Why?

Thank you, brother. Let us bow our heads now for prayer. Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee tonight for this assembling together again. Night after night in these revivals we assemble, and we've did this, Lord, year in and out. And sometime, we don't know when or where, but we know we'll have to assemble for the last time and we'll be called to answer. I pray, Father, that if there be some here tonight who does not know You as their Saviour, that this will be the night that they'll make preparations for when that call of summons to come on high, to stand at the judgment, may they be ready to go, all washed in Calvary.

Father, we pray for those who are sick and afflicted that's in the building tonight, and others outside. And here's some handkerchiefs laying here, and cloths, that's to go to the sick and afflicted. We do this because it is written in the Scripture that they taken from the body of St. Paul handkerchiefs and aprons and placed them on the sick. Evil spirits went out of the people and diseases left them. Now, we know that we're not St. Paul, but we know that You're still Jesus Christ, the one who healed the sick.

We're told one time in the Scripture when the children of Israel was following their commission, going straight in the line of duty, that the Red Sea got in the way of the line of duty of the children of God going to a promised land. God looked down through the pillar of fire, and the sea got scared and opened up a way, and they crossed over as on dry land.

Now, Lord, when these handkerchiefs which are going in the line of duty, going from here where the children of God are praying, when they're laid upon the sick may God not only look through the pillar of fire but through the blood of His own Son who was striped and wounded for our transgressions, with His stripes we were healed. May He look through that promise and that suffering yonder at Calvary, and every sickness and disease move back, that these people might move into the promise of God. “I would above all things,” said the apostle, “that you prosper in health.” Grant it, Father.

My brother down there standing by the organ that some lovely family let us have to play the music of God, they're wanting to present this to You, Lord, as a public service. And we pray, heavenly Father, that You will bless it and everywhere it is played, may it bring conviction. May the hands that plays it be filled with the Spirit, and may it play the songs of Zion. May it cause souls . . . may it never give an uncertain sound (as Paul said, “If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound. . . .”). But may it give that certain sound and the mercies and grace of God. Bless the ones who are presenting it, all who are praying, and to all may God have glory, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

Brother David, did you get through the snow all right? Called home a while ago and said there was twelve inches new in Indiana now. Let's just stay out here. That be a good idea? [Brother DuPlessis says, “I think the Lord was good to send us here at this time so we could escape all that.”] I think so too. He's good, isn't He? [Brother DuPlessis talks about Methodists seeking the fullness of the Holy Spirit.] Amen. That's very good. Well, I'll pinch hit for you again sometime. I'll try it again. Well, that's mighty fine.

How many ever read my little book called “Jesus Christ the Same Yesterday, Today and Forever”? Some of the old timers. I wrote it myself. It's a mess, but you just get it together and the Lord can reveal it to you. Did you notice in there that I seen a woman coming with a real . . . had been a white garment and it was all spotted all over, and across her brow was wrote “Miss Wesleyan Methodist.” And I said, “What's the matter with that beautiful garment all spotted up?” (As a vision.)

She said, “Well, I. . . .”

Said, “You Methodists oughtn't to have that like that.”

And said, “Well, I've been so busy.”

I said, “Yes, and so many societies, you've left off all the old prayer meetings and divine healing, the power of God that belonged to the Methodist Church.”

She said, “You talk like that, I'll go wake my husband.” And she went and got a spade and begin to dig up by a grave called John Wesley. And the vision left me. Some day the Methodist Church is going to have a revival, I believe. So, Brother David, that might be right in line.

One of the great men come just recently, was in a motel there at my place for several days. He was writing a thesis on divine healing for the Methodist Church. That's to go in the hold in all the organizations of the Methodist Church.

Now, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Now, Saturday morning is the Businessmen's breakfast. I guess they've already announced it and it will be, if the Lord willing. They'll tell you Friday night in full details, I guess, if it's all set up. As far as you know, Brother Williams, where was it? That's right, for Saturday morning breakfast.

Brother David DuPlessis—not just because he's sitting here. . . . But I've never heard him teaching, only on tape, because when we're close to one another we're together in a meeting. And so, Brother David, I've heard him on the tapes and things from Angelus Temple, and places where we've been. I think one of the greatest teachers that I know of on the message today, and he's having services out at Eleventh and Garfield each morning at ten o'clock, I think. And if you've never heard him teach, I sure would advise you to go out and hear him. The boys tell me on the records stand (I'll tell you how much it is), I think they sold (now I may be wrong on this) I would say ten of my tapes and ninety of his, so you know who it's going to, that's. . . . He's got a great ministry in teaching. So we'd appreciate you going out and hearing Brother David.

Now, tonight I wish you would turn in the Scriptures for just a short time in the book of Jeremiah, the eighth chapter, and let's read the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second verses of the eighth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.

Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

I'd like to take a subject and call it “Why?” You know, when God is so good to us to make a way for escape of danger and we do not accept that way, then God asks, “Why?” I think He has a right to ask why, for He's went to all His trouble to make this way for our good and place it before us, and then we turn right around and refuse it. He's got a right to ask us why? Why did we do it?

Instead, we'll try to make some way of our own. But men are prone to make his own way. He proved that in the Garden of Eden—he made hisself a fig-leaf apron. And man has always tried to project his own ideas with God's, and make God's idea come to his idea. But we're not to do that. We're to take God's provided way and ask no questions about it. Just go on and do it and live it the way God made it, for after all, He knows what's best.

One time Brother DuPlessis and I was talking—some time ago—about the leadings of the Holy Spirit, and he gave me a word that stuck with me, like something growed around me. He said, “Brother Branham, I've always found it this way, that if I will just let the Holy Spirit lead me, don't take any thought, if He leads me contrary to what I'm thinking, just let Him lead and be simple in it. Just follow the Holy Spirit and it always comes out right.”

Then I thought, “Brother DuPlessis, we are full-fledged brothers,” for that's just the way I like it. Let the Holy Spirit lead, because it's God's provided agent to lead us.

Now, God makes a way for escape, makes a way of salvation, makes a way for healing, all these things, and then we continue on. He asks “Why?” One time in the Bible there in the book of the Kings, there was a man who was king over Israel, and he was an evil man, son of Ahab. And his backgrounds had been evil to begin with.

And your life today will reflect in your children. You must remember that. A few days ago Demos Shakarian called me, and he said, “Brother Branham. . . .” We was talking about little Joseph, sitting in here somewhere tonight, my little son. Six years before he was born, I saw him in a vision. We had a little girl, and the baby had to be born cesarean on . . . because of the health of the wife. And so the doctor said that she could have no more children. Said it was finished. And then I said, “There'll be another one.”

He said, “It just can't be, Mr. Branham.” Said, “You're going to kill your wife.”

And I said, “But, doctor, the Lord promised me a son, and his name's going to be called Joseph.” A couple years after that we knew we was going to have a baby at our house, and some of them asked me, “Is that Joseph?”

I said, “I don't know.”

And when it was born it was a little girl, and now if they didn't razz me. They said, “You meant Josephine.”

And I said, “No, I meant Joseph.”

The doctor said, “Now, it's impossible for her to have another one.”

I said, “Oh, no, she'll have another one. She's going to have another baby and it's going to be Joseph.” And then four years later she was to be mother again, and they said, “Is this Joseph?”

I said, “I don't know, but Joseph is coming.”

So that morning the nurse came down and brought me. . . . Said, “Who is Reverend Branham?”

I said, “I am he.”

She said, “Reverend Branham, you have a fine seven-pound-three-ounce boy.”

I said, “Joseph, you've been a long time getting here, honey. Daddy's kind of glad to see you.

She said, “You called him Joseph.”

I said, “The Lord told me to call him that six years ago.”

Demos asked me, he said, “Brother Branham, does your children see visions?”

I said, “Joseph has already seen visions.” He seen, about six weeks before it happened, a neighbor boy fall on a motorcycle, and told us just how far he would skin hisself, what limb it would be. We thought the little fellow dreamed a dream, but he had not. And the boy fell at the spot he said, skinned his leg just the same way, just as perfect as it could be, and the child is three years old. See, it reflects.

Paul told Timothy to stir up the gift that was within him that come from his grandmother Lois. We find out that in the seventh chapter of Hebrews that Paul, speaking on tithe paying, that he said Levi, who had an order from God to receive tithing of his brethren, paid tithes, for he was yet in the loins of Abraham when he met Melchisedec, which was his great-great-grandfather. And it was accounted to him for paying tithing. Your life will impress your children and have . . . influence your children by the example you set before them. And I think it's a good thing that we put every effort we can before our children as godly parents. Make an example, be an example.

And this man had had a lukewarm father in the gospel, and a infidel or a heathen mother, and he couldn't be very much to begin with. And he become king by rights. And one day he was walking around and fell through the lattice in his house, off of the porch, down, and taken sick, and was going to die, he thought. So being an Israelite and king over Israel, he sent two of his trusted servants up to Ekron to find out and consult Beelzebub, the god up there, whether he was going to get well or not.

You see, even a man when he's in a condition like that, there's something in the human being that lets him know that there's something supernatural somewhere. There's somewhere he can touch. Now, he ought not have done that, but he thought no one would know about it but these two men. But somewhere out in a little adobe hut out there in the woods, God spoke to the prophet Elijah. He said, “Go up and stand in the road, and when these soldiers come by, ask them the question, 'Is there no God in Israel? Is there no prophet in Israel that you could consult, that you'd have to send up to Beelzebub?' ” What a reproach upon the nation!

And what a reproach it is upon the nation today to find out that people sometimes who call themselves Christians go to ouija boards, and spiritualist meetings, and all kinds of tommyrot like that, and fortunes, and telling fortunes and things like that, which is of the devil. Is it because there's no God in heaven? Is it because that He doesn't have prophets in His church? Is it because we don't have gifts and revelations and interpretations in the church to consult God? Why would we have to go to such a low degraded thing as that? God's going to ask us, “Why? Why?”

Now, it wasn't because there wasn't a God in Israel. It wasn't because He didn't have a prophet. But it was the king's own evil stubborn ways is what did it. And it isn't today, because the American people flock to séance meetings and devil-possessed things like that to consult for the future, it isn't because that we haven't got a church that's got God in it. It's their own stubborn ways. They don't want to associate with them kind of a people. That's the same thing that this king did not want to associate with Elijah, because Elijah always called out his sins.

Sometimes it's rough to serve God. There's only one thing to do—that's come to the hewing line, toe the line with God. Leave your own thoughts go, because God's going to ask for a reason for these things someday. And when we're asked to give a reason, then what are we going to answer?

Now, and then it was his own stubborn way that he didn't want to have any fellowship with this godly prophet. Yet he was an Israelite. He was in line to have the blessing of God upon him, and was under the blessing by his birthright as being an Israelite; but yet refused to accept God's way and went some other way. God's going to ask us at the day of judgment, “Why didn't you receive the Holy Ghost? Why wasn't you born of the Spirit? Why wasn't you this way and that way? Was it because we didn't have any church to teach it? Was it because there wasn't a preacher in the land that preached the baptism of the Holy Ghost? Why did you do these things?” When God's made a provision, and then people refuse to walk in it, then He's going to ask why.

Like a man dying on the doctor's doorstep because he won't take his medicine. The doctor has the prescription. He has the remedy for the disease the man's got, but he sits on the doctor's doorstep and refuses to take his medicine. Then he dies on his doorstep. It isn't because the doctor didn't have the prescription. It isn't because there was no medicine for his sickness. But it's because the man's own stubbornness to refuse to take the doctor's medicine, and he dies. So you cannot blame the medicine or the doctor, because both was there ready for service; but it was the man who refused.

And God's got the Holy Ghost tonight for every believer that wants to receive it. We got anointed preachers in the land that preaches it daily and nightly, but it's the people's own stubborn way that they love darkness better than light, that they'd rather live in the world than to walk in the gospel light. Oh, people, you don't know what a pleasure it is to walk in the light, the light of the Lord Jesus, have fellowship with Him! It's glory divine to have fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

Now, you cannot have fellowship with the world and with the Holy Spirit at the same time. You've got to abstain from the things of the world, live clean, honorable, upright, and holy. Then the Holy Spirit will dwell with you, and will work with you, and will perform miracles through you, and will heal you, give you joy, peace, and love, and long-suffering, goodness, gentleness, patience and faith, if you will walk in God's way. There's plenty of Holy Spirit.

I've often wondered why would people want to take a substitute for salvation when the skies are full of the real. Why would you eat out of the garbage can, when a nice clean table is set and ready for you? It shows there is mentally something wrong. I think that's what's the matter with the nation today. I think when a person will refuse to receive Christ, the Holy Spirit, in their hearts, to walk, let Him lead them like He did in the book of Acts, there's something wrong with that person mentally. I believe it.

Now, they say too much religion will make you go crazy. Too much of the wrong thing will make you go crazy, but the religion of Jesus Christ, if you are crazy it puts you in your right mind. You are not right until you are born again. You are not mentally right until you have been born again. A man is not in his right condition until he's born again. He's a beast at heart until he has been born of the Spirit of God and the spirit of nature is taken out of him, and the Spirit of God takes its place to rule. That leads him and guides him into all truth and life. That's right. And if a man does not do that, knowing without that he's hell bound, there is something wrong with his mind.

Why doesn't the people receive it? Why? We would put a rodeo in town, there'd be in this city of Phoenix here (I suppose half a million people or maybe more), I don't know the population, but one third or more of the crowd would come, and pay five dollars a ticket to get in, which is all right if you want to go. Then we could put some television star here with a rock-and-roll party, and I'd say nearly 50% of Phoenix would go.

And then we put a gospel meeting here where Jesus Christ comes in presence with us all, to bless us, and to show and prove to us by His Word that He's the resurrected Son of God, and we'll just get a handful out of the city.

But what is it? “No man can come to me except my Father draws him first.” I feel it's the cream of the crop, the elected. “My sheep hear my voice, and a stranger they don't follow.” Depends on what's on the inside of you, drawing you, moving you. It's the elect always that God speaks to and sends His message to.

Now, they're going to be asked someday, “Why? Why didn't you? Was it because there was no meeting in Phoenix? Was it because the Holy Spirit wasn't preached in Phoenix in this generation?” When it comes up to the judgment, why, we're going to have to stand there, every one of us. We'll stand there and give an account. And Phoenix is going to be left bare, because there's many, many churches in here preaching the gospel, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, praying for the sick.

Well, you say, “We've had a lot of. . . .” I don't care what you've had, surely you've got enough discernment to know what's right and wrong by the Word. See, watch the Word.

Now if the man laid on the doctor's doorstep, and died there because he refused to take the doctor's medicine. . . . Now, if there's no medicine in there, that's different. But if there's medicine there and a doctor who knows how to give it, then if the man dies with his disease it's not the doctor's fault, neither the medicine's fault. It's the man's own fault because he died. You don't have to.

Now, in medicine, sometimes . . . there was a time when there was no toxine for typhoid fever. There was no. . . . Just recently they got the Salk vaccine for the children, for the polio. There was a time they didn't have it. They got it now. There was a time there was no inoculation for typhoid fever, and tetanus and typhus shots. They didn't have it, but we got it now. And now, there was a time when the toxine of God wasn't too good. It was all right but it wasn't perfect. But it's changed now. It's perfect now.

Now, how do they find medicine? How do they find about a remedy, how to give medicine? The first thing, they take it into the laboratories, and begin to mix different chemicals together, and they come to an idea that this thing tested against a certain germ, that it kills the germ and leaves the good germ of life live. Sometimes it kills off—the antibiotic, and so forth—take off some of the good germs, the good and bad. But, usually it's tested to kill the bad germs for your body. And then there . . . next thing they do they get a guinea pig, and they inject this serum into the guinea pig to give him the disease, and see how it acts in the body of a guinea pig. If the guinea pig survives it, then they give it to you.

Now, all people, it won't work on all people, because sometimes they can give you, like a dose of penicillin, and it'll help one and kill the next one he gives it to. You have to take a chance on it when you're taking medicine because it's not perfect.

But I want to say tonight that the balm of God, the Holy Spirit, it isn't a hit and guess or hit and miss; it is perfect. It's good for all! It is a balm of God, balm of Gilead. It's there for every sick, sin-sick soul.

Now, they say today that number one killer in America is heart trouble. I differ with them. The number one killer in America today is sin—not heart trouble, but soul trouble. Inside of the heart, the soul that's in the heart, that's the number one enemy. We have so many people. . . .

I hear them say, “Brother Branham, I want to live right.” I've had young girls and young boys to tell me, and old people, “I want to live right but I just can't keep from drinking, I just can't keep from lusting, I just can't keep away from these places.” There's just one thing—you haven't tried the balm. When you take this balm of Gilead, God's balm, it'll inoculate you from all sin and things of the world. It puts such a love of God in your heart until the things of the world becomes dead to you. Certainly. It's the great balm of Gilead. It's the balm of God's healing balm.

You say, “I wish I could.” Well, you can! There's plenty of it. We got . . . the heavens is full of it. We got preachers across the land preaching it. We got people across the land being inoculated by it, and sin problem leaves them because they receive God's inoculation. The sinners, drunkards, gamblers, gangsters, bootleggers, prostitutes, all of them come to Calvary and are inoculated with the balm of God's glory and His power, and sin question is settled forever.

“He that heareth my words and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall never come to the judgment but has passed from death unto life,” because he's been inoculated with the Spirit of God that's killed the things of the world and made him a new creature in Christ Jesus—a new creation. He's inoculated. All the old things pass away. New life comes in, new desire comes in. And if you haven't got that, “except a man be born again, he will in nowise see the kingdom of God.” And then at the day of the judgment the world is going to be asked for a reason, “Why didn't you receive it?”

Just as the people are dying on the doctor's doorsteps, men and women today are dying in the church pews. Sinners come to the place, like borderline believers, men and women dying in the church pew, and going out in eternity to meet God without hope. It isn't because the gospel isn't preached, it isn't because that there isn't enough balm for them. It's because they refuse to take the balm, they refuse to take the doctor's medicine—the new birth.

As I said the other night, the new birth is a mess. I don't care where you go at, it's a mess. Any birth is. It's a mess, and the new birth is a mess. It makes you do things that you didn't think you would do.

I remember one time I was preaching in my Tabernacle years ago, and there was . . . I was Missionary Baptist. And the First Baptist Church downtown, the Sunday school teacher was up there, and standing on the outside. And I always did believe in holiness. I believe that a man, if he's born of the Spirit of God and led by the Holy Spirit, he'll live right. He has to, because the life of God's in him. And then this little fellow was their Sunday school teacher. We didn't believe . . . our church didn't have any baseball team. They did down there, because they'd bring them in playing Sunday baseball and things, and we didn't believe in it.

So this fellow said, “Billy, I was up to hear you the other night.”

I said, “Yes? I didn't see you.”

He said, “Oh, I come up, I stood outside.” Said, “Was a big crowd inside and I didn't want to stand in.” Said, “I stood outside.” But said, “I appreciated your message, but I just simply couldn't understand what you were saying because some woman raised up back there and started crying, run up there to the altar with her hands up, crying.” Said, “I didn't get the last part of your message.” Said, “And that woman started crying,” he said, “I just felt like . . . I almost froze to death.”

I said, “Brother, you better change a whole lot. If you ever get to heaven you will freeze to death up there, because there's going to be plenty of screaming and shouting up there.”

And he said, “Don't you think that's emotion?”

I said, “Sir, anything without emotion scientifically is dead.” And any church, or any person that's born of the Holy Spirit, that hasn't got a little emotion about them is dead.

Watch. When a baby's born, it doesn't cry, it doesn't whimper, it doesn't make a whine, what's the matter with that baby? It's born dead. That's what's the matter with church members tonight. A lot of church members, they're born dead. What does the doctor do to bring life to the little baby? Jerks him up by the heels and gives him a little protoplasm stimulation, right, as hard as he can spank him till he squalls out. What the church needs tonight is a good old-fashioned, God-sent spanking to it that'll call it back out again, shake life into it. That's what the church needs.

When the birth comes, there's crying comes, there's slobbers comes, and just a lot of things happen when the birth comes. But people don't want that. They think they're too classy, too stiff to receive it. And God's going to ask you why.

Person who will get a grammar school education, stick the hat on the side of their head, and put a fifty dollar coat around it, and walk out here thinking you're something, remember you was born just like anybody else was born. You had the same messy birth that anybody else had. Let me tell you, you're nothing anyhow to begin with. And then the only way you'll ever get out of that condition is to be reborn by the Spirit of God, and it does something to you that makes your head in above the eagles because you're reborn. And God's going to ask you, “Why didn't you receive it? What's the matter? What was the cause?”

Well, it's not going to be because you say, “I never heard it preached,” because you have. If you didn't go to a church, you heard it on the radio or sometime you seen it in the papers, or tracts on the streets. You've heard it. God's going to say “Why didn't you? Why? I made the way. I sent My man. I sent My apostles. I sent My prophets. I sent My Holy Spirit. I showed signs and wonders. I proved by these operations of these gifts, and by the preaching of the gospel through the Bible, that that was Me. Now why didn't you receive it?” There you are.

Reminds me like in . . . someone asked me the question the other night about Hebrews 10. “For they who willfully have sinned, willfully, and have to renew themselves unto repentance, why, there's nothing left for them but the fearful looking for the judgment. He that despised Moses' law died under two or three witnesses, how much sorer punishment supposed though worthy who has trod the blood of Jesus Christ under their feet, and counted it an unholy thing, and done despite to the works of grace.”

I said, “You read over in Deuteronomy 14, where that those spies, Israelites, went with Caleb and Joshua right up to the border-land, and they tasted the grapes that come from the land, but when they went back they were unbelieving and cowards. Said, 'Oh, we can't take it, it's too much for us. Oh, they look like grasshoppers . . . we do, up beside of them. The cities are all walled in. We cannot take it.' But Caleb stilled them, and Joshua said, 'We can take it. We're more than able. Yet we be in the minority, but we can take it.' Why? Those spies was looking at conditions, what the price they'd have to pay, but Caleb and Joshua was looking at a promise of God. God said, 'I have given you that land! Go possess it!' ”

Glory!

The Holy Ghost is for whosoever is called to this wedding supper. I don't care what price you have to pay, go get it! God said it's yours. If you don't get it, then He's going to ask you why didn't you get it. Why? It was there for you. If they didn't possess the land, why? “There was too many against us,” they said.

Well, God said, “If I'm for you, who can be against you?” It's there, what's the matter? There's something wrong with the individual.

Now, watch. He said, many. . . .

You take a young minister feels a call of God in his heart. He'll repent of his sins, go off to school and get his education, which is fine. He'll come back and he still smokes cigarettes, maybe. Maybe he's still got a lustful spirit. And he'll say, “I don't want that, Lord. Take it away from me.”

The Spirit of God will come and sanctify his soul and take that desire away from him. Then he'll be brought right up to the borderline, sit right in the meetings and watch the working of the Holy Spirit, see others get healed, hear them speak with tongues, and see signs and wonders done. They'll sit around and watch it, but afraid to put their hand on it. That's that borderline believer. That's the fellow, if ever turns away, there's no more remission for him.

Stand right up here and even look over into the land—“who has received a knowledge of the truth.” Had a knowledge of the truth, knowed that that was right, but because of prestige. . . . “Oh, if I do this, it'll do this, and if I accept that, it'll do this.” See, they refuse it, walk away from it. And He said, “And count the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified. . . .” That far, to bring him up on the step to look over into it, and have a knowledge of it. He was saved and sanctified, but comes up here to look over to receive the Holy Ghost, that new birth, he wants nothing to do with it.

He'll say, “Oh, I guess that's all right for them kind of people, but me. . . . Oh, it's all right, but. . . . I will some day.” Now, there's the trouble. That man is sick and don't want to take the doctor's medicine.

Oh, my, it reminds me of Mama used to give us castor oil. We was raised out in the country, and had to take meat skins and boil them, out in an old . . . render them out in an old dishpan, and make the bread with it, and have cornbread and black-eyed peas. I don't know whether you all know what that is or not. How many Southerners are in here has eat that? Turnip greens? Oh, my goodness, if I had a straw tick tonight to sleep on, I'd feel at home, then. Notice, and they'd take and make that. And every Saturday night us little kids all had to take a bath. About eight or nine of them little Branhams standing up. And I was the oldest one, so I got the last bath, but same water the first one had it. Just pour a little more in out of the old teakettle in the old wooden tub.

And then every one of us going to school had to take a dose of castor oil so we'd feel all right for school Monday morning, our systems all . . . that food we had to eat. And I got . . . I can't stand the smell of the stuff yet. And every time I'd come, I'd hold my nose. I'd say, “Mama. . . .” I was the oldest, I had to take it first. I'd say, “Oh, Mama, it just gags me, I just can't do it.”

And she'd say, “If it doesn't make you sick it doesn't do you any good.”

That's the same way with preaching the gospel. If it doesn't stir you up to make you sick enough. . . . It'll do you good. It's the doctor's prescription. It's what the doctor ordered. Hold your nose and take it, that's the best thing. It'll take starch out of you. It'll do that. It'll wilt you down. It'll make you do things that you didn't think you would do. It might make you a little messy, but it'll certainly straighten you out. That's right.

Oh, if a person, how will you give an answer to God when He asks, “Why didn't you do it? Why didn't you receive it?” I imagine, to see the virgin Mary—to some of you Catholic people—it was kind of a bitter dose for her after giving birth to the Son of God; but yet before she could ever go into heaven she had to climb that little old outside ladder that led up into the upper room, and stay there until she was so full of the Holy Ghost till she staggered like she was drunk. And if God made Mary do that before she went in, how are you going in anything less than that?

God's going to say, “Why didn't you?” Going to be asked to give a reason, “Why didn't you?” Think of that. But God's going to ask why and you've got to give a reason why. What you going to say about it? Why? Why didn't you do it?

The doctor leave you medicine, say, “Why didn't you take it?” The next thing your fever's high. “Why didn't you take it? Why didn't you? How can I doctor you unless you take my medicine?” How can God save you unless you take His medicine? How can He heal you unless you take the medicine?

As I said, heart trouble's not number one—sin trouble. And what is sin? Sin is not smoking cigarettes, sin is not committing adultery, sin is not drinking, swearing. That's the attributes of sin. There's only one sin, that's unbelief. Any man, if he lives as holy and pious and as good as he can be, and yet say that the days of miracles is past, and deny the Scripture saying “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” that man is a sinner because he is an unbeliever.

Them Pharisees were just as holy as they could be. The traditions of the elders they kept. Clean, upright, swell, fine educated; and Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil.” He was the Messiah. He was the one that showed forth the power of the living God, and fulfilled the Scriptures that was spoke of Him. And then they were asked, “Why?” Because their elders said . . . their elders said. But Jesus had fulfilled the Scriptures.

So will it be some day when they are asked why didn't they receive the Holy Ghost. The church is here, the preachers are here, the power of God is here, Christ is here. The signs and wonders that He promised in the last day is here, and we're going to be asked, “Why didn't you receive the Holy Ghost?

Why?“ God made a way. Then why don't you receive it?

Now you could kind of straighten this medicine proposition out. You can kind of wonder about that, because it helps some and kills some. It's not too accurate, because every person's body is not like a guinea pig, and we all are different one from another. I want to get on that this week if I could, how that one tries to impersonate another. You can never do that. God never made two people alike. You just go the way the Holy Spirit leads you. We might take the millions that's in the world, and no two of them has got the same thumbprint. Right. God made them different. He's a God of variety. He made them different. Don't try to impersonate the next fellow. You do what God tells you to do and stay with it, because there's no one in heaven or in earth can take your place. God made you for a purpose, stay with that.

Now, we find out that this medicine, when they inoculate this guinea pig, that was a animal. They inoculate, and then they give this serum to a human being. It's not too sure. That inoculation might not work on you. But I'll say one thing—God's inoculation will work on you. It's perfect. Why? There was a sample of it given forth until the real serum come, by the blood of bulls and of goats and sheep, and so forth. It wasn't too much, because it was animals.

But one day the holiest thing of heaven come, the Son of God. He wasn't Jew nor He wasn't Gentile. He was God, neither Jew nor Gentile. So your race lines can't mean nothing.

We all know that the bloodstream comes from the male sex. The germ of life comes through the male. And in this case Mary had the egg but the germ, the blood cell, came from God, the Creator, who made it. So you can't say Jesus was a Jew. He wasn't, He was God. So then God, the great Holy Spirit, overshadowed the virgin and created a blood cell, not with any sex desire to it at all, but holy. And that cell formed in there and brought forth the Son of God. And through that virgin birth, and that vicarious suffering and death at Calvary, through the shed blood, brings forth a sanctified church to fill it with the Spirit that created it. Amen. That's it! That's the gospel. You're going to call me holy roller anyhow so you might as well get started now. That's right. Oh, nothing but the blood of Jesus!

Oh, precious is that flow

That makes me white as snow.

No other fount I know,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. (That's it!)

What can wash away my sins?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh, precious is that flow.

What healed me? The blood of Jesus. What saved me? The blood of Jesus. That's all my hope and theme. That's all my cry, that's all my plea, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Now, that's God's application. It makes you a different person. You're born anew.

Now, when God got ready to try His toxine, His balm. . . . Balm is the . . . He said, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Then why, why is the daughter of my people not recovered from her sickness? Why is she still in this condition? Is there no balm, is there no physician, no one to help her, no one to tell her the truth, no one to give her the right medicine? Why is she sick like this?”

I wonder what God's going to say at the day of the judgment if we keep separating ourselves from one another? What's the matter with the balm? What's the matter with the power of God, with Jesus Christ? He said, “. . . this will all men know you're my disciples when you have love one for the other.” What are we going to do with that? Is there no balm here? Is there . . . is there, what's the matter with us? Why? Why is the church still sick? Not because there's not enough balm to draw us together. It's not because there isn't a physician, the Holy Spirit. But what it is, is because that we willfully reject it, that's the reason.

Now notice again, when that balm was (balm, I call it toxine) . . . when that toxine was tested, God never give it to a guinea pig. He gave it to His Son, to Jesus Christ at the bank of the Jordan. Down through life it held. And a few minutes, a few days after God gave the toxine in His own Son, in His own flesh, God made flesh and dwelt among us. . . . Some people call Him Jesus, just a philosopher, just an ordinary man, just a prophet. He was more than a philosopher, He was more than a prophet, He was more than a man. He was God manifested in flesh, virgin-born. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit overshadowed Mary, brought forth a tabernacle, a man's body, which was the Son of God that God dwelt in, reconciling the world to Himself. He looked like God, He acted like God, He spoke like God, He healed like God, He was God made manifest in the flesh. He was more than a man, He was God manifested in the flesh.

And that death tried to anchor its stinger in that flesh there, he found out then that there was something different from anything else he'd ever stung. He could sting a prophet, and he'd die. He stung a prophet and then he'd sting another one. But when he stung that Son of God there, it anchored that stinger and pulled it out of him. Today death doesn't have any sting because the flesh of God caught the stinger and pulled it out of him.

The devil didn't know that was Him. All the time He said, “If you're the Son of God, do this. If you're the Son of God, do this.” Put a rag around His face. . . . And He seen them visions and so forth. The devil had his agent put a rag around His face like that, and hit Him on the head, and said, “Now, if you are the Son of God, tell us who hit you.” See, Jesus kept that to Himself. But He wanted that devil to anchor that stinger, and then He'd take the stinger out of him. Oh, but when he stung Him there at Calvary, he hasn't got any stinger no more. He can buzz and hum and make a lot of noise, but his stinger is yonder. Hallelujah! It's anchored in Calvary. No wonder that Paul could say, “Oh, death, where is your sting, grave where is your victory? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh, my!

When God got ready to try His toxine, He inoculated His own Son. When they jerked a handful of beard out of His face and spit right in His face, He turned the other cheek to them. I wonder if we've been inoculated like that. When the devil tested Him, said, “Say, you're a miracle performer, let me see you heal this one here. Let me see you do this.”

What would we do if we had the power? We'd turn around, probably do it and say, “See, I told you I could do it.” But He was inoculated. It held. He done only what the Father told Him to do. If we had that much power given unto us, I wonder if we wouldn't put our thumbs in our vest and say, “Now, you understand here, you see, all you people, you have to come over to my denomination, because I'm the one's got it,” see.

What about Him? He was inoculated. What did He say? “I can do nothing until the Father shows me. Verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing in himself, but what he sees the Father doing: that doeth the Son.” The inoculation held.

When He went to Calvary it held. When He went to death, it held. God proved that inoculation would keep you from sin. Not only that, but on Easter morning, blessed be the name of the Lord, the inoculation held. After He was dead three days and His body in the grave, the inoculation held. He rose from the grave on Easter morning by that inoculation. All the people began to look around and say, “That inoculation looks good to me,” the real believer.

So He said, “I tell you what we're going to do.”

We find out there was one coming from Emmaus, two of them on the road. A man walked out, walked along, talked with them all day, sat down, acted like He was going on by. And He done something just like He did before His crucifixion, before His death. They knew that that was the Lord that had raised. “Oh,” said, “did not our hearts burn within us as we talked to him along the road? We find Him doing things just like He did before His resurrection, before He had died, rather. We find after His resurrection that He performed and did just like He did afterwards. They knew that was the resurrection and life. He is the only one, the only one!

There's no church, there's no minister, there's no prophet, there's no nothing that's got eternal life but Jesus Christ, and He's the sole giver of eternal life. “No man can come to the Father except by me,” said Jesus. Amen.

How you going to meet Him on church creeds? How you going to meet Him on denominations? How you going to meet Him on handshakes and sprinkles? You know better than that. You've got to be born again! “Come to me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” No other one. Then we're going to be asked why.

Then a hundred and twenty of them became candidates for this. He took a hundred and twenty little cowardly Jews, after they'd seen all this go by. They'd seen His miracles, they'd seen the inoculation holding on Him. They seen it when He was railed upon, He railed not again. They seen His sweetness and meekness. They seen His power to heal. They seen His power to raise up from the grave. And in all that they were still cowards. The serum was there but they had not received it as yet. They went upstairs and shut theirself in the room by a little candle, oil candle burning up there, there for ten days and nights waiting for the doctor to come. Oh! All of a sudden they heard the sound as a rushing mighty wind. Here come the inoculation and He inoculated a hundred and twenty. Brother, they went into a fit nearly when He inoculated them. What happened? All kinds of shines, they jumped and danced and spoke in tongues and run through the streets; but they was inoculated.

That's what they're afraid of. They're afraid of the serum. It'll make you act funny, but, oh, my, what a feeling, what a safety to you when you're inoculated! “Except a man be born again he cannot even see the kingdom of God.”

Men don't understand it. You'll think the people are crazy till you get into it one time. Did you ever see a fellow drunk on opium? Why, he can get on opium, smoke an opium pipe. I don't care how sick he is or what about it, oh, the whole world is just his, that's all. Now, that's of the world, the doctor's opium. But God has an opium. Where do you get opium? From the lily. He was the lily of the valley, and at Calvary they crushed the opium out of Him. Now, you can get inoculation, and every day's Sunday. Oh, these are not drunk on new wine . . . they're not drunk on strong drink, but they're drunk upon this new wine—the power of God, the Holy Spirit poured out upon them from on high! There's the way. You say, “But, Brother Branham, that was for them people back there.”

Oh no, no, no, no. The people there said, “Men and brethren, how do we get inoculated?”

Now, they had a doctor in the bunch. Did you know that? Doctor Simon Peter. Yes, sir. “Oh,” he said, “there's plenty of balm here. I'm the physician right now.”

“Give me your prescription. What must we do to be saved?”

He said, “Repent, every one of you, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise, the prescription, is good for you and for your children, and for them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call to be inoculated.”

I tried his prescription, you can try his prescription. Repent and be baptized, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and see if the Holy Ghost don't come into you.

How long will this prescription. . . ? Don't you never go to writing out any man's theory. If you do, you're going to get in trouble, you'll still be in sin. But you take His theory, His prescription, the promise. Now, they say, “Oh, that old prescription was for a long time ago.”

Oh, no. Doctor Simon Peter, Jesus' physician that He sent, He said, “I give you the keys to the kingdom. I'll give you the . . . I'll give you the bowl to stir it up in, and you just mix a little repentance and water baptism and all these things together, and mix it all up together. Find out. Take a big dose of it and find out what comes out.”

Oh my, the first thing you know. . . . You talk about new wine. When you drink that, something will happen to you! Oh, they went forth everywhere preaching, the Lord working with them, confirming the Word with signs following. Oh, how glorious it is to know!

God's going to ask on the day of the judgment, “Why didn't you take the prescription?” It's wrote here in the Bible, here is the reason, here's the Holy Ghost.

Say, “Well, Lord, I thought it was. . . .”

“My physician told you that it was for you and for your children and for them that was far off, even as many as got sick. Even as many as got sick, the healing balm is for them.” There is a balm in Gilead for the sin-sick soul.

Listen, friends. We're scattered about. You'll join the Assemblies, then you'll join the Oneness, and then you'll join the Church of God, and then you'll go to the Independents, then to the Methodists, back to the Baptists. Back again around, and around, and around, packing you a letter. Forget it. The thing you need is inoculation. Then it don't make any difference what church you're in, you're inoculated. You're born into the church of the living God.

The Pentecostal has a lot of scavengers. That's exactly right. They all do. Jesus had one out of twelve, so we won't do as good as He did, I'm sure. Sure, we got them—impersonators, actors, trying to act like something they haven't got. Just the same there's some that's got it. Right. If you see a counterfeit dollar, it shows it was made off of a real one.

Search the Scriptures, friends.

Join the church ain't enough. Now, joining a church is fine. I believe that every person should join the church. I absolutely believe that every person should stand at their post of duty. When their pastor's there preaching, or evangelist or something, I think they ought to stand at their post of duty. They ought to support that church with everything they got in them: with their tithes, with their offerings, with anything that they're called on to do, be willing and happy. If your pastor asks you to do something in your church, you should do it. That's good; but don't let that just be the only thing. Get inoculated first. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Get the Holy Spirit first, then the rest of it comes on all right. Then you go get into whatever you wish to, whatever church of your choice.

Now, this Bible has the treasures. This Bible said that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Peter said, “The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Jesus said, “The works that I do shall you do also.” Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man,” a ministry working through human flesh like you. You and I together will do the same thing. Just before the coming of Christ, this will be taking place. All the prophets spoke of it. The Scriptures lay to it and everything.

Don't stand off from it and say, “Well, I wonder.” Take the Bible. Jesus said, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they that testify of me.” That's how you're going to know. Search the Scriptures. Is the Holy Ghost for you? Is the Holy Ghost for these people? Is the Holy Ghost for this generation? The Bible said it was. Is this the generation that the signs of the believers was to follow? Search the Scriptures. It said it would be so. Both former and latter rain would be poured out in this generation. What generation? The one that sees the fig tree putting forth its buds yonder, Israel returning to be a nation. When all these things are taking place, then these things will be taking place in the church. Here they are.

Oh, you've got it, friends, and don't know it. You've got the opportunity, you've heard it preached. How many in here will be honest with me and say, “Brother Branham, I never did receive the Holy Ghost yet.” Raise up your hands, be honest. Just raise up your hand, say, “I haven't received the Holy Ghost.” God bless you, lady, that's . . . God bless you, that's good. God bless you that's . . . God bless you, that's sincere. You know you haven't received the Holy Ghost yet. Well, you can, for the promise is unto you. You say “But Brother Branham, I'm a Presbyterian.” I don't care what you are like that. You're a creature that Christ died for and the promise is to every generation and to every person. “Whosoever will come let him. . . .” [blank spot on tape]

. . . and I believe she had sold her house, and she had sold all she had, and all of her goods, and she was on starvation. And so the county come up to investigate the case. She wasn't old enough yet to draw the old age pension, so they just come up to investigate the case, and they said, “Well, lady, don't you have any relatives?”

She said, “Yes, I have one of the most precious boys.”

“Oh,” said, “where is he at?”

Said, “He's in India.”

“Oh, over in India. What does he do over there?”

Said, “He's a businessman.”

“A businessman in India.”

Said, “Yes.”

Said, “He's a darling boy.” Said, “He's a businessman.”

And said, “Does he never send you any help?”

Said, “No, he doesn't.”

Said, “Don't you ever hear from him?”

Said, “I hear from him all the time.” And said, “He sends me the prettiest pictures I ever seen, but,” said, “he never sends me any money.” And said, “That poor darling boy must be just so much burdened that he just don't know how . . . he can't send me nothing because he's so burdened with his business. And yet he's such a sweet boy. He tells me that he's just prospering, and how good everything is going on.” And said, “But I know because he don't send me any money, he can't afford to do it, but he sends me some of the prettiest pictures.”

And the man said to her, “Well, lady, what kind of pictures are they?”

She said, “Oh, I haven't lost a one of them. I've got every one of them.” Said, “I keep them in my Bible.”

And she went over and pulled out of the Bible about a hundred thousand dollars worth of Indian drafts from the bank. She didn't know what they were. They had pretty pictures on them. But she didn't know what they were. She was a rich woman and didn't know it. She found her treasures in the Bible.

And, brother, let me tell you something tonight. That woman had stuff to eat, clothes to wear, she was rich and didn't know it, and tonight you are rich and don't know it. In the Bible here may be hid from your eyes that God has wrote promises here that will make you rich in spirit, rich in life. Oh, it'll do things for you that you didn't think would ever be done. Now, they're in here. Why not look them up and claim them? They're yours.

Every promise in the Book is mine.

Every chapter, every verse, every line.

I am trusting in His love divine,

For every promise in the Book is mine.

“Whosoever will, let him come and drink from the fountains of the waters of life freely.”

Then we're going to be asked for a reason, what then? You've heard the old song, “What then, what then?” When the last is opened what then? When the ones that reject the message will be asked to give a reason, what then?

Someday the trumpet will sound for its last time. The Bible will lay closed on the pulpit, the mimic will make his last act, the sun will be setting in the west, and the arms will be stacked for the last time, and then we'll be asked to give a reason for what we have done with these treasures that's been sent to us. It's a book of treasures. Let us bow our heads while we think of it.

Our heavenly Father, the riches of God is sent to us by a letter, a message of the Bible, that the Holy Spirit was ordained of God our Father, through the blood of His Son, Jesus, to bring us this message. He is the true witness of Christ, for it is written, “When He, the Holy Ghost, is come, He will bring these things to your remembrance,” that in here . . . reminds you that you've got treasures and riches untold in the pages of this Book. Not only that, but He'll show you things to come.

And the works that Christ did, He said the Holy Spirit would do it in us. We're so happy to know these things are true. Now, You said, and it's been written in the Bible, “As many as believed on Him, to them gave He the power to become sons and daughters of God.”

Now, I pray tonight, Father, that You'll give power to these people who has not received the Holy Spirit, or those here that might not even be saved, to this night accept the message that's in the Bible. As Peter said at the day of Pentecost, “The promise is to you and to your children.”

The prescription—I made it that way, Father—the prescription would be good for each generation, that everyone would have a right to receive it. Now, Father God, I pray that Your grace and Your mercy will bring to pass and manifest this Word. May each of these people receive what they have come for tonight. May there not be one person go out of here but what will be made whole of their sickness, their disease of the sin of their soul, of their unbelief, of their superstition; return to their church to be a better member of that church than they ever was, that they too might scatter light that there is eternal life through the name of Jesus Christ. Grant it, Father. Amen.

[A sister gives a message in tongues. Someone else interprets.] Now that message just then going was for a certain person. It wasn't speaking to the church as a whole, it went to a person. Just somebody, you'll feel it, you'll know.

The Holy Spirit is present.

Now, I appreciate you people and how that some of you come up under good training. I have noticed many times when the Holy Spirit would give a message, sometimes people knows. . . . You feel so good, and a message on your heart, but see how orderly that's been each night? See, they never interrupt the message, because if the message on the platform is anointed, let them hold their peace. Now, the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets, see. And then after the message is over, did you see the Spirit speak and give the interpretation? See, it's just exactly scriptural and in order. That's the way the Holy Spirit granted it to be.

Now, somebody in here feels the effect of that message.

Now, while you're waiting just a moment, while I . . . see, there's no. . . . I know it's right, and I do believe in altar calls, people come up and confessing, and so forth like that, but in the Scripture it was as many as believed on Him. See, as many as believed. It might be somebody in here that's been halfway seeking the Holy Spirit, running around, or some sinner that doesn't know God, and just maybe went and made three or four trials and didn't . . . just kind of unconcerned. That message is sinking right down in their heart right now, ever who it is. This would be the hour for you.

Now, the Holy Spirit giving these messages, doing the works, doing the things that God ordained to be done. Now, how many in here is sick and needy? Raise your hand, say, “I'm needy. Raise up my hands to God, I want to be healed physically of my sickness.” All right. The Lord bless.

Now, that you might know now . . . I don't feel it here tonight, but many times I have felt it, where people think you're reading their mind. Mind-reading. You look at somebody on the platform and talk to them, see. But anybody who knows one principle of mind-reading knows that that's wrong. Anybody that knows psychology knows that's wrong, see. Now, remember, them two spirits is so close together till it'd deceive the very elect. “As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses. . . .” That's superstition perceptions, now, but you find out we got a lot of things going on in the world today under the name. But you see no one can ever take the picture of a spook. It isn't there, see. But the angel of the Lord, they've got the picture of it. You've got it here. Many many times, time after time. And the things that God does is lasting, see, that you might know the Spirit of God.

Now, the Bible said. . . . Now, let's see, “As the days of Sodom.” Let's hold on that. Usually it's “touch His garment.” Let's think this. Lord, tonight, for the sick people, let's take it was the days of Sodom. The angel of God that was in that flesh gave a sign to Abraham that the time was at hand that Sodom, the world, was going to be destroyed. How many remembers the story? Sure you do, in Genesis. Now, Jesus, over in the New Testament, said just before the end time, the coming of the Son of man, that same thing would reoccur. “As it was at Sodom, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man.”

Now, I want you sick people out there. . . .

Now, I do know there's somebody sitting here tonight that I know. That's Brother Williams sitting right here, and these three fellows sitting right here. I know them, these three men from Arkansas and right in here, these three men. Outside of that, Brother Gene Goad, sitting here, which him and Brother Leo are my associates. But out in there, as far as I can see. . . . It's hard (any of these ministers'll tell you that), to even recognize anybody out in there, see, from here. But let's pray, and let's just ask the Lord if He'll help us, and let His mercy be upon us.

Now, the prayer cards, we don't have any of them, because we've taken them up, and they don't . . . we don't . . . haven't given them out. And Friday night is going to be the prayer line again for every one. We're going to give out a whole group of prayer cards, anybody that wants them, bring them right across the line like we did the other night, see. Therefore we get everybody prayed for. But, now, you don't need that prayer card. You don't need it. The only thing you need to do is have faith that I've told you the truth.

God, when He said. . . . At Samaria, when this woman received this sign, what they going to do if they didn't believe it? What the Jews going to do, when Nathanael said, “You're the Son of God, the King of Israel.”?

He said, “Because I told you where you were at, or told Peter who he was, and so forth, you believe? Then you'll see greater things than this.” And you people who'll believe His message and His Spirit today will see a greater thing, because you'll see a resurrection someday, and we'll see the Lord Jesus.

Now, I'm going to turn my back to you while you pray. I'm going to talk to Brother DuPlessis. I just want. . . . You had a nice meeting up there, Brother DuPlessis. Brother MacNally sitting back here, old friend. You, as ministers, I wish to say. . . . All right, now, you watch.

Somebody in this audience is coming in contact with the Holy Spirit, behind me, back in here. That you might know. . . . Now, I want every sick person to be praying, every one of you sick, praying. Now, I feel in my own makeup that the Holy Spirit, somebody is touching Him. Yeah, there's plenty of them now.

There's a woman sitting in this direction right here over here that's just contacted the Holy Spirit. She's suffering with a heart trouble. She's sitting right down there. She's having trouble with taking salt in her food and things. You believe with all your heart, lady. Stand up. That's true, isn't it? Now, it's all over now, you can go home and be well. Tell me what she touched. What did she touch? The Holy Spirit. You believe now? “If thou canst believe. . . .”

Now, I turn my back again to the audience. You pray. You see, people, you don't have to be looking. Standing here now I see a woman. She's praying. She is wearing glasses and she's praying for her eyes. Yes, because they're getting dim. Here she is sitting right here, right back in here with glasses on. She's been healed once before in my meetings. That's right. That is right. Now, that's true, what you was praying about. All right. Now, you go home, believe with all your heart, and be made well.

Now, I look in this direction. There's a man sitting here praying, but it isn't that man. There's another man, standing up here before me. He doesn't . . . if I could see him. . . . He's got a bronchial trouble in his throat. He's sitting way back there in the back. Kind of a reddish-looking shirt on, a-praying. There, sir. Now you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ now? You should. All right, you can go home and be well now, sir. Your faith makes you well. Have faith in God.

That lady sitting right down here had the same thing, bronchial trouble and so forth, too, sitting there. Mrs. Nixon, there's . . . that's your name. All right, stand up on your feet. I don't know you, do I? That's right. That's who you are. There's your trouble. Your faith has made you well. Go home.

Do you believe with all your heart? What about somebody back in this way now? You pray. Father, this has to be You, because the angel of the Lord, He had His back turned to the tent. Let it be known that You're still the same God, that they can touch You just in all things. I'm looking at a man, and he looks to me like he's Spanish, and he's got something wrong with his side. He's got a poison in his body that he got from a work that he's doing. He's also . . . he's got a message on his heart or something on his heart—he wants to preach. His sympathy is for the sick and afflicted, especially on hospitals. His name is Mr. Lee. If you believe with all your heart, Mr. Lee, there you are, Jesus Christ gives you what you asked for. I do not know you. Is that right, sir? I'm a stranger to you. That's right. Go receive what you asked for now. Jesus Christ makes you well.

Around the building, do you believe His presence is here? Do you believe the angel of the Lord? Now there is the Word, there is the promise, there's the reaction of it, there's the promise fulfilled. Now, how many wants to get saved and filled with the Holy Ghost? Come stand here just a minute now. You're really interested, and want the Holy Ghost, and want to be saved, come up here now and stand around the altar. God bless you. Come on up if you want to come. I don't care who you are, just come up here. This is the time to get things right.

Then we'll have prayer for the sick, the rest of them just the same. But I felt checked in the Spirit, “That's enough.” It was at least three, wasn't it? It was more than three, wasn't it? Three's a confirmation. That's the way I like to see people come, with no altar call, or no singing, or nothing, just rise up and say, “I'm aware that God is present. I come. I come because I'm aware of God's presence. I want to be right. I'm going to be asked for a reason someday, and I'm coming now to confess my faith in God and believe that I'm going to receive it right now.”

Don't doubt. Don't have a doubt now. If you doubt one bit that you're not going to receive what you come for, it won't do you one bit of good, see. You got to come believing. But right now in the presence of God, in the presence of the Holy Ghost that's here to confirm the Word, come, because that you know He's here, and you know that He'll give you the desire of your heart. That's what He's here for, is to give the desire of your heart. Will you come? That's good. That's fine. That's right. Going to wait just a second longer to see what the Holy Spirit would do, whatever He would call.

See, it seems to me, friends, if you were here with one speck of doubt. . . . Now, remember, I'm going to look at you, and you're going to look at me one day for the last time, and the next time you see me and I see you will be in the presence of God. Then there'll never be another chance. You only get one. That's it. And if you've got one speck of doubt about your experience, or if you're not a Christian at all, or you're doubting your experience, why don't you come now? See, if the enemy (like I spoke on last night, the too many voices) if the enemy's trying to say “You're too tired. ”Oh, I won't get it,“ tell him he's a liar. Tell him that you're going to get it tonight, and tell him, ”I'm going to determine I'm going to get it tonight.“ That's the way to do it.

Now, how many Full Gospel ministers are here, or Presbyterian, Baptist, whatever you may be, that believes that people can receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost today as well as they did back there, and the prescription is for them? Raise up your hand, ministers. I know you're interested in souls. Come stand along here with them now, that you might help lay hands on them. Come right up, stand right along here, and lay hands on them. That's good.

Now, what did I tell you? Is there no balm in Gilead? Sure. Is there no physician there? Look at the physicians coming. These physicians of the Word. They certainly believe it. Look at them. Isn't that wonderful? Look at the ministers here in this little crowd of three or four hundred people here tonight. Look at the ministers—twenty, thirty, forty ministers standing here, ministers who believe it. Now, you doctors of the Scriptures, do you write . . . you prescribe the prescription that was give on the day of Pentecost? Do you prescribe that? Sure, it's a double cure, double cure.

Rock of Ages cleft for me

Let me hide myself in Thee.

[Brother Branham hums “Rock of Ages”] With our heads bowed now, quietly, Rock of ages, cleft for me.

Oh, in the hour of your death, in the hour of your death, how you'll long to hear that, “Let the water and the blood, from Thy flowing wounds supply. Be for sin a double cure, save from wrath and make me pure.” You're here to die. Now the only way you can be born again is to die first, so that you can be born again. We're going to offer prayer.

Now, our heavenly Father, I bring these people sweetly and humbly to You in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, to be sure that my prayer is offered for them, to be sure that I have did all that I know how to do that they will receive You, being that You have been so good to take these old frail bodies of ours and to let the Holy Spirit speak through them. It certainly taken a sanctifying grace of God to do it, because we are sinners and of no good at all. But the Holy Spirit has taken the blood of Jesus and cleansed our hearts, and sanctified our lips, like He did the prophet at the altar. And now the Word of God, spoken Word of God, flows forth to vindicate His presence to this generation, before it shall pass into eternity to give an account.

Many have come tonight around this altar to receive the Holy Spirit. Father God, we pray that not one of them will leave here until they're filled with the Holy Ghost. May they be filled, every one of them, with the power and the resurrection of Christ. Grant it, Lord. And may the sick and afflicted in here be healed. Whatever is wrong with the sick and afflicted, may the power of God come and heal each one of them. I offer this prayer to You sincerely with all my heart, in the name of Jesus, for His glory.

I want the ministers to walk up close now, laying hands on them. Now, Brother David and you brethren, come right down here along the altar. Now, there's no need of just playing at this. There's not a bit of need of that. You're here to get the Holy Ghost. Are you? Do you want it, really want it? Well, now it's for you. Or if you've never received Christian baptism, will you promise God to be baptized if you haven't done it? Will you promise God that you'll let Him just use you in any way, no matter what comes or goes? You'll take His Word for it?

Now, how many believers are in the building that they're going to receive the Holy Ghost? Raise up your hand, you believe that they're going to receive it. Raise up your hands.

Now, I'm going to ask the pastor here to lead this prayer, because he's probably been in Pentecost a lot longer than I have, and I want each one of you pastors here, or you preachers, evangelists, whatever you are, you members, all of us to pray with one accord while Brother leads us, and I want each one of you to pray. I want you people to pray, and believe you're going to receive it now. All right. Let us bow our heads. [Brother leads in prayer, other ministers pray.] O God. Yes, Lord. Yes. Fill with the Holy Ghost right now. Grant it, Lord. Come, Lord. Yes, grant it, Lord. Pour Your Spirit, Lord, balm of Gilead be poured in.