Lord, Show Us The Father And It Sufficeth Us

...........................believe

All things are possible, Lord, I believe.

Shall we bow our heads just a moment.

Our Heavenly Father, may that not only be from our lips, but may it be from the depths of our heart. Lord, I believe, and may today the Holy Spirit give us another baptism. May our earnestness and the best that we have to give to God be brought forward today.

We see this great nation of ours breaking to pieces. Sin is creeping in on every hand, but all in the midst of all of this, as our brother taught the other night in the message out of Thy Word, that also, the church is blooming out at the same time.

Now, God, we're happy to be on that side. Help us today now. Bless the congregation of people. Bless this people everywhere. And God, on the highways, we think of so many accidents and things going on, many being killed and things. God be merciful.

I pray that You will stay the hand of death on many people today, especially Thy people everywhere, Lord, and may sinners.... Something happen that'll bring them to reconciliation with God. Grant it for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Good evening, friends. Very happy to be here this evening, or this afternoon, rather. Down in Kentucky this is evening, you know, and I can't never get used to having dinner at supper time. I feel like I've lost a meal somewhere. It's always it's breakfast, and dinner and supper, and they try to tell me my dinner now is over at six o'clock. Now, when we going to eat supper, is what I want to know?

Some are said, “Oh, Brother Branham, you just don't have it right.”

I said, “Oh, yes. We do too. The Lord ... wasn't the Lord, He taken His supper. It was called 'supper.'” Is that right? That's right.

Oh, that's very nice. Thank you.

Brother Boze just told me that they lifted a—taken a missionary offering this afternoon. Well, I certainly appreciate that. There's one thing that you can't go wrong in, is giving to missionaries, for missionary. And I certainly appreciate that from the depths of my heart.

Is Mr. Joe Carroll, Joseph Carroll of Sydney, Australia, is he in the audience this afternoon? I seen him last night, and if would, if he would just raise up his hands somewhere, Joe Carroll of Sydney, Australia. Are you here, Brother Carroll? Stand up. I want you to meet the manager, Mr. Baxter, over in the left wing just now. If he's here.

I don't know. He was in the meeting last night. He is a very personal friend of mine. I suppose maybe he is not in the afternoon meeting.

Now, back to the missionary offering. We are greatly appreciative of that. We know that when you're doing missionary work, you're doing exactly what the Lord said. Is that right? For He said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,” and that's the general orders of Jesus Christ, and we know then that that's right. We can't go wrong when we're doing missionary work.

And now to ourselves ... That's what I'd do with all the money that I get a hold of outside of what I have to eat and maybe some time I see a little something that must be done, some poor woman without coal or something. I don't take that out of missionary. I take that out of my own because that's God's money, missionary is, and them things. I think that tithings, and such as that, we should be very strict of what we do with that 'cause that's God's money.

And as soon as we get enough together to go overseas, then away we go. Used to be back when there was lots of money, well, we would go in a city, we'd take offerings maybe for two nights. Be there maybe seven or eight nights. Two nights we had enough to pay all the expense, so we didn't take any more offering, and so we just let it go. And then maybe on the last night we'd have a love offering, and then if we happened to have some surplus left over, we would give it to different organizations such as charities and things like that.

We wouldn't get out of the town till they'd be calling us “holy-rollers” and “divine healers.” And I give it to a certain organization a group of money one time, just turned it over to them, hundreds and hundreds of dollars, that was taken up in a great meeting I was in, and here was a representative coming down the street driving a Cadillac car a diamond stud ring on, probably cost maybe a thousand dollars or more, smoking a great, big cigar like that getting about five hundred dollars a week for distributing the money. That's not right. No, sir.

These people.... I thought, “God....” Then I'd.... It's just strange we Christian people are not organized like we ought to be. I mean in a brotherhood.

I walked into a restaurant here in your city the other night and got the worst bawling out I ever got in my life because the people of this church was coming eating in that restaurant. That's right. Yes, sir. Guy said, “We don't want them in here.”

I said, “Well, sir. I....”

He said, “What kind of a group are you, anyhow?”

And I said, “Well, we're Christians.”

He said, “You never even told me nothing about you coming. How do I know you were coming around here?” Said, “Looked like you ought to have some system to that.”

I said, “Well, we're not going around over town telling restaurants what to do.” I said, “The people just come in, sir, and they want to eat.”

He said, “Well,” he didn't care for them coming in there at all.

I said, “Well, of course, I said, ”You must have plenty of business.“

Well, it's just too bad. Well, we just have to put up with ... Our day's coming. That's right. Our day.... This is the day of man. The day of the Lord will come. That's right.

I stood one time to watch the late President Roosevelt when he came into a little city of ours, New Albany, Indiana. I was working out there on high lines as a lineman.

I came down, and I thought.... Well, they told us we could go down and hear him. He was going to make just a little whistle-stop like when he came through the city. And oh, how everybody gathered out. Well, time us workmen got there, well, I had to get on top of a shed way back up here to even see the man walk out.

I thought, “Well, that's all right you see as everything was fine.” I thought, “You know what? Just the officials of the town and so forth was up there close to the back of the train where they could see the President and talk to him.” I thought, “But you know when Jesus comes, I will be one of the officials will be sitting....” Amen. So I thought, “That'll be wonderful, when we see Jesus.”

And recently Mr. Baxter, here he's strictly a ... He's gone now, I suppose, so I will talk about him. He is a real ... Got that British dignity, you know. And so when the king, you know, the late king, the one I prayed for, that was healed with multiple sclerosis ... thrombosis, rather. And when he was in Canada coming down—Brother Baxter's a Canadian, you know, and coming down the street the king in the parade. And his queen there you know and her beautiful dress on, how that Brother Baxter stood there. And when he was standing at attention when the king was passing like that, noticing the tears just running off his cheeks like that just as fast as they could. Why? His king was passing.

I thought, “Oh, hallelujah. Someday our King is going to pass by too.” You talk about a time, we're going to have it then. Yes, sir. I want to be right along by His side, don't you? And you remember, it's His Bride with Him. That's what it is.

Well, the Lord bless you. And thanks to you a million times all the kindness. Now, I wouldn't have time just to speak out because many of you sent little gifts to us and things by my boy, and by Brother Baxter, and Brother Boze. And little boxes of cookies, and so forth, and a little basket of peaches and even some tomatoes. I just eat as much as I could and just having a wonderful.... And you know what? In the depths of my heart it just makes me feel so good. I just appreciate that. It certainly does.

And a little girl sent the.... A little girl that was blind had just got sight in her eye here at the tabernacle and she made a.... Must have been a little picture about like that and gave it to me. Well, as long as I can take care of it, I'll have it. That's right.

And I always remember those things and going sometimes when I get real tired, I go down in my den room, a place down in the basement, 'cause we usually have the house full of people, all the time just coming and going, you know. So I get down there for a little while, and I get real melancholy sometime.

I sit and I look. Yes, I remember that poor old Swede that give me that. I remember that Norwegian that gave me that, you see. Remember that little girl, and that little boy, and this woman that had that baby that was healed. Oh, my! Then, oh, my, I'm ready to go back up and start praying for the sick again then. I believe we take new courage, don't you think so? And just little things like that.

Way in Africa, a little old stick, a guy was packing in his hand about like that long. He gave it to me. I got it. I kept it and brought over home. A little stick.... A kind of little knobkerrie, or something another they call it, and he packed it in his hand.

And down in Japan, a little pair of shoes about like that. I couldn't get my toe in them, hardly, little bitty thing. And just knives, and just things like that that someone give you, you know.

Oh, it's a treasure to my heart because it represents the heart of somebody else, you know. And many times when we take pictures in the meeting when I go back up into the mountains alone, by myself, well then I go back up there and pray. And when I'm up there I take sometimes these pictures with me.

Pray for the different ones in the meetings.

So all these things God has just got children all over the world, and you know the bad part of this is all about? When I come in, I say.... Oh, I look at this fellow I see he has been coming a lot to the church, and I meet this man here. Then first thing you know I have to say, “Well, goodbye. I hope to see you again,” and then when we start to leave, it just look like....

I just stayed here long enough till it looks like I just got used to these people here in Chicago, and now if I'd have to leave, why, it looks like leaving home again. But one of these days—one of these days, we're going to meet where we'll never part again. That's right. We're going to meet where we will never say good-bye and never part again.

I remember the last time, my little boy back there on his mother when I was standing by her side, the Angels of God taken her away. The last time that I kissed her, she said, “Bill, I'll be standing at the east side of the gate.”

I said, “When Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all of them was coming in,” I said, “just start screaming my name, I'll find you.” I said, “I'll get the children together and we'll get there.”

Well, I made appointments like that across the world with people. I want to live right that when that day comes, why I know there is a great dark chamber sitting yonder in front of me like there is in everyone else. Every time your heart beats you're one beat closer to that chamber. It's called death and every one of us is headed that way.

But I want to say as Saint Paul of old, “I want to know Him in the power of His resurrection that when He calls my name, I want to be called out from among the dead to live with Him forever and with all of His people.”

Now, I didn't know I was going to speak this afternoon. Brother Baxter just called me, awhile ago, and said, “Brother Branham, we want you to come over and speak awhile this afternoon.”

I said, “Oh, my! Didn't they get enough of that the other day?”

Now, I was thinking of something here that I was going to speak of back in Moses. But I would.... How many thinks that back in Moses, where God said to him, “What's that in your hand?” See? He said, “It's a stick,” and God used him.

But I believe now sitting and looking at this crowd, the Holy Spirit seems to me to turn over here to another place just now, and we'll just read just a little bit out of Saint John, and you pray for me, and I want to just talk to you a short time.

I know you're sitting here, and it's your vacation time, and you're sacrificing your times of being out somewhere else to come in church, that shows where your heart is. That's right. That shows what you are. So let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, now, we commit all things to You. This lovely group of people sitting in here this afternoon. We're here. There are white, colored, yellow, brown, all different nationalities of Irish, Jew, Mexican and Anglo-Saxon, everything. We're all here together, grouped together all filled with the Spirit waiting for the consolation of the Church, the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It might happen today. What a glorious hour for it to take place. And Father, I pray that our hearts will be moved as we think of that. For You said when the signs that we see appearing now, “to lift up our heads our redemption is drawing nigh.” And I just pray, God, that You will bless the church, Brother Boze, the Philadelphian Church that's sponsoring the meeting here.

God, we pray that You will give them the exceedingly abundantly and bless this tabernacle, Lord. This great place here where many of Your servants that's under Your altar today there with You; has preached in this same pulpit that wonderful great evangelist, Billy Sunday, and Paul Rader and many of the others who has done crossed over the Jordan.

Father, we pray that You will send the power that was upon them that brought conviction to the sinner, send Him this afternoon. The same Holy Spirit still lives and reigns watching over the work. “I, the Lord, have planted it. I will water it day and night lest some should pluck it from My hand.”

Grant it, Father.

Bless the pastor here. Bless all the elders, the deacons and whatever, bless them together and the laity, bless them. Forgive us of our sins and bless every church that's represented, every organization and body for we're not divided we're all one in Christ.

Now, help Your humble servant this afternoon, Lord, not knowing what to say but believing that You will supply those things, I commit myself to You with this church that you circumcise my lips, to speak the right thing, and the hearts of the people to receive it, and may the Holy Spirit take the Word of God and give it to each heart as we have need. For we ask it in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

In the 14th chapter of Saint John which is a very familiar place that people read everywhere. Many people, that's their favorite chapter. I guess if I'd ask this afternoon how many that's your favorite chapter, there'd be many, many hands go up in the building. Just how many is it? I seen some of you raise your hands, 14th chapter of Saint John. See? It's one of their favorite chapters of the Bible. It's a very consoling chapter.

Now, I wish to read first seven or eight verses of it and then the Lord willing, we'll speak just a little while on it.

And now, I want to announce tonight is the closing night. Now, there'll be great anticipation tonight. You'll probably see more of the works of the Lord did tonight than any other night. It's always that way in the meeting 'cause people.... If they're going to believe, they got to do right now. That's all. It's got to be right now or not at all, and that's when you usually see the greatest meeting is on the last night.

Now, we read from Saint John 14 these verses:

Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it was not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place ... I will come again, to receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

And where I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not where thou goest; and how can we know the way?

Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.

If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.

And may the Lord add His blessings to those words.

I want to take that last verse for a text. How many in here believes that God is. Let's see. How many in here would like to see God? I just like to.... Well, if I can show Him to you, would it make you happy? All right. Now, God help me to do it.

Now, I was disadvantaged. Many people has asked me about the picture of the Angel of the Lord. How many in here never have seen it? Let's see your hands. Never has seen the picture that was taken. There's a group of you here that never has seen it. We have it, but I just didn't think of bringing them this time.

Now, it was scientifically taken in the.... It's not my picture. It belongs to the American Photographer Association, and we were very thankful that the Lord would come and have His picture taken with us.

It was at a meeting and a discussion down.... A Baptist minister said there was no such a thing as divine healing, the days of miracles was passed and come over to debate the thing and you know the story how it went. And the Angel came.

I said, “I cannot be a healer, sir. No more than you can be a saviour, but I said, ”God never testifies of a lie. He testifies of truth. And if I testify of truth, God will testify of me.“

I no more than said that and something went “Whooooo,” and here He come, right coming down. And here It was right above me like this, the Angel of the Lord standing there. Thirty thousand people looking at it. They shot the picture of it and the association took the picture, they said, “It can't be psychology.”

And went and looked at it. Put it in the acid and tested it. The man had a heart attack that tested the picture they took it to George J. Lacy, the head of the FBI. He examined it for four days and declared it to be a supernatural Being that struck the lens. See. Right at the time...

Don't ever worry. If God sends you, you just go ahead. See? God will take care of all the rest of it. Isn't that wonderful? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All other things will be added.” Just don't have to worry. God has everything.

Now, in speaking on Saint John 14, we want to look at God and see if we can see God. Now, that's been the age-old question for years: if I could only see God.

Now, we're going to look at Him this afternoon and see Him, in about.... We will have time maybe for about three or four ways to look at God. Then see if we can see God here right in the building. See? All right.

Let's take God in His universe, God in His Word, God in His Son and then bring God down in His people, and see if He isn't here in His people too.

Now, the first thing we want to think of is how that everybody has always longed to see God. Job wanted to see Him one time. He said, “Oh, that if I only knew.... In other words, ”where He lived at. I could go knock on His door and He would let me in.“

And then God told Job, He said “Gird up your loins,” for He was going to speak to Him, and God came down in a whirlwind, and He spoke to Job. And I like that part there. He said, “Where was you when I laid the foundations of the world?”

My! Job begin to think he was a great guy, and you know the best way to go up is go down. Is that right? And you hear people that's always, you know, self bragging and so forth about “our big church.”

You remember, brother. Look in a wheat field. A heavy head, a full head always bows. Is that right? A full head of wheat bows. It's that stands up that shakes around and it's just a blister; hasn't got nothing in it.

Job begin to think that way. He was some great person, and God said, “Now, where was you when I laid the foundations of the world? Where are the ends fastened to? Declare unto Me.” And he girded up his loins, and God come down and talked to him in a whirlwind.

But Job's heart was hungry to see God. Oh, how he longed to see Him. And every being longs to see Him.

Not long ago there was a fine Presbyterian preacher was speaking to me on the West Coast. He said, “Reverend Branham,” he said, “cults like yourself.”

Said, “Yes, sir.”

He said, “Coming through with this here divine healing and stuff like that.” Said, “We once was the strongest church up and down the West Coast,” and said, “You know what broke up our churches?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “What broke up our churches was this: was Christian Science.” Said, “They come....”

I said, “Just exactly.” I said, “The people every man is a supernatural being. He is hungering and thirsting for something, and if you won't give him the right thing to eat, if he is hungry he'll eat from a garbage can.” That's right.

If you Presbyterians would have preached the full Gospel and told them the truth, there wouldn't have been no Christian Science nor none of the rest of the cults. If the church just lets down, that's what does these things.

I ain't saying nothing against Christian Science. I ain't saying nothing against nobody's church. I'm saying what we need today is a good old-fashioned Gospel laid out with the whole full Gospel laid out to the people. That's exactly. Under no auspices of this church or that church. Just the Gospel preached in its plain simplicity and Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.”

Now, speaking of this great patriarch, Job, how he wanted to see God and I think of him, a great man that he was. He was a great man, and all the princes of the east when he would go into the city, they would bow before him like that.

And then Satan said one day, “I'm going to show You that I can make him curse You to Your face,” and how that he did everything but that. He cursed the day he was born. He said, “May the stars not shine at night, nor the sun in the daytime, but he didn't curse God.

So I see him broke in boils sitting out on the ash heap. Oh, I preached on that one time for about three weeks and there was about several letters come in said, “Say, Brother Branham, when are you going to get Job off the ash heap?

I keeping him on that ash heap because it was the hour of his decision. That was just the time, the crucial moment. Sitting out there, scraping his boils and what miserable sight. Lost his children, lost his health. He lost his property, his camels. Everything he had was gone, and there he was sitting there, poverty-stricken, scraping the boils with a piece of crock or something. He was scraping his boils with.

And his wife even turned kind of against him. She come to the door, and said “Job, why, don't you curse God and die.” Said in other words, “You look so miserable.”

I like this. Job said, “Thou speakest like a foolish woman.” Now he never said she was foolish, but she spoke like one, see. Said, “Thou speakest like a foolish woman. The Lord gave and the Lord taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Oh, that's the way I like to see it. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

He had seen God. God came down in a whirlwind and talked to him. You see? And he knew God was and I like this part too. My! Then down from the east came this little prince Elihu. If we had time to get that name out “Elila Yaweh,” so forth, which is God representative meaning Jesus Christ. He came to Job and corrected him for what he had said.

He said, “Don't despise my youth, now.” But he said, “You're accusing God of something that's not right.” So then he begin to get Job straightened out, and he didn't accuse Job like his church members.

Now, he had a bunch of church members come, and sit with their backs turned to him for seven days. What a conciliation. Accusing him of being a secret sinner, but Job knowed he hadn't sinned. You know what's in your heart. Everybody does.

And while he was sitting there with his back turned, their back turned like that, Job in his misery, but this little fellow didn't try to accuse him. He didn't accuse him of being a secret sinner but he said....

He tried to tell him about someone who was coming that would stand in the breach and would bridge the way. I often thought in Job 14 there, how that God speaking to him concerning the flowers, and everything. How Job watched. He said, “There's hope in a tree if it dies, it will live again.”

Did you ever notice? That's where.... My first Bible was in nature and God does dwell in His universe, in His nature. You take you women around here and your flowers in the yard now. After awhile in about another month, the frost will hit the little fellows. Oh, some of them will be young, just coming up, and some old, and different ways, but when the frost hits it, it's gone. It bows its little head and the petals drop off of it, the leaves drop off of it, the little seed goes out of it. Then they have a funeral procession. The skies just cry down the fall rains. Its just tears drop out of the skies and buries the little seed.

Along comes the cold winter, freezes, maybe four or five inches deep, and then the little old stalk is gone, the bulb's gone, the leaf's gone, the petal's gone, and the little old seed, little black seed in there is swelled up and bursted and pulp run out.

Now, everything's gone: bulb, seed, everything else is gone, but that's not the end of the flower. Just as sure as that warm sun begins to shine down, although the pulp is gone and everything else, there's a little germ of life laying there that no man has ever found and never will. That flower will live again. And if God made a way for a flower to live again, how much more has He made a way for a man to live again. Because he is made in God's image.

Oh, I think it's wonderful to watch God in His universe. How He moves, moves among nature and so forth.

Sitting not long ago talking to an old Methodist preacher, we was having some ice cream together and the Agricultural Hour come on.

They said, “Why, the little 4-H club here has perfected a machine that can turn out corn so perfect that you can't tell it from the grain of corn's growed in the field.” Said, “You can reach in a sack and get a handful that's growed out of the field, and one out of this machine, and mix them up, there's no way at all to tell them apart again. Take them down to the laboratory, cut them open, and probably the skin would look that thick. The same amount of moisture, potash and calcium and everything is in every grain just the same. It'll make just as good a corn bread, make just as good a corn flakes out of either sack. The only way you can tell a difference is bury them. Both of them will rot, but the one that man made is finished. The one that God made has a germ of life in it, and it lives again.”

I said, “Hold my hand, preacher. I'm going to embarrass you.” For there is a time when men.... You can take two men. Both of them look alike, both of them act like Christians, but one of them has got a germ of life which is the Holy Ghost. He will rise in the resurrection, the other one will lay there. That's right. Amen.

Looking see how God patterns it all around. The whole.... Over in India, and different things, they worship and say when we die, we become angels and fly away. God never did make me an angel, and I never will be an angel, and neither will you. He made me a man and I will always be a man. I will resurrect a man. Just exactly but we know that God works, and we can see the perfect pattern in the universe as He begins to raise things up like that.

And Job looking at that and seen that those things raised again, but he said, “Man layeth down. He giveth up the ghost. He wasteth away. Yea, where is he? His sons come to mourn, and he perceive it not.” Said, “Oh, if Thou would hide me in the grave and thou would keep me in the secret place till Thy wrath be passed.”

And when Elihu begin to get him straightened out, he begin to see that there was coming one, Elihu said, like this, “Now, Job.” I put it so the children will understand. “Now Job, you're watching that flower, and that tree. That flower or tree never did sin, but man sinned, see. And grain and stuff just perpetually comes, but man sinned, and that cut off his relation between him and God. There's no resurrection for him now. But, oh, I love it.

But there is coming One, a just One who will stand in the breach, put a hand on a sinful man and a holy God, and bridge the way, and there will come the resurrection.

Then Job being a prophet, he got in the right kind of a channel, the right groove, and he seen the vision of the Lord. And he stood upon his feet, and he gave a prophecy, and the lightnings begin to flash and the thunders roared. He said, “I know my Redeemer liveth,” yes, sir. “My Redeemer liveth and at the last days He will stand upon the earth. Though the skin worms destroys this body yet in my flesh shall I see God Whom I shall see for myself. Mine eyes shall behold and not another.”

Just as a grain of corn rotted and went away and raised up again, so will I. Now watch. “My redeemer liveth.” Continuation, not just live, just will die or it's a ... “My Redeemer liveth, and at the last days He will stand upon the earth at the end of the last two thousand years,” in other words, “He will stand upon the earth and though the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

Job was watching God in His universe. There's no man can look right in the face of a big beautiful calla lily unless he is bothered mentally and say, “There is no God.” For God lives in flowers. Don't you believe that?

Tell me how that that little seed goes in the ground. The same sun shines and here's two of them just exactly alike and one of them is white, and one of them is red, and the other one is blue, and something like that. How God does that, and hollyhock and different flowers how He makes those things.

He is God, and we can see it moving. How He moves in His great universe. Tell me how this world can stand up here and turn twen... a little better than twenty-five thousand miles an hour. It's twenty-five thousand miles around, and it turns every twenty-four hours it makes a complete circle, and you can time it by the stars, and everything, it never moves out of its place at all. It stays there perfectly. Yet hanging in the air.

Stood on that Mount Wilson or Palomar out there in that observatory, could look in that glass, and see a hundred and twenty million years of light space. How that moons, and stars, and worlds, and moons, and stars, and our Heavenly Father just blowed them off of the palm of His hand like that and said, “Let there be,” and it was.

Oh, I tell you when you go talking about God, and try to bottle Him down to somebody's idea. He is so ... As the little Christian song we used to sing when I was a pastor:

Jesus is so high you can't get over Him,

So deep you can't get under Him.

So wide you can't get around Him,

So just open up your heart and let Him in.

When you can't get over Him, or under Him, and around Him and yet your heart will hold him. What a wonderful thought. How wonderful He is.

But God in His universe how He governs the things, how He moves, his motions, and things, and everything obeys Him, everything. He can say to the star do this, and it will do it. Everything He speaks to.... Only one thing that won't obey Him and that's man. Man knows more about it than He does so, see he's got his own ideas, and so he won't listen to God, but if a man will just open his eyes and look around you can see God everywhere.

I remember not long ago being.... When I was a little boy, the first Bible I ever read was looking at nature. I could see how God moved, and how He done things, and I knew there was a God. I watched, one day my daddy and I were plowing corn, and a storm come up and I remember dad said.... Well, we didn't see the storm yet, but the horses begin to snort and go on. I said, “Dad, what's the matter?”

He said, “Son, there's a storm coming.”

I said, “A storm coming?” It was just as bright as it could be.

He said, “You know, son, there's something strange about it.” He said, “But horses has an instinct that they can tell just exactly where.... If there's storms coming,” said, “Almighty God has made a way for them that they can get to safety.”

“Well,” I thought, “well, that's marvelous.” And then we didn't plow two more rounds hardly until the lightning was flashing, and the storm coming up. Well, if God gave a horse knowledge enough how to get to safety, how much more He ought to give a church that's born again. Don't you think so? How God empowered that horse with instinct.

Here not long ago I was planting some butter beans, and how many knows what a groundhog is? You call it woodchuck, I guess. Down south we call him a groundhog. Little bitty fellow, and just as fast as I'd plant them butter beans that little fellow would eat them up. And I couldn't get nowhere. And I'd go out there, and there his little old tracks going right down, where he'd dug them every one up and went down. He lived in a little old sink hole out there. I didn't want to shoot the little old fellow so I thought I'd just have some fun out of him.

So I planted me another row of butter beans and I thought, “I'll fix you, young man.” And I got me a sack and painted a great, big, ugly picture on it, and I tried to make it ugly. And brother, I'm a long ways from being an artist, I tell you that.

I was trying to teach one night on a chart, and I drawed a picture of a dog, and nobody knowed what it was, and I had to write on top of it “This is a dog.” So they could tell.

So you can imagine what this picture looked like: great, big ears and everything. Now, I put some butter beans right in a sack and tied it on a stick and the winds was blowing. And I thought, “Boy, when he sees that, he'll run.” So I got me a ringside seat up there in the bushes, and I was watching this little fellow through my glasses, you know.

And the first thing you know, why he.... That's binoculars and he was right close to me with them binoculars. So then I seen the little fellow. He come out of this sink hole, you know, and he looked all around. He didn't see nobody, and right down the row.

He come to this sack, and he stopped. He looked at that sack, turned his little head sideways and raised up. He thought, “That ugly looking picture.” And he walked up a little closer and looked at it, and then backed off again. So then the first thing you know, the wind blew. Oh, my! He turned and looked back and he looked again. He walked up to it again. He looked, thought “There's butter beans behind that sack, you know.” So he thought, “Well, say.” He walked up to that sack and he smacked it with his paw, and it rattled, he jumped back. He smacked it again, it rattled. Went right on around behind it and started eating butter beans just as...

Well now, we ought to have as much sense as a groundhog. Don't you think so? Absolutely. Let me tell you. When you see old scarecrows standing out, remember it's a dinner bell. Right in behind the thing lays something good. Amen. When people say, “They're holy-rollers and they're this, that or the other.” Don't pay no.... We have got a bunch of fanatics, but brother, right behind there lays a real kernel of God. Amen. Right there the real power of the Holy Ghost, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yes, sir.

So the Devil puts a lot of old scarecrows out but just don't pay any attention to it. I was remarking one time. I was going down a road, I seen a bunch of crows or blackbirds, and they were just a-squawking and going on, I thought, “What's the matter?”

There was a man lived down there, and he really loved birds. He had a wild strawberry patch, and wouldn't let nobody bother it. He just kept that there for the birds. He went to Florida one year, and he didn't get back in time, and some fellow wanted to pick them berries. So he put a big old scarecrow out in the field like that.

Well, all these birds making it their habit of coming there every year, they come and found this patch and there was this big scarecrow in it. And some of them birds was sitting way up in the trees, some setting on the telegraph wires, some sat on the poles, and they was just a squawking and carrying on about this.

Well, I thought, “Isn't that amazing look at that?” But to my amazement right out in the middle of the patch, sitting right on the arm of that scarecrow sat two great, big crows just eating their belly full just as hard as they could.

I thought, “Well, isn't that something?” I said, “That's just exactly ... Well, I could preach a sermon on that.” I said, “That's right. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the good Man, has prepared all good things (that's right) for His church.” You believe that?

And some of them stand way back off, “I tell you now I don't believe in no such things as that. Look what they did. Um hum. Um hum.” Others come down on the telegraph wire, “Well, I could believe it, but my church wouldn't let me.” And the one sitting on the side here on the post saying, “Well, I tell you I believe the days of miracles is past but there's something another to it, I believe.”

But brother, there's no condemnation to them that's in the patch. I tell you that.

They were sitting right out there on that arm just eating as hard as they could go. They knowed it wasn't nothing but a scarecrow, and that's the way I think about old-fashioned Holy Ghost religion. Why, brother, I don't care how many fanatics there is on right or left hand. I stay right on Calvary's road just eating the powers of God, as He sends them out to me, and rejoicing having a big time. Amen.

Now, I begin to feel religious. Now, oh how marvelous. God working in His universe.

I love to hunt. Some time ago ... I go up here in the North woods sometime. Not so much to shoot the animal, but to go up there to rest. And I notice that up there on them lakes, the marshes up in Canada there; Brother Boze, you know where I'm talking about. There's always a bunch of ducks up there and they fly from the wintertime and go up there in the summer, early spring, and all them marshes along there, and lakes, they make their nest. They lay their eggs and they hatch out their little ones. Now, it's amazing thing about how God takes care of His animals. Don't you believe that? And God gave animals a way to do things.

Now, if you'll watch him, He is in His nature, in His universe. Now, look. These little old ducks you get up there and be ... I'd go sometimes early. The snow hasn't hit the top of the hills yet, but just the first morning that you wake up, and there's a snow on top of the mountain yonder. That cold wind lasts till September, the first of October, comes sweeping down through them valleys.

You'll hear something go. A little old drake there. He never left. He never was off that lake in his life. He was born right there that spring, little bitty fellow. He will run right out in the middle of that pond, like that, or that lake, he'll stick that little old honker up in the air and go, “Honk, honk, honk, honk!”

Every duck on the lake will come right to him. That's right. Why? They know that that duck is a leader. He has never been off the lake, but they know he's a leader. Oh, my! He will go to honking, “Honk, honk!” Ducks will come here. Here will come a bunch of them. They say, “Honk, honk!” Here they come this away coming this way, and it's amazing to watch them.

And they'll have a little puddle out there in the middle of this lake and that cold wind. They'll discuss the subject, I guess, about the cold wind coming down, and they'll raise right up off of that lake and go just as straight to Louisiana as they can go. And he has never been off that lake. Why? He has got a God-given instinct.

All the rest of the ducks knows that that is their leader and they have perfect confidence. If he goes this way, they go that way. If he goes this way, they go that way, and wherever he goes they...

But somehow or other he lands up in Louisiana, in the rice fields, escaping all the winter. Well, if a duck's got sense enough to escape the cold wave, what about a church that's born again.

The only thing of it is we don't know our leader. Hallelujah! Brother, God gave the Holy Ghost to the church, not organization. He gave the Holy Ghost to lead the church, and we've adopted organizations for it. Hallelujah! The Holy Ghost wants to come and bless the people and lead them into deep rivers, and the green pastures and things, but the organization won't let them do it. Holds them back.

O God, break down the shackles and bring out Your Church is my prayer. Yes, sir. God working ... Watch Him in His nature and watch ... Just coincides with the church and with the natural and with the spiritual. It's just perfect—everywhere.

That little old duck get out of there, brother, and right on straight to Louisiana he'd go. Watch nature in anyway you want to. You see God moving in.

Take for instance a hog. You read in the newspaper say, “Tomorrow it's going to be pretty weather.” And watch that old sow take the shucks off the north side of the hill, and bring it around on the south side, and make her bed. That newspaper don't know nothing. It's going to be cold. She knows more about the weather than all the meteorologists in the country does. Why? She's got a God-given instinct to make ready for it, but the thing of it is, she believes her instinct but we don't believe our Leading. God gave them instinct. He gave us the Holy Ghost.

What if that little duck would say, “Well, now wait. I will see what Joe says about it over here.” He'd never get to Louisiana. Certainly not. He has got to go the way he is led and men can't lead men. The Holy Ghost leads men. The Holy Spirit is what.... And it's a brotherhood and if the real Holy Ghost is leading you, you'll know it's a brotherhood. Amen.

Oh, my! I wish I was about three times my size when I get to feeling like this. Maybe I could feel three times as good as what I do now. You know these little afternoons gives me a vent. I've just been.... You know when you're.... The visions what kills me off nearly. Just makes me so weak, but when I get out here, I could stand here, oh, for a week like this. This is fine. This is taking in and that's giving out. I just get down to the spout and hold my mouth open and just let it run. Having a good time.

Now, God works in His universe. You believe that? Here some time ago, I was hunting elk up in the mountains. It was real early in the fall, and the snow hadn't hit the top of the mountains yet and then I was.... When the snows come, then the elk run down but you have to go high, way up around the timber lines to get into the elk.

And there I was up there walking one day. I was about.... Oh, I guess thirty-five, forty miles from any ranch or any thing, way up in the top of the Rocky Mountains. And I guess I was two hundred miles from any kind of a city. And I was walking along there with my rifle, you know.

And there'll come a snow and then the first thing you know then it'll rain, and then it'll turn warm, the sun come out, and changing weathers. And I'd been up there about two days and I knowed the elk herd was in there, so I was just walking along through there, sleeping out at night.

And one day it come a rain and I got in behind the tree like this, and the rain just blowed, and poured down through there. And then after the rain kind of let up, why, it commenced to breaking off. And it was cold up there that high on the mountain and I happened to look and the evergreens had froze, them big icicles like hanging all over the evergreen. It was froze up where the wind's cold and the water's a falling. It froze the ice to the evergreen.

And I looked and the sun was setting over in the west peeping through that crevice of the mountains like that. I thought, “O great Jehovah. His eye is on the sparrow. How that He stands in the heavens and His eyes look out. He sees every move. Not a sparrow could touch the ground without....” You see God in His sunset. Can't you see Him that way? Think of Him in a sunset or sunrise?

Then I happened to look, and where the sun was shining against this water and stuff made a rainbow across the canyon there, and I looked at that rainbow, and I said, “Oh, glory to God.” I just love to look at God in His nature. Don't you? And I said, “Looky there. You gave Noah the rainbow sign. Before that time, water had never come this way, so the waters, the elements couldn't make that colors, and now You gave him the rainbow sign that You would never destroy the world no more by water.”

Then I happened to think again that when John on the Isle of Patmos turned around and seen Jesus sitting there to look upon as a rainbow. His sardine and jasper stone, which was Reuben and Benjamin, the first, the last. He which is, and which is shall come, Root and Offspring of David, the Morning Star, and over Him was a rainbow with these seven golden candlesticks; meaning that He had a covenant for the seven last church ages.

Then the deep began to call to the deep. Oh, down in my heart, I said, “God, here I am way up here supposed to be hunting.” And I got real happy, and I set down my gun, and around and around the tree I went just a shouting as hard as I could. Somebody come up there they'd have put me in the institution for insanity. Oh, I was having a glorious time.

I started to pick up my gun, and go on, and I happened to think, “O great Jehovah Who made all these things.” And about that time I heard the elk herd—they'd been scattered in the storm—begin bugling one to the other, and then way up on top of the hill, an old gray wolf got to howling. The mate answering down in the bottom.

My mother is a half Indian and just enough about it to make the deep go to calling to the deep. I started screaming top of my voice, set my gun down, and around and around and around the tree I went again. I didn't care who was listening at me. I was shouting and praising God. Hallelujah!

They can say, “crazy,” if they wanted to. Didn't make me no difference. I got my eyes on Calvary. Amen. I loved Him. I worship Him. I seen Him out there. I said, “God, there You are in the sunset. Here You are in the rainbow. There You are in the wolf. Here You are over here in the elk. Oh, where are You, Lord and here You are in my heart.” I said, “Glory to God!” Around and around and around and around the tree I went again. Oh, I was just having a big time. Just a kicking up the brush and everything else.

I stopped, and I said, “O Hallelujah, Lord. I love You. I love You. Why would I ever have to leave a place like this? So wonderful.”

I heard something making a move going, “Cha-cha-chatter.” A little old pine squirrel. We call them little mountain jacks, you know, about like that, little old red squirrel. Noisiest thing there is, and nothing to them. Just puts me in the mind of a lot of these guys that makes a lot of noise, and nothing to it.

He was looking at me like that going, “Chatter-cha-cha-chatter.” It was like he was going to tear me to pieces. I thought, “My, my. You just got a lot of noise and that's all there is.”

And I thought he was barking at me, but I happened to find out, down in the storm coming through a great big eagle had been forced down, and he was down under this blow-down here. And I seen him coming out, and I thought, “Well now here, Lord. What did You place that before me for, right when I'm shouting and having a great time here.” I thought, “What's this eagle doing here?”

If you look anywhere you can see God. You can just see Him anywhere and I thought, “Now, what's godly about that eagle because he is a scavenger. And oh, he is a bad guy. And I thought, ”Well, what godly would be about that thing?“ And the first thing you know he moved out, jumped up on a limb, like that, looked over at that little old squirrel sitting there just like he was going to tear him to pieces.

He looked back over to me, and I thought, “Well, now this is a position. Now, Lord, where are You at in that scene?” Everywhere you look you can see God and I thought, There's a little old pine squirrel that runs all the game out of the woods, and he's no good. And here sits a big old eagle here who if you would kill a deer and leave him lay there, the eagle would eat him up overnight if he could. He is just as mean as he can be. I thought, Where could You be in this scene? I said, “You are everywhere though. Now where could I see why God put that scene before me?”

And I looked again, and I happened to notice, that eagle had bravery. It wasn't scared no matter what I'd do or what anything, it was brave, and I thought, “That's it God. You don't want cowards.” God wants men and women who's got a backbone, instead of a wishbone. When God says anything, we believe it. That's all. That settles it if God said so that makes it true. Is that right? That makes it true. All right.

And I said, “There You are, Lord. You want somebody that'll really know what they're talking about and is ready to stand for what's truth.”

A lot of people say, “I accept my healing. I believe Jesus heals, all right.” And the first little cramp hits you, you're ready to give up. Oh, my! And you go and say, “I believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost” and shout and dance in the church, and when you come to meet some critic out there on the street, you're as silent as a church mouse. That's right.

Oh, brother, don't hold your peace. Scream out. Amen. If it takes your head, be like John the Baptist. That's right. Stand for what's truth.

And there I looked at that old eagle, I thought, What makes you so brave? I said, “Do you know I could shoot you if I wanted to?” And that great big gray-looking eyes looked over at me. He wasn't scared of me. And I thought, I'm sure you're not scared of that squirrel. And I thought.... I grabbed my rifle. I said, “I could shoot you.” He noticed me. He jumped and looked at me again, but I thought, “Well, what makes him so brave? How is that fellow so brave? I don't understand that.” But I happened to notice.... Here's what was making him brave. I seen him moving his wings like this, feeling his wings to see if his wings was in good condition. I said, “Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord.” Amen.

Someone said not long ago, “Brother Branham, aren't you afraid on that platform that you'll make a mistake and tell somebody the wrong thing?”

Oh, no. Not as long as I can feel Him with me. That's right. As long as He is there everything is okay. That's all right. As long as He is there, the boat's in control.

I watched him moving his wings, and I thought, “Well, say.” He'd look up all the time. Look and see how far that timberline was up there and that timber. He knew if he ever got in that timber I'd never see him under the sights of that rifle. So he was sitting there looking at me, just having a big time.

He looked at me, and then he'd look over at that squirrel. He looked at me like that, and I said, “Well, if this isn't amazing.” And after awhile he got tired of that little old chattering of the pine squirrel. So he just give one big bounce like that, flopped his wings about twice, and he was plumb through that timber. He never flopped his wings one more time. He just set his wings, and he knowed how to ride them air waves that was coming down.

Boy, he just went up. He didn't flop, flop, flop, trying to get up. He just set his wings right and rode right on one of those waves and went on, on, on, on till I couldn't even see a spot of him no more. He went plumb out of sight, leaving this little old earthbound chatter, chatter, chatter-chatter that....

I thought, “Hallelujah!” I dropped my rifle. Around, around and around the tree I went again. I thought, “That's it, Lord. That's it. Let me know how to set my wings in the power of God, and every time the Holy Ghost rides in, let me ride up with It.” Hallelujah. “Till I go plumb out of the way of these people.

Sitting here. “Chatter-chatter-chatter. Days of miracles is passed. That's a bunch of holy-rollers. Ain't no such a thing as that Holy Ghost, went long time ago.”

Oh, my. Ride away on it. Hallelujah! Glory! Every one of you eagles has got two big wings to fly away with if you want to. Amen. Just afraid to use your wings. That gives them exercise when you have to use them once in awhile to lift up.

I was watching a nest of them one day. I was sitting upon a mountain watching. I seen an old mother eagle let out a scream. She come out of the nest with a whole bunch of little eagles. They put their little beaks right down into the wings of the mother like that, and she come down out of the old nest, and when they jumped off the wings, it was first time the little fellows had ever been on grass. Oh, it was so nice and oh, they were having a big time. The old mother went right straight back up and sat on top of the biggest rock there was.

I was sitting there with my glasses. I was herding cattle, was what I was doing up there in Colorado, and I was watching you know, see what this old mother eagle was doing, and she was sitting up there with them eyes, you know, watching to see if a coyote would come up.

I thought, “How typical it is here God in His nature. Them little old eagles had never been out of that old pukey, excuse me, that old nest like that you know where they'd vomit in their nest, and everything else, and bring in old meat that rots in the nest and everything and on old briars and stickers. Their poor little feet walking on that, and then the old mother eagle comes and gets them 'cause they're her children. Takes them down into the pastures where the grass is soft on their feet.

I thought, “That's the way God does when we're out here in old bootleg joints, and up-and-down the streets living in sin and the vomit of the Devil and the stink of whiskey and tobacco and everything else, and then our Lord Jesus one day stretched out the wings of Calvary, brought us down into the shady green pastures. Glory! Then when He did that, He did like the old mother eagle. He flew up yonder to the ramparts of glory sitting up there watching over His church. Amen.

Let a coyote come up if he wants to. That old mammy eagle be on his back right now, and he'd be hitting for timber. And I tell you our Lord Jesus Christ sits in the power of His Majesty and glory watching over His church to confirm His Word, wherever He can find a believer that'll act upon His Word and believe it.

Them little eagles didn't care about nothing. You just see them raise up their little head and look up there. They seen mammy. That's all was necessary. Hallelujah! Sure, God is in His nature. Do you believe it? He is in His universe. As long as I can feel the power of the Holy Spirit moving down, I know God is still sitting at the ramparts of glory, watching His Word to perform it. Do you believe that? And confirm it.

There he was. I happened to notice then after awhile there come a Northerner. A little strip of wind come this way. She could smell that wind. Knowed there was rain in the air, and she let out a great big scream and down through there she went right down into the middle of this pasture. She threw out her wings like that. Every one of them little old eagles come and flew everywhere just as hard as they could. Jumped, grabbed their feet a hold of the feathers, took their mouth a hold like that.

She raised those big wings. Hallelujah! Oh, on up through that wind sweeping down that canyon at sixty miles an hour by that time. She went right straight on into the cleft of that rock to safety.

One of these glorious days while these little eagles, carefree in the power of God, (hallelujah) feeding upon the good things of God marvelously. And one of these days Jesus shall let a scream from the skies coming down, when danger and atomic bombs are about to drop around Chicago. He'll spread out those great loving wings like that and away through the storms we'll go (hallelujah) into my Father's house where there is many mansions prepared, ready for the redeemed. Hallelujah!

Brother, I feel like a holy-roller right now. Yes, sir. I really do. Amen. How God works in His universe. How He works in His nature.

Not long ago I was holding a meeting.... Well, just before I come out in these healing campaigns. I was a Baptist preacher. All of you know that. All right. I was in the Milltown Baptist Church. Brother Ryan, we've been down there many times together. I was staying up there at Brother ... old Brother Wright's and every night I'd go up and I'd come in.

There was an old nightingale used to sit there. That fellow would sing all night long. You know what a nightingale is? And oh, they'd just sing, sing, sing, sing. Our field up there where we live now is just full of them. I just raise the window along two o'clock in the morning, and just listen to them fellows sing.

I thought, What makes him...? I noticed on a cloudy night he would quite singing for a little bit. Then he would sing again. So I went to studying the nature of those birds, and come to find out here's what they do. They sit in the bush. They're looking around, and just as soon as they can see a star, they start singing, just as hard as they can, for they know what? The sun is shining somewhere. The sun is shining on that star as sure as that star's shining, the sun's a shining somewhere, so it's going to be daylight again.

And I think, “O God, let me sometimes when the pillows of darkness are rolling over, sometimes when the revival seems that they all want to be formal and ungodly, but once in awhile I hear a good old-fashioned, ”Amen. Glory to God.“

I say, “Glory to God. The sun is shining somewhere. It's a beaming down somewhere.”

If I could go out, tonight, and look over there at the big morning star, the evening star hanging out, I'd say, “What makes you shine, star?”

He'd say, “Brother Branham, it ain't me shining.”

I'd say, “Well, what makes you so pretty?”

“It isn't me pretty.”

“Well, what are you shining about?”

“It's not me shining.”

“Well, what's shining?”

“It's the sun shining on me. That's what's making me shine.”

Not long ago I was talking to a doctor. He said, “Reverend Branham, those Holy Ghost people you are talking about that's only excitement. It's only worked up.”

Brother, you know what I believe it is? I believe it ain't them shining. It's the power of God shining on them making them shine. Hallelujah! When God shines His power in divine healing and blessings, and glories, you can't hold your peace.

Jesus said, “If they hold their peace, the rocks will immediately cry out.”

Oh, hallelujah! That's right. Hallelujah.

I laid down by an old spring where I used to drink, laid down there and just drink, and drink, and drink. I noticed that was the happiest spring I ever seen. It was always bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble. That's like a good old-fashioned Christian. Always bubbling over whether things going right or not, just going just the same, bubbling over.

God works in His nature in the grounds too. Do you believe that? If I'd sit down and talk to that spring, I'd say, “What makes you bubble? What makes you so happy?”

He'd say, “Brother Branham, it ain't me bubbling.”

I'd say, “Well, maybe that you bubble just because that I drink from you.”

“No.”

“You bubble because deers drink, or bears drink?”

“No.”

I say, “What makes you bubble?”

He'd say, “Brother Branham, it ain't me bubbling. It's something behind me, pushing me, making me bubble.” And that's the way every man that's borned again of the Spirit of God. There is something behind you pushing you and making you bubble. Hallelujah! Oh, glory! That's right. It makes you bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble; everlasting joy springing up.

He said to the woman at the well, “In Me is living waters (hallelujah) I will give you living waters bubbling up into everlasting Life.” A whole gusher, brother, when she bursts open she just keeps spewing. Whew! Just take the cap off and let her run. Amen.

God is in His universe. You believe that? Sure, He is. God is in His universe.

We had a little boy lived down to our place there, and he went to a very formal Sunday school down by the Ohio River. And as many of you fellows sitting here, are boatmen, knows what joy it is to be on water and then this little fellow got all enthused one day and he said, “Mother, God is just a great Person, can anybody see Him?”

“Why,” she said, “Sonny, I don't know. Ask your Sunday school teacher.”

So he went and asked, said, “Teacher, can anybody see God?”

She said, “Well, I don't know. You ask the pastor.”

So he went to the pastor and said, “Pastor, can anybody see God?”

He said, “No, son. No one can see God. Of course, not. We just believe there is, and no one can see Him.”

Poor little fellow said, “Well, if He is so real as the Bible says He is, why can't somebody see Him?”

Said, “Well, you just can't see Him, son. He is not to be seen.”

So well he went fishing with an old fisherman down on the river, an old fellow had white beard like this and long hair. An old fellow down on the river. So one day he was up around Six Mile Island and it come a storm.

Coming back down, the old fisherman was a very renowned Christian. He was coming down pulling the boat oars like this, you know, and the oars clipping the water, you know, as the music to any boatman, and he was pulling like this. And after the rain had went away, well, all the leaves was washed off, and everything was so clean and fresh smelling. And he looked and the sun come out, and there was a rainbow across the sky.

The old fellow was looking at the rainbow. He'd pulled his oars and clipped, pulled the oars and clipped. He was watching that rainbow. The little boy sitting in the stern of the boat begin to notice tears running off his white beard. He was looking at that rainbow and pulling. The little fellow kept looking at the old man. He run up there and fell down at his lap and said, “Sir, I'm going to ask you a question that my teacher couldn't answer, my mother couldn't answer, my pastor couldn't answer,” said, “Can anybody see God?”

Well, the old fellow's heart so full, you know, he pulled the oars into his lap and threw his hands up like this, and let out a big scream. Put his arms around the little boy, and pulled him up in his bosom, said, “God bless your heart, sonny. Don't you see Him yonder?” “Well,” said, “all I've seen for thirty-five years has been God.”

Why, there's so much God on the inside here, God could see Himself out yonder. He was reflecting. Is that right? When you get God in here, the day that you get saved and be filled with the Holy Spirit, the birds will sing different. All the whole universe will look different. All the trees will just clap their hands and everything.

My, and that old enemy that you used to not like at all, they'll be the most beautiful person. You'll walk up and say, “How do you do, there? How are you getting along?” That neighbor you wouldn't speak to, them old tire tools you stole, and that, everything else, you'd take it all back and say, “You know I am so sorry I did that. Will you forgive me for it?”

That's what it does to you. You'll see God in His universe as certain as anything if you'll go to looking around for Him. Do you believe that's true?

Some time ago there was an infidel across the country. Oh, I guess fifty years ago, and he was converting people from Christianity to infidelism and when his mother was dying the only thing that he could say, “Maw, grin and bear it.”

Oh, what a consolation to give a mother in her death hours. So he went over to England he had a lot of converts there. No preacher would attack him—No, sir.—because he was smart and shrewd. He just cut them down like this because most of the preachers ... He stood right....

A friend of mine who stood and even shook his whole foundation when he stood there with a bottle of sulfuric acid and right down in Memphis, Tennessee, and had that bottle of sulfuric acid. He said, “Any of you people here that's supposed to be Christians, Mark 16 said, 'They shall drink deadly things and it will not harm them.'” Said, “That's what Mark said.” Said, “Now, if that's the inspired Word of God, drink this sulfuric acid.”

And some of them said.... Why they said, “Why, you shall not tempt the Lord thy God.”

And he said, “Oh, so I shall not tempt Him to ask Him, anything either.” Said, “Maybe He can't be disturbed,” and making fun of them like that.

And one thing happened there, I'll have to tell this too, while right at it if I can. There was a big old country boy sitting back there with hair hanging down his neck, overall jacket on. He just come walking up, teeth out here in front, you know, and hair hanging down in his face. He walked right up towards the platform, reached down his overall pocket and pulled out a big apple, and began to peel it with a knife.

The infidel said, “Well,” said, “Sap, what do you want?”

Said, “I just want to ask you something.” Just kept on peeling on his apple.

He said, “Well, tell me what you want, or I will have you throwed out of here.”

Said, “Just a minute. Give me my time.” So he peeled the apple and cored it, got it ready, put it in his mouth, began chewing on it like that. Said, “I want to ask you a question.”

Said, “What is it?”

Said, “Is this apple sweet or sour?”

Said, “How do I know I'm not eating it?”

Said, “That's what I thought.” Turned around and walked back to his seat. Hallelujah! How do you know that God ain't real until you've tasted Him, felt Him? Hallelujah. How do you know divine healing's not right unless you've put it to a test one time? How do you know the Holy Ghost is not right? You run around with your ecclesiastical jacket on trying to explain all the divine part of the Bible out, and taking a bunch of theology. How do you know about God, if you've never even tasted to see that He's right or not?

Be sincere. Be humble before Him. That's right. And Dr. Davis standing there, an old Methodist bishop was sitting there with this young preacher. A young, Roy Davis he was sitting there with this bishop. That infidel said, “Any of you guys,” and some of them, the ministers was saying, 'Mark 16 from the 9th verse on is not inspired. It isn't inspired so you can't depend on it.'“

He said, “Well then, I'll say over there, 'Come unto me all ye that labor and heavy laden,' Matthew 11:27 said,” I say, “That's not inspired then.”

So he had him on a spot. Roy said the Holy Ghost begin to move on him. Said, “Stand up there.” So he said—the old bishop—he said, “If that infidel makes that challenge one more time, if I die in my shoes, I'll go to Heaven believing God's Word.”

So he said, “Now, listen, son. Sit down and let him just ... He's just popping his own brain. Let him alone.”

So it was the Holy Spirit moving. So when he made that challenge again, he let out a big “Ha-ha” and held his watch up. Said, “If there's a God, I will die in a minute.” Waited for a minute and said, “Didn't I tell you wasn't no such a thing? Ha, ha, ha, ha,” like that. Laughed out like that.

So Roy when he made that challenge said, “What about some of you guys out there believe that God is so real,” said, “try this sulfuric acid test.”

Now, I'm not telling people to do that. Don't you do it unless the Holy Ghost is with you. See? Now, I don't believe in taking up serpents. I believe if I was baptizing out in the water and a serpent grabbed me, I'd throw him out on the bank and go ahead and baptize like Paul did or something like that. If somebody slipped poison to me, I'd trust God for my healing. That's right. But I don't believe in bringing things. Say, “Come here and I will show you I can do it.” I think that's wrong. That's right.

But Brother Davis walked up to the platform. We got a notary public's statement on this. He walked up there. He said, “Christian people,” about two or three thousand sitting there, he said, “I'm twenty-five years old.” He said, “I'm a minister of the Gospel,” and he said, “I know that my God is able to deliver me from that,” but said, “nevertheless, if He does or does not, I will never let that infidel stand there with that in his hand and challenge God's Word.” He said, “I will meet you in glory.”

Grabbed it out of his hand—the infidel—and drank every drop of it right down, stood there and preached the Gospel, and about fifteen hundred people received the baptism of the Holy Ghost sitting in the meeting. Hallelujah! Yes, sir.

That same infidel after coming back, he wanted to take a rest, and he went out here in the west in Colorado, and he had a camp out there and he was walking down along the path there one day, and he begin walking along.

He kind of felt kind of bad, his health was breaking on him and he happened to look up there, and the wind was blowing them great big rocks hanging in the mountains. He said, “Wonder if I've been wrong.” He got down and he said, “O ever where you are, who you are.” Said, “Look at those rocks hanging there. Have I been wrong? Has the water washed them away like that, or did God place them there like that?”

What was it? God speaking in His universe. If they hold their peace, the preachers, the rocks will immediately cry out. There that infidel fell on his knees and gave his heart to God because the rocks was crying out. How that God speaking out of mother nature to him. Hallelujah!

God is in His universe. Do you believe it? Oh, my I could stay on that another hour. Let's just stop a minute. God in His universe. I'll hurry with these others right quick.

God in His Word. You believe God is in His Word? Every seed of God, every word of God is a seed. Do you believe that? Now, it's just like a seed you planted. If it's wheat, it'll come up wheat, and every word of God is....

Every divine promise of God will come to pass exactly if you'll put it in the right kind of a ground and let it grow. Do you believe that? Place it there, say, “Lord, by His stripes I was healed. I am healed. I accept it, Lord, and I will never say nothing else.”

I tell you, brother, that spits the dust in the devil's face right there, for it's “Thus saith the Lord,” I will stay right there live or die. I will stay right there. That's my convictions. That's my stand. On Christ the solid Rock I'll stand. All other grounds is sinking sands. Stay right with it. Yes, indeed. It'll produce just what it said.

Just like a little ... Here, a lot of you people around up in here have a lot ... I noticed out here, fruit orchards where you raise a lot of apples. You take a little apple tree when it's just about that big, just a little bitty sprout. Did you know every bushel of apples, every apple, every blossom, every leaf that will ever be on that tree is on it right then? Did you know that?

You know you might gather two hundred bushel of apples off of that tree, and every one of them, is in that little tree when it's that big. If it isn't, where does it come from? Tell me who puts them on there. It's in the tree when it begins and that's just the way...

What you have to do with the tree, you take the tree and you plant it in the ground, and then you have to water it, and as you water it, it doesn't do nothing but drink, drink, drink. It has to drink more than its portion, and more it drinks the bigger it swells out. It just pushes out limbs. Then it pushes out leaves. Then it pushes out blossoms. Then it pushes out apples. Is that right?

And that's the way a Christian is. We are planted together in Christ Jesus who is the inexhaustible Fountain of Life. We are planted in Christ, and we just drink, and drink, and drink, and push out and everything we have need of for the earthly journey: divine healing, the power of God and all these other things is in every individual in here that's received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, for you are planted in Christ. Hallelujah! The Holy Ghost baptism, yes, sir, and everything you have need of for this life's journey even the rapture is right in you then.

Don't resent that, that's the truth. The rapture is in us now. I'll prove it by the Gospel. “Those who He called He justified, and those who He justified He hath glorified.” Hallelujah! Then in Heaven today we're glorified in the presence of God right now. I'm just pushing out to it. Amen. Glory. God is in His Word. Do you believe it? All right.

Got to hurry now. Many things we could say there, but God is in His Word. Every word of God is a seed. You get it? And you just have to hold on to it.

Now, many people look at their symptoms. They say, “Oh, Brother Branham, my hand is no better. I still have this pain.” That don't have nothing to do with it. It's what mental attitude you got towards God and His promise.

You know a fellow that had a case of symptoms was Jonah. He really had symptoms. Did you know that? God told him to go down to Nineveh and he went down to Tarsus; took a easy road. That's the way with a lot of Christians today, trying to take the easy road.

He said, “You go down to Nineveh and cry out.” Instead of that he went to Tarsus. Then he was backslid. There come a storm on the ocean, and they had bound his hands, and his feet, and throwed him out of the ship. A big whale swallowed him and anybody knows that after a whale eats or any other fish he goes right to the bottom of the.... Feed your goldfish and watch what they do. Go right straight to the bottom, and rest their little swimmers on the bottom. They prowl through the water till they find their food, then they go down and rest, see.

Well, now look here. Let's see. There's a stormy ocean and a backslidden preacher, and he's got his hands tied behind him, his feet tied behind him. Throwed out in a storm. A whale swallows him and goes down to the bottom of the sea to rest. And there this preacher down there backslid in that condition....

There's nobody in the building that bad today, and there he was down there backslid, hands tied behind him, several miles deep in the ocean, in the belly of a whale. Seaweeds wrapped around his neck, vomit knee deep, and he begin to look this way, it was whale's belly, look that way, it was whale's belly. Everywhere he looked it was whale's belly. Talk about a case of symptoms he had it. That's right. Everywhere he looked was whale's belly. His hands was tied behind him. He was backslid in the belly of a whale plumb in the bottom of the sea; whale's belly—whale's belly.

Why, brother, there's nobody here like that today. But what did he say? He looked at that whale's belly, all them symptoms, and he said, “They are lying vanities.” Yes, sir. He said, “Once more will I look to Your holy temple, O Lord.” Hallelujah! Oh, brother. “Once more will I look...” not at these whale's belly, not at my backslidden condition, not my hands tied behind me, not where I'm at, not at the stormy sea. “I'll look to Your holy temple, Lord.”

When Solomon dedicated that temple and the pillar of fire come in and went behind the thing and settled down. Look what Solomon said. He said, “Lord, if Your people be in trouble anywhere and look towards this holy place, and pray, then hear from Heaven and deliver Your people.”

And Jonah believed God heard Solomon's prayer so he wasn't looking at his symptoms. He wasn't looking at a whale's belly. He wasn't looking at his backslidden condition. He was looking to God's promise, Solomon's prayer.

And if Jonah, under those conditions, with that kind of symptoms could look to an earthly temple, where an earthly man prayed, how much more ought a Christian to do when Jesus Christ died for you taking His own blood and sitting at the right hand of God today making intercessions on anything you confess [unclear words].

My, get away symptoms! You're lying vanities! I won't believe you anymore. Jesus Christ healed me when He died at Calvary. Hallelujah! You tell me I have to keep smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey. You're a liar. I refuse to see it. I look to Your holy temple, Lord, where Jesus, the Son of God, stands at the right hand of the Father making intercessions for me. Whew! Oh, my!

I'm really a holy-roller now. Brother, let me tell you something. I've sailed the seven seas, and I've never seen a holy-roller yet. That's a name the devil tacked on the church. But if He wanted me to do it, I'd sure do some rolling, and as long as it was holy. Yes, sir.

God in His Word. Do you believe it? God in His universe. God in His Word. Now, right quick let's get God in His Son. You believe God was in His Son? He was. He was more than a man. I taught you that yesterday. He was more than a man. He was God. God is not like.... That's one thing wasn't purged in the reformation. See? It's not ... people say the Jews try to tell us. There's some Jews sitting here. That's the biggest stumbling block the Jews ever had, because we don't make it clear to the Jew. They think that we believe there is three absolutely individual gods. That's a lie. There's only one God, absolutely one God. There's three dispensations, the three manifestations but the same God every time.

It's like a three-foot rule. You got twelve inches here. You got twelve to four inches here. You got thirty-six inches here, but it's the same rule. God, the Father, was revealing Himself, unfolding Himself, trying to get to man.

God, the Father, was made manifest in a pillar of fire that hung on the mountain. Even Moses dreaded the quake. Is that right? If any, even a beast, come near the mountain had to be thrust through with a dart. Is that right?

Then the same God was manifested in flesh and dwelt among us in a virgin born body in order of take away sin. Do you believe that? That was God, the Son. You believe that? The same God. “My Father and I are One. My Father dwelleth in Me. It is not Me that doeth the works, it is My Father.”

That was Jesus talking about His Father, the same God revealed down here in a body of flesh who hung in a pillar of fire.

The pillar of fire was talking to Moses in the burning bush. He said, “Tell them all generations that I am that I am,” and Jesus stood at the feast and said, “I AM the I AM.” Sure. The same God just twelve inches being.... From twelve to twenty-four inches being unfolded.

Now, then the next time He revealed Himself.... First, in a pillar of fire, then in a virgin-born body, His Son, and now He is working His way down to mankind, and now He is revealing Himself in sinful men that's been regenerated again, living in the entire church.

“At that day you'll know that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, I in you, and you in Me.” Oh, my. You see? God in His people. Hallelujah! Moving out. Sure. God is right with the people. He unfolded Himself from a supernatural Being down into a virgin born body to take away sin.

When He come from God, went back to God. “A little while and the world seeth Me no more. Yet you shall see Me for I will be with you.” I, is a personal pronoun. “I, will be with you, even in you to the end of the world.”

See how God bringing His holy path. He couldn't come right down and jump into sin. God had to purge that path. In order to do it, He was a pillar of fire. Then there is a virgin born Son that taken away the sin out of human bodies, and then after that God Himself could dwell right among His people. See what I mean? God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. You believe that?

When He was on earth He said He was God. He looked like God. He talked like God. He preached like God. Hallelujah! He healed like God. He rose like God. He ascended like God. Hallelujah! And He was God. Hallelujah! He was God in the flesh. God was in His Son manifesting Himself to His people.

Oh, how many times we could.... How much we could go to that and see what it was. See? But I believe you understand what I mean. See? It's God unfolding Himself. He came out of nature, coming down into the flesh, in His Son. God come in the flesh. Jesus Christ, the Logos, that went out in the beginning. How back in the beginning no one could see God. Then the Logos came out. Then God manifested Himself down in man. Man sinned then God come down and revealed Himself in flesh, taken away sin, returned back. Come back again to live in people, and talk to them, like He did to Adam and Eve. Hallelujah!

Now, my parents before me were Catholic, but brother, you see there's not much Catholic left in me as the triune beings. That's right. Yes, sir. They believed in the eternal Sonship or there's three actual individual being: God the Father, an old man with long white beard; God, the Son, a middle age man; and the Holy Ghost was a mascot boy like. There's no such things, there's only one God. And I disagree with the organization of Pentecost that calls the Oneness like your finger is one. That's wrong. Absolutely, it's wrong.

Jesus couldn't have been His own Father, and if God is a Man, then Jesus was born sexual desire, and not virgin birth. That settles the whole thing. You see? If He is one like your finger's one, then what? Then He was His own daddy. How could He have been? That's wrong. He had a Father, Jesus did.

You just can't see the manifestation of God unfolding Himself a loving Father, coming right down from the heavens unfolding Himself, coming down to live among human beings here on earth. There you are. God was in His Son, and now I've unfolded to you also, God is in His people. Do you believe that? Then when God that same God, that lived back yonder in the days when Moses seen the pillar of fire, was that right? How many believes that was the Angel of the Covenant, say, “Amen.” Well the Angel of the Covenant was Jesus Christ.

Moses esteemed the riches of Christ greater treasures than that of Egypt, and he forsook Egypt following Jesus Christ. He followed Christ through the wilderness which was the Logos. All right.

Now, then here comes down the next is the Sonship. Then the Holy Spirit. That's the reason that Matthew said, “Baptize them in the name of the Father, in the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Sure. It's the same God moving right down through these three dispensations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not three different individual beings, but one being in three different manifestations. Hallelujah! Glory!

Brother, I tell you that would punch the Devil in the ribs every day, and make him squeal like a pig. That's right because it's the power of God being revealed in these last days.

Somebody said the other day said, “Brother Branham, you can't explain the trinity.” Said, “Just go down and get yourself an insane institution and crawl in it.”

I said, “No, sir. I cannot explain it but the heavenly God who dwells here knows all things, and would reveal it to us as we have need to know. Amen.

I believe it with all my heart. I know it's so. It dovetails right in with the Scripture and makes it plain. God is in His Son. God is in His people.

Then look what He done back yonder. Look what He done in the days of His Sonship. Now, look what He is doing here in the Holy Ghost dispensation. How He has raised up in among the people. He is showing the same signs and wonders. Quickening the dead. Is that right? Raising the dead, physically died, raising them back to life again.

Read the little book there and get your statements. I seen three of it in my own humble ministry. The doctors have laid them out dead and gone, passed on. And by a vision God would show; and here they'd come right back around and living today. Write and ask and see if that's right. Manifest Himself.

Jesus Christ only raised three, in His entire life, to show that a witness of three is to be established. Is that right? In the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established.

Then God is living in His people today because back there when Jesus came into Jerusalem, there was a great joy and the people began to holler, “Hosanna, Hosanna, to Him that cometh in the name of the Lord,” and the old priests and Pharisees and all said, “Make them hold their peace. They make me nervous.”

I was preaching here not long ago, and there was a little woman just screaming and shouting top of her voice, and there was a man that's a Sunday school teacher in a Baptist church in Jeffersonville said, “Billy, I was enjoying your service till that woman got to screaming and crying.” He said, “How in the world can you preach when people are hollering like that?”

I said, “I can't preach 'less they do holler like that.” I don't know where I'm standing. Don't know how they're receiving it.

I used to have an old dog, I used to hunt with. We called him Fritz. He would take anything, tree anything in the world but a skunk. He wouldn't go into him. He'd tree him in a brush pile, and then he'd keep going around the brush pile barking. And the only thing I had to do to get him to go in and get that skunk was just raise up the brush pile and pat him say, “Sic him, boy. Sic him, boy.” He'd go in and get the skunk.

Now, brother, every time I hear a “amen” it's sic him, boy and the biggest skunk I know of is the Devil. Let's get him up a bush right now, and go get him. Hallelujah! That's right. Yes, indeed. Sic him, boy.

“Oh,” he said, “Brother Branham, when that woman begin to cry,” said, “it made chills run up and down my back.”

I said, “My brother, if you'd ever be fortunate enough to get to Heaven, you'd freeze to death because they're shouting and screaming before the throne of God day and night, hollering, 'Holy, holy, holy unto the Lord.'”

God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Hallelujah!

Then God, the Father, in His universe, God in His Son, God in His Word, and now God is in His people. Hallelujah! That quickening immortal life that pulled you out of that bootleg joint, pulled you off of skid row. That thing that's took you and made a lady out of you. That thing that's kept you from smoking, and drinking, and carrying, through your life. That's God in His people. That thing that when the Holy Ghost takes the Word of God, and sprays it over the people like that with His power, that heart of yours grabs it. What is it? It's God in His people.

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Hallelujah!

You say, “You're excited.” No, I'm not. I know where I am. I'm not excited. Well, brother, if I'm excited, let me stay excited. I want to stay this way till I die. Hallelujah! I get more out of life staying this way.

Well, why? God is in His people manifesting Himself in the flesh of mortal beings who is born again. Do you believe it? Do you believe God is in His universe? You see Him in the sunlight? See Him in the tree? In the flower? In His Word? In His Son? In His people?

Then here's God right here. Amen. Knowing the thoughts of men, discerning the thoughts, healing the sick, making the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk. Only thing that is limiting God is our faith. Hallelujah! Oh, my. God just turned the spout off. I'm having an awful time up here. Just having a glorious time. I just look like there is no end to it, and that clock just rolling right on around.

I love Him, I love Him

Because He first loved me

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Now, give us a chord on it, brother. I got it a little high. Let's get ready to sing it now. Close your eyes. Lift up your hands now. Come here, Brother Baxter [unclear words]. Somebody help me. All right.

I love Him, I love Him

Because He first loved me

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Do you really love Him this afternoon? What would we do without Jesus?

Some Greeks come one day and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Now, you see Him today. You walk out the door yonder you'll see Him in that bush. You see Him in them flowers down along the street yonder. He'll be talking to you. When that little bird sits up there and throws his head up in the air and goes to singing, this afternoon, as the sun's setting, he is happy.

Not long ago I was sitting on the porch. Some old sand cranes was flying down going into their roost. Wife, and I, were sitting there. I was so tired. I had come from the meeting. I started crying. There was a lady walked up on the porch and give me a [unclear words] sign said.... Picture of a ship out on the sea and the sun was setting. It had a poem, “Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me, and may there be no mourning at the bar, when I put out to sea.

O God, my heart started beating fast. Some little robins flew up in the tree. God had fed them all day long, and they were coming home then. It was getting night. And the sand cranes they was going down to gather with their loved ones on the river bank, and stay all night.

And I said, “Honey.” She put her arm around me. She said, “Bill, you're so tired. Look like you could just faint.”

I said, “But some day the sun will be setting on my brow. My life's sun will be sinking low. I'll preach my last sermon some of these days. Then when the sun goes to setting, I know He has got a place for me.” I want to gather with Him over yonder with all you, the rest of you. Softly now let's sing.

I love Him, I........

Is there a sinner in the building? Raise up your hand, or stand up, and walk up here and say, “I want to accept Jesus as my Saviour.”

He first loved me

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

While we have out heads bowed, let's hum that. [Brother Branham starts to hum.] Think of it, Christians. Think of it, sinner man and woman. The Angel of the Lord is here now. Make your decision this afternoon for Christ, will you? If you haven't the Holy Ghost, don't go out without it [unclear words] His servant. Don't go. Stay right here if it takes a week. Get the Holy Ghost right now.

Some day we're going to gather and the sun is going to be setting. While you got your heads bowed, your hearts bowed too, I'm going to ask Brother Boze to lead us in prayer just now while you have your heads bowed.

All right, Brother Boze....