Fellowship With God Through Reconciliation

Thank you. God bless you, brother.

Good evening, friends, you may be seated. [Someone speaks to Brother Branham.]

It's certainly a privilege for me to be tonight in Sturgis, Michigan. I've looked forward to coming for some time, to have a little time of fellowship with my good brother and friend, Brother Jackson. It's kind of a surprise to both of us, I suppose, of getting to come. I've been promising for some time that, perhaps, we'd get a chance to advertise and get a meeting up here for eight or ten days, perhaps. And then, seeing the itinerary being so crowded, I just had to run in for a night or two, to have a little fellowship with Brother Jackson. And I'm certainly glad to be here.

Looked like the weather almost was going to keep us away for a while, but the Lord, look like, come to our rescue, and melted a little snow off the highways, and so, we got to come up today. And we're trusting God for a good time of fellowship with his little church here.

When I called him, I said, “Brother Jackson,” ... or, rather, when he called me, we was talking about it, and he said, “Well....” I said, “We'll have it at your church.”

He said, “Brother Branham, we got a little, bitty church.”

And I said, “Well, that'll be all right.” I said, “No matter how little it is, we can get in there to have some fellowship anyhow.” That's what we desire, and what all Christians like. There's nothing will take the place of real fellowship with one another. There's something about it that's so real.

When we get over this little shadow that we're passing through now, called the earth journey, and we arrive on the other side, then it'll be an eternal fellowship, when this little type that we have here merges into eternity, when time and eternity merges together.

Now, we're starting.... This is my first, really, meeting, after the first of the year, our first time to meet with anyone with a little time of fellowship. We don't call it a meeting ... I mean, gathering, campaign. And I knew that I was going to have to hurry to get up here because the itinerary was filled up. And we'd be sometime before I could ever get here. And Mr. Moore called me last night, and now we're scheduled plumb into way in June or sometime, already. And probably time I get home it'll be up until next September. We've about four nights time to let the itinerary loose.

We go from here to Owensboro, Kentucky. From there to New Orleans, Louisiana, then back to Minneapolis, Minnesota, then to Shreveport, and then from there to Houston, then to Phoenix, and from Phoenix to Old Mexico, down in a big arena there in Old Mexico, and then from there we go to Anchorage, Alaska. And I think from there, perhaps, a big tent will be set up somewhere in the Southlands where they're fixing now.

We're getting a tent, a nice, big tent, seat about twelve thousand people or better. And aiming to stay around four to six weeks in our meetings, make it a little longer than what we have been doing for the time, and sake of ... while we're having our American meetings.

It's been a great thing to journey around this old globe, and fellowship with God's children everywhere. And you know, I come to find out, whether they're Swedish, Norwegian, German, African, or wherever they are, they're all the same when they come to Christ. It makes everybody the same. There's no difference in people. I maybe can't speak their language, but there's something about them, you know, that you can tell that it's a brother. And that's the real part of it, after all.

And so, this great state of Michigan, I believe this is my second time I've ever been here. I was at Benton Har... no, I beg your pardon, it was where they make all the corn flakes and things. [Someone says, “Battle Creek.”] Battle Creek, that's ... Battle Creek a few nights. And we was up there and had a lovely meeting with the brethren up there. And I had to drop off right in the heat of the meeting, on account of a vision, sending me over to another city, and I've always thought I ought to go back and finish that, the Lord would let me someday to go back to Battle Creek and finish that meeting.

We was having the healing campaigns at that time, and had a wonderful time, but I was sitting out to a little lake one day, a praying, and I kept hearing something going on. I thought I was still at the lake. And then He called me to another place, and I had to go right away. And so, He works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform, doesn't He? He's certainly wonderful.

Now, tonight, we're grateful for Brother Jackson, that's the sponsor of this meeting. I guess, probably this is ... probably the members of his church, and so forth, and we're grateful to be here to meet together in this school auditorium. We're grateful for the school that let us have this gym room here, for this meeting. The Lord bless the school, and bless Brother Jackson, and all you members, and all you people that's here tonight.

And may, each night—tonight, tomorrow night, and Sunday afternoon—prove to be a great, spiritual outpouring of His blessings to you. We don't represent any denomination church; we just come in as the servants of the Lord Jesus, trying to serve Him, and do the best we can for His people, and with His people, while we're in the journey.

I was thinking, on the road up today, as Brother Collins, back there (a Methodist minister that's with us), and also to Brother Beeler (I believe he held a meeting here sometime, Brother Beeler did, at Brother Jackson's church), and Brother Woods and Sister Woods (which is in the main campaigns as our agents for books). And we were talking. I said, “Well, you know, Michigan is a beautiful state, a lot of green trees, and lakes, and so forth. And me being a fisherman, and hunter, I'm just right at home here in Michigan, to begin with.” And I certainly appreciate the opportunity.

Now, to me, the reading and the meditation of God's Word is the main thing in any meeting. I didn't get in in time tonight; I rested just a little. A brother come told me that there was some ladies, young ladies, here playing accordion, and singing, and maybe tomorrow night I can get in time to hear some of that.

I love singing, don't you? Oh, there's something about singing.... I never could sing, and I've often told people, “Now, when earth's journey is over, and we all get to Glory, and you hear somebody standing way back, down there, behind the trees of life, on the other side, out of a little cabin, singing, Nothing Between My Soul And The Saviour, or Amazing Grace, would be better. You say, ”Well, old Brother Branham finally made it, that's him over there, just having a good time.“ I believe the Lord will give me a voice to sing when I get on the other side. I certainly.... Amazing grace is what saved me. That's the way we was all saved, is that right? By the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus we were saved. And so, I never could sing here, so I thought maybe when I got over on the other side He'd let me sing that right good.

And I said to friends across the world, I said, “Now, when you go to look for me, I'll be listening to the angelic choir. There's great voices, the Sankeys, and different ones who'll be singing in that time on the other side. I sure love good singing. But one of the greatest things that I've ever had for enjoyment is meditation in the Word of God. To me, there's one thing that's fundamentally, and one thing that's sure, and one thing that's infallible: that's the Word of God. To me, all Christendom must be based upon that one solid thing: the Word of God. That's the foundation. That's what we're here for tonight, is to fellowship around this Word, and meditate upon God.

Now, in our nation here, we have many times of ... and many psychologies, and so forth, and we go through, and denominations; but on the battlefield, in the heat of the battle, there's two things: are you a Christian, or are you not? In the lands where you see....

I was entertained here, not long ago, where I had my largest gathering I ever had (a half a million people), at Bombay, India: five hundred thousand people in the meeting. And there, that afternoon, they entertained me by seventeen different religions, and every one of them denied Christianity. Now, you can imagine how welcome I was there.

But that night, our precious Lord Jesus came in on the scene. I tell you, it showed who was God, and who wasn't, you see. When the great challenge.... We don't have to be ashamed of Christianity; we don't have to be ashamed, or afraid of any of God's Word; it's every bit the truth. And God has sovereignly give us a promise of His eternal Word. And don't be afraid to trust it, because I'm forty-six years old, and I've never seen a time that I ever ... any time that I was afraid to hang my soul upon any phase of His Word, because it's the truth.

Now, before we open His Book, let's speak to the Author of this Book, while we bow our heads, just a moment, if you will.

Our kind, and beloved Father, we come to Thee humbly tonight, in the name of the Lord Jesus, Thy beloved Child. We thank Thee from the depths of our heart for ever sending Him to the earth to die in our stead, to take away our sins, and to give us this wonderful fellowship one with another, while the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleansing us from all sin. And we pray, dear Heavenly Father, that tonight that You'll meet with us here, and bless us together, for that's our effort, is to come together and have this time with You.

We ask You to be merciful to save the unsaved; and to those who are backslidden and away from God, may they come home to Thee, sweetly, humbly, confessing their wrongs, and accept the Lord Jesus, and say, “Father, be merciful to me”—like the prodigal that returned to the father—and we're sure that He will meet him halfway down the road, and kiss him on the neck, put a ring upon his finger, and a robe on him, and bring him in, and kill the fatted calf; and a great jubilee there'll be in that broken home, when they come back to God. Grant it, Lord.

Heal the sick and the afflicted. Help us all to be Your servants. And now, grant these things to us, Father, for we humbly ask them in God's appropriated way. Jesus said while here on earth to us, “Ask the Father anything in My name, I will do it.” Now, that's just all we need to do, Lord, is to believe that. We know that we don't have much confidence in earthly things, but this is heavenly things. A great blessing give us by the Lord Jesus to ask whatever we would in His name, and we'd be recognized in Heaven, and what we ask would be given to us. And we do this, in Jesus' name. Amen.

There's so many good things, and places in the Bible to start from to read. A person, almost, in a meeting is just at wits end, almost, to find out where to start from. Tonight let's turn in the Gospel of Saint ... or, I John, and read the 1st ... the 5th and the 6th verse, I believe we'll take. Let's make it the 6th and 7th verse, and then we'll speak a little on this subject. Just thinking tonight while we were speaking on fellowship, this reads of fellowship.

If we say [Now, listen closely to the Word], for: If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

What a wonderful scripture we have here tonight, under consideration, in this time of fellowship. That's why our meeting's here tonight. I met with Brother Jackson; I didn't know him too well, but his little church has been faithful about every month, I believe, to send in, down to the church, a little missionary offering to go overseas to the people. And that's where my heart yearns, is to get the meetings, the message to the people overseas. Did you know there's two-thirds of the people in the world tonight, never once heard the name of Jesus Christ? Did you realize that?

And a few weeks ago, a city, in New Albany, Indiana, about a population of about thirty-seven, thirty-eight thousand people, that almost one-third of that population had never been in a church in their life? Think of that. One-third of the population—not overseas in Africa—here in United States. Oh, it's a terrible thing to think of how that we have wandered away, and taken things under consideration. Sometimes you ask a person, “Are you a Christian?”

Say, “Well, I'm American. Sure, I'm a Christian.”

That doesn't mean you're a Christian. A lady said to me not long ago, said.... Mr. Bosworth said, “Sister, are you a Christian?”

She said, “I burn a candle every night.” That don't mean you're a Christian, no, no.

“Are you a Christian?”

“I belong to a certain, certain church.” That don't mean you're a Christian. You're a Christian when you're born-again of the Spirit of God, then you become a Christian.

People has longed for this wonderful thing of fellowship. The world tonight, is hungry for fellowship. The nations are hungry for fellowship, people are hungry for fellowship, but we go at it in the wrong way. Now, tonight, we think of.... What makes man long for fellowship? What makes that in your heart, that you long to fellowship?

My mother used to have an old proverb. She said, “Birds of a feather flock together.” And that's a whole lot of truth. “Birds of a feather....” You don't see doves and crows together, because they have no fellowship. Their diet is different. Their makeup is different. A crow's a scavenger. A dove couldn't eat that kind of food; he has no gall; he's not made up that way. And that's the way that the world and Christians cannot fellowship together. There's something different, you just can't do it. Because a man, when he once becomes a Christian, a born-again Christian, then the old things die, and all things become new again. He becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things pass away.

But this great strain of men longing for fellowship, we've tried to bring people together through the ages. Many times educational programs has tried to unite people together by education. And standing in this auditorium tonight, of this lovely school, I certainly wouldn't speak against education, but education is not the appropriated way for fellowship. You can't educate people to love one another. You think you can, but it takes a divine order to do that. There's no way to do it through education.

And many times that we tried it through denominations, of churches denominating it. And each denomination builds up. The first one started was the Roman Catholic church, about AD 600 ... or, 300, rather; and it started the Roman Catholic church. They started a denomination to make everybody in one denomination. It wouldn't work. There come the Reformation, Martin Luther, then he brought all to Lutherans, tried to; it wouldn't work. Along come Wesley, he tried to make them all Methodists; it wouldn't work. Along come John Smith to make them all Baptists; it wouldn't work. Along come Alexander Campbell to make them all Campbellites, Christians; wouldn't work. Along come the others, the Presbyterians, and down into the Pentecostals, and the Nazarenes, and Pilgrim Holiness, but it doesn't work.

Every nation is trying to get an atomic bomb now, over rule and power to say, “All nations will bow at my....” It can't do it. But God laid down a program in the beginning how that men could have fellowship one with another. And we'll have to come to God's terms on it, that's all.

In the beginning, when man used to walk in the early age with God, in the garden of Eden, when the first man was created in the great cathedrals, under the palms, he and his wife, when the cool of the evening come along, they come out and worshipped God, had a perfect fellowship. God longs for fellowship. He yearns, He wants people to speak with Him, to talk with Him. You might do one ... you might sing too much, or you might preach too much, sometime, but there's one thing you'll never be able to overdo: that's pray.

The Bible said, “I would that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands.”

You'll never be able to have too much fellowship with God. And God longs for His creature, who He created in His image, to fellowship with Him.

Wouldn't you love to have lived in that time when the great fellowship God had with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, to come down in the cool of the evening and talk with them, and fellowship with them? Wouldn't that be marvelous? We all would like to have that time. Now, I believe, by God's Word I can prove to you that we can come right back on them terms again with God tonight, right straight back to that kind of fellowship.

In this meeting, I have thought of doing this: many people has watched my life in the healing campaigns, how that the things would take place, and the prophetic gifts and so forth, just like to tell you how that's done. That's done through fellowship with Jesus Christ. That's no other way, no other plan, no trick to it, just simply plain fellowship: taking God at His Word, what He said was truth, believing it. That just settles it. Then talk to Him, love Him, thank Him for it, and that does it.

Now, one day, sin came along, and it separated man from fellowship with his Maker. Sin is the reason tonight that man doesn't fellowship with his Creator. Sin has separated him from his Maker. As soon as Adam sinned, and Eve sinned, the fellowship line was cut off, and they could no more fellowship. Adam hid himself out in the bushes—he and Eve—realizing that they were naked, not caring no more to fellowship because sin made the difference.

That's what makes the difference tonight, the reason that people walk the streets and the church bells ring, and a dozen people sitting in the front part of the pews ... or, in the back part, rather. Today, the reason that we're deteriorating, and church members, and the reason today that even the whole world's deteriorating, is because sin has separated us from God. That's right.

A man ... they have different programs, and sign cards, and pledges that they'll be loyal to this denomination, to that church, or come to Sunday school so many times in a year, that'll never work.

[I say, them acoustics seems to be pretty strong. If some of the engineer on that, if they'll cut it down just a little bit. That's a really a good acoustic, all right, in this building.]

So, we find out that man must come back to his Maker. Then when Adam realized that sin had separated him, he became an alien, a wanderer, away from God, without hope, wandering around in the garden, knowing that he was separated from God, knew that he didn't have fellowship no more; it made him a wanderer. And man, to this day, when the sin problem, he still becomes a wanderer. He'll go to one church a while, he longs to have fellowship. He'll join the Methodists, or the Baptists, or the Pentecostal, or some church. He'll go in there, and he'll find imperfection in the church among the people, he'll leave this church and take his letter and go to another church. He'll go from church to church, he's a wanderer yet, away from God.

Now surely, there's some way, on some basis, that we can come back to God. God introduced it in the beginning, not through joining church, not through membership, not through national relationship, but through the shedding of blood God brought men back into fellowship with Himself. God laid out the welcome mat home to every sinner, in the beginning, in the garden of Eden, through the shed blood of an innocent beast: an innocent dying for the guilty, which was in a shadow of the coming of the Lord Jesus, in the days that when we would really come back to the real, pure, divine fellowship again with Father. What a wonderful plan. That was a welcome mat that laid at the door.

And when Adam and Eve realized that they had sinned, and could not stand upon their self-made religion, they made themselves aprons of fig leaves, we're told. That's the way man is today: When he sins, he'll join church, he'll do something, he'll try to cover himself up, get out in a little better group, or try to belong to a little better society. All those things are man made, and cannot stand. They'll never work; you just might as well forget it. God wouldn't recognize it.

And as Adam and Eve come down to the end of the road, when they had to face God and realize they were naked, so will every man, woman, boy, or girl who trusts in anything less than the shed blood of Jesus Christ at the hour of your death, you'll realize that you're a sinner, dying in the presence of God. Right. Very strong, but I don't believe we got too much time left here on earth to do what we have to do. The Christian church, how it failed, and it's time to take off the gloves, and preach the Gospel in the old-fashioned way. I believe it in the old-fashioned way.

And I realize that the day that we're living, when watch parties are put throughout the United States to watch for secret planes coming in, that we're living at the end-time. Most any time, just one fanatic nation could set off a chain of relays of atomic power or hydrogen power that would destroy the whole entire ... annihilation of the earth in a few hours' time. I know that three cobalt bombs dropped over here in Pacific ocean, and in less than twenty-four hours (the time the world could revolve around), there wouldn't be even an insect left on earth alive. No way to stop it. Them things could happen today as we know in our own lovely state of Indiana, hunting a killer that would shoot in the back of the neck, and all these different things, and fanatic people like that that's insane, because they've been separated from the love of God. Anything could happen, and you know that. And we're living in a terrible time.

And personally, not taking newspapers or what more, which is all right, but going overseas and dealing up, into the ranks of the people, and seeing that every nation is trembling and shaking, and they don't know what to do. All these earthly things has got to give away to the eternal things.

A few years ago, many of you men here tonight, up in my age —probably big, strong, healthy men—you played football and basketball over floors like this, and thought, “My,” what a good strong body you had. And tonight, your shoulders are bending, your hair's turning gray. Just a few years does this. What's the matter? You're earthly, and you're going back to the earth.

A few years ago, your granddad sat under that great, big, stately tree, out here, with its big, heavy limbs, and the winds a-blowing it, and it would bow back and forth, like that; the winds couldn't even shake it hardly. Today the limbs are breaking, and falling off, and a snag in the top of it. Why is it? The earthly has to give away for the eternal. Right.

Look around today, let's get back in history, and find Greece and Rome, and the great Empires that raised up in great splendor, and their kingdoms in that day, and every one of them.... I've walked in their ruins of the street, where they'd have to dig down thirty feet to find a relic of the great Empires that the men pushed their chests out, and rode through chariots and things with halos (as it was), around they're head ... or, wreaths, and thought they were someone. But today they're almost out of memory, and the cities are sunk, the kingdoms are gone. And too, our beloved America, someday, will lay in the rubbish heaps of ruin. And men who go out here and give their lives to try to bring people together in a fellowship like that, when it's almost in vain. Today the very foundations of our civilization is rotted out. And you know that's true.

Our great America (sure, we love it with all of our hearts), the greatest nation in the world, but yet, she's on crumbling, sinking sands; and every other nation. Because everything that's mortal will have to give away to the immortal. Every nation will have to give, or every kingdom will have to sink, and everything in the world will have to give away to the immortal.

Showing that there's coming an immortal ... how men strive and die, and sweat, and bleed, for the mortal things, because there's something ... you think I can come down, go back home and find my fellowman and shake his hand when they're in battle and so forth. And come back to start another war. And the first thing you know, that nation falls, and is gone. And the ruins, what does it speak of? That there's coming a time (and I believe soon at hand) when every nation will bow the knee to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, in His power and glory, and those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall rise, and meet Him in the air. What a great time.

Men ought to take consideration of these things. People.... We walk around here on the streets here in Sturgis and all other cities of the world, as if we were going to live here forever, not knowing what time God will require our soul in a spur of a moment. Oh, we should take inventory and check up quickly. And when we see the time a coming....

One night this week, or the Sunday afternoon, I want to speak on The Junction Time, and prove that these great signs and wonders that you see taking place now is only the indication of the end of this age, and the setting in of the Millennium. That's right. By God's Word proves it and that makes it right. Amen.

Don't mean to yell at you. This thing's kind of got a big voice.

Notice, fellowship: God wanting to fellowship with man, always wanted to do it. The Old Testament, all of it, was full of the shed blood.

“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” And where there's no remission of sin there is no fellowship. You've got to get away from sin before you can ever have fellowship with God, because God can't fellowship with sin. So, you're born a sinner, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, and how can you ever do it? You just might as well quit right now to begin with. You can't do it within yourself, but there is One who died to bring you to fellowship. Back, not only to fellowship, but relationship with God, to make you sons and daughters of God. Died for that purpose, come here, proved Himself Emmanuel, omnipotent. When the Omnipotent speaks, the miraculous happens.

Let any man or woman, at any divine promise of God, when Omnipotence speaks from the Bible, the miraculous will take place where that seed sets root in the heart of the man or woman. It'll produce just exactly what the promise is, because it's the Word of the Omnipotent; it has to.

Watch the fellowship, how Adam and Eve there turned away from God, because sin had separated them from that wonderful, marvelous fellowship. Had to shift for himself; he become a wanderer, tossed about with every wind of doctrine, carried away. That's the way he stands today: out of fellowship, out of harmony, away from God, shifting for himself. He creates something in his mind that he believes that God was, or something way back yonder, someday, or something that used to be. But every man that ever comes under the shed blood in the presence of Jesus Christ, and becomes born again, recognizes God to be the same God today that He ever was, creating. The same power, the same signs, the same....

He's, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

There's a place you can stand there, a place you can have that fellowship, a place that you can know what you're talking about. It isn't gotten by joining churches. It isn't gotten by joining, or burning candles, or saying prayers, or being very religious. It's got through the blood. God laid out the blood of the animal and said, “This is the way home.”

How that in the Old Testament, Israel always come on the basis of the shed blood of the innocent. Back out through Palestine, wherever the Palestinians was gathered ... or, worshipping, they would come to one place, and that would be to the temple. And in the temple where the sacrifice was made, the sacrificial lamb killed yearly, every man met in this temple under the basis of the shed blood of the lamb. He might serve God out in different places, but he fellowshipped, and worshipped God under the shed blood. You see it, folks? Only the blood, nothing else.

They didn't join church; they wasn't nothing else but come and recognize how God brought them in back there, when He journeyed them, coming out of Egypt, and brought the ... introduced the sacrificial lamb again, down there, after four hundred years in bondage. How He made a preparation (I believe, in Exodus, about the 16th, 19th chapter, along there) of the red heifer. The red heifer was to be killed. First, the red denoted “Christ.” Red also is a danger sign, and red is a sign of redemption. God brings redemption through the red blood. Rahab the harlot was redeemed by the scarlet thread that led down from her house. Red is a sign of danger, and red is a sign of redemption.

And let me give you a little bit of scientific something. You can take a red, purely, genuine, red glass, and look through it at a red object; and red through red looks white. Figure it out. God, looking through the blood of Christ, to a red sinner, is white as snow.

“Though your sins be red like crimson, they shall be white like snow.”

God knew what He was doing and He looks through the blood of the innocent to the guilty that's bloody red, and He sees him white. Not because he's righteous, but because he's accepted the righteousness of God through Christ, and become reconciled back to fellowship again with God. Not because something that you do, some good deeds. That's all right. You do the good deeds because you are a believer, but that doesn't do it—but good deeds. Joining church is all right, but that isn't what does it. It's when you recognize that you're a sinner, lost, and the only way that God can see you righteous is through the blood of Jesus Christ. Then when He sees you through the blood of Jesus, He sees you as innocent as His own Son, Christ Jesus, was. That's the Gospel story, friends. Believe that, accept that, and worship through that, you can have what you ask for. God said so. Yes, sir.

“If ye abide in Me, and My Word in you, ask what you will, and it shall be given unto you.”

There's the secret of it. There's the secret of that great life that's hid away in God, that knows no fear, whether it's stormy, whether the clouds are over, or whether the moon's not shining, or the sun's not shining, they're still living in that Shekinah glory. Amen. There you are, the fellowship.

Then the blood of this heifer.... First, she must be without a spot, without a blemish: speaking of Christ. Then she was to be killed in the evening time, before the high priest, Eliezer. And that's a type of Christ: killed in the evening, and before the high priest, as he witnessed to the death. The red (as I spoke of) speaks of redemption. And then the high priest was to get her blood on his hands, and go up to the door of the tabernacle, and make seven stripes across the door with the dead heifer's blood: Speaking of the seven junctions, or the seven church ages that's to come.

We will get on that later in the week, a little later on, of the junction times, and show that we're living right now in the seventh junction, orepha. We're at the end time: how that God's Word proves it, and history follows it, right down to the very shadow. And the very revival that's sweeping the world today is the beginning of the end time.

How that the high priest struck this over the door, then the heifer was to be burned; that's hoofs and all. And it made what they call “the water of separation.” Then every time an Israelite had sinned, they had to be sprinkled with this water of separation. And it was to be kept in a clean place, which speaks of the minister's heart. And the worshipper coming to the tabernacle for fellowship: if he'd lost his standing with God, and was away from God, and an alien, the only way that he could have fellowship again was first come back to the outer courts, and be sprinkled with the waters of separation, which speaks of the Word. We're washed by the water of the Word, through the washing of the water by the Word: makes us separated.

The first thing the sinner does is come first and hear the Word. “Faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the Word of God.”

He becomes convicted that he's a sinner, and he's without God. No matter how long he's gone to church; that doesn't mean it. All these things has a spiritual meaning to them, deeper than the natural things.

Oh, who couldn't go out and let someone baptize them? which is all right. But water will never wash away sin. Who could not stand up, and have them sprinkle a little water on you? Anyone could. That doesn't do it. Who could stand up and make a cold, dry-eyed profession, say, “I now believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”? Every devil in hell believes the same thing. That's right. But to really come into fellowship with God means to accept the blood, and it has been applied to your heart by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, by a new birth. Then you become a partner with God ... not a partner, but a son, and in relationship back with God again. My, that'd make Methodists shout. Think of that. How God's great program....

Then this man come up, and the waters of separation, which was Christ's death, Christ's life, Christ's all, the Bible. And he was sprinkled with this water of separation. That didn't finish it. Hearing the Word he accepted it, come and was sprinkled. That didn't make him any better.

Then the next thing, he went towards the court. And when he got into the court, before he got inside, he had to recognize that there was blood over the door, and some innocent substitute went before him to make a way for him. Every man that comes to Christ.... It's good to come to the church. It's good to be baptized, and so forth, which is all right. But every man coming into this divine fellowship of God has to recognize that before him went Jesus Christ with His own blood, sprinkled a way, and put the stripes over the door, as He went in. Not like Aaron, with the blood of an animal; but with His own blood, He stands in the presence of God tonight making intercession.

That's why divine healing is possible. That's why miracles and miraculous is possible. That's why a revival is possible, is when men can recognize who went before them. When Christ went before them, died, and rose again for our justification, and is sitting there tonight, at the right hand of God making intercession upon our confession of anything that He died for in the atonement, He'll make it good.

Oh, my! Demons tremble; sinners come to life when they realize that that's the truth. Just a hand shake, or a change of a letter will never do it, nor joining a church. That's all good—I have nothing against it—but that's not it. God never told Adam, “Come, let Me put your name on a book,” or, “Come back and let Me shake your hand.” He come through the blood. And every man that ever comes into fellowship with God will come through the same thing. God has no substitute, nothing but the blood. He has no short-cuts, no by-cuts. You come God's way through reconciliation by the blood, and then become a son and daughter of God. Then all things are possible. Then miracles are possible; then a revival is possible.

I think today, that great men has swept this nation back and forth—Jack Schullers, Billy Grahams, many others—has went over, and over, and over, and over through the nation, and go right back the same year, and find the same group that he preached to just as far deluded in sin as they ever was. Because man can't save you, but man can only make an altar call, but it your individual, personal faith and trust in God to plunge beneath the blood, and to be filled with His Spirit, and become partakers of the Divine—not a partaker of the church—a partaker of the Divine. The divine nature changing your own vile nature into a nature that loves God, that believes every word that He said is the truth, and accepting it as your own personal gift from God.

When a believer comes like that, God gives him a checkbook for any redemptive blessing He died for, and Jesus' name is signed at the bottom of it. Are you afraid to fill it out? [Congregation says, “No.”] If you're afraid to fill it out, you're a coward: you never have come in contact with God. But you once get in contact with God, and the Holy Spirit make Christ real to your heart, you're not afraid to take God at His Word anytime, or believe, because you've been in contact with the supernatural. You've come back into fellowship, you've come back in reconciliation through the blood, and believe God, and know you've been in His divine presence.

Notice. Then this blood, the blood was laid over the door. Then every man or woman, boy or girl, before they could ever get into the congregational fellowship, had to come, first, be sprinkled for their uncleanliness through the sprinkling of the waters of separation. They walked up there and recognized the blood that some innocent one died before them, and went before them, to make a way. Then they accepted that blood, and come under it's protection. Oh, my, what a picture. Come under the protection of the shed blood.

Brother, I'm telling you, when you're there, you'll not argue with everybody they should belong to your church. They'll be brothers to you as sure as I'm standing on this platform. Every man that's in Christ will be a brother to you. We won't have so much prejudice, and strife; we won't have arguing against divine healing; we won't have arguments against old-fashioned revivals. We won't have them arguments. But all men will be brothers. Churches, denomination will never do it. Education will never do it. Enthusiasms upon worldly things, it'll never do it. Nations will never do it. Atomic bombs will never do it. Only the blood of Jesus Christ will do it. And it's all-sufficient to bring nations to theirself.

Not long ago, when I was in Finland, and that little boy (as you've read in the books, many of you) being raised from the dead that afternoon there, and they brought me down to Helsinki, where they let twenty-five thousand, then dump them out, and make twenty-five thousand more in. There come for six city blocks down through there, with an army of soldiers around you like that, to keep the people from right and left. There stood great, big, communistic Russian soldiers with that Russian salute standing there, and the tears running down their cheeks. They said, “We will accept a God like that, who can raise the dead.” Sure.

It has been misrepresented to them. And the very fundamental fact that God's called us to come to Him upon the basis of His shed blood, and to preach the Gospel, and signs and wonders would follow. We've failed to do it. We've left off the very thing that He told us to do, and we've went out and built churches, and organizations, and everything, which has failed, miserably failed, and they'll continue to fail, and God will never recognize one of them. Not as I got anything against them, but brother, that ain't what does it.

You can belong to any organization you want to. If you're a child of God, been born of the Spirit of God, accepted the blood of the Lord Jesus, and reconciled to God through the shed blood, then you can belong to any church you want to and be a Christian. That's right. But just belonging to the church without that, you're lost, and you'll never recognize it, you'll never recognize.... You can be so loyal under that thing, and it's a poison thing. Amen.

Notice. Reconciliation.... The believer once coming beneath that blood, after he's been sprinkled. “Faith cometh by hearing, hearing the Word.” He realizes it. Then he walks up to that blood, and he recognizes, “O righteous God, I'm a sinner, I don't belong in there, but I've been sprinkled. My heart conscience clean with the sprinkling of the Word. And I believe now, that You are Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I recognize His blood went before me.” Then the Holy Spirit comes down, and a miraculous power transforms your life, and picks you up, and brings you into the inside of the veil, and there you have fellowship with God, and commune with Him, as Adam did in the beginning of the garden of Eden.

Jesus' death only ... if it only took away part sin, if it'd ever taken away.... Some people say, “Well, you should live a better life, turn a new page.” “It's just New Years....” Oh, how many resolutions did you make, and already broke them? It'll never work. It's a dying out, and a rebirth, a regeneration, a new creature in Christ Jesus. That's what the world needs today. That's what the church needs today, is an old-time, apostolic, God-shaking, Holy Ghost revival. That's right. I don't mean in a bunch of fanaticism. I don't believe in a bunch of emotional, worked-up, but I mean a real, true, blood-born salvation that sets man free from sin, and makes him a new creature in Christ. Amen. You know that's the truth.

Come upon those basis. Come to God like that and see what happens. Recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as your superior, recognize that you're dead, and your life is hid in Him, through God, and sealed in there by the Holy Ghost, then walk up to Father. You become a part of God, the very nature of God's in you. You're a son of God, you're a daughter of God. You wouldn't argue against divine healing, you wouldn't argue against any miracle God would perform.

God made the world without even anything to make it out of. What did He do? There was no world, no firmament, no nothing. God spoke, and said, “Let there be,” and the very earth that you're sitting over tonight is the creative God's Word come into existence. Amen. Speak that within your heart, and the lady will get up out of the wheelchair and walk away. Let that same.... That pair of crutches will lay there on the seat tonight. Let the Omnipotent speak, watch the miraculous take place.

What's a man there? Maybe it's far beyond them. Them people may be Christians, solid and sound in Christ. I don't know. Let the man that's an alien, let the man that's been in church for forty years, and yet don't know Jesus Christ in the new birth, let him recognize that and watch what a difference it makes in his life. Look how a new creature rises up here in the midst of you. When he recognizes himself dead, and his life hid in God through Christ, and sealed by the Holy Spirit, and watch what takes place. Sure we got to recognize that.

If a man does that, and by recognition of that, then.... Someone wrote to me, not long ago.... And all of you know I'm a Baptist. All right. And the man wrote to me and said, “Brother Branham, you being a Baptist, and teach something besides faith,” said, “how in the world can a man do anything but believe?” Said, “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and what more could a man do?”

I said, “That's right. Father Abraham believed God, and it was imputed for righteousness, but He give him the circumcision as a sign, that He'd recognized his faith.” That's right. And if God has never circumcised your heart from the things of the world, and recognized your faith, that you confessed in Him, maybe forty years ago, and cut off the worldly things, and circumcised you from all the earthly things, and the doubts and scruples that you have, something has happened. Your faith wasn't recognized before God, for He would've cut away the surplus. Circumcision means “to cut off surplus flesh.”

That's what God does when a man comes to Him upon the basis of the shed blood of Christ, standing before Calvary, recognizing himself condemned, and standing there with the Word in his heart saying, “God, I believe it.” God manifests His power and love to him, and cuts away the things of the world, and you're no more a worldly creature, you're a heaven-bound son and daughter of God, on the ladder to glory. Amen. I'm not “amening” myself, but amen means “so be it,” and I know that's the truth.

It worked on a poor, Irish sinner like me, and it'll work on you, or anybody that comes. I've seen it work on forty or fifty different nations of the world, and I know it'll work on every creature that will come upon the basis of the shed blood. Certainly. Recognizing yourself dead; recognizing you're an alien. Only not, “My church, or what I've done, or what I will do, or what a good fellow I've been, what I am in my community.”, but, “What I am, I am a sinner, and no good. And I recognize God's Son to be my propitiation for my sin, and I've accepted it.” Then God, by the Holy Ghost, takes you into fellowship with Him, and you talk with the Father again, like father Adam did in the beginning.

Then, of course, you'll believe divine healing. Divine healing is nothing but an attribute of sin. Before we had any sin, we didn't have any sickness. Sickness is the results of sin. And you can't deal with sin without dealing with sickness.

A fine scholar said to me, not long ago, said, “Brother Branham, do you believe that divine healing was in the atonement?”

I said, “I couldn't preach it if it wasn't.”

He said, “Then if divine healing was in the atonement, there'd be no more pain.”

I said, “My brother, do you believe there's temptation?”

“Sure, there's temptation.”

“Then if there's temptation, there can be pain.” Certainly there can, certainly. It's up to you, whether your personal faith in God that does it.

Now these guys going around, calling themselves divine healers, and saying they got power to do these things, I don't believe it. I certainly do not. There's no Scripture for that at all. There's only twelve apostles had that, but we are ordained ministers of God to preach the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and His atonement.

“For He was wounded for our transgressions, and with His stripes we were healed.”

It's your personal faith in a risen Lord Jesus, who stands tonight, just as alive as He ever was.

“Yet a little while and the world will see me no more; yet you shall see Me: for I will be with you (”I“ is a personal pronoun) be with you even in you to the end of the world. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever.”

Only exalting the cross and the Lord Jesus Christ. And your personal faith in that finished work, yonder at Calvary, will make every demon shake. I know it to be the truth, friend. I'm not standing here as an impostor, I'm not standing here as a deceiver; I'm standing here knowing what I'm speaking of, and you know the truth, every one of you that has been born again of the Spirit of God. It's through the shed blood alone, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

The old Salvation Army used to sing that song:

Oh, precious is the flow,

That makes me white as snow;

No other fount I know,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

That's the One, that's the only One. Not my church, not my friends, not my neighbors. They're all fine, but I know nothing but the blood of Jesus. I was once blind, they led me by my arms, and now I can see. Oh, Mayo's give me up, and said, “Just a few hours, and you'll be gone.” And tonight I'm in better health than I ever was in my life, after five years has rolled by. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Amen.

I remember my church, when I told the general overseer that the Angel of the Lord had appeared, he said, “You with a seventh grade education will pray for kings?”

I said, “That's what He said.”

Said, “Go home, you had a nightmare, Billy.”

But I didn't. I met Christ. Hallelujah! He changed my life; He changed me, and I become ... and I did pray. Got a letter from the king of Swed... Denmark the other day. Said, “Brother Branham, come over and pray for our people this summer.” Oh, my. Great men.

You know what? Great men seem like little men when you meet them. They make you think you're great. It's these guys that's little that wants to be big is the kind that you find that's all scrupled up up here. That's right. Thinking they're something when you're nothing. Brother, what are any of us with six foot of dirt out yonder? Someday our soul's got to meet God, and without the shed blood upon it, it'll be condemned and sent to hell, a devil's hell, in a separation from God forever. Wake up, and come to the realization that this might be your last opportunity to receive Christ. Think of it.

Other things will take place when you get the right thing first. You can't build up on top of the ladder for your first round; you go to start at the bottom and come up to it. That's the way revivals have to begin. That's the way healing campaigns have to begin. That's the way all things have to begin: begin from the bottom, build up. For anything else is worked up, emotion, and mental. We got too much of it today. Even psychologist coming to me to be prayed for, mentally broke down. There you are. What's the matter? Nothing but the blood of Jesus will take care of the thing. Amen.

Notice. Look close now. Old Job, the oldest book in the Bible.... He recognized and accepted the shed blood, and stood pat on it—firm, solid foundation. Though all the shackles of hell shook around him and everything else, but he never feared him; he walked straight, right into the mouth of death, believing in the shed blood.

When his church members come to him and said he had secretly sinned, and he was a secret sinner, Job knowed that he had offered a sacrifice, and confessed his sins, and he stood firm on God's provided program of the shed blood. He knew he hadn't sinned. And after he stayed so firm, till he lost his children, he lost everything he had—his camels, his sheep, all of his goods—everything he'd lost, and he realized that he still wasn't a sinner; he was righteous in the sight of God.

When Elihu, the little prince, came down from the east, and begin to tell him that he oughtn't to accuse God of these things, and begin to tell him he was a secret sinner, but told him of a just One who was coming. Job had looked at the flowers, he's see them die, go into the ground. Springtime they'd come up again. He said, “Man layeth down and giveth up the ghost, he wastes away; where is he? Springtime he don't rise again.” He watched nature. That's how we get the Indians, how we get the pagans, is watch nature. All this stuff that they preach that's unstable. Then we come to find out that Job watched it. And God sent Elihu down there and told him just what would take place. Notice. Look what taken place.

He said, “You've watched that flower.” In other words, the flower didn't sin, therefore it comes up in the springtime. The tree blows down, a new tree comes up in its place. But man layeth down, he giveth up the ghost, he wastes away; where is he? O that Thou would hide me in the grave, till Thy wrath be passed.“

When Elihu begin to explain to him about it, he said, “I know you've sinned, man has sinned (all men have sinned in otherwise), but there's coming One, a just One, who can stand in the breach between a sinful man and a holy God, put His hands on both, and bridge the way. At that time, there'll be a difference.”

Job being a prophet caught the vision. When the washing of the water by the sprinkling of the blood ... or, the sprinkling of the water of separation upon him, when he heard the word coming from Elihu. His heart caught it because he was a prophet. He stood up, the thunders roared, the lightning begin to flash across the skies, the prophet got into the Spirit. That's the only way the church is ever going to catch a vision of what to do: when they get in the Spirit of it.

What we need today is a good, old-fashioned revival times again. You go to dances and kick your feet, and do all kinds of ungodly-looking things, and swing the girls over top of their heads, on televisions and things, which ought to be censored and put off the television program. Right. And you carry on all kind of nonsense in the name of civilization, it's going back to beyond pagans, what they would do. You know that's truth. That's right. But you think it's civilization. It's a mark of ... not civilization; it's a mark of deterioration instead of civilization. Sure it is. The minds of men have become deteriorated. Things are happening.

But with Job being in the Spirit, he caught the vision of the coming just One. And he shook himself and stood up and said: “I know my Redeemer liveth, and at the last days He will stand on this earth: thou the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh I will see God; whom I shall see for myself, mine eyes shall behold, and not another. We've brought nothing into the world, and it's certain we take nothing out.” How that God watered that man.

Then he seen the coming of the Lord Jesus, and recognized it. Why? He stood firm and pat on the shed blood of the innocent Sacrifice, knowing that there's nothing good in him, but he knowed who he had believed. As Paul said, “I know who I have believed, and persuaded He's able to keep that which I've committed to Him against that day.”

Out yonder sits a big channel before each one of us. It's a great, dark channel hanging yonder. Each time our heart beats we go one step closer to it all the time. After a while it'll take its last beat, and we've got to go in there. It's a place called death, it's set before every mortal. I got to go too. I don't know when my last beat will be here, but when it comes, I want to do this, I want to go in knowing this, that I know Him in the power of His resurrection, that when He calls from among the dead, I'll be called out from there.

Not long ago, an insurance agent was at my house ... nothing against insurance. But he said, “Billy, I want to sell you a policy.”

I said, “I got insurance.” He knowed I didn't have any insurance, earthly. I said, “I got insurance.”

My wife looked around at me as if to say, “What's that?”

I said, “I have insurance.”

He said, “Billy, what kind insurance you got?”

I said:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

O what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

He said, “Billy, that's all right, I recognize that, and that's good. That's all right, but,” said, “Billy, that'll not put you in the graveyard up here.”

I said, “But it'll take me out, brother.” I ain't worried about getting there, I'm worried about getting out of there is the main thing. I'll get there somehow, and I'll come out because of this blessed assurance. Jesus made the promise, I believe it with all my heart.

Let's turn our camera for the closing moments now, a moment. Let's go back to Eden again. I can see little Eve standing there. I was standing not long ago down ... went off of Mars Hill down to Athens, and I was watching a picture there that some Grecian artist had painted of the creation; it was a detriment to Christianity. There stood Eve, the horriblest looking beast you ever seen. Oh, my! I never seen such a looking person as Eve. And there was Adam with hairs out of his nose, way out like that, and looked like some kind of a pre-historic giant. No such a thing as that. Anybody would do that has got a deluded mind, a perverted mind. They don't know God.

Eve was the most beautiful woman was ever on the earth. She was God's perfect thought of a woman. And Adam was the most perfect man that lived, when he was made manifest, and Christ proved it. There he stood.... I can see Adam, great, big, manly shoulders, his big muscles in his legs, his shaggy hair hanging around his neck. I can see Eve, beautiful, her blond hair hanging down her back, and her eyes as blue as the skies, and sparkled like the stars. She didn't have to use any Max Factor to make her pretty. No, sir, no, sir. Sin what did that. Look, brother, she was made in God's image, she's made after ... image of man, after God had created her. Beautiful, never to die, never to get old, never to wrinkle, the sparkle never to go out of the eyes. She was to be beautiful for ever.

Neither would Adam's shoulders ever shag, or hair turn gray, or any deterioration to him. Walking perfect with friendship, and fellowship with the Father. What a beautiful picture.

Then when sin entered in, and God seen that they had sinned, before He could even pass judgment, He had to go kill an innocent lamb ... or, beast, and throw the skins back there, to cover up, to make a substitutionary death, provided for the worshipper to come to Him, and Adam and Eve standing in His presence.

I can see little Eve and them beautiful eyes now, after sin had set in, tears filled them, and they run down her cheek. I can see Adam with those strong eyes, as he looked across Eden, and the soft winds a-blowing where he had to make the beasts to obey him, and the winds, and the waves to obey him, everything else had to obey him. He had full rulership over everything here on earth. He realized he had lost his fellowship with God. Tears, showing that he was mortal now, dripped off at his face, and run down over his bosom, and dripped off on Eve's head. I can see her look up and say, “Adam, I'm the cause of it, dear.”

Now, Adam was not deceived. No, sir. Adam was not deceived. Adam knowed just exactly what he was doing, but Eve was deceived. And Adam did not go out because he had transgressed, he had not. He wasn't deceived. He didn't go out because being deceived; he went out because he loved his wife so well, he went with her. A very beautiful type of Jesus Christ, knowing no sin, but went to hell and took our place to redeem His wife, the church.

Don't get mistaken in that now, mixed up, see. Adam was not deceived: Timothy 3. He was not deceived, but Eve, being deceived, was in the transgression. That's right. Adam went with her, to be with her. And Christ came down from Heaven, the Immortal God, and was made flesh and dwelt among us here, to be one of us, to die as a sinner at Calvary, to redeem us back to fellowship with God again. It's a beautiful story. He didn't have to do it, but He did it because of His love for the church, and lost humanity.

I can see them as they turn away from God there. I can see Adam as he starts walking away, and Eve, his arm around Eve, as they started out through the garden of Eden, and great Jehovah God standing there. I can see all the great endless eternities....

Not long ago I had the privilege of looking through that scope out yonder, at Mount Palomar there ... Mount Wilson, I could see a hundred and twenty million years of light space. And beyond that is still space. And I wondered, “How endless is the eternity?” And yet God, who covered all space and eternity.... I can see Him bottled down to four little letters, l-o-v-e. He just couldn't stand to see His children be turned away, to be a wanderer, to be a shifter-about, and nothing to care for them. And now look, I see Him by sovereign grace ... [Blank spot on tape.]

When God makes a covenant with man, man will break it every time. He always did, but God there, made a covenant in Himself. Never said, “If you will,” or something or another, “I will put enmity.” Promising a Saviour, between her seed and Satan's seed.

And now let's look. Four thousand years has passed, and all the time, a shadow of the blood through the offering of sheep and goats, and so forth, which could not take away sin, but just covered it up. Now, we're down four thousand years later. Let's turn our camera around this way to four thousand years later. Let's pull up the shades this morning, we're in Palestine, we're in Jerusalem.

I hear the awfullest racket outside. What is it? Oh, it's a mob. Some this way, and some that way. What is it? There comes the great high priest, his turban on top of his head. Here comes the other priest, “Away with such a thing, away with such a thing!”

I hear a little woman called Magdalena run out in front of Him and say: “What has He done? Nothing but healed your sick and done good. What do you accuse Him of? How can you condemn Him? He's done nothing.”

Someone slap her, and say, “Would you believe that woman instead of your priest?” Chuck her out of the way.

I hear something dragging; I look. There comes an old rugged cross, dragging down over them cobblestones. I see the meat wearing off of His shoulders, as He pulled along, with a crown of thorns over His face, here, and the blood ... mockery spit hanging down His face; and see them mocking. They're going to strip Him in a few minutes, so they throwed His robe over Him, wove out, without a seam, that they'd woven for Him—Martha and Mary. And here He comes dragging the cross down, staggering and bleeding, making a bloody footprint, to the only place that God will ever recognize a weary sinner to come, coming by the footprints of the Lord Jesus, through the shed blood.

Here He goes down through the street, pulling the cross. Up the hill He goes, yonder He falls. Simon the Cyrene (a colored man) come, helped Him pack it along. Watch Him. I look on His back. Look across that white robe He's got around His shoulders. I see there's little red spots all over His robe. Wonder what that is? As He moves on up the hill, them spots begin to get bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger. After a while, I see them all go into one great, big bloody splosh, and I hear something going [Brother Branham makes a slow clapping sound.] What is it? It's the second Adam, the One without sin, come to take sin, come to redeem us from what first Adam did, come to redeem us back to fellowship, shedding His own blood. And as He's going up the hill, death “beezing” at Him, just stinging around His face.

Did you ever see a bee? A bee stinging at Him like that. Insects of the earth has stingers, but we're taught that if a bee ever stings you real deeply once, that settles it forever with that bee. When he flies away he leaves his stinger there; he can't sting no more. And the bee of death who had held men in captivity for four thousand years under fear, was stinging around Him. He was just about ready to be stung. And after a while that bee anchored his stinger down in there, but when he went away he pulled his stinger out.

And today, a believer can walk right in the face of death, saying, “O death, where is thy sting? And grave, where is thy victory? But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Death has no sting no more to the believer. No, sir. He walks right straight into the presence of God. When they was building a block out there.... I was in that little, old chamber there, where they cut Saint Paul's head off, here about a year ago. Pitched him over there in the sewer for him to wash out that great power of God. Standing there, writing those epistles. I couldn't help but my heart trembling. And right down there where they said Peter was buried in, my, such tommyrot. And there in the place where Saint Paul was beheaded, where I was in there, and they said, “All right, Paul, you're at the end of the road.”

He said, “O death, where is your sting?”

Said, “There's a grave waiting.”

“But grave, where is thy victory? But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I have fought a good fight, I've finished the course, I've kept the faith: Henceforth, there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness, the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at that day: not only me, but all those who love His appearing.”

Why did he know it—why did he know it? He'd followed those bloody footprints as a murderer himself, as a persecutor of the church; he walked up, as a religious man, and renounced everything that he had ever done. All of his righteousness he throwed to each side, like that, and fell at the cross, and recognized the blood of Jesus Christ, the only appropriate way for sinners to reach God, and there was reconciled to God through faith. And God give him the Holy Spirit when he was baptized there, at the river of Damascus. Went down into Egypt three years, and come back preaching the faith that he once locked up. Why? He'd come God's provided way.

And tonight, my friend, there is a provided way for you. There's a provided way for these sick people, sitting here, that's come. Maybe the members of my brother's church. Maybe he's prayed for them, I don't know, I can't tell you. But there's a way provided for you and your sickness, also. There's a way provided for you here that's sick and afflicted. There's a way provided for you sinners, for you backsliders, for you lukewarm. There's a way provided, and that's the blood of Jesus Christ, that brings us into full fellowship with God. And you talk about an old-fashioned revival breaking out through this city here. You'd have a real revival, if you'd only recognize that for everything you have need of tonight. It's all finished at Calvary.

Salvation's finished, reconciliation was finished, divine healing was finished, everything that you have need of in earth's journey was finished at Calvary. Have you got the faith tonight to walk up there, to the face of Calvary, and say, “Father, I now ask, in Jesus' name, for my soul, or for whatever it is, and recognize that God has promise that He'd give whatever He promised. Ask the Father anything in My name I will do it. And the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We have fellowship, one with another.”

Shall we pray.

Our Heavenly Father, coming to the close of these few remarks tonight over this platform here, in this school auditorium. O God, I can think of Saint Paul preaching that same type of Gospel—the blood of Jesus Christ—to a boy fell and killed himself, and he laid his body over him, and he come back to life.

O God, You're the God of the prophets, Thou art not deaf, neither are You blind, neither are You without understanding. You know every heart, You know every move. You said You even knew the sparrows when they fell to the street, not one of them could fall, without the Father recognizing it.

And God, in here tonight, may be young men or women, maybe old men and women, I know them not, Lord. But without coming through God's provided shed blood, there at Calvary, come and recognize that, and be born again, by the Spirit of God, they're lost, Lord. Tomorrow may never come. The sun may never rise again. This may be their last night. This may be the last time. If it is, Father, Thou who knows the hearts of men, I pray that You'll let that person tonight, recognize he's standing in the presence of Calvary's cross, and the sacrifice hanging there for him: Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Grant it, Father.

And while we have our heads bowed, our eyes closed, I wonder tonight, while we're in the building, if there would be one person here tonight, that's an alien from God, that would just say, not to me as a minister, but to Jesus, as your Creator, if you'd raise your hand, say, “God, be merciful to me. Remember me in prayer, Brother Branham, in this service, that God will give me the experience that you're talking about tonight.” Will you raise your hand? Is there a person anywhere in the building, that would raise up your hand?

If you're a Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, no matter what you are, if you're short of the blood, it's up to you, friend. Will you raise your hand, say, “Pray for me, Brother Branham. I now here, raise my hand to Almighty God, that I really want to be born again, and become in fellowship with God. I've always wondered why my prayers wasn't answered, why I couldn't get nowhere. I've lived a half-way life, up-side-down, and in and out, and around. It just looks like I can't get nowhere, Brother Branham. And it looks like I pray, but God won't answer my prayer.”

What's the matter? You're out of fellowship.

Jesus said, “You ask the Father anything in My name, I will do it.” Said, “If ye abide in Me, and My Word in you, ask what you will. He that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me has everlasting life, and shall never come into condemnation, never no more condemned, but has passed from death unto life.”

Do you recognize, tonight, that you'd like to be in that place, and would want to be remembered in a word of prayer, while we close, would you raise your hand, right quickly now. God bless you, sir. Someone else. God bless you, little fellow. God bless you, that's good. Someone else. Will you recognize.... God bless you, sir. That's fine. Just keep your heads bowed and raise your hands. God bless you. That's good.

All right. Somebody in the balconies, along, would you raise your hand saying, “Brother Branham, honestly, I don't live a right life, God knows that, and I try to, I want to.” You're honest-hearted, brother. You're honest-hearted, sister. And look, don't die in that shape though, honey. If you die in that shape, you're lost. Now is the day of salvation, this is the time.

And you say, “I've joined churches, I've done everything, Brother Branham, but still, I just can't get that fellowship that I want. I just can't seem to know when I kneel on my knees that Jesus is standing there, and I love Him, and He talks to me, then I ask Him anything, and see Him turn right around and do it for me. I wish I could live that kind of life. Wish I could live that close to Him. I want to, Brother Branham, and I raise my hand to God, and He sees me. And may He bring me into that fellowship.”

Some four or five hands has been up. Will someone else raise your hand if you will, say, “I, too, Brother Branham, want to be remembered in this closing prayer, that God will bring me into this fellowship.”

Is there a backslider here that'd say, “O God, be merciful to me. I want to come back to the church. I want to come back to God and live the life that I once lived. I'm away from God now.”

Talked to an old woman the other day. Poor, old thing, she told me she was a member of a fine church, and the woman didn't know who I was, standing there she started cursing and carrying on. I said, “Shame on you.” And she looked at me, and I had an old pair of overalls on. And when I told her I was a minister, she looked at me, and laughed at me. And I said, “Why, you ought to know me.” I said, “I'm Brother Branham.”

And she started crying, she put her hands in mine, said, “Brother Branham, I'm ashamed of myself. I was once a Christian, but I've wandered away.” Said, “Oh, pray for me that God will make me a Christian again.”

I said, “Certainly, sister, right now we could do that.”

Now, will you just be that much and say, “Now, God....” Right here in the church where we dedicate it for church service, would you raise your hand, say, “God be merciful to me, 'cause I've went away from God.”

How many here's that's not born again? You go to church, but you know you're not born again? Would you raise your hand and say, “Remember me, Brother Branham, to God, because I'm not born again. I haven't the Holy Spirit. I go to church, but when it comes to that close fellowship with God, I don't have it. I need to be born again, but yet, I go to church. And I want you to pray for me.”

Would you raise your hand? Anyone in the building?

Now, remember, friend, this.... I don't know you, God does, see. A little crowd here, couple hundred people or more, sitting here, tonight. It won't be long.... There's men in here, and women, that's aged, your hair's gray. Nature proves that you're not going to be here very long. You know that, with all sincerity. That's right.

And look, there's some young people here will be gone before you. Look at little babies ... they just brought me one with leukemia, and another one, oh my, polio, and everything else, see. You don't know when you're going. Death's no respecter of person. So, if you're not correctly right with God before we go into these other two nights of service, let's raise our hands, and say, “God, remember me, I'm in need of You.”

All right. Now, just keep your head bowed. About five hands went up.

Now, our kind, Heavenly Father, realizing that we're just mortal men, that there's not much that we can do about it, we're mortal, we're just men. But Thou art God, You can do the supreme, You can do the great powers, Lord. You have them all under Your control. And now, these people that's come down through the snow, to sit here tonight, to listen to the story, the simple story of the cross, and God's provision, how to bring them back, and make them sons and daughters of God. They've come with sincerity of their heart, and they are gathered here in the building tonight.

I pray, Father, they had courage to raise their hand. And I don't know, Lord, but I believe there was many more should've done it. And, Father, I pray that through the mercies of Christ that You'll not let one of them be lost, that's sitting here tonight. May they, from this very hour on, in their heart, make a decision just now, and where the appropriated blood of Jesus had been made sufficient to take care of all their sins. I pray that You'll grant it, Lord, this very night.

And may they become in close fellowship with Thee, insomuch that You'd recognize them as Your sons and daughters, and kiss the seal of the Holy Ghost upon their heart, until divine love will sway their hearts out of this worldly conglomeration of gaiety and mess, and devil-possessed things that we have on this earth, to the heavenly things, which is soon coming out of the day of man and to the coming of the day of the Lord. Grant it, Father. We pray through Jesus' name.

And with your heads bowed, I wonder if anybody would want to be remembered in prayer tonight for sickness. Would you raise up your hand, and say, “Remember me, I'm sick.” One, two, three, four hands. All right. Let's put our heads down.

Heavenly Father, we pray that in the name of the Lord Jesus, these people here that's sick and needy, O God, grant that before these little three services will close, that there will not be a feeble person in our midst. May they be shouting the praises of God, and walking down the streets, and seeing their doctors dismiss them, and saying, “No need of coming any more, something's happened.” Grant it, Lord. Your all-sufficient program, Lord, Your blood is all sufficient tonight, to heal every one of them, and I pray that You'll grant it. Let Thy mercies rest upon each and every one of them, I pray through Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

Now, while we raise our heads, and the pianist ... if you'll come to the piano.... Come here, brother, if you will.

How many loves the Lord Jesus, let's see you raise your hands? Did you ever sing this old song, I Love Him? Did you ever hear it sang? All right, give us a.... You know that, sister? Give us a little cord on it. I'm not a singer now, but let's try to sing it, I Love Him.

I love Him, I love Him

Because He first loved me

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary..........

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

Now, shake hands with your neighbor, say, “God bless you.” Somebody sitting next to you.

.................love Him

Because He first loved me

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Now, with your hands up in the air.

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

Now, bow your head, close your eyes, and be in prayer.