Broken Cisterns

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Let us pray. Lord, now we believe. We believe on the Son of God, and through this we accept eternal life through Him. Now, we have gathered again this afternoon---or this evening for another service, trusting You for the message and for what You will tell us tonight. We believe Thee, Lord, and we wait upon Thee. You said, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like an eagle." And we pray, God, that You'll give us that mounting-up power tonight as we wait on Thee.
We thank Thee for these people and for what they mean to You and what they mean to me. I thank You for it, Father. They are your jewels. And I pray, God, that tonight that You will manifest Yourself in the way to them that they have need of. If there is sick here, may they be healed. If there's a doubt in someone's mind, clear it up, Lord, and just give us of thy presence and thy blessings, because we need them, Lord, You are our all-sufficiency, and without You we cannot do nothing.
We pray that You'll receive our thanksgiving for all that You have done. In the name of Jesus Christ we look forward to your blessings. Amen. May be seated.

2 Well, it's just a bit cooler this Sunday night in there than it was last Sunday night. So we're very grateful to our brothers who worked so faithfully in getting this in. I know two or three of them: Brother Mike Egan, as I see back there, and Brother Mike and Brother Sothmann, Brother, I believe, Roy Roberson, and Brother Wood, and all of them, they were down here just sweating it out, trying to get it in so we could have this message now---or today. So we're grateful.

3 Now, next Sunday morning, the Lord willing, I want to have a healing service, prayers for the sick. And we'll designate it to a healing service, if the Lord willing.
I noticed this morning there's a bunch of handkerchiefs here. I prayed for them, and I... While you were praying and singing, I prayed for the handkerchiefs, and then there's more here tonight. So we believe that God heals the sick, so many great testimonies of healing among us and across the world. And we're grateful for this.
And I thought, next Sunday, being I have to be away for a little bit, and we've been holding so much just to the teaching and of the message, that I thought would be a good thing if we had a healing service, prayed for the sick. And we trust that God will give us a great time.

4 Now, many of you have to drive many miles tonight. So I was talking to groups over at the Blue Boar Cafeteria today where I was having dinner, many fine people. I got to shake their hands and talk with them, people I never met before that comes here to the church. And I'm grateful for such friends, and I want to thank each and every one of you. Some of them had picked blackberries and brought us. And one brought us a bucket of syrup---or molasses, I believe it was, and just things... You don't know what that means. And of a morning, I come up and go out of the house, sometime there was...

5 Other morning there was some brother there that was real bad off, had no clothes and things, wanted me to go get him some clothes. I started out, and I almost stumbled over a bucket of blackberries setting there. I said, "Did you bring these blackberries?"
And he said, "No, never had nothing to do with it. I been here 'fore daylight, and they was setting here then." And it was my good Brother Ruddell had brought them to me. And so those things I certainly appreciate.
Billy Paul just made mention to me a few moments ago that among this congregation tonight, they took up an offering that---for me. I thank you for that. I didn't want you to do that. I just appreciate your efforts and so forth, but that wasn't necessary, and... But the Lord bless you. You know, the Bible said, "Insomuch as you have done unto the least of these, you have did it unto me."

6 Now, I been kind of speaking to you on the message very straight, and I ... some people might be under the impression that I think that Jesus is going to come in the morning or tonight. I do! Now, I don't say that He will. And again, He may not come for next week. And it might be next year. It might be ten years. I don't know when He's coming, but there's one thing I want to always you bear in mind: you be ready every minute or hour, see. Then if He doesn't come today, He might be here tomorrow. So just keep that in your mind, that He's coming.
And I don't know what time is going to be my last hour on this earth, neither does any of us. And there's none of us know when He's coming. He doesn't even know Himself by his own words. He said the Father only knows when He will come; not even the Son knows when He will come. It's when God sends Him to us again. But we're looking for his coming. And if He doesn't come in my generation, He might come in the next. If He doesn't come in that one, He'll come in the next. But for myself, I can't see hardly any time left. I just... To me, it could happen at any minute. Now, that don't mean ... that doesn't mean, now, that you'll see the heavens change and every... That's not the coming I'm speaking of. I'm talking of the rapture.

7 See, He makes three comings. He come in three Son's names. He come in a trinity, Father, Son, Holy Ghost. See? All of it the same Christ, the same God all the time.
Now, we know He come to bring three works of grace: justification, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Ghost. Everything in God is completed in three's. And so He come first to redeem his bride; He come second as a rapture to take away his bride; He comes third with his bride, king and queen. After ... That's when many people are expecting the coming. But when He comes this time, hardly none but those who are ready will know when He comes. There'll just be an absence of people. They won't know what happened to them. They'll just be caught away in a moment. And that... They'll just come up missing, changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. So just be ready for that. It'd be horrible some morning to miss a loved one, no one can find them. Wouldn't it be too bad to know it's done past and you missed it? So just keep before God.

8 Now, next week, the Lord willing, Monday, from ... week from this Monday, if God willing, I'm taking the family back out to Arizona where they go to school, then I'm coming back.
Now, I don't go out there... I haven't any services to be out there in. I'm hardly ever in Arizona; I'm gone somewhere else. I take the wife out there next Monday. I'm coming back here again. I'll leave from here to British Columbia. I come back to Colorado. I'll be in Arizona again sometime near Christmas just for a few minutes, long enough for maybe two or three days, get the family together, be back here through Christmas holidays, the Lord willing, have a service through New Year's week here.

9 So then, I'm here practically... I'm here ten times more than out there, because we don't have any church or any services out there, nothing we have out there, so---in the way of church service. That's one bad thing about it; I have no place to send the children that will hear these message like your children gets to hear it here. And so that's one defect we have. But they're all healthier. It's a dry, hot, dry climate, but all the children seem to be healthier. I'm not there long enough to know whether it's healthy or not healthy. I'm on the move, and I guess I was just born a rambler.
My wife calls me... (I know she's here, so I'll get this after church, you all know.) What is that called? "Shifting Winds" or "Restless Winds" or whatever, you know, "Shifting Sands," or... I'm always on the move, in other words. And I've been married now twenty-two years, and I've ... sometimes I think I'm a stranger around the house, because I have to be going. But I'm looking for the time that when we'll be settled down in the homeland someday. But now the battle's on, so let's be in prayer.

10 Don't forget, next Sunday morning, the Lord willing, bring in your sick and the afflicted. Come early, get your place, then probably there's a group to be prayed for. We'll have to give out prayer cards. If there isn't enough, we won't give out prayer cards, just enough to form a little line like two or three dozen or something. But we'll probably give out prayer cards. So we'll probably do it about a hour before the regular service, which I think takes up ... I'd be eight o'clock. Eight o'clock or eight thirty they'll give out the prayer cards, open the church, give the prayer cards next Sunday morning. And then, be sure to be here for your---bring your loved ones. Put them in there. It'll be nice and cool in the church (if they're sick), and we'll do everything we can to pray for them.
Thank you again for the love offering.

11 And now, we're going to read some of God's Word tonight, and be ready for this event of his presence again to bring us his Word. Now, we know we can read a text, but God has to reveal the context, see. We can take a text, but God has to reveal the context.
And while you're turning now in the book of Jeremiah, the 2nd chapter, I want to say that I'm glad to have with us Brother Lee Vayle, a precious brother in the Lord, and I think here---a brother here (I can't think of his name), Brother Willard Crase. And I seen the brothers from Arkansas, Brother John and them from around Poplar Bluff, and Brother Blair. And oh, Brother Jackson, and Brother Ruddell, and so many that I just can't... Wish I could call everybody's name, but I just can't do it, and you understand. Brother Ben Bryant, I see him setting here. He's usually my "amen corner" while I'm... Everybody knows Ben by his voice.

12 Sitting in California one time, I was preaching a message for the Baptist people up in the valley. They had a big tent there and a lot of kind of aristocratical Baptists. I could never hear a "amen" from anywhere, you know. Afraid, some of the women break the paint on their face. And then first thing you know, I seen a pair of feet about like that go up in the air, and two big hands, and a black hair shaking there, hollering, "Amen!" screaming like that. I looked down there; I said, "Ben, where'd you come from?" He was really getting the "Amen!"
I see his wife looking him over a little bit. Well, he's losing a little of that black hair, but that's all right. Don't get worried about that. I did mine a long time ago.
So now, don't forget to pray.

13 Now, while we get to the sincere side of the service, remember, if we read this word then God will bless his Word. It will not return to Him void, but it will accomplish that which it's purposed for. And I know in reading the Word, I'll always be right. When I read the Word, God will honor his Word.
Now, let us stand in respect to his Word, Jeremiah the 2nd chapter, the 12th and 13th verses of Jeremiah 2:
Be astonished, O ... heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living water, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot---can hold no water.
Let us bow our heads now.

14 Dear God, thy Word has been read, and we pray that You will honor that Word and give to us tonight the parable---or the parallel of it, as we look to days gone by, Israel as examples, as the Bible teaches us, that we can see what You did to them when they obeyed the Word, see what You did to them when they disobeyed the Word, and learn what we must do. So we pray that You will speak to us tonight in a very special way, that we might know how to conduct ourselves in this day that we learned this morning that we're living in. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. May be seated.

15 I want to speak tonight on the subject for just a short time on "Broken Cisterns."
Israel had done two great evils. God said they had turned from Him, the fountain of life, and had hewed themselves cisterns to drink out of.
Now, that's something... The reason I thought of this text, was because that it would run parallel to what I was saying this morning of the hour that we're living and the cause that we are struggling for.

16 And we look at Israel as example that what God was, He always has to remain the same. And there's only one thing that God ever did honor; that was his way that He provided for the people. And when they got out of that way, then God was dishonored, and God made the people suffer for getting away from what he had told them to do. No matter what it was. He even give them a law: "Touch not, handle not, taste not," just---not because of the evil of doing it, but the evil of disobeying what He said do. And there's---always cannot be a law without a punishment for law, because if there's no punishment, then law is not much to it---unless it has a penalty, the law.

17 Now, we find what they did in that day seems to parallel what we are doing today, what the church people are doing.
Now, we see a strange thing here. It might be strange to some people when He said, "You have ... they have hewn to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns." Now, maybe some of you don't know what a cistern is. How many knows what a cistern is? Well, most all of you. If you was ever raised on a farm, you know what a cistern is. I remember I've drank enough bugs from one to know what a cistern was. Preached out in the country where you---in a brush arbor where you'd have a big pitcher full of cistern water setting there, out of the rain, you know, and it kind of got a little old, and then the bugs at nighttime would get into it... And so, I know what cistern water is.

18 A cistern is a place, a thing that's dug in the ground to take the place of a well. Where people doesn't have a well, then they get a cistern. In other words, a cistern is a man-made tank or a man-made well in the ground that men dig out to catch the water to use it. Some of them use it for wash water, and some use it for drinking water, and different way maybe. All the water sometime that we used to get was on a cistern. Used to have an old thing you have to wind around, around, around, around to get the water up, had little buckets on it to pump the water out of the cistern.
Well, we notice one thing about a cistern that's different from a well. Now, a cistern will get empty. The cistern cannot fill itself. It is not reliable. You can't rely upon a cistern. It has to rely and depend upon the rains that fall in the summer or in the winter, whatever it is, to... Usually in the wintertime when the snow and rain comes, then it runs the water off into the cistern. And if it doesn't get that water, then you don't have any water. It's all ... dries up. And it can't refill itself. The old cistern cannot refill itself; it gets its filling from the rains that falls.

19 And I want you to notice another thing about a cistern. Usually, you find... The way it was at our place, the cistern... Usually the barn's about twice the size of the house, and they usually run the water off the barn to the cistern. I remember that old cistern well out there when he had---when the drain pipes rushing it into---off the barn. It fills from the barn, so then the water is carried from the roof of the barn where all the animals stepping around through the stable yard and all the filth of the barnyard settles on top the barn in dry times, and then the water comes and washes it all down off the roof into a trough that's man-made, then into a man-made spout, then into a man-made cistern. And if you haven't got a mess, I don't know what you got, when you got a cistern! Yes, sir! It's all man-made and just as dirty as it can be.

20 You know, we used to call---we had a filter rag on one. Did you ever know what that was? Had to put a filter rag on it to catch all the bugs and things that come off the top of the barn, and all around the place, and poured out from one place to another into the cistern. And we used to put a filter rag on it to catch all the scum and stuff that we could. Course that wouldn't catch the real dirt, it just caught the big missiles that come down and fell into it. The bug might fall in it, but the juice of the bug went on with the water. So you really had a mess when you had an old dirty cistern.

21 In a few days, you let that water stand there, and it becomes stagnated. You let the water stand in a cistern, it becomes stagnated, and it gets full of frogs, and lizards, and snakes, and we used to call it "wiggletails," little bitty ... I don't know whether... They're not a parasite, they're... I don't know what you call them, but some little thing gets in the water that we call it wiggletails. You know what it is. How many know what I'm talking about? Oh, why sure, all you country folks know. Gets it all full of stagnation, and then these lovers of stagnation comes with it. It just actually comes, because it's stagnated. And because it's stagnated, it draws the animal there that likes stagnated things.

22 That's a whole lot like our churches today. I think that we have left... One of the great sins that the church has done today, just like Israel then, it left Him, the fountain of living water, and has hewed themselves out man-made cisterns. And it become a habitation of everything that loves that kind of water. Lizards, frogs, and all kinds of unclean germs live in it, because it's a man-made tank; and in this tank these things stay. A perfect example of our denominationals today.
"Now," you say, "Brother Branham, why do you strike at those people so hard?" It ought to be struck at. It's got to be struck at. Flee it, because it will finally form the mark of the beast. Remember, that is the truth! It will be the mark of the beast; denomination will lead right to it. It's on it's road right there now to force by power...
Look, in the old Roman empire that's exactly what led them to that mark of an apostasy. You found out that no man could buy or sell without the mark of the beast. He had to have it.

23 There's only two classes of people will be on the earth; those with the seal of God, and those with the mark of the beast, only two classes. So you'll have to have one or the other. And it'll be an apostasy, a mark of a religion, apostate religion.
And it's going to have a image unto the beast. As we study, we find out that Rome was, is, and always will be the beast. Exactly. There's no way to get anything else---Rome.
And what did Rome do? Was converted from pagan Rome unto papal Rome and organized a system, a universal system, that forced everybody to that one religion or be put to death.

24 And it's a strange thing that this United States appears on the scene, and it's a ... like a lamb. And a lamb has two small horns, civil and ecclesiastical rites. And after awhile when that was a lamb, we found out that it spoke then like a dragon and exercised all the power the dragon had before it. And the Bible tells us that they said, "Let us make a image unto the beast." A image is something like something else. And we can see it right now that in it's apostate condition the church is forming the World Council of Churches, which is the image to the power of Rome, and will force upon the people the same thing that pagan Rome or papal Rome did. So there's no other way, no other thing, but that is the truth.
And that's why I'm striking it in my age, in my time, is because it's got to be struck at. The call come to "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins!"

25 Now, I'm liking that to these dirty, filthy cisterns. He is the fountain of life; He is the living waters. And men leave that and dig for themselves cisterns which can only catch the filth. That's the only thing it can catch. And that's what denominationalism does; it catches everything that comes along, that wants to join. They're willing to take it in if it's got some money or can dress in a certain way. No matter who they are, where they come from, they take them anyhow.

26 Now, we find again that this mark of the beast that was formed here... America is number thirteen. It was born with thirteen colonies. It had a flag that had thirteen stars---thirteen stripes; and it even appears in Revelation the 13th chapter. And America has always been a woman, represented on our coins. Even the Indian head on a penny is a woman's profile. We know that, know the history of it. Everything, the Liberty Bell and everything else, the Liberty ... Statue of Liberty is... Everything a woman. A woman, number thirteen, see.
Now, it's beautiful to see those things.

27 And now, I have predicted by revelation from God or a vision in 1933, that seven things would happen before the end time. And that---one of them, that Mussolini, who was then becoming dictator, he would become dictator; and also he would make an invasion, and go down to Ethiopia, and would take Ethiopia. And the Spirit had said, "He shall fall at his step."
I wonder if there's any of the old-timers still left in the tabernacle remember me saying that in the Redman's Hall down here when we preached many, many years ago. Is there one in the building tonight that was left from down there at the old Redman's Hall when I preached that, when they had the NRA out, way back in the time of Roosevelt's first term? I guess there's not a one in here. Is there one? Yeah, yeah, one. There's one, yes, Mrs. Wilson, I remember her. My wife, setting in the back. Two left out of the old generation of those in that day. That when they said this NRA was the mark of the beast, I said, "Nothing to it! Not at all. The mark of the beast don't come here, it comes out of Rome, and it can't be the mark of the beast."

28 And I remember that these things was said. Said Adolph Hitler would come to a mysterious end; and he would declare war on the United States; and they'd build a great concrete thing, that they'd even live in it, and right there the Americans would take a horrible beating at this. And it was the Siegfried line---eleven years before it was ever started to be built! And then said but he would come to an end, and the States would win the war.
And then said that there's three "ism's": Nazism, Facism, and Communism. And I said, "They'll all wind up in Communism. Russia will take it all in Communism."
And I said, "then science is going to be so great, man's going to get so smart till he'll invent so many things, until he's going to make an automobile that looks like an egg that'll have like a glass top on it, and it'd be controlled by some other power than a steering wheel." And they've got the car.

29 And I said, "Then the morals of our women is going to fall in such a degraded things till they're going to be a disgrace to all nations. They're going to wear men's clothes. They're going to keep taking off their clothes till actually they come down like they got their underneath clothes on. That's all. And finally they'll come to wearing just a fig leaf." And if you notice, in last month's Life magazine, they had the woman with the fig leaves on; and that's the new evening frock or gown, what they wear of a evening, transparent, can see through it, only the fig leaves just hide a certain spot of her body. With strapless---or strap... unstrapped bathing suits, the top of it, exposed body... And how that those things has happened.
Then I said, "I seen a woman standing in the United States like a great queen or something. And she was beautiful to look at, but wicked in her heart. And she made the nation step---go with her step.

30 But I said, "Finally He told me to look back east again, and when I did, I seen, looked like, as it was, the world had exploded. As far as I could see was nothing but sticks, and smoldering rocks had been blowed up out of the earth. And these were to happen before the end of the world." And five of the seven has already happened in thirty-three years!
There we are, back to the end time! And I spoke against that denominational system right then. And I still believe tonight that it's a cesspool, that it's a place where the filth run into it. I can't believe that God would ever take such a thing in His church, because it's got to be born of the Spirit of God and then cleansed before it can be called His. The mystical body of Christ, we're baptized into it by the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

31 Yes, this cistern system is certainly a perfect example of denomination. A wise man ought to look and never to go into it, for God has proved through the ages that He's against it and never did work with it. Any group... Any time a man raised up with a message, like Luther, Wesley, or so forth, and Smith, and Calvin, and them, when they started the organization, God laid the thing on the shelf and never did visit it again in a revival.
Look through history. There has never been a time that God ever took a denomination and made a revival out of it. Nowhere. Then through history and by the Bible proves that it's a filthy thing in the sight of God. So I don't want nothing to do with it. And that's why I'm against it and trying to get the people out of it.

32 We are invited---like in Israel, so is it now---to look to Israel for examples. They, as long as they stayed with that fountain, they were all right. But when they got to hewing themselves cisterns, man-made systems, then God left them flat. He'll do us the same. They have forsook Him, the fountain of living water. That was the complaints that God had against them, to make something they could say, "You see what we have done?"

33 Now, when---in the time of the travel of Moses, when God by grace had given them a prophet, had given them a pillar of fire to go before them, had vindicated it by signs and wonders, grace had provided all these things, Israel still wanted law. They refused grace to take law. That's exactly what the people does today; they refuse the Word to take a denominational system, because in that they can do what they want to and get by with it. But you can't do it in Christ! You've got to come clean and clear in order to be in Christ.

34 Leaving the artesian well for a man-made system or cistern, could you imagine someone doing that? Could you imagine the mental conditions of a person that could drink at a fresh artesian well, and would leave that for a man-made cistern with frogs, and lizards, and wiggletails, and everything else in it? It don't seem even sensible even to be right, but that's just exactly what the people has done. They've left the Word, the true fountain of God's source and power to drink out of cisterns and make themselves cisterns. Same as they did then, they have done it now.
They say... He said, "They've left me here." He said here in Jeremiah 2 and 14---or 13 rather. He said, "They have left me, the fountain of living water."

35 Now, we see what a cistern is. We see what it catches. We see how it's made. It's a man-made thing that comes off of a dirty roof. The water that falls down hits on a dirty roof, and it only washes the roof off, puts it down through a man-made trough, through a man-made spout, into a man-made tank. And all the filth gathers in there, and the germs, and the lizards, and frogs, and things of the land like that. And notice, they are the unclean animal, wiggletails, stagnated. A wiggletail can't live in clear water. If it does, it'd kill him. He's got to be in the stagnation.

36 And that's the way it is with a lot of these parasites today. You can't live in the fresh water of the Holy Spirit. That's the reason they're so firmly against the Word, and say it contradicts itself; there's nothing to it. It's because they have to have some kind of a stagnated pool to wiggle in. Right. That's the same way it is with frogs, and with lizards, and with tadpoles, and such as that. They've got to get around the swamp or the stagnated pool to live, for it's their nature to live there. And you can't change the animal till you change its nature. And you cannot make a man see the Word of God till his nature's been changed. And when his nature is changed from what he is to a son of God and the Holy Spirit comes into him... The Holy Spirit wrote the Word of God.

37 Today I was talking with my good friend Dr. Lee Vayle, who's present now. And he's quite a theologian. And so we usually have some pretty good discussions on the Scripture. Very smart. And he asked me one time what I thought about the initial evidence of the Holy Ghost, was it speaking in tongues? (It's been many years ago.) I said, "No, can't see that."
He said, "Neither do I," said, "though I've been taught that." He said, "What would you think would be a evidence?"
I said, "The most perfect evidence I can think of is love." And so we got to talking on that. And then I thought, "That sounded pretty good." So I just held that: If a man's got love. But one day the Lord in a vision straightened me out, and He said that the evidence of the Spirit was those who could receive the Word, neither love nor speaking in tongues, but it's receiving the Word.

38 And then Dr. Vayle was saying to me that that is Scriptural. He said, "Because in John 14 Jesus said, 'When He, the Holy Ghost, is come upon you, He will reveal these things to you that I've taught you, and will show you things to come.' " So there is the genuine evidence of the Holy Ghost. He's never told me anything wrong yet. That it is; the evidence of the Holy Ghost is he who can believe the Word, who can receive it. Cause Jesus never said, "When the Holy Ghost is come, you'll speak with tongues." He never said, "... the Holy Ghost come you'd do any of those things," but He said, "He will take these things of mine and show them to you, and will show you things that is to come." So there is the genuine evidence of the Holy Ghost according to Jesus Himself.

39 So all these sensations and things that people have and still live on, you can see why they do it. See, it becomes a denomination or a stagnated pool, and there'll never be a denomination made upon the perfect Word of God. It can't do it, because you can't (nominate or) denominate God. No, sir!
The reason it is, you get a bunch of men who can believe the Word, let them start an organization. The first thing you know, in a year's time there's a bunch of Rickys in there that you couldn't do nothing with. They got a hold, and you can't do nothing about it. It's not God's system. It isn't. So we know that that thing's died and becomes a cistern and becomes a place where each one will compromise on this, that, or the other to get members in there, or let people come in.

40 We find out this system started one time back in the Israelite's day when they was digging these cisterns. And there was a man and a bunch of Pharisees who had dug some cisterns. And they had a man named Herod, and he was a proclamator, governor of the state. And he come down to hear a man that didn't fool with their denominations. He was a prophet. And no prophet ever had anything to do with a denomination, but hated it.
This prophet begin to say, "Don't you begin to say within yourselves, 'We have Abraham to our father,' because I tell you that God's able of these stones of rise children to Abraham." And they brought out a dignitary to hear him, and this dignitary had took his brother's wife away from him and married her. And what did that man walk out to his face and say? They thought he would compromise and say, "Now, sir, you have you a nice seat over here. And you ought to... I'm so glad you're here to hear me today." John walked right up in his face and said, "It's not lawful for you to have her." The very first thing he said, he bawled him out for his sin.

41 See, denominations make stagnate pools where men can live with women, and then women can carry on and cut their hair and wear shorts and anything else and call themselves Christians; but a genuine fountain (Hallelujah!) of the power of God, it can't stay there, because it pushes it out. "I am the fountain of living waters. They left me to dig themselves some cisterns."
Now, a fountain of living water... We find out what is a fountain of living water. We find out what the cistern is. Now, what is a fountain of living water. It's an artesian well. "An artesian well, what's that, Brother Branham?" It's a well that it's ... always comes from beneath and pushes its water out. It's flowing all the time. It is self-supporting, always fresh and clean, an artesian well, a fountain of living water. It's not dead and stagnated; it's living. It's constantly changing, bringing up something new all the time, moving on, coming from its resources. It draws its resources from its bed, which is still a fountain of living waters spraying up, self-cleansing. It's clean---pure, clean water. It's self-supporting; you don't have to wait for the rains to fill its tank up. It's always a-bubbling up, gives its water free. You don't have to pump it, wind it, twist it, or join it. It's just a fountain of living waters.

42 You know, you take these old cisterns, you have to crank it and crank it and crank it, and pump, and everything to get a little of that stagnated water out, but a fountain of living water gives it out free without pumping, joining, anything else.
Oh, I'm glad for that fountain! Yes, sir! It needs no strainer on it to take the parasites out, for it's coming so deep down there in the rock until there's no parasites there. It don't have to have an educational rag hanging on it (that's right!), some worldly-made system of man-made, denominational wisdom to tell you before a psychiatrist whether you're able to preach or not. It don't have one of those filthy rags hanging on it. It'd push it right off as soon as you put it on there. You can't do it. That well is bubbling up all the time. If you'd put one of them rags on it, it'd throw it plumb out of the one side or the other. It don't have no time for a denominational rag on it.

43 You don't need no filter, no strainer, no pumping, no jerking, no nothing else. It's just there, bubbling up. It don't have to depend on local rains to fill it up. Rains are revivals. Where that fountain ... that's at that fountain of life, where the carcass is the eagles will gather. You don't have to pump up a revival; you don't have to pump up nothing. Only thing you have to do is just come to the fountain. It's always full of good, fresh water, and there's no end to it. It just keeps on bubbling.
You don't have to go to the cistern and say, "Well, if it rains and washes off the barn, we'll have something to drink." My, my! Not this. That artesian well's spurting forth good cold water all the time. You can depend on it. You don't have to say, "Well, I'll go to this old cistern. We used to drink out of it, but it hasn't rained in a long time. I tell you, it may be dry."

44 That's the way some of these man-made systems are. You can go in, if you got a big something going on, a big kaboo, and selling something, or some kind of a something going on, a big parties and things going on, bunco games, and parties in the basement, everything, you might find a full house; but where you go to where that fountain is bubbling up always, the people are there getting them a good cold drink of water; you can depend on it. Say, "They haven't had a revival for ten years." If you live by that fountain, she's always got a revival going on.

45 Like the little Welshman said or... One time when they had the Welsh revival going on, there was some dignitaries from the States, some of these great doctors of divinity went over to Wales to find out where and what all this was about. So they had on their turned around collars, and their plug hats, and they was walking down the street. And here come a little cop along, whirling his little old billyclub in his hand, a-whistling, "Down at the cross where my Saviour died; down there for cleansing from sin I cried. There to my heart was the blood applied. Glory to his name," walking down the street. So they said, "This seems to be a religious man, we'll go ask him." And they said, "Mister!"
Said, "Yes, sir!"
He said, "We are here from the United States. We're a delegation. We come over here to investigate the Welsh revival, so-called. We are doctors of divinity, and we're here to look it over." He said, "We want to know where the revival is and where it's held."
He said, "Sir, you have arrived. I am the Welsh revival!" Amen! "The Welsh revival's in me! Here's where it's at!"

46 That's the way it is when you live by that fountain of living waters. It's a-living all the time, bubbling over, and over, and over, and over; there's no end to it. Not go see if some water, if we had a rain here not long ago; that's not it. It's that fountain of living water.
As I say, it gives its water free. You don't have to put rags on it to find out---some educational rags 'fore you can send him out to preach and see if he spells his words right, speaks them right, if he uses the nouns and pronouns, and so forth, and adjectives. Many of them don't even know what they are. But he's living at the fountain just the same, see---the same.

47 It don't have to depend on the local rains to fill it up or the local revivals, for it don't have to do that, for its power and its purity is within itself. That's where the Word is, its own power. When a man can receive it in his heart, it's got its purity; it's got its power. It's right in the Word itself. Springs forth to life.
Israel would get away from it. They'd get in trouble. Every time they got away from it, they got in trouble, the same as we do now. When the revival, gets away from that, then it's no good; it digs itself some wells and---or some stagnated cisterns, and there it goes.

48 But He always helped them. The murmuring at the Red Sea. Then when they murmured... Yet in all that He'd promised, made them a promise. He should've turned them back right there, the way we'd look at it, but He'd promised to take them over there. What did He do? Them children of Israel, He furnished them the pillar of fire and everything for a vindication, their prophet. And they led them out there to the sea---and always there's trouble against it---and here come the Pharaoh and his army. And you know what God did? He just opened up that Red stagnated cistern. The Dead Sea's the deadest thing in the world, it's really dead; it's stagnated, nothing can live in it. And He opened it up and set them free on the other side. He took them to where they wouldn't have to be bound by such a thing as that.

49 In the wilderness they found that the tanks could not be depended on; they were dry. Found out they'd go from one water hole to another. When they was in the wilderness, they was starving to death for a drink of water, and they'd go to this tank over here, a pond; it was dried up. They went to another place; it was dried up. They just couldn't think they was ever going to get a drink. And then, on the most unlikely place in all the desert they found the water. It was in a rock. It was in a rock. The most unlikely place that a man would find any water would be in a dry rock in the middle of the desert. But you see, God does things like that. In the most unlikely place, in the most unusual way. That's what we've always had.

50 They think you have to have a big denomination to gather and let them all come together, and have a great big milling around and so forth, and get thousands to cooperate, and all like this to have a revival. Sometimes God takes a little old guy don't even know he's ABC's and right amongst a bunch of illiterate people that hardly knows the right-hand from the left, He can raise up a revival that'll shake the world. He did it in the time of John. He done it in the time of the prophets. None of them as we know of was ever educated. But God could get ahold of them and do something with them.

51 In this rock came forth the waters. He was the rock. And He commanded this rock and ... must be smote. And He gave abundance of pure, fresh, clean water to everybody that would drink. He saved all who would drink from it, a perfect parallel with John 3:16: "...God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, ... whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but would have everlasting life."
God smote that rock on Calvary. Our judgment was upon Him, that from Him might come the Spirit of life that would give you and me eternal life. That's a perfect parable of it there in this wilderness.

52 They never had to pull, dig, pump, or anything, just partake of his provided way freely. They didn't have to dig it out of a pond; they didn't have to pull it up with a bucket; they didn't have to have no windle to get it with; they just had to partake of it. And that's all there is now. You don't have to join nothing; you don't have to get down at the altar and work up something, pumping it; you don't have to say a word over and over and over till you get a confusion of language; the only thing you have to do is just partake of Him freely, God's provided way. No pumping, no pushing, no nothing, just take of it freely. Nothing you have to do, just partake of it; that is just believe it that's all I can say to it. You never had to do anything for it, never had to dig for it. They never had to get down and cry all night for it; they just partook of it. It was smitten and ready. That's right.

53 I'm looking at a man now setting in the back of the room here. I remember telling him that on an old barn stall one day by a manger. And he said, "But I'm no good."
I said, "I know you're not." And I said, "I'm not either. But I said, "You're looking at what you are. Quit looking at what you are, and look what He is."
He said, "If I could just get rid of these cigarettes, Brother Branham, I'd be a Christian."
I said, "Don't get rid of them. You're trying to get good and then come to Him. He never come to save good men; He come to save bad men that knowed they were bad."
He said, "Well..."
I said, "Listen, you don't want to go to hell, do you?"
He said, "No!"
I said, "Well, you don't have to. He died that you might not have to go."
He said, "What do I have to do?"
I said, "Nothing. It's just that simple."
He said, "But if I could ever..."
I said, "There you go back to that cigarette again. Quit thinking about that cigarette. Just remember, think about Him, what He did, what He is, not what you are. You're no good, and you never was and never will be, but what He is! He's the one." And I said, "Now, the only one thing you have to do, if He took your place down there, you just willingly accept what He did. Only thing you have to do is just accept it."
"Why," he said, "that's simple. I'll do that."

54 I said, "Here's the creek." I brought him up here and baptized him in the name of Jesus Christ. Some of his people are setting here, and I know how ... they felt funny at me for doing that. But I knowed what I was doing. I seen in the man something that was genuine. I could see it there, and I took him and baptized him in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when we did that, it wasn't long after that till I went down to his son's house. We seen a vision of a tree being broke at a certain place, and the man fell, almost broke his back, took him in the hospital, and that night the Lord revealed to me that was the end of cigarettes. So the next day he wanted some cigarettes. I said, "I'll buy him a carton and take it to him. You just watch and see." His cigarette days are done. He's never smoked one since, never wanted one since.
God! See, the first thing you got to do is to come to that fountain. You've got to come to that water, realizing it's nothing that you can do; it's what He done for you. You don't have to dig; you don't have to pump out; you don't have to quit this; you don't have to quit that; the only thing you have to do is get there and drink. That's all. If you're thirsty, drink!

55 Now, He was the rock. God smote Him for us, and He gave forth abundance of pure, clean water. He does yet today to everyone that will believe. This is his grace, of course, to his people, us.
There's something like there like the people of today, ready to receive what they can get, but don't want to give any service in return. Israel was ready to drink from the rock now, but they didn't want to give God his service that was due Him.
And He's always giving us a service. You know, we can't even breathe without Him. We can't breathe without God's service. That's how dependant we are on Him. And yet, it almost breaks us in two if we try to do---have to do something for Him, He asks us to do something, go see somebody, go pray for somebody, go help somebody. It almost breaks us up to do it. But we don't want to do anything to Him for service.

56 His complaint was, "They have forsaken me, the Word, and have accepted a broken cistern instead. Accept... They have forsaken me, the fountain of life, the fountain of water of life, and they desire and would rather drink from a stagnated cistern."
Could you imagine that? Could you imagine a person now, that here's an artesian well who's putting out that fine, limestone water right out of the heart of the rocks, down there in the sand beds and so forth, just as cold and good as it could be, and would rather drink out of a cistern over there that had washed off the top of the barn, the sheds, and all of the out-buildings around the place, and put it right into that cistern there where the seepage of the water drains right back into from the barn, the stables, and stalls, and everything draining right back into the cistern, and then we want to---would drink out of that before going to that artesian well? There would be something mentally wrong with the person. That's right.

57 And when a man or a woman will take a denomination on their stand, that'll permit bobbed hair, wearing shorts, makeup, all this other kind of stuff, and some little kind of a program, and all this carrying on, and can go to the bowling alleys, and all that nonsense out there, and can put up with that, and like that better than they do the old-fashioned Word of God that cuts down and hews out and makes ladies out of women and takes them ... makes them dress right and act right, takes cigarettes and tobaccos and swearing and cursing and lying and stealing away from you, and all the world away from you, and give you something that is a perfect satisfaction? Why would a man or a woman go to such a thing as that for comfort? How can you get comfort out of that?

58 How could you get a fresh drink out of a stagnated cistern? Why would a person...
If a person goes to a stagnated cistern to get a drink when there's an artesian well open, you'd say, "There's something wrong with that man's mind." And if a woman or a man goes to such a place to find comfort, there's something spiritually wrong with that person. They don't want the Word. It shows that their nature is still a frog, or a tadpole, or something. That's right. Something in that nature likes that stagnated pool, because them kind of things won't live in a fresh water pool. They can't do it; it's fresh water. They can't do it.

59 Now, the complain was, they left it. And today they've done the same thing. Now, look at the woman at the well. Well, she'd come up to Jacob's cistern, and she had been getting water there all the time, at Jacob's cistern. But Jacob's cistern---denomination, we would call it, 'cause he dug three of them, and this one he'd dug... Now, she had a great story. She said, "Now, our father dug this well, Jacob; he drank out of it, and his cattle drank out of it, and everything; isn't that good enough?"
He said, "But the water that you draw from there, you thirst again, have to come back here to get it. "But," said, "the water that I give you is a fountain, a geyser, spurting up from the inside, and you don't come here to get it, it's right with you."

60 Notice, but when she discovered that a scriptural fountain had spoken to her by a scriptural sign that she had been looking for, she left that Jacob's denominational system and never went back to it again, because she had found the real rock, see. She run into the city. She was through with sin. She was no more a foul woman. She said, "Come, see who I have found, a man who told me the things that I done. Isn't this the very Christ?" She... That cistern might've been all right. It had served its purpose. Now she was at the true fountain. The cistern had been all right until the true fountain was open. But when the true fountain come along, the cistern lost its strength. She found there's a better place to drink.

61 And there is a better place! There's a better place, and that's in Christ.
In St. John 7:37 and 38, Jesus said at the last of the feast of the tabernacles: "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." They were all rejoicing. They had a little spurt of water coming out from under the altar, and there they was all drinking from this in celebration of the feast, and said, "Our fathers drank from a spiritual rock in the wilderness..." See, they'd hewed themselves a cistern, some stagnated water they pumped down from somewhere, and spurting up under the temple there. And they would all get around this water, and drink, and say, "Years ago our fathers drank in the wilderness."
Jesus said, "I am that rock that was in the wilderness."Said, "We eat manna from heaven and God rained it down."
Said, "I am that manna." That fountain was standing among them, the bread of life was standing among them and still they did not want it. They'd rather have their cistern, because man had made this and God had sent that. That's exactly the difference. Dug themselves cisterns.
He said, "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." He is that fountain. And as the Scripture has said: "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Oh, He is that artesian well! "Our of his belly or innermost being shall flow rivers of living water."

62 He is that rock that was in---that was Hagar's rock in the time of trouble. When her baby was about to die, when she'd been put out of the camp and was out there with little Ishmael, her water in her cistern that she was packing with her had give out, and she laid little Ishmael down and walked over a bow shot and cried, and oh---because she didn't want to see the baby die. And all at once the angel of the Lord spoke, and she found Beerlahairoi the well there that was flowing, and still flowing to this day. He was Hagar's Beerlahairoi rock out there in the wilderness.

63 It was standing here in the fountain filled with blood that day, standing there in the temple [blank spot] time of storm.
In Zechariah the 13th chapter, He was that fountain opened in the house of David for cleansing and ... or, sin---cleansing of sin. He was that fountain. In the Psalms 36:9, He was David's fountain of life. He's still that fountain in the house of David, and He's the poet's... In his heart there---poet said,
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
When sinners plunge beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
He is that fountain of life, fountain of water. He is the Word of God.

64 People of these last days has forsook Him, the true Word, water of life, and has hewed themself out denominational cisterns. And again, hewed, dug...
And now, we find out they have had broken cisterns. And then this cistern is filled with unbelieving germs, unbelieving, boasting, educational programs and so forth, which is contrary to God's promises. They're doubters of the Word.

65 Now, these cisterns that they've got, the Bible said, were broken. Broken cistern is a leaking cistern, and it's seeping out. What's it doing? It's seeping out into a religious cesspool called the World Council of Churches. And that's where the broken cistern is leading them to. All because they have forsook Him and have---the fountain of living water, and made these cisterns.
Digging out big seminary systems of learning, education, and so forth, that's the kind of cisterns they're digging today, that a man has to have a PhD, or a LLD, or Bachelor of Art or something before he can even go preach. Cisterns that has been filled with man-made theology. They take them into these great big schools of learning, and in there they inject into them their own man-made theology, and they send them out with that. What a day that we're living in!
Man-made cisterns! No trouble the... No wonder the thing has become a stink. Oh, my! It's because that the people are drinking from that.

66 And when the people want joy today, what do they do? The people, instead of accepting the joy of the Lord, they turn to sin for joy. People who go to church and claim to be servants of Christ, when they get real nervous, they'll light up a cigarette. And when they want to have some fun, they stick on their immoral clothes and go out and cut the grass when a man's going by to get him to whistle at them. They do everything to be popular. They want to look like the movie stars. That's their joy, when Jesus said, "I am their sufficiency." The reason that they go to that, because they don't want to drink from that fountain. They've turned it down. They don't want to drink from it. They join themselves to some kind of a man-made system, some kind of a cistern that's full of all kind of stagnated things that they can go like that.

67 Yesterday we had the kids up on the river---or I believe it was Saturday morning. We went down; Billy had been fishing in the boat. And we took the kiddies up (my little grandson and them, my daughter, and my little son) and we went up the river to take a boat ride. You couldn't even take a boat ride on the river for the filthy, dirty, scummy people out there on the river, half naked, and carrying on. A boat drove up beside of us, a bunch of little twelve, fourteen year old boys, each one with a beer can in their hand and a cigarette. They call that "having fun." Oh, my! How long can this world last with such a system as that!

68 Then to free themselves from the thoughts that when they die they'll go to hell, the thing they do, they go and join one of these man-made cisterns. So that same type of people belongs in that cistern. It's nothing but a bunch of unclean, filthy wiggletails of the world. And they associate themselves to that, because, as my old mother used to say, "Birds of a feather flock together." They won't come to the fountain and be cleaned up from that life of sin. They want to live out there and still hold a testimony that they're Christians. Why? They've turned from Him, the true fountain of joy, life, perfect life, and satisfaction. That's the reason they did it, because that they want to join up. They have some kind of people there that believe in that stuff.

69 Here not long ago, Brother Fred and I, and Brother Tom, a bunch of us went to a noted Baptist church in the city of Tucson to see if we couldn't find a little something that would give us maybe a little fresh feeling. And the minister said something another about the people in Egypt, when they left they was eating garlic and so forth, they wanted to go back again and eat that. Said, "That's something like people of today." And we---everybody said "Amen!" I never seen such a bunch! The whole church lost the sight of the preacher and looked back to see who it was that said "Amen." Liked to scared them to death. They didn't know what it was. When the... David said, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord! Praise Him upon harps; praise Him with a psaltery; let everything that has breath praise the Lord, and praise ye the Lord!" God rejoices in his people. Let them---if they learn, say "Amen!" when anything is said right.

70 Why not turn from this system and cisterns of the world to the faithful system of God, which is the artesian well, Jesus Christ. Why don't you turn to Him? Where God is our abundant supply of joy, our abundant supply in praises, our abundant supply in satisfaction. The calmness of my nerves comes from God. When I'm tore up, I find my satisfaction in Christ, not in a cigarette, not in the things of the world, not in joining some creed, but in finding Him, the promised Word that He said, "If I go away, I'll come again to receive you." I find my joy in that. He is my joy.

71 They say today by joining these things and by making this World Council of Churches that they're going to make a better place to live in. To my honest opinion, they're going to make a better place to sin in. That's just... The whole thing's sin anyhow. Not to live in, but to die in. Make us a place to sit in ... sin in, instead of live in.
Any other thing outside of Jesus Christ and his Word of life is a broken cistern. Anything that tries to substitute it, anything that you try to do to bring you peace, anything that you try to do to bring you comfort, any kind of a joy that you receive from anything else as a substitute for this, it's a broken cistern full of filth. He gives perfect satisfaction.

72 I remember here couple summers ago I stepped out the back door. There was a young snicklefritz out there that said to me, said, "You know the reason you're always talking about women like that, wearing those shorts and things," he said, "because you're an old man." Said, "That's the reason it is."
I said, "Look here. How old are you?"
Said, "Twenty-seven."
I said, "When I was many years younger than you, I preached the same thing!" I found the fountain of satisfaction; He is my portion. Amen! As long as He supplies that, that's the beauty. That's my art, is looking at Him, watching his handwork and see what He's doing. There's no other fount I know.
Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
Where sinners plunge beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stain.

73 I'm telling you, no other fount that I know but that fountain. It cleansed me when I was dirty. It keeps me cleansed, because I want to live right at it, drink this fresh water that fills my soul with joy. I can be so---ever so down and feel that I can't hardly go no---another round, can't go nowhere else, then I can kneel down and put my finger on a promise and say, "Lord God, Thou art my strength, Thou art my satisfaction, Thou art my all in all." I can begin to feel something bubbling up way inside of me there, I come out of it!

74 As I've passed fifty years old, I'd wake up of a morning... You know how it is, you can't hardly get that one foot out of the bed. My, you can't hardly do it, and somebody at the door knocking or Billy telling me there's an emergency somewhere I've got to go, and I think, "How can I do?" Try to put one foot out; I think, "Thou art the fountain filled with my strength!" Amen! "My strength and my help cometh from the Lord. Thou art my artesian well; Thou art my youth." "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with the wings like an eagle. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." "Lord God, this is my duty to go. I'm called to the post of duty," and the first thing you know, something begins to gurgle up inside of me.

75 The other day over in a little place I was having a meeting over here in Topeka, Kansas, there was a boy, a young preacher, one of my first sponsors ... Brother Roy, setting here, remembers the place. In this great place there, there was this minister had got under a roof or a place to sidewall, mashed him down beneath that. The little fellow was going to die. His liver was bursted; his spleen was knocked out of place; tons fell on him.
I sat at the breakfast talking to the wife. I said, "Wife, you know Jesus was here; you know what He'd do?" I said, "When he sponsored me---I believe that Word---he was sponsoring Christ." I said, "That's a trick of the devil." I said, "If Jesus was here, He'd go lay his holy hands upon him. That boy would get well. I don't care if his liver is bursted. He'd get well, because Jesus would walk in there knowing exactly who He was. He knowed his calling, the Scriptures was right, vindicating in Him that He knowed who He was, and not no shadow of doubt. He'd lay his hands upon him and say, 'Son, be well,' walk out of there. And I said, "There isn't enough devils in hell to kill that boy then." I said, "He'd get well. But I said, "You see, Honey, He was Jesus, the holy hands of God." I said, "I'm a sinner; I was born sexual birth. My father and mother were both sinners. And I'm just a no good nothing." And I said, "But you know what? If the Lord would give me a vision and send me down there, then that'd be different." I said, "I'd go down, lay my hands on him, he'd come out of that bed, if He give me a vision."

76 Then I got to thinking, "After all, if it was the vision, what was it? It was the same dirty hands on him, same man praying for him, same dirty hands." Then I begin to think, "I am his representative. Then God doesn't see me. That blood of that righteous One lays up there upon the altar; it makes intercessions for me. He is my sufficiency, He's my prayer, He's my life." I said, "The only thing that'd make me put my hands on him with faith, because I have faith in the vision, and without the vision the same faith would do the same thing! "So I can reckon myself nothing, but reckon Him my all in all. He is my life; He is my commissioner. No denomination sent me; He's sent me. Hallelujah! I go in his name. Now, I'll lay hands upon him." Walked down there, laid hands on that boy, and that night he was in the meeting solid well. Amen!

77 Oh, yes, He's that fountain. "No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
I'm a stinker; I'm a renegade; every one of us are. But before God we are perfect. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." How can you be? Because a perfect one represents us there. That fountain is there every day, fresh, not some stagnated something, but fresh every day, that washes away all my sins. He is that fountain.

78 Now, in closing I might say this: Anything different from this is broken cisterns and will finally leak out what you put it in. If you're putting all your hopes, all your time, and everything in one of those stagnated cisterns... Jesus said they were broken cisterns. God said they're broken, and they'll leak out ever what you put in them. You can't go any farther with them, 'cause they'll leak out. For He is the only way to the truth, to the life, and to eternal joy and eternal peace. He is the only one and the only way to that.
Oh, my! The inexhaustable fountain of life is Jesus Christ. Why? And who is He? The Word, the same; the Word, the life, the fountain, the same yesterday, today, and forever. The true believer, it's his supreme joy, his supreme life, and his supreme satisfaction is in Christ. No pumping, no pulling, no joining, no bailing, just believing and resting. That's what He is to the believing.

79 Like father Abraham, he never pulled; he never fretted; he never wearied; he had the Word. He lay upon El Shaddai's breast. When Abraham was a hundred years old, God appeared to him and said, "I am the Almighty (The Hebrew word is El Shaddai, means "the breasted one."), and you're old, and your strength is gone, but just lay upon my bosom and nurse your strength from this fountain." Amen! What did he nurse himself to? A new body. he had the baby by Sarah, and fifty years later had seven children by another woman!
Oh, El Shaddai! The Old Testament shows what He did, the New Testament tells what He'll do. Amen! In the Old Testament...

80 Now, the air is off, so I'll hurry and quit here now, just in a minute. I'd like to say this before I close. I had a good example of this one time. I was patrolling. And many people here, down around Georgetown, down there, Milltown, there used to be way back in the hills a fountain. It was a artesian well. It was---throwed out about a four or five foot stream of water, just gushed out all the time, and a great big fountain around there and right around it was a lot of this penny royal, you know, and stuff growing there, that mintlike. And oh, I used to just thirst to get there (oh, my!), to get to that fountain! And I'd lay down by this thing and just drink and drink and set down and drink, wait. And year after year I'd still come to this same fountain, it never did cease, winter or summer. They couldn't freeze it. You can't freeze an artesian well. Oh, no! Oh, no! I don't care how cold it gets, it ain't going to freeze that. You'll freeze the cistern, just a little frost will do that, see. But anything that's moving, got Life in it; it's a-moving around. And you can't freeze the artesian well out. No matter how depressed the spirit is around the place, this well's always a-living. Live at that well.

81 And I noticed there, I went by, and I'd drink at it, and oh, my, just the fresh water; you never had to worry, "Wonder if I get there, wonder if it quit running?" It's been running...
An old farmer told me, said, "My grandfather drank out of it." And said, "It never has diminished or nothing; it's still the same well, gushing right out into the Blue River there."
I thought, "Oh, my! What a fine place to water." I walked about a mile out of the way to get to that place, because it was such a real place to drink at. Oh, how good that water was! Oh, my! I get out there in that desert, Arizona, now and still think about it. "That wonderful well down there, if I could just lay down to that. "As David said one time, "Oh, if I could once more drink from that well." If he could just get there.

82 And I set down one day, and I had a little funny thing that happened to me; and I said, "What makes you so happy all the time? I wished I could be happy like that. Why, I never seen you sad since I been coming here. There's not one sad thing about you." I said, "You're always full of joy; you're jumping and bubbling and carrying on. Winter or summer, cold or hot, whatever it is, you're always full of joy. What makes you---what is it---because I drink out of you?"
"Nope."
I said, "Well, maybe the rabbits drink out of you, and you like it so well!"
"Nope."
I said, "Well, what makes you bubbling over like that? What makes you so happy? What makes you always full of joy?" Said, "Is it because that the birds drink from you?"
"No."
"Cause I drink from you?"
"No."
I said, "Well, what makes you so full of joy?"
And if that well could speak back to me, he'd say this: "Brother Branham, not because you drink---I appreciate that---and because I can furnish for the birds. I furnish for anybody that wants to drink. Only thing you have to do is come here and drink. But what makes me happy, it ain't me bubbling, it's something inside pushing me. It's something bubbling me."
And that's the way it is with a Spirit-filled life. As Jesus said, He was in... He give you wells of water, springing up into everlasting life, an artesian, over-flowing gusher that's constantly flowing. Whether the rest of the church is up or down, you're still at that well. Why would you take an old denominational system and cistern full of parasites and everything else and drink around on that stagnated stuff, when you're invited to a fountain, an artesian well?

83 I think how it just pushed, and juggled, and gurgled, and laughed, and joyed, and jumped, and frolicked. Cold, rainy, hot, dry, when all the rest of the country was drying up, it was bubbling just like it always did. Cause it was deep, rooted; way down in the rocks it come forth.
Oh, let me live by that gusher. Take all your man-made systems you want to, all your old stagnated wells, but let me come to---or stagnated cisterns, but let me come to this fountain. Let me come there where He is just full... He is my joy; He is my light; He's my ... He is my strength; He's my water; He's my life; He's my healer; He's my saviour; He's my king. Everything that I have need of is found in Him. Why would I want to go to anything else?

84 Brother, Sister, won't you come to this fountain tonight. Won't you, if you're not---ever been there, won't you receive it tonight while we bow our heads.
Broken cisterns, leaking, seeping, the world seeping into it, filth from the barn and of other days. Why not this well that that stuff cannot stay in, this great fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins. Why don't you receive that tonight? May God help us tonight, in this dry, thirsty land. As the prophet said, "He is the rock in a weary land." He's that fountain. Won't you come to Him tonight in your hearts while we pray.

85 Dear heavenly Father, there's no other fountain (as the music is playing "No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus"). I was born there; I been raised there; I want to live there, and die there, and rise again there in his presence. Always, Lord, let me be in his presence, for there's no other I know, no creed, no love---no love but Christ, no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no anything else, no joy outside of Him. Take Him from me (Oh, God!), I don't care how much of the world I own, it would still be dead. I'd wander around with my hands up over my head. Take Him from me, I'll be gone, Lord. But let Him be in me, then December's as pleasant as May; then there's no hot places and no dry places; even death itself has no victory. Let us have Him, Father. Give Him in abundance to every believer here tonight, as they've waited in this room.
Many of them's got to drive along the road tonight as they go to their homes, and may this be their thinking, "I'm living at that fountain; I'm living there, freshly drinking hour by hour."
And if they haven't received that as yet, may they receive Him now, so they can take the fountain right with them. "I'll go with you; I'll be with you to the end of the world." Grant these things, Father.

86 And now, while we have our heads bowed, is there someone in here tonight, or how many would say, "Lord, take me to that fountain just now. I've never come here just to hear; I come here to find out something. I've come here to find You, Lord. I have a need of You tonight. Come to my heart right now. Will you do it, Lord?" God bless you. The Lord bless each one.

87 Father, You seen the hands, even up and around the wall and in the other rooms, outside. You seen them, Father. I pray that You'll supply everything they have need of. Maybe they've been drinking at some old cistern, Lord, just some halfway stopover where some man hewed out a cistern. It's become contaminated with all kinds of strange doctrines, denying the Word. I pray, God, that tonight they'll come to Him who is that fountain, that fountain of life. Grant it, Father. I commit them to Thee now in Jesus' name.
And You told me, "If you ask anything in my name, it'll be done." Now, I wouldn't ask this, Lord, if I didn't think it would be done. I'd be just saying it in a ritual routine. But I pray for them with sincerity; I pray for them, believing that You'll grant what You promised.
And now, I take them away from that cistern tonight. I take them away from the place they've been drinking, where they're not satisfied to this fountain. I do it in Jesus Christ's name.

88 They're yours, Lord. Let them drink from You, the living water, the fountain of living water. In Jesus' name I ask it. Amen. Grant it, Lord.
Oh, precious is that flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh,...............
Jesus, heal these, Lord! Grant it, Lord, through Jesus' name I pray, God, that You will. Thou knowest all things.
No other fount I know,
Oh, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Think of it! No other fount I know. I don't know nothing else but Him. I don't desire to know nothing else but Him. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Oh, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

89 While we sing that gain, let's shake hands with one another. Do you love one another? Is there anybody in here got anything against somebody else. If there is, go make it right, will you. Let's not leave here like that, see. If you got a ought against anybody, you go make it right, right now. Right now's your opportunity to go and say, "Brother, Sister, I said something about you ... I thought something... I didn't mean to do that. Forgive me." That's the way to do it. Let's have the fountain right among us all the time, see.
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
Oh, no other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, isn't He wonderful? No other fountain. We won't contaminate ourselves with other things. We have separated, left the world behind. We don't want no more of Egypt's garlics and broken cisterns. We're in the journey with the Lord Jesus, that smitten rock (Amen!), eating manna from above and drinking---eating angel's food and drinking from the rock. Amen.
No other fount I know,
Nothing the the blood of Jesus.
Let us bow our heads,

90 praying that God will so richly bless each of you that his grace and mercy will be with you through the coming week, and if anything should happen that one of you may slip beyond the veil now, just remember, that it's only a few hours of sleep and rest until we meet. Remember that they which are alive and remain shall not hinder those which are sleeping, for the trump of God, that last trumpet (the sixth one has just sounded), and that last trumpet like the last seal, will be the coming of the Lord; it shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Just resting till that time.
And if you should get hurt, remember:
Take the name of Jesus with you,
As a shield from every snare;
And when temptations around you gather,
Just breathe that holy name in prayer.
Devils will flee. Just remember, we hope to meet you here next Sunday morning. Bring in the sick and afflicted. I'll be praying for you. You pray for me now. Will you do it? Say, "Amen!" I'll pray for you that God will bless.
......... name in prayer.
Precious name, (Precious name,)
O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
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 (Precious name, isn't it
sweet and precious?)
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, (Precious name,)
O how sweet! (O how sweet!)
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

91 It's always so hard to leave you. Although I know that you're burning up, but there's just something about... Let's one more verse of something, will you do it? Will you do it? Blest Be the Tie that Binds, Sister. How many knows the old song? We used to sing it years ago.
And I was thinking tonight, two hands out of the hundreds that's left when we used to sing that song around the tabernacle and join one another's hands. Blest Be the Tie that Binds. I've buried a lot of them right up here in the cemetery. They're waiting. I'll see them again. I see them once in a while in a vision when I look beyond the veil; they're there. Let's bow our heads now as we sing.
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
When we (Now, reach over and get ahold
of somebody's hand.) asunder part,
(Now, bow your head.)
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
With our heads bowed, I turn the service to the pastor now, to dismiss in prayer.