From That Time

Wonder if we could just raise our hands and sing real quietly like, you know, softly rather, “Now I believe.”

Now I believe, now I believe.

All things are possible, now I believe.

Now I believe, now I believe.

All things are possible, now I believe.

Let us bow our heads now for a word of prayer. Gracious heavenly Father, we come to Thee tonight humbly in the spirit of prayer and thanksgiving to offer to Thee the adoration of our hearts, praying that You will receive us as Thy children, forgiving us of all of our sins, and healing us of all of our diseases, that Thy Word might be made manifest among us. If there would be some here who does not know Thee as their personal Saviour, we pray, O Lord God, that this will be the night when they will become acquainted with Thee and know Thee as their dear and loving Saviour, Father of their being.

I pray tonight for all that's sick and needy, that Thy Holy Spirit may heal them tonight.

Bring back, O Lord, the backslider that has strayed from the way. Remember those who are just about ready to fall from the way, that the feeble hands that once hung down be lifted up. We pray, heavenly Father, that You'll speak to us tonight in an outstanding way through Thy Word, bringing the message of the hour to our hearts.

Remember other meetings that's going on throughout the city and nation and around the world, that your servants may have power tonight to preach the Holy Spirit, the baptism, the coming. Give them signs and wonders to accompany their ministry that it might be known that we're living in the last days. May we prepare our hearts as we wait for His coming. In the name of the Lord Jesus we ask it. Amen. You may be seated.

It's good tonight to be back in this arena. Most everyone knows that this is where I first started at the . . . meeting the public was in a boxing ring. When I was a young boy, I was fighting in Golden Gloves; and then from that went into professional fighting and won fifteen straight professional fights. Came to the Lord, and finished my career of fighting the first night I met the Lord Jesus. That settled it. The last fight I had was in an arena at Evansville, Indiana, with Billy Frick from Huntington, West Virginia.

And now, tonight, I'm not fighting my brother; I have a new opponent, the devil. And I know you have to watch him because he hits low and foul. And all of his licks are like that. But I'm so glad that we have a referee, a real one—the Lord Jesus. He's the captain of our salvation. I pray tonight that God will give us the victory and will give us the. . . . He has done evil, Satan has, to the people, making them sick and afflicted and making them slaves to sin. But Jesus is here tonight to free us from all these things, to bless and help His loving children. To Him we give praise forever and ever.

Now, we got quite a little stay this time in Phoenix. We're out here now in this “Madison Square Garden,” and. . . . I've always had an ambition to preach the gospel at Madison Square Garden. It's finally arrived. And I think on its journey from the north out here it must have shrunk up a little bit. Think the Madison Square Garden in New York seats about twenty thousand, nineteen thousand people. I've had many services (three outstanding services) at St. Nicholas arena. That's where they do much of their wrestling and fighting. The Lord blessed us there with packed out . . . several times around seven-, eight thousand for two or three nights that we'd be there. Usually that's the jumping board before going overseas.

But as the days begin to count up with me . . . and the American people are all out for youth today. As you begin to get just a little age, they look for the young men, something with glamour. It's just the trend of the nation—the boy, the kid.

If a man was going to be operated on, he sure wouldn't want to get some little doctor that never had an operation before. He'd want to get an experienced doctor. It used to be in the days of Dwight Moody and so forth, in the Bible times, it wasn't so. You didn't see the children preachers and so forth. They took a man who was aged and knowed what he was talking about, that went through the great knocks. But today America's all sold out for youth. Well, we got a judge in our state, I think twenty-two to twenty-three years old. A judge of the circuit court twenty-two years old. They'll have a beatnik president after awhile. It looks like that the youth can just take . . . these kids they take over everything. But the coming of the Lord is at hand. That's my theme, that's what I believe. That's what I'm trying to get to the people: the coming of the Lord.

Many of you might have wondered why that I haven't had healing services since I've been in Phoenix. That's for a purpose. And I believe that. . . . Last evening when we were going home, I was talking to Billy, my son. And there was several come up at the altar out at the church where we were at the last three nights, and I've seen those people at the altar weeping. And Billy said to me, said, “Dad, when you want us to give out prayer cards, let us know.”

I said, “I'll let you know.” But I said, “Billy, if there. . . .” I'll say at least ten sinners, or maybe more, came up to the altar weeping. I said, “I feel better over those ten sinners coming than I would have ten wheel chairs being emptied up, because that's lasting, see.” I really appreciate healing—anyone knows that—but I like to see that healing of the soul which is so needed today.

In the other lands, over in Africa and Asia (I just come from overseas; going back again, the Lord willing, right away), and in there divine healing is wonderful. It works miracles to the soul. America has been combed back and forth, back and forth, all kinds of divine healings; and therefore the people should have faith to believe God for healing. But I come to Phoenix for fellowship. I come to Phoenix to fellowship with my brethren, to express and to find what they have found in the Lord, tell them what I have found in the Lord, and have a little time down here. Where we're having blizzards and snows in Indiana, be down here. In a week or two I'm in Tulsa, and then I guess from there over to Stuttgart, Germany, and on through Europe.

But now while we're here, this meeting . . . everybody's welcome. If you're a Protestant, Catholic, Jew, yellow, black, brown, white, no matter what your belief is, what your religious thoughts are, you're welcome. There'll be no difference, we're one in Christ Jesus. We are brethren, sisters, and that's the way we want to feel. And after a bit . . . I think when we begin to see the sick coming in to be healed and so forth, we'll be praying for the sick. I haven't had. . . . There's no prayer cards been given out at all since I've been in Phoenix. Who has a prayer card? No one. We haven't given them out. May not. We don't know. . . . We want to follow the simplicity of the Holy Spirit.

I've found this as I get older. . . . See, I just passed twenty-five a few months ago; that's the second time I passed. And so I'm. . . . My, that sounds old, doesn't it? Don't only sound it, it is. But He renews my youth daily. I feel better than I did when I was passing it the first time. I was just a young Baptist preacher then, and I thought I was the defender of the faith and had to tear up everything that wasn't Baptist. And so I found out other fellows had a little part of the cover, too. You know, the cot gets pretty narrow sometimes, so there's enough cover to cover us all up if we. . . . That is the blood of Jesus Christ, if we'll just accept it that way.

I'm wondering, I'm watching. . . . You wonder why I'm speaking, watching around like this. I'm seeing the audience, how they're . . . seems like they don't hear so well. Can you hear around back under the . . . back there, can you hear all right? Just about one or two hands. What about back here? Can you hear all right, way back? I didn't think you could. You can notice when you're saying things. That's the reason I was doing that, to see what kind of an effect it would take. I wonder if there'd be some way? All right. The gentleman there is going to try to fix it so they can hear back around the sides. You can stand here and have a. . . . If you've been praying, and prayed up, you can watch the effect it has on the people when you say anything. And usually that's the way I find my text. Now [microphone squeals] I believe we've got music with it. Just . . . I haven't got a melodious voice; I don't believe we could stand that much. But is it better back under the . . . back beneath, is it better? Over here, can you hear me better now? Good, that's fine.

Well now, let us bow our heads now for a word of prayer, and we'll start right into the service. And we're going to ask the Lord Jesus to bless His Word that we read now.

Our heavenly Father, we come tonight to ask You to receive us as a people, as Your church, and this building, which is called here the Madison Square Garden of Phoenix. I pray Thee, heavenly Father, that You will sanctify this building, that the angels of God will move in. For we realize that it's not the building that we're in; it's the people in the building. It's not the building that makes the church; it's the people inside the building. And I pray Thee, heavenly Father, that this, the purchase of Thy blood tonight, being gathered here, the people that will live forever in a world that is to come, and we've come here for the purpose of fellowshipping through the Holy Spirit and enjoying the Word of God, as Brother David duPlessis, our teacher, and many others, are bringing the Word; and that the Holy Spirit might come and convince sinners of their wrong and would bring His presence so near unto us that all the people would want to serve Him. Grant it, Lord.

And there's no man that's able to open the book or to loose the seals thereof. But there was a Lamb that had been slain from the foundation of the world. He come and took the book out of the hand of Him that sat upon the throne, for He was worthy. O Lamb of God, come tonight in Thy transforming power, and take the words that we shall read and reveal them to us in the power of the Spirit. When this service shall end tonight, may every unbeliever that's present become a believer, may those that have fallen from the way renew their vows, the sick be healed. And when we're on our way across the city and different places, may we say, like those who came from Emmaus that day, “Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us along the way?”

Then, Father, we would pray that You would do something outstanding tonight that would attract the attention of the people through Thy Word. Make Thy Word alive to us. We are able to read it, who has enough education to read. We can read it, but we cannot make it live. It takes the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to make the Word live. May it live in every heart here tonight, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

To you who are keeping record of the text that we read, I would ask you tonight to turn to the fourth chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, the fourth chapter, and we will read the sixteenth and seventeenth verse for a reading.

And the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them that sat in the regions of the shadow of death light is sprung up.

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Word. Now, for a text I wish to take the first three words of the seventeenth verse, “From That Time.”

You know there's. . . . We as people tonight can think back of certain times, certain things began. There's no doubt in my mind but what many people here can recall certain times that something happened; and you say, “And from that time things were changed.” Like a child, he can say that “I was a good child, a good obedient boy or girl. And one day I met up with a companion, and they persuaded me to do a certain thing, and from that time it started.” How many times can we think of things like that that's happened in our life, and we mark it “from that time”?

Then we can think of the immoral woman. She might say, “As a girl I was raised in a Christian home. I was brought up with good parents, good Christian teaching. And I was married to a fine Christian boy, and our home was beautiful, and we had two little children [or so]. And one day I was down in the city and I run into a girl friend that . . . I used to live in the neighborhood with her; and she persuaded me on a date. And from that time my home has never been the same.”

It could be also that the drunk, the alcoholic, might say, “I was raised in a home that did not believe in drinking alcoholic beverages. And I never drank in my life, until one day such-and-such a thing happened, and from that time. . . .”

Here a few years ago I was on my road to South Africa, and I had to stay over two or three days in New York because I thought I could get by without having the yellow fever shot, but they just wouldn't let me board the plane. And I had to take the shot and wait for so many days, and I had a meeting. And there was a minister, Brother Berg, an outstanding noted Full Gospel minister of New York, which was a chaplain in the last war. And they have missions down on the Bowery, and he said to me, “Brother Branham, how would you like to go with me tomorrow down on the Bowery?” That's what we . . . just like skid row in Chicago.

And I said, “Brother Berg, I'd be happy to go with you to the Bowery.” And we went down there. And my heart ached when I seen men laying on the streets, that was in such a terrible condition, laying up against an automobile; and their clothes all soiled from the waist down, and not even knowing what they were doing; and some laying back in the alleys and across each other—just at the end of the road. We went into a mission which the church sponsored. And the pastor, after meeting him, he said, “We taken 180 corpses from this building in a year of those alcoholics that came into this mission and died here while service was going on or during the night. A hundred and eighty.”

And then I went out on the street, and I thought, “Isn't there something that can be done about it?” And as we walked, I said, “Brother Berg, I suppose all these men here was raised up in the slums and never had a chance.”

“Oh,” he said, “you'd be surprised, Brother Branham. You should talk to some of them.”

And I said, “I would like to.”

He said, “If we can find one that's not so far gone that we could speak to him, I'd like for you to talk.”

I said, “All right.”

And a certain fellow we raised up, and he spoke to him, said, “Can you hear me?”

He said, “Give me a drink.”

I said, “I'm a minister. I would like to know why that you would throw your life away like this.” When I said, “minister” he roused up and looked at me.

He said, “Excuse me, sir, for asking you for enough money to buy me a drink, but you don't know my case.”

I said, “Sir, I sympathize with you. My father drank, and he drank on until death took him. I'm not making you the worst person in the world, but I would like to know—a man that's got enough decency about him to excuse hisself when he sees that he's done wrong—how could you ever've throwed your life to this?”

He said, “Son, I can almost point my finger and show you with my eyes the bank that I was president of.”

I said, “Sir, is that truth?”

He said, “My name is such-and-such a name. You might go to the bank and see if that is right or not.”

I said, “How did you come to do this?”

He said, “I had Christian training, and I was once a member of the church.”

I said, “But what caused you to do this?”

Said, “One day I come home from work. I had a lovely family and a beautiful wife.” He said, “But I found what we call a 'Dear John' letter laying on the table. My wife had gone. And from that time, I tried to drown my sorrow with drinking.”

“Oh,” I said, “I wish I could take you back to that time!” That time—if he could only go back to that time.

I talked to a young woman some time ago who was in the emergency room. She was from the psychopathic. . . . A great meeting at Flint, Michigan, and they had maybe thirty cases of insanity in the room. And they said you could not bring them out in public because they were in straitjackets and all kinds of conditions. And I went into the room, and one man went with me. And when we went in there, there was a beautiful young woman, looked to be about twenty or twenty-five years old, sitting there. I said, “How do you do?”

She said, “How do you do?”

And I said, “Well, it's hard to know which way to start.” And some of them out of their minds and screaming, and people watching them.

She said, “If you don't mind, sir, I'd like for you to start with me.”

I said, “With you?”

She said, “Yes, sir.”

“Well,” I said, “you're not a patient are you?”

She said, “Yes, sir, I am.”

“Well,” I said, “you seem to have your right mind.”

She said, “I wonder.” And she said, “Could you listen to my story just a moment?”

I said, “Certainly, madam.”

And she started telling me. She said, “I was reared in a good home.” She said, “And my mother taught me not to do wrong, to shun evil, and to embrace the right thing.” She said, “And I lived that kind of a life for a number of years, and I got mixed up with a young man.” And she said, “It caused a disgrace to me.” And said, “I just started, and throwed myself away, and I become an alcoholic.” Said, “Then they picked me up and sent me to a Catholic institution called The Good Shepherd's Home.” Said, “There I was under correction for a number of years, and then they released me. And as soon as I got out from that, I started drinking again.” And said, “Then I served a year or two in women's state prison.”

And said, “Then I had changed from Protestant to Catholic, then during this time I changed back to Protestant again from the chaplain talking to me.” And said, “I come out and tried again, but,” said, “I went right back into it again, into prostitution, drinking.”

And I said, “Your mother?”

“She's dead.”

“Your father?”

“Dead.”

And I said, “What do you think they would think about you now?”

She said, “Oh, if I could only go back again.”

I said, “A lovely young woman like you, don't you desire to be married and have babies like all mothers do, and so forth?”

She said, “I would love to, sir, but look at me. What could I offer anyone?”

I said, “You've got one thing you can offer.”

She said, “What's that?”

I said, “Your soul to Jesus Christ.”

She said, “Sir, He wouldn't receive it.”

I said, “Oh, yes, He will.”

Said, “How do you know He would? I've tried.”

I said, “Yes, you're just turning pages. But you really come to Him. . . .”

She said, “What could He do with me?”

I said, “Make a lady out of you.”

Said, “Not me. I'm too far gone.”

I said, “He can take you back to the time when you was a virgin innocent girl. The blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient and powerful to transform the vilest sinner to a blood-washed saint, guiltless before God.”

She said, “I've tried that so many times.”

I said, “I want to tell you, I believe your case has never been diagnosed right.” I said, “You don't want to be like that.”

She said, “Certainly not.” Said, “Just what you mentioned awhile ago is what I want to be: a mother, with husband, with babies, someone to love and someone that loves me. But I'd never spoil a man's life like I am.”

I said, “You don't have to.” I said, “This may sound old fashioned, sister, but it's the truth nevertheless. It's the devil that's done that to you. It's the devil that's got ahold of you, driving you to things that you don't want to do.”

She looked at me with those big dark eyes, and said, “I've always believed that was the truth.”

I said, “Would you kneel here with me?”

She said, “Now they tell me I'm a mental case.”

I said, “You are, but,” I said, “Jesus Christ restores the right mind. There's nothing too great for Him.”

And she said, “Do you think He would for me?”

I said, “Certainly. But we've got to get that devil out of there before He can . . . where he entered when you was a young girl. He'll go out, and you'll go right back to that place again.”

And she got down on her knees, and I asked her to pray. And she prayed for a few moments. She looked over at me, and she said, “Brother Branham, I'm now going to make a new start.”

I said, “Sis, it won't do one bit of good. You're going just exactly the same road you've been over. It won't work.”

And she said, “I mean it in my heart.”

I said, “I know you do, but that devil's more stronger than any mental powers that you could put to him.” That's the reason I don't believe in an intellectual religion. I believe a man's got to be born again of the Holy Spirit. It's got to be deeper than your thinking. Got to be an experience.

And she said, “What must I do?”

I said, “Just stay right there.” And we prayed and prayed. I went ahead and prayed with some more people and come back; she was praying. I come back to her again. And after awhile I come back, and she was getting deeply in sincerity.

In a few moments, she raised up with tears running down her cheeks. She looked me in the face. She said, “Brother Branham, something's happened.”

I said, “You don't have to turn no new pages now.”

The woman's married and got a family. And a lovely sweet born-again Holy Spirit-filled saint because God could take her back to a place where she started to do wrong. That's His goodness. And from that time she was a changed woman. From the time of a young girl to one time, she was evil. God taken her back; and from that time, she was different.

Those things of turning new pages, that's good. We think that's very good.

Just like after the first world war. Many of you men and women can remember that perhaps. I was a little boy of about eight or nine years old. I remember it well, of even ministers saying, “War is over; we'll never have no more wars. It's all settled now. We just can't have no more wars, because we got poison gases and so forth.” Many of you remember that. The nation told us, “Wars are settled for good.” They meant that. From that time, they said, there'll be no more war. But we had them just the same.

When they begin to see rumors rising up, nation turning against nation, they formed what was known as The League of Nations to police the nations. They tried that. See, that was mental, but it did not work. It throwed us right into one of the greatest wars we ever had after that. Now, they've got what they call the U.N., police the nations again. But it will fail just as sure as two twos are four. It's got to fail! They think it's good, which it is; but as long as mental thinking, it doesn't do it. It takes revelation, spiritual revelation.

All those things, as good as they may be. . . . Trying to join church, that's good. I think everyone ought to join church. That's good as far as it goes, but that's not the cure. I think that everyone ought to take their choice as American citizens to join any church that they want to. And I think that we ought not to disfellowship that person upon their convictions. I think we should all fellowship with one another, asking God's mercies on us all. But that's not the thing yet.

Every New Year's men will make a pledge, go out and write on a book, maybe on a Bible sheet, and say, “I'll never drink again.” “I'll never smoke again.” “I'll never be untrue to my wife again.” And less than five or ten days, they've broke every vow they made. See, they're making it by mental conception.

That's why many people join churches, because they fear hell. And they come and put their names on books and go out and think it settles it; but it doesn't. It's not lasting. All those things are temporal.

But there is a time when a certain thing can happen, and from then on it's different, really different. That's when man meets God. Things change when man meets God. A man can never meet God and ever be the same again. You'll either be a better person or a worse person. You'll be better off or worse off after you meet God. It depends on what you want to do about it. But a man can never meet God and ever be the same. Whatever your attitude is towards God seals your eternal destination.

You can walk across the line between grace, mercy, and judgment; and when you spurn grace so many times, you can separate yourself forever from the presence of God. Or you can accept Him and have eternal life and never die, but be raised up again at the last day in the general resurrection. Oh, how glad I am that there's something that we can point back to and say, “From that time, something happened.”

Let's take some men that met God, that changed their destination and the destination of their generation. Let's take, for instance, Abraham. He was just an ordinary man. He was not a saint; he was just a man. And, oh, I'm so glad that we don't have to be born of a certain line or be some great somebody. We just have to be humble. God's grace is what does the work. Abraham, just a man, down perhaps in the bushes one day in the valleys of the Shinar Valley, out of the city of Ur, wandering about out in the bush maybe with his sheep or so forth, and God met him, and spoke to him and blessed him.

I believe that a man comes to God and ever has a definite experience. . . . Oh, maybe you think I'm beside myself, but look. I don't mean an impersonation of an experience. We've got so much of that today till it makes a real Christian sick to look at it—somebody trying to impersonate somebody else. God has never made two the same. He never did, and He never will. God's a God of variety. He makes big hills and little hills and deserts and swamplands and whatmore. He's a God of variety. Don't try to impersonate anyone else; be what you are, what God made you.

Abraham. God spoke to him, and he had a definite experience, and it changed his life. And the strange thing is, when a man meets God he can never be the same, and can always point back to that time when he met Him. God spoke to Abraham and Abraham acted different. And every time a man meets God, from that time on he'll act different. If he rejects God, he'll be an infidel, right, or he'll be an impersonator or hypocrite; or he'll be a godly sainted person that'll walk different, talk different, live different, act different, peculiar, odd, led of the Holy Spirit.

Let me tell you something, as my brother and sister. I have never, and God help me to never be . . . to ever try to be somebody. That's when you're nothing. Twist myself in such great big things till I have to have thousands of dollars a night to sponsor some program. Let me be just Brother Branham. Let me be just what God would make me to be, no matter what it is. If it's to eat soda crackers and drink branch water, wear overalls, whatever it is, let me be what God would have me to be. Never try to be something that you're not.

Abraham, he was different from the time God met him. And look. Sometimes when God meets a man. . . . It looked like Abraham could have had the world in his hands. The apostles, with great powers, could have had the world in their hands, as it was to say. Could have spread fame everywhere, but that kind of fame soon dies. The only lasting fame is when your name is wrote on the Lamb's book of life. That's when fame is real fame. This earthly thing so decays.

Now, look at Abraham. God told him to believe and accept the miracle that had not yet happened, and was impossible (only with God) for it to happen: that was to believe that he was going to have a baby by Sarah. And he believed God, and called anything contrary to it as though it was not. Abraham, from the time he met God he was a changed man.

Moses was an intellectual giant. He had all the wisdom of the Egyptians, that he could teach their teachers. He was intellectual as he could be. Smarter, far smarter, than our most brilliant men today, because the Egyptians had things that we don't have today. They could build a pyramid; we could not. They could embalm a body and make it look natural for hundreds and hundreds of years; seventy-two hours is our limit. They could put dye in clothes that would never fade out; we cannot do that. Many things that they had . . . dig up, things that they had, that we could not do the same today. They were way smarter, more intelligent; and Moses could teach them. But all of his intellectuals, he had never met God.

Oh, I'd like to see the preachers in here just a minute. Do you see, brethren? My Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostals, whoever you may be, you can have a call of God on your life, you can know that you're called to the ministry, but you have no right to preach the gospel until you've had an experience with God of being born again. Jesus told the disciples, “You wait in the city of Jerusalem until you're endued with power from on high.”

Moses could not go down and deliver the children of Israel until first he met God face to face and talked to Him. Why? Moses could say, “I was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But one day I was herding my father-in-law's sheep at the backside of the desert, and I seen a bush burning.” And from that time, he was a different man. He didn't rely upon his intellectuals. He was running from Egypt, where God had called him; but as soon as he met God, he took a mule and his wife and his son and a little old crooked stick and went down to Egypt. Why? He had met God, and from that time, he was changed. There was something different. His intellectuals were lost. He didn't think about the danger. Why? He had met God and he could point back, said, “That time!”

No man has the right to preach the gospel, no person has the right to call themselves a Christian, until they can go back to a certain time in their life where they can come on that sacred sands, at the backside of the desert, where they know that they have met God. All the infidels in the world, these intellectual giants taking the Bible and explaining away. . . . “All the days of miracles, they're past; there's no such a thing as divine healing, all this stuff like speaking with tongues, interpretation of tongues, and gifts of healings, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” They can slickly . . . and take your mind and twist you in such a way until they can take that away from your memory. They can explain it away.

I want you to get this, and don't you never let it pass from you. But if a man ever stood on that sacred sands at the backside of the desert, when he meets God face to face, there's not enough devils in all hell could take that away from him. He knows he met God! He knows he had an experience, he talked to God. Regardless of what the opposition is, he can say, “From that time, something changed in me!”

How well I can call the time, in a little old saloon that was being used as a church, where some colored people was preaching the gospel. I was a Southerner and didn't like colored people, and a vision came and told me where to go find it.

And all the white girls that I'd went with (oh, not all of them, four or five standing there) said, “Billy, you're not going in there?”

I said, “Yes, I've got to go!”

Said, “Don't never ask me for another date.”

It didn't make any difference. I met God, and from that time I've been changed. Can point back to that time. I was changed.

No man has a right in the pulpit until he's got an experience. No matter what the intellectuals can say, you know you met God.

Why, intellectual knowledge would've told Moses he was walking to his own death, but he knowed he'd met God. And God was God, and God's still God—the reason I'm so glad I can stand here in this arena tonight and give Satan an upper-cut that says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and can prove it by His Holy Spirit here now. He ever remains the same. Not altogether with the Word; the Word only points the way. But the Holy Spirit declares it that He's the same, and point His blessings and His promises. We can say, “From that time, something happened.”

Mary was just an ordinary girl, a good girl, a virgin. I'm going to say she was sixteen or eighteen years old, engaged to a man, Joseph. Now, she was just an ordinary girl. She loved God, she believed in God. But one day on her way to the well to get some water, she met God; and from that time, the world has hailed her, “Blessed art thou among women.” Why? Not because she was a virgin. Thousands of virgins, millions. We still have virgins, but we could only have one Mary. She could point her finger from that time, from that time! from that trip to the well.

O God, take us tonight to the wells of water. If you're here, not a believer, that we can say, “From that time at Madison Square Garden in Phoenix, Arizona, from that time, something took ahold of me. I had an experience. Doubts fell away from that time, that time.” Sure. It was from that time.

Paul, a persecutor of the church. Oh, that little hook-nosed Jew. Show the power of decision of the church. They had the keys, that's true. And watch how they made their decision. Talk about what the church can do. The church has only got one key, that's prayer. The church doesn't save you. You're a member of the church by birth, but the church doesn't save you. It's Christ that saves you. It's not coming in contact with the church; it's coming in contact with Christ, and then automatically you're in the church.

The church had the keys. Jesus told them He gave them the keys. Look how they used it. They said, “Now, it's written in the Scriptures, the Scripture must be fulfilled, 'but let another take his bishopric' ”—talking of Judas. And he said, “Let's choose one that has been out among us.” And they had two. They find fine cultured men, good men, just as religious as they could be to the key, men that were good reputation. And they cast their lots and chose Matthias. But what good did it do? There isn't one thing recorded in the Bible that he ever did, not one thing. Just a good old deacon or something another like, but he was supposed to be an apostle. God went over and chose a little old high-tempered, hook-nosed church-hater. It shows that God can take nothing and make something out of it. That's what makes Him God.

That's the reason I join myself tonight in the people in this world that's called holy rollers, people of life not way up in some great bracket, but men and women who's been in the gutters, been in sin, been kicked out, taken away from the things of the world, met God face to face and God has made saints out of them. “It's amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” God does it that way. They can point back, and say, “Yes! I was no good, I took the name of the Lord in vain, I've did this, I've smoked, I drank, I was this way or that way—but from that time! [What time?] When I met God, things changed. No more drinking, no more things of the world, I passed from death unto life. And from that time, I become a new creature in Christ.”

Paul, church-hater, saint-hater, very religious, high-tempered, persecuting the church, sassy, but a very intellectual man. God said, “I'll just choose him.” Now today half the church would deny him. And God took him down on his road to Damascus, there come the pillar of fire that led the children of Israel before him, and blinded him and made him fall to the earth. He took that man.

And Paul could say this, “One time I was a religious Pharisee, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I had good intellectual back-training, but all of my education and all of my intellectuals I had to forget to know Christ.

“Why did you do it, Paul?”

“I was on my road to Damascus to arrest those people, and a light shined from the heavens and struck me blind, and from that time. . . .” Amen. From that time, he was a changed man.

Peter the fisherman would have likewise. How about blind Bartimaeus that laid at the gate, as we talked of last night? The blind man could say, “I was blind until I come in contact with God, and from that time I could see.” Oh, yes. If you're spiritually blind, come in contact with Him, and from that time you can see Him. Everything that comes in contact with God is changed. The leper one time come in contact with God, and he was changed from a leper to a well man.

There was an immoral woman one time met Jesus at the well. She was full of sin, her heart was heavy. Her burdens were too much to bear. Society had kicked her out. She stood there and seen just an ordinary Jew, a fellow kind of aged for his . . . looking aged for his age. I think the Scripture claims that He looked to be fifty when He was only thirty. And they said, “You're a man yet not over fifty years old and say you have seen Abraham?”

He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

So He was only thirty or thirty-two years old. And a young, beautiful woman come up one day to the well where He was sitting, tired, and He said to her, “Woman, bring me a drink.”

And she said, “It's not customary for you to ask me such things as that. I'm a Samaritan; you're a Jew.” Segregation.“

He said, “But if you knew who you were talking to. . . .” What was that woman doing? She was meeting God. She met a man, but it wasn't a man that she was meeting. It was God in the man she was meeting. God, let that soak in!

The Scriptures said you've entertained angels not knowing what you were doing, unaware of it. Same as Abraham entertained angels. And immediately after the angel left, and had performed a miracle before him, he called the man God—Elohim. The almighty God sitting there eating steak sandwiches, drinking milk from the cow, eating cakes, and He was Almighty God. The woman, little did she know. . . . Look what it done for Abraham then. It changed him and Sarah from an old man and an old woman of a hundred years old back to a young man and woman that brought forth Isaac. They met God. That's what done the difference.

This immoral woman, she met Jesus, and she spoke to Him. Watch how He made Himself known. He said, “Woman, go get your husband and come here.”

She said, “I do not have any husband.”

He said, “You've said well. For you've had five husbands, and the one you're now living with is not your husband. You've said well.” And from that time, she was changed. Oh, what a difference. That Jesus, when she met Him there, looked like a man.

And I can imagine seeing those big pretty eyes, tears coming out of them. She said, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. But who are you?”

Jesus said, “I am he that speaks to you.”

And from that time, from that time, she had a message to tell the world: “Come see a man who told me the things that I've done. The Messiah is on the earth.” She stirred her city. A few hours before that, the city would have laughed at her. She couldn't even come to the well with the rest of the women. What happened? What made the men listen to her? If you've ever been in the Orient, they wouldn't listen to a woman like that.

Some Oriental brother was trying to tell me, said, “The woman wasn't a prostitute, because the men wouldn't have listened to her.”

I said, “But, brother, you fail to see that she'd met Christ. That's what made the difference.”

I don't care, you could have been a drunkard, you could have been a prostitute, you could have been anything that you wanted to be, but when you meet Christ, from there on it's different. God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham. From that time on she had a message that she had met the Messiah, because she seen the sign of the Messiah. She knowed that that was He.

For she said herself, “We know when Messiah cometh, He'll tell us these things, but who are You?”

Jesus said, “I am he.”

And she dropped the water pot and away she went. If she could stand on the platform tonight, she'd say, “I was foul and immoral, but I had read in the Bible where He was to be a God-prophet. When this man told me (looked like it was just a man), but when He told me of my life, I knew that that was the sign of the Messiah. So, a prophet has a portion of the Messiah's Spirit. So I said, 'Sir, you must be a prophet. We know when Messiah cometh He'll tell us all things.' ”

Jesus said, “I am he that speaks to you.”

She knowed if a man who could do that would say what He was, it was right because God was backing it up. Glory! Oh, can you get it? Do you know what I'm speaking of? When God promised to send the Holy Spirit in the last days, and He's done it, we know it—He backed up His Word. This what we have tonight of the blessing of the Holy Spirit proves in a man's life. If he's not impersonating something, if he's not trying to act like something, trying to act like something that he isn't, if he really is, God backs up His Word with the person.

To the woman that was once ill-famed, smoked cigarettes, drank, prostitute, if that woman claims that she met God and still in the same things, I doubt her word. If a man tells me that he met God, and “I don't believe there's any such a thing as divine healing,” I doubt his experience, because God can't lie about his own Word. If the Holy Spirit wrote the Word, when it comes in it'll say “amen” to every word God wrote. A man says he don't believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I doubt him ever meeting God. He might be called, he might be intellectual, he might be a great man, he might be an orator, intellectual, or an orator of some sort, but he's never met God. The Holy Spirit of God in a man will speak “amen” to every word God says. He can say, “I once did not believe in divine healing, but one day I met God; and from then, from that time it changed me. There was something come into me that transformed me and give an experience. I've never been able to forget it.” Nothing can meet God without being changed some way.

Oh, Judas met God. Yes. Once he was a man, walked around on the street, but after meeting God and becoming a betrayer, he become a devil. Many times we find that. You're not the same. But everything that comes into contact with God is changed.

Now listen. One day (Don't fail to get this!), O God, one day death come in contact with God. Death come in contact with God. The devil never could hardly believe that that was the Son of God, or God made manifest. He believed He was a man, just an ordinary man. He couldn't see that God having a Son. So you remember up on the mount that day when he met Him? He said, “If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread. If thou be [a little bit of doubt], let me see you perform a miracle, so I can believe you. If thou be.” So he had that if, if, if, until one day when he seen Him defeated, thought He was defeated. . . .

Here He was, spit all over His face, His face bleeding where they'd jerked handfuls of beard out, spit in His face, put a rag around His head, around His eyes, took a stick and hit Him on top of the head, and said, “Now, if You be a prophet, tell us who hit You. You could discern the thoughts of their heart, and You could tell the woman, 'Thy blood issue has stopped,' and all these things. Now, if You be a prophet, tell us who hit You.” See the devil's agents working there? Jesus never opened His mouth. He did what the Father said to do, and that was all.

And then they nailed Him up on the cross, and they said, “Now, if You be the Son of God, come down.” He could have done it, but it'd be listening to the devil. He could have done it.

But on His road up there, I'd imagine there was a decision when the devil looked down, death. And he said, “If that is right, then I'm ruined; but if it isn't right, I'll sting and I'll kill him yonder at the cross.” And at the conference in hell, the devil's angel was sent forth —the angel of death—and Jesus was going up Mount Calvary, dragging the cross behind Him. Oh, it looked like He was defeated.

It's so simple.

Catch this. Many times God's program is so simple that it goes all the way over the head of people. Look like. . . . If you can say, “Well, now, look like we could have a . . . do this or do that.” Don't look at it at all; just obey the Holy Spirit. No matter what He says, you do it. Here was God, manifested in flesh, going up Calvary, bleeding, blood dragging out behind Him over . . . the cross dragging out His footprints. God.

The devil said, “God couldn't do a thing like that. Well, look at there. How could God be manifested in him, defeated? Look at the mockery, spit on his face.”

Wonder if we as Christians could do that. Can you go the second mile? Can you turn the cheek the other side? That's the way to test Christianity. See how far you can go in love and fellowship and brotherhood. That's how you test Christianity. You can say, “From that time on I know I was changed,” when you can do that.

“Could that be God? Could that be God's Son going there? Jehovah made manifest in flesh, going up there with handfuls of beard pulled out of his face? Why, no one could stand that. Mockery, spit in his face. My agents smote him on the head, and said, 'Now, if you be a prophet, you've got some kind of a make-up work, you got some way, a hoax you put on the people? Now, if you be a real prophet, tell us who hit you and we'll believe you.' Aw, he couldn't be God.”

Here He goes on up. And when He gets up there on the cross, they nail Him to the cross. And the devil said, “I got him now.” After awhile weakness begin to set in from loss of blood. What was it? The bee of death was buzzing around Him, fixing to sting Him, that bee of death coming around Him and saying, “Oh, I doubt that. How could he be virgin-born? How could God dwell like that. . . ? Great Jehovah God who has all powers in heavens and earth let somebody spit in his face, and take him on like that? He couldn't be. I'll sock this stinger into him.”

Brother, he didn't know what he done. When he put his stinger into that flesh, it took his stinger out.

When a bee once stings deeply, it loses its stinger. A honeybee, insect that's got a stinger, when it stings, the flesh anchors and pulls the stinger out. And when death met God, death lost its stinger. Now death has no stinger. It can buzz and make a noise and say, “I'll take you, I'll kill you, I'll do this, that, or the other.” But it has no stinger. It lost it yonder at Calvary.

No wonder Paul could say when he was coming down to the end of the road, “O death, where is your stinger? O grave, where is your victory? But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” How that from that time, death has no stinger for the believer. Christ took the sting of death out for the believer. There's where He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace upon Him, with His stripes we were healed. From that time Satan was stripped of everything that he had. He's nothing but a bluff. Death is just a bluff; it has no stinger.

I've held the hands of saints, with them looking up toward heaven, say, “Oh, Brother Branham, can't you see Him standing there?” Sure, it has no stinger.

I held my own wife's hand when she looked into the glory and she said, “Billy, don't you never fail to preach this wonderful gospel. Oh, it's the most glorious thing.” She said, “I never desire to stay here any longer.” Twenty-two years old, leaving two children.

I said, “I'll meet you in the morning by the side of the gate, Honey.” I said, “As long as I live and God's grace helps me, I'll stay on the field preaching this gospel.” See, from that time I was a changed man— from that time.

You can meet God here right now and say from this time on, you can be a changed person. Do you believe that? And from that time. . . . Let it be here tonight. If you've never tasted of the waters of life, may you taste them now while we bow our heads just a moment for prayer.

Just before praying, I'd like to ask this question, if you'll be just quietly as you can be for a moment. How many in here can never point their finger to a spot where that you can say, “From that time I received the Holy Spirit and I was made a new person? I have never come to that sacred grounds, Brother Branham, where I can really be sure that I was born again.” Will you raise your hand, say, “Pray for me.” God bless you. God bless you, sir. God bless you, lady. God bless you, over here. Over here, God bless you, all around. Somewhere else? Over to my right now? Say, “Brother Branham, pray for me. I've never met that place, although I've gone to church. But I've never had that time to where I can say, 'From this time, from that time, it was always settled' ”

“Brother Branham, I've got an awful temper. I smoke, I drink [or something]. I just can't live true to my wife, my husband. I've got an awful habit. I have never met God in such a place that I could say, 'From that time all things of sin died.' I would like to. Will you pray for me?” Just raise your hand, and I'll certainly do it. God will include you. God bless you, lady. God bless you, sir. God bless you, down here. All right. Someone else just before prayer that hasn't raised their hand. God bless you, this Spanish brother. God bless you, this Spanish sister. Oh, my. That's it, friends.

Heavenly Father, they raised their hands; You know their hearts. I may never in this life be able to shake their hand, but sometime across the border yonder, it may be before morning, but sometime I'm going to have to meet them. And when I appear there, if it's by Thy mercy that I should stand with the redeemed, I'll either have to be a judge against these people or a judge for them, for the saints shall judge the earth. When all them in my generation that rises up from Phoenix in that day, if by Your grace I'll be there, then I'll have to say, “I was in Phoenix. I preached in your generation.”

“I never knew you,” Jesus said. “I never seen your hand go up, I never seen you offer one thing. You stayed from the meetings. You'd heard about it and you didn't come. I called you, and you refused to go.” O God, what more can I say, because the Holy Spirit is the true judge.

And then there be those, Lord, here tonight who has raised up their hands, and they say they've never had that experience, and they want to get a place to where they can say from this time, from this time they met God, and had an experience that's changed their lives.

Heavenly Father, grant it tonight that each one that raised their hands, that this very night will not pass until they fall upon that sacred sand where God will speak to them definitely, and so definitely, by the Holy Spirit, that all their sins and desires of sin shall pass away, all their habits shall go away and be no more. Grant it, Father, that they might say, “It was at a [years to come, if the world stands and Jesus tarries and they remain] . . . it was from that time at Madison Square Garden, on that night that I heard that message, from that time I was changed.” Grant it, Lord. I present them to You as trophies of the meeting in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

I don't even know whether there's room here for an altar call. Is there, brother? There certainly is. Anyone here that doesn't know the Saviour. . . . Now, I'm going to ask you to stay just about five more minutes. Is there anyone here that doesn't know Jesus Christ as your Saviour? You've got sin in your life that's beset you and you'd like to come here and accept Christ as your Saviour? Would you come now, as I ask you? I know you say, “Brother Branham. . . .”

Now give me your undivided attention just a moment. We'll be dismissing in a few moments, but don't leave right now while the Holy Spirit has a hold on the people.

From this time. Make it now, friend. I'm your brother. I don't come to Phoenix here just because there's no other place to go. I don't come to Phoenix for no other purpose but God's love in my heart, that I love you. And according to the Scriptures we'll have to stand at the day of judgment and be either a witness for you or a witness against you. And if I would be privileged to stand there as a minister (if God lets me in), and I stand there as a messenger of this day. . . . Remember the Bible said, “And the Queen of the south shall rise in the day of judgment and condemn this generation.” What're we going to do, when I've come to you. . . ?

You remember a few years ago when I come preaching to you? Many of you here remember it. You remember how the sick was healed and people was even brought back from the dead? That's right. I would just pray for people then, would take them by the hand. And the Lord . . . I wouldn't say nothing, but just wait and see what He'd say to be right. I told you there was coming a day, and that day would be when He would fulfill His ministry, fulfill His Word, and would say this, that “the works that I do shall you also.” He gave a sign, said, “As it was in the days of Sodom.” Now, watch. He told what they were doing in the days of Noah. You notice about Sodom, how He left that? That's for the spiritual mind to catch. Look, there was a modern Billy Graham—intellectual—went down into Sodom and preached the gospel and blinded the unbeliever. Is that right?

But now, there's always three classes. That's the unbeliever, make believer and the believer. That's in every meeting, every place, everywhere. That is the ungodly, the church natural (intellectual) and the church spiritual, called out. Now the word church means “called out.” These here, the intellectual, was called out of this. And these were called out of that, which is the bride. And this is the remnant of the woman's seed. If you got a spiritual mind, you can understand. You ministers especially, see, you can understand. I know you do.

Now, watch what sign was done. Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Sodom.” Now, there was three messengers come down for the three different classes of people. Two of them went down and preached the gospel in Sodom, and brought out that little group that would come out. But watch the messenger that stayed with the church spiritual—Abraham and his group. Listen closely. Don't forget it in the oncoming meetings. Now what taken place? This man that was sitting there talking to Abraham. . . . A man was sitting there eating the flesh of a calf, drinking the milk from a cow, and eating bread that Sarah had baked on the hearth. He said to Abraham, He said, “Abraham, where is your wife Sarah?” If He was a stranger, how did He know he had a wife, and how did He know her name was Sarah?

Now watch what the Scripture said. Abraham said, “She's in the tent behind you.” Sarah, back behind the little tents in the big tent, the flap closed down, no doubt.

He said, “Abraham, I'm going to visit you according to the time of life,” and what He was going to do. And Sarah, inside the tent behind the angel, laughed within herself. How many knows that's the Scripture? And what did this angel say? “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she laugh?”

Now, Jesus said that same thing would take place just at the closing of the Gentiles, for He did it Himself when He was here. It was did in the days of Sodom.

Now, watch. He never mentioned about the flood time, because it isn't going to be a flood. It's going to be fire this time. This world will be blowed to pieces after a while, maybe before morning, maybe before the year's out. Hydrogen powers will blow this thing to bits. It'll turn back to volcanic ashes again. It's true. That's exactly what the Scripture says. It won't come like that—them realms of gases up there—because it'll fall from above. Man destroys himself.

But the last message of the angel to the church is here. And it's so simple, it's gone plumb over the head of the church, and they've failed to see it. That's exactly.

My brother and sister, in Christ's name I persuade you. Don't let the hour pass. Don't sit when you raise your hands; rush to the altar. Do something, press in. Don't the Bible say there'd come a time when they were all slumbering and sleeping just before the coming of the Lord? People are unconcerned, just exactly like it was in the days of Sodom, just exactly like it was in the days of Noah—scoffers, funmakers.

The angel of the Lord is here. And the last sign that He promised to give the church is now appearing amongst the people, and they don't recognize it. How did that little old woman down there recognize. . . ? When Jesus . . . when Philip come to Him after he found Nathanael and come to Him, He said, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile.”

He said, “Rabbi, when did you know me?”

Said, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you.”

He said, “You're the Son of God.”

What did those Pharisees standing there. . . . Religious, good people, church members, fine people. They said in their hearts—in their hearts, not with their lips—they said, “This man is a spiritualist, a fortune-teller, Beelzebub. He does that by the prince of the devils, Beelzebub.”

Jesus perceived their thoughts. Is that right? He said, “You speak that against the Son of man, it'll be forgiven you [the atonement hadn't been made but . . . so many words, so that you'll understand it]. Some day the Holy Ghost will come.” (In this last days after two thousand years of teaching on it.) Said, “The Holy Ghost will come, and one word against it will never be forgiven in this world nor the world to come.” See that?

Watch that woman at the well when He said. . . . Watch Peter, ignorant, couldn't even sign his own name, ignorant and unlearned, the Bible said. And when Jesus saw him, He said, “Your name is Simon; you are the son of Jonas.” He fell at His feet, become the head of the church at Jerusalem—a ignorant and unlearned man—because he recognized the hour that he was living.

The Samaritan woman, when He said, “Go get your husband,” she said, “Well, I have no husband.”

Told her about her condition, and she said, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.” She honored it. Not the man; the message. She said, “I perceive you're a prophet. We know that the sign of the Messiah will be that.” Now, how many knows that's true? “When Messiah cometh He'll do these things, which is called the Christ. When He comes He'll do these things; but who are you?”

He said, “I am he that speaks to you.” And she was changed.

That same Jesus lives tonight. Do you believe that? How many in here believes that, raise up your hands. Just say, “I actually believe that.” God bless your hearts. Thank the Lord. O God, send mercy. Do you believe He's here now?

How many of you are sick or needy, raise your hands. Anybody that knows me, don't raise your hand. I don't want you to raise if you know me. Just people that knows that I don't know what your trouble is, raise your hands, knows that I don't know your trouble. All right. You that have a request, ask God.

Here it is. Now, many of you people think that it's mental telepathy. I tell it here at Phoenix so many times because you've had everything in the country start in on you here. Think it's somebody hand somebody a prayer card and by mental telepathy they transfer it. Oh, how far can a person get? Well, it's just that same spirit that lived back in them days. There's no prayer cards here. There's nothing here but the Holy Spirit. He's here.

Tonight, before we've ever had a healing service, before there's been a prayer card give out. . . . I don't say this (and God knows with my Bible in hand to Him), I don't say this to be smart, to be different, but for the kingdom of God's sake, that Phoenix might always remember that the message that I preach to them is the truth from God's Word. And God's Spirit is here to back up every word that I've said. If He does it, then I've told the truth.

A man getting up from a wheelchair—that could be mental healing. You know that. That could be mental healing. It'd be impossible (you talk of a miracle) for something to happen here, for the Holy Spirit to go among this people who I don't know and reveal something that they ought to do, or something about them. Why, it'd be a million times greater miracle. For we even know by doctor's records that many times hundreds of people that's been in wheelchairs for years get up and walk away, and things like that. Sure, mental healing. Christian Science has it. But when it comes to a real miracle, it goes over the head of people who are supposed to be spiritual.

Now, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I take every spirit in here under the power of the Holy Ghost. I challenge you tonight. I don't know how many trips I'll ever make to Phoenix. This may be it. I don't know. I may come a hundred times more. I hope so. But I may not live any longer. You may not live. There's been many that's gone since I was here the last time. If I come back next year, there'll still be some here tonight won't be here. I may not be here myself.

But God will always be. Let He who is the Holy Spirit prove now that I've said the truth. Now, be real reverent, if you will, for just a moment. Give me your undivided attention, but pray.

All I ask you to do is pray. I cannot say, “Let me have you.” I have to watch for the Holy Spirit. Now be real reverent. This is something, after preaching like this . . . and I haven't even been out praying, no more than just studying the Bible for the message. I believe God. He told me that.

I'll even turn my back to you if you want to see if it's. . . . Not me, now, I'm a man. But the promise of God, it's the age, it's the hour. Don't you fail to see it. Now, you brethren, I'm going to let the audience be behind me. The Bible said that the angel of the Lord had his back turned. Now you know that I'm telling you, it isn't me, I have nothing to do with it. It's the angel of the Lord. How many understand that? I'm a sinner saved by grace. But God has to work through somebody. Man is God's agent.

I see a man here talking to the deaf and dumb. Of course they realize and understand. I can see them, but I mean something that's a miracle. Not say, “That man's deaf and dumb,” or “The Lord says to me, 'There's somebody in here got kidney trouble.' ” Yes, but who is it? Who are they? Where did they come from? What caused it? How do they get well? That's it. We don't want psychology; we want truth. God's Bible is the truth.

May the God of heaven, who'll honor His Word, grant tonight that my hands will be free, the blood of no man upon me. I've told the truth, Lord, as far as I know it. You help me, that the people might know that the message is truth, through Jesus' name. O God, somewhere in this building, the unseen One, make Yourself known, Lord, if I can find grace in Your sight. Forgive me of all my trespasses, and use me tonight, Lord, if You want to bring this place and this elect out of this city tonight, that's come to the meeting that You might confirm it, Lord, to the truth that I have told the truth to them. Let it be known that You're Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, and Your power is the same, and You sent me for this purpose. I pray in Christ's name.

I just want you to pray. Now you may raise your heads.

This woman sitting here. I pray that God will let you see this. Can you see that light hanging over this woman sitting right here at the end? Right here at the end, a little heavy-set woman, got her hands up. I believe you raised your hand awhile ago that I know nothing about you, so if God can reveal to me what you're there for. . . . You might not want nothing. I cannot tell you. But if He'll reveal to me what you're there for, or something that's in your life, something that's in your heart, something that you've done, or something you ought not have done, would you believe me to be His servant, that it's His Spirit? Would you believe that, lady?

You know, with your hand up, I don't know nothing about you, as far as your life or things. You might have seen me, and I might have seen you, because I've been to Phoenix lots of times. But I don't know you. That's one thing I do not know. That's true. I don't know one thing about you. But if the Lord would reveal to me something, being that you've caught the Holy Spirit there. . . .

Now, this girl might say, “Show me.” I can't do it. It's her. It was the woman that touched His garment that He turned to. He said, “I do nothing until the Father shows me.” St. John 5:19.

But that light is hanging over the woman. I'm looking right at it. And if that light be the same light that followed the children of Israel. . . . When it was here on earth, it was made manifest in a body of flesh called the Son of God. That was Jehovah in the light. Jehovah was manifested, or tabernacled, in His Son, which was the creative Son, Jesus Christ. He said, “I come from God and I go to God.”

A little after that, Paul was on his road down (after His death, burial and resurrection), was on his road to Damascus and that same light blinded him. He said, “Who are you, Lord?”

He said, “I'm Jesus.”

Now, please, I ask you, don't move around. Please, don't. You broke that then. No matter how hard you try, preach, talk, beg, persuade, America is the worst place in the world to have a meeting at this time. I've went into Hottentot land where 500,000 sat to listen at the meeting, not even one move would come. This intellectual world, this United States, is doomed to hell as certain as I'm standing in this pulpit. There's not one hope for this nation. Mark it in your Bible, see if I'm right or wrong.

If I be God's prophet, He'll manifest it now. Who was that woman —somewhere? Was it this woman over there? All right. It's gone from me now, sister. I don't see it, but may He reveal it. Let not their sins be yours.

Yes, there it is again. The woman's praying for a condition. She has a condition in her body, she's had a surgery that was a gall bladder operation. And now she's . . . caused some kind of a condition. She's vomiting all . . . got a vomiting, kind of nervous condition in the stomach that's causing her to vomit. She's also praying for somebody else, and that's a man—a brother-in-law, I believe. That's right. And he's got stomach trouble, and he's shadowed all over, it's darkness. He's a sinner. That's what it is, he's a sinner. Those things are true. Is that right? All right. Do you believe now with all your heart? Then may you receive that which you've asked for. May you find it just the way that you've asked for it. God bless you.

How about someone else? Up in here somewhere, way back, anywhere you are, pray, somebody doesn't know me. You do this: you say, “Lord God, that man doesn't know me, or know nothing about me. Let it be known tonight. Let me know it, Lord. All the people that know me will know.” That's the way to do it. See if it's true. Just pray.

Your husband wants healing, too. Sitting right back there. Believe with all your heart, that growth will leave. That's true. I neither know you or your husband.

Here's a woman sitting right through here. She's kind of a middle-aged woman, sitting right out here looking at me, kind of graying. She's praying for a friend of hers. That friend has a bad cold. That is right, isn't it, lady? And they take care of like crippled children, or something like that. They pray . . . or, take care of. . . . Do you believe with all your heart they'll be healed? Do you? If you believe it, they'll receive it—if you will believe it.

The lady right back here has got an asthma—you're missing it! Went right over the top of that lady and turned black as it could be right over her because she never heeded to it. It turned right black and mucky, come over her like that. She's failed it. O Lord God, do something. Help! I pray, Lord. Give them something that'll shake them, Lord.

Here, there's a lady sitting right out here in the row, praying. She's got asthma, asthmatic condition. Her name's Mrs. Lake. Do you believe with all your heart? All right, Mrs. Lake, stand up on your feet. I don't know you, but go home and be well. Jesus Christ makes you well.

Don't get scared now. If He knowed Simon Peter, who he was, He knows who she is too. Do you believe? How about in this section back in here? Do you believe?

A lady sitting here looking at me. The light's over the woman. She's got a diabetic condition that's bothering her eyes. That's right. She's got something wrong with her shoulder. It was caused in an automobile accident. Mrs. Farris, that's your name isn't it? All right. Now you can go home and be well. Jesus Christ makes you well.

Do you believe? What about way back, way in the building? Here, this man sitting back there with the red jacket on, praying for your friend. Do you believe he'll get healed? You do? All right. Raise up your hand, you stand up for him then. Right back there on the right hand side. One, two, three, four persons down, with the red jacket, praying about your friend there. Believe with all your heart there. Raise up and accept the healing of your friend. Go home and find him well. Amen. Hallelujah! God is still God. Can you say, “From this time, this time”? Jesus Christ the Son of God is here among you people!

Now, will you with habits, you that's burdened down with something, will you come here and stand for a word of prayer while you know that the Holy Spirit is here? I did that for one thing: for the glory of God, that you who wants to be delivered from your troubles come down here and stand here. You that wants to know God as Your Saviour and wants to be filled with His Spirit, come down. “All the Father has given me will come to me,” said our Lord. “All that the Father has given me will come. But no man can come except my Father draws him. And all that He draws will come to me.”

I'm speaking in His stead tonight. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. You shall find rest to your soul.” Quit being flustrated and wondering about it. You'll never be any closer until you meet Him face to face, for remember, in the Bible thus saith the Holy Spirit, “He's in your midst.” How can you doubt? He's proved that His presence is here. Come all ye now that wants to find Him as your Saviour, want to find pardoning grace for your sins that you've committed. Yet you want to love Him, you want to do what's right, but never had the power to do it. Rise from your seat and come here now.

I call you in the name of Jesus Christ, knowing that the Holy Spirit's speaking in my heart that indifference and prejudice and everything exists amongst the people. Come, get that out of your soul right now. The canker will canker you. Love and sweetness is the only thing that God will recognize.

God bless you, ladies. These people standing here weeping like babies, that's what God loves. Come every soul by sin oppressed, there's mercy with the Lord.

Who can go from this building tonight and call God to any other sign that He ever promised that would be? Church member, lukewarm church member, that knows no more than “I've been a Methodist”—Baptist, or Pentecost or Presbyterian. You know God no more than that and never met Him on those sacred sands? If you don't know Him more than that, I call you to the altar. And remember, at the day of the judgment your blood's off my hands. You'll never meet God in peace, never go to heaven, until you're born of the Spirit of God with an experience that you know that something happened. And you might take some emotion, some intellectual conception, but you'll find that it fails when it comes to the end of the road. I mean the baptism of the Holy Spirit to meet God face to face. Then your life is changed, you're no more the same. Your life is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, faith, goodness, mercy. That's what's in your life.

While we sing slowly, once more so I'll be sure tonight. . . . We're going to start healing service. “Come Every Soul By Sin Oppressed,” my brother, if you'll chord it for us. There's mercy with the Lord. Just let the singer, now, come forth, if he will. Come every soul now by sin oppressed—the Holy Spirit giving an invitation to come, lovely, sweetly bow. You might have seen the sick healed, that's true. We've had that for years. We've had that all down through the ages, but never did you ever see this till this age. And this is the last sign that God promised to His church. As it was in the days of Sodom, before the fire. . . . How long was it before the fire fell, after that sign was done to the church spiritual? Remember, it wasn't to the church intellectual; church spiritual. All right, let us sing softly now, if you will.

Come every soul by sin oppressed,

(Won't you come now?)

. . .mercy with the Lord.

And He will surely give you rest

by trusting in His Word.

Only trust Him, only trust Him,

Only trust Him now.

He will save you, He will save you.

He will save you now.

Let some of the Christians now rise up. Ministers, come around these people who are standing here now, brethren. Christian believers, would you be interested, now, in helping pray with someone, that they might find the Lord Jesus dear to their soul? Move right up here close now and move around, everyone, now while we're singing. Let those who are Christians and interested in people getting saved, you'd like to come and join prayer with them, come now.

Only trust Him, only trust Him,

Only trust Him now.

He will save you, He will save you.

He will save you now.

Only trust Him, Only trust Him,

Only trust Him now.

He will save you, He will save you,

He will save you now.

Now, let's all bow our heads, if we will. Brother David duPlessis, would you come here just a moment? While you're around the altar, each one of you now, I want to give just a moment's instructions while the audience will be quiet just for a moment. I want each one of you to remember that God is here, promised Himself. Here He appears before us tonight, infallible proof that He's raised from the dead and is alive tonight in Phoenix, Arizona, in this Madison Square Gardens.

Listen to me, my poor friends. Listen to me, my brother, sister. He'll never be any more real till you see Him coming in glory. He promised this. And remember, He said, “As it was in the days of Sodom, before the fire fell, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.” Watch exactly. Now this is the church spiritual, although it's dying, you see that. And it's predicted to be that way. But it would receive its last message by the same sign that appeared at Sodom and Gomorrah. Do you understand?

That makes the Holy Spirit right here now, Jesus Christ, the resurrected one. Now, a gift that's sent to the church will never operate unless somebody is out there to operate it. Gifts are not operated by random. It's operated by the power of God. And the power of God in your life brings the power of the Lord to me, to speak through me and tell me those different things.

I know none of those people. Ask them. Whatever happens, I know nothing about it. There's no contact at all. I've just come in here tonight and sat down. Many of those people, wherever they was, would raise their hands right now.

Ever who was called, if you're still in here, ever who you was, and I didn't know you and you know I don't know a thing about what was said, would you raise up just to prove to the people that it's right? Ever who I was talk . . . ever who was called out. Somebody back in here was called out, wasn't it? Yeah, there's one, two, three, four, five—five, six. Six that I know standing right here still in the building that raises their hands that I don't know them, know nothing about them. As far as I ever know, never seen them in my life. But it just keeps revealing, speaking. That's exactly what Jesus said would take place in this day just before the fire fell.

Yonder it hangs in Russia to go up in the air to bring it down, judgment upon the nation. Another Nebuchadnezzar, another Babylon, fixing to take over the place, exactly what God predicted would do. For He put in the hearts of those people to bring revenge upon the earth to take the revenge of the blood of the saints that died. We are here. We're at the end time.

Friend, don't notice me, because I'm just a man. There's nothing to me, just a Christian. But it's the Holy Spirit that's here working to prove Hisself here. Remember, He's here. Now, you believe it with all your heart.

Tell Him right now that you believe that He's here, His presence has called you, and you want your sins forgiven, you want to be His servant. Be sincere about it, raise up your heart to God and believe it, and you'll go away from here tonight meeting God on sacred grounds, that you'll never be able to shake away from this. And you'll say from this time on, you met God.

Now, let's all bow our heads for prayer, and I'm going to ask my good Brother David duPlessis here to lead this audience in prayer, while we bow our heads.