Ye Must Be Born Again

...as these mornings in the service of the Lord. And Brother Neville and I was trying to get together, and we were ... on speaking, what we would do. I was trying to get him to get up here and preach this morning for you-all, and let me have it tonight. So it happened to root off—I have both this morning and tonight to do it. So, he's a good salesman. And so before we start the class.... I told him we'd just have a class, like ... there wasn't too many of us here this morning, and just to have a class. Before I do this, I'd like to make a little announcement.

We have some people who came here from New York, to sojourn with us. I suppose I never met the people. Brother Neville said he just spoke about it. Last night I heard that they had ... their trailer had caught fire and destroyed their trailer. I went out to see the people, and seemed to be lovely, fine Christian people. And they're kind of poor people like all of us, and Brother Wood and two or three of us was going to get together and see if we couldn't just buy them another trailer. And they were very sweet and said the insurance that they had been carrying on it, they had got in a tight place and had to drop the insurance. But however, the agent had paid the insurance policy, and they get their insurance back for their trailer, which will probably be able to replace the trailer again. They'll know that, I think, Monday or Tuesday, or something like that, or ... Tuesday, I believe it is. And so we want to share their sorrow, to do everything that we can to help them, to let them know that we are brothers and sister in Christ Jesus, and have feelings one for another. And I think that each one would want to feel that way, to a little help to them at this time. It's a little out of ordinary, I think. I never took an offering in my life, and I'm going to let Brother Neville do it. That was bumping it off, wasn't it? It's all right. Thank you, Brother Ben. Just someone ... what ... just a little something that you have that you could drop to them, I'm sure it would be appreciated. Brother Neville, come here. I don't know how to. You just do whatever you think. [Brother Neville prays and takes the offering.] Amen.

I thought maybe while they were doing that, it would give me a little opportunity to pick out something to talk about this morning, out of some old texts and things I had wrote out on a piece of paper. I guess all preachers do that. What's these people's name now? Elliott. Is Brother and Sister Elliott and their son in the building this morning? If they are, if you would just like to stand up to say, just say as much as “We thank you for the....” to the people, why, all right. Got a word you want to say, Brother Elliott or Sister Elliott, to the people? [Brother Elliott expresses their thankfulness.] God bless you, Brother Elliott. That's very fine. Thank you. God be with you, you and Sister Elliott and your son.

The people come from New York. I didn't know they were here. They said I'd had them on an interview, or either prayed with them or something, sometime. I didn't know them till I met them yesterday, and found them to be sweet Christians, very nice people. And they lived up in New York, up in the Hudson River Valley somewhere, and maybe through a tape or something they believed the message. And sold out, moved in, just giving their lives and times over to Christ. And we want you to know this is our little expression, Brother and Sister Elliott, that we are sojourners, too. We are pilgrims and strangers in this world. We're seeking a city whose builder and maker is God. And when misfortune fell to you upon these things, of the devil trying to burn you out and scare you away, we're with you 100%, to stand behind you in everything that we can do to help you back to your feet again. Rise in the name of the Lord Jesus and go marching on. Don't take down, no. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but God delivereth them out of them all. And so we know we look for these things to happen. But we know that we also look to our Saviour who is more than a conqueror, we are, in Him who has redeemed us.

Now, today is kind of a full day, and this morning I was thinking there, I just thought I'd teach a while in a Sunday school class. Like, make it a Sunday school class out of it this morning. And tonight at seven-thirty, I want to, if it be the will of God, to bring my New Year's message, as last Sunday or Sunday night I brought my Christmas message. And tonight I'll bring my New Year's message at seven-thirty, the Lord willing. Brother Neville will have his New Year's message, and I see Brother Stricker over here and Brother Collins, and, oh, other ministers around, and Brother Palmer's up here with us, from Georgia, and different ones around. It's ministers, you'll be hearing from them tonight.

Then I called Brother Neville yesterday, on something that struck my heart. Seeing this is New Year's, and is also the first, like the first Sunday, why not tonight, instead of having a big rally and hollering and going on like the rest of the world does, let's take communion at midnight, see. Serve the Lord. Brother Neville agreed that he thought it would be very appropriate. And tonight, the Lord willing, I'll be serving communion at twelve o'clock tonight. And we'll start the New Year, not by hollering and going on—which it's all right if they want to do that—but let's just make it more sacred and sincere. And let's approach this year in the way of sincerity to Christ, giving our all that we've got, and our pledge. Not turn a new page or something like that, start a new year. We don't believe in that stuff. You only turn a new page to blow it back the next day, so let's just turn our lives over to Him, and take communion tonight at midnight. And I believe that's the first time that I ever remember, since I've been a minister, of ever doing it. Do you remember, Brother Neville? But something new for us now, and it's very seldom that New Year's come around like this, you know, so it just struck me, and I thought it would be striking.

I suppose then this will be about the last time I'll be able to speak with you all for some time now. I'm entering, in the New Year, entering out into the field, on the service of the Lord. I'll be leaving about next week, or first of the following week, to Phoenix, for about fifteen, sixteen meetings straight, all through the valleys, and up through Sunnyslope, and Scottsdale, and all around out through the valleys there. And then we have the Christian Businessmen's convention that comes off there, which is a five-day convention at the end of all these meetings. They have arranged so that I could speak to all the denominations, every one of their churches throughout the entire metropolitan area of the Maricopa Valley in Phoenix. And they begin on the fifteenth. So I'll leave here about ten days early, in order.... I'll stop probably to see my good friend, Brother Moore, and several of them, going down. Then it'll be snowy across the passes, and so forth, and go in time. And then I ... many of you people are ministers.

And Brother Roy Borders, if he's here this morning, he usually keeps in order the meetings as they call for meetings. And during this Christmas holidays, well, I usually make an itinerary of where the following year, but this year somehow I felt not to do that. I feel that I'll go have one meeting; and then where He leads me to the next meeting, I'll go from there. And then from the next meeting, wherever it is, just go as He leads me.

And looking now for something to take place during this year. Many visions has been coming to me recently. The other morning a great one again, and all pertaining and looking like a great something fixing to happen. So, I just keep trusting Him. Some of them I don't even understand. And we don't understand visions. They're more like symbolically, and we don't get them just exactly sometimes, but we know that they are true, anyhow. So, they will come to pass. I write them down.

And so I believe it's announced also, or should be, that both the trustee board and the deacon board is to meet here at the Tabernacle in a union, joint meeting, seven o'clock tomorrow night. Now let me announce that again so if the deacons, wherever they ... if they're in the other room they might hear on the little mike, that tomorrow night at seven o'clock, both the pastor, the deacon board and trustees, I was just told a few moments ago that they were to meet tomorrow night. Brother Neville wants to see his deacon board and talk to them, and the trustees has their regular meeting time, and so they will meet together tomorrow night.

Now, this morning, before we approach the Word, now, oh, let's not be in no hurry about anything. You got all day today, and tonight and tomorrow. Let's just take our time and not rush these things through. Of course, I know people gets tired or worn out, or wants to go home, you know, for their ... hurry, got their dinner, and their husband's waiting for it. Why, then, that's all right, just slip out quietly. And the rest who wants to stay, all right. And you don't have to work tomorrow, now, and so we just take our time. And that's the reason I thought instead of preaching just for about three or four hours, I'd take eight or ten hours on a teaching.

All those people from Georgia and Alabama made me feel so great the other night. I believe I was out by the office, and all was gone but Billy, and he said.... Brother West and them, which are very sweet loyal friends (I don't see them here, but I suppose they're here), called up and said, “Well, is Brother Branham going to have the Sunday School Sunday morning?” And it freezing in Louisville, the news said they're blocking the highways in and out, and slick on the roads.

Billy said, “Well, it's a possibility.” Said, “He goes down there.” Said, “Maybe Brother Neville or him, one.”

Said, “Well, that possibility's good enough. Here we come!” All the way from way down in Alabama, and over the slick roads. And I'm not worthy to have friends like that. That's true. I am not worthy to have friends like that. There's something about it that I just hate to announce the meeting, know that I got people who believe the message and come, and they love me.

And I've always wanted to be loved. When I was a little boy I wasn't loved by nobody. Nobody had no use for me. I was here in Indiana, born in Kentucky, so I was a corncracker to these kids over here. In the family, all the boys, nearly, smoked and drank and everything, but me. And I was an offcast in the family, and an offcast in school, and at work I was an offcast, and everywhere I went I was an offcast. And then finally when I found somebody that really loved me—Jesus—and He said, “I'll give you fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends.”

And then the strange thing, how that His great wise providence, how He works things out. Seems like that love has a funny feeling to it. Not a feeling, but a reaction. And then I look out among the people, as He's called me to be His servant, and I look out amongst the people and see sin creeping in, then I have to just tear in there with all that's in me, you see, to tear it out. And that makes it look hard, to my way of looking at it, why, to say those things. But yet, down at the bottom, true love runs like that. See, true love.

Now, if your little boy or little girl was playing on the street where cars are running, and you knew sooner or later they're going to get hurt.... Now, if he'd say, “Why, Papa, I want to be out here,” would you say, “Bless your little heart, Junior, you just go right ahead and play in the street”? That's not a real daddy. If you have to jerk that little fellow up and give him a spanking, scold him, tie him up, anything else, keep him off that street—he'll get killed. Is that right? Well, that's the way you have to do with the gospel. You have to shake and push, and try to do everything you can to keep the people lined up. Now, I hope everybody understands that that way. I'm just trusting that someday, after it's all over and then when the veils are taken from before our face, we will understand then.

Brother Way, that fine Bible that you and Sister Way gave me for a Christmas present, that's just going to be a good thing to keep my notes in instead of a book like this, when I get a chance to type it out. Don't want to write, because I can't make my own writing out, and how's anybody else going to do it? I told them I had a shorthand all of my own, and I have to study it myself to see what I've said. And I get it typed out someday. It's a loose-leaf Bible, where you can just take.... Like here, I got two texts here this morning, two places I want to read from. And in this Bible that he gave me, you pull it out like this, and can take one leaf from Genesis, Revelation, anywhere, and put them both together, and read them right off like that, see. And then a little place back here in the back with a flyleaf, you can just go right back to all the scriptures wrote down on that message and things. It's wonderful. So I hope that I'll help win many souls to Christ with it.

God bless each one of you, I want to say again, for the nice Christmas presents that each one gave me. The church gave me a new suit. Oh, how I appreciate it! And I got two new suits for Christmas. My brother, the little church down in Macon, Georgia, down there, Brother Palmer, sent me a new suit. And the Tabernacle gave me a new suit. And there's so many nice things give in, and Christmas gifts in the line of money. Which, the Division of Income Tax tells me that if it's a Christmas present and wrote “Christmas present,” or “Birthday present,” anything, you can accept it; otherwise it goes into the work, which is all right. And I sure thank each and every one of you. Wife and I, and the children, and all of us express our gratitude to each, every one of you—so nice. We wish we could go back and give each one of you a present back, but you just can't do that, you know, you just.... My, I couldn't do that. I wish I could, but I just couldn't. I'm sure you understand. I know that's the feeling of my precious brother sitting here, too. We just feel the people love us like that, we appreciate them.

Now, let's bow our heads now for prayer, and get ready for ... start the message this morning.

Into the presence of the living God we come now, soberly, and in the fear of Him. We come in the name of the Lord Jesus, knowing that we could not come ... and saying, “Now, Father, here is William Branham, or Orman Neville,” or whoever we might be. We would be turned down quickly. But we have the assurance that He said, “If you ask the Father anything in my name, it'll be granted.” So I don't guess I could get, using my name, anything from Him. But I know that when I use His Son's name, then I get my petition, for it's in Him that I trust. It's in Him that we live and have our being. And we're grateful this morning, God, for all that He means to us—and that's our complete life and being.

I thank You for this little church, for its pastor, and for the trustees and the deacons, all the members. And I'm grateful for the Holy Spirit that watches over them. May that great Holy Spirit continually lead them and guide them into the paths that He would have them go in. Reading in the Testaments, the Old and New, and also in the Nicaea age, and how that when sickness struck amongst the saints, the whole church went together. With one heart they called on God, and their petition was granted. Each one of them as members of the body of Christ, fasting and praying, God heard and answered prayer. Father, may this little church be so bound in the bonds of love to each other and the Holy Spirit until it'll become like one of those, that there will be no friction among us in this coming year. May there be just such godly love, and everybody walking in the way of Christ, until many weary pilgrims along the road will come and be saved. May it be said that when you enter the doors of the little building, that the presence of God meets you with a sweet welcome. Take sickness away from the midst of us, Lord.

And we're grateful that we have hungry hearts to hear thy Word. Continue to hunger our hearts for Thee, Lord. As David of old said, “As the hart panteth for the waterbrook, my soul thirsts after Thee.” Thinking of the little hart (the deer, as we would call him today), that he's been torn by the wild dogs, and he's bleeding, he's losing his life, and he must find water if he expects to exist. Once he finds water, his life is renewed. May we be that thirsty, Lord, that we must have Christ if we exist. We must have Christ if we become the church that we're asking for. If we live the lives that we are wanting to live, we must have Christ or we will die.

Now as we open thy Word this morning to find consolation and stepping-stones to bring us closer to Him, I pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit will open the Word to us, that we, Lord, as thy servants, will be better equipped to face the new year, for we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now, thinking this morning that on the basis of being New Year, I thought it would be good maybe that I would lay aside my New Year's message until tonight, and go back here in some Sunday school scriptures, and take a text to talk on for awhile, on one of the most vital subjects that I know of in the Bible. It's a doctrine that our Lord preached first, the first doctrine that Jesus preached, and I suppose it would be good to make it our first year's teaching.

Now, is it cool for any of you, raise up your hand, feel a little chilly? I thought I felt it up here. Doc, wherever you are, kind of turn the furnace up just a little, because I feel it here moving around. I know you're bound to out there, some of you people, especially with the children.

Now let us turn in our Bibles this morning, to Ephesians, the fourth chapter of Ephesians, and let's begin reading at the eleventh verse of the fourth chapter of Ephesians. And then we're going to turn then from there to John 3:1-12, and read two places in the Scripture. Reading now from the fourth chapter of Ephesians, and the eleventh verse, beginning:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; ... some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

For the perfecting of the saints, for the working of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Till we all come into unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

For whom the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Now, I read that so that it would give you something to study on after you get home. Now I'll read my text from John 3, a very familiar scripture.

And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of ... Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

That which is born of ... flesh is the flesh, and that which is born of ... Spirit is spirit.

Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but can not tell whence it cometh, or where it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?

Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we do know, and testify that which we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you ... heavenly things?

Now, God bless His Word. I want to take the subject this morning of Jesus' first doctrine. The first doctrine of Jesus was, “You must be born again.” That was His first doctrine. Now, in a way of Sunday school, so that I won't preach and hoarse myself up for tonight, I have thought in my heart that this is something that it seems puzzling to the people. We hear so much about it all the time, and I thought it would be good this morning if we just search this subject through, clear it out. And that's the first beginning: “You must be born again.” And it's a very deep one.

And we find out that there is so many different meanings that people put to it. Nearly all churches say that you must be born again, but each one has their different interpretations to that, what it means to be born again. I might go to the Methodist church this morning. They say, “We believe that you must be born again.” How do you interpret it? I go to the Baptist church, “And we believe you must be born again.” How do you interpret it? And I would go to each church, and we would find, if we went to all the nine hundred different denominational churches, there would be nine hundred different interpretations. So, seeing that there is so many different interpretations, and yet a Bible doctrine, there must be, and is, a truth somewhere.

So, now remember, it didn't say, “You ought to be born again”; but “you must.” Now, we, as English speaking people, understand what the word “must” means; that is, “It's absolutely you've got to do it.” See, it's a must! Not, “You ought to, you'd be better off if you did”; but “you must be born again.” Oh, if we could just take that word this morning and break it down, what it means, how that it's totally impossible.... And then, if it's that essential and that great that it's totally impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven, or even see it, until you're born again, and so many different interpretations of that word, born again, we ought to seek it out with all of our heart, to find out what it means.

There's not a person in here that wants to go to torment. There's nobody. And you don't drive hundreds of miles, over icy roads, and spend your living, your money, just to come to the church here to, well, say, shake hands with the people (although you love to do that), and to hear the pastor and myself and other ministers speak the Word. You get that wherever you are—pastors, ministers, just like we are, servants of Christ. But there's something that draws you here to this particular place. Therefore, it's the duty of we, as pastors, to see that this flock is fed and fed right, because God Almighty will require your blood at our hands. At the day of the judgment, we'll answer for you. So, seeing this great tremendous responsibility that's placed upon us, and God has given us people who love us and come to hear us, then we should spend our time constantly watching for your souls. And when the first little thing we see raising up that's not right, it's our duty to come to that person, because we are shepherds watching that sheep. And if I see that sheep eating on a weed that will kill it, I better drive it away from that weed; jerk the weed right away from it so it cannot get to it, because it'll kill the sheep.

And there is known in the western countries a weed that an animal can eat. It's called locoweed. I don't know whether anybody ever heard of it or not—a locoweed. Yes. A horse can eat that and you just can't do nothing with him. He just becomes an outlaw. You can't put a saddle on him, and you can't do nothing with him. It's called locoweed. And you must keep your stock away from that weed. And if it'll cause a horse to eat something ... if a horse, rather, will eat something that throws him into this condition, into this spasm, why, you would be a very poor cowboy to let your horse eat a locoweed. It shows that you don't care.

And a real pastor, a real servant of Christ, will be a poor example of Christ to see the sheep eat something that's going to drive him away, or make him an outlaw before God, a breaker of His Word, a breaker of His commandments. You shouldn't do that. You should watch that very closely.

So this great doctrine of Jesus that's wrote here before us in the Bible, “You must be born again.” There is so many different versions of it, as I have said before, till I thought this morning, for the sake of many who's been asking me what it meant and how could they become a real Christian, that I thought maybe that we would just approach the subject and take it just as clearly as I know how to give it to you. And it's not in the way of a sermon; it's in the way of teaching Sunday school, that the people might get the message. Now, many interpretations of the “born again....”

And now I'm saying this, and I know it's going on tape, and I want to say this to the pastors that will perhaps receive this tape. I suppose maybe just a little different from what the regular church teaches it, I teach, and believe can sufficiently prove by the Scripture, that you're born of the Spirit and then baptized into the body by the Holy Spirit.

Now, many of them teach that just to come up and be recognized before the congregation, and so forth, as a sinner, that you want to accept Christ as personal Saviour, that that is the new birth. Many believe that water baptism is the new birth. And some of them believe that you're born of the water when you're baptized in the water. And there's so many different versions of it. A lot of them, many, believe that to recite a creed and believe on a doctrine of a church, just accept it, say, “I believe in the holy church of So-and-so, and I believe God to be the Saviour of men [and so forth]. And from this day on I become a member of this church, and fellowship with the Christians.” They believe that that's born again.

And although the creed that they recite, I do not believe that we could criticize it. Some of them are pure and holy, some of them are real scriptural, but the scripture is not applied in the right place. And, even applying the scripture, I believe that the new birth is something beyond that. Even though how well you might mean it, I believe something ... that the new birth is far beyond your good intentions and your thoughts, minds. It's beyond that.

I do not want to say this to be sacrilegious, and I do not throw any slams at any organization of church, but a lot of it reminds me of a Jew, a little.... It's a joke, and I do not believe that jokes should be told at the pulpit. It's no place for a joke. And therefore, to bring this statement that I've got on my mind, it's not for a joke, but to show an expression of what I mean. That ... a Catholic priest one time went home on Friday with a new convert to the Catholic church. And the Catholic convert had baked a ham, and he said, “Father, I am sorry, after my remembrance comes to me, this is Friday. But I believe that according to our great doctrine of the church, that one time I was a Jew, and you sprinkled some holy water on me and turned me from a Jew to a Catholic. Now I shall sprinkle a little of that same water upon this ham and make a fish out of it.” Now, saying that doesn't make it a fish. It's still a ham, no matter how holy the water might pretend to be.

And no matter how much that we try to think we are right in saying a creed or joining a church, you're still what you were until you're actually born again of the Spirit of God. It doesn't change you. Your creed, joining church, or changing your ideas, or your good intentions, although as good as it might seem, it's still not right. There's something's got to happen. The new birth is an experience, something that takes place. So it is not that that brings the new birth. Now, the different churches, they'd say, “Well, you accept this or believe that, and it's all right.” But it isn't.

Now, to begin with, to base back, the reason we have to be born again is because the Bible teaches us that we were all born in sin, shaped in iniquity, and come to this world speaking lies. Then that shows us that our nature, to begin with, is sinful to start with. We're no good, to begin with. So we cannot claim anything by our shrewdness, our sincerity, or how great we are, or how little we are, or whatever more. We are altogether wrong to begin with, and there is nothing at all that we can do about it. You cannot. Jesus said, “Who, by taking thought, can add one measure to his stature?” You can take all the thoughts, do all the dreaming of it, read it, study it, examine it, and everything else, and you can't help yourself one iota. So that just throws it all out. I'm so glad it does, because if it laid in the thought of knowing something, smart, we poor illiterate people would be left out, so we wouldn't have a chance. But God changed it ... or, never had it that way in the beginning. The churches always makes it complicated; God makes it simple. So it's brought down into a place where all of us can see, all of us can have it. It's for whosoever will.

Now, one man could not save the other. Now, it makes no difference what anyone tries to say, no man can save another. No matter how smart, what his office is, let him be a pastor, priest, bishop, cardinal, or pope, he cannot have one thing to do with saving any man's life, because he is a sinner himself—born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies. He's a liar to start with, and any word that he would say would be a lie if it was contrary to God's Word and God's plan.

But God made a plan for man to be saved. Man cannot add anything to that plan. It's God's plan. And that's the plan that we want to study this morning. What is God's plan? He said, “Let every man's word be a lie, mine be the truth.” Therefore, we would be daresn't to change one sentence to make it something else. No matter how much our rituals and so forth reads, we got to forget that. This is God's Word. Just can't be done no other way. God has a plan, He's made a plan.

And, remember, the first thing, until you're born again you'll never understand. Twice He spoke it. “Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom.” “Except a man be born again, he cannot even see the kingdom.” Now, that's punctuated, too. The word ... making all those words; they tell me that they had to write it out. When they say, “Verily, verily,” that's a punctuation like a capital. “Verily, verily, I say unto you!” And the word in one place, or many places, it's translated “absolutely.” “Absolutely, absolutely, I say unto you!” Who said that? Did a cardinal, priest, pastor, evangelist, pope? God Himself! Now, there's no excuses. He will in nowise, nowise at all, cannot in any other way, no matter how great he is, what his name is, how big he is, or how popular he is, he cannot even understand the kingdom of God until he's born again. It's a great subject. “Verily, verily, I say unto you!” Watch. Get the Greek translation, you'll find it. Not see with your eyes; you see with your heart, see. You can't see the kingdom of God with your eyes, because it's a spiritual kingdom, see. In other words, you'll never be able to understand the kingdom of God until you are born again. It's all an unraveled mystery. And when you're born again, the plans of the kingdom, the kingdom itself, becomes real to you.

Like a contractor to build a building, unless he could read a blueprint, there's no need of him trying to build a building, if he doesn't understand the blueprint. And then when he understands the blueprint, then he knows how to build the building. That's the way it is. That's what happens about building the kingdom of God. You've got to understand the blueprint, and you won't know the blueprint until you're born again. And when you're born again and then deny the blueprint, what takes place?

A lovely little girl that's recently ... I used to go with her mother when we were young. And she was a lovely, beautiful woman. Her name is Huff now. Her name was Lee before she was married. When I used to pastor the Milltown Baptist Church, they belonged to the United Brethren Church, but, oh, they liked me real well. And I used to go with her. They lived way back up behind Brother Wright's here, and I used to go up to their house. And the little girl was a very sweet little girl, and she was a little girlfriend to me. And Brother Lee, a fine man, loyal to the church, the United Brethren view of the church, and one night he invited me to go home with him, stay all night. And I said, “Brother Marrion, I'll be glad to do that.” And so after the service was over, well, the girl and I got in the car and we went on. And I had to open a dozen gates, I believe, going around the hillside, and up, to hit a great big old log house. Well, we sat out in the yard and waited for her mother and father and younger sister to come up. When they come up, we all went in and had a little lunch that night. The mother had got some stuff out and we ate, and the father and I were sleeping together downstairs, in a great big featherbed, and a straw tick under it, you know, real good sleeping. It's better than any of these old beauty-rest mattresses you get, I'll tell you that. And so the mother and the two girls went upstairs.

And that night while we were laying there, Brother Lee had a dream. And he had always debated with me about the water baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't believe it. And he was a contractor. So he said, “Brother Branham, I just dreamed a dream.” And he said, “I dreamed I went up to New Albany. And I was building a man's house, and he gave me the blueprint. But when I seen a certain way he cut his windows and fixed a certain place, I said, 'That's not right. It just can't be right. That's contrary. That isn't right.' So I built it the way I thought was right. And when he come back from Florida, from his vacation, I had his house almost ready.

“He looks at the house, and he goes and gets the blueprint and looks at that, and said, 'Say, you have built my house wrong!'

“And I said to him, 'No, I haven't built your house wrong.'

“'What about this such-and-such a place?'

“'Well,' he said, 'that really don't belong there.'

“He said, 'Tear it down! If you expect me to pay you, you'll build it the way the blueprint said.'”

And he said, “What do you think about that, Brother Branham?”

I said, “There is a creek running right down below the house here.” And we went to it.

He said, “I don't want any tearing down on that day.”

I said, “Get it right—now. Put it up according to the blueprint!”

How it paid, just recently one of his.... Then his girl married a fine boy, nice man. He's a machinist over here at the boat works, and the boy had had his fingers cut off this way. A nice man. And they have a lovely family—three little girls, and one of them's ... all Christians, and they sing a trio. If we ever have a meeting here they're coming to sing for us. And one of the little girls majored in piano music, and was a teacher of classical music when she was just a child, fifteen, sixteen years old. And the kids at school got to teasing her about different things, being a Christian, and it got on her nerves and give her a breakdown, and she lost her mind. And they had her in Louisville, and was going to take her to the insane institution the following Monday. And they wouldn't ... the doctors wouldn't let me see her. And I went over as a visitor and sat on the side of the bed with the father and mother. And while I was sitting there, the Holy Spirit moved in the ... this Our Lady of Peace Sanitarium, in Louisville, where they take the nervous patients, and when there's still a hope for them. Then, if they can't do nothing for them, they send them to Madison, Indiana. And the girl was going to Madison that week. She was past help. And sitting there, a vision came before us, and spoke to the girl in the name of the Lord Jesus. And the mother grabbed me by the knee, reached up and grabbed her husband by the hand, and said, “It's never wrong!”

I said, “Just don't worry, she'll be all right.” I left the building quickly.

That night at nine o'clock the phone rang; or I believe it was a little before nine, before I come to the church that night. It was on a Sunday. And the father, with his heart so thrilled, he said, “I couldn't go home holding the good news, Brother Branham.” He said, “The doctor come in and examined my girl. He said, 'What's happened to her? She can go home tomorrow.'” When mother was laying a corpse a few weeks ago, there the trio was down there, the little girl just as nice as she could be, her and her boyfriend, sweetly. Oh, I tell you, the blueprint! God's Word is the one to explain the program of how we must be born again.

First, we reckon ourselves sinners and worthy of condemnation. And we are all born in sin and shaped in iniquity, there's not a sound parcel of us. Our minds are bad, our soul is corruptible, our constant thinking is evil, every imaginary thought of a man's mind is evil—a sinner. And also that our body is weak, our spirit is no good, and we're just full of corruption. And how could one corruptible thing bring another good thing out of a corruptible? Let me say this, that in Job, fourteenth chapter, he said, “Seeing that man is born of a woman, is full of sorrow and trouble, yea, he cometh forth like a flower, he fadeth away.” And on, as the prophet goes on speaking, he said, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one!” You stick your bucket down into the well and pull out a bucket of water, and it's stagnant, it stinks. You look in it, and it's muddy, and little worms is in that water. There's no way at all to put your bucket back and get a clean bucket. The whole world is contaminated. And the whole soul, mind and body of man is contaminated with sin. He's born in sin, physically, shaped in iniquity, and come to the world speaking lies, so that his own soul is contaminated. Nothing good! One cannot redeem the other, because it's all wrong. You can't take a bucketful of water here that's contaminated, and another bucketful that's contaminated, and mix them together—you've got more contamination. There's no purification to it.

But God determined to save man. “He placed upon Him the iniquity of us all.” The penalty of sin (that you're born in), the penalty of sin is death. Sin is death. And the penalty was so great that there's none of us could help the other, so there had to be someone who could pay this penalty.

What if this morning the penalty to leave this room was a hundred billion dollars? There's none of us could leave, because there's none of us worth that. But then if one came in who was worth enough to pay for all of us!

It takes one ... we can't do it. It took one who was worthy. Oh, how I wish I could stop here for a while, go back and pick up Ruth and Naomi, and show that how the kinsman redeemer, to redeem the fallen estate, had to be first worthy, had to be a kinsman. Therefore, God, the Spirit, Jehovah, became kinfolks to us, by taking on a form of flesh. He became kinfolks—had to be that. Then He had to be worthy. And He is the one who produced that fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins. He was the one who bore our iniquities.

A beautiful type I got here in Numbers—I've got my scriptures wrote down here. In Numbers, the beautiful type of it is.... In there it's, oh, it's altogether pretty if you could see it. It's the brass serpent lifted up in the wilderness. How that Israel, that serpent to them was a death bite, and there was no remedy. There wasn't a physician among them who had the remedy or the cure. They had physicians among them, but not for that bite. Just as I've said, there's no physicians among us that can cure sin. It's a death bite, and we're all guilty, all shaped in iniquity. All of us are guilty. But what did God do? They was guilty then, then death had to be paid, the penalty of death. But God had Moses to erect a brass serpent, and put it on a pole, that nothing the people could do, no money they had to pay, nothing at all, no creed they had to recite, no churches they had to join—just look and live. You see how simple? Look and live! Don't join a church. No sensation—you don't have to feel a funny feeling. Just look and live! That's all. So simple. Not if you can remember all the ten commandments you'll live. Not if you know all the statutes. Just look and live—that's all you had to do. And every man looked upon him, lived.

Jesus, when He was here on earth, He said (talking to Nicodemus here), He said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” So must.... Why? In the same manner, for the same thing, the same purpose, to do the same work. Many times this puzzles people when they see the serpent representing Jesus. The serpent represented Jesus in this much. Did you notice the serpent was dead? There was no life in it. Jesus died. Like Cain, when he slew Abel, Abel died on the altar with his sacrifice. After Abel offered his sacrifice and killed his sacrifice for his sin, then he died on the same altar with his sacrifice. In order to be born again, you have to die on the altar with your sacrifice, just as dead as He was—and you're born again. The serpent had no life in it.

And you say, “Why was it brass?” Brass represents judgment, divine judgment. Did you notice in the Bible, in the Old Testament, the altar was made out of brass, where the sacrifice was burnt? Brass speaks of judgment. Like Elijah, in his days he went to look at the skies to see if any rain was coming after his prayer, and he said, “The sky looks like brass.” What was it? Divine judgment upon an unbelieving people, unbelieving nation who had forsaken God. It was divine judgment—brassy! And the serpent itself, its form, represented sin already judged, for the serpent was judged in the garden of Eden, and he was ... the serpent, judged.

And when we look at Christ, you see the penalty. The only one ... God Himself, made flesh. God coming to the earth, and took on Him the sin of all of us, and the judgment and wrath of Almighty God was poured out upon his body, and there it was riven at the cross. That's the real judgment. He tread the winepress of the wrath of God alone. Alone He walked the road. Alone He died, with no help from an angel, from a man, from His church, from His mother, from His brethren, from His Father; forsaken by God, man and nature. He died alone, to show us that even nature itself can't help us in the hour of death. There's no friend, no priest, no pope, no pastor. It's death. But there was One who took it for us.

No life in the serpent. It was absolutely crystallized. That was the penalty. He died until the earth got ashamed of itself, He died till the stars got ashamed. He suffered until the sun wouldn't shine, He suffered till the moon turned off its lights, He suffered till even the elements of the earth was so black and dark until it was midnight, so dark you could feel it. There wasn't nothing. No one's ever suffered like that or could suffer like that. There's no mortal could go through it. But He suffered it. God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, and passed His judgments upon Him, and He tread the winepress of the wrath of God alone with no help. There was nothing to help Him. God placed the penalty. Everything was under that penalty and nothing could help him, because we're all guilty. There's no high priest could have come helped Him. There was nothing could help Him, no pope, no angel. Everything stood back and watched it. That was the greatest moments was ever in the history of the world. He died until there's not one drop of life left in Him, become like the brass serpent, just a crystallized ornament hanging on the cross.

Now, the approach to this birth, there is an approach to it. And to approach this birth, you have to go through a process. Just like anything that lives, anything that lives again has got to die first. And you cannot keep your same spirit, you cannot keep your same habits, you cannot keep your same thoughts. You've got to die. You've got to die like He died! You've got to die on His altar, like Abel did with his lamb. You got to die with your Lamb. You got to die. Die to your own thinking, to be born to His thinking. Let the mind that was in Christ be in you. You got to think His thoughts. And now, brother, sister, let me say this as intelligent at I know how to say it. How can you think His thoughts and deny His Word, and yet claim you're born again? Just ask yourself that question. How can you do it? You can't. If you're born again, you got His thoughts. If the mind of Christ is in you, then you are a new creature. The Bible teaches that. And if any brother would like to, well, you find that creature, look that word creature up in the lexicon, and you'll find out that the word creature there is interpreted or translated, “a new creation”; because you are a one creation, a human being born in sexual desire here on earth, and now you're a new creation born by Spirit. Your own thoughts are dead. They're so dead until they're crystal like the brass serpent, or like He died when heavens and earth and everything witnessed He was dead.

He died till He was so dead that even His blood and water separated in His body. His death was so tremendous till I say the world had a nervous breakdown. It shook, it trembled until rocks fell out of the mountains. What could die like that? No pope dying would do that, no pastor dying would do that. But when God in flesh died on the cross, the earth had a nervous breakdown, to know that the very spoken Word of God—rocks and dirt, sticks and clubs and trees hanging in the earth, and the stars and the moon—his very spoken Word seen their creator become flesh, and sin poured out upon Him. The wrath of God poured out upon Him until the moon shut off its light, the sun shut off its light, the earth had a nervous shake ... breakdown. Would have bursted to pieces if it hadn't been a future for us, everything.

And if His elements of the earth, upon looking, seeing what was taking place, shook them to that condition, what ought it do to me and you? What ought our souls to do when we look and see what God did for us? And it was all for you and for me. What ought it to do to us? Continue in sin? God forbid. But to abstain from sins, and die to sin. Don't you see what sin done to Him? Sin killed Him. And He took the penalty of sin, that He might bring the righteousness of God to you and me. So when the righteousness of God comes to us, sin is dead in our mortal beings. Oh, I hope you see it.

Yes, to be born again you must go through a process of death. Everything does. You take a grain of corn, if that corn ever expects to live again, it's got to die first. If a grain of wheat ever expects to live again.... It's totally impossible for that corn, that wheat, that flower, that tree, that grass, that vegetable.... Everything that expects to live again must die first. Then how're you going to escape it? You got to die first. You got to die. Die how? To yourself, die to everything, so that you can be born again. You've got to do that. If you don't die, you can never live again.

And, look, did you know each day something has to die so you can live? Now to you Seventh-day Adventists that's in our midst, many people say, “I wouldn't shoot a squirrel, Brother Branham. I wouldn't kill a deer or a rabbit, fish, because I don't believe that we should kill things.” My brother, did you know that the vegetables and things that you eat is life also? You have to kill it. And the only way that you can exist in this life, something has to die so you can live by its dead life. Now, if something has to die so you can live by its mortal life here on earth, to live mortally, did not something have to die so that by its life you could live eternally? Just ask yourself that question. And that One was Christ, because no other one has immortality. The Son only has immortality. And He gives Himself to you by just accepting Him.

Now, it must die.

Now, that don't mean turn a new page now, this new year. You say, “Brother Branham, I've been coming here for a long time. I've been a member of the church. This New Year's I'm going to turn a new page and start new.” That don't mean that. Not turn a new page, but actually die and be born again. You've got to feel so guilty when you stand in His presence—whether you go the Methodist way or the Baptist way, or whatever way you go —you've got to be so guilty and feel so guilty till you ... it'll kill you. That's right. It'll kill you. Your worldly life will die right there. You've got to reckon yourself so guilty in the presence of God until your worldly life dies right there. The sin question's over for you when you're standing in His presence. When you look like that, you're sure to live, because you die. And the only way you can live again is to die first so you can live again.

Now you see what I'm coming to, don't you, what the birth is, the new birth. First, to die, in order to be born again. And if you still got the things of the world in you, you're not born again. And how you going to claim to be born again and still with the things of the world hanging on you? How can you do it?

Young Christian the other day, bunch of people.... I don't say they're not. But in looking at some pictures, Christian women, Christian men, all lovable around one another, in bathing suits, in swimming, see. Said, “That's real love.” That's real filth! It's not love. Love is expressed different from that.

Our souls are placed by faith on His brass altar, God's judgment, and our offering is consumed. Now remember, when Elijah, under those brass skies, laid the offering of God upon the altar, the offering was consumed. Baal could not consume his offering. (I don't want to say this, but I must say it.) And when you go to a church and accept their creeds and their forms of baptisms, and the offering that you supposingly yourself to lay upon there, you might get up shivering, speaking in tongues, running all over the floor, or you might get up weeping. But if that offering has been received by God, it's consumed. The world is dead to you. You're gone, for we reckon ourselves dead and buried. We are dead and are ... we are hid in Christ. Hid in Christ! And, besides that, then after that we're dead and buried and hid in Christ, then we're sealed with the Holy Spirit.

You see what I mean now? You are dead. Our souls are placed upon His divine judgment. That's brass. When our souls is placed upon an altar of divine judgment, what was the penalty? Death. And when you lay yourself upon the altar of God, which is pronounced death upon the sinner, how can you raise from there alive in sin if God accepted the sacrifice? Is it clear now? You die! You actually are consumed, and you're petrified. There's no more left to you but just this form that you're standing in—like the brass serpent, like Christ was when they took Him dead and cold off the cross. You're dead! Because why? You're on God's altar of judgment. What is His judgment? When the judge has passed his sentence, what is the sentence of his penalty? Death. And when you place your soul upon His altar of judgment, it's death to you. Now you get it?

Oh, you might get up from there and do anything. You might dance in the Spirit, you might cry like anybody would cry, you might run up and down the floors, you might join every church, you might do anything you want to (I'm talking to Pentecostals now), and go right back out and defile a man's wife, break up a man's home, some of you women. You'll go right back. No matter how much the Word comes to you to do right and things, you won't recognize it. You'll never let your hair grow, women, under that. You'll never dress right. You'll still be just exactly like the world, because you're not dead to the world yet. You're alive with it.

Some of you men will never quit drinking, smoking. You'll never quit lusting after foul women, immorally dressed, when you see them on the street. Instead of turning your back, walking away, you'll still lust right on just the same. Because why? You're alive with the world yet. But when that sacrifice has been received, you're dead. That's right. You hear what I mean? You understand what I'm talking about?

Now, your soul is laid upon that altar of God's brass judgment, then God receives the sac.... Now, it shows that you haven't received it yet, if you're still alive in the world. God's never took it. Now, you people talking about getting the Holy Ghost and how you have to wait so long, here you are. Until God receives that sacrifice, until it's laid on His judgments there, until His judgment has actually killed your senses.... You might say, “Well, I'm going to turn a new page.” That ain't it. “Well, I know I used to smoke, I'm going to quit smoking.” That still isn't it, until God receives that sacrifice on His brass altar, His altar of judgment. What is His judgment? Death. That's the penalty.

“The soul that sinneth [it remains in that] shall die.” I don't care what you done.

Jesus said, “Many will come to me in that day, and say, 'Lord, haven't I done this and done that?' He'll say, 'Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.'”

When that sacrifice is received by the fire, and it goes up like that, and the smoke goes up, you rise with your sacrifice into the heavenlies, and are sealed away from the things of the world then. Our soul is on His altar.

What are you ... done then? After you have died, then what are you to do? Then you are conceived anew. You are conceived anew. You was first conceived in iniquity. Now you're conceived in something new. What is it? The living Word. Oh, that changes it now, doesn't it? Now, we're through the struggle, after you see what you got to do. Now what happens? You're conceived anew, in the living Word. What is it? The Word becomes alive in you. You begin to see things different. Where once you couldn't see that, now you do see it. There's something different now. Makes all the scriptures come together, makes everything dovetail just right. Then, now something's beginning to happen. Now you die to your own thinking, now you're conceived, because we are washed by the water of the Word. Is that right?

What do you do with a baby soon as it's born? Wash him. Is that right? And as soon as a man has died to himself, is born of God, he's washed by the water of the Word. Amen. If it says, “Jesus' name,” you say “Jesus' name”; says, “You must be born again,” you say the same thing. Ever what God says, you're washed by that water of the Word. Amen.

Now, you're ready now for life. You're ready to start out now. Now you're born anew, born in the family of God, with a new parent. Your tutors used to be.... Now you got tutors that is now. You got a new parent. You can't be born without having a parent. So if you're born in the brotherhood of a church, that's what you got. If you're born in a creed, there you are. But if you're born in God, conceived in His Word, you got a new parent —that's God—ready to make His Word known with you, speak it through you. Oh, a new parent—that parent is God. He's ready to take His Word now that He's already spoke, and lay it in you and make it come to life, see. Now you have your training now. You're ready to go into training now, child-training. That's the hard part, when you think you ought to do this, and the Word cuts you around and shows you something else. “Why, they believe that over....” That don't make any difference what they believe. Here's what God said! You must be about the Father's business. Now you're getting born again. Now you're getting right, getting straightened out. You have a new parent.

So, in order ... if you're born again and got a new parent, then you got a new nature. The old nature's dead, and you got a new nature. You once was going one way; now you're going another way. You once was going this way, down; now you're going this way, up. Your affections are set on things above. A new affection. You don't love the things of the world no more; your affection's of God. You don't care what man says, how they laugh at you, and say you're “old model,” or whatever it is like that. You don't care, because you're born of above and your affections are set on things above. God's not ashamed of you and you're not ashamed of Him. That's right. So you're.... Read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews right here (I got it wrote down), just how people in that day, how they did. How they wandered about in sheepskins, in deserts, and destitute, and everything else, of whom the world's not even worthy of, see. Read it, it'll be good for you. And you can see there what people, when their nature is changed, what happens.

Now, what kind of a nature have you got then, Brother Branham? His nature. If I had my father's nature, then I'd do the things my father did. But now that I'm born again, it depends on who my father was. If you're just born in a church, you got a church father, and you can call him “father” if you want to. You call him anything you want to, because he's your father. But if your Father is God, and you're born in the family of God, you seek those things that pertain to God. That's right. Then you are God's child. Your nature is God's nature. Then when ... oh, you hear some of them say, “Oh, our church believes the days of miracles is past.” How could you believe the days of miracles is past when the very nature of God's in you? When He is altogether miracle? His nature's miracle, His habit's miracle, His whole being is miracle—how can you be anything else but miracle? Your new birth is miracle, your new life is miracle. Even your nature's a miracle—how you can look back and say, “Them things are dead. This is right.” You're a new creature, new creation. Sure.

Like I preached here some time ago on the little baby eagle. I guess you'll remember the story, how the farmer put the eagle egg under a hen. And when the babies was born, they was all chickens but one. He was an eagle. He was an odd little fellow. He was altogether different, but you see, he was born in another category. The sperm in the egg was different. It made a different bird. Certainly. He looked queer, he acted funny to the rest of them; but he was only acting natural, because he couldn't do no more because he was an eagle. His nature was eagle, so that's all he could be was an eagle. But there's a lot of them out in these denominations. They're actually eagles, but just don't look right to see them lolling in the mud and the things of the world. See, that's our business, go get them.

One day the old mother eagle come over, and do you think that hen could ever keep him on the ground any longer? No matter how much she clucked, how well.... She said, “Come here, honey. I found something right here, come.” Oh, my! His affections was on things above, and he went to meet it. No more denominations for him. Can't call him away from it.

And a man that's born of God, you cannot call him back into that rotten muss of sin anymore. He's dead, and he's born again. He's a new creature. He's got the nature of the eagle. He's got to get into the skies and soar. He's got to get up there where his mother is, his parent.

That's the way, a man that believes, tell him, “Oh, come join our church. Now, that's fanaticism. The day....”

Now, if that little eagle, maybe standing out there, and he heard that mother cry, and he looked around and said, “Where is it?” Here, maybe she cried something like this to the little eagle, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

And the mother say, “Days of miracles is past, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck. Days of miracles is past. No such a thing! That's fanaticism!” Oh, my!

Why, you couldn't hold him no more. I can just hear him say, “Mama, how do I get up there?”

“Just flop your wings, honey. That's all you have to do. You're an eagle. Just walk by faith.”

“How is it going to be, Mama?”

“I don't know. Just keep walking.” Here he comes. His first few flops, he sat down on a fence post. He'd got that high, anyhow. She said, “Just come on, I'll catch you.” That's it.

A new nature, a new being, a new creation, nature of your Father. And you believe and love every word that He said. Every man's word's a lie, contrary to this Word. This is God's Word, see. The Bible's right. I don't care what the church says, the Bible's still right to you, because your nature's been changed. Now, if you've got a church father, you'll believe in that church father. But if you got Father God, you'll believe in God's Word. If you got a father in the church, you'll believe him because you're of his nature, that's your father. But if your Father is God, then you'll believe God's Word. If you're church, you'll believe his word, you'll believe the church word, you'll believe what the church says. But if you're born again, then you'll believe what God says, because God's your Father—not the world or church creeds.

Reminds me. One day, in a yard, they said they had a duck was following some chickens. And the duck, you know, was a funny little fellow to them chickens. He was kind of top-heavy, you know, and big bill, you know. But being he was top-heavy, he had that bill there for some purpose. And that's the way, I guess, sometimes the Christian seems to be a little bit ... get a little fanatically, but that's there for a purpose, see. So, it did look funny as long as he was running around with the chickens, turkeys and things. They had a little bitty short bill, and the things they did, and they wasn't built like that duck. One day the mother let him—a bunch of chickens and him—out behind. He was always way in the back, you know, kind of. He didn't even talk like them. His language was different. They couldn't understand one another.

That's the way with the Christian when he's born again, see. He come out of a different egg, that's all, see. Maybe he's got.... I believe there's many of them out here in these denominational churches that's genuine ducks; but they got a hen leader (that's right), so they just don't get it. That sounds rude. Don't mean it that way, but I'm trying to make a point.

One day she let him out a little too far behind the barn. There was some water running down behind the barn, a spring going out, a creek. And he was going along there wondering what it was all about, you know, following the hen along. And, why, he didn't even like the diet they were eating, didn't look right to him. These old things that they do, it didn't seem right. So after a while he happened to catch a breath. “That smelled just right. Where did that come from?” Oh, that little breath of heaven. Mmm—catch that little breath of something that's refreshing. A sermon that appeals to you, that strikes down in, you feel the Word anchor itself—mmm, heavenly sunshine! He thought, “Oh, there's ... somehow another, that breath that I got fits my nature.” He breathed it again. “It's somewhere. Now, you can't tell me. It's somewhere. I know there's something somewhere that I belong to.” (Not to this creed—you know what I mean?) He smelled water, and his nature was a duck, so a duck and the water just goes together. That's the way a believer and God goes together. Directly he got another big whiff of it, become more strong. After a while the wind begin to blow—like the rushing mighty wind, you know. It begin to blow the breeze right off the water to him. He couldn't stand it no longer. Down over the hill he went, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, you know, “Honk-honk, honk-honk, honk-honk,” that little bill sticking up in the air, you know. He smelt water!

The old hen said, “You fanatic, get back here!” No good at all, he'd done smelled water. He was on his road to the water!

“There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, where sinners plunge beneath the flood and lose all their guilty stain.” A real Christian wants nothing to do with the world. They don't want to live around here haphazardly, wondering where they're at, and today they're Methodist and tomorrow they're Baptist, and Presbyterian, and Pentecostals, and so forth. Oh, brother, that's miserable! A real Christian wants to get the freshness of the Spirit, the freshness of God in his life, something that makes him a new creation. As soon as he can get the outlet, he'll drive over snowy grounds or anything else to get to it. Away he'll go, because he's a duck to begin with. Yeah. Not a creed. No-no, no-no.

And if you still love the things of the world, you're deceived. Your sacrifice hasn't been accepted yet, your nature hasn't been changed. Now do you know what it means to be born again? See, your nature is changed, you become a new creature. You got to die first, and then be born again. (I know it's time for me to close, but just give me just a few minutes. I'll run over these texts real quick, see.) If you still love the world, and claim that you are born again, no matter what you done.... You might have cried, you might have had chills run through you. Them's all right, I ain't got nothing against that. Christians cry and have chills run through them. And you say, “Brother Branham, I spoke in tongues just....” That might be fine, that might be just ever so good.

I'm looking at a little woman right now that come to me not long ago with a vision or a dream she had, and I got the interpretation. Still, it's kind of hard to go tell that little Pentecostal preacher's wife that she didn't have the Holy Ghost; but she didn't. But then she received it. Yes.

It's different, see. Yeah. It ain't speaking in tongues, it ain't dancing in the Spirit. There's none of those things you can lay it onto. It's a death and a birth, a changed nature, a changed disposition. The old things are dead, new things are new. The world is dead, and God's new. God is your life, and the world is dead to you. Now you get it? All right.

Now listen. I'm going to have to cut just a little bit here, you know, get the briars out of the way. Women and men that won't follow God's Word and His teaching after they claim to be born again, there's something wrong. I'm going to speak with the women just a minute. If a woman that knows that God's Word condemns bobbed hair, and wearing shorts, wearing slacks, dressing immorally, and haven't got the decency enough to let your hair grow out and put on clothes that look like a Christian, you're deceived. I don't care what you've been through. You might have spoke in tongues like pouring peas on a dry cow hide. You might have danced in the Spirit till you shook the whole building. That don't have one thing to do with it. It shows that the love of the world is still in you, when God condemns that! He said, “It's not.... A woman should have her hair long. And nature itself teaches you that men should have short hair, because God is over man, and man over woman.” And if a woman cuts off her hair, she dishonors her head, which is her husband. If a man lets his hair grow, then he dishonors his head, which is Christ, see.

“Let your women adorn themselves in modest apparel,” clean, ladylike, see.

And then without the common decency to do that, we say, “Glory to God! Hallelujah! I spoke in tongues. Hallelujah! Glory to God!” That shows that spirit in there is wrong. It'll accept the Word every time if it's the nature of the Word. And the Word is flesh, and the Word was God, and the Word is God; and the words is in you, makes you become a son or a daughter of God, an offspring of Him, believing His Word.

“I don't believe in that old name of the Lord Jesus, to be baptized in. Hallelujah! I don't care how much you try to explain it, I believe my pastor.” Go ahead, that's your father. But if God is your Father, you'll line up with God's Word.

Preacher, “Many will come to me that day, and say, 'Lord, have not I cast out devils in your name? [preachers] Have not I done many mighty works? [evangelists on the field]' Depart from me, you workers of iniquity,” illegitimate children. That's right.

If you're born of God, you're washed in the waters of the Word, separated from the things of the world, and believe God. You're dead. You're dead to your own thinking, dead to your own ideas, dead to everything else but God's Word; and it lives in you, working back through you, proving that it is God's Word. You say, “I'm dead to the world, Brother Branham.” And deny God's Word?

Jesus said, “These signs shall follow them that believe.” Now we're getting down to what born again means, see.

Still with tempers, still mean, arrogant, somebody say something about you, you light up, ready to fight. And then born of the Spirit of God? No. God's Spirit don't do like that. No. God's Spirit is humble, meek, sweet, long-suffering. That's God—loving, kind, forgiving, that's God's Spirit. Oh, yes.

But they'll hold to that denomination, and speak in tongues, prophesy, do all kinds of works. Jesus said they'd do it. “Having a form of godliness.” Hold to the denomination because that's their father. They was born in that denominational father. But if you're born of God, this is your Father. He is the Word—the Word. No matter how many sensations you have, still a child of Satan until you become dead to the world and alive in Christ. (Listen, quickly now.)

A soul, good or bad, death doesn't change it. I had a lot of scripture wrote down here on this one that I wanted to comment on, what a soul is. What is a soul? It's you. You are a soul—the part inside of you. And when you die, ever what shape that soul is in, that's the way it goes. It goes to its destination. You couldn't pull it up, no matter how much you'd do for it. That soul's got to be changed here, born again.

You say, “What about the Holy Ghost, Brother Branham?”

The Holy Ghost baptizes you into the body for service, but you believe unto eternal life. “He that heareth my words and believeth on Him that sent me, has eternal life,” see. Then you're baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body for manifestations of the gifts and so forth, but you believe to eternal life. He that believeth has eternal life. And when you believe is when you're dead and are born, regenerated, a new creature. All right.

The soul, now remember, good or bad, death doesn't have one thing to do with it. Death just takes it to its destination. You hear it? And if you still got the world and the love of the world in it, it'll die with you, because the world must die. God's condemned the world (that's the world order). God has condemned it and it's got to die; and if that world's in you, you'll die with that world. My, I don't see how it could be any plainer, see. And if it's good, born of God, it has to go to God. If it's of the world, it'll remain to perish with the world. If it's of God, it'll live with God. Educated or not educated, educated or illiterate, if the world is still there, it must die. And if the world is in your soul, and your desire is of the things of the world, you'll perish with the world. That's clear, isn't it? Should be. You're a part of the dead world, and as the world is dead, you're dead with the world.

But if you're born again, you're alive with Christ, and your affections is on things above and not on things of the world. But if you are born again of the Spirit of God, you become a part of God and are eternal with Him. Then death cannot touch you when you're born again. You are eternal. You have changed from a creature of time to a creature of eternity. You have changed from death unto life. I'm talking about eternal—from eternal death to eternal life. If you're of the world, you die here with it. If you love.... The Bible said, in John, “If you love the world or the things of the world, it's because the love of God's not even in you.” You can't love the world. And Jesus said, “You can't love God and mammon.” Mammon is the world. You can't love the world and God at the same time. “And he that says he loves me, and keeps not my sayings [that's the Bible], he's a liar, and the truth's not even in him.” There you are.

O Branham Tabernacle, and all you good people, let's take inventory! This is New Year's. Let's start, let's do something, get the things of the world out of us. If it's still in there, let's get rid of it. Yes, sir.

All right, people of today (I've got to hurry),

people of today take all kinds of spirits. They go up and take a church spirit. They even take spirits that call themselves God's spirits, born again, and deny the Word of God being true. Could you imagine the Spirit of God denying His own Word? To you Catholic people —Roman Catholic, I mean—could you actually say that you are born of the Spirit of God, and take those dogmas which is contrary to the Bible, and deny the Word of God? And say that you are ... the Spirit of God's in you, the Spirit that wrote this Bible, would deny it? That would be me telling something and standing up and lying against it. God saying something, then turn around and lie about it, when the Bible said it's impossible for God to lie, because He's the very fountain of all truth.

You Methodist, Baptist, that are baptized in titles of Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and know different now? You got your Bible. You that just take a church joining, by shaking a hand? You that take your letter from one to another, and claim that you're born again of the Spirit of God? How can you do it, and then look in the face of God's Word and call yourself a born-again Christian? When you are dead to the church, you are dead to the creeds, you are dead to the world, you are dead to everything else but God, and God is the Word! There you are. Let's see. They take every kind of a spirit. Oh, they got church spirits, they got all kinds of spirits. Now listen closely.

Prophets—the word of God comes to the prophet. The Bible said so. (Now, in closing, I've just got a couple more comments here, or so, I want to pass, and then I'm going to cut off.) The word of the Lord come to the prophets. What come to the prophets? The word of the church came to the prophets? The word of the creed came to the prophets? The word of the Lord! What was it? The prophet revealed the word of God, see. That's prophets, real prophets. Now, we got false prophets, we're getting to them just in a minute. But the true prophet, the true word came to the true prophet, it couldn't be nothing else. Now, a creed didn't come to the prophet, a denomination didn't come to the prophet. No. But the word of the Lord came to the prophet, and he revealed it to the people. The true prophet had the true word.

How do you test a true prophet? When he's got the true word. Then if it isn't a true word, it's got to be a false one. If it says something different from this Word, and this Word is God's Word, let every prophet's word be a lie and God's Word be true. And if that word that's coming from the prophet is the word of God, then he's a true prophet, because the Word come to the prophets, true prophets. We've always had false ones. True prophets, the true word. False prophets, false word—“our creeds, our denominations, join this, say this, believe this, do this.”

But the true word comes to the true prophet, and he tells you the true word. You follow that true word, and you get a true experience of the Word because the Word is made flesh in you, and you become God's son, and the Word of God is revolving right out of God into you, because you are of His nature, His Spirit is in you and you'll do the works of God. Hallelujah! The Bible said so. Oh, my!

False prophets bring false words. What do they do? Have false sensations. False prophets keep enough of the true Word to be false. They used to didn't do it, but the Bible said.... You want to put down scripture on that, II Timothy 3, see. The false prophets has enough of the true Word to make it false, because the Bible said that they'd have a form of godliness. In order to have a form of godliness, they have to have some of it as truth. “...a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.” The power of what? To make you straighten up, be different, serve God, not go to dances and things of the world the Bible condemns not cut your hair. Like, false prophets say that don't make any difference.

Someone said not long ago (I believe I quoted it here before, I don't know), said, “Why in the world don't you leave them women and men alone,” to me. Said, “The people believe you to be a prophet.”

I said, “I am not.”

“But the people believe you to be. Why don't you teach them how to receive visions, how to do the works of God like that?”

I said, “How can I teach them algebra when they don't know their ABC's?” How can you take a child out of kindergarten and give him a college education today, teach him square-root measure? How can you do it when he don't know what ABC means? You know what ABC means? Always Believe Christ. That's right. Don't believe the church, don't believe the creed, don't believe the doctrines. Believe Christ! Why? “To know Him, to know Him is life.” Is that right? Not know His creed. He ain't got no creeds. Not to even know His Word. Not know His Word; you got to know Him, know Him as your Saviour in new birth. Like Jesus said to Nicodemus, “If you can't believe earthly things I tell you, how could you believe heavenly things?” How you going to believe spiritual things of entering into the Spirit, and knowing and seeing visions, and things like that—to set a school in order like that—when they don't even believe earthly things? Can't even believe to wear clothes right, can't even believe to quit their smoking and quit their lying, lay their temper aside, and all them things, do all these things there, quit lusting. How can you teach people to enter into the Spirit when they got all those thing still hanging on them? Yes. Oh, my.

False prophets have false words, creeds, denominations, sensations. “Oh, bless God! Only thing you have to do.... You want to wear Elijah's garment? Glory to God! Only thing you have to do is just be blank in your mind, don't think of a thing, and say, 'Oh-h-h, fill me, fill me, fill me.'” The devil will sure do it. And then you rely upon that? “Ooooh, it ran all over me, Brother Branham. I felt it. Ooooh, glory to God, hallelujah (jumping up and down like that), oh, I got it!” And live like you live?

“By their fruits you shall know them,” see. Not sensations.

“Oh, brother, you want to receive the Holy Ghost? Just get down at the altar and say, 'Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory,' until you speak in tongues.” Uh-huh. Go back out and live any kind of a life, lie, steal? When they tell you about being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, “That's fanaticism, my church teaches different!” And say that you are born again, washed by the waters of the Word? Something wrong somewhere, see.

You'll believe every word just the way it's wrote here. We don't need.... The Bible said, “It's of no private interpretation.” God interpreted it, and this is the way it is, His Word here. Don't the Bible say, I believe in II Peter there, “The Bible is of no private interpretation”? Certainly. No, no private. It's wrote just the way it means it, right like that. Just believe it just the way it's wrote here, it'll bring the same results.

Now....

False teachers will bring false births. True prophets will bring the Word, the birth of the Word, Christ. False prophets will bring false birth—the birth of churches, the birth of creeds, the birth of denominations. And here you are, Pentecostal brother, false ... or sensations, and tell a man he's got the Holy Ghost because he speaks with tongues. I've seen devils speak with tongues, pencils lay down and write in unknown tongues. That don't mean a thing. See, it's got to be a life. “By their fruit you shall know them.” “Brother Branham, do you believe in speaking in tongues?” “Yes, sir.” “Do you believe in shouting?” “Yes, sir.” To be a Christian, I believe that. I believe God's Word. But if the life isn't there to back it up...!

Get out there, a stuffed shirt, “Glory to God! Hallelujah!” and then tell me that that's Christ? Christ was humble, meek and gentle. Go into a town and, my, you have to be just brushed off the shoulders, you know, and everything has to be just right, not a wrinkle in your suit; and you have to have the very best or you won't even come at all; guaranteed so much money, you can't have a meeting. Oh, oh, oh, oh, my! All the denominations, they have to pat you on the back. There wasn't a one of them patted Him on the back, for He was the Word. That's right.

False, keep enough of the true to make a form of godliness. And listen, now I'm saying something here, I want you to listen. Them kind of false conceptions, (You know what a false conception is?) lead millions of people to a false birth. False teachers lead the people to believe in a sensation. “Because you jerked all over, you got it. Oh, because you got a real funny feeling went over you, you seen lights in front of you, and got blind and staggered, that's Elijah's jacket put on you. That's right, you got it. Oh, you know what you are? You're a manifested son of God.” Where do you find yourself? Defeated. That's right. “Glory to God, I went one night and I had a dream!” Oh, yes. “Oh, I seen this, that.” Yeah. “Don't you believe in dreams?” Yes, sir, I certainly do. But if that dream didn't back up God's Word, then it's wrong. This is the truth here, stay in this. Yes, sir. Lead millions to false birth. Just think!

I got a piece of paper I was going to bring with me, where that the ecumenical father of all the Greek Orthodox and Orthodox churches has talked with Pope John the 22nd, and he said, “We may not see it in our generation, but the great brotherhood in the emerge of both Protestant and Catholic is coming together.”

I thought, “Praise God!” Somebody cut it out of a paper, wrote to me like that. I believe it was Brother Norman or somebody, said, “Brother Branham, it's later than we think.” Look at today, the minister of war and, oh, so many different offices, president, and this nation is all Catholic controlled.

Listen.

You say, “Well, they're Christians.” To be Christians is to be like Christ, have His Spirit. Is that right? Here's something rude, but I want to say it. If you called a hog a sheep, would it make him a sheep? Why, if you said, “Piggy, I'm just tired of you being a piggy. I want a lambie, so I'm going to take you out here and I'm going to scrub you all up, and I'm going to wash your teeth, and I'm going to comb your hair down, and I'm going to make you a little lamb. I'm going to tie a little pink ribbon around your neck and you're going to be a little lambsie instead of a piggy.” You come over and say, “Lambsie, lambsie, lambsie,” he'll still go, “Oink, oink.” Turn him loose in a pigpen, he'll eat all the slop he can get. Right! And it isn't sprinkling him, it isn't putting him in water; it's a death and a birth! Yes, sir. Say, “I ain't going to feed you nothing but alfalfa, I'm going to feed you sheep food.” Still feed him alfalfa, he's still pig, that's all. Is that right? Certainly it's right. Why, sure, he's a pig because his nature's a pig.

And if you love the world or the things of the world, you're still a pig. That's right. It takes the power of God to transform your soul. Die a pig, lay your pig habits on the altar, lay yourself on there, and let God's sacrifice be ... or, fire of judgment come down and consume you as a pig, and rebirth you as a lamb. Then you won't eat no slop. You couldn't, your gastronomics won't digest it. You're not right. It certainly won't make him a pig to say ... or, make him a lamb to say he's a lamb.

So a person called a Christian, by some creed or some sensation.... You say, “Glory to God, Brother Branham, I danced in the Spirit all night that night. I spoke in tongues, oh, my, Brother Branham!” I'm talking to Pentecostals now. “I danced in the Spirit. Oh, I had sensations, everything like that. But I tell you right now, don't you go talking to me about that there Jesus' name stuff.” Come on, piggy. He's still a pig, that's all.

“My sheep hear my Word!” Well, I say, “But, brother, look, find me one place where they was ever baptized in the name of Father, Son, Holy Ghost, in the Bible.”

“I don't care what that does, hallelujah, I don't want none of that old Jesus Only stuff.” Who said anything about Jesus Only stuff? I'm talking about Bible. Jesus Only is a group of creeds and a group of denominations. One can't call the other one something else, because they're both into it.

But I'm talking about thorough, genuine, 100% Christians, born again of the Spirit of God, and the dewdrops of heaven in their lives. That's what I'm talking about. If you're a Methodist and got that, amen! Only thing you have to do is be pointed to the Word. You'll follow it like the duck going to the water, see. That's right.

People today want short cuts. They don't want ... they think you get it just in a minute, “Glory to God!” What is it? What is it they do? Tonight they're in a ... they're out yonder in the.... Like some of these fellows that they got, like certain people that I could call names, but I don't want to do it because this is on tape, but they're in a nightclub tonight with a guitar, beating it; and tomorrow morning they're standing in church somewhere, beating that same guitar. Filth! The Bible said in Isaiah, the twentieth chapter, “All tables are full of vomit. As a dog goes to its vomit and a hog to its wallow, so do they.” Why? They're still dogs and hogs! That's what makes them return to the wallow and to the vomit. They ain't born again. If they're born again, they're new creatures.

Do you know what? An old crow, no matter how much you try to ... you could paint him just as olive color as a dove, just as gray as a dove, white, paint him all over—he's still a crow inside, see. He's still stinky, an old buzzard just the same, scavenger, eat the dead things of the earth. That's right. But you know what? A dove don't even have to take a bath. Oh, hallelujah! A dove's body, because he is a dove, he's got oil that comes through his feathers, that just keeps him clean all the time, because it comes from the inside out. Oh! Why? The buzzard say, “Mine, too! I put a little holy water on them, brother, it fixed it.” No, it didn't. For it comes from the inside out, not from the outside in. It's a birth. “Bless God, I go to church the same as you do. Hallelujah, my church is as good as yours. Hallelujah, we're just....” All right, you buzzard. See, that's right, see. But a dove is oiled from the inside. There's a certain gland in a dove that's not in no other bird like that, dove or pigeon. And he oils himself from the.... Outside, he keeps himself clean all the time. He don't have to keep himself clean; there's something inside of him keeps him clean. Oh, Sister Way, hallelujah! Something inside of him keeps him clean.

Say, “I know, I joined church last week. I'd sure like to take that drink with you, but, huh!” “Umm, that cigar smells so good!” “Oh, sister, I know I'm an old model, I have to let my hair grow out now. Ain't it awful?” “You know them pretty little dresses I used to wear, and everybody go, ”Whew-whew,' I have to take it off now. You know, I joined church last week.“ You miserable wretch! All the holy water in the world couldn't clean you.

But, brother, when you got something inside of you, it just washes it away all the time. You just stand still and it washes.

You don't have to tell a sheep, “You've got to manufacture.” That's what's the matter with the Pentecostal people today. That's what's the matter with all Christendom—it's trying to manufacture something. A sheep isn't asked to manufacture wool; he bears wool. You bear the fruits of the Spirit. You don't say, “Glory to God, I have to get black in the face, I have to do this, and I have to have sensation, I have to dance in the Spirit, and I got it.” No, no, hunh-uh. Just get born again and it actually takes place itself. You don't have to say, “Shall I study all night, shall I do this, shall I do that, shall I join this, and shall I make this creed, shall I do these penance?” No, no. Just die, that's all, see. Be born again, and it comes from the inside, takes care of the out, see. Sprinkle a little water, and wash them, just like changing a pig to a lamb, you can't do it. But if on the inside he's a lamb, then he won't be a pig no more, see. That's rude remarks—but I'm not educated, I just have to make it....

You know, I was reading the life of John the Baptist the other day, what he said, what did he call them? “You generation of vipers!” Why? He was raised in the wilderness. He knowed what they was. Stomp your foot and they take for cover. “You generation of vipers.” Also, “The axe is laid to the root of the tree.” Tree, vipers, axes, he talked on what he knowed. That's the way you learn God, by what you know. You see a pig and a lamb, there's nothing at all. You might wash that little old pig up and do everything you want to, he's still a pig. He's got to be reborn before he can be a lamb.

Short cuts! Tonight, they're out here today, they're going on, oh, my, and tomorrow they want to preach. Pentecostal people letting them do that, too. Yeah. They want a short cut to heaven. “Hallelujah, all I have to do is get down here and just don't think of nothing at all,” and say, “Hallelujah, hallelujah, I got on Elijah's garment. I'm going out tomorrow to cast out devils. Hallelujah, hallelujah, I got it! Praise God, here I go!” They want the short cut to heaven, taking as much of the world as they can take. You can't take any of it. There's no short cuts. You come the way of Calvary. You come the way of the brass altar. You come the way of the brazen serpent. You die! You actually die. O God, why can't I say it right? You die! Literally die to yourselves. Die to the things of the world, and are born anew. Amen. No world, the things of the world is dead. There's no short cuts. See, they want to come right quick. They don't want to grow. We grow in the Lord. It takes growth and experience.

People are told out on the West Coast now, “Oh, we got the immortal baptism. We baptize you in water, you turn right back to a young man right there, a young woman. Yes, sir. You keep getting....” They've got Elijah's garment, they've got manifested sons of God. “Yes, sir, brother, God's getting manifested sons right now—manifesting.” Tell them all about this, “Tonight you're a sinner, tomorrow you're manifested sons of God.” Nonsense! Where do you get that in the Word? Babies are not born men. They're born babies and grow to men.

Listen over here, just let me just quote back just a minute and read something to you in Ephesians, the eleventh verse, twelfth ... about the fifteenth, I believe it is, somewhere along in here. Let's start at the twelfth verse.

For the perfection of the saints, for the working of the ministry, ... the edifying of the body of Christ:

Till we all come into the unity of the faith, and ... the knowledge of the Son of God, into perfected man, and the measure of his stature and the fulness of Christ:

That we from henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine [listen, what doctrine?], by the sleight of men, and cunning crafts, whereby they lay in wait to deceive you;

But speaking the truth in love [and, what?], speaking the truth [He is the truth] in love [Listen! Are you listening? Say, “Amen.” What?], may grow up unto him [What, tomorrow? No, grow up to Him], grow up unto him ... which is the head, even Christ: [Growing up unto Him.]

I remember the first sermon I preached. I got up there and I thought I did real well, and all of the old ladies sat around and they cried a little bit, you know, and said, “Oh, what a wonderful boy.”

The old pastor, Dr. Davis, was an old lawyer. I went down, and he said, “I want to see you down at the house.”

I said “All right.” I walked in, next day, you know, all swelled out. I said, “How did I do, Dr. Davis?”

Said, “The rottenest I ever heard!”

I said, “What?”

He said, “The worst I ever heard.”

“Oh,” I said, “Brother Davis, everybody was crying.”

He said, “Yes, they cry at funerals, cry at births, everything else.” He said, “What it is, Billy, you never quoted one bit of God's Word. You talked about some mother that had done gone on, or something like this, and got everybody to crying.” Said, “You're not born again upon things and sensations of this earth; you're born by the Word.” Said, “Billy....”

Oh, he cut the wind right out of me. I'm glad he did. See? See? Not jumping up and down, hollering, that isn't it. It's the Word that makes alive. The Word's quickened. Not experiences; the Word!

He said, “I remember the first case I tried, Billy.” He said, “I beat on the rail.” And he said, “I said, 'Look at this poor woman. Oh,' ” he said, “Look at how her husband's mistreated her.” And said, “I cried a little, and picked up my handkerchief, and I acted just like the rest of the lawyers.” Said, “I thought I'd go through the same emotion. Said, 'Judge, Your Honor, why don't you give her a divorce? Looky there! She says her husband beat her back across the back.' He couldn't even see it, under her underneath clothes. 'He beat her across the back.' And said, 'Why won't you give her... ?' The old judge just sat there, looked.

“Directly the old attorney sitting across on the other side, had growed up, he said, 'Judge, Your Honor, how much more of this nonsense will your court stand?' Just a lot of carrying on.”

That's the way too many people do. Too much carrying on without enough Word behind it to back up. Grow up! “Oh, he danced in the Spirit last night, Brother Branham, he's all right.” Nah, it don't make him all right to me. No, sir. Got to grow up, be proved, tested, growing up to Him, seasoned.

I was reading in the histories not long ago. (Am I taking too much time?) I was reading in the history of the church. I believe Sister Arnold back there “amened” me the other day on something about the history of the church, that she had been reading it. I seen where one night there was a boy in a monastery, in the days of St. Martin, that he said, “The Lord made me an old prophet out of the Old Testament. I am one of the old prophets.” Well, I cannot call the bishop's name there, of this little school—just a little group like this here. I cannot call his name at this time, but he was trained under Martin. It didn't sound just right, so the rest of the brethren just let him alone. Directly he prophesied. He said, “Tonight God's coming down and going to give me a white robe, to sit among you, and you'll know that I'm one of the prophets of the Old Testament.” So that night, twelve o'clock, actually it happened. Voices was heard, people moving around, and the boy got a robe, they said just as white as it could be. He come out, said, “Didn't I tell you?” Said, “Now all of you take orders from me. I am the Old Testament prophet.”

But the old bishop didn't go for it just right. It wasn't the Word. Prophets are not made; they're predestinated. And a prophet wouldn't act like that, in the beginning. The fruit of it proved that it wasn't, see. The fruits proved that it wasn't a prophet, see. So he said, “We'll spend the rest of the night in fasting, and praying, and singing of hymns.” A day or so passed. After awhile the old bishop, praying, said, “Lord, that boy! That garment, to look at it,” said, “never knowed nothing ... seen anything like it.” Writers come and looked, and they'd never seen anything like it. There it was. Finally, they knowed one man that was a prophet, that was Martin. They said, “All right, one thing now you do to prove to us. Scripturally you're wrong. How about going over to Martin and stand before him and tell him that?”

He said, “Oh, I am forbidden to stand before Martin.”

He that's got good gold don't dread going to the testing machine [That's right], he that's got the truth. That's the reason I make a challenge. Any man come and show me where the baptism in the name of Jesus Christ is wrong. Show me this birth that you got to die and if you still got the world in you, you're still of the world. Show me these things. Don't need to worry about it—take it to the testing machine. Here's the testing machine, see. That's right.

So they said, “You're going anyhow.” And a bunch of the brothers picked him up, and the robe vanished, see. Wouldn't Pentecostal people eat that up today? Oh, my! It looked like the real thing, but it wasn't according to the Word.

Martin said Satan appeared to him one time, great golden crown on, three or four decks of stars in it like that, glistening and beautiful, great big fellow, nice, handsome, correctly combed and groomed, a great beautiful robe on, and his shoes on his feet was gold. Walked out and said, “Martin, do you know me?”

Now people that don't see visions, this might not ... you might not understand it, see, but how things come to you in different spirits, and how deceiving they are. The Bible said they would deceive the very elected if it was possible. The elected—that's those who are predestinated and born for that purpose, see.

So he come to this elected. He said, “Martin, do you know me? I am Christ.” He said, “Will you recognize me?” Martin hesitated. It seemed strange. He waited a minute, and he said again, he said, “Don't you see me? I am Christ. Do you recognize me?” He said it three or four times to him.

Christ said ... or, Martin said, “Satan, I know you. My Lord is not crowned yet, but His saints shall crown Him.” There's the Word of that.

That's where that Roman church got so much dogma, evil spirits coming in, contrary to the Word; and they had to deny the Word to take their dogma and get away from the Bible. Stay with the Word! That's the string of life today. There'll be spirits rise after a while that'll deceive everything, nearly. The Bible said so. As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so will these men of reprobated mind concerning the truth perform miracles and do all kinds of signs. But stay with that Word. The Word of the Lord came to the prophet, and they brought it forth, and we believe the prophets.

Notice, yes, he said, “I know you, Satan.” Said, “My Lord is not a big man like that. My Lord went away with a rugged old garment on, with nail scars in His hand, uncrowned, with bloody locks. And when He returns, He'll come like that, for the Bible said He'll return in the like manner as He went.” And the thing vanished from him. Oh, my!

How he comes in and just makes it so beautiful, “Oh, they spoke in tongues. They're the best people you ever seen.” Don't you believe that. Be leery.

(I hope the Word's not boring you.) Born Christians grow into the stature of Christ as they live. They're born again, their lives begin to shape, like a baby. It takes form and begins to grow. First thing you know, here they are in the full stature. Amen. There you are. Day after day, year after year, they stay the same. Now come back to the Word, “If ye abide in me....”

They say, “I got born again. Hallelujah! I joined this. I joined.... I don't know. Last year I believed in Jesus' name, I backed it out; now I believe this. I did believe you had to be holy, but I.... So-and-so say....” Wanderers, tossed about with every wind of doctrine, see. There you are.

But be born of the Spirit and grow into the stature of Christ. You see it, Brother Dauch? Growing into the stature of Christ! Through your life, proves. Like if you were born a prophet, you'll remain that. If you were born a Christian, you'll remain that. “If ye abide in me and my words abide in You....” This grows you up into the stature of Christ. Not some young lawyer beating, screaming, crying, tell you this, that, or the other, make a lot of emotions; but somebody who's growed into the stature of Christ, through the years has seasoned out and proved, standing at the helm. No other.... “On Christ the solid rock we stand, all other grounds is sinking sands. Let denominations and creeds come, go, let isms. Keep me humble, Lord, stay right with the Word and move right on through the stream. She'll guide us to the shore. Full stature.

Now look, if we see how it turns out here, and you can't change after death.... Now you watch these people that come in, gets all these sensations and things, run out, and tomorrow they're this way. Have you seen it? Hundreds of them, see. And you see what happens. And now what if them people died in that state? Death doesn't change it.

So, oh, Christians, in closing these words let me say this. Let us turn to Him and His Word, with all sincerity. Come humbly, like Christians, and be born again of His Spirit. And when you are born again, you are vindicated a Christian by the fruits that you bear. You get that, Sister Peckenpaugh? You are a Christian by your fruits that you bear. “By their fruits you shall know them.” That's a vindication. You might not know your ABC's, but yet you can be a lady, a Christian lady. You might be hated of the world. If you do it because something you've done, you should be; but if you're hated for His sake, that's different.

You might not be a theologian. Look at the blind man that was born blind. Jesus healed him. He had been born ... from birth he didn't even have eyeballs. And Jesus made him well, healed him. And when that man came to see, and the Pharisees questioned him, said, “Who was He?” They couldn't deny that something had been done. Now, the man was not a theologian. He couldn't argue like preachers would do, little technique things. He couldn't explain to them. He didn't know the Testament. He didn't know how the Messiah was to be born and the works He was to do. The man didn't know it. He wasn't a theologian. But what did he do? They said, “Give God praise. We are theologians, and we know He's a sinner.”

Now the man couldn't deny their word, but here's what he did say: in other words, “If He is a sinner and does this, then what's the matter with you fellows? What's the matter with you-all?” He said, “Whether He's a sinner, or not, I don't know. I can't say that. But this one thing I do know, wherein I was once blind, I now see.” What was he doing? He was vindicated. That's right. He was being vindicated. Something happened to him. His being was changed from darkness to light, from blind to sight.

And a man that's born of the Spirit of God—that once had a form of godliness, deny the Word thereof, and the power thereof, and to say the days of miracles is past—when he's born again, he might not be a scholar, he might not be able to explain it; but he believes it.

Like the....

If my colored brethren and sisters here will forgive me for saying this, a good old colored brother down South, they told a little story of him. Said he was packing a Bible and he couldn't even read his name. And he said, “Mose, why you pack that Bible?”

Said, “It's the Word of God.”

They said, “Well,” said, “do you believe it?”

He said, “Yes, suh, I sure do believe it.” Said, “I believe it from kiver to kiver, and believe the kiver also, because it's got Holy Bible wrote on it.”

Said, “How do you know it's a Holy Bible?” Said, “How do you know it is?”

He said, “I just believes it. That's all.” That's all he had to have. He just believed it. He didn't know why, but he believed it.

They said to him, “Mose, would you do anything that Bible said do?”

“Yes, suh,” he said. “If the Bible said so, I'd do it.” There you are.

He said, “All right, Mose.” He said, “Now, what if that stone fence there, if the Lord told you to jump through that stone fence, how would you jump through the stone fence?”

He said, “Does the Bible say for Mose to jump through that stone fence?”

He said, “Well, what if God would speak to you and tell you to jump through the stone fence?”

He said, “If it was God, and He told me to jump, I'd jump.”

He said, “How you going to get through that fence without a hole in it?”

He said, “If it was God, He'd have the hole there when Mose got there.” And that's right. Right!

You dare to take God's Word and stand there and say it's so! Let this poor little nervous woman here, thinks she's going to die, and everything else is wrong with her, see.... You're not dying! Say, “How can I do it, Brother Branham?” Just take His Word and step on it one time once. Stand on that Word, see what happens. Tell the devil he's a liar. You've been in menopause all these years, about fifty-seven years old. And get away from the thing, it's the devil! Take God's Word and say, “By his stripes I am healed.” Watch what takes place. Then you'll quit thinking you got heart attacks and everything. You don't have no heart attacks and all that stuff. It's a lie. You don't have it. Just believe God's Word. That's right.

When you're born again, God vindicates you. That's how God vindicates all of His nature. What? By the fruits. That's the way He vindicates His ministry. That's right. All of His servants are vindicated the same way He vindicates nature. How do you know it's a peach tree? Because it brings peaches. How do you know it's an apple tree? It's bearing apples. How do you know it's a Christian? Christian signs bear from it, Christian life comes out of it. How do you know he's a teacher? The Word comes from him. How do you know he's a prophet? The Word comes through him, bears record, vindication. It proves itself. How does it become that? When it dies and becomes one. That's right. When we die and become a new creature in Christ Jesus, it gets us with our calling, we stay with our calling. The fruits of the Spirit follow us when we are His servants. When we are born again, the fruits of Christ's life follows us. That's right. How do you know it's a peach tree? It's got peaches. How do you know he's a Christian? He acts like Christ, he walks like Christ, he talks like Christ, he lives like Christ, above sin, victorious. What does he do, say, “See what I done”? Christ didn't do that. He gave all praise to the Father. That's right. That's how you know it—by their fruits you shall know them.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot even understand the kingdom of God.”

So not my New Year's message here at twelve-thirty, or twenty minutes till one, but my advice is to you, Christian, you who love God. When you come to God's brass altar of judgment, and you want to be born again, just lay yourself upon there. Don't expect to pick up again—you're going to die. That's the end of you, that's all. If you don't do it, if you don't feel like you can do that, don't try it, it won't work—deeply, sincerely. (With about ten pages more of this lesson here, or more, scriptures, I quit.) But lay yourself upon God's brazen altar of God's judgment, and become just as dead to the world as Christ was, see. Come just as dead as the judged serpent was in the garden of Eden, had done been represented in the form of a brass serpent, no life in it at all. All of its life was gone. Christ was lifeless, they took Him from the cross and buried Him in the grave. He was dead. And then He rose for our justification. And we die with our Lamb on the altar, and are raised again in His justification. How do we know? Because His life that raised Him from that dead condition, that same life raises us from our dead condition of the world into a new creature in Christ Jesus, and then by the Holy Ghost we're sealed in the kingdom of God until the day of our redemption.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot understand the kingdom of God.” Don't try to understand it. You'll never do it. Jesus said you could not. Just accept it. Accept it on the basis of His Word.

Don't walk in blindly now, and say, “O Lord, give me a sensation. Lord, I tell You....” No. Just say, “Lord, kill me, take the world out of me. I still love the things of the world.” I don't mean the creation, sunsets and beauty, and stuff like that. That ain't what I'm talking about. I'm thinking about the lust, the filth, the world order, all these things of the world. Just ... they just die, just automatically die, and they've got no more hold on you. They become stinky to you. “Umh, just don't see how people live in them!” You cry out. More you see of it, the worse you get! Yes, sir. You can't compromise with it. There's no place to compromise. There's no place to put yourself in there when there's world in there. You are dead to them things. And how can you, once being dead to the world, then associate in the things of it again? Can't do it. So don't do that. Die to the things of the world.

The Lord bless you. Be born again, Christians. Be born again, then you won't have to say, “It's the hardest thing [you women] for me to let my hair grow out.” “It's the hardest thing for me to let my temper go [you men]. Boy, I just have to tell my wife. I get her, boy, and I shake her, and I say, 'I know I'm a Christian, oughtn't to do this, but you shut up and you sit down.'” Don't do that, see.

You'd like to see a time you could put your arm around her, and say, “Sweetheart, that isn't becoming to a Christian.” That's the way you want to be, isn't it? You can be that way, see. And when a man slaps you on one side of the face, you don't have to cut him down with a pocketknife. A man slaps you on one side of the face, say, “Brother, what reason did you do that for?” There you are. That's Christianity. When somebody says something evil about you, instead of just trying to make a big show of it, slip off somewhere and say, “Heavenly Father, the man is a mortal. I pray that You'll take that spirit out of him. Don't let him do that. I pray You save his life.”

Don't say it, “Lord, I know I oughtn't to say it.” Well, you might not say it with your lips, but mean it in your heart, see. It's your heart's what counts, see. When you're born again of the Spirit of God, you actually love everybody. Now you don't love their ways and things like that, don't want to partake of it. No, sir. Stay away from the things of the world, but you just keep yourself spotless. And the only way you have to do it, it comes from the inside out, like the dove fixing his feathers, you see. He don't have to fix them, say, “Now, today I must wipe all this off,” and like that. No, he's got a oil on the inside of him because he's a dove, just keeps him clean, see. That's right.

Won't you do that? Won't you receive Him like that? That's my persuasion to you on this New Year's Eve. I persuade this little Tabernacle. How I love you, how I love this little group of people! How I would like to come in sometime, walk down through this building, and just look. You know what I've always longed to see? A church filled with the Spirit, that sin could not even be around it. As soon as one member done something wrong, the Spirit would call it right out. He'd be afraid to join himself to the Christians before confessing it and making it right, because he'd be called right out at the meeting when you get together. See there, wouldn't that be lovely? Then the unclean come in and sit down among you, and the first thing you know, the Holy Spirit speaks in such a way that reveals the secrets of their heart, telling them. Now, if it'll work on one, it will on the other, see. And everybody in prayer, all of you as one unit, one person, just one person, like we're all members of this body moving right along, all born again of the Spirit of God, filled with the same Spirit, baptized into the same body. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Now, we can have it. God promised it to us. But first, death, burial, and resurrection with Him.

Let us bow our heads now for prayer. There's some handkerchiefs laying here also.

Holy God, we realize, Lord, the sacredness of standing in this spot. We realize that we are in the house of God. We're associating with the body of Christ, which is the house of God. The members of the body are assembled together. There's one coming from one place, and one another, gathering together. And today, on this Sunday school lesson, it's been long and drawed-out. But, Father, I believe that it's ordained of You, that it should be this way, that we might understand what birth and resurrection mean, what it means to be born again. We have to, first things first, we have to die in order to be born again. You never change your laws. The law of nature still provides. The law of nature is that any seed must first die in order to be born again. And we realize that we too must die in order to be born again. And so many, Lord, today (I pray You forgive us), so many has depended upon certain experiences they had, that they claim they're born again. But the fruits of their life shows that they were brought on the wrong tree.

That was my reason, Father, as this morning asking if Brother Neville spoke to me to bring a message, I'd just teach Sunday school. And therefore, Father, I've done it with love and with all my heart, that the people might know that ... not rest upon some little experience they had, but to rest solemnly on their day-by-day life; how they live in the times when they're in the church, and how they live when the great strain comes on the outside. Do they flee to the cross for help when trouble arises, or do they walk in their own spirit and own thoughts? Do they rile back when they're riled upon? That's the question, Father. And when we see that it's totally impossible for any of us to save the other, that God has made an appropriated way, an all-sufficient sacrifice, and it's the only way that we can come.... Not by any church, any creed, any denomination, any sensation, but by the way of Christ. As the first man, the righteous, died, he died on the altar with his lamb. And to this very hour, every other righteous man has to die on the brazen altar of God, with his Lamb, Christ Jesus. Then we are dead with Him, and raised anew, in a new life. Grant it, Lord, that it won't miss any heart in here.

Let us think it over today, Lord, as we return this afternoon, again at seven-thirty, to begin here a series of meetings in preaching tonight. I pray that You'll bless every one of your servants tonight with mighty messages, Lord. Grant it. May our souls be filled. These people that's drove so far to come in, may they be so filled with the gospel of the power of God through this New Year's Eve that they'll go away from here happy and rejoicing. Grant it, Lord, giving them spiritual food for the coming year. Grant it.

Forgive us of our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And You said, “If you from your heart do not forgive every man his trespasses, neither does your heavenly Father forgive you.” So, Lord, we forgive every one. We by faith this morning lay our souls upon the altar. Burn every bit of the life of the world out of us, Lord. May the smoke come up from our sacrifice, Lord, and be sweet-smelling odor in your nostrils. Grant it, Lord, as we don't lay a burnt lamb but lay ourselves up there as sinners, to be burned as sinners, and changed into lambs of a new birth. Grant it, Lord.

Then lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil—the evil of sickness, the evil of depressed. Heal every one that's in the building this morning. Every sick person may be healed today, Lord. I speak these words in the name of the Lord Jesus, that the mountains that lays before the people, may they all be moved today. If it's sickness, if it's lust, if it's passions, if it's anything of the world, may it move out of the way and let the Word of God come in and be made manifest in their life. Deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, Lord, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

I love Him, I love Him

Because He first loved me,

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Now shake one another's hands.

I love Him, I ... (Just turn right

around and say, “Greetings, my

brother, greetings!“)

Because He first loved me,

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree (keep on playing).

I want to thank each one of you for all your kindness this past year. I'll probably get my message tonight, the Lord willing, at seven-thirty. I want to thank Charlie and Nellie, and Rodney and his wife, for their kindness, hunting season as I was down there, and they treated me as if I was their father or their brother. To all you people that's been so kind to me, thank you. Brother and Sister Dauch, and Brother Wright, also Brother Ben, and many, all you people, Brother Palmer and, you know, all of you from Georgia, all around everywhere, thank you.

By the way, Margie's father, they called yesterday and said he was sick. Is Margie and Rodney here? They're not? How is the old fellow? [A brother in the congregation says, “He might be just a little bit better.”] Let's just ... let's pray.

Heavenly Father, a few weeks ago I sat on the little country porch way back up on the road in Kentucky. An aged old daddy sat out there with his overalls on, and his faded blue shirt, trembling. Took him by the hand and seen that he was nearing the end. A little old mother invited me in to have some biscuits and gravy. Lord, they were only respecting your Word. Now he's just barely here, he's leaving us. Don't let him die a sinner, Lord. Maybe it's been our ... your servants', Lord, fault. That poor old man, knowing nothing but beating out the clods and making a living for his children, but I found in him a good gentle spirit. Don't let him die a sinner. His daughter is one of us, Lord. And how little old Margie, them little shoulders aching, and how she's ministered to me and trying to make me a bed to sleep in down there, and a breakfast at the table, and her and Nellie and Charlie and all of them, mother Cox. And she was crying, they said, on the phone—her daddy is going. That's her daddy.

Lord, come to that oxygen tent just now. Don't knock on the tent, but that tent of the door of his heart. Maybe some of us hasn't fulfilled our duty to go to him, Lord, some of your other servants, maybe in his young days when his mind was alert. Maybe it's our fault, Lord, that we didn't persuade him. Then forgive us, Lord, and take him into thy kingdom. Grant it, Father. We commit him to You now. And if it be possible, or be in your great plan, if You'll raise him up, Lord, maybe some of us will have a chance to talk to him yet. However, our plea is for his soul, Lord, because it's going to take its journey pretty soon, it seems like, sailing out into the unknown yonder, oh, with no pilot, no one to guide him through the fog and mist yonder. He'll lose his way, Lord. May the pilot that knows the way come to him this morning, anchor his little ship against the side of the old ship of Zion. When he takes his journey, he'll be sure to land in safety. Grant it, Father. We commit him to You now, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love Him, I love Him

(Let's raise our hands.)

Because He first loved me,

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Tonight I'll try to be a little quicker with the message than I was this morning. Now slip away. I wish I could take you all up home with me, give you all a good dinner. I'd sure do it if I could. But I hope that the Lord gives you a real meal, spiritually speaking, in His goodness and mercy; that you'll see it and grow unto the full stature of Him that you love, your Saviour, Jesus Christ. Now as we leave the building, and stand for prayer, dismissal, we want to sing our song, and be sure that you obey it, “Take the name of Jesus with you.” Now, we're going to make announcement just in a moment, got announcement soon as we sing our song. All right.

Take the name of Jesus with you,

Child of sorrow and of woe;

It will joy and comfort give you,

Take it everywhere you go.

Precious name (precious name).

O how sweet! (O how sweet!)

Hope of earth and joy of heaven;

Precious name, O how sweet!

(how sweet!)

Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

Take the name of Jesus with you,

As a shield from every snare

(Listen now, what);

When temptations round you gather,

(What do you do?)

Just breathe that holy name in prayer.

Precious name, O how sweet!

Hope of earth and joy of heaven;

Precious name (precious name),

O how sweet! (how sweet!)

Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

Now remember, I believe that Jesus Christ says this to every human being, on His first doctrine: “Except a man be born of the water [that's the Word, washing of the water by the Word] and of the Spirit [which is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit confirming the Word], he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.” Do you believe that? “By the water,” washing of the water by the Word, Word and truth, He is the truth. “Water and Spirit,” the Spirit coming with the Word to confirm the Word, making God live in me, see. We cannot understand the kingdom of heaven till that's happened. Then when that begins to happen, we see the Word in us—born of the Word and of the Spirit—manifesting itself, leading me not away from the Word.... The Spirit leads me to the Word, and the Word living in me, making God manifest in your life ... you'll never understand the kingdom of God and can no wise enter into it. God bless you. Brother Neville.