There Is Only One Way Provided By God For Anything

The Lord bless you. Good evening, friends. Now before we sit down, let's just speak to the great king that we're all here to worship.

Our heavenly Father, we are grateful for the opportunity to be back again in this great city, Chicago, to be assembled here with those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus. And we pray, Father, as our efforts has been put forth, and both the men and women, boys and girls, to see a revival or stirring, maybe to call in a few more that's left out in the city. May this be that great time that when the last will be called in before the judgment strikes this country. Father, we believe that there's still more waiting, and we're hunting for them. Send them in this time, Father. Grant it, that they might receive Christ, and be numbered among those elected that will be taken away in that great rapture that lays in the future. Grant it, Lord.

These efforts that we put forth, and has been put forth by our Brother Carlson, and all of them here, that this place that they have converted from an old whiskey house and wrestling arena unto a house of the Lord.... Lord, may it be a memorial and a representation of the conversion of sinners to Christ. Hear us, Father, in these things—healing the sick, and doing these great things that we ask. For it's in the name of Jesus Christ, and for His honor and glory we ask it. Amen.

You may be seated. Thank you very much.

It's always a privilege to come to Chicago. I've always felt that way. I haven't been here for some time, because I don't live here no more. I live in Arizona, in Tucson. And we're here in Jeffersonville on a summer's vacation. And I leave here on Monday morning, and as soon as I arrive home, things are waiting to go back to Tucson again.

And ... but I'm here making tapes, messages that I send away on tapes. And the Lord has been blessing us. Sunday morning, we had a four-hour message. I don't expect to do that here, but four hours on the three-fold revelation of Jesus Christ being God's hidden secret from the foundation of the world. And the Lord certainly blessed us. We've had great blessings, and God has healed the sick among us.

A few ... about three weeks ago, while I was speaking, a man standing before us.... He's an Englishman, his wife is Norwegian. She's a very fine nurse, and he a very fine man. And so, the man ... I was speaking of a ... complexes, and the man kind of resented it, when I said it. And I told him a couple years ago, when I first met him, that he was bothered with a murmur in his heart. He hardly wanted to believe that, I think, at first. And then, finally the doctor told him he had the murmur in his heart.

And that morning, he had kind of been a little tore up. And when I said that, he resented it, and quickly dropped dead right on the floor, fell out on the floor. And his wife got down to examine him, and he was gone.

And I had to quieten the audience, and then step off the platform. Got down to where he was, took his pulse. There was no pulse. And his eyes (you know, when the heart stops, the eyes flies backwards) and tried to pull his eyes. Seen him in that condition, and knew he was gone.

And the Lord Jesus said, “Speak.”

And I said, “Lord Jesus, give him back his life.”

He looked up at me, and said, “Brother Branham.”

He's alive tonight. And he'll probably attend this meeting. He's been attending them right along, and he will, probably. I don't see him here tonight. Mr. Way, are you here? I don't.... Why, he's setting right here in front of me. Right here in front of me. I didn't know that. And now, here he is tonight, very healthy. Would you just stand up so the people can see that God can raise the dead.

His wife ... a fine Norwegian nurse, and praising the Lord. Is your lovely little wife with you? She's gone to tend the sick. His wife is a very lovely person who tries to take care of the sick. That's in her heart. She nurses constantly, and she's tending some of the sick in the back now.

And so, we're so grateful to the Lord.

Now, I ... coming in, heard Brother Vayle speak just before me. And I try, each night, to get out real early, as early as I possibly can. And I'll be praying for the sick, and just as the Lord will lead, and asking God to bless Brother Carlson and all the group here in Chicago that's waiting for the coming of the Lord.

Maybe a little later on in the week, I might tell you a vision I had this morning, a little after daylight, just as I started to come up here, concerning this. And maybe, sometime, when I get a little more time during the week, the Lord willing....

Now, how many is here that's never been in one of the meetings before? Let's see your hands, that's never been in one of the meetings. Well, well, we're happy to have you here in this little tabernacle tonight, and in this arena where.... I think it was once used for wrestling, wasn't it? Boxing, and so forth?

I remember I preached, here not long ago, in Vincennes, Indiana ... Evansville, Indiana, rather, where I went into Golden Gloves as a kid; and then I got to fighting professional fights as a boy. And I won fifteen straight professional fights, and I lost one. And that was by a draw in Evansville, Indiana. And in the same arena where I had fought this man, I went back preaching the gospel. I said, “Now I am fighting, not my brother, but the devil that's been binding my brother.” And so, here we are tonight in a place that's converted from trying to bind one another by wrestling knots, and trying to tie the devil in such a knot by the Scripture that he can't get out of it, until he takes the count. That's right. And now, we pray that the Lord will help us do this.

Just again now, would there be any, just before we read the Word, like to be remembered in prayer? Just raise your hand. I know it's hot in here tonight. That's the reason we'll hurry. And remember, come back tomorrow night, and that's Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and I think Saturday morning. I seen it on the list for the Businessmen's breakfast, Saturday morning. Saturday night at Lane Tech high school. And Sunday ... Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night here. Let us.... (Into this? All right. Yes.) Can you hear that better? Is that...? That's fine. I'll remember to stand to this side.

Now let's bow our heads.

Our heavenly Father, as we're approaching this hour, where men and women has to make a choice, we realize that we'll not be able to go out of this building the same as we come in. We can never enter the house of the Lord, and go out the same. Go better; or worse. Grant, Lord, that we can go out tonight, better than we was coming in. And these few words, these texts, scriptures that I have written down here for a little message tonight, may it be to the honor of Christ.

May His people, in hearing it, receive faith, for truly, we believe we're living in the last hours of the last day. The sun has been setting for quite a while. God's longsuffering has held it up. The shadows are gathering now. And we pray, God, that You'll let us realize this more than ever before in life. Bless those people who raised their hands. Forgive our sins. Give us faith in thy Word, and the coming of thy Son, for we ask it in His name, and for His glory. Amen.

[Someone talks to Brother Branham.] Just a moment. There's a lady way back in the back that's fainted, I believe it is. And she's sick. Let us just pray. Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, thy Son, may the power that raised that young man that night, that sat all night long listening to Paul preach, may the same power that raised him up to health again, may it do likewise for this, our sister, who fainted, perhaps because of the heat, and is back there sick. Let the Holy Spirit, Lord, of life come upon her, and strengthen her mortal life. Grant this, Lord. We commit it to You now, in the name of Jesus Christ, thy Son. Amen.

[Brother Branham talks aside to someone.]

Now over in the book of St. John, the 12th chapter, and the 32nd verse, I wish to read for a little portion of scripture, just in a way to make a text, to build a context.

And I do see that it's difficult for you to hear me. I can tell the way you're acting, a rebound in the building. And I'll try to speak just as plain as I can.

I want to read this text. Jesus speaking:

Then I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

I want to take this for a text. There is only one way provided by God for anything—one way God has provided to meet everything. Now, any other way besides this way, would be a perverted way to God's. God can only have one way to do anything. His first way is always the only way that He can ever do it, for God, making a choice, or a decision, must forever remain with that decision. And if He changes that decision for a better way, then it shows that God is not God. He's not infinite—He found something better than He knew at the first place. He doesn't change. He makes His ways perfect. His words are perfect.

And any way that takes away or adds to anything that God has provided, is wrong. I believe in the last book of the Bible, called the Revelation, it's written, “If any man shall add one word, or take a word from it, the same ... his part will be taken from the book of life.”

And now, therefore, God has made a way, and a perfect way. And we must walk right with it, not trying to make it any better, not trying to take anything from it, inject anything, or take anything from it. We must take it just the way that God has placed it. Anything else is wrong.

Even in the book of Genesis, the beginning, God said, in Genesis 1, talking about nature, He said, “Let every seed bring forth of its kind.” Every seed must keep in its kind. Now, to change that would be to do something God said not to do. And now, we find out.... And now, look at man, what he's done by crossing God's way of life. We want to take this for a background to say what I want to say to you about the Lord Jesus.

See, when man ... when God made a seed, He made it perfect. And now, man has tried to inject something to that seed.

For instance, today, coming up, I noticed in southern Indiana, and all up through Indiana and along, there were what we said hybrid corn. And what a fine big ear that corn is. But it isn't any good. It looks better, but it isn't better. It's absolutely no good at all.

And we find out that by hybreeding chickens, we find that.... Did you ever try to eat fried chicken in these days? Why, you can't hardly do it. It smells and tastes just like ... I mean it tastes like a chicken smells. So what is it? There's eight hundred people laying sick in Jeffersonville, Louisville, and New Albany now, from eating eggs from hybrid chickens. See, they've taken the chicken, and breed it different ways.

And then another thing, they're getting to a place where they spray with this mosquito stuff, and get this DDT.... The chickens and animals pick that up.

We're certainly living in the last day. They are breeding different things together, crossing over, and it makes a product that's no good through doing this.

I was reading in a medical journal, I believe it was, and then in “Reader's Digest,” of how that it's changed the course of life for people. It's even perverting men and women—that men are becoming more like women, and women like men. Men are becoming sissy, and women are becoming masculine. It's hybrid stuff. You see, that cell that we eat from this animal that's hybrid, is actually not the right cell for us. Therefore, in doing that, see, that cell from the animal, or the cell from the wheat, or from the corn, it's not the right cell.

In order to let this grow, look like bigger, it has to be sprayed all the time. Now a genuine plant, a good healthy plant, does not have to be sprayed at all. No bugs will bother it, because it has a repellent itself that it puts out that keeps all the bugs off of it. Now, that's God's way.

What brought sickness into the world was sin. When man dropped away from God's provided way, he opened himself to every devil there was—to sickness, and so forth—because he has to keep medicine and spray. And it's just each generation inbreeding into another.

Now you might be a Christian, and your wife might be a Christian. But the genes of your body is still the inheritance from your father, and your grandfather and on down. As Daniel said, each generation will get weaker and wiser. And it's got the whole race, the whole human race, dying.

Just think, a few years ago, you never heard of anybody getting hurt playing baseball. Now they have to use a helmet to bat with, they kill so many every year. You hit the man, he's so soft he's like a guinea pig. He just dies right now.

And, you notice again, they used to ... like this boxing. I believe it was Bob Fitzsimmons and Corbett fought 125 rounds. Now, two to ten rounds, and then you have to work on them for a month to get them back to life again. And then they fought bare-fisted. And now we got a featherbed around our hands when we fight. And now they're going to have to stop the game, is because every time you hit one, it nearly kills him, see. And you see, the whole race is gone. There's not a hope left. Everything is at its end—cattle, corn, everything.

Now, you cannot take a plant that's been planted and hybrid into something, to bring it back again, and plant it. It will not do it. It will not reproduce itself. It can't, because God's commandment still stands the same. “Every seed must bring forth of its kind.” If it isn't, it's a hybrid seed with a perverted life, and it'll soon die. You plant a hybrid corn, it'll get up just about to where the ear should set in, it'll turn yellow, and go back.

Now that's the same way that.... They have did it through animals, they did it through seeds, they've did it through everything else and they did it in the church. It's ... try to make a prettier church, a better place, a beautiful thing, great thing. They've hybred it by mixing it with some kind of man-made doctrines, and so forth. And it gets up to the Word, where it can reproduce itself again, and dies again, see, and there's ... you just simply ... there's one way to do anything, and that's God's way. And outside of that, it's all off because it will not reproduce itself again. I've got scriptures for these things, to prove it's to be here in the last days.

When I heard that egg situation the other day, I went back in my book where the Lord spoke to me in 1931. And there I had written in my book, “In the last days, warn the people not to eat eggs, or live in a valley.” See, not knowing what fallout and things would be, see. But yet, the Lord forewarned that way back thirty years ago, see, not to live in a valley in the last days, and don't eat eggs. Everything will be poisoned, see. And that's just what's happened. Now, imagine that thirty something years ago.

God's Word is the seed. Jesus said so: that the Word of God was the seed that a sower sowed, and this is the only seed that will produce eternal life. Now, we can have all other kinds of lives, but (life—church life, home life, family life, national life); but the only eternal life comes through God's Word. That's the only seed that can produce eternal life.

And now, they are trying to interbreed this with creed—put some creed, some denominational sticker or something on it. And what they have did by doing this, it's got the church to a place till it grows up to a place to where it ought to be receiving the seed, the real Word. And it's a hybrid condition—it'll fall back to its denominational teaching, and leave the real Word of God alone.

Therefore, we are at the end-time. There is not one hope left. We cannot build upon this nation. This nation is based upon politics. Politics is finished. It's just as corrupt as it can be, when....

Did you read “Life” magazine, where this attorney, or this judge ... his son, a boy.... He's so hard on racing—these Rickys and so forth out here, these hot rods. And his boy killed a big bunch of people—a little boy, little baby boy, and a bunch. And the judge set him free—all a political play-up, see.

National life's gone. Natural botany life is gone. It's so interbred and everything till it has not life in it. Human life is a constant mess. And spiritual life is at the lowest ebb it's ever been, see. See, it's so hybrid. Everything's bred in, and added something to it to make it better this way.

I tell you, even to our Pentecostal moves, when we used to go down in old barrooms like this and places....

I was converted in a converted barroom. And I feel very much at home now. I look back there, and see that counter, and so forth. It was a little colored church where I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Was led there by the Lord.

Now, the.... See, these kind of places, they don't want to.... They got to have the big flowery name behind it. It's got to have so much behind it, or people won't.... It's got to be so pretty outwardly, until.... If it isn't that way, then the people don't want nothing to do with it.

But watch the Word of the Lord. Now, God's got a way of doing things, and we must do it in the way that He wants it done. If it isn't, then it's not effective.

Jesus found something like it when He come in His day. He said, “You (by your traditions) has made the Word of God of none effect by your traditions.” See, they had hybred into, and injected into God's commandments their own traditions, which made the commandments of no effect.

Today I know it's become the same thing. There is not a thing left, my Christian friend, but the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only hope that the church has. As far as it comes, if it ever takes up a denomination again, it's finished, because every denomination is finished when it become a denomination. It's the very thing....

I'll say something here maybe I oughtn't to say; but yet, I believe I ought to say it. If you noticed, Lucifer is exactly doing the same thing today that he did at the beginning, see. Lucifer, at the beginning, wanted to build himself a kingdom which was greater and more beautiful than Michael's kingdom. Right. He ... that was his ambitions, to achieve something like that.

And what did he get to do it by? He took fallen angels who lost their first estate. He took that to do it with. And today, Lucifer has got into the church, and taken away the Word, and injected denomination. And he's building a church, the ecumenical move that's going on now, to unite all the Protestants together, and all together come into Catholic—and this pope they got in now, to do the same thing. Exactly what the Scripture said it would do.

And what's he doing it by? He's doing it by men of these great ecumenical moves who does not know God. And many of them in the Pentecostals, 'cause they're doing the same. What is it? He's doing it with “fallen angels”—fallen Lutherans, fallen Methodists, fallen Pentecostals, that lost their original estate from the Word of God, and going right back in to make a great big ecumenical move—fallen messengers, messengers who once stayed with the Word, but sold out their birthrights, and joined in with the world.

Same thing is at the last day. And Lucifer is achieving today by men with those spirits in them, that he did with angels at the beginning, fallen angels who kept not their first estate to obey God. And he's doing the same thing today.

Oh, you'll never find any way ... any way at all. I don't care if you're in a barroom, or you're on the street, or wherever you are, God's provided way for man to come to Christ and receive eternal life.... Jesus said, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto me.” That's God's only way. “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.” He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He said in St. John, the 14th chapter, and the 12th verse, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.”—God's provided way. Mark 16 said, “These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; if they should take up serpents or drink deadly things, it wouldn't harm them; they'll lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

The very thing that Christ did, that's....

He was God's Word made manifest. He was God's promise vindicated. He was God in flesh form. The Bible said that God was in Christ. That great Jehovah that created heavens and earth was made manifest in a body, the Lord Jesus. And in that one man He could achieve.... He tried it through Moses, and He did it in Jacob, and He did it in Joseph; but He come in His fullness in the man Christ. He was the fullness of the Godhead bodily, where God could express Himself. And He said, “Who can accuse me of sin?” Sin is unbelief. “If I haven't done exactly what the scripture said I would do.... Then who can condemn me, and say where I've failed, in one way?”

See, it's God's provided way. And Christ, the just One, had to die in order to produce eternal life by His blood, giving His blood cell that He might give us eternal life. That's God's provided way.

There has never been anything that ever beat God's way on anything.

I don't care what it is, if people would just.... Don't try to inject their own ideas, but just take it the way God said it. Believe it. It seems to be so hard for man to get out of his own ideas, just.... He's got to have something to do into it himself. He's always gummed up (if you excuse the expression), he's always gummed up God's way for him, by injecting his own way into it.

Have they ever...? Do you think they could find a better way for a chicken to be born, than to peck its way out of the shell? I just wonder if you could find any better way. No, sir. He's born with a little peep on the end of his little bill. And every time his little head nods back and forth, “Amen, Amen, Amen,” he scratches that shell till he scratches himself out. Yes, sir. You'll never find a better way because that is God's provided way.

Now, what if he had the little peep on his bill, and you said “Poor little chickie. You know, I'm going to get a better way for you. I'm just going to crack the shell and pick you out.” It'd kill him. That's right. He'd die. He wouldn't live. He's got to do that in order to build his strength enough to receive the air and things when he comes out.

If he ... he's provided with a tool. He's got that little peep. You've seen it ... little birds and chickens. And as he nods his little head, he scratches that egg back and forth until he peeps his way out.

If you'll take that as an example, or in a way of making a point, that's God's way for Christians to be born. Not walk up to the altar, and give a man your right hand, and put your name on the book; but get down there, and peep, and cry, and beg, and plead until God gives you strength. Then you come forth out of the shell of the world. If somebody ... pastor just cracks the shell, and takes you out, say, “Oh, well. That's all right. We'll take you in anyhow,” you're dead. That's all there is to it.

You got to come God's provided way. That's the way the rest of them had to come, by being born of the Spirit of God. Stay there until how long? Until.... He told them first groups of Pentecostals to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until.... Don't make any difference—one day, five days, nine days, or whatever it was—stay there until they are filled with the Spirit, till they are born again.

Ducks and geese.... They have never found a way for ducks and geese to get ready to come south from the north here, than God's provided way for them to swarm. Sometime ago I had a great lesson on that. I was down in Texas, and I noticed.... We was going down the road, and traffic was stopped for most of half-a-mile. And I said to someone, “What's the matter?”

He said, “The geese is all across the road.”

Well, finally when I got up there, you couldn't hear yourself think. They were having a revival. They were all getting ready for a flight. They were going home, going up north to their house where they could raise some little ones. And they were having a revival, swarming before going.

Now that's God's provided way—to swarm. All of them get together. One was way over here, and one way over there, and one way over somewhere else. One in one rice paddy, and one in a wheat field. But something another, some way, on a certain day.... I don't know why, how, but on a certain day, here they all come together. Just looks like something draws them. We call it instinct. It's a God-given instinct to get together before the flight.

See what God's trying to do now? Pull His church from one side to the other, to get the revival, old time revival, like the geese has always done.

Now what if they tried another way? Said, “Well now, we'll just take it another way.” They'd never get there. No, sir.

What if you'd say, “Well, now, I'll tell you what. We'll make a better way for them. We'll herd them all into a coop, and take them up in a coop.” Put them in a little chicken coop—or make it a duck coop, or goose coop, or a whatever you want to do it—and put them into that, and then take them up there. Do you think that would be a better way? Say, “Oh, we can give them.... Oh, I tell you, we could feed them better along the road.” No, you couldn't.

There's such grain that's in the ponds and in the fields, weeds and things, that they have to get in order to give them strength to be what they are when they get there. They ... if they didn't get that, they wouldn't be ... they couldn't raise their young ones. They wouldn't be genuine ducks. They'd be hybrids like we are, see, if they had to take that. But God's got a way of doing it.

Put them in a coop. You know what the ducks would know right now, put them in a denomination like that? They'd know that they were ready for the slaughter. That's all. That's what you do with them when you put them together in a coop. They're going for the slaughter. The duck's got better sense than we got on that. When you go to cooping them all up together in man-made prison, well, then you see, the duck knows he hasn't got his freedom to fly in the air, and do as God provided for him to do. And put him in a coop, then he's gone, that's all. You coop them when they're slaughtered. And the duck knows better. We ought to know.

Neither can you choose them a better route to go. (“Route” if you want to call it up here, I think. Down home in the South, it's still route. But up here, I think they call it a route.) You think if you could say, “Now listen. Tell you what you ought to do. You ought to go back a certain way, and come down another way, and down over this way.”...? You think you could choose a better way for them to go, than God's provided way for them to go?

Why, you'd get them in some kind of a something. You'd draw them across the earth, some magnet, or something. They'd never.... You'd draw them through storms, and through everything else. Half of them would be lost. Well, you can't give them a better way. They go God's provided way. They can scent those storms miles away, and know how to ground themselves, and get ready for the storm, and rise again. God's got a provided way for them. And they got duck sense enough to follow God's provided way. We don't. We try to make a better way than God made for us, see. We want to have something into it ourself.

A duck don't pay no attention to what.... He just goes the way God wants him to go, the way his ancestors did, the way his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother did, and on like that.

If we would just take our ancestry on back to Pentecost, we'd know how to get there. God had a provided way by His Word, and by His Holy Spirit.

But we want to go some other way that Dr. So-and-so said, or a certain group of men got together and said. That's way off of God's provided way. The church sailed good in God's provided way till the council at Nicaea, Rome, and there's where they made their fatal mistake.

What if you could take...? And now you think about finding them a better way. Or could you find them a better leader than God's provided leader for them? Now, maybe you'd take an old gander out here somewhere, and take him out there and feed him on certain vitamins and so forth, and give him a special call, you know. Send him out there, and put a little honker on his mouth. You might have a melody that he could almost yodel with that. And you might write it up in all the papers, a duck that can yodel. And oh, all the ducks is bound to find him. He'll know which way to take them because he's really cultured, and educated, and he's fixed up. He can do it.

He might sit out there and yodel all afternoon, there'd never be a duck come around him. “My sheep know my voice.”

He might sound prettier, and he might have better wings. He might be fed better, and he might be a better-cultured duck. He might be able to do the twist, or anything out there. You couldn't tell what he could do. But I'm telling you, the ducks would never follow him, if he didn't give that certain sound that was right. That's right.

Ducks know their leader by God-given sound, God-given instinct. And you'll never be able to get one any better than that, because that's God's actual provided way for them.

And notice again, if you trained an old goose, or duck, to take that group, you'd probably take them right in a huddle of shotguns where people are watching for them. But, you know, this God-provided leader takes him to God's provided place where He's got for him. He takes him right straight to Louisiana, and down into the rice paddies where they're protected the rest of the year. Why, certainly. God knows what to do, and the duck knows to do what God wants him to do, or provided for him.

Notice,

could you think you could invent a better provided instrument than what God's got for him? Now that little duck never left the pond. He was born up there in the north woods. He never was off the pond in his life. But somehow, he sails right up, can go east, west, north, south, whichever way he wants to go. But something constrains him to go right straight south, tells him how to bypass the cold spells, the storms, and everything, and get out of it, right where the food is. God has an instrument in that duck that leads him just exactly right. And they've never been able to find any better way for him (no, sir) than God's provided way.

They have never been able to find a better way for a baby to get what he wants, than to cry for it. You might tell him ... well, he could shake his little fist, or he could “goo” like that. But he'll never get the attention like crying. He's got to cry for it, that's all. You might say, “Well, now, I'll put my alarm clock on. And I got to feed this baby at a certain time, so many minutes to so many ... much time I got to feed him.” You turn that alarm clock on, and stick the bottle in his mouth, he'll “goo” and spit it out. Put the milk in his mouth, and he'll spit it out. It's not time yet. But God's got a provided way. He turns a little alarm clock on down there. And when it is, he ain't going to stop until he gets his bottle, that's all. He cries for it.

Now, God recommends this way also to His baby children—to cry, His believers to cry for what they want. That's right. Cry for Him, for your needs.

Now don't listen to intellectual speeches. Somebody say, “Well, now, I tell you this baptism of the Holy Spirit that they're talking about, this divine healing, and that kind of stuff.... Well, I tell you it isn't for ... it isn't today. I can explain it, that it's not for today.”

Listen, a real genuine baby of God won't pay no attention to that. He'll scream, and yell, and kick up his heels until he gets a vindicated answer back from that promise out of God's Word, because “Man don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God, proceeds from the mouth of God.” He cries and cries until that word of promise is vindicated. God's little child living on the Word of God—there's not a better way in the world for him, that's all. He lives on what the Lord says for him to live by, and he stays there until it happens—cries, kicks up his heels, and just stays at it.

Some of them say, “Oh, you can't receive the Holy Ghost. There is no such a thing.” They tried to tell us that years ago, that there was no such a thing as speaking with tongues, and prophecy, and all these great gifts that God promised in the early church, and gave to them. “Them days is past.”

You think that stopped that hungry-hearted people? They took ahold of this Word, and knowed that the Bible said “He ... 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.” They stayed there on their faces, and cried, and begged, and kicked up their heels, and screamed, until God poured out the same Holy Ghost upon them that He did on them at the beginning. Amen! What is it? It's God's provided way. Right. They believed it, and God provided the way for them.

Peter give them the provided way on the day of Pentecost.

Some of them say, “Shake hands, be sprinkled, come into the church, this is it, this is that.”

God's got to judge the church, the world, by something. If He's going to judge it by the church, which church will it be? If He judges it by the Catholic church, which Catholic church? If He judged by the Romans, the Orthodox is lost. And if He judged by the Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox, then the others are lost. If He judged by the Baptist, the Methodist's lost, by the ... 'cause you can't add one word, or take one from it, see.

So remember, one word. Disbelieve one word caused every heartache, every sickness, every death, and even the coming of the Lord Jesus to die to redeem us. Eve, she disbelieved—just reasoned with Satan, or Satan reasoned with her. “Well, honestly, God won't do it.”

See, that's Lucifer's business today. Say, “God can't turn us down, we're too big a people. We stand tens of thousands, millions strong. You think God could turn us down?” He sure ... He's already done it. When you reject His Word, you're on the other side. It isn't God turns you down, you turn God down. That's where it's at.

See,

you've got to take the bread of life. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by a few of the words, a word every now and then? “By every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” man shall live by that. And this Scripture is written by the Holy Spirit. That's right. And the Holy Ghost is God. And every ... this ... men moved of old by the Holy Ghost wrote this Bible. And I believe every word of it. It's perfectly the truth of God, and cannot be tampered with. And we'll be judged by this book at the end of life's journey. Yes, sir.

I don't believe in intellectual speeches; I believe in the Word itself. And then stay with that promise until it's made manifest, and fulfilled. Then you've got it. But “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

I was just thinking the other day, the Bible said that the sins of Sodom vexed the soul of Lot daily. I just thought, how many Lots is there in this United States? Men sitting in their study—good men, sitting in their study—looking out the window, and seeing these modern stripteases on the street, and carrying on the way they're.... They can't say nothing about it. They know it's wrong. They can't say nothing. Half their congregation ... ninety percent of their congregation wear it. Bobbed-haired women wearing shorts, men smoking cigarettes, taking sociable drinks, telling dirty jokes.

They know better than to say that. If they do, their denominational headquarters.... They stir up something like that, they're excommunicated from it, see. A modern Lot—with not the common audacity, not the real spiritual truth within them, enough grace to stand—that'll look upon sin, and can't call it out!

God, give us some Abrahams that will separate themselves from these things. That's right. Oh, at the day that we're living! Yes, sir.

His Word is always the truth, always the truth. His believing children believe for it, and cry for it, until His Word is vindicated. And His Word is always His will. If you want to know what the will of God is, find it in the Bible. It's God's Word. Anything contrary to it is perverted. And don't get into that hybrid condition. What God said, that's the truth.

If somebody takes you, and said, “Now, I come into the church, and I tell ... we don't believe in receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We don't believe that. We believe that you actually believe ... when you believe you receive the Holy Ghost.”

Paul said, in Acts the 19th chapter, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?” Have you received the Holy Ghost? Well, how did you receive the Holy Ghost? You said ... Peter said on the day of Pentecost, said, “Repent, every one of you, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” That's what he said. “The promise is unto you, and to your children.”

It's like people reading the prescription on a medicine bottle, and won't take the medicine. What good does it do to read the prescription? We go away to seminaries, and learn church history, and we learn ethics of the church, and learn what the Bible says, and all the Greek words. And we can tell you what it means; but that's just telling you what the bottle says, what the directions says. I can tell you what Peter said on the day of Pentecost. I can tell you that the promise is unto you. But, you say, “I believe that.” I can believe this medicine, sitting here, for the disease is right. But until I take it.... I got to take it.

See, the sincerity of it doesn't matter. Say, “I sincerely believe that. That's true.” But you got to take it. And when you take it, it shows the effects upon the patient. And when you take God's Word, it shows genuine Holy Ghost effects, faith, Abraham's seed. It does something to you. It takes ahold of you. It shakes the unbelief out of you, sets your affections on things above.

Where Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”—and He is the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” And the Word is still God. And if the Word be lifted up, and you receive it into your heart, it'll draw you to God. That's right, because it is God. Amen. Oh, how I love Him. The Word's always the truth. Yes, sir. Never a better way than God's provided way.

There was a prophet, one time, by the name of Job. He needed ... he needed some comfort. And he ... his church members come condemning him, and saying, “Job, you know you ... you're just not right with God.” And they condemned him. But he still needed a comforter.

His wife couldn't even comfort him. She said, “Job, you ought to curse God, and then die the death.”

But he said, “Thou speakest like a foolish woman.” And Job stayed with it, until God provided for him a vision of Jesus Christ. Now you believe that?

It said, when the vision come, he said, “I know my redeemer liveth, and at the last days he'll stand upon the earth. And though the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, mine eyes shall behold, and not another.” Now remember, the vision is, he saw Jesus—and Jesus is the Word. Then when Job needed a comforter, God sent him a vision of the Word. Amen! Whew!

That's the comfort I get, is reading the Word, reading the Word, what the Word says. Jesus said, “Let every man's word be a lie and mine be truth.” Don't care what someone else says. I respect what they say. But when it comes to believing, if it's contrary to God's Word, I don't believe it. I do not believe nothing but what God's Word says, for man shall live by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Not just so much of the Word—He said all the Word, the whole Bible through. “Man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Now that's how man lives. That's God's provided way for him to live.

And Job was a prophet that lived even before the Bible was written. And notice, he was a prophet, and the Word of the Lord comes to the prophet. And then when he wanted comfort, he could find none. He went to his church, and his church didn't have any comfort for him, but accusation against him. But he stayed until God showed him the Word by vision; and then he was comforted. And he stayed on his feet, and the lightnings flashed, and the thunders roared, and he said, “Though the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Let death or anything else strike me, it doesn't make a bit of difference, because I'll see God. I saw the vision of His Word.”

Israel, one day.... They was in Egypt, down there in captivity, and they needed a way. They needed a way out of Egypt. And notice, we find out that a man got trained, by the name of Moses. He was trained in all the military might—next Pharaoh-to-be down in Egypt. He was trained in all the military might. He thought some day he would deliver his people. And he come out, this mighty man, mighty in word and deed, Moses. And he tried with his military might, but it wasn't God's provided way. He lacked something.

But one day, when he was on the backside of the desert, what he lacked the burning bush had. And Moses saw a vision of the Word. That was God. And when he did, the vision spoke the Word. “I remember my promise [Amen] to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, and I remembered I promised them, and I have come down to deliver them.” Amen. Oh, my!

Then, as I spoke the other night at the tabernacle, Moses become a prisoner to God.

Unless God can get you a prisoner.... Paul become a prisoner. You can't look at what you think, you can't look what somebody else thinks, you got to go just what He says do. You're a prisoner. Paul knew that he was pressed in the Spirit to go a certain place when he didn't want to go. He knowed that the Spirit forbid him to go certain places. He knowed he had to hold his peace at many times.

There was a little old fortune-teller run out after him, one day, hollering around behind him, and Paul ... that Spirit of God in him, wanted to rebuke it day after day. And finally, he got the message, “Rebuke him.” And he turned around. He couldn't do it till God said so. Amen! Oh, if the church could only be so in the glorious presence of God....

Some day, God will turn loose His power into it. Things will take place. But you can't mix your diet—you'll become a hybrid. Say exactly what God said. Stay right in the Word, and God will vindicate it to be the truth. Yes, sir.

God provided Israel a way. He anointed a prophet, sent a pillar of fire, and vindicated the word that the prophet spoke by signs—by signs of creation. “Moses, go stretch your stick (out over the sea) out towards the east and say let there come flies.”

And Moses, a man with the Word of God, knowing that a man cannot create, he stuck his pole back towards the east, like that, and said, “Let there be flies all over Egypt.” And flies created, and come into existence by the word of a man.

God uses a man for His instrument. He can only speak through man. “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” That's right. He said....

There was no frogs. He said, “Moses, go out there and raise up thy stick and call for frogs.” That was God's commission to him.

And Moses said, “Now wait a minute, wait a minute. Now maybe the days of that ... I never did hear such a thing as that. I better go a little easy.” He didn't have any intellectual denominations to tell him what to do. He lived by the promise of God. He was a prisoner in the house of God. He could only go and do as the Spirit let him do it. And he raised up the stick, and spoke, and frogs come into existence. Sure.

They provided a lamb when they needed something for their sin. God's provided way made a lamb. God's provided way made a way across the Red Sea when they was in a trap. God's provided way provided them a prophet, provided them a pillar of fire to follow them, a vindication of the Word. A man proved of God, that what he said come to pass, showed them exactly what it was. And yet, when they crossed the sea, they wanted a law. See, that's just human beings. That's just the way man operates. He wants to inject his own ways.

Oh, God's provided way is always the way of sending His Word.

Death struck Egypt. He was going to kill everything in Egypt. Now remember, when the boils were breaking out, when the fire was falling, when the rains come, and the hail come, God provided a place for His elect not to get into that. He had a place called Goshen.

Now there was coming a spirit of death upon the land and every man.... You remember, death is the reason we die. And Israel had to have something to keep them from dying, or death would have struck them too, because the pen.... “The wages of sin is death.” And Israel had sin. And God, so that they would not die, His people who were trying to follow Him, He provided a lamb, and the blood over the door that protected their first-born. God's provided way. While Egypt thought they could shut theirselves in around all their great theologians, and witch doctors and whatever they had, the death angel swept right in over top of that, 'cause it was without blood.

And any religion today, that hasn't got the blood life of Jesus Christ behind it, the death angel's on it. Right. The death angel. Separated from God. Yes, indeedy. “Ichabod” is wrote on every bit of it that hasn't got the blood.

You say, “Well, I am glad the blood....” If the blood hasn't taken effect ... if it hasn't taken effect, and you see it in your life, as a consecrated child of God with what Jesus said would take place, then be careful. You might have something else besides the blood. You might have a little injection of theology in there, or something, a little injection of some sensation. You say, “I quivered, and I shook, I danced, I did this.” Be careful. If the medicine ever strikes you.... It's good for every human being. It'll save from sin. It'll clean up from a life of sin. It'll make a different person out of you. It'll take the doubt away, and it'll make you a new creation in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Death struck Egypt. God separated belief from unbelief that day, by the blood upon the door.

Moses, a faithful servant who followed every precept of God, when he come to a place he had to die (he was getting so old, 120 years old, he had to die), he had no place to die. He didn't want to die down there with them murmurers and everything like that. God provided him a rock. Amen. He started climbing till he got above all the unbelief, and God had a rock laying there. And he died on that rock, looking to the promised land.

That's the place. That rock is Christ Jesus that points you to the promised land. You get on Him one time, and you'll see every promise of God is true. “If ye abide in me, and my word in you, then ask what you will, and it will be done for you,” because He is the Word. It just manifests itself through you when you abide in Him.

Notice, after he died.... He was way up in the wilderness. He needed pallbearers. God provided angels. Why? Because no man on this earth could take him where he was going. Had to take somebody to pack him over there, and took angels along.

Enoch needed a ladder one day. He had walked five hundred years with God, and it pleased Him. He needed a ladder; God provided him a highway. Walked right up home. Elijah needed a rope one time, and God give him a chariot with horses to it. Oh, my! Samson needed a spear, and God give him a jawbone of a wild mule, and he beat down a thousand Philistines with it. God provides your needs. God has a way.

What if Samson said, “Now wait a minute. This jawbone isn't sharp. It isn't a spear. Look at them big thick helmets on them Philistines.” See, he just took God's provided way, and beat right into them. That's all you need, is to take what God says and go to beating with it just as long as you can. You'll get yourself free after awhile. Yes, sir.

Yes.

Joshua needed a bridge. God provided a power, a floodgate, a spiritual floodgate that held back Jordan so he could go on and fulfill God's Word, the promise. He needed a bridge. Daniel needed a fence to keep the lions off of him. God give him a angel. See, that's God's provided way. What's needed, God provided. And God provided it in His own way.

Now, what if Daniel said, “Now wait a minute. I could think of a better way than that pillar of fire standing here before me now. That lion, might not have any effect upon him. He might come right on through that pillar of fire. If you'll just get me a great big fence, and fence me in,” see. That would have been Daniel trying to do something. But he just accepted God's provided way, lay down and went to sleep, and slept all night, just in peace. God provided a way. Yes, sir. Oh, my!

The Hebrew children needed some water, a firehose down there to put out all that fire when they jumped in there. But God provided them the fourth man. Yes, sir. That's all they needed. What if they said, “Now wait a minute. There's somebody else to go in there, that won't help. We got to have a firehose to put all this out.” They accepted God's provided way, and He kept the fire off of them. There wasn't even the smell of fire on them. They went God's provided way.

The wise men needed a compass to guide them to the newborn babe. But God provided a star, see. They took the star. That's all they needed. The world needed a Saviour; God provided a Son. Amen.

The church needed power; God provided the Holy Ghost. He didn't provide a book of ethics. He didn't provide a Christian government. He provided the Holy Ghost. That's what God provided. He never said, “Go up there and study up at Jerusalem up there until I.... Get a certain amount of education [unclear words], and I indocumate you with so-and-so.” He said, “Wait until you are endued with power from on high. After the Holy Ghost is come upon you, then you shall be my witnesses” in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Chicago, Illinois, and so forth, see, all the world. That is God's provided witness, is the Holy Ghost.

God didn't provide a book of ethics. He did not provide a denomination. They said, “We want to become full Christians.”

“Well, now, you wait till you study so long. Wait till you learn the creeds.”

He never said learn anything; He said, “Wait till you're filled.” Amen.

Someone said, the other day, said, “Well, Mr. Branham, don't you believe in denominations?”

I said, “I got nothing against the people in them, but I certainly don't believe in their systems.”

He said, “Well, why? How will we pay? What will we do?”

I said, “That wasn't God's provided way in the first place.”

He said, “What denomination do you belong to?”

I said, “None.”

Said, “What do you belong to?”

I said, “A kingdom.”

Said, “How do you get in it?

I said, “You're born into it.” Amen.

You're born into the kingdom of God. How? By the Holy Ghost. That's God's witness. He gives witness by the Word of God that we've passed from death unto life because we're in the kingdom of God.

That God....

God needed a leader for the church. He didn't educate a bishop; neither did He send a high priest, or a pope, or no one else. But he sent the Holy Ghost. A man ... die in their systems, die in everything else. But the Holy Ghost is the eternal God. They cannot die. He give them an eternal leader, and that is the Holy Ghost. They needed something to guide them, to tell them what to do, how to live, how to meet the public, how to meet the fierceness of the day, how to combat sickness, how to combat this, how to combat sin.

Man's drawed all kinds of ways—of join this, and creeds of this, and documents of this, and baptisms of this, and every kind of sensations, and little quivers, and funny feelings, and everything else. But it still remains, the Holy Ghost is God's provided way for His church. Amen!

And the Holy Ghost is God, and God is the Word. The Holy Ghost is this Word made full vindicated. The Holy Ghost is the thing that brings this promised Word to life.

You say, “I had a feeling.” If it don't vindicate this Word, forget that feeling. Yes, sir. You say, “Well, I done this, I done that, and I've been baptized this way, that way.” I don't care what you've been, done. If the Holy Ghost is on you, this Word is vindicated through you, because Jesus said, “These signs shall follow them that believe ... to all the world and every creature.” Amen. God's provided way.

Two thousand years.

That went all right for about three hundred years. Then they had a council meeting one time, at Nicaea, Rome, and they wanted to inject something. Then, after Martin Luther (another angel of God) brought forth the message—then they had another injection. And then, after John Wesley, they had another injection. And they just ... so forth, a council meeting, until they got to a place until the churches has become hybrid by the ethics of man's teaching. And there's a great falling away now.

The church needs a scriptural-sign truth in this last age. It needs something. Look at the different denominations, the twistings (as we close now, before we have the prayer line). Look at the twistings of the Scripture. Think of our different denominations. Think of our Pentecostal way. Think of our Baptist, our Presbyterian, our Lutheran, even to our independents, whatevermore. A fellow don't know where to stand.

The church needs today a scriptural vindication.

What did Jesus say in St. John, the 14th chapter, the 12th verse? “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” The very things that I do, shall he do also.

Notice, He promised as it was in the days of Jonas the prophet, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man. See, He said, “For as Jonas was in the belly of the whale three days and nights, and was raised up as it was from the dead, that will be a sign to a wicked and adulterous generation.”

Now we are living in the last days, with a promised sign of the resurrection. After two thousand years of indocumenting, and drawing off the road, this way and that way, till people don't know what to do.... But Jesus told them, and promised them, “As it was in the days of Lot and Sodom so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.”

Compare it today. Take Genesis 6, and look what He said, how that renowned men ... how women would get pretty.... We got the prettiest group of women that ever was on earth since that time. Women are much prettier than they was years ago. They got so many different things to make them pretty—so many different paints, and powders, and fixes, and hairdos, and everything, and immoral clothes, and things to make them attractive.

A man come to me, yesterday. He said, “I got a boy, sixteen, Brother Branham. I got a boy, twelve. I take them on the street ... these little stripteases out here....” He said, “The boys are little males.” He said, “What can I tell them?”

I said, “Sir, I don't know. Take them to Christ. Let them get saved, and filled with the Holy Ghost. They'll turn their heads from them modern striptease.”

Remember, “When the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and seen they were fair, they took unto them women.” Took unto them women.

Look over here at this great scandal in England. Look through the United States. Look at these call girls in the U.N., everything else. Oh, it's just terrible. And that's men renowned. We are right back in that hour. The red lights are flashing everywhere, the coming of the Lord. Jesus said, “As it was before Sodom was burned, so will it be at the coming of the Son of man.” [Blank spot] That's right!

The women are becoming so.... They don't realize what they're doing, an evil spirit upon them. Why would a woman take her clothes off like that to expose herself? She don't mean to be bad. They ... they're just caught in that trap, and they don't know it. Just like it was back there in that time, female flesh being displayed everywhere. See, very attractive. Ruins the sons of God—right out of their mind, nearly. And then a Sodom and Gomorrah law to protect her from it—what a disgrace! And our government standing for such stuff as that.

I wish I could be governor for a while, or have this nation. Ever I caught a women dressed like that, she'd go to the women's prison for lifetime. She'd never be able.... If I caught a woman and man like that.... If a woman and a man was caught living like that, they'd both become sterile. That's all there is to it—performed right out in public by the doctors. Yes, sir. We'd put....

The penalty is just a little old.... What is law without penalty? The penalty of God's law is death. Sin is death. Right. We need a law that's stern. We.... Oh, my! What we got now, a bunch of politics can be swayed any way you want to. The whole thing's corruptible.

Hurry, church, back to the Word of the living God! Live off of that, and that alone, because that's what God's people should live by.

God promised this church a scriptural sign. He said the resurrection would be reproduced. Jesus Christ and His church would become so they'd be one in the last days. He promised it. Now we know that it's true.

Now, He also promised that there would be a restoring of the faith. We read over in Jude, that ... said in Jude, “...earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.” Now we're promised, in Malachi 4, by the same system he always did, that we would be restored back to the original faith. Oh, oh, my! Back to the original seed. Back to the seed like it began on the day of Pentecost. Back to the same doctrine, word by word, power by power, Spirit by.... The same thing, just exactly like it was at the beginning, through signs and wonders of the living presence of Jesus Christ. After two thousand years He's still alive, and He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I told Billy, at thirty minutes, to throw something at me, I'd quit preaching. Now I've done went over that time.

Notice, I just get.... I know we ain't got much more time. The hour is here. Friends, don't just come to the meeting, say, “Well, I really enjoyed it. It was a little hot, but I enjoyed it.” Don't do that. Be sincere. Move into it, make confessions, clean yourself up. If there's little doubts and flusteration in your heart, don't even come in the prayer line. No, sir. I want clean.... Our confessions is around-about way.

I had a woman on interview here, a few weeks ago, and she said ... I found in there where she had a baby, belonged to another man. And she had lived with two boys. And she had took this one boy, and married him because she liked him better, and said the baby was his. And she knew all the time it belonged to somebody else.

She said, “I confessed that.”

I said, “Yeah. Here's the way you said it. 'Oh, Dearie, oh, Dearie. What if you thought something, oh, Dearie? You know, old John, old boy, old boy, what if I told you this baby belonged to somebody else? (Hee, hee.) You wouldn't believe it, would you? Nah. Well, what if it did? Uh, say John, are we going out tonight to have some hamburgers?'”

That's not confession! Get down on your knees!

That's the way people come to God. “Oh, Lord, You're so good. You just let me do anything I want to.” Don't you believe that! God's got a law you live by. Till you clean up, and wash out, and confess, and believe with all your heart, come back to the Word of God, you're still guilty. You can't do that. You got to tear the thing down. People's got to come godly, sincerely. Get down on their knees, and stay there until the results takes place. Let that Holy Ghost power of God's love inject into your heart and makes you confess all your sins, and all your unbelief, and accept Jesus Christ. God has said everything He could.

Watch how He proved it the first time.

Like Brother Vayle was saying awhile ago, see. How did they know He was Messiah when He seen the woman at the well? He told her what was wrong with her. Quickly, that woman in that horrible condition, living with six husbands.... Said, “You've had five, and the one you're living with now is not your husband.” Six husbands. Six men on the string she was running with, in that condition.

But when she was told, she seen that the Word of God sharper than a two-edged sword, a discerner of the thoughts of the heart, she said, “Sir, you must be a prophet.” Now, the Word of the Lord comes to the prophet, see, to reveal these things. Said, “You must be a prophet. We ain't had prophets for hundreds of years.” But said, “You must be a prophet. Now, we know that we're looking for the Messiah, and when the Messiah comes, that's what he'll do.”

Jesus said, “I am He.”

And the people of the city, of that entire city of Sychar, every man believed Jesus Christ. He didn't have to do it again. He did it that one time, and every man believed Him because the woman said so. Her testimony ... she'd been changed so, they couldn't keep from believing it.

Oh, give us men and women with positive testimonies that will bring men to repentance again. “They believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now, by that sign, He proved that He was the Messiah. God help me by the same sign, with His Spirit, to prove that He's still Messiah. Amen. Only by the Word of God shall we live—His promises that He would do it.

Now, accept God's provided way at the end-time.

If you're sick tonight, God has a provided way. Jesus Christ is the provided way. If you're sinful tonight, unbelieving, can't live right, can't seem to get settled down, Jesus Christ is God's provided way. Just believe Him. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Then He, and the Holy Spirit, which He is.... Holy Spirit is Jesus and Christ in form of the Spirit. “A little while, and the world seeth me no more; yet ye shall see me: because I will be with you, even in you.”—the Holy Spirit, Christ, calling. “I,” see. Christ, God, the Holy Spirit in Him, was to be in His church, unto the end of the world, God's Word. And “...the works that I do shall you do also. A little while and the world won't see me no more; yet you shall see me: for I am going to be in you. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he also. ...in you until the end of the world.” God has a provided way for the believing children. Jesus Christ is that way, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Let us bow our heads just a moment.

While you have your heads bowed, do you believe that He is the way? Is there some here that would like to believe that and never has accepted it yet? Friend, would you raise your hand, and be that sincere here in this old arena tonight, and say, “Brother Branham, pray for me. I don't want to meet God this way.” And remember....

We broke in on a conversation, picking up a phone in a certain place the other day. And the woman had just got in, and a man was calling her back that was out with her—and this woman, supposed to be a Christian.

And he said, “Is your husband still asleep?”

“Yes.”

Said, “If he ever finds out, we'll....”

Said, “Don't make any difference to me.” And a little baby crying.

Do you realize, can you understand? This adulterous, dirty, filthy world, she's at the end. God's going to....

There won't be one building sitting by another one in Chicago, one of these days, or nowhere else. God is fixing to rain out that sixth seal upon the earth, break that seal and turn loose the wrath of God upon the earth. But before He does that, the church will be gone. The bride'll be gone; the church won't. She'll go through the tribulation, but the bride will be gone. His little wife won't go through that.

Don't you want to be one of them members of her tonight? If you do, and want to be remembered in prayer, with your head bowed, raise your hand. God bless you. God bless you, and you, you.

Our heavenly Father, all the words that I could say wouldn't mean nothing in comparison with one word You would say. I'm just a man, quoting what You said. I pray for these who raised their hands. God grant it. That great vision this morning tore me up, Lord. I'm still tore up, and I pray that You'll help me. Quieten me, Lord. I am nervous, and I ask that You'll help.

If there be these that's raised their hands tonight, strayed into the building here by some means, let the great Holy Spirit speak to them now, and may they come sweetly to You. I know the custom is, Lord, call people around the altar. We believe that's all right. But according to the scripture that said “As many as believed was baptized”

.... And I pray, God, that these people will rush up for Christian baptism; believing on You, and confessing their sins, and accepting Jesus Christ and His blood for their pardon; then rise and be baptized, calling upon the name of the Lord, washing away their sins.

And then, may they be filled with the Holy Spirit of His promised seed, that life that changes their whole nature, gives them a new hope, lets them look only..., become a prisoner, from any desire, any ambition.

Like the great St. Paul, wanted to be a rabbi. He wanted to be a great man. He trained ... his father and mother trained him to be so. And back there, on the backside of that desert, after meeting that pillar of fire that day that told him “It's hard for you to kick against the pricks”.... Called his name “Saul, Saul.” How could a pillar of fire call his name? But He said, “I am Jesus.” And he knew that's what Jesus did when He was on earth. He knowed that pillar of fire was the Christ that led His people out of Egypt, through the wilderness. And he knowed that that was still the anointed.

And, Lord, we know You're still the same today. I pray for each one. Give them peace in their hearts, Lord. Sanctify this little church, and all that's connected with it, and all the strangers in our gates. For Jesus' sake, I ask it.

And then, Father, I pray also that You'll heal the sick, vindicate what I've said to be true. My time is running out, Lord. I'm getting old. And I pray that You'll help me just to win every soul that I can.

God, let the people see tonight that the almighty Himself comes down in our midst, and proves that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. May the people see that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Grant it, Lord. And not hybrid themselves with some great infections of some disease germ that brings unbelief in their heart, but may that infection be taken out by the power of the Spirit, that the germ of eternal life might live in them; that they might grow to the full stature of Jesus Christ; that in this last day, that He and His wife would be one. Grant it, Lord. I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now believe. You people that raised your hand, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and accept Him as your Saviour, and believe Him, that His blood and that alone atones for your sin, then I want you to see some of these ministers here for baptism right away. They'll tell you what to do from there.

Now for the sick and afflicted, those who have prayer cards, let's start from number 1, and start and get a few of them up here. I ... say about 1 to 15. I'm running about fifteen, twenty minutes late. I should have been out fifteen, twenty minutes ago.

Number 1. Who's got it, the prayer card number 1? Raise up your hand, ever who has prayer card number 1. Stand up, ever who's got prayer card number 1. If you can't stand up.... We can't see too good here. It's ... the lighting situation's not good. Prayer card number 1, number 2, number 3, number 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

There's a lady here.... While you're getting 1 to 15—stand up now, while the rest of us bow our heads. Come right over here. Come right over here, number 1 to 15. While we bow our heads and pray for this lady. She's sick over here. Mrs. Way has her here, while we pray for her. It's awfully hot in here tonight. The perspiration's just squishing out of my shoes. Let's pray now with our heads bowed.

Our heavenly Father, grant these blessings to us in the name of Jesus Christ, thy Son. Let grace, and mercy, peace.... Help our dear sister, God, as she is sick and needy. Let the Holy Ghost come upon her, Father, and give to her back good health again. She's sick. Come to church tonight, and wanted to enjoy it; and here we find her sitting here, sick, faint because of the hotness, of the heat of the church. God, grant her healing. I pray these blessings in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

All right, the Lord bless now. Believe. I seen her nod her head to Sister Way. She's to herself now. Now, if somebody want to take her out where she can get a little air....

It's awfully hot in here. If you just stand right here, and know what it means for this time. Now, let's see how many.... got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. All right. Let's get the prayer line started. Now everyone, just as reverent as you can. Now everyone be praying while the pianist.... Give us a chord over there, if you will, “Only believe, only believe, all things are possible, only believe.”

That's good. Now everyone reverently, and in prayer now. All right. Now, don't move around no more. Don't ... you people going in and out, don't do that, see, 'cause this is very dangerous, see, very, very dangerous. All right. Now everybody, quieten down and pray, and believe now, with all your heart.

Now.... Well, if they don't answer to their call, that's all I know to do. Just make the call. All right. How many's missing? 2's missing? Number 2, who's got prayer card number 2? Is there other-speaking people here besides English? Prayer card number 2.

The boy just mixes those cards up, and hands them out. Anybody gets them. Don't take it if you're not coming, see. You must come up if you're coming. Don't give it to nobody else. You have to come yourself. Prayer card number 2. All right. If it's not here, let's bow our heads. It's awfully hot, very, very hot. Maybe this lady here has it. Have you got prayer card number 2, lady? You got prayer card number 2? Maybe she's Norwegian, or something, and don't speak.... Billy, check that card down there, somebody, see if she has number 2 card. Now, number 2. All right, number 1, 2. All right, now.... Okay, now ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. There's about two or three more missing. 1 to 15, if you will.

Well, everybody reverent now. All right. Now, be real reverent, and pray now. How many's going to be praying? Raise your hands. “I'm going to be praying. I'm going to be praying, believing God.” Now, how many out here doesn't have a prayer card, and you know God will heal you? Let's see your hands. You believe God will heal you? All right. Everywhere now, everyone believe. Just have faith. Don't doubt, believe God with all your heart. All right.

Come, lady. It kind of makes everybody hurry, and excitable. And the Spirit of the Lord don't like that at all, see. Let's get quiet, see. Quiet yourself. Just say, “Lord, here I am. I'm here to serve You. I love You, and I know You will grant my request.” That's it. Now, can you hear me? I'll try to stand right here.

JOHN4:7

A lady here. Here's a beautiful Bible picture again. Here's a lady that's a colored lady. I'm a white man. Certainly brings out a beautiful Bible picture to you strangers. Jesus met the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan; He was a Jew. And they began to talk. He said, “Bring me a drink,” went to talking to her, and He found out what her trouble was. But first, He asked her to get him a drink, and she wouldn't grant it because she was of another race. And He let her know right away there was no difference in races. And here we are tonight, after two thousand years.

Now Jesus Christ promised that the things that He did the believer would do also. Is that right? Now, everybody believe that? St. John, 14th Chapter, 12th verse. And now, why? He was the Word. Is that right? And He said, “If ye abide in me, and my words in you, ask what you will.”

Now, if this woman's sick, I couldn't heal her. Nobody could heal her; God's already done it. If she's a sinner, I couldn't save her. God's already did it; she just has to believe it.

But now, if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He give an eternal sign of His resurrection in this last days. Then He would speak through me, if I'm His servant and called for this purpose. Now all servants are not called to do that, see. But there is at least, in a generation, one that they'd have that.

Now, but if this be so, it's to show to the rest of them, in your ministry, that God is with you, see. He does other things. I have spoke in tongues. I don't do it all the time. I've done it four or five times in my life. I didn't know what I was doing. Hearing myself speaking one day, then I thought ... looked around to see what was going on—heard somebody, sound like, speaking German. I looked and see where it was. It was me, doing it myself, see. I thought I could run through a troop, and leap over a wall then. But I found out it was me. I just kept real still till it got finished. And it was the Holy Spirit making intercessions for a woman (later on, it showed up) very, very bad with TB, and the Lord healed her.

But now, here, to this audience, this lady.... Strange, she's a colored lady. And she's somewhere around my age. But I've never seen her. She's just a woman. Now, she's standing here for some reason. I don't know, I couldn't tell you. I don't know nothing about her. But if the Holy Spirit can reveal to me what her trouble is, or what she's here for, or what she wants, or something like that—or what she has done, or what she ought to have done, or something like that—then let her be the judge of whether it's right or not. Would that convince everybody that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever?

We'll talk to each other just a moment, because.... Get quiet, you see. The Holy Spirit's very timid. And I'm just talking to you, like our Lord did the woman at the well.

Now see, it wouldn't be me, 'cause I don't know you. But, you see, I'm a body of flesh; you're a body of flesh. But inside of you is a spirit and a soul. Inside of me is a spirit and a soul. And then, when this spirit inside of me, if it be the Spirit of Christ, see, then....

And a gift that I was born.... Just like you go to sleep, and dream anything ... you dream a dream. Now see, this five senses has to become inactive, and then you're over here in dreamland. And then when these five senses become active again, you are awake, see, because your subconscious is way out front of your first conscious. But when they're both right together, you don't go to sleep, you just break over into that, see. You're still in your five senses. You understand? That's a gift, a prophetic gift. That's a vindication that Christ is still the same, see.

See,

we have ministers who's trained in the Word. We have different ones—men like Oral Roberts, who just lay hands on them, and shakes the people, and say, “Bless God, you receive it,” see. He is just one of them burly type men, see. That's God's man. Then He has another type that don't do that, but they do something else. All that is gifts of the Spirit: apostles, prophets, pastors....

Do you believe that? Do you believe God sent me to do that? You do. Thank you, sister. Why did I call you sister? Because when you said that, I felt the Spirit say “That's right.”

Now you are here, and I see you. Now people can still hear me. The woman's having a sleepless time. She can't sleep. That's right. Very ... getting sick too, can't hardly eat. And you're getting very sick. You're afraid it's gallstones. That's right, that's exactly. You're right ... sick, nausea feeling. That's right. Then you're....

There is somebody else that you're interested in. That's your husband. And he has kind of a nervous ... mental nervousness, kind of a real mental nervousness. And he's bothered with some kind of a trouble he's in. He's trying to get something to ... a business deal ... it's a pension or something he's trying to get. That's right. It's a pension. That's it, a pension.

Then I see a little boy, about twelve years old, or something like that. He's just a little fellow. And he's really not your son, he's a ... he's ... you've raised him. And there is something ... you think that he's ... something's went wrong with him. He's just a little boy. He'll be all right. It's okay. When you go back home, everything will be all right. Go believe. Now God bless you, sister.

Do you believe God can tell me who you are? Do you believe that God can tell me who you are, lady? Mrs. Red, that's who you are. Sonny, it's all right. You mind your Auntie. She thought something happened, but it hasn't. You're just a little boy. You don't mean to do that. You go ahead, you'll be all right. Amen. My, how the Holy Spirit would like to break in on a thing like that.

How do you do? If the Holy Spirit can tell me what your trouble is, you believe Him? Then will you? You believe. All right. You have a nervous condition. You have roaring in your head—'r-r-r-r' going like that all the time. That's right. Then you was examined for a growth, and they found the growth was in the rectum. You believe with all your heart now? All right. Go on your road believing. You'll get well.

Do you believe with all your heart? Just have faith, don't doubt. Believe that Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It's a younger person that you are here for ... no, it's two. You got two daughters, and they both have ... like a nervous break like. That's right. Lord God, be merciful to them children. You believe if I just ... if I will speak His Word, do you believe they will come out of it? [She says, “I know it.”] Then go, receive. God bless you.

“If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”

You believe that, don't you? You believe with all your heart? You believe that baby with that throat trouble will get all right? All right, you can have it. I see that woman flashing here, and back there, and here, and I thought, “What was it?”—sitting there praying for a baby. All right. It'll get over it. It'll be all right. Don't doubt it.

Now you believe with all your heart? You believe that Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever? If the Lord Jesus will reveal to me what your trouble is, you'll believe Him? You have a nervous condition, complications. 'Course, a woman your age ... here's the great thing, is a growth. Do you believe God can tell me where the growth is? It's on your left breast. Is that right? All right, go believe it, and it'll come off. Have faith in God; don't doubt.

I seen something blessed happen, and something horrible happen just then. Obedience is better than sacrifice ... hearkening unto the heart ... fat of the rams. Is that right? Lord Jesus, be merciful. My, oh, my. Obedience ... sincerity and obedience ... how the Lord Jesus did something just then. I'm going to tell you in just a minute. Just believe, don't doubt.

You believe God will heal you there, sister, with the little yellow dress on, sitting there, looking like that? All right, you receive it. Just have faith; don't doubt. Believe.

Sitting right back there in that second row, you got throat trouble too. That lady looking right here at me, do you believe Jesus Christ ... make you well? You do? Yes, you had to get up to give somebody a place to get out. Five minutes more and you'd have been healed. You missed it, but you got it. You can have your request now. It leaves you.

You believe that God can make you well? You believe God can tell me what your trouble is? You got diabetes. Your husband's here with it too, isn't he? That's right. Both of you go get well. Go, believe with all your heart.

Asthmatic, nervous. Do you believe God can make you well? Do you believe with all your heart? Let me lay hands on you as you pass by. In the name of Jesus Christ, may she be healed.

Arthritis. You believe that God will make you well? Just go, say, “Thank You, Lord. I believe with all my heart.”

Oh, my. Nervous, arthritis, stomach. Just believe with all your heart. Go on, say, “Thank You, Lord, for making me well.”

You know, the blood is where our life is, isn't it? But God can heal anything. Do you believe that? Blood, or anything else. All right. It's over. Just go, say, “Thank You, Lord.” Go believe with all your heart.

What if I just laid hands on you, and said, “The Lord bless you,” would you believe you'd be healed? Come through then, see. In the name of Jesus Christ, God, make him well. Have faith.

I never seen so many people.... This lady here has arthritis too, complications and things. That's right. You believe God makes you well? All right. Go on, say, “Thank You, Lord Jesus.”

How many out there wants to believe now? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Do you believe that the mouth of God said this, that Jesus Christ is God in flesh? We know that. There's no argument about that. He wasn't just a prophet; He was God—God made manifest in the flesh. The last thing He said, according to the gospel, when He left the earth, “These signs shall follow them that believe. If they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.” Do you believe that with all your heart?

Now, how many believers are here? Raise up your hands. All right.

Now, I want you to do something. How many here have something wrong with them that they want to be prayed for? Raise up your hands. Now ... looks like every one. Now, here's what you do. You exercise your faith, I'll exercise my faith, and we'll make a union. It's getting late, but God....

And then, will you pray for the person that's got their hands laid on you, because they're going to be praying for you, see. Like here was someone, they had their hands on me; I had my hands on them. I'm praying for them; they're praying for me. I'm saying, “Lord, I am a believer. This lady, this gentleman, this boy, girl, whatever, is suffering. Please, dear God. I suffer, I know what they're going through with. Heal them, dear God.”

Be deeply sincere, now. Be deeply sincere. Just pray like ... that you'd want them to pray for you, see. Do to others as you'd have others do to you. Now you pray for the person you put your hand on just the way that you'd want Jesus to pray for you, see. Watch what happens. See, God's Word can't fail. Is that right? It's the truth, it just can't fail.

Now the first thing we do.... Let's just wait just a moment, and confess all of our unbelief, confess all of our sins, confess all that we've ever done that's wrong. Let's just say, “Lord Jesus, forgive me. Let....”

I want this to be a real meeting where Jesus Christ can be manifested, Jesus Christ can be magnified. Now while I am talking to you, just confess everything. Say, “Lord, I've had a lot of doubts. But right here in your presence tonight, when I stand and see the very thing that's totally impossible without You.... No one can do that.”

You'd be ashamed to call it an evil spirit, because that is unforgivable, see. Jesus said so—call the work of the Holy Spirit, that the Bible said He would do, and then call it an evil spirit, then that's unforgivable, see.

So, you say, “I'm standing right here now, knowing that [or sitting here, whatever position you're in], knowing that You're here.” Why, you couldn't do these things. “And now, our Brother Branham, he just has faith to believe that your Word is true, and he has a gift. I have a gift too, a gift of your love. I have a gift of your Spirit in me. I have a gift in me, and in that gift is healing. Now I'm asking healing for my sick friend sitting here. I'm asking healing, and they're going to ask healing for me. Now You forgive me of my sins. Lord Jesus, if I've done, or said anything wrong, forgive me. Reveal it to me, Lord. I'll go make it right. If You'll just reveal it, and show me what I have done wrong, I'll go make it right.”

And I pray now, for mercy for this audience. Grant it, Lord. Have mercy upon the sick and the afflicted. Those people are here praying. They believe. They've seen you present. I've seen You, Lord. All of us have seen the very evidence of the living God. We ... far ... for God. We've went so much ... far, Lord, on the other side, on the hybrid side, denominations, and creeds, and big churches, and the care of the day.

We Pentecostals, Lord, have seen You do so much, till we just harden ourself away from You almost. It's pitiful, Father. Forgive us of this thing. We've seen so much as it gradually come up to this, until we ... well, we've just forgotten the blessings, Lord. Forgive us, and help us, will You, Lord?

Now have mercy. And may the great Holy Spirit, that's present now, take charge of every believer in here. And now, as your servant, I pray for every sick person here. I ask You, Lord, to charge the hands that will be laid upon the sick. Let the power of the Holy Ghost be upon each one of these men, women, boys, and girls, as we're sitting together, Lord. People sitting here sick, Lord, they don't ... they come out here to be well. Let them come tomorrow night well. Grant it, Lord. Please do. Hear my prayer. I pray with all my heart that You'll do it, confessing everything that I know that's wrong.

And now, help us. And now, let the Holy Ghost take charge. And these people laying their hands upon one another, may ... that they may be made well right now. Grant it, Father, through Jesus Christ's name.

Now Satan, I charge you by the blood of Jesus Christ, that all-sufficient blood, that.... Through that life that was in that blood, that's now in our hearts, we've been changed from what we once was to Christians. We once was doubters; now we're believers. Our sins are under the blood. “He that will confess his sins shall have forgiveness.” We have confessed our sins, and we have forgiveness. Now we stand no more.... Our sins are in the sea of forgetfulness. We can no more be accused of sin. We have confessed it. We made things right. And now, the great chasm that was between us and God has been taken away. God put the sin in the sea of forgetfulness. He can never even remember us any more as sinners. We are no longer sinners. We are sons and daughters.

And now, we are here for deliverance for the flesh. And because we are believers, the Word said ... the Word—the Word that Christ left us—said, “These signs shall follow them that believe; if they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.” And this we are doing. By faith, we are doing it in the name of Jesus Christ.

Now each person in here, lay your hands on somebody by you. Lay your hands on somebody by you. And now say, “Satan, I charge thee. I charge thee, Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ, let loose of my friend. Get out of here. You're defeated. I prayed this prayer. I believe. Jesus Christ now makes me well to honor Him, to bring praise.” Believe it with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and God Almighty will grant it. God bless you.