Conferences

It's a grand privilege to be back again tonight in the house of the Lord to service with you brethren and sisters in the like precious faith of the Lord Jesus. I think a lot of it was my part last night of maybe holding a little too long. I've got the reputation of holding long services. I never did hold any longer than all night. I never have taken much longer. I kind of come up with the apostle Paul when he preached all night and the boy fell out of the balcony and got killed. He laid his body on him and the boy come back to life.

So someone said to me, he said, “Brother Branham, you just talk a little too long.” Well, I got so much to talk about I just can't get it all out at one time. I just ... ever since Christ filled me with his presence, why, I've just had so much to say about it.

And so tonight we're going to try to let you out early, because I do think of respects for those who have to go at a long distance, and you have to go to work, and so forth. Maybe a little later on in the week we'll lengthen out just a little bit more. Now, last evening we had prayer for the sick, or what we call ... many times referred to as healing service. Of course we don't ... we know we do not heal anyone, but we just pray for them. And I have never healed anyone yet, but I've certainly had some great answers to prayer, seeing the Lord heal the sick. And so that's why I'm here, to try to fellowship with you around these things.

And not only to the healing of the body, but healing of the soul also, which is far more essential than healing the body. Now it is possible that if you live long enough you'll get sick again, because sickness.... The Bible said, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous but God delivereth him out of them all.” So we have many afflictions promised, but a deliverance from them.

In the discussion when the late Jack Coe.... Many might have known him. He was a very personal friend of mine. I thought very much of Brother Jack. And he had such a ... excuse the expression, like a bulldog's faith to just hold on for healing. And he would ... someone would come up with crutches, he had him an ax or something there he'd cut them up. Break them up, before he had them ... prayed for them. He wasn't going away on them crutches anymore. If they couldn't walk away, they could crawl away until they got enough faith to....

And he had a little anvil and a hammer laying there. And someone would come up with glasses on to be prayed for, for their eyes, he'd reach up and take them off, break them all up with the anvil, throw them over to one side.

So he got in some trouble down in Florida. Satan set a trap for him and got a child that he took the braces off of. 'Course you know the story. Reverend Gordon Lindsay was down there in the trial when the judge said, “You claim that boy to be healed?”

And Brother Jack said, “He was healed.”

“Oh,” said, “there's no such a thing as that.”

Said, “When I took the braces off of him he walked across the platform. He said he was healed.”

Said, “Now, if you can produce one scripture where God ever did anything like that—would be healed here, or something, and it'll just last a moment—why, I'm willing to take down on it.”

Brother Lindsay raised up and said, “I can produce a scripture.”

Said, “Let's hear it.”Said, “One night on a stormy sea, Jesus told Peter to come walking to him on water. As long as he walked.... He was on top of the water as he believed; but when he got ready to disbelieve, he sank.”

So, that's right. So the judge dismissed the case. There could be no more about it. That's exactly. See, he was. As long as he was walking he was all right; but when he begin to doubt, down he went.

And that's just how long divine healing lasts—as long as you believe it. And that's how long salvation lasts—just as long as you believe it.

Someone said to me some time ago, said, “Brother Branham, I don't care what you would produce, what you would say, or anyone else, that.... You might raise up ten dead people, and make every cripple walk,” said, “I still would not believe it.”

I said, “Certainly not. It wasn't for unbelievers; it was just for those who believe.” That's all. It's just for believers.

Jesus said, “to those that believe.” Unbelievers are not even included, see. You're just to be pitied. Something wrong somewhere. So if you're a believer, why, it's for you. If you're not a believer, then it's not for you.

And someone said, “Would you...?” (Was out on the street one day.) Said, “Would you tell this man standing on the corner what's wrong with him?”

I said, “You know, God takes his man but never his spirit.” His spirit upon Elijah come upon Elisha, then on John. The one was upon Jesus came on the church, and on down through the age. Satan does the same thing. He takes his man but never his spirit. I said, “I'm just about minded when they put a rag around Jesus' eyes there in the court that morning, hit Him on the head with a reed, and said, 'Prophesy and tell us who hit you and we'll believe you.'” He never opened his mouth and said a word, because he didn't clown for people; He only obeyed God, see.

Satan said to Him, “If you be the Son of God, why, perform a miracle here before me. Let me see it.” You've heard that said, see. Just remember, that's the devil, see. That's him, see. He said, “If you be the Son of God,” said, “just perform a miracle and turn this bread ... this rock into bread and I'll believe you.”

He said, “It's written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'”

And then at the cross Satan and those priests said, “If you're the Son of God, come down off the cross. Then we'll believe you.”

He could have done it, but He'd have been obeying Satan, see. He don't do what Satan says. He does what God says, and any servant of God does the same—just obedient. So when you hear those remarks, just remember where it comes from.

Don't despise the people, but feel sorry for them that they're in total darkness and blindness, maybe ordained to that condemnation. Then what? That's bad, isn't it? So we just feel sorry and just move on, be humble, and be Christians.

Now tonight I wanted to speak to you upon a little subject that perhaps, maybe ... just to kind of ... till we get our audience kind of balanced, and begin to let all the superstitions rub out.... Last evening I thought for a first time it was pretty good to see as many as responded to the Holy Spirit. Of course I could have counted at least twelve right in here that thought it was a hoax or something like that, but you're going to have that anyhow, you know. So you just don't let that interfere with the ones who do believe. They're disbelievers, unbelievers, and in a bad shape. So just pray for them.

Now tonight I want to approach the subject of conferences. Now I want to read a scripture found in Isaiah 1:18:

Come now ... let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be ... white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be white like wool.

That's a very familiar old gospel text. Perhaps your pastors has approached it many times. And I think it's one of the most outstanding texts (or sympathetic), of the Old Testament—God trying to hold a conference with the people to reason things out. Jehovah God, who made heavens and earth and all the creatures that's on it, and yet would ask to have a conference with the people to “let's reason it out, to see what it would be.”

We hear so much lately about conferences. There's been so many of them, and there's so many conferences being held across the nation, around the world. I was at Visalia, Illinois, a few weeks ago—or, Visalia, California—a few weeks ago, and we had the armory building, something about like this or a little larger.

And the first afternoon there was so many people piled into it before it got dark, they turned away around ... many hundreds. And the next night there was nearly two thousand, so we couldn't stay there any longer. We went up to the fair grounds at a neighboring city. By three o'clock that afternoon there was so many in there they had to close the gates and not let them in after three o'clock in the afternoon. So, just piling in.

And they're planning now on making a great building at another neighboring city for a great gathering—a municipal auditorium. And I forget how many million dollars it cost. Way up, I'd say maybe twenty-five, thirty million dollars. And they said, or announced it on the radio and in the papers, that within two years' time they would more than pay for the building by just conferences. And being that they was going to have this great place, that many great clubs, and so forth, that holds their conferences—and lodges and things—were already trying to book it up for years ahead; bringing the money to the city of the people that comes into the city for these conferences and meetings and so forth.

We find out there's a lot of getting together in these last days, more than there used to be. And I think it's time that God's people began to get together more. “Come, let us reason together,” saith God. I think it's time that the churches got together, our little differences got tore down, and we got together with ... being one. Jesus prayed that we might be one. “...this will all men know that you're my disciples, when you have love, one for the other.” And it's time, I think, in this time, that we should be assembling ourselves together and becoming more one, for we are not divided. We have different ideas, just like our thumb prints are not alike, and our appetites perhaps would not be the same; but yet in principle we are human beings. And that's the way it is in Christianity. Our differences of our organizations; yet one. We are one because we're children of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.

And that's why we're here tonight, is in a conference. This is conferences where we get together. We've had them in the nation, national. Here in the last world war, many of you people my age and quite a bit younger can remember the second world war, when they had the conferences.

We wonder what conferences are ... what are they for, anyhow? It's for them to take the most intelligent of the group and to come together and try to work out some strategy to do something. They're usually held ... in a time of a crisis is when they call conferences together. In a time of crisis. Be a wonderful time to have one in the universal church of the living God, wouldn't it? on the account of the crisis that we're facing—communism and all the things ... the isms of the world. The church is cooling off. And it's time for us to come together and reason, get together on these things.

Now, they called one of the conferences of the world conferences, the Big Four. Many of you remember that, when the Big Four powers met together. Our own beloved Dwight Eisenhower, our president, and then also Churchill, and the other big powers of the world called the Big Four Conference. There was a crisis on. The nations were ... the peace-loving nations was in a time of crisis when Hitler and the Nazis were all just about to smother out the world; and the peace-loving, God-fearing people, and our great heritage, was at stake. Therefore they come together for a conference.

There was the Geneva Conference. We can all remember the Geneva Conference, and also the Paris Conference, and how that they do that. They see that there's a crisis arising, and then they call the very best that they know how. The heads of the nations come together and reason out among one another what they're going to do. They select a certain place and ... somewhere where it's inspiring. And they get in this place and talk over and pool their ideas together, how that they can come together as one great leader, as one great nation, as one great army, all joined to be one.

That would be what.... We could do a great thing if all the ransomed church of God could come together and do that same thing. All lay down our little ideas and little differences that really separates the people, and we could get together as one great unit of God. Communism would flee, all the other isms would flee, when the great army of God would ever come together.

Now, we find that in these get-together places they try to find a place that's inspiring. I've been at Geneva where they held the Geneva Conference. It certainly is an inspiring place. There's something about places that you're at, conditions around you that makes up an environment, it helps you a lot.

I can think of the greatest times of my life (I'm an outdoor person) is to get out on the mountains and watch the sunset, listen to the call of the wild animals, hear the birds. It's inspiring, it's something ... it does something to you.

Then we could come to the place where we can get inspired by coming together, meeting places. Some of us would get cold or a little different, keep away from prayer meeting on Wednesday nights, stay home to watch some certain television program that oughtn't to be on. And people get infatuated with that and stay away from prayer meeting, to watch some silly program. Then when we come together in these revivals is to bring our gifts and our ministry together, to pool it together for a revival to bring inspiration upon the people; to get together for an outbreak of a real revival, or, now, a going home of the church, for we're near the end-time.

That is definitely known, that we're near the end. And now as we feel out the meetings (a night or two as we go along, see which way the Holy Spirit will be leading), we'll get into it, the Lord willing.

But, now, inspiration, it's places and conditions you can get into to be inspired. I, being a lover of the outdoors, I love to climb up into the mountains and listen to the call of the wild; and I've loved it since a little boy. Not so much to hunt the animal, but just to be in the woods, because there's something inspiring to me.

Here a few years ago I was up here in Colorado where I'm a guide on a outfit—been taking people out for years. One day the rancher and I went back late. After many of the ... (it's called) the dudes had got in, and got their deer and so forth, and went out, then we'd go back, way high into the mountains. There's where I have a little private conference, every time I go up, with the Lord. He always shows me something, or draws me near Him, when I get away from everything.

And this year the snow had been a little late and the elk herd was high. There was snow up on the top, so I had to go up high to find the elk. And one afternoon up there.... It was along the last of October. The quakers down low was just like firecrackers, so brittle and dry. I was up in the snow. And the weather can change so quickly up there. It could be one moment raining, then snowing, then sun shining. And there come up a storm, and I got behind a tree and set my rifle down and waited till the blow went over.

And I was right by an old blow-down near the timberline. That's as high up as the timber grows, till you get into pigmy spruce and so forth. Then when ... I was amazed as how.... I was sitting there behind the tree, hearing the winds blow, and thinking of the Lord, behind a big pine tree. And after awhile the storm let up. I raised up, looked around.

And the great elk herd that I was trying to get into, they'd been separated during the storm, and I could hear the big bulls a-bugling. Oh, there's something about it that just puts something alive in you, to hear them fellows bugle. I have a great respect for them. Then over on the mountain I heard a wolf howling, its mate answering it down in the bottom. Looked over towards the west and the sun was setting, and just as going through the crevices of the mountains the great magic eye, looked like of God, looking across the mountain tops, blue horizon; and seeing then where the winds had blowed, and the water had froze on the evergreens and had formed a rainbow that went all the way across the canyon.

Oh, all that together, I just broke down like a baby and began weeping. There He was, God in the rainbow, the covenant—look upon as Alpha and Omega, jasper and sardis, both Reuben and Benjamin, first and the last. There He was, howling up there in the wolf; here He was, bugling in the elk. Everywhere you look up there, seemed to be God.

That's the way I like to get that inspiration. Get up in there alone with God, so high. Miles and miles and miles, couldn't get down for ... a couple days, take me to get down from where we was to where the horses was hitched. But just up there alone with God. Sleep out there that night in the mountains.

And while we was up there I just got one of them kind of a real rejoicing spirits on me. I guess it's not strange to you Pentecostal people. And I got so happy I set the gun down against the tree and began to run around and around the tree, just jumping around as hard as I could, screaming to the top of my voice, “Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.” And I guess if somebody would have come in the woods they'd thought there was someone out of the insane institution there.

Around and around the tree I went, just as hard as I could go, screaming and kicking up the pine needles. I had to blow off the steam somewhere—I'd have bursted. I was just having a wonderful time because I was right in the presence of God, having a conference with Him, just speaking, “How great Thou art, how great Thou art.”

“There You are, everywhere. You're there in the skies, in the magic eye of the sun running to and fro through the earth. There You are in the rainbow. There You are in the wolf, there You are in the elk. There You are in the winds, hear them blowing through those pines as if to say, 'Adam, where art thou?' ” see, moving around. Inspiration, a real genuine conference, having with God.

And all at once I was interrupted. And I just don't like to be interrupted in them kinds of times, so.... I just like to scream it out till I get all satisfied. Then I looked and there was a little pine squirrel. Oh, he is a little rascal, about that long, the blue coat policeman of the woods. And he'll scare everything in the country. And they all listen for him, because he's always ready to “chatter, chatter,” at something. He jumped up on an old stump or log there, looked over at me and began just barking as hard as he could, “Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.”

And I thought, “Well, what's the matter with the little fellow.” I said, “Don't you like that?” I said, “Watch this then.” And around and around and around and around the tree I went again. And he just kept chattering the more. I said, “I'm praising my Creator, little fellow.” I said, “I'm having a good time with Him. We're holding a conference here. I told Him that I was empty and He's filling me, see? Here's the way it goes.” And around and around and around the tree I went again.

And I happened to notice the little guy wasn't noticing me so much, as he kept cocking his little head sideways and his little eyes bugged out on the cheek, almost, looking down like this. Well, I stopped and I thought, “Now what's interrupting me?” And I looked down in that blow-down. And during the time of the storm had forced a big eagle down into the brush where the trees were lapped, and years before it had a blow-down. And he was chirping or fussing at this eagle, and the big eagle was crawling out from under this brush. And he looked up at me, and jumped up on the log.

And I thought, “Well, now, what's so godly about you?” And I looked at him like that, and I thought, “Well, God, why did you let me stop worshipping You and shouting, just to look at that old eagle?” Well, an eagle ... God likens Himself to an eagle.

And He calls his prophets eagles, because the eagle can fly higher than any other bird there is. There's nothing can follow him. If a hawk would try to follow him, he'd disintegrate in the air. That's right.

Well, he's got an eye that he can see after he gets up there. That's the reason I say, anybody that's jumping, just jump as high as you can live, you know. That's all. Because what good does it do you to get up, if you can't see something while you're up there? It doesn't do any good. So he gets up there and he's got an eye he can see far off things before they get here. And that's the reason God likened the eagles to his prophets, or his prophets to the eagles; and He calls Himself Jehovah Eagle, and we're eaglets.

Now, there's a lot of difference between a eagle and a chicken. They're both birds, but one of them is earth-bound and the other one's heaven-bound. That's just a lot different, only they're about cousins or something. So if the chicken can't get his feet off the ground, don't worry; he's just a chicken to begin with, you know. He'll never get up there and know what an eagle knows, that can fly up there in the heavenlies.

So I watched this fellow as he was sitting there, with his great big gray-looking eyes watching me. And I thought, “Well, there's one thing I admire about him—he's not afraid.” And I hate a coward, so ... God does too. So, a man that's afraid after he's been healed to testify about it, a man that God has saved and then he's ashamed to tell somebody that he's saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, I haven't got much confidence in his salvation. So, when you really get it, you want to tell everybody. You just can't keep still. What the church needs is some more Holy Spirit and fire in it that moves, that moves the church. Takes fire to move the church.

So this old fellow, I watched him for a few moments, and after awhile, after he seen that I was admiring him, I said to him, “Hey, do you know I could shoot you before you got off that log?” just to see if he was scared of me. He wasn't afraid—just sitting there. And I noticed.... “What makes you so sure of yourself?” I noticed he kept moving his wings, just feeling if all the feathers was in the right condition. Because he had a lot of confidence in them wings, and he knowed that he could be in that timber before I ever put my hand on that rifle. And there I got a lesson. I thought, “Here in this conference I'm learning something,” see.

Now, that eagle had two wings that God give him, and he had confidence in those wings. He knew what he could do with them wings and he wasn't afraid of me at all. So he knowed he could be in that timber before I even got my hand on the rifle.

And I thought, “If that eagle, with two wings that God give him, knowed that he could escape there before I could do anything about it, what ought a Christian that's received the Holy Ghost...?” As long as you can feel his presence around you and everything's in running order (“...no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit), when you feel that running condition, don't worry about what Satan is going to do. Just ... you know you're on good terms then.

So I watched him that way. And come to find out he wasn't afraid of me, but he just didn't like to hear that little old ground squirrel (little old pine squirrel sitting there), going, “Chatter, chatter, chatter. Chatter, chatter, chatter,” like he was going to tear him to pieces. Why, he wasn't going to do nothing —he was too little. The eagle could have picked him up and that would have been ... why, his foot was bigger than the squirrel. So, but the little squirrel was jumping up and down like he was going to tear him to pieces, just making a bluff out of it, you know.

Finally the old eagle got enough of it. So he just made one big jump and flopped his wings about twice, and then he set his wings. And I stood there and watched that eagle till I cried. He never flopped his wings, flop, flop, flop. He just made a couple of flops till he got up above the timberline, and then he just knowed how to set his wings in them air waves coming up the mountain; and it just carried him on, on, on, till he became just a little spot. And never moved a feather—he just knowed what to do.

And I thought, “Isn't that it? It isn't join the Methodist, then go join the Baptists, then join the Assemblies, then join the Church of God. It isn't flop, flop, here and flop, flop, there. It's just knowing how to set your wings of faith in the power of God, and when the glory rolls in, just ride upon it, on, on.”

Get away from them little old earth-bound chipmunks saying, “Chatter, chatter, days of miracles is past, no such thing as divine healing, no Holy Ghost no more. It was for the apostles a long time ago.” Just set your wings and fly away, on, on, on, on, till you can't hear it no more. That's the kind of conference we want with God, that will lift us up above the shadows, get us away till all the criticism and anything, you can't hear it no more—just be shut in with God. You don't have to join this one, join that one. Just know how to set your faith.

That's right. Just set your faith in the Word of God. And when that Old and New Testament gets spread out there that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, and when the power of God rides in, ride with it. Just go right on up, up, up, up, up, all the way. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot fail.

Oh, these conferences, it should be a prayerful consideration for all of us. We shouldn't just let one happen and then not pray for it, both national and church and whatever it may be. We should always pray.

A minister friend of mine, good Christian brother, at ... when the Geneva Conference ... he was waiting on his radio to hear the returns of it because our nation was at stake, and our great heritage that our forefathers fought for was at stake. And he was a righteous, good, godly man. He was sitting listening.

Someone knocked on his door—a modern beatnik, with his beard, dirty. How in the world that American children could ever go for such stuff as that, and then get out there...? Knocked on the door and he said, “Sir, I'm here to sell some of my poetry and my songs,” he said, “and they won't hear me.” And said, “They won't give me an audience. And they tell me you're an influential man in the city.”

He said, “Good man, come in and sit down just a minute. I'm listening for those returns.” But, oh, he wouldn't stand still. No, sir. That was more important than the outcome of the nation.

That's the way a lot of church members gets today, that little bitty fandangle things that happen amongst people is more important than the real church of the living God. Let's forget our little things and fly away. Let's listen for the returns.

Now here they had another conference I'd like to speak of just a moment: the last conference they had at the U.N. building, where the East and the West met together, where Khrushchev took off his shoe and beat the desk with it. Eisenhower and Khrushchev met, Eisenhower representing the free world and Khrushchev the Eastern Communist world. And that went right over the head of many people, not praying concerning it.

But if you happened to notice, that was a direct answer and a direct prophecy fulfilled at that time. It was direct prophecy. The East and the West had fulfilled exactly what Daniel said, that ten kingdoms, there would be ... wouldn't mix, like iron and clay would not mix together. And the word “Khrushchev” in Russian means “clay”; the word “Eisenhower” in English means “iron”; and iron and clay could not get together.

Oh, as we see these things approaching we ought, to be on our knees crying out, “O Lord Jesus, do something for us right away, that we might try to pull the last person that can be brought into the kingdom of God”; pooling ourselves together and having conferences and meetings and get together in prayer meetings all night long. The trouble with the church tonight, we just go and kneel down, and pray and yawn a few times, so sleepy and tired, and have to go home and go to bed.

It isn't like the early Pentecostal church. They prayed all day and all night. I met these old timers from forty years ago. Said they'd pray all day and all night, walk on the streets. Today we become classical and want to compare with the big churches, and that's where we make our mistakes. I tell you, the church was in better order forty years ago for the coming of the Lord than it is tonight, because we are the Laodicean Church. We realize that this is the age we're living in. And that was the only church that Jesus was found outside his own church knocking on the door, trying to get back in his own church.

Our differences has turned Him away, our separation of brotherhood, and the way that we've went after the things of the world instead of things of God. We ought to have been plumb into Canaan's land, and here we are in the wilderness, wandering around and around again just like they did back there. We should be having all kinds of gifts, signs, and wonders in our churches. Instead of that, God can raise up something, then we all get scared of it and walk away, and say we don't understand these things.

What do you think they done in that wilderness for forty years, walking around and around over the same old grounds? We've took Acts 2 and 4, Acts 2 and 4, Acts 2 and 4—we've run it to death. Let's go on! The promised land is there. “For whatsoever thing you desire, when you pray believe you receive it and you shall have it.” Acts 2 and 4 is right, but it ain't all of it. That's right. There's more of it. That's ... every promise in the Bible is ours. It's given to us by the Lord Jesus, and his great mighty hand is holding. Time for us to possess the land that's been given to us. Certainly.

Conferences. Oh, when the world has a conference and they meet together, what do they do? They usually have some whiskey and cocktails, and drink, and lie, and cheat, and deceive one another. Make all kinds of different plans and so forth, and with a knife behind them—as the Bible said they would do.

But what does happen when God has a conference? Men fast and pray and wait on orders, and then move. We've been talking now about world conference, national conference. There's many of them we could think of, but let's think of some conferences God had. Let's call a few of those to memory.

Let's think of the first conference that God ever had when a first emergency arose. We'll call it the Eden Conference. That was the first emergency, when word came up to heaven that God's son and his daughter—his children that he put into Eden—had lost their place in grace, and had gone away from God, and was backslidden and naked. Heaven couldn't hold Him any longer. He came down to the earth, walking back and forth through the garden, crying, “Adam, Adam, where art thou?”

Man truly expressed what he's made out of right then. Instead of coming out to God and saying, “I'm wrong, Father. I did wrong,” he hid himself and wrapped himself in some fig leaves. That's what man tries to do today. Instead of come out and say he's an unbeliever, he'll try to say, “I'm a Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran,” or something else. Instead of wrapping himself up in the righteousness of God, and confessing his sins that he's wrong and a disbeliever, he tries to hide behind some church theology. Get out from behind it, Adam, unbeliever. Notice, that's what he does, though.

And notice, God never sent an angel down to find his child; He come Himself. That was the reason I think today ... that today when they try in this day of modernistic religion—this day when social religion is dominating the country, creeping into all different denominations—they try to take the divinity off of Jesus Christ and make Him just a man.

Not long ago I was talking to a woman. She said, “I appreciate your messages, Brother Branham, but you put too much stress on Jesus. You brag too much on Him.”

I said, “If I had ten million tongues I couldn't brag enough on Him.” And I said, “He's worthy of everything I could brag about.”

She said, “Well, there's one thing—you try to make Him divine.”

I said, “He was divine.”

“Oh,” she said, “he was just a man. He was a good man.”

They don't believe in his atoning blood. Listen, if that was the blood of a Jew or Gentile, we're all lost. That was the blood of God Himself. He was no Jew nor Gentile; He was God manifested in the flesh. That's exactly.

What happened? The blood comes from the male sex. We know that. A hen can lay an egg, but if she hasn't been with the male bird, it'll never hatch. It's unfertile. The baby that's born of a woman is wrapped in her blood, but not one speck of her blood ... the hemoglobin is in the male sex. So we can....

Just like, it's coming springtime, and we notice those mother birds get out here and make them a nest, lay them a nest full of eggs. And she can get on that nest and hover those eggs till she's so poor she can't fly off the nest—so reverent, so respectable to her eggs. She turns them this way and turns them that way. She's starving to death, but she's afraid that they'll be exposed if she flies from the nest. She's a loyal mother and tries to hover these eggs. But if that female bird that laid the egg, if she hasn't been with the male bird, the mate, them eggs—no matter how much she hovers them, how well she treats them —they'll rot right in the nest. That's exactly right.

That's what's the matter with a lot of our old cold formal churches today. We got a nest full of rotten eggs. Only thing they are is professors, and never been with the mate, Jesus Christ. Only thing to do is clean it out, and start over again with men and women who's been in contact with the mate, Jesus Christ, to his church.

How can they believe the supernatural power of God when they haven't got anything to believe with? My old mammy of the South told me, said, “Honey, you can't get blood out of a turnip, because there's no blood in it.” How can you get faith out of a person that's got nothing to have faith with? If you've never been born again of the Spirit of God, you don't know the first principle of the power of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's right. They don't understand it. Oh, we got them. And they're big payers in the church, and we make them deacons and everything else, and hover them—and they're just unbelievers to begin with.

Now, how true that is, to see the mating time. The mate.... Now ought to be the mating time, when the church gets in contact with Christ, and gets real genuine Holy Ghost faith.

And this lady said to me, she said, “Brother Branham, you said you was a fundamentalist—you just spoke what the Scripture said and stayed with it.”

I said, “I do.”

And she said, “I can prove to you that He wasn't divine.”

I said, “If He was anything less than God, He was the greatest deceiver the world ever had.” I said, “The Holy Ghost, God, overshadowed the virgin and created a blood cell in the womb. This blood cell was the Son of God. Through that blood we have remission of sins. Man knowed nothing about that woman. She said, 'I never knew a man.' And that was God Himself tabernacling with man—God, Himself.”

She said, “And you make Him divine.”

I said, “He was divine.”

She said, “I'll prove it by your own Bible He wasn't divine.”

I said, “Let me hear you say it.”

She said, “In St. John, the 11th chapter, when Jesus was going to the grave of Lazarus, the Bible said, 'He wept.' And if He was divine He could not weep.”

“Oh,” I said, “lady, that's thinner than the broth made out of a shadow of a chicken that's starved to death.” I said, “How could you base any theology on that?” I said, “He was both man and God.” No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of the Father has declared Him. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Exactly right.

I said, “It was true, when He went down to the grave of Lazarus He wept like a man; but when He pulled those little shoulders up, looked out there, and said, 'Lazarus, come forth,' and a man that had been dead for four days stood on his feet and lived again, that was more than a man. That was God speaking through his Son. Right. It was God in Him. He was a man when He come down off the mountain that night hungry, looking for something to eat around a tree. He was a man when He was hungry; but when He took five biscuits and two fish and fed five thousand people, that was more than a man. That was God who could create. Not another fish; but a cooked fish. Not some more wheat; but baked bread. He was God the creator.

He was a man laying out there on the back of that boat that night when the devils swore they would drown Him. Perhaps ten thousand devils of the sea said, “We got Him asleep now and we can drown Him.” The little boat pitched about like a bottle stopper in a storm out there. They thought, “We got Him now.” He was a man when He was asleep, tired and weary from his service; but when he put his foot upon the brail of the boat and looked up and said, “Peace be still,” and the winds and the waves obeyed Him, that was more than a man.

When He died at the cross, He cried like a man. “My God, have mercy. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” He was a man in his death; but on Easter morning when He broke the seal of death, hell, and the grave, and rose again....

Oh, it's inspired every poet or song writer that ever was. Any man that ever amounted to a hill of beans believed He was divine. It's inspired poets and prophets through the years. One wrote a poem, said this, “When I survey the wondrous cross whereon the Prince of Glory died, I count all my fame to be but loss.”

Eddy Perronet said, “All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all.”

Blind Fanny Crosby said, “Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, hear my humble cry; while on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by. Thou, the stream of all my comfort, more than life to me; whom have I on earth beside Thee? or whom in heaven but Thee?”

Another one wrote out this: Living, He loved me, dying, He saved me; buried, He carried my sins far away. Rising, He justified freely forever. Some day He's coming, oh, glorious day. Any man that believed He was divine.... Certainly.

Oh, when God had a conference in Eden, his son was lost, his children was lost. That's the reason He never trusted redemption with any angel or anything else but Himself. We was redeemed by the blood of God, and now that blood cell, that's what gives us boldness to stand on his Word. That's what gives us boldness to walk in the face of demons and opposition, because we know we're coming covered with the blood of the Lord Jesus, which is the divine powers in the blood of Jesus.

Now, watch Him. We see this conference, God coming through the garden of Eden. There's something got to be done—there's emergency on. His children's lost. He don't know what to do. Comes down in the garden and begins to hunt them up. When he found them back in there, hiding behind some sort of a man-made creed, what did He do? He selected a certain tree and called them out. And he had a conference, and there was a decision made: how that man must be redeemed. And man has worked on fig leaves ever since; but God has never recognized nothing but the blood, that he started with at the beginning.

Every man and woman down through the age, every prophet, every person, has always went upon those principles. Job stood firm on it. The only meeting place of Israel was under the shed blood. The only place the Shekinah glory fell was under the shed blood. The only place that the Shekinah glory will come (don't let me hurt your feelings, Baptist, Presbyterian), but the only place that the Shekinah glory falls is under the blood. That's the reason you feel this Shekinah Pentecostal glory is because it's under the blood, the shed blood of the Son of God. Back into the Shekinah glory, when He took his own blood and rent the veil in two, and we come into the presence of God—the Shekinah glory, where his blessings.... Oh, it makes new men out of old.

Aaron left his rod there one year and it bloomed out and blossomed while it was in the presence of the Shekinah glory. Any man laying in the presence of God's Shekinah glory ... will take an old dead sinner, dead in sin and trespasses, and bloom him out to a new creature in Christ Jesus.

A conference. A conference—God made his decision. That's what we would call the Eden Conference. (You know, this time passes too quick. See, you don't even get started till it's time to stop.) The Shekinah glory at the Eden Conference.

Now, there was another conference. Let's refer to two or three more right quick, if you will. There was another conference. Let's call it the “Burning Bush Conference.” There was a man who run away one time, a run-away prophet God had. Went out and married him a wife, had a little boy named Gershom. His name was Moses. So he was going to inherit all the flocks of Jethro, and he was doing pretty good, as he was under the mountain one morning. Oh, he'd done forgot about the burdens of the people down in Egypt, because he was pretty well fixed up.

I think that's just about the way the Pentecostal church has got—forgot about the burdens of those sinners. That's not only the Pentecostal church, but the Methodist, the Baptist, the Presbyterian. Instead of getting them back to God, and any man.... I don't care what theologian you are, or what church you belong to. There was one church, and all Christendom began at the day of Pentecost with a Pentecostal experience. The Catholic church said that was them. Everyone tried to refer back to that, but if it was them, why ain't the same glory and same signs following that church that was then? Certainly.

Now, there was a conference. God seen his runaway prophet; and when God chooses a man to do a thing, there's no way for him to get away from it. God haunts him. Maybe some of you here tonight, a backslider, you'll be miserable all the days of your life (and you ought to be), until you surrender yourself to God. There he was.

Some of you women, some of you men, goes back out in the world, goes to dances and things that you were taught better. Today it's a shame what our Pentecostal churches has come to. Like as David DuPlessis said some time ago, where that we had gotten to. You know us Pentecostal church is just like our Methodist church (that we're in their building tonight), like the Baptist church, the Presbyterian. If Methodism would get back to John Wesley's teaching, it would be fine. Sure. If the Baptists would get back to John Smith, the Lutheran would get back to Martin Luther, and if Pentecost would get back to Pentecost (that's right), it would be all right.

It started right, but the thing of it is we adopt grandchildren. God don't have any grandchildren. He ain't got grandsons; He's just got sons. We take our children in and put them on the cradle roll, like Methodists and Baptists and all of them. They come into the church and we take them in as Pentecostal; and know no more about God than a rabbit knows about snowshoes. What we need today is back to the experience of God, and back with the Holy Ghost again. That's right.

Now, excuse that expression. It sounds sacrilegious. I didn't mean to say it just like that. But that's the truth. That's right. We've got to get back to.... God don't have grandchildren. He has sons, but not grandsons. No place in the Bible where God had a grandson. Every person must come and pay the same price, must come the same way. God's only got one way, and that's Jesus, and you've got to come that way. Without that, there's no way of getting to Him.

Now, we find out that Moses was pretty well satisfied. Everything was running fine, and he'd lost all the burden for the people that was down there in bondage. And one day God decided He'd call him. And so he selected a place, a certain tree.

And where God comes down there's ... somehow or another there's always a lot of fire where God's at. If you're around where God's at, there's a lot of noise and a lot of fire. I don't know why, but it's always been that way. That's scriptural. Yes, sir, it's always a lot of fire. And it takes fire to move the church, anyhow. You'll never do it. You'll never dress them in fig leaves. You'll never dress them in Pentecostal fig leaves. They got to get back to the fire. That's right.

One time my brother and I, when we were little boys, was walking and seen a turtle. We thought it was the funniest looking creature I'd ever seen, the way he throwed them feet. You Illinois people know what turtles are. And here he come walking. I said, “Isn't he funny looking, brother?” We walked up.

Just puts me in mind of a lot of people, when you step on them with the gospel, you know. They go, “Shuh,” get back in their hull, you know. “I'm So-and-so. I belong to this organization.” That don't have one thing to do with it. That's right. “I belong to So-and-so.” Well, I'd be ashamed to admit it. Might be forgiveness for it if you try real hard to repent. You might be forgiven for it. God don't recognize no organization. He recognizes the blood of his own Son, Jesus Christ. That's all. “When I see the blood I'll pass over you.”

This boy and I was back there, and this old turtle. I said, “You know what I'll do, Honey? I'll make him get out of there.” I went and got me a switch and I poured it on him. It didn't do a bit of good. You can't beat them into it. That's all there is to it. You can never get them back by beating them. That's right. I've been trying it for ten years and can't do it. You just can't beat them back to it.

So I said, “I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll fix him.” There was a branch running along there, so I went down and stuck him down in the water. Just a few bubbles come up, and that's all there was. Brother, you can baptize them face forward, backwards, or three times, five times—it don't do no good. Just a few bubbles come up, and that's all that's left. Isn't that right? Or, “Bless God, I told you I'd do it.” That's about all there is to it.

You know how I finally got him to move? I built me a little fire and set the old boy on it. He moved then. What the church needs is another Pentecostal fire, the Holy Spirit, to make the church move back into the harness of God. Back to the harness.

God don't care what organization you belong to. He's against all of them anyhow, so when.... Well, that's true. I can prove that by the Scripture. Catholic was the first organization, which was a prostitute, and she had daughters. Now, you can make out any way....

Anybody ever read the Nicene Council, pre-Nicene fathers, anything, you'll see where it came to. First was the Nicolaitane that God hated—the deed. Then first thing you know it became a doctrine. What was it? “Nico” is to conquer. “Laity”—of the laity. Conquer the laity. Put the holiness on the platform and let the laity pay for it. So there you are. So that's just exactly it. So we all follow in the same steps and go right back into the blackness again just as hard as we can go.

I used to herd cattle. I stood up there one time. The Hereford Association grazes the Troublesome River Valley, and if you can raise a ton of hay on your ranch you can put a cow on the pasture. And then as many tons as you can raise, that's how many cattle your ranch will produce. They brand them and put them up there. They had a drift fence so they couldn't drift back on private property as they come down from the mountain. I used to set there with the ranger many a day, with my leg around the horn of the saddle, watching them when they passed by.

And that ranger would stand there. Ours was the Turkey Track, and the neighbor's was a Tripod, the Diamond Bar, and Grimes next to us; and all up and down there, all different kinds of brands went through there. But you know what? That ranger never paid any attention to the brand. He'd maybe gaze at it and look around, but that wasn't it. He never noticed the brand, but he certainly examined for the blood tag. There was no cow could go on that pasture 'less she was a registered Hereford.

That's the way it will be at the judgment bar. He won't ask you whether you belong to the Church of God, Assemblies of God, or Pentecostal Holiness, or whether you're Oneness, twoness, threeness, fourness, fiveness, or whatever you are. He'll look for the blood tag. And that's what will take you in, will be the blood. “When I see the blood, I'll pass over you.” Exactly right, brethren, see. That's right.

So getting back now, we find that there was a conference. They'd forgot all about ... Moses got in his creeds out there and forgot the burden. But God chose a place and He had a conference. And He called Moses: “Take off your shoes, Moses, you're on holy ground. I have heard the cries of my people. I've remembered my promises that I made Abraham, and I'm going to send you down to deliver them.”

Now, Moses knowed that voice was God because it was scriptural. Now anybody that passes and sees a voice and if it is not a scriptural voice, leave it alone. If the Bible says so, then believe it, because it's a scriptural voice. People seeing angels and so forth.... Joseph Smith seen one. I differ with Joseph Smith because it was not scriptural, but I don't say the man never saw an angel. I'm not to dispute the man's word. There's been many angels, and so forth, saw. But if any angel.... Paul said, in Galatians 1:8, “If an angel from heaven come, preached any other gospel than that which I've already preached to you, let him be accursed.” That's right. Stay with the Word, right with the Word. And what the Word says, stay right with it. Don't move from there.

And Moses saw that the conference he was holding with God, or God was holding with him, was exactly scriptural, because God made the promise and He said He would deliver them. And God said, “I chose you, Moses, and you're going down to do it.” Moses goes right down into Egypt and performed the miracles that God told him. We haven't got time to go into it as I'd like to, but you understand.

When he come back out, bringing the children of Israel out to the promised land, right in the path of duty laid the Red Sea. It's strange how that God will lead his children right into traps—sometimes wheelchairs, sometimes with heart attacks, sometimes ... He leads his children. Why? To see what they'll act, to see what a reaction they'll have on an action, see what they'll do.

Every son that comes to God must be tested, tried. In the Old Testament a son was born in a family, but he had to be tutored and raised up and tried. And then he was placed as a son, or adoption—placed into the body. Then when he was placed, once placed, then his name was just as good on the check as his father's was. He was heir of all things. That's where God is bringing his church, giving them the testings.

There laid the Red Sea right in the path of duty. What could they do? Now it looked like that all nature was crying for them. There was Pharaoh's army a-coming, the chariots. Here was the mountains on either side. The Red Sea had them trapped. Looked like it was a ... looked like nature would have screamed, with that great army of two and a half million people down there in that valley—helpless, no swords, nothing to fight with. So what happened? There was emergency on, and Moses selected a certain rock and went in behind it and called a conference. I like that. “What must I do, Lord?”

Wouldn't it be good if all the churches would call a conference right now? When we see the way things are going, if we couldn't call a conference, and realize and go back and find out what kind of a church God had at the beginning? Call a conference and reason it out together, one with another? See what the first church did, what kind of a spirit was in them, what kind of signs followed them, what kind of a ministry they had, what kind of a people they were? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we'd do that? It would be a wonderful thing.

Moses did that. He crawled over behind a rock somewhere, and said, “Lord, what can I do? Here's these people. I'm straight in the line of duty. I did exactly what You told me to do. And here I come right up against this.”

Maybe you're sitting here tonight, an old mother, raised a bunch of children. Raised them up as much as Susanne Wesley. She had seventeen children, yet she could find three hours a day to pray and lead them to God. That's the reason she had a Charles and a John. Now-a-days we push a button, wash the dishes; push a button, wash the clothes; and haven't got time for nothing. See, something wrong somewhere. Now, oh how the devil can do the people.

Notice, but now they had this conference, and Moses consulted God. He waited there until he got orders—like Adam did. He waited till there was orders what to do. Moses waited until he got orders, like he did up there. “How am I going to deliver them? What can I do?”

“Go down and tell them, 'I AM sent you.' ” That was it. Now here he's straight in the line of orders again, right in the line of duty, and the enemy comes up. Maybe he's come upon you, maybe on you, maybe on you, you, you—all around here. Heart trouble, diseases, afflictions in your body, what can you do?

Have you prayed up? Is everything all right? Then let's have a conference. Amen. Let's find out what to do.

You say, “Brother Branham, I've tried to get the Holy Ghost. I've sought God. I've sought God and I can't get the Holy Ghost.” Let's have a conference then and find out what's wrong. The Holy Spirit is a revealer of the secrets of the heart. The Bible said so. Let's find out what's wrong. Let's see what's the reason you don't receive the Holy Ghost. Find out what's wrong. Let's have a conference.

Moses had a conference and he waited until he got orders. I'm against a lot of this here super-duper divine healing they have in the land today. You might not like me after this remark, but I'm going to say it anyhow. They got so much super-duper stuff. “Oh, divine healing, everybody, only thing you have to do is—Hallelujah—is have hands laid on you. Oh, glory to God!” That's not so. Repent, and get right with God! That's what we need—more repentance.

I read a letter from the Lutheran church not long ago.... Not saying this complimentary, God knows, out of my heart, over this Bible. He was really tearing one of those evangelists to pieces about some of their super-duper ideas of healing. Said, “What about little Debra Stadsklev, when the mother rode over here and was standing there when.... That little baby had died that night, and this was the next afternoon. Dead—the doctor pronounced it dead and everything, cold and stiff. Laid it over into my arms and I prayed for it. The baby commenced crying, put it back in its mother's arms. This mother was standing there to see that.

She wrote when her little baby took sick in Germany, Mrs. Stadsklev. Captain Julius Stadsklev (he's a friend of Billy Graham's), one of my associates in the meeting, wrote that book that you're getting here now, “A Prophet Visits Africa.” And now ... and was there present when the angel of the Lord came and they taken his picture, that pillar of fire that came down, comes in the meetings. He took the picture of that, saw it all.

And so he ... when his baby died, that little mother wouldn't have any peace. She phoned from Germany, and the jet airlines of the American Air Force was going to fly me over there to Germany. Said, “This baby can be raised again.”

I said, “Let me see what the Lord says.” And I waited, and I waited. Two days passed. The doctor was very nice. They didn't even ... they had them around there screaming over the baby, and hollering and carrying on like that, and everything—but no life. I waited on.

One morning the Holy Spirit woke me up and said, “Don't you touch that, don't rebuke that. That's the hand of the Lord.” And I sent them word back.

That Lutheran minister said, “Why didn't you wait like that till you got a clear-cut decision from God?” Then you know where you're standing. Wait till you have “thus saith the Lord,” then you know where you're at.

[break in tape] ... something went wrong somewhere. They sure do it now. They say it's headaches. Well, brother, there oughtn't be a headache in the country, then. Yes, sir. There's something wrong somewhere. And it used to be wrong for the Pentecostal women. I've not been in the Pentecostal movement but just a little bit, but I just see it gradually growing out, growing out, becoming.... You're looking at too much television, too much stuff that you oughtn't to be; instead of having prayer meetings and back to the church of God, them prayer nights like they had. No wonder we can't have a revival.

God could send an Oral Roberts, a Tommy Hicks, and what, across the country, and still we've got nothing to build on, till we get back to the old time St. Paul's revival and revive the Holy Ghost back to the church again. Deacons in the church married four or five times and all this kind of stuff, when you know that's not Bible. Amen.

I said to a lady the other day.... She said, “I tell you I don't wear them little shorts.” Said, “I wear slacks.”

I said, “That's worse.” Right. Yes, it is. The Bible said it's an abomination for a woman to put on a garment that pertains to a man. That's filthiness. Yes. Some woman said they don't make any more clothes.... They still make sewing machines and you can buy goods. There's no excuse. What you need is the baptism of the Holy Ghost ... [unclear words] this mockery. That's true. Amen. You think I'm beside myself, but I'm not. I know right where I am. That's right.

Dress like that and get on the street—you may be as virtuous to your husband as you can be, you might be as virtuous a daughter to your sweetheart as you could be; but at the day of the judgment you'll answer for adultery. You'll be guilty of committing adultery. Jesus said, “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her in his heart already.” You presented yourself that way, and the sinner looked at you. When he answers for adultery, who's guilty? You, for presenting yourself like that. Amen.

Now, that's the truth. Don't get mad at me. That's the Word of the Lord. Oh, what we need is a conference in Pentecost. Exactly right. Back to a Pentecostal conference.

We find out Moses stood there till God give him orders. And when he come out from behind that rock, I imagine him saying, “Let's go forward.”

Some of them said, “Forward to what?”

“Just keep moving, that's all.” When his foot struck the water, the Red Sea moved back and a dry land came across. And he walked across on dry land, because he had a conference with God.

Oh, there's many conferences we could speak about. There was a conference at the fiery furnace, there was the conference in the lion's den. We've had many conferences.

Let's get to another one. It's called the Gethsemane conference. There was a terrible conference. He didn't have to die a young man. He didn't have to do it. But when He seen lost humanity in its condition, said, “Not my will but thine be done.” Angels come and ministered to him. That's what....

Then after his death, burial, and resurrection, there had to be another conference—how the Christian church should be run. Whether it should be run by bishops, or whether it should be run by popes, or how it should be run. So Jesus told them in Luke 24:49, “Just wait up there at the city of Jerusalem. I'm going up to have a conference with the Father. I'll send you word down after awhile, but you wait there. I'll tell you how it's to be run.” (Whether Peter is to be the first pope or not, whether we're going to have bishops and archbishops and district presbyters and everything else.)

“How're we going to do it? We'll wait and find out.”

And they had what they call the Pentecostal conference. They climbed them little outside steps up, and went up into the upper room where 120 people gathered, a little grease candle burning. They didn't eat and drink for ten days, waiting. What's the returns of the conference? It was quite a long one. And they had ten days' waiting, and after a while the returns came. Oh, yes.

There wasn't a priest come up the road with his collar turned around, said, “Now we're going to take the first communion. You lick out your tongue and I'll give you the wafer, and I'll drink the wine.” Wouldn't that be... ? Neither was there a preacher come up the road, said, “Give us the right hand of fellowship. We'll put your name on the book and try you six months on probation.” Nope. That's man's conferences. That's the way they do at the councils and conferences.

What happened? When the conference return came, they were all in one place and one accord and suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the room where they were sitting. Cloven tongues set upon them like fire, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and begin to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. That was the returns from general headquarters. The Holy Spirit was to lead the church. Not man-made dogmas but the Holy Spirit. That was the Pentecostal conference.

And I think all the way from Martin Luther to Pentecost ought to go back and have a conference again, find out it's the Holy Spirit that's to lead the church—not dogmas, and creeds, and “hail, Marys,” and apostle's creed. I want you to find me the apostle's creed in the Bible. There's no such a thing; but yet we bow down to it, and say it, and just as.... That's lodge joiners; that ain't Christians.

Christians are born again of the Spirit of God. The Holy Ghost comes into them and they're filled with the Spirit. The life of Christ lives through them. They go into all the world and preach the gospel. How far? All the world. Just for this generation? All the world. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” How far? “All the world, every creature that believes.” “In my name they shall cast out devils, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, or drink deadly things it wouldn't harm them. If they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.”

That's what the orders was. That was the orders from the conference, from God in heaven. Sent down the returns—a rushing mighty wind. Oh, how far...? We need another conference, brethren.

What happened in the conference? They didn't walk up and say, “I now take your hand. I will become a member of this church.”

Get a salt shaker and throw three or four sprinkles of dirt, or water, whatever you want to call it, on them and walk out and say, “Now you're a member.”

That's not right. No, sir. Not even to water baptism, which is so essential. It still wasn't the thing. But there came a sound, as a rushing mighty wind, came from heaven. It filled all the house where they were sitting. That was the returns of that conference, the way God decided to run his church. How dare us to try to move one iota from that? How dare we, as men, to add one thing or take one thing away from it? How can we do it? That's the way the church is to be run—by the power of the Holy Spirit.

There was another conference held right away. Those men went forth, preached the gospel, healed the sick. Peter and James passing the gate called Beautiful, and there laid a man crippled from his mother's womb. Said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, I'll give you: In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk.” And away he went.

And then what happened? They wanted to put them in jail. The news columns had criticism of all kinds in it. And they just criticized them, and snatched them up before the council, the general council of the church. When they did at the Sanhedrin courts, they forbid them to preach that kind of a gospel anymore. So what were they to do? They were forbidden to preach the name of Jesus Christ. So what could they do? They held another conference. Acts 4 Conference we'll call that, the Acts 4. They got with their own group.

Wouldn't that be fine if all Christians would get with their own groups, and all groups would get together and hold a conference—what must we do? Communism honeycombing our nation—our nation is beginning to be wiggled through with communism; and the church is getting cold and ritualistic. The churches are fighting one another, blasting one another, and members are....

You could ask them if they're Christians. Say, “I belong to So-and-so.” That don't have one thing to do with it. God don't care that [Brother Branham snaps his fingers.] about your organization. He wants to know if you're born again. If you're not born again, then you're not a Christian. You can only be a Christian when you take the life of Christ in you; and if the life of Christ is in you, it will produce the life of Christ. Could you gather peaches on a watermelon vine? Certainly not.

So watch what happened. They got together, and assembled themselves together, and they quoted the Scripture—repeated the Scripture—back to God. Said, “Why did the heathens rage and the people imagine a vain thing?”—telepathy, fortune-telling, mind reading, all these vain things. Said, “Why did they imagine the vain things? Truly ... stretching forth the hand of thy holy child Jesus to heal.”

And when they had that conference, and there was about ... I guess there was three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost, and many hundreds and hundreds after that. They probably ranked in eight or ten thousand people gathered into a room to pray. And when they did, and praying all with one accord, all the same time, the Bible said that the building was shook where they were assembled together. The answer come back, and the Bible said they preached the Word of God with boldness.

Some people are afraid to preach the Word. They'd be excommunicated from their church, their organization. They're afraid of it. Then, we need another conference, Acts 4 conference. Are you afraid of what somebody's going to say? As long as God said it, stay with it. Live by it, die by it (that's right), and you'll rise by it—the only thing you will do, the only way you can rise.

A conference. What we need is conference. “Come let us reason together,” saith God. “If my first church would....” God would come in the room tonight and say, “If I ordained my first church and they had the blessing of Pentecost upon them....” And what they did, they went forth and showed the signs of the resurrection. Let's come and reason together why we're not having that tonight in our Pentecostal groups, in our Methodist groups, and our Baptist groups, and our Presbyterian groups. What's the matter? There's something wrong. So let's come reason together.

How could we reason it? With the Methodists? With the Baptists? With the Presbyterian? No, sir. We could only reason it by God's Word. And the first church was filled with the Holy Spirit, went forth in great signs and wonders. The life of Jesus Christ projected itself in the life of every one of those people. Let's come....

“Let's reason together,” saith the Lord. “Let's come and reason. Though your sins [your unbelief] be like scarlet, I'll make them as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they'll be white like wool. I'll give you a revival. I'll restore back all the years the caterpillar has eaten, the locusts eaten. [What the Lutheran left, the Methodist eaten. What the Methodist left, the Baptist eaten. What the Baptist left, the Pentecostal eaten.] But I will restore,” saith the Lord.

It's a guarantee of restoring, that's one thing. God promised it in Joel 2. “Let's come reason together.” What one eat down and left, the other one took it on down, till it's become a stump. The real Pentecostal church, the real Pentecostal people, the real Pentecostal experience, has begun ... it's a historical thing.

Now, how could I stand and teach you theology? What good would it do me to tell you that God one time healed the sick, and made the cripples to walk and the blind to see; and poured out his Spirit, and they had discernment of spirit and done all these things; and the sign of the Messiah, the resurrection, followed them down through a church age; and then tell you those days were past? What good does a historical God do if He isn't the same God today?

What good would it do to give your canary bird vitamins to make good feathers and strong wing bones, and keep him in a cage? What good is a school of theology if you can't let the person know that God still is God? If He's just a historical thing, He's past. But He's not dead; He's alive forevermore. He's here now. He's Christ. Certainly.

We need to come together and reason it out. What kind of a church was it at first? That's the kind of church.... God is infinite and cannot change his mind. God makes a decision, He has to keep it. His first decision of a real Christian church happened on a Pentecostal experience. Now, that wasn't a Pentecostal organization; that was a Pentecostal experience, which can come to Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, or whosoever will. That's an experience that comes.

Love, God's love. Love is the most powerful thing that there is in the world. It conquers anything, is love. By this you shall conquer, by love divine— loving one another, loving the cause of God, loving Christ, loving suffering humanity. That's how you conquer.

Yes, they had a conference and they got orders, and they went forth and they preached the Word of God with boldness.

Now I'm going to speak of one more conference just for a moment. You might have missed the Geneva conference. You might not have even heard the returns on the radio. You might have missed the Gethsemane, which you did. You might have missed the Red Sea. You did. You might have missed all these conferences, but here's one that you're going to stand—that's the conference at judgment. You're all going to be there. Every one of us is going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for what we've done with Christ and his Word.

There's going to be a conference, and you're going to be there. I don't care what you do with your life. You could commit suicide, be so guilty. You could have your body cremated and taken out upon the seas and blowed to the four winds. You'll be there anyhow, for every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess. There might have been a mighty conference, and many of them, that you'd miss; but there's one you're going to attend.

And I'll tell you, every time you see a gray hair it means that you're going. Every time you hear a siren, it's a conference you're going to meet. Death is meeting you in the face. Young or old, whoever you are, you're on your road. Every time you pass a grave yard, it speaks that you're coming to that conference. Every time you hear a sermon preached, a hymn sang, it means you're coming to that conference, and you're going to be there. And you're going to answer for what you've done with God's Word and with God's Son and with the Holy Spirit that He sent you. You're going to answer. You're going to be at that conference.

So if you're here tonight, friends, and have never had that conference with God.... Some men's sins go before them, confessed; some follow. If yours, your unbelief, hasn't been confessed yet, won't you think of it while we pray, as we bow our heads? In the reverence and solemnity of this moment I would ask a solemn question that all people will have to answer for. Be sincere, and let this be a searching time in your heart. What will you do after this conference?

This is a conference tonight, where we have gathered together here in this gymnasium, to speak the Word of God in halls and so forth just like they did in the early days. The same Word of God has been preached. You're going to have to answer some day for it.

Are there those here tonight, or how many are they (I know there's a group), that would say this to me, “Brother Branham, I have never been born of the Spirit of God. I have never received God's Holy Spirit. And I know if I stand at that conference, after I've been told so plainly by the Scripture, witnessed by the Holy Spirit, I'm going to have to give an account for my life at that day. I'm going to raise my hand to God and ask Him to be merciful to me, and I want a conference right now with God. I'd like to talk it over with Him right now.”

Now with every head bowed (Cursed be the one that raises their eyes), would you raise your hand and say, “Pray for me, Brother Branham. I've not yet received the Holy Spirit.” God bless you. Someone else. Surely you'd be honest in a time like this. Going to a conference. God bless you, lady, God bless you, lady. God bless you here.

You're going to a conference, and remember, no matter how good you've been in church, that doesn't do one thing. The Pharisees in the days of Jesus lived a lot holier life than any of we here in America live; but they were considered evil because they were sinners—unbelievers in Christ and his Word. And I've told you plainly the conference, when God wanted to decide what kind of a church He wanted, it was a Spirit-filled church from Pentecost. If you haven't met that conference yet, would you raise your hand and say, “Brother Branham, pray for me.” God bless you, you, you.

In the balconies to my left, is there any up there would raise your hand quietly? With your heads bowed, everyone praying, please. Balconies to the left, balconies in the rear, balconies to the right, now remember. I can't make you do this. I can only speak the Word. It's up to you to decide. But remember, this same message will judge you. It's on magnetic tape in heaven, and it will be played over again at the day of the judgment.

If you haven't received God's Holy Spirit yet, never had that conference and met like they did at the Pentecostal conference, you've never received Him yet, just put up your hand, say, “Pray for me, Brother Branham.” Someone who has not put up their hand to ... raise your hand.

Our heavenly Father, Thou seest the hands of the people. There were some who raised their hands and wanted to be remembered in prayer, enough courage. How thankful they should be. Jesus said, “No man can come to me except my Father draws him first.” Think of those that we know that's sitting right here that did not raise their hands. Now, you are a discerner of the heart. Those who You spoke to and they did not raise their hand, what will it be for those people at the day of the judgment, when the final conference is held? Then it will be decided who did receive, and who did not, whose names are on the book. You said, “Those on my left, I will say, 'Depart into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.' ”

And we know that the time is near at hand. We see the world in a quivering, shaking, condition, knowing that the atoms will soon be burning, and the heavens will be on fire—as the apostle Peter said—and will burn with fervent heat. The atoms of the earth will catch fire soon. There'll be a relay and there'll be not even dust left of the people.

And then what, Lord? Maybe five hundred years from now an old tombstone, blown over yonder in the howling winds, the burning blistering sun, when it lays near the sun for its purification before the Millennium, maybe the name of some of the people here will be written on that. Where will their wandering soul be? May they not look to this modern world now, but may they look away to Christ, listen to the message and the messenger that's speaking in their heart.

Bless those who raised their hands, Father, may they receive the Holy Spirit, I pray in Christ's name. And with our heads bowed, just a moment, did you really mean that? Would you come here at the altar? Rise up out of your seat now, you that raised your hand.

And you that did not raise your hand, if you've been in future meetings, which you will see here, too—see Him by prayer open the eyes of men that's blind, see Him heal those that are crippled and twisted, see Him go down and discern the very thoughts of the heart of the people, just as He said.

Now that's his Spirit that's talking to you now, the Spirit that you saw here tonight that knowed the secrets of the heart. That same Spirit tells me there's many here that should come. Rise up now and come here and stand here around this little platform here a moment for a word of prayer. Will you come? God bless you. God bless you, lady. God bless....

Pass me not, O gentle Saviour

Would you come, whosoever? Do you believe God hears prayer? Come around this altar.

While on others Thou art calling, Do not...... .

Come down out of the balconies, won't you? Some of you young folks just at the turning point of life, come accept Christ as your Saviour. Will you tonight? Be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the time, the place, everything is ready. There'll be no excuse, for the very Spirit that's here tonight will stand against you in the day of the judgment. Now you know I wouldn't say these things 'less it were so. Come down tonight.

Saviour, Saviour....

Reverently, quietly, will you walk out of your seat, just make a few steps, come down here, stand here. God bless these that's come.

While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by.

I stood by a young lady dying not long ago, had been in one of the meetings. She said, “Don't pray, Brother Branham.” She said, “My day is gone.” She said, “One night in your meeting I couldn't hardly sit in the seat,” she said, “sitting with my boyfriend. I asked if he'd come. He said, 'No.' ”

Said, “That was my last day.” She said, “It's too late now.”

The girl, a fine young lady, but was dying with a social disease they could not repair. And the undertaker, a friend of mine, pumped the embalming fluid into her body. Kept moving, they couldn't find where it was at. They smelled it. Holes had eat in the young lady's body. A beautiful young lady. She said, “I should have come.”

She was a church member. Yes, sir. Her pastor standing there, smoking a cigarette when she was dying. You know what she said to him? “You deceiver of men. You told me I was right, and you were wrong.” She said, “I'm dying and I'm lost, and you're the cause of it.” She called for a girl that comes to the Tabernacle who tried to lead her to Christ. They both went to high school together. Tried to get her to come, but it was too late. The girl was dead before she got there. She wanted to repent. She wanted to tell this girl she was sorry because she had called her a foul name, a “holy roller.”

It always tells at the end of the road. That's where you have your conference with the death angel. It's coming to each one of you. You're going to meet him one of these mornings. You may meet him on the highway tonight, you may meet him in your bed tonight. You're going to meet him somewhere. You're going to have a conference. He's lurking near now. Angels of God are lurking near. You'll want them to plead your case on that day. They're speaking now, won't you come? Once more while we sing.

Trusting only in thy merit, (Don't

trust your church; trust his merit.)

.... . seek thy face.

Heal my wounded, broken spirit,

Save me by Thy grace.

Saviour, Saviour,

Hear my humble cry. (Personal

workers, will you come now?)

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by.

While the personal workers are coming up, each one getting around, let the women get by the women, the men by the men. “Come now, let us reason together,” saith the Lord. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”

Do not pass me by.

Saviour, Saviour,

Hear my humble cry.

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by.

Let me at Thy throne of mercy,

Find a sweet relief....

Won't you come down now? Come, someone else now. Is there another would like to come before we change this service?

Saviour, O Saviour,

Oh, hear my humble cry,

While on others Thou art calling

Do not pass me by.

Now how many in here would like to consecrate their life anew to Christ? Raise up your hands. Just say, “This night, henceforth, by the help of God, I'll consecrate my life to God. Raise up your hands, all sincere Christians. ”I'll reconsecrate my life to God.“

All that's sick, raise up your hands and say, “I will believe on Jesus Christ for my healing right now. I will.”

I believe our heavenly Father's pleased with those people coming to receive Christ. Don't you believe so? Now, let us all stand on our feet just a moment, those who can, for a consecration service, consecrating ourselves to God anew. Let us stand up now to renew our vows and our consecration to Christ. Do you love Him? I love Him. Now, everyone now, everybody together.

I love Him, I love Him. (Now make

your consecration to Him.)

Because He first loved me.

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

I love Him, I love Him.

Because He first loved me.

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Now, each bow your head now and in consecrating prayer give yourself over to Christ, while I'm going to ask one of the ministers here if he'll come and offer a consecration prayer. Right here, brother.