Why?

Thank you very much, brother. I deem this another great privilege to be here in this auditorium tonight in the service of the Lord. And now, tomorrow night is a special night for prayer for the sick, for the.... I believe they give it over mostly to the people that are ... they're going to come from the hospitals and things.

Usually in the meetings when we have it set up, we have an emergency room that where that—when they have a big meeting—where the people can get in and be prayed for. Each time when they come that can't get into the prayer line, we have a room that....

Maybe they've come for flew in by plane, or something for hundreds of miles, and just have to be there that one night and go back. So we always try to catch them all.

But when we're having this type of service I feel that every person that's in the building is prayed for each night, see, because as I try to make it plain, you see, that....

If there was ...

I see a ... like a man sitting here in a wheelchair. If I knowed that there.... If I could take a quarter and push it with my nose around this city, have that man to get up out of that chair and be made well, I'd do it. Sure, I'd certainly do it. And, now, maybe he'll live an ordinary lifetime sitting in that chair. But maybe there's a man sitting out there somewhere that's got heart trouble. In just a few hours from now he's going to be dead, unless something helps him. He's in a more critical condition than this man sitting in the chair.

Then, I would push the quarter, certainly, around the city with my nose, which would take me days to do it, and I'd probably have no nose left when I got through pushing it around. But I would do it, to see that poor mortal healed.

So, I cannot heal anyone. I never have healed anyone, but I have seen tens of thousands healed. And so, only thing I try to do is to get them to have faith in what's already appropriated for them. So, when you see.... Just think, if Jesus came here tonight, and was wearing this suit of clothes that He gave me, and you'd walk up to Him, and say, “Lord, will you heal me?” He would perhaps look astonished at you, and say, “You're a believer in me? Do not you read the Scriptures?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Well, did not you read that where I purchased your healing at Calvary? I have already done it.”

If you....

Here's what it is. If you ever seen anything in a pawn shop and then you go and redeem that from the pawn shop, you cannot redeem it the second time. It's already redeemed. If someone gives you a ticket where the price has been paid, and that article is redeemed, it's redeemed. You don't have to pay for it the second time.

There's where Moses made his sin, by striking the rock the second time instead of speaking to it, see. He smote it the first time. What did it speak of? The weakness of the blood of Jesus, that it had to be smitten for each individual. Christ was smitten for our healing. We just speak to the rock now, and it brings forth its healing.

But you see, we have been taught wrong, all about this here laying on of hands, and sensations. Don't never build your hopes of salvation upon a sensation, 'cause you can have all kinds of sensations. But build it upon the Word of God. There's where you can beat Satan any time—upon the Word. It's “thus saith the Lord.”

I remember one night.... I don't want to keep you here. I ain't going to say nothing now. I'll just ... so many things, that if I could stay here for a month I could half ... not half tell it. If I could write in books to what I have seen the Lord do, it would almost make a library in itself.

Hundreds of books wouldn't write of the things that I've seen, just know He did, in these about thirty-five years (or thirty-one years it is) of service for Him, that I've seen Him do in the meetings that I've held, and around the world.

And the great things that was startling, well, I can remember them, and think of them, but we don't write of them—just let them go, because sometimes.... Jesus said, “See that you tell nobody.”

After all, Jesus died for a people that God foreknew would be saved, see. Now that is true. He came to save that which was lost, but by his foreknowledge He knew which would be saved.

Now, healing certainly is for everybody that has faith enough to receive it. Salvation is for everybody who has faith enough to receive it.

In a meeting.... If I'm not mistaken, it was right here in Illinois. Is there a little place up here called Vandalia, or something? I believe that's where it was, at Vandalia, or just across the river in Missouri. It was somewhere here, I believe in Illinois.

Coming through the line one night there was a lady.... And you have to watch what He says. Now in these visions that you see here, taking place in the platform, I don't do that. You know who does that? You do it. You don't know it, but you're the one that's a-doing it.

You say, “Brother Branham!” That's exactly right, class. You do that yourself.

That's just.... I wish I could explain it, but there's no way of doing it. It's just like shifting your car, and getting it into a gear, see. And just like the Holy Spirit—just a gift to know how to shift yourself out and let Him do the talking. See, shift yourself out! Then it isn't you talking; it's Him. And you do that yourself.

To try to make a little explanation of it (I'd say explanation) I'd say this. Maybe we're all going to a carnival. There's this carnival coming to the city, a circus. We're all up here, we ministers. We're young fellows, and we want to get in to see that. So it happened to be that I was a great big, tall, skinny fellow, and a brother here was short and sturdy. Now he'd maybe have a better chance to.... He's stronger than I am.

Well, now, he could pack water. He's big and strong. He could do things that I couldn't do at all. Now, I can't help because I'd be tall and skinny, and he can't help because he's short and strong, see. “Who taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?” said Jesus.

We are what we are. And that's one thing that's hurt our Pentecostal move, and other moves, is somebody trying to be something that they're not. They're trying to impersonate someone else. You can't do that. You're just what you are. That's all. And when you do that, God will use you, just what you are. And you're just as important as anybody else.

As I said the other night, the little bitty hairspring in this watch is just as important as the main spring, because it takes it all together to make time. And when we realize our position in Christ, and then abide in that.... If it's just a little housewife, stay right there, if that's what God wants you to do, see. Just be what you are.

And many of you remember the healing of Congressman Upshaw. Had been in a wheelchair for sixty-six years, served seventeen years in the United States government as a congressman, and so forth. Never seen him in my life.

And Dr. Roy E. Davis of the Missionary Baptist church, that baptized me into the Baptist faith, was a ... or Baptist fellowship, we call it. We believe, in the Baptist church, that the Spirit baptizes you into the body. But we're baptized.... If you've been a Campbellite, and been immersed any way you want to, and you come into the Baptist church, you got to be baptized over into that fellowship. So we call it “baptized into the fellowship of the Baptist church.” He was the one sent Congressman Upshaw there. That was ... and he was....

Never seen him. He just walked into the building there in Los Angeles, where thousands times thousands ... in wheelchairs everywhere. And I seen him in a vision, and began to speak, and he was healed that night. For the first time out of that chair without those crutches and things, for sixty-six years! Congressman William D. Upshaw, fine friend of Churchill and all those.

And as you all know, that ... when I went there and prayed for King George, when he had multiple sclerosis, he was healed instantly. The next day played eighteen holes of golf; and he couldn't even sit up for just a few minutes at a time.

And I was up at Gustav's, and Gustav's brother was a Pentecostal. And why do some of you people ... downing the Pentecostal? It's because you live here in a little city, and don't know the rest of the world. Forty percent of our government is Pentecostal (that's right), or either Pentecostal influenced.

Billy Graham said, “No longer can you hide the Pentecostal church. It's the fastest growing church in the world.” What did our “Sunday Visitor,” the Catholic church, make a statement? That last year alone the Pentecostals had 1,500,000 registered converts—more than all the rest of them put together. We're not a bunch of trash. We've come out of the alley, and we're up on Glory Road, the Pentecostal church. The government officials and all. I had breakfast with Mr. Nixon right there in Washington, D.C., and speaking a few days with some of the state senators.

In my home (ask my secretary), these private interviews, like we had this morning, and what we have of a morning, where the people come to find out what the Lord has to say.... They stay there. We wait there until the Lord speaks. (Not like these little visions you see here. I mean ... you do them.) But doctors, statesmen, congressmen, potentates from the world over....

I was talking to my secretary. (That's his mother, and his father-in-law, and mother-in-law sitting right there now.) The other day, I.... They are waiting, on the list from internationally ... over six hundred waiting now, from around the world.

Come in, and sit before the Lord, and we pray until He comes down and tells them what to do. Doctors, statesmen, lawyers, congressmen, and everything else from the nation over. Even, I've had doctors from Mayo Brothers' clinic. Not something just hearsay, friends—God.

So, here's what the visions are. Now in these meetings, these evangelistic meetings, you don't see one tenth of it. Ask the brethren who go with me. See, these are just little.... These are something that you do yourself.

Now here.... And I'll go back to my point; excuse me for leaving it.

But we're going to a carnival, and there's a great big (or a circus) ... there's a big board fence around it. We don't know how to get over it. So, we want to see what's on the inside. And there's no man in the world but what wants to know where he come from, what he is, and where he's going. There's only one book that can tell you, and that's this—who you are, where you come from, and where you are going. But every human being likes to look a-past the curtain, to see what's on the other side. Well, we're going to do that now, for a parable.

And now we go along, and I look at this brother. How much stronger ... great strong-looking man; me, a little skinny fellow. Well, I think, “Maybe he can do his part towards getting in to see the show, what's on the inside.” Well, how am I going to do it?

The first thing you know, I happen to spy a knothole way up high. Now, he can't reach up there, but I can. So ... but to do it, I have to reach down and jump real high. And I get a hold just with my fingers, and pull myself up, and look through that knothole. Like to ... nearly takes the life out of me, and I hop down.

“What did you see, Brother Branham?”

“A giraffe.”

“Oh, you did? What else did you see?”

“That's all I had time to see. Like to killed me.”

“Look and see if you can see something else.”

Now, you don't realize it, but that's you on the platform, and that's you sitting out there. You're the one that knocks the strength out of me. Last night, someone was telling me, I almost fell four or five times getting out. People don't realize that. If you'd read the Bible....

Do you know, if poets or prophets or so forth, they go into inspiration, sometimes they don't even know where they're at?

Did you ever read of Stephen Foster, wrote “Old Kentucky Home,” “Way Down Upon the Suwannee River”? Gave America its best folk songs. He was considered a neurotic. Every time he'd write a song (inspiration), then he'd go out and get on a drunk. One time when he wrote, he come out ... he just come out of it. He got a razor, called his servant, and committed suicide—cut his throat.

Did you ever hear of William Cowper? Certainly you have. I stood by his grave recently and cried. He was considered in England a goofy guy, crazy. Anybody that's real spiritual.... Science says it's just one stage away from insanity, from the world. So, it's the human mind trying to cope with that mind there. You don't realize. No one will ever know, this side of eternity, what it means.

So then, William Cowper finally ... the day.... Remember when he tried to even get in a cab and go commit suicide? Come back and got a rope and tried to hang himself; and went down and tried to drown in the river; then wrote that famous song: “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins; where sinners plunged beneath the flood, lose all their guilty stains.”

Look at the prophet Jonah. As soon as he come out of the belly of the whale and went and gave his prophecy.... As long as the inspiration was on him, giving his prophecy, he was fine. But when the inspiration left him, he sat on top of a mountain and prayed for God to take his life.

The prophet Elijah, under a vision of the Lord, fixed and called fire out of heaven. Called rain out of heaven the same day, and killed four hundred priests himself. And then when the inspiration left him, run at the threat of a woman, and was forty days and nights out in the wilderness—not even knowing where he was at, wandering around. And God found him pulled back in the cave. Now that's scripture?

See, people don't realize it. You don't realize what it means. You say, “If I had a ministry like that....” You'd want to get rid of it, right quick. You don't realize what it does to you. It kills you. But God has given it to you.

Critics laugh, make fun, and everything; and me standing right here, I know what they're thinking. Certainly I do. I used to call them out and say everything. But when I did, I found out it hurts. Jesus said let them both grow together. Don't pull up the tares. That's God's time, at the end, to pull the tares out—at the end of the harvest. Just let them alone, see. Go ahead. I've got a ministry to serve, God to serve, and I just do it the best I can, and then go on.

Well, now, when you come to the platform, that's you that's doing that, like the woman touched his garment. It's your own faith that does that. I have nothing to do with it. To me, I can do nothing. I've asked God for something over and over, for myself, for the past five years, and He won't even say a word to me about it.

My own mother was laying here dying, and saying, “Son, what shall be my end?” And my sweet old mother, I couldn't tell her until God tells me, see. He has to speak. I don't do the speaking; it's Him.

And it's not me that causes the visions here on the platform. Ask my brethren that's with me. This week I've eat nothing but crackers and milk. It's true. Fasting, waiting, seeing which way the Spirit will lead me. The boys at the door said, “There's a big smorgasbord down here, Brother Branham. How you love to go to smorg....”

I said, “I do, but not in healing services.” Wait on the Lord. “This comes out only by fasting and praying.”

Here comes tomorrow night, when cripples, and hospital cases, and dying people will be sitting here. Be ready for it, if you love people. And if you don't love people, you might as well get out of the ministry, that's all, because if your heart don't burn for them....

I'd rather you'd say something good about my son than you'd say it about me, because that's my son. And if we can't love one another, how're we going to love God, whom we haven't seen? We must find the thing.... We've got to love one another. Though we differ, you've got to love anyhow. You can't bluff it; you've got to really do it. You've got to.

And the greatest power I've ever found in healing is love, when you have sympathy and love for the people, trying to help them.

Sometimes I scold them, and go back home, and just think, “Lord, what did I do it for?” But it's because I love them. If I have to scold my little boy for running out on the street .... He'll get killed if I don't get him off that street. Sometimes I have to whip him, correct him, say “Son, stay off of that street.” It's not because I don't love that child; it's because I do love him. That's the way God has to do to us—scold us, and shake us, make us....

A real true.... A person that lets his child just do anything is not a good parent. That's right. There's too much of that in America today. We need the old-fashioned mothers.

Now, someone comes to the platform, a lady. Here I am. I've got myself relaxed. As she comes up, who is she? I've never seen her, and don't know her. What is she? I don't know. “O God, I'm depending on You.” Now, all day long I've prayed.

“What is it, Lord?” Step across to this Bible here. “God, there's your Word. You made the promise. Between me and that woman stands your Word. Your Spirit's here somewhere. God, may be one thing that might set this whole building afire. Maybe the Holy Spirit has come in and ward off all the unbelief tonight. There's nothing in here but what's going to believe me. Everything is going to believe, because I've preached it just as simple as I can; and they've read the Bible, and know it's the truth, and a promise for this day. Surely they will, Lord.”

Then trying to relax myself, talking. The first thing you know.... What am I doing? Reaching up, reaching up, find out what kind of faith that woman's got. Finally find she's got faith. What does it do? It touches. Then between her and I, I see it. Then where do I go? Here, up, up, up, grab it—“You have tumor!”

“Yes, sir.”

You turn towards the audience. “He guessed that.” See.

“Why, that's mental telepathy.”

“Dr. Jones said it was so-and-so.”

“Oh, that's mind reading.” See, there you are again.

Well, what can you say? You look out there. Here sits this one, that one. Up here, down there, it is back there, it is.... “God, what can I do? Well, Lord, You had to go through the same thing.”

Now, what else did... ? What else is wrong with her? Here you go again. You're already fingers aching, as it was, hanging on there. Now your heart's aching, see. Then up you go again. “And besides that, you got TB. You were at a doctor the other day, and he told you you were.... He was a tall man.”

“You read their mind.” Isn't that strange?

Even Christians saying, “Well, I suppose it's all right.”

Well, after awhile that one passes by. Here's another one. Then you're just about sagged out, see. Here's another one. Well, there stands a whole line of them. If you don't get every one of them, boy, “They never got prayed for! Something wrong!”

See, I'm trying to use a prophetic gift in an evangelistic service. That's the reason it don't work so well. It does in Africa. It does anywhere else but the United States. Anywhere else but here it'll work. Doesn't here. People just don't get it. I don't know why, but they don't.

That one thing can happen in Africa; thousands will rush to the altar screaming, crying, jumping out of their wheelchairs, if they have to crawl, or anything else. They believe God, that's all. They get it.

But we've been ... see, we've been indoctrinated with so many different isms and so many different things. Somebody says it's this; somebody says it's that. “He belongs to another church. He's not one of us. He's a holy roller. He might be a medium. He might be a devil.” See, in all of that, that just grieves the.... Then somebody will say, “Hmph! I'll get out of here right now,” see.

Now how can you have a meeting under that? You let me ask you something. Throw this audience with one accord, with one faith, one time. Let me guarantee you, in the name of the Lord, there won't be a wheelchair left in here but what people will be walking. You just try it one time and find out. I've seen it. Twenty-five thousand got from wheelchairs, stretchers, and everything else and walked.

But you've got to minister anyhow. This is a nation that's got the money to send me yonder. They haven't got money to bring me. I ain't got no big backing-up. Only thing I have to do is just depend on: “God, You have mercy. Do something. Wherever You lead me, I will go.” And that's what I do, see.

Now, perhaps maybe the ring master comes by now. “What are you boys looking at?”

“We were looking in, sir.”

“Oh! Well, come here.” He's a great big fellow. Reaches down, picks me up into his hands. Said, “I'll tell you how this goes, Brother Branham. You see that show over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Now, that's where the garland ride starts there. They come out here, and they ride around this way. They come through here, and they do this, and this does this, and this that.”

“Oh, yes, sir.” (Sitting in the palm of his hand.)

“And this is this, and this is this.” Sets me down there at the grandstand, you know. Show me everything that's going to happen.

“Oh,” I say, “thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”

“Now you be a good boy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What happened? What'd you see?”

“Oh, bless God,” see. I'm not tired, see. He just lifted me up and showed me.

Now, that's you using God's gift; or God using his own gift. See? Now you say, “Is that scriptural?”

Yes, brother.

A woman touched his garment one time and He said, “I got weak.” Is that right?

But one day when He was in the home of Martha and Mary and them, God showed Him (He said He done nothing till the Father showed Him.) ... and God showed Him that Lazarus was going to die.

So He said, “You go away. And they're going to send for You.” (I'll prove that.) He said, “Go away. And after four days he's going to die. And then You go back and You'll wake him. Go to the grave and wake him,” and so forth, because.... He had to've done it. If He didn't, He told something wrong.

So He went, and they sent for Him. Did He go back? “Your friend, Lazarus, is sick, ready to die.” He knowed what the Father told Him, so He just went on.

They sent again, “Lazarus is sick. Come see him right quick. He's going to die.” He just went on.

If you'd have sent for your pastor and he didn't come, you'd have went and joined the next church, you see. That's the reason you don't get nowhere. You've got to believe the servant God sent you, see. If he's led of the Spirit, let him alone.

Then after four days, Jesus turned around because that's what the Father, no doubt, had told Him; because He said He did nothing till the Father showed Him. He turned around and said to his disciples (He knowed the time was fulfilled), He said, “Our friend, Lazarus, is asleep.”

“Oh,” they said, “he's doing well.”

He said ... then He told them in their own language, said, “He's dead. And for your sake I'm glad I wasn't there.” So He said, “But I'll go wake him.”

And when He got to the grave, listen what He said: “I thank Thee, Father. Thou has already [see] heard Me. But I just say this for those who stand by. I said it for their sake,” you see. Then He said, “Lazarus! Come forth.” Lazarus came forth.

He never said a thing about getting weak, did He? That was God using his gift. The other one was a woman using his gift. See the difference? You understand now? That's what it is. It's you that's doing it.

Now in the interviews and so forth, we have times where the Holy Spirit (like sitting this morning before a young couple), how it went down through their life, picks it up and brings it back.

And, my, here a famous doctor sat in the room recently, and asked me about a certain thing. I said, “Will you pray with me?”

He said, “I will, sir.” We knelt down and prayed.

I said, “Now, you're studying of building a clinic, and there's a certain thing fixing to happen. And you looked at a certain place to build this clinic. You said they couldn't touch it for twenty-five years. But,” I said, “thus saith the Lord, Doctor....”

He said, “You think the city needs a clinic?”

I said, “Yes, sir. It needs a clinic. I think you're a fine doctor, so you go....”

He said, “It can't be that, though. It can't be there.” Said, “I've done fought that in court.” Said, “You can't build it there.”

I said, “It'll be built out of red brick. It'll have a light roof on it. It'll almost be a city block long. It'll be there, and your name will be on the front of it. I saw it. Thus saith the Lord.”

He said, “I'd like to believe that, sir.”

I said, “You remember when you sent me that man not long ago, that didn't even have any liver—half of it eat out—that minister? And that morning I saw those five apples come down, and a big healthy apple eat up the unhealthy apples? And I told you, 'Thus saith the Lord,' he'd live. And you said, 'How can he live without a liver in him?' I said, 'He's preaching. He's taken my place at the Milltown Baptist church.' I said, 'He's still there.' ”

He said, “Oh, I remember. Rev. William Hall, the Milltown Baptist Church.”

I said, “He's still there. That's been about five years ago.” I said, “Your clinic will be there.”

He said, “I hope you're right.”

I said, “Hope?” I said, “He's always right.”

And so, the next morning he called me up. He said, “Brother Branham,” he said, “I'm freezing to death.” And it was in July!

I said, “Freezing to death?”

He said, “Shivers running over me.” Said, “They had a meeting in Boston last night. With all the bids in for that place, they picked me! It ain't going to have to wait twenty-five years; it's already set up. I bought the place already this morning.” There's the clinic. Right there it sits.

In St. Louis just recently, a great medical meeting, he made a speech, and he told that. Got a sign of it sticking on his door, engraved in brass. He said, “If anybody ever doubts—any physician—have him to call me, collect.”

You see, friends, it's not nothing.... The thing of it is, you can't wake yourself up. That's all. You can't wake yourself up to the reality of what it is. You children, and you people here in these wheelchairs, you know if I could help you I'd come do it. You know that. God bless your heart, I'd certainly do it. But you're no more....

To heal a person in a wheelchair is no more than heal one with heart trouble. And the greatest thing He ever done was save a man's soul, to change his whole disposition and everything. So, you just think you're bound for all time. You're not! No, sir! I've seen tens of thousands of wheelchairs ... of people healed out of them, see. And I know....

And it is true, someone said that my grammar's bad.

I remember in Ft. Wayne, not long ago, I was preaching at B. E. Redigar ... where his daughter had been healed of insanity a few days ago. (Oh, there I go again. There's so many things to say.) An insane girl that was going to the “morgue,” and the Catholic school wouldn't even let me in I went in as a visitor. Spoke to the girl a few minutes. I said ... told the father (I used to go with the girl's mother), I said, “Thus saith the Lord, she has her right mind.” Her mother grabbed me around the waist and she said—looked to her husband—she said, “He's never wrong.” I said.... Now, she didn't mean me. She meant the Spirit of the Lord.

About two hours after that the father called me up, weeping. He said, “Brother Branham, I don't know what to say.” His daughter was just only eighteen years, a teacher of music, and played the overtures and so forth—same studies that my daughter was studying. He said, “I don't know what to say.” Said, “That girl instantly come to herself, and these doctors are holding a council right now.” Said, “She's going home with us this afternoon.” That's right. He said, “Oh, I'll blast it through the country.”

I said, “Shh ... tell no one. Go ahead. Just thank God and move on,” you see. Just keep going on. He's wonderful, if you'll just believe Him.

One more little thing to you people. Just because that you're here in the meeting and you accept your healing, it don't happen right away, don't pay any attention to that. It will happen, if you've got enough faith to believe it'll happen.

There was a woman come in the meeting one night. She passed through. She had stomach trouble. The Holy Spirit said to her, “You are Mrs. So-and-so. You came from a certain place.” Said, “You have a stomach trouble.” Said, “What it is, is a duodenal ulcer.” Said, “It's very dangerous, and the doctor says that you might hemorrhage with it sometime, because.... They've been wanting to operate.” I said, “But you're afraid of the operation, and therefore.... You're not able to eat anything hardly at all, but just broths and stiffer, like bouillon, and so forth.”

She said, “That's right.” And she said, “Is he right, Mr. Branham?”

I said, “Certainly your doctor's right.” And I said, “The reason it is, is because it was caused by tension. You're under such a tension all the time.”

She said, “I have been a nervous child.”

I looked at her, and I seen her sitting down by a nice big steak, eating, you know, and eating a piece of apple pie. That's what I saw in the vision. I said, “But thus saith the Lord....”

Watch what it says, see. You're the one that's making it say this. But look what it says behind it. That's the thing, see. You say you got a cancer. You know that. But see what He says about that cancer, see. That's when you watch it.

So then, it told her. So she said, “I'm going out and eat.” So she went out and eat.

And a little bit behind that come a lady that had a big growth on her throat. And the Holy Spirit told her, “That growth shall leave you, thus saith the Lord.”

So, they happened to be neighbor women. So the next day she tried to eat, and oh, my! She liked to died. And so, she tried for two or three days, and she'd just vomit, and gag, and blood fly out of her mouth, and everything. And after about a week, her husband, being a Christian, but.... He said, “Honey,” said, “you're bringing a reproach upon the cause.” Said, “You mustn't say things like that.”

She started crying. She said, “Hubby, listen.” She said, “That man didn't never see me in his life. And by some sort of a power that I believe was the Holy Spirit, according to what I read in this Bible, he told me what my trouble was, who I was, exactly to the letter. And told me it's 'thus saith the Lord' that I'd be well.” She said, “Until that time comes, I'm going to be acting like it.”

So he said, “Go ahead, burst your ulcer. Then you'll bleed to death.” She just went on. 'Course he didn't have.... See, it never happened to him; it happened to her. It wasn't his faith; it was hers.

Well, about two months passed. Nothing happened. One morning the children had left to go to school, and she was washing the dishes and she was singing. And, after awhile she had the funniest feeling come over her, she said. She come to testify of it. So, said the funniest feeling went over her. She got real hungry.

She said, “Well, the children left some oats in their plates.” (You know, I guess, mothers do that.) And so she got a little bit of the oats, and eat it, and she thought ... she'd usually vomit with it. So she got a little oats and she eat it. That toast looked so good, she was taking a bite of the toast some of the kiddies had left. So, she went on a few minutes and she was still hungry—didn't vomit. So she just poured her out some, stirred them up, eat her a piece of toast. Went on washing—she just felt fine.

Fixing her house around, she got real hungry again; so she just went and fried her two eggs, some bacon, got her cup of coffee, and had a gastronomical jubilee. She just really got ready for it. So she just eat all she could. Waited till about ten o'clock. Nothing happened. She was getting hungry again.

So she thought, “Oh, praise God!” She said, “I'm going down and tell my neighbor.”

And when she got down there, she heard someone screaming and crying. So she run to the door and shook the door and nobody answered. She thought maybe somebody had died. And so she run into the house real quick, and here this woman with a sheet in her hand, shaking it like that, and screaming at the top of her voice.... And she said, “What's the matter?”

She said, “You know what?” Said, “Last night I was standing before the mirror, looking at that knot on my neck. Now look. It's gone.” Said, “I've shook every sheet, and everything else, trying my best to find it. And I woke up this morning and....” [Now I've got their names and addresses, see, documented statements.]

And see, what it was, when that angel of God .... Now, anybody that's a Bible student knows that sometimes ... that God does not come right on the scene when He should come—when we think He should.

Remember, Daniel prayed and it was twenty-one days before the angel could get to him. Is that right? All right. How many knows that?

What happened, the very angel of God that made the promise (Not me, now. I have nothing to do with it. I didn't know them.), but said, “Thus saith the Lord....” It taken Him almost two months, but He was passing through the neighborhood, confirming that word that He had spoken. Glory to God! If that ain't the same God of the Bible, I don't know my Bible. That's happened tens of hundreds of times, friends.

So what am I saying that for? Building your faith for tomorrow night's healing service. I want you to.... Now, don't bluff it. It won't bluff. You can't bluff the devil. Remember when Jesus gave his church ... like, He gave his church power in St. Matthew, the tenth chapter, to cast out devils, heal the sick and the lepers, and raise the dead. Is that right?

Now, I want somebody that doesn't believe in divine healing show me by the Scripture where He ever took that power away from the church. I want the chapter, the book, and the verse. Where He give that power to his church, I can show you chapter, book, and verse where He told them it would be at all races, all places, to all the world. Now you tell me where He said, “I made a mistake. I've got to take it back.” Show it to me, some critic. It's not in God's Word.

Now you see, it isn't ... where you're looking at, my critical friend, is this: You're looking at the weakness. You're looking at what the people is doing about it. But don't look at that; look at what God said about it. That's it. You're looking at the wrong way. You're cross-eyed, see. And a man that's cross-eyed don't know which way he's going, see. So you just ... you look single-eyed at God, what God said. Not what people's doing about it, what the seminary said, but what God said. If this isn't the Word of God, then go get something that is the Word of God.

No wonder the priest has to ... the Catholic priest has to be so smart. He's got six hundred books that he has to learn that's just as sacred to him as that Bible. Six hundred other bibles, like, of other men who wrote books, that he's got to learn. Smart. There's no way to keep up with him. Talk about ... when it comes to intellectual. But God won't use that at all. That's foolish to Him. The humility of believing Jesus Christ, God expressed, makes ... that even a fool should not err therein.

Now. Now look here. Jesus in Matthew 10 had gave them power to heal the sick. They went out and cast out devils; come back rejoicing and so forth. And ten days after that time they were totally defeated on a epileptic case. That's right. I can imagine hearing Andrew say, “Step back, boys. Surely you can't do it. Let me show you how I done it over at Capernaum. Come here! Thus saith the Lord, 'Come out of him, devil!' Come out of him, devil! Hallelujah! Come out of him, devil!” The boy just kept on in the spasm.

And I can hear Peter say, “Ohh, remember. You all don't know. Let me show you how I done it down at Joppa. Come here. Let me have him.” Pour some water on him, say, “This is the way you do it.” They was all defeated. Not because they didn't have power....

Now watch. After awhile, look, coming down off the mountain there, I see Him come walking, quietly. Bible said there was no beauty we should desire Him. Maybe a little stoop-shouldered fellow. But when He come walking up to where he was, that father run and said, “Lord, I brought my son to your disciples, but they couldn't do anything for him.” He said, “Will You help him?”

And He said, “I can if you believe, for all things are possible to them that believe.”

He said, “Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.”

Brother, when that devil walked in the face of Him, he knowed He'd met him on a different level than what them disciples had. He said, “Come out of him,” and the boy fell and had the worst fit he ever had. Then he straightened out and stiffened. They said, “He's dead.”

“He's not dead. Pick him up.”

The disciples come along and they said (Now listen. Here's your modern day.), “Well, Lord, I guess you took all of our power away from us. The church don't have power anymore.”

“No.”

“So why couldn't we cast him out?”

Said, “Because of your unbelief.” Is that right?

The church still has the power. You Methodists here, you've got that power, you Baptists, Presbyterians, Nazarenes, Pilgrim Holiness. But you're afraid to use it. That's all.

What good would it do for me to have a fine hunting gun laying on the wall, and afraid to shoot it? I'd never get any game, I'm sure. Well, I might make a whole lot of fizzles, and have some backfires, and not handle it very good, Brother Gene, but I'm shooting anyhow. I'm trying awful hard. Yes, sir. So you will do that. Let's have faith and know that if we believe it.... Amen. Let's bow our heads now.

Lord Jesus, sometimes we talk like children, and we're glad to be that. For if we know so much, You can't lead us no more. But as long as we're children, You forgive us of our ignorance and we just trust your hand. Sometimes we scream and shout and carry on because, Father, we're children. We don't depend on our own ability. We're just happy that we're ... we have a Father that watches over us. We're so happy for this.

Lord, there are people here that's sick, afflicted. Some of them are saved, some are not saved; some believe they're saved and not, some are.... They're just all kinds, Father. It's all mixed-up.

Will You help us tonight, that we could have one great, mammoth, mass healing tomorrow? Grant it, Lord. May there be such a outpouring of your Spirit. Lord, I pray that You'll just grant it in such a way, till there will not be a feeble person left in the building. Grant it, Lord.

Now we're going to open back the pages of the Word. Now, I cannot open this Book, nor no one can, only physically with my hands. Let the Holy Spirit open it, and interpret it to us—a few words that would build our faith in such a way that all of the unbelief would fade away from us; and we'd be perfectly satisfied with the pure unadulterated faith in God—that He heals the sick, He saves the lost. And if there's any sin in our midst, Lord, take it away, please, Lord. And let us sanctify ourselves tonight through the faith in the blood of thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. We ask it in his name. Amen.

Now here, just talking to you, and it's time to close. I've got quite a few scriptures that I've written down here, I'd like to refer to. I might not get to any of them, but for a way of context.... Now, I won't be too long. Honest, I hope I'm not. But I'm just ... want to read from the book of Jeremiah, the eighth chapter, the twenty-second verse. This is a question of three letters I'm going to ask the audience tonight.

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

Now I'm going to ask the question, like God did: “Why [w-h-y], why is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” Now, that is quite a statement. But I believe that if God makes a way for anything, makes a way of escape, makes a way for it, and the people doesn't receive it, doesn't walk in it, then He has a right to ask why.

If you went and bought your boy a car.... You say, now, “Junior, I do not want you to go to any poolrooms. Your father and mother, we are a Christian home. I don't want you smoking cigarettes. I don't want you going to dances with these modern ... dances where they drink and things. We are Christians here, Junior, and you'll bring a reproach upon our home, and upon the cause that we stand for. And I'll be real good to you, Junior. Daddy works hard. So I'm going to slave away till I save enough money to buy you a little car, because you can go to school in it, you and Sis, and ... just be nice. I'll get you nice clothes....”

And then you find out that Junior is smoking, and drinking, and going to places. Then you've got a right to ask that boy, “Why?” because you made every way for him to have pleasure, and to take his little car and go fishing and so forth, and go out riding. And then, you'd have a right as a father to ask him, “Why? Why did you do it?” Isn't that right, brethren?

Then, if God makes a way for his people to escape, and get away from the wrath that's fixing to come, and they don't receive it, then He's got a right to ask why didn't they do it.

I landed in Bombay, India, here some time ago. And I was reading a piece in the paper. I still have it. Or, I beg your pardon, Tommy Nichols has it now. It's coming out in the “Christian Businessmen's Voice.” And it said, “The earthquake must be over.”

Now, India isn't rich people, like they are in America. Now, the foreign people really think that as long as you're an American you are rich. Well, that is right, according to them, but ... according to the status they have to live in. But they have their fences, where they pick up rocks, like we did in early America, and make their fences. A lot of their homes are built out of rock and mud.

But one day there come a strange thing happen. And all the little birds that live in these rocks along the fences and in the big towers, all flew away from their nests, and left it—just evacuated their nests. And the cattle and sheep that when the day got hot.... They'd feed early of a morning and late in the evening. But instead of.... in the heat of the day they'd come and stand in the shadows of this fence to keep cool. But instead of that, they run right out in the middle of the field, and all leaned against one another—cattle, sheep, animals. And the people wondered what strange action this is. Two days it happened.

All of a sudden, an earthquake blowed the country. Them walls fell in. The earthquake shook four or five different times, for maybe two days. They had earthquake after earthquake. Finally the little birds begin to fly back into their nests, the places that was left. The cattle come back around what walls was left.

What was it? The same God that warned the birds and the animals to go into the ark for safety shows He is the same God today, see. He warned his animals to flee, and to get away from those great walls that was fixing to fall.

Now, if God can do that by instinct to an animal, how much more should we, who claim to be his children filled with the Holy Ghost, be warned of the Spirit to flee these things of the world and get away from them? They're fixing to crumble in.

Go to the ark of safety—which is Christ—just as quick as you can get into Him. Go quickly! Don't wait a minute, for the hour is coming when the door will be closed, and mercy will be no more. So, if God has made a way, and then.... At the judgment He's going to ask why.

I used to know a song we sang, “When the last book is opened, what then?”—when the preacher has preached his last prayer, or prayed his last prayer, or something like that, the Bible's closed on the pulpit, the arms are all stacked, the taps sound out for its last time over the hills. The retreats are made, the sun's setting for its last time. The mimic has made his last act, and Hollywood is finished. What then? You're going to be asked to give a reason why you didn't come. Then, what then? What're you going to answer for? How're you going to escape it?

Now we want to think these things seriously for about thirty minutes, as I try to refer to some scriptures here. Now you're going to be asked—every one of you—why. When it comes to a spot that when God has made every preparation, sent the Holy Spirit and revealed and showed everything that He promised in the Bible right before you, then what are you going to do?

You know, it's something like the other day in Louisville, Kentucky. There was a woman had a little baby, and she was packing it around from place to place, and was in a ten cent store. And she'd say, “Look, darling. Look, darling. Look, darling.” And she got hysterically.

And after a while she said, “Oh!” Just screamed out, and the people, the patrons in the building, began to notice the strange action of the woman. And she just fell across the table and began crying. And when they wondered what was the matter with her, they went over.

She said, “My little boy here, two years old,” she said, “about six months ago he just sat and stared.” And said, “I took him to the doctor. There's nothing that should attract a little boy like him will attract him.” Said, “He just sits and looks blank.” And said, “I shake these little trinkets and things, that ought to attract his attention, but he just sits blank. There's something wrong with him.”

Now, please forgive me if I.... I don't mean to hurt feelings, but remember, this is where correction is. This is judgment. That's a whole lot like the church is today. God has shook all kinds of spiritual gifts before us, and they still sit like they was just staring. They don't want it. You can speak against women wearing short hair. They never do anything about it. About wearing ... immorally dressed. They never do anything about it. About fussing in their denominations—one's better than this one, this one's this, and this one's this and this. And they never do nothing about it. They just go right on fussing just the same.

I wonder what they're going to do at the judgment when God says, “Why?”

He sent an Oral Roberts, a Tommy Hicks. Spoke in tongues, and interpretations of tongues, and give messages; and prophets, and everything else that He promised in the Bible. Every blessing, He shook it before the church, and constantly they wade on in unbelief. Then God will say, “Why?” Then what's your answer?

Now don't think I'm trying to hurt, but what's them men in these wheelchairs? Look out there at the sickness. As many times as Oral Roberts, and many great ministers of healing gifts, and Jack Coes, and things, with them.... Bulldog faith grabs a hold of it, and you seen things done. Then He comes along with prophetic gifts, and shows the discernments, with infallible proofs world-around. And you sit and say, “Well, I wonder if something could happen?”

God's going to ask you, “Why?”, and you're going to have to answer. Now that's truth.

Now, one time there was a king. His name was Ahaziah. He was a son of Jezebel and Ahab. And he took his father's place in Samaria when Ahab was killed according to the prophets. And the dogs licked his blood—just exactly what the prophet had said would take place.

And Ahaziah took his place, and he was a renegade just like his father and his mother. And one day he was walking through the lattice of his house—perhaps the same lattice as the queen of Sheba, or some other in her days, when they built the temple of Solomon. And he fell through that lattice, and hurt himself, and got sick.

And he sent up to Ekron, to Baalzebub, a devil. Sent two men up there, a group of men. Said, “Go up and consult, and ask Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, if I am going to get well, yes or no.”

And God sent an angel down to the old Elijah, sitting down there in a little cave-door. He said, “Go up and meet them.” God knows when to send, and when not to. Said, “Go up and meet them, and tell them, 'Thus saith the Lord.' ”

And old Elijah walked sturdily up there, and stood in the road.

When he seen them come up, he said, “You're on your road over to Ekron over there, to meet Baalzebub, to meet their prophets, to consult whether Ahab is going to get well or not.” Said, “Go back and tell him, why did you do that? Is it because there's no God in Israel? Is it because there's no prophet there? Why would you go do a thing like that, then? Go tell him, thus saith the Lord, he's not coming off that bed.” Oh, my! That's God.

What's the matter, that we change our papers from Methodist to Baptist, to Presbyterian, and all other different denominations and things, running around? Why do we do these things? Why do we go ... why do we stay home on Wednesday nights, watching “We love Suzy,” or some of them plays and television programs, and things like that?

Is it because there is no God in Pentecost? Is it because there's no joy in the house of the Lord? Is it because there is no prophet there? Is it because these things are not so? Is there is no physician there? Is there no balm in Gilead? Balm is healing. Then, “Why is the daughter of my people still sick?” Asks, “Why?” Why do we do these things? Why do we act like the world? Why does our women still dress like the world? Why do our pastors let deacons come in with two or three different wives, and serve on the deacon boards? Why do we go just like the world, and begin to act like the world, and talk like the world? And why are we doing it? Is it because...?

Why do we have to build great shrines that's worth millions and millions of dollars? And preaching Jesus is coming the next few days. Missionaries on the field, with no shoes on their feet, living with one meal a day. Why would we throw our money away for stuff like that? and missionaries that I know haven't got shoes on their feet. Men of God will answer for it some day. God's going to say, “Why?” That's right.

Mother in China hands you a little baby, and his little belly swelled that big, dying with hunger; and we try to ... want to keep up with the Jones's. God's going to ask us, “Why?”

Now our great organizations building tens of millions of dollars worth of buildings, and things like that; and preaching Jesus is coming soon. Our own testimony meets us in the face by the Word. No, we don't believe what we're talking about. Just become a routine, around and around and around. The fathers say it, so we said it too.

If you really believe it, act like it.

If you believe in divine healing, accept Him. If you believe the Holy Ghost tonight, stay there—not for ten minutes, but until He comes. Don't take no substitute. Stay there until the real thing's there, when you've passed from death to life. And, brother, the birds will sing different, everybody ... all the ones you hated, you'll love, and everything will be different when you do.

Why do we substitute something instead of it? God's going to say, “Why?” Then we're going to have to answer. Now, that is right, brethren. You believe that. All of you do, you men. Now that's where we're standing.

We should be a church on fire with faith, brother, burning. My, oh, my! Instead of that, we look like we're a bunch of little coyotes, backed up in a corner. “Well, yeah, I believe it.” Uh-huh, you're backing up. Stand up there toe-to-toe to it. If we're Pentecostal, be Pentecostal!

If we're not, why not just break the thing down, consolidate with some other of our denominations, our Methodist brethren here, our Baptist brethren, our Pente... our Presbyterian. Or why don't you all go back and be Catholic? That's the oldest one of the bunch of them, see. Go back and be that. But if we're Pentecostal, let's be Pentecostal by experience. Rise, shake yourself. Yes.

Said, “Go tell him, what's the matter?” Why would the Pentecostal people...?

A girl asked me the other day, said, “Brother Branham, they're beginning to wear scandal skirts.”

I said, “What's that?”

“Oh,” she said, “the girls are wearing skirts that's cut down this way, that shows their underskirts. Do you think it's wrong for a girl to do that?”

I said, “Sister, what in the world does a Pentecostal, Holy Ghost-filled girl want to show her underskirt for? I'd just like to ask you that.” If she'd been right with God, she wouldn't have had to ask that.

I've got a little Bible. When I first started out, I wrote a little book. Used to be if somebody'd say, “Is it wrong to smoke? Is it wrong to drink? Is it wrong to so-and-so, like that,” I said, “Don't ask me foolish questions. Make this up in your mind. If you love the Lord with all your heart, you don't smoke, chew, or drink any 'shine.' ” And I still stand by that.

When the love of God's in your heart, you've got no time for nothing else. You're sold out. The Bible says, “If you love the world, or the things of the world, it's because the love of God is not even in you,” and your own life tells about it. I hope that's plain enough I won't have to get any plainer, see. But that's true.

“By their fruits you know them.” So, shake ourselves. Let's be Pentecostal; or be something else. If we're not Pentecost, let's quit saying we are, until we get back to the real Pentecostal experience. Get back to faith, daring faith. Them disciples sealed their death with their faith. Oh, “faith of our fathers living still, in spite of dungeon, flame or sword,” that's what we want—real, genuine faith.

You Methodists need it, you Baptists need it, you Pentecostals need it. All of us need it.

God's going to say, “Why?” Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Then why? is there no ... is there no prophet in Israel? Is there no God there? Has Pentecostal lost their God? Don't they have any more gifts in amongst Pentecostals? Have they no more prophets, gifts of prophecy, prophets, teachers, pastors, evangelists, no one else to speak in tongues and give messages?

One thing, you don't reverence them gifts enough. Another thing, you don't prove them first. Then you get every kind of spirit in there speaking. When you get that spirit that don't say something that's right, get it out of there. You don't want a substitute; God's got a real one for you.

Some man speaks in tongues, and let him.... It's a message to the church. Everybody keep still—that's God speaking. And listen and see. If it's not for the church, then it's in the flesh. If it's something to the church, and it doesn't come to pass, then that's a foul, evil spirit, 'cause God don't lie. And you'll have your church setting in order, see.

But the way it is: just let it fly loose anywhere, and somebody chewing chewing gum, and another one eating popcorn; one talking, and another one whispering, somebody trying to speak in tongues, three or four at a time; and this one trying.... Oh, my! It becomes a Corinthian affair again. You ought to get it back in order, back with the Holy Spirit. Test that gift.

You say, “Oh, Brother Branham, we test that?”

Well, brother, it has to be tested right here, don't it? That's right. Don't be afraid. If it's God, it's right, one hundred percent right. But ... [blank spot].

... plumb over the top of that.

I was talking to the man, the editor, Bob (what's his name?) that writes “The Christian Life.” He was down at.... (Schuller ... not Bob Schuller. He's the Methodist brother.) I know him real well, but I can't think of his name. That writes “The Christian Life,” the ... Walker. He come to Indianapolis, and he said, “Brother Branham, what about the Pentecostals?” He said, “They do this, and do that.”

I said, “And what about the rest of them? They do the same thing, but many times their members are in the paper, the editors of the paper, and things. You don't hear about it. But,” I said, “they do just as bad.”

But I said, “Sometimes somebody does get off the wrong end. And then, what do you all do? You jump plumb across the real thing, and pull over to that; and this over on this side that's real wild fire, pour it plumb back over to old cold formal.” I said, “It's right in the middle of the road. Goes with genuine Holy Ghost, the church. Glory! Them old cold formals on one side, and radics on the other side, it's all false from the real thing.

Isaiah said in the 35th chapter, “There shall be a highway....” You Nazarenes call it the highway of holiness. You're wrong. Not disputing your word, but it says “There shall be a highway and....” And's a conjunction. “There shall be a highway and a way, and it shall be called [not the highway, but] the way of holiness.” Middle of the road.

Dr. Weed ... I know you Assembly brethren know.... He's a darling brother, a precious friend of mine. I was preaching on that one time. Brother Weed got up. He said, “You know what... ?”

Brother Zifford, I guess all of you know Brother Zifford. He's my cousin, big Assemblies.... He's at Evansville, Indiana. We had a men's meeting on that subject. He said, “Brother Branham talking about the middle of the road,” said, “that's not good driving ethics.” So I happened to be standing behind him. He didn't know it.

I said, “You see, Brother Weed, just how earthly you can get, you Assembly brethren?” He's a precious brother, and the Assembly is one of my great sponsors.

So, I said, “You see, you just think about the earthly things so much, and get in such a twist, till all you can think about is just the things of the earth.” I said, “Sure, riding on the earth, that's bad ethics. But this road I'm talking about, you don't come back. It's just a one-way ticket.”

And Brother Weed just laughed. How many knows Roy Weed? He's one of the finest men that you can get. He's been a real brother to me. And so, there you are.

But God's going to ask us “Why?” He asked the king, “Why?” Now it wasn't because they didn't have a prophet that he could consult. No, no. No, sir. He could've went and consulted the prophet of God. It wasn't because there was no God in Israel. Sure, the God of Israel would've told the prophet about the king. But it was the king's own stubborn way.

And that's what's the matter with the nations today in the world. It's not because we haven't got a God, but science is trying to root Him out of the picture. And the people are too stubborn to stand up on the principles of God's Word. Exactly right.

They say, “Oh, that's a bunch of holy rollers.”

Let it be whatever it may be. I've been ... I've traveled the world over several times. I've never seen a holy roller yet. There's 969 different organizations of churches recorded in Washington, and there's not a one of them called “holy rollers.” That's a dirty name that the devil put on the church. There is no such a thing as holy roller. No such an organization is called “holy rollers.” They call anybody that believes in holiness, holy rollers. And without holiness no man shall see God, so you see where the essence of it comes from. All right.

The king, he was just stubborn. He didn't want to listen to the prophet. They had a prophet. They had God. But the king was too stubborn.

That's the way it is today. People are too selfish. They talk about divine healing, yet rather lay out there and die than even to admit they believed in divine healing. People would rather.... It's just like a man dying on a doctor's doorstep because he won't take his medicine. The doctor's got the toxin for the disease he's got, and the man will sit on the doorstep. And the doctor's got plenty of toxin, but he won't take it—just too stubborn to go in and take it. He'll die. He ought to. So then ... if he feels that way about it.

It's not because the doctor.... Don't lay it on to the doctor. If the doctor's got the toxin, and willing to give it, and the patient's sitting on the doorstep, just too stubborn to come in to take it, don't lay it onto the doctor. It's not the doctor's fault, neither is it the toxin. It's the patient's fault that won't take it.

The same thing it is in the church. We've got plenty of balm in Gilead, and we've got physicians here. But people die in the pews in sin without the Holy Ghost, because they're too stubborn to come take it. And they're afraid it'll hurt their social prestige, it'll break them down. Might cost a little of their card parties, and things. Afraid they might cut up a little and act unruly. No, don't blame the doctor. Don't blame the remedy. Just blame the patient for not taking the remedy. That's where it's at.

We got toxin. We got plenty. The world is full of the Holy Ghost. It's just everywhere. We've got physicians, brother, that knows how to give the medicine. But the people won't take it. Oh, they say, “I'm Presbyterian.” That don't mean no more than a hog being able to wear a side saddle in a stable of a race horse. That don't have nothing to do with it. Has nothing to do with it. Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, or Pentecostal organization, or anything else, don't mean that to God. You must be borned again!

Dying in the church pews. Not because there's no toxin. Plenty of toxin, but it's because they refuse to take it.

Now, you know what? If you refuse to take the doctor's medicine, it's dangerous. You might die if you don't take the doctor's toxin. You might die. And that's dangerous to not take it. Like the Salk vaccine, like the smallpox....

When I go overseas, I believe they give me so many shots I look like a guinea egg, to get into the places where they just ... the shots of yellow fever, and all kinds of toxins. They say that keeps me from taking it. I didn't want to take it, but you have to take it anyhow. So that's the way.

You say, “Brother Branham, do you believe in medicines?” Why, sure. Certainly. They're God-given things. We believe that. But that ain't what heals you. What if we didn't have health and hygiene? What would we have? The way people is accumulated on earth today, and how many things.... If a hospital is not of God, then burn the thing down. It's antichrist, see. Sure. But it's of God. But they don't do no healing. They're just a place to keep you away, and to help you, and try to keep you clean while.... If you're ever healed, God heals you.

A famous doctor, I wouldn't call his name, he said to me, he said, “Billy, you come in here,” and the first thing....“ Said, ”A horse doctor has to have more sense than we do.“ Said, ”He has to know where the horse is sick at.“ Said, ”You come in, say what's the matter with you.“ Said, ”You tell me what's wrong.“ Said, ”I'm in a hurry, I write you out a little prescription.

Said, “You notice whose name's on there?” Said, “The druggist. He paid for this.” Said, “I charge you ten dollars. You go over and get it filled. And he'll go back and fill it, and charge three dollars for something he paid two cents for.

Said, “You take it for three or four days.” Said, “If the Lord hasn't healed you by that time, you come back to my office, and I'll charge you five dollars more, say, 'Go get it repeated again.'”

See, there you are. It's God that heals. Now, I'm not condemning a good doctor. God knows that. And I say this one thing (let me stop a minute): I have found more doctors believing in divine healing than I have preachers. That's right.

I've went from hospital to hospital.

Famous doctor had me to go to an old man the other day, an old doctor that (I ain't got time to tell you) that was eighty years old; been unconscious for two weeks. Brother Goad here knows of the case. Happened to belong to the same club, shooting club, that I just went into a few days ago.

And the old doctor was laying there. Famous ... one of the best doctors there is in the South, said, “Brother Branham, when you come over, just have a word with the old man.”

He'd been unconscious. And while I was holding his hand he come to, and said, “Hello, doctor.”

I said, “I'm not a doctor.” I said, “I'm Brother Branham.”

He said, “Well, I must've been asleep.” (Yeah, about three weeks.)

I said, “I guess ... doctor, how long have you been practicing medicine?”

He said, “How old are you?”

I said, “Fifty-two years old.”

He said, “Before you were nursing.”

And I said, “I guess many nights you've had a flashlight down along the creek bank, an old country doctor down along the creek banks, trying to find some baby with a bellyache, or a mother in labor.”

And he said, “Not a flashlight; a lantern.”

And I said, “I guess then you didn't get nothing for it—maybe a setting of eggs, or something.”

He said, “No, I didn't expect nothing.”

And I said, “Well, you know what I think, Doc? You believe in God.”

He said, “I wouldn't be here if I didn't.”

And I said, “Do you know what I think?” I said, “Over in the glory land, they must have a little place, over in the corner where all them good old doctors that's helped so many times....” He started crying. I said, “Now I'm getting you excited.”

He said, “Oh, no, no. Stay right here.”

Doctor ... my doctor, standing there, a friend of mine, started wringing his hands, crying, standing back in the corner. Afterwards he said, “I've never seen anything like it in my life.” Said, “What did you do to him?”

I said, “I never done one thing but put my hand on him.”

God-fearing old man. He said, “No....” I held his hand. I said, “Guess you performed many a operation, Doc.”

He said, “I never picked up a knife before I asked my Creator to help me and guide it.”

I said, “You may be eighty-six years old, but if I had to have a operation I'd want them same hands to perform it.” That's right. I said, “There must be a little place over there in heaven where you....”

He said, “Brother Branham, you think He'll let me in?”

I said, “I think so.” He started crying. I hugged him up.

Here he was down there on the range the other day with a big old musket, standing there. He said, “Watch me hit that target, boys.” He was back practicing, eighty-six years old. That's right.

Oh, yes. They got real men in there; and they got some renegades, too. Don't holler at them, 'cause we got some other renegades that calls themselves Reverend. That's exactly right. So, sauce for the goose is for the gander. Yes, sir.

A man's got toxin and Salk vaccine for these little children to knock polio out. I pray daily that God will send us something for cancer. If we can't have faith, let's get something else. Faith is the first. Let's take the next best if we can't get that. Look at the world in the condition it's in—poor, suffering humanity.

Help everybody you can. Everything that helps is of God. Let's help. Let's do everything we can, and pray for men. The thing to do, brother, is get our arms together—both medicines, doctors, hospitals, nurses, church, and all together—and put our faith in God and move forward. That's what we need. God's going to ask us why we didn't do it some of these days.

You remember, Luke was a doctor, too. Now God never condemned him for being a doctor, but you remember he wrote the great stories of healing. It was surprising to him to see what God could do. He was the one who wrote, “The former treatise, O Theophilus, I've wrote to you [and so forth like that], Jesus of Nazareth, what He all began to do, and say.” He knowed what Jesus was.

Now, people dying in the pew because they refuse the remedy. Now, it is a serious thing to refuse that. But how much more serious is it to refuse God's balm! What is God's balm? The Holy Ghost. That's the cure for sin. You might refuse the toxin of the doctor, and you might go ahead and live an ordinary ... a hour, week or two, and die, and go on. You might do that. You might shorten your days. But if you refuse God's toxin, you'll die eternally. You'll be completely separated from God and mercy, for eternity. So don't you never....

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Then what's the matter with the daughter of my people, that they can't believe in divine healing no more? Is it because it's not taught? No. What's the matter then? What's the matter with the baptism of the Holy Ghost? They quit teaching it? No. Do people get it? Yeah. Well, is there plenty of balm? Whosoever will, let him come. Drink from the fountain, gushing fountain of the Holy Spirit, calling whosoever will ... physicians standing there, to pass you to it. Then why don't you come? Then God say, “Why? Why didn't you?”

“What are you trying to do, Brother Branham?”

Shake a faith into a people, that they'll realize. “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Now I want to ask you something. The reason they dodge the issue is because they're afraid of the new birth. That's what it is. Oh, we Americans are so stylish, you know [Oh, my!], so much, we just got to put on what we call “the dog,” you know. Everybody's got to just be like the Joneses. They got.... (I hope there's no Joneses here. If there is, I don't mean it to them, but that's just a American expression, like Doe.) John Doe, I'll say. They got to be like that. We got to be so classy!

They're afraid of the new birth. Let me tell you, brother. They say, “Oh....”

One time I was out there preaching, and there was a boy, from a certain church that I used to belong to, come up and said, “Billy, you know what? I was enjoying your message so much until that woman got up back there, and begin to screaming and crying. Then she got all them people started crying.”

“Oh?” I said. “That excite you?”

He said, “Why, I couldn't hear what you was saying.” And said, “It was all right up to that time.”

I said, “Oh, she was just rejoicing.”

Said, “Oh, that just made chills run up my back.”

I said, “Brother, if you ever get to heaven, you'll freeze to death, let me tell you.” I said, “Because even the angels in heaven is screaming, with wings over their face, and over their feet, day and night, 'Holy, holy, holy unto the Lord; Holy, holy, holy unto the Lord.” I said, “You're living in the quietest world you'll ever live in. If you go to hell, there'll be weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. If you go to heaven, it'll be Glory! Holy, holy, holy unto the Lord, day and night. This is the quietest place you'll ever live.”

He happened to play on a Colgate's baseball team. And he said, “Well, they don't do that in my church.”

I said, “Well, now, that's ... I hope you don't think yours is the pattern.”

And so, he said, “Well....” I said.... He said, “Well, that don't look very much like a Christian to me, when a minister is speaking, to say....”

I said, “You know what? That encourages me—to hear them say 'Amen.' Means 'so be it.' ”

I said, “I used to have an old dog.” And I said, “He'd take anything but a skunk.” And I said, “I'd get him tree under a brush pile, and the only thing I had to do was get him to get that skunk. I didn't want it myself, so.... [That's how I got my school clothes, was trapping and hunting.] And I'd get this skunk under the brush pile.

And old Fritz was standing there. The only thing I had to do to get him to go under there.... Raise up the pile, and he'd get back, and look at me, like that. Said, 'Master, you're not going to run me under there, are you?'

“I'd say, 'Go get him, boy. Sic him, sic him, sic him, boy. Go get him.' He'd go get him.”

I said, “The devil's the biggest skunk I know of. When I hear people saying, 'That's right. Amen!', we've got him treed, then, brother. We'll get him pretty soon. Just let him go. Yes, yes. That's right. We got 'Amen!' ” I said, “Look, I heard you the other night when Charles Nolan knocked that home run. I don't live very far from the park.” I said, “Not over ... about five blocks.” I said, “I never heard such a noise in all my life.”

He said, “Oh, Billy! You ought to've been there!” Said, “There was three men on base. And you know Charles—went to school with him.”

I said, “Sure.”

Said, “He knocked a home run.” Said, “Man, I'm telling you, you ought to've seen him slide in.”

I said, “You unholy rollers down there, I couldn't even sleep for you—unholy rollers.” I said, “If we're holy rollers, then you are unholy rollers,” see. I said, “You'd be a poor fast-ball team if you'd said, 'Oh, yeah. I see. It's a home run.' ” I said, “You'd say he wasn't very much enthused. You knock them straw hats down over one another's head, and slapping one another, and shaking and everything like that.”

I said, “When the preacher gets in the pulpit, and hits one of them home runs like that, and see them saints open up the way, and see heaven come down, they holler, 'Glory, glory! I see it! I see it! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!' ” I said, “They just start on the King's Highway, that's all.” There it is, see. Yes. Oh, yes. They....

It's strange how they miss it. But I guess it's just to be that way. It's all cut out by God, and I guess that's the way it's supposed to be.

Now how does a doctor ever find what kind of medicine he has to work on a person with? Yes, they're afraid of the new birth. You know what? The reason they're afraid of the new birth because.... Listen, excuse me, my sisters, will you? It's a mixed audience, but you listen to your doctor. I'm your brother.

Any birth is a mess, I don't care where it's at. If it's in the pigpen in a barnyard, or if it's in a pink-decorated hospital room, it's a mess. And the new birth is, too. It will make you squall, and bawl, and wash all that paint off of your face. It'll do things for you that you didn't think you'd do. You'll carry on like you never did think you'd do. It's a mess.

But you know, before you can be born, you have to die. And some people die awful hard. They kick and bawl, and scream, and carry on. But unless a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. If you want to bring forth fruit, die to yourself, and your own man-made theology, and be born again of the Spirit, and the resurrection. Get rid of that old spirit of selfishness, and dryness that's in you. Take on new life.

It's messy.

Unless a grain of corn falls in the ground and rots.... Unless a man rots to his own theology, unless you rotten to Methodist theology, unless you rotten to Baptist theology, unless you rotten to Pentecostal theology, until you rot to those things, and give yourself into the hands of God.... Then the old man will die, and the new man will be born in Christ Jesus, and you will rise (Amen! Glory!) in the power and the resurrection of Christ. And the life that was in Christ will be in you, and these signs shall follow them that believe. That's what's the matter. Yes, there's where it's at.

How do they get medicine? You know how they get medicine? They take a guinea pig, and they work up some kind of stuff—medicine—and think this ought to do a certain thing. And they shoot it into a guinea pig; and if he survives it, they'll give it to you.

You know, everybody ain't made like a guinea pig. You know, sometimes the medicine will kill you. There's been about as many killed with penicillin as there has been healed, or helped. So, you know, everybody ain't made alike, so it'll help some and kill the others, 'cause all men ain't made up like guinea pigs. But you know, it'll help some and kill the others.

But there's one thing sure. God's toxin will hurt no one, but cure all. That's right. For He said, “Whosoever will....” It won't kill you; it'll heal you. Oh, heal the broken hearted, lift up those feeble hands for joy.

Take a little washwoman, so backward she can't talk to the insurance man that comes to the door, and let her get filled with the Holy Ghost. She can give a testimony that'll shake the shingles off the top of the house. She's got something. Something's happened to her. She's born of the Spirit of God.

Take the orneriest prostitute that ever walked the street out there. The dogs wouldn't even look at her. That's right. Let her come in and get cleaned up from God. She'll be a credit to any neighborhood. That's right. That's what the grace of God does. It don't whitewash, but it washes white. That's right. Make her gun barrel straight.

I believe in an old-time, backwoods, sky-blue, sin-killing religion. Yes, sir, that kills out sin and self, and you're born again of the Spirit of God, and live for Him. That's the kind that saves you, brother.

Sometimes when I go back down in the state of Kentucky.... You know what? Them Baptists down there in the state of Kentucky would make some of us Pentecostals feel ashamed.

You say, “Brother Branham, you said you was a Baptist?”

Yeah, I was a real Baptist, though. We didn't walk up, and take the right hand of fellowship. Brother, we got down at the altar, and beat one another on the back till we come through. When we got up from there we had something.

The other day in California I was in a great church, one of our great Pentecostal churches, and made an altar call. And three or four people come to the altar, and I begged for five minutes to get somebody to come to pray with them sinners. I was so tore out and wore, I couldn't hardly stand up from preaching, and I said, “Will somebody come pray?” They just sat there, just as starchy. It was a Pentecostal church. Why, them Baptists there'd make them ashamed.

I was preaching down there on Decoration Day, way back up there in the hollow—and all the horses eating corn all around, dinner on the ground, foot washing, you know—standing out there preaching, preaching on “We shall rise, hallelujah! We shall rise on that resurrection morning.”

I said, “There lays my old grandmother. I held her in my arms, 110 years old, when she throwed her arms around my neck, and said, 'God bless your little soul, honey [dying], forevermore. I'll meet you in heaven.' ”

About that time my old aunt, standing back there with one of them old long bonnets on, she said, “Hallelujah!” Here she come, like that.

An old sinner boy standing there, with a big old Landmark hat in his hand, like that, he said, “God, be merciful to my soul,” and here he come down to the altar. Before he got there, there was about twenty of those old mammies around him. He got saved before he even got to the altar, brother. You know what time we eat dinner? About four-thirty that afternoon. Brother, they stayed there till they come through.

Oh, it used to be old cold formal Baptists; now it's old cold formal Pentecostals. That's right. That's where we are. That's exactly right.

Yes, they give the little guinea pig a toxin. Give it to him. If he makes it, then they give it to you, and it won't work.

But you know when God got ready to try his toxin out, He didn't give it to a guinea pig. He gave it to Himself. Amen. That's right. God became flesh, and dwelt among us in order to try the toxin on Himself. Any real good doctor will try it on himself before he gives it to his patient. That's right. And God ... that's the reason He had to become flesh.

Jehovah was a Spirit. God, the Father, is a spirit. God the Son is a man, who the Spirit of God dwelt in. We all know that. So then when.... God came down and made flesh, so He could take the toxin. So on the banks of the Jordan, He taken the injection Himself.

The greatest thing that ever happened, when earth and heaven kissed, when the lamb and dove come together. The dove, the meekest bird of the heavens, God, Jehovah, represented Himself in the meekest bird of the air, the dove. God the Son, which was Jesus Christ, represented Himself in the meekest animal.

A lamb and the dove, they're both the same nature.

What if that dove would've fell down on a wolf, and ... said, “Days of miracles is past.”? The dove would've swooped right off of him, sure. First time the wolf snorted—one of them big tempers, you know, they got like that—“I'll tell you right now! If you don't belong to mine....” Oh-oh, the dove won't stay there. The dove is meek. The lamb is led. The lamb don't have but one thing to offer. That's wool.

I heard someone tell me, say ... a woman said, “It's my American privilege if I want to smoke cigarettes.”

I said, “That's exactly right.”

Said, “They sell them.”

I said, “That's exactly right. But if you're a lamb, you forfeit your rights. But if you're a goat, you won't do it. You just do whatever you want to, see.” It's your right, but you forfeit it for the kingdom of God's sake. That's right. You forfeit all your rights, kingdom of God's sake. Forfeit it, certainly.

Now, we find out that God took the inoxin Himself, the toxin. He was inoculated. They watched Him through life. When they spit in his face, He said nothing about it. When they put an old dirty rag around his head, and hit Him on top of the head, said, “Now, if you're a prophet, tell us who hit you, and we'll... ,” He never opened his mouth. They jerked handfuls of beard out of his face, till it was bleeding. They put a crown of thorns on his face. He said, “I could speak to my Father, and He'd send me twenty legions of angels. But my kingdom is not of this world,” see.

The toxin held in the time of temptation. They took Him on the cross, and let Him thirst up there, and die; bleed till his human body run dry. The toxin held. He riled not back when He was riled on. That's the kind of toxin.

Everybody, as the world, was watching it. The disciples was watching Him. Then they seen Him.... Till finally, when He come to the last hour, what did He say? “Oh, I was wrong. I was wrong. Take me off. I'll join your churches. I'll believe your theology.”? Said, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit. Father, it's finished.” Amen. Oh, God. The toxin held, brethren. The toxin held.

Then they buried Him. Somebody said, “This imposter said that he would raise on the third day. Let's make sure.” So they took a hundred men, rolled a big rock up against the door, and put Caesar's seal upon it. Better not break it. What's going to happen? Where's the toxin at now? Glory to God, on Easter morning it proved what it was. Amen! It broke the seal of Caesar. It broke the seal of death. Broke the seal of the grave. Broke the seal of hell. It rose out again—hallelujah!—triumphed over death, hell, and the grave. God's toxin held.

There was 120 people said, “I want to get inoculated, too. I want that kind of inoculation.” Don't you want that?

Jesus said, “The same inoculation I got, you'll have it also. It'll work on you just like it does on me. The works that I do shall you also, if you'll just get inoculated with this toxin that I know.”

“Well, if you say that's wrong....”

Oh, it isn't either. Two came to him, and said, “Lord, let my ... one of my sons sit on your right hand.”

He said, “Can you drink the cup that I drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with?”

Said, “Yes.” (Other words, inoculated with the inoculation that I'm inoculated with?) Said, “Yes.”

Said, “You will. But the right and left hand's not mine. That belongs to the Father to give that. But,” said, “you shall be inoculated [in other words, receive the same that I have got].”

Now, wouldn't you like to have that inoculation? Wouldn't that be fine, to know that in life you could live that life? In life, these signs would follow you; in death, you could say, “Father, it's finished. Into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Oh, my!

Then on the resurrection morning, glory to God.... They might pat you in the face with the shovel, but on that resurrection morning you'll come forth again, for the inoculation holds. They saw it held in the hour of death. It held in temptation. It held in the sick bed. It held in the grave. It held in hell. It held on Easter.

And there was 120 desired that inoculation, so they went up to the upper room to wait for their inoculation. Amen.

Jesus said, “I'll send the serum down just as soon as you get up there and wait.” Oh! Now, I begin to feel real religious. Honest I do. Glory! You'll call me a holy roller anyhow—you might as well get started.

You think Baptists don't shout? Here's one that does. I believe in it. Amen! Yes, brother. Hallelujah! Climbed ... them upper rooms, and waited for the inoculation to come.

All of a sudden there came the serum from heaven.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Here come the inoculation down, the medical kit for healing, for “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquity: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, with his stripes we were healed.” Hallelujah!

The symptoms in that death on Calvary sent back the inoculation to the church, with the commission to go into all the world, preach the gospel. These signs shall follow them that's inoculated. There came a sound from heaven like a rushing mighty wind, and inoculated 120. How did they act? Just like a branded calf. Brother, here ... staggered under the impact of that inoculation. Brother, they were so drunk on the Spirit till the people thought they were crazy. They said, “These men are full of new wine.”

Peter said, “Full of new wine?” He got up and begin to preach to them.

Now, the first thing you know, they said, “We would like to have some of this inoculation.” They seen something real. The hungry-hearted church members saw something real, something that actually those people had was making them act like that. They seen that they had something, 'cause they looked like they were drunk, and yet they were religious, and yet they had signs following.

Said, “Well, now, have you got a doctor here? Is there any doctor here?”

Said, “Yeah, we got one here—Dr. Simon Peter. Come forth, Dr. Simon Peter. Tell them the prescription.”

Said, “What can we do to be saved? What can we do to get the inoculation?”

“Why,” Peter said, “why, you must take the kosher. You must give the right hand of fellowship. And be tried for six months first, to see whether it really works or not.” Oh, mercy! That's man-made theory.

Peter 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 Holy Ghost. [Amen!] For the....” He [unclear word] said, “I'm giving you an eternal prescription.”

Dr. Peter gave them ...

Dr. Simon Peter, on the day of Pentecost, gave us an eternal prescription. Not join hands, shake hands, sprinkle; he said, “Repent!” Not come into the church; but 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 is unto you and to your children.” This prescription, “Whosoever will, let him come.” That's it.

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Sure. ”Is there no physician there?“ Certainly. That's right. ”Then why is my people so sickish?“ Hallelujah!

You know what's the matter? You get a real doctor that will write out a prescription, and you take it down to some quack druggist, and he goes to mixing that prescription with something else, he'll kill the patient. That's exactly right.

That's what's the matter. We got too many quack seminaries that's tried to make something else. “Join the church. Your mother belongs here. Put your name on the book.”

Brother, don't you tamper with that prescription! You give it just like the doctor wrote it. Hallelujah! And the same results will come, if you'll follow the prescription. Don't divvy from it. Now, remember a prescription has so much poison in it. Then it has enough antidote to upset that poison. Enough poison ... he diagnoses your case, and then he gives you enough poison to kill the germ; enough antidote to upset it so it won't kill you. And if you put all antidote, it won't help you; put all poison, it'll kill you. So it has to be a balanced prescription.

And God, the Doctor, knowed how to give it to Simon Peter. And he wrote it. And he said this prescription is “for you, your children, and to them that's far off, as many as the Lord our God shall ever call.”

Now you say Pentecost is not right.

What's the matter? What kind of a drugstore are you going to? That's what's the matter. We got card parties in the church, bunco games to pay the preacher, sell an old rooftop rooster, boil him up, about ... sell him for a dollar and a half a plate to pay the preacher; him standing up there talking about flowers and things, and never preach the baptism of the Holy Ghost. What's the matter, Lord?

That's the reason we got sickness. That's the reason we got people that don't believe in divine healing. It's because they haven't took the right prescription. Amen!

You get the baptism of the Holy Ghost and you'll believe in God's power. You'll believe every word God says. You'll punctuate it with an “amen” to everything that God says.

And them people didn't sit there, and say, “Well, I suppose ... I guess it's all right.” Brother, when they got that, they were filled with the Holy Ghost, began to stagger like drunk men. And remember, you Catholic persons, the blessed virgin Mary was right there. And if God wouldn't let her come to heaven without she took that same prescription, how are you going to get there anything less?

Some of you cold starched Pentecostals, you cold starchy Baptists, you cold starchy Methodists, how are you going to get there anything less than that? when even the mother of Jesus Christ had to go up there and get the same thing, and stagger and act like she was drunk. If that ain't the Bible, I'll ask any professor to come disprove it. And every time in the Bible they ever got the Holy Ghost, they acted exactly the way they did there. The prescription will take the same effect every time. Amen!

What time is it? Oh, I thought it was seven o'clock. Oh, brother! Listen, brother. Listen, sister. What the world needs today is to see something real. That's what they're looking for, to see something real. I mean the real born again.

Now them kind that was ordained to eternal life will see it. “My sheep hear my voice.” Exactly. That's right.

You say, “Well, yes. We are Presbyterian,”

“We're Methodist.”

I don't care what you are. If you hear the real voice of God, and the real voice of God made them people act like that, and do like that, and have a ministry like that, the same power of God will do the same thing today if you've got it. That's right. If you received it, it will act on you like it did them. Certainly it is.

Peter said this prescription is for all generations. So you people who are making up a bunch of man-made dogma and call it doctrine, calling creeds church creeds—Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and even Pentecostal creeds—what's the matter with you? Take God's prescription.

That's the reason the children are sick. They haven't got the prescription fulfilled yet.

God's got plenty of balm now. Don't worry about that. You just obey the prescription, and see what happens. Repent, and see if the Holy Ghost will come. Do as God said do, and see if the Holy Ghost will come. See if it'll take the same effect it did. What's the matter today, friends? We've got to really have it—that's what God said—something real. While I'm talking about real, let me close. Will you give me five more minutes?

I like to hunt. I just love to hunt, just to get to see the sunsets, and get in the woods. As all of you know, my mother's a half-breed. My mother's mother come from the reservation and draws a pension, see. So, my conversion never took it out of me, the love of the woods.

The Christian Businessmen Full Gospel, they've taken me on the River of No Return, around the world, to hunt in Africa, Asia, the mountains. Bud Branham, the Rainy Pass Lodge at Anchorage, that's my cousin, see. And sixteen planes going in for grizzly, sheep, and so forth. You hunter brothers, and so forth, if you ever go up there, let me write him, and get you in there cheap, see. So ... and I get to go up there and hold meetings, and they take me in for nothing. Because I don't have any money, so ... and that's the way....

The reason I don't have to have any money, if the Lord wants to send me to Africa, He'll say.... “Brother Branham,” somebody come up, say, “the Lord said to give you this.”

I say, “Thank you, Lord. I knowed that.” There I go,

see.

I don't have to beg for nothing. If the Lord don't want me to go then He'll keep me here, see. That's the way to live. I love to live that way. Just the way He says, it's all right. I ain't got nothing; don't want nothing. So, I just want his grace, is all.

I used to hunt up in the North woods. I had a hunting partner up there. And all you brethren that hunt know what a good hunting partner is. You know one another. He was one of the finest hunters, and the best shots I ever seen. You never had to worry about him. Sometimes you take a chechaco in the woods, and you get.... Chechaco, that means “greenhorn.” It's an Indian word. But you take him into the woods, and you just have to keep an eye on him, or get him lost.

But you never had to worry about old Burt. He knowed where he was at. He was about a half—Indian himself. So, he was a fine fellow, but the meanest man I ever seen in my life. He was the cruel heartedest guy. He used to shoot little fawns just to make me feel bad. Now, I don't think it's wrong to shoot a fawn. If the conservation says for me to shoot a fawn, that's all right. Abraham killed a calf, and fed it to God. So, the fawn part's all right; but not just to be mean. It's not what you do; it's the way you do it. So, sometimes it's not what you say; it's the way you say it.

And so, then this little fawn.... He'd see them little fawns, and he knew—me being a minister, you know.... He'd just shoot them little fellows—eight or ten of them a year—just to make me feel bad. And I said, “Burt, you are one of the finest buddies, and I like to hunt with you because you're a good fellow. But you are so mean.”

He said, “You call me mean?”

I said, “You're more than that. You're wicked.”

And he said, “Aw, preacher, get next to yourself.” Said, “You're chicken-hearted, like the rest of the preachers.”

I said, “I'm not chicken-hearted, but,” I said, “man, I'm a hunter.” And I said, “I'm not a killer; I'm a hunter.”

And he said, “Aw, get next to yourself, Billy.”

One year up there, he said.... I went up, and I was a little late getting up there. The season had opened a couple of weeks. And, oh, if anybody ever hunted in the north woods, them whitetails, oh, brother! Talk about Houdini, the escape artist—he's an amateur to them when they're shot at a couple of times. They just ... like that.

And sometimes you can't see over twenty feet away from you in them woods there in Maine, where.... You'd better know where you're at, or you'll never come back. For hundreds of miles, it's just level. You fall in the marsh, and go over your head ten times. And it's just dangerous hunting. If you're not a real woodsman, stay out of it, 'less you got somebody with you.

So we were out there hunting, and before we went out.... My wife was with me, and she stayed up at the lodge at the camp. There was about twenty women up there. So Burt and I always taken across the other side of the mountain. And we knew where we were at, and was hunting.

And he said, “I got something, Billy.”

I said, “What is it, Burt?”

He reached down in his pocket, and he had a little whistle. He could blow it and it sounded like a little fawn crying—that's a baby deer, you know—crying for its mammy. And “Oh,” I said, “Burt, you're not that cruel. You wouldn't ... would you call a doe up with that fawn call?”

He said, “Aw, get next to yourself.”

I didn't really think he'd do it, honest.

We hunted.... There was about six inches of snow on the ground, about. Good hunting weather, tracking. We hunted all the way till noon. Didn't find a thing, not even a track. Them deer feed at night. Then daytime, they get back under the bushes, and things. You can't move them, and so.... They won't move till it gets night again, unless you happen to step on one, get him out.

So then, we hunted ... about eleven o'clock, eleven-thirty. And we always pack a thermos bottle full of hot chocolate, and maybe a sandwich. And we'd climb up as far as we could. Then at noontime, we'd eat and then separate, and he'd go another way, and me another way. And we'd come back to the spike camp for that night—come in maybe ten or eleven o'clock at night.

So then,

we come to a little opening about the size of this auditorium in here, and he just kind of ... he was in front of me, so he just kind of hunkered down like this. (Hunker, I guess that's all right here, isn't it? There's enough Kentuckians here know what I mean when I say hunker.) So he just kind of stooped down, rather, and he reached back in his pocket like this. And he was going to get his.... I thought he was getting his sandwich out. And when he did, he brought out that little whistle. And I looked at him. I said, “Oh, shame on you, Burt.”

He blowed it, and it sounded just exactly like a little baby crying for its mother. And when he did, I looked just across the place, and a great big doe stood up. And he had eyes just like a lizard, and he looked at me with them lizard eyes like that, and I said, “You wouldn't do that, Burt.” I said, “She ... that's a mother, brother.” I said, “That's a mother. She thinks that's her baby.”

He said, “Oh, get next to yourself, preacher.” He slipped around like this with his gun.

I thought, “Oh, my!” And he blew it again. I could just see them great big eyes, and big ears sticking out like that—doe, the mother deer. She'd probably had fawns, you see. So her baby was in trouble. She was listening, them big ears up. And so, he blew it again.

Now that's altogether unusual, that time of day—eleven o'clock in the day. So she stepped right out into this opening. Now, that's altogether unusual, if anybody hunts deer—walked right out into that opening. What was the matter? She was looking for her baby. She was looking around like that.

Now she wasn't playing the part of a hypocrite. She had something in her. She was born a mother, and her baby was in trouble. She was looking for that baby.

Just then I seen old Burt.... We never carry a shell in a barrel. That's bad policy. So, I see him taking this 30.06 and put 180 grain mushroom bullet.... Oh, a dead shot.... Pull that head down, raise it up like that, and them crosshairs in that scope right across her heart.

“Oh, God! How can that man do that? That mother looking for her baby. And then, he'd be cruel enough to blow that precious, loyal heart plumb through her.” Why, across this building with that ... using that heavy load of shell he was, why, it would blow her heart plumb out of her. I thought, “How can he be that mean, just ... to that precious mother, that loyal heart, looking for her baby—out looking for her baby? And then he'd shoot her heart out of her.” I thought, “Burt, you're wicked.”

And he looked down. I seen him moving down like this. He was setting himself. I thought, “Oh, brother!” I knowed what was going to happen. I couldn't look at it.

And when I turned around to see what he was doing, the deer spotted the hunter. And she spooked. (That's a hunter's word. That means she got scared.) And she looked up. She threw them big ears up like that. Did she run? No, sir! Death or no death, her baby was in trouble. She was looking for it. Oh, my! She couldn't help it. She was a mother. She was born a mother. She wasn't playing the part of a hypocrite. She was a mother. Death or no death, that baby was in trouble and she was looking for it.

And I thought, “Surely that ought to strike that cruel-hearted man.” I seen him level himself, getting ready to shoot. I turned my back. I couldn't look at it. I just couldn't stand it, to see that precious mother going to get that precious, loyal heart.... But she loved her baby so much until she was going to have it blowed plumb out of her. Looking at it, and looking when that hunter was sitting there, too, and knowed that meant death to her; but she was hunting her baby.

And I turned around, and I thought, “Oh, God! Oh, how can he do it? How can he do it? That's so cruel.” I was standing behind a little spruce tree. I thought, “Oh, God, how can he do it?” There was a snow bank there. “Now that precious mother's going to get her heart blowed plumb out of her. God, I can't look at it. How can he do it?”

I noticed the gun didn't fire. I turned around to see what he was doing. He was going like this. He was going ... shaking. He looked around at me, and those lizard eyes had changed. Great big tears was running off his cheeks. He grabbed that gun and throwed it on the ground. He grabbed me by the pants leg. He said, “Billy, I've had enough of it. Lead me to that Jesus that you talk about that's so real.”

What was it? He saw something real. He saw something that wasn't put on. He saw something that was genuine. He saw a mother's love that would stand in the face of death, regardless of what it was. He saw something real; not a sermon I preached, or a song that the church sung. He's a deacon in a Baptist church now. He caught me by the leg on that snow drift. He said, “Billy, I've seen something that's real.” Said, “I've had enough.” Said, “Tell me about it.”

I knelt down in the snow, and I said, “Burt, God said if they hold their peace these rocks will cry out. Do you love Him?”

He said, “I want the kind of love for my God that deer had for her baby.” There on that snow drift there, I led that hunter to God.

I wonder tonight how many in here would like to have that kind of love for your Lord, like that real love that deer had? What did she do? She displayed something that was real. Now, friends, there's so much make-believe today. Let's not take that. Let's have something real.

It's so late. Let's just stand to our feet, and consecrate our lives to God. All that wants God to come into your heart, and give you an experience to be a lover of Christ, and have the love for Christ that you could face death, or anything—the kind of love that that mother deer had for her baby—raise up your hands like this. Let us bow our heads.

Yes, Lord, we got balm. There is balm in Gilead. There's physicians here. God, I pray that You'll help the people now to come, and be inoculated. Come and be inoculated from temper, from unbelief. Get ready for that great service tomorrow. Grant it, Lord.

With our heads bowed, how many of you wants that real Pentecostal, Holy Ghost, love of God? That's Pentecost—is real love. Would you come and stand around the altar while I pray for you? Come, move out of your position now, while you're standing. Come up here now, and say, “I want that kind of love, Brother Branham. I want to love my Lord.

God bless you. God bless you. That's right. Come from the balconies. We'll wait. Come right up. This might be the hour that all through life.... What's any more greater to you, friends? No matter if you're a church member, that doesn't matter. You say, “Well, I belong to a Pentecostal church.” But if you haven't got that dying love for Christ, to display before the world so the people can see, won't you come?

You Pentecostal people that knows that you're living a life.... You got temper, and you got flusterations, and you sometimes fear, and doubt. Why don't you come on up? Come around, and show God just by coming up.

“I'm sorry, God. I want love. I want real love. I want to love You, Lord, like that mother deer loved her baby.”

You say, “But my neighbors, I go to church with them.” But your Lord, what about Him?

Come from the balconies, won't you? There's plenty of you up there. We'll stand right here and wait.

You young students here, from this college. You're going out to be the men of tomorrow, the women of tomorrow. Why don't you come and dedicate your life? We're not asking you to join any Pentecostal church. You stay a Methodist, just what you are. But you come and get this experience of the love of God in your heart, so sweet that when you go to your parish, wherever God will lead you, young man, young woman.... Why don't you come and get a real inoculation from sin?

Some of you students out there smoking cigarettes, aren't you ashamed? Come here. Why, John Wesley would have turned in his grave if he'd known—you'd been his students then. Come on up here, won't you come? Get God in your heart really. Come, won't you? Come out of the balconies. All, all. Whosoever will.

The prescription's open tonight. We've got balm here in Gilead, and here's the physicians right here, to take you to the baptizing. Whatevermore you need, we have them here. Won't you come up? Won't you come, rededicate yourself to God, and have an experience? God's going to ...

now remember, God's going to ask you, “Why didn't you come?”

Before morning, if you get sick, you feel pains in your arms, they're coming up around your shoulders, you know what that is, don't you? You're dying. You feel your pulse coming up, your hands getting cold. The doctor runs up, says it's a heart attack. The ambulance is screaming and you feel your life.... You're pressing the pillow, and you know you're going to die. God's going to say, “Why didn't you come?”

“Well, Lord, I belong to the church.” That ain't what He's talking about.

Why? Why, why is there still sin sickness in the church? Is there no balm to cure it? Yeah, there's balm to cure it. There's physicians here. Everything's ready. Won't you come? Come now while we're waiting just a moment.

.......... Saviour

Hear my humble cry;

“Make me a Christian. Make me borned a Christian, like that deer.” What was that deer? She was born a mother. She was born to be a mother. Come, be born today a Christian. Come on. You'll have the same word of God. More so than that deer had. Can a mother forget her suckling babe? Yes, she might. “But I can't forget you,” said Jehovah. “Your name's engraved in the palms of my hands.”

Won't you come? I'm inviting you. And remember, at the day of the judgment when you're asked “Why?” the tape recording of this night will be played over.

.................

Do not pass me by.

Saviour...........

Come, every soul. Every soul in here having temper, flusterations, doubts. Sick people, come. If you have enough faith to obey, won't you come now, and get the real thing in you that gives you faith. It may help you to be healed tomorrow night. Won't you come down to the altar, stand here? saying, “Lord, take all my doubts away from me. Take all my doubts, and let me have something here that makes me really know. Give me something that tomorrow night when that healing line's called, I'll say, 'Lord God, there's not a shadow of a doubt in my heart. I believe You, Lord.'”

................

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by.

Saviour, Saviour,

Hear my humble cry;

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by.

Look to the other corner, a little mother nursing her little baby on her lap. If somebody would come tonight and say to that little mother, “I'm going to kill you or the baby,” which would die? The mother. Sure. Why? That's hers. It laid under her heart for nine months. It's hers. Why don't you lay under his heart now? Just give your life over to Him. He died for you, that you could be saved. Now that mother could.... If something happened to her, she could forget her baby. The Bible said so. But, “Never can I forget you,” He said. “Your names are engraved in the palms of my hands.”

Won't you come now? This is like a consecration service. Come now. One more time, so I'll be sure that I called everybody.

Now remember, you Catholic people.... You say, “Brother Branham, I'm Catholic.”

I don't care. A Catholic can be saved just the same as anybody.

“I'm Baptist.” Right.

“But I'm Pentecostal.” A Pentecostal can be saved just like anybody else. But if you haven't got.... “Though....”

Listen. “Though I speak with tongues of men and angels, and have not love, I am nothing.” That's the Pentecostals—speak with tongues of men and angels, both the unknown, and the known tongues. That's right. You Methodists, you Baptist, or Catholic—“Though I understand all the mysteries of God, can explain the whole Bible, know it all, my theology's supreme, and have not the kind of love, I am nothing. Though I give all my goods to the poor, and give my body to be burned as a sacrifice, faith to move mountains, though I could do it, and have not love, I am nothing. Where there's tongues, it shall cease. Where there's prophecy, it shall fail. Where there's knowledge, it shall vanish. But when love comes, it endures forever.”

Dear, dying Lamb, Thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransomed church of God

Be saved to sin no more. (Listen.)

Ever since by faith I saw that stream

Thy flowing wounds supplied,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,

I'll sing thy power to save,

When this poor lisping, stammering

tongue

Lies silent in the grave.

Let me live and use every ounce of my strength, my body, and all that I am, to express the love of Jesus Christ that's shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.

Now every person in here, you around the altar, whatever your trouble is, confess it to God: “I got temper. I got habits. I'm ashamed of my life. I've done this, that, or the other.” I'm going to pray for you. I want everybody to be reverent.

Our heavenly Father, these people have come upon the simple Word of the living God, and upon the story that happened some twenty years ago when a cruel-hearted hunter, to be mean and indifferent that day up there on that snowdrift.... When he saw a mother deer display a real genuine love, he saw something real. That's what he wanted. Surely, if God could give that kind of love to an animal, He could give it to a man. There You give him that great experience of the new birth.

Now, Father, these are standing around the altar. They're women, mothers, fathers, children. God, we're standing here ready to receive that love. May they not walk up here in vain. But may they be so determined that they're going to be inoculated from their evil, their thoughts, their flusterations, their tempers, until the Holy Ghost can fall upon them, Lord, like a rushing mighty wind. Grant it, Lord. Through Jesus Christ's name I commit them to You.

I want you Christians to walk right here around here. Here's ministers walking up here to kneel and pray.

Now everybody in the audience, bow your heads while I'm going to ask Brother [unclear words] if he'll lead us in prayer. I commit you to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for the desire of your heart that you come for, while we pray.