An Absolute

Let us just remain standing for a few moments. And I'm sure in an audience of this size there's many requests, people who are sick and needy. So let's just bow our heads just a moment for a word of prayer. Here's many requests laying here also, and handkerchiefs.

Our heavenly Father, we are coming now in the name of the Lord Jesus, knowing this, that You promised that You would hear and would answer our prayers. And I ask You to be merciful to us, to forgive our sins. We're taught in the Scripture that You forgive all of our sins and heal all of our diseases. And we pray, heavenly Father, that this will be done this afternoon now, because we're asking it in the name of the Lord Jesus upon these handkerchiefs and requests.

We're taught in the Scriptures how that from the body of Paul was taken handkerchiefs and aprons, and evil spirits went out of the people and they were healed. Now You're the same Jesus today, and we stand in number asking that You'll grant these things. There's no doubt many requests in the building today of so many people that are needy in this hour. Meet their needs, Lord, both physically and spiritually, for we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, brother.

We used to sing a little song years ago, “A Little Talk with Jesus Makes it Right.” [Unclear word] Now, I believe Brother Williams just got through saying there's a breakfast in the morning. And now, I don't believe I've ever heard where next year it's going to be at. Right ... right here again? Right back here again. Well, that's ... the same place? The same place. That's very fine, yes, that's very....

Men ought to worship at Jerusalem. That's Tucson, not down here, see. Now, you're down under the hill—Jericho is down under the hill from Jerusalem, you know. So that's Jerusalem down there, see. [Laughter and comments] Did you hear that?

So men ought to worship God everywhere, Jesus said, you know. Not at Jerusalem, neither here or in this mountain, but worship Him in Spirit and in truth. That's the main thing—in Spirit and in truth.

Now, I ... usually when I speak I'm just so slow. I was admiring Brother Velmer Gardner the other night—could come up here and put more in fifteen minutes than I can put in three hours. My!

I don't know whether I ever told you this or not. When I was a kid my daddy was a rider, you know. And he used to ride horses and break them—followed rodeo, shooting, trick shots. And I thought, you know, when I got to be about 12 years old I ought to take after my dad. So when they'd plow the old horse out there in Indiana, you know, until he got so tired he couldn't move hardly, I'd get my dad, when he made the rounds with the plow, you know, way out the back of the field. And I'd get down there where they had an old watering trough made out of a log. How many ever seen one of them watering troughs? Man, look at the Kentuckians that's in here!

So, oh, I used to have a big time. Go down and put the horsehair in the water, you know, watch it turn. What we called a horsehair snake is them little.... You know, touch it and it'd move, and the bees....

I'd get my little brothers and all, sit them along down there; and get the old plow horse, you know, and jerk the harness off of him right quick; and get Dad's saddle, a handful of cockleburs, and put them under the saddle and pull down the cinch. I'd jump up on that poor horse, old and tired. He couldn't get his feet off the ground, and he'd just bawl, you know. And I'd throw that hat around. My! I thought I was a rider. And I thought you all needed me out here out in Arizona to break your horses, you know.

So, about seventeen, eighteen years old I run off—got out here around where they was having a rodeo. Well, I thought, “Man, if I can just get in that rodeo, I'll ride the horses for them. I'll have some money made.”

So, I remember the first rider came out. He was riding what was called ... I believe they called it The Kansas Outlaw. He was a great big horse—big black fellow about seventeen hands high. He was a real heavy, strong horse. And I thought, “Well, if that fellow can ride him, so can I.” And this noted rider got out there.

And I was sitting around on the corral, you know, with ... the pen, where all the disfigured cowboys, you know. I wasn't quite disfigured like they was, but I thought I was as good a rider. So they ... I'd rode that old plow horse, and why couldn't I ride that one? So when he come out of the chute.... Man! That horse could put all four feet in a wash pan! He done a sunfish and a twirl around there a few times; and the saddle went one way and the rider another; and the pick-ups got the horse, and the ambulance got the rider. I knew that wasn't that old plow horse I used to ride.

Caller came down through, he said, “I'll give any man,” said, “fifty dollars [that was a lot of money then], fifty dollars who can ride him”—so many seconds on him. And I was just shaky. He come up to me and said, “Are you a rider?”

I said, “No, sir!”

When I first got saved, and was ordained in the Missionary Baptist Church, I used to pack the Bible around, you know. And I wanted somebody to ask me if I was a preacher, you know. But every time somebody'd say, “You a preacher?”, I'd say, “Sure.”

One day I was over at St. Louis. I'd just met our Baptist brother, and I was over at St. Louis. And I heard a fellow named Robert Daugherty. Many of you might know him. And he was in a tent meeting. He was a Pentecostal brother. My! That man preached till he was blue in the face, and he just preached till he just sank down. You could hear him catch his breath two blocks away (without a microphone, too), and just catch his breath and come back up preaching.

Since then, somebody say, “Are you a preacher?”, I say, “No, I just pray for the sick.” My old slow Baptist ways don't think of it that fast. Just bear with me, though. And you notice the Scripture said to bear with the weak, so that's me. So I'm thankful that you all have tried to do that this week, and have done a real good job. Ten o'clock at night when I was supposed to be home and in bed, and keeping you out....

But really this afternoon I'm going to try to hurry and get right out. I've got a lot of driving to do yet this afternoon in order to get back here in the morning. And so ... I appreciate you though. And if I do not get a chance to say this at any other time, I thank you very much, each one—all you ministers and you Christian businessmen. Such a ... really a pleasure for you to invite me, and let me come here and put in my little plug with you brethren. Brother Shakarian, Brother Williams, and all of you men, I'm certainly grateful.

And ... why didn't you say “Amen” awhile ago, Tony, when I talked about Tucson? I didn't even hear him. That's the best hunter in Arizona when I'm in Indiana, see. That's after I go to Indiana. See his picture in the paper the other day? We have to change that, Tony. So now, remember, tomorrow night the banquet with Brother Oral Roberts.

And now, before we approach the Word.... I was going to speak this afternoon on “The Countdown.” And I thought that I'd get in here, you'd still be sitting here at seven o'clock—oh, about what science has been able to do; and then what God's been able to do, you see. And so, we're living in a different age than we used to live, both physically and spiritually. So we're grateful for our achievements in the spiritual realms, the same as the science is in their material realms, scientific realms.

Now let us, if you don't mind, again.... You know, you might sing too much. I don't hardly see how you could if you sing like Brother Outlaw's choir awhile ago, when I was standing there listening at it. They going up, up, up, up. And, but ... and again, you might eat too much, you might drink too much, you might work too much. But I don't think you can pray too much. The Bible said, “I would that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands.” So let's bow our heads again, just a moment.

Heavenly Father, we love to talk to You. And I think of men —how I love to know that they're in the city, just to shake their hand and talk to them. We all have those feelings. And how much more greater is it for the privilege of speaking to You, our Lord and our Saviour!

And our hearts beat to be in the presence of each other. And then how much more is it when we know we're in your divine presence. And we know You're here, because You said wherever —if it's all over the world, or around the world, or wherever it may be—“Where two or more are gathered in my name I'll be there in their midst.” And we know that that scripture cannot fail, that promise is divine. It came from the lips of the Saviour. And therefore, maybe we are ... our conscience and our ... the sin of our unbelief has separated us so far away that we might not be able to recognize You being here; but You're here just the same, for You keep your promise.

And now, You said if they will ask anything as touching one thing and it shall be given them. Father, the greatest thing that I could think of just at this time and for this audience is, feed us, Lord, on the spiritual manna that comes from God out of heaven. Grant it, Lord. Feed us on your Word. Thy Word is truth. And “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

And as we read it may the Holy Spirit take it to each heart, and divide it among us today just as we have need, for we ask it in Jesus' name, thy Son. Amen.

Now as.... Many times, as I've said, ministers and people, we listen to each other speak and we take down scriptural texts that some other minister has spoke on, or someone. And I'm constantly doing that, going down the road. I have a little sheet of paper, a little book, laying along by my side. And a scripture will come upon my mind, I jot that down. And the first thing you know.... Now you're all guilty of that, aren't we? We do that. And then, after awhile the Holy Spirit will quicken that to us. And we get another thought, and then I'll just have to drive off the side of the road, and jot down some things.

And that's the way then, when I come to time to speak, I'll go back through those things and I'll go to thinking of it, and running some Scripture reference, and then put them Scripture reference down. And then, when I turn to it I remember what the Scripture says, and then I speak from there. We mostly all do that way.

Now, I'm going to read just about a verse out of the book of Philippians again. I was reading from Philippians the other night, over ... the Wednesday night, over with Brother Shores at the Assembly of God, when I spoke on the subject of “Identified with Him.” And now I want to read in the 1st chapter of Philippians for this afternoon, about the 20th verse. And now let's listen prayerfully as we read.

According to my earnest expectations and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that which is boldness all boldness ... always, so now also Christ shall be manifested in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.

I was thinking of this, and thought I would use a little familiar thought—just a word. You say, “Brother Branham, a word for this, probably a thousand people sitting here? Just a word?” Well, if it's the right kind of word, see.... And I want to try, if the Holy Spirit who inspires us, to build a little ... get a little context around my text. I want to call it “An Absolute.”

An absolute.

Now, I was looking in the dictionary to find out.... When I was looking at the word “identified,” I come into this word “absolute.” And the “absolute” according to Webster's Dictionary, it says it's perfect in itself; unlimited in power; primarily an ultimate. An absolute. It's used many times. It's the last word. It's the amen.

You hear people say, “Absolutely that's it.” That's the last thing. It's unlimited, see. That takes from here on. There's nothing else in its way. It's the supreme. It's an ultimate, and an ultimate is when ... primarily an ultimate, because you've reached the end. It's the amen. That's all.

Now any.... And tied to every great achievement has been an absolute. To every person, and every thing that's been did, or done rather, there has been an absolute connected with it. There's got to be something, for it's the final tying-post. And man cannot, by no means, achieve anything until there comes somewhere where they recognize that there is an absolute.

One time in a doctor's office I was speaking to a doctor, and he said, “Well, I tell you, Billy,” he said, “it's true that I believe that a man could appropriate enough faith that he could go out of here and touch this tree and be healed.”

I said, “But, doctor, how could a man ever appropriate enough faith to touch a tree and be healed? See, because there is no background to that. There's no place you can tie to it because it's not Scripturally a foundation. But you've got to have something you can tie to, to know that 'this is it.' That's the ... many little things might lead up to it, but that is the last word, last thing. That's why I've always believed in the Word.”

And I know.... It may be a little testimony that comes on my heart just now might not be very appropriate, but I hope that it won't offend. And my wife sitting there, and, oh, many here know that that's true. There was a ... I used to go with a young lady that was at the ... from the Baptist church at Milltown, Indiana, that I used to pastor. And the young lady had been in the meetings and seen what God did. And ... oh, we were just friends, just good friends, and later we were both.... She married a fine young man, and then later I was married, and we haven't seen each other for years.

Her father was a very personal friend of mine. His name was Lee, Marrion Lee. And I remember one night, a scripture.... He couldn't get it fixed up. He said, “Brother Branham, I'm not doubting you, but,” said, “you know, I've always been taught this.” He was a Nazarene. And he said, “I've been taught this, and I just can't understand it.” And he was a carpenter.

I went home with him one night, and he said, “I tell you. While Norma and them goes upstairs,” said, “let's just have a bite to eat. We got some cornbread and buttermilk [That's really good].” And so we.... (I could treat it justice right now. I haven't been eating for about three weeks here. Just a little now and then, so that I could be at the best for my Lord.)

And now, we got a big glass of cold buttermilk out of the spring house, and a big piece of cold cornbread, and we sat down and crumbled this cornbread up in there, and was eating. And he said, “Billy, I just don't get that what you're talking about.”

So ... we went to bed. And along about ... long late in the night.... We talked till about one o'clock, and I went to sleep on him. And he woke up, and he said, “I dreamed that I was building a building up in New Albany, and the man left me the blueprint. He went to Florida. And he had ... on this blueprint he had a bay window, and I said, 'That man don't want that bay window out there.' So I just left it off.”

And said, “When the man come back, he said, 'I will not pay you for this building until you tear it down and rebuild it according to this blueprint.' ”

I said, “There's a creek right down here. It isn't very far. So.... You don't want to go tearing something down at the end of the road—you might not have time.”

He said, “Is it all right with my pajamas on?”

I said, “With mine, too. Let's go.” So we went down.

So, his daughter got real, real famous, and his grandchildren, on singing. And they were United Brethren. His daughter married a United Brethren minister, or minister's son. And this boy—fine fellow—he was a machinist up at the boat works. And the little girl was trying to live for Christ. It got too much pressure on them.

They were very genius kiddies. One of them at seventeen years old was teaching music. She'd majored, and she was a very smart girl. And so this little fellow couldn't stand the pressure of being teased, and they'd tell her she was old-fashioned, and so forth. And after awhile the kid had a breakdown.

They'd taken her to what they call Our Lady of Peace, a Catholic institution in Louisville, for shock treatment, and they gave her.... Of course, that's a shot in the dark. If there's a doctor here I hope I don't offend you by that, but sometimes it makes them worse than ever. And so, give her a shock treatment, and it made the child worse. So they sent her home. Few weeks they had to bring her back again, and she was really in a terrific shape then. So they kept her, and tried to doctor her up over there for quite a while, and she got worse.

And so three days from then they were going to take her to Madison. That's the insane institution where they're.... They put them in a padded cell from then. So, the mother said, “We're not defeated.” And she said, “We'll see if we can get Brother Branham to come over and pray for her, if he's at home.”

So they called up, and it happened to be I was at home. So he came up to see me. Said, “Brother Branham, will you go over and pray for her?”

I said, “Sure.”

So he called the doctor. The doctor said, “Who is this coming?” So he told him it was me, and he said, “Well, I'll tell you. Wait.” Said, “We'll.... You call me back this afternoon.”

Well, he called, and on till until one o'clock in the morning. And his wife kept saying, “He's not in.” The next morning he called. “He's not in.” And the third day they was going to send the child away. So ... I hate to say this but I have a way of knowing—the doctor was just dodging the issue, see. So then, the father was real nervous, and I had to leave the following day—to leave out. That day was all we had.

So the mother and father and the other two sisters come up crying, said, “He's just dodging.”

I said, “Sure he is. But I tell you what. Don't say I'm a minister. Just let me go over as a friend, just going with you.”

So we went in the institution. You know, they lock the doors behind you, and take you up on the elevator, and then lock the elevator. So this Sister was taking us up, and we got into the room, and sat down on the side of the bed. And there that real pretty little lady (about 16-something), sitting there, completely gone. She was just staring. You could wave your hands and she wouldn't even notice it.

And I said to her, “Ruthie, do you remember me?” I said, “I'm Brother Branham.” I said, “You used to call me Budder Bill.” I said, “I presented you to Christ on the Cradle Roll. Don't you remember me?” She'd just stand and look. Oh, a beautiful girl. And the three of them was a trio—three sisters. And I tried to get her attention and I couldn't do it. She was staring. She was just gone.

And I sat there. And I ... they didn't have no post on the bed in them places, you know, because keep from getting hurt. And I sat across the foot of the bed, the mother sat the other side of the little bed, this little single bed in this little room. And the girl was sitting on a little, like a little seat built in the wall. And the Sister was standing up, and the father was standing by the girl. And the mother was standing there and the tears running down from her cheeks.

She said, “You see, Billy? What can we do?”

I said, “Well, listen, Norma. Christ still is Christ,” see.

She said, “This in our last chance.” Said, “If they take her up there you know what's going to happen.” Said, “We'll never see her, I guess, again. And if we do, you know how they ... the treatment they get there.”

And I said, “Well, Norma, let's not be excited.” I said, “We'll just wait a few minutes.” And then no more than said that, there stood the girl before me in a vision, normally well, smiling. And she was looking towards a young man. And I looked at the young man; I looked back; the vision left me. I said, “Norma, does she have a boyfriend, kind of tall and dark hair?”

“Yes.”

And I said, “Doesn't he do something with them in singing?”

Said, “Yes, that's right.”

I said, “Don't you worry. I have 'thus saith the Lord.' She's coming out of it.”

Norma threw her hands and caught me by the knee, looked up to her husband, and said, “Honey, it's never wrong.” Said, “It's never wrong.”

The girl never changed a bit. I said, “All right, Norma. You know that I wouldn't have told you that now unless I'd seen it, and God can't lie,” see. I went on out of the hospital and got in my own car. They stayed.

And about two hours from then, the phone was just ringing when I come up from Mr. Woods' down below. And it was her father. He was on the phone.

He said, “Brother Branham, I got something to tell you.” He said, “You hadn't been gone twenty minutes until she come to herself normally. And she's been examined by the whole staff of doctors. We're taking her home in the morning.” And now, she sings at the Tabernacle now. Now there's men and women here from Jeffersonville there that knows that story's true. If you're in here this afternoon, raise up your hands. How many knows that story? Yes, see, all around, know that it's true—absolutely true.

Now what was it? That little lady used that vision as an absolute, an ultimate. See, you've got ... in everything you've got to have somewhere you could tie down to. And I've always used the Word of God, because there's no other tie-post that I know of as great as that, because “Both heavens and earth will pass away,” said Jesus, “but my word shall never fail.” What a tie-post!

Now, Paul had a Christ-centered life. He ... that was.... Christ was Paul's absolute. He'd been a great teacher, Paul had. He was taught under Gamaliel. And a great teacher he was, of his, under the denomination of his Pharisee background. And he was taught, schooled, and he had a great background, I think, when he received the Holy Ghost and went down into Egypt for three years. I think that must have been where he got taking the Scripture and comparing it with the revelation that he had had, to see if it was right. And you know the great famous book of Hebrews. None other could've wrote it but Paul, because he knowed how those types and anti-types.... What a beautiful lesson!

And now, Paul had met Jesus one day, met Him face to face on the Damascus Road when he was going down to persecute the Christians—a great brawler giving out great threats and doing things against the church of God, making havoc of it, even persecuting it unto death. And one day on the road down....

The reason he had this Christ-centered life is because he personally, now laying aside his teaching, he personally met Christ. And that's the only way that you're ever going to know Him is to meet Him, see—now, to know Him, is. Not ... even know his Word, as good as it may be; yet you've got to know Him. To know Him is life. And Paul had not had this experience yet. And he said one place here, “The life that I now live....” Showed that he'd lived a different life one time. His life had been changed. And when your life is changed it makes you do things you ordinarily would not do. And it makes you say things you wouldn't ordinarily say.

A man that's got a Christ-centered life.... Why, Paul stood right in the midst of the people (those Jews, and so forth). He.... Wasn't one speck of fear about him. He knowed who he had believed. And he had a life that.... He would by no means have did it, if he hadn't have found something that was genuinely ... and it anchored him.

I think any Christian should be that way, every believer. You should never ... I think especially ministers should never try to enter the pulpit until they have met God upon those sacred sands where there's no philosopher can explain it away. You met God, and you know it, and there's nothing can ever hide it away from you.

Now we have times that we have great scholarship, and nothing against that. That's all right. But.... All that goes good. But you personally have got to meet God, to a place that no one can twist any scriptures. You were there. You're the one that met Him. You had the experience of it. You know Him, see.

I think every minister especially, and every believer, should take this place, this position—to first meet Christ personally. And it makes you do things that, as I said, that you ordinarily would not do. It makes you say things that you ordinarily would not say. Yet it is something that you're centered to, or tied to. It's something that you know, like Paul, that you met something that was different than you ever seen in your life.

See,

it's just like a ship, see. A ship has an absolute, and that ship's absolute is the anchor. Now, when that ship is in a tossing waters—where easily it could be throwed against a rock, or bursted up, or hit ground where the water's not deep enough—the great swells coming up will flash the ship, turn it over. It's got to have deep enough water to float it, or the waves will turn it over. And a ship with the anchor—that great, mighty ... tons of metal that it drops out, of steel—and it goes down, down, until it hits the top of the bed of the ocean, somewhere in a top of a mountain.

And that great anchor pulls, as the waves rock the ship, till it strikes its great big spears into a rock. And there the ship has an absolute. It's anchored. Waves might toss it about, but still that ship can stand just perfectly still where it's anchored, because it's an absolute to it.

And if Christ is your absolute you are tied to Him in that manner—no matter what anybody says, how hard the persecution gets, how bad the storm seems to be, how it looks impossible for it to happen. If something has happened to you that Christ becomes your absolute, or any promise in the Bible becomes your absolute, if you're sick and you're praying for healing, and something becomes till that ... strikes that promise in the Bible, “I've got it!”, there's nothing going to wave you from it.

You remember the story a few minutes ago of the little lady? That vision was her absolute. She knowed it had never failed, so it was her absolute. If she could get God to speak back and say “It's over,” no matter what the doctor said, it was a absolute. It was absolutely anchored down.

And a man or a woman just in philosophy, or church joining, or something like that, you're not anchored yet. You take your letter from one church to the other, from one place to another. But if you'd just take the real absolute (Christ), anchor yourself in that, it don't make any difference what comes or goes, you're still anchored.

And what the Christian needs today in this atomic age, and this time of uncertainty, you need something besides just an experience of joining church. You need an anchor, an absolute that you know —because churches will fail, and people will fail, but Christ cannot fail. He's the absolute to the believer. And if Christ is your absolute you're tied to Him. And if He is your absolute, and you're tied to Him, then you're tied to the Word. Now, now this tells whether we got the right absolute or not, see.

If you can read in that Scripture something that Christ has ordained, or commissioned us to do, and because of some twisting around (if someone would tell you that was for the disciples or someone else), and then you don't hold on to that, then Christ is not your absolute. That person who led you out of the way is your absolute. But if that Word, Christ, still holds, see, then He is your absolute. We mustn't let anything stir us out of the way of the Word.

See, some of them today.... It's going to get more than ever, and as the days go by, that we're going to see people with this (as Jesus said), “form of godliness,”—and just a form it's coming into. We've had it in the Methodists, and Baptists, and so forth, for years, and now it's creeped over into the Pentecostals. And little....

When God gave a man the Holy Spirit He set him with his face towards Calvary, and the Word before him. Now little roots will rise up from off that highway, come in and wrap around and around that tree, and you think it's very innocent. But the first thing you know, it's got such a hold on you until it pulls you the wrong way—makes you lean the wrong way. And so has philosophies and things entered among us until it's begun to pull us towards the world. You take the sharp two-edged sword of God and cut free from everything and stay right on that Word, because that is the ultimate. That's the absolute to every believer.

And if a man or woman is filled with the Holy Spirit, your heart within you will punctuate every promise of God with an “Amen!” Right. Now, when someone tells you, “The days of miracles is past. There is no such a thing as divine healing. The baptism of the Holy Ghost was for another age,” and then you turn over in the Bible and read where Peter said at the day of Pentecost (when they were all pricked in their heart and they said to him, “Men and brethren what shall we ... what can we do to be saved?”)....

Now if church-joining would've been what he said, he'd say, “You must find the body and join the church.” Well, you see, there was ... wasn't such a thing in that day. So he give them the exact prescription of what it takes. He told them what they must do, and how far it would be. He said, “Repent, every one of you, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

Then, how far is it?

Jesus said in Mark 16, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. These signs shall follow them that believe,” see. How far? All the world, to every creature, the gospel is. “And these signs shall follow every one that believes; In my name they shall cast out devils; speak with new tongues; or take up serpents or drink deadly things, it would not harm them. Lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.” Now, you see, you must get that absolute, that something that's real, that identifies you with Christ and his Word. Yes, the Word is Christ, and you must be sure that you can say “Amen” to that Word, or your absolute is wrong. You've got it built upon some creed.

You say, “Oh, I believe Christ, but I don't believe that stuff. I believe Christ, but I don't believe this.” Then your absolute's wrong. Your absolute is in some creed, and not in Christ—because Christ is the Word.

He is also like the North Star. He is, to a man that's lost.

Now, I hunt worldwide, and I've been in the wilderness. And sometimes, one of the best.... If you can look up and you know the direction of the North Star, it guides you out. And a man at sea, and when he's lost, if he can only find the North Star he can direct himself, then, the way he's going. Now, that's when he's lost, he looks for the North Star.

Now, other stars shift. But that North Star sits right in the center of the earth. No matter where the earth's turning, that North Star remains the same. It points towards the north. It's the only true star, I understand, that we have—is that extremely north star. Now. It gives you your direction.

And that's what Christ is to you. If you want to go to heaven, if you want to be saved, if you want to be filled with the Spirit, if you want to be Christ-like, Christ is your North Star. If you're lost, don't try to take a creed. He is your North Star. He is your way. He is your direction.

Then, if you take Him as your North Star, then that absolutely places the Holy Spirit your compass. Amen!

The Holy Spirit is your compass, and the compass will only point to the North Star. And if you've got the baptism of the Holy Ghost, it can only point to Christ, and Christ is the Word. That's the way to find your way back, see. You can't look up here and say “This is shining. This star shines here.”—and after awhile it's somewhere else, see. You've got to get somewhere where it's absolutely established.

Now, Christ being the North Star, and the compass always points that way, and if you are really saved.... Really, the only way you can be saved is through Christ. And the Holy Spirit, being your compass, will guide you right straight to the Word. See what I mean? Now that's wonderful. And the Word and Christ is one. Both of them are the same, self-same. “In the beginning [St. John 1] was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” If He is your North Star, then He becomes your absolute.

This a long way getting around to what I want to say. But you'll understand it, maybe, what I'm trying to get to you. There must be an absolute in your life. You've got to have it somewhere, and every one of you has got one. You can't go on without one. You've got to have an absolute.

There was a time that when a woman, her word—about table manners—that was a absolute in America. I think her name was Emily Post, if I'm not mistaken. And whatever she said about table manners.... If she said you should eat with your ... eat your peas with a knife, that was it. That was it. And why? And if she said to eat the chicken you just picked it up in your hands and eat it, no matter how anybody looked at you, you were exactly in line, see—because that was the absolute. She was the absolute of table manners. That's right. Whatever that woman said, that was it.

There was a time when Germany ... when Adolf Hitler was an absolute in Germany. No matter what anybody said, Hitler was the last word. What Hitler said, it had to be done. That was his way of doing it. And no matter how many of the rest of them thought anything about it, Hitler was the last word. He was the absolute.

There was a time when Mussolini was Rome's absolute. There was a time when Pharaoh was a absolute of Egypt. Whatever Pharaoh said, had to be done. But you see all those was the wrong kind of real absolutes. They failed, every one of them.

Standing in Egypt not long ago, I was thinking about the time that Pharaohs sat on their thrones. And you know you have to dig down twenty feet in the ground to find where their thrones was, see. Oh, what an absolute that would be! It's perished and gone. And the people that relied upon that kind of a absolute, they're perished with it and gone on. Why? It was man-made, and anything that's man-made will perish with man. But there is an absolute that cannot perish. That's the eternal Word of God. It can never perish. You must stay with it.

Now. Now, we realize that we got an absolute here. We go out here and have a trial. And you get in trouble out here and you have a trial here in the city, they can take it up through other courts and so forth. It might finally come to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court's decision is the absolute. That's the end of trials. That's all the farther you can go. That's the last court, is the Supreme Court—and that's an absolute.

Now, sometimes we don't agree with them, and ... or don't like their decisions; but just the same it's the absolute, because the nation is tied to it, see. What the Supreme Court says.... No matter if I said they're wrong, that don't make it wrong. In this nation they're right. Whatever their decision is, it's right. An absolute, we have to have it. If there wasn't somewhere, a trial would never end. But there's got to be somewhere that that trial meets its end—and that is in Supreme Court. Anyone knows that. It's finished when it goes through Supreme Court. They make a decision, that settles it. That's all. There's nowhere else you can go because that's their highest court. There's a ... have to have an absolute—have to have an absolute in court.

We have to have an absolute at a ball game. Do you know that? A ball game can't operate right without an absolute, and that's the umpire. Now, sometimes we don't like his decisions, but he's the absolute anyhow. If ... no matter if we want to say, and others say, that it was a strike, or it was a ball, and he says it's a strike, that's what it is. Don't argue with him. He's there. He's a absolute in that ball game, because if he said “Strike!” you can fuss, you can throw your hat out there and protest it, but it's a strike anyhow. Amen!

Now let's think just a minute. What if there was no umpire in the game? What kind of a fuss would it be? It would all be chaos. You couldn't play the game without having an absolute in it.

Games has got to have an absolute. And if games has to have an absolute, what about life? It has to have a resting place, and every mortal here this afternoon has got your absolute somewhere —your ultimate that's the last word. Notice. There'd be fusses and everything at this ball game, and you'd all end up in chaos.

You know, a red light is an absolute to traffic. What if the red light don't work? What if the red light's out when you get there? One say, “I got here first,” and the other one say, “I'm in a hurry to go to work.” Talk about a traffic jam!

That's about what's got the matter with our churches and things. It's such a jam, the red light must be out somewhere. Oh, fusses and argue—why, you'd never get it over. There must be a something there to say, “You go, and you wait,” and so forth, or we'd be all messed up.

Well, now, in our beliefs, in our six hundred and something different denominations (yeah, I think it's nine hundred now of different organizations), there's got to be an absolute somewhere. If the Catholic's right, the Protestant's wrong; if the Methodist is right, the Baptist's wrong; if the Pentecost is right, then the rest of them's wrong. And there's got to be something somewhere. And how are you going to base it, if you don't take God's absolute? That's Christ.

And Jesus said in John 14:12, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” It's an absolute fact that Christ promised that. That's his word. We've got to believe that.

Said, “He [in St. John the 5th chapter, the 24th verse], He that heareth my words [my words] and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into the judgment but has passed from death unto life.” That's absolute. That's it. Now, not him that maketh-believe, but he that believeth, see.

Now, we've got to have an absolute, and He is that absolute, and He and his Word are the same. We can't separate them.

Yes,

if the red light was out we'd have a traffic jam. Oh, my! A bad one too. There must be an absolute. And it's ... you know, it's got so today, though, the trouble of it is, is what's gotten this great big traffic jam we've got into. It's kind of a rude way to express it, but yet you know what I'm trying to say.

Notice. The reason we've got into there is because that every one of us make our own absolute, see. We have our own absolute. Each church has its absolute. Each group has its own absolute, and they say ... each one of them said, “We are the truth, the way. We got it all. You ain't got nothing to do with it. You're in a minority. We're the greatest group.” And people do that (that's ... you oughtn't to do that),

until it's almost like it was in the days of Judges, where every man does in his own sight what's right, see. He thinks, in his own sight, he does.

But you can't do that. There's too many different ways, see; and there's really only one way—and Christ is that way. And Christ and his Word is the same thing. Now, see, you've got to have something that we can come to and say, “This is it,” and it can be proven that it's ... that's what it is.

See, in the days of the judges the reason every man done in his own sight what he thought was right, is because in them days the Word of God was precious. They didn't have it. And the prophets, there was none. There was no prophets in them days to stand to the Word and direct Israel. So the Word wasn't coming, so every man did what was right in his own sight.

And that's about where we've gotten to again today, brethren. See, every man in his own sight. Say, “Well, I'll ... if I want to take the golden rule, if I want to do this, or some religion, I believe my religion is do so-and-so.” And you find that. Everybody finds that. They think, “Well, I go to Sunday school on Sunday morning. I'm as good as anybody else.”

Well, that's good. You could still go to Sunday school and be good. That's all right. But if you haven't got something a little more than going to Sunday school.... Someone said, “I keep the ten commandments.” One keeps the sabbath day, the other one does something else, and ... till we just got a place till everybody thinks, well, they just do what they think is right. But that don't make it right. Not by a long ways it doesn't. We're going to find that out in a few minutes, see—that it doesn't make it right.

God's got a way. The Bible said, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death.” And there's nobody wants to die. That's separation. We don't want to separate from God. And we don't want ... we want to live. Life is the greatest treasure that man can have. And now, we've got to find what is life. And He said “My word is life.” That's the life that you should have—the Word living in you.

Now watch.

I seen this in my early conversion, when I was just a boy. I seen that, and I knew that I needed an absolute. So I read the Word of God, and I seen that this Word was Christ. And I wanted that for my absolute. So I took Him at his word, and I heard Him say in there, “If ye abide in me, my words abide in you, you can ask what you will, and it will be given unto you.” Now, what a promise!

Now, where are we today, brethren? Where are we? “If ye abide in me, and my words in you, then you can ask what you will and it will be done for you.” Now, that's Christ's own word. But what.... The Word has to abide in you. “If ye abide in me [in Christ] and my word in you....” Then how do we get into Christ? By baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Then, that's one part. But then, “If ye abide in me and then my words abide in you, then you can ask what you will.” But you have to have both Christ and Word, and you really can't have one without the other. That's right, because it's the self-same thing. You can't have the Father without having the Son. You can't have the Son without having the Holy Ghost. It's the self-same Spirit.

So then, you see, you can't, you can't do it any other way than to take God's provided absolute for our lives. Now, I'm tied to him by his Word. He's my absolute, and I've found that it's great and precious to live by Him.

Now, many churches.... Just let me talk of an absolute. To the Catholic church the pope is their absolute. No matter what comes, what goes, what somebody else says, what the Bible says, that don't mean a thing. I had a discussion not long ago with a priest. He came over to ask me about.... I baptized a young girl, and she had married a Catholic boy and was turning Catholic. And he asked me how I baptized her and I told him. And we got to talking about it.

And he said, “You know, the Catholic church used to baptize by immersing like that.”

And I said, “When?”

And he said, “Back in the Bible time.”

And I said, “Do you mean to say that you believe that the early Christians, like Peter, James, and John, and them, was Catholics?”

He said, “They were.”

I said, “Then I'm more of a Catholic than you are.” I said, “I'm an old-fashioned Catholic, see; not one that takes this new trend of the thing that they do today, and call it religion.”

“Well,” he said, “you see, God gave his power over to Peter, and that's the church. And God is in his church.”

I said, “There's no scripture in the Bible to say that. There's no promise that says it. The Bible said God is in the Word.” Right. God is in the Word. The Word is true. And I seen there in the Bible where it said that whosoever shall add one word to it or take one word from it, same will be taken (his part) out of the book of life. Now I knowed that was a absolute, that that Word could not change, so I accepted that. And I said, “Now, Lord, let me hide it in my heart that I'll keep it, and be reverent with it. And whatever it is, I'll walk and You guide me.” And it's been my absolute.

Now, to the Protestant church many times.... In a diocese a bishop's word, though it be contrary to the Word of God, it becomes the absolute to that bunch of Christians. No matter what the Word says, if the bishop says so, that settles it. The archbishop of Canterbury—no matter what the English people that go to this Anglican church, no matter what they'd think—if the archbishop says a certain thing, that's it.

“My,” you say, “that's too bad.” But you know ... now, wait a minute. We can come right down home to Pentecost if you'd like to. You sure can. But I'm just hoping you're hitting the sidelines, and see what I mean, see.

You say, “Here's a brother filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Lord is moving with him.” Well, go ask the presbyter if we can ... first, if we can have him. What kind of a card does he pack? You see, that's the absolute, then, to that church. That's right. We might say “Amen” about the Catholics, and about the Presbyterian, and so forth. But what about it when it comes home, see? We got a false absolute.

There's nothing higher in the Bible in the church than the elder of that church. It's a sovereign church, and the Holy Spirit works in any way He wants to. He dwells among his people. But we have another absolute—some general overseer somewhere—that tells us what we can do. And if it doesn't just cope with what they think, or something like that, then that's out—that's not of God. Oh, my! What a horrible thing it is. What a twist we got into.

No wonder we're out here crying for revival. And the sky is full of Pentecostal power, and we can't get to it. That's right. It's because we've rejected God's absolute! Right! The revelation of Christ—“Upon this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell can't prevail against it.” It's an absolute. And the Word of God is his absolute. “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father which is in heaven has revealed this to you. And upon this rock I'll build my church.” A real absolute.

But you see, we take something else for an absolute. If our denomination speaks against the Word, then you take the denomination's word for it. You shouldn't do it. I'm trying to make myself clear on my convictions, and I'm ... in the closing of this meeting I'm trying to tell you the reason that I've acted and said the things I did—because long ago I'd taken Christ for my absolute.

The first church I joined was a Baptist church, and I love those brethren. They were fine. But when it come to the place that I was to do something that was contrary to this Scripture, God's Word was first because I was tied to that Word. Right. Nothing against ... when Dr. Davis come to me and wanted me to do a certain thing there that absolutely was unscriptural, and I took it to him, he said, “That was for another age, not for this one.”

I said, “I am tied to the Word. 'Let every man's word be a lie and mine be the truth.'” That was my absolute, and that's been thirty years ago, or better, and I'm still on that same Word. And there I want to live and die, that being my absolute. Upon that condition I accept Christ.

And now, it's not because that it's you want to be different; not because ... because this week I've said some very stinging things. And if I did that just to be different then I need to go to the absolute. I need a repentance at the altar. But how could you call me to repent, and I've told you the truth? That's right. And God's backed it up and showed it was the truth by the Word, and the Word living, see. That's exactly true.

Now, that's the reason I have said, and do the things that I do. It might be contrary to our different organizations and systems. It's not because I want to take sides with one, or take sides with the other one; because I sold out to one thing.

When I got saved, or Christ begin to dealing in my heart, I went down to the Catholic church, because my people are Irish and Catholic. And I noticed the way he said that, it didn't sound right. And I'd go from place to place. And finally....

He said “God is in his church.” Well, if God's in his church, which church is that? Here's ... well, they say, “It's our church.” Well, which one of the Catholic churches? You remember they're all broke up too. Yes, sir. All different: some marry, and some don't; and some Greek and some Orthodox, and well, there's just different kind—Roman; some accepts the pope, and some doesn't. And see, they're broke up also. Which one of those churches, then, is right? Where can you place any faith? If you're a Catholic and believe the church, then which church is it? Which one of your Catholic churches is it?

If you're Protestant, you say, “Well, which one of them is right? Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, which is right?”

God is right. His Word is right. Others are not right. If it's.... that's right as long as they stay with the Word. But when you leave the Word, then you leave God, because God's watching over his Word to vindicate it. He's got to make it real. He's got to make it act. That's why you people are hungering for a revival. It's time for these things to be here. If you ever believed me to know what I was talking about, you accept that.

The hour is here now. But the trouble of it is, we've got so many absolutes we don't know where we're tied to. Amen! Now I feel religious. Right! I wanted to get that out of my system. Right.

We've got so many ties—one pulling this way, and one that way, and one against the other—how do the people know what to do? And the pressure of the Holy Spirit coming down, trying to find a place to move Himself into, that He can work word by word, word by word....

Now you Pentecostal people believed when the gifts began to restore to the church of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and speaking with tongues, and you stayed right with that. You believed that. Now that's all right. But why did you stop there? Why did you stop there?

When Israel was on the journey to the promised land.... And when they stopped in the wilderness, they stayed there for forty years—and just a day's journey out of the ... every promise, the whole complete promised land. And the Pentecostal people, when they crossed over, dancing and shouting like Miriam and them when they hit the wilderness, they done the same thing that Moses did ... or not ... Israel did. They wanted a law. Grace had already provided everything. They wanted something so they could have doctors, and Ph.D's, and LL.D's; and they got it. And they journeyed there until every one of them died. Right.

And God took two men and sent them over—Caleb and Joshua. Why, there was only about forty miles of journey was all they had to walk. Why, they was just a day or two away from it. But they waited back here forty years, till He got all that stuff out of them, till all them people died out.

Well, it's just about time for a change now. We started organizing, doing the very same thing that we come out of, and brought it right back, and making this a tie-post, and this an absolute. And if they don't believe it just exactly this way, bless God, they're not even in it at all. So what have you done? Sat still and made members.

What does the members know? Turn into the Word of God, and they see something happen that's exactly the Word of God, why, they don't know which way to turn. They go and ask some bishop, or some presbyter, “What's this?” and “What's that?”

Why, it puts me in mind of a bunch of incubator chickens. I always felt sorry for an incubator chicken. He'd “chirp, chirp,” and he ain't got no mammy to go to. He was turned out by a machine. That's the way a lot of these preachers in this day ... turned out by a big machine, hollering about God and don't know what even the thing is.

... he was absolutely.... He was tied to God, and God was the Word, and God proved it by him. But there we are today, see. We got too many absolutes, and not the right absolute, see. There's only one way, and that's Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the way...,” and Jesus and the Word is the same thing.

And now God has prophesied in this last days of what comes to pass. He promised these things in the last days. Jesus promised them, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.”—all the scriptures that He promised for the last days. And we're living right in that time.

And God, the Holy Spirit, is moving upon the people. And the only thing you want to do is dance in the Spirit, and speak in tongues. That's all you know about. That's all the seed's been planted. What we need is a full gospel planted in a full heart with a full power of bringing a full absolute. What's the matter?

Did you ever think what Israel done in the wilderness there? They married wives, they raised children, and crops, so forth, kissed the babies, and buried the dead, and married the young. God blessed them, and they prospered. But they were still out of the promised land. And that's the way Pentecost is today. Forty years ago you wouldn't have thought you ... your mother and father would've had a spasm if they'd thought you'd've got in this kind of condition. Certainly.

Them old timers had tied to that absolute, and held on to that Word regardless of what it was. There was no denomination, presbyters, district men, or bishops going to tell them anything about it. They walked in the Spirit, and went out and done miracles and performed things. They had Azusa Street meetings going everywhere—brush arbor meetings. And you can't even get a man on the street corner anymore to testify hardly, see. What have we got? Same thing Israel had.

Now there rose up a fellow there at the end-time and begin to point after forty years. There was a whole land full of blessings over there, and the whole ... because the hour had arrived that God was going to take them over.

The hour's arrived now that He wants to get a church ready. I'm going to say this with a prophetic voice, I trust. I'm not saying “in the name of the Lord,” but I believe this is true. The rapture ... you'll be talking about the rapture when the rapture's been gone a long time. You'll be saying, “Bless God, the rapture's coming,” and it's done past.

Didn't Jesus say about John...? “Why does the scribes say that John first, or, how did he say that Elias must come?”

He said, “He's already come and you didn't know it. But you done just exactly what you said you'd do.”

One day there will come a judgment upon earth. And the first thing you know, you're going to find people here looking for the rapture, and they done been gone a long time ago—it'll be such in the minority. He said, “As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man. As it was in the days of Lot....”

We think this great big bunch of cannon fodder here, atomic ash, is going. It'll only go if it's got the life of Christ in it, because God will raise it up. That's right. There'll be a rapture, you think. Two or three people here, and one over here, and somewhere else somebody come up missing—thought they run away from home. Better be careful—they might be gone. Looking for a rapture, and it already passed.

Now that isn't contrary to the Word. No, it isn't. He come like a thief in the night, see. They'd be gone before you know it. God places his great power out in the church. It don't take a great big group in; it takes a minority. “Fear not, little flock. It's your Father's good will....”—you that's holding to the absolute (that's right), with the confirmation of God working in it.

So you see, we're living in a terrific time, and that's what that pressure is upon the church. You want to see something, you want to see something. But now, how can God ever watch over his Word to vindicate it, and the person disbelieving that Word and won't receive it in their heart? How can the sun shine upon a seed and bring it to life when it hasn't got any life in it? It's got to be a germitized seed. So a creed is germitized to make more members; but the Word is germitized to make saints, make believers. Right. God works to perform his Word. He watches over it to vindicate it. Yes, sir.

Now, certainly the Catholic church takes their anchor—their North Star—for their achievements. And it's what the pope says is an infallibility to the Roman end of the Catholic church. The Protestants—a bishop, some creed: “That's against our creed.” And some of them is against the different things—their denominational beliefs, and so forth.

You know, I feel like Paul said here. I'm looking at a scripture in Acts 20 and 24. He said, “None of these things move me [Amen! Why? For he was anchored. He had an absolute.] since I met Him on the road to Damascus.” If I could talk to Paul.... “He turned me around, started me back in the right way. I was off the Word; He put me back on the Word.” Yes, sir.

Listen, I feel that way too. I feel that any man that's born of the Spirit of God, that loves God and loves his Word, God has a purpose in that.

God had a purpose in turning Paul around. Did not He say, “I'm going to show in him” his glory? God had a purpose when He saved me. I'm determined to do his will—not add to it or take away from it. Revelation 22:19 said “whosoever shall do it will be ... his part taken from the book of life.” I'm determined to never add one thing of my own opinion to that Word. I'm determined to read it just the way it is, and ask God that I'll open in my heart and receive it. “Work it through me, Lord, that others might see. May it become salty and something real that others might see.” Yes, sir.

Now, if He is our absolute there can be no other absolute. You can't have.... Say, “Well, my church is my absolute. My creed is my absolute.” If Christ is your absolute, you believe Christ's Word. There's no other way to do it.

You know, I think about the time that He saved me. I'll tell you why I stand the way I do. Not to be different—I made myself clear on that. I hope I have. But I ... when Christ saved me there were millions of people groping in sin. When He saved me He had a purpose in doing it. He had a purpose in saving me. He just seen an ignoramus like me, and somehow or another.... When there was plenty of smart men, more able men, men that could do it—me here with not even hardly a 7th grade education—when there was men who's studied in school and got degrees, and doctors of divinity and philosophy, and so forth....

But when Christ saved me He had a purpose in doing it, or He'd've never saved me. Listen, brethren, I love you and you know that. But I'm determined in my heart that I'll never back on that Word. I'll stay right there. That's my absolute I've been tied to all these years. He had a purpose in doing it. That's right. And I aim to see that purpose through, to stay with that Word—not to be different, not to be mean, but to be honest and sincere with God. That's right.

Now. You know Christ's death had an absolute to it. Everybody was afraid of death, even the great prophet Job. Many of the people were afraid of death, a fear. And man always feared it. But when Christ come and took death upon Him, He become an absolute to those who feared death. In Hebrews 2:14-15, He took the form of man to die like a man, to pay the penalty. But on Easter He came forth with the keys of death and hell. He had conquered it. He come, He said, “Fear not. I am he that was dead and alive forevermore.” And our absolute is on Him. That's right—in Him. And He was the perfect word of God. He was so perfect till when He spoke his word, it created. It stopped the winds, and it made biscuits, and cooked fish, just by his word. See, there was no hindrance, He was so perfect. He said the Word and He were one.

He was.... God's love (in John 3:16) produced a body, not born after sex under the fall, but was born by a creative power of God that God, Himself, lived in this body and projected his word out. And God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, making an absolute for any believer. And He went to his grave with a load of sin upon Him, and paid the penalty; and rose up on Easter morning with the keys of death and hell. It's an absolute to any man that fears death.

Let me say this: I don't know how many more messages I have to preach before I go. If you're a real believer in God, and been born again, don't be scared of death. It's the best thing could happen to you, almost. Paul said, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Certainly. It's ... don't never fear death. II Thessalonians, we're caught up with our loved ones to meet Him in the air. What a promise!

What an absolute that it is, to believe in Christ, to have my heart say “Amen” to every word in his Book. What He says, I believe it too. That I know: that the Holy Spirit is my compass, because it guides me to his absolute, see, his North Star, to Him—the North Star. He's my absolute, my sun, my post, my North Star. Oh, my!

He's so much different from others I see. Always there's something pulling, some string you got to pull. But in this here you pull nothing. The only thing, it's brought down on you. It's the absolute. Christ is our absolute.

Look how much different his Word is. That Word has been from old. The New and Old Testament coincides with one another like a dovetail piece of board coming together. There's nothing out of order. Many men wrote that Book, that sixty-six books of the Bible. They wrote it in a space of hundreds and hundreds of years apart, one not knowing the other. And what happened? You can't make one word contradict the other one. Right. That's the reason....

I've heard people say the Bible contradicts itself. I'll preach across this United States for a year straight, and let the ministers take up offerings, and give them every bit to you, if you'll show me where God's Word contradicts itself. Right. I've made that offer for years. Nobody's took it up yet, because it does not contradict it. It's your own little peanut brain, that you're trying to make it say something that it doesn't say. Right. No, God's Word doesn't contradict itself. He is, it's....

Now, denominations will contradict one another. They're like these other stars, you see. They'll float around every time like the world. They turn in the world, and around the world. And the world turning gets them all out of whack.

But it never turns away from God's North Star, his Word, where the compass points to it. It's always the same Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. That's the absolute. That's the place.

You could look at this here. Today it's here, and tomorrow it believes something else, and the next day it's over somewhere else. That's the way. It's wishy-washy in and out, out and out, and in and in, and so forth.

But you put your heart right on God's Word, and heavens and earth will pass away; but that never shall pass away. That's the absolute. That's the solid foundation. That's the ... that's my compass, my sail, that's my guide, that's my life—is upon that absolute of God's Word. I'm tied there eternally with Him. Amen. Others can do what they want to—that's up to them. But for me, it's this absolute. I want that for my absolute. Might shift and turn, and so forth—but not his Word. It'll always remain the same. He ever remains true to his Word. Now make Him your absolute.

In the times of my trouble back there, when I lost my family and my life almost was taken from me.... My little girl died—me praying for her—and after I'd been on the streets day and night preaching, and praying, and trying to do what was right. You've heard my life story. Many of you read it. And my, it come to a place that I seen my wife die right in my ... me holding her hand. And I ... my little baby took sick a few hours after that. And I got down there and prayed with all that was in me, and looked like a black sheet let down and refused to answer my prayer.

Then Satan come to me and said, “You see, you're only about twenty years old, and here you ... what all you've done, and you've neglected yourself, and you've done all these things. You've forfeited all your young life, about ... when you should've been out having a big time like the rest of the young folks. And here you've stood on the street corner crying, and praying. You went all night at a time in the hospitals, hour after hour. And when it comes to your own blood and flesh, He refuses to hear you.”

That was one time I was tempted, but I happened to remember back. I got an absolute. “Though he slay me yet, I'll trust him.” I don't care what comes, or goes.

The state senator of Indiana, Sam Isler, he come to ... used to come to the Tabernacle. He's deceased now, about two years—fine man. And he used to ... he was coming down the road. I was going up to pray up at the grave where wife and baby were laying. It was right after the '37 flood. I had on a pair of boots, and I was walking up the road crying. And little Billy, my son, was just about to die too. And the doctors had done said there's not hardly anything more to do for him. And he had some kind of a dysentery you couldn't stop, an infection.

And I was crying, praying, and I thought.... Well, I was still holding on to God. I was going up the road crying. I thought I'd go up and listen. I used to sit up there of a evening by the grave, and I'd hear an old dove come down there and go to singing. I'd hear the pines blowing the winds through ... the winds through the pines, rather, and it sounded like they'd say,

There's a land beyond the river,

They call the sweet forever,

We only reach this shore by faith's

decree;

One by one we gain the portal,

There to dwell with the immortal,

Some day they'll ring the golden

bells for you and me.

I'd stand there and cry, and look up, and I'd say to the wife and baby, I'd say, “I know that you're not laying here. This is just where I planted the remains that I held in my arms. But somewhere beyond the river, you're there.”

So, but see ... I was going up to that place one day to sit up at the grave, had on a pair of boots, walking along. An old car come up behind me and stopped, and it was Mr. Isler, the state senator. He jumped out of the car, pulled around, come back and put his arms around me. He said, “Billy, I sure feel sorry.”

I said, “That's all right, Brother Isler.”

And he said, “I oughtn't to have stopped.” He seen I was weeping.

I said, “That's all right, Mr. Isler.”

And he said, “I'm going to ask you something, son.”

I said, “All right, go ahead and ask me.”

He said, “I've seen you stand there in that pulpit till I thought you'd die.” Said, “I've seen you fast till you'd be so peaked I'd feel sorry for you,” and said, “in and out, and in and out, day and night.” He said, “And then your wife and baby in there.... See, you look at them things.” He said, “What does Christ mean to you now?”

I said, “Thou the stream of all my comfort, more than life to me, whom have I on earth beside Thee, or whom in heaven but Thee?” See, I'd found that absolute, that something that held me when the storm was on.

Someone said to me, said, “Billy, did you keep your religion during the time of your trouble?”

I said, “No, it kept me,” see. That's what it was. I was tied to Him in the hours when my strength was gone, and there was nothing I could do. My anchor held within the veil of his Word yonder, where.... Sometimes I don't understand it. Sometimes I think, “What makes me do the things I do?” There's something with inside me pulsating me. I can't keep from doing it, brother.

I come to Phoenix the other day with a determination I'd never strike again at any organization. The first thing you know, a vision struck before me the first night, and I seen myself turned towards the desert. Something turned me around and showed me a great big, old, cold church, said, “Stay there, before you go there.” Oh, my! There's something I can't keep from doing. It's an absolute that's on the inside of me. It's more than my life to me. Yes. I can no more change it than I could change the color of my eyes. I couldn't do it. Now by his grace I'm tied to Him, the one that said—like He did in the days of Moses—“I AM.”

Moses, you know he had an absolute. When he was down there, he had all the theology a man could have. And he tried hard. He was a military man. He looked out the windows, and by faith (Listen! Now remember!), by faith Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He had faith in what he was doing. He absolutely believed it. He knowed that he was raised up for that purpose. But he failed—he went out to raise sheep. And he failed.

But one day back on the backside of the desert he come to an absolute. He come to a place where he met something that was real. There was a bush on fire. He didn't want to take the leaves and go down to the laboratory to see the reason they didn't burn. He just sat down by it.

“Take off your shoes, Moses.”

“I'll go down and ask my pastor what about this.” He didn't have time to do that. He must take off his shoes. And when he heard in there....

There was the word of the living God that was in that bush. “I AM THAT I AM. I remember my promise that I made with Abraham. I remember my covenant, and I'm come down to deliver them.”

Now, then he had an absolute. He was tied to that as long as he lived, and it took him to heaven. He was tied to that absolute. No matter what any of the theologians said, he didn't need anybody to explain it to him. He knowed it. He had met God, and the voice.... That big pillar of fire that led him through the wilderness and plumb on to the promised land, that pillar of fire in there had a voice in it. And that voice was the voice of God that vindicated the Word. Amen! I hope you're not asleep now.

Notice. That pillar of fire spoke the word and vindicated it to make it show.... He quoted the scripture, “I am the God that made the promise to Abraham. I'm the one. That's what's the matter with Israel. That's what's the matter down there. I remember my promise, and I've come down to see that it's done.”

God only uses man to work with. He doesn't use organization, He doesn't use machinery. He could have done it, but He chose a man. That's right. He could've chose the stars, the wind, or anything, to preach the gospel; but He chose man. He does not change Himself. He's always the same. He chose blood for salvation. Education or nothing else will ever take its place. Blood is God's appropriate way for salvation. That's true.

And now, I want you to notice He can't change. When He talked to Moses, He said, “Moses, I'm sending you down there. But before you go, I want to prove to you that I am God.” Said, “What you got in your hand there?”

Said, “A stick.”

Said, “Throw it down.” And it turned into a serpent. He picked it up again and it come back a stick.

Oh, when Moses come to the place where the impersonators raised up, trying to impersonate, when he threw his rod down and said, “Here, Pharaoh, I'll show you what God told me to do. I'll throw this rod down and watch it turn to a serpent,”—and it did.

Pharaoh said, “I've got them guys, too. My denomination can produce that.” So they come over, and got some impersonators.

What did Moses do? He stood right there. Why? He'd met God; he knowed that was God. He'd done his part; it's God's time to move then. He stayed right there.

The Bible said the same thing will repeat in the last days; for as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses.... It's true, see. But he stood there. Then he saw the hand of God come down, and that snake gobbled up the rest of them. Did you ever notice what become of them sticks? They were in the belly of this one stick. Moses led the children of Israel through the wilderness with that same stick with all them snakes inside of it, I guess. Why?

You know why? When Moses met this burning bush, you know ... and that burning bush proved to be God, that light, that pillar of fire that proved to be God.... And I believe that God come in Moses because.... Watch Him in his creative power. Moses shined then with the fire. You know where I'm going now, don't you? Certainly. Like Pentecost.

Notice Moses had the fire. The fire was in Moses, because whatever Moses said, it wasn't Moses, it was God speaking. And he performed his sign because the pillar of fire left the bush, and come on Moses. Amen! Oh, brother, do you see what I mean? That same Jesus that went up, come back again on the day of Pentecost in the form of the Holy Ghost and fire. It should be upon the people doing the same thing He did, because He said it would do it. Where are we at? See what I mean? Moses, the fire was in Moses. It left the bush, come on Moses.

We try to put the fire in the furnace. That's about all we got. What we need is Holy Spirit fire, that same pillar of fire that led Israel. Sure.

Oh, you say, “Now, Brother Branham, I'd be careful about that.”

Now wait a minute. When Paul, the great theologian that had plenty of experience.... But on the road to Damascus and he was stricken down. He looked up and there was that pillar of fire. He knowed that was God. He'd seen it vindicated in the Bible it was God, and he called Him “Lord.” Said, “Lord, who are you? What can I do?”

He said, “I'm Jesus.”

That settled it. Paul had an absolute. He knowed that the God of the Old Testament was Jesus Christ of the New. There he was anchored, and nothing should move him. Sure. He had the vindication. Why? The same pillar of fire that led his people out of Egypt into Israel, into Palestine, that same pillar of fire was standing there claiming to be Jesus Christ. Then he knowed where he was at. Then he was ready. Soon as he got healed and filled with the Holy Ghost, he was ready to go. See,

but he had an absolute. It stayed with him before Agrippa, and all the great men of them days, and women.

He stood there pleading for the Word. Why? He knowed that the Word was God. Who wrote the book of Hebrews? Paul, sure. He was inspired to do it. But why? That pillar of fire that met him was in him. That's the reason he could write.

That's the reason Moses wrote the first four books of the Bible, because that pillar of fire.... How would he ever know how creation started? How would he ever know about the others? Because that same pillar of fire that was in him, that was on the bush, come off the bush and was on him. And it was vindicated, and proved that it was. Korah and them wanted to start an organization against it, but it didn't work. It failed.

Moses had that absolute.

Paul had the same absolute, the same pillar of fire, the same Holy Spirit, the same God. Not the “I was,” or “I will be”; the “I AM” (present tense, always).

Joshua had an absolute. That's when he met the chief captain —the host of Israel's chief captain—and He told him to march around the walls. They was all fortified in with.... Oh, man! You talk about hard to get in! Hard to have a revival in there, because no one would let him in. They was all closed up on him. But he met the chief captain. He told him what to do—just put on full armor of God, and keep marching. Amen. The walls will fall down.

And when the people shouted, and the trumpets sounded, that was his absolute. He went right in for his campaign then, right into Jericho. Sure. He had an absolute—the Word of ... from the chief captain.

John, when he was a young man, and he knowed he had to train.... He was going to have to introduce the Messiah. He was the one ... he never knowed who He was. He was somewhere. And John knowed that he couldn't just take a seminary experience. He had to have an absolute. He had to have something to be absolutely the truth.

Now, brethren, I want to ask you something. Ministers—not to be different, not to be mean, but to be honest—don't you think this is a day, in all this chaos that we're living in, we got to be sure about this thing? There's too many differences.

And John knew he had to be absolutely sure, so he never went to his father's school. There's nothing said he went back to learn to be a priest. But he went to the wilderness, and was in the wilderness until his calling forth. Then he come around, and the crowds was standing there. He was so sure that the Messiah was in his day, because he was the one that was ordained to introduce this Messiah, because Malachi 3 said so. “I'll send my messenger before my face. He'll prepare the way.”

John knew where he was standing. No matter how many priests would say, “You mean to tell ... time ... we got up here ... the daily sacrifice will be done away?”

He said, “There'll come a time when the Lamb of God will come that'll take away the sacrifice.”—standing in mud with whiskers over his face, that you'd run away from your house today.

There it was. See, God's not in class and glamour as we try to put Him in, and we Pentecostal people.... God is in humility.

There He was standing, watching. And he was introducing. He said ... he was so sure that He was there, he said, “There's one standing among you, who you don't even know.” Oh, my! What a rebuke. “There's one among you right now, who you don't know.”

I wonder if it'd sound sacrilegious if I mimic him for a minute. Maybe I better not.

One among you that you don't know. You claim you know Him, but you don't. Golgotha, they killed the very God that they claimed they were serving—they didn't know Him.

John said, “There's one among you, and you don't know Him.” And one day he looked out there, and he absolutely seen a dove coming down from heaven, and a voice. Nobody else saw it; nobody else heard it. But he saw it, and it was an absolute—not Professor Jones, or somebody else. It was “Upon whom thou shall see the Spirit descending and remaining on, he is the one that'll baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire.” That's the divine vindication of God—making it so. It was an absolute. There was no question in John's mind. There it was, just exactly what God said would take place. There it was. So that dove upon that ordinary man was John's absolute. He knew it was the truth.

Now, I'm going to close by saying these few words. Don't you think we need an absolute? Don't you think we need something that's real? Sure. We need something that ... something that you can say, “This is it,” put your hands to it. “This is it.” We can see ... how we going to do it? Everybody says, “This is it, this is it.” But that's got to be scriptural, an absolute.

Let me just give you a little personal thing before I close. Brother, sister, when I'd taken my choice to whether I wanted to remain with the Baptist church, or whether.... It's just as good as any of them to me—just a bunch of men, put together, which is all right.

But when it come to a time they had to tell me that I had to compromise with the Word, now that ... I ain't made out of that. No, see. The Word is first, see. “Well,” they said, “if you don't do that, you can no longer belong to the Baptist church.”

I said, “I don't ... it isn't the Baptist church that saved me. It was Jesus Christ that saved me. He is my ultimate. He's my stand, He's my absolute, He's my tie-post. There I stand.”

Now, if I've got the wrong thing, then God'll never confirm it. But if you have got the right thing, God is obligated to confirm it. There you are. And that's the proof of it. If it's right, God's obligated to prove it's right. If it's wrong, He'll have nothing to do with it.

So, I remember after my first revival I was down on the river baptizing. And I took the seventeenth person out. My wife a little girl, standing on the bank, at that time.... I had never been married to my first wife (that's dead), and there she was on the bank. And they was all standing there, hundreds and hundreds of people—yes, four or five thousand, maybe more, up and down the river bank—a real hot afternoon in June.

And I walked out in the water, and I took a candidate (about the seventeenth person) to baptize him. I had around five hundred after my revival to be baptized. And I walked out in the water with this person. I started to raise my hand. I said, “Heavenly Father,” as I....

And about that time something shook me. I thought “Where is it?” I looked around. Everybody had their heads bowed, as far as I could see. Way back up on the banks, there was, oh, cars and people piled all over the walls, and things. I looked again, and I heard a voice say, “Look up.” And I was afraid to look up. I was just a kid. We got the picture of it. I said, “Father, ...” Something said, “Look up.” I put my hand down.

This young fellow I was to baptize looked at me in the face. He said, “Well, Brother Bill?”

I said, “Did you hear that?”

He said, “No.”

I said, “Heavenly Father....”

He said, “Look up!”

I looked up like this, and coming down from the skies come a pillar of light whirling around, a voice coming from it roaring, coming down, said, “As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Jesus Christ, so are you sent....” O God! I watched that light. I'd seen it since a little boy.

I tried to tell people. They said “You're out of your mind.”

But the scientific research, the late George J. Lacy, when he examined.... When they took the picture of it, there it was just the same. It showed in the picture. Scientific proof proves that it's right. To me, it's never told me one thing but is exactly on this Scripture.

When I seen that fire and heard it, and seen everybody screaming, fainting, and falling, looking there, and pointing to that light.... The paper, the Louisville paper, packed a great article, and it went on Associated Press, all through Canada and everywhere. “Mystic light appears over a local Baptist minister while baptizing.” “Mystic”—hard to understand. How many times have they took it? Practically every person in here, I guess, got it in your home. It's down there in Washington, DC, copyrighted, as the only supernatural being was ever photographed, scientifically photographed.

What was it? That same light, that same voice spoke and said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” It's the same voice to me. It's the same pillar of fire was back yonder, because it's doing the same works. Jesus said, “I come from God and I go to God. A little while and the world sees me no more.” He came.... He said, when He was here on earth at the feast, He said, “I AM THE I AM.”

You say, “Well, you're not over fifty years old, but you said ... you say you saw Abraham?”

He said, “Before Abraham was I AM.”

There He was. What was it? That light, that fire, that God, that Spirit. God is a burning fire. He is a light. And there it was in ... manifested in Jesus Christ. It returned when Jesus rose up from the grave. But on the day He met Paul, coming down to Damascus, He'd turned back to God again, for He said, “I'm Jesus, who you persecute.” Brethren! Don't be asleep. Don't you see that that same God's among us right now, proving Himself that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever? That's my absolute.

He's never told me one thing....

If He told me one thing that was contrary to this Scripture, I've never had nobody to stand before me yet and dispute it. Fellow said he was going to one time, and he didn't do it. He didn't show up. He had better sense than I thought he did. He knows better than to do that. You know the fellow that raised up one time in a meeting to do it was paralyzed, and they packed him out. I've never had to worry a thing, because I believe my absolute is the Word of God that's made manifest. Upon this I'll put my soul and body.

Why? He's never told me one thing but what was absolutely scriptural. He's never said one thing to me before any of you.... I'll take any of you to charge. Has He ever told you anything in the name of the Lord but what come to pass? That's exactly. What is it? It's “Upon this rock,” upon this Word.... That's the one where I get the revelation. It's from Him who reveals it. I'm uneducated. I don't try to study, I don't try to know it. I just do as He tells me. Then when He shows me to look here, there it is. I didn't even see it, and here it is—and it manifests itself. That's my absolute. It's kept me down through these years. Brethren, it's helped me when I had no other way to be helped.

I want to die by it.

When I come to the time to die, I hope—like Moses—that I see that Rock standing there. And I want to step on it and have some pallbearers to pack me away. Until then I'm going to live true to that Word, so help me God, because that's my absolute—with malice towards none, with love and grace towards all. If that isn't right, God could strike me dead standing here in this pulpit. I have malice against nobody; I love everybody. And don't you know ... did you ever read I John 4:17, that you have to have correction like that to make genuine love at the time of judgment? It's not to be different. It's love. Love is strict, and love chastens.

A man who would let his wife go out and run around all night with some drunk, come in next morning, and say, “Yes, dearie, I hope you had a nice time,” you're a poor excuse of a man. Any man'd let his wife get out there and wear shorts, and these little old bathing suits (bikinis, or ever what it is) and lay out amongst these people, I got little hopes of you even being a man. That's right.

Man's not measured by how much his biceps are, how bigger muscles he is; he's measured by his character. That's exactly right. And character comes from the Word of God, and that alone. And any preacher that claims to be a preacher, and deny that Word, there's little character of God there to me. Amen! May be some hopes if he'll listen awhile. Yeah. Now, I don't want to get critical with you. I love you, and I mean that. But that's my absolute, brethren—this Word, “thus saith the Lord.” You know that's true.

I'm looking around for Brother Carlson to see if he was still sitting here. I guess he's gone. Yes. He was talking here awhile ago. He was right there in Chicago when that bunch of the Greater Chicago Ministerial Association.... Why, two or three days they was going to pull me in there, and comb me over the coals, yeah, on some things that I was teaching about this, and about these things.

And three nights before it happened the Holy Spirit woke me up and said, “Go over there and stand by that window.” I went and there was a lightning flashing. He said, “They've got a trap set for you, but don't fail to go. I'll be with you.” I took Brother Carlson, Brother Tommy Hicks (All of you know him. We got the tape of it right here.), and I.... They wanted me to go the next morning to eat breakfast with them. We went down to the Town and Country, and we sat down there. And I thought I'd just comb Tommy. He's a good friend of mine, precious brother.

And I said, “Tommy, I got to meet them ministers.” I said, “You're a Doctor of Divinity. My little old ignorant way of talking,” I said, “I couldn't meet them fellows. Won't you do that for me? I've done a many favor of you.”

He said, “Oh, I couldn't do it, Brother Branham.”

Brother Carlson and them looked at one another, and I said, “You think you're hiding that from me? I know why you won't do it.” I said, “Listen. It's because that Association's got something that they're going to question me on.” And they both looked like they could drop through the floor.

And when they did, I said, “Certainly it is. But let me tell you, Brother Hank....” (He's sitting here somewhere now. He's right around here. And so, he's sitting right here.) I said.... (Brother Hank—you let him testify.) And so.... (We just got through talking about it awhile ago.) And there I said, “Brother Hank, listen. You got that hotel room rented, haven't you? But thus saith the Lord, they're going to turn you down.”

He said, “Brother Branham, I got my deposit.”

“I don't care what you got up. You're not going to get it. We're going into a place that's got a green room in it. This is a brown. And Dr. Meade's going to sit down here (and so-and-so, and just exactly where they'd be sitting).” And I said, “I don't want you to try to pull any punches for me. Just introduce me to the audience and let me do the rest.”

He said....

And that morning when he come up there, every man sitting just exactly.... They'd canceled the place out, and he had to get the Town and Country place out there, to get the place—a brown room, just exactly. There sat Dr. Meade, and all the rest of them just in place. And I looked over to him, and Brother Tommy Hicks looked at me.

He said, “Brother Branham, I feel like fainting.”

And he said.... I said, “Don't worry.”

And so, Brother Carlson got up and said, “Now, I know a lot of you men is going to disagree with Brother Branham, and things like that, but,” said, “there's one thing—he's not afraid to stand here.” And said, “Now I just turn it over to him.”

And I said, “Now each one of you here, here's what you got against me.” And I called over four or five different things. I said, “I want some man to take his Bible and come here and stand by my side and disprove it. Certainly. And if you can't do it, then stay off of my back.” Right. Yes, sir! Yes, sir.

Standing yonder in Bombay, India, on the same thing, when a blind man standing there.... And them Magis, and everything else, sitting out there, and they ... the holy men, and the Mohammedans and Buddhists, and everything.... I'd done seen the vision this man was going to get his sight. I said, “Let one of you people out there come up here and give him his sight. I was entertained today by seventeen different religions, and every one of you denying Jesus Christ.” I said, “If your religion's so great, come give this man his sight.”

What would you say? He was a sun-worshipper. Like the Holy Spirit...; but they thought it was telepathy, see, and I was reading their mind. And I said, “Why, surely the God of creation.... If a man wants to do right, surely that the God of creation will bring him back into his right state.” I wouldn't've said that for nothing if I hadn't seen that happen in a vision; but I knowed then. See, you don't want to take something you imagine. You want to be dead sure that you're right. Then you don't care what comes or goes. He's standing there with you, and so what difference does it make? There you know what happened. The blind man received his sight.

About two or three months ago I was standing in the room, and I heard a voice speaking in the corner. I tried to wake my wife to look at it there. There was ... the morning before that was a hideous thing standing there at the bed, accusing me, after He'd told me.... I'd seen a big mamba running (that's a African snake), and it was trying to kill people. And I ... was after my brother. And I screamed out, “Oh, God! What can I do?”

He said, “You've been given power to bind him. Be of a good courage.”

I spoke to him, and his tail went up in the air, and whirled around, and (just like this pitcher handle here), and choked himself to death. Blue smoke flew out of him.

The next morning when I woke up, and I was laying there, and I said, “I'd better get up and take the children to school,” and looked over. There was this hideous looking thing—looked like it was Alley Oop in the funny paper—great big horns sticking out of it. He was going ... sounded like a hen cackling, or singing, like they're going from the barn. I looked at it and I said, “Meda, Meda, honey,” and she didn't wake up. I thought, “That'd scare her to death,” and I waited there just a minute, and standing, watch.

People talk about devils, and don't even know what they are sometimes. That's right. But you run headlong into them every day, maybe. But you will.

Notice. After awhile he was accusing me, said, “You have no power with God. You're just a bluff. You have no power.”

I said, “Satan, you're an offense to me. Get out of my way in the name of Jesus Christ,” and he left. I laid there a little bit in the bed, started to raise up. I felt a real sweet feeling come over me. I thought, “I wonder if the Holy Spirit now is close.” And over in the corner.... So help me (here's my Bible over my heart), the sweetest voice I ever heard in my life said, “Don't fear to go anywhere, and don't fear to do anything. For the never-failing presence of Jesus Christ is with you wherever you go.”

That settled it with me! Let them rage! I got an absolute. My anchor holds yonder, because it's the Word of the living God. Amen.

You believe Him? Let us bow our heads just a moment. If you haven't got that absolute now, get it. If you'd like to have that absolute, that assurance in your heart of the Holy Spirit, raise your hand, say, “I want something that will punctuate the word of God, and I can see the Word of God made manifest. God bless you. It's all over the building. Thank you.

I'm only telling you the truth, friend. Don't let it pass by you. I'm not claiming.... I'm nothing. I'm your brother. Don't you pay any attention to a messenger; you watch the message. Don't watch the messenger. God'll take it away from you. He'll share his glory with nobody. Right. Don't you watch the messenger; watch the message. If a man ran in here—he might be black, yellow, brown, ragged—if he's got a check for you for a bank draft for a million dollars, you wouldn't care what color he was or how he was dressed. It's the message he has for you.

Now, don't look at my grammar and the things.... You just remember I'm telling you about Jesus Christ, who's here now. You believe Him with all your heart. Don't you fail to believe Him.

I'm watching now to see what He's going to tell me. Just keep your heads bowed and start praying. Just have faith. Don't doubt.

Now heavenly Father, it's all in your hands. I pray, heavenly Father, just now, that men and women in here might realize that this is not an easy thing to do—being a mortal and living among men, living with people. I pray, heavenly Father, that they will understand this and know that thy servant is trying to speak of you. And I've found that you keep your Word, Lord. I've found that it's true. I find that You and your Word are the self-same.

And You've carried me safely this far, Father, and if that angel who the people have seen and seen his light.... It's in a pillar of a fire. Lord, with all my heart I believe it's our Lord Jesus. I believe it's his Spirit, the Holy Spirit that we all worship and believe in.

God, may we not fail to recognize it now, and may we understand and come back. And may the church clean itself up. May every denomination.... Father, I don't pray that You'll break up those denominations. But I pray that the Holy Spirit will get into those denominations, and they will be ... they see things different, and that they may all become one, a brotherhood. Grant it.

I thank You for their fine cooperation, Lord.

If it hadn't been You in this, there'd been nobody let me come in. But You, You gave me favor with these ministers, and I pray that You'll bless them, Lord. I pray for them especially, for every one.

I pray for Brother Williams. Lord, give him the desire of his heart. Oh, I pray that you'll help him—him and Sister Williams and their desires; Brother Shakarian, Sister Shakarian, all these executives here of this great group of laity, that you've called out in this last days to pack a message to unite brethren together. Lord, may they never become a denomination. May they stay free from all those things, and put their arms out and take in all brothers that's born of the Spirit. Grant it.

Bless all the groups. Bless the oneness and the ... all the different little groups, Lord, that's got their different ideas—the Trinitarians, and the ones that believes that God is two, and God is three, and God is ... oh, ever what they believe, God. Let them know that there's one true God, Jesus Christ is his Son. Grant it, Lord, that they'll be able to understand these things, that we don't have no four or five gods. We have one God in three offices—the same God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. May the revelation dawn upon them today, Lord.

May this fussing quit going on, and may men and women be able to associate together, and be one in Christ. For the hour is too late now for these arguments, and little things. I believe you ... and I believe, Father, all that You predestinated to come to life will hear your voice and come. “My sheep will hear my voice.” And I believe that You'll grant it, Lord. Bless them now.

There's many hands in here—maybe two hundred hands up in the air—that wanted to receive You as their Saviour, and wanted to receive You as their absolute, something that they could place their faith on, that their very heart would punctuate every word and make it be manifest. Grant it, Father. In the name of Jesus Christ I ask it.

Now, while you're here together and in this little group, I want you to be praying a minute. I've never done this, but I feel led to do it. Just keep in prayer. And how many of you people in here that know me, and you're sick or have need for yourself, or somebody, raise up your hands that you know me, and know that I know you? Raise up your hands everywhere. See, it just looks like all around. Now you put your hands down.

Now, the ones that you know that you don't know me, and I don't know you, raise up your hands. Still, everywhere. No way to differentiate them apart.

Now, I want you to pray, pray sincerely. Don't doubt now, just pray. And let's let the Holy Spirit.... Now, if I've spoke these things.... Now you know good and well it's totally impossible for me to know who you are, what you are, or whatever about it, what's wrong with you. Well, what happens?

Did not Jesus promise this same thing in the last day? Did not He say there, when He said, “As it was in the days of Sodom,” when God was manifested in flesh...? That man come there—just a man, eating flesh of a cow, or a calf, drinking milk and bread—and He said, “Where is Sarah?”

Said, “She's in the tent behind you,” and He told what He was going to do.

He said, “I'm going to visit you.” Abraham called Him “Elohim,” Lord God. And He said.... Sarah laughed to herself, and He said, “Why did Sarah laugh?”, with his back turned to the tent.

Jesus said, “As it was....”

You see, there was the church natural—the church natural, which was Lot and his group. They had a modern Billy Graham go down there, and so forth, and an Oral Roberts and them, calling them out. They did a miracle as so much to smite blind and preach the gospel.

And there was the Sodomites. There's always three groups of people. The Sodomites, you see what they did.

But the elected, the Pentecostal, so-called—that was Abraham, that had ... already out of Egypt, already out of Sodom, sitting up in the lands, in the poor lands. See what kind of a message they got?

Now watch today. When was there ever a time, tell me when a time ever went out to Sodom. Remember, that was Abraham— A-b-e-r-h-a-m, A-b-r-a-h-a-m rather. When was there ever a messenger ever went to the local denominational churches with a man ending his name in h-a-m? G-r-a-h-a-m. What about to the Pentecostal group? It's never been known in history. I come through it just recently, checking names.

You say, “Names don't mean nothing.”

Why did Saul, then, have his name changed to Paul? Why did Simon to Peter? Why did Jacob to Israel? Certainly it is.

Have faith in God. Don't overlook the thing that's ... God's trying to give you.

Now pray. Say, “Lord Jesus, have mercy.” If I'm not mistaken (while you have your heads bowed, I'm looking over here), I think that's Sister Carl Williams sitting over here to my right. Is that right, Mrs. Williams. I ... over here, Sister Carl Williams? It looked like her sitting over there to my right. I wasn't sure. Did I make it clear? I guess it wasn't. I'm trying to see somebody that I know. Look around, I see Brother and Sister Dauch sitting here, but they're from the church.

Is that Mrs. Outlaw over here to my left? That's who I thought you all were, standing there. Mrs. Outlaw, I know you. You're someone I know. I want to ask you something. You look right straight to me. Do you believe me to be God's servant? Do you believe that these things I teach is the truth? Now Mrs. Outlaw, I haven't spoke to you as I know of, for over a year since I was here before. No, I believe I waved at you the other day in the restaurant. Look here to me.

But you have a burden on your heart, not so much for yourself, but for somebody else. That's a young woman. It's your daughter-in-law. Do you believe that God is able to tell me what's the matter with that daughter-in-law? She's got kind of a sinus trouble, and also she's got a nervous ... real, real nervous. All right. Don't worry. It's going to leave her. She felt it, right then, sitting here. It's going to leave her. Just have faith.

You believe?

Here's a lady sitting right down in front of me here, total stranger. But can't you see that light hanging over her? She's suffering with a weakness in her body. She's not from here; she's from California. I'm a total stranger to the woman, but she knows I'm speaking to her now. You see that light hanging over her? I don't know her, never seen her. But her name is Mrs. Elliott. If you believe with all your heart, you go home, be made well. You believe it? All right. Now, if I'm a stranger and everything, wave your hand to ... like that, see. Raise up your hand, and believe with all your heart, say.... That's all right. Have faith.

Here's a lady sitting right in front of her. Right by the side must be her husband. She's sitting there also, and she has a trouble with her muscles. They got spasms in it. That is right. Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Darwich, if you believe with all your heart.... You believe? There you are. I don't know you, never knowed your name, or nothing about it. But that's true, isn't it? And you were sitting there saying, “Lord, let it be me,” see. If that's right, wave your hand back and forth like this. Wave your hand if that's right.

There you are. I never seen her in my life. Heavenly Father knows those things are true. That's right.

What is it? It's Jesus Christ. What's it doing? It's exactly what He said it would do in the last days. Now, if that's right and God performing it, showing that it's right, then the Word I'm preaching is right, because it's the same God keeping his Word. Believe on the Lord. Turn from your lukewarm ways. Get away from these things that's dragging you out like Hollywood, these things that's dragging you like the rest of the churches. Return to God, and get an absolute that'll hold the anchor of your heart.

How many would like to have that experience with Christ? Stand up on your feet right here in his presence, where you know He's here. God bless you. God bless you. Now, that's fine. Now that is wonderful. Oh, my! I don't know what to say.

If every one of you here will accept that message, that Jesus Christ is right here with us.... “A little while and the world [unbelievers] won't see me no more. Yet ye shall see me. I'll be with you, even in you. The works that I do shall you also.”—Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Is that right? Well, you see Him working, exactly what He promised.

Now He's here. The only thing you have to do is just ... don't ... just lay yourself down and say, “Lord Jesus, I now purpose in my heart from this hour on I'm yours, and You're mine. And I want this experience in my heart that I can speak your Word, your Word will live; and what I ask of You it would be done.”

Do you want it? Then let's just raise up our hands to God, and pray, every one of us now, everybody. And then I want you to raise one hand up, and put a hand on somebody next to you. Right. That's right. Businessmen, God ever bless you, be with you.