Sirs, We Would See Jesus

Thank you very much, Brother Palmer. Good evening, friends. It's a privilege to be here in Tifton, Georgia, again tonight, but little did I ever know that I'd be taking the judge's place. I am coming to represent the judge tonight—the Judge of heaven. And I'm thinking, as I walked in the door, and looked at this people, and the way they were situated, to know this—that one day there will come a time where we will all meet again, if we never meet no more until then, and we'll be at another judgment seat. And there we will give an account for what we have done, and what we do tonight, what we say and our actions, and whether we are able to accept what we hear and to believe on the works of the Holy Spirit.

That being the case, it makes us rather tremble to think that what will take place at that day if our sins are not under the blood. It'll be a terrible day for many, and a glorious day for many, for it will be the day of rejoicing for those who have accepted our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Then all of our sins will be put upon Him and He will be our attorney at the bar. I'm so glad to know tonight that the testimony that I have confessed all my sins to Him some thirty years ago, and have been on the field trying to represent Him to people as a real attorney who can plead the case so perfect until God forgives every sin, and sends back the seal of His recognition to us to be sons and daughters of His, the Holy Spirit, to give us witness.

And now, I love your city. I've just had perhaps my first little walk around the city today—and I would not have to say this, but I just want to say it—and the people are so friendly, and even the policemen are friendly and so nice, and everyone trying to help you to find places (I was trying to find a certain store). And then something struck me that just thrilled my heart. A man walked across the street, took ahold of my hand, and I thought I'd seen this gentleman before. And he introduced himself, and as I looked at him, I thought, “I've see him somewhere.”

But he said, “Perhaps you don't remember me, Brother Branham,” but said, “I brought a little one-eyed girl to you years ago. She only had one eye, for a little girl had scratched out the other eye. And I called you from down around . . . somewhere around Miami, and you sent me back a telegram and said, ”Come right on. Bring her on.“

Well, of course, you know how it is at home. The long distance calls was averaging around forty-two long distance an hour, calling—people calling, wanting to come, and wanting me to come to pray for their sickness. Of course, they're needy. They wouldn't call, they wouldn't spend their money, if they didn't think there was some way of being helped.

And I told him to come on, and he brought the little girl along with the eye scratched out. And the doctors had given her up, after $1300 of doctor bills. The eye was scratched out. And praying for the little girl. . . . He reached in his pocket and showed me a picture of a lovely mother now. His daughter married and has a little girl of her own. She was five years old when this happened. And before they left the state of Kentucky, the blue in her eye that was scratched out had begin to come back again, and when they got home the eye was normal as the other. And today she's just as perfectly and well as she can be, a mother of a little girl herself. She sent me a pair of shoes. Bless her heart.

All around over the country you find that. And I said to some of my friends that was with me, I said, “I wonder what it will be when we cross over to the other side and all this generation stands up in the judgment? Those who I've preached to, I'll have to stand as a witness for or against.” God will know all things, whether they received or whether they did not, and the attitude that they taken. What will it be then when . . . into the millions around the world?

I wonder if that gentleman is here now in the building that met me on the street this afternoon. There, yes, he's raising up his hand right there. Would you just stand up, brother, just . . . I believe he's a deputy sheriff down here in Florida. That story's true. He's done testified of it, that's fine. Then along with the thousands, I just wonder what it will be at the day of the judgment when we all meet there at that day.

Tomorrow night I think they're having services back at the same place. I wish we had several days, where we could stay a little longer and get acquainted. But I thought maybe in this short time, coming here not knowing anyone—but with my precious friends, Brother and Sister Welch Evans, that I have learned to love through the time that I have known them—and just before going overseas, it would give me an opportunity to come get acquainted, and see if all the people down here were like the Evanses. I find that so, so I'm thankful for that.

Now, I'm going to turn the pages of the Bible just in a few moments for a text. Last evening kind of speaking to you on salvation plan, and I want this to be clearly known, that divine healing is not a major plan of God, and we could never major on a minor. But divine healing is included in the plan of salvation for God, for He was wounded—that's Christ, our Saviour, God's Son—He was wounded for our transgressions and with His stripes we were healed.

Now, tonight we're going to speak on divine healing and pray for the sick.

Now, I am not a divine healer. I don't believe there is such a person on this earth. I believe that there's people who preach and practice divine healing, but I do not believe that there is a divine healer. If that's so, then the Scripture is wrong, for in Psalm 103 David said, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: . . . Who forgiveth all of thine iniquity; who healeth all of thy diseases.” And if Jesus was wounded for our transgressions and with His stripes we were. . . . Did you notice the quotation? Past tense, was wounded for our transgressions, with His stripes were. . . . Was and were, past tense, already healed.

Now, the thing is to get the person. . . . Divine healing is based upon not the merits of your salvation, or your church affiliation, or your standing, which is very, very fine, but the merits . . . divine healing is based upon the merits of your faith—if thou canst believe. And surely if we could place enough faith in God to raise this body up from just a little spoonful of ashes off of the earth, surely we could trust Him to patch up these bodies to live for Him.

I believe it is what we would call the earnest. We have now the Holy Spirit, which is the earnest of our salvation, our eternal hope. Then we have divine healing as the earnest, or the down payment to prove that it belongs to us, of the resurrection, that our bodies will be raised up. When you see a person laying to a shadow of a cancer, eat up, till the cancer rather has eat him to a shadow, and see him rise to a new man, strong and healthy; see a person that's totally deaf and dumb, born that way, begin to speak and hear; a man that never seen daylight in his life, jump forth, screaming and praising God that he can see, and prove it by walking around showing people, and so forth, that he can see, live the rest of his life with good sight; that proves there's a resurrection, for a God that can bring that can bring forth the resurrection.

Now before we approach Him and the Scriptures. . . . I do not belong to any denominational church. I did belong to the Missionary Baptist Church, which was the only church I ever joined. And then to come into this ministry when it was given to me—nothing against my precious brethren of that Baptist fellowship, wonderful men. But to come out here, and stand like this, and what little influence the Lord has given me. . . . I don't belong to any certain denomination, so I can stand between them, and work for the kingdom of God, with no selfish motives, nothing to do but bring in the children. Let them pick the church of their choice. That's the way I think God would have us to do it.

But everything that we do or say must be based upon the Word of God, because no man can have faith unless it comes from the Word of God. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the Word. Now, if I told you that a certain, certain thing would take place, that might be so. It might do that. If I tell you that something seems impossible that it happened, it could happen. But when God has promised this thing, then you can have confidence that God keeps His Word. There's where my faith is built, on nothing less than the eternal Word of the eternal God.

And God is no better than His Word. I'm no better than my word, and you're no better than your word. If I can't take your word, then there's no need of me saying I have confidence in you, because I could not. And if you can't take my word, there's no need of you telling me you have confidence, because you can't. Then if we can't take God's Word, we can't have confidence. But when God has said it, and you believe it with all your heart that it is applied to you, it has to happen.

And may I go on record just now saying this, that I believe that the right mental attitude toward any divine promise of God will bring it to pass. If you can take the right attitude toward that promise, for the promise is a seed. A seed goes into the ground, and if it's a germitized seed, got life in it, it'll bring forth its kind if it's put in the proper place. If a seed is put into the ground. . . . And Jesus said the Word of God was a seed a man sowed. He was the man that sowed it. And then if the Word of God is a seed, and the seed's put in proper condition, in a heart full of faith, it'll make every promise live—bring forth what it promised. Therefore, before we approach His Word let's speak to the author, as we bow our heads.

O Lord God, the eternal God who brought again the Lord Jesus from the dead, and has presented Him to us tonight in the form of the Holy Spirit as a witness of His resurrection and coming from the dead, some two thousand years has passed, but tonight He's just as real as He was when He walked in Galilee many, many years ago. And His promises are just as true to each believer tonight as it was when He made them in Galilee. And we would pray tonight, heavenly Father, that Thy mercy might be shed abroad in our hearts that we could fellowship around Thy Word and in Thy Spirit. May the great Holy Ghost come to each believer tonight and manifest Hisself as the resurrected Christ. Bless every church that's represented here, the pastors, and all the churches throughout this country and around about, all the members. Bless this court, Lord, who has opened their doors to let us have this courtroom, this city, its officials; and may by the cause of them being so generous to Thy people may there come a sweeping revival of righteousness throughout the city, and around the community, that there'll be no trouble for years to come. Grant it, Lord.

Heal the sick and the afflicted. Save those, Lord, who would be saved.

Speak to us through Thy Word and Thy Spirit. May it come and make the Word manifest, for it is written of You in Your last statement to Your church, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; if they should take up serpent; or drink any deadly thing, it should not harm them; and if they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.”

After that, you was received up into heaven, according to the infallible Word of God which cannot fail, and the disciples went everywhere, preaching the Word with signs following. We pray, Lord, that those signs that You said would follow to the end of the world and to every creature, help us to take it, Lord, and all of us together to rejoice around the blessings of the resurrection tonight. We ask it in the name of Jesus, Thy Son. Amen.

You who follow the Scriptures, I want you to turn with me now in the Bible to St. John, the twelfth chapter, for a few moments. And we wish to read from the twentieth and twenty-first verses of St. John the twelfth chapter.

And there were certain Greeks among them, that came up to worship at the feast:

And the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.

And as a subject (that for a topic), and as a subject I would like to read the seventh and eighth verses of Hebrews 13.

Remember them which have rule . . . over you, who have spoken to you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Word.

Now, these Greeks, I believe, expressed the feeling of all of us, and it's been the cry of the human heart through the ages to see God. Even Job in the Old Testament wanted to know where He lived at. He wanted to go up to His door and knock on the door, as if to say he would like to talk it over with Him. And these Greeks, being scholars, and understood much of their words and of their theology of their day, heard about Jesus as being the Son of God. And they thought the most reasonable thing to do would be to come to see Him, would be to find one of His servants that could introduce Jesus to them. That's the right approach. And when we follow out the right approach, I'm sure God will take care of the rest, if we follow the right approach.

And how their hearts must have been hungering, as ours tonight. I do not believe that there's any person who ever heard the word, the name of Jesus, but what hungers and thirsts to see Him.

I believe if I should say to this courtroom tonight, “How many in here would like to see Him?” every hand would go up, because we want to see Him. It's just human nature to know that there's something behind the curtain, and we want to see what that is. Where did we come from? And if our Bible tells us that our names were put on the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world, surely there was Someone knew us before there was a world.

Who is that person? The Mohammedans would say that was Mohammed. Buddha worshipers would say Buddha. The Sikhs would . . . and the Jains and the different religions of the world, would speak it's their god, or their god. And I've had the grand privilege to stand before twenty or thirty different religions, hold their books in one hand and this Bible in the other, and say, “One of them has got to be wrong, and there's only one of them right.”

I say this, of course, to a Christian nation (it's called a Christian nation) that Christianity is the only one that's right. It's the only one that can prove that their founder still lives. Mohammed, at his grave there's been a white horse standing for two thousand years, changing the guards every four hours. Buddha died about 2,300 years ago. All the different ones are dead and in the grave; but Jesus lives! The grave could not hold Him. He rose again and He lives forevermore.

And then if He does live, and the Scripture says that He does, then if He does live, the Scripture is right when it says that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now not something like Him, but the same—same life, the same Jesus. Then we've got a right to ask God tonight—or the Holy Spirit, which is His witness—we've got a right to ask Him tonight, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Just as much right as those Greeks had, if He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. The same right. And I'm sure He'll not disappoint us, because His Word said He is the same, and I believe it. If it wasn't so, I wouldn't be here tonight.

Someone said to me the other day, said, “What if there isn't any Jesus when you come to the end of the world? What if it's all not true?”

I said, “Sir, it's true, I know it's true.”

He said, “Well, what if it isn't?”

I said, “I'll take your side of the argument. If it isn't true, there was One who gave His life to make the world a better place to live, brought us civilization, homes and children, and love and food and clothing. I owe my life to Him anyhow.” I'd give it to Him anyhow and if He turns me down at the end of the road He's still just. And if He says, “Depart from me and go into the devil's hell,” something will have to change my spirit or I'd love Him in hell, no matter where it is, because I know something happened to me. We owe Him our lives. We owe Him all that we are. All the good things there is come by Him, and there's nothing good but what come by Him. “Sir, we would see Jesus.”

It reminds me of a little story that I've often referred to. I live by the side of the Ohio river. And there was a little boy who went to a certain church in my city. And he was an enthusiastic little boy, and the little fellow had faith. And he'd heard so much about God. (And he did not go to our church. He went to another church.) And he went to his mother one day and he said, “Mama. . . .” He was about ten years old, I guess, little fellow for his age. And he said, “I want to ask you something.”

She said, “Junior, go ahead and ask.”

He said, “If this God that you tell me about, and the pastor speaks from the pulpit, and the Sunday school teacher tells us about in Sunday school, if He is such a great God, why can't we see Him?” That's a very sensible question.

And she said, “Sonny, I'm not able to answer such a question. Ask your Sunday school teacher.” And the little fellow, the following Sabbath, asked his Sunday school teacher the question.

She said, “I'm not able to answer you. Go see the pastor.”

And he went to the pastor and the pastor said, “My little lad, I am fond of your enthusiasm, but I'd like to say to you this, that no man can see God.”

Well, it disappointed the little fellow. “How would I really understand if He made the earth and the heavens and all these great things, and then I can't see Him?”

He used to go up on the river with an old fisherman. They fished in the . . . commercial fishing, and he went up to run the nets up near the Six-Mile Island above Louisville. And it come up a rain, and on the road back they had to get into the bushes to keep from being washed in with the rain and the storm. After the storm was over, the sun came out, the old fisherman bailed out his boat, put the little boy in the stern, and pushed out from the bank and started down the river. And as he was clipping the oars against the waves, as only a boatman knows the rhythm, the sun was going down in the west; and across the east, which he was faced, pulling his boat, there came a rainbow.

And the little fellow, sitting quiet for awhile, noticed the old fisherman breathing, and catching his breath, and snubbing. After a bit he noticed great, glistery, white tears rolling down his gray beard, dropping on his bosom. And the little fellow become emotional, excited, and he rushed from the stern of the boat up to the middle, and fell down at his knees, and said, “Sir, I want to ask of you a question.” Said, “My mother, or Sunday school teacher, or neither my pastor can answer me.” He said, “I noticed you looking at the rainbow, and as I understand from the Scriptures that God gave it as a sign, and if God is so great, why can't we see Him?”

And the old man, kind of upset because of the little lad's enthusiasm, pulled his oars into his lap, took the little boy in his arms, and looked him in the face, and brushed back his hair, and gazed him in the eyes, and he said, “Sonny, all I've seen for the past forty years has been God.” There was so much in the old fisherman. The only way to see God is get Him on the inside of you so He can use your eyes. You'll see Him.

But if you're trying to see Him on an intellectual conception of His Word, or some emotional workup, it'll never count anything. He's got to be in you.

Then you'll cry at the sunset and the sunrise. You'll watch the majesty of fall of the year coming, before even frost or a cool breeze has ever hit the earth. The sap will leave the trees and go down in the roots, hide, because if it stays up there the winter will kill the tree. Then I ask this question: what intelligence runs that sap out of the tree down into the roots to hide for the winter? Oh, the infidel has no grounds. But when He comes in, you'll notice Him in everything.

I think the church today. . . . When I say “church” I don't mean just any denomination. I mean all the church together. There's only one church. I've been with the Branham family fifty years and they never did ask me to join their family. Why? I was born a Branham. I was born into the family. That's the reason that we are . . . how we get into the church, we are born into the church. By one Spirit we're brought into the fellowship of the Son of God, and we're made partakers of His grace and His glory and within us is eternal life.

There was a lady in a ten-cent store not long ago in Louisville. She was attracting the attention of the people. She had about a two-year-old lad in her arms, and she was going from counter to counter picking up little things, and saying, “Look, dearie, looky here. Just look at this, Baby.” And she got more nervous all the time, from counter to counter picking up little things to see what . . . the baby, to attract its attention, things that ought to attract the attention of a child of that age. And finally she come to a little bell, and she picked the little bell up. Nervously she rang it. She said, “Look, Honey, look, Mama's darling, look.” But the little lad just stared.

Then she fell across the counter, crying, “Oh, no, no, it can't be so.” The people run to her to see what was wrong. She said, “I've had my little baby to the doctor.” Said, “Some weeks ago, he just, like, went into a coma, a daze.” And said, “He won't pay any attention to anything that should attract the attention of a child that age. There's something's wrong with him. The doctor says he's better, but he isn't.”

I wonder if that ain't the state of the church tonight, after two thousand years that God has shoved everything in front of the church. They ought to be old enough to know these things. They've had a Billy Graham, an Oral Roberts, a Jack Schuller, a Tommy Hicks. The Holy Spirit moving, showing signs and wonders of His coming, and the church seems to sit dazed, not noticing. Oh, if we could only realize, if we could only come to ourself and wake up, that it's the hand of God!

The largest crowd I ever had the privilege of preaching to was in Bombay, India, about three years ago, five hundred thousand. And when we got there I read the newspaper, as many of the bishops and so forth come out to the airport to greet us, and piles of garlands, you know how they do, as a salute. And I picked up a paper and it said, “Well, the earthquake must be done.” A few days before there, there was something mysteriously happened. All the little birds that lived in the crevices of the big rock fences and the big towers. . . . They don't have fences there, many, like we have. They're poor, pick up the rocks on the field. There's 470,000,000 of them in India, and perhaps over two-thirds of them are beggars. So they pick up the rocks and make the fences.

And little birds make their nests and live in these rocks. And when it comes evening time, and the sun is hot in the tropics, the cattle stand around the side of these fences to get in the shade. But a strange thing happened.

One day, nobody knows why at that time, all the little birds took away from the rocks. They went out into the trees. All the cattle run away from the fences and stood in the field, and they wouldn't come back. Hours passed, and they didn't know what caused this strange emotion. Then an earthquake hit, shook the walls down. If the little birds had been there, they'd have perished. If the cattle would've stood there, they'd have been killed.

If those animals by instinct—the same they had in the days of Noah, the Spirit of God through instinct—could run them from danger, what ought the church of God to do, filled with the Holy Spirit, to flee the wrath that is to come, unto the safe place in Christ.

Sirs, we would see Jesus.

Oh, we could stay hours at the subject, but let's come to the spot. The only right way, if I should say to all the Baptists here tonight, “Do you believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever?”

“Yes.”

Methodists, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostals, all the different churches would say, “Yes, we believe it.”

Then I'm going to ask you a question like this. If He is the same, then why can't we see Him the same? Now, that's a great statement to make, but I'm not making it otherwise than God's Word said so. I'm just saying what He said. It's not up to me to prove it; it's up to Him to keep His Word. It's up to Him. It lays it in His lap and not in our lap.

Now, I wish you would notice a minute, the only real way that we can believe it is to go back to His life and find out what He was yesterday, and then we'll see what He is today. And if He isn't the same today that He was yesterday, then He isn't the same.

Now, we know in the beginning, when He came on earth the people were looking for a Messiah. But thousands of them did not know the nature of this Messiah because they never studied the Word. They studied it in the line of their creed or their denomination or their sect. They studied it according to that, but not according to the way God said. For if you'll notice, God told Moses, in Deuteronomy 18:15, that “The Lord your God shall raise up a Prophet among you, liken unto me.” And it would come to pass that whosoever would not hear this prophet will be cut off from the people. The real believers were looking for a God-prophet to come.

Now, let's go back. I believe we read out of St. John. Anywhere in the Scriptures would be all right, but we're studying the book of St. John now. We began at the twelfth chapter. Let's go back to the beginning of St. John and study for a moment. We know we just passed through the holidays about His birth and so forth, how He came. Now He enters His ministry in St. John 1. After His water baptism to fulfill all righteousness—not that He had to be baptized, because He was born the Son of God. Then I want to ask you something: If goodness is all you need, a good clean life, why did Jesus have to go to Jordan to be baptized in water and receive the Holy Ghost, when He . . . everything about Him was godly? Conceived in the womb of a virgin, but yet had to go to Jordan and be baptized. And John bare record seeing the Spirit of God like a dove descending, the voice saying, “This is my beloved Son.” It behooved Him to fulfill all righteousness! (I'm not yelling at you. I know this little room, but I've been used to speaking outdoors much.)

Notice, the first thing He did after His temptation in the wilderness, He came forth as the anointed Messiah, the Messiah, the Christ. Christ means “the anointed one.” He was born Jesus, the man; but when the Holy Ghost came into Him, He was the anointed Messiah. The Bible said, “God was in Christ reconciling Himself to the world,” God, living in Him. The fullness of the Godhead was in Him.

God poured all He was into Christ; Christ poured all He was into the church. On the day of Pentecost when they were assembled together and that pillar of fire came down, it divided with cloven tongues and sat upon each of them, showing that God was dividing Himself among His people. That's the reason I stand the way I do today between the churches. We've got to come together. The more we are together, the more God there is present. Not as I'm against the denominations, or so forth. No, but don't. . . . Bury your fence, we're all children of God by the new birth.

Now, when Jesus took His earthly ministry, let's follow Him a few minutes and watch what kind of a thing He did to prove He was Messiah, and watch the attitudes of the people. Now, not to be rude, but let me repeat that again so that you'll be sure to know it's a double statement that I'm making, the same statement twice. Let us see what He did in that day to prove He was the Messiah; and what He did then to show He was Messiah, if He's the same today He'll do the same today. And remember, He did not visit the Gentiles, and forbid His church to do the same. Only the Jews and the Samaritans, and the Samaritans was half Jew and Gentile. And there's only three classes of people on the earth, any way you want to take it: that's Ham, Shem and Japheth's people. That's Jew, Gentile and Samaritan. That's the tribes of the earth after the antediluvian destruction—Noah's children, we all sprung from them. The places we live change our color—white, black, brown, yellow, whatever it was—but altogether one human race. One can give the other one a blood transfusion and live.

Now, notice, then, Jesus, the first thing we find Him. . . . In St. John 1 there was a man named Andrew who saw Jesus and believed on Him as the Messiah, and went quickly to get his brother Simon. And when Simon—who later was called Peter, Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone, little stone—when he found Peter he said, “Come now and go with me.” And he brought him to Jesus. And we learn that Peter was an ignorant man, unlearned. I doubt whether he could sign his own name. The Scripture says he was both ignorant and unlearned. Then why do we have to have so much scholarship?

I'd just like to ask that simple question to you ministers. I don't know which side you're on. I want to ask you a question.

When Paul was converted, no doubt the church at Jerusalem said, “We got the man now who can match the wits with these Pharisees. He's smart, he's intelligent. We got the man now [after Paul had been saved]. And we'll send this ignorant fisherman who's the head of the church here now at Jerusalem, we'll send him out amongst the ignorant.” You notice what God did? He took Paul, the educated, and sent him among the ignorant; and took the ignorant one and sent him among the educated ones. See, God does things in His own way! It's simple faith to believe God, that's what it takes.

But as soon as Jesus laid eyes upon this man Peter, He said, “Your name is Simon and your father's name is Jonas.” How that must have struck him. “Your name is Simon [never seen him before in his life], and your father's name is Jonas.”

And by this, it struck Simon, “This must be that prophet.” And he accepted Jesus as his Saviour, was filled with the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, and become the head of the church, because he recognized that was the sign of the Messiah.

Jesus goes a little farther, and He finds one named Philip, and He said, “Follow me, Philip! Philip, follow me.” Away went Philip to his friend Nathanael. Now, if you've ever been in Palestine where Jesus was praying for the sick, it's about fifteen miles around the mountain to where he found Philip. Let's use a little drama here so that the children will catch it.

I can see him go up there to Philip's house and knock at the door, and his wife said, “Philip is not in just now, Nathanael” . . . or, I mean, “Nathanael is not in, Philip.” (Pardon me.) And she said, “He just went out to the olive trees just a few moments ago. He's had a burden on his heart for a few days.” You know, when you get a burden on your heart something is fixing to happen. I hope we can all get a burden tonight for this lost nation and lost world that Jesus died for!

And He went out into the orchard, and down through the trees, and [unclear word] up the trees. And after awhile I can imagine him hearing something praying, “O Jehovah God, many days have we looked for the coming of the righteous One, Your holy promise to us.”

And, of course, Philip, a Christian gentleman (after meeting Jesus, you know it makes you a gentleman), he stood back when they were having prayer and bowed his head. After he was finished praying, got up and dusted off his robe. Oh, now notice, he didn't say, “How do you do, Philip?” or, “How's all the fruit getting along?” He had a message and it was urgent! Brother, we ain't got time for foolishness today, ice cream suppers and chicken suppers. The message is urgent, let's get it out!

Quickly, he said, “Come see who we have found.” Oh, when you find Jesus I might say this, that there's something about it that you can't hold still. You've got to tell somebody. “Come see who we have found, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

Well, of course, this staunch Israelite, a member of the Sanhedrin, said, “Now, wait a minute, Philip, I know you must be . . . you've went off on the deep end. [You know, as they like to say it that way.] I've knowed you to be a good honest man. A man level, a man with good thinking, good judgment, sound doctrine. Now you come tell me that the Messiah come out of Nazareth. Why, if the Messiah would've come out of Nazareth, out of that carpenter's shop. . . . It couldn't be so. If He would've come, He'd have walked down the golden corridors of glory and would have come to Caiaphas the high priest.”

Today we think He'd have to come to the Pentecostal church or He wouldn't come at all. Or you'd say He'd have to come to the Baptist church, or the Presbyterian, or the pope of Rome, or the archbishop of Canterbury. Let me tell you, God comes where He wants to come! It's up to us to follow Him, not to question Him.

And He said, “Now, you know that such a thing could not happen. And why would you tell me such a thing?”

Now, here's a good sound theology that Nathanael used that all of you should use. It showed just good common sense. He said, “Come see for yourself.” That's it, that's good sound thinking. Don't misjudge it; just come see for yourself.

Let's break in on their conversation along the road. I can see Nathanael tell his wife good-bye, and say, “I'm going with this fellow. I think he's all excited. I'll be back dear, in a couple days.”

“All right, go on, Philip.”

I can hear him say, “Say, I've got something to tell you. Do you know we have always looked forward since the days of Moses and when he gave us the law? And the law was to last till so long, and then the Lord our God should rise up a prophet among us.”

“Yes,” said Nathanael. “Oh, I've often read the book of Deuteronomy.”

“All right, and then this prophet was to be the God-prophet different from other prophets. He was to be a Son of God, said Isaiah.”

“Yes, I remember all that.”

“Well, you know what happened the other day? Do you remember them fish you bought from that old man called Simon, that was so ignorant he couldn't sign a receipt for you?”

“Yes, I remember him.”

“Well, he came walking up in front of this one who we know to be the Messiah, and He said, 'Your name is Simon and you're the son of one called Jonas.' And Simon believed. Oh, Nathanael, it wouldn't surprise me but what He'd call your name when you come up.”

“Ahhh, now.” That's good preparation anyhow. So he said, “Oh, now, wait just a minute. I couldn't believe that.”

So they finally, perhaps the next day, arrived on the scene where Jesus was praying for the sick. And I don't know, I wasn't there, but perhaps he come up to the audience where . . . like what you're standing. Or maybe he sat down, or perhaps he got into the line. I don't know. The prayer line was probably passing by Jesus, and He was praying for them, and laying hands on them, as about 86% of His ministry, you know, was praying for the sick. Then when He passed by, one to the other, finally He looked up and He saw Nathanael coming, and He cried out, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” In other words, a just man, a good man.

Why, it startled him. And he didn't ask Philip to speak for him; he spoke for himself. He said, “Sir, how do you know me? I've never met you in my life. How do you know that I'm a just man?” Not by his dress. There were Greeks, and there were Arabs, and all the Eastern people dress alike. Not by his dress or by his dark complected people. Not by his skin, not by his dress, but something inside of Him, God that was in Him. He said, “Behold an Israelite in whom there's no guile.”

He said, “When did you know me, sir?”

He said, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you.” Oh! Saw him? What eyes! Fifteen miles around the mountain! “I saw you when you were under the tree.”

Nathanael was trained in the Scriptures. He ran forward and said, “Rabbi [that means teacher], Thou art the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.” Oh, there you are.

What was He doing? Making Himself known to the Jewish race. That was a sign of the Messiah. Jesus turned and said, “Because I told you that, you believe. Then you'll see greater things than this,” because he believed it and accepted it.

But, of course, there were those who stood by who did not believe it. Many of the rabbis, scholars, good men, just men, holy men with their hands behind them, and they could not give their congregation an answer. The miracle was performed, the Scripture was fulfilled, and they couldn't answer their congregation. So they said, “He's a mind reader, a devil.” We all know that that's of the devil. Fortune-teller, that's a good word. Fortune-teller. “He's of the devil. Beelzebub. He's the prince of all the devils.”

What did Jesus say? I might say this for your good. Jesus said, “You speak that against the Son of man, I'll forgive you, but [like this so they'll clearly understand] there'll come a time when the Holy Ghost will come and will do the same thing. One word against it will never be forgiven in this world, nor the world to come.” Bear that in mind.

Of course, that's the way He declared Himself among His Jewish people.

We could go on and on, to Bethesda and many different places where the things that He did, showing to the Jews that He was the Son of God. But there was Samaritan people. Now, He had need to go by Samaria. Wonder why? Jesus had to give witness of His Messiahship, so He. . . . No doubt the Father had told Him. So He said, in St. John 5:19, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son [the man, the flesh, the baby, the boy, the man, Christ Jesus], the Son can do nothing in Himself, but what He sees the Father doing: that doeth the Son likewise.” In other words, “The Father shows me by a vision what to do, and I do just that and nothing else.” Now, we all know that's inspired. Now, Jesus said, “Anything outside of that, that scripture is wrong. Verily, verily [that's 'absolutely, absolutely'], I say unto thee, the Son [that's Jesus, the body, the man, the son of Mary], the Son can do nothing in Himself but what He sees [not hears, sees] the Father doing, that doeth the Son likewise.” Sign of Messiah. “I always do that which is pleasing to the Father.”

Now, He had need go by Samaria. (We'll hurry.) And He sent His disciples away to buy some vittles. And they went into the city and was trying to buy food. And while He was sitting there, a Jewish man not but thirty-something years old, about thirty-two, but He must have looked older. You know the Pharisees and them judged Him to be fifty. Perhaps His work in His physical body had grayed Him a little, or broke His shoulders down. Said, “You say that you saw Abraham, when you're not yet over fifty years old. We know now you got a devil.”

He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And I AM was in the burning bush—Moses, as we spoke of last night.

But He was sitting over in a little panoramic, if you've ever seen the Oriental wells where . . . the public well where all the people come to get water. He was sitting over there, perhaps resting, because the Bible said He was weary in His way, waiting for His disciples to come. Now, I'm going to give a little illustration here. This could be changed a bit, if you ever go to the Orient. But let's say a pretty young woman, say she's twenty-five years old, and it was about noontime, perhaps between eleven and twelve o'clock. They was gone to get some lunch.

And this pretty young woman had a waterpot on her head. That's the oriental. I've watched them put one five-gallon pot on top of their head, one on each arm like that. Stick it on their hips and walk right along, talking as only women can, and never spill a drop. Just walking along, talking about things, and talking and turning their heads to one another. It's amazing. And she . . . because they're trained. You talk about in Hollywood, they put books on their head to make them walk right. What we need on the head is the power of the Holy Ghost. That'll make you walk right, not a book. This Book made manifest, that changes your walk altogether.

And there she was, walking up to the well with the waterpot. She takes it off and sets it down, puts the little hook in it to let the windle down to take the water. And when she rubbed the bucket a little or the. . . . It's not . . . it's earthen pot, it wasn't metal. It was kind of a clay, got handles on them like a jug. And when she did that, she looked over there and she seen a man who had spoke to her, and said, “Woman, bring me a drink.” Watch the . . . now, He's at Samaria. What's He going to do at Samaria to make them see the Messiahic sign? Because He can't give one nation that sign and not give it to another, because God is infinite—He has to be the same. So He said, “Woman, bring me a drink.”

And she said, “Sir, it's not customary for you to ask me that.” They had segregation. Said, “It's not right for you to ask me such a thing. I'm a woman of Samaria, and you are a Jew, and we have no dealings with one another.” They'd been cast out. You ministers remember when it was, when Balaam taught them and so forth, and brought forth that class of people. And they were an off-cast. They were looking for a holy bloodstream to stay clean, and they wanted no associations with no other nation. Whether it's half-breeds or what, they had nothing to do with them. And when she said, “Bring. . . .”

He said, “Bring me a drink.”

She said, “It's not customary for you to ask this.”

He said, “If you only knew who's speaking to you, you'd ask me for a drink, and I'd give you waters that you don't come here to draw, everlasting life, joy unspeakable bubbling up within the soul.”

“Oh,” she said, “the well's deep. You don't have nothing to draw with. Where you going to get this water?”

He begin to talk to her. What was He doing? Now you have to take my word for this. He was trying to find her spirit. See, what the Father had told Him, to go down to Samaria, but now He has to wait for the vision. May I say it like this. God sent us here tonight. Now we wait for the vision to see what the Father will say. He waited. He carried a conversation with her, and begin to talk to her.

And she said, “Well, you say worship at Jerusalem, and we say in this mountain.”

And He told her, He said, “It's not either in this mountain or at Jerusalem, but God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” What was He doing? Contacting her spirit to see where her trouble was. And when He found it, we all know what it was. He never said nothing exactly about her trouble. He said, “Go get your husband and come here.”

“Why,” she said, “I have no husband.”

He said, “Thou has said well, for you've had five husbands and the one that you're living with now is not your husband, so you've said well.”

Notice, look at that prostitute! She knowed more about the Bible than a lot of ministers does today. She did. She never called Him a devil. She give Him a fair answer. She said, “Sir, we, the Samaritans, we know that there's coming One. You must be a prophet.” Watch, “You must be a prophet.” If you run that margin reading, you take it right back to the same thing—the prophet. But she said, “You must be a prophet.” Not a Beelzebub like the church told Him. Not a demon or a devil-possessed person but, “You must be a prophet. And we know that when the Messiah cometh, He's going to tell us these things, the Messiah who's called Christ.”

Listen to these words. He said, “I am he that speaks with you.” She quickly recognized the sign of the Messiah. If that was the Messiahic sign, if that was the Messiahic sign then, it's the same today if He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Said, “A little while and the world won't see me no more, yet you'll see me, for I [not a thought now—the Holy Spirit is a person], I will be with you, even in you to the end of the world. And the works that I do [St. John 14:12], shall you do also.”

Think of it, the Jew, the Samaritans. And she run into the city after the disciples come up and went and told the men of the city. She said, “Come see a man that's told me the things that I've done. Isn't this the very Messiah?” Oh, my, I feel religious right now. Why can't the world see that today? Because they're blinded.

The devil never takes his spirit off the earth. He takes his person, his man. God never takes His Spirit; He takes His man. God took Elijah and the spirit of Elijah come upon Elisha. Then finally it came down eight hundred years later on John the Baptist. Predicted again in the last days. God took His Son Jesus, but the Spirit come back. You got the critics, you got the Pharisees, you got the believers. It's up to you to make the decision. We would see Jesus.

Now, you notice, He never went to any Gentile, and forbid his church to go. Now, just one moment now, I want to ask you something. Jesus, speaking of His coming. . . . You remember, He didn't go to the Gentiles. Why? They wasn't looking for Him. We Gentiles, Anglo-Saxons, was walking around with a club on our back two thousand years ago, not much more than cave men. We wasn't looking for no Messiah. So He only comes to those who are looking for Him. You want to see Him? Are you looking for Him? That's how He comes, when you're looking for Him.

Some minister said to me not long ago, “I do not believe in divine healing.”

I said, “Well, there's too much evidence against you, sir. The Bible and the evidence.” I said, “I can produce thousands and thousands of cases, tens of thousands.”

Said, “I don't care, I don't believe it.”

I said, “Of course. It wasn't sent to unbelievers. It was only to those who believe. It's not for unbelievers.” To him that believeth; not to unbelievers. It's a stumbling block to him; a stepping stone to the believer.

Then when it come to the place

before Jesus left, He predicted the end of the Gentile world. He said, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man. (If you'll pardon me, you precious ones who are standing in the balcony, in the aisles and around the walls, I don't want to cramp you, but I don't know, we may never meet again this side of the river. I want you to be sure that you got Scripture of what I'm talking to you about. It's not something that I've made up. It's what the Bible has said and promised.)

Now, let's see. We all know that Jesus made that quotation in Luke, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.”

Did you notice? The people were segregated in three different sections, three different classes. There was the Sodomites. Many Bible readers knows what that is. It's a perversion. And I've read it. . . . I just left San Jose a few weeks ago at the fairgrounds where we had a meeting, and homosexuals is on the increase of about 30% or more over Los Angeles—men with men perverted from the natural course of life. Signs of the end-time. Washington is full of it, the nation is full of it. Beatniks, perversions, everything. “As it was in the days of Sodom,” said Jesus, “it'll be that way just before the coming of the Son of God.”

How the world is perverted! Uncensored television casts, people staying home to watch television instead of going to church. What a disgrace!

You're hungering for something, thirsting for something. God made you to thirst. That's the way He made you. How dare you . . . you've got no right to try to hush that holy thirst with the things of the world, when you're supposed to thirst after God, and He'll fill that thirst with the Holy Spirit. You've got no right to give that precious thirst to. . . . God, the creator, made you a place in your heart to thirst for something and you try to satisfy it with the things of the world—sin, drinking, gambling, running around, sinful. You have no right to that. God be merciful to this nation, and others.

As it was in the days of Sodom, there was three. One was the Sodomites, that's the world. The next was Lot, the church nominal—just a church that goes to church, and says . . . as I said last night, quoted David DuPlessis, “grandchildren.” Just took into the church because, “Well, Mama belonged to the Methodist church, Baptist church, Pentecostal church. I'm just natural a Baptist, or Presbyterian.” That's a grandchild. God has got no grandchildren; they're all sons and daughters. You've got to be born again, just like Papa and Mama was, or you're not a child of God. He has no grandchildren. If you're a Methodist and a son of God, God bless you; or a Baptist son of God, or a Pentecostal son of God, just as long as you're a son of God, no matter what church you belong.

There was Lot, lukewarm.

And there was Abraham, the third group. Now remember, Abraham had separated himself. The church means “called out.” He didn't want any of Sodom and Gomorrah. He didn't care what it was down there. He'd take the way, the rugged way, to live close to God. I wonder if men and women of Tifton, are you ready to do that? You know we've been told that you have to be a millionaire and have a fleet of Cadillacs before you can be spiritual. How different that is from real Pentecost! At Pentecost they sold what they had and laid it at the feet of the apostles, and they didn't ask no easy way. They took the rugged way, and was happy and rejoicing to bear the reproach of His name.

Today we are so different, so different. We want everything easy. “If you'll promise me that I'll have everything easy. . . .” God doesn't give promises like that. I like that old song of the church, “I'll take the way with the Lord's despised few.” Abraham did that. “Have for a pillow, like Jacob, a stone.” No matter what it is, that's the way we must come.

Now, Abraham had separated himself. That meant the church spiritual. Lot was church nominal, and Sodom was the world. That's exactly the position we stand in today. There is the world, perverted; there's the church nominal; and there's the church spiritual.

Now, watch. While Abraham was sitting out under his oak, three men came up. Abraham didn't know who they were, and they seemingly didn't know Abraham. Perhaps dust on their clothes, but there was something in Abraham, he wanted to hear them. Said, “Won't you drop over just a minute and sit down under the oak, and I'll fetch a little water and wash your feet.”

Now, remember Jesus said this is the way it'll be just before the coming of the Son of man. We see the churches and the conditions just that way—the world in its chaos, the church nominal and the church spiritual.

Now watch. When they sat down, Abraham, as soon as he begin to look around over those three preachers, he began to know that there was some little tinkling somewhere, for “My sheep know my voice.” He said. . . . Now, run into the tent, run out behind the tent into the herd, and got a little fat calf, and killed it and said, “Take, dress it right quick.” Run in and said to his ninety-year-old wife Sarah, “Make a little hoecake [as we'd call it here in the south], put it on the hearth, and knead your flour right good, or your meal, and lay it on the hearth; and bring me some milk right quick from the herd.”

And he went back out, and he said, “Now wait, I'll fetch a little morsel of bread, and you'll rest yourself,” and said, “then you can go on your journey.”

They was sitting there, three men, dust on their clothes. Looked like men, and as far as they was, they were men. They were sitting there, and after awhile they got the meal ready. And Abraham slipped around or the servant brought it. I can see Abraham get the old fly bush.

How many of you Southerners know what a fly bush is? I used to have to fan the flies at the table when company would come, you know, before we had screen doors. Way back in Kentucky where we had to live poor, little ol' cabin up on the side of the hill, seventy-five cents a day hauling logs. It was rough, no clothes.

And Abraham standing there, and the servant brought forth the meat, and they sat down and eat. Could you imagine who that was eating? After a bit, the one that talked to Abraham, Abraham called Him Elohim. That was Jehovah God. Elohim, God in the form of a man, sitting there eating the meat of a calf, eating veal chops, drinking milk, eating cornbread—God Himself, the creator. Someone said to me not long ago, “Preacher, you don't mean to say that was God.” It was God. The Bible said it was. Abraham said it was. He should know, he was there.

Think our God is not that big? All He had to do was reach over and get a handful of calcium, and potash, and petroleum, and cosmic light, and “whew” breathe in, say “Come here, Gabriel, step in here.” Go get another handful, and say, “Come on, Wormwood, you step in this one.” And stepped in one Hisself. He's the creator! Abraham called Him Jehovah-jireh—the Lord will provide, whatever He has need of. He can provide a preacher. He can provide anything.

Now notice, two of them kept looking towards Sodom. Now I say this reverently and with respect. Let's take a modern Jack Schuller or Billy Graham goes down into Sodom, the world, to the church nominal, and preach the gospel, “Come out, for this place is going to burn.” And Lot, the backslidden Christian believer, lukewarm, tried to tell his people, but they laughed at him. “Aw, nonsense!” That's just what you get. But they didn't perform any miracles, only smote some men blind, and the preaching of the gospel does smite blind to the unbeliever. But watch this one that stayed with Abraham. (I'm closing now, we're fixing to close in a minute.)

Watch Jesus, what He said it would be in the last day. There was the church nominal getting their message, for Billy Graham and many of the great men has swept the earth with it. The church spiritual has to get their message in the last days because Jesus said, “As it was in that day, so shall it be. . . .”

Watch this angel, how he acts, or this man. He had his back turned to the tent, and he said, “Abraham, where is your wife Sarah?” Women then wasn't like they are now, have to run out and take their husband's place, and butt in everything he's saying. They stayed back in the tent. He'd never seen. . . . He said, “Where is. . . ?” How did he know he had a wife if he was just a man? How did he know that her name was Sarah?

“Oh,” he said, “my wife Sarah is in the tent behind you.” And Sarah was inside the tent.

He said, “Abraham, seeing that you're an heir of the world, I am not going to keep this a secret from you. I'm going to visit you according to the time of life.”

We're a mixed audience and you know what that was with the woman. After it had ceased with her for . . . well, about forty or fifty years old that ceases to the woman that way to. . . . And so she's going to be again according to the time of life.

And Sarah, in the tent behind Him, laughed in herself. She said, “Me, an old woman like I am, and my lord out there an old man a hundred years old and me ninety, and to think that we'd have pleasure together again as husband and wife.” And she laughed.

And the angel, with his back turned to the tent, said, “Why did Sarah laugh?”

Jesus said that same message will come just before the coming of the Son of God. “Sirs, we would see Jesus.” He said, “The works that I do shall you also.”

That's how He made Hisself known to the Jews. That's how He made Hisself known to the Samaritans. Now, if He lets the Gentiles come into judgment without bringing them the same way He made Himself known there, then He's unjust. If we pass into the judgment, into glory, upon technical theology, He didn't treat us like He did them. He gave them His Messiahic sign, and many of them misunderstood it. Many of them understood it and embraced it. And Jesus said just before His coming this would come again, and it hasn't been since then, but it's in the evening light.

One scripture, I'll close. The prophet said, “There'll be a day that will not be neither night nor day, but in the evening time it shall be light.” All prophecy is inspired. Notice, the same sun that rises in the east comes over the horizon and sets in the west. Not another sun, the same sun. And when the Holy Spirit fell, and when Jesus came, it fell on the eastern people. Jesus said, “When He the Holy Ghost is come, He will teach you those things, bring to remembrance the things that I've said to you, and will show you things to come.” That's what He did.

Now, after the first or second round of disciples, there come to a time the first reformation, the Catholic church about A.D. 66, according to the “Early Nicene Father's History” I think. And then they formed the Catholic church, which means the universal church, universal prayers. After that there was fifteen hundred years of Dark Ages, then come Martin Luther. God poured a little Spirit back in His church. Then come the Methodists age, sanctified. They still become less in the minority. Then come Pentecost. See what it is, He's filling His church.

And now as my hand is a shadow going to the wall, it's dim in the distance, but closer it gets the more positive it becomes. The Lutherans justified, the Methodists sanctified, the Pentecostal filled with the Holy Ghost.

Like a grain of corn goes into the ground comes up, it's got two little blades. You say, “Praise God for the crop.” You haven't got it yet, but potentially you have. That's the Lutherans. Then it went up into a tassel, and the tassel looked back down to the leaf and said, “I have no need of you, not at all. We are Methodists. We got something that you didn't have.” If you only knowed, it took the life that was in the leaf to make the tassel.

Then the tassel blowed off and got into the . . . pollen got into the leaf, and the first thing you know it produced an ear of corn, grains on it—Pentecost, like the thing that went into the ground, the original grain come back. Then the Pentecost said, “We ain't got no need of any of you.” But it was the life that was in both of them that made you. Certainly!

Now, Pentecost is shaking down, and it's coming so positive. What was Pentecost? What is the ear? To restore like it was at the beginning. Same Holy Spirit, just more of it to restore the gifts.

Now the manifestation. . . . Forty years it's been through divine healing, and signs and wonders, and so forth, but now the last sign that was given to a church that was looking for the Messiah. A Messiahic sign was given to the Jews, to the Samaritans, and now it's evening time. It's been a dismal day—you know, it's enough light to see to get around, to join church, and be a good man—but in the evening time it shall be light. The clouds has rolled back. That same Jesus, that same Holy Spirit that moved in the eastern people is moving in the western people. It's the same Holy Ghost, same signs, same wonders, same Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever, bringing forth the same results, the same critics. The same unbelief strikes it, but it shall prevail. It shall move on.

Sirs, we would see Jesus. How do you know it is Jesus? If it's Jesus, He'll do as He did yesterday, He'll do today. Would you like to see Him? You believe that He still lives and reigns? If He shall come to this building tonight and show and do the same things that He did do yesterday, would you believe Him? Would it strengthen the faith of you believers? Now, remember, divine healing is not done by a man. Divine healing is a finished product. Only thing that a minister can do is preach the Word. That ought to be sufficient, that ought to settle it. Abraham's seed believed it. Abraham . . . if you're that seed of Abraham, you believe it. Abraham believed it and held on to it for twenty-five years. When he was seventy-five years old he was supposed to have a baby. He believed God. When he was ninety years old, he still believed God. When he was a hundred years old, he still believed Him! And God confirmed it.

But we call ourselves Abraham's seed and can't trust Him out the door. We take ahold of God's promise. It's eternal. We've got a sense inside of us that denies all the five senses. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things you don't see, taste, feel, smell, or hear. It's something that you believe that God has put in there. It's the Holy Spirit, and God's Holy Spirit will say “amen” to every word that's in the Bible, for it wrote the Bible. Now, Jesus promised that He would come in the last days and perform and do among the Gentiles their last sign, just before His coming, as it was in the days of Sodom. Let us bow our heads just a moment.

Heavenly Father, feeling the pressure of the tired, aching feet and limbs, I am constrained just now by the Holy Spirit to stop speaking; and asking Thee, O God, come forth, Lord! One word from You would mean more than a million that any man could speak, just one word from You. Men can preach and say what they wish to, but if they're telling the truth, God, You're obligated to back them up, because it's Your Word and You promised to do it, and You will do it because it's Your promise. No doubt but what there's many sick and afflicted sitting here, needing help. Let them see, Lord, with their instinct, with their spirit, to realize as much . . . if You can lead birds and cattle, You can lead men and women. Let them flee to the cross tonight, throw away all unbelief and hang onto the cross till they receive the blessing that they're asking for. Grant it, Lord.

Now no matter what You would do here at the platform. . . . You went to Your own city and there was many mighty works You could not do because of their unbelief, and You were astonished. May it not be so in Tifton tonight. May You come, Lord, as I, Your servant, submit myself to You, to use lips, mouth, eyes, soul, body, spirit. May every member of Your body do likewise, that we might see God, that proved that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that we can see Him in the power of His resurrection just as they did at the day of Pentecost, and as the Greeks asked to see Him. We realize that the only difference there is in Him that His corporal body is sitting at the right hand of God the Father; but His Spirit that was in Him has come back to the church and lives in His church to bring sons and daughters unto God.

Manifest Yourself tonight, Lord. If I have told them the truth—which I know I have by Your Word—then You speak and confirm that I have told you the truth . . . or, told them the truth. Grant it, Lord, and all praise shall be Yours, because no man can do things. It takes God. And then, when we finally leave this building tonight, this courtroom, go to our different homes, along the street may the people say, like those who came from Emmaus that day after the death, burial, of Jesus and the resurrection, after He'd got them in the room to theirself and closed the door. . . . Talking to them all day and they didn't recognize who He was, but when He got them to theirself, then He closed the door and He did something just the way He did it before His death and burial, then they knew that was the same Jesus.

O God, to this polluted Gentile nation and Gentile generation, come forward, Lord Jesus, and show the same thing that You did when You walked in Galilee to the Jews, the same thing to the Samaritans, and many will believe on You. For I ask this in Jesus' name and for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Now is the time that something has to happen. Preaching's all right, but will it work? It'll work if Christ comes, for He's duty bound to His Word. I suppose there's not a person in here I know outside of Brother Welch sitting here, and his wife. And I've got two good brothers in here—Brother Leo Mercier, he's somewhere here in the building, and Brother Gene Goad sitting here. Precious boys, goes with me wherever I go, making tapes and so forth. And if you want the tapes, see Brother Mercier. He kind of takes care of it. Brother Goad takes the tapes, Brother Mercier has the selling of them, which is just a . . . quite a margin just so they can barely live, two precious boys.

My son is here somewhere. Here he is, sitting right down here. Standing in the door stands three or four men that I know—Brother Collins, a Methodist preacher that's just received the Holy Ghost, another brother from Kentucky and one of the trustees of the church, and a brother from Canada, two of them. I thought I seen somebody here a while ago on this side that I knew, but I've lost their . . . oh, yes, Brother Palmer right here. Outside of that, there's no one that I see in here that I know. But remember, Jesus knows every one of you.

Now, the boys come down. . . . The reason we give prayer cards is because that it would not be any respect of persons. He comes down and takes a bunch of cards, a hundred, mixes them all up before you. Anybody wants a prayer card, you just take it. Whoever wants it, you can have it. That's got a number on it, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, like that, and sometimes we start from one place and sometimes from another. I might come down . . . because no one knows where that prayer line is going to start from. The boy mixing them up, he wouldn't know and what good would it do for anybody to know?

Then when I come down, I say, “Well, we'll start from fifty. We'll start from twenty. We'll start. . . .” Wherever the Lord lays on my heart. Therefore we bring a few people up in the line, the Holy Spirit begin to move, so I can talk to them like Jesus did at the well.

Now remember, it's not me. I'm just the clay. I'm just as much. . . . This microphone that you hear me speaking through, that's a mute unless there's something behind it to make a noise. It'll never make any noise itself. And that's the way a man is. He's nothing. He's mortal of the earth. But it takes something to motivate him. If he's evil, the devil is motivating him. If it's the Spirit of God, God motivates him. And you know them by their fruit.

Jesus said, “If you cannot believe me being God as a man, then believe the works that I do. If I do not the works of my Father, the Father hasn't sent me.” If I told you I had the spirit of Al Capone in me, you'd look for me to have big guns here and it'd be dangerous to be in my presence. If I told you I had the spirit of an artist, you'd expect me to paint a picture like an artist. If we profess to have the Spirit of Christ, we should do the works of Christ. He said it Himself.

Now, Brother Collins, or Billy, what. . . . What say? Prayer cards number A, 1 to 100. All right. We can't get them all tonight. We'll have to get just some of them tonight. Tomorrow night we'll get somewhere else—where we leave off, or maybe somewhere else. I don't know where it'll be, because might not stop where . . . start where I leave off. I don't know what we'll do. Just wait and see what the Holy Spirit does.

Now how about the people in here that's sick and hasn't got a prayer card? Is there any hope for them? Certainly! Just the same as there is the one with a prayer card. Just your faith. Now, how many hasn't got a prayer card? Raise up your hand, you're sick. Just everywhere. If you haven't got a prayer card, then you say, “Brother Branham, what must I do?” Well, let me give you a scripture because I told you everything must be done or said, must be according to the Word. Jesus one day was passing through a crowd—and we'll say this, it wasn't—but a woman had a blood issue and she didn't have a prayer card. She couldn't get to Him. So she said, “I believe that He's a holy man. I believe He's the Son of God. And if I can touch the border of his garment, I'll be made whole.” Do you remember the story?

And she pressed through the audience until she found . . . got through and she touched His garment. Now, He couldn't have felt it physically, because the Palestinian garment hung loose and He had an underneath garment also. So He wouldn't have felt that, but He felt the touch of her faith, and He turned around to prove it. He said, “Who touched me?” Now He didn't know. “Who touched me?” Nobody said nothing. And He looked around, but in Him was the Spirit of God, and that woman was the one that had the faith. He looked around till He found her out in the audience, and He told her that her blood issue had stopped because she had believed. “Your faith has saved you.”

Some that don't believe in divine healing run that word saved down—“sozo.” Physically just the same as spiritual, the Greek word. “Thy faith has saved thee.” Now if He . . . if your faith. . . .

Now, you say, “But, Brother Branham, I couldn't touch Him.” Oh, yes. The Scripture says you can. In the book of Hebrews it's written that He is a high priest right now sitting at the right hand of God making intercession upon our confession. Do you believe that? A high priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. Is that right? Well, if He's the same high priest, wouldn't He act the same as He did when He was here on earth? Now, if you've got the faith that that woman had, He's got the power and the Spirit to do the same thing. High priest that can be touched by the feeling of our. . . . So you just sit quiet and reverently, believe, see what the Holy Spirit will say to us.

Well, we'll start from where? Let's say number 1. Who has number 1? If they could raise up, or stand up, or something and put. . . . All right. Come here, sir. Number 2. Who has 2? If you can't stand up now, if you're crippled, when your number's called, tell us, we'll pack you. Number 2, who had number 2? Number 2. Number 3, prayer card number 3. Can I see the hand of the person quickly now, so we won't. . . . Has this lady coming here, does she have prayer card number 2? Number 3. Look at your neighbor's prayer card. Have you got number 3, lady? Number 4, who has it? Raise up your hand. Number 4, that lady. All right. Number 5, this man over here. They're just all over the building now, I suppose. Number 6, who has. . . . Lady right there.

Number 7, someone, number 7? Prayer card number 7. Maybe they stepped out. It may be somebody deaf where he can't hear, somebody crippled and can't raise up. Somebody look around.

Here's a little boy in a wheelchair, here's a lady in a wheelchair. Look at their prayer cards. You got prayer cards? No, you don't? You don't need any, now, you don't need it. You just look this way and believe anyhow. You haven't got a prayer card, that has nothing to do with it, see. You just believe with all your heart, sonny. And you, sister, you'll get up and walk away and be well, giving praise to God.

Durban, South Africa, after the Holy Spirit had moved on the platform, we made one call and made one prayer. How many ever knowed F. F. Bosworth, the saintly, godly, old sainted man? They estimated 25,000 miracles taken place at one time. The next morning I heard something singing “Only Believe.” I looked out and here come seven van loads, big van loads of crutches and wheelchairs and boards and things they'd packed them in on, going down the street; and the people that was on them the day before, going down the street, through the streets of Durban, singing “Only believe, all things are possible, only believe.” Thirty thousand raw heathens at one time gave their life to Jesus Christ. That's ten times bigger than Pentecost.

The Lord is here, friends.

All right, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10. Move over here if you can, if you can walk. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14, where's it at? I didn't see it. 14, prayer card 14. Here, all right. 15. I want to get every one, because I don't want you to miss your turn. All right. 14, 15, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 20, 21, 20. How many you got? Now we got the hall full right now. We'll have to pray with these, then we'll get some more just in a minute. All right.

Can you hear me all right with the microphone like that? Sometimes, if the Holy Spirit should anoint, I don't know how loud I'm talking, or how low I'm talking, so. . . .

Now, I want to say to you, if He will do it, if the Holy Spirit. . . . Here's a case now, and here's a place where we have got to say it's . . . God has got to recognize His Word being preached the truth, or it's an error. And if this Bible is a error, there is no God. Do you Christians realize where I stand?

Now, not only here, to maybe two hundred, or about two hundred people here I suppose, but up to where there's forty and fifty thousand of them, 100,000, 500,000. Stand with the heathens, and millions, millions of people throughout the nations is going to hear about what happens. Stand there before witch doctors, and them standing there to challenge you on every move you make, better know what you're talking about. But the God of Elijah still lives today. “Prove me, saith God.” Right. He hasn't changed. If He has, then He's mortal like I am, just lives a little longer. But God is infinite. Do you believe that? Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent! Hallelujah! That's no disgrace to holler “Hallelujah!” Hallelujah means “praise our God,” and He's due all praise.

All right. Now, if some of the ushers are somewhere. . . . Now, notice just a moment.

Now I take every soul in here under the control of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. No matter what happens, sit still. Now, sometimes it becomes very strange—if any of you has ever been in the meetings. Now just be reverent, keep your place. No matter what takes place, sit still. The Holy Spirit is in charge. Now, submit yourself to God. Commit your spirits to God.

And you out there in the audience now that will not be in this prayer line, you start like this, saying “Lord God, creator of the heavens and earth, send Thy blessings upon me, Thy servant, and help me and let me touch Your garment. Help me and take away my unbelief. If Satan should come by me and put unbelief around me, take it away, Father. I'm going to watch for the Word that's been preached, because I know that's the Scripture. I'm going to lay my church doctrine over to one side just for a moment. I'm going to walk right up to You, God, and say this [if you believe it], 'that's the truth in the Bible.' ” Follow the Scriptures and see if that isn't true, the promises, the works of the Holy Spirit. “Sirs, we would see Jesus.”

And now remember, tomorrow night the services. Come early and we'll pick up some more of the prayer cards tomorrow night, maybe get some more tonight. It doesn't matter about the prayer cards. The prayer cards has nothing to do with it, see. Not a thing. It's just getting somebody up here to talk to after preaching. I stay in the room and lay before the Lord till I feel His presence and see the light. How many has seen that picture of it? They got it, it's here, see. The science has proved it. If I'd die tonight, the millions around the world —better than, I guess, ten, twenty million people I've preached to indirectly or direct—they know it to be so. The scientific world come and took the picture of it several times. It hangs in Washington, D.C. It's truth. My testimony is truth of Jesus Christ, if I go tonight.

Now, be reverent, everybody real reverent now. And don't take no pictures or flash pictures at this time, because the Holy Spirit is a light. How many knows that? How many knows that the angel that led Moses through the wilderness was Christ, the angel of the covenant? Sure it was. Jesus said, “I come from God and I go to God.” That's why He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” That was God speaking out. And when Paul was on his road down to Damascus, what was it struck him? A light, and put his eyes out. “I come from God, I go to God.” That life in the church brings forth the same light that was there—same works, same signs, same wonders, same miracles, same thing. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. God be blessed forevermore.

You, my friends, that I've never met no more than this, at the day of the judgment we'll meet. That's one meeting we're going to be there. Christ, the Son of God, His Spirit is moving into this room.

I suppose this man and I, probably born miles apart, years apart, never seen him, first time we've ever met, as far as I know. We're strangers to one another. Is that right, sir? If it is, just raise up your hand so that people can see. We've never met before in life. Now you may put your hands down, all right, I do not know him. I've never seen him. He's just a man, and I'm a man. He's standing there crying and thanking Jesus. Perceiving by that, he is a Christian. I don't know. There's many people says “Thank You, Jesus” that's not a Christian. The rain falls on the just and unjust; by their fruits you know them. He might be here for some sickness. If I could heal him and wouldn't do it, I'm not worthy to stand here as a minister. If I could help that man in any way, if he is sick, if I wouldn't do it then I'm a hypocrite—professing Christ, and not enough man about me to try to help the man that God sent me to help.

But I cannot heal him. If he's sick, God's already healed him when He died at Calvary. I'd say, “Was you saved last night?”

“No, I was saved ten years ago.”

No, no, my brother, you were saved 1900 years ago. When Jesus died at Calvary, you was saved. You just accepted it, you just accepted it then, see. The way is already paid for healing and for salvation; your faith accepts it. Now, to bring the presence of the Holy Ghost here to heal, it's manifesting, and you can see working through His church just like He did.

Now, let's take a scripture I talked on tonight. Simon Peter, the first one, was a man. He came to Jesus. Jesus said, “You're Simon, you're the son of Jonas,” so forth, begin to talk to Him. Now, if He's the same Jesus. . . . If this man is here for himself, for sickness, might be financial trouble, might be domestic trouble. I don't know, he might be just a deceiver standing there. If it is, watch what happens to him. If he's just making out like he is, watch what happens. See if they don't pack him out. Now, but now we're not playing church, friends. This is God's house now. It's a courtroom, of course, of God's justice. Now, the Word of God is at stake. Not my word; His Word.

Now, if I should turn and say something to this man, and tell him something about him that he knows that I don't know, there'd have to be some way I'd have to know it. Is that right? It would have to be some spiritual something, because we've never met before. Now, is that the way Jesus did in His day, proving He was Messiah? Then if He's the same yesterday, today and forever, let Him perform His work now. Then all of you believe. Do you believe? Now I don't know that He will do it. I don't say that He will. If He doesn't, I'll just speak to the man. If He doesn't do it, the only thing I can do is pray for him, lay hands on him, let him go. That's all I can do. Then the rest of you believe with all your heart. We'll trust God to do it.

Now, Lord, from here it's to You now, Father. It's beyond man. I've preached Your Word just as clean and clear as I know it. Now from here on, Father God, it's for You. I commit myself to Thee as Your servant. Work, speak, see, do whatever You wish, Lord, through Your servant here, and all Your servants that's present. Manifest Yourself among us, for we are Your people, and we love You, and we are sure that You raised up from the dead. God raised You up, and You're alive tonight in the form of the Holy Spirit living in us, doing the same as You did nineteen hundred years ago when You walked in Galilee. It's your promise. Let the Gentiles see that Your words are true: “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.” For Jesus' sake. Amen.

Just the only thing I ask, sir, is for you just to speak or answer as I speak to you, and then let you be the judge. If God knows what you have been, or something that you know back there, then if that's true, you be the judge of it. Then if He knows what has been, surely He could tell what will be. You could believe it. That's only reason. But now, stop thinking that. I'm not trying to read the man's mind. Now that's coming. Don't do that. I'm not . . . I don't even have to look at him. Now, remember, He knows every thought. The Bible said that He is quicker, sharper than a two-edged sword, even to the marrow of the bone, and a discerner of the thoughts of the mind. Jesus perceived their thoughts. That's the Spirit of God.

The man has something wrong with his legs that he wants prayed for, soreness in his legs. That's “Thus saith the Lord.” Is that true? It is true. All right. Now, do you believe?

You say, “Brother Branham, you guessed that.” No, I never. Let's talk to him a little more. I don't know what He said, but whatever it, you see, it's. . . . I'm looking at you and seeing you somewhere else, see. It's a vision.

Jesus said, “I can do only as the Father shows me.” Yes, I see something in his legs. Then he's got something on his arms or body—it's cancer, skin cancer. I see a woman appear here. It's his wife. She's in the meeting. She's sick too. Do you believe God can tell me what's wrong with her? Will you believe it? Gall bladder trouble. It's exactly right.

Do you believe God knows who you are? Mr. Gregory. Return home and be made well. Jesus Christ heals you and makes you well.

Do you believe? That's the Holy Spirit. Now, that's the Holy Spirit, brother, sister. I never seen the man in my life. Let's see this prayer line. I guess there's nobody in here at all that I know of. But He's given it. Now, that man, ever where he was. . . . That little baby received its sight and now is a married woman with a baby, that's the way it happens. The cancer-ridden, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, that's the way it happens. It's the Holy Spirit, God's Holy Spirit.

Where that man sat down, there was a woman got up to give him his seat. Do you believe God can heal you, sister? Right there in front of the man sitting here, got up and give him his seat. You don't have to come here. Just stay right there. Go home, the cancer is going to leave you. Your faith made you whole. See, the blessing on the man from that healed you also as you passed by. What did she touch? Tell me what she touched. She touched the High Priest, not me. I'm thirty feet away from her, but she was praying. Have faith . . . presence of God.

Come lady. You believe with all your heart? Now, this is another picture like it was in the days of the Bible when our Lord met a woman, the woman at the well. Now, we are two human beings as they were, but just different human beings, but the Spirit of God remains just the same. It doesn't change. Do you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the one that talked to the woman, that His Spirit is here now? All right.

Now, if God is the same—and I don't know what you're here for, but He knows—and if He will reveal what you're here for, then you will believe Him and accept as your healing? A nervous trouble, and you've got a growth on your right side. That's right. You've got an enlarged heart, and trouble you have with your head. There's someone appearing by you. It's your husband. He's here now. If God can tell me what his trouble is, you believe me? Now, he's nervous, one thing, but he's got heart trouble and stomach trouble. That's right. Mrs. Colvert from down in Athelia, Georgia, return back to your home. You're both well, and go and be made well in the name of Jesus Christ.

What did he touch? It was his connection by his wife, believing. Believe! Do you believe with all your heart? “If thou canst believe all things are possible.” I know some of you might think them people is a little noisy. If that was you being healed, you'd be noisy too. Just believe on the Lord.

Now, this woman standing here is a total stranger to me. I've never seen her in my life. We are strangers to one another, I suppose, lady? Right. But do you believe that the Lord Jesus can reveal to me what you're here for, your trouble or something on that manner? Would you believe Him? You are very sick. You're suffering with a liver trouble called the cirrhosis of the liver. That is true. That make you believe? If God will tell me who you are, will it make you believe more? Mrs. Hollis. There's some connection with this woman. I see her as a little girl playing with somebody that looks . . . some relation, you're something . . . you're a sister to Welch Evans. That's exactly right. Where is he at? Somewhere. That's right, ever where you are. Go be made well, sister, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, I never seen the woman in my life, but I seen a little boy. He took something out of her hand, sitting under a tree, that's right, many years ago. Believe with all your heart now.

Come, sister dear. This precious old mother standing here, I never seen her . . . about like my mother at home. Would I be a deceiver to a poor woman like this? Godly, saintly looking old mother standing here, and think of my own mother at home. Mother, if I could do anything for you, I would do it, but I can't. I'm a man, but you're standing in the presence of not me, your brother, but the Holy Spirit. I want to ask you something. You're aware that something is going on? Now I want to ask you as a sister in Christ, a real sweet, humble feeling, isn't it? Because that light is settled all. . . . If that's right, raise your hand so the people can see.

Now, the woman, she's not here for herself; she's standing here for somebody else. That's her son. He's got something wrong with his head, heart trouble, kidney trouble, had an operation. That's right. And you're worried about his spiritual condition. That's “thus saith the Lord.” Amen. Believe now with all your heart and, Lord God, creator of heavens and earth, author of everlasting life and giver of every good gift, send Thy blessings upon the woman, who I bless in Jesus' name. May she find it even as she has believed. Amen. Go, returning now happy, rejoicing, and believing with all your heart. God bless you, sister. Believe with all that's in you.

Are you believing? Have faith in God. Jesus said, “Have faith in God.”