Remembering the Lord

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Thank you, Brother Neville. So glad to be here, Brother Neville, and the opportunity to sit in these heavenly places again, in Christ Jesus. And numbers never did bother me, it always excites me. You know, I'm more at home when I'm with a small number, 'cause that's what I think the church is. Yeah, I have a Scripture for that, says, "Fear not, little flock, it's your Father's good will to give you the kingdom." And I would ... that's the little flock I want to be numbered with at that day, the one that He said, "Not to fear."

2 And we're very happy for the privilege of coming down tonight.
And I didn't come with the intention of speaking. Just a few moments ago there was someone who had come to the door, and while I was just at study, getting some context ready for some text that I want to use now right away in the oncoming meetings of Phoenix and Tucson, and through there. And I was just getting really fed up in the Spirit, you know, the good things of God, about an ultimate, and a subject on "Ultimate." And my wife come and she told me that there was someone that come to see me, and I didn't get it just right, then afterwards, why, said, "Are you going to be down at the church tonight?"
And I said, "I think so." And I went on trying to keep in the spirit of what I was doing. And she come back and said it was a sick man was coming to be prayed for. I said, "Well, then, I'll go down to church, anyhow, see, if it's pray for the sick." I always, that's... You know, those things are ... we should get to them as quick as possible when people are sick and needy. Ever who's been sick knows how to appreciate what it means to be healed by God's great healing power. And such a wonderful thing it is, what a privilege.

3 Now, next coming Sunday, if the Lord is willing, Brother Neville and none of them has anything special, I thought next Sunday morning I'd bring my Christmas message to the people, because letting them... Some of them come from far away, you know, and like Georgia and different places, and that'll let them get back in time to do their Christmas shopping and things.
And Billy just come out and told me, said my sister, Delores, next Sunday evening just before service, has some kind of a little gifts for the kids and a little program here they're going to, you know, a little Christmas play that they want to put on before the services start. And I said, "Well, that'll be in the Sunday evening won't it?"
Said, "Yes."
I said, "That won't interfere a bit, then."

4 Now, see, next Tuesday is Christmas eve, then if ... or next Tuesday, a week, is Christmas. So that would press the people, you see, and then have to go back home on Christmas eve, and on Monday, so I thought that I ... yeah, two weeks. That's right, two weeks is right. So I thought maybe I'd come tonight and let the people know, if the Lord is willing, and Brother Neville has nothing special. That, I usually like to give my Christmas message to the church, and my Easter message, and whatever the Lord puts upon my heart to give. And next Sunday, the Lord willing, next Sunday morning I give...

5 And the reason I take it of a morning instead of an evening, where the people that comes from far away, they have the afternoon to travel so they can get home, you see. And I would rather have it at night, I think the evening is much better. I like the evening service, when the sun goes down, something another. It was God in the garden of Eden, to Adam, would come up in the cool of the evening and talk to Adam. See, and I like the evening service. But, in the way the circumstances are here, that it would be better that I had it of a morning, and so the people can get away.
And I'm grateful that the Tabernacle is being extended out here into the next place out past us here, having some more room added to it. After all the stewing and fussing, finally we got it anyhow. You know, old Brother Bosworth used to have a sense of humor, said, "The baby that cries the loudest gets the most attention." So that's kind of a whole lot, you know, and so I think it pays us to cry a little bit once in a while, don't you think so?

6 So, and I want to commend Brother Anthony and his associates here for that lovely music. I just walked in and heard that. And, you know, them instruments is trumpets. I've wanted one of my children, at least one of them, to play a trumpet, and them blowing instruments.
Becky started on the piano, but she's at that little teen-age something, you know, that's ... she wants to give it up now. And she started... The teacher said they'd have to start on popular music. Not ... I don't mean ... you know what I mean, overtures, and so forth, of classic music, in order to get the religious music to it. When she gets up to her high grades in that, then she thinks, "Well, I'll just quit." And kids are a problem. And, anyhow, it has to be a calling of God, to begin with. I believe her sister, Sarah, back there is going to beat her, anyhow, never had a lesson. So then the calling of God is better when it's gifted like that.
But I like a trumpet. I remember when they dedicated this tabernacle there at the corner, the trumpets rang for a half a day out here, "Down at the cross where my Saviour died, down there for pardon from sin I cried, there to my heart was the blood applied," when I was dropping in my context into the cornerstone.

7 And I remember one night at Trinity Methodist Church, when old Dr. Morrison... Many of you people that's lived back in my days remember Dr. Morrison, an old sainted man. Asbury lost one of the greatest men since Asbury, when they lost Dr. Morrison, to his age, a godly old man. And I always loved to hear him preach. And I went over to hear him over at the Trinity Methodist Church there. And that night, two boys stepped out in the little balcony just as wife and I were walking up, and they were holding their trumpets in the air like that, and those instruments there, and they played that, "Down at the cross where my Saviour died!" That big cross up on top, revolving around. I just stood on the street and lifted up my hands, and just begin to praising God right out. I couldn't help it.
There's some kind of an emotion within a born again Christian, when it pulsates, there's something has to happen, that's all there is to it. Oh, there's nothing like an old-time Christian experience! Wouldn't take nothing for it, my experience, wouldn't swap it for no riches of the world, or the whole world and all the solar system and all, for what Jesus has taught me of Himself.

8 There's a certain man that's sits with us, every time I look back my heart jumps. It's a man I seen taking communion the other night, walks on a crutch. Did anybody ever tell you, you look like Oral Roberts? I tell you, every time I... How many... You've seen Oral Roberts, nearly all of you. If he don't look like Oral Roberts! I just happened to look back. And I think he's a little bigger man than Oral is. But just to look the way he combs his hair, and his forehead and his features, and always kind of a dignified-looking person, sitting like Oral. And so I always think, "Brother Oral?" Looks just something like him.
Brother Oral's starting some kind of a Bible school out there now, I believe, or something. I heard about it the other day. What? University. Yes. Brother Carl Williams is one of his ultimates on it, of some sort, I don't know just what it is now.

9 Now, now remember, Sunday, the Lord willing, we'll start, I have the Easter ... or the Christmas message. And then I'm grateful about the tabernacle being started. And then I hope that this will be not only an addition to number, but it will be the addition to grace that God will grant our church, our movement, or, not movement, but our congregation that we have assembled together. We love it.
And I'd just like to say this. I'm not going to take much time. But, I have many things I ought to say, but it would take too much time. But I'd like to say this, it's something that I cannot say. There's things (everyone understands) that you know, and it's in the name of the Lord, yet you cannot say it. You've got to keep it to yourself, see. But a certain event that's moving up, and has been for some time, that's fixing to take place, that I have been alarmed at watching the Holy Spirit move among the people to that spot, and them knowing not one earthly thing, see, but see the Holy Spirit moving to that. I'll reveal it, the Lord willing, some convenient time. Now, remember, that shows God among them.

10 As someone, I believe, brother, yes, said awhile ago, Brother Neville said that, "God, not accounting or disorder among us, or misbehaving in his sight." That the seer that went to look upon Israel, and could see it with the natural eye, how unorderly it was, how that they had did wrong and they should be cursed. But what the bishop failed to see was that smitten rock and that brass serpent, see, making atonement. So, you see, when Balaam looked upon Israel, he saw a reason to curse them, see. But when God looked upon them, He saw the atonement. He said, "You're like a unicorn." Amen. "Who will put anything in your way? How godly, how righteous are thy tents!" That's the way God saw them, see. Not the way man saw them, not the way the great dignitaries saw them; but the way He saw them.
And, O God, let that be my portion! Let that be my portion, for I have nothing within myself that I could claim. "Nothing in my hands I bring, just simply to thy cross I cling." See, that's all we have.

11 Well, this is prayer meeting night, or not prayer meeting night, but this is kind of an evangelistic group here. We like to place the Word. And maybe I'd like to speak to you tonight for a few minutes. Many of you that would like to turn in the Scripture ... Well, do you know, the strange thing, that opened just exactly to it, to the text that I was going to read. Yes, sir. Strange. That was I Corinthians, the 11th chapter, and some notes that I had wrote down here, somewhere in here, that I was thinking of, if I can find it just now, on 1 Corinthians, the 11th chapter. Right here it is, right here. Yes, sir.
Now, before we approach the Word, let's approach the author, see, who is the Word, that we might ask for mercy and for His blessings while we study Him who is the Word. Let us pray.

12 O Lord God, full of grace and mercy, who has been willing through the age, after man had sinned and put that great chasm between him and Thee, one that he could not cross back by himself. He was absolutely, totally lost, without a way back. But the God full of all grace, was willing to take a substitute in his place, and brought him back. That has thrilled the hearts of all that's ever known of Thee, Lord, how that in thy great love and grace You took a substitute! And as we have just got through expressing it, Lord, it's on that substitute that we rely on tonight, that One who died instead of us sinners, that righteous One who has taken upon Him, our unrighteousness. It is in Him that we trust.
Now we solemnly come to His Word, with bowed hearts and heads, in reverence and in respect and in gratefulness. And asking that You will send to us tonight, grace, by the Holy Spirit, and will give us the bread of life that we need to sustain us. You know exactly what we have need of, and we know that Thou hast promised that if we would ask we shall receive

13 We would remember tonight, Lord, all those that we know that's sick and needy, that the grace of God will be given to them in great abundance. And, Father, we pray for those who have fallen away, that this coming-on holiday will bring a remembrance to their heart, that from where they once was, and have fallen to the outward space of your fellowship. God, we pray that they'll return, grant it, Lord, return to the congregation, to the assembly of the firstborn. Return back to where there is grace and mercy, and love and kindness, and healing of our souls, our minds and our bodies. Grant it, Lord. Bless the word tonight. Strengthen us all, and give us of Thy blessings, as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

14 Now, for just a few moments I'd like to call your attentions to I Corinthians, the 11th chapter, 23rd, 24th, and 25th verse.
For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
And when he had gave thank, he brake it, and said, Take, and eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also he took the cup, and when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do you, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
If I should call this just a little text that I'd like to refer to, would be this: "Remembering The Lord." It sounds like a night that ... or a message that should've been preached on last Sunday, in the Lord's supper. But I want to approach it just in a little different angle for a few minutes, while we collect our thinkings together, and in worship of the Lord.

15 We could, of course, begin with the Lord's table, because that is a good place where we all remember. Remembering the Lord at His table, which, really, the text refers to that. But, that's ... Paul said that we are to take the cup and to drink the blood, and to eat the kosher bread, in remembrance, to remember what He did for us. And as you do it, you don't want to make it just a common, everyday thing; you want to really come, remembering the Lord, see. Remember that it was his grace and his mercy, and that alone, that gives you the only hope that you have. No matter what you would ever do, there is nothing, nowhere, that can anyways come near what Christ did for you.

16 I have had a sad experience this week, and yet a glorious one, I could call it, I buried a brother that once sat with us here. And many of you know the occasion. It was our gracious Brother Rogers, Busty Rogers, as we called him, Everett. And Brother Banks Wood here, and Brother Sothmann, we went together to the funeral service.
And I took a ride in the snow, out to the old place where I had first buried him, about twenty-five years ago. That time when I buried him, it was in muddy water, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we passed over the old familiar bridge there at Totten's Ford, I was speaking to my brethren, and said, "One day when a certain denominational minister had had a big tent there, he said, 'That little radic' down there at the Baptist church, that's baptizing the people in the name of Jesus Christ.' He said, 'If any person that even was baptized in such a way, would not even be welcome under my tent.'"
And at that time there happened to be some sitting there that had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and that was Brother George Wright and his family. They just... Only thing they could do was not go back.

17 So that day at the ford, oh, he just left his meeting and had come down to kind of watch on, and his congregation was standing there. And I got up to the place. And there had been a rain up the hills up there, and the muddy fields had washed in, its little tributaries had got the Blue River very muddy. I walked out into the water, around waist deep. And one of the trustees, or deacons, rather, handed me the Bible, and I read where Peter said on the day of Pentecost, "Repent, every one of you, and to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

18 It was that day that Georgie Carter was laying there trying to raise her hands, only weighing about sixty-something pounds, been nine years and eight months in the bed, without moving. And her people, the church that she belonged to, had said, if anybody even come to my meeting, they'd be excommunicated from their fellowship at the church. And so it was that same evening that she was instantly healed. And then she wanted to be baptized like the little Nale girl that was up there; that I had saw a vision, and you know the story, her hands and legs drawed up; and went in the vision and the power of the Spirit, laid hands upon her, there she come out and was healed. And so she had belonged to the same... Well, it was a Methodist church. The Methodist minister, Brother Smith, was the one standing on the bank with his congregation.
And I started to baptizing in the Bible, Christian baptism. And about the time I had baptized five or six people, all of a sudden the lines and file broke up, there on the hill. Here come that Methodist bunch right down with their good clothes on, to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And one by one, ladies in their pretty silk and summer garments, walking out through that mud, wiping their face with tears, and lipstick washing off, coming out to make confession and to be baptized.

19 And along with that bunch, a strong, wide-shouldered, kind of a GI haircut, wide face, sturdy-looking man walked out there with his pretty, blue serge suit on. He said, "I, too, have made my decision." That was Busty Rogers, without anybody telling him anything. There I buried him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, upon his confession.
And last week I placed him under the sod at Milltown. And I spoke on the sermon of: "The Perfectness Of The Resurrection." Being a missionary, and seeing the different gods and the philosophers; and that's all any of it is, outside of Christianity it's only a philosophy how that they believe this, that, or the other. But the great creator who made the creation! There has to be a creator if there is a creation. And if there is a creation, it was made by a creator. And any man's work reflects himself. He's a good carpenter, he does good work, he builds. And if he's a good mechanic, he does good work. Your work only reflects you. And God's creation reflects God. And God made everything for a purpose. And everything that serves God's purpose, when it dies, it has a resurrection. Tell me one thing.

20 And I brought in many things, like the flowers and the trees.
And how the sun comes up of a morning, a little baby born, it's weak, its rays is. About ten o'clock, it's a teen-ager. And at twelve o'clock she's shining in her strength, in the beauty of woman or manhood. And about two o'clock in the afternoon, it's getting about like me. And then about five o'clock in the afternoon, it's getting like grandfather, she's laying down. And finally her rays cools off from the earth, and she dies. Is that the end of it? She served God's purpose. She raised up the botany life as she come across the earth. All the plants that would've been dead the year before, she raised it up. Is that the end of her when she serves God's purpose? She rises again the next morning, with a new life! Every tree does the same, everything else, everything, moon, stars, solar system, everything promises.
And if a man serves God's purpose, there is a resurrection just as sure as anything. Only thing it has to do, is, God's just waiting on time, just like He is now.

21 The great leaves that just falled off the tree, fallen off, rather. Where the red, green, blue, brown, all different colors across the great breast of the earth, where God's nature laid dead beneath it, God just planted out His bouquet. But He knows when He plants the bouquet, there's a resurrection in spring! The world has to just to come around its orbit until it gets back right with the sun again, and it will rise in funeral flowers.
Never say, "This is the end," no more than the leaves, brown on the tree, says it's the end. Only thing it has to do, is for the time cycle of God to float around, until the time of the coming of the Son of God. And every living creature that ever died in Christ will come forth again. In His presence, remembering Him. Oh, when I come to the end of my road, I want to die in His presence, remembering Him, that He is the resurrection and life. He is that One.

22 Then as we come to the table of the Lord. The table of the Lord, as I have explained it here before, is not... We believe what we call "the communion" is the taking of the bread. We place the wrong... We place the right thing in the wrong place. It isn't the bread that matters, it isn't the wine that matters, that's the kosher bread and the wine. But the thing that is, is communion means "to talk to," and, in talking to Him, remembering Him. I think it's the most blessed time of the services, see. Every hour of our life ought to be a communion.

23 A communion with the Lord is like an oasis in a desert. It's like the spring underneath the pond, that where the traveler coming by, stops and drinks the water till he quenches his thirst. That's remembering the Lord. Coming by the order of His table, where the passing pilgrim that's sojourning here on earth with us, together, that we can come by His table, and there drink of His blessings and of His grace and of His Word, in fellowship around His Word, until our thirsty souls are satisfied. And then we leave the place of worship, refreshed, satisfied; going out to meet the desert's problems again, the problems of life's desert. Yes, an oasis in the desert, refreshing ourselves, making ourselves when we're thirsty.

24 It should be with every worshipper. It satis... It is with every true worshipper, that they long to get together. There's something about the fellowship that's divine, it's ordered of God, and it's holy, sacred. And the righteous are thirsting for it.
As David said, that his soul thirsted after God, like the hart did the waterbrook. The little wounded deer that the hounds has jerked plugs from its side, and it's jerked away from it. And it stands, panting and watching. Where, smelling with its sense that God give it, it can smell water for miles. And it holds its little head in the air while it's bleeding it's life out. And it knows, if it can ever get to that spring, that it can live. No one's going to catch him then. He can ever get to water, he'll fool every dog you could put after him, for he knows he's found the life-giving resource.

25 And when the church gets to that place, where that Christ means so much to us that we thirst to get in His presence and with each other, it's a life-giving resource. No devil can ever overtake you. Even death itself is defeated there. Oh, what a hope! What a place! Refresh ourself. And, in doing so, remembering Christ was the One who made it possble for us. He was the One who did these things for us, we must remember Him. For, remember, once we was aliens and without God, Gentiles, carried away with dumb idols. But, remember, Christ died not for the Jew, but for every creature of Adam's fallen race, Christ died.

26 As we come to remember Him at His spring of communion, it ought to remind us of back in the time like Israel was in their journeying. And they come, yet in the very line of duty, on their road from Egypt to their deliverance, to the promised land, and, in the very act of duty, got without water. And it was dry in every looked, place, every ... under every hill where there should be springs, there was none. And they were perishing in the desert. And then there appeared the rock, that Moses smote this rock and from it came abundance of water. Every thirsty man, every thirsty woman, child, or even every thirsty beast, could drink abundance of water.

27 As John 3:16, the golden text of the Bible, said, "As God so loved the world, He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth (Believeth, commune, remembers Him) shall not perish, but will have eternal life." Remembering Christ was our rock that was smitten, to save a perishing world, a perishing Gentile, a perishing Jew, a perishing world. Christ gave forth His life in abundance, that everybody that hungered and thirsts, said the prophet, "Lo, come ye to the fountain, buy of me milk and honey without price." Come because it's the communion, come in remembrance of the Lord.

28 I can think of the remembrance of the Lord again at a place of refreshment, in the well called Beerlahairoi, which means in the Hebrew tongue, "The well of Him that liveth and seeth me." Hagar, misunderstood, yet in the line of duty. Misunderstood, misjudged, and was cast out, with no place to go, with a perishing child, and the water was spent in the bottle. And the little fellow was crying. And only a mother's heart would know what it meant to hear that cry for water, as his little tongue swelling, and his lips parched, and her baby weakening every minute. Cast out, right in the line of duty, no place to go. She had done without herself, till she squeezed the last drop over his little parching lips. And then the bottle was dry, and she laid it down and started on. And the little fellow screaming for water, and he got weaker and weaker; and her only child.

29 No doubt but what her innocent heart would cry, "O God, what have I done? What have I done?" And she couldn't stand to see the child die in her arms, so she laid him under a bush. And she went about a bow shot, probably a hundred yards or more, and seen a little tree, and she knelt down and there she begin to weep, for she wondered, "Why?" If she did what was right, why should this thing come upon her? Many times we think that of our sickness and afflictions, see, but maybe it's all done to show grace and mercy. And while she thought, she'd heard the little faint cries as they finally faded out, for water.
She heard a voice speak and said, "Why weepest thou? What are you weeping for?"
And she looked up, and she saw the well bubbling up. What a spring of refreshment! Beerlahairoi, I may have that pronounced wrong. B, double e, r-l-a-h-a-i-r-o-i, which means, "The well of Him that liveth and seeth me! Him that can't die! Melchisedec! El Shaddai! Him that liveth and seeth me, knowing my needs, He's remembered me. And there He remembered me as I remembered Him, and I know that He liveth and He has sprung up here in the desert, this well."

30 Oh, could we apply that in an hour's message right now, of this day now, when the desert of the churches, the denominationals, and the social gospel preachers and the fashions of the world has creeped in, and has denominated and broke up.
And then to think that there stands again tonight, at the well of Him that liveth and seeth me. That's what remembering Christ should mean to the worshipper. Yes. Oh, she was misunderstood and was cast out. Jesus said, when He was here on the earth, "I am the living waters, I am the waters of life."

31 And I want to draw another little thought here that comes to my mind. When Jesus was on trial, and for nothing else but mockery's sake, He was sent from Pilate to Herod. Now, Pilate didn't have to do that, and you know, as he tried to wash his hand of it. But once on your hands, you got to make your decision. You can't push it on somebody else. It's you, as an individual. But He was sent to Herod, just to make a mock of, because He had quite a name of being a miracle-worker and so forth, and He was an outcast from the church. So Pilate himself, he thought he'd just send Him over to Herod, and maybe it would kind of straighten up the old grudge they'd had, one against the other.

32 And so Jesus was taken across the streets and down through the places till He met the higher court, Herod. And when He met Herod, Herod was presented with his only opportunity! How foolish can a man be? If Herod would have only knew that standing before him was the fulfillment of every Hebrew prophet of the long ... and the thirst of the world, which stood before him, the fulfillment of every sage and prophet that had ever spoke. The opportunity to have satisfied his sinful heart with grace and mercy. What a foolish man he was!
And yet not as much foolish as a man today that's presented with the same thing 'cause we've had two thousand more years of His teaching, of His mercy. But what a foolish thing that Herod did when He stood before Him and never asked Him for grace and mercy, never asked for pardoning of sin. He never knew that standing... I don't think the man realized that standing before him was such a person. Let's let that soak for a minute. Because the man had not such a social name of great social standing, of different organizations and clubs, and so forth, that He was associated with. He didn't have a name like that.

33 But he did have, among the people that knowed the Bible and knowed the promise. May I go a little stronger? Them that were predestinated unto eternal life, they recognized it the moment He stood there.
But Herod hadn't learned this, he never knew it. What a sad thing. All that the prophets had spoke of for four thousand years, the fulfillment of the cry of the world stood before him. There in his presence stood all the fulfillment. And as I might say this again, we'd think he was a foolish man 'cause he made a foolish decision, for you notice, he never asked him for mercy. He asked Him to entertain him. "Oh, I have heard that you are a miracle-worker." He asked for entertainment instead of mercy.
That's what the world, today is expressing back the very decision of Herod, when they see the miracle-working Christ doing the same thing today that He did then, and the only thing they're requiring, "Let me see you do such-and-such." You say Herod will have a bad place to stand? The men of this day will have a worse place to stand! Herod had four thousand years of experience, the prophets and sages. We've got six thousand, with a super teaching to what they had then. Certainly. What a thing, so is it today, same thing!

34 What was the matter? Herod never give it a serious thought. He never stopped to consider.
And that's the way with the people of today. They see this great something, it's got them startled, but they don't stop long enough. They're trying to listen to some rabbi or some theologian who explains it all away. And yet, how when I think of Jeffersonville, how oft would I have hovered you as a hen would her brood, but you would not. How oft would I have gathered you? How oft would I have made this the garden spot where all nations would have flown into, but you would not.
Now, see what will Herod have to remember in that day? His grand opportunity, he turned it down. And yonder somewhere in the regions of the lost, tonight, he's remembering what he did about it. It's too late now.

35 Don't let that be to us. This is our visitation time. Let's remember Christ, that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, Hebrews 13:8. Don't wait till some regions yonder, in the damned, in that dimension where you cannot go in the presence of God, and your time is up on earth, in a nightmare of horror you'll remember you had your opportunity and turned it away. Let the young people take notice to this. Let all take notice to it.
Herod never give it a serious thought. His only occasion, he only asked to be entertained, and that Jesus might do some kind of a trick, take a rabbit out of the hat, or, you know, or something. He thought He might be, in otherwise, he regarded Him as like a magician. "We've heard that you can do pranks. Let me see you do your prank now."

36 And may I say this with reverence. But how many times has so-called ministers of this day, have said, "If there be a Holy Ghost, if you believe that the Holy Ghost is just like it was in the beginning, let me see you take old So-and-so over here, or this man over here, this woman over here. I'll go get them. Let me see you perform it."
Do they realize that that's the same spirit (no, they don't) that said to Jesus, "If thou be the Son of God, make these stones bread. If thou be the Son of God, tell us who hit you on the head. If you're a prophet, tell us who hit you," with a rag around His face. Hit Him on the head, and then pass the stick one to another, and said, "Tell us, if you are a prophet. Tell us who hit you, we'll believe you then. Tell us, if you are the Son of God. We're honest in our hearts. If you're the Son of God, come down off the cross and we'll believe You're the Son of God."

37 I wonder if many people today, both men, women, young and old, are not standing in that same spot. And you're going to remember, some day, that you were in His presence, at His fountain; and wanted to see a prank, or wanted to see a trick or something another, "That'd make me believe it. Let me have a shiver over my back, and let me do this or that, I'll believe it." See, some sensation. It's plain idolatry!

38 You know, Jesus said in one case, He asked a question. I'd like to ask the church tonight, this. Jesus said, "Why? Why? Why do you call me your 'Lord,' and do not the things that I commanded you to do? Why could you call me 'Lord,' and keep not my Word? Why can you call me 'Lord,' and deny the things that I have commanded you to preach and teach?" What is it? What does it? It's because that some denominational tradition stands between them and the Word. And anything that stands between you and God, is an idol, it takes the place of God. Why call you "Lord"? Lord means "ownership," Lord owns the property. And if God owns me, if I am His, and He turned me around one day when I was on the wrong road, and called me for a purpose, what am I to do but to fulfill His desire, like He did Paul. How can I do anything else than to keep His Word? "Why do you call me 'Lord'?"

39 I want to call another fellow here, see about him. What about Judas, what he has to remember Him by? We're talking about remembering the Lord. Judas tonight, and oh, until he's no more, will have to remember that he sold his birthrights. He sold Jesus for personal gain. We ridicule Judas. We say he was a filthy, bad guy, he's not fit for no place or no society, he isn't fit for heaven. Why? He sold his Lord, after he had the opportunity even to be a disciple, to be an apostle, the highest calling in the Bible, higher than a prophet. He had the opportunity to be an apostle, and sold that right for personal gain. And now he has to remember that. That's how he remembers Jesus: personal gain.
I wonder how many of them tonight yet stand in the pulpit, yet wear the robe of the choir, sit in the seat of the deacon, or take the place of the treasurer, trustee, or whatever it might be, his position in church, or the minister at the pulpit, and still selling his opportunity, for personal praise, "Doctor, Bishop So-and-so," for personal praise, personal gain.

40 A man said to me once, "I believe that's the truth. But if I preached that, I'd be begging there in the street."
Do you remember the rich man and Lazarus, what their last and their eternal stage stood at? Though one was a beggar, and the other one was a rich man, but the picture changed one day and both of them could remember. So, people tonight holler about Judas that sold Him for personal gain, and so many do the same thing today, sell Him for personal gain.
The priests of them days will also remember they sold their chance of Him, their chance to become His servant, to become His disciple, to become a convert to Him. They sold it for green poison jealousy. They were jealous of His doctrine. Why, when He was yet twelve years old, He could stump them any way; and not recognize it, that that was Messiah. They could not do the things that He did. And they were afraid that they would lose their prestige before the higher up-and-up people, and they sold their opportunity. And they're just as guilty as Herod was.

41 And the church member of today is the same. If they trusted in their denomination and so forth, them days, and was afraid of their prestige, they'd be put out of the synagogues, what was it then? It was idolatry! Worshipping an idol creed or an idol church religion, instead of accepting the living Word which was manifested before them.
And they saw the Word of God. The Bible said, "We have seen Him and handled Him." Human beings laid hands upon the literal, living, manifested Word of the living God; and let traditions and creeds stand between them, washing pots and pans, such a filthy thing stand between them and the living God. Yes.
What was it? They were prejudiced. They were prejudice against His clean, clear-cut gospel Scripture that He was teaching, the Father's Word. They were jealous of Him. They were prejudice of Him. And as long as they have a remembrance, which, still in hell they'll remember, that's the way they'll be remembering. That's the way they'll have to remember Him.
You say, "Oh, that was the Pharisees."

42 There's a little lady that used to come to this church. Oh, I suppose maybe many of you know her, she lives down the street here a ways. She had fallen away. And every time I see her, she runs to me, puts her hands in mine, "Brother Bill, pray for me. I'm backslid." Her husband is a... No, I think they live right up the street here. I've seen her in the Spirit, seen the Spirit of God on her, and her dancing, rejoicing, and so forth. And she had fallen away. And she was laying recently in the hospital out here, dying, they thought. And she sent for me to come pray for her.
She and her husband was awfully good to my wife, when my wife, a little ragged, dirty-faced girl, and they would buy her a little dress or something now and then, to help her to go to school. No matter how little it is, you can't do one thing for God 'less He remembers it. "Insomuch as you have done unto the least of these my little ones, you've done it unto me." And like bread upon the water, it will return.

43 There laid this poor, little backslidden woman, crying, holding my hand. And I said, "Well, sister, I'll have prayer for you."
And laying next bed to her was a woman laying there with her hands crossed, looking at me. And her young son sitting by her side, of about twenty, a modern Ricky-looking.
So, not no disregard if somebody's name should be Ricky, but I mean that's a ... you never heard of a name like that in days gone by. Elvis and Ricky, and it's just a name of the age, you see. If you got a child named that, call it its middle name, or give it one.

44 Then when she sitting there like that, looked over, and I started to bow my head, and I seen her looking real... She said, "Wait a minute! Pull that curtain!"
I said, "I was only going to offer prayer for the lady. Aren't you a believer?"
She said, "I'll tell you now, we are Methodists, and we want you to pull that curtain!"
"Yes, ma'am," and I pulled the curtain.
See, the same thing. The same thing today, so prejudiced! How did she know what kind of a minister I was? I had never seen the woman. But she probably had heard somebody say that I believed in the healing of the sick, and she had been taught against it. She had nothing to do with it, she washed her hands of it. She was afraid it would fall on her. Don't worry, it won't, no more than Pilate could wash it off of his hands.

45 Now, that isn't saying anything disgracefully about Methodist people; that was just one woman, see, it might have just been her attitude. I don't think all the Methodist people would be like that, 'cause I've prayed for many of them. They've called me to pray for them, and signs and wonders has been done among them. It never is the people in them churches; it's the system that they're under, that's what does it. But she was one of them kind. What was it? Pure green-eyed poison, devil-possessed jealousy.
I could say something. At a certain meeting that was here in the city one time, and they asked why they didn't call me to it. But I'll just pass that because I'm at home. But, however, no reason, it's just jealousy, it's creed, it's idolatry. How that we would like to throw our arms to everyone, but when you're shunned... Jesus wanted to do it. Remember, some day you've got to remember that. You've got to remember it.

46 Just reminds me of a testimony that was made recently. A minister, was on an elevator going up, over here at the Heyburn building. And there were three men standing with this minister on the elevator, and they didn't know this man was a minister, I suppose not. And as they went up, they all stopped at the eighth floor. And one man looked around to the minister, and said, "You know what? This is just about as close to heaven as we'll ever get."
"Well," the minister said, "I suppose you're right. I guess that you are right, for as long as we are trusting in our own merits, this is as close as we'll ever be." That's right. As long as you're trusting in what you do, you're remembering what you done. And I'm sure that most of us know we didn't do nothing, we're not deserving of anything. Said, "I suppose if we're trusting in our own merits, this is as far as we'll ever get." Well, if we're trusting, that's as far as we'll get.

47 But, oh, I'd like to say something. If I can forget what I was, and remember what He is, if I can remember Jesus, if I can remember Him at the cross, if I can remember what He done for me, and I can remember the hour that He washed away my sins, and give me the Holy Spirit to guide me, then I'm lifted above everything that holds this earth. I'm lifted above every earthly thing, into heavenly places in Christ Jesus, where I can fellowship with Him. There in His presence, forgetting what I ever was, forgetting all my sins and everything, because they're in the sea of forgetfulness. Forgetting all my past, forgetting everything, and remember that He made me His own, by His own death. He took my place.
And I that had not a right to go nowhere but to hell, He took my place and lifted me from hell. He went there for me. And He lifted me up by His grace abundance, until now we are sons and daughters of God, and we sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ever rejoicing and remembering Him who brought us safe thus far. And with pulsating faith in our souls, pressing us, and by grace He'll take me on.

48 And by eyes of faith I see his Scripture fulfilled, "All that He foreknew, He has called; all that He called, He has justified; and all that He has justified, He has glorified." Therefore with this in thought, I stand in the congregation of the people, where the Spirit of God is, and are lifted up to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Looking for the hour when this vile figure of human life that's got a mortal heartbeat, and which has to stop some day, when it'll be changed and given a heart of the Spirit that will beat throughout all ceaseless time beyond that, without sickness, without sorrow, without old age or anything.

49 Remember Jesus. When the barrel gets empty at the house, and there's no more flour, remember Jesus. When the doctor says there's no more chance, remember Jesus. When the devil is tempting you; as we sing our dismissing song, "When temptations around us gather, breathe that holy name in prayer."
Remembering Jesus, remembering that He will come again. The same Jesus that was taken away from us will return again in like manner as we have seen Him go into heaven. Remember, He will return for those of His own.
Let us pray, and with our heads bowed. And with this little broke-up message still in your heart, would you like for Him to remember you now? If you would, just raise your hands, and some special thing, "Lord, remember me." As the poet said, "Remember me when tears are falling down."

50 Our most holy Father, we have immensely enjoyed the presence of the Holy Spirit, as He has shown to us the Word of life, as we remember the pit from which we were hewn and have now been taken from that pit and molded into God's children, by the grace of Jesus Christ. I remember Him, when a doctor looked in my face and said, "It's just a few more minutes," I remember Jesus. I remember Jesus, when I was at the altar crying for mercy and my soul was burdened down, I remember the load that left me. Jesus took my burden.
A few months ago, sitting on the bench, looking down the scope of a gun barrel, to shoot a target, and Satan must have thought, "This is my opportunity now." And when the gun exploded, and the barrel and stock, and the gun action went every way, and the fire flew all around me, and I tried to raise to my feet, and the blood spurting, I remember it was Jesus. When the doctor, when he looked and seen no harm done, he said, "The only thing I know, that the Lord must have been sitting there too, protecting His servant, he should have been blown to pieces by such an explosion." O God, how we all remember those things!

51 We come to the fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins. Bless us, Lord, together tonight. You know the objective and the motive behind every heart that raised a hand. You know the desire and the need. And as Your servant, Lord, I come with them, and up out of this tabernacle now, by faith, we go beyond the clouds and the moon, and the stars and the Milky White Way, and now we arrive in the presence of God. And stretched across in front of me is a golden altar, on there lays the sacrifice that we remember, Jesus, that said, "Just ask the Father anything in my name, I'll grant it." Let our faith fail not, Lord, but let us remember that we receive what we ask for, if we believe it, as we remember Jesus died to secure it for us and to make it sure.

52 Lord, we see that You're increasing our building. It was You that did this for us, that give us this extension of the church. And we know that it was You, Lord, who gave us the church in the beginning. We pray that You'd bless these efforts.
Lord, we pray for our pastor, Brother Neville, Your humble and gracious, faithful servant. Is willing to minister in any capacity, no matter if it's in the back seat or if it's to clean up the church. Wherever You need Him, there he wants to be instrumental, to serve You wherever You call. We pray, God, that You bless him.
God, this great trial that I've just come through, and these trustees who stood by me, and this church who prayed for me, and finally the victory came. O God, I pray for them. I remember them, too, Lord, and I'm sure You do.

53 We remember the blessings that You have been to us. And we remember Your Word, that You would never leave us nor forsake us. Old age will have nothing to do with it, You'll still remember us, when the world shall be no more and time shall fade into eternity. It is written something like this, "Could a mother forget her suckling babe? I can never forget you. You're engraved upon the palms of my hands," the nails that engraved our name. We know that You remember us, Lord.
And may You always be in our fondest memories, as our Saviour, our healer, our King, our lover, our life our sunshine, our all-in-all, that inexhaustible fountain of God's grace and love to we fallen human beings of Adam's family. Grant it, Lord, as we commit ourselves to Thee now, going from the Tabernacle tonight, remembering Jesus. Amen.

54 Do you remember Him? Do you love Him? Now I think, in our little broken message, we might say this. Paul said, "Whatever we do, we do in the Spirit." In all things we should remember Him. Let's not make a decision until we remember Him; let's do nothing, 'cause it'll be rashal. If the enemy smites one side of the cheek, let's remember what He did before we smite back. Let's remember His action. If there is a decision to be made, let's wait, remember what kind of a decision we think He would make, then let that be our decision. If we get hasty, let's remember He never was in a hurry, see. If we get over anxious, remember He dwells in eternity, time means nothing to Him. It's the motive and objective of our heart. Let's remember Him.

55 And let's remember Him now as we sing this song in the Spirit of His presence, "I Love Him." If you dwell in love, you dwell in God, for God is love. They that dwell in God dwell in love, see. And love has no hatred. Love is not jealous. Love is not puffed up. Love doth not misbehave itself. Love is always gentle, sweet, forgiving, kind. No matter how bitter the others is, love remains itself. Love is the ultimate of grace. Love is God's ultimative for us. After all other gifts and things has vanished, our prophecy, our tongues, our interpretations, all that we've ever done, or whatmore, when love comes in, it's the ultimate. It's above all, 'cause all other fails. It's the Supreme Court's decision. It's the tie post. It's the North Star that keeps the seaman level. It's the compass that guides us. Love is the ultimate. Let's remember it as we sing, "I Love Him."
I love Him, I love Him
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
I love Him, I love Him
Because He first ... (Now remember,
He loved me and gave His Son)
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.

56 Now while our sister chords this song for us [Brother Branham hums], let's just in sweetness of fellowship, while we're sitting together in heavenly places in Christ, now take all everything from your heart. And remember, God's Word says so. I am His servant. He's here. Then let's just shake hands with somebody, and say, "God bless you, brother." If you've got an enemy, rise up and go to him, see, "God bless you, brother," as we sing the chorus again and shake hands with one another. Won't you do it now, real sweetly in the Spirit.
I love Him, I love Him
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
With our hands up now.
I love Him, I love Him
Because ... (Remember Jesus!)
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.

57 Now let's bow our heads and hum it. [Brother Branham begins humming.] Remembering Jesus! [Continues humming.]
Now as our sister chords, sweetly and softly, I'm going to ask our good brother... Brother Neville, you got a word you want to say? I'm going to ask Brother Collins back there, our loyal, little brother here, one of the associates, if he would dismiss us in prayer. While we bow our heads, Brother Collins.