told me the things that I've done. Isn't this the sign of the Messiah?"
E-69 If that's the way He manifested Himself to the Jews, and forbid them to go to the Gentiles... How many knows that? "Don't you go to any Gentiles."
And He manifested Himself to the Samaritans. The Bible said, Hebrews 13:8, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever." He's obligated to make the same manifestation to the Gentiles, and this is the end of the Gentiles. We're at the end. Then God's here to prove that He's just... And if He will come and manifest Hisself through His humble servants here tonight would we all believe Him and love Him and accept it? May the Lord grant it.
E-70 Last night I think we called first from card--I believe we called from 1 to 15, wasn't that what...?... Was that what it was, Brother? All right, we taken the first fifteen last night, let's take the last fifteen tonight. That'd be 85? What was that letter? I-85. Who has prayer card I-85? Raise up your hand. When the...?...
Who give them out, Billy, you? Billy give them out this afternoon, just mixes it up before you and mixes all the cards up, gives them right out to... Nobody...?... No one knows where that prayer line's going to be called from. Right here... Of course it's revealed to me here, I start from somewhere.
85? Raise your hand. All right. Stand right down here, lady. (Go down there...?...) 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 on to a 100 stand up first. If it gets a little short, then we'll get the smallest place... It'll stand fifteen people.
All right. How many in here does not have prayer cards and you want the Lord Jesus to heal you, would you raise your hands, all over the building, anywhere.
How many has been in meetings before that knows that the Lord Jesus heals more out there in the audience that He does up here on the platform, many times. What is it now? I want your attention just a few minutes now.
E-71 What is this? What's it for? Who gets the benefit? It's the benefit what--whoever the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself. How many knows that the Bible said, "No man can come to Me, except My Father draws him first."?
All right, if you'll just be real reverent out there, just be reverent, quiet, keep your place, then God is able to reveal tonight here... And if He doesn't call you individually... How many knows that if He doesn't call you, that He's wanting to do for you the same things that He did here? Let's see your hands.
How many believes in their faith, if Jesus will appear tonight... Now how can He appear? The Bible said He's the same. How is He the same?
E-72 I want to ask you something and I believe I mentioned it last night. How do you know what type of tree you're looking at? "By the fruit it bears," Jesus said. Is that right? If it's a apple tree, it has apples. It might have sycamore bark on it. But if it's bearing apples, the life on the inside of it is a apple tree life. Is that right?
And if I told you tonight that the spirit of John Dillinger was in me? Well, you'd expect me to raise back my coat and big guns and... I'd be a murderer. It'd be dangerous to be around me. What if I told you the spirit of some artist was in me, I'd take a great big canvas like that, stand back there with a brush and paint the ocean just as pretty for you and catch them big licks of the waves, because the spirit is in me.
E-73 And if I told you the Spirit of Christ was in me, then it ought to bear the same record of Christ. And if the Spirit of Christ was in you, it'll recognize it. "My sheep know My voice."
Now, you just believe. You remember, I said there's nothing that I can do and there's no other man can do anything else but preach the Gospel and pray (That's all.), unless God give him a sign to perform before the people.
What if Jesus was here tonight with this suit on He gave me? You'd walk up, say, "Lord Jesus, will You heal me?"
You know what He'd say, "I've already done it. Can't you believe My Word, what I said back there?"
E-74 If you was in a pawn shop and I redeemed you with a ticket, on a written, a ticket, that I have redeemed you, how can anyone else redeem you? How can I redeem you again when I've already redeemed you? The devil puts you in a pawn shop. God takes you out. And He's already did it. And the only thing you have to do is just walk out.
Now, while they're lining up the people there, just you with prayer cards, come now 'cause it wouldn't be right to put any in the line that didn't have a card.
E-75 How many remembers the healing of Congressman Upshaw? I was just standing there talking like this when there's thousands of people standing there, and they was fixing to line up, and I looked out. I'd seen an old man, and they'd been a many a wheelchair, oh, there was just wheelchairs all over the places in California. And I looked across, and I seen a little boy playing on a haystack, and he fell and hit his back across a--the edge of a frame. And it must've broke his back. I seen a doctor with little glasses hanging low on his nose, white mustache and white hair, a working on him but it was no good, too far gone. And I seen them boring holes in the house so that the people walking in, it wouldn't vibrate on the floor. He was so bad. And that's the only thing I can say is what I'm looking at.
E-76 And just then, I seen there come a great man, a famous speaker, and the vision left. And I looked around; I couldn't find him. And they'd just brought him in, I think, by a plane. And I said, "There's the old man setting right there now." And his wife was down with him. He's eighty-six years old, been in a wheelchair for sixty-six years. And there he was, and bowing down. And to you Baptist tonight, you surely ought to know him. He was the Vice President of Southern Baptist Convention.
So when he a... And he said, "My son, how did you ever know that I fell on a hay frame?"
I said, "Sir, I didn't know."
He said, "It has to come from God, for that is the same type of doctor that operated on me which has been gone for years." He said, "And no minister anywhere..." Said, and they told me, said, "It's Congressman Upshaw."
E-77 Well, I didn't... He might've said somebody from India. I wouldn't knowed any different 'cause I didn't know no Congressman. And so Mr. Baxter said, "That's Congressman Willie D. Upshaw."
I said, "I never heard of him."
So he said, "Will I be healed, my son?"
I said, "Sir, I don't know. The only thing I can say is what I see."
And I said, "Have you got the prayer line ready?"
And the boys down there said, "Just about." They started a woman up.
E-78 I looked out this a way. That--everybody... Been there about a week, everybody in one accord, all of the--the doubts was gone away. And I seen a little doctor with a doctor's coat on, with tortoise shell glasses, hair combed back, kindly little flat dark hair, stood something like Brother Vayle here. And he had a--a... but he had great big tortoise glasses on.
And he was looking down, shaking his head. And I described the doctor. I said, "He's just operated on a little colored girl for her tonsils, and he took them out, and it paralyzed the child."
Just then a way, way down in this section, down in this way, I heard somebody scream to the top of their voice, and here come a typical Aunt Jemima. Here she come, pulling a stretcher, and a man trying to hold her stretcher back. She was just knocking ushers right and left.
E-79 She said, "Lordy, mercy, that's my baby." And she said, "That was the doctor man that operated on her." And so then, a big bunch of ushers caught her 'fore she got to the platform. It wasn't right.
I said, "Now, look just a moment, Auntie." I said, "This--I could not heal your baby. If I could I'd come down and do it; but I can't. It's your own faith that'll have to do it, or the child." I said, "But you way back through here, how did the Holy Spirit know that? Because you were over there believing."
She said, "My baby is laying here, parson, and it's been this way for two years."
I said, "That's the child."
She said, "Come, pray for it."
I said, "That wouldn't be right, Auntie. There's hundreds of people here holding prayer cards. And this is your first time in a meeting. You have no prayer card, you said." I said, "You just get down and pray, maybe the Lord will heal your baby."
E-80 And I said, "Bring this person." And there was a lady come up, and I started talk to the lady. There may be people setting right here was there that night. And when I started to talk to the lady, I looked back and I seen like a little street. Dark, and I took crossed it. Going down through the--look like an alley, this little Negro girl had a doll in her arm, rocking this doll, walking along. Oh, my. All the devils in torment couldn't stop it then. It was THUS SAITH THE LORD.
I said, "Auntie, the Lord Jesus has made your baby well."
She said, "You mean my baby, is he able to walk?"
I said, "It can now."
The little fellow raised up, said "Looky here, mommy." And people began fainting around there. And we let the mother take the baby by the hand, walk down through those long aisles, waving to the people.
E-81 And just as I turned, I seen the old Congressman with a brown pin striped suit on. He wore a blue suit with a red tie at the time. He was going right over the tops of the heads of the people. He was very southern hospitality, going along, going like this.
I said, "Congressman," (they run the address system to him quickly). And I said, "Haven't you got a brown pin striped suit?" He said, "My son, I just bought one yesterday."
I said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD. It looks like that God would've healed you when you were about seventeen years old and your bones all young to wait till you're eighty-six and then heal you." But I said, "He's healed you, Congressman."
He said, "Do you mean to say, my son, that I can rise from this chair?"
I said, "In Jesus' Name, come here." And that man, being bound to his... When they raised him up like President Roosevelt, with those great, big things over him (braces) and he walked. You know how he walked, if you knew him. And he threw those down, raised from his wheelchair, run to the platform and touched his toes like that, and stand up as a real man. And it's...?... the nation.
E-82 And in Billy Graham's meeting, he sit on the White House steps, singing, "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms." Jesus still lives and reins.
Because he believed. He's no respecter of persons, just as real tonight as He was then. Only thing He's seeking for is to find someone who will have faith in Him.
All right, sir, you... Oh, is this... Oh, excuse me. Here is the showdown. Here is the place where I'm going to be found a false prophet and God's Word's unrevealed, and be found in error, how He's going to declare that God still lives and reigns, that raised up Jesus from the dead.
E-83 How many Christians are in here? Let's see your hands, real believers? Then it represents your Saviour. Now, if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, as we are the vine; He's the branch. Then the vine will have to bring forth the type of life that... The branch, rather, will bring forth the type of life that's in the vine. Is that right?
He said, "The works, these things that I do shall you also." Did He say it? "A little while and the world ('Kosmos' there means 'world order.') will see Me no more, yet ye shall see Me for I will be with you, even in you till the end of the world." The believers will see Him.
E-84 So far as I know, this is the first time I've ever laid eyes on the woman, as far as I know. Are we strangers to one another? You know me? Well, you've been in my meetings. But I mean I don't you, as far as that. As far as I know, to see you or look at you, I couldn't tell you. You was at the Indianapolis meetings last summer in June. Well then, I'd have no way of knowing what you're here for.
If He will reveal it, will you believe with all your heart? Will the audience believe Him? Now, here's another picture like the man and the woman at the well: our Lord and the woman of Samaria. Now, this woman could be standing here a critic. I don't know. She could be standing here a Christian. I couldn't tell you.
Oh, how many was at the Wednesday meeting to see that fellow that run to the platform, that thought it was a telepathy and there taken that trouble. There, one man back there was.
E-85 When he run up the platform, he put on his card, he said... He went to the platform and he said, "How do you do?"
And I said, "How do you do, sir?" He said a--I said, "You--there's nothing wrong with you."
He said, "Yes, there is." I was tired, right at the end of the line. He said, "Yes, there is." Said, "Look on my prayer card down there."
I said, "I don't care what you got on your prayer card."
He said, "I got TB; I got, oh, all kinds of stuff." See? I caught it right then what his trick was. He said, "Well, look on my prayer card."
I said, "I don't know what you put on your prayer card, sir, I have no way of knowing that. But I do know there's nothing wrong with you now."
And he said, "Well, how--what happened?"
I said, "I couldn't tell you. You might've just set out there and got healed out in the audience."
He said, "So that's the way it is, is it?" And then the Lord came with a vision.
E-86 I said, "Why has the devil put in your heart to lie before God?" I said, "What you put on your prayer card, you have right now." I said, "You're a preacher, and that man setting right there with that gray suit on in the balcony is the one that was with you last night. And you set in the room with a little green spread over a table, and you told your wife that you knowed it was a telepathy. And you got a card and come in here.
That fellow raised up there and said, "Brother Branham, that's the truth. I was right there with him."
I said, "Now, what was on your prayer card you have." He died about six months later with a cancer. Uh-huh, uh-huh.
E-87 How about the meeting with this fellow... They hired this guy to come and--not bewitch, but what is it you call them fellows that goes to the camp and throw spells on people, you know, make them bark like a dog? Hypnotism.
And I was praying for the sick, and I kept feeling that evil spirit somewhere. And usually we have some of them sticking around, you know. So if you keep the Christians praying and the--keep it down...
So, then, it kept getting worse and I looked over and I saw the vision. I said, "Why have you done that? Why did you listen to the devil?" I said, "Because that you've done that, you'll not move from your seat." And the man's still paralyzed. That's right. They led him out of the building that night.
He's wrote letters many times, "Can I come to the meeting?"
I said, "Repent before God; you brought that on yourself. I have nothing to do with it." That's right.
E-88 So be careful. We're not playing church. It's the Lord Jesus. Hundreds of those things. How about that official in Phoenix there on the police force? You probably read that in your paper. Went completely insane right in the meeting. Set there, he thought he knowed--he thought it was psychology, but he come to find out it was the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. That's right.
How they drug me over the top of him in mud and everything, out there trying to get me to even put my hands on him, like that. I said, "Sir, I have nothing to do with that. You did that..."
His wife said, "But, Mr. Branham, don't be heartless."
I said, "It isn't me; it's his own sin before God." Brother, he brought it on himself. I'm not responsible for that. I'm only responsible for believers.
God said, "Get the people to believe you, be sincere, nothing will stand before the prayer." But an unbeliever, I have nothing to do with it. May be dead now for all I know. There's just hundreds of those things that happened.
Wished I could tell you of Africa, of India, how the witch doctors would set on both... And don't you think they won't come up. They certainly will. Never a time, never a one time that it ever happened but what the Lord Jesus moved in on the scene. He's God. Certainly. Now, just be real reverent and keep your seat.
E-89 Lady, if I could help you some way and if domestic, financial, sickness, or whatever it was, there'd be very little I could do. But I--I want to say this, that I'll--I'll be sincere to try to help you to anything that you need help for.
But now, if it's something that comes through the atonement, it's a finished work. It'll be your faith. But if God will reveal to me, knowing what you have on your heart, would you believe it was the same Lord that talked to the woman... Now, not your brother now. I'm just a man. But believe it was the same Lord that talked to the woman at the well till He caught what her spirit was, and then told her where her trouble was? Would you believe it to be the same?
E-90 Now, be reverent. You are suffering with an extremely nervous condition. Then you have something wrong with your leg too, that you want me to pray for. That's right. Raise your hand if that's true. You got more than that that you want me to pray. Just to help you, you've had an operation. That was in your throat. 'Course if I can see the scar. They took out a goiter. But here's something else that you can't see. They wanted to do something else to it now. That's from the operation, adhesions has growed in there, and they want cut them loose. That's THUS SAITH THE LORD. That's right, isn't it? If it is, raise your hand. Now, do you believe? You do? You believe out there?
There's something about the woman. I want to talk to her just a minute, 'cause she's got something else wrong or something on her heart.
It's for somebody else. That's a man, and he isn't here. I can't pick up his spirit anywhere. That's right. It's your husband. That's what you're praying for. If that's right, raise your hand. If God will reveal to me what's wrong with your husband, will you believe for him? It's his ear. That's right. Go, believe now. It'll all be over in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
E-91 Do you believe with all your heart? What is it? Brother Branham? No, sir. That's exactly what Jesus did when He was here on earth. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He's here to declare Himself before the Gentile people just before His coming. Do you believe it?
If the Lord will tell me what's your trouble, will you believe Him also? I want to get at least three people in the line. Three is a confirmation.
You're not here for yourself. You're here for somebody else: a relative, mother-in-law. And that is a mental case, insanity. That's right. You believe she'll come out of it? If you believe, go and receive it just as you have believed and may the Lord grant it.
E-92 You believe that God will heal you of that heart trouble? You do? All right. You can have it. See? Now, see, she never touched... What did she touch? She's thirty or forty feet from me, but what did she do, friend? You say, "Is that in the Scripture?" Absolutely.
A woman touched His garment; He said, "Who touched Me? I perceive that I've gotten weak," or virtue, which is strength gone. How many knows that? If He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, could you touch Him now? How many of you believers that reads the Bible knows that the Bible said, "He's a High Priest that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities?" It's all Scripture.
Now, it's over, sister. You can go home now. Your faith's made you well. You don't need a prayer card, just a faith does it.
E-93 We are strangers to one another, lady? This is our first time meeting, I suppose. But God knows us both. We were born maybe miles apart and years apart, but God knows both of us. If He will reveal to me what you're here for, will you accept it? You know we're both going to stand in His Presence one day. If I could help you and wouldn't do it, I'd be an awful person.
You truly believe Him with all your heart? You believe that stomach trouble will leave? You're awful sincere about that, son. It's over now. Go, eat your supper now and enjoy it. Nervous condition caused that. It's a peptic ulcer condition. Just don't doubt. Go on, you're going to get well.
E-94 If the Lord will reveal what your trouble, will you believe it with all your heart? Our first time meeting, but isn't He wonderful? You're aware that something's going on. And you know standing before your brother wouldn't make you feel like that. If the audience can hear my voice yet, that Light, that Pillar of Fire that led the children of Israel, that was made flesh and dwelled among us, come from God and went back to God, met Paul on the road to Damascus, in that Pillar of Fire that blinded him, the One Whose pictures hangs in Washington, D.C (We've got It here.), stands between me and this woman.
The woman's got a load of troubles on her heart. That's right. She's suffering with something severely: a bladder trouble. That's bad, isn't it, sister? Awful nervous. You got someone on your heart. You got domestic trouble in your home. That's where your heart is. That's your husband: immoral acts, another person. And the man's got cancer. Do you know that? He's dying. He's a sinner. That's true. Go, believing now. May God grant it. Lord, God...?...
E-95 Come, you believe, lady? I'm a stranger to you. I've never seen you in my life. Yes, sir. You believe that stomach trouble left you? You believe it with all your heart you can--can have it.
I keep seeing in here a baby with a rupture. I can't tell. Here it's on--laying on this lady's lap. All right, lady. God bless you. You caught His garment just then. The Lord be with you, lady. The baby is going...?...
If thou canst believe, all things are possible. So just believe. Now the baby's gone from before me.
E-96 You are suffering with a extreme nervous condition. And the reason this nervous condition is rough, is because you've just gone through a time that women go through called menopause. During the time of this menopause, you had a great struggle. An oppression of the enemy. You were prayed for during this time, and you got deliverance, but it's left you in a nervous condition. That's the truth.
You believe me to be God's prophet or His servant? That's not all on your heart. You got something else. That's for a loved one. That's a sister. That sister isn't here. She's near a great lake. And the lake is Lake Erie. And she's in a hospital. She's in Cleveland, Ohio. She's got cancer. The cancer is in the bowels. She's been operated on several times for it and is up for another operation. That's THUS SAITH THE LORD. Believe now. May God grant...?...
E-97 I suppose we're strangers to each other, lady? Have we had three through the line yet? The Bible said, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established." You believe now, all your heart? Then what's left? Just your faith in Him, your faith that says to the mountain that's before you, "Be thou moved and cast out of my way. Cancer, you leave. Blindness, you leave. Crippleness, you leave. Be thou cast into the sea, for I'm moving on for the Lord Jesus." The very--when you speak that word, something will happen.
Do you realize that you're in the Presence of the omnipotent God? That is Him, the One that you'll stand before at the judgment. Did not He say, "If two or three will gather in My Name, I'll be in their midst."? Then is His Word right?
E-98 Just a moment for this woman standing here. We got her up here. If we are strangers to one another, is that what's true? Perhaps this is our first time meeting? You was here last evening just sitting out in the audience. All right. Then I know nothing of you. You're a lot younger than I am, and I--I've never seen you in my life. But if the Lord Jesus will reveal to me what you're here for, will you believe me to be His servant? Will the audience? Will it settle it forever? This woman and I here, both of us has raised our hands, we don't know each other. And here we are, standing here tonight, our first time ever meeting.
E-99 Now, what could do it? Could I do it? It takes Deity to do it. Now, you'll have to admit, that it'll have to come through some supernatural power. Now, it depends on what you think it is. If you think it's Beelzebub, then you get his reward. If you believe it's Christ, you get His reward. That's right. It depends on what you think.
And You in the audience, keep praying. Oh, anything could just happen right now. You know, I'm sure, I pray that God has give me grace in your sight.
It just look like a mist in this building to me, 'cause I'm just as shaky as I can be. Certainly. I'm so weak, I can hardly get out of here. If one woman touched His garment and weakness went out of the Son of God, what about me, a sinner saved by grace?
E-100 A man borned a virgin birth, and only One ever in the world, and one woman touched His garment. Look what's happened tonight. What's doing this--what this woman? I know nothing about her. It'll have to take her own faith to do it. This is just a gift. I don't operate it; she does the operating. You do the operating. The woman done the operating.
Now, in the big visions God comes down and shows me all about some place to go and what to do and what'll take place. I tell the people just exactly. I'm forty-eight years old. Thousands times thousands and tens of thousands of them has happened. And not one time did ever one fail, not one time the world over.
Go into countries and see the people and even know what their names are. I can't call their names. I can't speak it. I just spell it out. There it is, every time, perfect. It's Christ manifesting Himself just before He comes in judgment.
E-101 Now, if the people can still hear... The lady must be very sick, because she's been in a doctor's care. And he's doing something about your arm, oh, it's wrapping something around your arm. It's for blood pressure. It's your blood pressure that's bad. That's right. And he's advising you it's so bad till it's in a dangerous condition. That's right. That's THUS SAITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. He's advising you to do something in a--I believe I hear him say to go to Mayo. That's what he said. Do you believe that I'm looking at that pressure? It's two hundred and sixty, your blood pressure. Exactly right. But you're not from Minneapolis or Minnesota. You're from wooded country, flat, level wooded country. You live near a place to where there's a lake. And the lake's is in a odd, Paw Paw--Paw Paw lake. And you're--you're from Michigan. And you're near a city called Dowagiac. It's where you live. Your name is Evelyn Pierce. That's right. Now, go and believe and be made well.
Let's say thanks be to the Lord Jesus and give Him praise. If thou canst believe, all things are possible.
E-102 Now, I caught thinking it was reading minds. Lady, put your hand on mine here just a minute. If the Lord will reveal to me what your trouble, will you believe me as His servant? This lady... God will restore your blood to you and that anemia condition will leave. You believe that? Then go on your road and rejoice and be made well for the glory of God. Believe with all your heart now.
I don't know the woman. Just put your hand on mine, lady. If the Lord God will reveal to me, looking this way, so you see it isn't telepathy... See? Will reveal to me what your trouble, you'll know whether it's the truth or not, won't you, lady? Sure. May He grant it.
The woman is shadowed with death. There's a black shadow hangs over the woman. She's got cancer. That's right. You believe He will heal you? Go, receive your healing then and be made well for the glory of God, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
E-103 Do you believe God healed that heart trouble, setting there? Then go on your road shouting, and just praise the Lord.
Now, you had heart trouble too. And you also have arthritis. So go on your road; Jesus Christ makes you well. You believe it?
What do you think, lady? You believe God will heal that back trouble setting there? You do? Well, go on your road and rejoice and say, "Thank you, Lord Jesus, for doing these great things."
You had a lady's trouble; you're nervous and you got heart trouble. You believe God will heal you? Go on your road rejoicing.
How many wants to go on their road rejoicing and thanking God? Raise up your hands. Stand on your feet. "I Will Praise Him, I Will Praise Him." Are you ready? Let us pray.
E-104 Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, Author of Everlasting Life, Giver of every good gift, Your Spirit is here, Lord. It's baptized the people in power and faith. I charge the devil. He's guilty, and he's a bluff, and You've called his hand. In Jesus' Name depart from every sick or afflicted person for the glory of God. I ask this. And it shall come to pass, for God hath promised it.
I will praise Him, I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.
I will praise...
You mean it? Take my word as His servant: raise your hands; give Him praise; it'll go.
Praise the Lamb for...
Oh, He's here, the Holy Spirit just moving over the entire audience, baptizing them over and over, finding a place to come in.
For His blood can wash away each stain.
On earth He was given the lowest name that there could be given men. But when You taken Him into Your hands and raised Him up, He received the highest Name that could be--be given. He had no place to lay His head when He was on earth. But now, He looks down to see heaven from His throne. We pray, God, that while You're looking down tonight, that You will remember us. Let Thy grace rest upon each of us.
Desperately in need of Thy Spirit, we would pray for mercy for the sinner, the unbeliever, for those who are--have wearied themselves away from the house of God. May they wind their way back tonight. Heal the sick, Lord. Show Your Presence among us. And may there not be a feeble one in our midst when we leave tonight. Hear us, Lord, for we pray in the Name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. May be seated.
E-2 I could say one thing, that people certainly didn't come out to church tonight just to be seen on a night like this. We Southerners would stay home on a night like this. But it shows that you love the Lord. So I'm so thankful for that, that you do love our blessed Lord.
E-3 And now, the services tomorrow, I think I'm to be with a brother in his Bible class for a few minutes just before he preaches. And then, tomorrow afternoon is an evangelistic service. And tomorrow evening is the closing of our little get together. And I just trust to God that everywhere I go, from henceforth across America, I could find faith and people like I have found here. That's right.
So I got several big meetings booked and then for overseas. And so we'll--you pray for us.
E-4 And now, if you're visitors here, out of the city, I'm sure that Brother Sommerall would be very happy he's got--for you to be here tomorrow, and he's got perhaps classes for the children and for all. I'm sure you'd be welcome here tomorrow morning if you're not at your own church. Have a church of your choice to go to why I'm sure you'd be welcome here.
E-5 Now, tonight would be the last night on the tapes. You people that have tape machines and like to hear your name and what the Spirit said to you in the line... Brother Mercier here is one of my associates in the meeting. He's a--a recorder and Brother Goad; they tape these tapes and the books and so forth. Now, tomorrow they won't have them, because we've never permitted them to sell or do any transaction of business like that on Sunday. So, we'd be glad if you'd take care of that tonight if you desire them.
E-6 Now, I wish to turn for a Scripture reading in this blessed Bible. If the Lord willing, tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow night I'm asking this an evangelist singer, I believe he's a home singer here, this Brother Golden. I got his record this morning. I certainly like his singing. Pardon me.
And the little ladies that sing too, remind me of my wife and my sister-in-law when first started preaching, the little Baptist Tabernacle. They sang all the time, the little trio like that. It's brought old memories, while the brethren was talking, I couldn't keep my eye from that scene. And so, I want him to sing tomorrow night and ask him if he will before the message, "The Keys." And I want to preach on "The Keys To The Heart," the Lord willing, just before the healing service.
E-7 And while this afternoon, thinking in my hotel room, just a little text that fell on my heart that I have used before, but I thought it might be good tonight just to bring it up. See, after being in the room praying, coming to the pulpit here, praying for the sick under anointing of a vision, it's a different Spirit than preaching. See? It's all the same Spirit, but a different gift. And so, when you shake yourself around like that from one anointing to another, it's never got the value to it that would have if you just walked right in and start the prayer line. It's too flat that way when we have these little meetings. I like to preach to them about three nights and let them get their prayer cards and get them, hold them and wait and be in prayer and then start the healing service. Then you come right in, walk right at the platform, go to praying for the sick.
E-8 But now, many times you might wonder why we don't get too many. Well, it could be so that we could run a little longer in the prayer line, but there's another meeting coming. You don't have to put up with me like my wife does and my associate. It certainly is a wrecking thing. Now, anyone who knows the Scripture realizes that a man, a mortal man like we are to have something in the line of Supernatural certainly does take the life out of you.
E-9 You know what a--what twenty minutes of preaching under inspiration tears you down. It's been tested. It tears more out of you in twenty minutes of inspirational preaching than eight hours with a pick and shovel. Twenty minutes, think of the difference.
Then what about a vision. One vision will do more to you than two hours of preaching. See? Because it gets you to a place where... There's no need of me trying to say that I do understand it, because I do not understand it and no one else does. Just something we have to say, "Lord, You're good to us and we thank You." That's about all we can say. There's no way to explain it. We just have to accept it.
E-10 Now, I want to read from St. Matthew's Gospel, the 12th chapter, 42nd verse. Very familiar little text, perhaps maybe your pastor has preached on it many times.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
E-11 Jesus had just been called Beelzebub. His ministry had been questioned, and He had discerned their thoughts and know what they were thinking. Isn't it wonderful and such a consolation to know tonight that He still knows our thoughts and what we're thinking? Your thoughts is louder in heaven than your voices on earth, for He is a discerner of the thoughts of the mind. His Word is sharper and quicker than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the--to the thoughts of the mind. And He--He knows all things; therefore He can deliver all things as God will permit.
Now, Jesus said, "I do nothing except My Father shows Me first." And the Father would show Him things and He would speak it.
E-12 Did you ever stop to think what a privileged people we are of this day? Living in the closing of this world's history, and living in a time that when all kinds of isms, and all different creeds, and all that's going on, and yet in the midst of it all, our God rides in on the waves and confirms His Word right before us.
E-13 Mohammedans, they're the greatest religion in number in the world. Mohammedans outnumber Christianity about three times. Buddha worshippers are greater than Christianity, that's throwing in Catholic and all. Christianity is either the third or fourth place in the religions of the world. But there's not a one of them that can prove any more than just psychology of believing it. Well, Mohammed was a great man. He died and He's coming back again. But there was only One that ever said, "I have power to lay My life down and power to raise it up again," and then prove it after He's risen up.
E-14 There could be fiction stories and say, "Oh, well, He never rose." Sometime ago when Brother Reedhead, what's his first name? [Someone says Paris--Ed.] Paris, Paris Reedhead came to my house.
Now, Paris Reedhead is a Baptist. And he came to me and he said, "Brother Branham, knowing that you were a Baptist, you ought to know truth as the Baptist think it, you know." He said, "Um, what's these Pentecostals got?"
I said, "The baptism of the Holy Spirit."
He said, "I was called of God when I was about six years old." And he said, "I've went everywhere; my mother schooled me." And said, "When I got my a degree, my bachelor of art," said, "I thought I'd find Christ there." Said, "When I got my doctor's degree, I thought I'd find Christ. When I got my L.L.D., I thought I would find Christ." But said, "I've got enough degrees till I could almost plaster your wall with them." He said, "But where is Christ? I didn't find Him in any of it." Says, "Has the teacher's been wrong?"
I said, "As an illiterate person as myself, I certainly wouldn't want to say that the teachers was wrong. They told you truth, but not all the truth."
Christ doesn't lay in degrees, He lays in faith, believing Him in the Person Christ.
E-15 He told me a story of a Mohammedan that had been a reared, I believe, in their missions, I think in Sudan missions, wasn't that, the great Sudan missions.
And this Mohammedan on his road back, Brother Reedhead said to him, said, "Sir," going back after being educated for something another in India. Said, "You're going back to work in your nation as maybe a electrical engineer, whatever he had taken." Said, "Why don't you take back with you a Lord Jesus instead of that dead prophet that you're worshipping?"
He said, "Kind sir," he said, "what could your Lord Jesus do for me any more than my prophet can do?" He said, "They both wrote books; we--we call ours the Koran; you call yours the Bible. And we both believe the books."
E-16 Why, he said, "Mister", he said, "our Christ has raised from the dead and your Mohammed prophet is still in the grave."
He said, "Did he raise from the dead? I would like to see Him." Oh, he said, "How do you know that He raised from the dead?"
Mr. Reedhead said, "He lives in my heart."
He said, "So does Mohammed live in my heart."
He said, "Well, we have joy of knowing it."
He said, "Now, Mr. Reedhead, Mohammedan religion can produce just as much psychology as Christianity." Said, "We can shout just as loud, and scream just as loud, dance just as hard, and everything as you can." He said, "But we Mohammedans are waiting to see you teachers prove that Jesus raised from the dead." He said, "Mohammed never promised nothing but life after death." He said, "But Jesus promised to His teachers that the works that He did, they would do also. We're waiting to see those works."
He said, "Well, maybe you're thinking about in the Scripture there of a Mark 16?"
He said, "That's one place, yes, sir."
He said, "Well, the better teachers know that Mark 16 from the 9th verse on is not even inspired, so that was..."
He said, "What kind of a book are you reading? All the Koran's inspired."
E-17 And Mr. Reedhead said that he kicked the dust and changed the subject. That's right. Because that He knew, just talking to the Mohammed, he was defeated. He said, "And, Brother Branham, I'm here to find out something about God."
And there Morse or Brother Reedhead has re--Paris Reedhead has received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and is preaching the Gospel with signs and wonders following his ministry because that he believed, was hungering and thirsting for righteousness. God said, "They shall be filled." The Word is true.
E-18 And Jesus in His teaching here, He just had a lot of criticism, and they had been talking about Him, as every time where the supernatural's done, there's a mixed multitude. When Moses did the Supernatural, a mixed multitude went with him and it caused trouble. Always when the Supernatural's done, a mixed multitude goes. This revival's going on now, there's a mixed multitude.
The historians said it wasn't a strange thing that Martin Luther could protest the Catholic church and get by with it, but to keep his head above all the fanaticism that followed the reformation.
So you find it... But what does the bogus claim? It only proves that there's a real one somewhere. When you see someone mocking religion, just remember there's somebody got religion. When you see somebody pretending to have the Holy Spirit, there's somebody who's really got It. That's right.
E-19 When you go into India, you find all the clowns laying on the spikes and doing little things for money. That's clowns, some honest person back in the interior there is really cutting himself and bruising himself to try to appease his gods.
There's always that pro and con, false and true, day and night. And Jesus was the Light of the world when He was here. And He's the Light of the world tonight. There's no other light that can lead you out of the shadows of death, but the blessed Lord Jesus.
E-20 And in all ages God's had men and He's had His ministry in every age. God is supernatural. And when God comes on the scene, supernatural takes place, for He is supernatural. And His people always look for Him in the supernatural. Because when they become sons of God, they become the nature of God. And in that they pick up that believing Him; by faith they believe that what God says is the truth, no matter how contrary it may seem.
Like Abraham of old, he called those things that was not as though they were, because God said so. And as he got older... The baby was promised for twenty-five years. And the Bible said he got stronger all the time waiting for the promise because it would be a greater miracle. And we call ourselves the children of Abraham and can't wait overnight for God. If He doesn't perform an outstanding miracle on us...
E-21 That's why we don't catch what faith really is. Faith is something; it may not take place in your hand if it's crippled, may not take place in your eye if it's blind; but faith takes it's solemn stand in the heart, and from there you call anything contrary to what that faith says as though it was not.
E-22 But the mixed multitude... And Jesus said--begin to speak to them of other ages, how that God down through the age has always done the supernatural. And He was referring back to the prophet, Jonah. Then He came down to the one that we wish to base these few thoughts around for the next fifteen or twenty minutes.
That was in the days of Solomon. In all ages when God sends a gift to the people, and they refuse it, it only makes the people go into chaos. But when the people believes and accepts what God sent them, it--it is a golden age for that people. What He said in His own ministry, "How oft would I have hovered you as the hen would her brood. But you would not." They didn't know their day. And I'm just wondering if we as America know our day of visitation.
E-23 And I might say this just now because the Holy Spirit seems to be putting it on my heart. Be careful, Satan will try to tell you of something great way off in another age to come, or another coming along of another revival, and you may be living in the last part of all you'll ever get. It may be now. It's always been that way. They come, and the revival's gone, and they don't know it. Myself, I believe we're at the end. I don't look for nothing else but the coming of the Lord. I believe that everything that He has promised in the Scriptures has been fulfilled.
E-24 And I believe we're getting our last call. That's the reason, tired and weary I stand at the platform night after night. And you know it's not for money. It's not for popularity. I shun those things. But it's because it's something in me is driving me, and I know it's the Holy Spirit, that the message combs through the country back and forth until every fish has been caught in the Gospel net.
E-25 Notice, if the people receive it, then there is a great revival and a great time of jubilee.
Now, He was referring to Solomon. God raised Solomon up as a type of Christ, a son of David, and gave him a gift. And, oh, how all Israel rallied around that gift, how they loved that gift because it come from God to them. And any gift is not given to a man, only for service; he becomes a servant of the people to whom he preaches, and ministers the gift which God has given him. It isn't for his benefit. It is for the people's benefit.
E-26 And God raised up Solomon and gave him a great gift and the people all rallied around it: Pharisees, Sadducees, whatever they might be. And whether he come from a Pharisee group, or a Sadducee, or whatever denomination that it was, they with one accord all rallied around the principle: what God had did. And one told the other, and another told another until all the passers-by begin to hear of it. And they took it off into their country.
E-27 Would it not be a wonderful thing, if we in the American church tonight would only pass the good news from one to another like that? Would it not be wonderful if it didn't sweep from nation to nation of the goodness that God has showed us here? But we, oh, we're very clannish. It's not in our denomination, so we don't know whether it could be truth or not. God always picks an individual to work in, not a denomination. Tell me one time that God ever clanned off to a denomination. God in all ages has worked through individuals. Exactly.
E-28 And in all times in all history, God always raised up a man outside of the denomination, and blessed that man, and give him a ministry: Martin Luther, John Wesley, on down, just bring them down through the age, someone outside of the church, because it--it gets itself to a clan like, and then God can't move in it no more. It gets callused, brings up its doctrine, and ends it with a period. "This is what we believe and nothing else." Your tables of doctrine would be all right if you'd end it with a comma. "We believe this plus as much more as we can hear from God." That would be all right then. It would be--then you'd be interdenominational. And, oh, how the people get, and that's the reason the message can't strike the place that it should strike.
E-29 And I was thinking there of how Jesus spoke of Solomon and how the people coming and going, hearing the message. And way down in the utmost parts of the known world, there was a little woman that was a queen, a pagan, way down in Sheba. And she heard; everybody coming by said, "You should go up into Israel. Their God has raised them up a man with a great gift, and this gift works marvelous. It's a gift of discernment, and you should see it work."
E-30 You know the Bible said, "Faith cometh by hearing." And everyone going through and watching this great miracle being done by Solomon on his discernment... Finally, the little queen begin to hunger. She wondered if that really could be true.
Then somebody else come by. "Oh, you should see it. Oh, we've never seen anything like it. They've got a mighty God up there in Israel, and around this gift they're in one accord. No one says anything against it, but everybody believes it." Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful if the church could do that?
E-31 Then notice, the little queen begin to hunger to see it. She wanted to see it. And you know, there's just something about the power of Almighty God that when the supernatural's done, every heart that's really right with God, longs to see it. Man is a supernatural being. He come from behind a dark curtain there. He's going out behind that dark curtain. He longs to look across the curtain and see from where he come and where he's a going. It's only natural that a man would do that, because he longs to do it.
E-32 Here some time ago in California, I was setting in a meeting disguised (That's right.), because a brother was preaching. And I was just setting there dressed a little different, and I happened to be setting by a Episcopalian minister.
And the minister on the platform, after he had spoke about a hour and a half, went back behind the curtains and the valet changed his clothes and come back out because he was perspiring. That's just what that Episcopalian minister wanted. He said, "He doesn't behave himself like a servant of Christ." Well, I didn't think it was too much myself, but I was sure going take up for my brother on the platform.
I said, "I think he's all right.
He said, "Are you one of these?"
I said, "I don't belong to this church. No, sir."
He said, "You know what," he said, "years ago..." I bet it wasn't a Episcopalian; it was a Presbyterian. He said, "We had the greatest churches on this west coast. We had the whole thing sewed down." And said that, "That cult of Christian Science come along." And said, "They broke up our churches." And says, "Looks like this fellow's going to break up the Christian Science."
Oh, I thought that was just a good place for me to put my little bit in. So I said, "Sir, if you Presbyterians would've fed the children the Bread of Life, you'd still been the leading church; but if you won't do it, God's able of these stones to rise children unto Abraham. He will feed His church. He promised to do it."
E-33 Oh, the great works of the living God. And then this little woman, after she'd been hearing about this, she thought she'd go see this for herself. That's a good way to find out. Don't take somebody else's word for it. Go, find out yourself. Set with an honest heart. Open up your heart and say, "Lord, now deal with me." And examine it by the Scriptures to see if it's right.
And she decided to go because the Word had been planted and she desired to see it.
I want you to notice, as it was with that little woman, so is it with every person that comes to God. It costs you a price. The first thing, to begin with she was a woman. And she had to cross a desert, not in a air-conditioned Cadillac, or not in some great beautiful plush car, but setting on the back of a camel.
Look at the space between Jerusalem and the country she came from. It taken her at least three months to come to Solomon on the back of a camel. And we will hardly, in a nice car, drive a mile to get to prayer meeting. What a difference.
E-34 And a gift of God, most of the time we say, "Oh, nonsense, nothing to it. Dr. Jones said so-and-so, and that settles it." That's the reason we get nowhere. That's what's the matter with the world tonight. That's what's the matter with the church tonight: if it had only knowed its day.
E-35 Now, notice, in the desert in them days the children of Ishmael was there, and they were robbers. She had to think about that. She could've been robbed. So she said this, "I'm going up to see for myself, and if it is the truth, I'm going to support him with all I got." And she ladened her camels with gold and frankincense. She really brought an offering.
If it was truth, she wanted to support it. If it wasn't the truth, then she could bring her gifts back. But then what a--a shock that would've been for those Arabs in that day in the desert to have caught that little caravan coming through there with her little soldiers, and this little queen woman setting up on top of a camel, and her little maids around her; just to rode in and shot them down and taken all that great treasure to themselves.
But if there is a hunger in your heart to see God, there isn't enough devils in all torment to keep you from seeing Him. He will make a way where there is no way if you really want to see Him and honest in your heart.
E-36 She had to think of those things. But when faith takes the preeminences, there is no more room for fear. It casts it away. She had one alternative: that was to see if that gift was right. So she ladened her camels with gold and costly things, and she got up on the camel and started perhaps traveling by night, being cooler across the great Sahara desert, as she come up through the sand. Oh, what a price, what a journey, but what an ambition tops it all, because in her heart there was something hungering and thirsting to find if there really was a God that could answer.
E-37 Now, she wasn't a Christian. She was a pagan. So she was coming up to find out about this God. It had been represented to her in a marvelous way: One Who performs supernatural. So here she come. And then when she got to the palace gate... She never come just to set fifteen minutes and say, "I'll watch and see how it goes on. If I don't like it, I'll turn back." She unloaded the camels, pitched the tents, and stayed till she was convinced.
Oh, if man and women would only do that instead of drawing your own opinion and slipping out in a few minutes 'cause the preacher said something just a little different from your theology. If you'd just believe and set there, God will reveal Himself to you. "Oh, I attended one night; I didn't think much of it so I just come away."
Not her, she said, "I'm going to see it through." I like that. See it through; prove it. Find out whether it's the truth or not. If it's not the truth, have nothing to do with it. But if it is the truth, it's worth every ounce and every effort that we can put forth to serve the true and living God.
E-38 So she got up there, unloaded her camels. She came to stay till it was over. And I can see the little queen, as it was. On the first morning when the meeting was set, Solomon came out and took his seat. And while he was setting there, they brought to him hard things. And I can see her as she stood back in the corner or somewhere in the great palace yard there. And Solomon setting and the people come, she seen the Spirit of the living God moving in human hearts and giving the discernment of right and wrong.
E-39 Oh, it must have thrilled her heart. She said, "The morning meeting was so great, I believe I'll just stay till the evening meeting." So when Solomon set again, and she seen the Spirit of God moving in that man, oh, it kept building more confidence and more confidence. And finally after while, she was so convinced until she went and got her offerings and laid them down and presented herself. And here's what she said, "All that I have heard is the truth and more that I heard is been done." She stayed. What happened?
Jesus referred to that woman. Never heard the Gospel before, but upon hearing she come and examined it and found it to be so. So Jesus said she'll raise up in the day of the judgment and will condemn you bunch of self-styled educated Pharisees who should've knowed different and has turned it down.
E-40 And I say this humbly as Christ's servant. I believe that the Hottentots in Africa will rise in the day of judgment and condemn this United States. For if the mighty preaching, and the mighty revivals, and the great signs would've swept Africa as it has this nation here, they would've repented a long time ago, and victory fires would be built on every hill.
But we stay home on Wednesday nights from the prayer meetings to watch a some television program that we should not even let be turned on in our house. And in spite of all the things that's done, we wade right on into sin every day. "Denying, having the form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof."
E-41 What will be in that day when that little queen rises up in this generation, when some won't come across the city or across the street to examine anything and see if it's right? If it is right, let's put our whole heart in it. If it's not right, have nothing to do with it. If it isn't in the Word of God, then it's wrong. If it is the Word of God and His promise, God's obligated to His promise, and He will keep every Word that He said. Then if He does that to us, it shows that truly He has given to the church tonight gifts and callings and wonders that He might bring Himself before the people.
E-42 He's healing. Every person in here is healed right now. The Bible says you are. Every sinner inside this door, and every sinner in the world is already saved and been saved since Jesus' death at Calvary.
You say, "Brother Branham, I was saved ten years ago." No, you accepted it ten years ago. He took away the sin of the world nineteen hundred years ago. But it's your personal faith in a finished work that brings the results. If you never accept it, you'll die and without mercy because you judged the Son of God thus.
If you are sick tonight, "He was wounded for our transgressions and with His stripes you were healed." It's the past tense. It isn't that I lay hands on you, or any other minister lays hands on you; it's your personal faith in a finished work that Christ has did. Certainly.
E-43 In the Bible times when they seen this manifestation of Spirit they laid people in the shadow of a fisherman who couldn't write his own name, known as the apostle Peter, and they were healed. They believed it. There was nothing in that man that could heal them, for he was just a man. But the healing lay in their personal faith in Christ that was in the man.
Oh, God, grant tonight, is my prayer, that every person in here will see the Lord Jesus in His great power and His manifestation of His Spirit, and receive Him and be healed and saved, while we bow our heads just a moment for prayer.
E-44 I'm wondering tonight as we sit with our heads bowed in the Presence of His majesty, could you be as that little queen? Could you show the simplicity? That woman had never read no scrolls of Scripture. She just had to believe a testimony, and taken her three months to get to it to find out whether it was true or not. There her heart was satisfied, and today she's immortal among men. She's in glory and will rise in the judgment with the generation of people who has had the opportunity to receive it and did not.
What did Jesus say? "Verily, I say unto you that a greater than Solomon is here." And even tonight... And I say this with respects and with a humble heart. And I trust that you'll wait just a moment and don't think I'm sacrilegious by my remark. A greater is here among us tonight than there was who said the Words, because it's a glorified Jesus. He said, "You might say something against the Son of Man and it would be forgiven you, but a word against the Holy Ghost when He comes to do the same thing, will never be forgiven in this world or the world to come."
E-45 So One that has been among us, died and rose again, is glorified in the Presence of God tonight, comes back in the form of the third Person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, and dwells in us, and moves, and proves Himself to be the same Lord Jesus. "A little while and the world sees Me no more; yet ye shall see Me for I'll be with you, in you. The works that I do, shall you do also. More than this shall you do, for I go to My Father." I wonder in the light of this Scripture, if you've come tonight, if you're not a Christian would you raise your hand and say, "Brother Branham, pray for me just now. I here want to raise my hands to Christ and say I haven't lived the right life. Be merciful to me, Lord Jesus."
E-46 Is there a person in the buildings, anywhere in the overflows or anywhere just raise your hand, say, "Brother Branham, I'm not a Christian. Remember me, I want to get right. I come here tonight for a purpose. I come here; I heard about this as you've been preaching about a gift that the Lord God had given to the church. And I certainly don't want to be left out at that day. I don't want no trouble down at the river when I come down to the river. I want to be sure that I'm right. Remember me, Brother Branham in your prayer," as you'll testify by raising your hand. Backslider... God bless you, lady. Someone else? Just a moment. God bless you, sir. God bless you, sir. That's good. Someone else? God bless you, lady. Bless you.
E-47 "I here will raise my hand, Brother Branham, to God. And I say, 'Lord God, I've come, maybe, through the snow tonight as the queen come over the desert. Maybe this is my first night here. I've heard about these things. I want to know if it's truth or not. And I want you to pray, Brother Branham, that my heart will be humble, that I'll be willing and able to receive the Spirit of Christ. Pray for me." God bless you.
E-48 Now, heavenly Father, we ask for mercy for these who have raised their hands. Circumcise every heart now, and I could--might stand here hour after hour preaching, and yet one Word from Thee, Lord God, would count more than all the preachers in the world could say in years: just one Word from You.
And, O Lord, our hungry hearts do thirst as the hart panteth for the water brook, our souls thirst after Thee. Many coming in tonight raised their hands that they wanted to be remembered. God, I pray that You'll give to them tonight the exceedingly abundance of Thy grace.
E-49 Bless every sick person in the building. And as I just said to them, I pray, Lord God, that it did not go over their head, but it went into the heart that they are already healed. Your power produced that in that all sufficient Sacrifice at Calvary. There's where the purchase and power was given and the great supreme Sacrifice was made, and the requirement of an angry God was met. They're justified, the believer, in accepting Your propitiation for his sins and his sickness.
O Immortal and Creator, stand near in these next few minutes that Thy Word will not be found to be untrue, but that Thy Word might be made manifest.
E-50 O eternal, blessed God, hear the prayer of Your servant as I pray for this little group that's dared through the snowstorms tonight to come to the church hungering, and thirsting, and longing. They know they come from somewhere, and they're headed somewhere.
O Lord, anchor every person's faith there in Calvary. And to our blessed Lord, when He was on earth, and the--how He performed the miracles, and showed that He was the Messiah by discerning their thoughts, telling Philip where he was. And when He got Nathanael and how He told Nathanael that he was under a tree, told Peter his name. The woman touched His garment. The Samaritan woman couldn't understand Who He was. She said, "I perceive that You're a prophet, but we know when the Messiah cometh these things will be done." How she could say after that, "Come see the Man that told me the things I've done. Isn't this the Messiah?"
Grant, Lord, that that'll be the testimony of this church after the next few minutes.
E-51 Father God, take the Words now and sanctify them and grant now that they'll become life in every heart. For if You stood here in the form of Your being, the people would have to have faith to get the benefits of Your Presence.
When You come into Your own city, Capernaum, and to Nazareth, and to Galilee and around in many places; they said, "Oh, we heard You done it somewhere else. Now do it here." And many mighty works You could not do because of their sin, their unbelief. And we know that that's the original sin: is unbelief. And really the only sin.
E-52 I pray, Father, that You will bless now as we commit ourselves to Thee. And this little gift that Thou has permitted me to have of... I pray that You'll just work extremely great tonight. And what good would it do, Lord, if somebody out there couldn't touch it right quick and believe?
May it thrill the hearts of ministers. May they rise and lift up them feeble hands that's been hanging down. May the church rejoice, for we know that redemption is nigh. Mercy has revealed itself and next will be judgment for those who have spurned mercy.
Grant it, Lord, now we are in Thy hands. In the Name of Jesus Christ, be merciful to us. Amen.
E-53 Real slowly on this song. I love that. How many loves that song, "Saviour, Saviour, hear my humble cry, while on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by." No wonder old blind Fanny Crosby could write that. "Whom have I on earth beside Thee, or whom in heaven but Thee?" Let's sing it quietly and slowly and inspirationally to the Lord now. All right, somebody can lead it for us.
... not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Oh, do not pass me by. (Now, quietly and slowly now.)
Saviour, (in the Spirit of worship) Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by. (Do you love Him? Just raise up your hands. Slowly.)
Saviour... (God's a Spirit and He longs to be worshipped.)
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by. (Now, hum it slowly.)
E-54 Lord God, Thou sees the hands, the faces, knows the heart. Somewhere along amongst these prayer cards I got to call someone. They'll be called to the platform. And if it pleases Thee tonight to manifest the resurrection of Thy Son, the blessed Lord, to us, grant that these out there will not be passed by. May everyone receive the benefits of Thy atoning grace tonight and Thy healing power. For we ask it in Jesus' Name, for His glory. Amen.
Oh, I just--I just love this kind of a meeting. Don't you feel just real scoured out like. Just something that just took all condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, but walk not after the flesh (what their eye sees and their ears hear) but after the Spirit." The Spirit giveth life.
E-55 Now, believe Him tonight, friend of mine. How many was here last night? Let's see your hands. How many this is their first night? Let's see your hands. Oh, my. Then you last-nighters will just wait just for a moment. I'd like to talk to the ones that's here for their first time in the meeting.
My beloved friends, I do not claim to be a healer. If I said that, I would be telling something wrong. I'm just your brother. I do not heal the sick; I pray for the sick. God has already healed them. They've already been healed when Jesus died.
Now the only thing that God can do to make His Word real, is to get some good preacher who can preach the Word. That's the official and the--the initial way. "Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word."
E-56 If it was you trying to give a enemy, that's been your enemy... I've often thought: "If God will forgive His enemy's sins, won't He heal His children's sickness?" And then, if you'd place before your enemy, or whoever, and told them your word, and they didn't believe it, and walked away from it, that would settle it with you and I, but not God. He's not willing that any should perish. So He sends gifts into the church to make known His Presence. And I believe that we have been a partaker in this last days in the past thirty, forty years, have been partaker of every spiritual gift that's recommended to us in the Bible that Jesus died for. I believe that this now is the end time.
E-57 When Jesus was here on earth, He did not claim to be a healer. (to the newcomers?) He said, "It's not Me that doeth the works, it's My Father that dwelleth in Me. He doeth the works." St. John 5:19, He said, "The Son can do nothing in Himself, but what He sees the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise."
And when He manifested Hisself to Israel... First was to Peter and He give him his name. He didn't know him and never seen him before, but He told him who he was, and what his father's name was. How many you people believe that's the Bible? St. John the 1st chapter says.
E-58 When Philip got converted, he went and found a friend, Nathanael, under a tree. He told him, "Come see Who I've found, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph."
He said, "Now, could there be any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
He said, "Come, see."
On the road around, he instructed him, like your friends has you coming tonight. And when he got in the Presence of our blessed Lord, he looked down and the Lord did and said, "Behold, here's an Israelite in whom there is no guile."
It so surprised him that he said, "Rabbi, when did You know me?"
He said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you." What eyes: thirty miles around the mountain...
E-59 But He can see right down into your heart. He's omnipresent. Do you believe that? Omnipotent, infinite, sure He is. He knows--He knowed everything before the foundation of the world. He's all present, has all knowledge, all power. That proved that it was God in Him.
He said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you."
He said, "Rabbi, You're the Son of God. You're the King of Israel."
See, they had a spiritual conception. Oh, I wished I had just a few minutes here. Would it--would you bear with me if I say I'll watch the clock for about three to five minutes?
Did you know the entire body of Jesus Christ is revealed through revelation? Did you know the things that's written in the Word, you have to read the Bible in-between the lines? It's a love story. You believe that?
E-60 Now, my wife setting over there, I love her. God knows that. And when she writes me a letter when I'm overseas, and she knows I'm tired and weary, she'll set down, "Dear Bill, I've just put the children to sleep. And tonight I'm thinking of you and been praying for you." Now, that's what she's saying, but I love her so much, and she loves me that I can read between the lines. I know what she really means. See? It's a love affair.
And if you love the Lord like that, you read the Bible not as a newspaper, not in some theological seminary interpretation of it, but as a love letter. The Bible said so. Now, how many knows that? Some of you.
E-61 Well, Jesus said, "I thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast hid it from the seminary students--the wise and imprudent, and revealed it to babes such as would learn." It's hid from the eyes of smart and educated. It's revealed to babes such as will learn.
Notice, when Job was in trouble and he--he was fixing to die, he thought. And the angel of the Lord came, and the Spirit came on the prophet, and the thunders roared, and the lightnings flashed. And he stood up and said, "I know my Redeemer liveth. And at the last days He will stand on the earth, though the skinworms destroys this body, yet in my flesh I'll see God." You know where he was buried?
E-62 Along come Abraham. And when Sarah, his sweetheart, when she died, did you notice where he buried her? In the promised land right with Job. When Abraham died, he was buried with Sarah. Abraham begot Isaac, when Isaac died, he was buried with Abraham. Isaac begot Jacob and he died down in Egypt, but made his prophet son put his hand on his limping hip, and said, "Swear by the God of Abraham, you'll not bury my bones down here." Why? What difference did it make where he was buried? They were prophets: spiritual revelation.
E-63 And when Joseph died, he said, "Don't you bury my bones down here, but someday God will visit you. You take my bones out of this Egypt up yonder in the promised land and bury them." Why? Nothing wrote in the Word about it. But it was a spiritual understanding. They knowed that firstfruits of the resurrection, that Redeemer, that Job saw, would rise, and on Easter morning when He rose up, there come Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the saints that slept under the dust of the earth come out and went into the city and appeared to many.
E-64 Go ahead, have the world. Take all your unbelief. Everything you want. Bury me safely in Jesus. For those that are in Christ will God bring living at His coming.
All the formals, the rituals, and so forth, just give me the plain old Gospel just the way it's written. Let me believe it in the simplicity that it's writ--wrote in, and believe it just as a child would believe it. God made the promise. God keeps His promise. Certainly He will; every Word, He keeps it. And He's got to.
E-65 And how He made Hisself manifested there to the Jews, and they with the spiritual revelation. And Nathanael saw it. Peter saw it. The apostles saw it. They said, "That's the Son of God." But what did the educated Pharisees and Sadducees say?
Now, I'm not trying to make crutches for my ignorance, but speaking... Education is a wonderful thing, but it's been the greatest hindrance the Gospel's ever had. There'd never been a barroom that hindered the Gospel like a somebody that's got more education than they got common gumption to know how to control it. That's right. You get so educated, you know more than God knows about it. Just take it the way it's written and believe it. That's the way God wants you to do it.
E-66 Then the Pharisees and Sadducees said, "That's a evil spirit. He reveals that by Beelzebub, the chief of the fortunetellers." Then He went up to Samaria, and a woman that had lived in ill fame, as we believe here in America... So she went out to the well to get some water, and there set a middle-aged Man. He was only thirty, but the Bible said He looked to be fifty. His work must've broke Him down. You believe the Bible says that? Sure it did.
Said, "You say you seen Abraham; you're not even fifty years old yet?"
And how long... And He said, "Before Abraham was, I am." Sure He was. The... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
E-67 Called Jesus the Son of God. There, He was there at the well. And this woman said, "We have no such dealings. No, it's not customary for you Jews to ask Samaritans such."
He said, "But if you knew Who was talking to you, you'd ask Me for a drink." He was catching the Spirit. And as--why remember, He's never manifested now only to the Jews; this is the Gentiles--or to the Samaritans. Which there's only three races on earth, Ham, Shem, and Japheth's people: Jew, Samaritan, and Gentile. Half Jew and Gentile mixed was Samaritans.
E-68 Now, and watch. After come in them three sons--He has to manifest Hisself here. You heard of Peter with the key? He opened it at Pentecost; He opened to Samaria at the house of Cornelius. And then go to the world. See?
Jesus manifest Hisself under a discerning spirit, telling the secrets of the heart and where they'd been. To the Jews they believe. The others did not believe.
Now, to the Samaritans, He said to the woman, "Go, get your husband and come here."
She said, "I have no husband."
"That's right, you've got five, and the one you now live with is not yours." Watch what the woman said now, newcomers.
She said, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. We know when the Messiah cometh, He will tell us these things." She didn't know Who He was.
He said, "I'm He that speaks to you."
She run into the city and said, "Come, see a Man that told me the things that I've done. Isn't this the sign of the Messiah?"
E-69 If that's the way He manifested Himself to the Jews, and forbid them to go to the Gentiles... How many knows that? "Don't you go to any Gentiles."
And He manifested Himself to the Samaritans. The Bible said, Hebrews 13:8, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever." He's obligated to make the same manifestation to the Gentiles, and this is the end of the Gentiles. We're at the end. Then God's here to prove that He's just... And if He will come and manifest Hisself through His humble servants here tonight would we all believe Him and love Him and accept it? May the Lord grant it.
E-70 Last night I think we called first from card--I believe we called from 1 to 15, wasn't that what...?... Was that what it was, Brother? All right, we taken the first fifteen last night, let's take the last fifteen tonight. That'd be 85? What was that letter? I-85. Who has prayer card I-85? Raise up your hand. When the...?...
Who give them out, Billy, you? Billy give them out this afternoon, just mixes it up before you and mixes all the cards up, gives them right out to... Nobody...?... No one knows where that prayer line's going to be called from. Right here... Of course it's revealed to me here, I start from somewhere.
85? Raise your hand. All right. Stand right down here, lady. (Go down there...?...) 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 on to a 100 stand up first. If it gets a little short, then we'll get the smallest place... It'll stand fifteen people.
All right. How many in here does not have prayer cards and you want the Lord Jesus to heal you, would you raise your hands, all over the building, anywhere.
How many has been in meetings before that knows that the Lord Jesus heals more out there in the audience that He does up here on the platform, many times. What is it now? I want your attention just a few minutes now.
E-71 What is this? What's it for? Who gets the benefit? It's the benefit what--whoever the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself. How many knows that the Bible said, "No man can come to Me, except My Father draws him first."?
All right, if you'll just be real reverent out there, just be reverent, quiet, keep your place, then God is able to reveal tonight here... And if He doesn't call you individually... How many knows that if He doesn't call you, that He's wanting to do for you the same things that He did here? Let's see your hands.
How many believes in their faith, if Jesus will appear tonight... Now how can He appear? The Bible said He's the same. How is He the same?
E-72 I want to ask you something and I believe I mentioned it last night. How do you know what type of tree you're looking at? "By the fruit it bears," Jesus said. Is that right? If it's a apple tree, it has apples. It might have sycamore bark on it. But if it's bearing apples, the life on the inside of it is a apple tree life. Is that right?
And if I told you tonight that the spirit of John Dillinger was in me? Well, you'd expect me to raise back my coat and big guns and... I'd be a murderer. It'd be dangerous to be around me. What if I told you the spirit of some artist was in me, I'd take a great big canvas like that, stand back there with a brush and paint the ocean just as pretty for you and catch them big licks of the waves, because the spirit is in me.
E-73 And if I told you the Spirit of Christ was in me, then it ought to bear the same record of Christ. And if the Spirit of Christ was in you, it'll recognize it. "My sheep know My voice."
Now, you just believe. You remember, I said there's nothing that I can do and there's no other man can do anything else but preach the Gospel and pray (That's all.), unless God give him a sign to perform before the people.
What if Jesus was here tonight with this suit on He gave me? You'd walk up, say, "Lord Jesus, will You heal me?"
You know what He'd say, "I've already done it. Can't you believe My Word, what I said back there?"
E-74 If you was in a pawn shop and I redeemed you with a ticket, on a written, a ticket, that I have redeemed you, how can anyone else redeem you? How can I redeem you again when I've already redeemed you? The devil puts you in a pawn shop. God takes you out. And He's already did it. And the only thing you have to do is just walk out.
Now, while they're lining up the people there, just you with prayer cards, come now 'cause it wouldn't be right to put any in the line that didn't have a card.
E-75 How many remembers the healing of Congressman Upshaw? I was just standing there talking like this when there's thousands of people standing there, and they was fixing to line up, and I looked out. I'd seen an old man, and they'd been a many a wheelchair, oh, there was just wheelchairs all over the places in California. And I looked across, and I seen a little boy playing on a haystack, and he fell and hit his back across a--the edge of a frame. And it must've broke his back. I seen a doctor with little glasses hanging low on his nose, white mustache and white hair, a working on him but it was no good, too far gone. And I seen them boring holes in the house so that the people walking in, it wouldn't vibrate on the floor. He was so bad. And that's the only thing I can say is what I'm looking at.
E-76 And just then, I seen there come a great man, a famous speaker, and the vision left. And I looked around; I couldn't find him. And they'd just brought him in, I think, by a plane. And I said, "There's the old man setting right there now." And his wife was down with him. He's eighty-six years old, been in a wheelchair for sixty-six years. And there he was, and bowing down. And to you Baptist tonight, you surely ought to know him. He was the Vice President of Southern Baptist Convention.
So when he a... And he said, "My son, how did you ever know that I fell on a hay frame?"
I said, "Sir, I didn't know."
He said, "It has to come from God, for that is the same type of doctor that operated on me which has been gone for years." He said, "And no minister anywhere..." Said, and they told me, said, "It's Congressman Upshaw."
E-77 Well, I didn't... He might've said somebody from India. I wouldn't knowed any different 'cause I didn't know no Congressman. And so Mr. Baxter said, "That's Congressman Willie D. Upshaw."
I said, "I never heard of him."
So he said, "Will I be healed, my son?"
I said, "Sir, I don't know. The only thing I can say is what I see."
And I said, "Have you got the prayer line ready?"
And the boys down there said, "Just about." They started a woman up.
E-78 I looked out this a way. That--everybody... Been there about a week, everybody in one accord, all of the--the doubts was gone away. And I seen a little doctor with a doctor's coat on, with tortoise shell glasses, hair combed back, kindly little flat dark hair, stood something like Brother Vayle here. And he had a--a... but he had great big tortoise glasses on.
And he was looking down, shaking his head. And I described the doctor. I said, "He's just operated on a little colored girl for her tonsils, and he took them out, and it paralyzed the child."
Just then a way, way down in this section, down in this way, I heard somebody scream to the top of their voice, and here come a typical Aunt Jemima. Here she come, pulling a stretcher, and a man trying to hold her stretcher back. She was just knocking ushers right and left.
E-79 She said, "Lordy, mercy, that's my baby." And she said, "That was the doctor man that operated on her." And so then, a big bunch of ushers caught her 'fore she got to the platform. It wasn't right.
I said, "Now, look just a moment, Auntie." I said, "This--I could not heal your baby. If I could I'd come down and do it; but I can't. It's your own faith that'll have to do it, or the child." I said, "But you way back through here, how did the Holy Spirit know that? Because you were over there believing."
She said, "My baby is laying here, parson, and it's been this way for two years."
I said, "That's the child."
She said, "Come, pray for it."
I said, "That wouldn't be right, Auntie. There's hundreds of people here holding prayer cards. And this is your first time in a meeting. You have no prayer card, you said." I said, "You just get down and pray, maybe the Lord will heal your baby."
E-80 And I said, "Bring this person." And there was a lady come up, and I started talk to the lady. There may be people setting right here was there that night. And when I started to talk to the lady, I looked back and I seen like a little street. Dark, and I took crossed it. Going down through the--look like an alley, this little Negro girl had a doll in her arm, rocking this doll, walking along. Oh, my. All the devils in torment couldn't stop it then. It was THUS SAITH THE LORD.
I said, "Auntie, the Lord Jesus has made your baby well."
She said, "You mean my baby, is he able to walk?"
I said, "It can now."
The little fellow raised up, said "Looky here, mommy." And people began fainting around there. And we let the mother take the baby by the hand, walk down through those long aisles, waving to the people.
E-81 And just as I turned, I seen the old Congressman with a brown pin striped suit on. He wore a blue suit with a red tie at the time. He was going right over the tops of the heads of the people. He was very southern hospitality, going along, going like this.
I said, "Congressman," (they run the address system to him quickly). And I said, "Haven't you got a brown pin striped suit?" He said, "My son, I just bought one yesterday."
I said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD. It looks like that God would've healed you when you were about seventeen years old and your bones all young to wait till you're eighty-six and then heal you." But I said, "He's healed you, Congressman."
He said, "Do you mean to say, my son, that I can rise from this chair?"
I said, "In Jesus' Name, come here." And that man, being bound to his... When they raised him up like President Roosevelt, with those great, big things over him (braces) and he walked. You know how he walked, if you knew him. And he threw those down, raised from his wheelchair, run to the platform and touched his toes like that, and stand up as a real man. And it's...?... the nation.
E-82 And in Billy Graham's meeting, he sit on the White House steps, singing, "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms." Jesus still lives and reins.
Because he believed. He's no respecter of persons, just as real tonight as He was then. Only thing He's seeking for is to find someone who will have faith in Him.
All right, sir, you... Oh, is this... Oh, excuse me. Here is the showdown. Here is the place where I'm going to be found a false prophet and God's Word's unrevealed, and be found in error, how He's going to declare that God still lives and reigns, that raised up Jesus from the dead.
E-83 How many Christians are in here? Let's see your hands, real believers? Then it represents your Saviour. Now, if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, as we are the vine; He's the branch. Then the vine will have to bring forth the type of life that... The branch, rather, will bring forth the type of life that's in the vine. Is that right?
He said, "The works, these things that I do shall you also." Did He say it? "A little while and the world ('Kosmos' there means 'world order.') will see Me no more, yet ye shall see Me for I will be with you, even in you till the end of the world." The believers will see Him.
E-84 So far as I know, this is the first time I've ever laid eyes on the woman, as far as I know. Are we strangers to one another? You know me? Well, you've been in my meetings. But I mean I don't you, as far as that. As far as I know, to see you or look at you, I couldn't tell you. You was at the Indianapolis meetings last summer in June. Well then, I'd have no way of knowing what you're here for.
If He will reveal it, will you believe with all your heart? Will the audience believe Him? Now, here's another picture like the man and the woman at the well: our Lord and the woman of Samaria. Now, this woman could be standing here a critic. I don't know. She could be standing here a Christian. I couldn't tell you.
Oh, how many was at the Wednesday meeting to see that fellow that run to the platform, that thought it was a telepathy and there taken that trouble. There, one man back there was.
E-85 When he run up the platform, he put on his card, he said... He went to the platform and he said, "How do you do?"
And I said, "How do you do, sir?" He said a--I said, "You--there's nothing wrong with you."
He said, "Yes, there is." I was tired, right at the end of the line. He said, "Yes, there is." Said, "Look on my prayer card down there."
I said, "I don't care what you got on your prayer card."
He said, "I got TB; I got, oh, all kinds of stuff." See? I caught it right then what his trick was. He said, "Well, look on my prayer card."
I said, "I don't know what you put on your prayer card, sir, I have no way of knowing that. But I do know there's nothing wrong with you now."
And he said, "Well, how--what happened?"
I said, "I couldn't tell you. You might've just set out there and got healed out in the audience."
He said, "So that's the way it is, is it?" And then the Lord came with a vision.
E-86 I said, "Why has the devil put in your heart to lie before God?" I said, "What you put on your prayer card, you have right now." I said, "You're a preacher, and that man setting right there with that gray suit on in the balcony is the one that was with you last night. And you set in the room with a little green spread over a table, and you told your wife that you knowed it was a telepathy. And you got a card and come in here.
That fellow raised up there and said, "Brother Branham, that's the truth. I was right there with him."
I said, "Now, what was on your prayer card you have." He died about six months later with a cancer. Uh-huh, uh-huh.
E-87 How about the meeting with this fellow... They hired this guy to come and--not bewitch, but what is it you call them fellows that goes to the camp and throw spells on people, you know, make them bark like a dog? Hypnotism.
And I was praying for the sick, and I kept feeling that evil spirit somewhere. And usually we have some of them sticking around, you know. So if you keep the Christians praying and the--keep it down...
So, then, it kept getting worse and I looked over and I saw the vision. I said, "Why have you done that? Why did you listen to the devil?" I said, "Because that you've done that, you'll not move from your seat." And the man's still paralyzed. That's right. They led him out of the building that night.
He's wrote letters many times, "Can I come to the meeting?"
I said, "Repent before God; you brought that on yourself. I have nothing to do with it." That's right.
E-88 So be careful. We're not playing church. It's the Lord Jesus. Hundreds of those things. How about that official in Phoenix there on the police force? You probably read that in your paper. Went completely insane right in the meeting. Set there, he thought he knowed--he thought it was psychology, but he come to find out it was the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. That's right.
How they drug me over the top of him in mud and everything, out there trying to get me to even put my hands on him, like that. I said, "Sir, I have nothing to do with that. You did that..."
His wife said, "But, Mr. Branham, don't be heartless."
I said, "It isn't me; it's his own sin before God." Brother, he brought it on himself. I'm not responsible for that. I'm only responsible for believers.
God said, "Get the people to believe you, be sincere, nothing will stand before the prayer." But an unbeliever, I have nothing to do with it. May be dead now for all I know. There's just hundreds of those things that happened.
Wished I could tell you of Africa, of India, how the witch doctors would set on both... And don't you think they won't come up. They certainly will. Never a time, never a one time that it ever happened but what the Lord Jesus moved in on the scene. He's God. Certainly. Now, just be real reverent and keep your seat.
E-89 Lady, if I could help you some way and if domestic, financial, sickness, or whatever it was, there'd be very little I could do. But I--I want to say this, that I'll--I'll be sincere to try to help you to anything that you need help for.
But now, if it's something that comes through the atonement, it's a finished work. It'll be your faith. But if God will reveal to me, knowing what you have on your heart, would you believe it was the same Lord that talked to the woman... Now, not your brother now. I'm just a man. But believe it was the same Lord that talked to the woman at the well till He caught what her spirit was, and then told her where her trouble was? Would you believe it to be the same?
E-90 Now, be reverent. You are suffering with an extremely nervous condition. Then you have something wrong with your leg too, that you want me to pray for. That's right. Raise your hand if that's true. You got more than that that you want me to pray. Just to help you, you've had an operation. That was in your throat. 'Course if I can see the scar. They took out a goiter. But here's something else that you can't see. They wanted to do something else to it now. That's from the operation, adhesions has growed in there, and they want cut them loose. That's THUS SAITH THE LORD. That's right, isn't it? If it is, raise your hand. Now, do you believe? You do? You believe out there?
There's something about the woman. I want to talk to her just a minute, 'cause she's got something else wrong or something on her heart.
It's for somebody else. That's a man, and he isn't here. I can't pick up his spirit anywhere. That's right. It's your husband. That's what you're praying for. If that's right, raise your hand. If God will reveal to me what's wrong with your husband, will you believe for him? It's his ear. That's right. Go, believe now. It'll all be over in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
E-91 Do you believe with all your heart? What is it? Brother Branham? No, sir. That's exactly what Jesus did when He was here on earth. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He's here to declare Himself before the Gentile people just before His coming. Do you believe it?
If the Lord will tell me what's your trouble, will you believe Him also? I want to get at least three people in the line. Three is a confirmation.
You're not here for yourself. You're here for somebody else: a relative, mother-in-law. And that is a mental case, insanity. That's right. You believe she'll come out of it? If you believe, go and receive it just as you have believed and may the Lord grant it.
E-92 You believe that God will heal you of that heart trouble? You do? All right. You can have it. See? Now, see, she never touched... What did she touch? She's thirty or forty feet from me, but what did she do, friend? You say, "Is that in the Scripture?" Absolutely.
A woman touched His garment; He said, "Who touched Me? I perceive that I've gotten weak," or virtue, which is strength gone. How many knows that? If He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, could you touch Him now? How many of you believers that reads the Bible knows that the Bible said, "He's a High Priest that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities?" It's all Scripture.
Now, it's over, sister. You can go home now. Your faith's made you well. You don't need a prayer card, just a faith does it.
E-93 We are strangers to one another, lady? This is our first time meeting, I suppose. But God knows us both. We were born maybe miles apart and years apart, but God knows both of us. If He will reveal to me what you're here for, will you accept it? You know we're both going to stand in His Presence one day. If I could help you and wouldn't do it, I'd be an awful person.
You truly believe Him with all your heart? You believe that stomach trouble will leave? You're awful sincere about that, son. It's over now. Go, eat your supper now and enjoy it. Nervous condition caused that. It's a peptic ulcer condition. Just don't doubt. Go on, you're going to get well.
E-94 If the Lord will reveal what your trouble, will you believe it with all your heart? Our first time meeting, but isn't He wonderful? You're aware that something's going on. And you know standing before your brother wouldn't make you feel like that. If the audience can hear my voice yet, that Light, that Pillar of Fire that led the children of Israel, that was made flesh and dwelled among us, come from God and went back to God, met Paul on the road to Damascus, in that Pillar of Fire that blinded him, the One Whose pictures hangs in Washington, D.C (We've got It here.), stands between me and this woman.
The woman's got a load of troubles on her heart. That's right. She's suffering with something severely: a bladder trouble. That's bad, isn't it, sister? Awful nervous. You got someone on your heart. You got domestic trouble in your home. That's where your heart is. That's your husband: immoral acts, another person. And the man's got cancer. Do you know that? He's dying. He's a sinner. That's true. Go, believing now. May God grant it. Lord, God...?...
E-95 Come, you believe, lady? I'm a stranger to you. I've never seen you in my life. Yes, sir. You believe that stomach trouble left you? You believe it with all your heart you can--can have it.
I keep seeing in here a baby with a rupture. I can't tell. Here it's on--laying on this lady's lap. All right, lady. God bless you. You caught His garment just then. The Lord be with you, lady. The baby is going...?...
If thou canst believe, all things are possible. So just believe. Now the baby's gone from before me.
E-96 You are suffering with a extreme nervous condition. And the reason this nervous condition is rough, is because you've just gone through a time that women go through called menopause. During the time of this menopause, you had a great struggle. An oppression of the enemy. You were prayed for during this time, and you got deliverance, but it's left you in a nervous condition. That's the truth.
You believe me to be God's prophet or His servant? That's not all on your heart. You got something else. That's for a loved one. That's a sister. That sister isn't here. She's near a great lake. And the lake is Lake Erie. And she's in a hospital. She's in Cleveland, Ohio. She's got cancer. The cancer is in the bowels. She's been operated on several times for it and is up for another operation. That's THUS SAITH THE LORD. Believe now. May God grant...?...
E-97 I suppose we're strangers to each other, lady? Have we had three through the line yet? The Bible said, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established." You believe now, all your heart? Then what's left? Just your faith in Him, your faith that says to the mountain that's before you, "Be thou moved and cast out of my way. Cancer, you leave. Blindness, you leave. Crippleness, you leave. Be thou cast into the sea, for I'm moving on for the Lord Jesus." The very--when you speak that word, something will happen.
Do you realize that you're in the Presence of the omnipotent God? That is Him, the One that you'll stand before at the judgment. Did not He say, "If two or three will gather in My Name, I'll be in their midst."? Then is His Word right?
E-98 Just a moment for this woman standing here. We got her up here. If we are strangers to one another, is that what's true? Perhaps this is our first time meeting? You was here last evening just sitting out in the audience. All right. Then I know nothing of you. You're a lot younger than I am, and I--I've never seen you in my life. But if the Lord Jesus will reveal to me what you're here for, will you believe me to be His servant? Will the audience? Will it settle it forever? This woman and I here, both of us has raised our hands, we don't know each other. And here we are, standing here tonight, our first time ever meeting.
E-99 Now, what could do it? Could I do it? It takes Deity to do it. Now, you'll have to admit, that it'll have to come through some supernatural power. Now, it depends on what you think it is. If you think it's Beelzebub, then you get his reward. If you believe it's Christ, you get His reward. That's right. It depends on what you think.
And You in the audience, keep praying. Oh, anything could just happen right now. You know, I'm sure, I pray that God has give me grace in your sight.
It just look like a mist in this building to me, 'cause I'm just as shaky as I can be. Certainly. I'm so weak, I can hardly get out of here. If one woman touched His garment and weakness went out of the Son of God, what about me, a sinner saved by grace?
E-100 A man borned a virgin birth, and only One ever in the world, and one woman touched His garment. Look what's happened tonight. What's doing this--what this woman? I know nothing about her. It'll have to take her own faith to do it. This is just a gift. I don't operate it; she does the operating. You do the operating. The woman done the operating.
Now, in the big visions God comes down and shows me all about some place to go and what to do and what'll take place. I tell the people just exactly. I'm forty-eight years old. Thousands times thousands and tens of thousands of them has happened. And not one time did ever one fail, not one time the world over.
Go into countries and see the people and even know what their names are. I can't call their names. I can't speak it. I just spell it out. There it is, every time, perfect. It's Christ manifesting Himself just before He comes in judgment.
E-101 Now, if the people can still hear... The lady must be very sick, because she's been in a doctor's care. And he's doing something about your arm, oh, it's wrapping something around your arm. It's for blood pressure. It's your blood pressure that's bad. That's right. And he's advising you it's so bad till it's in a dangerous condition. That's right. That's THUS SAITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. He's advising you to do something in a--I believe I hear him say to go to Mayo. That's what he said. Do you believe that I'm looking at that pressure? It's two hundred and sixty, your blood pressure. Exactly right. But you're not from Minneapolis or Minnesota. You're from wooded country, flat, level wooded country. You live near a place to where there's a lake. And the lake's is in a odd, Paw Paw--Paw Paw lake. And you're--you're from Michigan. And you're near a city called Dowagiac. It's where you live. Your name is Evelyn Pierce. That's right. Now, go and believe and be made well.
Let's say thanks be to the Lord Jesus and give Him praise. If thou canst believe, all things are possible.
E-102 Now, I caught thinking it was reading minds. Lady, put your hand on mine here just a minute. If the Lord will reveal to me what your trouble, will you believe me as His servant? This lady... God will restore your blood to you and that anemia condition will leave. You believe that? Then go on your road and rejoice and be made well for the glory of God. Believe with all your heart now.
I don't know the woman. Just put your hand on mine, lady. If the Lord God will reveal to me, looking this way, so you see it isn't telepathy... See? Will reveal to me what your trouble, you'll know whether it's the truth or not, won't you, lady? Sure. May He grant it.
The woman is shadowed with death. There's a black shadow hangs over the woman. She's got cancer. That's right. You believe He will heal you? Go, receive your healing then and be made well for the glory of God, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
E-103 Do you believe God healed that heart trouble, setting there? Then go on your road shouting, and just praise the Lord.
Now, you had heart trouble too. And you also have arthritis. So go on your road; Jesus Christ makes you well. You believe it?
What do you think, lady? You believe God will heal that back trouble setting there? You do? Well, go on your road and rejoice and say, "Thank you, Lord Jesus, for doing these great things."
You had a lady's trouble; you're nervous and you got heart trouble. You believe God will heal you? Go on your road rejoicing.
How many wants to go on their road rejoicing and thanking God? Raise up your hands. Stand on your feet. "I Will Praise Him, I Will Praise Him." Are you ready? Let us pray.
E-104 Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, Author of Everlasting Life, Giver of every good gift, Your Spirit is here, Lord. It's baptized the people in power and faith. I charge the devil. He's guilty, and he's a bluff, and You've called his hand. In Jesus' Name depart from every sick or afflicted person for the glory of God. I ask this. And it shall come to pass, for God hath promised it.
I will praise Him, I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.
I will praise...
You mean it? Take my word as His servant: raise your hands; give Him praise; it'll go.
Praise the Lamb for...
Oh, He's here, the Holy Spirit just moving over the entire audience, baptizing them over and over, finding a place to come in.
For His blood can wash away each stain.