God doesn't call man to judgement without warning

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 "Call ten thousand angels, when one could have destroyed the world; but He died for you and me." That's something like the basis that I want to have my message for Sunday morning, if the Lord willing, on "What was Christ?" And now we're expecting maybe these little girls could sing that song again for us, Sunday morning. Brother Wheeler, I certainly want to say that you sure got two fine little ladies there, their dressing, and no makeup and everything. They look like Christians to me, and sing like it and act like it. That's very fine.

2 I believe I was saying to my wife the other day, we have certainly a clean-looking bunch of women around here. I appreciate that. Their long hair and clean faces, and dressed decently. I admire you every time that I come in. I said to Meda, "I'd like to get them all in a row sometime and take their picture so I can show other churches the way our church is here," where we speak these things they obey. And we're glad. It does something for us. We know that when we have our petitions, if our heart condemns us not, we know that God hears us.

3 This morning, a friend of mine, way, away from here, was laid out, hauled him away and just barely living, thought he would be dead in a few minutes. They called, it was about daylight. I got out of bed, on the floor, and started praying for the old fellow and was able by the grace of God to contact that spirit, here it come back. Got all right, come back again, you see, living with us tonight yet, to the glory to God. That's old Brother Dauch, ninety-one years old, twenty-one years past the time of his life's journey. But the Lord is good and full of mercy, so we're grateful for it.

4 Now, Brother Neville, we look around at one another and I know I just got a little ... about one more service to be here, and that'll be Sunday. And I don't want to take my pastor, I just love to hear him preach.
Sunday night when he preached, I tell you, I went up here with a friend to this little drive-in, to have a sandwich afterwards, Brother Evans and Sister Evans, and run into Brother and Sister Sothmann up there. Brother Sothmann and all of them was remarking about that wonderful message. And, I tell you, I've lived on it all week, almost. And some of them remarks that how that the ostrich thinks he had hid himself. Now, that's true, when he sticks his head in the ground, but the most of him is still looking out. So that's about the way we do sometime. We try to hide our head behind something, there's always ... maybe we're still showing, you know. He sees every bit of us, you see. So really appreciate that.

5 Then I thought, well, I like to talk to the church and I thought, well, I ... Brother Neville gets to talk to you all the time, so then when I'm down here maybe drop down. I don't want to be hypocrite enough, and not I want to call or nothing, just set up there at the house and church open down here. I've got... I want to be down here because I love you.
I tell you, I certainly kind of... The weather here doesn't agree with me, and I ... the country doesn't agree with me and I'm allergic to the air that's here. Just as soon as that air strikes me I just break in hives, right over, see, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I... And we don't feel good, none of us, when we're here. We ... hardly one of us have been really feeling good since we've been here, 'cause we kind of got used to that high climate.

6 But, now, one thing that draws me here is you all. That's right, you all. You know, you find lots of friends, I'm so grateful. I guess I ... If I just counted, personally, people I know, it would be maybe millions around the world. It was once estimated by someone, and probably in personal knowing, of about ten million people. But there's something about home, about certain people. There's just... Everybody's got that, there's special people in your life. You know, I believe that. If there isn't, then why is our wife special to us? And why is our... See? We're ... our wives, our husbands, and so forth, it's special. And you have that with friends. There's something another that you just love to meet with them and just talk with them. There's little spots.
And I can think of this old swamp here where this little church stood, and where before it stood here there was nothing but a pond. That's the reason that road set way out there, to get around that pond. This is actually the property, of the street comes right by the door there. And, but it was a pond. And I remember getting out here and trying to find a place to build a church to the Lord, and just a young boy.

7 And I listened to these, this young fellow and this other one over here, praying a while ago, with all that enthusiasm. I thought, "You know, I used to be able to pray like that, without catching my breath, hardly." And then you get older, you kind of slow down a little, you know. You're still moving, but you're in second gear as I told Brother Woods out there. But, and then as long... And then after a while you get down into low gear, when you get about seventy or eighty, I guess. But, you know, the ... you're still moving, though. As long as you can move, what difference does it make? Just a little more time to get there.

8 I remember how I was praying, and right here in this weeds, right here where this pulpit stands now, just about where it's at, that's where I drove a little stake where I'd know to put the pulpit. The Lord God give me this place. Yes, sir. Now, right there in the cornerstone lays my testimony of a vision the morning I laid it, when I hardly could think then, said, "This is not your tabernacle, but do the work of an evangelist," He said. I looked out and I seen all the world there, and the bright blue skies, and people coming from everywhere; it's laying in the cornerstone there. How little did I think that would happen, even though the vision said so; but doesn't fail, it's going to be there anyhow.

9 I've been in a lot of interviews this week, because, Sunday, the gracious presence of the Lord came down. And I was supposed to have left Monday.
I have ... we haven't took a vacation yet, the kids. My vacation comes later, a little later on. But I want to take the children on a little time. They got to go back and go to school now, and so I thought this week would be a good time. Facing Chicago next week in that meeting there.
But then the anointing of the Spirit, I thought, "Now is the time to have interviews." Now is the time that these ... that I can get caught up on a few of them. I see some of the people sitting present that was in the room. They know whether the Lord met with us or not.

10 Strange thing that everyone besides some woman that Billy put in just a space just before, some lady from Louisville, she had a little girl that was here, I think they really belong to the Church of God in Louisville, or something. But every case, every one of them that come in, before I left home the Holy Spirit told me who would be here, what they'd ask. And I wrote down on a piece of paper and said just what they would ask and the questions the way they'd ask them, and how they'd be answered. Then I'd tell them, I'd say, "here's just what you ... look now, a few minutes ago here, what the Holy Spirit..." Reach over on the desk and say, "See? He told me this before you ever come," see. But when I was up at the house, who would be there and what it would be, what their attitude would be, and all about it, before I even left home.

11 I seen the time, many time, when I would be coming down the road, praying, I'd see that prayer line pass before me and know every name that would be in the prayer line, before I ever got here. That's right. And know where they was sitting in the church and what they ... how they'd be dressed and what they'd look like. You don't tell people everything like that. You... There's things happening you just don't tell them. It's not necessary to tell them. I just tell people things that I think is going to help them, when the Lord presses me to tell them, say, "Say this." You wouldn't want to tell everything you seen, because that wouldn't be right, you see, you just ... of course, you get in trouble and everything else like that. You have to know how to handle those things by the Spirit of the Lord.

12 I've had people stand before me and ask me questions, I know exactly, but I wouldn't tell them, because I just felt constrained not to do it. You remember, I believe it was last Wednesday night I preached on A Prisoner, see. See, you want to tell that person but something says, "Don't do it." The Spirit says, "Don't do it. Don't do it." Yet a gift is looking right at it, see. "Don't do it. Don't do it." See, so you better not do it; then you're in trouble with God.

13 Now, we don't come down here tonight just to stand here. We want to hear the Word of the Lord. You've been praying and we've had a wonderful time, and I ... always when I come down I know I bring just a little book of texts 'cause there's... Sometimes Brother Neville is so gracious he just keeps asking me, "Will you do this," or "do that," or "Speak?" And I look through here till I find me a text of some sort and then we'll start it from there. And I'm sure... Now, be sure Sunday...
Now, I don't... We never know, we cannot tell. You see, I've come here at times with a text in my mind that I was going to speak on, and get here and change it completely around. And I've had Scriptures wrote down, I say, "I'm going to use this text, I'm going to use these Scriptures. As they come down, I'm going to say this, that, or the other." I'll write down, just like, I Corinthians 5:15, and II Corinthians 7:1, and Matthew 28:16, so forth, just put it in like that, down here like this, and write them Scriptures down. And look down there, I know what the Scriptures says there; sometime not ever even touch that, goes all the way around a different way, altogether. And we just don't know.

14 So now, if the Lord is willing, I want to speak, in closing these little series of services since being here, Sunday morning, on a very important thing. So, now, come early, prepared to stay just a little bit late, maybe about two o'clock, something like that. And so it's... I got around about thirty or forty Scriptures already wrote down on the subject, but I think what it ... what I'm going to try to do, if the Holy Spirit will help me, to catch the message in the place where it's at now, and build it right where it started, and build it right up into the present time.

15 So that when I leave for Chicago, then I got to go straight to Arizona, and then on, on and on. And it may be, as far as I know, it may be next year again, maybe next summer, 'fore I get back again to the tabernacle, 'less just passing across this way again, because I got meetings.
And Billy, right now, is working on overseas for a complete world tour beginning right immediately after Christmas. And I'm all booked up until around about December, and, well, maybe the first week in December, Dallas. So then in January we want to start on a complete world tour, all the way around, completely, and we're working on that now, finding just where the Lord will lead. And I'm so grateful to the ... even to the people, the ministers, as much as I say against their denominations and things like that.

16 You know, on the books laying right back there, now, Brother Roy Borders takes care of the invitations, and since Christmas, the first of the year, there's been over a thousand invitations around the world. A thousand invitations has come in back there. So the Lord just has to direct me on which one of those to go to, and what to do. We just depend on Him. You couldn't take them all. You couldn't take over eight or ten of them in a summer if you had to, in a complete ... 'less you just go one night here and one night there, and that's ... they're asking for two weeks and three weeks, and so forth, as long as you can stay, or some of them says "Just as long as the Lord will lead," and all like that, so you don't know just exactly where to start or what to do. So we're just laying them out before the Lord, saying, "Now, You tell us, heavenly Father." And you help me pray with this matter, see, you help me pray that we can get this over.

17 And I thought, after having the healing service last Sunday, then maybe this Sunday if we just take the teaching and bring it right up and show what the time that we're ... where we're at, what's the threefold purpose of God's great plan since before the foundation of the world, and bring it down to today, the threefold plan of God, the plan. I'm working on the second part of it now, getting the Scriptures out, and hunting them out and placing them.
Now, let's see, let's bow our heads just a moment.

18 Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheepfold, we have assembled here tonight in thy most gracious, holy name. We love Thee, Lord, and we thank Thee for this prayer meeting night, for the hymns of the church as we've sang them with joy in our hearts, and heard them as they come in, clapping hands. And then we went down on our knees and all poured out our hearts to You, and thanked You for what You've done for us, and asking You to continue to walk with us.
And now the hour has come for the reading of the Word and for something to speak on, to the people. Direct us in our thoughts, Father, and get glory. And say something tonight, through us, that will help all of us to go out of here with a purpose in our hearts to live better and closer to You than we ever have. That's what we're here for, Lord, we're here to know more about You. And we pray that You'll unfold your great being to us tonight in the revelation of thy Word, that we might know how to be a better Christian and how to act in this last days. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

19 Now, my sight falls upon a text here of Isaiah, Isaiah 38. Let's read over to Isaiah, Isaiah 38:
In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shall die, and not live.
Then Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall, and prayed unto the LORD.
And said, Remember me, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,
Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.

20 May the Lord add His blessings to this reading. It's a very outstanding subject for a short message here, I believe. I want to call it: "God Doesn't Call Man To Judgment Without First Warning Him." And we are catch the background or the platform of it here, in this text tonight, God warning man before bringing him to his death.
Now, everyone has this. We might say, "Well, this fellow died without a warning." No, no, no. God never... You don't know what was in that man's heart, you don't know what's been going on in his life, see. God never brings any man to his death without first warning him about it, telling him, it's something, a preparation. God is sovereign, and He knocks at the heart of every man, giving him the opportunity to come. Now, he might warn away and turn it down, and shake his head to it and walk away, say, "Ah, it's just a funny feeling, I'll get over it." But, anyhow, it was God, God speaking to him.

21 And God never even brings judgment upon the earth without first giving the people a warning. God never does nothing without declaring it first what He's going to do. And He gives people a choice, and you can do right or wrong. That's His... See, God can never change His nature. His program can never change from what He started with, because He's infinite and His program and His ideas are all perfect. So, if He would change it, that would show that He had learned more. So, being infinite, He cannot learn more. His first decision is always perfect, and there's nothing can ever change it, see.
God, before man ever was put ... had a chance to do wrong, God put him on the basis to where he could accept or deny, he could receive or not.

22 Say, by the way, if that minister in here, Brother Baker, I believe was on the interviews the other day, I've got his questions that he had wrote out for me on the serpent's seed. I got them laying back here now, if he's here, why, I don't see him anywhere right at the present time. But it's here. He and his wife, a very fine man and a woman, but they couldn't understand a few things about the teaching of the serpent's seed, how that ... some questions about what I had said, and sermons beyond that, and talking about the pregnation and so forth. But I ... then it's just like the brother, a fine man, just a Christian for a couple years or two, but just didn't understand, you see.

23 It's hard if you don't... You have to depend on the Holy Spirit because this Bible is wrote in riddles. You just can't sit down and read it like a newspaper. It's hid. Yes, sir. How would you ever justify God when He told Moses up there, said, "Now, don't you make any engraven images," in His commandments, "don't you make anything like heaven, any angel, or anything else, don't make any engraven images," and yet on the same day told him to mold two angels out of brass and put them right at the mercy seat, where mercy's at? See? You have to know God in His nature before you can understand His Word. He has the key to that Word, Himself, and He's the only one can handle it and open it, and so He's the one has to reveal it.

24 And now, we find out that His nature was, here, to always to warn a man before judgment, to warn a nation before judgment, and so forth. He always gives His warning, a reminder to we, of a responsibility. We are responsible, and God has put us here on the earth for a reason, and that reason that He has put us here for, we are responsible to Him for that reason. You should go to Him and find out what He wants you to do, see. If you don't...
If you went to work for a man, and he give you a job on a ranch, or something another, and you just went out to the barn and just set down out there, and say, "Well?" See, you must go ask him what he wants you to do, and then do it. If you're working for a man, find out what your duties is.
And then if our life is on the earth here, then we should go to the one who put us here, and, "Lord, what would You have me do? What must I do? Why am I here?" If it's to be a housewife, dishwasher, if it's to be... Whatever God wants you to do, then you do that the very best that you know how to do it. No matter how little, no matter how little it is, you must do it.
You say, "Well..." The trouble of it is, each one of us wants to do the next man's job. We all want to pack the ball, as we say, you see.

25 Like this watch here, now, every little movement in there has its place. Now, every part of it can't be the hands. Now, I only look at the hands to see what time it is. But if one of them little wheels in there gets out of order, that won't keep the right time.
And that's the way it is with people. We've all, the body of Christ, has got to be in their position, in harmony, see. And then we can look around and see what time of day it is, see. Then the world's looking to see what it is, see. See? But they're watching you. And if you're just a little hair spring, main spring, or whatever you are, you do the very best job you can at that.

26 Now, because, we have a responsibility that we've got to answer to God someday for. Every man that come on the face of the earth has to answer to God for a responsibility. And, to many of us, a stewardship, we have to answer for. This responsibility is a stewardship that's been committed to us by God, I don't care what it is. As I said a few moments ago, "a housewife," then be a genuine housewife. That's right. If it's to be a farmer, be a genuine farmer. Whatever it is that God has put you to do, you got a stewardship to that, you've got to answer to God for, because it takes all these things to do it.

27 Hezekiah was told to make ready and to get ready because that he had to meet his maker. Now, Hezekiah was a king, and a great man. Did you notice his plea here? "Lord, I beseech You to consider me. I've walked before You with a perfect heart." What a testimony that is to us today, and it should be, a man that walks before God.
Even death was pronounced upon the man and yet God changed His mind about him, because Hezekiah wanted to do something and God said He would give us the desires of our heart. And Hezekiah's time had come, and he got a cancer on him, or something another, and they called it a boil in that day, but we know boils don't regularly kill you, they just get well. But it was perhaps a cancer, and it opened up like a boil. And God told Isaiah, said, "go up there and tell him that he's going to die. And Hezekiah had something he wanted to do yet. He had...

28 When you plead anything to God, you got to be a reason for it. It's just like the Scripture that I so often refer to, "If you say to this mountain, 'Be moved,' and don't doubt, but believe that what you've said will come to pass, you can have what you said." Now, that's altogether controlled on motive and objective, see, or it won't happen, see.
You just can't go out here... That's where many of us makes many mistakes, is going out and say, "Now, I'll show you I got faith to do this." Now, you're wrong to begin with. God don't give you gifts just to play with it.
As I was saying a while ago, He don't show you visions just to play with. That's nothing to play with, that's sacred. Just use it in ... as the Lord will let you. Be a prisoner to Him. No matter how much you want to tell that guy he's wrong, and what this, that, or the other, you hold still till God says so. Then when God says so, then you can come with thus saith the Lord! Until that, just forget about them.

29 The world today is just like Hezekiah was then, it's been warned. It's constantly being warned. The church is being warned. And, now, these things just don't happen by chance. They've all got something behind them. Now, Hezekiah, being sick, having this boil, it wasn't by chance. God sent Isaiah up there and told him to set his house in order now because he was going to die. And Hezekiah wept, and told God, "I've walked before You with a perfect heart and I pray You spare my life for a cause, a good cause, the cause of God."
God told the prophet, said, "Go back and tell him."

30 Now, isn't that strange? Hezekiah was the greatest man in the land. Hezekiah was a king, and a godly man. He was a real man, if he could plead that before God and God didn't rebuke him for it, "I've walked before You with a perfect heart." Now that's saying a whole lot, see.
And God never said, "No, Hezekiah, you didn't do it," but He admitted he did do it. And He said, "I'm going to---I'm going to spare your life a little longer," see. "I'm going to give you your request," see, because he had been a just man, he had been a real servant to Christ.

31 And then we feel that we have a right to ask something if our objective is right, and then our motive to it.
Now, we see today that for the past many years, I'd say for the past fifteen, to more years, that constantly there's been a warning out across the nation, "Repent, or perish!"
You notice, I was talking today to the wife just early this morning, and I early at breakfast, we were sitting at the table talking before I left. I said, "Wife..." She was talking about Billy Graham, and about his wife, just how common and everything they try to live. I said, "That is a real servant when he tries not ... when the man maybe makes two or three million a year out in his campaigns, but he doesn't receive it, his foundation takes it, placing it back into the work and the broadcast, and so forth. And Billy gets about twenty-five thousand a year.
She said, "How would he ever spend twenty-five thousand a year?"
I said, "He takes just what he has to have, that's all. He's got a home to pay for, and everything." I went on, and I said, "I've got lots of respects for Billy Graham," I said, "because that he has a message, and that message is repentance."
And then, I tell you, there's nobody that I know of, in the land today, that God has used with that message like Billy Graham. Oh, he's got it down pat, and he just stands there, and I mean, he calls them politicians and church members to repentance. But that's as far as he goes.

32 And here comes Brother Oral Roberts, another great servant of the Lord. And there's nobody comes out there and compare with Oral Roberts. That bulldog grip of just casting out evil spirits and calling the name of the Lord and little sensations, and so forth, about divine healing. That's exactly right. There is a messenger to the Pentecost.
There is a messenger to the church denominational world, see, and the cold world.
And then look around at our own little humble ministry, standing "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever," you see. What's that doing? Calling that bride group, you see, see. See, it calls from both those groups. It's taking a wheel out of the wheel. You see what I mean?

33 And then God confirms that message that Billy Graham preaches. God heals the sick by Oral Roberts' prayers. And God produces the things that Jesus ... proves that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it's calling those things that... It's messages of the hour. And each one of those messages is calling, "Repent, or perish!" That's right. "Repent, or perish!" There's no hopes, it's all gone. World's warned of His coming. Each one of them messages speaks and warns of the coming of the Lord Jesus, both to the church denominal...

34 Remember, God is always in threes. Like Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and justification, and bap... and sanctification, baptism of the Holy Ghost; so forth; He's in threes.
Now, God's in that message of repentance to the church nominal. God's in that message of divine healing to the church Pentecostal. God's in the message to the bride, see. So we find out that all of them calling, one to this, this to that, and that to that. God calling the church out of the world; the ... calling the church in the denominal church into Pentecost; and calling the bride out of Pentecost, see.
Like Luther, Wesley, and now. See, it's just all perfectly typed up and there's no mistake about it. I've hit all around the ends of it, and sides of it, and the inside and outside of it, and showed it by the Scripture, the chronology of it, till we know that it's absolutely the truth, see. There's no mistake. Sunday I hope that God sinks it so deep that you'll never be able to get away from it, see.

35 Now, God giving warning, prepare for a judgment. The atomic bombs are in the hangers, everything setting ready. And God, before He can let this thing happen, He makes a call down through like He did in Sodom, "Come out of it! Get ready! There's something going to happen!"
Like in the days of Noah, before God sent the waters to destroy the world in the great antediluvian world that had come off into sin, as Jesus clearly said that it was a day just like this. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." How that the women on the rampage, and marrying and giving in marriage, and the great scientific achievements, and the smart educated going into the intellectual side, and the little humble flock sitting off to one side waiting the pending judgment and the escape. And before God sent that judgment, He sent a prophet.
Just like He did to Hezekiah, He said, "Get ready, for the judgments are ready to fall."
And he made the people ready for the time. Noah made the people ready, and it was a call of mercy before judgment.

36 Nineveh was made to know before their time. God looked down to Nineveh, and He said, "I'm just sick and tired of these things." I understand that that great, heathen, Gentile world... Their city, as it was in them days, they judged them by city; now it's by nations, now after the population has spread the way it has. He said, "That great city is give over, altogether, to sin."
And God, before He would send judgment, He sent a warning message, "Come out of it! Get right!" Watch, the prophet never said nothing but to get... Said, "Within forty days this city will be destroyed."

37 And, oh, how sometime it's hard to do such things as that, to tell people. If the prophet don't watch, he'll get in trouble, because he'll kind of go off to one side, trying to make it easy, or compromise a little bit here and a little bit there. But the real prophet's got the order from God, should never compromise nothing, he should absolutely lay it right on the line.
That's the reason He used the spirit of Elijah so much, see, because that that spirit always carried out His orders. You see? It brought His orders just exactly what it was, and always a "Come back to the Word!" See? Always a bring them back to the Word.

38 Now, we find Nineveh in sin. And the prophet was hesitant because it was a Gentile world, see, it was a Gentile nation, a Gentile people; not his own, it wasn't Hebrews. They were Gentiles. A great ship, commercial seaport that Nineveh was, great fishing industrial there, the people fished. And they had ... must have had a great sinful country there. Plenty of money; and where money is plentiful, and people are in the popular opinion of the day, sin always sets in, and violence.
God was tired of it. So He had a prophet in the land, so He said to His prophet, "Go down there to Nineveh and cry out, and say, 'Within forty days the city is going to be destroyed.'"
Now, Jonah thought, now, "You know, I might get in a little trouble." So he wanted to be more sure, so he thought he'd take a little vacation and go down to Tarshish. And we found out that the ... there was just forty days left, see.
So the message is urgent, the time is at hand. Don't play around with other things and get a Bachelor of Art degree and find out something. The hour is at hand! That's what's the matter with people today, we're trying to build up big schools and have big things like that. When mercy... My! If we preach the coming of the Lord, what do we need with schools? We need repentance towards God! See?

39 Like Hudson Taylor said to the young missionary, he said... A young Chinese boy come to him, he said, "Mr. Taylor," said, "the Lord Jesus has filled me with His Spirit." Said, "I'm so happy!" Said, "Shall I take ten years now and get my degrees and so forth?"
He said, "Son, don't wait for degrees. If the candle's lit, go tell it! Go tell it, don't wait for degrees. No, you'll be half burnt out before you get done with your degrees."
Let's, when it's lit, if you don't knowing else, just tell how it got lit. Just don't try to take somebody else's place, or something place. When you know it, just tell what you know to be the truth, "This is the way it come on me, and this is how I feel about it." That's... If you don't know no more than that, say that! Let's go! The message is urgent, the time is at hand.

40 Now, what if Isaiah'd say, "Well, now I'll wait and see how he gets along with that boil, first, you see. See how it"?
See, God told him, "Go up there and tell him, right now!" See?
And He told Jonah to go. Oh, my!
And when he got out there in that ocean and in that deep sea, and the ship got stalled in the storm, and they'd hoist up the sail and they turn around and around, they wonder what the world was the matter out there. But they couldn't make out, looked like the thing getting waterlogged. And every man calling on his god, and first thing you know... Jonah was on his vacation, so he thought he might as well sleep, and he must have went down in the bulkhead of the ship, and laying up there with his feet propped up, asleep. And he said, "Awake, O sluggard, and call upon your God!" And Jonah knew what was wrong.
So does every man know what's wrong today! See?

41 And he said, "It's all my fault. Take me and bind my hands, and throw me out in the sea, and then this trouble will let up." And they were kind of a gentlemen like bunch of fellows and they didn't want to do that, but they found out he was a prophet and knowed what he was talking about. He said, "I thought I'd take my vacation first, but the Lord don't want me to take this vacation. I got to get down there, I got a job to do. I thought I'd rest up a little bit before I went, but I got to go. The message is urgent, I got to get there."
I'd imagine, when that certain prepared fish got Jonah down in his stomach, he done about-face and throwed water all over the country, and took out for Nineveh as hard as he could go. God was taking that message over there in that certain prepared fish. And he took out for Nineveh just as hard as he could go, because he had the messenger aboard and he had to get him over there. He took the wrong ship, but God had provided a ship for him.
So, you know, God's able to do great things if we'll just listen at Him, see. He'll make ways where there is no way. He is the way, see. And when the message is absolutely urgent, as it is today, God provides a way.

42 We notice again when Amos... I preached on this fellow, Amos. If you'd like to read the story sometime, it's great, read the story of Amos, first chapter of Amos. He's another type of the warnings before judgment strikes sin. Now, the city that he was going to warn against, over there, was a bunch of Jews that they all got kind of off of the beaten line and become a great tourist center. And I imagine, as I give the illustration that morning, speaking on him, that, when his bald head come up over the top of the hill and his little old eyes narrowed as he looked down and seen the sin of that great nation and people, his white beard as he fingered it like that. My what a thing! But nobody knows where he come from.
Nobody knows those prophets, they just rise up from somewhere and go the same way.

43 But he went into the city with "Thus saith the Lord! Repent, or perish! For God will destroy this nation. He'll wipe this place off of the earth. You've made an agreement with your enemy. And you're at peace, you think, with your enemy, but all the time the Assyrians are building up out there. You can't walk two together unless you be agreed. That's all." So he...
God wants us to separate ourselves. He wants us to come out from the world, not try to live with the world and God too, not try to fashion after the world and after God. You have to live for one or the other, you have to believe one or the other.

44 And now we find out that, this Amos, he certainly predicted a judgment upon this people except they repented. (And, my, so well does it fit our day.) I think this great city, as looking back through this again, the great city down there, how that it was all give over, and a great economy they had of everything, prosperous. And they thought they were just exactly in the will of the Lord, because they were prospering. But they found out that God is not always the author of prosperity. No, God... Sometimes when prosperity strikes, the church usually gets away from Him.

45 You know, God spoke of Israel one time, said, "I found you bloody in the field, and I washed you up and brought you in," to be His own child. "And then when you got big, and a beautiful young woman, you played the part of a whore." He said, "You just give yourself to every passerby," see. "But when you were poor and needy, when you had need, you served Me. But when I blessed you and give you plenty, then you went away from Me." And it's just about proved that way. Oh, my!
Now, we find out that this prophet really struck down on that nation, this Amos. He was just a plowboy. But we find out that when he did, struck down and told them what it would be, and told them if they didn't get right with God that the enemy that they had taken in partnership would be the very one that destroyed them.

46 Now we find out that our proud America is not going to escape the wrath of God. As I spoke one day since I've been here, I'm sure it was here, of everything at the end. You know, I can't see nothing to build to. You can't build to politics, it's gone. You can't build to social life, because it's so demoralized. There's nothing that you can build to there. And you can't put no hopes in nothing.
"How about the church?"
Well, you can't do nothing with the church, it's so formal and gone, there's nothing left. They've done sold out their birthrights for a mess of pottage, and they're just waiting judgment. The Holy Spirit has crossed this nation, showing His signs and wonders, and they continually spurn His grace. He vindicates Himself and proves, by His great vindication, that He's the Word of God manifested in this day. And they still turn it down, see. There's nothing left now. You just can't always do that to God, see.

47 All right, we find out, the first, He sends His prophets with warning. He doesn't change His way, His method of doing things.
He does not always strike when He warns. I want you to watch this quotation. God gives a warning but He don't always strike the same time He warns. Did you notice that? And then when He doesn't strike when He sends a warning, then the prophet is mocked, "You didn't have it. You told a lie. You wasn't right."
That same thing might have been said to Isaiah. What do you think that man thought when he went up there and prophesied the king was "going to die," then come back down and said, "No, he's going to live"?

48 What about Jonah going through the streets, saying, "Oh, this city is going to be destroyed within so many days, forty days," and then God didn't do it?.
See, you have to watch, God don't always strike when He warns. But He... There's one thing, then the prophet is mocked. But if he is a vindicated prophet with the Word of the Lord, see, signs of God, vindicated, as God said the prophet would be vindicated (which these men were), see, his Word is not his, but it's God's, and it will come to pass. It's got to come to pass if it's God's Word. There's only one thing can stop it, that's a quick repentance.

49 Notice, Amos, he lived to see his prophecy, but when Amos spoke of that city, how it was going to happen, how God was going to cause the Syrians to come in and take them over, and so forth like that, and how their own corruption would eat them up. Why, I believe if it's right now... I'm looking down here upon the Scripture, and if I got this counted right, it's around about fifty years after Amos prophesied. And, now, what do you think? A whole generation passed before Amos's prophecy come to pass. But if you'll read over here, it tells you, and it happened just exactly word by word what he said, see.
John saw the book of Revelation. It never happened in his day. But we see it coming to pass just exactly, see.
Daniel prophesied of the day, of his day and all down through. He never lived to see it. He said, "Go your way, Daniel. Shut up the book, and close the book. You'll sleep in your lot, but at that day you'll stand," see.
Now, you see, the ... you don't always... God ... strikes as soon as he prophesies. Amos' prophecy, as I said, was fifty years later, it come to pass. But it did come to pass!

50 The prophet is a ... of the Bible real, genuine prophet is a special person. Not "a special," be any different from anybody else, but he's got a special job, see. And, having a special commission, he's got to be special (a little out of the way from the others) in order to do that.
It's just like God likes His prophets to be an eagle.
Now, an eagle is a special bird. He's just a bird, but he's a special bird. And he can fly higher than other birds. He can see farther than other birds. And, now, in order to go higher, he's got to be built so he can go higher. And what good would it do him to go up there unless he could see what he was doing after he got up there, see. So he has to be a special built bird, see. He's kind of in a---in the hawk family, he's a ripper with the bill. And he eats the ... many of them are scavengers. There's about forty different kinds of eagles.

51 But, you see, in the church there is the pastor, and that pastor is a special person. He's built to where he can put up with the fusses of the people. He's a burden-bearer, he's the ox of the team. He's a man that can sit down when somebody's got something against somebody else, and sit down with them two families (and take neither side) and reason it out and bring it right back into sweetness, see. He's a pastor, he knows how to take care of things.
The evangelist is a special man. He's a man that's burning like a fireball. He runs into a city and preaches his message, then gets out of there somewhere else. See, he's a special man.
The teacher is a special man. He sits back under the anointing of the Spirit and is able to take the words and put them together by the Holy Spirit, that the pastor or evangelist either one could not compare with him.
And then we find out, the apostle is a special man. He's a "setter-in-order." He's a man that's sent from God to set the things in order.

52 The prophet is a special man. A prophet is a man of whom the Word of the Lord comes to, because the prophet is so designed (life) that his subconscious and his first conscious is so close together that he doesn't go to sleep to dream his dream, he sees it when he's wide awake, see. Now, that's something God has to do. See, he sees what's going
A prophet foresees way off, see, the things that is coming. He sees the cup of God's wrath, full, before it is filled, see. He can say, "Thus saith the Lord! God will destroy this city except you repent." Why? He's an eagle. He rides way in yonder, see. And he looks way off there and he sees that cup of wrath poured out. That's what the prophet's looking at. He ain't looking what's going on here, he's looking yonder! He's saying, "It's coming!" He can go so high till he can see that shade. He said, "The world will be darkness and gross darkness." He's up high enough, the sun's shining now, but he sees that shade coming, and he's saying what he's looking at. It ain't here yet, but it'll sure be here! That's right. It's going to be here, gross darkness upon the people. He knows it's coming, years away, yet he sees it.
Amos, that anointed prophet of God, he saw the darkness and the judgment. He seen Syria come down with their chariots and sweep through there, and slaughter them people out. He saw it coming and the judgment of God upon them. Now, fifty years before it happened. But, you see, being a prophet, he was lifted up into the Spirit and he saw it far off, see. He saw the cup, full, before it was filled.

53 Like Abraham. God told Abraham, "Your seed shall come into this country and sojourn here for four hundred years, and then I'll bring them out with a mighty hand, because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full," see. God knew that cup was going to fill up. He was speaking with His prophet, He told him now, "You see that cup of the Amorites down there," see, "but their iniquity is not filled up yet, Abraham. Don't say nothing about it now, hold off, but it will come. And when their cup's filled up, in them four hundred years, I'll drive them out like locusts before you, and I'll establish your seed here in this land." Amen! That's the prophet of the Lord.

54 Now, when he speaks of his vision, whether it's wrath or whether it's healing, it may linger, but it's got to come to pass if he speaks it in the name of the Lord, see. It might be a blessing that he speaks for you. He might tell you a certain thing, and you can't see it at all. You say, "How can it be? Why, it's a ... He told me, 'thus saith the Lord, this is going to happen, and that was going to happen,'" and it ain't happened. The man's wrong!" Now you'll be judged for disbelieving it, but it's going to happen anyhow! See? It's got to happen!
"Though it linger," the Bible said, "yet will it speak in its season." It'll come to pass.

55 The prophet's only looking off and seeing something. He's talking about what he's looking at. He ain't thinking about here and what you look like now, he's looking what you're going to be. And when he speaks that, if it's in the Word of the Lord, it's already been spoke and there's nothing in the world can stop it (you see, that's right,) only God Himself.
Notice, now we find that when... He speaks his vision, the prophet does. Now, sometimes he speaks good things, he speaks of your healing. All right, you might think, "It just can't happen, I haven't got any better." Then what does that do? That just brings the judgments of God upon you. That's right, see. Jesus promised to save you if you'd believe it; if you don't believe it, it won't happen to you. You've got to accept it, you've got to believe it, see. And you got to know from where it comes from, that gives your faith in God; or, your prophet, see. You've got to believe it.

56 And now we find out here, that these prophets that spoke, they spoke and what they said come to pass. And if the wrath of God is poured upon the people, there's only one thing... If that prophet says that something another is going to happen, there's only one thing that'll stay the hand of God, that's repentance. That's repentance towards God, that stays His wrath. Now, don't wait for it, do it then! God says anything, you do it right then.

57 Hezekiah, as soon as he knew... He was a good man, but God said, "Your time has come, Hezekiah, and I must take you. I want to, I'm going to take you out. Put all your house in order."
And he said, "It'll take me fifteen years to do that, Lord," see. "I know I'm going, but it's going to take me fifteen years to put my house in order. I can't do it right now. I haven't got the time to do it. I just can't get it done. Lord, let me live another fifteen years so I can get this thing done. I can't put my house..."
See, God's commission was, "Put your house in order!"
And Hezekiah said, "I can't do it in this year. It's going to take me ... time I take this back, and make this up and take it over to this fellow here, it'll take me fifteen years to do it. Just spare me to do it. Let me, let me, give me a little time to do it," see.
Then God said, "I'll be lenient." But he had to die anyhow, you see.

58 And then again, he took his time, he backslid during that time, see. It'd be better if he would have went on without it being set in order. That's right. But He give him fifteen years longer to put his house in order. Because, quickly, what did he do? He said, "Lord, I'm slow. I need fifteen years to do this. You've commissioned me to put my house in order. I can't do it for fifteen years because I got a loan here, and I got this over here, and I got this over here to do."
Now, he was a godly man, and God's Word's got to happen anyhow. It's going to come to pass anyhow, but He just stayed it for a little while, see, hold it off to him. Then he done a sin during that time. He said, "I won't make it come upon him, but I'll visit it upon his children after him." You know the story.

59 Now, we find out that a quick repentance sometimes holds the wrath off a while.
Now, we find out that Nineveh... God said, "Go down there and cry out to that city now, and tell them, 'Within forty days the thing's going to fall.'" And, my, did they ever repent! As soon as they seen that prophet coming through the street, saying, "Thus saith the Lord, 'The place will fall within forty days! The place will fall!'"
Even the king commanded a fast through the country, mourning, "Put on sackcloth, put ashes! Not upon your own head and upon your body and upon your flesh, but upon your cattle, upon your beasts of the field, put ashes and sackcloth." What a repentance!

60 Now, when we find out there, we notice, if the prophet don't watch real quick, see, get his wits together and go to God, you'll find out something right there, if you don't watch...
Now look at Isaiah, he just spoke his prophecy, went on back into his little wilderness hut. And, when he did, the Lord never spoke back to the king that was praying. He has a way of doing things. There was a prophet in the land. The Word of the Lord comes to His prophet. He went out there and said, "Isaiah, go back and tell him I have heard his prayers. I have understood that it ... that he thinks it's going to take him fifteen years to do this. I've seen his tears because he wanted to do the job so bad. It's going to take him fifteen years, he said, to do it. Go tell him that I'll let him have it, then," see.
Why? He commissioned Isaiah to go tell him, "Thus saith the Lord!" Then if there's any change in that, or lingering... It's going to happen anyhow; he died just the same. But said... If there's anything in that, then He's obligated to come back to the man that he sent thus saith the Lord to. He told Isaiah, "Go back out there and tell him."

61 Now, Jonah took a different attitude, gets up on top of the hill and said, "Well, it'd be good if I never was born." And, oh, how he went on! And God had a little gourd to come up and make him some shade till he got cooled off up there. But he said, "Now, here, I went down there, and they're going to say I'm a false prophet."
And God spoke to him, said, "Look at that city down there. Look at there, Jonah, that the whole city is repenting with sackcloth and ashes."
And then He told him about the little gourd and the worm that cut it down. One day, the Lord willing, I want to come to the Tabernacle and take a series just on Jonah. Oh, there's so many great ... that east wind blowing, and all. Oh, my! There's so many things in there, it just ... it's thrilling. Them nuggets in there, it all types right in, fit. It even brings Jesus Christ in it, and everything else. Course, every line in the Bible brings Jesus Christ. Yes, sir. That's our Sunday's lesson, so we'll find that, the Lord willing.

62 And notice, there's things that you... If you're sincere and tell God... Now, you have to watch.
Now I want to show you another Jonah in the platform tonight.
One night there was a people that come here. The lady may be (some of their people) here tonight, so I won't call the name, you would probably know who it is. But they come here, fine bunch of people from down in Kentucky, and they come here for years. But the people, being fine people, good friends of mine. My, they were real friends of mine, but they... Just one of those kind of people that when a revival was going on they could come to church; when the revival was off, and the load was pulling, nobody would pull. And all the children was here on the cradle roll, they had the ... when we had our classes and things.

63 And one day I come home, about four years ago, or five, something like that. And this young girl, (which was about eight years old when she was on the cradle roll), she had been married and had two children. And she was laying out in the hospital out here, at the point of death. She was about four months, five, with a baby; and the baby had died, and they couldn't operate because she had uremic. And they couldn't operate, so had to let the mother die, too. Can't operate, and, see, the baby would kill her like that, so they had ... she was just dying, that's all, wasn't no chance for her.
I went out to see her, she had sent for me. And I went into the hospital, and there she was under oxygen tent. I raised up the little flap, talked to her a little bit, and I said, "You remember me?"
She said, "Sure, Brother Bill, I remember you."
I said, "How is it the... Do you understand how sick you are?"
She said, "I do." Said, "That's why I sent for you."
I said, "Well, why, how is it with you and the Lord?"
She said, "Brother Bill, I'm not ready to go."
Well, there we got down and prayed, and her mother and her husband, many of them in the room, and the mother and husband started crying. And then I asked her, and she got right with God (paid her vows and come back and made God the promise; and if she'd be forgiven; how she loved Him; and sorry for her sins, the way she had lived), and went on with her repentance and crying. And after a while I got up and went out of the building.

64 And the next morning they called me up, to come back out there. And, come to find out, they come in that morning for a test and to see how the uremic condition had advanced, and found out she didn't have a speck of it. It was all gone, every bit of the uremic poison had left her. The doctors were so excited till they said, "My! Why, if this... It's something very strange." Said, "We'll get her ready, and" said "if it's still that way in the morning..." Said, "We'll keep giving her penicillin," or whatever they was giving her, keeping the infections down. Said, "We'll operate and take the dead baby before it set in something else." Said, "If she's all right."

65 Well, two or three times that day they tested her again. And that night, late, they tested her, nothing wrong, was perfectly all right. And they prepped her. Took her out from under the oxygen tent. Everything was fine. They was going to operate on her the next morning, take the baby.
Well, I went out there. And because that this was done... Now, I never knew it, I never knew. The Lord never told me nothing about it. You could ask the people, if you wish. So they ... He never said it would. But, oh, my, to see such a thing! Her husband, being a sinner, come over and said, "Brother Branham, I want to give my life to the Lord Jesus."
And I said, "All right, just kneel down here and take hold of your wife's hand, and then you walk this straight life together."

66 The mother come back, she said, "Brother Branham, you know, here's me and my children," said, "we've all been in and out, and in and out, and around the Tabernacle, and things. We set and listen at you preach, and we'll go up to the altar and come back." Said, "I'm backslid, too, Brother Branham." She said, "I want to come back to the Lord Jesus, for His goodness to my child." Well, you see, that's very nice, but you don't come to the Lord Jesus because of that.
Along towards midnight, twelve, or one o'clock her mother dozed off to sleep. And she said, called her, said, "Mother."
And she said, "Yes, honey, what do you want?"
She said, "You know, I'm so happy!"
She said, "I'm so glad of you being happy."
Said, "I'm at peace with God." And said, "Oh, how fine it is!"
In a few minutes, again she called back, she said, "Mother."
Said, "Yes?"
Said, "I'm going home."
And she said, "I know you are." She said, "Yes, sweetheart," said, "the doctor will take the baby tomorrow. And in about a day or two, when your incisions heal up and you get away from here, you go back home and be happy again, you and your hubby and little children, and be a Christian and live for God."
She said, "Mother, I mean I'm going to my heavenly home."
She said, "Sure, honey, at the end of the journey."
She said, "This is the end of the journey."
"Oh," she said, "now, what's the matter?"
Said, "The end of the journey." So said, "Yes, mother, within a few minutes I'll be gone."
Well, she thought she had just got nervous and delirious. She called the nurse, the nurse taken her respiration. Everything was normal. And within five minutes she was gone, she was dead.
And then when I come back home, in a week or two after that ... I think Brother Graham preached the girl's funeral. When I come back home and Meda told me that that girl died that night, my, I couldn't...
I went to see the mother. "Yeah."

67 And I don't know what caused me to do it, but I said, "Lord God, You owe me an understanding, see, after me going out there and telling that husband, and him coming to the Lord after You done these things for him, and all like that, and then take that girl's life like that." I said, "You owe me understanding."
When you tell God something like that, He'll leave you sitting alone. He don't owe me nothing. I'm in debt to Him. Well, He just let me pout it out for a few days, you know. And, after about three or four months, one day I was out on the creek bank and the Lord spoke to me in a vision, and said, "Now go to her mother, and say this to her mother, 'Did not her time come the year before that, when she was drowning in a creek, on a picnic? She should have went at that time, but I had to take her when she was ready to go.' And that's why all this happened and why you went out there."
Then I got down and cried. I said, "Lord Jesus, forgive me, your poor stupid servant. I should have never said that, Lord."

68 And I had went back down to the lady, she lived over here on Market Street, and I went over to her, and I said, "I want to ask you a question."
She said, "Sure, Brother Bill."
And I said, "Is it true that this girl almost drowned?"
She said, "That's right, Brother Branham." Said, "Her husband and they had to get her out of the creek." And said, "They had to use artificial respiration, put on pressure, and they had to get a machine and pump the water out of her." Said, "She had her skirt on. They was having a picnic. She was out there and stepped in some sand, slipped off over her head and strangled in the water. They didn't notice her. And directly they seen her coming up and going down, and they run in and got her and brought her out." And said, "She almost died." Said, "She..."
I said, "That was her time to go."
See, God knows what He's doing. Now, the Lord probably would have told me that if I hadn't have taken the attitude that I did, "Lord, You owe me, to tell me about that." He don't owe you nothing!

69 I stood in a meeting one night and heard an evangelist praying for a sick person, said, "God, I command You to heal this person!" Who command God? See? It isn't even intelligent, see, because that God, He does what He wants to.
Can the clay say to the potter, "Why did you make me thus?" See? Certainly not! But if the prophet will keep still and then seek the Lord for the answer, there's the answer there, see.
Just like on this person was asking on the serpent's seed question, you see. Just watch, and don't be in a big hurry. And then, now, God always brings to pass everything to work together for good to them that love the Lord.

70 Now, if Nineveh would not have repented, then the judgments of God would have been upon them. Now remember, the prophet must listen. It was a warning.
Now, the same thing to this nation. Then you say, "Brother Branham, last Sunday you said, 'There wasn't a hope'?" Yes! "Why?" It spurned its call. It's got to receive it. It's going to receive it. There's coming a time when this nation's going to go to pieces. I saw it in 1933, see. I looked off...
You said, you might have said, "Well, it didn't happen then."
But it's going to happen! Neither was Mussolini in power, neither was the Maginot Line built, neither did the car look like an egg in them days, and the things, neither did the women elect a President that would look like a college boy, and all these other things, neither would there be a Catholic President, and so forth, spoke of. About thirty years ago, or more, these things were predicted, but He only showed me way off down to the end.
And as that thing approaches, time by time, that cup's filling up! And repentance has been preached by Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and who else. Prophets, and so forth, has crossed the nation with signs and wonders, and she continually wades into sin. That's the reason they don't repent, repent brings it.

71 Notice, Ahab never repented at the rebuke of Elijah. If Ahab would have repented and walked softly before God, the thing would never happen. But Ahab come down there and done took Naboth's vineyard and had him murdered, and all these evil things. And Jezebel... That prophet walked out there with" Thus saith the Lord!" But what did they do? She only threatened to kill him. What happened? His prophecy was fulfilled, the dogs eat her and licked Ahab's blood. Just exactly according to his word! He saw the cup, full.
That's the reason that little Micaiah, saying the same thing, how could he bless what God had cursed? See, his word, his prophecy, was in harmony with the Word.

72 Herod, he never repented when John said, "It's not lawful for you to have that, your brother's wife!" He never repented. But what did he do? His wife required the head of the prophet. Look at the filth he went into. Look what happened to him. Look, even today, in Switzerland, the blue waters of rejecting Him still boils as a commemoration. See, sure, he didn't repent when he was rebuked of the Lord. John told him, no matter what he was (a procurator, or whatever he was; or the emperor, or whoever he might be), he must repent when God calls, or wrath's upon him!
How many times has the prophets... I got wrote down here, but we won't have time because I got about ten minutes longer.

73 If no repentance, then judgment is sure to come! Hezekiah repented, see. Nineveh repented.
Ahab never repent. Nebuchadnezzar never repent. The people in Noah's time never repent, and the judgment swept right on in, see. Now, but He first warns everybody. Everybody gets a warning.
Now, seeing the time is at hand, let everyone that feels that there is a warning, repent quickly before the wrath of God strikes.
Now let's bring it down to the Branham Tabernacle. See, we have seen these things and know them to be the truth. We know that it's absolutely the truth. The commission of the Word is, "If you will repent and be baptized into the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to your children and them that's far off," see.

74 Now, a man, Mr. Dauch, asked me here not long ago, he said, "Brother Branham, I'm getting old. I'm getting weak, ninety-one." He said, "Do you think I'm ready to die? Do you think I'm ready to go? Do you think I'm saved?"
I said, "Mr. Dauch, did you ever go to a doctor for a physical checkup?"
He said, "Yes."
"And you tell him... Now, what the doctors does, he's got a book laying there, and he takes this book and he finds out. 'Now, the first thing I ought to do to that man, check his heart.' So he gets a stethoscope and puts them in his ear, checks his heart." I said, "Then, the next thing he gets, he finds out his blood pressure, with a pressure on his arm. Then the next thing he does, he takes a urine specimen, and whatevermore, and some blood out of him, and all these different things. He goes through all of it, and if he can't find nothing... Takes an X-ray. If he can't find nothing, he'd say, 'Mr. Dauch, you're physically all right.'
What's he basing that upon? On the conditions out of his medical book, that if there's anything wrong according to the head scientist it'll show up here, it'll do this here, it'll do that there. Therefore, as far as he can know anything about it, you're all right, see, physically.

75 "Now," I said, "in this case, I'm given a soul examination, see. And God, for the soul, only has one instrument, that's right, that's His Word. That's His Word." And Jesus said, in St. John 5:24, 'He that heareth my Word.' Now, that hear, doesn't mean just to listen at a noise. That hear means 'to receive it.' 'Who can receive my Word,' amen 'he that hears it!' (Don't stand still, say "oh nonsense, "them things, there's nothing to it. I don't believe that.") ' He that hears my Word!' That's the Word of Jesus, which, He is the Word. There you are. 'If you can hear my Word,' He said, 'and believe on Him that sent Me, he has passed from death unto life; and shall not even come to the judgment, but has already passed from it.' Amen!" I said, "How's your heart beating now?"
He said, "I believe it. I have heard it. I have received it."
I said, "Then according to the head specialist, the chief operator, the chief doctor of eternal life says, 'You've passed from death unto life and shall never come to the condemnation.'"

76 Said, "When I heard you preach on the name of Jesus Christ for water baptism, I walked right in behind you and you baptized me." Said, "I... The man that I once was, I'm not that man no more. Something's happened to me. I used to care nothing about it and went on the other way, but I've turned and started back this way. And my heart burns day and night to get closer to Him. Every word of it, I believe! I say, 'Amen!' to every bit of it. I don't care how it cuts me, I want to measure right up to it. And I have as far as I know."
I said, "Seems to me like your heart's beating pretty good. I believe you're spiritually able now."
He said, "Wonder if there would be when the rapture comes, can I go in it, Brother Branham?"
I said, "It's not me to say who goes in or who does not."
He said, "Well, I'd like to be living, I want to see the rapture so bad."

77 I said, "All right, let me see what the science book says here, to it, and the soul science here." I said, "Well, it says this, in II Thessalonians, the 5th chapter, it said, 'We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent' (that means hinder) ' those that are resting, asleep. For the trumpet of God shall sound, and those who are asleep or resting shall wake up first, take on immortality. Then we which are alive at that day, at that time, after they done raised up, see, then we shall be changed in a moment, a twinkle of an eye, and meet with them; and then go up to meet the Lord in the air, be caught up together with them.' Whether you sleep, whether you don't, whether you do or whether you don't; wherever you're buried, if you're not even buried at all, you're coming anyhow! There's nothing can hold you. You'll be there!" I said, "Brother Dauch, if Jesus doesn't come until my great-great-great-grandchildren's grandchildren, you'll still be there right on the moment just exactly, and will be there before they're ever even changed, if they go." That's right. Amen!

78 There is a coming blessing just the same as there is a coming wrath. Oh, we have to be looking for one of it tonight. You have to either be looking for the wrath to fall upon you and for destruction, or either you have to be looking for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The same God that promised one... I'm so glad!
I'm watching for the coming of that glad
millennium day,
When our blessed Lord shall come and catch
His waiting bride away;
Oh! my heart is yearning and groaning for
that day of sweet release,
When our Jesus shall come back to earth
again.
Then sin and sorrow, pain and death of this
dark world shall cease,
In that glorious reign with Jesus of a
thousand years of peace; (Oh, my! "And
shall forever be with the Lord," see.)

79 What God said, it's got to come to pass. "They shall build houses, they shall inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and they shall eat the fruit of them. They shall not plant and another inherit it. They'll plant their own vineyards and stay with it." Amen! Amen! "They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain." Hallelujah!
When this mortal takes on immortality, this death is swallowed up in victory, then we shall see Him as He is and have a body like His own glorious body. Oh, what a time to come!

80 The same God and the same prophets that predicted the Word of God, or the wrath to be poured out, also told of these coming blessings. I'm so glad! God never does give a nation a destruction without warning it. He never gives a man a destruction without warning it. And now if He does that, we have got something that's happened to us, the vindication of the signs of the last days with us, the great Holy Spirit moving among us and charging the church with His presence, vindicating His Word. Then the church is getting ready for a climb into the skies one of these days, by the power of God. Because it's a warning to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily beset us, that we might fly with patience this race that's set before us, to the author and finisher of our faith.

81 God bless you, church! Hold to God's unchanging hand! Yes, sir. If you feel His presence, go to Him. If there's anything wrong in your heart, make it right. We ain't got much time left. The coming of the Lord is at hand. Do you believe Him? Oh my! Won't that be wonderful there? What a time, when I see the old veterans back yonder walking down through that paradise! Oh, my! I'm looking for that hour.

82 I remember hearing my brother say, when coming back across the seas, from the old battlefields and things, said, "Those old veterans, when they come in the sight of that Statue of Liberty, they rolled them cripples up there so they could see the Statue of Liberty." You see it first, on a ship, when you come up, because it's so high. "And they seen that arm standing up there," said, "them men just break down and cry. And just see them great big men stand there, just fall right over on the deck and start crying." What was it? A sign of liberty. Everything that they ever loved lays right behind that sign there.
Oh, but what will it be when I hear the old ship of Zion blow that morning and I see the banners waving! When the battle's over and the victory's won, hallelujah! And we're coming home, where death, sin, and hell is conquered; and there's no more sin, no more death, no more sorrow. I can just hear the whistle blowing! Oh, we're nearing the city. Yes, sir. The breakers are coming in, the old ship's moving into her place. God, help us to live for that hour!

83 Lord Jesus, we are a people who are trying our best, with all that's in us, to walk in the light of the gospel of your great Gospel that You died to make right. We are so thankful to see, in this evil dark days that we're living now in this hour, that we see the signs appearing. O God, as it is the handwriting on the wall, we thank Thee, Lord, that we can see it and know that deliverance is close at hand. We preach, we cross the country, we see You work great signs, show yourself daily, every year. There's not a year passes but what (great) His supernatural signs is striking the earth. And we see it, knowing that the great army of God marches on.
Oh, not many in number, but what a powerful group that's got eternal life! Said, "They shall run through a troop and leap over a wall." Yes, the "troop" of death will have no holders to it, she'll run right through it. Leap over the wall between natural and supernatural, and go into the arms of God, into that great eternity. Lord God, we thank You for this. We know the time is approaching at hand.

84 I pray, God, that tonight if there be some here who doesn't know You, who's never made their peace... And maybe tonight, while we've been speaking, a little voice has been speaking down in their heart, "I feel a warning that I can't be around much longer." O God, may they put the house in order, right now. May everything be set. May the coldness... Maybe they're Christians, but they just haven't... They've lived under this so long and seen so many things, they've just lost the value of it. The things, they take it lightly instead of real deeply and sincerely.
O God, let us check up tonight, grant it, knowing that these great things are only warning us of the soon rapturing church. And if we are laden with sin, with unbelief, and with slothfulness, we shall not make that rapture. We know it, Lord, so we pray that You'll burn into us the Holy Ghost, down into our hearts. O God, set our souls on fire with your blessings. Help us to understand.

85 Now, bless the people together. Bless our precious pastor his wife. Bless the deacons, the trustees, all the laity, together. Forgive our sins. Heal our sicknesses, Lord. And set our hearts aflame. And may we go from this place with a warning message, as we meet the people in sin, and tell them, "Friend, aren't you shameful that you do such things, knowing that you have to meet God someday?" Grant it, Lord. I commit them to You, now; commit the message, and all together, to work together for your glory. In Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
I love Him, I love Him
Because He first loved me
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.

86 Don't you love Him? Think of what we are. Look how far up the road we are, friends. Just look back down the road from way down yonder, in the days of Luther and Wesley, on down through the ages. Look here where we're at: right here at the top of the pyramid; right here where God has proved it, that the Bible through the seven seals has perfectly been revealed; waiting only now for them seven mysteries right at last, on the coming of the Lord and the rapture of the church that might happen before morning. Oh, my!
I love Him, (sincerely now) I love Him
Because He first loved me
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.

87 As we quietly now... Do you realize that each one of us in here is got to leave here, leave this world? Do you know that a man that is born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble? Did you know that because that we're born of that tree from the garden of Eden, of death, that we've got to die? We're the fruit of our mother's womb, and we have to die, we have to separate this life. Young or old, it makes no difference. If the oldest man or woman in here lives through the night, she'll outlive or he'll outlive many ten, fifteen-year-old children? Hundreds of them will die across the world before morning, of children. So all that matters, is, what are you doing right now?

88 This may be your last opportunity. Young or old, you're able to get to church. Don't leave one thing undone. Be deeply and sincere. Lay every sin and everything aside. Look straight in the face of God and ask the question, "Lord, do I please You? What else could I do, Lord Jesus? I'll never have the opportunity no more, after this life is over, to serve You. This is the only time I have. Lord God, only let me know what You want to do! If I should go do this or I should do that, I'd gladly do it.
Do we think that sincerely? Does the little fellows think that? Does the middle aged think that? Does the old people think that? Does the teen age think that? We got to go, and how do you know that we all won't be gone before morning? We don't know it. You say, "That worries me." It shouldn't! Frankly, it should make you most happy to know that you're leaving this old pesthouse.

89 There's another world. You don't have to leave very far. It's right with you. It's right around you. You just ... God only give you five senses, and that's to contact so much of this, this world. But there's another world that you haven't got any senses to contact, you can't contact it because you don't have it.
For instance, I said, Sunday night, (maybe you didn't get it) what ... we got five senses: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. But what if you didn't have the sight (you just had taste, feel, smell, and hear), and somebody received their sight and said, "There's another world, sun"? Them feelings, you bump into things, and what it is can tell you what it is. Why, you'd think the person was crazy, 'cause you don't have that sense of sight. Nobody ever had it, you know of. You've heard of people that said such things as that, but you doubted it. But we know by this sense that it's real. It's a real place, see. It's a place where the ... you can see. Your sense declares that.

90 Now, the only thing you do when you die, you just change those five senses. (Glory! Whew!) You just receive another sense. And you're alive with a higher sense, thousands of times higher than this, in another life; a life where there's no death, where there's no sorrow. And the things that you don't know nothing about now, you see it plainly when you cross there. You don't understand it now because your bumping into it, you haven't got that sense. You say, "I feel a strange feeling here tonight. Looks to me like there's a... I just want to cry, shout, or something." It's the angels of the Lord, see.

91 Like somebody say, you know, that never did have the sense of sight, say, "Once in a while I feel something real, like a feeling like warmth."
You say, "It's the sunlight."
"What is the sunlight? I never did see it." "There ain't no..." See, he never did see, don't know what it is. See, somebody over there has to tell him, somebody that can see it. Oh, my! See?
We just change. We just change, don't be afraid of death. Death ain't nothing but a scarecrow. Jesus conquered it. Even when Paul come down at the end, he said, "Death, where is your sting? Where's your scare? Grave, where is your victory? You say you got me? I want to point you back there to Jerusalem. There's an empty tomb there and 'I am He that conquered both you, death, and hell,' and I'm in Him and you can't hold me! I'll rise again." Oh, my! He said, "There's a crown laid up for me, that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me; and not only me, but all those who love His appearing."

92 You love Him. You want to see Him coming. You're waiting for Him. It's a long story, it's a long wait. It's a love affair. But you just can't wait till you see Him! Oh, my! That's the way it is. Oh, that's the time we're looking for, that's the hour! If your heart's not like that tonight, friend, be careful, see. Be careful. Don't let the enemy deceive you. When the Holy Spirit in here wants to take its flight to its maker, to its master, there's a love affair that no one can tell about. That's right. It's real. It's real.
So if there's a warning, saying, "You're not ready for that," then remember, God might be getting you ready for something, see. You're not ready...

93 You say, "Well, if I get baptized, the Holy Ghost, then, well, maybe the Lord will take me?" No, not only that, you're just then getting ready to live. You ain't ready to live till you get the Holy Ghost, and then when you get the Holy Ghost then you're just fit to live. You wasn't fit to live before that, see, but now you're just fit to live after you got the Holy Ghost, see. Just getting you ready, see.
People say, "Well, I got to get ready to die." Oh, my, I'm getting ready to live! Amen. The thing of it is, get ready to live, live in Christ! Victorious life over sin, death, hell, I already have the victory. He's my victory and I'm His evidence, and I'm an evidence of His victory. Amen! That's it.

94 "How do you know you got it?" I got it. Amen. He gave it to me by His grace. I feel it. I know it. I see it working in my life. It changed me. And according to this book here, He said that I had eternal life and would not be able to come to the judgment, but I've passed from death unto life because He took my judgment for me. And if He paid the price, don't try to bring me to any judgment. He's done took it for me, and I accepted it. Yes, sir.
So there's no more judgment. There's no more death. Oh, I have to leave the church and leave the people someday, but that ... if Jesus tarries. And if that happens, why, my, I ain't dead. I can't die, I got eternal life. How can you die with eternal life? See? Always in the presence of God and forever shall be with Him! Amen! That thrills my heart, my, makes me want to start preaching again, see. That's right. Oh, He's wonderful!
Isn't He wonderful, wonderful, wonderful?
Isn't Jesus my Lord wonderful?
Eyes have seen, ears have heard,
What's recorded in God's Word;
Isn't Jesus my Lord wonderful?
I love that testimony:
Eyes have seen, ears have heard,
what's recorded in God's Word;
Isn't Jesus our Lord wonderful?

95 Oh, I love Him! He's my peace, my life, my hope, my King, my God, my Saviour, (oh, my!), my father, my mother, my sister, my brother, my friend, my everything! You see? We used to sing a little song like that. You know, do you all ever get them little Pentecostals songs like... I hope they got that recorder turned off, see. That song we use to sing:
He's my father, my mother, my sister,
and my brother,
He's everything to me.
He's everything, He's everything to me;
He's everything, He's everything to me;
For He's my father, my mother, my sister,
and my brother,
He's everything to me.
You remember when we used to sing that? Any of you remember it? My, years ago! And then we used to say:
I know it was the blood, I know it was
the blood,
I know it was the blood for me;
One day when I was lost, He died upon
the cross,
And I know it was the blood for me.
You remember that old song? Let's see, what was that other one we sang? Let's see:
Oh, won't you watch with me one hour,
While I go yonder, while I go yonder?
Oh, won't you watch with me one hour,
While I go yonder and pray?
I'm overcoming, I'm overcoming,
I'm overcoming, I'm overcoming;
For I love Jesus, He's my Saviour,
And He smiles and He loves me too.

96 Used to be old Brother Smith, a colored brother, used to be down here at the corner. Oh! I'd hear those colored folks down there, I'd just sit there and scream and cry and everything else, shake my car all over and jump all around it like that. They'd all clap their hands.
Oh, won't you watch with........
That little beat the colored folks has, you know. Nobody can sing like them, you might as well forget it, see.
........... one hour,
While I go yonder......
Oh, my! I sit there, I said, "O God!" This little old boy, about twenty years old, I'd run around and around that car and just shout and praise God like that. Oh, what a time! That was just the early beginning, when God was just moving among the people like that. Now we're come into a strong church. Not many in members, but powerful in the Spirit. Amen. How wonderful!

97 Then there used to be a little song... I remember the day down there in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when I met this... Not Chattanooga, it was down in Memphis, where I met this little colored woman, you know, standing out there. You've heard me tell about it, you know. Her boy had the venereal disease. And she had this man's shirt tied around her head, leaning over the bench like that. And the Lord stopped that plane there and wouldn't let it go, somehow, and they told me come get... And the Holy Spirit said, "Take a little trip and go down this way."
And I went walking down through there, singing. I thought, "My, my plane's about ready to leave!"
Just kept saying, "Move on. Keep on going. Keep on going." Just the early part of my ministry.

98 And I looked, leaning across the fence down there, and a little bitty shanty, little place there. There was an old sister standing there. Oh, she was... Looked like one of these sisters on the Aunt Jemima pancakes. Great big fat cheeks, you know, and her hair, her shirt brought on back. She leaned across the gate like that, and I just... I was singing that little song about ... little... What was the... I forget the name of the little song I sang. Now, it's something about... It was a little Pentecostal shotty song, a little jubilee.
And I just quit singing, I got pretty close. And I walked by. And she was standing there and the tears running down them big fat cheeks; I wanted to hug her. She said, "Morning, parson!"
I said, "Auntie, what'd you say?"
She said, "I said, 'Good morning parson.'"
I said, "How'd you know I was a parson?" Now, to the people in the South, that means minister, you know. Said, "Now, how'd you know I was a parson?"
She said, "I knowed you was coming."
I said, "You knew I was coming?" I thought, "Uh-oh, here it is, see."
She said, "Yes, sir." Said, "Did you ever read the story in the Bible, parson, about that Shunammite woman?"
I said, "Yes, Auntie, I've read it."
She said, "I's was that kind of a woman." She said, "And I asked the Lord to give me a baby, me and my husband, and I'd raise it for Him." Said, "He did, He give me a baby." And said, "I raised it, fine boy." Said, "He got with the wrong company, parson. He got a bad disease," and said, "he's laying in there dying. He's been dying for about two days now. He ain't even come to himself for two days. The doctor man was here and said, 'He can't live,' said, 'he's dying.' It was a social disease." And said, "I couldn't hardly stand to see my baby die, and I prayed all night." And said, "I said, 'Lord,' said, 'I's was the kind of woman that the Shunammite woman was, but' said, 'where's your Elijah?'"

99 And said, "I went to sleep and I dreamed a dream, that I was standing here at this gate, and I seen you coming down the street with that little hat kind of setting on the side of your head." But said, "There only one thing," said, "where is that..." Said, "You supposed to have a suitcase in your hand."
I said, "I just left it down there at the Peabody Hotel."
Said, "I knowed that you was supposed to have a suitcase." And she said, "My baby's dying."
I said, "My name's Branham."
She said, "I's glad to meet you, Parson Branham."
I said, "I pray for the sick. Have you ever heard of my ministry?"
She said, "No, I don't believe I ever did." Said, "Won't you come in?" And I walked in.
That big fellow laying there like that. I was trying to tell her about divine healing, but that wasn't what was interesting her. She wanted to hear that boy say he was "saved and ready to go." And she say... And God saved him.
And about a year later I seen him out there as a red cap down there at the station. How the Lord does things!
And then when I got back, after that, I was supposed ... that plane was supposed to leave at seven o'clock, and it was about half past nine. And I got a cab and went back. And just as I got in, said, "Last call for flight number so-and-so." The Lord held that plane on the ground there while I went to pray for that boy, see. That's it.

100 I was trying to think of that, a little song, "One Of Them." That's it. Oh, how we used to make that ring in here, and clap our hands. We'd say:
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
(Hallelujah!)
One of them, I'm one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
They were gathered in the upper room,
All praying in His name,
They were baptized with the Holy Ghost,
And power for service came;
Now what He did for them that day
He'll do for you the same,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
One of them, I'm one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
(Are you?)

101 Listen at this verse:
Though these people may not learn to be,
Or boast of worldly fame,
They have all received their Pentecost,
Baptized in Jesus' name;
And they're telling now, both far and wide,
His power is just the same,
And I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of
them.
One of them, I'm one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
One of them, oh, I'm one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
Oh, come, my brother, seek this blessing
That will cleanse your heart from sin,
It will start the joy-bells ringing
And will keep your soul on flame;
Oh, it's burning now down in my heart,
Oh, glory to His name,
And I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of
them. (Are you glad of that?)
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
Oh, one of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.

102 Oh, aren't you glad? Let's just shake hands with one another when we sing it. What do you say? Let's do it.
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
Oh, one of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
Oh, come, my brother, seek this blessing
That will ... soul aflame,
That will start the joy-bells ringing
And will keep your soul on flame;
Oh, it's burning now within my heart,
Oh, glory to His ... (Let's raise our hands up)
....glad that I can say I'm one of them.
All together:
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
I'm one of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.

103 Listen close again now, see:
Though these people may not learn to be,
(they never come from college)
Or boast of worldly fame,
They have all received their Pentecostal
blessing,
Baptized in Jesus' name;
And they're telling now, both far and wide,
(every little nook and corner)
His power is yet the same,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
Oh, sing it, church!
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of...
Take your little handkerchief now:
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
One of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them.
Praise the Lord! Amen! We're just like children. Nothing formal about us. God is without form. Is that right? Yes, sir!
I'm one of them, one of them,
I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them;
I'm one of them, one of them,
Oh, I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of...

104 Are you really happy you can say it? Just raise up your hand, say, "Praise the Lord!" "Praise the Lord!" I'm glad that I'm one of them! I'm happy to be.
Lord God, I'm so happy. One of them! One of them! I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them. O God, help us to be that. Help us to keep the lights shining, Lord, as we're marching towards Zion. Grant it, Father. In Jesus' name, we offer our lives to You for service. Amen. Amen.
Oh, we're marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We're marching upward to Zion,
That beautiful city of God.
Come, we that love the Lord,
And let our joys be known,
Join in the song with sweet accord,
Join in the song with sweet accord,
And thus surround the throne
And (Oh, just sing in the Spirit!)
......... the throne.
We're marching to Zion,
That beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We're marching upward to Zion,
That beautiful city of God.
Oh, we're marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We're marching upward to Zion,
That beautiful city of God.
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God;
But children of the heavenly King,
But children of the heavenly King,
May speak their joys abroad,
May speak their joys abroad.
Let's sing it!
We're marching to Zion,
Oh, beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We're marching upward to Zion,
That beautiful city of God.

105 Oh, don't that scour you out? Don't you love those old songs? I'd rather have them than all you can ... or any of the other kind of songs you can have. Them's good, old heartfelt songs. Oh, my! I feel so good and happy when I sing them, just good! My, just feel like rejoicing!
Take the name of Jesus with you,
Child of sorrow and of woe;
It will joy and comfort give you,
Oh, take it, everywhere you go.
Precious name (precious name!),
O how sweet! (O how sweet!)
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
As we bow our heads now:
At the name of Jesus bowing,
Falling prostrate at His feet,
King of kings in heaven we'll crown Him,
When our journey is complete.
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and.........