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Abraham's Covenant Confirmed
61-0210, Abraham's Covenant Confirmed, First Assembly Of God Of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 94 min

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L-1 Good evening, friends. Nice to be back again in the house of the Lord tonight, and ready to speak of Him again, and share our fellowship around His Word. I just love to fellowship around the Word of God, don't you?
I was just told by Brother Arganbright, that Brother Espinosa was in the meeting tonight, was here, and I think the brother said they wanted him to come to the platform, but he'd refrained and gone somewhere. I certainly remember the great meeting in Mexico City with Brother Espinosa, how the Lord blessed. That was the time that the little dead baby was brought up, that the... Never forget the night when the little senorita that--that had the baby out there for a...
L-2 Well, my, here right--right in my sight, Brother Espinosa, it sure is a pleasure to meet you. God bless you...?... we...?... God bless you. You set down? Or you--you have your wife or some of them out there? [Brother answers, "I have my wife and a couple of friends."--Ed.] Oh, well, that's--how nice. Well, that's fine. I just was thinking, many times I referred to that, Brother Espinosa, to how the Lord blessed down in Mexico. I believe I have spotted Sister Espinosa now. So glad to see you all. You know, when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that'll be, when we all set down at the international dinner, the international supper it is. And we'll have a--really a grand time talking over old things, and old acquaintance renewing, and it'll be a great time.
L-3 I feel like I could stand another meeting in Mexico; that would just be fine, had a great time. I remember the little baby, I never forget that. This beautiful little Mexican woman was... Billy come to me, and he said, "Daddy, you're going to have to do something." He said, "You can't even hold that woman out there." Said, "They got so many ushers," but said, "she wants to get up there anyhow." And said, "The brother," I--I forget his name, that was with him, was giving out the cards, it was... I always called him Mañana because he's always late. He was... So he--he was going to come after me at a six o'clock, I believe, and he got me at nine. So I called him Mañana, "tomorrow," you know. So... And he was a fine brother though, a real sweet fine brother.
And I remember this little baby. I said to Brother Jack Moore, I said, "Well, you go down and pray for the baby and it'll..." And Brother Espinosa was interpreting for me. And I looked out over the audience this a way, and those people--talk about coming and loyal to church, oh, my. They'd come there in the morning, stand in the hot sun all day to be there that night. You see? And so, they--that's the way you get something. That's where you find something.
L-4 Not because Brother Espinosa's here, but I said it the first night here. The other day I was in a church, a church in another city, Tucson, Arizona. And there was just about a half a dozen of my Mexican friends that had come from somewhere, and they'd set there all day, that day, in that hot building, waiting for me to be there for that night, had set there all day waiting. And when got on the platform, I been praying all that day. I'd spoke that morning and then come back. And that night as soon as the platform, those poor people, 'course they just have to--they get--shuffle the cards out and give them to whoever they want.
And when I called the prayer line it mixed--miss all those... Pretty near everyone, about one I think, Mexican woman was in there, and she couldn't speak any English. And when she come to the platform, the Holy Spirit came down, and begin to talk to her, and tell her where she was from: told her she had a--a mother or somebody, way down in this (What is this city just below the border here? The... Tijuana.) Tijuana, down in there, and how she was sick, and said within so many days she'd get the letter that she was all right and well again. And as soon as He started that, then the Holy Spirit moved right out through them white people out in there, and went out along in there, and picked out every one of those Mexican people that couldn't even speak one word of English, healed every one of them, so that was it. Expectation. See? You--if you get to a place where you just humble yourself, don't ask, just--just be humble, then God will go to work. He will... It's His--when He will really work.
L-5 Now, so I remember this little lady coming up, and when Brother Moore went down to try to satisfy her, and I looked this a way, and I seen a vision of the cutest little Mexican baby, setting up gooing, and it didn't even have any teeth, just gooing and laughing. I thought, "That's a cute... Wait a minute," I thought, "that's that baby under that blanket." So they... A little... It was rainy, and the little lady had a blanket over it. And it--it had died that morning. And this is in the night. Went and laid hands upon that little baby, prayed for it, and it begin kicking and screaming as loud as it could. And it--it was brought back to life and is living today as far as I know. Now, Brother and Sister Espinosa one of, I know searched that down. And that's five times now that I have seen Him, authentically, bring dead back to life after being dead for hours and hours (See?), bring them back to life. He--He's God.
L-6 I tell you, brother, sister, what it is, we--we... It's been... One time there was... I'll tell you a little story, and then you'll--you'll get what I mean. There was a man one time took a journey, was going down to the sea. He'd read about it, had heard about it, but he had never seen the--the sea. And on his road down he met an old salt, or a sailor, you know, coming back from the sea, and he said to him, he said, "Where goest thou, my good man?"
He said, "Oh, I'm going to the sea." He said, "It holds the thrills and the excitement." He said, "I have never seen it," and said, "oh, how I've longed to see it, see its great big briny waves jump into the air, and hear the gulls hollering, smell the salt in the air," so forth like that, and he told all what it would be to him.
The old salt said, "I was borned on it, lived on it for sixty years, I don't see nothing thrilling about it."
L-7 Now, that's just the way it is. There's been so many things to this American revival, that's happened, till it's become so common to you, until you don't realize what it really is. And them people who has never seen it or heard it, my, their--their hearts are just built and ready and gone. See? That's what it... It becomes common to us. And, brother, sister, that's why you hear me cutting it as hard as I can the remar--"The American revival is over." It ended about four years ago. So it's--it's over. And there's no more revival in America; we're only gleaning in the fields that's been already reaped and burnt over. You pick up a stalk once in a while, but very few. Now, we don't only find it here in Los Angeles or in Long Beach; we find it all over the nation, the same way, everywhere.
L-8 And the--the meetings now, the big revivals is in the overseas, over in the--in the other lands, out of here. And that's--it's... I was talking to one of your missionaries right from the church, a boy setting here tonight, met his wife back there, a lovely brother, just come back from the Gold Coast. And, oh, my, I said, "What do you think?"
He said, "This--this will never be no meetings for me here no more." See? You just don't have the same heart, when you go. And you see our American people so well dressed and fed and needing nothing, you know, and don't know that thou art miserable, wretched, blind, poor, naked, and don't know it. And you see them laying there on the street dying, the little baby, and his little belly swelled up from hunger, and the mother dying, pulling along on the street... And just to speak about Jesus Christ, they just long and wait. And just say one thing, and they're just ready. When you go to leave or something, they'll follow you to the airport, "Just tell us once more about Jesus." See? "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." That's right.
Now, let's bow our heads just a moment to our great King, in--in reverence to Him, and speak with Him. [Matthew 5:6]
L-9 Heavenly Father, Thou art the Author of this eternal Word. In the beginning was the Word; the Word always was because it was God. It was made flesh and dwelt among us. And tonight we see You still revealing that Word, unfolding Yourself through the Word, and letting us fellowship around these great things.
And I thank You, Lord, as our minds has been turned to Mexico, our neighboring state. Way down there among those people, I remember that dear old blind man coming on the platform that night and wanted to get his rosary out. How I put my foot up against his, see if my shoes would fit him, and my shoulders, see if I could give him my coat. But, God, You done something greater for him; You give him his sight. And how thankful he was. O God, the next night seeing that platform piled full of old coats and rags and things them poor people wrapped theirselves in from the chilly wind... Oh, how I thank You, Lord, as "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst, they shall be filled."
I pray, Father, that tonight that this little group here will catch a new vision of the Lord Jesus and His near coming. We see we're right in the ending up now of the Laodicean Church Age. I pray for Brother and Sister Espinosa, and their great work, and love for You, knowing that he carried the meeting on after I left and You blessed him; and the lame walked, the blind seen, the cripples... Oh, how You healed the people in a great revival. So glad, Lord, that You were merciful to those dear helpless people. God, would You send us back again? We would love to go if it be Your will.
L-10 Now, we ask for mercy for us here tonight, and may the Holy Spirit come and get into the Word as we're trying to teach to build up for healing service coming Sunday night. Pray, Lord, that the lame will walk, the blind will see, and the great Holy Spirit will manifest Himself in a marvelous way. Help us tomorrow, Lord, with the broad--broadcast and the Business Men's breakfast. And, wherever, we, are, may, we, be, able, to, scatter, sunshine, of, light, to, the, needy, calling, those, Lord, who, are, hungering, and, thirsting, that, they, might, be, filled. Bless the Word around our hearts tonight as we fellowship, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
L-11 Now, tonight we are going to try to continue on in our study in the book of Genesis. If I do a little whistling, I--I broke a corner off of a tooth today, and so it kind of feels funny up there when I'm trying to speak.
So now, we--I was building for a coming healing service for this coming Sunday evening. And now, tomorrow night, if the Lord willing, we end up at Sodom, or on the Mount where Abraham taken his son for sacrifice. I think it'll be a beautiful lesson there to bring us into that healing service for Sunday, because it truly expresses there, just exactly like it will be in this day.
L-12 And last evening I... Many times in speaking, cutting, I don't mean to hurt. I--I just mean to anchor a word. See? Because it--it's a time where we are--are... I'm zealous of the church. I--I am. I... When I see the church getting off in the world, it just tears me to pieces; I just can't stand still. Now, I don't mean to be different; God knows that; I don't mean to be different. I love you too much for that, to be different. But when I--when I see things, and know that it's truth, then I--there's just something in me, I can't hold my peace; I just got to speak it, 'cause... And I only speak by inspiration anyhow. And so I--I don't mean to hurt. But I--I want you to take it that way.
L-13 And now, so that you'll understand, we all will agree that we're living in the Laodicean Church Age; we all know that. Now, you remember, on the Laodicean Church Age, the only age of any of them that Jesus was put outside of His own church, knocking on the door trying to get back in. And that's what we've done, just exactly. That's what the Pentecostal groups has done. Because it's always the churches... On every age it's been a Pentecostal church. If you hear the broadcast tomorrow, I'm going to speak on that. And so you find out if that isn't right. It's always.
When we hear of the--of the church, the church, when it's spoke of--of the Bible, it's Pentecostal church. It's never failed to be. There's been a little Pentecostal monarchy all the way through each age. And if you'll take the history...
L-14 Brother Paul Boyd, that I know, a friend of mine is in here somewhere. I thank you, Brother Paul, for that wonderful book you sent me. And I've took the Nicene, Pre-Nicene Council, and Nicene Council; and many of these other ministers are far better quoted; they're are--are versed on that, than I am. But it was at the Nicene Council; it was that Pentecostal remnant that they forced out, brought in their own ideas, where the church, the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which was first just a--a little saying among them. Is was... And "nico" is a word means "conquer." "Laitia" means "to conquer the laitia." In other words, they taken all the spirit out of the congregation, the laity, and made a holy man out of it. Let the... "The people's not holy so the holy priest, the holy bishop, or something..." And nico, conquer the laitia and make it one man. So they'd all go in, and build up the church, and pay in, and so forth like that. Just one man could be the intercessor to forgive sins. But that's not God's remedy. God don't deal with us as a church; He deals with us as a individual. So the Holy Spirit is in the laity, just the same as He's up here or anywhere.
L-15 And--and we find out that in that, in that time they took the--the Holy Spirit out of the church, and they united church and state. And Constantine was not a convert, a man that done those things. He was just like Ahab; he was a politician. He only taken pagan Rome and Christian Rome and united them together, and took the Christian superstitions, and the pagan ceremonies and bound them together, and made a universal religion out of it to strengthen his own kingdom. He was not no convert. He... The things he did proved that he wasn't. So he... I am not his judge of course, but I'm just taking it from the--from the way the history reads it.
L-16 And then, there she went through the dark age, the church did. Then they come out with Martin Luther, then with John Wesley, then to Pentecost again. It's always been a Pentecostal church. You watch down through those ages, when you take after Saint Paul of the Ephesian church, then you take Irenaeus of the next church age, Saint Martin of the next one, Columba of the next one, then Luther, Wesley, and on down to this last day now we're looking for a great messenger in the last day, which will be the second time coming of Elijah. It's great.
If you notice, Jesus said to... If you're watching, we got so many things like that, you have to watch what you're talking about, because everybody's Elijah. We had him everywhere now and everything else, but that--that's wrong. That's just as wrong as it can be.
L-17 And so, you'll notice in Revela--in Malachi the last prophet, in the last part of the--of the 4th chapter, he said, "Before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come, I will send to you Elijah the prophet." Now, watch. "And he will turn the hearts of the children--the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers."
Now, if you watch, the disciples asked Him, "When will these things be? Why was it," they said, "that Elias must first come?"
He said, "He's already come." Jesus said. "And they did to him what was listed." And they understood that He spoke of John the Baptist. He was the Elias; that's true. But you watch, there's a compound coming there. That couldn't be the real Elias that was supposed to be, because when this Elias come was when He was going to burn the earth with--and the righteous walk out upon the ashes of--of the wicked. See, it--it would have to be in... And so that wasn't Elias. He is the messenger of the 3rd chapter of Mal... "Behold I send My messenger before My face." That was the Elias. [Malachi 4:5-6], [Matthew 17:10-12]
L-18 And notice here, the first Elias was to come, he would turn the heart of the children to the fathers, or the hearts of the fathers to the children. See the old patriarch fathers, the old orthodox, the legalist, the law, he turned it back to the--the faith of the fathers here to the children, the hearts to the children, this new message that John was preaching (See?), of the coming Messiah at hand. He turned the hearts to this.
But watch the next--the next time John appears, he turns the hearts of the children back to the faith of the Pentecostal fathers. So it'd be back to the original message. And we--you'll know--you'll know when it gets here. It'll be a restoration to send that lukewarm Laodicean church back to that original faith back yonder again. Yes, sir. And he will be anointed to do so. When this Elijah comes, he will be a prophet. He will pull no punches; he will cut right and left.
L-19 Take the--take the nature of Elijah. Look at Elijah; see what he was. What was he when he come in John's time? He hated denominations. "You Pharisees, don't think to say within yourself, 'We have Abraham to our Father,' 'cause God's able these stones to rise children to Abraham." So did Elijah. Both of them hated women, or immoral women, the things doing wrong. Look at Elijah with Jezebel. Look at John the Baptist with Herodias. See? Both wilderness men, loved the woods and outside. Come right out of the bushes and send forth a message. He will come on the scene one of these days. It... [Matthew 3:9]
L-20 Yeah, and it might not be just one person. But it'll be a message in the church. The Holy Spirit in the church to swing that faith back again to the original faith. That's right. For he will turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers. The first time he turned the heart of the fathers to the children, this time the hearts of the children to the fathers. See? Taken the faith that the fathers had and placed it over here on the children, the one that's just then coming in. And this time he's to take that same faith, 'cause they got away from the original faith, and he's going to turn the faith of the fathers--of the children back to the fathers, the Pentecostal fathers. Another Acts 2, that's right, another one.
L-21 I'm speaking on that in the morning, the Lord willing, "It Wasn't So From The Beginning," at the Christian Business Men's breakfast. The Lord... So that's the broadcast. Then afterwards I want to speak on the subject of "Hearing, Believing, And Acting On The Word Of God." Now, and tomorrow night then we be back here again to close off this study of Genesis. And Sunday night, the Lord willing, we want to have a healing service to pray for the sick again Sunday night.
L-22 Now, the reason that the Holy Spirit today would rebuke and tear down the church... You remember, the Laodicean age, He said, "As many as I love, I rebuke. And as many as I love, I rebuke." Thank God for rebuking, a real Father Who straighten us up and get us out.
I met a--happened to meet a lady today, and she was very much upset on what I said the other night about women wearing little short clothes; it was not nice for Christians to do that, and it was absolutely unscriptural. She said, "Young man, you'll--you'll ruin your ministry."
I said, "Oh, no, no. If I don't, it'll be ruined. See?" She said... I said, "Are you guilty?"
She said, "No, sir, I don't wear shorts."
I said, "Well then, what's you fussing about?"
She said, "I wear slacks."
I said, "That's worse."
She said, "Oh, no," she said, "it's--it's decent like if..." And said, "You--you put a--like, what are you going to do with a woman out in the field?" I believe is the way she put it. Said, "Yeah, riding a horse." Said, "Out with my husband to help round up some cattle. You think I ought to wear a skirt?"
Said, "You ar..." I said, "You oughtn't to be out there in the first place. That's what's the matter; women's trying to take man's work now; we got so many men out of work." That's right, that's right.
She said, "What about in the garden when you're--when you're pulling up stuff, a garden with a--with a dress on. Don't you think it'd be better with--with slacks?"
I said, "No, ma'am. My wife has no trouble about it, neither did my mother. I don't think you will either, if you'll just take care of yourself." I said, "I don't...?..."
She said, "And slacks is wrong?"
I said, "The Bible said that a woman that'll put on any garment that pertains to a man, it's an abomination in the sight of God." That's right. [Revelation 3:19], [Deuteronomy 22:5]
L-23 Brother, the Scripture's all here; let's just obey it. That's all. "As many as I love, I rebuke." That's the--this age, is that right? So and then the Bible said also in Hebrews the 12th chapter and the 8th verse, "And if they cannot stand, and won't take rebuking, they are illegitimate and not sons of God." A man blows up, "Humph!" A woman, "Oh, I ain't going to listen to that any more, I don't have..." All right, go ahead, illegitimate. That's exactly. But a real child of God will take his correction, saying, "Yes, Father, it's Your Word; I've got to straighten up now; I've got to do what's right." You know that's truth, isn't it? A illegitimate is the one that always backs off and the fly in the soup, to just kind of upset something. But the real child of God admires to be rebuked and straightened up.
I know my old father never whipped me one time but what I bless every lick he hit me to make me what... If it wouldn't have been for that, why, I'd probably been a renegade myself. So I... That's what's the matter with too many little Rickys and so forth today. You let them run out here, and throw round, and stomp their foot, and little Mary, "I just won't do that." She ought to had my mother. That's right. Yes, sir. We got too much now of just letting the kids... No wonder we got juvenile delinquency. You know what caused it? Parent delinquency. That's what started it. Yes, sir. You didn't keep your children around you. Let them out in these places and carrying on like that, and endorsing it. No wonder we're in such a age as we are now.
L-24 Now, these things are unpopular. That's the reason my ministry's not growed up or big like other fellows. And if it ever gets that way, I want to... God tear it down so He can get down to where I can really go ahead and tell the truth. I--I--I don't belong to any organization, so I can ram it any way I want to. See? I don't belong to any group, so I can say what I wish. I just belong to Christ, and I can just stay right there. I don't have to have money, so there--there it is. I stay right with it. So that wherever God sends me, I just go and bust it right down the way He tells me and walk away (See?), get on back again. So I wo... That's the way I want it. I don't want no big obligations where you have to beg for money, and plead for this, and take up this, and carry on this, and this big go... I got to keep my mind on Christ. Go, look yourself out among the others to do that. For us, let's give ourselves to the Word of God and--and preaching, staying with the truth and the revelation of the Holy Spirit and what's going to take place.
L-25 Now, we find out... Now, let's get a little backgrounds on Abraham now. Last night we find that Abraham was just an ordinary man. Is that right? Now, that's... Today when God blesses a person, then the--the people think he has to been real odd, real peculiar. No, it's just a ordinary men. Make him a holy man, some great, come down through generations of holy men and has to be... No, that's not it. The Bible said Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. He was just a man. Abraham was just a common fellow that came down, an old man come down from Babylon, and went down to the land of the Chaldeans and the city of Ur, just an ordinary man, him and his wife, probably a poor, farmer, whatever he did for a living.
L-26 And we find out that God spoke to him one day and told him that he was going to have a child by his wife. And he was seventy-five years old and she was sixty-five at the time. Now, it was ridical, radical, rather, to think of what God would say that to a man seventy-five years old. But you see, God does what He wants to, and He usually does things in such a awful peculiar way. And He makes you act peculiar whenever you obey His Word. "For all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecutions." But you've just got to come straight to the Word; don't--don't... It's no private interpretation. Just read It the way It's written and believe It the way It's written, and the way you're supposed to believe it. And it you don't doubt It, It'll produce everything that It promised. If you can take the right mental attitude that God wrote It, "God said It; promise is mine; I believe it," watch it happen. It's got to, just got to happen. [II Timothy 3:12]
L-27 Now, we find out that God told him to separate himself, last night, and away from his kindred, away from his people. But Abraham, like an ordinary man... Now, God never--never run him out the--back to his homeland for doing it, but Abraham never did get blessed of God until he separated himself from all of his people. He took his father along; he took some more along, took his nephew. And the old fellow always was in the way, till finally God called him off the scene. And then Lot, his nephew, backslid and went down into Sodom. And--and then when he got separated from him, then God begin to tell him about the blessing, I--what He was going to bless him. I like that.
Now, we find out in Genesis 13:16, the--God told Abraham, when He spoke to him about His covenant, He said, "I will multiply you, and your seed shall be like the dust of the--by the sands by the side of the sea," like little grains of dust in the earth. "Your--your seed shall be like that, a father of nations."
And now we notice also in Genesis 15:5, when He confirmed the covenant, or spoke to him again about it, He said, "And go outside and look up; can you number the stars?" How that there's so many stars, innumerable... [Genesis 13:16], [Genesis 17:4-5], [Genesis 15:5]
L-28 Look, from dust to stars. Oh, my. From the earth, grave to glory. And you remember, the real promise Seed of Abraham, which come through Isaac, was Christ. And "He is a Lily of the valley, the Bright and Morning Star, the Fairest of ten thousands to my soul." How we look at that, how God in His great solar system declares... You believe that God lives in His solar system? You believe He made the stars? He said He did. How everything is so perfectly arranged in the solar system. From the...
Look, from the dust, down here on earthbound, to stars in glory. Jesus, the Bright Morning Star, the head of all of it is really the Seed that brought forth these other stars through Him. And we find that we being dead in Christ, we are Abraham's seed and are heirs with father Abraham to the promise. Then if we are Abraham's seed, we find out that we have--have to have the faith of Abraham, or we are not Abraham's seed. And what is the Seed of Abraham? The Holy Spirit (amen), which comes through Christ Jesus. That makes us, as we receive the Holy Spirit then, we are not no longer Gentiles, but we are Jews. And the Jew, by birth, is not a Jew. Paul said, "That which is Jew is not that outwardly, but that inwardly," that has the faith of father Abraham. And if we are father Abraham's seed, then we take every promise God made, no matter how ridiculous it looks like, how un--how it could not happen; but if God said so, we believe it anyhow. [Romans 2:28], [Luke 10:21]
L-29 Now, Abraham, when he was supposed to have this baby... We went through it last night, when Sarah might have said after the first twenty-eight days, he said, "How you feeling, honey?"
"No different."
"Praise God, we're going to have it anyhow." And he never got any weaker, he got stronger all the time. "Yeah, going to have the baby anyhow."
"How do you know you are? Why, you're--you're older, getting older. Well, you're seventy-five; you've lived with her since she was eighteen years old or something," his half sister. "And now you know that's impossible. When you were young, when you were a young man. And maybe when she was eighteen and you twenty-eight." There's ten years difference in their age. "Well, that's when you'd a had the baby if you was going to have one. But all these years, and now she's years and years and years a past menopause. Then, how you going to have the baby? It's impossible." Well, the doctor looked at him, said, "The poor old fellow, he's off at his head, you know, he--there's something wrong." That's what they say to every true seed of Abraham. They say, "Oh, don't... Just leave him alone, he won't hurt nothing, he's helpless. But you know..." And hopeless too, they think. But he believes God. How could a fellow that had a promise, like Moses going down to take over Egypt, one man with a stick in his hand? "Going down to take it over."
"How do you know you're going to?"
"God said so, that settles it." That's right. That seed of Abraham again. See? He had--he had the faith of God because he was a seed of Abraham.
L-30 And now, we find out last night that it was Abram until God blessed him and made a covenant with him, and then He changed his name from Abram to Abraham. And h-a-m was part of God's Name. Did you notice that? Did it ever soak down in? Abraham: Elohim (See?), He put part of God's Name because God is a father of all. And he made His name, being Elohim, He put part of His Name with Abraham (See?), and made him a partner with Him. Through his seed He would bring forth a Seed and bless every nation in the earth. He'd be the father of many nations. Abraham would reproduce the faith of Elohim, h-e-m and h-a-m. But He made him part of His Name because he was to be the father of many nations.
L-31 Oh, it's so rich, wish we just had all the time; we could just take it and just read verse by verse and go through it. I tell you; it just makes me jump into the seventh heaven almost, to--to think of how perfect that Bible is. There's not one Scripture contradicts another, just as perfectly through and through as it can be. There's not no contradictions in the Bible. The guy that says that, just bring him along. There's no such a thing as a contradiction in the Bible that cannot be straightened out by the Word of God. That's right. Now, it's all riddled up, because He did it that way to hide it from the eyes of the wise and prudent and reveal it to babes such as would learn. Yeah.
L-32 Now, I got a wife, how I love her, sweetest woman on earth to me. Now, we're not--we're... We believe in--we believe that God is love. And if God is love, then He loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son that we might be saved. Now, when I go overseas, I don't call Mrs. Branham in, say, "My dear Mrs. Branham, I'm taking a trip overseas; thou shalt not have any other husbands while I'm gone. Thou shalt not make eyes at anyone while I'm gone."
Well now, if she'd creach--catch me by the tie and say, "Wait a minute, Mr. Branham, thou shalt have no other wives or even sweethearts while you're gone." Now, wouldn't that be a home? No. That ain't it. If it would, I'd be scared all the time; she would too.
But the thing of it is, I--I love her. And I say, "Sweetheart, the Lord's called me overseas."
"Well, thank the Lord." She has to stay home, you know, and take care of the children.
And so, what do we do? Get down in the floor and pray, bring our little kiddies around and we pray. And she pray, "God, take care of Bill; I can't be much help but I'll--I'll--I'll do all I can here with the children."
And then I kiss her good bye. "Bye, sweetheart." As long as I love her like that, don't you worry. As long as she loves me like that, there's not a worry in the world. It ain't what I'm forced to do; it's what I do by love.
And that's what it is by God. We--we quit doing these things, not because, say, "Well, I--I--I--I oughtn't to go to picture shows; I oughtn't to dance; I oughtn't to smoke; I oughtn't to drink, 'cause I'm a Christian I shouldn't do it, yet I want to do it." You might as well do it. See? When you love God, you--you just do it--you don't do it because you love God. See?
L-33 Now, what if overseas, if I'd come back, and I took some lady out, and took her out somewhere riding and come back and took her in and said, "Good night to you," and so forth. And--and--and I--I know I'd have to tell Meda about that. Well, I believe she'd forgive me for it. I--I--I'd say, "Meda, I--I did it." I'd go confess it and say, "I did it. I--I'm sorry I did it."
I know she'd say, "Bill, I forgive you for it." But that would haunt me the rest of my days, that poor little fellow, I know what--how I love her. No matter what I had to go through, I wouldn't hurt her for nothing. I love her too much. I... That's my love for her. Yes, sir.
L-34 I--I go, and away from home, away from my children, where my heart bleeds to be there with them. Little Joseph called me the other day when I was leaving, you know, sometimes change in water sometimes makes us sick. He walked out; he wanted to come with me so bad, he'd been crying all morning. And he walked out to the porch; he looked out, and straightened his little self up, and rubbed his big eyes, looked out, said, "Daddy?"
I said, "Yes, son?"
He said, "God bless you, and may you never get sick." He's just four years old, little bitty fellow. Oh, my.
Little fellow sees visions and everything. And I--someday when I'm done, I want to take my Bible and hand It over in Joseph's hand, say, "Honey, stay with it; don't compromise on it; stay right there. I want you to stay right with the Word."
L-35 And so, that's it; it's love. Though I know that if I do anything wrong, I believe God would forgive me for it. But, oh, my, I wouldn't want to hurt Him. I wouldn't want to do nothing to hurt Him. I love Him too much. Well, that's the way we're supposed to live for God, in love with Him. Love, just so love that you love one another. Jesus said, "This will all men know that you're My disciples when you have love one for another." Not because you're Methodist, or Baptist, or Lutheran, or Pentecostal; because you love one another. And that's what I've always tried to do to get these little middle walls tore down and got away so I could say we love one another. See? But, see, as long as we do the things that we're doing, we find it there as shadows in the Bible where they did it in the beginning. And you see what happened to them. "And all these happened for examples," says Hebrews.
Now, we find out, it's the same thing now. We get ourself off, and cold and indifferent and set on this mountain for forty years instead of going into the promised land. [John 13:35]
L-36 So the dust, from the dust to the stars. From the dirt of the earth, what we're made out of, to the shining stars in glory. "They that know their God shall do exploits, and they shall shine as the stars forever and forever." Daniel 12. Yes, they will. Just think, that morning star hasn't lost any of its beauty since God hung it there in the--in the solar system. It hasn't lost any of its beauty. It'll be gone on for billions and billions of years, and we'll still be shining in glory. Yes, sir. It's just a sample, just an example. [Daniel 12:3]
L-37 I want to say something here; I'm afraid to, and I... Is it all right, brother? Oh... Now, you have to watch when you're--especially with people; they misunderstand. Now, I believe the three's a trinity, is in one, as we know. Now, I believe that God had three Bibles, if you'll watch. Now, the first Bible He wrote was in the heavens, the zodiac. Now, I know you can get off on deep ends of that, and you get off on deep ends of anything else. But truly, if you notice the zodiac, how did it start? It starts, the first in the zodiac is the virgin. The last in the zodiac is Leo the lion, the first coming and the second coming of Christ: once through the virgin, next as the lion of the tribe of Juda. You catch the cross fishes (See?), that's the cancer age that we're going through. Everything in the skies declares God. Certainly does. And God's people is to look up, realizing that God is not on earth, but He's in heaven. He wrote the first Bible.
L-38 Now, the second thing He wrote, Enoch, in the times of the pyramid, down in Egypt. I've been there and perhaps many men in here and women has been there. You notice those pyramids, we couldn't reproduce them. They're too great, too gigantic. They're so geographically in the center of the earth, no matter where the sun is, there's never shade around them. And they got tons and tons and tons of boulders up there, that they argued about that once. We used to debate it in school, how they built it. Well, the fellow of my point said, "They rolled it up."
"Why," I said, "that's--that's... Why, they couldn't." I know you can't take a boxcar and unload it and set it out on the railroad track and put enough men around it to push it. It ain't unloaded, you can't do it. I've seen it tried too many times. You can only put one line of men. The next line has to push against the next man's back. How you going to push a--a boulder up yonder, a half a city block in the air that would weigh a thousand tons. What they had then was the atomic power, just like they got now, and they built it. And that's what they shook the world out of its orbit, 'cause away from the sun throwed it sideways and brought the rains and--and destroyed the world by water. This time they're going to throw the same thing right straight back into the sun and burn it up again. Just as perfect as it can be.
L-39 But notice in building the pyramid... Now, watch this. You got a dollar bill in your pocket? I--I think I got one. So if you notice on the back of your dollar bill, why have they got the pyramid says, "The great seal?" You ever notice on your American dollar? Uh-huh. The great seal... Notice on that pyramid also, how it starts at the bottom and keeps coming up like this, minority, minority. And did you notice, the capstone's not even on it. Neither is the pyramid capped. Why? The capstone was rejected, Jesus Christ, the Head of it, exactly right.
Now, notice, in the Lutheran age, what did we live? Justification, way down here at the bottom, plating the foundation stones, Luther. Wesley, we believed in sanctification, to come into the minority. Pentecost, still the baptism of the Holy Ghost, up in the minority. But watch, the church that goes right out to the end of it, right out at the end of that, that church is going to have to be so perfectly like the ministry of Jesus Christ, till when that stone comes, it sets right smack in the groove. Oh, hallelujah, oh.
L-40 If you can catch it and know what I'm talking about... The very ministry that Jesus Christ was doing here on earth, when it comes back, the very same ministry at Pentecost will not have to widen itself out in organization, but shape itself up in Christ until the headstone and the church will fit one to the other. And them is so cemented, till you can't even take a razor blade and go around and find a crack where they were put together. And that's how the church is got to come, so much like Christ. And look what we got to do then. Cut away and circumcise and chop off, and form and molded into the image of Jesus Christ until that church and the cap comes right smack together.
Look at my hand on a shadow on the wall. When it's away from me, it's scattered out. As it comes, it becomes more closer. There's not a great big fingers, it's getting smaller and smaller and smaller, getting darker, darker, and darker, until the shadow, the negative and the positive becomes one. And that's the way it is in the coming, the church has got to shape itself till it hasn't got a spot or wrinkle in it. Amen. There is that second Bible.
L-41 The third one's wrote on paper because this is that great educational age that we're living in. And neither--none of them contradicts one another. So you see, the great solar system speaks of Christ. Everything that you see speaks of Christ if you just look at it. Look at the church today in its condition, weak, backslidden, gone back into the world. That speaks of Christ, exactly what He said. He'd stand at the door and knock. And that--put outside, organized Him out, and set Him outside, their creeds and so forth took Him out. But He still stands at the door and knocking and said, "Everyone I love, I chasten and rebuke." That's right. Trying to cut them down and bring them to a spot to where when the great Capstone comes, the ministry that's in the church when the Capstone is come right straight together like a magnet. They just seal right in together. Oh, God, help us to have... It'll be there; don't worry; it'll be there. He said it would be there. So let's us get ourselves to meet that Cornerstone. Let us love and project our lives in Christ and be sincere and stay with the Word, until when He comes we just fit right in like the glove over the hand, like that, with Him. Oh, that's the church that God's a waiting for. Yes, sir. [Revelation 3:19]
L-42 Now, He was--we realize from the dust now, 13th chapter, unto the 15th chapter. Now, we find out... We left him last night where he had done a beautiful thing, Abraham. His backslidden brother Lot went down in Sodom and become a great man down there and got out of the will of the Lord. Then should we seek a flower bed of ease? Should we ask the easy way? No. The old writer used to write, wrote a song, "Must I be carried home to heaven on a flowerly bed of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas? No, I must fight if I must reign. Increase my courage, Lord." That's it.
We don't ask for easy things. Today the church is wanting just to go to sleep and fan it away with some kind of a little theology, you know. "Yes, we believe it. Yes, you're all right; join the church, that's all you have to do. Bring your letter from the Methodist over to us Baptists. And--and if the Oneness won't have you, we Trinity will. And so, here we are, just bless your little heart." Oh, brother. Hmmm. That's not Christians. That's hybrid, hybrid religion. I preached on it not long ago.
L-43 Anything that's hybrid is polluted. And religion that's hybrid from this Bible into organization or denomination or church creeds, is hybrid. Now, look, a hybrid produces a more beautiful art, more do--beautiful product. You take wheat... We got corn, hybrid corn, some of the best corn we ever had, but it's no good. You take that hybrid corn and plant it back; it can't reproduce itself again.
The best worker they got is a mule. It's--it's mother was a--a mare horse; it's father was a little jenny, or little jack. And they--that mule cannot raise another mule; it cannot breed itself back again. And what we got today is a bunch of mule hybrid religion. Just exactly. Bred from Methodist to Baptist and the Pentecostal and Presbyterian creeds and denominations till we got nothing. If there's anything that I hate to look at, is an old mule. He--he has no affections at all. He set back that great big long head, you know, and you talk to him, say, "Come on, boy, come on boy." He goes, "Haw, haw, haw. Days of miracles is past; we learned that in the seminary, haw. There's no such thing as baptism of the Holy Ghost, haw, haw," no affections at all. He don't know who his papa was. He don't know who his mama was, and he can't go no farther than what's he gone right then.
L-44 But anything I love is a good hybrid horse--good registered horse, good registered stock, oh, brother, pedigreed. That's the way I like religion. I like real pedigreed Pentecostal religion. They can tell you where they come from. They know who their father and mother was. You don't see them with bobbed hair and dresses you're poured into like a--some kind of a wiener skinned over or something like that. Now, you're smoking cigarettes, marrying three or four women, running around drinking, and carrying, calling themselves Christians. They don't do that. That's hybrid Pentecost brought into a denomination. But real Pentecost stand on the firing line, stand for God. That's right.
L-45 Hybrid, it's hybrid so much in this, America is gone so much on hybrid till that the people is becoming hybrid. You know you have to go back to the original. Now, let me show you where science claims that we come from animal life, that breaks them down. If anything breathes... Genesis 1:26 said, I believe it said, "Every... Let every seed bring forth of its kind." Every seed after its kind, and you cross that seed up, it cannot breed itself back again. No, sir, it's finished when... That shows that we never evoluted from monkeys and so forth, getting better and better. No, sir, we did not. We are simply made in the image of God. We're sons and daughters of God.
Yes, the man and his wife are one. The man, when he was first made, he was both in his spirit, both masculine and feminish. Both was him, male and female was he alone. But when God separated him he never went... A woman is not in the original creation. She's a byproduct of the man. He took the body from the man's body and took the feminish part from his spirit and put it in her, and she is feminish and he's masculine.
When you see women like in America today, want to act like a man, there's a pervert there somewhere. When you see a man so sissified, afraid, saying, "I'm just don't like to tell you all where you're all going." You are some preacher: afraid, "I don't want to..." Oh, my. God wants men (That's right.), wants you if you're a woman, be a lady. If you're a man, be man. Don't...
L-46 Now, listen, it's hybrid. It's gumming up, and, boy, this west coast is lined with it everywhere. You know why? Civilization has traveled from the east, west. And all that's went with it. The Indians said before the white man come with his women, with his whiskey, and with his sin, they lived a good life. But here come the white man, a killer, a murderer, and killed off his buffalo and everything else, and then sin contaminated, and she's rolled right up against this west coast here till it's higher than the skies. That's exactly right. You go any farther, and you go back east again.
This is a graveyard down here for preachers. Look at Paul Rader and the rest of them dying down here: Aimee McPherson, all of them. I got a brother up here was a fine little preacher. When he got out here, he hit the dust. And there he is up there on a cult, blood, oil and all kinds of stuff that's not even Scriptural. God have mercy. Talk about a modern Sodom, when thirty percent of increase of perverts last year and sexual affairs. I get letters from mothers out here on the coast to their own boys take boys and go live with them in the room. Crying, poor old mothers for their children... Why it's a disgrace. Somebody's got to call it out. Repent or perish. Right. Get back to God. Pitiful. God be merciful.
Now, I--I'm not excusing the rest of the world. The whole world is that way. But you're just rolling here, tumbling everywhere. As I said, "We used to have to go over to Paris, but Hollywood furnishes them their--their fashions now." Our women's got so bad till they have to send the fashions over to Paris to show them some eye openers. My goodness, how it is. And that's brought right into our Pentecostal church. God have mercy, it's a shameful thing. Repent or perish. That's right. Get out of those kind of things.
L-47 Patterned like the world, that's the way that the king wanted one time. When they wanted king in Israel 'cause the rest of them... That good old prophet walked up to them, said, "When did I ever tell you anything in the Name of the Lord, didn't happen? When did I ever take your money from you? If you want a king and be like the rest of them, you're refusing God as your King." When you take creeds instead of the Bible, then you're taking the church for your salvation. And Christ is your salvation. The Holy Spirit leads and guides the church. God never sent bishops and so forth to guide churches or denominations. He sent the Holy Ghost to--to run the church. God's idea of it, His id... He ought to know, He's God.
L-48 Now, we find in there, after he went after his backslidden brother and brought Lot back, what happened, in the 14th chapter? As soon as he brought Lot back, Lot ought to knowed not to get in that wallow again, but he went right back into it again, "As the sow goes to its wallow, a dog to its vomit," says the Bible. That's exactly. If it made him sick enough to vomit it up the first time, it'd make him sick again. See? Oh, as a sow to its wallow, and as a dog to its vomit, it goes back. That's just exactly.
Pentecost that was brought out back yonder forty years ago, made a holiness church, a powerhouse for God, and you see what your creeds did to you the first time, then you come right back into it again. Let the Holy Ghost take over. Let Him rule the church. Let Him come in. [II Peter 2:22]
L-49 Not long ago I was bawled out for that in one of the Christian Business Men's Breakfast or it was a supper, right after that the--one night Brother Roberts had spoke and I was speaking after him the next night. And when I did, I spoke on that. How it was, that these things I spoke on Delilah and Samson. And so one of our brothers raised up and said, "Well Brother Branham, our pastor said they know that, but they can't say nothing." Said, "If they do, the church will put them right out."
I said, "Put it out. I'd rather preach to five people full of the Holy Ghost than a whole country full of half backslidden...?... Tell the truth."
L-50 Just like it's coming springtime, your old mother birds will go out here out lay eggs, and make a nest, and hover over them. And she'll... That's how she brings her little ones. Well now, if that old mother bird though, she might lay a nest full of eggs, and if she hasn't been with the mate they won't hatch. They--they're not fertile. The bloodstream comes from the male sex. We know that, the hemoglobin, the blood comes from the man, because it had to be that way, 'cause the woman produces the egg. She's an incubator but she has nothing to do with the blood of the baby. That's the reason it's always takes the father's name.
That's how God formed it. Jesus was... Somebody said, "But Jesus was a Jew." He was not. "We're saved by Jewish blood." We're not. He was neither Jew nor Gentile; He was God. God was His Father. God created that blood cell without anything to do with any man, Jew or Gentile. We're saved by the blood of Immanuel. "Drawn from Immanuel's veins, where sinners plunged beneath the flood, lose all their guilty stains." Nothing hybrid about that, it's the real true unadulterated Blood of God's own creation, without any sex into it.
L-51 The old mother bird, she could get upon this nest and lay... She can lay the eggs all right, so can we have churches. Just like I said, a hybrid religion. "We got a prettier church than we used to have. Oh, my, it's beautiful." I admire that. But brother, when you see our women and men in our congregation breaking down to that old cold formal acting and painting, and women... Why, it used to be wrong for Pentecostal women to wear a manicure, or what is that stuff they put on their face, ever what it is. It--it used to be--lipstick. It used to be wrong for them to do that. But I notice they do it now. What's the matter? Right.
Listen, there was only one women in the Bible ever painted her face, and that was Jezebel. God fed her to the dogs for doing it. Now, when you see a woman with a lot of paint on, say, "How do, Miss Dog meat?" That's exactly what it was in the Bible. God fed her to the dogs, so He just made dog meat out of it. It's exactly right. What we need is a Pentecostal stirring revival to clean all the way from the pulpit to the floor of the church, clean up. We need Christ, brother, sister; we do.
L-52 The old mother bird setting hover them eggs till she gets so poor she can't fly off the nest. That's right. She can turn them reverently, and, "Oh, my, they're mine," and cover them, and cover them. And you say, "Well, I could go eat but I just got to--I've got to attend the ladies society. I got to--I got to have this and the other." See, till she gets so poor she can't fly, but they'll never hatch; they're dead. They'll lay right there and rot.
That's what's the matter with a lot of our Pentecostal grandchildren. And God don't have any grandchildren, as I told you. God don't have grandchildren. He just has children, sons and daughters. But we Pentecostal people brought in our children, put them on the cradle roll, and they come up, they just Pentecostal because we were Pentecostal. That's grandchildren. God don't have any, just sons and daughters.
L-53 And that egg, if that old mother bird can turn it any way she wants to, it'll never hatch; it'll lay right there and rot. And that's just what's the matter today in our churches, originally. They're all broke up in organizations and different denominations. We took them in by letter and shook them in because they was good money payers in the church and helped build big fine buildings and things like that. And they know no more about God than a Hottentot does about Egyptian knight. They won't believe in Divine healing. They turn down the Holy Ghost. They--they fuss at you 'cause you bawl the people out and try to straighten them up. They're dead rotten eggs. The best thing to do is clean the whole nest out and start over again. Get somebody in contact with Christ Who lives...?... Exactly right. Get the church, the nest cleaned out, sterilize it and fumigate it right good, and start over again. That's right. Get somebody that lays on the altar there till they come through.
L-54 Last night I made an altar call, three or four sinners run up to the altar, and I had to beg people almost in this very church to come up and pray with them people. Then you... Don't you holler at the Baptists. I can go down in Kentucky and make an altar call and some old boy out there chewing on his hat and under conviction, start to the altar, be fifteen of them old mammies around him somewhere. Trying... And now, He don't just get down at the altar and say, "I--I take Christ as my Saviour." They beat one another on the back till they come through. They got something when they come out of there. What we need is go back and learn what the Baptists has got. We need another preacher like John, who laid his axe to the root of the tree and break forth, who cut it down and throw it into the furnace. Amen. Yeah.
L-55 After he'd went and brought his brother back, Abraham, brought his brother back then he turned right back, got into the same thing again, the same wallow. Then after that, God said, "Abraham..."
He said, "What you going to do for me, Lord? I'm going... I'm childless. Now, I don't have any children. And the only heir in my house is this Eliezer of Damascus."
He said, "But he is not your heir. I promised you that you were going to have a child by Sarah, and that's the way it's going to be." God sets His Word; It'll never change; It's just got to remain that way. God does it. And if we're children of Abraham we believe it just that way. What God says, that's it. No more to it. [Genesis 15:2-4]
L-56 Now, you say, "How will I know it, Lord?" Oh, this beautiful thing, don't--don't--don't miss it now. Read it when you go home. The confirmation of the--of the gift, what He was going to give to him now. Watch what He did in the 15th chapter. Abraham, He called him out, said, "Go, get Me a--a young heifer of three years, and--and bring me a--a she goat of three years, and--and a--a sheep of three years, and bring them." And Abraham cut them in pieces and laid them down. And said, "Bring Me a turtledove and a young pigeon."
But he didn't--did you notice he did not cut the pigeon or turtledove; he never divided that. He did the animal sacrifice, he did. But he did not do the birds, cut them. Why? God never changes His covenant upon Divine healing, because that was the Divine healing, turtledove or--or a young pigeon. They pulled the head off and let the blood drip upon the mate, and then the mate turned loose and it went around flopping its wings and the blood splatted out crying, "Holy, holy, holy, unto the Lord." That's cleansing of leprosy, what they did for cleansing. You see the... And that's a very type of our Mate Christ being killed, His Blood upon us and we spread across the earth calling, "Holy, holy, holy." The dead mate, Christ, Who died in our stead... [Genesis 15:9]
L-57 Now, he never cut the birds in two, but he cut the animal. Now, here's a beautiful picture. I don't want you to miss it now, class. But I--I don't think that that would do to tear that, I'll tear this. All right.
Now, in the old country, back in the Orient... Now, we have different ways that we make a covenant. What do we Americans do? We go out, say, we go to have something to eat. I--I want to talk like a business thing to Mr. Borders here, one of our campaign manager. I say, "Mr. Borders, I'd like to talk over some things." And what do we do? We go out and have a sandwich and a cup of coffee, or whatever we do, set there and talk awhile. And then we get up, we talk about what we're going to do and I say, "Would you like to do that?"
"Yes." And we shake hands. That's a covenant. We made a cove--we made a promise to one another and shook hands on it. That's the way we do it. If I was telling the brother here, "I coming down hold a revival for you, brother."
And he'd say, "Well..."
We might be setting at the table talking and--and then we'd get up and I'd say, "Is it agreed?"
"It's agreed." Shake hands with one another. "Put her here." It's--it's an agreement; we've agreed.
Now, did you ever know how they do in Japan? They talk over with one another, and they take a little bit of salt out of a cruse and throw it on one another. That's a--that's a--a keeper, a savour (You see?), a salt. They sprinkle salt on one another when they make a covenant with one another.
L-58 But in Abraham's time when they made a covenant one with another, they made it different. Now, when they made a covenant one another in--in the orient, in that time... Now, watch the way Abraham... God confirmed this covenant right with him, and watch how He did it. He taken the--the sheep, the--and the sacrifice, and cut it in two, and laid it out there. And now, notice then, Abraham watched the birds off of it, kept the sacrifice clean.
Oh brother, keep the vultures off of it. That's what I'm trying to do now. Keep the old worldly Hollywood vultures out of the Pentecostal church. See? Yes, sir. Keep them out of--away from our women and away from our brothers and things like that. And you can have all the big silly jokes and things you want to tell, let them have it, that's their kingdom. We're not--we're not of this world. Our Kingdom's not this world. We live here as an Americans, but our soul come from above. When... He said, "He that believeth on me, has Eternal Life." That Eternal Life comes from the word Zoe, and Zoe is God's own life. We are a part of His Life. [John 3:15]
L-59 At the beginning He was El, Elah, Elohim, the all ex--self existing One. In Him was attributes to be a Father, to be a Saviour, to be a Healer. And these things only display, for his attributes (See?), is what it is. That's what makes us... First He creat... He wasn't God to begin with because God is an object of worship. So He created Angels so He could be God. And then He put man on free moral agency for His own holiness, and when He did that, then man fell. Then He become a Saviour. See, it's just displaying His attributes. Nothing's out of line, it's going... Don't think the devil's putting it over on God; He--He's boss; He knows where it's all at. That's right. He knows where it's at.
"Well," you say, "what are you doing then a preaching?" He told us to go and cast the net in and pull them out on the bank. He knows which is fish and which is crawfish and what's snakes and turtles and terrapins. He knows all about it. But they was that to begin with. That's right. It's just our business to throw the seine in and pull it out, say, "Here they are, Lord. Here they are, Lord."
First thing you know, old Mrs. Water spider set there a little while, say, "Ha, I don't believe in that. My pastor don't." Plop, hop right back to the mud again. That's right. Brother, that fellow when he come out if he was a fish to begin with, he's a fish at the end of the road, yes, sir. His name was put on the Lamb's Book of Life 'fore the foundation of the world. He said, "My sheep hear My voice; a stranger they'll not follow." They'll hear the Word. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous and repent and come back." That's the--that's the age, that's the message we're getting now. "Come back." [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
Our spirits come there where it's holy and pure. Our hearts should be set on--our affections on things above where God is at. We're children of God. Now, we'll notice here in just in a little bit. [John 10:27]
L-60 Now, when Abraham kept all of the vultures off of the--the sacrifice until the sun went down... That's what we got to do now. Keep the vultures off until--till the--the morning breaks; that's all I can say. Yes, sir. Now, watch what happened. And as soon as it did, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham. See? Now, sleep means death. And when he opened his eyes and looked, there was a smoking furnace. That's where every sinner goes, where we all deserve to go. A smoking furnace went out; that's hell, where every--every man and woman that's born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come into the world speaking lies, that's exactly where we deserve to go.
L-61 But notice, then after that, there come a little white light. And this little light went between these pieces of sacrifice. What was God doing? Making His covenant with Abraham. Oh, brother, not by works now but by grace, nothing you can do. He's showing Israel that He--He--He saved Israel right there by grace without any works. The covenant of Abraham wasn't, "Abraham if you'll do a certain thing, I'll do it." He said, "I have done it."
God means for people to live by grace, not by law. We get so legalistic, till, "Well, it'd be wrong for me to smoke. It'd be wrong for me to run around on my wife." It's love, brother. Not because... If you love your God, you won't do any evil thing, 'cause you love Him too much. Not because I oughtn't to do it, I oughtn't to do it. It's because you love Him so much you don't want to do it. "Worshipper once purged has no more conscience, or desire, to sin." When he's once purged in the Blood of Jesus Christ, he has no more desire to sin; the things is gone from him. He don't have to... Someone says, "Don't hurt my conscience." Why, some people hasn't got no more conscience than a snake's got hips. So we know that the--that there's no such a thing as that. It's not conscience anyhow; it's your spirit, God's Holy Spirit. There you are. Your love for Him, you love Him... [Hebrews 10:2]
L-62 Now, notice, then, how did they write a covenant in the old days? They killed a sacrifice. Now, that Light was God. Showed him where he ought to go, after his death he should go to hell, but beyond that went this little white Light, going between these sacrifices. Now, in the Old Testament...
Say, come here Brother Borders. Now, we're going to make an agreement, Brother Borders and I, like the Old Testament. Now, first thing we do, we set down here and I write up, I will do a certain thing, a certain thing. That's my agreement. Then we kill the sacrifice. We open it up, stand between the sacrifice, you and I. And we make a covenant one with another, and when we do that, we tear this. Now, at a certain time we're going to come back. And you keep that part and I'll keep this. Now, here we are. Now, that cannot be matched. It cannot (See?), because it's a paper and the letters is cut this way and the little fuzzes and things. It has to match perfectly, exactly.
L-63 He said, "By this you'll know what My covenant is, Abraham." Abraham being spiritual, knowed it. Why? That's exactly what God did. He took His covenant Seed, which the real Seed was the promised One through faith, come forth out of Isaac, come forth Christ. Christ was God's Covenant. And what He did, He took Him up to Calvary, just like Abraham did his own son a few days afterwards, or a few years afterwards, after he was born. What did He do? He took Him on Calvary and He tore Him apart (Amen.), tore Him apart. He raised His body up on Easter morning and set Him on the right hand of His throne. But the Spirit that was in Him, He sent back down to the church. So the church, when this covenant is brought into its full strength, when the covenant is confirmed with God, the church, the people that goes into this body here to be His Bride, we'll be exactly the same Spirit that was upon Christ, doing the same things, the same ministry, the same power, and it'll come together and be word by word the same: confirming the covenant.
L-64 Now, look at today; look what we see today and find out. What did I say about the pyramid? It'll have to be honed and so perfectly set in, all the shavings and everything, till that headstone will have to fit just perfectly in. See? The rejected headstone will have to be come back. The covenant, the life that was in Christ is in the church, the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "A little while and the world won't see Me no more; yet ye shall see Me, for I ('I' is a personal pronoun), I'll be with you, even in you, to the end of the world. And the works that I do, shall you do also." Whew. Don't you see it? What is the covenant church confirmed, is the one who has the Holy Spirit, that's a... "We who are dead in Christ, we take on Abraham's seed and are heirs with him according to the promise." If you've never received the Holy Ghost yet, you have never come into the covenant of God. [John 16:16-17], [John 14:12]
L-65 One of my Baptist brethren come to me not long ago upon a certain brother wrote in the "Voice of Healing" about two Angels come down with fluffy feathers. And He fell and he took Him up through to God the Father. And oh... And he said, "What about this, Billy?"
I said, "Now, wait a minute. I never wrote that article. I don't have nothing to do with it."
He said, "I see you got away from the good old fundamental Scripture."
I said, "No, sir, I'm right with it."
He said, "Billy, do you mean to tell me that you think that them Pentecostal people has something different from us Baptist?"
I said, "No, they just have more of what you got a little of. See?" I said, "That's what it is; they just have more of it."
L-66 Here not long ago I was up... Doctor Aegery, may be setting here tonight. Dean of the Bethany College, a Lutheran college. He wrote me a letter and if he didn't bawl me out. He said, "I drove fifteen miles through a blinding snowstorm to hear a servant of God and what did I find but a polished up soothsayer." He said... And oh, he just tore me all to pieces, said, "A man that speaks to the people that you do, and the rottenest theology I ever heard in my life."
He said, "You said that Satan don't heal." Said, "Now, we got a woman in our community out there that's got a--a--a familiar spirit. She has a big apron on; she has people come drop money in there, and then she'll take and pull some of her hair out, and cut their veins, and she'll put the hair and blood together, and walk down to the stream behind her, throw it over her back. She starts walking to the people, if she's constrained to look around, the disease goes back to the people. If it doesn't, it's cast away." And said, "We watch, about twenty percent of those people are healed. And then you stand up in the pulpit and say that Satan can't heal."
Well, I... He wouldn't call me brother. He said, "I was preaching before you was born." And just... Oh, he just really raked me over the coals. I thought, "Well, okay that's all right. I appreciate that."
L-67 So I thought, "With twenty-two pages I ought to answer him at least one page back to show him my fellowship." So I got me a--a little book, and I set down, and I said, "Dear Brother in Christ," I said, "Christian greetings to you." If a man's preached that long, he deserves to be respected, if he's preached the Gospel, even if he's in error. I said, "The first thing I want to say; I forgive you for what you said. Now, Jesus said, People come to see Him and perform the same things that you seen done, going out and perceiving the thoughts of the people and telling them what was and what would be, and they called Him a Beelzebub, a fortuneteller, a devil. And Jesus said, 'I'll forgive you for that, but someday the Holy Ghost is coming to do it and you speak against that, it'll never be forgiven you, so then--in this world neither in the world to come.'" I said, "What if this was right, then where is your fifty years of preaching gone? See? What good did it do you? You're lost and can never be saved." I said, "But I wont through ignorance you said it." So just kind of pinch him a little bit to let him know that we wasn't in the dark. [Matthew 12:32]
L-68 So then, he said... And I said, "But the idea of it is, what I'm studying about, my brother," I said, "what gets me, is for you to say that Satan can heal." I said, "Jesus Christ said, 'If Satan can cast out Satan, then his kingdom is divided against itself.' That's right. Jesus said he could not heal, now you said he can, and Jesus said he could not. Then who's right? He said, 'Let every man's word be a lie and Mine be true.'" I said, "Therefore then Jesus is right and I accept His Word, my brother." And I said, "But howbeit," I said, "certainly, I can see where the healing comes." I said, "We got people in the land today, called Divine healers, go around say, 'Glory, I got healing in my hands, whew, feel it?'" No, you don't, you feel the hand, not healing. Jesus never did say, "Did you feel it?" Said, "Did you believe it?" That's right. Not, "Did you feel it." All these sensations and all things, brother, it's something mythical made up. It's not God's Word. "He that believeth..." That's where it's at. It's faith in the finished work. Christ died and healed you at Calvary. He saved you there. You've got to accept it by faith like the rest of us does. Right. You believe it.
You don't have to stay there and beat and cry all night, you could cry till you got gray headed and laid on the altar and died. Until you accept that Blood sacrifice that God gave to you, you're lost. I don't care how you feel. I don't go by how I feel; I feel a lot of times like I'm way behind. But the Bible said I've met God's requirements. [Matthew 12:22]
L-69 Jesus defeated the devil on the Word. He said, "If thou be the Son of God command these stones to be turned to bread."
Said, "It is written: man shall not live by bread alone." He defeated him with the Word of God, and that's how we defeat him, is by the Word of God, THUS SAITH THE LORD. Correct. Say it's a soothsayer then, why did God say, "If there be one among you spiritual or prophet, when he speaks and then what he says comes to pass, hear him 'cause I'm with him." How do all these Scriptures bring right down to this last day?"
See, they just don't understand. See, they just can't understand. It's a revelation of God through His Word. They come... They didn't believe Him when He come. They don't believe the church today when it's coming into, or existence. They don't--they don't believe it because it don't cope with their theology. But it copes with the Word. God confirming His Word with signs following, that's the vindication, if He says this and it comes to pass. If we preach the baptism of the Holy Ghost and somebody gets it, that proves it's right. [Matthew 4:4], [Luke 4:4]
L-70 Now, notice, and Doctor Aegery when I talked to him I said--wrote this letter. I said, "Sure, I've been in Africa and seen them get healed by a mud idol." I said, "I've been over at Alsace Lorraine in France, and see them people go up there to that woman, some dead woman, and see them get healed. Why? Because they believe they're approaching God through that idol. See? And God has placed Divine healing on the basis of your faith." That's the reason He didn't separate these turtledoves and things. See? "It's upon your faith, if you believe it. And them people think they're approaching God. These Americans think they are approaching God through a Divine healer. The African think he's approaching it through his witch doctor. That witch up there behind your house, and them people think they are approaching God. And God recognizes their faith. That's all." But I said, "They'll answer for it the day of judgment, for such as that." But I said, "What alarmed me as a Lutheran Dean to base his theology upon a experience in the stead of the Word of God."...?... Thought I'd let him know we wasn't dummies anyhow. See? How would he base his experience upon the Wo... How would he base his teaching upon an experience some woman done something or another, instead of what God said. God said Satan can't heal, and that settles it for me. That's right.
L-71 You know what? He asked me out. He said, "Brother Branham..." Now, we went out there, and we had just about as many as here, for dinner, all the student body was in. He said, "Now, Brother Branham," he said, "I--I want to ask you something." Said, "I didn't mean what I said." But said, "We're hungering and thirsting here for God."
I said, "That's good; that's fine, Doctor."
And he said, "Here's what we want." And if you all want to write him about it, just write to Doctor Aegery at the--at the... I was trying to think of that... Minne--Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bethany College. And so he... And just write and ask him. And he said, "Well, we're thirsting for God here." Said, "We want God." And he said, "We read about the Pentecostals," and he said, "what do you think about them? Now, you was a Baptist."
I said, "Yes, sir, I was." I said, "I'm a Pentecostal Baptist now." And he said... I said, "I'm a Baptist that's got the Pentecostal experience. See," I said, "Pentecost, Doctor, is not an organization. You can't organize Pentecost; it's an experience (See?) for Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, and everybody; it's an experience. It's not just down to... The Assemblies isn't the only ones got the Holy Ghost. The Oneness isn't the only one that's got the Holy Ghost, the Four Square. It's whosoever will, let him come. That's it." He liked that. And I said, "That's the way it is."
L-72 And he said, "Well, I want to ask you something." Said, "I've seen them kick over the chairs, and knock out the window lights, and fall on the floor."
I said, "Yes, sir."
Said, "What is that?"
I said, "The Holy Ghost."
He said, "The Holy Ghost?"
I said, "Yeah, they're blowing their steam all out the whistle instead of putting it together and making the wheels roll. See, the--they just don't know how to..." See, if you'd ever get them to stop down to a place and put some of that--some of that power in the steam in the valves to make it push the cart and have signs, wonders, and miracles, and great fire on soul like that, moving on, it'd do something." See? I said, "But they blow it all out the whistle, and that just all there is to it." I said, "It's good enough that they got--show they got steam anyhow."
L-73 And so he said, "Well, what do you think we Lutherans has got?" I thought, "Oh, oh. O Lord, You--You help me here." And the Lord gave me something. 'Cause they got about thousands of acres there of corn and stuff that they--that they raise. The student body, if they can't pay their way through school, then they can work their way through on the farm. So they--they had this big corn crops in out there, and I said, "Doctor Aegery, one morning there was a man who had disked up his field and had a nice big fine field of corn. And he planted corn in there and every morning he'd go look for the corn. Finally one morning he went and seen two little blades." Anybody ever raised corn, that's how it comes up. "And the man said, 'Praise God for my crop of corn.'" I said, "Now, did he have a crop of corn?"
He said, "No."
I said, "But potentially he did. See? Potentially he did." I said, "That was you Lutherans in the first reformation." I said, "Finally that growed on and on, till a tassel come out on it. And that was the Methodists. And the Methodists looked back down to you Lutherans, said, 'You all haven't got anything. We believe in sanctifications; you all just believe in justification. See, you're not even in it.'"
L-74 "But wait, the first thing you know, that--that--that tassel is the pollen, it had to use the leaf again. So the pollen dropped off into the--into the leaf, and it brought forth a Pentecostal church." I said, "It--it the original grain, like went in the ground. The grain come out." I said, "We got a lot of fungus on the ear, but still there is some grains there too." I said, "That--that's right." I said, "They--we got a lot of fungus on it; I'll admit that." But I said, "It was original grain that went in." And I said, "Then you know what the ear said? Said, 'You old Lutheran, and you old Methodist, not even in it at all.'" But I said, "After all, the same life that was in the blades made the tassel, and then the blades and tassel made the ear." I said, "Only thing the Pentecostal church is, is an advanced Lutheran church (Amen.): same life, but more of it. That's what's the matter tonight, brother. Don't try to go back down to the root again, be a life, advance; move on up. That's what I said to my Baptist brother.
L-75 He said--he said, "Brother Branham, Abraham believed the Lord and that was imputed unto for righteousness."
I said, "That's exactly."
Said, "Brother Branham, I want to ask you one question." This fellow was a doctor and me a dummy. So he said, "I want to ask you one question." He said, "What could a man do but believe; that's all he could do."
I said, "That's right."
He said, "Then if we believe God, we have received the Holy Ghost when we believe."
I said, "No, that won't cope with Paul's teaching." I said, "Paul said in Galatians 1:8, 'If an angel taught anything else let him be accursed.' Paul said to them, Acts 19, he said, 'Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?' Not when you believed, but since you believed. We said that, 'We don't know whether there be any Holy Ghost.' He said, 'Then how was you baptized?' Said, 'Under John.' Said, 'He only baptized unto repentance saying that you believed on Him that was come, not for remission of sins.' When they heard this they were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, and Paul laid his hands on them, and the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied."
"Well," he said, "what about it?"
I said, "Look, if you say you got faith in God and He's never... See, Abraham believed God and then God give him circumcision as a sign or a confirmation that He had accepted his faith." Then I said, "If He's never give you the baptism of the Holy Ghost yet, He's never give you the confirmation (Amen.), that you're Abraham's seed." [James 2:23], [Acts 19:2-6]
L-76 And how are we sealed into the Kingdom of God? Ephesians 4:30 says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed until the day of your redemption." Amen. All bridges burnt behind you. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed (You're Abraham's seed.), until the day of your redemption." Oh, how I love that, God, giving confirmation of a sign that He had received his faith.
And what He'd say about how He would continue this faith of the seed? He tore Christ apart, took His body up and set it up there as a bloody sacrifice, setting at the right hand of God, making intercessions upon our confession: a High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity, same yesterday, today, and forever. And His Spirit was upon Him is back in the church doing the same works that He did, carrying on the same thing, shaping up the church for that Headstone to come on it someday. Hallelujah. [Ephesians 4:30]
L-77 Oh, I feel religious. Your going to call me holy-roller anyhow, so you might as well get started. Here it is up there. When I see the one perfect Man setting yonder, Governor and Ruler and God over all, the Top of the building, setting yonder in that pyramid, that great majes--great power, great God, coming down out of heaven, setting, moving Hisself right down among these stones setting there. And when Luther just had so much faith, Wesley just had so much, Pentecost just had so much, but He's binding those stones together where they fit stone by stone. Hallelujah. I see it in the making: God confirming by the Holy Spirit of God moving in the church and doing the same works and life that Jesus lived.
L-78 If it's a peach tree, it'll bring forth peaches. If it's a apple tree, it'll bring forth apples. I don't care how the outside looks; it shows the life on the inside of it, is what brings the fruit of it. You get a grapevine, you put pumpkin life into it, it'll bring forth pumpkins. And you change it right back and take a pumpkin vine and put grape life in it, it'll bring forth grapes. Whatever life is in, I don't care what title it's got, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, whatever it is... Take pumpkin life and it into a grapevine, it'll bring pumpkins. If this is a Pentecostal church, you got old pumpkin life into it, get it out and you have a vaccination come back. Amen. I see you got trees up here will bring about nine kinds of different citrus fruit, seen them over in Arizona the other day. There's an orange tree had lemons and all kinds of citrus fruit, grapefruit. That's the way it is.
Jesus said, "I am the Vine; and you're the branches." That's right. And if the first branch... Now, remember, the vine does not bear fruit; it's the branch that bears the fruit. Now, if that first branch come forth and produced a Pentecostal church, they wrote a book of Acts behind it, if that branch ever brings forth another one, it'll be the same kind of a Pentecostal church, have the same signs and same wonders. [John 15:5]
L-79 Now, but you say, "What about these others?" They're grafted. "What about Methodists? What about Baptists? What about the called Pentecost?" Grafted vines. Don't bring the fruit. Why, they don't get themselves out here and colonize themselves, "We're so and so; we ain't going to nothing to do with you." That's not the life of Christ. He died to save His enemies, arms out, even prayed for them. Spit hanging in His face, and prayed for them to be saved. Oh, yes. See?
But what is it? What was that--what--is that... What kind of a fruit does that grafted lemon bring in that orange tree? It don't bring oranges; it brings lemons. And that's what the church does. It brings forth Methodists; it brings forth Baptists; it brings forth Presbyterian. But if that vine itself puts forth a branch, it brings forth oranges. It's original coming out of... But the churches thrive and live and have the favor and life through Christ that's been grafted in there. But the real tree itself is the Holy Spirit that brings forth a borned again man, a borned again woman, a power of the resurrection living in them. See? Amen.
L-80 He confirmed it, showed him what He would do, how He would tear His own Son. Spared his son over here in Genesis--in Genesis 22:14. We find that He spared his son there, showing him what He would do. Cross on His back... We get it tomorrow night, as He goes up Calvary; don't miss it.
Now, notice, now we're going to get one more statement here. I see I got about three minutes. Now, in the 17th chapter, let's get this; this is beautiful. Watch. Three times He made mention of the confirmation of the covenant. Genesis 13:14, when he separated himself, obeyed, then He told him, I'll make you ye like the sands of the--of the seaside. Then Genesis 15 here, like the stars of heaven. Genesis 17:1, He appeared to him after the great trial, where Sarah had went off of the line. God would've slew Sarah. Oh, here's a beautiful thing. When he doubted...
When Sarah doubted God, God would've got rid of her, but He couldn't do it. Why? She's part of Abraham. That's the reason when we do wrong, God would slay us. I could never come here and preach a revival, no other preacher couldn't; you'd never have a revival. You'd be cut off forever, but He can't do it. He cuts His own Son off if He does. See? For the wife is a part of the husband. They're no longer twain; they're one. So He couldn't have hurt Sarah without hurting Abraham. So He had to take Sarah in. That's the way God does to us. Our sins, He'd depart from us a long ago, but we're in Christ. Amen. See, so He--He forgives us of our sins. Sarah, all of her mistakes...
L-81 And after Abraham had come through that big test and had this son, of Ishmael, which was absolutely... God told him to listen to Sarah. But he brought forth this son, after that great test. Then He met him and--and the 17th chapter of Genesis, mark it down and read it when you get home. Haven't got time to strike it but just a moment. He appeared to him in the Name of Almighty God. "Almighty" comes from the Hebrew word of El Shaddai. Shaddai, "Shad" means "a woman's breast." Shaddai is a plural, two. Then He appeared to him, "I am the breasted God." Oh, what a consolation to an old man. "How am I going to have this baby, Lord? I'm a hundred years old." He was ninety and nine. So he said, "How me, an old man and my woman here that You told me that's going to have the baby by, she's ninety and I--or eighty-nine, she'd be, and I'm ninety and nine. How could..."
"But I am the breasted One," both New and Old Testament. "I was wounded for your transgressions; with My stripes you were healed." Oh, the breasted One... What is the breast for? For the fretting baby. You take the little baby that's sick and fretting, the mother picks it up, puts it upon her bosom. It nurses the mother's strength, nursing itself back to health. [Isaiah 53:5]
L-82 Now, if we've all crippled up with sin and got out in the Hollywood fashions, why not just come up to El Shaddai? How many'd like to see a real Holy Ghost filled church here, just power of God? Sure. Well, what do we do? We... El Shaddai, the breasted One. If you want salvation, lean on His breast and nourish your spiritual strength out of His Word. Here's His Breast, both New and Old Testament. Set down, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever." The same milk. It comes from one mother's breast, is from the other one, just exactly. But it's just two different phases of it. "He was wounded..." If you're sick, why not just hold on to His breast of promise. "I was wounded for your transgression; with My stripes you were healed." What do you have need of tonight? Just lean upon His breast.
And another thing, did you notice, He... The El means "the strong one." Shaddai, the--the sufficient One, the life giver. The almighty, strong One. "Abraham, you're a hundred years old, old and weak. But I am your Strength." That... [Hebrews 13:8], [Isaiah 53:5]
L-83 The little baby when it's nursing, not only... But it's a satisfier. See? The baby on its mother's breast is satisfied. It can be screaming, his little belly hurting, and kicking, and it's little strength is all gone, but he will lay right up on his little mother's breast like that and quit crying. Nurse, go ahead, it'll be all right. Why? Because it's satisfies.
And when I can show you in this Bible that He forgives all of our iniquity (O God), heals all of our diseases, let me just take hold of that promise and say, "Father God, I'm weak; I need You. I know You keep Your Word. You're El Shaddai. I'm believing You, Lord. Fill me with Your Spirit. Wash me in Your Blood. Take me back, O Lord, and try me. Let me lean against the bosom. I am Your child; I was born to You but I got weak, but You're my strength Giver. You promised You would do it, and I'm just going to hold right here, Lord, and I'm going to be satisfied that You'll fill me with Your Spirit, wash me in Your Blood, take away all of my condemnation, heal my body and make me well." What a promise it is to confirm His promise to Abraham, "I'm El Shaddai."
"Well Brother Branham, I'm a--I'm a prostitute. I'm a--I'm a drunkard. I'm a--I'm an alcoholic. I'm all these oth..." I don't care what you are. Come right up to El Shaddai. If your strength and all hopes is gone, the Alcohol Anonymous has given you up, the doctor's given you up, there's nothing can be done for you, He's El Shaddai, the strong One. Lean upon His bosom and just nurse and be satisfied. He will bring it to pass. Won't you love Him?
I love Him, (Why wouldn't I?) I love Him
Because He first loved me
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
Let's bow our head now while we sing quietly.
I love Him, (Real quiet and reverent) I love Him (Now, let the Holy Spirit speak to you.)
Because (That's it.) He... (Do you know He invited you? If you're fretting, and don't know just where you stand, you say, "I belong to church.")
And... (Don't know what denomination you belong to, won't you just come to El Shaddai now? "I've sought the Holy Ghost a long time, Brother Branham. But tonight I'm coming.")
On...
L-84 Would you raise your hand and say, "Pray for me Brother Branham, I'm coming." God bless you, son, God bless you, sister, God bless you, sir. God bless you, brother.
I love Him, I love Him,
Because...
Now, this is not a fiction story, this is true. The Holy Spirit's here. Are you a sinner and would want God to save you tonight? Raise your hand and say, "Pray for me."
He purchased... (God bless you, brother.) sal... (You couldn't raise your hand unless He... "No one can come to Me, except My Father draws him.")
Calvary's tree.
Let's hum it. Now, while you're humming it, I want you to turn around, shake hands with somebody by you and say, "Pray for me, brother, or sister," whoever you shake hands. Somebody setting next to you, say, "Pray for me." Real quietly now.
Because He... (That's it, sweetly, you Methodists, Baptist, all of you together. "Pray for me, brother, pray for me.")
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
[John 6:44]
L-85 [Brother Branham begins humming--Ed.] Now, pray. You said you'd pray for the next fellow, now pray for him. "Lord, let me meet that man I shook hands with, or that woman, let me meet them in glory, Lord. If their soul's not right, make it right, Lord. He's setting here by me tonight; she's setting here. She's praying for me, or he's praying for me. Help me, Lord, help me."
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
L-86 Now, while you're praying, asking God, if you're sick, why don't you put your hand over on somebody setting by you and pray for them. Let them... Don't you... Now, you pray for them; they'll be praying for you. Put your hand over on one another now. Now, you've confess that you was wanted the Holy Ghost, you wanted salvation. Now, if you want healing, put your hands on one another. Jesus said, "These signs shall follow them that believe; if they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover." Won't you put your hands on one another if you're a believer, saying, "Lord, heal this woman setting by me. Heal this man. They're praying for me, Lord. I want them to pray for me so I put my hands on them." God answers your prayer. That's it. "Pray ye one for another. Confessing your faults one to the other, and pray one for the other, that you might be healed. For the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Heal them, Lord.
Pastor, come here and finish this prayer. While you're praying for one another, just keep praying, I'm going to ask the pastor to lead us in prayer. God bless you. [Mark 16:17-18], [James 5:16]

LWB is dedicated to all who are looking for the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ; to you we owe credit for the materials used herein."Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."[Heb 10:25]."So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase."[I Cor 3:7]
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