Abraham restored

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Good evening, friends. It's a privilege to be back again, tonight, at the church to speak on the Word, the eternal Word of the eternal God of heaven. A little tired... We had two services this morning at the Christian Businessmen's Fellowship breakfast. The Lord gave us a great blessing. Something happened to my own life, and I'll never forget it.
And so I'm so grateful to the Lord, in a confirmation of what ... that I'm trying to do for the Lord. The Lord vindicated it to be it was his will. You know how you feel when something happens like that. It makes you feel real good.
Now I've been keeping you a little late. I'm sorry for that, and I just run... This morning I thought I was just doing real well, and I said it was twenty-five minutes till eleven, and the clock had been stopped for an hour, Brother Gene said. I guess that's just the way it kind of goes, you know. You just run out of time. There's so much to say, and such a little time to say it.

2 Tomorrow morning, I think at eleven, or eleven-thirty, when the church is dismissed, I was to come here again for a little message to the church, the Lord willing. That's after the pastor, and all, is finished with their morning activities, and Sunday school.
Then tomorrow night, we're going to pray for the sick. That is, if enough comes out to do it, see. We've got to have enough to run a prayer line if we're going to pray for the sick.
The boy said the other day, when he was giving out prayer cards, after he got about twenty, said that finished it. There was no more. Couldn't give any more cards. There wasn't that many. That's about the way we hit it in little churches, you know, when we have church meetings. You get in great large audience...
And then, tomorrow night, if you have any loved ones that wants to be prayed for... Now, we're planning, if God willing, to be praying for the sick tomorrow night. Be here at six o'clock before any of the church activities start. Get your prayer card, and be ready for prayer tomorrow night.
We don't know just how, but we'll try to maybe pray for them right along in the line, or whatever the Lord leads. And then the following next Sunday night again, is another prayer for the sick, if the Lord provides and is willing. And then Wednesday is...

3 Wednesday afternoon I'm to speak at the old Pisgah Home. Brother Smith ... Smith, I believe is his name---a very fine brother. I've missionaried with him overseas, and he's just one wonderful man. And I think they're having some kind of a rally there, so I'm to speak there next Wednesday afternoon, and then be back here for Wednesday evening services.
And then, the following Monday we're trying to see if we can get one day between that ... and to get to Brother Espinoza's at San Bernardino before we go on up into Bakersfield, or near Bakersfield where the place... What's the name of it, Brother Gene? Visalia. I think they had an auditorium, and set it between Fresno and Bakersfield, so they could get both crowds, 'cause in there there's people from both cities wants to come, and they just placed it in between there at Visalia. So be praying.

4 And then we go from there straight to Ohio, back to the snow country. And we'll be there with the cooperation with the Assemblies, and the independents, and all together in Ohio, at the auditorium and then at... What's the name of that place, Gene? Ohio? Middletown, Ohio. It's a basketball center.
Then we go from there down in ... I believe it's Monroe, Virginia, somewhere down in there, where there's about seventeen inches of snow tonight. And then we come back from there, and go to Bloomington, Illinois, the following week. And then, from there to the last ten days ... eight or ten days in Chicago at the Lane Tech, where we go so many times. That's sponsored by the Full Gospel Christian Businessmen.
And I'm home one day, then I go to northern British Columbia, up where the snow is really deep. And so I'm up there then at Grand Prairie, and I think the next is Dawson Creek, and then Fort St. John. That's the last stop before you get to Anchorage, Alaska, fifteen hundred miles back into the jungle.
Then, if the Lord willing, I'm coming back, and from there going overseas. And then, hope to be back in the native land here next fall sometime, the Lord willing, sometime in the early fall, October, November---if the Lord tarries. If He doesn't, if He takes me before that time, I'll meet you on the other side. If He tarries, I'll be with you, and we'll go up to see Him, see, go up to meet Him in the air. Now that might happen any time. We don't know. We just can't tell. But...

5 And we're... Missionaries, I was talking to some this morning, and they was talking about, "What do you think about the American situation here?" It's just like all other... The missionaries, and so forth, we believe the revival is in the other lands now. The people over there, there's just about... You know, there's so many fish in the lake. And when the last one's caught out, that's all.
God won't put a freak body... He won't have a hand with six fingers on it, see. It will be, when that body is completed, that's all of it, see. No matter how much you preach, or what He does, no more will come.
So it's almost that way in our homeland, friends. It's a terrible hour that we're living in. You don't realize it. Ask some other evangelist. Just don't take my word. Or look around across the country. See where you see the great masses coming to Christ.
Why, you can get out in Bombay, India, and whistle for five minutes about the Lord, or speak four or five words, and five thousand people are there crying to get saved. That's right.
Then here, we go along from place to place, and pull and strain, and pull and strain, it just don't... There's only one thing the American people can do. That's sponsor a program over there. They got the money here.
They ain't got nothing over there, and can't pay for it. But they're certainly willing, and wanting to hear it. Stand on the ramp, tens of thousands out waving, just... "If you'd just preach to us another five minutes about Jesus. Just make a few words." I said that...

6 I see there's an Indian woman sitting here in front of me, tonight, and... Or either ... Are you from India?
South India. Well, it's a great opportunity. If the Lord willing, this coming October I'm going to be down around Calcutta, and up around in Bombay, and up there---maybe over in Thailand. And we hope so. The Lord has really blessed them meetings.
You wouldn't happen to have been at the Bombay meeting when I was there, were you? You missed it. I guess you heard about it? Pardon? Is that right? Well, that was wonderful! It was a great meeting there. God certainly did bless your people.
Now, I'll never forget that meeting that night at Bombay, long as I live. When ... I was met by the bishop of the Methodist church, and many of the leaders, and they didn't want me to come under that sponsorship that I was under. And I'd done took these poor women and men's money to go over there, and I was sure I was going to minister while I was there, anyhow. If the manager messed it up about the itinerary, or the sponsorship...
But, oh, my! I never seen so many people come to a meeting in my life. And the mayor of the city was out.

7 And that's when the blind man received his sight, standing there, when I challenged every Mohammedan and every one of them to come and give him his sight, and "I'll believe you," see. "Let the God..."
He was a worshipper of the sun. His eyes was out. He worshipped the creation instead of the creator. I said... I was down at the temple of the Jains, you know, and the Buddhists, and all of them there---and seven or eight different religions---and every one of them against Jesus Christ. Didn't believe in it. So that night when that great challenge come, there was all of them sitting there.
I said, "Now, here's a man that's been blind for twenty years, and you think I'm reading his mind [you know, holy men, you know, and so forth---the worshippers]." And I said, "You think it's a telepathy that's reading his mind." Telling him what his name was, couldn't even pronounce it. I had to spell it out, see. And so, I said... That was right. He was a man that had two children, his wife. And one boy was eight, and the other one ten or something like that.
I said, "Now, you thought that was mental telepathy. Now, if that's mental telepathy, then you come here. I don't know nothing about telepathy. If it is, you're a genius at it. I don't know nothing about psychology. You come here and give him his sight, and I'll follow you."
I said, "The Mohammedan religion is so great, this Koran is right," I said, "then let the Mohammedan priest come here and give him his sight, and I'll be a Mohammedan," see. I said, "Now I challenge you, every one, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come give him his sight."
I'd have never said that if I hadn't seen a vision he was going to receive his sight, but I knowed where it was at. That was the quietest bunch you ever heard. Thousands. Why, it'd taken me two hours to press through, in an automobile, to get up there.

8 So the man was standing there. And I said... He said he'd serve the God that give him his sight. I said, "That's a great big challenge to the Mohammedan religion, Buddha, Jains, Sikhs, or whatever it might be. There it is." So nobody moved.
I said, "What you so quiet about?" I said, "You know the reason they don't come? Is because they can't do it, and neither can I. But the God of heaven has raised up his Son, Jesus Christ, whose witness I am."
I said, "I saw a vision that he's going to get his sight." Now I said, "If he doesn't get his sight, then I'm a false prophet. Run me out of India. If he does get his sight, now how many of you will receive Christ as personal Saviour, and forget about your Mohammedan prophet, and so forth?" Just as far as you see, masses of hands, thousands times thousands. There it was. That's it.
I motioned to him. I told him---a translator---I said, "Don't interpret this." I said, "Heavenly Father, it's again a Mount Carmel." And I said, "You would not let your word be defeated, because You showed me the man that was going to receive his sight." I said, "Let the God who showed me the vision of his eyes being opened, let Him open the eyes."
And he let out a scream, and there he could see as good as I can. And he went out. He run to the mayor of the city.

9 I had to leave the platform. I didn't have no shoes when I got out of there, pockets off of my clothes. And they had great big strings of people... I guess the guards. or something, they had them long sticks, you know, holding them off like that. And them people would run over their feet, under their legs just to touch you; crawl over top of their backs.
I had to leave the city. Couldn't get out of the city, on account of having protection. And that man has testified before the governor (or the president, I think it is) up there. The mayor of the city was witness of it. I had his name. I got it in one of my pockets now, I think down in the motel---one of the pockets of my coat. And they invited me back up to ... what? New Delhi? New Delhi, I think it is, where they got an amphitheater there. They can put a million people in it. So, I'm hoping to go back.
He's still God. Amen. He never changes. The hour is coming.

10 And as I said this morning in the talk, if a man ever once goes into them countries, and finds the need of those people, then we feel ashamed of ourself. There's men over there preaching the gospel. Our little church is supporting as many as we possibly can.
Some of them men's preaching the gospel without any shoes on. That's right. Missionaries, preaching the gospel with no shoes on---maybe a little plate of curry about twice a week, running through jungles and everywhere trying to preach the gospel; and us building six-million dollar buildings, and ... like we're going to be here forever. And preaching the coming of the Lord is at hand. It don't make sense to me. I don't want to get started on that. We're on another subject.
Now, last evening... Before we approach the Word, let's approach the author in prayer. Let's bow our heads.

11 Our heavenly Father, we are assembled again tonight in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our loving Saviour, thy Son. We have assembled in his name, because He promised that if two or three would assemble in his name, and would ask anything as touching one thing they should receive it. Now, Father, we're more than that number. But it just shows that ... your willingness to meet the church. No matter how much it's in the minority, you still will meet with your people. And we're praying, tonight, that You'll come and bless us.

12 Tomorrow, Sunday, thousands of pulpits will be open around the world tomorrow. God, some of them are already open in the other lands. It's Sunday morning in other lands. We pray, Father, that You'll anoint your ministers everywhere. Anoint your missionaries, wherever they are. Your servants that's praying for the sick, God, may they be so anointed that great signs and wonders will be done everywhere, and every man of every church, and every phase of Christianity.
Lord, may there come a time that God will pour out his Spirit in such a way that the critics will be backed off, and the church of the living God will be gathered together like a hen gathering over her brood. Grant it, Father.
We pray for this church that's opened the doors to bring us in here. We pray tomorrow You'll bless the pastor, the Sunday school teachers, the choir, and all its activities; its laymen, deacons, trustees, whatevermore.
May in the morning, when they gather for the Sunday school class, may great signs and wonders be accomplished. May the Holy Spirit fall in the building, a revival start---slain under the power of God, laying across the floors everywhere. Just be an example around town what God can do, when his people come together and assemble themselves to pray.

13 Looking down, tonight, upon this Indian brother, and this woman and the little children, so thankful, Lord, that they're here with us tonight, just to show us, Lord, that truly it's written in the Book that God is no respecter of people. And You're honorable to them that'll worship You and fear You in all nations. We're so thankful for this, that You are a universal Father to all of us, an eternal Father.
And we pray, Lord, that You'll send your eternal blessings upon us tonight. Forgive us of our sins as we forgive those that sinned against us. May there be not one root of bitterness left in our hearts anywhere. May the Holy Spirit purge our lives and our conscience, that this Word that we're fixing to bring forth might come forth anointed by the Spirit.
May You circumcise the lips that speak, and the ears that hear, that it might not fall upon the shallow ground, or upon rocks, to be packed away by the birds of the air. But may it fall into good rich ground of faith, and bring forth a hundredfold. Grant it, Lord. We commit it all to You, and ourselves with it, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

14 I've been enjoying these messages myself, what I get out of them, on Abraham. Are you enjoying it? Abraham. And approaching it ... I don't know what I'm going to say, 'cause the Holy Spirit just leads from one thing to another, and we're certainly enjoying it.
Last ... night before last, we had him when he was called of God. Last night, when we seen him, he had separated himself from fully obedience. And we find that you cannot be blessed, and God cannot do nothing for you, till you completely obey Him.

15 Now there'd be just a little instruction I might say to the sick. You might've come here to be prayed for. You might have angels to lay hands on you. And it will never do one thing to you until you first believe it, and accept it and confess it, for He is the high priest of our confession. We've got to confess it first before He can witness it before God, for He's a high priest, there to make intercessions upon our confession of what He has done for us.
Now, what is divine healing? Does it mean, now, that we have to wait till tomorrow night to be healed? No, sir. Do I have to come to the church? No, sir. The moment you believe God, and accept it as your personal property, it's finished right then.
"When was I healed, Brother Branham? I was saved last week."
"I was saved night before last."
"Ten years ago."
You was saved nineteen hundred years ago, when Jesus died for you at Calvary. And every redemptive blessing that God has for you, Jesus said at the cross, "It is finished."
Everything is done paid for, just like you was in the pawnshop, and God come and took you out. Oh, beautiful lesson in that. We might get to it next week---Ruth and Naomi, the kinsman redeemer. That's a beautiful lesson. So many... The whole Bible is beautiful, just all of it, because it's the Word of God.
Now, the moment that you can accept your healing, or your salvation... If you're walking down the street, if you're ... wherever you are, the moment you accept it, that's when you're turned around.

16 I was mowing the grass, here about a year ago in my yard, and I was trying... Sometime you'd have to get on the overalls, and cut a few rounds. Then somebody come in. You'd have to go pray for them, go out the back door and change, and come back. And I just run out of gasoline. So I started up on the porch, and I seen an old beat-up truck stop in front of the house. A gentleman come walking up the street there, the little driveway.
And he said, "I'm looking for Brother Branham."
And I said, "I'm Brother Branham."
He looked them overalls over, and everything. He said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "That's right."
And so, he said, "Well, Brother Branham, I just wanted to see you for a moment. I guess you're busy."
I said, "Never too busy to talk about the Lord."
And he said, "Well..."
I said, "Won't you come in?"
He said, "No, I'll just sit here on the porch."

17 He said, "Brother Branham..." He told me where he was from. He said, "I was born and dedicated [or consecrated, whatever they call it] as a Lutheran." And he said, "I guess when I was a little boy that was the last time I ever went to church that I know of---unless my mother took me some time I knowed nothing about."
Said, "I'm married." A very fine businessman. Said, "I had a lot of things, a nice car business, and I'd made lots of money." Said, "One day my wife went down to the Pentecostals." (I'm going to quote it the way he did.) Said, "... went down to the Pentecostals, and got the spirits on her." And said, "She was having a good life." And said, "She come to me and tried to get me to go and get the spirits on me, and I said, 'No.' I said, 'Honey, if you want to go,' said, 'you go on anyhow.' Said, 'Now remember, if you're changing your life...'
Said, "We lived an ordinary American life, cocktail parties, dances, drunk and everything else." And said, "I was glad to see her straighten up." Said, "She did. It made a different person out of her." And said, "I thought, 'Well, if she does that, I'm very happy that she does it.' "
And he said, "Now, you've got the check book. Any time your little church needs any money, your name is just as good on the check as mine. Go on, write them out." And said, "But for me, I'm not religious." Said, "If you want to be religious, go on."

18 And said, "She was in that little church about a year." And said, "They had a convention up in Tennessee." So I suppose it was a Church of God of Prophecy. That's where they have their conventions up there. And so, he said that she went up there.
And said, "I was making a sale on a car out in the lot," and said (to some ladies), and said, "I put on my coat in the summer time," said, "to walk out before them to make my sale."
And said, "When I come back I happened to think, 'Did I give that woman that second set of keys?' And I run my hand down my pocket." And said, "I had a little square tag in there, had a question mark. And on the back of it, it said, 'Where will you spend eternity?'
"Well," he said, "I looked, and I thought, 'Well, I wonder who put that in my pocket?' and just throwed it over in the trash basket." And said, "Something said to me, 'But that's got to be settled.'" I said, "I reached down and picked it up again," and said, "I got to shaking. I thought, 'That's right. I'm past forty years old, so I ought to be finding out where I'm going to spend it.' And said, 'Oh, now looky here. You're just getting all messed up.'"
So he throwed it down again, tried to turn around, turned the fan on, and so forth. And said he looked back to that again. It just kept ringing in his heart, "Where will you spend eternity?" He picked it up the third time. And said it got him so nervous till he just couldn't even... He went home.

19 He said he heard that the famous evangelist, Billy Graham, was just one state over from him, holding a meeting. Said he went over to that meeting, thought he'd talk it over with Mr. Graham. And said Mr. Graham had a notable message that night, and he said, "All that wants to receive Jesus Christ stand up, and raise up your hand."
Said, "I stood up and raised up my hand." Said, "They took me in the room, and told me, did I believe that He was the Son of God? I said, 'Yes, I do.' They told me upon my faith that made me a Christian, and said, 'It's all over now.' "
He said, "Brother Branham, but it wasn't all over." He said, "I went out. Then I went to another place, and the people was called the Free Methodists." And said, "They told me I had to get sanctified, and get happy and shout. Then it would be all over." And said, "They stayed with me." Said, "I got happy, sanctified and shouted." But said... "They told me it was all over." But said, "It wasn't."
And said, "Then I went to a famous Pentecostal brother, who crosses the nation back and forth---one of the largest Pentecostal groups." And said, "He said, 'Have you ever spoke in tongues?'
"No."
"Said, 'Then you haven't received the Holy Ghost.'
"Said, 'Then go back in the other tent and receive the Holy Ghost.' Said, "They were very nice to me, worked with me and everything."
And said, "I stayed in there, and there was some of them stayed with me way in the night." Said, "Finally the power fell on me, and I spoke in tongues," and said, "and I come out." Said, "The evangelist, I went to see him the next day. He said, 'It's all over.' " And said, "Brother Branham, it wasn't all over."

20 He said, "Then I went from there down to the... From there," he said, "I went to the Voice of Healing." And said, "When I got to the Voice of Healing," said, "I got with all those brethren there." Said, "They told me that I had crossed over the separating line in my life; that there was no place for me." Said, "The only one to straighten me out..."
Said, "Go see Brother Branham. He's a prophet." Now that's wrong, but... They said, "He's a prophet. He'll be able to look down and see where you crossed the line, and maybe you go back and do something. There's something that you haven't done, or... You better go see him."
He said, "Brother Branham, here I am."
And I said, "Well, brother," I said, "I'm not a prophet." I said, "But the Lord lets me discern things to help out the people---a little humble gift." I said, "But I don't call myself a prophet." I said, "But you don't need a prophet for that. You just need to get straightened out. That's all. You don't..."

21 I said, "I want to ask you something." I said, "What Billy Graham told you was the truth." And I said, "And what the Methodists told you was the truth. And what the Pentecostals told you was the truth. But it wasn't all the truth, see." I said, "It was the truth, but not all of it."
I said, "I believe in accepting Christ as personal Saviour. I believe that. I believe in sanctification, and cleaning up a life, and getting happy and shouting. I believe that. I believe in speaking in tongues, and the baptism of the Spirit, and I believe in all that." But I said, "That's not exactly what we're talking about."

22 I said, "I want to ask you something." I said, "Now remember, you said for forty years of your life you did not do anything."
He said, "Brother Branham, I've sold every car I got, and give it to preachers and evangelists. I've done everything that I know how to do to make reconciliations for what I've done in my life."
I said, "That wasn't necessary. You didn't have to do that," see. I said, "God never required you to do that." I said, "You can't pay your way in. That's not the idea." But I said, "His grace has taken you in."
He said, "Well, what must I do?"
I said, "There's not a thing ... nothing you can do." I said, "You told me, for the first forty years of your life that you didn't care about God. But you picked up a little piece of paper that said, 'Where will you spend eternity?' And something said, 'That's got to be settled.' You couldn't get over it.
"Now you were going down a road this a-way, and all at once you started back this way. You didn't care for God. You started back, hunting for Him." I said, "Right there where you made your turn, that's exactly what changed you, right there."
He said, "Then I've had it all the time?"
I said, "Certainly."
He said, "Well, praise be to God," see.

23 Not upon some sensation; but did you believe it? See. That's where you got... See, now, no matter how many sensations of sanctification... It is a sensation to be sanctified. It is a sensation to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But when you receive Christ as your Saviour, that turns you around. No man...
Jesus said in St. John 5:24... Think of it, a handful, and two dozen of eggs, see, 5:24: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath [present tense] eternal life, and shall not come into the judgment; but hath passed from death unto life." There you are, see. Right there you're turned around.
That's one part of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is another part of the Holy Spirit. Then, when you get so full of it that you can't do nothing else, as Brother Rose said, He gives you another language then. It just fills you up. It takes the Holy Spirit. "No man can come to me except my Father draws him first. All the Father hath given me will come to me." There you are.
So, when you have the least little tinkling in your heart to come to Christ, you do it right away, because that's... The greatest thing that ever happened to you is for God to call you to the wedding supper of his Son. I don't know anything greater.

24 Now to our story. Abraham, we left him last night after he'd went through a great trial. And Sarah had decided that she would give Hagar to him for a wife. And she brought forth a baby, and called him Ishmael. And Abraham still knew that that wasn't right. So he went before God. It was God's plan of doing it, but God had promised him the baby by Sarah. And now he was a hundred years old and Sarah was ninety. And he went before God.
And God appeared to him, and come to him in the name of the Almighty God, which ... the Hebrew word there means "El Shaddai," the Almighty. And we found out (to break that word down), " shad" in the Hebrew means breast. "Shaddai" meant breasted God---a God with breasts, to pour his own strength into his believing children when they're sick, when they're weak, when the Spirit's at low ebb. He pours his strength into them as they take a hold of his breasted promise, and begin to draw from those promises strength.

25 Strong one with breasts.
Oh, I think that's the most beautiful picture. See, what a consolation to an old man a hundred years old, still standing on God's promise. Now the Bible said they were well-stricken in age, well-stricken in years---an old man that's holding on to God's promise; and said, "I am the breasted one, and you're no more than a little fretting child."
Sarah's womb had been dried up for forty years---had passed her menopause period for forty or fifty years before that. Hadn't happened ... a time, perhaps. There she was, all the veins in her had dried up, and she was barren. And he, as to be a man he was as good as dead. Was no more man to him in that way. And there he was, an old man; and his wife real old.
And God said, "But I am the mother. [Amen.] I'm the mother. Just keep holding to my promise, and keep drawing. I'm able to do something for you." Oh, I like that.

26 And to show him what He was going to do, He changed his name in the 17th chapter, and He changed Sarah's name. That's right.
Watch those names. It means something. Why did He change Jacob's name to Israel? Why did He change Saul's name to Paul? Why did He do all those things? After He overcome, and entered into glory, He said that his name was changed. In Revelation, it was given a promise, to those that overcome He would make known his new name. That's right. Every time they overcome they was given a new name.
Abraham, when he finally overcome, he was taken from the name of Abram. Said, "You shall not be called Abram any more, but shall be called Abraham". Give him part of his name, tacked his name onto it: Elohim, h-i-m and h-a-m. Elohim. In other words, "I am the Father of all things, see, and I'm making you a father of nations. So I change ... and give you part of my name, father of nations." H-a-m, see. Elohim---Abraham.
That's a good sentence. Did you ever think about that? A great evangelist today, name Graham, G-r-a-h-a-m, Billy Graham. Think of it, how that God in his mercy, how He foreknows and the things that He does.
Now notice what He did there. He changed Sarai to Sarah. Sarah's name Sarai to Sarah. Notice there, Sarah means princess, and he was father of nations. Oh, isn't that beautiful? That old man, and old woman, a hundred years old now, the promise is fixing to be fulfilled.

27 Now we find out, that after this, Abraham, he was separated.
Went out and got his brother, Lot, brought him back in. And when he did... Brought him from the enemy that would have killed him; brought him back thinking, perhaps, maybe he would come on out now, and separate himself from all the things of the world. Instead of that, he went right back down into Sodom. Like a hog to its wallow and a dog to its vomit, they returned right back again.
That's why I've been so plastering that. No matter how much I plaster against it, it's going to do it anyhow. But on the day of the judgment, when this recording has been taken in heaven, remember it'll answer against you. That's right. The Pentecostal church getting cold and formal, going right back into its great depth of organization. And, "As long as we belong to the church, that's all that's necessary." You've got to be born again. You've got to have the Spirit. You've got to have the works, signs and wonders, and so forth, as God promised.
And that's where I see the church cooling off. No matter how much I preach against it---I could stand and say women not to wear shorts, women not to bob their hair---they'll do it anyhow. I can say the Pentecostal churches is putting money in great big things, and getting the fashion, and organizing, and cutting all the rest of them out---just like the other churches did that fell before them. They're going to do it anyhow. God said they'd do it.

28 But what I'm trying to do is jerk and snatch and pull from there.
Today in the meeting, when I was preaching, the Holy Spirit fell upon a little boy, and come there and spoke in the French language, not knowing one word of French. And a man standing there didn't ... no interpretation. Two of them (one has been an interpreter for the U.N.) spoke up. And the Holy Spirit spoke, and confirmed that the Holy Spirit had sent me to go do this work, and to stay loyal to it, and stay with it regardless of what the thing is. They'll be reading it, see, showing right amongst the Pentecostal people. Yes, sir.
Brother, you take heed. You flee to the rocks. Get to the house of refuge. "The name of the Lord is a mighty tower. The righteous run into it and are safe." The great walls of Babylon is collapsing.

29 Like, over in India when you had the earthquake there, I guess just the year I came in... It'd be about six years ago. I picked up the paper, the English paper, and said, "I guess the earthquake is over." In India, they don't have fine fences and things like you all have here. They pick up rocks, and make fences. The animals stand around there in the shade of the evening. The little birds go in there and build their nests.
One day they seen all the little birds flying away, getting away. And all the cattle wouldn't come in, and stand around the walls, and so forth. They went out in the middle of the field, and stood leaning against one another in the sun. They wondered what was the matter. Then a great earthquake shook the place, shook the walls down.
What happened? All the little birds, if they'd been in them little coves in there had've got killed. The animals had been standing under those big rocks fences and walls, it would have fell on them and killed them. What was it? God, by instinct, letting them know the earthquake was coming. They fled for safety. The same God that called them into the ark could call them away from the walls. He's the same God.

30 Well, then, if God can use a cow, and a horse, and a sheep, and a bird by instinct to flee the wrath that's coming, you'd better get away from these big old walls of Babylon, and flee to Jesus Christ, 'cause she's going to crumble and fall one of these days.
Remember, there was a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, come rolling into Babylon, and tearing it down wherever it went. And the kingdoms of this world will fall just as certain. Every man-made kingdom's got to sink so the kingdom of God can take the right-of-way. Every man-made organization will fall, and crumble to the dust, that the power of the Holy Ghost might take the church and rapture it into that place up above. That's right. Yes, sir.
DAN2:34
Everything has served its purpose, but we're at the time, brother, when God is calling his people out. The stone that was cut out of the mountain without hands is rolling in, crashing down Babylon, moving right on over. Get away from the big walls, friends. Come into Jesus Christ. That's the only place of safety, of refuge, I know.

31 We see there that Abraham... When he found what God wanted him to do, He blessed him, and changed his name, and changed Sarah's name---give them a sure promise that this was going to happen. Then we find him... I believe it's in the 18th chapter, we find him sitting out in the field, somewhere in the desert ... hard way. My! Oh, I don't know why that keeps bubbling up in me. Forgive ... no, don't forgive me, that would be wrong.
Why is it, brethren? I stood here not long ago, amongst a big bunch of fine Pentecostal men, and I said, "You're giving the wrong testimonies. You're always talking about how God's blessing you, how many big things you got, how many Cadillacs you can own, and all like that. That's a whole lot different than what the first Pentecost was. They sold everything they had, and give it to the poor and went out preaching the gospel. There's something wrong somewhere." That's exactly right.
There was a fellow raised up. He said, "Brother Branham, that was the greatest mistake the people ever made." We was in Jamaica, if anybody's here. Brother Botham, I guess, remembers. I don't know whether the brother... Yes, was with me sitting out there that night.
I said, "Do you mean to tell me that you think that God makes a mistake? God don't make no mistakes. A man that's led by God ... they was led by God to do that."

32 He said, "Then when the persecution come on, they didn't have any home to go to. I guess you think that wasn't a mistake."
I said, "Shame on you. Not knowing no more, and been in Pentecost as long as you have, and know no more about God than that? That's exactly what God had to do. They had nothing to go back to. They went everywhere, scattering the message throughout the country. God knows what He's doing. Let them be led, sure. God don't make no mistakes. It's you and I that makes the mistakes. God doesn't make it. When you feel led of the Spirit, move on, move on---just keep going on.

33 Here Abraham ... he wasn't down in Sodom seeing how much he could get. He was up there in the field in obedience to God. Probably Sarah didn't have the new dresses that Mrs. Lot had, didn't keep up with all the fashions. Yet they said there wasn't a woman in the land as fair as she was. She was a mother.
And she also loved her husband so well that she didn't tighten up her dresses, and get out on the street and carry on the way modern Mrs. Lot does, and things like that. She called her own husband "lord." And the Bible says ... whose daughter you are, as long as you obey the Word. That's right. There she was.
And we see them out there---times poor, the herds going down. Everything seemed to be... But Abraham was abiding in the promise. Amen.
That's where we make our mistakes, brother. It isn't our organizations makes the mistake. It's us in the organization makes the mistake, see. It's all right as long as you ... if you'll abide in the promise. But when you do get into these things, you become starchy, want to act like the rest of the world. That's the reason God walks right away from it.
I'm looking in the face of one of the greatest historians there is in the United States, and I'll tell you (Brother Paul Boyd, sitting right there), and I'll tell you one thing. You show me one speck of history where a church ever come into an organization that it didn't fall and never rise again. Find it. It never did; never will. It isn't the will of God. We'll get on that next week.

34 Notice.
But now, as we go ahead in with Abraham: Abraham ... abide in the land. He abode right there, where God told him to. And as long as he stayed there, God was with him. When he moved out of the land, a curse come on him. As soon as you move away from the promise of God, then just get ready for trouble. That's exactly right.
Now we find out that one day he was sitting out there. Let's give it a little drama, so these little fellows here can catch it. Now I see Abraham sitting in the tent door, one morning. There's a big oak tree in front of his place there. They claim the oak still stands. They got it preserved, they say. Well, there where he had his tent pitched out there on the desert...
Lot was down there. My! I guess if they had such a thing, he'd had a big cigar. And mayor of the city, you know. Mrs. Lot and her daughters, and all of them, going around to all the fashion shows, watching the TV, and ... patterned after the styles of those days.
But Sarah stood true. Abraham stood true. They stayed with God, stayed out there.

35 Now, what happened? One day while Abraham was sitting there along about eleven o'clock in the day, I imagine, they looked coming up through there. And here come three men with dust all over their clothes, walking along. You know, there's something about it. You can pass right by God's blessing, and not know it if you're not prayed up.
I think about that "prayed up." There's a little Irish woman come over from Ireland not long ago. And they said she was on a ship, and she was... Along about time they was getting into New York, a great typhoon swept out across the ocean. And the ship was just sending out SOS's and it was just diving from place to place. The bands had been playing. They'd been doing all the rock-and-roll that they could, and all like that. And the band started playing.
The captain said, "Everybody pray. Everybody pray, the way you do in your church." And the bands begin to play "Nearer my God to Thee," and they all begin going on. The little Irish woman begin walking up and down the floor.
The captain said, "If we can only hold this storm for thirty minutes, we'll come into the harbor, drop anchor." Said, "But," said, "if we can't hold it for thirty minutes," said, "we'll be at the bottom of the sea."

36 That little Irish woman said, "Glory to God! Hallelujah!"
So the captain walked up, and said, "Lady, did you understand what I said?"
She said, "I understood you plainly, sir."
He said, "I said in thirty minutes from now... We may be in the bottom of the sea, if we can't hold out thirty minutes in this storm."
Said, "I understood what you meant." Said, "Hallelujah! Praise God."
Said, "Why don't you pray?"
She said, "I'm prayed up. Don't have to do any praying." Said, "I was prayed up to begin with."
"Well," said, "how could you say "Hallelujah" like that, and knowing that you might be in the bottom of the sea?"
She said, "Sir, I'm on my road from Ireland to see a daughter of mine that lives in New York." She said, "I got a daughter in glory, and one in New York. If we go down, I'll see that one up there. If we land I'll see that one there. I'll see one of them in thirty minutes."
That's right. Prayed up. Amen. That's the way to stay. Prayed up. Be ready for it. She was going to meet one of them in thirty minutes. She knowed it didn't make any difference to her---up there or down here, she was going to see one of them in thirty minutes. Now that's good. That's fine. That's the way the church ought to be all the time---prayed up.

37 Abraham was prayed up, sitting out there. Lot didn't know, maybe, down in there what was going on out there in the desert. But when Abraham looked, there was something about that man walking out there in front that he recognized that looked a little strange---strange looking man. He run out. And if you notice, the very first thing he said... Not "My lords." (I certainly differ with that Jewish brother that made that remark the other night, at Shreveport.) Not "My lords," but, "My Lord. [L-o-r-d, one, my capital L-o-r-d.] Won't you come in?"
Now any of you notice the translator on there? That was "Elohim" Abraham called Him, brought Him in. Said, "Won't You come in? Sit down. I'll fetch you a little water, wash your feet. Take a morsel of bread." And said, "Then you satisfy your desire. Then you can go on wherever you're going."
I can just imagine him slipping through, saying, "Sarah, Sarah! Sh! Somebody's out there. Get some flour ready right quick, or the cornmeal."

38 How many ever seen a sifter? Is any women... ? Well, what part of Kentucky are you from? I used to see Mom with that old sifter go to the meal barrel... Had a little round thing, like a cheese crate, and a screen wire over the bottom of it, and dip it up like this. And she had an old wedge in there. She'd rub the lumps through when the old meal'd get wet. Did you ever see that done?
You know, the other day I brought my wife a coffee mill down here---one of them kind you grind yourself. Why, I haven't ground one since I was a little boy. It used to be mine to clean the lamp chimney. You know, get in there---a big old moon and owl on the lamp chimney. You remember them? Have to run my hand down in there, and clean them.

39 And I see Abraham run through, and said, "Say, knead some of the meal right now, and get it ready, and make some cakes on the hearth." Went out, and had a servant to take a calf and dress it, and come out and feed these men.
Now they acted like they were strangers. They was from another country, and they was just passing through. And so, I just imagine maybe that Abraham got the old fly bush, and got out there, you know. Have to go out and...
How many knows what a fly bush is? Now I know there's Kentuckians here. Yes, sir. I remember when company would come, we'd sit them out there and take that old fly bush, and I'd have to fan. My poor old arm would just nearly break like that, shooing the flies. While Mama was cooking then have to stand at that stove, and wipe the sweat, with that fly bush, you know, going like this so the flies wouldn't get around where we...
We was raised poor, so... Take the butter and the cream, and put it down in the milk house---or not the milk house, but a little old place, spring down there---and cover it over with a crock, you know. The cream get about that deep. I slipped in there many times and got a cup of it, when she was trying to save it. Oh, it was good!

40 Now we find out that Abraham took this food out there, and set it down before these men and they ate. Now Abraham was curious to find out what their journey was, because he knowed that one of them there, that main one, was God. He knew that was God. He called Him "Elohim."
So now, what did it represent? We find out two of them rose up, and went on down into Sodom. They were going down there to preach, and to call out those that would be called out. And we see that when he got down there, and began to preach, that... They didn't do many miracles---just smote them blind. That was ... preaching the gospel smites them blind. But there...

41 Now remember, there is three classes always at the judgment. We find out the bride comes back with Christ. In Daniel, ten thousands times ten thousands came with the ancient of days. The judgment was set, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which was the book of life. See, the sleeping virgin come up for the judgment. And the book of the ungodly was opened, and He separated the sheep from the goats. But the raptured church come back with Him.
Jesus comes three times. He came first to redeem his bride. He comes the second time to catch her away. He comes the third time with her. To redeem his bride, to receive his bride, and to bring Him and his bride back as King and Queen over the earth, to sit on his father David's throne.

42 And now we know there's three classes of people all the time. We notice it today. There has been Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostals. There is the sinner, the ungodly, the sleeping virgin, and the true virgin always. Now we find out there was the Sodomites; there was Lot, the lukewarm church; and here was Abraham---had separated himself from them, and was living apart.
Now the very word "church" means "separation." Israel was the people of God, until they came into the wilderness; and being called out, it was then the church of God. "Church" means "called-out," set aside. And Abraham was the elected church. Lot was the sleeping virgin, or the formal church. And then there was the sinner, the Sodomites.

43 Now watch the Sodomites and the formals down there---Lot in his formal condition. Now he was a good man, no doubt. It said, "The sins of the city vexed his righteous soul."
But there was a elected church, called, predestinated by God---Abraham, called when he was seventy-five years old, given a promise. Let the trials say it would be for sure. Wait till we get over in a little farther here, where He made it positive sure. All right. Told him about the child he was going to have. And Abraham did not stagger at the promise of God. No matter how many extra dollars laid down here, and how rich he could be in Sodom, and what he could do, he stayed with God, kept the promise.
That's the elect church. There's some of them in the Methodist, some in the Baptist, some in the Pentecostal. The elected church will be called out of all the groups. That's right. That's the one that hears the voice.

44 When Jesus came, the Lord Jesus Christ, why didn't they recognize Him? They never recognize it till it's too late. They never knew Elisha was the prophet of God. Why, they sent their children out to tease, and call him bald-headed because he went bald-headed when he was a little boy. They didn't know... They didn't believe he was any prophet. Certainly they didn't.
They never do believe it. Didn't Jesus say, "You're whited walls. You polish the walls of the prophets, and you're the one that put them in there"? Look at Jeremiah, Isaiah, any of the prophets. They didn't recognize it till it was all over. And when John came, they didn't know what... Jesus said Himself that was the Elijah that was spoke of, and they'd done done to him what they listed. And even the disciples didn't know John was that Elijah.
And when Jesus came they didn't know He was Jesus. They didn't recognize Him to be the Christ. But those who were ordained to eternal life---"My sheep hear my voice"---they recognized it.

45 Let's come on down to St. Patrick. You Catholic people that call him a Catholic, I wish you'd produce the history for it. He wasn't a Catholic. He protested the bishop at Rome. That's exactly right. His school was up in Northern Ireland. He didn't believe in that one-man control. He believed in the Holy Ghost controlling. Yes, sir.
He also believed in the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and speaking in tongues, and the power of the Spirit. St. (what was I trying to say?) ... Columba did the same thing. St. Martin did the same thing. Irenaeus, the same thing. They all believed in the power of God, in divine healing, in the power of the Holy Ghost---all of them early saints.
Then they had a bunch of bishops that was starchy, and they wanted to make an organization. And they organized a church, and conglomerated sin and some church superstitions together, and made their organization. From that came the mother organization. From that came every one of the rest of them right out of it. Read Revelation 17, and see if it ain't the mother whore, and her daughters were harlots. What is a harlot but a whore? Same thing.
What makes that? Committing spiritual fornication against the true father, true husband; taking man-made doctrines and creeds; taking the people, getting formal, bringing them into an old formal worship. We worship God in Spirit and in truth. God teaches us to do so. Yes. Sure it is.

46 Now we find out that Abraham... Abraham stayed out there. He was elected, a called-out church. And remember, the man that was in human flesh... The man ate the flesh of a calf. He drank the milk from the cow. He drank bread and had butter ... ate bread and had butter on it, drinking the milk from the cow. And Abraham called Him God. Look at the translators. Run it down. Find out if that's right. Elohim, God.
Now I want you to notice. It was representing something, something that we want to let you positive see it. Now notice. Then we find out that when the two men went down, the preachers went down to preach... Two angels went down to preach in Sodom. They never done this, this thing, the sign. They went down there and showed their sign that they'd come to bring them out. But it wasn't the same sign the elected church got. The elected church got another sign.
And now notice what the church out there got, the one that stayed behind with the elected church. You remember when He was talking, He said, "Abraham," called him by his new name that God had just given him. "Abraham, where is Sarah?" S-a-r-a-h, her new name. Why, He was the one that give it to her. Yes.

47 Someone said (I've made the statement many times), said, "Brother Branham, you don't believe that man was God?"
I said, "The Bible said it was God," see. He did. He's the creator. He could do anything He wants to. He just picked up some petroleum, and cosmic light, and calcium and potash, and blowed into it, and stepped into the body, and came down. That's exactly the way He did it. He had angels there the same way. He could do the same thing.
Where did we come from? Who made the earth? Where did He get the stuff to make the earth out of? Tell me where He went out and got it at. The very earth that we're sitting on is the word of God made manifest. This pulpit is the word of God. This is the word of God made manifest. God spoke it, and He's a creator, and He made it out of things that wasn't here to make it with. He created it. He's got a purpose He can create, He can do whatever He wants to. He's God.

48 Abraham called Him God. That's who He was. Abraham ought to know---he talked to Him. Been talking to Him all of his life, I guess he ought to know who He was. Sure.
Told him, "I---I'm going to fulfill this promise that I made you." Who was the one that talked to Him back there? "I." "I am the one," He said. And notice. Then when... He said, "Abraham, where is your wife, Sarah?" Abraham, not Abram. Abraham. And God in the previous chapter had just give him that name of Abraham. They didn't have newspapers, and televisions, and things in that day. Abraham was out there by himself---out there, him and his wife and his people, his servants.
And so God appeared to him, and changed his name. And the angel called him Abraham; changed Sarai's name to Sarah, and called her name Sarah. "Where is your wife, Sarah?" How did He know that he was even married?
How did He know, being a stranger, that his name was Abraham? How did He know He changed his name from Abram to Abraham? How did He know that He'd changed Sarai to Sarah? How did He know these things?

49 And Abraham said, "She is in the tent behind you, back there."
He said, "I'm going to visit you, Abraham." In other words, "I promised you that I was going to give you this child, and you believed my word. Now I'm going to visit you according to the time of life, and you're going to have this baby." And Sarah, ear-dropping in the back, she said within herself---now... She said in herself, now remember, down in her heart---"Would I ever have joy, me an old woman, ninety-years-old-grandma (great-great-great-grandma), and my husband old? My lord out there, he's old, a hundred years old, and here I am ninety years old---and I'd ever be as a young woman again?" She thought, "That's funny." And she laughed.
And the angel said, "Why did Sarah laugh?" And not only that, but he said, repeated, the words to Abraham what Sarah thought in her heart, said, "How could it be?" Amen. There you are, sitting with his back turned to the tent.
Then Sarah really was scared. She seen what she had done. "Why did Sarah laugh, saying within her heart, 'How can I ever have pleasure with my husband again?' " But his words was confirmed. He was God.

50 Now what was it? Now, Jesus referred to that same thing, and He said, "As it was in the days of Lot, so will it be in the coming of the Son of man."
Now notice. Why don't you get out and hit those big nerve centers? It wasn't sent to those nerve centers. To the elect church, that's where... They'll never believe it.
I know standing here at nighttime, when I was having that discernment the other night, and feel it right now... There's many in here don't believe that. Don't tell me. I can call your name. That's right. Don't tell me. That's right. I know your sickness. God can tell me right here your sickness. Certainly. I feel it.
Why are you trying to play a hypocrite about it? Why don't you be what you really are? One thing, you're scared. I don't blame you. One word against it will never be forgiven. But I want you to know that the Scriptures is not no mysticism, as some of you preachers think it is. It's not no telepathy. God have mercy on your sinful soul. You don't need a pulpit; you need an altar. That's right. Get right with God. Remember, a word against it will never be forgiven in this world or the world to come.
Now you say, "It's not me." Don't tell me who you are. I know see. Yes, sir. So now listen, I'm just warning you.
Remember, God promised that would happen. Amen.

51 Notice, He said... Watch. What was it? God in human flesh. And God would represent Himself again in human flesh just before the coming of the Son of man. What flesh? Your flesh, my flesh---God coming down from heaven, God longing for fellowship. How people... It seems to me like there's so much mental theology about, you fail to get the discernment of the Spirit.
Like a guy was trying to tell me about there being three gods---Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Father is a dispensation of the Father. It wasn't three gods. Three offices of the same God---the Fatherhood, the Sonship, the Holy Ghost---the same God in each one. You don't have to have no Nicene Council for that.
It's God, the same God, always one God. He was in the Fatherhood. That's the reason Matthew said "baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." Not three gods. One God in three offices: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three attributes. Certainly.

52 He was in the pillar of fire. It was God, Jehovah. No one could touch Him. Sin was so far from Him. He couldn't get near them. Then He come and overshadowed a virgin, created a blood cell in her womb. The child came forth, Jesus---holy body, neither Gentile or Jew---God's own blood.
And then the great Holy Spirit came down from heaven, the Spirit of God like a dove, descending, and went on Him. "This is my beloved Son [correctly, on the right translation] in who I am pleased to dwell in."
"My Father dwelleth in me."
Ask any good translator of the Scripture and find out if that's not in the Hebrew. Yes, sir. "In whom I'm pleased to dwell."
Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing in himself. It's not me that doeth the works, but my Father. He dwells in me." Emmanuel. Not another God up there, and another one here and another one down here. That's heathen. One God in three offices.
God, the Father Almighty, came down and dwelt in his Son, Christ Jesus. He gave his life trying to find Himself back to fellowship with his people, trying to get back. No one could pay the price---all sinners. And his own Son was made sin for us, to take away our sins. And that would let the same Father-God in the form of the Holy Ghost come down, and dwell in us and work through us, like He did his Son that was created. Amen. There's your truth.

53 You got one side of the road over here saying, "God's one, like your finger's one." He can't be his own father.
Got them over here saying, "There's three different gods." Well, if there's three different gods---God, the Holy Ghost and God, the Father, is two different people. Then the virgin was conceived by the Holy Ghost. Which one was his father?
He's got one Father, the Holy Ghost, and God is the same-self Spirit. It's correctly. Then in that...
Oh, it's not mysterious. Yet, if a man was... If two was his father, then He was an illegitimate child sure enough, spiritually. See. It's all scrupled up. It don't make sense.
The only thing that... Men try to figure it out with their head, instead of letting their heart go to God. And God will reveal those things to them, if they just let Him do it. Yes, sir.
He can't be his own father. Jesus couldn't be the one Jesus, one God, all like that. He was created by God the Father, right. And God the Father dwells in Him, that He might use his blood for sanctification, and cleanse his church that that same Spirit could live in his church, to perform the works and the signs, and fulfill the scripture that He promised in the last days: "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man."

54 [Break in tape.]
... That's it. Learning what someone else... What did Jesus say to Peter? "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonas. [You never learned this in a seminary.] Flesh and blood never revealed this to you. But my Father, which is in heaven, has revealed this to you. And upon this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell can't prevail against it."
That's the reason he gave him the keys. He had the revelation. It's revealed truth. Them little things that they fight over, and separate themselves, it shows it's not of God, or they wouldn't separate themselves like that. Why don't you come together and be brothers, sisters. Let the power of God work among you. He'll work it all out. God's the tutor of the church, the Holy Spirit. Correctly. You don't have to use all your life just trying to learn something like that. The best thing to know, you're saved and start walking with God. What He wants you to know, He'll reveal it to you.

55 There was God Almighty made flesh in a commemoration, that... Jesus said, "A little while, and the world seeth me no more; yet ye shall see me, for I will be with you, even in you [in you], to the end of the consummation," all the way down to the end of the world---Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's here. It's Christ working in you, in me, and the rest of us, trying to bring his Word together to confirm, and to fulfill his Word.
Why did Jesus heal the sick? Matthew 12, Matthew 8, I believe it is. He said, "... that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the prophet." The Word of God needs to be fulfilled. This is the hour. Telepathy, they call it. They called it the same thing there, a devil. He said it's unforgivable to call the Spirit of God that's working a thing like that. I want you to think about that before you go to making your decisions.
There's a new ministry that God has confirmed, and we know it to be the God's truth. But somehow another it just won't work here in America. It does at other places. Now ... greater than what we have here. But you see, we just sinned away our day of grace. That's all there is to it. I predicted that in 1956 and it's been that way ever since---constantly falling, see. But God will pull out that elect church. He's duty bound to do it. He said He would do it.

56 Now look at that angel with his back turned---told Sarah what she was thinking about. If that ain't the Word of God, I don't know it. The Bible said in Hebrews 4 that the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, and even a discerner of the thoughts of the heart, mind. That's right. It discerns.
It's the Word of God. And the Word of God is in you, if you'll let the Word ... because He is the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." See that?
Then that same Word, Christ, the promise, the Holy Ghost, you call it the third person of the trinity. That's fine. That's what it is. Christ, the Holy Ghost, in you. He was in a pillar of fire once, then He come and was made flesh. Now He's come in your flesh. What's He doing? God condescending, trying to draw nearer to his people, so He can be loved and worshipped.
And we, in the Laodicean age, turned Him on the outside. He's knocking, trying to get back in. "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Repent!", He says. Here we are. That's God. It's God our Father, in the form of the Holy Ghost, trying to get back into our lives, to control us. He's got to have a church to make, as I said last night, that capstone come on. It's got to come on there perfect. And the church has got to draw into perfection.
You say, "Perfection?" That's what He said. "Be ye perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect." God. Let's take a notion. Let's take a little example here for a minute. Notice this.
Now, as I was saying this morning, if a grape vine has grape life in it, it'll bring forth grapes.

57 Now, this pillar of fire that went with the children in the wilderness, anyone knows that that was God. We know that that was God. He told Abra... told Moses, "I AM that I AM. And I have seen the affliction of my people, and heard their groans by the reason of their task masters. And I've come down to deliver them."
Now that was the pillar of fire in that bush. Do you believe that? The angel of the covenant. Well, it landed on Mount Sinai, and wrote the commandments. Even if an animal touched it, it had to be killed. What was it? Because there was no sin offering, a animal.

58 See, when the Old Testament ... when they offered a sin offering they took a little lamb, laid their hands upon it, confessed their sins, and they cut its throat. And when the little fellow was dying, kicking and bleating, well, the blood got over the hands of the worshipper; and then he felt the death going out of that animal as it straightened out and died. And he knowed that that animal was dying in his place.
But the Bible said he went out with the same desire he had when he came in, 'cause, see, when that blood cell was broke, that animal's spirit could not come back and coincide with a human spirit. The animal has no soul, so they could not come back. So, therefore, he went out with the same conscience.
But when a man, by faith, comes, lays his hands upon the head of Jesus Christ, and feels his suffering for your sins... And when that blood cell was broke on Calvary, not only the life of a human being comes back, but the life of God comes back from it, and makes you a son and daughter of God.

59 Watch when that pillar of fire was made flesh, and dwelt among us. How did we find Him the other night, what He did? how they knew Him by discerning the thoughts of the heart. They knew that was that prophet that Moses spoke of. He claimed to be that; they knowed it was. That's the way He was.
Now, He turned back to that again. Did you know that?
"Oh, no, Brother Branham."
Oh, yes, He did, too. He said ... when He was here on earth, He said, "I come from God and I go to God." Is that right? And after He was dead, buried, rose, and ascended on high, Saul of Tarsus was on his road down to Damascus one day, to put the people in jail that was worshipping. And all at once a great light flashed before him, and he fell to the ground. And that great light was so bright it put out the eyes of Saul. He was blind for a season.
And He said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
He said, "Who are you, Lord?"
He said, "I'm Jesus." Went back to the pillar of fire again.

60 And we've got the picture of it, right with us, the Pentecostal church. Hallelujah!
Now, is it the same Spirit? Is it the same pillar of fire? George J. Lacy---the head of the FBI finger-printing document---there's his document wrote on it. Said, "The light struck the lens." Said, "There's no psychology about it, because the mechanical eye of the camera won't take psychology." Struck the lens.
Got another one right up here at the other place; got them in Switzerland and in Germany. They wanted to know if their pictures would take it. The big German cameras come out, and I was standing there. I said, "Certainly, if God will permit it." There, I came out there and was talking, and I said, "Now it's coming."
And this German ... just standing, whirling his pictures, taking them. And when it did it showed the Holy Spirit coming down, showed the man over there with his collar turned around.
And I said to him by the Spirit, "You're standing there like a priest, but you're not a priest. You're not even a German." I said, "You're an Italian. You're a leader of twenty thousand communists. You ran off with a party, and got a little orphanage up in the mountains. You didn't eat your breakfast because you got stomach trouble. That's 'Thus saith the Lord.' " I said, "Eat your breakfast. Jesus Christ makes you well."
He sat down, and started eating as hard as he could, and crying. And they took the picture of the Holy Ghost coming down---when it ascended, when it was anointing, and when it went away---right straight in the daylight, standing there. What is it? Not psychology. Are you so far away from God, my brother? It's not psychology. The camera knows more about it than you do.

61 Now, is it the Holy Spirit? Well, if it does the works of Jesus Christ, it's the same Spirit that was on Him. Then you can rest assured that you who believe in God, and believe you have the Holy Ghost, that that's the same Holy Ghost because it's doing the same thing it did when it was on the real Son of God. When it comes upon sons and daughters of adoption, it does the same thing it did there.
If I told you I had the spirit of John Dillinger, you'd look to me to have two big guns if I had his spirit. If I had the spirit of an artist, you'd expect me to paint the pictures of the waves out there; catch them beautiful waves and paint them. If I had the spirit of an artist, I could do it. If I had the spirit of a mechanic, I could listen to your car and tell you what's wrong with it. If I tell you I got the Spirit of Christ, then I'd do the works of Christ. If you can't believe me, well, believe the works, believe that God sent it.
Because I don't join up with the organizations and things, you don't want to believe it for that. Then believe the very works and get saved. That's right. I know it's hard. I don't know why I say it. But it's got to be told somewhere. It's got to be truth. It's got to be made known.
At the day of the judgment, I'll meet you there in the name of the Lord Jesus. He'll still confirm that it's truth when it's in his Bible, and "Heavens and earth will pass away and my Word shall never..." Amen. Come back to God. That's the call. Get back to God again.

62 Abraham called Him Elohim. Turned his back---showed what God did then 'cause Abraham recognized that that was God in human flesh, dwelling right here with him, talking with him.
Jesus said ... in other words, He said, "You know what the angel of the Lord did down there at Sodom?"
Look what the Sodomites were doing. They were buying and building---oh, my! contractors all over the country, building. Did you ever see such a time? I can't even go rabbit hunting no more at home. It's all housing projects where the farm was. I don't know what we're going to do to eat. Building, building. That's exactly what Jesus said would take place. Did He say it? They were marrying, giving in marriage, like in the day of Noah. Look at the Reno, Nevadas, and look here.

63 This nation would be better off if it had... I better not say that. All right.
But anyhow, it'd be better to have three or four wives... And I'd rather stand before God with three married women, or five married women standing by my side, than to stand there with one wife, and running with another man's. Yes, sir. I'd have a better chance before God. You can't force sinners to take a Christian's duty and do that. They can't do it until they're born again.
That's right. We're a long ways from being a Christian nation. How would we open up every bootleg joint on the corner, and run the things the way we do, and call ourselves Christians? That's not Christians, no more than a hog knows about a side saddle. Well, you couldn't call that Christianity. We're no Christian nation. No, sir. There's Christians in this nation, but it's not a Christian nation. I thank God for the Christians that is in here. "It's not all that saith unto me 'Lord, Lord,' will come in, but the one that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. That's the one that comes in."

64 What's the use of being a half-way? What's the use of having a lukewarm church? Either be red hot, or ice cold. Don't claim Pentecost unless you live Pentecost. Don't jump no higher than you live. That's right. It's a shame. It brings a disgrace upon the rest of them. It ain't the bootleg joints so much that's hurting the unbeliever. It's these people that claim to have something, and act like the world. That's what's a stumbling block. A church is supposed to be on fire for God.
And going around calling the very Spirit of God that comes ... saying it's mystic, it's telepathy, it's all this, that, or the other, because they don't belong to their organization. Shame on you. God have mercy on your sinful soul. You'll meet that at the day of judgment, and perhaps before you get to the judgment (that's right), because God promised it. Oh, we're in a terrible time, friends. Oh, the world is sinking, the nation is dying.
Nations are breaking, Israel's awakening,
The signs that the prophets foretold;
The Gentile days numbered, with horrors
encumbered;
"Return, O dispersed, to your own."
The day of redemption is near,
Men's hearts are failing for fear;
Be filled with God's Spirit,
Your lamps trimmed and clear.
Look up! Your redemption's drawing near.
Oh, what a day that we're living in. What if Paul was living in this day? What if St. Peter was living in this day? And to see Pentecost in the condition, he'd shake you. He certainly would, 'cause he had the Holy Spirit in him. He certainly would.

65 Now, notice, I want to show you what God promised to them overcomers, what God did to those overcomers. I just got fifteen minutes to let out in time. Let's see, what God did, right there when Abraham recognized Him. Said, "Yes, that's God." Called Him "Elohim, my Lord." Not "my lords"; "my Lord." "My Lord," he said. Capital L-O-R-D.
Notice what he called Him. And when he recognized Him and knowing what it was, and he asked for mercy for so many people, so many people. And finally he got from fifty down to ten. Still couldn't find them in Sodom, or He would have spared the city. But He couldn't even find them in all the church down there. Couldn't be five or ten honest people.
He only got three out. Had four, and one of them turned around and looked back, his wife. She didn't want to leave her fine Hollywood things, and her nice place, you know. And she turned to a pillar of salt.

66 Don't look back. "He that puts his hand on the plow and even turns to look back is not worthy of plowing." That's what's in this church, brother. You've put your hands on the plow and called yourself Pentecostal, filled with the Holy Ghost. Stopped, looked at the world, and act like the world, and polish yourself like the world, and all this kind of stuff; and having worldly things, and staying home watching television instead of coming to prayer meeting; while sinners come to the altar, and never get a move out of anybody come. Not interested anymore.
Let me give you a little warning. Ezekiel, the 9th chapter, the Bible said, told the marker with the Holy Spirit, "Go through the city, and set a mark upon those who sigh and cry for the abominations that's did in the city." How many ever read it? Sure. Don't mark nobody else but them. Count on your fingers, and hold them up to me. How many people can anyone in this building mark that sighs and cries day and night for the abominations done in this city? I don't see a finger. "Set a seal only on those who sigh and cry for the abominations did in the city." A lot of them even scared to preach out against it. A lot of them are afraid.
God, give us men with backbone instead of wishbone. Yes, sir. Give us another John the Baptist. Send him forth, anointed with the Holy Ghost, that'll not pull any punches but stay with the Word. And if he stays with the Word, don't be afraid. God will back his Word.
I've come in all kinds of tight places, where devils and everything else raised up. I've seen them smitten blind, struck down, and everything else. Don't fear. Stay right there with the Word, watch what God does. Just be sure that you're right with God. Stay with that Word and watch what happens.

67 When Brother Arganbright, sitting here, he could tell you the story I was thinking now. Fifteen witch doctors on one side, and fifteen on the other one, called up a storm to blow away the tent in Switzerland ... or, I believe it was Germany, going to blow away the tent. Told us they was going to do it, and sat there and cut those feathers, and started going through maneuvers: "Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," three high words they said. All right. Here come the storm up.
Brother Arganbright will tell you the same. Where tens of thousands of people in that tent jumping up and down, I said, "Pray, Brother Arganbright." I said, "Brother Lowster, don't interpret this." I said, "Heavenly Father, I landed off that plane up here in the name of Jesus Christ, because You sent me here. You promised that You'd take care of me. What can I do in a case like this? I rebuke this storm in the name of Jesus Christ."
In one flat second that storm parted right over the tent, moved back. Thunder begin to roll back like that, and thousands run to the altar to get saved. And the witch doctors were defeated.

68 That man sitting out in the meeting, trying to throw one of those spells on me to make me bark like a dog to show off in there... He didn't know... Sitting there, I kept feeling that odd spirit. I thought, "I hate to call that, because he's somebody's friend."
Jesus said, "Let them grow up together. You pull up the wheat when you pull up the weeds." I kept going; he kept on. After a while the Holy Spirit kept speaking to me.
I turned. I said, "You deceiver! Why will you come into the meeting, the service of God, to try to deceive somebody?" And he kept looking around like I was talking to ... I said, "It's you I'm talking to." I called his name. I said, "Because that you have did this to the Spirit of God, somebody will pack you out of here." And he's still paralyzed.
Wrote a letter, and said, "What must I do?"
I said, "Repent."
He said, "Come take this off of me."
I said, "I never had nothing to do with it coming on you. You brought it on yourself."
The Bible said "It's far better that a millstone be hanged at your neck, and you drown in the depth of the sea, than to offend the anointed of God." Right. We've lost our fear for God, the respect for Christians. Oh, how we ought to get back to God.

69 Watch what God showed Abraham here because he believed the Word. Watch what took place. What did He do to Sarah? You know what He done to Sarah and Abraham? Showing what He's going to do to all of Sarah and Abraham's seed---the seed of Abraham, what He's going to do. You know what He did? Watch what they did immediately after that. They took a long journey from where they were camped at up there at Sodom, all the way to Gerar down in the Philistine land---about three hundred miles. That's quite a long walk for an old man a hundred years old, and a little old grandma, with a little shawl on her shoulders, going along like this---three hundred miles on a walk.
It wasn't that way. He turned them back to a young man and a young woman. I can prove it. He did. That's the promise to all his seed that'll take his Word, and hold on to it like that. He turned Sarah back to a young woman so she could have that baby.

70 I want to say something. Now, you listen to your doctor. I'm your brother. Now look. If she was that old, He'd have to strengthen her heart or she could not go in labor, a ninety-year old woman. That's right. He'd have to patch up her heart. The milk veins from her breast had dried up. They didn't have... Women didn't smoke cigarettes in them days, so they just raised their baby on their breast, you see, and didn't give it cow's milk. So they had to feed them through their breast, and the milk veins was dried up. Just look what a condition! He'd had to patch her up. God don't patch up; He makes new.
I can see Sarah turned back to a lovely woman about twenty-five years old. I can see Abraham about twenty-five or thirty years old. I can hear Sarah say ... one morning wake up, and say, "Honey, did you know, that hump's going out of your shoulders?"
I can hear him say, "Darling, them pretty brown eyes that you used to have come back, and the color is coming back into your hair again." Oh, my. Yes.

71 Now you say, "Now, Brother Branham, wait a minute. Wait a minute," see.
The Bible is a love story to the believer. Now when I go overseas, Mrs. Branham writes me a letter, and she says, "Dear Billy: I'm sitting here tonight. I've got to put the children to bed. I just got through praying for you. I know that God is blessing you," see. That's what she's saying, but I'm reading right between the lines. I love her, see. I know what she's talking about. She won't tell me just all about it, because I know it anyhow the way she's writing.
Well, that's the way you read the Bible---between the lines. God's got... That's the reason He hid it from the eyes of the wise and prudent, them that said "I've got a PhD, a DDD." You know what "DD" stands for? Dead dog. So I tell you, brother, we don't need that today.
We need not some theology; but "kneeology" is what we need. Well, the Bible calls it dumb dog, so it'd just be as bad, you see. Said they were dumb dogs, DD. Now, notice. There he was in there. "I got this and I got that." Well, that's all right. I like to have Jesus.
They perceived that Peter and John were ignorant and unlearned, but had to take notice they had been with Jesus. Neither one of them could sign their name or anything, but they knowed they'd been with Jesus. That's what we got to do: know that they've been with Jesus.

72 Now when you read the Bible, He's hid it from the eyes of the wise and prudent, and will reveal it to babes such as will learn. So when you go to reading this here, now watch what happened to show you that's what He done.
The first thing... Now you say, "Oh, Brother Branham, they was just..." Now the Bible says they were well-stricken in years. That's right. Well-stricken in years. Now my legalistic brother, I don't want to pinch you very hard, but I want you to know I can still pinch just a little with the Word, see. I don't want to hurt you, but I want you to watch what taken place.
He goes down into Gerar, and when He got down there... I'm going to take your side of it: Here's little grandma coming along, nearly a hundred years old, little dust-bonnet and little shawl, you know, hopping along. And you know, Abimelech down there in Gerar, he was the king, and he was hunting for a wife. And all those pretty Philistine women ... But when he seen little grandma, he said, "That's the one I've waited for." Oh!
Abraham said, "You show your kindness to me. You say you're my sister," which she was. Said, "You say you're my sister," because, see, in them days...
I might put a plug in here. If the preacher'd want to preach on it sometime, he might run it on through the Bible. Remember, men had as many wives as they could afford to have, but no woman could have two living husbands at the same time. David had five hundred wives, but not one of them had another husband. I better stop right now, see. All right. If they only knowed the truth of that, it'd tear these churches wide open. That's right.

73 Now, notice what would take place, if you'd just get to where God could reveal some things to you of the Spirit. Now, notice.
Now, he said, "Now, they'll kill me and save you alive," 'cause as long as he was married to her... Said, "You say you're my sister, and it'll go well with me."
Now here was Abraham going down there, and here was little Sarah, little grandma, you know, coming along. And Abimelech said, "Oh, there's the beauty. That's the one I want. Grandma." No, that sounds silly, doesn't it? See. It wasn't. She was a beautiful woman. Sure. She was young again.
Oh, don't worry, mother. It's coming some day. Watch Dad. Just be the seed of Abraham. Have that faith. That's what it takes. We being dead in Christ, we're Abraham's seed. But you have to be dead in Christ, take on Christ. The Holy Ghost in you, that's Abraham's seed. And He'll rise you up again. Old age won't mean a thing.

74 I asked a scientist here not long ago, I said, "I pray you tell me something. Is it so that every time I eat... ? I'm made out of the dust of the earth. And every time I eat food, then I renew my life?"
He said, "That's right. It makes blood vessels and the blood. You get new blood from your food," and said, "that makes new life."
I said, "You know, when I was sixteen years old, I ate the same food I eat now." And I said, "Every time that I ate, I got bigger and stronger. Now no matter how much I eat, I'm getting older and weaker. If I'm renewing my life, what's happened to it? Tell me."
I got a jug of water and a glass of water, sitting here. And I start pouring water out of this big jug into this glass, and it starts filling up. And it gets half full. And I start pouring faster, and it keeps going down all the time. Scientifically prove that to me. You can't do it.
I can by the Bible. It's an appointment. That's right.

75 That's right. God has appointed when He seen you and mother at the right age, when you were young, and married and happy. Remember it, Dad?
Before the children come on, the first thing you know... She was the prettiest thing you ever looked at. Oh, my. You just thought she was a beauty; and how she admired you standing with them straight shoulders.
After a while you looked around, and said, "Mother, there's wrinkles coming under them pretty eyes."
"Yes, Dad. Some gray is coming in here, too, sliding out on top."
What's the matter? See, death has set in. It's going to corner you some day. But listen, in the resurrection there'll not be one thing that symbolizes death. We'll be a new... Hallelujah!
I've got about four or five hairs left on top, and I was combing them a few days ago, or sometime ago--- combing them, and my wife said, "Billy, you know what? You're just about bald-headed, honey."
"But," I said, "I haven't lost a one of them."
She said, "Pray tell me where they're at."
I said, "Wait a minute, darling. Come here." I said, "You tell me where they were before I got them. They had to come from somewhere. Tell me where they were before I got them; I'll tell you where they are, waiting for me to come to them." Hallelujah!
My God is Abraham's God. Amen. Every hair of your head is numbered. All the wrinkles will flee away. Old age will pass away. Oh, glory to God! And we'll be a new creature forever standing in the center of youth and happiness. Amen. That's our God.

76 Oh, I'll be just maybe a spoonful of dust, but He'll call me some day. He'll go "Whew! Come forth, Billy."
I'll say, "Here I am, Lord. Here I am, Father." Yes, sir.
He'll never come say, "Now, Mr. Branham, Charles, you and Ella give birth to William again, 'cause he was one of my servants." No, no. He'll just speak, and I'll answer Him. Amen. Hallelujah! Hallelujah means "Praise our God." I think He's worthy of all praise.

77 Somebody said to me not long ago, she said---a woman that belonged to another denominational church---she said, "Brother Branham, there's only one thing wrong with your ministry that I find."
And I said, "What's that?"
She said, "You brag too much on Jesus."
I said, "I what?"
She said, "You brag too much. You make Him divine."
I said, "He was divine."
And she said, "Oh, He was a prophet."
I said, "He was more than a prophet. He was the God of the prophets." That's right.
"Oh," she said. You know what religion I'm talking about. I don't want to hurt your feelings (It was a Christian Science woman.), because many of them comes to meetings and gets healed. That's all right.

78 She said, "Well, He was a good man. I believe He was a prophet."
I said, "He was either God, or the greatest deceiver the world ever had." He was God Himself.
And she said, "I'll prove to your own Bible (You said you was a fundamentalist), I'll prove by your own Bible that He wasn't nothing but a man."
I said, "Prove it."
And she said, "St. John, the 11th chapter. When Jesus went down to the grave of Lazarus, the Bible said, 'He wept.' That proved that He was a human being like you are."
I said, "Is that your scripture?"
She said, "Yes."
I said, "Sister, that's thinner than the broth made out of a shadow of a chicken that starved to death." I said, "That would never stand."
She said, "What do you mean by that?"
I said, "He wept like a man, that's right, going to the grave. But when He stood ... his little stooped shoulders, and pulled them together, and said, 'Lazarus, come forth,' and a man that had been dead four days stood on his feet, and lived again, that took more than a man." Yes, sir. God!
"I am the resurrection and life," saith God. Not a man, not a prophet, but God is what He was. "I am the resurrection and life," saith God. "He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believeth thou this?"
And she said, "Yea, Lord, I believe." That's it. Something's got to happen. Not a man; God.

79 Now let's follow Abraham. So Sarah... Abimelech said, "You know, there's that beautiful Hebrew woman." Said, "Is that your husband?"
"No, that's my brother."
He said, "That's right. That's my sister."---which, it was his half sister.
So he said, "Well, I'll take her over at the palace, and she'll become my wife. And I'll just give you a lot of things," see. All right. So he took her over there.
And could you imagine a man doing a thing like that? So he slipped over there.

80 See why he done it? Why did he compromise? He was out of the promise. He went down in Gerar.
That's the reason you women chop your hair off and use make-up, and you fellows smoke cigarettes and carry on the way you do. You get out of the promise; and still remain deacons, and members, and so forth, like these Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostals and so forth. You just get right out of the promise. That's all. The devil twists you. Stay over here where you belong, prayed up. That's right. Let the devil speak to you, listen to him.

81 Now, here he was, sitting out there as a little sneaking coward, sitting... Now God forgive me for speaking of his prophet like that, but I'm trying to make a point here. Now watch.
Old Abimelech went over there. And I imagine that night after he took his bath, and put on his pajamas, and said his prayers and stuck his toes out like that, "Oh, I finally found the one I wanted. Hmm!", laying on a bed. Said, "Tomorrow I'll marry this pretty Hebrew woman." They had her all decorated up with earrings, and all these kind of things, you know. "Oh, how beautiful she looks. Tomorrow I'll marry her."
And while he was laying there on the bed, the Lord said, "You're just as good as a dead man." That good holiness brother, but He said, "You're just as good as a dead man." Said, "That woman is the wife of another man."
"Well," he said, "Lord, you knowed the integrity of my heart. Didn't she tell me that... ?"
"Yes, I know."
"Didn't he tell me?"
"Yes, I know. That's the reason I kept you from sinning against me. Now her husband is my prophet." Amen.
Now if you want to watch grace, look at this setting out there, lying about his wife. But, "Her husband's my prophet."
"I won't hear your prayers, but you take her back and let him pray for you. And then I'll heal you." Oh, hallelujah! Oh, brother, can you see it? The seed of Abraham anchored in Jesus. "Her husband is my prophet." There you are. "Take his wife back to him, and give him an offering, and let him pray for you," 'cause He closed every womb. That's right. The nation would've died right off and been no more of it. But He was willing...
He was a good man. He went and took the wife back, and restored her. And God blessed him and blessed Abraham.
Then he started back up into his homeland, right back to the place where the angel met him and showed the sign by turning his back. That same God lives tonight.

82 I ain't going to have time to make this other. I'll get it tomorrow at Sunday school, this last little comment here. I've got the 21st, 20th... the last part of the 20th and 21st chapter yet, with some scriptures there I'd like to use. Now, I'll get that tomorrow at Sunday school, how He takes Him up and becomes Jehovah-jireh.

83 Oh, brother, the angel of the Lord is here tonight. He's Jehovah-God in your flesh; He's Jehovah-God in my flesh. That same God never dies. He's just as real. The thing of it is, the people don't recognize Him. They don't... And when He does come, they say, "Well, very well, I suppose. Looked all right. Uh-huh, I guess that's right." Oh, brother, if every word in that Bible isn't true, it's not God's Word. It's not God's Word if it isn't. But if it is, then it's... If God confirms his Word, then it's true. Amen.
God keeps his Word. Don't you believe that? He's here. He's here. I say that in the name of the Lord. Think He is? Now, He can use my flesh the same as He could create some, because He made me anyhow. He could use your flesh. He created it, and made you. Don't you think that?
Now if you just open up your heart, and get yourself out of the way, He'll come in and can use you. He's the same God. He gives the same signs. Amen. Do you believe it? Look to Him. Let me turn my back. Pray for something you got wrong with you. Watch a challenge.

84 Yes, sir.
Here's a man before me. Here he is, standing right... Let me see now, where's he at? Sitting right back there. Tie open here in front, light suit on, thin hair on top, suffering with heart trouble. The man with the gray-looking suit on, sitting there looking right at me. You were praying, "Lord, let Him touch me." That's right. Raise up your hand if that's right.
Then if the same angel can tell me what he was saying in his heart, then why can't the same God ... ? Your heart trouble's over, brother. Go home and be well. Amen. You wouldn't happen to have a prayer card, do you? You don't have a prayer card. You don't need one.
You see what I mean? See, he's just coming to himself. I looked around, and I seen him standing back there with thin hair. And I looked. I thought, "Where's he at?" And I looked back there, and there he was. He was sitting there. The man just... I never seen him in my life. If we're strangers raise your hand, sir. Was every word said right? Was that what you was thinking? What you was doing? There you are.

85 Then what did he say? When that man sitting there, God in his flesh, this man's flesh, said, "Why did Sarah say in her heart that it can't happen?"
Then the same angel comes here and said, "Why did... ?" You did say it will happen. "Let him touch me." Amen. Oh, why be so gross? Amen! Just have faith.
Don't you see, friends, can you wake up, Pentecostal people? Why don't you bite your conscience? Why don't you pinch your soul? Amen. Now it's starting everywhere. Oh, Jehovah-jireh, the Lord's able to provide for himself a sacrifice. Amen. Have faith. What do you think, brother? I guess you might think I'm rough. I'm not rough; I'm your brother. I'm your brother. That's right, brother. I love you.
I realize I'm in a organizational church here---Assembly of God, one of my greatest sponsors, my brethren. But what I hate to see is it getting cold, and cooling off. I'm not against that organization. I'm not against the Oneness brethren out there, or the Methodist or the Baptists. I say the same thing everywhere. But what I'm trying to say, "Shake yourselves, brethren, get your eyes off these things."

86 Here, wait a minute. A woman appeared here before me, somebody praying. Neuritis, eyes. The woman's got a red dress on. Here she sits right here. You believe that He'll heal you, Miss Kerry? Then, if you believe with all your heart, God'll make you well. If that's right, raise up your hand. All right. There you are. I challenge you to believe it. What is it? The same Lord God Almighty. He's here dwelling in human flesh. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Oh, my! His spirit is all over the building.
Ever ... where is that woman that spoke to? Was it you, lady, the woman that I spoke to just then? Where was it? Oh, here, this lady. Yeah. All right. You accept your healing now? I don't know you. I've never seen you in my life, know nothing about you. But them things are true, wasn't it? There you are. All right. All right. See, I never seen her. There's my hands before God. See what He does.
Oh, brother, sister, if you just get away from your shell, pull out of it. Come out. Lay yourself before God, and say, "Lord God, nothing in my arms I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling." That's right.

87 I will praise Him, I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For his blood has washed away each stain.
I will praise Him, I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For His blood has washed away each stain.
I love Him, I love Him (Oh, my, worship
Him. The hard cutting sermon's over
now. Let's worship Him.),
Because He first loved me;
(Don't you love Him? Oh, isn't
He wonderful?)
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
I will praise Him (Don't you feel all
scoured out now?), I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For his blood has washed away each stain.

88 Oh, doesn't that do something to you? A cutting spirit going through the building, chopping, circumcising. What does the word "circumcise" mean? Cut off surplus flesh. The church's got too much surplus flesh. The sword of God cuts it off. Then when we do, we feel all circumcised and clean. Paul said, "I'll worship Him. I'll worship Him in the Spirit."
I will praise Him, I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For his blood has washed away each stain.

89 Oh, isn't He wonderful? Is there a sinner here knowing that God makes a promise, God keeps his promise? God speaks here, and if any man that preaches the Word of God, God'll back his word up. Now, you don't have to guess about it. He's alive. He's here now. Do you want Him as your Saviour? Come up to the altar, if you do, while we sing again. I will praise Him, Praise the Lamb for sinners slain. All right. Will you come to the altar?
I will praise Him, I will praise Him,
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory all ye people,
For his blood has washed away each stain.

90 Oh, wonderful. What would happen in India if that altar call was made like that? You'd have to get back, they'd crowd you down. Around thousands pouring in around the altar. They love Him when they see God. Not a material... Not a God that's a historical God; a God that's present-day God. A God from history makes Himself... I'll be preaching this next week, the God of history rising on the scene. See if He's the historical God, or if He isn't the same God today. Amen. I love him, don't you?
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine;
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my sins away,
Oh, let me from this day
Be wholly Thine!
While life's dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread,
Be Thou my guide.
Bid darkness turn to day,
Wipe sorrow's tears away,
Nor let me ever stray
From Thee aside.

91 Won't someone else make their way around the altar while these are here, penitent souls crying?
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary (Come on,
sinner friend. You'll never
be any closer.),
Saviour divine. (What about the
lukewarm Christian? Why don't
you come up and pray through?)
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my sins away,
Nor let me ever stray
From Thee aside.

92 Won't you come? Come sweetly, humbly to the cross. God bless you ones that's coming. Move right on down. Come in now around the altar. Let's have a season of prayer. Come, out there, that feels a little damp in your spirit. Come on, sister dear. I seen you out of the balcony coming. Come.
Just as I am without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
Because thy promise I believe.
Oh, Lamb of God, I come.
That's it. Now the coldness'll go to breaking.
Just as I am without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O, Lamb of God, I come! I come!
Just as I am and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O, Lamb of God, I come! I come!
Now every one of you bow your heads, raise up your hands to God and start praying. You pray yourself. Get right down and start praying. That's it.