Jesus Of Nazareth Passeth By

Let us pray before we sit down, if You will. Bow our heads.

Dear God, it's again that we come to You with a grateful heart to express to Thee the feeling and the adoration that we have for Thee. And we would ask You tonight that You would forgive every sin and trespass that we have done today, or anytime in our life, that was contrary to Thy divine will. And if there would be anything that would hinder You from healing the sick and from saving the lost, we would ask You to forgive us, and to take us into Thy care just at this time, and move in us with great power, and may great signs and wonders be wrought tonight. And by this, may it cause an old-fashioned revival to start in this city and around about and throughout the state. Grant it, Lord, and may sinners be saved and sick people healed for Thy glory.

Now, bless both minister and listener tonight. Sanctify the words that shall proceed, and the ears that shall hear, and the hearts that shall believe. For we ask it in the name of Thy Son, Jesus. Amen.

You may be seated.

It is a grand privilege of mine to be back here again this evening, to speak to you of this wonderful, marvelous Lord Jesus. And it is a little bad that we just have to leave after the service and not have but just the two nights. For I'm well aware that this city, along with the other cities, that two nights is not sufficient to get the program over to the people. And therefore, it would take a time where some were healed that could get out and testify to others and tell others, and others tell others, and that's the way it would go.

But it's been a privilege of ours to be in this wonderful city, the capitol of this lovely state. We were riding this morning just to look around, and it is a beautiful country. We sure do appreciate this country. And as I said last night, it holds many memories for me of this New Hampshire, up north. This is my first time in this part.

Up in northern New Hampshire where I used to hunt, with some of my good friends, Harry B. Caul. I wonder if Harry's here tonight. If you are, Burt, would you raise up your hand? I'd sure like to shake your hand. In the back. All right, I see his hand up. Burt, I'm certainly glad to get to see you again, and my son is at the back of the building, and I want you to see him just before we leave.

Did you get in last night, Burt? This is your first night. Well, we're certainly glad to see him in. It's been some time since I have seen Burt—many years. And we've had much fun together up in the north woods here, hunting when I was just a boy. And it holds precious memories.

And Mr. Lowe.... I remember an elderly man up at a place called Randolph. And how many times that we've strolled over those mountains years ago. I never forget it. So it holds many great treasures and memories.

And tonight, being the closing of the service, and we're expecting God to meet with us with His mercy and power to heal the sick and the afflicted and to save those who would want to be saved.

Now, we're just skipping through the country, just night ... two nights. The longest we stayed was in Bangor. Did I say that right? Bangor, Maine. My southern expressions don't go too good up here. And I'm pretty slow, and some of you Yankees just talk so fast, I can't keep up with you. I'm afraid I'll get run over.

I said out on the street, “It was just the ... just only two classes of people lives here, and that was the quick and the dead.” From the way they drive, they die quick.

Billy, move in to the right-hand side and my friend Harry Caul sitting right there. I want you to meet him, so I can get to shake his hand just after the service.

And so we're happy to be in for this little time. Now, at Bangor we had such a wonderful meeting. Around six o'clock they'd have to lock the doors to keep the people away. The auditorium didn't seat but just about fifteen hundred, or something like that. And this ... starting now right after these meetings here, go to Texas and then back up into Carolina. And then from there, back into Africa again. And oh, I.... Just another tour, which is about five times around for me, and I trust that the Lord will give us great meetings, and we will be expecting your prayers for us as we go, and God to do the exceedingly abundantly for us there.

The last time we was in Durban, I was there for three days, and on the afternoon service, I made an altar call, immediately after a crippled man that was so hideously crippled, till He had to walk on his hands and feet, just like a dog. Had a chain around his neck. Not even mentally right. And before about a hundred and fifty thousand native, blanket heathens there, besides the white people, when that man raised up, he was in his right mind. First time he'd ever raised up in all of his life. And there were thirty thousand raw heathens (That's blanket natives.) broke their idols on the ground, accepted Jesus Christ as personal Saviour at one time.

Now, and that next morning I was standing in my hotel room, and the mayor of the city, Sidney Smith, come up, and he said, “Brother Branham, raise the window right quick and listen down the street.” And I looked coming down the street, and there come seven big cattle cars full of old crutches, and clubs, and wheelchairs. And about a mile long behind them, of people who sat in them that day before, walking behind these places singing, “All things are possible, only believe,” in their native tongues. It just goes to show that Christ is the answer. He is the One who gives the answer.

Now, before we open this Word, the Bible, which we believe, emphatically, to be the truth of Almighty God.... Now it may be just a little contrary, maybe, to what you've been taught in the church. But now, there's something wrong somewhere, because that Jesus commissioned us to go into all the world and make disciples in all nations. And that as soon as this was done that He would return.

Do you know Christianity is in third place today in numbers? And there's at least millions of people who has never heard the name of the Lord Jesus. And Mohammedans is three to one, outnumber Christianity. Buddha, oh, I just don't know how far it outnumbers Christianity. It's all because that something has gone wrong.

I believe that we have went and educated people (which is fine, nothing against it), and built churches, denominations, organizations. And in there we've drawed a line as a certain brotherhood, like the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, all like that. And drawed little separating lines that separated us. If we would have forgot about that and just went in the power of the Spirit of God, with a brotherly love for all people.... “This will all men know you're My disciples, when you have love one for the other.”

Now, believing this to be God's Word, I'd just like to take a little text, as I explained last night. Before we do that, let's talk to the Author just a minute again with our heads bowed.

Lord God, I am so grateful to Thee for this grand privilege of being able to read Thy Word, and to speak, and to humble our hearts before Thee for the working of the Holy Spirit. Now, grant to us, Lord, Thy Word. Speak something that would encourage believers to believe. For we ask it in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

Over in the book of St. Luke just for a little Scripture reading for a context tonight, I would like to read in the 18th chapter and the 37th verse.

And they said unto him, that Jesus of Nazareth passes by.

And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

You say, “That's an awful small Scripture reading, Mr. Branham, to accommodate a group of people like this tonight in your last night in the city.”

You see, that is a small Scripture reading. But it isn't how small it is; it's how valuable it is. The value is laid not on quantity, but quality. Just a little bit.

But sometime ago in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, just across from our little city, I had a little boy friend over there who was rambling around in an old garret one day, and he found an old trunk. And he was looking through this certain trunk, and he found a little old yellow postage stamp of about one half inch square. And he thought this was a grand thing, that he might be able to have five cents out of it, that he would go get him an ice cream.

So he hurried down the street to a stamp collector, and he said, “Sir, how much will you give me for this stamp?”

And the collector immediately taken his glass and looked it over; he said, “I will give you a dollar for that stamp.”

He said, “You've made the sale.” And he sold him the stamp for one dollar.

'Course the little lad, in his mind was ice cream, took down the street to buy his ice cream. In about three weeks that man sold that stamp for five hundred dollars. Later it was sold for twenty-five hundred dollars. And the last I heard of that stamp, it's worth a quarter of a million dollars.

You see, the little yellow piece of paper, it was not the value of the paper. The value was what was wrote on the paper. And that's what this little Scripture reading is tonight. It isn't how much it is; it's what it is that's wrote on it. The paper is ordinary paper that you make here in your mills. But that what is wrote on there is the infallible Word of the immortal God.

And no man is worth anymore than his word. If I cannot take your word, then I won't have any dealings with you. If you can't take my word, you could not trust me.

So that's the way it is with God. If He has made a promise, He must keep that promise. If he doesn't keep that promise, then He isn't God. And if a certain crisis arises, and God acts on that crisis, then He has to act the same the second time that He acts, or He acted wrong when He acted the first time.

If someone was sick, and God was consulted, and God healed that person, then on the second time someone gets sick, and God is consulted, He's got to heal the second time, or He did wrong when He acted the first time. For God is infinite. We are finite. We get smarter, and our generations gets brighter and more intelligent. Our scientists move on. But God, being infinite, He has to be perfect all the time. He cannot get smarter or cannot loose any of His intelligence. He has to remain the same.

There's where our confidence can rest solemnly upon what He says to be the truth. If it isn't, then I can't believe Him. And if this Bible doesn't.... If the promises He made in this Bible is not true, then it is not the Bible or there is no God. But if the Bible promises are true and God confirms them promises, then He is God of the Bible, which is His Word. Just as plain as it could be.

Now, our scene opens tonight, and I want to speak it just like a little drama, so that we won't have much time to tarry, because we want to get into the line. Usually in the big meetings, Dr. Vayle does the speaking, and I just come on for the healing services to pray for the sick.

Now, let's just be well assured in every person's heart: I cannot heal any person, and there's no other man on the earth can heal a person. God is the only healer there is. There's not one drop of medicine ever invented that ever could heal a person. Doctors don't claim to be healers.

I've been interviewed by Mayo brothers, and many of the great sanitariums, and so forth of the world, and I have never heard one time that any real sound doctor ever said that he could heal. He cannot heal. God is the healer. Healing is the multiplication of cells, which is a creation. Creation can only come from God.

Now, we do not discredit our doctors with their medicine and with their fine hospitals. But look, we're living in the day when we got the best hospitals we ever had, the best doctors we ever had, the best medicine we ever practiced with, and more sickness than we ever had.

We got more sin and unbelief than we ever had, see. Psalms 103:3, God said, “I'm the Lord who heals all of your diseases.” Well, now if He said “all,” then He just didn't mean “part.”

For instance like this: What if you were cranking on a car and you broke your arm? And you run into the doctor's office, said, “Doc, heal my arm right quick. I've got to crank my car.”

He would say, “You need mental healing.”

Well, that's right, see. He can set your arm, but God has to heal. It's that simple.

What if I cut my hand tonight with a knife? And we haven't got enough medicine in all the world to heal that knife cut. Oh, you say, “Brother Branham.” That's true.

A medicine that would heal a cut in my hand would heal a cut in my coat. It'd heal a cut on this desk. You say, “It was made for your body, Mr. Branham, not for your coat and the desk.”

All right then, if I receive this knife cut in my hand, and I drop dead, and they take me out to the undertaker's establishment, and there they embalm my body with a fluid that makes me look natural for fifty years. Every day they come give me penicillin. They give me sulfa drugs, and they sew the place up, put all the salves and Merthiolate and so forth that could be put into that place. Fifty years from today the cut will look just exactly like it was when I cut it. Then if it heals the human body, why don't it heal?

“Oh,” you say, “the life's gone out of you.” That's right. Then which is the healing, medicine or life? Life is the healer. You tell me what life is, then I can tell you who God is, for He is eternal life. So He is the only healer.

Now, medicine.... The doctor removes the appendix if you got appendicitis. Good thing for a doctor to move it. If you got a tumor, let him take it out, but God has to heal where he cuts. He got nothing to heal it, so he can remove an object, but he cannot heal where it's been. So it takes God is the healer.

And you would say, “Well, Brother Branham, what about penicillin when he got a bad cold?”

That's something like: What if you had a house full of rats and was eating holes through the walls? And you went and got some rat poison and poisoned the rats. That doesn't patch the holes. That only kills the rats.

So that's the way it is with healing, see. Penicillin kills the germ, but God has to build up where it has been, see. God is the healer every time. God is the healer. So God does the healing.

And He's already did it for you in the atonement. When He died at Calvary, Jesus Christ, there He purchased your salvation and your healing. And the only thing that you can do, is to look to Him and believe it, just like you do when you're saved from your sins. For “He was wounded for our transgressions, with His stripes we were healed.”

In our scene tonight, it's at Jericho, way down below Jerusalem. And in this great city, which once stood there as a memorial of one of the great places of the nation, we find that there is, as we look, a little ragged beggar trudging along the side of the rubbish around the walls, the old heaps. And we would say it was a beautiful day. And this little fellow, his name is Bartimaeus. And he's blind. We're taught that he had been blind for many, many years.

And he's finding his way around to try to get to the gates, for it's through the gates that many of the business people, the merchants and so forth, come in and out.

In them days, there were many beggars, lepers. And when a man went to his work of a morning and he had a few extra coins, maybe a certain beggar that met him first, he gave him the coin. And then that was as much as he could afford for that day. He had to wait till maybe another day. Well, it made.... Begging was a bad business. And many times they went hungry and done without.

And let's think that this morning, that blind Bartimaeus, our subject, had been along the city gates ... or, the city streets, and he was a little late getting up. And so, the rest of the beggars had beat him. So he goes to the outside of the gate and there finds him a place to sit down. And just in a few minutes after sitting there—kind of a little chilly, and got in the shadow of the wall of some building—we can hear coming down the road, a clicking of a little donkey's feet.

And as he moves closer, he hears this little donkey coming closer. And he rises and runs out and said, “Have mercy on me. I am blind and I have a family to care for. Have mercy.”

And a great big dark slave walks up to him, said, “Out of the way.”

And this fellow, he said, “Have mercy.”, that was riding the donkey. Called to him for mercy.

And he said, “Sir, out of my way. I am the servant of the Lord, and I'm on my way down to Jericho. There's going to be a fanatic prophet come into that city today. And the ministerial association has called me. And I'm one of their district presbyters, so I have to be there on a meeting. I haven't got time to give coins to beggars.” If that isn't just about the attitude of some modern Americans.

What if it was you sitting there blind? And then not only that, but some people who call themselves Christians, it's so easy to spurn someone like that who is calling for mercy. Don't never do that. Always do the best you can for a poor brother who's had a misfortune like that.

And see him now he goes back, and he feels around, and he finds a rock, and sits down, and he begins to think. Let's follow his thoughts for a few minutes. He's thinking now; he moves over in the sunshine where it's warm. Oh, I can just imagine. Don't you like to sit down where it's nice and warm to think things over, just sit and daydream?

Many times up in the mountains, I get way up above the timberlines when I'm hunting in America. And up there, and it'd be so cold and then just sit down somewhere where the wind's not blowing and just think of things.

I believe God lives in nature. He lives in His animals. Here some few years ago, four or five years ago, I'd been hunting elk way up high in the Rockies, back there on the ranch. And there was nobody within, I guess, thirty-five or forty miles, but just the rancher, the one who runs the ranch, and myself. And he's a good hunter. And so, we traveled high, because the fall was early, and the snows hadn't come to run the elk down, yet.

And so he said, “Billy, you take your pack horse and go right. I will go ... you go to the east fork. I will go to the west fork and we will meet within about three days back over on the connecting divide.”

I said, “That'll be fine, Jeff.”

So we took off. On my second day, I was coming around close to what's called Corral Peak, where I'd run cattle in there since a boy. And I was almost to the timberline. And as I walked along, it come up a storm, a rain. And I run in behind a tree, just kind of to wait till the storm was passed. And there was some blow-down in there. And after the storm passed, it'll rain awhile, then snow awhile, then the sun'll come out: storms coming in the fall of the year. It was a little early to run the elk down, yet.

So while I was standing behind this, the storm went past. And after the storm went past, the sun peeped out as it was setting, looking through the crevices of the rocks. And it'd turned cold, and the water had froze the evergreen and there was a rainbow come over the valley. And I walked out from behind this certain tree, and I looked. I thought, “My, there's God in that rainbow, for He made a promise.” Just get alone by yourself sometime and think it over, see how close God can come to you.

And while sitting there ... or, standing there, rather, I heard an old male elk bugle. And he'd got lost from the herd during the storm. And an old gray wolf howled up on the mountain, and his mate answered him down in the valley. As David said, “When the deep calleth to the deep....”

My mother's a half Indian, and my conversion never took that out of me. Oh, there's something that's real when you get out in nature. And standing there I put my hands up in the air, and I said, “O great Creator, who made the heavens and the earth, how great Thou art to let me be here. Why can't I always stay here? Let me just live here for,” I said, “this end I was born.”

I felt almost, I guess, like the apostles did on Mt. Transfiguration, said, “Let's build three tabernacles.” But at the bottom of the mountain, of course, is the sick and the needy.

And while I was thinking on that, I noticed a little old pine squirrel. He jumped up on a little old blow-down limb there, and he begin the awfullest noise you ever heard. “Chatter, chatter, chatter! Chatter, chatter, chatter!”

“Well,” I thought, “God, why would You take my attention off of You to let me notice that little old squirrel?”

And, oh, he was bouncing up-and-down like he was going to kill everything in the woods. And he's just all noise. There's nothing to him. And while he was bouncing around there, I had been saying, “Praise the Lord,” with my hands up. And I guess if it they'd had somebody in the woods, they'd thought they had a maniac out there, but I didn't care. I was worshipping the God who made that heavens and earth.

And I was just watching this little old squirrel. I thought, “Why did He attract my attention? What would be godly about that fellow?” And I noticed he wasn't so scared of me, but he would cock his little eye and look down. And I thought, “What's the matter?”

And the storm had forced a big eagle down in that rubbish of the blow-down. The big eagle jumped up on a limb. Well, I never did have too much respects for a eagle, but I thought, “God, how would You ever bring that eagle now before me?” And I noticed that he wasn't afraid of the pine squirrel nor of me.

And the little squirrel was just a carrying on to him. And I thought, “Well, that's godly, because he's not scared.” God don't want anybody that's scared to testify or say something about Him. You make a poor subject as a Christian if you're ashamed of the God who saved you, who made you.

And this eagle was not afraid. And I thought, “Why is it you're not afraid?” I begin to notice, he'd take his feathers and feel his wings if they were in flying shape. And then I thought, “God, if You give that eagle confidence enough in his wings to know that he could get away from me, how much more ought a church or a person, as long as we know the Holy Spirit is around us? How much more can the Spirit of God deliver us than the eagle will be delivered by his natural wings?”

What a coward we are to try to profess Christianity and ashamed to stand up to it. God's promise is true, then it's true.

And I noticed him, and he didn't seem like I was interrupting him so much. So I said, “Do you know I could shoot you?” Those great big gray eyes looked at me. And he knew I wasn't going to shoot him. And I reached for my gun. He flopped his wings a little bit and looked at me. And he looked up like that. He knew that those wings could take him in that timber before I could get gun in my hand.

I thought, “O God, truly You're everywhere. You're in that bird. You're in that rainbow. You're in the wolf. You're in the elk. You're everywhere.”

And I noticed him, and after a while he got enough of that “Chatter, chatter, chatter.” And he just made a great big jump and flopped his wings about twice, and then I seen something happen that would be a lesson for all of us. He never tried to flop back and forth, and flop, and flop, and flop. He just knowed how to set his wings. And every time the wind would come up that mountain, he would just ride higher, higher, higher, until he become just a little spot.

And I stood there and wept, for I thought, “That's it, God. It isn't join the Methodist, then leave that, and join the Baptist, and leave that, and go to the Presbyterians, to the Pentecostal. It's knowing how to set your faith in the waves of the Holy Spirit and ride away from this chatter, chatter, here, and there, that say, ”The days of miracles is past. There's no such a thing as God. There's no such a thing as Divine healing.“ Just set your faith in God, and let the Holy Spirit move you plumb out of hearing distance of it. Sail away. Get out of the mess of this modern, educated, intellectual generation that we're living in. Get alone sometime and dream. Think it over. Take your Bible with you.

Not making a show-block out of my friend sitting here, Mr. Caul. I remember one time we went up to a little brook across from Lowes, and he was going to show me a certain brook that run down a falls. To me it had Niagara beat by a million miles. And he said to me, “Doesn't it make you feel little?”

What was it? Was to see the handwork of the Almighty God, get alone by yourself, take your Bible, study.

On this spot, a certain beggar by the name of Bartimaeus sitting at the gate. He was thinking of those things. And as he sat there, first thing he begin to think, “When I was a little boy, I had eyesight, and I remember when I used to play on the little hills yonder and pick the pretty little flowers in Judea. And I can remember my darling mother, how she would take me in her arms,” and stroke his little dark hair back from his little blue eyes, and say, “Bartimaeus, you know, you're the sweetest little boy.”

“And how she used to rock me in her arms and tell me Bible stories.”

You know, what America needs is more mothers like that. Not so much about David Crockett, and Elvis Presley, and Arthur Godfrey, but about Christ and the Bible. There's more kids in this city tonight could tell you about Elvis Presley than there is ... tell you more about him than they could Jesus Christ. And then you wonder why we got juvenile delinquencies stabbing people to death on the street, and we become a neurotic age, is because we have left out God, and we've accepted creeds in our church in the stead of the Holy Spirit. Exactly right.

And his little mind began to go back. Oh, he remembers a certain story: it was about the great prophet Elisha and Elijah, how that the Shunammite woman, because there was a little boy included in it. How that the Shunammite woman was barren, and she was so kind to the prophet, Elijah. And one day when she'd built him a little place to rest on the side of her house, he said to his servant, Gehazi, “Go in and ask her if I can speak to the king for her, or to the chief captain.”

She said, “No. I'm a woman that lives by my people,” and said, “I just have everything I have need of.”

But Gehazi said, “You know. She hasn't got any children and her husband's old.”

And little Bartimaeus used to like that story. So he'd say, “Tell it to me, Mama.”

And one day after she was blessed, and the little baby come, he must've been about ten, twelve years old, he was with his father out in the field. And it must've been hay harvest time, and he must've had a stroke, sun stroke, because he begin to cry out, “My head! My head!” And his father sent him into the house, and he laid on his mama's lap until it was about, and oh, I'd say, around noon.

And while he must have gotten real sick, and after awhile, there was no breath in him and he died. She picks him up and takes him over to the prophet's room and lays him on the bed. What a place to take him. She said, “Saddle a mule and go to Mt. Carmel, for I must see this servant of God. And I want to find out, if God could tell me my baby was coming, when I was an old woman, surely He can tell me why He took my baby. And Elijah is His representative. I will go find out.”

And she made haste with the little mule, until she got to the prophet. And he said, “Here comes that Shunammite woman, and God has not revealed to me what's her trouble.”

And listen to this, friend. I just love this. He said, “Is all well with thee, and with thy husband, and with the child?”

She said, “All is well.” and the baby a corpse. See, she'd got in front of this prophet. She knowed that he was God's agent. That's the same thing Martha did when she come in the front of Jesus. “If Thou would've been here, my brother not died,” see. She knowed she was in front of God's representative. And isn't it too bad that we ministers of the Gospel are such weak subjects of His today, as we claim to be His representatives?

And she revealed to him what had happened. And he said to Gehazi, “Gird up thy loins, and take my staff, and lay it on the baby.” And Gehazi went forward.

But the woman's faith wasn't in the staff; it was in the prophet. So she said, “I will not leave you.” She was going to stay with her point. I like that. Stay with it. God made the promise; God's got to take care of His promise. She stayed with the prophet.

He went to the room. He never prayed for the child. He walked back and forth, up-and-down the floor. He and the dead child together. Then the Spirit of God come on the prophet, and he went and laid his body on him, and the little baby sneezed seven times and come to life.

Oh, how little Bartimaeus used to love that story. And then to think, that within twenty feet of where he was sitting, that great prophet, Elijah and Elisha walked arm in arm, right by the wall where he was sitting, going down to Jordan, to part the Jordan to walk over on dry land.

I can hear Bartimaeus as he said, “Oh, if I would've lived in that day, I would've rushed out and would said, ”Oh, prophet of God, be merciful to me and pray for me, that I might receive my sight. But oh, alas, the priest tells me that the days of miracles is past.“ That's the cry today. If the days of miracles is past, then the day of God is past, because He remains the same, the Bible said, yesterday, today, and forever.

But it was too far. The wind gets a little cold. The shade is coming around. He moves him over in the shade ... out of the shade to the sun again and he begins to dream. Yes, he remembers that his mother used to tell him of all those stories, and then just right down the road, not five hundred yards from where he was sitting, the great, mighty Joshua walked down to the river one day and took the ark of the Lord, and the waters of Jordan moved back in the springtime when the flood was on, and he crossed Jordan, and all Israel, on dry land.

The great God of heaven had did that not five hundred yards from that way; and not twenty yards this way, Elisha and Elijah had passed in another day, and had done the same thing. Friend of mind, God is the same.

Notice, then he thought, “This very rock that I'm sitting on, once was on top of the wall. And that mighty army of Israel marched around this wall thirteen times and sounded a trumpet, and when it did, the God of heaven shook the walls to the ground. And I'm sitting on the rock. What if I'd have been here when Joshua was here. I'd have run to him and say, 'Oh, prophet of God, be merciful to me.' But the days of miracles is past, the priest says. We don't have them no more. Them was way back in the days of Moses and Joshua, and back in those days. We don't have it today.” They think the same thing today, but it isn't so.

“Then, I noticed again,” he thought, “Oh well, you know, when Joshua was out strolling, that great commander in chief and a great warrior, one day he was walking before he besieged this great Jericho. And as he was walking, he saw a man standing with His sword drawed. Joshua drew his sword and he said, 'Are You for us? Are You for our enemy?'”

And this great Warrior standing there with His sword in His hand, said, “No. I'm the Captain of the Host of the Lord.” Joshua jerked his helmet off and fell at his feet.

Oh, blind Bartimaeus would've said, “If I could've only been there then.” Little did he know that that same Captain of the Host of the Lord wasn't a hundred yards from him.

God lets you think on things, study about it. It's what you come to church for. “If there be any praise, if there be any virtue, think on these things.” What are you thinking about tonight? “Maybe I won't get healed. I will go back home.” You'll get what you're thinking about.

Have it determined in your heart that God will do it, and God will do it. Don't pack your sin back home; don't pack your unbelief. Don't pack your disease.

Like the man here last night in the wheelchair and the different ones, you don't have to pack it back home. God will take you out of it, if you'll believe He still remains the same God. Think of it while you're sitting there.

And after a while heard a noise. He noticed something strange. Usually where Jesus is, there's a lot of noise. There was a noise coming through the street. What was happening? Oh, they don't know. After a while some children run by. Here comes some women. And he heard the awfullest noise. Some saying, “Away with such a hypocrite. He should be killed.”

And then he hears that same priest, rout out his voice, “Say, you divine healer, Jesus of Nazareth, you Galilean prophet, supposed to be. They tell me that you raise the dead. Well, we got a whole graveyard full here. Come raise them.”

That's that same old devil that met Him up there in the wilderness, and said, “If thou be the Son of God, perform a miracle, here; let me see you turn these stones to bread.”

The woman touched His garment. Virtue went out, and she got her healing.

But there was a Roman Soldier who put a band of rags around His head, and hit Him on the head with a stick, and said, “Prophesier, tell us who hit you, and we will believe you.” He never opened His mouth and said a word to him. God doesn't clown. He doesn't have to. He's God.

You're the one that needs to plead for mercy. You're indebtedment to God and not God to you. It's your indebtedment, not His. He's done everything He can to redeem you, sending signs, wonders, miracles, sent His Son and He died. Sent prophets, and so forth, and still they wade right on in sin as if it had never been anything happen.

Then if you spurn mercy, only one thing's left; that's judgment. If you run a red light and get hit, don't blame the city. You should've stopped. If you wind up in a hell someday, don't blame God. He's waved everything across the front of you that He can wave—even the blood of His own holy Son—and you've constantly wade right on by. The songs of the church, the preaching of the Gospel, the reading of the Word, signs and wonders before you, and still blindly just determined to go whether God stops you or not. God sends nobody to hell. You send yourself to hell by rejecting His Son.

Then there, as this great crowd went by, some throwing overripe tomatoes and apples and things at Him. There He goes, a man that's talked about, and despised, and called a devil, a mind reader. A man when He first started His ministry, they brought a man to Him. He was an ignorant, unlearned man by the name of Simon. And as soon as he come into the presence of Jesus, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, and your father's name is Jonas.”

There was one standing there, said, “That's the Messiah.” He rushed over fifteen miles around the mountain and gets his friend, said, “Come, see who we've found, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

He said, “Now, wait a minute. Could there be any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

He said, “Come and see.” That's the best message to give anybody. Don't stay home and criticize. Come and find out for yourself. Don't take what somebody else says. Divide it with the Scripture and see if it's a promise of God, then check it by the Word.

And when he come in the presence of Jesus, perhaps Nathanael told him, said now ... or, Philip told him on the road around, said, “When you come in His presence, you remember that old fisherman? He told him who he was and who his father was. Why, when you come in His presence, He will probably tell you who you are.”

“Nonsense,” said the other one, “I don't believe it.”

And when he got into the presence of Jesus, Jesus said, “Behold an Israelite in whom there's no guile.”

It astonished him; he said, “Rabbi (or Teacher), when did You know me?”

He said, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree I saw you.” Fifteen miles around the mountain the day before. What eyes! Said, “The works that I do, shall you also.”

What had He done but good, but because He didn't cope with their modern beliefs, they were ready to crucify Him, and He knew it, being a prophet. Not only a prophet, He was more than a prophet; He was God made flesh among us. It makes me so tore up when I hear this modern day, that tries to relate to Jesus Christ as being just a prophet.

Sometime ago a woman told me, from a certain denominational church, she said, “Mr. Branham, you brag too much on Jesus. You make Him divine.”

I said, “He was either divine or the greatest deceiver the world's ever had.”

Said, “If I prove to you by your Bible that He wasn't divine, will you believe it?”

I said, “If the Bible says so.”

And she said, “On St. John 11, when He was on His road to raise Lazarus from the grave, the Bible said that He wept.”

I said, “What's that got to do with it?”

She said, “He couldn't be divine and weep.”

I said, “Lady, He was weeping when He was going to the grave of Lazarus, but when He pulled that little figure of His together and said, 'Lazarus, come forth,' and a man had been dead four days stood on his feet and lived again, that was more than a man. That was more than a prophet.”

He was hungry when He come off a mountain, hunting on a tree for something to eat. He was a man when He was hungry, but when He'd taken five biscuits and two pieces of fish and fed five thousand, that was more than a man.

When He was laying on the back of that little boat that night, ten thousand devils of the sea swore they'd drown Him. And it was like a bottle-stopper on the sea, as the little ship was beating its way around. But when He rose up and looked and walked up, put His foot on the rail of the boat and said, “Peace, be still,” and the winds and waves took the coves. He was more than a man then. That was God speaking through those human lips. He was Emmanuel.

When He died at Calvary, He did cry for mercy, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” But on Easter morning, when He broke the seals of death, and took the keys of death and hell from Satan, and rose again on the third day, He proved that He was God. And today He's alive here in this church tonight among us in the same power of His resurrection that He was then.

He was on His road to Jerusalem; His head was set. He didn't hear their carrying ... crying on. But after while, this old blind beggar said, “Who passes by?”

“Oh, get back in the corner.”

“Who is it?”

Somebody said, “Oh, shut up.”

And a kind little woman, I believe, walked up, said, “What did you want, sir?”

He said, “Oh, kind lady, I'm an old blind beggar. My clothes are gone. I have nothing to eat, and I would like to know what all this noise means.”

“Why,” she said, “Sir, have you never heard?”

“No, I haven't, lady.”

“That Galilean prophet is passing by, that Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Who is He?”

“Don't you know the Scripture says, that the Lord your God will rise up a prophet like unto me. It'll come to pass that whoever shall not hear this prophet will be cut from the dead ... or, cut off from the living, rather?”

He said, “Well, where does He live?”

“He's from Galilee.”

“And is He the One that heals?”

“Yes.”

Then he raised his.... “Oh, Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.” He won an audience.

Now, you know, He couldn't hear him; Jesus could not, all that commotion. He couldn't hear him. But his faith, just like the woman with the blood issue that touched Him.

And Jesus, going on to Calvary with the weight of the world on His shoulders, with the sins of every death that ever died or ever would, was laying on His shoulders, the burden of the sinful world, with His head towards heaven, going straight to Jerusalem to be crucified.... And that old beggar standing about a city block away, and said, “Oh, God, I was thinking of You. I was sitting here studying about You. Why did you let Him pass at this time? Have mercy. God have mercy.”

His faith stopped Jesus. You don't have to be in “Who's Who” to stop Jesus. You don't have to have a brilliant education. You don't need to wear a tuxedo suit to have faith in God. And it stopped Him; He turned around and said, “Bring him here.”

He never started to say, “Now, wait....” He threw that old ragged coat and took off. He didn't care what anyone said.

I was reading his life here not long ago—blind Bartimaeus. He'd been blind for many years; he had a wife, a little girl. He'd never seen the little girl. And blind Bartimaeus, this story goes, might have been fiction; I don't know.

But in those days they had a lamb that led them like the seeing-eye dog does now. And he had two little turtledoves to do enchantments. They would do tumbles over each other, and that's what would attract attention of the tourists and the people coming through. That's how.... He had his little can out or whatever it was to beg. There they'd watch this little turtledove.

In India everybody, every beggar's got a little star, or cobra, or something another to attract attention to get the alms from the people.

And Bartimaeus had two little doves that just tumbled over each other, and the people would laugh at it, and then give him a little coin. And it said that one night his wife taken sick, and the doctor had come and said, “There's nothing we can do about it, Bartimaeus. Your wife has such a tremendous fever, that she's going to die.” So they said, he felt his way around the house till he got to the corner, and he raised his hands and said, “Jehovah, if [Blank spot on tape.]

“Can't do that.” Said, “I will give you money to buy you a lamb.”

He said, “Great High Priest, I never told God I'd give Him a lamb. I told Him I would give Him this lamb.”

You're glad to bring somebody else to church. You're glad to put flowers on the altar, and do little charitable deeds, which is all right. But are you the lamb? You are the one that God wants on the altar—you. Sacrificial life, giving yourself completely into His will.

And he said, “Blind Bartimaeus, you can't do that. That lamb is your eyes.”

He said, “Oh, great High Priest, if I serve Jehovah and keep my promise to Him, Jehovah will provide a lamb for blind Bartimaeus' eyes.”

It was on this cool October afternoon, God had provided a Lamb for blind Bartimaeus' eyes, that his eyes could be opened.

Let me say to you tonight, my dear friend of this city, God has provided a Lamb for you, too. It's the same Lamb: “The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” If you don't know Him as your Savior, while you been sitting, listening, meditating, just like I've told you, of being alone, like Bartimaeus was, alone. Now, He's near you now. Won't you receive Him? Let's bow our heads just a moment now.

I wonder, while we have our heads bowed, quietly if the organ will give us just a little background. While you've been thinking, has sin come up in your heart that you know that you are not right with God, and if you should die, would it be all of it for you? If it is, will you just raise up your hand? No one look up. Keep your heads bowed now. Just raise up your hand, and say, “God, be merciful to me.”

God bless you, young man. God bless you, you, you, you. That's right. Oh, twenty or thirty hands up. God be merciful.

Though you belong to a church, but yet you have never, never knowed what it was to be born again, will you just slip up your hand, say, “I've been thinking, preacher, I want Him for my Savior, too. I want Him to be merciful to me, right now. And I believe that same Jesus is not far from us, now. I now accept Him. I want Him to help me.”

Someone else raise your hand just quickly. All right. God bless you, and you. That's good. Up in the balconies above. Somewhere up there in the balconies. Some of you, God bless you up there little one. God bless you, young lady. God bless you, young man. That's very good. Something happens when you raise your hand. God says, “Yes, that's right.”

See what do you do when you.... You say, “What does that do, Brother Branham, when you raise my hand?” You know, you defy the laws of science when you raise your hand. According to gravitation, your hands are supposed to hold down. You can't raise your hand. But when you raise your hand, it shows that there's something in you that's alive, and it's made a decision, and you're raising your hand towards your Creator; you defy the laws of gravitation. You're believing Him. That's what happens.

Here's Jesus' Word: “He that heareth My words and believeth on Him that sent Me has everlasting life and shall never come to the judgment, but has passed from death unto life.”

Could you do that much for Him tonight? From your heart, “I now, Lord Jesus, believe You.” God bless you, young woman. God bless you, young mother. That's good. Someone else who hasn't raised their hand. God bless you, young lady. And you over here, both of you young women, just at the turning point of life. This little teen-age, rock-and-roll, hell-bound generation.... That's a great decision. Stay with it. You've done the most gallant thing you ever done. Someone else? Just a moment now, before we stop. All right. Just remain with your heads bowed, think it over, pray in your own way, now.

God bless this young fellow sitting right here in the front row. All right. Pray in your own way, the way you pray at your church, whatever it is. You pray that way. Tell God, “God, I raised my hand, because something told me to. What did that?” God did. God bless you, little lady out here at the end. I see you, too, little teen-ager there. “Something in my heart told me to raise my hand.”

You know, Jesus said that “No one can come to Me, except My Father draws him.” God bless you, young lady sitting right here too. I'm just waiting because more are raising their hands. What will it be on the judgment when I meet you? I may never see you again till then.

“Because Thy promise,” says the Hymn, “I will believe.” “Oh, Lamb of God that's been provided for me, I come. I come humbly; Lamb of God take away my sin.” God bless you, little lady. That's good. He sees your hands over there.

Lord God, You said there's not even a sparrow can come to the street without You knowing about it. Then how much more do You know a penitent soul that the Father has knocked at the heart's door, and they've raised their hand. Here in this little group of people tonight, just a little small handful of people, but some twenty or thirty has raised their hands. They're sick and tired of this modern so-called way of living. They realize that they're separating themselves from God and they look up. They see the handwriting on the wall, sputniks in the skies. The Bible said there'd be great things like that happen in the skies, such as they call flying saucers and sputniks. And how that the sea would be roar in great tidal waves, never before in the history of time is now happening. Men's heart failing, heart trouble.... Just notice, Lord. You said, “Men,” not women.

Perplexed of times, distress between nations, how this tremendous day would be, how the carriages would rage in the broad ways, that shine like torches, the big headlights in the broad ways. How that men would be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than of God, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are good, having a form of godliness and denying the power thereof; from such, turn away....

You said in that day You would reveal Yourself from heaven. And we see You, Lord, and we know that the Father's here. And these who've raised their hand, God, if they meant that in their heart, You've put their name on the book of life, and there isn't nothing can rub it out. You said so. “He that heareth My words and believeth on Him that sent Me has eternal life.” You said, “I will raise him up at the last day.”

Thank you, Lord. They're the trophies of the message that You have given as love gifts to Your Son. No one can pluck them from the hand. Give them eternal life now, Father. Fill them with Thy Spirit and Thy goodness. They've accepted You, maybe strangers who have never seen Your Spirit move before. But they've did it on the basis of the Word. Grant, Lord God, that they will hold to Your unchanging hand these few days of life we have left, for truly, we're close to the end time. It's later than we think.

We could go to powder in a hour. One drink of vodka too much; the big rockets are set. O God, be merciful. Let us abide under Your everlasting wings until You come for us. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.

Be Thou my Guide;

Bid darkness turn to day,

Wipe sorrow's tears away,

Nor let me ever stray

From Thee aside.

Let's sing it real slowly, now, and in the spirit of singing.

While life's dark maze I tread

And grief... (That's right.

Just pray it, like, as you're singing.)

Be Thou my Guide;

Bid darkness turn to day,

Wipe sorrow's tears away,

Nor let me ever stray

From Thee aside.

[Brother Branham begins humming.] Bow our heads, humbly now. Oh, great Jehovah, send Jesus to this audience just now, Lord. Let Him manifest Himself as the risen Lord, as we submit our hearts and souls to Thee. We have preached Thy Word. Come, make it manifested, Lord.

Be wholly Thine.

[Blank spot on tape.] ...that once was a nice warm fire. You can't get warm by a painted fire. The world don't need a historical God. It needs a God of present day. The Bible says that Jesus Christ, Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Is that right?

We know that He said in His Scriptures, “I can do nothing in Myself, but what I see the Father doing.” St. John 5:19. Did you ever read that? Raise your hands if you have. Then Jesus never did nothing till the Father showed Him. That's what He said.

And we find out that He knew the people's hearts and thought. Now, if He is the same yesterday, today and forever, He has got to be the same in principal, the same in power, the same in emotion; He's got to be the same.

Only one way, He said, “I am the vine. A little while....” I will quote this verse, “A little while and the world won't see Me no more. (Now, the Greek work there is cosmos, which means ”the world order.“) They will see Me no more, yet ye shall see Me, (the church), for I ('I' is a personal pronoun.), I will be with you, even in you, to the end of the world.” Is that what He said, “And the works that I do, shall you do also. He that believeth on Me (not imagine he believes, but he that believeth), the works that I do, shall he also,” St. John 14:8

“The works that I do.” What did He do? He said, “I am the vine. Ye are the branches.” Now, the vine doesn't bear fruit. The branch bears fruit of the vine. Is that true? If you went to a watermelon vine, it has watermelons, if it's a fertile vine. If you went to a grapevine, you'd find grapes. Pumpkin vine, you'd find pumpkins. What about when you come to the church? What do you find? A bunch of people saying, “Oh, that was in day gone by.”

The vine still lives. If we're in Christ, the works that He does, we will do the same thing. He said so. If that isn't true, then I couldn't believe Him.

I can make you a promise and have to take it back. I'm mortal. But He's infinite; He can't make a promise without keeping it.

Now, last night we called a prayer line. We give out.... [Blank spot on tape.] Holy Spirit of God in Him. He said, “I forgive you,” because He hadn't died, yet to make a way. But now, He said if you speak a word against the Holy Ghost....

Now remember, He declared that sign to the Jews. The true Jew believed that it was the Messiah. We went through that last evening.

And He went to the well one time to get a drink to another race of people, which was Samaritans. Now remember, He did not go to any Gentiles. How many knows that? No Gentiles, and forbid His disciples to go to a Gentile. We've had two thousand years for that. This is the day of the Gentile, closing now.

But He went by the well of Samaria and.... Now, watch what Jesus was yesterday. And there was a young woman come out. Let's think she was beautiful. She was a prostitute, woman of ill fame. And she come out to get her water, round about noontime. And she had the water pot, and she didn't know there was anyone around. It was a little panoramic something like this. And there was a man sitting over there. I've been to the well, like that, and there ... just outside the city.

And this Jew, He was only thirty something years old. But the Bible said he looked fifty. His work did it, said, “You a man not yet fifty years old and say you seen Abraham. Now, we know you got a devil.”

He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” And that was the pillar of fire that was in the burning bush on the picture that you see tonight, the same yesterday, today, and forever. If that pillar of fire is truly the same pillar of fire, it'll bear the same record that it did in Jesus Christ when it's here in His church. That's right.

Jesus never did commission us to build a church. Neither did He commission us to have a school of theology. Neither did He ever commission us to do any of those things. He said, “Preach the Gospel.” And what is the Gospel? The power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Now, if that isn't right, then I don't know the Scripture. That's what it says.

Oh, how we intellectual Americans sit so starchy and stiff. Them poor heathens yonder, just rage and cry by the thousands. They swarm to it.

Now, notice, that light will have to bear record of what it is.

One day when this woman was sitting there ... or, come there, Jesus said to her, “Bring Me a drink and come here, woman.”

She turned around, and she seen that Jew. See, there's segregation between Jew and Samaritan, because they were half Jew and Gentile. And so she said, “I'm a woman of Samaria. It's not customary for you Jews to ask me such question as that.” Now, that's St. John 4 if you want to read it.

He said, “But if you knew who you were talking to, you'd ask Me for a drink.”

“Why,” she said, “the well's deep, and You have nothing to draw with.”

And the conversation went on till He contacted her spirit. He said, “Go get your husband and come here.”

She said, “I don't have any husband.”

Said, “That's right. You've had five, and the one you're now living with is not yours.”

Now, what did she say? He was a fortune-teller? She said, “Sir, I perceive that You're a prophet. Now, we know when the Messiah cometh, [which is the Christ] He will do these things.” Is that right? Well, if that was Messiah yesterday, His sign, it'll be Messiah today, if He is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

Said, “When Messiah cometh, He will tell us this.”

Said, “I am He that talks to you.”

And she ran into the city and said, “Come, see a man who told me what I was. Isn't this the Messiah?” How many knows that's Scripture? St. John 4.

Now, one more. There was a woman one time, couldn't get to Him. She believed Him. And she said, “If I can just touch His garment, I will be made well, because I believe He is the Messiah. And if I can touch His garment, I will believe it.” And she pushed through the crowd. She had a blood issue, a menopause, perhaps, for she didn't stop flooding for years. And so, she touched his garment.

Now, He didn't feel the touch like that, because the Palestinian garment hangs loose, and has got an underneath garment on it. So she touched Him like that, and she walked over. She was satisfied she was going to be all right. Jesus stopped and said, “Who touched Me? Who touched Me?”

And Peter rebuked Him, said, “Why do You say a thing like that? Why, all, the whole crowd is a touching You, and You say who touched You.”

He said, “But I've got weak. Virtue's gone from Me.” It was a different kind of touch.

Oh, Concord, tonight. God be merciful. Use that touch. Not, “I'm a Methodist,” “I'm a Baptist,” “I'm Pentecostal,” “I'm Nazarene.” Use that touch that touches Him. Lay aside these traditions. Let's touch Christ.

Now, and He looked around. He was touched by her faith. Out of all that bunch of unbelievers, He pulled that little woman out. And He said ... told her what she had had and said, “Your faith has healed you ... or, saved you.” Is that right?

Now, how many says this, that the Bible—the New Testament —says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever? The Bible says that He's a High Priest, right now, that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. That's right. Well, if He is a High Priest, if you'd touched Him the same way the woman did, wouldn't He have to act the same if He is the same?

We will call the prayer line then from some of the prayer cards, and let the Lord God.... If He will do here tonight as He did when He was here on earth, how many will receive Him? If you'll see the supernatural Jesus Christ right in our midst here a doing the same thing.... All right.

[Blank spot on tape.] ... prayer line. I'm just going to let you sit right where you are. And you believe what I've told you to be the truth. You believe right where you are. You do like the woman did, the last quotation I made.

Last night, we had the people on the platform. You see what the Holy Spirit does? It reveals your sins. It reveals your life, and tells you what you've done, and what you must do.

Here was a little, they tell me, a Finnish woman up here last night. I can't speak Finnish, yet I was understanding her, and I talking back to her, and she was understanding me, see. The Holy Spirit then healed her standing right here on the platform.

Look up here. Look at your newspapers round the other parts of your country, here. All across.... Look at Congressman Upshaw laying there paralyzed for sixty-six years. And a vision come over the meeting, told him he was healed. He rose right up, trusted his feet and went on normally. King George of England with multiple sclerosis, when I went over and prayed for him. Couldn't even sit but just a few minutes at a time. Next day, he played twenty-eight holes of golf.

Around and around the world. This is my fifth time around. Believe. That's Jesus.

Let's take this scripture. We're late. So let's take this scripture just a minute. Now, sit real quiet. Be reverent.

There's not a person in this building that I know except my own son, sitting here, and Dr. Vayle. Yes, I beg you pardon, I know these two ministers, Mr. Sweet and Mr. McCloud, and then my friend, Burt Caul, in the back. That's the only persons. All that know I'm strange to you, raise up your hands, and don't know nothing of you.

Now, if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and you.... He's out there where you are. If you'll touch Him with your faith, don't you think He could pull right back this way and say the same thing He did when He was here on earth, if He is the same?

Now, you don't have to come to the platform. Just sit there. Have faith. Believe.

Now, every sick person, no matter where you are or what's wrong with you, you just look up to God like this, and say, “Lord God, I believe that. That man's quoting the Scripture.”

Last night how we went through the Scriptures to show that is exactly what He said He would do now. We're at the end of the Gentile age. Never has been through the two thousand years till now. He's through with the Gentiles. The church is already formed. The end is at hand. When? I don't know; nobody does. But it's close.

Now, here we are. You're sick. If you're sick, you look to Him and touch Him. Now, it wouldn't do no good to touch me. I'm a man. But you touch Him, and with the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is supernatural, that's here, He could reveal to me right here, and go right out through this audience, and tell you just like He did the woman who had the blood issue, if He's the same.

Now, last night we was working on something else, the woman at the well. We're working on the woman that touched His garment and so forth now, or like Philip, when he come up with Nathanael out in the audience. You men, just see. Pray. See if He's the same.

Lord God, now it's You. You would not let anything harm Your Scripture. I've seen You when there's half a million standing there in Bombay, India. Hindus, witch-doctors, trying to challenge, and how You paralyzed them, and how You shook that nation.

We've seen You in Karlsruhe, Germany. How those witch-doctors come and called up that storm by their enchantments and how, standing there, You blew down a wind out of the heavens and scattered the storm. Twenty thousand rushing to the altar: Communists....

How You raised the little boy in Finland from the dead, had been laying there for hours, told it two years before it happened. You're God.

Let everyone tonight know, Lord, that You're God, that this Christ.... All other religions outside of Christianity is wrong. You're the only living God. Mohammed's dead and in the grave. Buddha is dead twenty-three hundred years ago, dead and buried. But there's an empty tomb in Jerusalem. You rose again. Praise be to Thy name. You're ever-living. If I die this night, the testimony's true. You've proved by millions around the world. And now, the scientific world's got the picture of it, in Germany, the United States, and the scientists has examined it, and saying it's the only supernatural being ever photographed. You're God.

Let this audience see You're presence, Lord, as I humble myself and submit myself to a gift, the Holy Spirit; may they likewise, for in Christ's name I ask it. Amen.

Now, I will be embarrassed or God's Word is wrong. If I'm.... God's Word is right, then God keeps His Word. All the preaching is all right; we believe it. But if God doesn't keep His Word, what good does the preaching do? “If thou canst believe.”

Say, “What are you doing, Brother Branham?”

I'm looking, watching, see what He will do, see that light. You just pray to God and say, “Help me, Lord God.” Yes. You may raise your heads.

Do you see that? Right over this man sitting here looking at me. The man is suffering, sitting right here, with his shirt open. I'm a stranger to you, sir. Kind of elderly. You have a rupture. If that's right, raise up your hand. I don't know you; never seen you. Is that true? I couldn't have guessed that, could I, sir? It's the truth. You all believe? Be reverent. That light still hangs over the man, because some of you was thinking that was a guess. It was not. May God show a vision. Yes, I see the man. He's got a rupture. His wife there also is sick. His wife.... Do you believe God can tell me what's wrong with your wife? She has high blood pressure and heart trouble. If that's right, raise your hand. You're not from this city. You're from another city, Portsmouth. That's correct. Your name is Mr. Hudson. That's right. Christ lives. You're healed; both of you can go home, be well.

What did they touch? Do you realize that you're in the presence of God? Reverent, reverent, please. Not playing church, now, you're in the presence of the Lord Jesus.

A man sitting right behind him, kept nodding his head to me a few minutes ago. You believe God can tell me your trouble, sir? Would you accept Jesus and believe that it was Him, not me? I don't know you. But if His Spirit's in me, then He will do the works when He was in His Son, Christ. You believe that? Yes, sir. Then that colitis that you've had.... You had colitis. It'll not bother you no more. Your name is Mr. Beasley. And if you believe.... That's right. You believe with all your heart.

Somewhere else in the building.... Here's a lady right back this way. She's suffering with a trouble in her side, a side trouble. She's rather got a dark dress on, middle aged woman, wearing glasses. She has tremendous trouble in her side. The lady's not from this city. She's from a place near the border of this state, it's in New Hampshire, it's called Freedom, New Hampshire. Stand up on your feet, lady, if that's true. Rise up and accept your healing. Jesus Christ makes you well.

What did she touch? Tell me what she touched. It wasn't me. What's she doing? What are you people doing? You're touching the High Priest. He's in His church, working, confirming His Word. Believing it.... Have faith in God. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.” Be reverent. I can only say.... Now, all of you up in the balcony, wherever you are, just be reverent. “If Thou canst believe....”

Gray headed lady, is sitting there with sugar diabetes, do you believe Jesus will make you well, lady? You were praying then. Let me tell you what you was praying, “Lord God, let it be me.” If that's right, wave your hand. Now, how would I know your prayer? See, it's your contact with the Spirit of God.

The man, sitting out there on the end, has the same thing. Your name is Mr. King. That's right. You're not from.... You're from Vermont. That's right. “Thus saith the Lord.” That's your wife sitting next to you, and she has gland trouble. Correctly. Have faith in God.

The lady right behind the lady there, sitting there looking at me now, praying with her head down, and saying, “Jesus, have mercy to me.” She has arthritis, and she also has an allergy that bothers her. Do you believe with all your heart? It'll be over. God will make you well. You accept it? All right, sir. All right, you can have it then. God be merciful.

The next lady's got low blood pressure, and she has trouble with her liver, too. That's right, isn't it, lady. That's right. All right, it's over now. Go home and believe it.

Way back towards the back, a man sitting back there with his head bowed, praying. He has bronchitis. That's right, lady, touch him and tell him that the Lord God has healed him. Isn't He wonderful, sir? You don't have it now. Your throat feels good. Doesn't it? If that's right, stand on your feet. I don't know you, do I? Never seen you. But your throat's all right, now. Jesus Christ heals you.

Is He alive tonight, audience? Do you believe Him with all your heart? Then you lay your hands on each other, and let's pray for you from here. Will you believe Him now that He's present? Put your hands on each other. Let us have prayer together. You pray for the person you got your hand on. If you're sick.... See, I cannot heal. But let me tell you, if I never see you no more in this life, Jesus Christ's Spirit is here in this little group of people tonight, doing just exactly what He did in the days of His flesh. He's dwelling in our flesh, now, as the vine ... or, the branch that's is the vine. He's here.

That man sitting out there with prostate trouble, sir, it's finished.

Up there with the tubercular. Forget about it. God made you well.

Oh, it's just happening everywhere. Now, pray the way you do in your church for them sitting next to you. Believe me, if I have proven to you that Christ is not dead. He's alive, and He's here in the Spirit form of the Holy Ghost.

Bow your heads now; let us pray. You repeat this prayer. You pray this prayer when I repeat it. You say it out loud now. Almighty God ... [Congregation repeats after Brother Branham.] Creator of heavens and earth, ... Author of everlasting life, ... and Giver of every good gift, ... send Thy mercy, O God, ... upon me, your servant.... I suffer, Lord God ... I now believe ... that Jesus Christ, ... Your Son, ... has risen from the dead ... two thousand years ago, ... and He's here tonight ... in the form of the Holy Spirit.... I believe ... that this is He ... who speaks tonight ... in my heart ... and makes known ... the things in my heart.... And I now accept Him ... as my healer ... and I promise, God, ... that I will serve You ... all the days of my life ... and use my strength ... for Your glory.

Now, just keep your head bowed. That's your prayer. Stay shut in with God. Believe that He's with you now. Believe that the work's being done.

There will not be one feeble person in our midst in another minute of two if you'll just believe that. Now, I'm going to ask the Lord God to move Satan, which is the dark spirit. There's a light Spirit, which is Christ, the Holy Ghost. Here, I'm going to ask Him to move that back, the dark spirit of unbelief or the shadows of superstition, that you would be moved out into the glorious light of Christ, and would believe Him with all your heart, and you'll be healed.

Now, keep believing that He's near you, while I ask God to rebuke the evil spirit of unbelief.

Lord God, I am now fixing to leave the city. I may never be back again; I don't know. But I will meet these people at Your judgment seat. And if I should come a year from today, many is here, elderly people, some of us will be gone. Lord, let them know by the Word and by the Spirit that You are here. And it's Your great omnipresence, You're omnipotent, infinite, omnipresent, omniscient. And I pray, God, that You'll grant the request of these people.

And now help, Lord, as we believe that You are here to take away all doubts, that the crippled can walk, and the blind can see, or what-more that would be present. That heart trouble would stop. It's Your attitude toward each of them to heal them, just as You have these many that's been healed in here tonight. Grant it, Lord.

Help me now to have faith to drive back doubt, that faith might take its place. And faith can take its place, not upon the shifting sands of man's theology but upon the eternal Rock of God's everlasting Word. There it takes its stand and looks into the face of a grave and sees Him who said, “I am the Resurrection and the life.”

Satan, we charge thee by Jesus, God's Son, you are just a bluff. Jesus Christ died at Calvary and stripped you of every legal power you had. And the day is at hand that this Gentile church should be called out, out of Babylon, out of confusion. And the great Holy Spirit is here tonight, not with something different, but with the same Spirit that was in Jesus Christ doing the same work. Satan, you have held these people as long as you can hold them. I charge thee, by the presence of the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus Christ, turn these people loose. Come out of them. In the name of the Lord Jesus.

Now, everyone in here that was sick, I don't care if you was crippled, blind, whatever it is, stand to your feet. Whatever was wrong with you, if you believe, stand to your feet, and you're healed right now in the name of Jesus Christ. Rise up to your feet, every.... There you are. If you couldn't raise up, raise anyhow. Come up. Had a crippled arm? Raise them. Listen to your ear, your eyes. All was healed, and been healed miraculously, wave your hands to God like this.

All right, ministers, the Lord bless you. While you remain standing, accepted your healing, I'm going to turn the service to Brother Sweet just at this time. Brother Sweet. And God be good to you till I see you again.