The Inter-Veil

Thank you, Brother Jackson. Thank you, brother.

Shall we bow our heads just a moment for prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee again tonight, from the depths of our innermost being, for the blessed privilege that we have of gathering together under the canopies here tonight in the name of Jesus, the Son of God, who promised us that wherever two or three were gathered in His name, He would be in their midst. And we have this blessed assurance tonight, that He is here, for we have gathered in His name. And with the divine promise that He gave us, that “Whatever you ask the Father in My name, that I will do.”

And we pray tonight, Father, that You'll, in a special way, bless the Word tonight, Lord. And may it sink deep in every heart. And may the unbeliever become a believer tonight. May those who are weary along the road be encouraged. Heal the sick and afflicted, and get glory to Thyself. For we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

You may be seated.

And a special “good evening” to you all. I'm very happy to be here again tonight in the service of the Lord. Glad to see Brother Smith down here. He's from the tabernacle down at Jeffersonville. And I believe I seen Brother Ammett, up in the balcony up there, from up in Ohio here, somewhere, a veteran was just healed of heart trouble, in one of the meetings. We're glad to see them in, tonight.

And to see you folks that was here last night, back again tonight, to the Gospel feast that we've been having. The Lord has been blessing us the last night. I kind of lived on some of it, yet, today. You know, we kind of store up that manna (don't we), until the time when we need it. And we need it every hour.

Now, it's a marvelous thing to serve the Lord. There's nothing like it. Some people might think that it's such a task to serve the Lord; but I think it's a joy. Oh, what a privilege to serve God!

And now, tomorrow our services, I guess, will begin about two o'clock. Is that right, brother? [A man says, “Two-thirty.”] Two-thirty. Is that for my time to be here, or the preliminaries, at two-thirty? Services. [“No, the preliminaries will start at two-thirty. You can be here about ten to three.”] All right. The preaching services will begin at ten minutes till three, tomorrow. And they last an hour or two.

Now the reason we do that: If there happens to be another minister here in the location, or somewhere here ... the reason I do this, is because that (you see) coming in this way like this, just a little fellowship with Brother Smith, and with his church. And as I told you last night, we did. And then, in an afternoon, we didn't put this a healing campaign; we just come as a little fellowship together, so that we could have a little time of fellowship. And now, on Sunday afternoon.... We have it on Sunday afternoon, where if there be some people who goes to other churches would like to fellowship with us for a little while, well, we don't interfere with their services, any other service.

Now, if there's.... I see today that there must be visitors with us. I had a letter here—it must be in my overcoat pocket. I wonder if that little cross-eyed girl that was healed at ... I believe, up here in one of the Michigan meetings that I can't call.... What say? [A man says, “Battle Creek.”] Yes. No. I believe it was before. Maybe it was Battle Creek. A little cross-eyed girl that was healed. I got a letter from her today. Had her picture. I wonder if she's in the building tonight, a little cross-eyed girl. And I think it was healed at the Battle Creek meeting. I got the letter there in my pocket, and her picture.

Then I got a letter from a lady that was healed in another meeting, here somewhere, and just like that. It just made me feel real good to read your testimonies.

It's always good. I wished I had time to read them, and so forth, and.... But we keep those testimonies, and one of these days, the Lord willing, on this new thing that I'm starting for the Lord.... Many of you....

How many takes Brother Mattsson-Boze's paper, I believe, called The Herald Of Faith? You know that? Well, the vision is given in that. And The Voice Of Healing, and The Herald Of His Coming, and many of those, it'll be in. A vision, the Lord has just given me for (I believe) the most exceedingly abundantly that I've ever known of. And that's why, tonight, we're just resting and waiting for the Phoenix meeting to start where God in His divine mercy has done something for us, that (I tell you) I believe it's going to be beyond anything that I have knowed of in my life.

And I believe that the Lord Jesus is coming soon, and if great things are supposed to appear like this, just before His coming, and we're living in the day to see it as it's advancing on now.

Someone said to me, not long ago, on healing campaign services, you know.... There was a man who did not believe who wrote me a letter, and said that he would like to ask me something. He said, “The first thing, Rev. Branham,” he said, “if you're an apostle, or a prophet, or something....”

I said, “Now, I never claimed that.” I said, “I was a servant of the Lord.” I said, “I couldn't heal people, nobody else can heal people. God has done done that in the atonement at Calvary. It's a finished work.” And that's right.

You never got saved a year ago, nor ten years ago, nor fifteen years ago, or six weeks ago. You got saved nineteen hundred years ago, when Jesus died at Calvary. You might have accepted it ten years ago, or fifteen years ago, but the work in your salvation was completed at Calvary. That's right. Already. The thing, you don't work up nothing, work down nothing; you just believe what God has already done for you in Christ, and it's finished. That's all.

Like, if you'd buy me an airplane ticket to go home on, or something else, it's already paid for. The only thing I have to do is accept it. That's the way divine healing, or any attribute of the death of Christ is the same grounds: finished work at Calvary.

I know we got a lot of quacks out on the field today (We realize that), preaching divine healing. You got a lot of it preaching salvation, too. That's right. Certainly we have. But you have to know that it takes the bogus dollar to make the real dollar shine up in value. And the Bible said, as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so would these. The Bible predicts that in the last days prophets would appear and signs and wonders.

And he said, “Look, the apostles never failed one time, every case that come to them, they were healed every time.” And a scholar now, to make a remark like that, see. Supposed to be a scholar.

“Why,” I said, “don't you never contact my little eight-year old girl; she'll make you ashamed of yourself.” I said, “She knows more about the Bible than that.” I said, “How about Luke, when they come down off the mount, and the boy had epilepsy?

He said, 'I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not do him no good. They couldn't heal him, and I brought him to You.'“

No man will ever reach the plane that Jesus stood on. He was God, incarnate God, made manifest here on earth in flesh to give us what God was. God was in His Son, reconciling the world to Himself. No man will ever reach that plane. He is God's only begotten Son.

“In Him dwelled the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Everything of God was in Christ. But you have the Spirit by portion. He had it without measure. You got a measure, like a spoonful of water, out of the ocean. It's a spoonful of the same chemicals, but not as much of it.

How about Paul, when he left his buddy sick, and Paul himself being buffeted by an infirmity and all those, oh, many, many things. People just don't read the Bible in the light that it's wrote in. That's all. Just read what they think, and that's the way they get all these here ideas, and denominations and everything.

Well, he said, “Well, Jesus turned the water into wine, and He broke bread and fed the hungry multitudes.”

I said, “Wait a minute, brother. We're just in our infancy. We're rising, don't worry. We can get all these fanatics and unbelievers out of the way, we'll move on up into perfection, after a while, and you'll see signs and wonders. But we're just babies crawling. Just give us a little while yet.”

We're moving on up, till even the medical science, and everything has to recognize divine healing comes from God. Now, I've got the statements right here from the head of the medical association: that divine healing is correctly, absolutely the perfect truth—by the head of the American Association, Medical Association: doctors and everything.

I'm writing a commentary on divine healing. It'll be on the front pages of the commentary. And now, that has been all put down. And we know that that's the truth.

Now, the next thing, God will step in with higher miracles and greater things on greater planes, and as Jesus when He was here on earth, the first coming of the Lord Jesus, it showed John the Baptist's miraculous birth. Then the miraculous of Jesus, then come in the healing of the sick, and the discernment of the spirit. Then on down into the raising of the dead, and from that, on down to the earth, and the heavens and everything declaring, then the earth giving up its dead. Miraculous, miraculous, all the way along, see. Just keep deeper, and deeper, and deeper to a climax. So will it be now.

And this is the ending of the last dispensation. The next is the great Millennium that we've looked forward to. And the Hebrew writers was right, since the very day the Bible began to be written, and the prophets begin to prophesy.

Oh, we're living in a grand time. I'm so happy for it. Aren't you?

Now, tonight, before.... My opinion is this: that everything.... Now, I know that God can do things that's not written in this Bible. He has done it all through the ages. He does things that He has got writ in His Word. What if the people wanted to be real fundamental and tell Moses, when he lifted up the brass serpent for divine healing, what'd he say? “Now, let me go back through the writings and find out if it was ever predicted that they'd raise up a brass serpent.” They couldn't find it but God did it anyhow. You believe it?

What if the man at the pool of Bethesda where an Angel came down and troubled the waters, what if some guy wanted to be so fundamental that he'd say, “Now, wait a minute; let me look in the Holy Scriptures and find out if there'd ever be an Angel come down on water, and trouble the water.” They couldn't have proved it by the Bible. But God did it anyhow. Is that right?

What about when they laid in the shadow of Peter, and was made well? That was after a great deal of the writing of the New Testament. What if they'd ever said, “Let me see if it's written in the Word, that they'll lay in the shadows of a man and be healed.” They couldn't have proved it. But God did it anyhow. Is that right?

How about in Acts 19 when Paul taken handkerchiefs off of his body, and aprons, and sent to the sick. What if somebody would say, “Now, that's not written in the Bible.” But God did it anyhow, see. That's right.

So, God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. But to me, the basic of all of it has to come first from the Scripture. God's eternal Word: that's the basis of salvation; that's the basis of divine healing.

Some man said to me here some time ago, said, “Do you preach divine healing on the basis of the atonement?”

I said, “You couldn't preach it no other way. The only way it can be taught. Any redemptive blessing has to come from the atonement.”

He said, “Brother Branham, I believe that you're a sensible man enough to admit if you are proven wrong.”

I said, “I thank you for your compliment. And that's in my heart. I never want to be wrong, because if I'm wrong in leading people, I'm leading them wrong. But, first, it's got to be proven by this, that I'm wrong, see.”

He said, “Well, I will prove it to you, your wrong. And I believe if you'll see it, you'll accept it.”

I said, “Certainly, I would.”

And he said, “Do you take it over there where Isaiah said about by His stripes we're healed and so forth? And He bore our sickness and infirmity?”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

And he said, “Look, Brother Branham, Matthew the 8th chapter said that they brought to Jesus the sick and afflicted, and He healed them, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet.”

I said, “Do you allow that through the atonement?”

He said, “Certainly!”

I said, “Brother, that was a year and six before Jesus died.” I said, “How could it be allowed in the atonement then? If that be the truth, the atonement was more powerful before it ever come into effect, than it is after it's in effect. Now how are you going to do that?”

So, you see, I tell you....

The pulpit is no place to joke, but I'm quoting Billy Sunday: Their argument against divine healing is thinner than the broth made out of a shadow of a chicken that starved to death. So, you know how about how thin it would be. So it just ... it won't hold in the light of God's Word. That's true. The Bible is true.

Now, listen. There's many promises in here, that my faith is not strong enough to produce it. But I'll never stand in somebody else's way who has faith enough to do it. I may not never shout down a wall, like Joshua. Or, I may not never take an evening walk, like Enoch did, and go home with him, without dying. I may not be able to do that. But I'll never stand in somebody else's way, that's got faith enough to do it. That's one thing. Yes, sir. As long as you're trying to do something to help people, and glorify God, coming from this Bible, I'm thanking God for the old-time Holy Spirit salvation, and the power of God returning back to the church again. May the Lord add His blessings.

You know, looking around, and last night after feeling the people, I ask for people to come to the altar. I had four or five hands to go up, which is all right. We appreciate that. And healing service, anybody wanted to be healed, about three or four hands went up. Which I think then, the Lord just meant for me to have a little time of fellowship in here.

I told Brother Jackson not to advertise it much, just say for his church, and so forth. But, one day, I'd like to come back here for about a week or ten days, old time meeting, right here, get this little auditorium, if we could. And get the churches around here to come together, we could, a group of them to sponsor, and cooperate ... or, cooperate with the meeting, and have....

I think the acoustics here are fine. The people has a very fine spirit. I don't have to say that. I'd go ahead and read my text and start preaching. But I just feel that, that you're a fine bunch of people. And I would like to come back sometime with the crew of us, and have a real, real campaign here, if God would give it to us. Will you pray to that effect? Now, I pray that God will let us come back.

Now, the Lord bless you as we look into the Word.

Here sometime ago, someone was telling me about Greek words and about all kinds of Hebrew words. I said, “I don't know nothing about them.” I said, “I may not know the Book too well, but I know the Author real well. That's the main thing.” I said, “I'd rather know the Author than His Book.” So that's....

But it's good. If you know the Author, He'll reveal His Book; don't you think so? Talk to Him. So, we'll just read a verse out of His Word, and then ask Him to help us.

Now, for a text, as we'd call it. Don't want to keep you long tonight, because I know you go to Sunday school in the morning, and I want you each one to go to your post of duty. And wherever your church is, go to church, and rejoice in the Lord. And tell your pastor that the service is tomorrow afternoon. We'd be glad to come out. We're undenominational. And we do not believe in separating people. We believe in preaching the Gospel and getting souls saved to serve the Lord. That's all.

And then, tomorrow afternoon being the closing service at ten ... or, two-thirty.

Now, in the Bible, Hebrews, the 10th chapter, and beginning with the 19th verse, we read this Scripture—very outstanding. I like Hebrews. It was Paul, I believe.... It's not thoroughly known, but you can read Paul's letters, his epistles, and find out that this has got enough till you can tell that it's Paul writing. Or, I believe it is. He's separating law from grace, and teaching the Hebrews the dispensation that's just been issued in by the Lord Jesus, and His works and so forth, how they typed in the Old, was made positive in the New.

In the 19th verse, we read this:

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest of holies by the blood of Jesus,

By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

... having therefore a high priest over the house of God;

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from ... evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised:)

May the Lord add His blessings to His Word. I'd like to take as a text, tonight, as to say this if you would call it a text, a subject, to say The Inner Veil, or The Hidden Life; A Hidden Life.

A few nights ago, I was called to an emergency call of a young lady dying at the Clark County Memorial Hospital. And said she had been a member up at the tabernacle where I used to pastor years ago. And when I went into this young lady to talk to her, she was under an oxygen tent. I said, “They tell me you used to come to the tabernacle?”

She said, “Yes, Brother Branham, I did.”

I said, “You realize you're dying?”

She said, “I do, Brother Branham.” Said.... She was the mother of one child. She was nineteen or twenty years old. And she had a four-month baby, that (as adults could read between the lines, and understand) she'd taken uremic poisoning, and oh, so many things. And there wasn't one thing the doctors could do but lay her back and wait for death. That's all. Nothing could be done for her in the medical science.

And she was going out to meet God—just a child. And I said, “Sister, do you remember on the cradle roll, you were baptized into the fellowship, on the cradle roll.” I said, “What was the matter?”

She said, “Brother Branham, I tell you.” Said, “I still love the Lord Jesus. But,” said, “I find it so hard to serve Him.”

Now, that is what I find around most Christian life. Most: I hate to say it that way, but it's true. The most people that profess Christianity, they seem to have such a hard struggling time to hold on. I believe it's because a lack of correct teaching of the Bible. There's no such a thing as holding on. He done the holding on. The whole Christian principle is based upon rest. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.” Don't have to worry and struggle. You're just resting, that's all. Given rest, you enter in peace, that the whole thing is finished. “Them who He has called, He has justified. Those who He has justified, He has already glorified.” (Scripture, quoting.)

Notice. It's nothing that you do, or what you can do. It's what God has done for you in Christ. You could not come to....

Someone said, “Well, I tell, I just quit this and I went to seeking God.”

No man never sought God. Man don't seek God; God seeks man. The very beginning at the garden of Eden proved it. Adam ought to have been running through the garden hollering, “Father, Father, where are You?” But it was God going through the garden of Eden, saying, “Adam, Adam, where art thou?” And Adam hiding. That's the nature of man.

And Jesus said, “No man can come to Me, except the Father draws Him first.” Nothing you can do about it. And Jesus didn't come to Calvary to die for a haphazard purpose. He didn't come there and say, “Well, maybe, I'll die; it'll be so pathetic to some people that'll see that I died, and maybe they'll come and serve the Lord.” Jesus come for a specific purpose: to redeem those who God by foreknowledge elected to come to Him. That's correct.

If you who scholars that know the Bible know that even the patriarchs made an example. Abraham is God's election. God called Abraham when he wasn't nothing—nobody—just an ordinary man; not because he was a good man, but because God's foreknowledge He elected Abraham. Abraham's: electing. Isaac: justification. Jacob: grace. Joseph: perfection. That ended it. Joseph was the perfect one (see), the prince of prosperity.

And now, I find that people so struggle, seems like; I meet people and they say, “It's just such a struggle.” Have you seen people that way? And probably there's many sitting right before me now, that has the ups and downs, the ins and outs. This day, they're all right. You meet them and well, they love the Lord today, and tomorrow they're having such a struggle to hold on. The devil is so tempting them, and they're having such ups and downs. Then you meet somebody that's on the hill top all the time. Brother, there's nothing bothers them at all.

Now, there's bound to be something lacking somewhere. God is no respect of person ... or, God doesn't respect persons. He wants all of His children to have the same. A righteous father wouldn't give one a dish of ice cream without giving them all ice cream. Certainly! He wants you to live.... And I'm not talking about gifts; I'm talking about grace.

Now, of course, some are called apostles, and prophets, and teachers, and evangelists, and church offices, and so forth. God has placed in the church these things. But I'm talking about measures of grace, overcoming grace to each one. Then He elects you to your office.

But in grace, God has given to us all, freely—as we have need —everything that we have need of. And the trouble.... I noticed up in Michigan, you people up here can brag a lot, because you have a lot of fruit. We get grapes from Michigan. We get cherries from Michigan, the big beans, and all kinds. Beautiful. I think there's not a place in the world grows them any better than Michigan.

And now, you ought to understand what your fruit trees are. Did you ever know that that little cherry tree, or little apple tree, when you set it out, when it's no bigger than about one half inch tall, that every bushel of apples that you'll ever collect off that tree, is in it right then? If it isn't, where does it come from? Who hangs it on there? It's already in it. The only thing that little tree does—you just set it out, and water it—and it has to drink, and drink, until it gets so much, it just goes to pushing out; drinks more than its allotted portion. And it swells out. And it pushes out limbs. It pushes out buds, then it pushes out leaves, then blossoms, and then apples. Then it pushes again, it pushes again. Just keeps drinking, drinking, drinking, till it just pushes out.

And that's what the Christian does. When you're planted in Christ Jesus, everything that you have need of in earth's journey is in you when you receive the Holy Spirit. And the only thing you have to do is drink, drink, and push out, push out. Just drink till you can't drink no more. If you have need of divine healing, go to God's Word and drink from it, until you push out. If you need more of God, just keep drinking, pushing out. And Christ is the inexhaustible fountain of life. And if you're planted in Him, the only thing you have to do, is drink of His goodness, and push out whatever you have need of in this earth's journey. It's all drinking, resting, peace. It's not what you struggle and strive and pull at. You defeat the very purpose that you're representing when you do that.

Christianity is not something.... God's not One you have to beg, and cry, and plead, and fast, and starve and everything like that to get to. Certainly not. I'm not degrading a fast.

But here not long ago, a man wrote a book on fasting. My, women come into the meeting, and men, who had went on those fasts that were insane. They went just because the book said to fast forty days. Some of them with false plates, and their teeth would drop out. And their eyes would sink back. And mothers-to-be to ... women to be mothers, their little ones (as you understand), they would completely go mentally out, be taken to the institutions. Many of them come in that condition.

I believe in fasting. Certainly. But when you fast, you don't hunger. Jesus after He had got through fasting, the Bible said, He was hungry. God puts a fast on you. You don't put it on yourself. He certainly captured the women (the man did, that wrote the book) when he said ... put a picture of a woman there, she looked twenty years younger, said, after the fast. You ought to've seen her then, just about a year later what she looked like, after that, see. Certainly!

You don't do that. You don't do things by works. It's by grace. God in sovereign grace!

Now to make this simple so that the little children would understand. We'll go back in the Old Testament, and pick up the Old Testament so that.... There might be Bible scholars that we could use greater methods of it, but I always like to break anything down, to where the people who doesn't even go to church, people that's not very scholarly in the Bible, or little children, that they might understand. Therefore, many.... I become a typologist. I like to give types, so we can see.

Now, a type of this message that we're speaking of tonight—The Hidden Life—we would take it from the Old Testament, of the manna, and the courts, and the veil between the holiest and holies. And how that God worked in that.

Now, if you'll notice, after Israel had overcome the Egyptians by passing through, by grace, through the Red Sea, and God drowned the Egyptians behind it, which was a type of passing through the blood of the Lord Jesus, and all the taskmasters that once drove you to things of sins of the world. It's dead behind you.

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins,

Where sinners plunged beneath the flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

Those old Egyptian taskmaster had drove the people to do things that they were burdened to do. After they looked back in this Red Sea, they found them everyone drowned there. No wonder that Moses could sing a new song—sang in the Spirit. And Miriam picked up a tambourine and begin to beat the tambourine and run down the bank, dancing.

If that ain't an old-fashioned, Holy Ghost meeting, I never seen one. That's right. And the daughters of Israel followed her, doing the same thing. They had overcome.

And a man never knows what it is to live a victorious life, until he's completely overcome. Who? Himself. That's the biggest enemy you got, is yourself. That's the reason you can't rise up in faith: because you got intellectuals there. You're intellectual part says, “Well, this, or that.” It's a reasoning! We want to cast down reasonings, the Bible tells us.

There's two parts of you, two faculties. You know the old hypocrite used to say ... or, many times people say, “Oh, the Bible said so-and-so.”

Science, one time said, “When God said He made the firmaments before He made the sun, He certainly got things mixed up. No light in the earth, except by the sun.”

Well, x-ray disproved that. The Bible said, “Your whole body is full of light meters.” Did you know that? Your body is full of light. Science said, “Well, that's crazy.” But they prove it. The x-ray don't use artificial light; it uses your lights. The x-ray is the lights that's in ... the light meters that's in your own body. You're not made up of.... You're made up of petroleum, and cosmic light, and atoms, and so forth (That's all you are.), just put together. And you dwell in that, in that body of flesh. Someday they'll be broken up.

Here not long ago, I was combing what couple of hairs I have left. My wife said to me, said, “Billy, you're getting bald-headed.”

I said, “But, praise God, I haven't lost a one of them.”

She said, “Where are they at, honey?”

And I said, “I want to ask you, and then I'll answer you.” I said, “Where was they before I got them? You tell me where they was, before they was here, I'll tell you where they are waiting for me, when I get there.” Hallelujah! That's right. Certainly! There was one time they wasn't, then they were, then they wasn't. And where they was at the beginning, when God put the body here in a shadow, they'll be waiting for His second coming in glory, when He will appear the second time, and every atom that holds me together, every bit of cosmic light will come together again. Not in a sexual desire, or a natural birth, but through a re-creation where Almighty God will speak, and the Spirit will turn to the body and we'll live forever. Oh, my! If that ain't enough to set every Christian's hearts roaring with joy! God has ordained it so.

He proved it in His first miracle, turning water to wine, and so forth, showing He bypassed the vine, and just spoke from water to wine. It actually would have been wine, going up through the grape vine, and in the ferment in the vat and turned into wine. Sure. But, God just spoke it and bypassed all that. So will He in the resurrection. Of all the sexuals and marriage and things, it'll all be done away with. And God will just speak and we'll live again. Amen.

The reason we live again, because there's Something within you is alive now.

Here sometime ago, an old Methodist minister and I were sitting having a little ice cream together. And the 4-H club come on a radio broadcast. And they were talking about a machine that they had perfected. There might be members of the 4-H club sitting here now.

And then they said, they had perfected a machine that could turn out corn so perfect that you could get a handful out of the sack that the machine perfected, and a handful out of the sack that was growed in the field, and they look so perfectly. Mix them together, and put them in the laboratory, you couldn't tell them apart; both of them will make the same kind of corn bread, corn flakes. The same amount of calcium, the same amount of moisture, everything, and the one's in the other one. Just perfect. And the only way that you'll ever be able to separate them and know which was which: bury them, and they'll both rot. But the one that man made is done, but the one that God made has got a germ of life, and it lives again.

I said, “Brother Spurgeon, you better hold my hand, 'cause I might embarrass you.” I said, “That makes the Spirit of God come to a believer.” A man might live in church, professing to be a Christian, and everything. If he hasn't got the germ of life in him, he'll lay there at the resurrection. But that man who has got life, born again, will rise again as sure as Jesus rose from the dead. Got to. Hold this half-way, starved-to-death life.

That what's the matter with the church today: it's in a anemic condition. It oughtn't to be that way, but it's predicted for it to be that way. And it'll have to be. The lukewarm believers and so forth in the last days: cold, church professors.

“The Holy Spirit spoke expressly in the latter days. Some would depart from the faith, and giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, and they'd be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.”

How many out to the picture show would fill this place three times. “Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Trucebreakers, false accusers, and despisers of those that are good.”

Oh, you say, “That's communists.”

No, it's not. It's Christians, believers. “Having a form of godliness.” Going to church, and putting their name on the book, and everything. “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such turn away,” the Bible said. That's right. Said, it would be in the last days. We got to have it.

Now, when Miriam and Moses and the Israelites had overcome, then God promised to supply everything they had need of in the journey. When God makes a promise, God will keep His promise.

Moses: He didn't care what Pharaoh had said. Neither did his parents fear what the Pharaoh's orders was. Moses knew, and Abraham knew. The prophet of old—Abraham—knew that God was able to keep that which He had promised. So, he wasn't scared to say when he was seventy-five years old that Sarah was going to have a baby when she was sixty-five. And when he was a hundred and Sarah ninety, he still giving God praise, getting stronger all the time.

Oh, if you was prayed for tonight, and wasn't healed in the morning, you'd go away, say, “Well, I told you, wasn't nothing to it.” See, that's the reason you don't get no where, see. But Abraham, I can see him after God give him the promise, and Sarah at sixty-five years old, about fifteen years passed menopause, lived with her since she was a little girl. And here he was seventy-five years old, before God ever called him. Why, he went and got all the Birdseye pins and everything else ready. The baby was coming; God said so.

First month passed, “What about it, Sarah?”

“No difference.”

“But, praise God, we're going to have it anyhow.”

Second month passed. “How do you feel, Sarah?”

“No different.”

“Praise God, we'll have it anyhow.”

“Why?”

“God said so.”

I imagine the doctor said, “You know the old man is kind of a little bit slipped up here in the mind. There's something wrong with him. That man is seventy-five years old, and Sarah sixty-five, and saying they're going to have a baby. Whew! Something wrong.”

But that didn't stagger Abraham. He kept saying, “God can keep His promise. Keep everything ready, Sarah; it's going to be here.” Ten years passed.

“What about it?”

“Praise God we're going to have it anyhow.”

Fifteen years passed, twenty years, twenty-five years, still the same; “Praise God, we're going to have it anyhow.”

And the Bible said, instead of getting weaker, because it didn't happen the first time, he got stronger and stronger. Amen.

And you are the children of Abraham, that is, if you have that kind of a spirit that can take God at His promise. If you can't, why, you're not the children of Abraham, because we have the same faith that faithful Abraham had. And He give the promise, the covenant, unconditionally, to Abraham and his seed. And you're Abraham's seed if you're dead in Christ. You take on Abraham's seed and are heirs according to the promise. You see it? Amen.

Now, notice [blank spot on tape] call yourself the seed of Abraham. You need just a little dip, closer to God, that's what it is. You need to die out to the old intellectuals.

There's two things. One day, someone asked me ... (A great evangelist (I won't call his name; you'll know.) went across the nation here, been going back and forth, a fine person, having great revivals. But they just had the people say, “I now accept Christ as my personal Saviour. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” The devils do the same thing, and tremble. That's right. There's an intellectual faith. Let me talk to you, just a minute. I don't know why the Holy Spirit won't let me get to my text. Maybe, it's for a cause.

Notice. There is an intellectual faith. And there's a faith that comes from the heart. The unbeliever said years ago, when the Bible said, “As a man thinketh in his heart....”, said, “That's crazy. There's no mental facilities in the heart.” Said, “You think with your mind. There's no mental facilities in the heart.” But last year, they found that's wrong. God was right.

Right down in the heart, in the center of the heart, there's a little compartment where there's not even a blood cell in it. It's not in the animal heart, only in the human heart. And they say, it's the occupation ... or, the occupant of the soul. The soul lives in the heart. Then, after all, God was right when He said, “As a man thinketh in his heart.”

Here some time ago, there was a woman who belonged to a very prominent denominational church, lived close. And I'll give you this little story. We always doubted her experience. She lived around church. She was a pianist. She played the piano, and a very nice woman, but intellectual faith, see. She just reasoned that she was all right.

There was an old boy that went to this church, that really had an experience with God. They kind of got to be sweethearts, and he finally married her. They moved off. And she continued her job playing the piano. And after a while his job changed, and they had to go plumb out to another city. In this city, she become the pianist of this certain denomination, big well-known denomination church in this city. She become the prominent piano player.

And while they was out there playing the piano (she was), she begin to notice the neighbor girls that belonged to the same church. They all wore these little disgraceful clothes. Get out and mow their yard, with these little old.... I'm persuaded that you women don't do that up there. They do it down below the line in Indiana. I don't think you'd do it in Michigan, see. I think you got too much self-respect ... and, let your children wear such things.

The Bible said it's an abomination in the sight of God to do so.

And they get out and mow the yard. She thought, “Well, I can do that. You know....”

“Because, why?”

“The other girls do it.”

Now see, what was it? Her faith in God was intellectual. It was reasoning. Your mind will reason, but your heart don't reason. Your heart believes what God said is the truth. Your mind said, “ Well, now if the other girls can do, or the other boys can do it, and they go to church, ain't I as good as they are? Can't I do the same things they do?” Because she reasoned.

But we got to cast down reasons if it's contrary to God's Word.

Well, she went ahead. And it kept on that and after a while, the rest of them all smoked cigarettes, so why couldn't she? Well, the rest of them went to church.

Of course, I know you Michigan women don't do that. I don't believe you would. But, she did it. Smoked cigarettes: the littlest thing that women ever done. That's right. And the most sabotaging thing she ever done. Eighteen percent ... I mean, their babies, before eighteen months old, ninety percent of them die, if they're raised on the breast; they have to be given artificial, by cattle, and so forth. That's right. Nicotine poisoning. What are we going to have in the next generation?

Don't fear about Russia coming over here and doing something. It's not the robin that pecks on the apple that hurts it, it's the worm at the core. Our own rottenness is what's killing this nation. It's our own morals. It ain't other countries. We're killing ourselves through our immoral living and things and calling ourselves Christians. Woe unto us! That's right.

You better listen to the Gospel and listen to Jesus Christ and get your heart right with God.

Notice. And then this woman.... After that, there was a little slicker moved in the neighborhood, with his hair slicked down. And so, she kind of thought he was a cute little fellow. And you know, it become a little innocent, every night before they'd go to bed, she'd slip out to take the things out in the backyard, and he would kiss her goodnight across the fence. Oh, it was very innocent, of course. Sin is very innocent-looking to start with. Oh, there was nothing to it, just a neighbor.

And the first thing you know, she left John, her husband, and married this guy. And he had a wife and baby. Broke up a home. Well, she reasoned that there was other women in the church who had the second husband, why couldn't she? That's reasoning, but the Word says, it's wrong. And the very soul that was telling her it was wrong, she was grieving it away. And the Bible said, “The soul that sinneth shall die.”

And what is sin? Unbelief. There's only two things: That's faith and unbelief.

I was preaching in a famous church here not long ago, and I said, “Smoking cigarettes is no sin. Committing adultery is no sin. Telling lies is no sin.”

A lady looked at me, with smoke in her eyes, said, “What is sin?”

I said, “Unbelief.” I said, “Smoking cigarettes and drinking and carousing and running around is the very symptoms, it's the attributes of your unbelief.” I said, “You do that because you don't believe Jesus.”

Jesus said, “He that heareth My words and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life.”

When you say you're a believer, and do that, it shows there's something wrong. You don't believe. You're making out like you believe. You're taking reasonings and not taking your soul's conviction, because your soul is the part of God that's in you, that agree with God's Word being true. If not, you'll just take your intellectual: You think.

She went on. Of course, with that little slicker, she ought to have had brains enough to know, if he would run away from one wife, he would do another one. So, that's what he done. Then she become so degraded—still going to church, still playing the piano—until she begin to live with a common-law husband. But sin caught up with her. Don't you think it won't catch up with you. It will. Your sins will find you out.

And after awhile, she begin to have pains down in the lower part of her, and she let it go for a while. When she went to a doctor, come to find out, it was malignancy advanced. Nothing could be done but die.

Happens to be a pastor of our own church, very spiritual man, out of Asbury College. Now, of course, you'll know she was a Methodist. All right. But, he's at our church, a fine boy, has received the Holy Spirit, a very fine man. And he goes to talk to this woman, 'cause he'd been raised a Methodist and he thought he ought to talk to her. He was sent there by friends. And she let him know that she was just as well off as anybody. And she believed it. Intellectually reasoned. Why? “I belong to church. My letter is in the church, I'm just as good as anybody.” Said, “I'm as good as you are.”

He said, “That's not the question, lady.” Said, “I'm a minister, and you sitting there smoking them cigarettes, and things like that, we don't believe in such as that.”

She said, “That's none of your business. I never sent for you.”

He said, “Yes, but I felt that God sent for me to come.” Said, “What about this common-law husband?”

She said, “That's none of your business. I'm just as well off as the rest of you. I'm a Christian.” And she believed it. You can believe a lie and be damned by it, too. The Bible.... That's right.

“There's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death.” It might seem all right, intellectually. Your soul will always testify to the Word of God, if it's born again. If you got an intellectual faith, oh, you'll agree, sure. Say, “That Bible is right.”

The devil says the same thing. The devil says, “There's a God in heaven. There's a Jesus Christ.” Certainly, they believe the same thing.

Oh, you say, “The devil believe in Jesus Christ?” Certainly. They publicly confessed Him, said, “Thou art the Son of God. Thou art the Christ, the holy One. Why do you come to torment us before our time come?” Certainly, they publicly confessed Him to be the Son of God. And ministers with a shallow experience, and with the bloodless religions, go out and have people to make such a dry-eyed confession as that, and go back out in the world and live like the world, and claim that they're Christians.

Brother, as it was in that case, so is many of the hypo-needles stopped a deathbed confession. Oh, she thought she was right! But when it come the time to die, even a backslidden pastor had got around: “She was all right. Sure, she was a good member of the church. And she paid into the church. And she was a pianist in the church. And what more? What more could she do?” Intellectually she was thinking she was right. But when it come to a place....

You remember, your mind is governed by the blood cells, and by your brain cells. And then when the blood ceased to function to those brain cells, then the mind begin to ... the intellectual part begin to die out of the woman. And when it begin to die out, and she begin to see, when this spirit down here in her heart, which was her soul, that she died.... Death means “separate.”

And if you sin, disbelieve, willfully, after the Gospel has been presented to you, that soul nature of yours will gradually move away from you, and you'll feel it no more—just go away. You won't know it.

You say, “Well, I know, I believe I'm right.” That's what's the matter with Michigan tonight. That's what's the matter with Indiana tonight, that's what's the matter with the world tonight. They have been smothered to sleep with petty Hollywood impersonation of Christianity. What we need today is the old-fashioned hellfire-and-brimstone preacher back in the pulpit again to preach the truth (Right.)—a hell for sinners.

“Except a man be born again, he will in nowise enter the kingdom.”

You believe the ministry that the Lord Jesus has committed to blind, deaf, dumb, even dead raised from the grave. Remember, we'd have to have some conception of God, or those things wouldn't happen. That's a showdown: is divine healing, which is right and which is wrong. The Bible said so. Proved it in Jannes and Jambres. Magicians could play miracles and do things, but they couldn't heal. God's the only One that can heal. “I am the Lord who heals all your diseases.”

Today, people say, “Oh, that was in the day passed. There's nothing to it. A bunch of holy rollers, or a bunch of impostors, and so forth.” And you don't realize that you're blaspheming the Holy Ghost. That's right. And the first thing you know, your soul will go away from you, you'll become so cultorized out there with the rest of the cults, and things, till you'll think you're right, until death stares you in the face, and it'll be a different picture. I've stood by the many beds of them.

There she was laying there, thinking she was right. Fifteen minutes before she died, smoked a cigarette. Said, “They was all right, little old dirty habit of the flesh.” But let me tell you something, brother: The tree is knowed by the fruit it bears. She didn't believe in anything. Said, “If the doctor can't help me, what's the use of some holy-roller preacher coming to do anything for me?”

O God, have mercy. That's the attitude of thousands through this country, tonight, yes, millions times millions.

There, she in that state, but when the intellectuals begin to fail, when her reasonings failed, her intellectual faith that she had in God, which was in her head, then that soul that she had grieved away begin to come up close her. She said, “My God, I'm lost! I'm lost!”

And her pastor said, “Oh, she....

Said, “You deceiver! I'm lost!”

Said, “Doctor, doctor come here. She's excited. She's hysterical. Put a hypo in her arm.”

And he shot a hypo in, she said, “I'm lost! I'm lost!” Another hypo. “I'm mummummu; I'm mummummu” And the hypo stopped her lips. But it'll never stop that soul you live with throughout eternity, that she'd grieved away, to disbelieve the Word of God. An intellectual mind, through her reasonings, had made her believe so in her head that she was all right, when she was wrong. That's the way with millions in the world today, who profess Christianity. They don't know the first step towards God. Amen.

I'm not trying to scare you, I'm only preaching to you the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know it, you know it, the Scripture says so.

Jesus said, “Except a man be born of the water and Spirit, he will in nowise enter the kingdom,” no matter what church he belongs to, how good he's lived, or what profession he's had, he's got to be born again. That intellectual has got to be cast down, and the new creature in Christ Jesus, the new soul in the heart, has got to take root. And it'll believe every time the Word of God, and call it the truth.

Your pastor sometime, tell you, “The days of miracles is passed. There's no such a thing as the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” He himself is dead. That's right. Didn't the Bible say that they'd transform themselves into angels of light? That's what Eve was looking for when she was lost, and deceived by Satan. Didn't it say they'd have a form of godliness, but would deny the power thereof? From such turn away.

That's the Gospel in its plain simplicity, but it's the Gospel, the power of Jesus. If God being living in you, the hope of glory formed in your heart, it'll agree every time with the Word of God.

Of course, the devil, very religious as he spoke to Jesus, said, “If thou be the Son of God, perform a miracle here before me; let me see it with my own eyes.”

Jesus said, “It's written that man shall not live by bread alone.”

When He was hanging on the cross, said, “If thou be the Son of God....” What? The same Spirit speaking through cultured ministers, intellectually, who was denying Him. The church hung Him to the cross, the church persecuted Him, the church killed Him. The intellectual ministers who studied the law, by letter—that's right—they killed Him, they hung Him to the cross. The religious people of the day killed Jesus. That's what's killing the church today, is the religious people of the country, through their cults. Not what you call cults. Many times we have got a bunch of cults, bloodless and heartless and everything. Sure, that's right.

But some of your great intellectual psychology teachers in the church and things like that, it goes around, say, “Well, you can just believe. That's all there is to it. And put your name on the book, and live.”

Oh, man, what's the matter with you? If you're a child of God, your spirit will say, “God's Word is right,” and you'll live that kind of a life to back it up.

And Jesus said, “These signs shall follow them that believe.” That's right. “In My name they shall cast out devils, and so forth, and heal the sick, and do things.”

Today, you say, “Them days of miracles is passed.” Look where you're living. There you are. Don't take an intellectual. Take an experience with God.

When your experience agrees with this Bible, and said every word is true, “You're Jehovah. And my spirit bearing record with His Spirit, we're sons and daughters of God. And we've passed from death unto life.” It's true.

Notice now, them people, they was given manna to eat. That manna was sustaining food as long as they were in their journey, until they entered the three stages of the journey: Israel in Egypt, sinful; Israel, in here, justified through the blood, the Red Sea; and Israel settled down over in Palestine. The three stages of the journey, represented here today, just the same, and we're entering the last stage of the journey. God promised to supply everything, physically, they had need of: the meat to go through there and manna begin to fall from heaven, which was a type of the Holy Spirit.

And when that manna fell, the people went out and eat this manna, ground it up and made little cakes out of it, and eat it. And it was honey, tasted good, like honey, little wafers on the ground, like snow. And they ground it up and made bread out of it. And it sustained them all through the wilderness journey: a very beautiful type of the Holy Ghost that fell on the day of Pentecost—which is our bread. The manna fell just the same on the last day of their journey as it did on the first day of their journey. And it fell all through the journey.

And so, I'd like to see the man show me that God ever taken the Holy Spirit out of the church. I can show you where He give it, and where He promised it would be with us to the end of the of the world. Show me where He ever took it away. It's not to be taken away. And it won't be until Jesus comes. It's true. The manna falls.... The same Holy Ghost, like was Pentecost, falls just the same today.

We know we got a lot of impersonation, a lot of fanatics, but that don't mean a thing but prove that there is a real Holy Spirit. We have a lot of impersonations in church that act like Christians, and try to impersonate Christians; but that don't mean nothing. That means that there is a real genuine Christian. It's only a looking glass.

Notice, as the Holy Spirit fell.... Notice that the manna fell first. God told Moses to go get some golden omers and take them full into the holiest of holies, back there, where they'd be kept up through every generation that come in. They could touch, taste this manna of the original manna that fell. Beautiful type of the Holy Ghost, when it fell on the day of Pentecost, and the people were all rejoicing, and so happy.

Peter said on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) he said, “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” The same Holy Spirit that fell, was for every generation even to the Gentiles, those that were always considered far off, “Even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

Peter said, “Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to the Gentiles, that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” And as long as God's still calling, God's still giving the Holy Spirit.

They kept omers full of it, that every man entered into the holiest place, every priest, could taste a mouthful of the original manna that fell in the beginning.

And so it is today. The middle wall of partition is taken down, and every man that's called, can come in, and have a heart full of the same Holy Ghost that fell on the day of Pentecost. It'll be to the end of the world.

Notice. The first thing taken place.... there was an ark in this holy place. Watch, the walls now.... For you little children, so you can get it. There was an outer court. There was a holy place. And then a holiest of holies. Three steps. It's always, God is perfected in three, completed in seven, worshipped in twelves, tempted in forties, and jubileed in fifties. Watch those numbers, and you'll never get it mixed up, see. God perfected: Father, Son, Holy Ghost; justification, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Ghost—all these things perfected; how that He did it.

Notice, and in the tabernacle, God lived in them three rooms. You live in three rooms. Oh, you say, “Brother Branham, I've got ten rooms in my house.” But you're still only living in three. That's right. That's the kitchen, dining room ... or, the.... The kitchen, and the living room, and the bedroom. You may have three bedrooms. You may have a sub-kitchen, called a dining room. But it's still only three rooms in your house.

You're living in a house: soul, body, and spirit. That's the way God lived in Jesus Christ: both soul, body, and spirit. “Not Me that doeth the works, the Father that dwelleth in Me.” You see?

And in this tabernacle: completion. And it was also through the age of Luther, through justification; through the age of Wesley, through sanctification; and in this latter day, with the baptism of the Holy Ghost: perfecting His church, in three stages of the journey. All around, everything is three.

Notice, and then God taken His church, in this great tabernacle. Now those.... The manna fell outside in the courts. And remember, the people eat this manna. But God told them to take up this manna, and put a bunch of it back in the holy place. In there was the ark. The ark is a type of the human heart: the ark, the place, the hidden place.

God prophesied through the prophet and said, “I will write my laws in their hearts, where I put them, in the tables of their hearts.” Showing that that would be the dwelling place of God, in the human heart; not the human head, but the human heart. Amen. “I will write them in My heart ... in their heart. And they'll keep My statutes” and so forth, saith the Lord.

God said in another place, over in Ezekiel, He said, “I will in that day, take out your old fleshly, stony heart. And I will give you a new spirit, and I will put My Spirit in you.”

Now a lot of people, even you Pentecostal people, a lot of times get mistaken in that. You get a new spirit; that's not God's Spirit, that's you. That isn't God. You get a little happy, because you got a new spirit and you jump up-and-down, run around over the floor maybe, and shout a little bit, and speak with tongues, and run around a little bit and think you got the Holy Ghost. That's not it. That's a new spirit God gave you. That's you. Then after He give you your spirit, then He said, “I will put My Spirit.”

That's what's the matter with the missed-meal cramps you got today. That's right. That's the reason you can't get nowhere with God.

Notice, you put a new spirit. God has to give you a new spirit, or you couldn't even get along with Him. You can't get along with yourself, that old devil-spirit you had in you. So He's got to put a new spirit in you so you can get along with His Spirit. Amen.

“I will put a new spirit in them. And I will put My Spirit in them,” He said, after He has give you a new spirit; that's you. Don't get it confused with God's Spirit, it's not. It's your new spirit, so you can get along with the Holy Spirit if He ever gives it to you. Amen. Cause, you, in your condition, never get along. You can't get along with your wife. You can't get along with your husband, can't get along with your neighbor. How are you ever going to get along with God? So, He has to give you a new spirit before you can get along with Him.

So, he puts a new spirit in you, and then He puts His Spirit in you, gives you a new spirit, a new outlook, a new faith, then He puts His Holy Spirit in you.

Notice, back there in the beginning, when that same manna that fell out here on the ground every day, the people ate it; but notice, those people who ate that manna, would get hungry before nine o'clock.

I've seen a lot of camp meetings. And people go and they'd shout the victory for a little while, while the camp meeting was going on. And then before the day was over, where night coming close, they'll worry along and say, “Well, you know, I wish I could keep the victory. Hallelujah.” Oh, my! My! “I wish I just had the victory. I tell you, this is so-and-so, and this is so-and-so.” Oh, my, it's because you're not in the right place to eat the manna. That's right.

Notice, you meet some people, they say, well, this year they're just fine and dandy. And Dr. Church, if you holiness people ... wrote a book, and called my name in it. A man, a sensible man like that, called a man's name, and said the very next verse, he said, “I never even met the man, I don't know him.” He said, “I know there's nothing to him, because I tell you why.” He said, “I met a man one time, had been in his meetings,” and he said, “Brother Branham didn't know me. And he called way up in the balcony, or somewhere, and said, 'Sir, you have prostate trouble, sitting there,' and told him who he was, and where he come from.” And he said, “Every bit of it was the truth.” And said, “He told me, 'You are healed.'”

And Dr. Church said to him, said, “Was you healed?”

Said, “Yes, sir, for a year I wasn't bothered with it at all.” And said, “You know what,” said, “the thing come back on me.”

Mr. Church said, “That proves that he's false.” Said, “If God heals, they stay healed.”

I'd like to see how many of those Nazarenes that got sanctified one year, the next year is back for sanctification again. I thought He kept it, I thought you couldn't backslide?

Oh, brother. Some men, so narrow-minded, you put a pencil between their eyes, it'd blind them. That's right, that's right! So narrow-sighted! Sure! Salvation lasts as long as faith lasts. And divine healing lasts as long as faith lasts. You that's got the experience forty years ago, forget you ever had an experience, and go of here tonight and say, “I don't even believe in it, and I'm not God's servant no more,” watch how long your experience lasts. Certainly.

“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks in dry places; he comes back with seven other spirits worse than he was. He enters in by force, if the good man of the house ain't there to keep him out.” You don't go by your feelings. I never was saved by my feelings. I wasn't saved because I felt good. I'm saved because I met God's promise. That's right. The devil can beat you around the stump on feelings, but he can't speak on “Thus saith the Lord” and condemn it. I've done what Jesus said, I'm saved tonight because I met God's requirement. I'm healed, tonight.

When Mayo Brothers turned me down, for a few days more, of living, about six or seven years ago. I'm healthy and strong tonight because I believe. God said so, and I took Him at His Word. That's all. It's your faith in God: the only thing that'll stagger it. That's the only thing that'll ever heal a sick person: it's their personal faith in God. Not what some man can do for you, it's what the man Christ Jesus has already done for you. And you accept it, and don't ... refuse to see symptoms, or anything else, and walk by faith. The just shall live by it.

Say, I feel religious. I really do. I feel like I could shout now. When a Baptist goes to shouting, it's really something isn't it? Oh, my! It's wonderful to serve the Lord and know it's “thus saith the Lord.” Takes all the scare crows out, and the spooks out, and puts the Holy Spirit in there, and lives with you, with the dove of meekness, and quietness, and eternal hope in your heart. Takes all the guess out, and all the hocus-pocus out, and all the formalism out of your heart, and puts a real know-so in there, and a faith that's everlasting true. Amen. That's true.

Quickly now.... You're a fine audience. I could preach to you all night, but you don't want to hear me all that time. But, listen, I want to show you ... speak something to you. Now, those people that eat the manna in here, out here in the courts, was just the same kind of manna that was on the inside of the veil. Same kind of manna. And the man and woman who lives out here are eating.... That's where you get confused. Maybe, tomorrow, I'll preach on the difference between the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the calling of a son, see.

Notice this: how God sets in the church and what He does. You're eating the same manna. Here was one wall of justification. No man can come to Christ unless the Holy Spirit calls him. The Holy Spirit is God, and you know it. No man can. It's the same Holy Ghost. And these people out here in the justified stage (a fellow trying to serve God out here in the courts) was eating the same kind of manna they were on the inside of the holiest of holies. But, the thing of it was, it run out. It got contaminated. It got (as the old saying is) “wiggletails” in it.

That's what's the matter with a lot of people's experience, tonight: It's got wiggletails in it—rotten, maggots. Is because that you permitted it. There they are, living out here, eating the manna. Now the man could eat here, he eat all right. But he got hungry real quick. That's the way, with the people say, “I just can't hardly hold.” You're not far enough in yet. You'll come to the holy place.

Watch Aaron the high priest, when once a year, anointed, went in behind the curtains; and when them curtains dropped behind him, the world was shut off.

That's what's the matter with people today: They don't want to get shut off from the world. You want to be in contact with who is going to be the next ... most popular girl in California, in Hollywood. And some of them married six and seven times. And you make that an example. You'll turn on your television at night to see Mary, Suzy, or what these plays are that come on, and stay home from the prayer meeting, and then wondering why you can't hold on. You're not dead enough. Amen. You can't be two living at one time; you've got to be dead to the world, and alive in God, or either you're alive to the world and dead to God. Can't serve two masters at once.

I know that's hard preaching, brother, sister. But that's what the Bible speaks. And you've let the world creep in, and intellectual faith has accepted such a thing as that, and know no more about God than a rabbit knows about snow shoes. You know that's the truth. (I don't say that for a joke. No, sir. But it's the truth. Right.) Because you love the world.

The Bible said, “He that loves the world, or the things of the world, the love of God is not even in him.” That's right.

But, oh, you say, “I belong to church. I'm as good as the next....”

Well, that woman thought the same thing, not only her but thousands of others, millions of others.

But wait; “I've seen the wicked in power spread forth like a green bay tree, but” God said, “watch him at the end, that's where it tells.” That's where it comes. And you better watch for that bed coming, where your going to press a dying pillow one of these days. When the doctor walks away and the veins is coming cooling up arms, and your intellectual soul's breaking and all this nonsense that you've went on with and rejected the Holy Spirit. Your soul will come up and recognize that's the truth, and you'll be lost. Your own conscious will haunt you through eternity. When you're having a form of godliness and denying God's Word, saying that “He once was God, but He's gone away. He did back yonder, but He can't today.” Don't you do that.

Notice, when Aaron went in there in this holy place—in the holiest of holies—the man who lived in there, lived in perfection, all the time. The manna was fresh. It didn't dry up, neither did it get contaminated. If you ever get to a place where you can be so hid away in God, until the outside world is dead, and the veil drops over you. You see what I mean? When the veil shades you from the outside world. Was you ever so lost in Christ, so prayed through, until the world ... you had no more to do with it, at all; you walked humbly every day before Christ, loving Him first. There's what you need. Down on the inside, eat manna.

It was good at nine o'clock, it was good at twelve o'clock, it was good year in and out. It was good forever. Hundreds of years and spaces of time rolled on, and the manna never did get contaminated. It was good and sweet and fresh, all the time. The man that lives in there has always got the victory. He's in the presence of God. He's always got victory. Nine o'clock, doesn't matter to him; whether the church goes wrong, that doesn't matter to him: he's still anchored in Christ. The outside world, all the things of the world is dead to him, and he's hid away in God. His heart has become God's throne. God give him a new spirit, and taken him in the veil; and when He did, He feeds him manna daily right out of the golden omer, that sits in the holiest of holies.

Not only that, but Aaron took his rod in there and left it one time. And left it twenty-four hours. You know what happened to that rod? It come to life. It blossomed, bloomed, and yielded almonds in twenty-four hours.

There's a many a man in Sturgis tonight that's the same way. That old idle stick was an idle stick off of an olive tree. That's right. There's many a man and woman sit in these big churches around here, that's maybe a stick off of the tree. They intend to be Christians. They can't see the supernatural. They've never had it to them. They don't know what it means to be born again. They don't know. They seen a lot of phony stuff, maybe, a lot of bogus stuff, a lot of make-up stuff, and it's blinded it from them. But that don't take away from the real. Hear my word. It only makes the real more real. What happened?

If you accepted Christ sincerely, and you believe it, then, brothers, come into the holiest of holies and it'll yield the fruits of the Spirit. In twenty-four hours, a stick that was dead, lived, blossomed, yielded blossoms, and almonds in twenty-four hours.

Let a man or a woman that don't believe in the supernatural, let a man and a woman that can't believe the days of miracles, let them hide behind the holiest of holies, and the veil of God's Son's blood drop between them and the world, in less than twenty-four hours, they'll believe every Word of God's Word is the truth. Amen.

The reason: you don't go in behind the veil. You say, “Well, I'm a Christian, I'm taking of God's goodness.”

Yes, but you're in the outer courts. Come in and hide away. I'm not yelling at you, I'm only trying to let you see what's truth. Then visions will be nothing for you. Then the presence of God.... You'll walk sweetly with the Lamb of God every day. You're living in the presence of the King, every day, every hour.

Let the neighbors say what they want to. Let your church say that you've lost your mind. That won't bother you a speck; you just live right on in the presence of the King, because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. The intellectual faith that you have, is foolishness to God. And so is the power of God foolish to the world. But it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them which was lost.

Understand, friends, you're living in a devil's world. This is not God's world. The devil said it was his. The devil took Jesus up and said, “See all the kingdoms?” United States, and all. Said, “Them are mine. I can do with them what I want to. And I'll give them to You, if You'll worship me.”

Jesus knowed that He would fall heir to them some day, in the Millennium. He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan. It is written, thou shall....” See that Holy Spirit agreeing with the Word? “It's written thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” Amen. He knowed He didn't meet Moses there. Certainly.

Jesus knowed. The Bible said, “Rejoice all you heavens, you holy prophets, and you earth. For the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and He will reign forever,” in the book of Revelations. Jesus knew He was coming heir to all of them. But this is the devil's world. That's the reason you got fighting, and war, and troubles, atomic bombs, and murders, and rapes, and everything, because it's a devil's world, and controlled by the devil. But you're not of this world. You're in the kingdom of God.

I don't blame the sinner for sinning. If a sinner goes down and drinks beer, and smokes cigars, and goes to picture shows, and things like that, and acts like the world, I don't blame him. That's the only pleasure he has got now, and the only pleasure he's ever going to have. That's right. I don't blame a pig for sticking his nose in a manure pile and eating manure. Certainly not. He's a pig. Let him alone.

But you people who call yourself Christians and then do those things, you're the guy I'm after. You get a change of heart, you get a change of diet. That's right. You don't want the things of the world no more. Certainly not. Come in through the glory of God.

As Aaron walked in there, and that veil dropped behind him, brother, the world knowed nothing about it anymore. He was shut off from the world. And a man that ever fully surrenders his heart and life—man, woman, boy, or girl, who dares to take God at His Word—and said, “God, sanely I come to You; and give me the new birth in my heart, Lord.” Stand there under the bloody cross and believe it with all your heart. Something will come to you, brother, that God will shut you away and the world will become dead, and all the things that pertain to the world will be dead. You have to hide away.

I like to hunt, as I've told you many times. Up in the Colorado.... Me and my friend sitting back there, Brother Woods, sometimes when we get so tired we can't stand it, we slip away in the fall of the year to hunt. Not so much to kill the animal. No. No, sir. What is it? It's to get alone with God.

I was hunting elk. I was way up high. And the fall rains hadn't run them down yet, and the snow. One day there come a big rain; it would rain awhile, snow a while, and the sun shine. And it come up a storm, and I was way high; the man was with me. I hadn't seen him for a couple days; about seventy miles from civilization. You couldn't hear a train blowing or nothing. Alone! Oh, what a place to be!

I was walking through there and the storms was blowing. I got down in behind a tree, and waited there till the storm was over, the tree tops a-falling. And when the storm went through, after it was over, the cold rain, why, ice was all over the trees, and the sun come out in the crevices in the west. And the sun shined through like this and formed a rainbow across that place. Oh, when I looked at that! Way back over here, I heard the old elk herd begin to bugle one to another; they had been lost up in the storm. Way back up on the hill, the old gray wolf got to howling, his mate answering him down in the valley.

My mother is almost a half Indian, and oh, that's when the deep begin to call to the deep, in my heart. I said, “O God, here's where I belong. This is the place. Let me alone in the mountains. This is my home.” To grip a rifle, to walk through the woods, and to hear the wild life, there's something about it. It's a nature that I love, that's home to me. I was raised there on it, and I love it with all my heart—to be alone. I see God there.

After a while, I heard something. The little old pine squirrel.... I don't know whether you have them here or not, a little old fellow, the noisiest thing in the woods. And he jumped up on an old stump. There was an old blow-down where a bunch of trees ... in a former storm had blowed the treetops together. And little old pine squirrel jumped up on there, begin to, “Chatter, chatter, chatter; chatter, chatter, chatter,” like he was going to tear somebody to pieces. I looked over; I said, “Now you're making a lot of noise for nothing. Nobody is scared of you.”

So, about that time, I watched what he was looking at. There had a big old eagle forced down, one of the big old brown eagles we have there in the west. And he had been forced down under this ... the winds had blowed him in there. And that's what the squirrel was barking at. He jumped up on there. And I'd just been weeping. I looked over and seen that rainbow, and I said, “O God, listening at my heart pound when I hear that wolf holler yonder. There's something about it, I love.” I said, “Looky there at the rainbow, God; it's Your covenant. Right. You'll never destroy the world with water, but it'll be fire next time.”

Oh, I could see Jesus standing in Revelations 1, where He was to look upon as jasper and sardius stone; Alpha, Omega, the beginning and the ending; Reuben, and the younger and older. And all the rainbow around him, the covenant of His blood that He would protect and keep that which God had committed to him.

I could see Him there, and my heart pounding. They'd thought they had the Salvation Army up there. I set my gun down, the side of the tree; I run around and around the tree, screaming top of my voice, to give vent to my feeling. Oh, just as loud as I could scream. I didn't care who heard me. Wasn't nobody to hear me anyhow. I was just praising God. If they had seen me up there, I guess, they'd have thought I had been out of the insane institution. I didn't care what they thought, who thought it. How my soul was bubbling for the glory of God!

I felt like David did when he seen the ark coming, and begin to dance before the Lord.

There was a little, old backslidden there, sat up there, said, “You embarrass me.”

Said, “You don't like that, watch this.” And down they went, and around, and around, and around he went again. His wife thought he was crazy, like the world does today.

But God said, “David, you're a man after my own heart. Don't care what the world says; what God thinks.” Quickly.

I watched a little while, and watched that pine squirrel chatter at the eagle. I thought, “God, why did You interpret this great program, that I'm listening to You here, watching You.”

After while, I noticed that eagle.

“Why aren't you scared?” I said, “I could grab my rifle and shoot you.” Those great big velvet eyes look at me. He wasn't scared of me. He watched that squirrel then watched me; watched the squirrel then watched me. And I thought, “Why are you...? What you sit there, so that...? You're brave that's what it is! That's what God wants me to see.”

You can see God anywhere, if you just look for Him. Get Him in here, and you can see Him. Get Him in here. You won't reason about, “Well, I wonder what's this,” see. In here, God will declare Himself.

So, he looked. As I watched that old eagle watching me.... And after while, I said, “No wonder; he's not afraid.”

That's the trouble with Christians today: You're afraid to testify at your work. You're afraid to tell the man that's cursing, taking God's name in vain, about Jesus Christ. You're afraid to stand up and say, “God healed me by His power.” God don't want cowards. Take the wish bone out and put a back bone in you.

Buddy Robinson said, “Lord, give me the back bone like a saw log. Let me fight the devil as long as I got a tooth in my mouth, and gum him till I die.” That's right. That's what we need. Plenty of knowledge in the gable-end of my soul. That's what you need.

Notice. This old eagle after while.... I watched why he wasn't afraid. He had two wings. God give him two wings. And he knowed good and well that he could be in them cedars there ... or, them pines before I could ever get my hand on that rifle. He trusted God's given escape for him.

And if an eagle could trust his wings to safety, how much more ought a Christian to trust the baptism of the Holy Ghost to take care of him?

As he moved his big wings, he looked at me. He wasn't a bit scared. As long as them wings was in operation, he wasn't afraid. If you're sick tonight, take God at His promise. Feel the Holy Spirit there give you the promise, your great wings of faith that can fly away with you.

After a while, he got enough of that little old “Chatter, chatter” of that little old pine squirrel. He made one big jump, flopped his wings about twice. He never flopped from place to place, from place to place, from place to place. He knowed how to set his wings. He set his wings, and a roar of wind come in, and he just lifted up. Another roar come, he never flopped his wings; he just lifted up, on, on, on, till he become a speck, leaving that little old earth-bound chipmunk sitting there ... or, pine squirrel going, “Chatter, chatter, chatter; chatter, chatter, chatter.”

I thought, “That's true, God.” Oh, if Christians only knowed how to set their wings of faith in God's power, that waves over them like that, as the glory of the Holy Spirit comes into the camp of the believers. And if they only knowed how to set their wings, in God's faith, unmovable, and ride the glories of God out, and leave this old earthbound, “Chatter, chatter, chatter,” that says, “The days of miracles is passed. There is no such a thing as the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” You'll fly right away from it. What you need. Yes, sir.

In closing, I say another thing. That, in this place where you dwell on the inside, the secret place with God, there's a difference in there. Look. There was three lights that led men. There was three lights that lead men today. The first thing, there was three stages of the manna. There was three stages of everything. There's three stages of your experience. And notice, quickly now, while we're closing, quickly.

Watch. Now, on the outside, the man who lived out here in the courts, that never even went to the first altar, he lived by the light of the sun, by the light of the moon, the stars, the firmaments. Some days it was rainy. Some days the sun wouldn't shine for days: a very typical experience of the carnal nature of man before he's been born again.

Then, the next man come into the first court. There was seven golden candlesticks there. That was a good light. But many times, the candlesticks went out, the lamps smoked up. He lived by an artificial light. Some days he was up and some days he was down. That's the way with the Christian experience. If you're only living in a justified state, going to church and saying, “Well, I did the best I can,” you're going to have the rainy days. You're going to have days you wonder whether you are a Christian or not. You're going to have days where you're going to wonder whether miracles are right or not. There's going to be days where you wonder whether you're in the right church or not. All those kind of scruples and things are going to pass through your mind.

If you walk into a little fellowship with the church, again with that. Again there's the seven golden candlesticks were the offering was only made and the sacrifice burned. You'll still have smoky days and rainy days, cloudy days, days when the lights was out. Days when the lamps smoked up the experience. You've seen Miss Jones over there, who was supposed to be a Christian, do something that wasn't right, and you say, “Oh, I wonder if there's anything to it,” see. You still got your eyes on Miss Jones, see. You're still walking with artificial light.

But the man who walked in behind that holiest of holies, it didn't matter whether the sun shined or not. It didn't matter whether the candles burned or not. He lived in the light of the Shekinah glory, where the pillar of fire dwelt under the interlocked wings of the Cherubim, and all the time he was walking in the perfect light and fellowship. He didn't look to the outside, to the rainy days. There is never a rainy day, never a doubt, never a time that he was hungry for God, because in him was stored up the manna of God, the Word built up unto a righteous foundation. He had not to worry no more. Certainly not. He was inside. The world was on the outside.

That's what the church needs today is an experience that'll take them into ... onto the Shekinah glory, where all the curtains will fall, and hide the man from the things of the world, till you live in the presence of God, under His great power, under the interlocked wings of the Holy Ghost, and in the cross you'll stand. Then the cross don't become a burden anymore. It picks up wings and flies away.

When you think of the burdens, every day the sun is shining. Oh, I love it. “I've crossed the riven veil, oh, glory be to God. I'm on this altar sanctified, glory be to God.” You've heard the old song. That's where a man lives in the presence of the King. Oh, what a place to live!

You can have it, friends. It's for each one of you, if you're ready to shut yourself off from your associates and the friends of the world, if you're ready to walk in with Christ. Then I'll tell you, your eyes is on Christ, you're walking in the sunlight of God. There's no outside, no dim the skies.

Here the sun is always shining, here the sky

is always bright.

It is no place for gloomy Christians to abide.

For my soul is filled with rapture, as I labor,

watch, and pray,

And we're living on the hallelujah side.

Every day, every time, every time you meet them, they got the victory in their heart, praising God. Whether the sun is shining or not, they're living in the presence of the King. Don't you want that hidden life? Isn't there something about it that's real? Oh, my! Wish I had time, then you'll go out of here a different person.

Here not long ago, years ago, when they had slavery in the South.... There's something about slaves. There's something about the Negro, that I like his humility.

Over here in Illinois, I was walking in one time to a museum. I seen an old Negro there, just a little white rim around his head of hair. He had his hat in his hand, looking around everywhere. He got up to something, he stopped, the tears rolled down his cheeks. I seen him saying his prayer. I watched him a little bit. I walked over to him, I patted him on the shoulder, I said, “Uncle. I'm a reverend.” I said, “I would like to ask you one thing.” I said, “What excited you to make you pray?”

He said, “Come here, parson.” Said, “Look at there.”

Well, I couldn't see nothing. I said, “Just a woman's dress.”

He said, “But you see that blood on there?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “That's the blood of Abraham Lincoln.” Said, “There's a scar here on my side from a slave belt.” He said, “That blood taken the slave belt off of me. Wouldn't it excite you, too?”

I put my arm around him. I said, “If the blood of Abraham Lincoln will excite and stir a slave to emotion from coming off of the slave belt, what ought the blood of Jesus Christ preached under the power of the Holy Ghost do to the church of the living God?” Yes. Certainly. It's true.

Men of vision, men who understand, men who take God at His Word. We've got to do that, friend. We must believe God and act like Christians.

One time when the slaves was being sold, they'd go around swap slaves, and so forth. And that's what you are tonight, many of you here, many of you through the city, through the country, are nothing but church slaves—nothing but slaves to Christianity—when you should be free. Amen. That's right.

One time, there was an old buyer come through on a big plantation down below the place where I lived. Years and years ago I heard the story. And there was a bunch of slaves. And they were so weary. They were away from home. They didn't know what to do. They knowed they'd never be going back. The Dutch brought over here and sold them for slaves. They was away from Africa. Their friends were over there and their loved ones. They could never go back no more. They were so downcast. They just had to drive them. Many times they'd take whips and whip them and everything, to make them work.

And they noticed one young fellow there, you didn't have to whip him. His shoulders was up. You'd whip him, he wouldn't pay no attention it. Walk on like that. And he was always in a big way, trying to encourage the rest of them.

So, the buyer said, “I'd like to buy that slave.”

He said, “He's not for sale.”

He said, “Why is it?” Said, “Why is it he's so encouraged? And why is he so courageous?” Said, “Why is it that he's different from the rest of them.” Said, “Did you make him a boss over the rest of them?”

He said, “No.” Said, “He's just a slave.”

Said, “Did you feed him a little better than you feed the rest of them?”

Said, “No, he's just a slave.”

Said, “What makes him act like that?”

Said, “I wondered myself, till one day I found out. He is the son of the king of the tribe. And though he's an alien, away from home, he still conducts himself as a king's son, to keep up the courage of the rest of them.”

Men and women, we are aliens here on this earth, we're aliens, we're pilgrims and strangers. Our God and our Christ is on the other side, and we're sons and daughters of the king. We ought to be conducting ourselves, not in gambling, not in smoking, not in drinking, not in picture shows, and television programs, and scandaling lives, and carrying on. We should conduct ourselves as sons and daughters of God, walking with our heads up, living in the light of the King. Yes, sir. It's yours if you want it. It's yours if you believe that you have to have it. It's yours tonight.

May the Lord bless you while we bow our heads just a moment for prayer. The pianist will come to the piano, please, if you will, sister.

Every head bowed, your eyes closed. And now we got plenty time. It's just nine-thirty. I want to ask you a question while the sister gives us a chord. “Jesus keep me near....” Anything you wish to play, just for music.

I'm going to ask you a question. This may be our last time ever meeting here on earth. I'm not much of a preacher, I'm a spare tire for a preacher. My services usually is in the healing lines and so forth. But I do know what I speak of, friends. I know that a man without the new birth is alien from God, he knows not of God. I know you've got to accept that experience if you're ever going to heaven.

Jesus said, “Except a man is born again of water and spirit....” Said, “The wind blows where it listeth, and thou cannot tell whence it come, or where it goeth, and so is everyone that's born of the Spirit.” If he doesn't have this experience, he will in no wise enter the kingdom.

No matter how good you've been, how well you treated your neighbor, how well you've went to church, how you supported it. Them's all good things, nothing about it. How well you're educated. That's fine. That has nothing to do with it. “Except a man be born again”: a mysterious birth that sends you out yonder into a sphere that you know nothing of, when you're an alien. Though you go to church and try to do right, still that isn't it, friend. Are you born again, washed in the blood of the Lamb? Is all the sins and things of the world gone from your heart? and you walk and live with Jesus Christ, hid away under the Shekinah glory? every day is a blessing, no ups-and-downs, but you're living in the presence of the King?

Listen, friend, I don't care if your neighbor is sitting here, your pastor is sitting here, whoever is sitting here. If you're short of that experience, I'm asking you tonight to come and receive Jesus Christ.

And while the sister gives us a chord on the piano, I'd like to see how many here would want to be remembered in prayer, that you would receive this experience. Will you raise your hands? And say, “God be merciful to me. I want to come into the presence of God.” Will you raise your hands?

You mean to tell me, around three hundred souls, and me standing here as God's servant, anointed with the Holy Ghost, and know your heart, and you couldn't hide your life if you had to.... You mean to tell me that you're sitting there with your hand down, and know that God's speaking to you, saying, “I'm that person.” And you won't raise your hand? What will you do at judgment? Aren't you ashamed the way you've treated Him? Aren't you ashamed? God bless you, lady. That's courage to raise your hand. I'm sure God will give you that what you ask for. God bless your gallant heart.

Someone else raise your hand, say, “God be merciful to me.” If you'd see what I see, a little boy standing here, looking up at me with his hands up in the air. You say, “He don't know. He's just a kid.” He knows more than you do, then. Don't know as much as a child. The God of heaven here can restore sight, make the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak: infallible proofs of His great omnipotence. Then in His presence, while the ministers are gathered together, and you say, “Oh, I'm all right. I'm good as you are.”

Remember, that's the Gospel. It's up to you from here on.

Our Heavenly Father, to that lady and little boy that raised their hands, O eternal Jehovah, I pray tonight, as a minister of the Gospel, that knows that some day I got to stand in Your presence, to give an account for what I tell the people. I pray, Thee, sincerely in the name of Jesus, Thy holy Son, that You'll receive them into Your kingdom. And shut the curtains behind them tonight, that from this night, henceforth, that the world will be dead to them, and they'll be alive in Christ Jesus forevermore. Grant it, eternal God. I ask You sincerely in Jesus' name, who promised, “If you ask the Father anything in My name, that I will do.”

God, not with confidence in my prayer, but confidence in Your promise, no matter how little it is, what it is, and how weak our prayer is, You promised it, Christ. And I bring these people into Your presence now. And I present them for the desire of their heart. It's a righteous and a godly desire to walk close to You, and be hid away under the power of the Shekinah glory, to have the world shut away from them, as I have preached to them tonight.

And now, God, I believe that You hear what I ask for. And I believe that Jesus' words are true, whatever I ask I would receive. Therefore, now, Father, I thank You for it.

And I turn to the adversary, Satan, and say, Satan, we stand as a representative of God. We stand as a bloody cross goes before us, representing the Son of God who died there for your defeat. And you're nothing but a bluff. “For there He was wounded for our transgressions, and with His stripes we were healed.” And you're only a bluff trying to bluff the people. But your bluff has been called now. You can't hold them no longer. I adjure thee by the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ, that you depart from them tonight, and bother them no more. Believing that we have this.... And Jesus Christ said, “In my name they shall cast out devils.” And you've been a tormentor who has haunted them. But you can't do it no more. They will be liberated, from this very hour, and live in the presence of God until death shall set them free.

Almighty God, we turn to Thee again to give thanks for all Your goodness and all your mercy. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Beloved Christian, this may be our last meeting time. I have an awful way: I'm uneducated to present what I'm trying.... I wish I could present it better. I can't. I don't premeditate on anything, I just speak it as it comes. That's all I know to do. But God has helped me. And I love Him with all my heart—the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that You're here for some purpose tonight. You've come. And if You've come, there is a fountain for everything you have need of. That is right.

Here sometime ago, I was amazed.... I guess you read the little story. My two boys that usually comes along, tapes recording, Gene and Leo (your-all's native boys right here in Michigan; one of them, a Catholic, was just converted to a Protestant church) come down to Hammond, Indiana, as curiosity seeking. They come and seen the works of God being done, and they formed themselves together as a secret agent, to come and follow the meetings to see and watch. They even moved into my town secretly, to spy and find out whether it was really right or not. Both of them become staunch Christians, believers. And now, while they were sitting on my porch, and I was teaching them one morning, this last summer....

I used to be a game warden (you know that), in conservation for years. Studied wildlife; I love wildlife; there's something about it that I love. I've seen Him do so many things through wildlife. Seen Him conquer the worst in wildlife. And I could tell you things that would change your opinion about things—the hidden life, inside. It's something secret you don't tell the world, see. Do you believe that God can still conquer wild things? He can bring in His submission to anything that He wishes to? He's Almighty God.

I could tell you times where my life has been right at stake, and stand, and just speak the name of the Lord Jesus, and see wild animals wilt right down. I've seen demon, maniacs, people standing ready to kill me at one minute. And fall down like that and give praise to God. That's right.

I remember one time mowing my yard, and I had went around the back. People coming and going, I couldn't even get my yard mowed. And the weeds was growing up in the front, when I was in the back. And I took off my shirt, it was summertime. And I took off my shirt, and I was mowing with a power mower. I forgot about a big nest of hornets (I don't know if you know what they are up here or not) hanging in the corner. And with my shirt off, I hit that fence; in a second's time, I was covered all over with hornets. Don't never hate. Love, love is what conquers. And instead of trying to hate those hornets, and them humming all over me.... Two of them would kill you. One of them would knock you to your knees. Sure. Three or four of them on you, you'd die. And there I was covered over, with not even a shirt on. Instead of hating those hornets, I loved the little fellows. That sounds juvenile, but it's true.

And I said, “Little creatures of God, I'm sorry I disturbed you; this is your home. But, I'm a servant of God, and I'm praying for His sick children, and many are waiting. I haven't time to play with you. Run on up in your nest right quick, in Jesus' name, and leave me alone. I won't bother you no more.”

And God, my eternal Judge, knows that they formed a circle and went right straight back into their nest. Love.

I've had in Africa, they ... standing there, witch doctors standing and challenge. Don't you never make a statement there, unless you know what you're talking about. Drink blood out of a human skull, and cut themselves, and things. And stand there and challenge, and speak the name of the Lord Jesus and see them fall prostrate on the ground. That's right. See them go and standing, trying to hypnotize me. And went over there, he was going to make me bark like a dog, and standing out there trying to do something like that. I felt that strange spirit, while the anointing was on, looked around. I said, “You child of the devil. Why do you do that?” I said, “Cursed be you, you'll not move from your seat in the name of Jesus Christ for the glory of God.” And he paralyzed, sitting there in the seat, and they packed him out, see.

You have to watch what you're doing. You're not playing church no more. That's right.

And sitting on a porch, talking, I happened to notice at ten o'clock in the day, coming up the road come an old possum. I don't know what you.... I guess you have them here; yeah, you do have here in this state. Now, anyone knows, that knows conservation, a possum is blind in the daytime. They prowl at night. And here it was ten o'clock, coming up dragging his leg, like that. And I said, “That possum....” He passed about four or five houses, coming from the woods, over from me, right up the lane. And I was the only one had a fence, but he come to my gate, turned in, started walking up. I said, “That possum has got rabies, see. That's what's the matter. It's gone mad.”

And there was an old yard rake laying there, Mr. Woods sitting there, Mrs. Woods was there present, the milkman was standing there talking to me (Mr. Gilmore, a friend of mine), the two boys—all of them sitting there, talking. And I had been teaching to them. A young colored girl, the day before, had had a baby, and took it and wrapped it up and smothered it to death, and dropped it in the river, like that. And we was talking about what a heart that was in that girl.

And so I went out there, and took a rake and threw it over the possum; and usually they do what you call, 'play possum': they just lay down and grin. Instead of this, she kept squirming. I looked at here. And this is a.... (I don't mean to turn your stomach, but....) The flies had blowed her all over, and maggots was all over her, and her leg was drawed back this, and swelled way up that. Either a car had hit her, or the dogs had got ahold of her and mashed her up.

I said, “Oh, she's hurt.” And I happened to notice she was trying to get up. And when I noticed, she had nine little naked babies about like that, little baby possums. And I said, “This is more of a mother than that girl was, though she's a dumb brute.” I said, “She hasn't got maybe a half hour to live, but she'll spend that half hour, fighting to protect those babies.” I said, “There's more morals to that possum than there is to that girl.” That's right. And I was teaching the boys from that. And just then, as soon as I let the rake up, she took right off as hard as she could, and went right up to my step, right by my step where you go up, and laid down, and exhausted.

I went up and punched her. And she wouldn't move. And the little babies were trying to nurse that milk from her.

They said, “Why, she's dead.”

And I said, “I don't know, I don't think she's dead.” And I punched her again, you can just see a little grin-like come on her lip, you know, like that. And I punched her again.

Mrs. Woods sitting there, (she's kind of a veterinary, Mrs. Woods is.) She said, “Brother Branham, the only humane thing to do with this now....” Said, “Them little babies will die.” Said, “There's only one thing to do, is take and finish killing the possum, and then kill the babies.” Said, “Because they're too little to put on....” (Little bitty things about that long.) Said, “They're going to die.” And said, “They'll just starve their little selves to death.”

And I said, “Mrs. Woods, that's right, but I can't kill the possum.”

“Why,” she said, “Brother Branham, you're a hunter.” Said, “Go get one of your guns and shoot them.”

And I said, “I'm a hunter, but not a killer.” I said, “I can't kill those little baby possums.” To see that poor mother struggling till she come here and laid down. I said, “I haven't got the heart to kill that mother and them babies laying there like that.”

She said, “That's right. But,” said, “the humane thing to do. Brother Branham, think of the little things, that old milk coming, that dead mother there, why, it's just going to kill them anyhow.” She said, “Let Mr. Woods take them and kill them.”

I said, “I just can't do it, Sister Woods.” And I wouldn't let them do it.

She laid in that hot boiling sun all afternoon. There she laid there. That night we went out, and we was riding on the road. Mr. Woods said, “Well, now you've ministered enough today, Brother Branham, we better get you out to rest your mind, a little.” And we was riding around on the road.

And I seen a little old dog, laying there. My wife saw it first. [Blank spot on tape.]

The dew was on the ground and there she was laying there. I said, “Well, I guess she's gone.” I punched her a few times, and shook her foot like that. And that old leg laying back like that, and green flies all over it, and everything. I said, “My, my!”

My little girl, Rebekah, the one that's just begin to see visions, just about that high. She come out. And she said, “Daddy, what are you going to do with that possum?”

I said, “Honey, I don't know.”

And she said, “Oh, that poor old mother, trying to live for those babies.”

I said, “Yes, honey, that's pitiful.”

Said, “Is she dead?”

And I said, “No, she isn't dead. I still believe she's got life in her,” because (you watch real close) you can see her side quiver once in a while, where she'd catch her breath, kind of like that. Never moving, but just in her side. And so, I said, “I believe she's still alive.” I said, “Honey, you better go back to bed. It's too early for you to get up.”

And I went in and sat down in the room. And I was sitting there, like this, rubbing my head. And I said, “Well, I don't know what to do.”

And a voice spoke to me. I don't know. It's up to you to believe it, if you want to. It's up to you. But a voice—audible voice—spoke, and said, “She's laid at your gate for twenty-four hours, like a lady, waiting for her turn to be prayed for.”

I said, “I didn't know that.”

And said, “Well, she come up there, and she has laid, and you haven't prayed for her yet. And she's waited and waited.”

I said, “Well, I didn't know.” I thought, “What am I.... Am I talking to myself?” I thought, “Where's that voice?”

And I went out to where the possum was. I said, “Dear Jesus, if You, with Your omnipotent power.... I know that You're concerned about even a sparrow that couldn't fall to the street without You know it. And this possum don't even a soul, it's an animal. And if You directed that old mother possum up here....”

And He said in there, also, “You used her yesterday for a sermon, and told what a real mother she was. And here she wants to live for her babies. And you haven't prayed for her.”

And I said, “God, if that's You speaking; I'm sorry, the ignorance of Your servant. I didn't know the possum was laying there for that.” I said, “Lord, if it's for me to do this, I pray then in Jesus' name, Father, that You'll give the possum back her life.” And I no more than said that (and here's truth) that possum raised up and looked at me, gathered up her babies, back in her little.... A possum and a kangaroo is the only two animals that has a pocket they pack their young. Gathered up her possums, walked out there, just as good as any possum could walk. Turned around to me, as if to say, “Thank you, sir.” Right down the road she went, right on over to the woods, happily, to live with her babies.

If God Almighty.... And that's the truth. The Bible is laying before me, and witness after witness. The local papers packed it, and everything else. Look! If God is concerned enough to take pity on an ignorant possum, how much more does He think about a son or daughter of God who is in need?

Do you see, my brother, sister, God still lives and reigns. Don't you believe that? If you're without Him tonight, accept Him.

Is there any sick here that wants to be prayed for? Oh, about six, eight, six, eight hands. All right. Now, bow your heads. And you who want to be prayed for, lay your hands over on somebody next to you, and believe now with all your heart, as you lay your hands on someone.

I want you to do this. Now this.... I don't want you.... I'm going to say a prayer. I want you not to just to say it, I want you to pray. And you follow me now, as you make your confession, and say just the things I say.

[Congregation repeats each phrase after Brother Branham]: “Almighty God, Creator of heavens and earth, author of everlasting life, giver of every good gift, I, Your servant, stand in need. I now believe that Jesus Christ Your Son died to save me from sin, and I accept that: my salvation. I believe that He was wounded for my transgressions, and with His stripes I was healed. And I believe it. And I accept it. And I believe with all my heart that His stripes heals me now. And I will accept it. I will testify of it. I will glorify God by it. And from this night on, I will praise Him for my healing, through Jesus Christ My Lord.”

Now just remain where you are. Keep your heads bowed. That's your prayer. You've asked God. Jesus said, “Ask the Father anything in My name, I will do it.”

Could He lie? He couldn't, and be God. He didn't lie. Don't have confidence in your prayer. Have confidence in what He said. He said it. Every devil is trembling.

Now, keep shut in with God. Keep your heads bowed. Keep shut in. Saying, “Dear God, I believe right now.” In your heart, say, “Oh, I just know that You're great Holy Spirit is now coming into me. I can feel my sickness leaving. I believe it, Lord, upon the confession of my faith. And I believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God is sitting at the right hand of the Majesty, as a High Priest, making intercessions upon what I'm confessing right now.” Just believe that in your heart now. Say, “Oh, God, I've accepted it. It's mine. It belongs to me. Now I am healed. I'll never no more have this stomach trouble, this female trouble, this condition that's been on me. It'll never be no more. I now believe it. I accept it.” With all your heart believe it.

And while you stay shut in, now I'm going to pray for you.

Now, this is my prayer. That was yours. You've accepted. Now there's only one thing to keep you from being healed right now. That's a little shadow hanging over you, called unbelief. God in heaven help me to be able to make that shadow leave you. If it'll leave you, you that's on crutches will walk away without them. You that's sick, with your hands laid on each other.... The Bible said, “They shall lay their hands. These signs shall follow them that believeth. They shall lay their hands, and they shall recover, see ... upon the sick, they shall recover.” That's your hands, one another, laying on one another. He sees you. He hears your confession. He knows what you're talking about. He's accepted you. He has to. Jesus can't lie. He is God. It's impossible for Him to lie.

You are now healed. Now, if that shadow will just leave you. Now, as a servant of God, I'll pray and ask God to cast that demon of fear, that's afraid to take Him at His word. Afraid that you can't get along, that something ... you just can't make it. And I believe that God will heal every one of you, and you'll get up from here tonight, and walk out, and be well.

Now with your heads bowed.

Our Heavenly Father, in this little handful of people gathered tonight here in this auditorium ... not no faith in ourselves, for we know that we're a failure to begin with. And I'm not worthy to pray for these people. Satan doesn't care about me. He knows that. And he ain't afraid of me. He ain't afraid of no Christian here. But what he's afraid of is the blood of Jesus that's going before us. That's what He knows. He can't transgress. He can't pass over that blood. He can't do it. And he realizes, Father, that he's defeated. He realizes that there at Calvary, Jesus Christ stripped him of every authority he had. He hasn't got one legal right. He hasn't got one legal thing. The full penalty of sin and sickness was paid for at Calvary. And we have the attributes of everything Jesus died for. And he knows that he's defeated.

And the only thing that he can do is haunt the people. He can't possess them. He can only haunt them when their confession is upon the unadulterated blood of the Lord Jesus, wherein lays the life.

Now, Father, I pray that You'll help me, as Your servant, as one who believes in You. I've left home, I've left everything to serve You. I love You. And You're real. And You make Yourself real. And I love You, Father. I'm not worthy to love You. But it's not my merits, it's His merits, who received me. And I love this people. And I see the dark shadows, as it was, trying to hang around, saying, “Well, I won't get it.”

Oh, Satan, you're defeated. In Jesus Christ's name, I cast you away from the people, that you can't hold them any longer. Jesus Christ makes them free. And you are defeated, and they shall be made well, because that they've confessed their faith in God, they've confessed their faith in Jesus Christ, they have accepted His stripes for their healing. And you cannot walk over the blood of the Lord Jesus, so therefore you are defeated, and I adjure thee, by the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, that you come out from the people at this minute, and go away from them, in Jesus' name.

Now, while you have your heads bowed, every man or woman that believes and dares to take the unadulterated Word of God, and you believe that right now, that the blood of Jesus is hanging before God, the Father, on His bloody garments, that there by His stripes you were healed—and you know that you take Him at His word—I want you to stand to your feet.

There you are! There's the defeat of the devil. There's the defeat of the devil. He's lost the victory. You are healed. God has made you well. Let's raise up our hands.

Heavenly Father, we give Thee thanks and praise for the power of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus. We praise Thee through His holy name. We bless God for the power of the resurrection of the Son of God. We thank You for divine healing. Watch the neighborhood, Lord. May they be a testimony wherever they go. They're praising Thee, and glorifying Thee.

O God, day by day, their strength will come to them. New life, new hope, new joy, new strength, shall come day by day. And we give Thee praise through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Oh, how we thank Him. Praise Him.

I will praise Him, I will praise Him,

Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;

Give Him glory all ye people,

For His blood can wash away each stain.

Everybody together now.

I will praise Him, I will praise Him,

Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;

Give Him glory all ye people,

For His blood can wash away each stain.

How many loves Him? Raise your hands and say, “Praise Him.” Praise Him. Praise the Lamb for sinners slain. Give Him glory all ye people, for His blood can wash away each stain.

No matter whether it's sickness or not. I see a couple of wheel chairs here that have some little boys sitting in wheel chairs; they've done raised up out of their wheel chairs here, giving God praise and glory.

Sure, the Lord Jesus is here. Praise His name. Let's bow our heads and raise our hands and give Him praise.

Pastor, come here for a word, and pray.