A thinking man's filter

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Let us pray. O God, truly that's what our heart's desire is tonight, just only to believe. As we've assembled here tonight in the tabernacle, the sun setting in the west, we pray, dear God, that You'll let us realize how close it is that the sun is setting also upon time; it's running out. The day is far spent. And we remember one time when the day was far spent, two travelers bid You come in and stay with them. Then You made Yourself known to them by explaining Your Word and letting them see that what ... Christ must suffer all these things first.
So we pray, God, as the day is far spent that You'll come into our houses, and live with us, and explain to us the Word, Lord, that we so graciously hold as a treasure from You, as a gift in our hearts. May we never overstep it; may we always reverence it with all of our hearts.
We thank You for what You did for those in the hospital this morning, and what You did for Brother Capps' little boy that was laying almost dying; and now here he is in the audience tonight. How we thank You, Father, for all these things.
Grant, Lord, that we may know how that we should give You praise. We just... It's beyond our understanding to know how to give You praise. But, Lord, receive our hearts as thanksgiving tokens, that we love You. And we want to do what's right; show us what to do. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. You be seated.

2 Good evening to this great packed church tonight and out across the land on the telephones. They say they're hooked up again tonight.
I hope my wife's listening in. I didn't get to call her, so I'm going to call her after this service.
And we have a note here that this morning Brother Jackson's father being in such a condition, that such an improvement's taken place, he may get to come home tomorrow.
Brother Capps' little boy, who he called me the other night (I don't know whether Brother Capps is in the audience or not, but...) his little boy was very sick. And just happened to be that Joseph and I was down to the shooting range getting my little .22 rifle ready. I told you all about it last week. And he really going to be a real shot. So he wanted me to be sure and tell Gary and Larry what he did.
And he told me coming back, I said, "You ought to stop in and tell Brother Gene Norman about it."
He said, "Stop and tell Billy first (his brother)." After he showed him what good shots he made, he said, "Now, keep off of my feet," see.

3 And just as we got there, why, the phone rang, and Billy ran in to ask... I said, "May be a sick call now." And we just got in, and it was Brother Capps. And the little boy had peritonitis, and just a very little shade of a chance to live. And the Lord has healed him. And the other night said he's suffering with some kind of pains, Mrs. Wood was telling me. We was leaving in a hurry, and I just ... I said, "Mrs. Wood, it's so late now, 10:00, I doubt of them letting me in out there at the hospital." I said, "I'm going up home and just close the door." And I went up and prayed, and they said the little boy is in the audience tonight. So we're very thankful for that. And we're grateful.
Now, we're holding on, we haven't heard yet... If Brother Leo Mercier and Sister Mercier is listening in, we haven't heard as yet from your father. We hope to hear in a little while, how he's doing. But I'm almost sure he will be all right, so we're trusting that to Almighty God, that God will take care of that dear, old, sainted man---an old veteran minister of the Gospel.

4 Now, oh, there's so many things that needs to be done and such a short time to do it, so let's put all of our efforts now in what we can do for our Lord.
I come down a little bit early, and I haven't been feeling too extra good. I got tired, just really tired, and I laid down this afternoon. I haven't even eat dinner yet. So I went in, just laid down all afternoon; I felt bad. So laid there, and I got to praying; and I felt better, and got up, put on my clothes, and come to church.
So we are trusting to the Lord Jesus now that He will bless our efforts together tonight as across the nation we try to join this part of the body of Christ that I have been given the right to feed His sheep. And I would only do the very best of my knowledge in giving out the right food that I know for the sheep. And I'm anxiously waiting for the hour to where we can all congregate in one place and preach on those seven plagues, and seven vials, and the trumpets, and so forth. They all happen right in a cluster. That's the reason it'll take us about a week, ten days or more to get through it in one single meeting, if we can. I think it's very sufficient.

5 Now, many of you are traveling far; I look out here, and I just noticed awhile ago the folks in Tucson. Mrs. Sothmann, I see Brother Fred arrived all right. I seen him in the audience this morning. And there, I think that's Brother Don Ruddell sitting there by him back there tonight. Glad to see Brother Don in. And Junior, is Junior here, or is he at his church? I guess they're in on the phones at the church tonight. So all you brethren, we're very happy that you're here with us tonight, and trusting in the Lord that someday when the life's day is finished and our little light of mortal life begins to grow dim and going out, we'll fear no evil; for down through the...

6 Oh, I just got a report to you up in Arizona, up at Prescott. Brother Coggins has been dismissed from the hospital. So we're very thankful for that. Good. That's fine. So we're very grateful for that. Sister Mercier, your daddy's getting all right now. I just felt after we prayed that he would be all right. They may be tuned in; I hope they are; I think they are. So we very grateful for that, that our brother is all right now and going to be all right.
So we thank the Lord for all these things.
Had a request last night, a dear brother here... I guess he may not be with us today. A brother from down in Kentucky called me about his daughter---lovely family. And the girl is going to be operated... A young mother with cancer in the back. We pray that God will deliver this young woman. I believe He will, if we'll just ... the congregation, all of us together, join in and pray for these people, all together. That's what we must do as a unit.

7 And as the days grow closer and closer and the narrowing of the path, we want to grow closer together. My, we must be just one ... one body. We must move together, forgetting one another's sins and our differences, just sticking closer and closer and closer as we see that day approaching, assembling ourselves together, all with one accord and one heart. And if a brother, sister gets out of the way in any way, don't do nothing but pray for that person and in love always considering one another. Don't never let one of you get away. Stay together. And if you can, add more to it constantly all the time.

8 Brother Neville, I got your request here concerning Brother Wright, Brother George Wright sitting here. We're glad Brother Wright and Sister Wright here... Little Edith... One day when we come, we want to have a little memorial service here. I didn't get back for Edith and when she went; but, Sister Wright, you remember the dream she had about a couple years ago. And I told you then, I said it's a ... little Edith won't stay with us very long now, because the Lord had already told her that she was ... going through that dream that she had. And I got the interpretation of it was that she was going to meet God. About two years later she went to meet God, now waiting for her papa, and mama to cross the dividing line between mortal and immortality. God bless you! I want to try to see you right away if I just possibly can. So God be with you.
And Shelby and everybody... I thought I seen Shelby this morning; I wasn't sure. You can't see too good up here; ceiling's down like this, and it casts a light like that. You can see the spots, but you can't see the people too well.

9 Now, right straight to the message. This is a message I want to read from Numbers 19:9 and Ephesians 5:26. And if you people who keep down the records of the texts and so forth, why, you may jot it down.
And now remember, if this is being taped (I don't know; I can't see anyone. Yes, I do, I do see Brother Terry over in the recording room.)... And if this is being taped, to any ministers at any place, any time, this is not directed in disregards to your teachings; this is not even directed to your sheep. This message and all other of the messages that I speak on is directed to my congregation. It's not for your congregation unless they want to receive it, but it's directed to this people here.
The people buy these tapes. The people across the world buy and play them. Many times they write in, and I always refer to them if they're a member of some church, "See your pastor."

10 Now, pastor, I want you to know that, that this is only to my congregation I speak these things. And I have a right to do that, because I've been set by the Holy Spirit to watch over these sheep. And woe unto me if I don't tell them what I think is the truth, and where I think it comes. But it's not for the world or the rest of the churches. You do whatever God tells you to do. I cannot answer for you; neither can you answer for me; but we must each answer before God for our ministry. Therefore, if I have to answer for my ministry, I must preach it in the way that I see it, and the way it is revealed to me. So let that be known now.

11 Now, in Numbers 19:9 we want to read this text ... or this Scripture rather:
And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and shall lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation [Watch now!] for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin.
Notice, not to everybody, to the congregation of the children of Israel, the waters of separation. Now, in Ephesians the fifth chapter and beginning with the twenty-second verse.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
[Now, here's what I want to say now.] That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word,

12 Now, this little text tonight, if I should call it a text... And I trust that people here and also out in the telephone hookups will not disregard this and think that it's meant in a way of sacrilegious, though to take a text like this, it would sound sacrilegious. The subject that I'm using for tonight is A Thinking Man's Filter. That sounds very radical for a subject for a minister that's so opposed to smoking, would take a text like that: A Thinking Man's Filter.
It come to pass that the other morning when I'd went squirrel hunting, that... You people out on the radio ... the air ... or on the telephone wave could've seen the expression on this congregation's face when I announced my text, you'd a had a laugh out of it: A Thinking Man's Filter.

13 Well, it all happened up where the angels of the Lord appeared to me one morning, and them squirrels was spoke into existence. All of you remembers when it taken place. And also just at the top the hill where I was standing just before preaching the seven church ages, going hunting one morning before daylight, there stood... I thought the sun was coming up, about four o'clock in the morning. Unusual... I seen that light, and I turned around, and there stood the seven golden candlesticks, standing up there on top the hill, with like a rainbow was coming up through the pipes and feeding out.
Immediately after that, the Lord Jesus appeared to us, and right then I heard a voice that said, "The Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New." And there He was after while revealed after those seven golden candlesticks. Then notice that. How many remembers that text? I wrote it on the back of a box of cartridges I had in my pocket, "Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New." God in heaven knows that was true.

14 When I crossed that place where He'd appeared to me a little later on about the squirrels...
Then when I called my good friend Jack Moore a few months later to ask, when I started to preach the seven church ages, Revelation 1... And He was standing, white all over; His hair was like wool. How could He, being yet thirty-three years old, and be white all over? And Brother Moore, a very fine, cultured, Christian gentleman, and a scholar---one of the best that I know of---and he said, "Brother Branham, that was Jesus after His glorified condition. That's the way He looks now."
But that didn't ring a bell with me. And I kept praying until one day before I started the seven church ages... I couldn't get that first chapter straightened out right. How could a man thirty-three years old, resurrected in the same body... The apostles recognized Him, knowed Him to be... And how could He be way up, maybe an eighty or ninety years old with great white wool over His face, and His beard white as snow?

15 I'd read over in the book of Daniel, where He came to the Ancient of Days, whose hair was as white as wool. Then I seen that Ancient of Days; He was that Ancient of Days, the same yesterday, today, and forever. I seen it was a symbol. Then why the white wool? And then the Holy Spirit seemed to speak to me about a picture I saw one time of an ancient judge. Then I went to the history; I went back into the Bible history and all to find out. And the old judges like the high priest in Israel, he had to have that white, gray woolly-like hair and beard, because the white over him signified that he was supreme authority of the judges in Israel. And even in today and down to a few hundred years ago---maybe a couple hundred years ago or maybe not like that, later than that---all the English judges, no matter how young they was or how old they was, when they went in for judgment, they wore a white wig to show that there's no other authority in that kingdom above their word. Their word is the ultimate of the kingdom. What they say, that's all of it.
And now, then I seen that there He was standing there, yet a young man, but the white wig on. He was the full, supreme authority; He was the Word. And He's wearing the white wig.

16 Then later on when we got through and---the sermon---and went out west, and when the angels of the Lord appeared out there for the seven seals, and it went up into the air (which we had the picture of it here and around over the country), there He was standing there still wigged with that supreme authority. He is the head of the church. He's head of the body. There's nothing like Him anywhere. He made all things by Himself; He made all things for Himself; without He there wasn't nothing made. He has all authority in heavens and earth, and everything belongs to Him. And in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And the Word was God and made flesh among us, and He was the one who revealed the entire secret of the whole plan of salvation that all the prophets and wise-men had spoke of. He alone was that wigged one and supreme authority.

17 Now, I'd stopped up on the hill the other morning; looked like there'd been some squirrels been cutting up there. And I started to sit down. And I had just been there a moment when the bushes struck by me and some great big fellow with a double barreled musket of a thing come walking out through the bushes there, and like to scared the daylights out of me. I went on over, scooted down. I was afraid to move, afraid he'd shoot me---and the bushes moving---so I just sat real still.
A squirrel started up over the hill, and he powdered both barrels with him and so... He missed him. And so the squirrel went down over the hill, and I thought, "Now, I'll get away, all that noise is echoing. He's got his gun unloaded." And I started down the hill, and the guy shot right in front of me. It turned me back this way, and I started over here to go down another way, and a .22 rifle started. And the bullets buzzing above me; I said, "Say, I'm in an awful place."

18 So I turned around and went down by the river, and I thought, "I'll go down here and hide till they get done so I can get out." And on the road down, I happened to draw... My attention was drawn to look over to my right side, and as I did, there laid a empty cigarette package where one of them had throwed down in all the running of the ... when the squirrels were going through the bushes.
And I picked up this certain cigarette pack and was look... I never picked it up---I beg your pardon; I looked down at it. I didn't pick it up, because I don't like the smell of the things to begin with. And I looked down there, and it's a certain tobacco company that I guess I shouldn't call their name, but you'll know. It said on there, "A thinking man's filter and a smoking man's taste." I looked at that thing, and I thought, "A thinking man's filter!" I thought, "If the man could think at all, he wouldn't smoke at all. How could it be a 'thinking man's filter'? A thinking man wouldn't smoke at all." All right.

19 Now, I thought, "How deceiving that is." Now, that tobacco companies are supposed to be American. And oh, if we lived to our policy, we would be working to help one another, if we have a feeling one for the other. And how hypocritical... The reason I never called the company's name, I've got to say some bad things about them. And how hypocritical can anybody be to make money?
A thinking man won't smoke at all, but how the American public fall for it. They think that that's wonderful.
Now, look, you cannot, you cannot---ask anybody, scientists as you want---you cannot have smoke without having tar. If there's one little speck of smoke comes through, that's tar. And if you don't get any smoke, well, you don't get any tar; and you don't get any anything. You're just drawing against a solid stick. But as long as you get any smoke at all, you're drawing in cancer---nicotine.

20 If you'd been with me last year ... or year before last, I believe it was, at the World's Fair, when Yul Brynner and all of them was up there on demonstrations and you see them take that cigarette, put it in something, and pull it across a piece of marble. And that doctor taking a swab, rolled across there and got the nicotine off of it, and put it on the back of a white rat, and put him in a cage. And every seven days they took him out. And the rat was so full of cancer he couldn't walk from the nicotine out of one cigarette.
Then he said, "You know, they say that you can get it through a filter." He said, "You cannot have a filter... Any filter that would take nicotine out, takes the smoke out," said, "because you have to have smoke ... have tar to make the smoke, and it's the tar that gives the cancer."
And then he went, pulled it through water and said, "Sometimes you think you could filter it through." Said, "Every time that you... No matter where you pull it..." Said, "They say, 'I don't inhale it,' and they put it in their mouth and spit it out." Then he took that and rolled it up, and put it under something there, and showed it was still cancer. Well, you just swallow it right down your throat, see. And no matter what you do, it's still death, see.

21 And then to think that a company would deceive a man enough or try to deceive their own people! It's like a vulture living off of it's own kind. Money-making, selling death to the country, and to young men and go out there on the battle front and die for them, then turn around and sell such a thing as that under a false pretense---"A thinking man's filter, but a smoking man's taste." You'd have to have the smoke to get the taste. A smoking man's taste.
How the people fall for it though. They get it. Now, it's only to deceive you more. See, it's of the devil. They don't care for your life. They ain't got no feeling for you. They sell you that stuff just to watch you die, as long as they get money.

22 Like politics and war. I don't believe in war. I don't believe that we ever should've ever had a war. I believe in the great kingdom that God's bringing, the great civilization that'll be brought in under His own great dominion, there will never be another war. Nation won't lift up spears against nation. They'll all be peace, eternal peace.
So this kind of a civilization brings war, and more civilized we get under this, the more war we have. One try to be more civilized than the other, and the more civilized makes more war, see.
And look under this civilization, that a person would put out such a thing as that. And the only thing it does, it only deceives you to make you buy more cigarettes. For if a man smokes cigarettes... And I believe it is of the devil, and it's a nicotine devil in a man or a woman. And if one cigarette would satisfy that nicotine devil till he will leave you alone and quit haunting you---with one cigarette---and then you take a filter, it just lets one-third of that smoke through there, then ... or one-third of that nicotine through there, then it'll take three cigarettes to take the place of that one, and you'll smoke three to one.
See, it's only a scheme, a deceit, a scheme to try to sell cigarettes. They can sell more that way than they can by just letting a man smoke the straight tobacco in his pipe or in his cigarette. Now, see, it's of the devil.

23 As I stood there looking at it and thinking of how deceitful it was, the question came to me and I stooped back, looked at the pack again, and it just seemed like something said to me, "But the slogan is all right: 'A thinking man's filter, a smoking man's taste.'" It came to me that that deceitfulness also in the natural realm there in the tobacco, is something on a order of the churches of today (see), a deceitfulness.
It's come till the whole world has become a great deception of what is really true and what's right. See, even in politics and in social affair, in school, in everything, it becomes a deceitfulness.

24 A young fellow was telling me the other day that he was down to an army camp, and a young soldier got run over by a tank; his lungs, his stomach, or whatever it was, punctured. And they went up to the hospital; they had three or four doctors standing there in line, and everybody stand in line. And two or three soldiers holding their buddy up, and him just barely could breathe... Every time he'd breathe, that rib would stick right into his lungs, and that would make him bleeding inwardly. And they let that young man stand there in that line, way back in the back of the line and let some of them guys with nothing but a earache or something go ahead.
And about time he got up there, some colonel come in with a little child that had rash ... his little boy or girl had rash on his hand. And they stopped that line to put the colonel's child in, and that boy punctured, dying. There you are.
Oh, if that colonel would've been a genuine feeling for his brother out there in the line, he would've said, "This kid can wait; get that man up here quickly; do something for him."

25 But every man wants to show his authority. Now they're not all like that. No, they're not all like that. But there's too many like that; there's too many of them that's like that. But the man, only thing he was thinking of was his own little boy that had a rash on his hand, and not thinking about that poor boy standing there mashed under a tank---the very tank and maybe the very boy that would save his life someday on the battle front. See, they don't stop to think, only for themselves. "A thinking man's filter."
I looked at it, and I thought, "It's something like this, the denominations of today, the churches that we have." Each one of them has their own filter; they have their own type of filter. They let just what come in they want to and what not come in, what they filter in and filter out with their own kind of a filter. They just let so much of the world get in to satisfy the unbelievers that's in there. They'll take them in no matter what they are if they got money. They'll take them in no matter what they are if they're popular. But there's one thing about it: You can't get in the church of God like that---not the denomination now---I mean the real genuine church of God.

26 Like the tobacco companies of today, the people that comes into these said churches or denominations, they have a taste; and that taste is the classics of the world. And each denomination has their own filter, and they filter out all the true Christians that would say "Amen!" when he was preaching, and bring in all the bobbed-haired, painted-faced Jezebels that's in the country, as long as they are popular: "So-and-so comes to ... a movie star, a great person..." That's the kind of a filter that they use. "Our denomination... So-and-so, the president, or the colonel, or the someone belongs to our denomination." See what kind of a filter they use? That filter, of course, is of the world, the people of the world.
The people, they know what they want. So if they have to get what they want, then they'll have to have a certain kind of a filter and enough of the world speak through to satisfy their worldly taste. "A thinking man's filter, a smoking man's taste, or a religious world's filter, and a worldly man's taste."

27 They want to be religious. They think they must be religious, because they have a soul.
When we first come to this country, we found the Indians worshipping suns and so forth. Because why? He is a human being. We go back in the far jungles of Africa; we find the natives worshipping something. Why? They're human beings, and they must worship.
So the human being, no matter how fallen he is, he still knows there's something somewhere, but he's got such a taste for the world that he cannot take the correct filter. He has to have his own made filter. Each one making their own kind of filter.
Each cigarette company brags on theirs, what they can do: "A real filter; this is the best filter. All up front," and all like that. Said, "The taste comes ... or something, from up front." Oh, for goodness sake. "Up front!" What's on the back end of it all? It sure ain't a thinking man or a thinking woman. But that's what they say, just simply deceiving the people.

28 Now, we find out of our day, that the people has got a taste. And why does a man smoke a cigarette? It's to satisfy a taste. What does a woman smoke a cigarette for? Satisfy a taste.
And then if the church has figured out a religious group, to get people in there, they've got to have a certain kind of a filter to give the people the taste that they want. So if they don't get any taste that they want, they don't want the cigarette. And if they can't get the taste that they want in religion, they don't take the religion. Now, just as plain as it can be.
Women with shorts, bobbed-hair, painted faces, sexy-dressed, they want that; they love that.
As I spoke this morning in the ... last Sunday morning on that wheel in the middle of the wheel, or that little inside soul on the inside of the spirit, how that the spirit on the outside between the soul and the body can be absolutely anointed with the Holy Ghost. Did you all understand that?

29 Now, to follow that in with the continuity of the message The God of this World, The Anointed Ones in the Last Days, that outside ... that middle circle... First circle is the human senses, the second circle is the spirit senses: Will---self-will, desire, and so forth. But the inside is the soul. That soul was predestinated. So they can anoint this spirit to make the outside body come in subject to the spirit. "But the soul that sinneth, that soul shall die." The soul that rejects in unbelief, the Word of God, which it is a part of, that soul shall eternally ... has, always.
I believe in an eternal death, same as I believe in an eternal heaven, but not an eternal hell. There's no such a thing as eternal hell. There is an eternal death for the people that are... Many of them religious in the world today has always been dead.
The woman that liveth in pleasure with her bobbed hair and painted face is dead while she is alive! The Bible said so, see. See, she may be religious, but she never was saved. She's got a outward motion. She might sing in the choir, or she might dance in the Spirit; she might speak in tongues and have all the manifestations of the Spirit; but unless that soul on the inside is God's daughter (see), she's gone no matter what she does.

30 Israel was all outwardly spiritually, all filled with God's goodness, and how they reverenced God and so forth, but that didn't work. The inside of them couldn't recognize the Word itself.
But when you're born of the Spirit of God, then you've got a ... you are a son of God, and you always was a son of God, and you always will be a son of God. There's no way to separate it, because you have eternal life. And eternal never did begin; neither will it ever end.

31 Oh, for the grace of God that He'd give us understanding of such great mysteries. As Paul spoke here further on down in Ephesians speaking of the husband and wife, and said, "This is a mystery," how the women should be in respects to their husband. Even the second place, I believe it is, in the entire Bible that reverence was ever spoke to, said the women ... seeing she reverence her husband---reverence her husband. Then a husband ought to live such a life before his wife that his wife could reverence him as a son of God. And if he doesn't live that kind of life, well then, course she wouldn't reverence him, because she knows what he's made of. But when it is a man that is reverent a man---reverent and clean with his wife, and before his family, a real servant of God---then the women, children, all should respect that servant of God with a reverence.

32 Notice, now women, they want to have bobbed hair. They want to wear shorts, paint, make-up. These little bikinis and things that they wear nowadays, they want to do it; and yet they want to go to church. You see that anointing upon the spirit, not upon the soul, see.
Wants to be a Christian and also do these things. And the pastor says it's okay. Then if he says it's okay ("You can be a member; your name can be on my church book here; it's okay."), then he's giving her his denominational filter to suit a worldly woman's taste. She loves the world; she likes the taste of it. So he's got a filter for her, but she's a long ways from being a thinking woman. But there you are. That's where I found this text.
No, she isn't a thinking woman. If she was thinking, she'd know the church isn't going to judge her at the last day. The church is judging her now by her membership, her loyalty to the circles that she belongs to and the societies. They're judging her now by that. But God's going to judge her at the last day. So she isn't thinking.

33 Just like the man that's smoking. He loves a cigarette so well until his thinking faculties has become numbed with nicotine. And the woman's desires have so numbed her thinking faculties until she'll do these things that's evil in the sight of the Lord, because she wants to do it; it satisfies a worldly woman's taste. So she takes a worldly church's filter; she goes right through it fine, nothing to bother. Shows...
Now, we see there that that is truth. The pastor says, "That's all right. We don't condemn the women of doing that. It's all right; there's enough sin in it." That's through his filter. Shows that they went through a theological filter, and they got a theological taste; and they had a theological taste. But it certainly didn't go through God's filter. No, sir!

34 Now, if there is a theological filter for the theological thinker, and there is a church filter for the church thinker, a cigarette filter for the cigarette thinker, there's got to be a real filter somewhere for the real thinker. And God has a filter, and that's His Word. It's a separator, for it's a waters of separation for sin. Now, that's the thinking man or the holy man's taste.
And if a man goes through this kind of a filter of the world, he's got a worldly taste. And like the tobacco company, he gets more members in his church by pushing them through this filter. You say, "There's more women goes to church than there is men." That may be so. Now, that may be also true when she can go and do anything she wants to. That's right. She'll join up with anything. But she went through that church filter. If she went through God's filter, she'd come out different from that, see. She couldn't go through God's filter and come out with bobbed hair. She just can't do it.

35 Now, this is going to be a little bitter maybe to somebody, but when she started through God's filter, and it says in there for them not to cut their hair, then what? She lodges on the other side. If it said it's a sin for a woman to do such and she's dishonorable to do such... If she wants to... He said ... "Well, she's got to have her hair cut." Said, "Then shave it off then." And said, "We know that that's a shame for a woman to have a head shorn"; said, "Then let her have her head covered." And her hair is her covering, not a hat, lady. Her hair is her covering the Bible says. Shows she's a Nazarite unto the Lord. Long hair to a woman means a Nazarite to the Lord.
Now, we find that that's true. But we find if the thinking man, so-called, in the world can smoke and still get his taste, he ought to have sense enough to know he's getting tar from the tobacco. But only what it's done is to sell him more, make him buy more cigarettes.

36 And the church filter gets the membership and things like that when they let them get through with anything and still belong to the church, they get more members. What if we went to the churches tonight and filtered everybody out besides those who was genuine Word-born Christians. There'd be a many a blank sermon up against a wall tonight. True! Because it went through the filter.
And if I've got one desire in my heart---and I hope that everybody listening to me has the same thing---"God, take me through Your filter!" And as David said, "Try me, and prove me, and see if there be any evil in me, then take it out, Lord." I want God's filter. Don't care what the world does, what the church has, I want to be a thinking man, to think who I'm going to be standing by one of these days for judgment.

37 Notice, the tobacco company does it to sell more cigarettes; the church does it to get more members. A woman with short hair, wearing shorts would be caught in God's filter; she could not go through it with short hair, because the Bible said she shouldn't do it. She dishonors her head when she does it. We should know it. But she goes right through the church all right, all the rest of them.
I stand sometimes, not disregarding anybody. I never speak personally about any person, but it's sin in the church. You bear me record of that. I didn't say, "Miss So-and-so is so-and-so, or Mr. So-and-so, or Reverend So-and-so is so-and-so!" No, sir! I say sin is sin. If it's in my family, it's in me, it's in whoever it is, it's still sin. Not as an individual, I don't speak against individuals. I speak against sin. I don't care if it's me or whoever it is, starts through God's filter, any sin will stop you right there.

38 Notice. But the woman who wants to have short hair and wear shorts or wear paint and anything, she can go right through a Pentecostal filter just as easy as pie. Nothing about it. Right into death. Because he that... She said, "Well, there's no harm in that." "If you love the world or the things of the world, it's because the love of God's not even in you."
Down through this spirit then, she can pull down into her soul things that isn't of God and against God's Word if that's the taste in the soul. It can come through the taste, see, taste... It can come through the think ... through the reasoning: "There's no harm in it. I have taste; I have feelings. I have a feeling that this is all right." She come right on down through that and right into her soul, if her soul is of that type. Shows that she isn't drawing through God's filter. But if she's got bobbed hair, wearing make-up, shorts, pants, looks like men, all of these slacks and ever what they call them, saying those kind of things, and doing those things, and living for the world, she'll stop; she can't get through there. No, sir! It'll stop her at the beginning.

39 Notice, a man looking at her pretty red lips, and painted face, and shorts, and bikinis and ever what she's got... A real thinking man won't look at her. Now, a man that's a church member will look at her, admire her. But I don't care how she looks to the eye, a thinking man will turn his head. Why? He's been through God's filter, and he knows to look upon her is adultery in his heart. He don't think she's pretty. Say, "Isn't she a pretty thing!" Not to him it isn't. She's a filthy looking, miserable Jezebel wretch to a thinking man. A son of God looks upon her with shame that he even belongs to the family she belongs to. That's right. "How could that be my sister and act like that?" See?
She pulled through one filter, and he come through another. He won't think she's pretty, not at all. That's not beauty to a real man of God.

40 Remember, one time before the blood of Jesus Christ become the filter, as we'll get to in a few minutes), the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men that they were fair and taken unto them, wives. God never did forgive it. Again it happened in the march of Israel, and God never did forgive it; and every one of them perished. "A thinking man's filter."
I come out of the meeting here; there was a little Ricky standing back there behind the church one night, said to me, about three or four years ago, said, "The reason you say that, you're an old man." Said, "I think they look nice."
I said, "I can imagine that." From just the looks of him, you can tell what he looked like. I said, "Let me tell you something. How old are you?"
"About thirty years old."
I said, "When I was fifteen years younger than you, I thought the same thing." Right! It's still filth! "A thinking man's filter."

41 Now notice, if he has been ... his mind filtered through the Word of God---God's filter---he won't look upon her. He won't think she's pretty; he will think she's a Jezebel. He will think behind those red lips is poison fangs that would sting him. And the Bible said, "Her gates is the gates of hell; and a man walks into them like an ox going to his slaughter." There's a thinking man's filter.
What do you desire? When the woman comes down the street dressed like that, and you men turn your head, gaze around like that, you're not using a thinking man's filter. Because when you do that you're committing adultery, for the filter said, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already." Turn your head, thinking man. Get away from her. She's not pretty; she's a serpent. That's right. Twists like one, acts like one, stings like one. Keep away from her.

42 Oh yes, the Word of God is a thinking man's filter. Anyone knows that; that's what your soul is filtered through, the Word of God. And it makes... When you come through God... When a thinking man comes through God's filter, it gives him a holy man's taste. Right. When you come through God's filter, then your taste is a holy man's taste. It makes a righteous man's taste. The slogan certainly is okay.
Now, we find out how this was done in a type in Israel, for the congregation of Israel only. That's the reason speaking this now; if ministers disagree on anything that's said, this is for my congregation that the Lord's given me to preach to.

43 Notice, In Exodus 19 (I want you to read it when you go home when you have more time), notice, when Israel had committed sin, first they took a red heifer which had never had a yoke on her neck. That means she never was yoked up with anything. And she had to be red. The color red is an atonement color.
Did you know science knows that if you take red and look through red to red, it's white? Look through red at red, it's white. He looks through the red blood of the Lord Jesus and our red sins become as white as snow---red through red. And the heifer was killed in the evening time by the whole congregation of Israel, and there was put seven stripes of her blood upon the door where the whole congregation had to enter: a type of the seven church ages by the blood.

44 And then her body was taken and burnt. It was burnt with the hoof, with the skin, with the intestines, with the dung. Everything was burnt together, and it had to be picked up by a clean man and had to be put in a clean place outside the congregation. Therefore, if Israel could only see the type, this Word of God must not be handled by dirty hands of unbelief. It's got to be a clean man; and if he's clean, he had to come through God's filter. A clean man, clean hands! And it had to be kept in a clean place, not a place where Jezebels and Rickys and everything partaking ... take the communion and things, when they're running around with wives, and husbands, and all kinds of filth, going to dances and parties, and wearing bobbed hair and shorts, and everything else, and call themselves Christians. It's to be kept in a clean place and handled with clean hands.
And then when Israel sinned and recognized that they had done wrong, then they were sprinkled with the ashes of this heifer upon them, and that was a water of separation, a purification for sin.

45 Notice, here it is! And when Israel, before they could come into fellowship in the worship, they had to first pass through the waters of separation---justification by... Faith cometh by hearing; hearing the Word. Then they entered into the congregation under those seven stripes, the blood, to show that something died and went before them for their sin. They were separated by hearing the Word, the waters of separation, then entered into fellowship.
The only place that God met a man was behind that order. He wouldn't meet him anywhere else. He had to come behind that order. God only met Israel in one place. And God only meets you today in one place; that's in Jesus Christ. And He is the Word, the waters of separation. And His blood was shed for all seven church ages, and then by the Holy Spirit we enter into that fellowship, which is only given to the church. Oh, how great He is!

46 Also now, we want to look at Ephesians 5:26. Said it is the washing of the water by the Word, a waters of separation. What does it do? Then the filter of God is the Word. Waters of separation---washing of the waters of separation by the Word, God's filter.
Then you can't come into Christ through a church filter. You cannot come by a denominational filter or a creed filter. There's only one filter that you can enter into that holy place; that's through the washing of the water by the Word. The Word of God is a thinking man's filter.

47 The church will judge you here whether you're a good member or not. They'll give you a good funeral and half-mast the flag at your death, send great wreaths of flowers, and do everything for you; but when it comes down to your soul facing God, it's got to have eternal life! And if it's a eternal life, it's part of the Word. And as my own word cannot deny ... my own hand cannot deny my hand... My own eyes cannot deny my hand, or my foot, or my toe, or any part of me. It cannot deny it, and neither can a man that's part of the Word of God, or a woman, deny one part of the Word of God. Then, women, when you think you can have bobbed hair and come in the presence of God, you're wrong! You see it? You are wrong. You can't come through God's filter where you're washed by the water of the Word. Then you enter into the fellowship. You think you are, but you can't be until you come through the Word. And every little spot, every little word of God... "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word." It's got to come through that filtration---coming through. And that gives a righteous man's taste, because that's what he's looking for, looking for something to cleanse him.

48 The Word, the Word of God is a thinking man's filter, and it makes a righteous man's taste. We know that's true. Filters all the sin of unbelief out. There's no more disbelief when you come through the filter, because it is a true believer's taste.
The true believer wants to be right regardless. He just don't want to say, "Well, I belong in the social ranks. I belong to church, the biggest church in town." I don't care if it's a mission on the corner, if it's a brush harbor somewhere, a thinking man knows that he's got to meet God. And regardless of what the church says or anybody else says, he's got to come on God's terms. And God's terms is God's Word.
"Well," they say, "God's Word!" Sure, all of them believe it's God's Word, but can you filter through it? How you going to let a bobbed-haired woman come through there? How you going to do that? How you going to let a man come through there that wants hold up for this doctrine, see? It ain't a thinking man's taste. No! A thinking man will think ... a thinking man will think twice before he jumps into something like that.

49 Notice, that Word cannot deny itself. Then it is satisfied---or it's the desire. It's a desire of what? What made you desire it in the first place? Because down in your soul there was a predestinated seed which was eternal life, always laying in there---always was in there. "All that the Father has given me will come to me. There isn't any of them going to be lost."
"A thinking man's taste." When a thinking man hears the Word of God, "My sheep hear my voice, a stranger they will not follow,"... For down in there is life, and life connects with life. Sin connects with sin, and sin is so hypocritical until it thinks that it's saved when it isn't saved. It's in the very depths of hypocrisy.
Church members want a denomination filter so that they can have their own desire and still be classed religious people. You hear them say, "Oh, he's very religious."

50 In Africa I was out there one day, and they was talking about these ... some of the kids was talking about these rock'n'roll songs that Elvis Presley and them was singing, Pat Boone, and whatever more, Ricky Nelson, and all them others. I said, "They're a bunch of renegades."
Some little girl said, "Why, he's very religious."
I said, "So was Judas." I said, "Judas only got thirty pieces of silver; Elvis Presley got several million dollars." "They both sold out their birthrights," see. I said, "They're the very worst indebtment the nation's got." [Gap in the audio.] Still just as deceiving as the filter of the cigarette. These denominations let those members come in. They oughtn't to even be... There ought to be a law that they couldn't sing religious songs. It's against ... ought to be against the law for them to do it. But the whole thing's become one great big pile of hypocrisy, and there's where they stay today. The true filter for the soul says, "If you love the world or the things of the world, the love of God's not even in you."

51 See, you can't say rock'n'roll is of the world ... or, is of God. Rock'n'roll is of the world. Any of those dances and filtered ... nasty, filthy things, rather, is of the world. It's all of the world. You can't say that bobbed hair for a woman is of God. The Bible says it's not, so it's the filth of the world. And if you love one speck of the world, the love of God's not even in you.
See what's... Well, what's drawing it? It's something down on the inside drawing. The soul is drawing your resource through the outside down through the spirit into the soul. And if the soul loves the world, it's dead. I don't care how much anointed it is out here, and how righteous it is out here; down in here it's dead. "For he that loves the world or the things of the world, the love of God's not even in him!" no matter how religious.
The true filter that way, will [sift] all those things out and bring nothing but the trueness of God, the Word, into the real true soul.

52 They're like Esau, outwardly okay. Esau was religious on the outside. And when it comes to religion, it seemed to be more religious than Jacob was. He seemed to be a better man than Jacob was, but the inside of him, what he was. He was outwardly religious, but his thinking was not filtered. He didn't think right of the birthright. He didn't think that God ... the birthright meant as much as God said it did. There he was, said, "I'm hungry; what difference it make about the old birthright; you can have it if you want it." Oh my, see, "I go to church; I'm just as good as you are! My denomination is just as... Why, it's one of the greatest in the world. My mother belonged to it; my father belonged to it. All this, that, and the other. My pastor was educated; he's got so-and-so." That puts him that much farther from God. That ain't a thinking man's filter. If it would, how could Peter ever been what he was when he couldn't sign his own name. But he packed the thinking man's filter.
Notice. Oh, my!

53 Esau thought that that birthright didn't mean what God said it did, that it was the difference between life and death. And so like Eve and like Judas, sold their birthrights for a satisfaction of the taste of the knowledge of civilization. That's exactly what Eve sold her birthrights for. She sold it for a little taste of science, a little taste of worldly knowledge, a little better church, a little better class of people, today it would be called, see. And Judas sold his birthright for thirty pieces of silver and make a few extra dollars. "My congregation can pay me better over here, and I'll just preach over here," see. "So if I become a preacher, well..."

54 They said, "Brother Branham, we believe that message is the truth, but we can't accept it. If we did, why, where would we preach at?" The world, brother; that's the parish. Certainly. "Well, none of the brethren would back me up." I ain't looking for none of the brethren to back me up. I'm looking for Jesus Christ to back me up, because He stood by it. He's the one who said it.
And when the true birthright---the blood---filtered out by the Word, and all sin, and the world, and church, and denominations, and sectarianism is left outside... Education, civilization, church, denomination, system, sin of all types is left outside when a thinking man takes a thinking man's filter in God's estimation.
There's nothing left in it when a man draws his life through God's filter. Notice. Here your life was all messed up with sin, because you were borned in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies. I'm going to say something, as Brother McCully used to say. Listen to me.

55 When you come in this world, you were born in sin. You didn't even come with a fighting chance. You were born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, within your own spirit the desire of sin, a lover of sin, because you were born in sin. You didn't have a chance. But down inside of you somewhere (here you come) there was something in there that begin to draw. If you knowed it was something that told you there was a God somewhere, and you read His Word, then you took the church, you took their ideas when you was told better, then you never used a thinking man's filter. But when you use God's filter which is a thinking man's filter, because "all other filters will pass away, but mine shall not!"... And when you take God's filter and draw your life, your desires... If you draw your desires through God's filter, a thinking man's filter, there's nothing left but the Holy Ghost.
Now, if you want the evidence of the Holy Ghost, there it is. When that soul of yours will line with the Word of God in every respect, it shows you've drawed your life through the thinking man's filter: God's filter.

56 Notice, is that God's filter? He said we was washed by the water of the Word. And when God gave Adam and Eve a filter in the Garden of Eden, He said, "Don't you draw none of this in there." But Satan punched a hole in it, said, "Oh, it's... A little bit won't hurt."
Just one drop too, it's all it took to set death into the human race. That's all it takes, just one taste of nicotine, then they're gone.
There's nothing left but the Holy Ghost.
And then, that shows that in you was that predestinated seed down in you that makes you hunger for God. "All the Father has given me, has given me to redeem---they died with me at Calvary; they raised with me in the resurrection---all that He has given me, will come to me. They'll be placed in the body (whether foot, arm, nose, mouth, whatever it is). They'll be placed in there, and they will come to me in their season."
Oh, my!

57 There is that real filtration. Of all the sin of the world and the love of the world is dead, and this soul is drawing only one thing... Here it is, don't remember ... don't forget it! All you out there on the telephones, set this down in your mind. When a thinking man begins to think who he's going to stand before and what the Word of God is, when he begins to think, then when he draws through that, there's nothing can get to it but the Holy Ghost. What is it? It's the germ, seed Word from the beginning, that you was in God at the beginning, standing here drawing the seed life. The seed is in your heart by foreordination! Hallelujah! The seed is already in there by the foreknowledge of God, predestinated. And when it draws, it can't draw through nothing else but the Word! And then it's the taste of the thinking man, the righteous man, the holy man who sees the Bible, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What comes into that place down there, that Word that's in the heart: "I've hid thy word in my heart that I sin not against thee"? What is it when it's drawing through the Word? There's only one thing will pass through the Word; that's the Holy Ghost. That's the only thing that can pass through the Word, is the Holy Ghost. And a thinking man's filter gives a holy man a taste.

58 Then he's tasted of the heavenly things. He's got the Word of God in his heart; he sees it manifested before him. And his whole soul's wrapped into it, and the world and all things is dead around him.
A thinking man's filter of religion... And I'm thinking of filtering religion now. When a thinking man's filter gives a holy man's taste (see), It satisfies his taste. He sees that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There it is. See Him right before us doing the same things He did; it satisfies the holy man's taste, his thinking.
He knows then that he's passed from death unto life. And he loves... And it loves for the world---to be confirmed---and wants the Word to be confirmed and vindicated. In each age he waits for it, for he is a holy man and he's got a desire to see God. Others just wants to join church. This man wants to see God. He don't see Him in a bunch of creeds. He don't see Him in big fine pipe organs, or cathedrals, and high crosses, or polished up scholars with their collars turned around. He doesn't see Him in a theologian; he sees Him in the confirmation of His Word.
I've seen Him in the watch-fires of...
My eyes have seen the Glory of the
coming of the Lord;
He's tramping out the vintage where the
grapes of wrath are stored;
He's loosed the faithful lightning with
His terrible swift sword;
His truth keeps marching on.
(It will to the end! Yes, sir!)

59 See what I mean. A filter man ... or thinking man's filter. A man that wants to stand in the presence of God... What was God's filter? His Word. "The day you eat thereof, that day you die." I don't care what's happening out here; don't you pass that Word. Washed by the waters of the Word---a thinking man's filter. Not a denomination, not a creed, not a church, not a cathedral, but a thinking man's filter! For you're going to be judged by the Word. A thinking man will think that. A foolish man or a taste of the world will just take anything, a substitute. Why substitute when there's a real one?

60 Think. Just think of it a minute. A woman speaking in tongues with bobbed hair and lipstick on, and then the church still holds to it that that's the evidence of the Holy Ghost.
Or a preacher from a seminary or some Bible school using the trinitarian baptism or compromising with the Word to some creed or denomination. Is that a thinking man's filter? Not the way I see it, brother. It's a foolish man drawing through that. Right. Could you imagine that? Instead of using God's Word as a filter for his soul, letting that old creed and denomination pile in on top of him like that, instead of taking God's Word for a filter. And then he's all contaminated and let them induce into him doctrines of men, doing things, almost deceiving the very elected and neglecting the Word, when he could draw to his own soul---if there's anything in there to draw by. But if that predestinated seed (don't miss this) ... if that predestinated seed is not in there, it will not draw through there, because it'll draw for it's desire.

61 If a smoking man wants a smoking man's taste, and if he's got ahold of a stick... I say, "Suck your finger," and he stood there sucking his finger, why he'd say, "That's silly!" Why? His taste is for nicotine. So he's not a thinking man, see.
But you say, "Well, I don't taste nothing; I want to taste the world; I want to taste tobacco; I don't taste a thing." Give him a clothes pin and let him suck on that. Sure, let him suck on that.
He says, "I don't taste nothing." What's you sucking on it for then? You've got a desire to taste nicotine. And when you're sucking on a church creed and still you women wear bobbed hair, painted faces, and is sexy dressed, and you men look at them and all these other things and carry on the way you do, what is it? What's in there? The world's still in there, and you got a taste; you're pulling on it for a taste.

62 "I can go to this church; they don't never name that thing. They don't say nothing about this, nothing about that. None of these things are brought up. Our preacher is more wide-minded than that. We don't say things like that." What is it? You've got the taste of the world you're sucking for. That's right.
But a thinking woman won't take that kind of a thing. She knows she's got to be holy! And the only thing that you can draw through God's Word is the Spirit, the quickening power, to make the Word itself which is in you live to manifest Jesus Christ in the age you're living! Hallelujah! Brother, if that ain't the truth, I don't know what the truth is. I've lost my mind if that isn't the truth.
It is the Word itself in your heart, predestinated there, that's drawing. And it spits out that world; it don't want it. But when it gets over here in the Word, it begins to draw. And when it draws through the Word, it can be nothing else but the Holy Ghost to quicken that Word.

63 Then a thinking, religious man's filter is the Word, and it satisfies that holy taste that's in his heart. "A thinking man's filter, a holy man's taste." Oh, my, what we're into.
Instead of using God's filter for his soul, he's letting Satan deceive him by some denomination or creed, just exactly like the tobacco companies are deceiving you people that smoke cigarettes. You just get more members, and that's all.
Oh, let me close in a few minutes saying this.

64 Blind Laodicea! How blind can we get. Blind Laodicea, leading the blind of this age under false pretense, under false creeds, under dogmas that's false, under denomination that's false, under creed books that's false. Oh, blind Laodicea, leading the blind, you're all headed for the ditch.
Change your filter tonight, preacher. Don't draw that denominational nicotine into your system, of dogmas and creeds, which Jesus said, "Whosoever shall add one word to it or take one word from it..." When you tell your congregation it's right for them women to do that, and those men to do that, and all these things, that, and the other, as long as they stay true to this, and do that, and keep these creeds and things, aren't you ashamed of yourself?
"Blind Pharisees," Jesus said.

65 As Jesus cried, "Blind Pharisees,"
the Holy Spirit in my own heart tonight cries, "Blind Laodicea, how oft God would've give you a revival, but now your time has come. It's too late now. How did you laugh and make fun of the people that God sent to you? But now your time has come. Oh, United States, United States, how that "God would've hovered you as a hen does its brood, but you would not." Now, this voice is going from coast to coast, from north to south, and east to west. How God would've hovered you, but you would not. Now your time has come.
Nations are breaking; the world is falling apart. Fifteen hundred mile chunk of it, three or four hundred miles wide, will sink hundred ... or maybe forty miles down into that great fault out yonder one of these days, and waves will shoot plumb out to the state of Kentucky. And when it does, it'll shake the world so hard that everything on top of it will shake down.
Oh, hide me in the rock of ages. God, let me... Breathe upon me, Lord. Spirit of the living God, breathe on me. Let me take God's filter and live under that, Lord. Let me breathe the fresh air of the Holy Ghost into my lungs, in my soul each day, that I sin not against You, O Lord. Breathe on me, Holy Spirit, breathe on me.

66 Let me plant the Word of God in my heart and purpose there that I'll not turn to the right hand or to the left hand away from it, but I'll live true to it all the days of my life. O Father God, then send down upon me the Holy Spirit of life to quicken those Words to me that I might manifest Jesus Christ before those who are before me to ... looking for it to happen. That's my prayer.
Oh, my! Notice how they do today in those churches: sucking the people through those denominational filters into the ecumenical council. Why? Why? For it gives them the desire of their heart, organization. They have a taste for organization. They'll do it.
Every time God sent them a revival, what did they do? They organized it. Is that right? So they got their kind of filter, because they've got a great taste. And now God's going to give them their desire of their taste. He's going to give them... They're sucking them right into the ecumenical council, and then they get the organizational taste then. They got it coming.

67 Oh church of Laodicea, don't be deceived in this age by their deceptions. O Pentecost, you who've gone into Laodicea, you who are a part of Laodicea, the church dead, through Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian, just a ritualistic form... But you Pentecostals who could still once in a while say, "Amen!", who can pull a lot of music up on a platform and have bobbed-haired women dancing all over the place, and still do believe in divine healing, how oft God would've took you, but you took another filter, a denominational filter. How oft God would have took you.
How deceiving it was! Matthew 24:24, Jesus said that it would deceive the very elected if it was possible. How close that you are; just like Eve just leaving off one or two little things that she wouldn't receive because you're organized and can't receive it. That's all it takes. You just might as well take the whole thing, for to offend in the least, is guilty of the whole. Oh!

68 Pentecost, Pentecost, pass thy thinking through God's filter, not your denominational dreams, and you will come out with a holy man's taste, the true baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Could you imagine a man letting his wife cut her hair, wear shorts, or wear slacks, and say he's coming through a thinking man's filter! Could you imagine a man doing a thing like that!
Can you imagine a preacher standing in the pulpit, because he's paid good by a congregation that pats him on the back, calls him "Doctor, Brother, Reverend," and takes him out to all kinds of parties where there's mixed bathing and everything else on the beaches, could you imagine a man claiming that he's coming through a thinking man's filter!
And some of those women on the platform with their dresses above their knees and cut so tight, and shows every form, every move they make, and their underneath clothes showing through their dresses, just as bad as wearing shorts, bikinis, or anything else. You Pentecostal, blind, Laodicean preachers, how long will God suffer you, I don't know. May God be merciful to your blind eyes. He's got eyesalve tonight to open your eyes that you might see.

69 As I said this morning, we're in the seeing age, the top. There's no more faculties above that that you can move outwardly to know. From your nose you can smell, from your lips you can speak, from your hands you can feel and reach, and your feet and so forth, but you can't go farther than your eyes.
Malachi 4 has come. That's right. It shall be light about the evening time. Oh, walk in the light!
We'll walk in the light, a beautiful light,
That comes where the dew drops of mercy
are bright;
Shine all around me by day and by night,
Jesus (the Word), the light of the world.
(Yes, sir!)
Pass through it, oh, brother, and you will come out with a holy man's taste with the Holy Ghost.

70 Oh woman, just pass your modern thinking of dress, pass your modern thinking... Before you go out on the street before men... You young women, you old women, before you go out on the street with your clothes so tight, pushed out in the back and front... I'm not critical; I'm your brother. I stand between the living and the dead and realize what I'm saying. Before you enter out ... and know that your body is a sacred order, a sacred caste that God has given you... Before you enter the street dressed like that, pass your mind through a thinking woman's filter. And remember that whosoever looks upon you to lust after you, you have committed adultery with him already. Remember that, sister.
And brother, before you turn your head to look at her on that second glance, pass your mind through a thinking man's filter; you'll come out with a holy man's taste (see), of doing what's right.

71 Notice, if you pass your mind through a thinking woman's filter, you'll come out with a holy woman's dress. That's right. You'll come out, brother, with a holy man's look. Now, that's just one thing. Everything that you do, pass it through the filter of God's Word, see if it's right or wrong.
You'll come out with a holy woman's dress, with long hair, decently dressed, a quiet, humble spirit---not up and brawling, fighting and carrying on---a quiet, meek spirit, which is a great treasure from God. The Bible said so.
Now, I want to ask you something out in the lands... We're going to close in a few minutes.

72 Now, let us all tonight check our desires, and then you can see what kind of a filter you've been drawing through. Let's check, each one of us, here and out across the nation. Check your desires, what you want really in life. Check what you're fighting for. Check what you're here for. Check what you go to church for. What makes you... It's good to go to church, but just don't go to church only; that won't save you, see. Just check just a few minutes. Say, "Is my objective...? What kind of a filter am I drawing through anyhow?" And if you won't cope with the Word of God, and your soul don't do it, then there's something wrong, for it shows up your taste, that the life ... what kind of a life is in you. If it's a holy, discreet, honorable, it'll come out that way. If it isn't, you've got another taste in you you're drawing from. That's exactly right. And if the taste is the Word of God and the will of God, then you know what's in you, what's drawing the taste. Shows you are a part of that Word. That Word is in you drawing from the Word.

73 What's it drawing? It's drawing through the Word, because you are a part of the body of Christ of this age. And if that Word is in you, it can only draw through the Word the Spirit that quickens that Word that's in you. Just the Word alone won't live. That's the reason, "All the Father has given me will come to me, and if I be lifted up I'll draw all men unto me," see, see. The Father...
The part of the body of Christ that's in the world, predestinated, put into the heart... Any man that's a real Christian, born again today, knows since he was a little kid or a little girl, either, that there was something in you that hungered for God. And you tried joining churches and everything else; it wouldn't work. What was it? It was that Word. You was hunting for a filter, and one day it flashed before you; you seen Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. That satisfied the taste, see. Because life was in you drawing. See, the life in you is drawing; it's set ... it tells what desire you got here. You're pulling... You can't pull through this, and that, and the other; you've got to find that right filter, because you're a thinking person, see.
If you're a thinking person, you are predestinated, or filtered from before the foundation of the world.

74 And if a denominational minister hears this, I hope that he takes the thinking man's filter, if he's a denomination minister. Then he will throw down that denominational pack that's sure to perish, because it's the word of man, and accept God's filtered Word that can never fail nor pass away, and it will suit the holy man's taste. And like Jacob, will sacrifice all the world and the appetites of every denomination or fame that there is in the world, where you can be bishop, cardinal, whether you can be a state presbyter, or a pastor of some great church; you'll sacrifice everything that there is. Not like Esau to become part of the world, but like Jacob, you'll give everything you've got to obtain the birthright, the filter of the thinking man; 'cause it'll give you the holy man's taste. And it will satisfy... And it'll be satisfying and will sanctify with the eternal taste of the holy goodness of God.

75 Remember, Satan punched the first hole through Eve's mind ... or her thinking, to let the taste of his wisdom and knowledge get through.
Now, think of this; I'm closing. Satan punched the first hole through, because all she could draw was the Word. That was the Spirit through the Word of God, because she said, "As long as you breathe through this filter, you'll never die; but you take a breath of this out here, you'll die." see.
And Satan said, "But you don't know nothing here, but you take a little taste of this here and then you'll know; you'll be like God. See, he knows right and wrong; you don't. And if you'll just take a little taste of this..." And she let him punch a hole in it. Just one little hole.
Now, you see why I say...? You say, "Why don't you teach women and so forth how to receive gifts," and things like that?
I said, "How can you teach them algebra when they won't even learn their ABC's?" One little hole is all it took. He took the world's wisdom; and when it did, it set death to the whole family, wanting to taste of wisdom.

76 Now, look at the filter, and certainly it expressed her taste. Her taste was for the world; that's what she's got. That's what it is today: they love the world and the things of the world with a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, see. Satan will let them speak in tongues; he will let them shout; he will let them have divine healing services; he will let them do all these kind of things.
He say, "Many will come to me in that day, and, 'Lord, have not I cast out devils, have not I done many things, done this?'" He will say, "I didn't even know you, you worker of iniquity." When the Word was placed right before you and you still sucked that old filter of the world (see), shows the taste that was in the heart.

77 Doves cannot eat carrion. They cannot eat it. They don't have any gall. A crow can eat the seed like a dove and can eat carrion like a crow (see), because he's a hypocrite. But a dove is not built like any other bird, and that's why God represented Himself as a dove descending from heaven, see. It cannot ... it cannot stand the stink of carrion. It's not a vulture. The reason: it don't have any gall. It couldn't digest it. It would kill it, if it eat it. And a dove never has to take a bath. A dove's body puts out oil from the inside that keeps it clean. It's a life that's in the dove; it generates in it a oil that keeps the feathers clean. And so is a Christian; there's a life within them that keeps them clean. It's filtered.
Oh, notice! Now, look at the filter and certainly you can see the taste thereof of what they're doing today.

78 Look at this modern church. Look at their filter. You can see what they love, see what they got. The love... What do they love? Miss Laodicea, which is headed for God's judgment... That's right. the love ... the church love today is for Laodicea, a great organization, a great setup, a great, popular thing, fine dressed people, highly cultured, full of wisdom, full of the devil, under the deceit of the church of Christ. There's only one word ought to be in there: "antichrist"; for everything that Christ taught, they're against practically everything. Right. Just enough so they can call themselves that.
Now, if you are a thinking people tonight, here and out in the land where the message is going, your desire will be a Bible taste, not a denominational taste, for you will be judged by the very Bible, the Word that I'm asking you to filter your soul through. And to reject one word of it and not let your soul pass through that one word, you'll be turned down; for man shall not live, breathe, by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
And it will be brought into you predestinated, and when the Lord breathes upon you, His Spirit will quicken that Word to a reality, and you'll see that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Oh, my!

79 Leave the world's denomination, religious pack. Let it lay like that cigarette pack in the woods. Let it rot and decay (it's a wrong filter), and take the Word which is Christ that gives, and reaches, and preserves the taste of eternal life to everyone that will take it. Eternal life...
The Word, if you are predestinated, you see it. There's no way to hide it from you. You look there and say, "Why, it's just so plain before my face. I'd look at it; there it is. I'm looking right at it. I see it. Here it is, the Word, every word, just word by word, living out." Then there's a taste of eternal life that you want. And when you breathe through that... What can come through that, God's filter? Nothing but the Spirit, no world at all, no unbelief at all. It's God's filter. And when you breathe through that, nothing can get through that but the Holy Ghost.

80 Now, you got the evidence of the Holy Ghost, see. A holy man or woman's taste. They want to live; they got eternal life. And because this Word's quickened to them, they live. A thinking man's filter and a holy man's taste.
Don't take the world like them cigarette companies under a deception, but take the real thinking man's filter. Filter the breath that you breathe, the food that you eat. Everything that you are, breathe it through God's Word, and you'll have a holy man's taste; for it will produce that, for He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And I know, whether we are or whether we are not---I believe that we are... But if we are not, there's somebody in the world today that's part of the body of Christ; and it will live only by the Word of God, every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God for this age that we're living in now.

81 And I can't see where denomination---with those words so plainly in the Bible said it would happen and the things that would be, and here we are living right in it now---I can't see where it could be anything else but this.
Church, I realize I've got to stand with you in the judgment someday. Far be it from me to ever tell you anything wrong for popularity. I don't want that. If I had my desire, I'd ... just my human desire, I'd take my rifle and go to the woods, and build me a cabin, and trap the rest of my life. I'm getting old, tired, weary, and broke down. But I can't quit. There's something in me grinding. Woe unto me if I don't tell the truth and the whole truth. Woe unto me if I don't stand here till the last breath of the body is left me. I must stand, regardless of what anyone else says; I'm responsible before God.

82 And I truly believe that the things that we're preaching is the truth. Not because it's me preaching it. No, my brother. No, sir. God knows my heart. I would like to sit out in the congregation and listen to the anointed preach. How much easier it would be on me. Certainly! Because I'd have eternal life as same as the man in the pulpit. I'm a part of it the same as he is. I'd go to the same heaven, have the same privileges. How easy it would be for me to sit out there and not take all these bruises, and beats, and carry on. How easy it would be. For out here all night with no sleep, an hour and a half or two hours wrestling all night with things that's come up. How easy for me to do that, take up my gun the next morning, my fishing rod and go fishing or hunting. How easy it would be! But brother, it fell my lot. May God help me to never shun my post of duty, but to stand loyal and true and produce to you a thinking man's filter that'll give you a holy man's taste.
The thinking man's filter is the waters of ... the waters of separation. It's a purification from sin, which is the Word of God. And the thinking man, the man that knows he's got to stand before God, knows he's got to answer for every word of the Bible; it'll satisfy that taste that's in your heart. May God help us to receive it as we bow our heads.

83 Dear God, another hour or two has passed on. The clock has moved around now. The message now goes into history, and it's recorded on the book. We all have to answer now for this, every move that we made, every word that we said, every thought went through our mind; the record is still playing. And it'll play on till life is over, and then we'll answer at the day of the judgment.
O God, the great Creator of heavens and earth, whom we do believe, I pray for this people of this day. I pray for myself with them, that, Lord Jesus, that You'll hold Your filter. And if I'm saying anything sacrilegious, Lord, in my heart I don't know it. I pray that if it's wrong for me to take Your Word and use such a thing as that, You forgive me for it.

84 But Lord, I thought when You spoke to me there in the woods---You know the time and the morning---it just ... I couldn't get it off my mind. I accepted it as coming from You. So Father God, I have already spoke it, and I pray, God, that You'll let it be in the way that I thought it to be, that the thinking man, the man if he's got any thinking at all, he will know he has to stand in the presence of God, and he won't take into his soul anything that contaminates or is contrary to the Word of God.
And Father, we realize that as I compared it with these organizations of today, not to be different, Lord... You'll judge me someday from my heart. And I pray, God, that You'll see that it wasn't to be different, but it was to be honest, to try to be sincere, realizing that I hold the purchase of Your blood from coast to coast right now in my hand. And many of them has believed the report.
And God of heaven, may there not be one of them lost. I claim them every one and hold before them the filter from sin, the waters of separation, the blood of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Grant it, Lord, and may the Holy Spirit pour through every promise into our souls, and may we be living representatives of the bride of Jesus Christ in the time of the eyes, of the seeing in the evening light, for we present it to You in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

85 You love Him? Do you believe it? If I said anything wrong by saying thinking man's filter, I can't say no more. I have no education; I just have to say what comes to me. And when I seen that laying there, I thought, "What a line of hypocrisy!" And something said, "Just like the church."
A thinking man's filter. Oh, my! There's more than that to it. A thinking man wouldn't use it at all. Certainly not! And it desires a smoking man's taste (that's right), because he's got to have it to satisfy his taste. But a real thinking man that knows his soul's going to judgment will filter his taste through the Word of God, "For all the Father has give me will come to me." And he will live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, which is the waters of separation, that separates us from sin. For when it comes through the Word, we see that it's sin to disbelieve it, so we just believe it and go on. It's a separation from sin. Do you love Him?
I love Him, I..... (Let's just
raise our hands now to Him.)
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.

86 What did He say? "This will all men know you are my disciples, when you love ... have love one for the other." Now, let's shake somebody's hand while we sing it again and say, "I love you too, brother."
I love Him, I (This is to let you know that...)
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.

87 How do you like a thinking man's filter? When you go on the street to rub arms with the world tomorrow, brother, sister, have you got the thinking man's filter? When that man calls you a holy roller, do you use a thinking man's filter? When that somebody says something evil against you, do you have a thinking man's filter? See, do good for evil. Pray for those that despitefully use you and those who persecute you, then you're breathing through the thinking man's filter.

88 For if you love those just who love you, as we shook one another's hands and dearly beloved in the Lord, that's good, but can you also love the unlovable; that's the thinking man's filter; that's the Spirit of Christ in you: loving those who don't love you; then you have the reward of God. But now, if you do it as a duty, you still haven't got the thinking man ... you're only up in the second cycle. But if from your heart you really love him, then you're breathing through the thinking man's filter, and it satisfies a holy man's taste, that you know from your heart you forgive everybody, everything, no matter what taken place. Isn't He wonderful?
......first loved me
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
We'll walk in the light; it's a beautiful light;
It comes where the dew drops of mercy
are bright;
Shine all around us by day and by night,
Jesus, the light of the world.
We'll walk in this light; it's such a beautiful light;
And it comes where (Filtered!) dew drops of
mercy are bright.
Oh, shine all around us by day and by night,
Jesus, the light of the world.
Come all ye saints of light proclaim,
Jesus, the light of the world;
Then the bells of heaven will ring;
Jesus, the light of the world.
Oh, we'll walk in the light;
It's such a beautiful light;
It comes where the dew drops of mercy
are bright;
Oh, shine all around us by day and by night,
Jesus, the light of the world.
You love that?
Oh, we'll walk in this light; it's such a beautiful
light;
And it comes where the dew drops of mercy are
bright;
Shine all around us by day and by night,
It's Jesus, the light of the world.
I just love that.
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary, O Saviour divine!
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my sin.........
(Filter me, Lord, through the Word!)
O let me from this day
Be wholly Thine!
Just think of it! Filtered through the Word, wholly Thine.
While life's dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread,
Be Thou my guide;
Bid darkness turn to day,
Wipe sorrow's fears away,
Nor let me ever stray
From Thee aside.
[Brother Branham begins humming.]
....to my fainting heart,
My zeal inspire;
O bid darkness turn to day,
And wipe sorrow's tears away,
O let me from this day
Be wholly Thine!

89 Dear God, we love to sing to You, for it's there we express our feelings, our emotion, the whole congregation, as You breathe upon us the Word of life. We're so grateful, Lord. In that song, receive us, will You, Lord. That's our desire, is to be filtered through the Word of God, walk each day in the light, the light of the Gospel.
And fill our way each day with love,
As we walk with the heavenly dove.
Let us go all the while,
With a song and a smile;
Fill our way each day with love.
Grant it, Lord. Bless us together now. Let Thy grace and mercy be with us. Heal the sick and the afflicted throughout the land.
We thank You for Brother Coggins tonight, that You let him leave the hospital to go home well. Thank You for all the things that You've done, and for our own strength that we feel lifted up now.

90 We thank You for the little cut-up message tonight, Lord. I didn't do it right, but I pray, Lord, that You'll make it right in the people's sight, that they might see and know what it was meant for. Get glory out of it, Lord, and may we have this understanding, if nothing else, that we are to live by the bread of the Word of God, filtered from God just for His children only. It's a separated congregation. It's for no one else. It's only for those, Your chosen, as the red heifer's ... waters of separation was for the congregation of Israel only. So Father, we know that the bread is for the sheep only. "It's not meet that I take the children's bread and cast it to dogs," said Jesus. And the woman in return said, "Yes, Lord, that's true, but I'm willing to take the crumbs." And we feel that way tonight, Lord. We want all that You can give us, Father, for we're hungering and thirsting for more of You.
Grant that our hungers will be fulfilled and our desires be made known, for, Father, we want to have a righteous man's desire. And the righteous man was Jesus Christ, and His desire was to do the will of the Father, which was the Word. Grant it to us, Father. We ask it in His name. Amen.
Let us stand now while we sing our dismissing song of "Take the Name of Jesus With You."

91 Out across the places now in where the message has gone tonight, may God be with you now as we dismiss in prayer. May each one of you out there... I hope you've enjoyed as much listening as I have bringing it to you. And I trust that God will place it in your hearts and give you the right interpretation to it.
You people here in the audience that's got these handkerchiefs laying here, I've laid hands upon them. I pray that God will heal every one of you; there won't be any sick people among us, to see how our God answers prayer.
When we gather together, "The people that's called by my name shall assemble themselves together and pray, then I'll hear from heaven!"... He promised to do it.

92 So we are not divided; we're just one person. We're all one in Christ Jesus. And each one, pray for each one. You pray for me as I pray for you. And God bless you till we see you again.
And I trust that you'll be a constant ... you who live here close, will come to the tabernacle and visit here with our good pastor, Brother Neville. He will do you good, Brother Mann and the fine people they have here in the tabernacle.
If you're close to Brother Junior Jackson or some of the rest of them throughout the land, New York and different places where they got their meetings, around through Arizona and California, visit those churches if you're out in there. We pray that you'll return again and let the pastor help you to know more about the Lord Jesus.

93 God bless you now while we sing "Take the Name of Jesus With You."
...the name of Jesus with you.
Child of sorrow and of woe;
It will joy and comfort give you,
(Brother John, come forward.)
...............you go.
Precious name, (Precious name,)
O how sweet! (O how sweet!)
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

94 Looking over the congregation tonight seeing Brother Estle Beeler back there, Brother Palmer, and many, Brother J. T., and so many of the ministers standing around here, I can't call all their names. Wished I could have you every one up here and all of you dismiss the congregation or do something. You understand, don't you? I know you got a Christian heart and know that we have to ... how we are. We're all together one person in Christ Jesus.
Now, let's remember this next verse as we sing it while our Brother Martin here will dismiss us in prayer. And I want to... This is Brother Earl Martin from, I believe, from Arkansas, or Missouri---Missouri---right on the Arkansas-Missouri line there. They got a church down there.
I noticed this other brother from down there, I can't think of his name---Brewer. He was here this morning. I guess he's still here tonight. I see him standing over here, Brother Brewer. I promised to come by and dedicate their churches so many times. I'll get there some day by the help of the Lord, as I can.
Now, while we sing this next verse, now.
At the name of Jesus bowing,
Falling prostrate at His feet,
King of kings in heaven we'll crown Him,
When our journey is complete.
Let's sing it now.
At the name of Jesus bowing,
Falling prostrate at His feet,
King of kings in heaven we'll crown Him,
When our journey is complete.
Precious name, (Precious name,)
O how sweet! (O how sweet!)
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Oh, take the name of Jesus with you,
As a shield from every snare; (Listen now!)
When temptations 'round you gather,
(What must you do?)
Just breathe that holy name in prayer.
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Let us bow our heads.
O precious name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious name, (Baptized in it, pray in it!)
O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Brother Martin!