A Secondhand Robe

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 I was talking with the pastor. I said... I asked him yesterday to call me, and come to find out, I just... All day long there was no calls, and I thought, "Well wonder what's wrong? Something's... Everything's so peaceful." And after awhile Sister Woods come up with a handful of calls; my phone had went out. So, if any of you had called... The phone rang, but it wouldn't echo in there, so the trouble was down at the switchboard. They fixed it about eight o'clock last night, or maybe a little before that, and the calls are coming through now.

2 We're happy to be in the service this morning. I got an awful cold, that usually I get when I come home. Wade around in snow up to your waist, and sleep out at night, never think of it away from here, but just cross that hill there at New Albany is all you have to do to get in this valley, then I got a bad cold. And I don't know, there's something right in the valley here that keeps down, low and it just don't agree with me at all.
Now, we're happy to be at the church, as I said, and to be hearing our dear good pastor offer his word of petition for us, to the Lord Jesus. And to hear... Sad to hear so many sick and needy and how the devil is on the rampage; making everybody sick.
And a little lady raised up about her sister back there. And I know Sister Sires down there, was with her. The doctor sent her home to die now. And she still believes she's going to be healed. And she's in a serious, very serious condition. My mother-in-law, the same way. Seventy years old now, she's in very bad condition. Certainly a lot of sickness around the country. And then there is a Holy Spirit around the country, see, that heals our sickness, if we can only find favor with Him.

3 And now, being that my throat is sore ... not sore, but it's raw; and I'm not going to try to preach but just speak to you awhile from the Word, and then go into praying for the sick, which I'd promised to do. But just before doing this I would like to announce some more meetings.
In my services I have had kind of a little opposition of ... not opposition, but just a little misunderstanding. And many times I don't have the outlets to my service as many of the other brothers on the field has, such as radio and television and magazines and so forth. And in doing so why, someone would say, "Brother Branham's to be here." And I'm advertised in three places for this week, just today, three different places. One down in Kentucky, two in California, that I know of. And there's nothing you can do about it, 'cause I haven't got any other official outlet, so it makes it kind of hard.

4 And if there happened to be someone from down around Madisonville, Kentucky, here, I was announced to be down there last week and I didn't know nothing about it. And I come home and they had announced it, and the brother that did it by the name of Eppings (I believe that was his name), with all good faith he did it. He called me and asked if we could just drop down to be a blessing and get a blessing from his people. And he called, I told him to ask Brother Moore. Well then, I had to leave. I told him I had to leave the same day. Well, Brother Moore failed to let anyone know. And when... Or, let me know or let my wife know.
So, I was up in Idaho and just come back and the meeting was on. So, I seen doing that... It can't make arrangements from Louisiana for things that's going on here. So, I just took over the arrangements myself, to make my own arrangements for the meetings until my meetings has... I just kind of...
Oh, I don't know, I think confession is good for the soul, don't you think so? I've just been too dilatory about these things. And just letting anyone anywhere just haphazardly let it go. And I find out it doesn't pay. After a long time you put... You have to have some system to it.

5 And now I am trying to make the arrangements and I'm going to see Mrs. Arnold. There's a man here in Louisville that's been very good when I was having meetings here. His name is Brother Durvan, and he wanted a night or two service. I'm going to see her little Teddy, I believe Teddy Arnold, for some time this week.
And then the coming Saturday and Sunday, if I can, the Lord willing, I want to be down at Madisonville. They had twenty-five, thirty ministers out there. All of them sitting there, come for some six, seven hundred miles. Well, no one there, so... wasn't there. And no fault of my own, but I just through misunderstanding or neglecting to call him. I'll try to be down there next weekend, the Lord willing.
Then on the fifth to the sixth, I'm in Brooklyn, New York. And then from... Then on the 14th, 15th, and 16th in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Just made those two arrangements last night and this morning. Now Charlotte, South Carolina, is just on the list, but I don't know. Then the holidays come on and we go over to the West Coast, which they're fixing a big auditorium meeting. Now, these are little meetings, like in high schools and things like that. The one over there on the West coast is going to be two cities, a joint city, a meeting of Oakland and San Francisco.
And then the Phoenix delegation, being that Brother Roberts can't be there this year, I'm to kind of take his place down at Phoenix in the whole Maricopa region meetings. That's a union effort. And pray for me because I need it. And I realize that every time faith sets itself up, the devil turns every gun in hell right on it like that, you see. So it makes it pretty hard.

6 So, this morning, to pray for the sick. I want to read some of God's eternal Word and speak just a few moments from the Scriptures and then have prayer for the sick. Oh, how I love to talk about Him, don't you? I just love to talk about Him. Now, I want to read out of the Bible, II Kings the 2nd chapter, the 12th verse, a portion of it.
And Elisha saw it, and ... cried, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!
And now, for a way of a text ... or, a subject, I want to speak on A Secondhanded Robe. So, may the Lord add His blessing as we talk to you this morning. And you be in prayer for us.

7 During this time of the reign of Israel in the land, Israel was a nation. And it was a mighty nation, and it was kind of a peaceful time among the military part of it; but in the spiritual part of it, it was kind of a time of impersonation. And if we look back into the Old Testament, we can always find examples of what's going on today. Always in the Bible, the things that are now are just the antetypes of what was at the beginning.
Now, the book of Genesis produces everything that's in the world today. There's nothing in the world but what didn't begin in Genesis, for it is the beginning. In there started every ism. In Genesis started everything that started. And the true church started in Genesis. And the false believer started in Genesis. And the indifference started in Genesis. Genesis was the beginning.

8 And now during the reign of Elijah ... or, the pilgrimage of Elijah, here on earth, which was God's prophet for the hour. And God has never left Himself on the earth without a witness. God has always, somewhere, some place, had a person that He could put His hands on and would stand for a witness. So, if He's did that down since Genesis, the beginning, surely somewhere God has a man that He can lay His hand now. For He's more than one man now. He has many men that He can lay His hand on, because we're coming down to the gathering time, the harvest time.
Genesis was a planting of the seed, and these six thousand years has been the maturing of the harvest, and now the seed has become a seed itself. It's went back to the blossom and from the blossom to the fruit. And it's the gathering time now, harvest time, all the great things that started. The true church that started in Genesis, has come down to the fruit time: The fruit of the Spirit. And the antichrist that started in Genesis, is come down to its fruit. And we're just in the closing time of this world's entire dispensation of the mortal being.
And it's the greatest time that anyone, or at any age, ever lived, is this time. It's a shaking time. It's a troublesome time for sinners. But it's a marvelous time for Christians, because we know that we are packing up ... or, gathering the last little efforts together to go home and meet the Lord. Now, people today, as you look around and see the great trouble and distress facing the nations, where...

9 A few nights ago I was talking to someone, was one of these here lookout agents that watches, and they said, "Brother Branham, we were just instructed by the government never to advise people anymore to lay down away from the window on the floor if the bomb hits, or never to go into a basement, because this new bomb that they could radio guide from Moscow to Fourth Street in Louisville and hit right on the street; shoot it up, it's got things in it, explodes it, and takes it so many thousands, so many thousands; guide it by the stars and radar, and drop it exactly on Fourth Street in Louisville, from Moscow, Russia. And when it would hit there, don't have to use a plane nor nothing, just scoot it off here and it'll land right there. And it will blow a hole in the ground of the area ... the depth of a hundred and seventy-five feet for fifteen square miles either way it goes. Fifteen square miles."
There ain't nothing to do but get ready to take a flight upstairs, is the only thing to do when them times come. Just think, they can shoot fifty of them or a hundred of them at one time if they wanted to. It'd all be over within the space of, I believe it's sixty or eighty minutes ... or, seconds, rather, from there to here, to the entire annihilation of the whole thing would take place. There wouldn't be nothing left between Louisville and Henryville, and between Louisville and Bardstown, or down in there, but one hole in the ground with a bunch of dust laying in it, that's all'd be left. Besides the areas it would go out and burn for miles and miles and miles beyond that. And while one's dropping there, another one's dropping over somewhere else to meet with it.

10 I'm so glad that we have a shelter. "The name of the LORD is a mighty tower: the righteous run into it, and are safe." No matter how many bombs, or how many anything else, we're safe there. So, the world and the sinner not having this shelter ... or, this safety place, it's a shaking time. I believe if I wasn't a Christian, I'd go crazy; to thinking of what might happen at any time. And with a houseful of little kiddies and everything, I wouldn't know what to do.
But I'm so glad that I can stand in my house and introduce to them a shelter that no bomb could ever touch, or nothing else. Under the protecting wings of the Lord Jesus. "Not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, saith the LORD," see. That is our protection.
And what a great, glorious time it is to know that all sin and struggles and trials of life will soon be over. It'll all finish one of these days and we'll go home to be with the Lord. Now what's left is a time to preach the Gospel, and to bring into this great tower as much, as many as we can.

11 And then, as we see the pattern of our lesson today, of Elijah during his reign ... or, his pilgrimage on earth, why, he was a great, mighty man. God was using him in mighty ways, with mighty power. And we find out that during this time, there was a group of impersonators who tried to impersonate Elijah, who tried to do the same things Elijah done. And so we find the same thing today: impersonation of Christianity: people who try to act like Christians, who try to make themselves Christians. You can't do that. God has to do that. He's the only one who can do it.
So, they formed a school and called it the School of the Prophets. And they all went up to the School of the Prophets and they educated them. And I could imagine all those preachers up there wearing the same kind of coat that Elijah wore. I can imagine trying to impersonate him on his voice, the way he spoke and the way he presented himself. Everyone trying to do the same thing, because Elijah was a great man used of God.
And we find the same thing today. I was listening to the radio broadcast not long ago. They got Billy Grahams all over this country since Billy was in Louisville. Everybody trying to impersonate the same thing almost: comb their hair the same way, and wear the same thing, and same kind of voice and so forth. But you can't do that. You just got to be who you are and what God made you to be. That's right. And so, we find how that perhaps in them days the same thing took place.

12 Now, God seeing ... foreseeing that Elijah's days were numbered, that he had so long he could stay here on earth, as everyone has. So, he was going to have a successor to Elijah. And when He did, God called this man. He wasn't in no seminary when He called him. He was plowing in a field with a yoke of ox, doing the service, taking care of his mother and father. And God called him to be the successor of Elisha ... or, Elijah. Perhaps many up at the school thought they was surely going to be his successor. They was going to wear his robe as soon as he was finished with it. But God does the calling. God does the choosing. God does the electing. God does the setting in order.
God has set in the church some apostles, some prophets, some teachers, some evangelists, and pastors. God does that Himself. We cannot make one hair black or white, neither can we add one thing to our stature by taking thought. God in His infinite grace and by His election and His foreknowledge sets these things in order, and every wheel works just right. I like that. I would be a discouraged man this morning if I didn't believe in the election and calling of God.

13 If I thought that this world was left to the outcome of it, by the power of men and by the wisdom of men and by the Big Fours and the UN's and ... who never even mention God's name, I'd be a discouraged person. But I'm not looking to that for the outcome. I look down in the pages of this old book here, where God wrote it out, and everything will come just exactly the way He said it, and that's all.
So, the only thing for me to do is not line up with them, but line up with Calvary. Line up with God. Line up with His Word. Stay in His Word. No matter how much it looks like it's going to be that way, it's going to be the way God intends it to be. It can't be nothing else. For Him, being infinite, knows the end from the beginning and He makes everything come to His praises. That's right. All things will have to work together. Everything will have to shape right up to its place.
My, if that wouldn't make the courage in a Christian. Nothing can go wrong. After all, it's not our Bible, it's His. It's not our wisdom, it's His. And the only one thing we have to do is put our faith and trust there and sit still and see the glory of God. See how it moves around to its place and every wheel move and it may be scattered from side to side, but it'll move right into its right place when God speaks the Word. He knew the end from the beginning. He knew who He was going to choose. He knew Elisha would take Elijah's place before the world was ever formed. Everything has to work just exactly right.
And we're worried about our loved ones and so forth, will they ever come in? Their names, if they were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world, they'll work right in there; that's the only thing it could do. We give witness and shine the light. God is the one that brings them to it.

14 Now, notice in Elijah. Then after he threw his robe on him and tried it on him... In other words, Elijah the prophet, who had the mantle of God on his shoulders, he came down and laid it across Elisha, the farmer, to see if it would fit him. And it taken about ten years to get altered to fit that mantle. You know, God usually puts us in the shop and trims us up. Now, He didn't alter His robe to fit Elisha; he altered Elisha to fit the robe. And that's what He does today. He alters us to fit the robe, not the robe to fit us. Sometimes we want to make the robe fit us. But we can't do that. You got to be altered yourself for the robe. It's God's robe and He made it perfect. And we've got... He's got to bring us into that realm to make the robe fit us.
So, we can't be perfect ourselves; we know we can't. There's no way for us to be, and yet He said for us to be. So what He did, He made appropriation for us; the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness. That's where the perfection comes of ignoring our own holiness, of which we have none, and our own thoughts which ought not to be, but we rest solemnly upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus. God sent Him to the earth and it was in Him that we rest.

15 Notice, all these years, as far as we know, he just had that one baptism: of the robe going over him. But through the years God had molded the man's character into a place to where, after he was called, that he would fit into the robe and be the servant of the Lord. And then when Elijah passed through and throwed it on him and they started up towards Gilgal and many of the other places, they went on to the School of Prophets, on their road, journeying on.
And finally Elijah was trying to get Elisha to turn back. Did you notice it? Trying to get him to turn back, said, "I..." Otherwise, "Maybe the road's a little too steep for you, son. Maybe it's a little too narrow for you to walk." You know where Elijah was, was straightness. And wherever God's true servant preaches the Gospel, it's a straight, unadulterated Gospel, where it's preached.

16 Well, one day he went up there to the School of the Prophets to visit them, and they asked him to leave. They said, "It's too straight around here for us." What we need today is some more straight Gospel preaching that'll separate the wheat from the chaff, or the right from the wrong. Make what's right right and what's wrong is wrong.
All these fellows with their experience, and all that they were, just sent out to get something to eat; and one of them got a wild vine, and gathered some wild gourds and cooked up some death in their ecclesiastical pot. And the first thing you know, they cried out, "There's death in the pot."
But Elisha, with a double portion, knowed what to do. So he put a handful of meal in the pot, said, "Now, go right ahead and eat it." In other words they'd...

17 Today, in a type, I would think that we've got a lot of Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostals, and everything else, all mixed together, and one fighting against the other. And we don't need to oust the whole thing and do away with it; we need another handful of meal. Keep the same church.
The meal was from the house of the school there, which was the meal offering that the people had brought in. And the first fruits of the harvest which was grounded a certain burr that made every grain of meal the same.
And then, when this meal being the same, was a type of Christ. Meal is life. And when the type of Christ, the meal, being ground up, the same meaning: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. And the meal and the meal offering. And when they put this meal into there, putting Christ into death brought life. That's what makes the difference. In our dead form, in our differences, in our ecclesiastical arguments and everything, if we would just bring Christ into it, it would change death and separation into life, if we would just do it.
There's nineteen million Baptists in America. There's thirteen million Methodists in America. There's eleven million Lutherans in America. And ten million Presbyterians in America. And God only knows how many Catholics, which outdo any of the denominations. But in all of it, what do we need? A handful of meal. We need to bring life to the church. And Christ is the life. He came to bring us life.

18 So, they had their disputes and their schools and their theologies and so forth. And then Elijah told Elisha, "You better turn back, because the way may be a little hard." But a man of God who's once faced it ... or, been throwed across His shoulder, the robe of God's righteousness and power, it's not too easy to turn back.
When I heard the pastor say this morning that many are becoming discouraged. What we need, brother, is take courage. What we need is to be encouraged. It's right. Trials may come, we never was promised to be immune from them, but He will give grace to go through them. If the mountain is too high to go over, too deep to go under, too wide to go around it, He'll give grace to go through it. That's right. Just don't worry, but keep your eyes on Christ, for He's the only one that can take us through.

19 Now, we see him as they journey on, come to the school. And he said, "You stay here now. Be here and settle down and be a good teacher of theology, and so forth. And you probably someday may become the dean of the college here. But I've got to go on down a little farther." Could you imagine a man of God being satisfied to be a dean of a college when the power of God laid right around where he was standing? No, sir. He said, "As the Lord liveth, and your soul liveth, I will not leave you." I like that. Stay with it no matter how much discouragement comes from your mother, your papa, or from your pastor; stay with him.

20 On to the Jordan they went. They crossed over, and Elijah said, "Now, what will you that I do for you?"
He said, "A double portion of your spirit to come upon me." He knowed he had a work to do. He said, "A double portion." Not just a good warm experience, not just a good handshake, or a good fellowship with the rest of the church; but what I want is a double portion of what's the best now.
I tell you, when God sets a man for a world task, he's got to have something better than the world's got. He's got to have something better than the church has got. He's got to go for a double portion. And if there ever was a time that a double portion is needed, it's today, in the realms of the people. Something better, something higher. I think beans and corn bread is very good, but sometimes I have to reach up a little higher. And we do that. We've got to. We got to keep climbing. Israel was backsliding if they kept staying on the same grounds. He's got to be moving on or moving back. And that's the way the church is.

21 So, as they went along, it wasn't but a few minutes until he said, "You've asked a great thing: but nevertheless, if you see me when I go, you can have what you ask for."
Now, that has to be singleness of motive, singleness of heart, singleness of eye, keeping your eye on the promise. If you're sick this morning, if you're afflicted, there's one great promise. Not by Elijah, but by God Himself. "If thou canst believe." When you pray, believe that you get what you ask for and you shall receive it. No matter what the doctor says, how much this goes or that goes, keep single on the promise.
Elijah give him a condition. "If you see me when I go, it'll come on you." There's a promise. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to them that believe."

22 Sometimes I look at myself and think I've been such a jellyfish in my life. I have waited and missed many thousands of souls into the kingdom, because I've waited and said, "God," depending too much on a spiritual gift, and said, "Lord, if You'll just show me, if You'll give me a vision what to do." And God give the vision, then I'll turn around and let somebody talk me into something else.
And oh, I have never come to the spot yet, until I ... like I have at this time, that I feel it's a faith, that we must step out there because it's a promise. And the things that He has done, and the healings that He has performed, and the miracles, even so much as come down and have His picture taken by the side of us, and so forth, which has never been known since the world began. And then stand around like a jellyfish, it even makes me discouraged with myself. It's time to keep your eye on the promise. And that's what, by God's grace, I aim to do.
And I realize that every devil of hell will shoot at it. But by God's grace, I aim to keep my eye on the promise.

23 Elisha said, "If you..." Elijah said, "If you see me when I go, you'll have what you ask for." That's right. You got to keep your eye on it, watch the promise. Now, what if some of the school, if he turned back and say, "Hey boys, how am I doing now, following right along behind the prophet?" He'd have failed maybe. But he didn't care what the school thought, or what all the teachers thought. He didn't care what the neighbors thought, or the houses, or who looked at him. He kept his faith in the promise.
What we need today is faith in the promise of God. And don't pay no attention to what this one says, or that one says. As a brother said, "A minister had two girls that were mutes, and that their (criticism on divine healing) that the children could not be healed."
Don't pay no attention to the critics. Keep your faith on the promise. God said so. "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and God shall raise them up." If He can make one deaf mute to hear, He can make another deaf mute to hear. We know by infallible proof that He does that. Keep our faith on the promise. Our eye single, our ear single, our heart single, and one thing on Jesus Christ; and He's able to perform that which He has promised. Oh, when we think of that, it changes the whole scene, when we get that. God made the promise. God was the one that said it. Now, here was God's representative said it. And now God Himself has said it. Then what can we do? Nothing but keep our mind on that.
Said, "If you see me when I go away, you can have the promise." Elisha kept his eyes on Elijah. No matter what hollered from each side, what taken place on each side, what taken place before, or back, he never even looked at it; he kept his eyes on the promise. There you are. Your eyes on the promise.
I think of the lady that we visited the other night, Sister Styler, and the doctor telling her how bad she was (And I never told her; told the loved one), and how impossible it be for her to ever get well. Now, brother... Her son-in-law asked me about it. I said, "If she can keep her eyes on the promise." No matter what takes place, keep your eyes on the promise.

24 A few weeks ago, Sister Woods here, and Brother Woods, two bosom friends of ours here at the church. I was in Michigan with my friends Leo and Gene. We left the Chicago meetings and went to some of their people for two days to go deer hunting with bows and arrows. And on my road back, my wife had got a hold of me, and she said, "Pray for Mrs. Wood's mother. A cancer that is eating off her face." And said, "I have never seen Sister Woods so alarmed, she's weeping."
Sister Woods has always been a hero of faith since God healed her boy of a crippled leg, and healed her with TB and so forth. But she'd given down. There at the room that night we prayed. Coming in, Mrs. Woods said, "Brother Branham, we'll go over." And we went to her mother, which was in Louisville. And she'd had a cancer on the side of her nose. And the doctor had tampered with it, scattered it to just a little ring the side of her nose and up just about an eighth of an inch from her eye. Just the bone laying there, just eating it just as fast as it could eat away.

25 Go into the room and I knelt down, I said, "I want to speak to her alone." And I go into the room to pray with the woman. And while in the room, I thought, "O God, if You'll just show me a vision of what's going to happen to the woman."
Mr. and Mrs. Woods sitting on the outside waiting to see what the vision would say. But while I was there I got condemned. I was condemned by waiting for a vision, seemed like something referred back, "Wasn't the calling. What do you need a vision when the promise is already been said." So, I knelt down and prayed. And while praying, something just answered on the inside, the faith of the promise.
Come back out and Mrs. Woods, when I told her about it, she said, "Did you see anything, Brother Branham?"
I said, "I never exactly seen anything, but I felt something that told me that His promise was true and He was going to do it. And I believe that He's going to do it."
And in less than twenty-four hours the end of that cancer begin to break away and a scab form over it. Cancers don't scab as you know, 'less it's dead. So, there it was now and the woman is healed and home. What a wonderful Christ! By keeping our eyes on the promise. God said so.

26 But when we are prayed for sometimes, we go off and say, "Well, it wasn't done just immediately, so maybe we'd better go back again." Oh, no. Keep your eye on the promise. God said so, that settles it. That's all of it. If God said so, God's able to keep His promise, or He'd never make it.
Abraham called those things which were not as though they were. And for twenty-five years stood on the impossible, because he counted God was able to perform what He had promised. Amen. And we are the children of Abraham by faith. Certainly Elijah kept his eyes on ... or, Elisha on Elijah.

27 And as they went on... And after awhile the chariot come and parted them, one to one side and the other. And there He picked up Elijah upon... He stepped on the chariot and went up and put his robe off his shoulders and threw it back to Elisha, because Elisha had growed into it, you know. So it would fit him right. And could you imagine... Oh, I want you to give me your undivided attention, as I feel my throat tickling. I want to ask you something. Could you imagine how Elisha felt when he picked up this robe, placed it upon his own shoulders? Oh, what a feeling!

28 I don't mean this to be personal, but about ten years ago, from the pulpit here, I preached on a sermon, "David, the warrior, with a sling in his hand and Goliath before him." In them days there were no healing campaigns on the field, nowhere, as we knew of. And, oh, how critical people were on divine healing. But there was something, after meeting with a being. And the pastor told me that I was losing my mind, that it couldn't be so. But from this same box here, I spoke on David, said, "Do you mean to tell me that this, the armies of the living God, will let that uncircumcised Philistine defy this army?"
A little old stoop-shouldered, curly-haired boy with a sheepskin coat on and a sling shot in his hand, with the whole army of Israel standing backed up and he alone walked out with a man with a spear some nineteen feet long and a thing on the end of it weighed several shekels, maybe twenty pounds of steel sharpened, a nineteen foot spear, with fingers fourteen inches long.
And David probably weighed ninety pounds, and stood bouncing up and down like a little banty rooster. And then you mean to tell me, oh my, that you'll let that uncircumcised Philistine, if he stays in his place, let him stay, but he's defying the armies of the living God. Oh my! What a hero.

29 "And all of you are afraid to go fight." Said, "Let me have him." Oh my! He said, "The God of heaven let me kill a lion with this slingshot. He let me kill a bear with this slingshot. And how much more will He deliver that uncircumcised Philistine into my hand." Certainly. And when the first victory was won, and Goliath was downed, the whole armies of Israel followed David. And they chopped heads, and beat Israel ... or, beat the Philistines, plumb into their own land. They backed them into the corners and slaughtered them and took their cities and everything. They had the victory.
Brother and sister, the same thing has been done in the realms of the supernatural, when they said, "Divine healing cannot work. The days of miracles is past." If the days of miracles is past, the days of God are past. The church that don't believe in supernatural will finally die and God will leave the church ... have to. And God gave a promise and God's promises is eternal.

30 Here some time ago when some girls was fooling with radium, and would dip it and paint the radium hands on the watches. I have some on this one. And a girl made a mistake and took the brush and stuck it in her mouth. It killed her. And years and years later they took a microscope and put it on the skull of that girl, and they could still hear that radium going on, "Burr, urr, urr." It's endless. It keeps working, on and on. There's no stopping to it.
And, oh, brother, if radium has that kind of an effect in it, how much more will the endless, eternal, supernatural, all powerful, all infinite, almighty God. He has to have the same effect. As He started, He has to have it all through, or He's not the Almighty, all-powerful God. He's still waiting for somebody with a burly faith that will step out and challenge the enemy on the basis of His Word and say that its so.

31 And now, what happened? As soon as the great healing campaigns started, then thousands of soldiers, of God's men, who laid back in little churches, like Oral Roberts, Tommy Hicks, and many of the other outstanding men on the field, pulled their swords and away they went. This Sword that cuts both coming and going, up and down, and in and out, a discerner of the thoughts, even to the marrow of the bone. They pulled their Bibles, their swords, walked out when they seen that it could be done and we beat the enemy by the grace of God, till the whole world's had a healing revival. Can be done.
Little pastors, who had little two by four churches and so forth, caught fire and seen the vision, jerked the sword and went forth and defied the enemy. How do you know it'll work? There's great men, Congressman Upshaw, King George of England, and many great men who laid sick and afflicted are healed by the power of Almighty God. So they can't say nothing about it now---time. Certainly.

32 Then when Elijah, after his whole heart's desire was to get that promise; he wanted the promise. That was his motive. That was his all. That was his life. That was his intent. Everything, all, everything hung on getting that promise.
I'm persuaded to believe that we're not sincere about this thing that we're talking about. If your whole motives this morning rests upon "giving God praise for my healing... I'm determined to be healed by the power of God. I'm determined to live a Christian life. I'm determined to walk in peace with God. I'm determined to do it. I don't care what mother says, what church says, what pastor says, what anybody else says, what the world says, I'm determined. That's the singleness of my heart." You're going to get somewhere then.
Then when Elijah saw that he was determined, said get ... Elijah saw that Elisha was determined, he gave him the promise. Now, the promise was, "If thou can see me when I go. If you can see me when I leave." Now, it's left up to Elisha. He wanted to hear the promise, so he's got the promise. Now, there's an "if" in it. "If you can see me when I go."
Now, if you're sick this morning and you want to be healed, I can prove to you Christ gave you the promise. The promise is yours. "If thou canst believe." If thou canst believe. Don't be defeated.

33 Now, Elisha wrapped in the robe of Elijah, the prophet. What a conqueror's march. How he walked treading ahead, as a conqueror. He had heard the promise. He felt the power. He was walking like a warrior, right down the Jordan.
Praise be to God, friends. Every believer this morning that's robed in the righteousness of Christ is walking: towards the Jordan road. That's right. Let atomic bombs come. Let it however way. You're robed and walking the conqueror. Amen. "Fear not, I have overcome the world." Yes, sir. Remember, what? "I have overcome the world." Christ said that.
Elisha was walking with a secondhanded robe on, feeling like a conqueror. Correctly. Coming to the Jordan. Brother, let me say this in respect to you. Don't you put on somebody else's robe that's all moth-eaten with doubts, where all these deceits and superstitions and ups and downs has put holes in it, and it leaking all through. You put on the robe of the conqueror, Christ. Don't trust in your church who once taught salvation by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who once taught divine healing and now deny it, all eat up with the moths of doubt and everything else. Put on the robe of Him that never lost a battle, for you're on your road to Jordan. Amen.

34 Now, he had on a secondhanded robe, that's true. And many of the people this morning has secondhanded robes on. But when he come to the Jordan, he realized that the robe alone wouldn't do the work. That's right. And the church, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Presbyterian, oh, we have schools and, my, we have all the ethics of the Bible down pat. We've got all the woven robe all right, the promises. We've got it all. Oh, we're baptized, go down, and we're very apostolic. We have on the apostolic faith. We believe in divine healing. We believe in God. We believe in the powers of God. We baptize, in the Bible, the way the Bible says. We've received the Holy Ghost. We've spoke in tongues. We do all of that.
But, brother, if that's the only thing you need, you'll find your lack too when you come to Jordan. Oh, you may be taught, you may be smart, you may have a DD, Doctor of Divinity. You may have a PhD, Doctor of Philosophy. You may have LLD, Doctor of Latin. You may have all kinds of degrees. You may have the robe of the Methodist church on you. You may have robe of Pentecostal church on you. You may have the robe of the Assemblies on you, the Oneness, or the Trinitarians, or whatever it might be. It's only a secondhanded robe to begin with. That's right. Some man-made dogmas that's been thought up, so forth like that.

35 And even if you have been a Christian, and the church has been a Christian, and robed correctly... But when Elisha, standing out, conspicuous to a whole bank line full of prophets and critics, seeing what he would do... And here he come walking with Elijah's robe on. Oh my! He's schooled otherwise, he's educated, he's submitted, he believes. There's nothing wrong with him. He's coming down to the Jordan. The world's a watching him.
O God, how we need that today. With many schooled and educated scholars, with many men who can tear that Bible apart and set it together in mathematics. Many men who can do great things in the ways of teaching who knows Bible history to the very moment. Who could tell you the hour that hell was lit and the hour it went out. They can tell you all these things. And they got the water baptism. They've got the spiritual baptism, as they call it, the robe. They got everything just set in order. So did Elisha.

36 But when he come down to the Jordan to face the critical world, what did he cry? "Where is the God of Elijah?" It wasn't the robe of Elijah that done it. It was the power of the God of Elijah that done it.
And the thing the world needs this morning is the power of the God of Elijah. You might have spoke with tongues and shouted and run over the floor, but what we need is the power of the God of Pentecost to produce the lives and things, that was lived in that day in the apostolic hour. A secondhanded robe was all right, but he needed a fresh call in his heart from God. He needed a fresh anointing from God. He wore a secondhanded robe when he come to the river, but he needed a brand new, first-handed call from God and a first-handed power from God to perform the miracle.

37 And my brother, don't you be afraid to ask God anything. You must demand God ... or, ask God for anything that He has promised. For if I am introducing a God that's omnipotent and all powerful, and if I be a servant of God, I must do the works of God. And if I do the works of God, I must be man of God to bring these things to pass, because He's demanding of me to produce the impossible. I have to ask Him. I have to call upon Him and stand there and say, "God, You promised it." So do you. Every person.
"You shall receive power," Acts 1:8, "after the Holy Spirit is come upon you." After the Holy Spirit is come upon you, after you're robed as a Christian, after your faith is set in Christ, then you shall receive power. There you are. Yes.
And, brother, sister, every one of you this morning... May I say this before praying for the sick, may I say this, by God's help, you pray for me as I stood ten years ago at this platform preaching on David and Goliath.
Now, it isn't that Goliath is hindering me. God has slayed him before me. But the thing that is hindering me is the lack of faith, the lack of something that I knowed was around. And this morning before this little tabernacle again, I'm screaming, "Where is the God who gave this promise? Where is the God who met with us yonder? Come forward, God, and give me a courage. Give me a strength. Give me a determined mind, regardless of what comes or goes. Whether it looks dark, or whether it looks... Whatever it looks like, move on, the promise is true."

38 Brother, sister, one of these days... To you sinner friends here this morning, and to you people who are trying to impersonate Christianity, you may belong to church. That's very fine. I have nothing to say against that. Nothing against your fine, scholarly education, or against your theology. I have nothing against that. But, oh, where is the God?
It wasn't Elijah after all. It wasn't Elijah who opened up that river. It wasn't his robe. Elisha took it from his shoulder; he folded it just the same way that Elijah did. But when he begin to kind of wave it, there was no power there. Then he cried, knowing that God was somewhere, "Where is that God. Where is He?" Then something must have struck the prophet, for he waved that robe and struck the waters, and she opened hither to thither. And before the clergy of that day, before the critics of that day, he walked across the Jordan just like Elijah did before him.

39 We don't need the teaching, we have that. But we need the God of Elijah. We need the power of the God of Elijah back in our church; the power to make us hold there, and call God's Word right, regardless. And we're everyone here this morning, as human beings, on our road to Jordan. And when he came to Jordan... You're going to arrive there one of these mornings, or one of these nights. When he came to Jordan, he was walking as a conqueror. But when he came to Jordan, that was a difference. He had a secondhanded robe on; another man had wore it. But it was a good robe, and he knew what the man was that wore the robe.

40 And, brother, sister, one of these mornings I got to come down to Jordan. I was thinking this afternoon, we're going down to Brother and Sister Wright's. Don't forget them, this is their golden wedding anniversary. I'm to leave the church here, going to have a dinner with them.
I was thinking the other day, "Fifty years." And I see them both well aged and stricken down. I thought, "Yes, I'm forty-seven years old; they was just married three years before I was born." Forty-seven, I'm marching towards Jordan. I've got to come down. I've got to get there. I'm going to arrive there. It may be an accident on the road. I may drop from the air in a plane. I may be shot through with a devil's dart somewhere and die. I don't know how I'm going; but there's one thing I know, I'm going. But I'm walking towards Jordan. But when I get there, I want to know one thing, that I've got a secondhanded robe on too. I ain't trusting in mine, cause it's no good.
For as soon as Elisha picked up Elijah's robe, he tore his into pieces and threw it down. And that's the way it was when I found Christ. I tore my own self up, my own ideas, my own nonsense, my little petty things. And I thought when I was a little Baptist preacher I was just about as... I was somebody. But I tore it out. I put on His robe. And when I come to Jordan, I want to find myself wrapped in His robe. He will follow that. And we'll arrive there one day. So, let us pray just a moment.

41 Heavenly Father, as we're on our Jordan march this morning as conquerors, and some day we got to present something to the Jordan, that's to death. And, oh, what a horrible thing it'll be, a separation from God. We can't cross over. No. But Elisha when he got there, he had on Elisha's robe... Elijah's robe. And when he took off the robe, the... Elijah, the man who had been well pleasing in Your sight, and You had accepted him and brought him up into heaven with You. And Elisha was wearing his robe, so he presented to the Jordan, death, the robe of Elijah. And it was accepted, and the Jordan opened and he walked across.
Dear God, someday we got to come down. We can't present our good works, we have none. We can't present anything in the world. I don't even desire anything to try to present, but I trust wholly in the merits of Jesus. You accepted Him and raised Him from the dead. And He was brought into the presence of God, and there it will abide forever. God, I want to present that to You, that I believe on Him. And I love Him. And by grace He has clothed us with His robe.
And I pray, Father, that You'll help us now in the days of battle. And where the man of God must do the works of God, I pray that You'll let us take the robe of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and call for the God who lived in Him. Grant it. In Christ's name we ask it.

42 And while we have our heads bowed, I just wondering here this morning if there's a person who's trying to walk down to Jordan without this robe on. If there's a person who has not the robe of Jesus Christ on you, and though it was wore one time by the Son of God, I wonder if you don't have that on this morning, if you'd raise your hands to God and say, "Dear God, this hour I now want to accept it." God bless you, lady. Would someone else would raise your... God bless you, son. Someone else will just raise up your hand? God bless you, little boy. God bless you, young man. Someone else to raise their hand? God bless you back there, sir.

43 Just say, "By God's help this morning, I want to forsake my self-righteousness, my own ideas and my thoughts of pleasures and big time and sin that I've lived in. And I want Christ to put His robe on me this morning. I will use His robe, for I know it's a perfect one." God bless you, son.
Someone else, saying, "I will just raise..." You raise your hand, say, "I now want to accept the Holy Spirit in my life. I want to be robed in His righteousness. When I get there that day, I won't present myself and say, 'Well now, you know, I bought somebody some coal. I did this.'" That's nice, that's very nice. For that, something had to die for you to live. And only through the act of that can you be saved. Will you raise your hand, say, "Christ, I now forsake my own ways, I accept Your ways. I want You to have mercy on me when I come to the end of the road." God bless you, lady. God bless you. All right. Now, we're going to have prayer.

44 Now, righteous Heavenly Father, some seven, eight, ten hands has went up. I do not know their status. Thou knowest all about them. I do not know. But they're in need today and they realize that they're in need, and they're willing to come and accept help in a time of trouble. To see the great hour that's at hand now: the atomic bombs, the great things that's waiting for us.
And I pray, Heavenly Father, that You will bless these people and today lay Your hand upon them and take away all their iniquity and doubt. And may they throw away their old moth-eaten robe of self-righteousness where the canker worms and the crickets and the moths of superstitions and churchanity has eat holes through it; and it won't hold any longer. May they just throw it away and reach over and get the robe of the Lord Jesus. Say, "I trust in Him. I wrap myself, not in my righteousness or on my own thoughts, but from this hour on I'm trusting You." Grant that they'll receive it, Father. For we ask it Christ's name. Amen.