Doors in door
You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net
1 ...here this morning. I was thinking of my time coming into Flagstaff the first time. It's been about, I guess, around thirty eight years ago, maybe forty. I was talking about getting up the hill. There wasn't no snow, but my little Model-T could hardly get up the hill. It could go thirty miles an hour, but that's fifteen this way, and fifteen this way, over some of these roads we had here and it was quite a ... [a brother on the platform says, "Why don't you give us that Ford poem?"] Brother Carl! [The brother says "Please."] No. He's telling me about a little poem I had one time on my Ford. It's not a good place to give it, Brother Carl.
So we are very grateful. And I had so many nice testimonies this morning, hearing from these brethren. Met some of the men, and there was a minister that just spoke here, a little Spanish brother, that gave his ... the little boy's time to sing. Wasn't that wonderful for a six-year-old boy? My, the nicest little voice I ever heard for a little boy like that.
2 Now this brother (the brethren forgot it), but he is holding a meeting here in your city. I think it's down at the Church of God, or Assemblies of God? [The brother says, "Assemblies."] Assemblies of God, down at the Assemblies of God, and I'm sure they would appreciate your presence. How long is the meeting lasting, brother? ["Through Sunday."]
Through Sunday night. ["We're having a singspiration tonight."] Sir? ["We're having a singspiration tonight."] Singspiration tonight. Now you're all cordially invited to come to this meeting. ["At seven thirty."] Seven thirty tonight, and where is the church located, brother? ["113 West Clay."] 113 West Clay Street, right here in the city of Flagstaff, and I'm sure you'll...
3 Is the little boy with you? ["No."] No, his daddy will sing. You sing, do you? Well that's fine. I guessed that just right for one time.
Well, that's very seldom you see that, but it's... Usually if there is one talent in the family it takes from the rest of it, I think, so they have... ["It all started out in fasting and prayer, Brother Branham."] Fasting and praying. Now that's really nice. Now you know if America, all together, all of our American families was like that, well, they'd just dismiss all the police force. The Millennium would be on, wouldn't it? It'd be right in first class then. That's right. All death would fade away, all sickness, sorrow, all disappointments, and we would be with Christ.
4 So we are happy. And I hear all these fine testimonies, and had the privilege of meeting Brother Earl for my first time. And last evening I was talking to his wife, and she has been called out, and healed several times in the meetings; said at the last meeting she was on the platform.
So makes us a little, kind of a little sense of humor. I didn't remember Brother Earl, though I had shook his hand somewhere. And I was sitting at the window last night looking for him to come up, and a great, tall man come up, was wearing a black mustache. I said, "Here he comes."
And then when... Billy, my son, said, "Oh, no." Said, "That's not Brother Earl. He is much younger than that fellow." And so then I got to meet Sister Earl, here last evening, and had the privilege of being in their lovely home here in the city.
This is a nice place. I always want to call it Flagpole instead of Flagstaff, way up on top of the hill here, see. And, I tell you, if there is anybody here from Texas, now you brag. I left Tucson yesterday about seventy-two, or seventy-five, somewhere along there, and up here this morning with an overcoat on. See, what they got in Texas, we got in Arizona, haven't we? That's right. We're right here.
5 This time of fellowship! Old Dr. Bosworth, a friend of mine---many of you might have knowed Brother Bosworth. He was one of the saintliest old men. And he said to me one time, he said, "Brother Branham, you know what fellowship is?"
I said, "I think so, Brother Bosworth."
Said, "It's two fellows in one ship, so they have to share a little bit."
So that's what fellowship is. We take and give, share with each other, with Brother Carl Williams, all the rest, Brother Outlaw. Oh, one of the first people in Arizona that ever sponsored one of my meetings was Brother Jimmy Outlaw, and we've been bosom brothers since that time. And we are very happy for all of you, for the ministers and the brethren that we meet around here. I don't have time to shake hands with everybody as I like to, but it's a fellowship where we get together.
6 It just reminds me of the Phoenix convention. I have had the privilege since the chapter first started, to help organize the chapters and speak in them, and it's the only organization I belong to. And it's not an organization; it's just an organism working among the people. And if some of you men here this morning that doesn't belong to this fellowship of this Christian Businessmen, Full Gospel, let... If you believe, and will take my word, it's one of the finest groups of people. And to minister brothers, it's not against your church. It's for your church, see. It's their way of placing into the church.
I just happened to look around at this lovely lady here that just sang that song a few moments ago. I've heard many attempts of it, but that lady had a voice could carry it right---you know, without squeaking it, like. I liked that so much, lady. It was very, very fine. Said it was a minister's wife here, and brother, you ought to have her sing you to sleep each night. So that would be very fine. It was very fine singing. I appreciated that.
7 And this morning, it kind of reminds me of a little story that... I like to hunt and fish, and that's one of the reasons I'm here in Arizona, so, is getting hunting and fishing. And I like it. And so I was fishing one time in New Hampshire. And I guess I got a lot of partners in here that likes to fish, both in the male and female, too, see. We all like it. So I had a little pup tent I had packed way high above, where, you know, the fellows kind of a little heavy or something couldn't walk up there; and there was many, fine, of those brook trout and brown, square-tail, cutthroat. Oh, they're just full, them little tributaries coming down out of the top of the mountains in New Hampshire. And little trout, maybe fourteen, sixteen inches long, just many of them. And I'd only... I'd go over there and catch them just for the fun of catching them, turn them loose. If I killed one, then I'd eat that one, you see---bring him in.
8 So I had... Some of this old moose willow growing up, and every time I'd switch my fly line (I had a little Royal Coachman I'd fly back in there with), I'd switch it around a bunch of moose willow. And I thought, "Well, I'm going to take a hatchet, and go up there this morning and chop that moose willow down, so that I won't catch my line on it." Oh, I looked back under a little old ... like a beaver dam, and they were just laying ... in there, just waiting for the Coachman to get on them.
And now all night long... I used to take out my hair, but I ain't got enough hair for them to get into now. So I just, how they would watch them. And so I got up there that morning, took this little old hatchet and cut down this moose willow. And I had three or four I was going to fix for breakfast, and come back. And I'm not a very good cook. And so, I told my wife I couldn't boil water without scorching it, so you know that would be pretty bad job of cooking.
9 So on my road back, there had been an old mother bear and two cubs, and they had got in my little tent. And you talk about rim-wrecking something, you don't know how things could be rim-wrecked till you let a bear get in the tent. He... It's not what they destroy---what they eat, I mean---it's what they destroy. I had a little stove (this little sheepherder's stove) in there and they would get on this little stove and just jump up and down, to hear the pipe rattle, and just mash it to pieces, you know. And when I come up, I had a little, old, rusty twenty-two rifle laying in there, but I had this ax in my hand.
And you know when I come up, the old mother run off to one side, and she cooed to her cubs. And one cub followed along all right, but the other one sat. Little bitty fellow, in May, you know, just come out. Had his back all humped up to me, like that. And I thought, "What's he doing?" Well, then she looked over at me, and I looked for a tree, to see just how close it was, because they can scratch you, you know, about them young ones. And they, you can't talk them out of it, you know. So I watched the old mother a little while, you know. She kept cooing and making noise something like a bird. You'd have to know what one sounds like. So she kept cooing that cub, and that cub wouldn't come.
10 Well, I thought about my rifle. And I thought, "No, if I'd run in there and grab that rifle, if I'd shoot the old mother, leave two orphans in the woods," and I didn't want to be guilty of that. And besides, her charging, that twenty-two would be kind of small, you know, and sometimes it didn't go off. Have to snap it three or four times to make it go off. So I thought, "Well, I'll just get in that tree there, if she starts over here. I'll get up there in the tree, get me a little switch and just whip them across the nose." Their nose is very tender and they just squeal, and go down yonder and leave you alone. So I thought, "I'll get in that tree."
But the curiosity of that little fellow, oh, sitting up like this, and I thought, "What's he doing?" So I kept slipping around, watching her, you know, getting a little further away, and getting close to the tree, because she kept cooing to that cub. So I got over a little further, and you know what that little fellow had done?
11 Now, I like flapjacks, or pancakes, I believe you call them out here. Down South we call them flapjacks. I'm not very good at making them, but I'm sure good at eating them, and...
You know I was a Baptist, and I don't like to sprinkle. I really like to baptize them, really put the molasses to them. So I had me a can of molasses about this high sitting there, a little half-gallon bucket for my flapjacks. And that little fellow (you know a bear likes sweet, anyhow), he had got the bucket of molasses open, and he was sitting there with that little paw about that wide. And he had it up in his arms and he was just socking his little foot down and licking like that, you know.
That's right. And he would lick that little tongue, and I started... And if I just had a camera, I'd love to have showed that this morning, just to look at it. And there he was putting his little foot down there, and licking like that. And I hollered, "Get away from there!", like that. And he didn't pay any attention to me, and just kept licking, like that. He sopped that bucket out, see.
12 And I hollered at him like that. He turned around and looked at me, like that. He couldn't get his eyes open, he was just so full of molasses, you know. All over his eyes, his little belly, just as full of molasses as he could be. And then, after a while, he staggered off sideways and went over to his mother. They got him up there in the bushes and started licking him. They was afraid to sit at the bucket, but they could lick him.
I said, "If that isn't a type of a good, old, Pentecostal meeting! Just got so full of good, sweet stuff, they go out, and somebody lick off of it. That's a real fellowship meeting." Now we just come like this to get our hands in the bucket, each one of us, plumb up to the elbow of God's blessings. And I'm sure you'll find that, at the revival that's being down at the Assemblies of God, going on down there now. The Lord bless you.
13 I said in Phoenix the other day, a little (I hope it didn't sound sacrilegious) about a little joke about a minister that would go to the platform. Every morning, for twenty years solid, he would preach twenty minutes, and then be done. And so they couldn't understand why it was. And so one morning he preached about four hours. And the deacons called him back and said, "Pastor, we really love you." Said, "We think your messages are wonderful." And said, "We know, as a deacon board, we've watched you, and timed you exactly twenty minutes every Sunday morning." And said, "This morning it was four hours." Said, "We just don't understand."
Said, "I'll tell you, brethren," he said. "Every morning when I go to preach," said, "when you call me to the platform, I reach in and put one of these Lifesavers under my tongue." And said, "In twenty minutes when that Lifesaver is gone," said "I am finished; I know it's time to quit." And said, "What was the mistake this morning, I got a button."
14 Carl Williams and Jewel Rose, real bosom brothers and friends of mine, they went downtown the other day and got a button about that big around to give me, and... But I haven't got it this morning.
So, we're grateful to be here. Now, does anyone in here know Dr. Lee Vayle? I don't think... Maybe not. He was a Baptist preacher, Doctor of Divinity, and he has got his degrees. He was a high school teacher to begin with, and he is a very fine, scholarly man. And my tapes of the Seven Church Ages, I sent them to him to grammarize them, because my old Kentucky "hit, hain't, and tote and carry, and fetch," that don't go good for people who read the books. So he was going to grammarize it for me. And then after he got through, sent it back a couple times for more statements, which... The book is going to press now, after about three or four years. He asked me, he said, "Can I write a book, just my comments?"
And I said, "Well, it's all right, Brother Lee." And I thought...
Then he said, "I'm going to say something." Said, "It's not to be sold; given away."
I said, "Well, then, I'm sure that's all right." See?
15 And so they had a sponsorship of about ten people to sponsor it, which cost them about $1500.00, I think, I understand, for ten thousand of them, and so we got them. It all come off the press a couple days ago, and we got just two or three yesterday, and Billy brought them up. And they're giving them away. Now, I've never read it, I don't know what he said, but I'm... This is by faith. But I'm sure if you'd like to have one, if you'd just write us, it'll be sent to you free, see. And it's called Twentieth Century Prophet.
And then I noticed in the picture here in the front of the book---many of you has got this picture, of course, and seen it. That's where the angel of the Lord was taken at Houston, Texas, but they cut part of it off.
16 Then I see here in the back... And how many here has ever been in one of the meetings, let's see? I guess practically all of you have. You hear me say many times, "That shadow hanging over someone."
Now see, if you make a statement and it isn't the truth, God won't have anything to do with it. You know, God is not associated in lies, but he only backs up what is true. So when... He told Moses when he met him back there in the wilderness, in the pillar of fire, back in that burning bush... Then when he brought those people out (those who would follow Moses out) for the journey, then he came down upon Mount Sinai, that same pillar of fire, and vindicated that what Moses had said was the truth. Now God will do that. He always does that. So this light here, of course, we associate it with God, because it has the same nature and everything that he did, when he was here on earth.
17 Then on that, saying, "This person here, I see you're shadowed to death, a dark shadow," how many of you has heard that said? Well, here just recently, in a meeting there was somebody curious, wanted to see if they could get a picture of that when it was said. So they... There was a lady sitting close, and this man had a camera. And I said, "This lady sitting here is Mrs. So-and-so," whatever it is. I said, "She is shadowed to death, see, she's got cancer." And just then he snapped the picture, because it was close. And there it was, see, that hooded, black cancer of death hanging over the woman. And then the Holy Spirit spoke back again. Now when they put this in the book, they had it cut off, so they just put this in here, just till they make another printing of the book. And that's why you'll see that loose leaf in there.
I think The Voice of Healing was the one who printed the book.
18 And now it's absolutely free. And the sponsors back here in the back of the book, who put $1500.00 in it just to get it out to the public, let the public read them. So it's free, and it's a nice little book. And I don't know what the contents is. I've never read it. The Father knows that.
But see, it was... To me, it's absolute truth. That's what we look for is truth. Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, the truth shall set you free." And he is that truth. He is, Jesus, the Son of God, is the truth of the Word because he was the Word made flesh. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." Then that made him the truth, because the Word is the truth and he was the truth.
Now when we see him return in these last days, this great move of God moving across the nations of the world, gathering a people for the bride: that is truth.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
19 Years ago, they said there was no such a thing as speaking in tongues, it was nonsense. God promised it, and he proved it to be truth. Someone said this morning---I believe it was our noble sister, there, who deals with the children so much about their baptism---she said, "You can hear someone speak in tongues, but to hear someone sing in tongues!" See, it was such a beautiful thing.
I remember my first experience out at the Redigar Tabernacle in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And I was speaking, having a healing service after the death of Brother B. E. Redigar. And Brother Bosworth had been there. Paul Rader---and many of you older men like me, you remember Paul Rader---and he was a Baptist and we was, so we were great friends.
And so while speaking there, was going to pray for the sick. It was a strange thing to the men, but a lady brought a little boy down that was crippled. And as he come across the platform, the vision of the Lord appeared, and told him all about what was the matter with the little lad. And I asked the girl to hand me the little boy.
20 Now just for the sister's testimony, that you might see what joy, and what the real phenomena of grace of God, what it could do when it worked according to the word of God, God's promise for the hour.
Now, God's promise to Noah won't work for us today. God's promise to Moses---we couldn't have Moses' message; Moses couldn't have had Noah's message. We got the message of the hour. We couldn't have had Luther's message; we couldn't have had Wesley's message; this is another time. God has allotted his word to each age. And as that age comes along, he sends someone there to vindicate that word to prove that that's true. And now we see in each one, then, just like what Jesus said when he was on earth. He said, "You build the tombs of the prophets and your fathers put them in there."
Matthew 23:29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
Matthew 23:30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
21 Now my people are Catholic, as you know, being an Irishman. Now we... Now they talk about St. Patrick. The Catholics claim him. Well, he's just about as much Catholic as I am. They talk about Joan of Arc. They burnt that girl to the stake for a witch, we all know that, because she was spiritual and seen visions. 'Course a couple of hundred years later they dug up them priests' bodies, and done penance, and throwed them in the river. But that ain't what it takes, see? They always miss it. Man is forever praising God for what he did do, looking forward for what he will do, and ignoring what he is doing. That's just the nature of man. And he hasn't changed his nature, the man of the world.
22 So we find that our message is today---the message that we have ---of, "Come out of Babylon and be free, and be filled with the Spirit, and your lamps trimmed and clear, and look up, our redemption is drawing near." These things are foreign to many people who believe, and call our lovely Lord's name. But yet in the midst of all that, we don't have nothing against those people, those denominational people. They're all right. They're fine, they're our associates in the gospel. Because Jesus said, "No man can come to me, except my Father draws him, and all the Father hath given me, they will come."
So we're only responsible for sowing seeds. Some fell by the wayside; some, different kinds of ground; some fell over, and brought hundredfold. So we are just seed sowers. God is the one who directs it when it's falling. And now we pray that maybe this morning there would be a little seed drop along, somewhere, that might encourage someone.
And just as a man...
Matthew 13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Matthew 13:5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
Matthew 13:6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
Matthew 13:7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
Matthew 13:8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
Mark 4:4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
Mark 4:5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
Mark 4:6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
Mark 4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
Mark 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
Luke 8:5 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
Luke 8:6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.
Luke 8:7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.
Luke 8:8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Luke 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
23 To finish my testimony concerning the little lady that I was going to speak of---this lady brought this little baby, a little boy I guess, about ten, twelve years old. And maybe not that old, because this woman was packing him, and she handed him over. And just then, while I was offering prayer for the child, the little fellow jumped out of my arms and went running down the platform, of about 3500 or four thousand people. And when they did (first thing they'd ever seen done), the mother sitting on the front seat just fainted, and pitched over.
And a little Amish girl---are you acquainted with the Amish? I don't know whether you have them out here---long hair. They're very sweet people, and very clean and nice type. You know, in all the Mennonites or Amish, and so forth, we've not got one record of a juvenile delinquent. Call them funny if you want to, but we've got something lacking in our homes that they have. They haven't one record in the courts of a juvenile misbehavior coming among them. They bring up their children just in one way, and that's the way they go.
24 And this young lady was a famous pianist, a beautiful young woman, and long, blond hair fixed up in the back. And when she looked across... Now she was Amish. She knowed nothing about Pentecost, and neither did I. But when she looked across the platform and seen that little boy going walking across there, she threw up her hands in the air.
Now I know there is fanaticism, and I hope I'm not prone... I am not a liar. And I'm not... If I'm wrong I am not willfully wrong; I'm ignorantly wrong. But that girl threw her hands in the air, and that hair fell down across her shoulders, and she started singing in an unknown tongue. And she was playing that hymn, "The great Physician now is near, the sympathizing Jesus." And when she jumped up from there---I know this sounds very strange now---but this girl had never knowed nothing about speaking in tongues. But she was singing in an unknown tongue, "The great Physician now is near, the sympathizing Jesus," and that piano continually played, "The great Physician now is near, the sympathizing Jesus."
Well, they piled them altars, and down through the balcony, into the floor, people screaming---that girl standing over there with her face up like that, speaking in other tongues, and the piano, the ivory keys still moving.
The great Physician now is near,
The sympathizing Jesus,
He speaks the drooping heart to cheer,
No other name but Jesus.
25 Oh, eye has not seen, and ear has not heard what's in store for us! You know what I think? Why would we ever accept a substitute, or just something that's a make-believe, when the heavens is full of the genuine, the real power of God that can set a soul free, that can do something for us?
God bless you. Now, there is so many things. I never told you where to get this book, see. Post Office box 325 at Jeffersonville, and if you would write, why, they would send it to you; or either visit one of the meetings, they'll be giving them away.
Now I am very grateful for this fine time of fellowship. And this morning I was thinking about a little story I used to tell at the Christian Businessmen, about Zacchaeus. Many of you has heard me tell it. About how that this little fellow didn't believe in this discernment, and ... of the Lord. 'Course, I guess, as we have in every age, you see a genuine, then you see impersonations, and we just have to put up with that. But good, solid thinkers and scriptural men understand, see. Which we... And no matter...
Luke 19:2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
Luke 19:3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.
1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
26 When Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson, when she was here on earth in her ministry, they say that pretty near every woman preacher wore those wings-like, you know, or gowns like that, and packed the Bible. Just look at the Billy Grahams in the land today. But you know Billy Graham could never take your place. I couldn't take Billy's place; he couldn't take mine. I can't take yours; and you can't take mine. You're an individual in God. God made you the way you are for some purpose. If we would just find our place and then abide there! If we try to do something different, then, see we're in somebody else's territory, which, we just gum up the picture of God.
We take... Like Billy Graham in the denominational world today, as he's (if we would call it maybe to the football player), he's got the ball. Now, if you try to take the ball away from your own man, you're just messing up your team. Guard your man, see. Keep guarding him. Keep the rest of them so he can make the run. And we'll have the touchdown after a while, and Jesus will come, and then it will all be over. The Lord bless you, now.
27 I'm going to... Was saying about this man Zacchaeus, and I had him up in this tree, you know, with leaves all pulled around him. And then, when he come down out of the tree, he went home with Jesus. And I said, "He became a member of the Full Gospel Businessmen chapter." So, if there is any Zacchaeus's here this morning, I hope that you take that good advice, and become a member of the Full Gospel Businessmen.
You say, "Full gospel?" Yes, sir! That's the only thing Jesus would have preached in, would have been the full gospel. That's right. Isn't that right? Sure, for he was the full gospel. That's right. He couldn't deny himself.
Luke 19:4 And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.
28 But now, I have a few scriptures wrote out here of a little, common little text. It won't take but just a few minutes if you'll suffer with me. And before we do this now---in our little fellowship of get-together, and laughing about the hands of the bear in the bucket, and so forth---now let's just brush aside all of this now, and just think we're getting acquainted; and we want now to enter into the deep part, of the Word. Let us bow our heads now as we approach it, because we have no right to approach the Word without speaking to the author first.
With our heads bowed, our eyes closed (and I trust that our hearts are bowed with our head), I wonder, while I raise my eyes and look over the audience, if there would be someone here would say, in raising their hands, "Brother minister, remember me in prayer. I am needy today."? God bless you. God bless you. Now, he sees your hand. He knows what's beneath your hand in your heart. May he grant it is my prayer.
29 Dear God, as we are grateful for this building, that we, your humble children, can assemble ourselves together under here---and just talk, have fellowship, just to be ourselves, as we yield ourselves to Christ, and desire to become more like him. We are... Ministering brothers sitting near, Lord, men who are far more capable of standing here to deliver this word than I, your unworthy servant, but it has fallen my lot. Father, I pray, today that if I might say something that would not be just according to the will of God, that before I say it you would close my mouth, like you did the lions' mouths one day so they wouldn't bother Daniel.
Father, we ask you now to remember each and every one, every minister, and this revival that's going on here in the city, Lord, down to the Assemblies of God. I pray, dear God, that you will send such a revival in there, that this whole city will be stirred by the power of God; that all these barrooms and wandering children around on the street will be brought to the throne of God, and be filled with his goodness and with his Spirit. Grant it, Heavenly Father.
30 And we pray that today, that if there be man or woman, boy or girl, that's been brought into this meeting this morning here, under the shelter from the snow, that the great Holy Spirit will visit their hearts and speak to them in a mysterious way; maybe some that's wandered away that once entertained you, Lord, but now has drawn away. Bring them back, Lord, this morning. We pray for this chapter, for Brother Earl, and for his wife, and for the others. Grant it, Lord.
Now break to us the bread of life as we open back the pages of the Word, because we know the Bible is of no private interpretation. But God doesn't need us to interpret his Word. He is his own interpreter. He said one day, "Let there be light: and there was light." He said, "A virgin shall conceive," and she did; and, "In the last days I'll pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." No matter what the world says, he did it. He needs no interpreter. He interprets his own Word by making it live and vindicating it to be so. Come to our hearts, Lord Jesus, and interpret to us today, the things we have need of. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
Acts 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
31 Now, in the Bible, if you will turn... I believe I've never had a message that I tried to undertake to speak on, that I never first read the Word, because my word will fail; I'm a man. But his Word just can't fail; He is God.
So let's turn now for just a little text, and we're going to be out just in ... just about thirty, forty minutes, the Lord willing. On Revelation now, we wish to turn to the 3rd chapter of Revelation, begin with the 14th verse. And we want to read just a portion. It's a message to the Laodicea church age. And I believe, and I suppose most all Spirit-filled people and Bible readers believe, could say "Amen" to that, that we are in the Laodicea church age---because that's the last age. Listen to the message of the condition of the church at this time.
And to the angel of the church of Laodicea write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
I know thy works, thou art neither cold nor hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest thou not that thou are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that thy shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne.
He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Revelation 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Revelation 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Revelation 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Revelation 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
32 The Lord bless the reading of this word. Now I want to take for just a few moments a little text called "Doors in Door." "Doors in Door." Now this is a very... Doors in door is three words. "Doors in Door." You might say to me, "Brother, there is probably a hundred people here. There ... don't you think that's kind of a small text, when you have before you a hundred souls?" Well, that may be true. The text is small. But it isn't the size of the text that counts; it's what it is. It's what the text says that counts.
33 Like, I believe it was in Louisville, Kentucky, some time ago, a little boy was up in the attic, fooling around with some old trunks up in the garret, and he run onto an old-fashioned postage stamp. Well, the first thing in his mind, he might get an ice cream cone for that. There was a collector down the street. So he took off down the street just as hard as he could go, and said, "What will you give me for this stamp?"
The collector looked it over, and it was kind of faded out. He said, "I'll give you a dollar."
My, that was easy sold. He would have let it went for a nickel, and then been happy for it, to get an ice cream. But it was sold for a dollar. The collector sold it for five hundred dollars. And later, I don't know just where it did go, it went into the hundreds of dollars. You see, the little piece of paper wasn't very much---just a piece that you wouldn't pick up off the floor. But it wasn't the paper that counted; it's what's on the paper that counts.
And that's the way it is with reading God's Word. It isn't just the paper, the value of the paper or the size of the paper; it's what's wrote on that paper. And one word is enough to save a world, if it be received that way.
34 Some time ago there was... I read a story of, in the days of our noble... One of the greatest presidents I think the nation ever had, was Lincoln. Not because that he come from Kentucky, but because he was a great man. He was deprived of an education but yet was ... something in his heart, some purpose. I like a man of vision. I like people that's got something they're fighting for, just not just lay around. "Well, ever what comes along will be all right." Oh! Be up and at it!
And Lincoln never let his education stand in the way; he had something to do. I think every Christian ought to be that way. Find your purpose and go do it! Every member of this chapter, just not, "Well, we have a breakfast once a month." That isn't it! Or, "Once every Saturday." Have a purpose in life, something you're going to do. Let's... God has placed you here---do something about it, every member of every church. There is a revival in town. That revival is there for a purpose. Let's get something out of it, let's do something about it.
35 Mr. Lincoln... There was a man, a young fellow, he was in the war. And he was coward to begin with, and in the time of duty he withdrew from his post. And they found something against him that he was going to have to be shot. And, oh, he... It was terrible. And one young fellow loved him so well, went to Mr. Lincoln to get a pardon. He was President at the time, in the United States here, and so he went to him for a pardon.
And he said to him, as he was getting out of his carriage (and Mr. Lincoln a tall, bearded, typical southern, skinny) and he said, "Mr. Lincoln, there is a boy that's going to die in two days from now, be shot, because that he run in time of battle." And he said, "Mr. Lincoln, the boy isn't a bad boy, but all those muskets a-firing and people dying---he was nervous, and he was so upset that he threw up his hands and started screaming." And said, "I have knowed the boy." Said, "Mr. Lincoln, only your name on this piece of paper can spare him. Will you do it?"
'Course this Christian gentleman quickly signed the paper, "Pardoned, so and so", signed his name, "Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States."
36 Went the messenger back as hard as he could, and he run to the cell. He said, "You're free! You're free! Here is Mr. Lincoln's signature. You are free!"
He said, "Why would you come to mock me, knowing that I die tomorrow?" He said, "Take that away from here. You're only mocking me," and he would not receive it. He said, "No, I don't want it." Said, "You're only making..." Said, "If that was the President," said, "it would have the coat of arms, and it would have his right paper."
He said, "But it's his signature."
He said, "How will I know his signature?" He said, "You're just mocking me. You're trying to make me feel good." And he just started screaming, turned his back.
The boy was shot the next morning. Then, after the boy being dead, and the President's name on this piece of paper that he was pardoned, then what? And they tried it in the federal court, and here was the decision of our federal courts, which is the ultimate of all of our courts. What they say, sometimes we don't like their decision, but we have to abide by it anyhow, see. Because that's the tie post, that's the ultimate. Now it said this decision: "A pardon is not a pardon, unless it be received as a pardon."
And that's the way the Word of God is: it's a pardon if it be received as a pardon. And it's the Word of God, it's the power of God to those who will believe it, and accept it. No matter you're looking at it, and you say, "Oh, that's been tangled up, there's been a million translations," and all that. It might be that to someone, but to me it's still the Word of God. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is duty bound to stay by that Word.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
37 Now he's got to judge the church someday, and if he judges it by the Catholic church (which they say he will), then which one of the Catholic churches will he judge it by? They're different, one from the other. If he judges it by the Methodists, you Baptists are gone. If he judges it by the Pentecostals, the rest of you is gone. But he won't judge it by the church. The Bible said he'll judge the world by Jesus Christ, and Christ is the Word. So you see we're without excuse.
It's the word of God that he judges, and no matter how small---one word. Significance to this... In Revelation 22:18...
John 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
Acts 17:31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Romans 2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
38 First I'll begin in Genesis. God gave the human race his word to fortify themselves from death, sin and sorrow, or any disaster---a chain of his word. "Thou shalt not touch this certain tree, for the day you eat thereof, that day you die." And a chain is only its best at its weakest link. And our souls are pulled over hell holding to this chain. Break one of them; that's all you have to do.
Eve never broke a sentence, she broke a word---by Satan. That was the first of the Book. In the middle of the Book come Jesus, and said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word"---not part of them, just one here and there, but "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
Revelation 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
39 When he was dead, resurrected and went into heaven, and returned back, and gave John, which... He said there, after his resurrection, said, "What if..." Said, "What will happen to this man?"
Jesus said, "What is it to you if he continues till I come?" Knowing, not exactly his life would, but his ministry would continue. And he lifted him up in the 4th chapter of Revelation and showed him all the things that was to come, that we live in, even to this text today. And then on the 22nd chapter, the last chapter, the 18th verse, he said, "Whosoever shall take one word out of this book or add one word to it, his part will be taken from the book of life," see. So we believe that man lives by every word of God. I believe it, and I know it's true. How little? It doesn't matter. It just takes one word to do it.
John 21:22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
Revelation 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
40 Thinking about how little and insignificant---seeing that many of my Canadian friends sitting here---I remember I was in Canada when King George, the one I had the privilege of going ... praying for, when he was healed with that multiple sclerosis... He was suffering that day from the sclerosis, and also he had a stomach trouble, an ulcer, as many of you Canadians know, and Americans also. But seeing him pass down through there, sitting in that carriage, he was a king. He conducted himself as a king, his beautiful queen sitting by him, in her blue dress.
And as he come down the street, and a friend of mine and I were standing together, and when that carriage passed by, he just turned his head and started crying. I put my hand upon his shoulder and I said, "What's the matter?"
He said, "Brother Branham, there goes my king and his queen."
Well, I could appreciate that. So I thought, if a Canadian, under the government head (not government head but still, also a government head) of England, and passing the king by, it could make a Canadian cry, and turn his head and weep; what will it be when we see our King? And to think of it, our part will be the queen!
41 Then, the children was all turned out from the schools, the little children. They was given a little British flag. The Canadian flag is called something else. Brother Fred, what's the Canadian flag called? [Brother Fred Sothmann says, "Union Jack."] Union Jack. But they give them a little British flag to wave. And when the king passed by, all the little fellows stood out, waving their little flags and screaming to the king. And there were bands a-playing "God Save the King" as he marched through the street. Oh, if you could just get a view of what it's going to be at that resurrection there!
42 And when they was instructed, the little fellows, to return back to school as soon as the parade was over, and the little fellows going back, one school missed a little girl. And they went everywhere to find the little fellow, up and down the streets. And finally behind a telegraph pole stood the little, bitty, tiny, dwarf girl, just a-crying her little heart out. Well, the teacher picked her up and ... "What's the matter? Did you not see the king?"
She said, "Yes, I saw the king."
Said, "Did you not wave your flag?"
She said, "Yes, I waved my flag."
She said, "Well, then, why are you crying?"
She said, "You see, teacher, I am so little, the others was standing in the front of me, they were bigger. And I waved my flag, but he didn't see it."
And she was disturbed about it. Well, that might be, that King George did not see that little fellow's stature. He might not have seen her patriotic heart, and how she felt towards him; she was too short.
43 But it isn't so with our King! Oh, the least little thing we do, he sees it. And he knows the very things and thoughts that's in our hearts, whatever we do, what little it is. And how do we serve him? As we serve each other. If I don't love you, how can I love him, see? "Insomuch as you've done it unto these, my little ones, you have done it unto me," see.
It's the little things that we leave undone, sometimes, that breaks the whole chain, you see. And lets us go free, just denominational-minded, and forget about these little things that really are the essential things. Everything, every word of God is essential; none of it can be left out. We've got to take every word of it just the way it was wrote.
Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
44 "I stand at the door," said Jesus, in this Laodicea age, "and knock." Did you notice---the only church age that he was put out of his church? All the other church ages he was inside the church. Through the Methodist, and Lutherans and so forth, he was on the inside the church, but here he is outside. Our creeds and things had run him out of the church, but he is standing out there, still knocking. "He that would hear and open the door, I'll come in with him, sup with him, and give him healing for his eyes, and clothes, and give him the riches of heaven; he that will hear me knock."
I thought I could think of the name of that artist that drawed that picture, painted a picture, rather, of At The Door. When he... You know, all great pictures first must go through the line, or the hall of critics, before it can be hung in the hall of fame. That original painting now would run millions of dollars.
Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
45 But see, it's like the church has to pass through the hall of critics. We go through... You're going to be called "holy roller," you're going to be called everything. But if you could only hold your position in Christ, then someday he'll take us to the hall of fame.
But first we've got to stand criticism. There is where the littlest of us stand. There is where it shows. He that cannot stand chastisement is an illegitimate child, and not a child of God. No matter how much he's joined church, and whatever he's done, he is still, if he cannot stand chastisement, he's an illegitimate; and he's not a real child of God.
But a real, genuine child of God don't care what the world says. Everything else is secondary. He's got his mind on Christ and that settles it, yes. Whatever Christ says do, he'll do it. Wherever the Lamb goes, they're with him, wherever. And then you see his appearing, his presence, and what he does. He is always with his people, his bride. He is courting her. Someday there is going to be a wedding supper.
Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
46 And this artist, however, when it went through the critics, a bunch of critics gathered around this artist. I can't think of his name. I'm trying to think of Michelangelo, but he was a sculptor of Moses' monument. But I can't think of his name. But, however, he said, "Your picture is outstanding." Said, "I have nothing that I could say against the picture." He said, "Because he is holding a lantern in his hand, it shows that he comes, too, in the darkest of night." He said, "And then he is at the door, with his head, his ear so he won't be ... be sure not to miss the faintest call. He has his ear turned to the door, and he is rapping at the door." He said, "But you know, sir, there is one thing that you forgot in your picture."
And the artist (taken him a lifetime to paint it), he said, "What is that that I have forgotten, sir?"
He said, "No matter how much that he knocked, see, you forgot to put a latch on it. There is no latch on the door." If you'll notice the door, there is no latch on it.
"Oh," said the artist, "I painted it thus. You see, sir," he said, "the latch is on the inside. You're the one that opens the door. You open the door."
47 Oh, what does a man knock on a man's door for? He is trying to gain entrance. He is trying to get in. He's perhaps got something he wants to tell you, or talk over with you. He's got a message for you. And that's the reason people knock at one another's door. They've got some reason to do it. There cannot be that happen without some reason. You would not go to a man's house unless there is some reason to go: if nothing else, to visit, take him a message, or something. There is some reason for a man to go knock on another man's door.
Wherever there is a question, there has got to be an answer. There could not be a question without an answer. So that's what we look for in the Bible. These questions of the day, the Bible has the answer, and Christ is that answer.
48 Now, many important people have knocked at doors down through the time of life, and many knocked in times past. And there probably, time keep on, there will be many more, important people. Now the first thing, perhaps, if somebody knocked at your door, if you could, you would slip around and pull back the curtain, see who is there.
If you're busy, as we claim we are today, too busy to go to church, too busy to do this... And, you know, "My church don't believe in that kind of stuff." And see, we're just a little out-of-cater sometimes from the Word. But you'd pull back the curtain, then, you want to see who is standing there. And if it's a man of importance, quickly you run to the door.
49 Now, let's go back just a little bit and take a few people that's knocked. Let's go back and think of Pharaoh, in Egypt, many hundreds of years ago. What if Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came down to a peasant's house. And this peasant had been kind of disagreeable with Pharaoh, and he didn't believe his policies, and he differed with him. But here stands Pharaoh, standing at the door of a brick mason, or a mud-dauber, as we would call them, down in Egypt. And he pulls his curtain back, and there stands the mighty Pharaoh at the door, and he's knocking, smile on his face.
Why, that peasant would open the door and say, "Enter great Pharaoh, may your humble servant find grace in your sight. If there is anything within my walls... I am as much as a slave to you, Pharaoh. You've honored me above my brethren. You've come to my house, and I'm a poor man. You only visit kings and nobles and important people, and I'm unimportant, but you visit me. You've honored me, Pharaoh. What is it thy humble servant could do?" No matter what Pharaoh would ask, even to his life, he would give it. Sure. It's an honor.
50 Or say, for instance, the late Adolf Hitler when he was Fuhrer of Germany---what if he would have went down to a soldier's house, and that bunch of little Nazi soldiers all camped around? And the first thing you know, why, somebody knocked at the door. And the little soldier said, "Aw, I feel bad this morning, wife, tell them to go away."
And she slipped over to the door and pulled the curtain back. She said, "Husband! Husband! Jump up quick!"
"What's the matter? Who is standing there?"
"Hitler, the Fuhrer of Germany!"
Oh, my! That little soldier jumped back, got his clothes on quick, and stood at attention. Walked up there at the door, unlocked the door, opened up the door, and said, "Heil, Hitler!" See, he was a great man, his days, in Germany. "What is it could I do?"
If he had said, "Go jump off the cliff out there," he would have done it. Why? There is no more... There is not a greater, important man in Germany in the days of the Nazis than Adolf Hitler was. He was a great man. And he... What honor, when he only visits generals and great men, but here he is at a little footman's door! Oh, it would certainly been a great honor to him.
51 Well, what of Flagstaff? We'll bring it closer to home. What if this afternoon, that our President, Mr. Johnson, L. B. Johnson, what if he would get off of a plane out here somewhere? And now, we are all just in one class of people. We're all poor. Maybe one has a little better job, maybe a little better house, but after all, we're just human. But what if he come down to your house down here, maybe the humblest of us, and he knocked at the door. And you went to the door, and there stood President L. B. Johnson. Why, it would be a great honor.
You might differ with him in politics, but you would be an honored man to have the President of the United States stand at your door. Who are you, or who am I? And there stands Lyndon Johnson at your door. Though you might be a Socialist, or Republican, or differ with him a million miles, but yet it would be an honor.
52 And you know what? Because that you were granted this honor, why, the television would throw it on the screen tonight. Sure, the mid... newspapers tomorrow would have headlines in it, in here in the Flagstaff paper, that John Doe... The President of the United States flew into Flagstaff yesterday, uncalled-for, and just went down, without even invitation, and knocked at your door. Humble! That President would have a name of being a humble man, as great as he is, to come to my or your door. We're nobody. They'd come down and talk to us.
Why, you'd walk down the street and say, "Yes, I'm the fellow! The President visited me!"
"Stand still, let me get your profile. Look straight at me now. How do you look when you walk away?" You would be an important person. Sure.
53 What if the Queen of England would come, though you're not under her dominion. But it'd be an honor for some of you women to entertain the Queen of England, though you're not under her domain. But yet she is a great person. She is the greatest queen in the world at this time. Certainly she is, that's political speaking. But if she asked you for some little trinket on your wall that you valued ever so high, you would give it to her. It would be an honor for you to do it. Sure. She is the Queen of England. And you would be honored by the President, and everybody would talk about the humility of the Queen of England flying over to see a certain woman in Flagstaff, a little nobody. And the papers would pack it, and the news would flash it.
54 But you know, the most important person of all time, Jesus Christ, knocks at our door. And he is turned away, more than all the kings and potentates there ever was. That's right. And you might accept him and go out and say something about it, the outside world would laugh in your face. No news is going to... Who could come to your house any greater than Jesus Christ? Who could knock at your door greater than Jesus Christ? Who could do that?
The Son of God! Who could knock at your house who would be more important? And yet he knocks day after day, and if you even accept him, you're called a fanatic. So see how the world knows its own? That's right.
But now, he wouldn't come unless he had a reason to come. And do you think... The humility of President Johnson, or the Queen of England, or any great person, how it would be displayed, of the humility of that great important person to knock at your door. How about the humility of the Son of God? Who are we but sinners? Filthy! "Born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies." And then the Son of God will come and knock at our door!
Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
55 Now, the Queen of England might ask you a favor. She might take something from you. So might the President. He might ask you to do things that you didn't want to do. He might ask you for treasures that you didn't want to give up, and which would mean nothing just to him. But Jesus is bringing something to you, when he knocks. He is bringing a pardon. Don't turn it down! For as it was tried in our courts here, so will it be in the kingdom of heaven. If he knocked and brought the pardon, and you turned it down and die in your sins, you'll perish. Though you had the honor of sitting in a meeting like this, though you had the honor of attending the revival, or your church, and heard your pastor preach a gospel message, and you had the audience... Say, "Yes, I was there," maybe you, hard to tell what all you could say. "I heard the singing, I enjoyed it. I heard the testimonies, it was real"; but you turned it down.
56 What if I was a young man and found a young lady? She was beautiful. She was a Christian. She would make ... she was every qualifi...
You can't find no fault with it, but you've got to lay aside traditions of men. You say, "Oh, I believe that's right. I see God said it." But you've got to accept it! You then... That woman becomes part of me. Then you become part of the Word, which is the bride. If he is the Word, the bride will be a bride-word, see. Certainly will. See, you've got to accept it. You would... You could say what you want to. You could brag about the President; but usually when Jesus' turn comes to our door we just turn him aside. See, just, we don't want nothing to do with him. We say, "Well, some other day."
57 What if you knocked at somebody's door? Now let's just turn the picture right around for a minute. What if you went and knocked on somebody's door, and you had something for them? And after all, they were to you about like you would be to God. Well, if you do, why, all right, but you got no strings tied. So when you knocked on somebody's door, and they peeped out the window and shut the curtain---or either come to the door and say, "Some other time."
"Well, I'd like..."
"I ain't got time this morning."
You know what you'd do? Probably the same thing I would do, and the rest of them; you wouldn't go back any more.
But not Jesus. "I stand and knock," continually knock. See? "He that seeketh." Not seek; seeketh. "He that knocketh." Knock, knock, is a continuation, "knocketh!" See, "He that seeketh, he that knocketh, it shall..." Not just...
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
58 Like the parable of the unjust judge. The woman went and wanted avenge, revenge, but couldn't get it. He... Continually she knocked and pleaded. And she said...
"Just to get rid of her, I'll avenge her enemy."
How much more will the heavenly Father?
See, it ought to be us knocking at his door. It ought to have been Adam running up-and-down the garden, hollering, "Father, Father, where are you?"
But instead of that, it was God running up-and-down the garden, "Son, son, where are you?"
See, that just displays what we are. We're always hiding instead of coming right out and confessing it. We try to run, hide behind something, see. That's just the nature of man. We have it that way. Yes, sir.
You would give these people the best you had, everything, but you wouldn't accept Jesus. I ain't meaning you, but I mean the people here.
Genesis 3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
Luke 18:2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
Luke 18:3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
Luke 18:5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
Luke 18:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
59 Or maybe you might say this, you may say, "Preacher, I just did that. I just opened my heart and let Jesus come in."
"I did that ten years ago."
"I did that twenty years ago."
Well, that may be just exactly right, but is that all you done? See?
I want to ask you now, if you would invite anybody in your house and then when you got inside the door... Somebody invited you in, rather, say, "Come in."
"Yes, I have a purpose. I'll go out of town, and be honored." You see, that's the way a lot of people accept Christ. "I belong to the church. I belong to the big so-and-so place down here where Dr., Ph., LL. belongs, you know, and it's the biggest church. The mayor goes there and everything, you know. I belong to that church." They let him in just that much. "Yeah, I'll accept him," see, for a personal gain.
60 But what then, when Jesus comes into the heart? Many people accept him because they don't want to go to hell. But when Jesus comes into your heart, he wants to be Lord, not just a Saviour, but Lord also. Lord is rulership. He comes in to take over.
Now you say, "Is that right, Brother Branham?" Sure. What if I invited you at my house, and you come in the door? And you knocked at the door, and I looked outside? I said, "Yes, come on in. If you can help me, well, you do so. But now, when you come in, now, I don't want you meddling around in my house. You stand right there at the door!"
Remember, our text is "Doors Inside the Door." Now, inside the human heart there is many little doors, and them little doors covers up a lot of things. Just to let him in, that isn't all of it, when he comes in.
61 When I come in your house, if you welcome me in the door, why, if you'd say, "Come in, Brother Branham. I'm so glad to see you."
I'd say, "Well, it's a privilege for me to come into your house."
"Oh, won't you come over and sit down. Brother Branham, go through our house. Make yourself at home."
Oh, my! I'd go over to the refrigerator, get me one of those great big sandwiches, about like that, take off my shoes, and go in the bedroom and lay down, and I'd just have a real, gastronomical jubilee, see. Why? Because I felt welcome---you made me welcome. Therefore, I'd appreciate it, if you made me welcome.
62 But if I went in your house and you told me, "You stand there at the door, now! Don't you go to meddling around!" I wouldn't feel too welcome, would you? You wouldn't feel welcome. Somebody invited you in and said, "Now wait! Yeah, come in, but stand right there!"
Now, there is a little door when you come into the human heart. We'll just speak of a couple of them, see. We don't have time to go through all these doors, because there is lots of them, see. But, say the next ten minutes, let's speak of a couple, three doors. Now, on the right-hand side of the human heart, when you walk into the door, there is a little door on the right side and that's called in there, the "door of pride." Oh, my, don't you go to entering that door! They don't want the Lord in there on that door. That's pride. "I'm a blue blood, I take care... Oh, yes, now look, I tell you, I..." See, it's pride. "Don't you meddle in there now!"
He can't feel welcome as long as you keep that pride door shut.
63 He's got to humiliate you, see. That's what he comes in for. "You mean to tell me I have to go down there and act like the rest?" Well, you don't have to, that's one thing sure. "Well, I'll tell you, what do you think I'd do when I went to the business council the next time? What would I do if I met with my employer tomorrow, and that... I'd have to get that Spirit on me and I'd jump up there in the middle of my work, and go to speaking in tongues. Oh, that would humiliate me. No, stay out of there!"
There you are, see. Yeah, you'll let Jesus come in. You'll join church and put your name on, accept Jesus as your Saviour. But what about being your Lord? When he's got full sway, when he's Lord, he's got... It all belongs to him. You are completely surrendered to him. Now,
64 but that little pride! "Oh, you mean for us women, we're going to have to let our hair grow?"
"Well, that's what he said."
"We're going to have to quit wearing manicure, or make-up stuff?"
"That's what he said."
"Well, what do you think my sewing circle would say? They'll call me old-fashioned."
"Well, just keep your pride. Go ahead."
He'll stand at the door. That's all the farther he can get. But when you're ready to open that door, let him come in, he'll clean it out for you. Shorts will go out here in the garbage can, and make-up will go back to the garbage can, and the barber will starve to death if he just cuts women's hair, to a real believer.
Now you say, "That don't..." Oh, yes, it does, too. That's what the Bible said. That's right, see. There is a little word, there, that you don't want him there. "Well, my pastor..." I don't care what pastor said; that's what the Bible said. It's a shame for a woman to do so.
"Well," you say, "we ought to... Teach us things, Brother Branham, how to get the Holy Ghost, and how to be this, that." How you going to learn algebra if you don't know your ABC's? Don't know even how to act like, look like one, dress like one. It's a shame to see these women on the street today.
65 I went into a place yesterday when, oh, some of the perverted gang come in. They, the men had hair in their eyes, come down and hung down on their backs, and like leotards (like little kids wear to school) with great big, old shoes on, mouth half open. You could tell they were delinquents. And walked in there like that, say, "We're French."
Who in the world would hire a man like that in his business? How do they make a living? And I seen a couple of real boys sitting over there... They come from that university down there, these beatnicks did. Or I believe they call themselves bugs, or Beatles, or something like that---some of that stuff coming from England. And then, in there like that, who would hire a man like that to work for him? Would you put a man like that in your business, you businessmen? If you would, you're... There is something... You ain't got close enough to the cross yet.
66 Look at these women out on the street. It's a disgrace! Maybe innocent little women with these little, bitty clothes on. Why, it's a disgrace the way they look. Well, you say, "Why, woman, you are committing adultery."
They say, "Wait a minute here, young man, I'm just as virtuous as I..." That might be so, in your own thoughts. And it might be so, proving even by a medical examination, that you might be. But remember, at the day of the judgment, you're going to answer for committing adultery.
Jesus said, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." And you presented yourself to him. See how the devil has got them blinded? It's a disgrace! It's a shame! You see, they got a spirit. It's a spirit that does that. It's an unholy spirit. But a genuine Holy Spirit will make a woman dress decently and look holy.
Matthew 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
67 My wife said to me one time... We was going down the street, and we found a woman with a dress on, back in our country. It was a very strange thing, see---not too many Pentecostals back there. So, we find out she had a dress on. And she said, "Billy," said, "I know some of them women. They sing in choirs and everything at these churches."
I said, "Sure."
Said, "Well, and them claim to be Christians?"
I said, "Honey, look. See, we're not..."
Said, "Why do our people..."
I said, "Look, honey. We are not of their race at all."
She said, "What?" Said, "They're Americans."
I said, "Yeah, but we're not."
She said, "We're not?"
I said, "No." I said, "When I go in Germany, I find a spirit of Germany." When I went to Finland, at the sauna up there, many of you Finnish know, the women give the men the baths. So that's just a Finnish spirit. Mighty fine people, but you find wherever you go, you find a national spirit.
68 You go into a church and watch the pastor. If he's real wild, and carries on, the congregation will be the same, see. They take the spirit of one another, instead of the Holy Spirit. That's the reason we got so much perverted teaching of the Bible. Instead of coming back to the blueprint, they've taken the spirit of some denomination, see. But the Word is just as foreign to them as it was in the days when Jesus come forth introducing the real, true, gospel. They said, "He's a devil. He's Beelzebub," see. But there you get it.
And she said, "Well, then, we're not Americans; what are we?"
I said, "Our kingdom is of above, see. We are free, born again." The kingdom of God is within you, see. Act like up there: you're delegates from there. I said, "We're citizens here, living here in the flesh, but in our spirit we are pilgrims and strangers. We are foreign to the world now, even our own nation, for we have accepted the invitation, when it knocked at our heart, to become part of him, his Word. And the Word fixes us, makes us live and makes us act like Christians.
Matthew 12:24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
Mark 3:22 And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
Luke 11:15 But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.
69 Sometime ago in the South, a little story... There was a king---or, a buyer. They sold slaves. That was time of segregation, and they had slaves in the South. They'd go by and buy them, just like you would a used car, off of a lot. Now, I am an integrationist, absolutely. I mean, a segregationalist---I am a segregationalist. Because I don't care how much they argue, you cannot be a Christian and be an integrationist. That's exactly right. God even separates his nations. He separates his people. "Come out from among them." He is a segregationalist. "Don't even, touch not their unclean things." He pulled Israel, that Jewish race, out of every, all the races in the world. He is a segregationalist.
But I don't believe that any man is to be a slave. God made man; man made slaves. I don't believe one should rule over other---any race, color or anything. But there is a segregation. The bride of Christ is segregated from the rest of the churches. That's exactly right. Church natural; and the church spiritual. Church carnal; the church, the word. It always has been. "Jesus came to his own, his own received him not. But as many as received him..."
John 1:11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
70 So, there used to be buyers, brokers, go by and buy these slaves. One time there was one come to a great plantation, and he watched them. The slaves were hard-beaten and everything, you know. They was away from home---they'd never go back again. The Boers, the Hollanders, had went over and got them. Brought them here and sold them. And they'd never see papa again, mama again, never see their babies again. They bred them with one another. Picked a big man, breed him to a big woman, away from his own wife, to make bigger slaves. Oh, God will make them answer for that someday! Right.
That isn't right.
71 Like Abraham Lincoln said one time, when he got off a boat there in New Orleans, picked off his stovepipe hat... He seen three, four little Negroes coming down, standing there with no shoes on, where, they had... Cow had laid and got the frost off the ground. They was standing, after running the cows in, their little old feet bursted, bleeding. They was singing, "You got shoes, I got shoes, and all God's children got shoes."
When he got off the boat down there, walked up to the bull pen, there was a great big Negro standing up there---whipping him around, testing his heart. And run him up-and-down the street with a whip behind him, then check his heart, see if it was all right. His poor little wife standing there, two or three kids under her arms, like that---to sell him, to breed him to a bigger woman. Old Abraham Lincoln stuck that under, his hat under his arm, like that, and hit his fist. He said, "That's wrong! And someday I'll hit that, if it costs my life." And yonder, in a museum in Chicago, lays a dress with blood on it, that freed that Negro from that.
And I say that sin and things is wrong! God help me to hit it, and all other ministers of the gospel. We are born free, children of God. We have no business for any creed or cult to run us into a World Council of Churches. We are free-born men in the Holy Ghost. We have a right; we come out of such stuff as that to be Pentecostal. That's right. Now, we are free, we don't have to be bound down to those things again.
72 So this buyer said, looking across his slaves---a hundred or something of them on a big plantation---he said, "Say, one little fellow there, they didn't have to whip him---his chest out and his chin up, right on the job." Said, "Say, I want to buy him," he said.
"Oh, no!" the owner said. "He's not for sale."
He said, "Well, is he a slave?"
Said, "Yeah."
He said, "Well, what makes him so different?" Said, "Do you feed him different?"
He said, "No, they all eat out there in the galley together."
Said, "Is he the boss over them?"
Said, "No, he's just a slave."
"Well," said, "what makes him different?"
Said, "You know, I wondered that myself, but," said, "you know over in the homeland, where they come from in Africa, that boy's father is the king of a tribe. And though he's an alien, he conducts himself like a king's son."
73 Oh, I thought, what a thing for a Christian young lady and young man. Women, stop that wearing them clothes like that! Men, stop telling them smutty jokes, and all that stuff! We are sons and daughters of the King. Dress like a queen, dress like a lady, act like a gentleman. Don't let your hair grow down like this. The Bible said it's wrong (nature teaches you) for a man to have long hair, and it's a disgrace and a common thing for even a woman to pray with her hair cut.
And how about these... It's an abomination for a woman to put on a garment that pertains to a man. The great, unchanging God doesn't change, but yet, today, it's just as loose as the rest of our nation is. A shame! Let's act like sons and daughters of God. Let's live like it. We are sons of a King. We are... Right now, this bunch of mess, and dirt, and filth around here, people call themselves Christians and still acting like that.
But remember, we got a knock one day and opened him in. Pride and all left. Amen! I don't care what they call me. "Oh, I guess I'm just a little old-fashioned, but my Saviour was old-fashioned, too." Is that right? You've heard the song. Be old-fashioned. Don't try to pattern after somebody else. He is your example. Try to be like him, and the Spirit in you will help you to do that. Make your life like his.
Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
1 Corinthians 11:5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
1 Corinthians 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
74 Yeah, there is a door there.
I want to call another door. (I get too wound up.) There is another door there, just next to that door, going around the right hand side. And that door is the door to your private life. Oh! Oh, you don't want him messing with that. "Now if I want to go out to a little cocktail party, what is it to you? What church is going to tell me what I'm going to do?" Uh-huh, there you are, see.
"A tenth of my wages? Who is going to tell me what to do? That's my own private life! I make this money."
"I have my own life. I'll wear shorts if I want to. That's my own American privilege." That is true. Sure. Right.
But if you're a lamb and not a goat, see... Lambs is what he is after. They'll be separated someday.
75 A sheep has wool. That's the only thing it has, and it can't manufacture that wool. We're not asked to manufacture the fruit of the Spirit, but to bear the fruit of the Spirit. And as long as it's a sheep, it'll bear. It don't have to manufacture. The glands and everything in it is sheep. It'll make wool because the inside of him has the glands, and the adrenaline and stuff it takes to make wool.
And when you are a Christian, you'll cope with the Word. I don't care what anybody else says. You don't have to work up nothing, and bring down nothing, pull, pump up. You're a Christian: you just automatically bear the fruit of the Spirit, see. And that's the way it is, see.
76 But people today, they don't want you fooling with their private life.
Only thing you do, just open up every door around, now say, "Come on in, Jesus." Watch what happens. When you see in the Book you're supposed to do this, you'll do it. Why, you're a sheep to begin with then. But if you just want to sit and keep him at the door... Just say, "I've joined church. I'm as good as you, see. I accepted Christ." Maybe that's just what you done, but did you make him Lord?
See,
77 now, the Lord cannot set down a book of rules, and say a word, and then come around and deny it. And if you say you got the Holy Ghost, and the Bible says a certain thing to do, and you say, "Oh, I don't believe that," you just remember, that spirit in you is not the Holy Spirit. Because he can't deny himself. That's right. He can't deny himself. He wrote the Word and he watches over it to perform it, see.
So it's not the Holy... It's a spirit, all right. It might be a spirit of the church. It might be the spirit of the pastor. It might be the spirit of the world. It might be, I don't know what it is, but whatever it is... It might be a denominational spirit.
"I'm Methodist."
"I'm Baptist."
"I'm Presbyterian."
"I'm Pentecostal."
"I'm this, that."
Pentecost,
78 now remember, let me straighten it. Pentecost is not an organization; Pentecost is an experience that you receive. You Methodists, Baptists, Catholics and all, can experience Pentecost. You can't join Pentecost, because there is no way to join it. I've been in the Branham family for fifty-five years. You know they never did ask me to become a Branham? I was born a Branham, and that's how you're a Christian. You are born a Christian! That's right.
Now,
79 oh, that private life! "Oh, I tell you, my pastor goes to these dances, and we do the twist. They have it..." All right, see. "Don't you come telling me what I can do, and what I can't do." All right, see. You won't let him in. Just let him in one time, and then go back to the twist, or the rock-and-roll, or whatever you're going to do. See what you can do---you can't do it. Let him in one time, and then start to put on a pair of shorts, some of you women.
I know I'm taking a long time, but I want to say one more thing, if it's all right, in this regard.
80 I suppose the greatest meeting the Lord ever let me hold for him was in Bombay, where I had around 500,000 but... And two hundred-and-some thousand in Africa, Durban, at the race track. That afternoon I said, after seeing such great, marvelous things that our gracious Lord come down and done, I said, "The missionaries taught you the Word, but the Word is quickened and made alive. What he said has to come to life." And then, when there was 25,000 healings taking place at one time, and load after load of little, old, chairs there---just one simple, little prayer---they had seen the Holy Spirit. Just... Those people that didn't even know who they were, and where they come from---that's all they wanted to see.
And I asked, "How many wants to receive Christ?" There was thirty thousand stood to their feet---blanket natives, packing idols.
81 Dr. Bosworth, Dr. Baxter and them, begin weeping. And Brother Bosworth run up, said, "Brother Branham, this is your coronation day."
Brother Baxter said, "Brother Branham, I wonder, I think they meant physical healing."
That boy, on his hands and knees, and the Holy Spirit told him where he come from, what had happened. Said, "You're talk ... thinking about your brother. He's about a half-a-mile back there. He was riding on a yellow goat, and he hurt his leg." I said, "But, thus saith the Lord, he is healed." Here come the boy, with the crutches over his hands, like that. And taken them about twenty minutes for the militia to quieten them down.
82 Then this boy, on his hands and feet like that, down, couldn't even raise up, naked... Oh my, such a horrible thing! He thought he was coming up there to tourists, you know, to kind of do the jungle dance. And I took the chain and shook it. I said, "If I could help that poor creature and wouldn't do it, I'd be a... I wouldn't be fit to stand back here." But I said, "I can't help him; but, now, I have a little gift. I can just pull it in gear, whatever the Lord says."
And when the Lord showed, told him who he was, said, "His mother and father is sitting out in there. They're Zulus," and said, "They're thin, unusual." A Zulu will average three hundred pound per man. So then, said, "They're unusual. But this boy was born in a Christian home, because on his ... on the right-hand side, as you go in the door, there is a picture of Christ, in the little thatch hut." And that was exactly right.
His mother and father raised up, and that's his name, that's who he was, and everything. They couldn't understand. I looked back, and I seen him standing in a vision there, just as straight as he could be. Never raised up in his life. He was born like that. I said, "The Lord Jesus makes him whole."
He wasn't even in his right mind, trying to go, "Uh, ba, ba, ba," like that. And I got ahold of the chain and shook it, like that.
I said, "Jesus Christ, son, makes you whole. Stand up on your feet." There he raised up, the tears running down and off his black belly, as he went out like that. I seen thirty thousand blanket natives give their hearts to Jesus Christ.
83 When at a Kiwanis club, I said... Now, and they'd tell me I was going to become a "holy roller" when I left the Baptist church so I could fellowship with all people. They said, "Why you'll become a 'holy roller'." I sat with a bunch of my Baptist brethren.
I said, "You've sent missionaries in there for the last 150 years. What did I find? Them still packing idols." I said, "But the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, thirty thousand received Christ at one time."
Now I want to say to you women, you know what happened to them women? I said, "Right on the grounds where you're standing, the Holy Spirit will fill you." And when they raised their hands to accept Christ as their Saviour, and when they walked away from there---naked now, nothing but just a little patch clout in front---and when they walked away from there, they folded their arms, like this, because they was in presence of men, after they had accepted Christ.
84 Now how can we, sisters, how can we in this nation, where we claim to believe and be Christians, and every year they take more off; when that person never even heard the name of Christ, but just accepted him in their hearts. Now you couldn't tell them they were naked. They didn't know it. But they covered themselves up like this to walk away. The next day or two you would find them with clothes on of some kind.
Oh, my! There is something wrong somewhere. It's a twisting up of theology. The power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, like he did to the man who ... called Legion... "We found him clothed, and in his right mind." And I begin to believe that it's a spirit upon the people that drives them into that: Americanism, and Frenchism, and all kinds of worldlyism and churchism. But their hearts, once come to that Master, and they feel that knock at the door, they'll put clothes on, and act like women and men, and they'll be born-again Christians. Amen!
Yes.
Mark 5:15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.
Luke 8:35 Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.
85 Now, I'm done, twenty minutes until twelve, just a few minutes. Let me bypass some, just a moment, some scriptures. I'd like to open one more door. Would it be all right? The next door to there is faith. See, your private life, door of pride, your private life, now let's open faith. Just a whole ring of them, see, but let's go into faith.
You know, some time ago I was in the hospital, and a woman going under an operation, she called me. She said, "Brother Branham, I'm a backslider. Would you pray for me?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am. I'd be glad to." I said, "You're a backslider?"
"Yeah."
I said, "Now, let's just wait just a minute. Let me read the scriptures to you."
There was a lady laying there in a bed, looked at me real funny---her and her son, about twenty years old, a regular Ricky, and standing there looking at me like that. And I said, "Yes, ma'am." I said... I read the scriptures to her. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson; be white like wool."
And, my, I read that to her. I said, "If you've strayed away, see, you've got away from God, but God never got away from you or you wouldn't be calling for me." She started crying. I said, "We'll pray."
That lady over in the next bed said, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute there!"
I said "Yes, ma'am?"
She said, "Pull that curtain!"
And I said, "Aren't you a Christian?"
She said, "We are Methodist."
I said, "Well, what has that got to do with it?" See, that's no more than saying you was a colt, if you was in a pigpen, see. I said, "That don't mean a thing, see." But you see, that's where it's come. That self-righteousness!
"That's against our faith."
I said, "The..."
"We don't want divine healing in our church, or that kind of stuff," see.
See what I mean? See, they won't let in that door. "That's against our faith."
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
86 There is only one faith---one faith, one Lord, one baptism---that faith.
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine!
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my unbelief away.
Sin: sin, there is only one sin, that's unbelief. A man that drinks isn't a sinner. See, that isn't sin. It isn't sin to drink, it isn't sin to commit adultery, to lie, to steal. That isn't sin; that's the attributes of unbelief. If you was a believer, you wouldn't do that, see.
There is only two: you're an unbeliever or a believer, see, one or the other. You don't do all these things, and religious orders like that, just because you're an unbeliever. If you're a believer, it's the Word you believe in, because Christ is the Word, see. And so you're just an unbeliever, because that you believe some tradition, or some dogmas that's been added to the Bible, or something. And denominations do; but a real believer stays right with that Word, and God works right through that Word. Right through, to make it come to pass in this generation that we live in.
Ephesians 4:5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
87 And now notice... And you say, "Oh, I, Brother Branham, the Lord..." Well, that's all right. There was many uncircumcised Philistines went one time, too. And a bunch of Egyptians tried to follow Moses across the Red Sea. But it finally, "as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses..." Well, we find the same thing in the last day, the Bible said.
Now, just a little further... Jesus said, here in this age, "because thou sayest that I am rich, and increased in goods..." Just look how we are today, richest the church ever was. Well, you know you Pentecostals would be a lot better off if you was out there with a tambourine on the corner, like your fathers and mothers was? But you've got better churches than the rest of them now, fastest growing in the world. But where is that Spirit of God that used to be among them? You left out the real thing, because you say, "I am rich."
2 Timothy 3:8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
88 Remember this is Pentecostal it's speaking to, because the Pentecostal age is the last age, see.
All this revival we've had---there is no other organization starting up. There won't be. This is the end. That wheat's matured now. It's come up through the leaves, and stalk, and husk, and it's out to the wheat now, see. Won't be no more. They started a little "latter rain," but it just fell right in. Anything else will. They'll... This is, the wheat is coming forth.
Notice, and "because you say I am rich and increased in goods have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art miserable, wretched, blind naked, and don't know it, I counsel thee..." Oh, my! "I knock at your door, Laodicea. I knock at your door, and counsel to come to me and buy gold tried in the fire; white raiment that your nakedness not be shown." Take off these things, and put on like you should, see, the righteousness of Christ, the Word. Not my righteousness; his righteousness.
Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
89 "And I also counsel thee to come get some eyesalve that you might anoint your eyes that you might see."
Eyesalve... I'm a Kentuckian. I was born down in the mountains, and we used to have a little old place up in the attic. And us kids had boosted up a little old pole-ladder that we went up every night. And we laid down---they had to put a piece of canvas over the top of us when it snowed. Well, the stars... Old clapboard shingles ---how many knows what a clapboard shingle is? Well, brother, why didn't I wear my overalls up here? I'm right at home, see.
Well, the old clapboard shingles... How many know what a straw mattress is? Now, what do you know---I thought I felt awful religious about something. Well, I guess I am right at home now. That's good. I never knowed nothing else till just a few years ago. How many knows what an old lamp is, and old chimney, you know? That was the big, old moon and owl on the side. They used to have the littlest hand in the house have to clean that old churn, you know. I used to have to take an old splasher and it'd all splash over me. So I took that lamp chimney and turned it over there, to keep it from splashing. Yes, indeed.
90 Now, my Grandpa was a trapper. My mother's mother come from the reservations. He married an Indian girl from the Cherokee reservations there in Kentucky and Tennessee. You know where the Cherokee valley... And they... He hunted and trapped all the time ---that was the way he made his living.
And us kids laying up there, why, sometimes it'd get real cold, and that breeze coming through there, we'd get cold in our eyes. And our eyes would stick shut at night. You know, Mama called it "matter." I don't know what that is, but a cold would get in your eyes. It'd get cold and she'd say, "You got matter in your eyes," because of the, you know, the breeze circling through there. The draft come across at night, our eyes would swell shut.
91 And Mama would get there at the ladder in the morning. When she got the biscuits made, she would have the sorghum molasses setting on the table, and she would say, "Billy!"
I'd say, "Yes, Mama."
"You and Edward come on down."
"Mama, I can't see." I called my brother. We called him Humpy. I said, "He can't see either." See. "Our eyes got matter in them."
She'd say, "All right, just a minute."
And Grandpa, when he'd catch a coon... How many knows what a raccoon is? That's what... And she'd... He'd catch a coon, he'd get the fat off of it, and put it in a can. And that coon grease was a cure-all in our family. They'd give it to us for a bad cold, with turpentine on it, and coal oil. We'd swallow it for a sore throat. Then get that coon grease hot, she'd come and massage our eyes, and our eyes would come open, see. It was coon grease that did it, see.
92 Now, brother, sister, we've went through a cold spell in the church, and that's right. A lot of religious draft has come through. Everybody has caught cold, and a lot of people has got their eyes all closed up. And there is a big World Council of Churches coming up, up here, is going to force every one of you into it. They are getting away from that Word. Our own groups are. I am duty bound to a message, not to be different, but because of love. Love is corrective. Come back! Stay away from that thing, you ministering brothers. I don't care what your groups does, stay away from it! Stay out of it. It's the mark of the beast. Stay away from it, see.
Jesus is knocking in this Laodicea age. See where they put him out? He is trying to get to individuals; not organizations and groups of people. He is trying to get one here, and one there, and one there. That's right. "All that I love, I chasten."
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
93 As the little brother had the vision here, said he had the vision, and said, "This same light that you receive, cause your death too," see. As many as I love, I chasten: be zealous and return. I stand at the door, and knocking."
Now look. Coon grease won't do this any good, but:
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
Where sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
That dying thief rejoiced to see,
That fountain in his day,
And there may I, though vile as he...
He opened my eyes with his eyesalve. His Spirit came down and warmed the Bible, his eyesalve. I couldn't see it. I was just a local Baptist pastor, but one day he sent his Spirit down. Not the coon grease did he get hot, but he sent the Holy Spirit and fire. A little eyesalve raked across my Bible and I could see with my eye... I mean, raked across my eyes so I could see my Bible. And I seen that he was the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Let every man's word be a lie and mine be true. I stand at the door and knock.
Romans 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
94 One more little story---have we got time? Yeah, then I'll go. There was an old darkie down there in the South, and his pastor. I knew him, a nice old fellow. We called him Gabe. His name was Gabriel, and we just called him Gabe. He always... Pastor and I, we went hunting a whole lot. He was an old colored brother, and we went out hunting. And so, old Gabe liked to hunt better than anybody I ever knowed, but he was a poor shot.
So one day his pastor and him went hunting. And we could never get old Gabe to line up to church. He just wouldn't do it. He wouldn't come to church. He said, "Aw, I don't go down there where the hypocrites is."
I said, "But Gabe, as long as you stay out, they're bigger than you. You're hiding behind them, see." I said, "You are hiding behind them. You're smaller than they are. They do go down and make an effort, see."
And so he said, "I---I thinks a lot of you, Mr. Bill," but said, "I know old Jones goes down there, and he ain't nothing. He shoots craps, and all that."
I said, "That's all right, Gabe, see. That's all right, but remember, Jones has to answer for that---you don't have to, you see. If you just go," I said, "you've got a good pastor."
"Oh, Pastor Jones is one of the finest men there is in the country."
I said, "Let him be your example, if you can't look farther than that. Let him be your example."
95 So one day Brother Jones said, "Took old Gabe hunting." And said, "We got more rabbits and birds that day than we could hardly pack." And said, "Come in, in the evening." Said, "Old Gabe was coming behind, and all loaded down, you know, like that."
And his wife was a real, loyal Christian. She had a place right there, a Holy Ghost-filled woman, and she always had her post of duty.
So he was... Old Gabe was coming behind, you know, and Pastor Jones said... He looked around. He could see old Gabe kept looking over his shoulder like that, the sun setting." Said, "getting real low, getting cool." Said, after a while, said he was walking along, said old Gabe come up. He had his shotgun barrel hanging full of rabbits and birds and things.
Said he tapped the pastor on the shoulder and said, "Pastor..."
Said, turned around, said, "Yeah, Gabe, what's the matter?" So he looked, and great, big tears running off of his black cheeks, where his beard was turning gray.
He says, "Pastor, I's been walking along this bank here for about a half hour." Said, "I've been watching that sun go down." Said, "You know, these gray whiskers of mine, and my hair turning," said, "you know, my sun is setting too, Pastor."
Said, "That's right, Gabe." And he just stopped and turned around. Said, "What's the matter with you?"
He said, "My sun is setting too." He said, "You know what?" Said, "I got to thinking," he said, "as I was walking along back there." He said, "You know," said, "the Lord must love me."
Said, "Sure, he does, Gabe."
Said, "You know, I'm a poor shot." Said, "I couldn't hit nothing." But said, "We really needed this meat at home." And said, "Just look at the big, fine bunch of game that he give me---these birds and these rabbits." He said, "I got enough to keep us all next week." Said, "He must have loved me, because I can't hit nothing, you know." Said, "I couldn't hit it, but just look what he give me." Then he said, "He must love me, or he wouldn't have give me this."
Said, "That's right."
96 And he said, "Well, I had a strange little knock at my door down there. He told me to turn around. Said, 'Gabe, your sun is setting too'." Said, "Pastor, you know what I done, Pastor?" He said, "I made him a promise."
He said, "Gabe, I want to ask you something." Said, "What sermon did I preach that made you feel that way?
He said, "Pastor," or said---now wait a minute...
Said, "What choir sang?"
He said, "Oh, I sure do love that singing down at church, Pastor." He said, "I love every message you preach, because it comes right from that Good Book and I know it's right." But said, "It wasn't that." Said, "He just knocked, and I looked around here, and see how good he was to me, what he give me." He said, "Sunday morning I's going to walk right up in front there where you stand." He said, "I'm going to give you my right hand," said, "because I done give my heart to the Lord, right down around the hill there." He said, "I is going to be baptized and take my place right beside of my wife, and I'm going to stay there until the Lord calls me higher." See, he just happened to look around and see how good God had been to him.
97 I'm a missionary. If you could look out through the eyes that I'm looking through now, and see an Indian place, them little, hungry people. Mothers starving on the street, their little kids can't even cry no more from hunger, and just think of what we had here today. Look at the cars you come in. Look at the clothes you are wearing. Look how rich you are. Friend, can't you feel that little knock there somewhere?
Let us pray. With our heads bowed and our hearts, as the minutes now are fleeting, of about seven minutes until midday. My brother, sister, science tells us it's less than three minutes until midnight. Now, if you can just look around, and just think for a minute, your little children setting there by you. How many little spastics...?
98 Look at your nice wife, brother, and think how many men that's worth millions of dollars, and loves a woman with all of his heart; she is a barfly. He would give his cold million to have that woman love him the way your wife loves you.
And you, wife, how many women, how many mothers here this morning, with their little children, how many fathers? Why, my, there is many a man looking at a crib---a little, old, drawed-up, poor little thing, crippled; and look at what fine, little children you got. And many a little, old, maybe... Oh, God! There is so many things, if you'd just look. He has been so good to us Americans.
Now can't you just feel that you'd like to have a little salve this morning? "Open my eyes just a little farther, Lord, open my eyes." As our sister so lovely sang, "His eye is on the sparrow (just a little sparrow) and I know he watches me."
99 Now he is watching right at you now. Can you just hear, down somewhere, a little knock, like this? [Brother Branham knocks.] " I'm visiting this morning."
It's the greatest honor that could ever be paid, if you can feel that knocking at your heart. Will you just raise your hand, say "By this, Lord, by your help and your grace, from today on I'll live as close to you as I know how to live. That's all I know how to ask you." God bless you. God bless you. "By your help and grace today, from today on, I'll never forget this."
"Lo, I stand at the door and knock: if any man..." Now remember, where was he knocking? At the barn? No. At the bar? No. Where is he knocking? At the church. If any man will hear my voice, and open unto me, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
100 Dear God, this little broken, mixed-up, few words that's been said this morning, somehow let the Holy Spirit interpret them to the hearts of the people. Now there was many, Lord, maybe out of this hundred here, was twenty or thirty people raised their hands. I have no way of knowing just what they needed, Lord, but I know that midday is just a few minutes off, and so is the coming of the Lord. Yet before this snow melts from the ground, we may be summoned. And this may be the moment that will change the whole future of whether they be left here, or go up.
Dear God, humbly we accept Jesus. We accept all of his Word. Fill us, Lord. Fill us with the Holy Spirit, that our life just automatically would bear the fruit. Grant it, Lord.
Forgive us of our many mistakes. Oh, we are so full of them, Lord. And we have nothing that we can offer, Lord, because everything that we got, you've give it to us. As Gabe said in the little story we just told, you sure love us, Lord, or you wouldn't do this. And to think these people sat here since early this morning, sitting here since eight o'clock. It's four hours that they sat in here. They love you, Lord, they love you. Now Father, will you just send the salve of the Holy Spirit---open our eyes?
May we...
101 These who are here in the city, may they rush to that revival tonight. May there be such an outpouring! Grant it, Lord. May an old-fashioned revival start here in the city. Grant it.
Bless every man that's putting forth, every one of your servants throughout the world, that's putting forth an effort. Be with them, Lord, and help them. Open our eyes that we might see, more and more, the likeness of Christ. Grant it, Lord. Forgive us of our sins.
And now, these who raised their hands, Father, I commit them to you. Receive them. Now I quote thy own word, Lord---which, heavens and earth will fail, but you said, "He" (which is a personal pronoun), " he that heareth my word," Lord. They might have been broke up and simple, but somebody heard them. The seed fell. "He that heareth my word and" (conjunction) " believeth on him that sent me," (because he did this) " he hath" (present tense) " everlasting life, and shall not" (in the future) " come to the judgment, but has passed from death unto life."
They raised their hands, Lord. They broke the (every) scientific law---gravitation holds our hands down. But they proved that there is a spirit in them that could listen to a knock at the door, and reach out with their right hand towards heaven. Now open the door. Open, Lord, and come in. We are yours, receive us 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.
John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
102 Do you love him? Wonder if we could just close our eyes just a moment. Now from our hearts, with our hands up...
I love Him, I love Him
Be...............
We're accepting your knocking this morning, Lord. My hands are up, all of our hands are up, Lord. And now come in, Lord Jesus. Come into our hearts and sup with us, and we'll sup with thee.
...Calvary's tree
Do you love him? Oh, I think he is so wonderful, don't you? Don't you feel his presence just kind of scouring you out? I feel real religious right now, just feel real good, something about it.
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine;
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my sin away,
O let me from this day
Be wholly Thine!
103 Now, I want you, when we hum this next verse of that beautiful hymn, old hymn of the church, I want you to shake hands with somebody. Just remain in your seat. Just say, "God bless you, brother. God bless you, sister. So glad to be with you here." Let's do that. [Brother Branham and congregation hum "My Faith Looks Up to Thee," and shake hands with one another.]
God bless you, Carl. I'm glad to be here. Just think! Methodists' hands caught Pentecostals', Baptists' caught Presbyterians'.
O let me from this day
Be wholly Thine!
104 Now as we sing slowly now, do it from the bottom of your heart ---you know, after a scouring, scolding message, I think it's good to get in the Spirit, the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. "Oh, how sweet it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! The Bible said it's like the anointing oil that was on Aaron's beard, that run down to the hem of his skirts.
You're wonderful people up here. I hope to get back to see you again before Jesus calls me, or the Millennium. If I don't, I'll see you across the river over yonder. I'll meet you at the river. Amen---set an appointment.
While life's dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread,
Be Thou my Guide;
Bid darkness turn to day,
(that little light they talk about)
Wipe sorrow's tears away,
O let me from this day,
Be wholly Thine!
Psalm 133:1 A Song of degrees of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
Psalm 133:2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;
105 Every door open. Oh, just touch the little button, and watch them all go right around the circle---say, "Come in, Lord Jesus, be my Lord, my all."
Oh, let me from this day
(not let You stand at the door)
Be wholly Thine.
You that raised your hands and wants to be farther led towards the Lord, I ask you to go down to the revival tonight. And I'm sure the pastor there would take you from here to the inn. He has six pence, or whatever was given to take care, and wine and oil to pour in. He can finish the job. God bless you now. I'll turn the service back to, I guess, Brother Williams, or ever who is... All right.