La semenza del serpente
1-1 Dear God, the great and mighty God,
Who formed all things by the power of His Spirit, and has brought Jesus
Christ, His only begotten Son, Who freely died for we sinners, the Just
for the unjust, to reconcile us back into this marvelous fellowship that
we have again with God. As we are taught in the blessed Word, that we
had fellowship with Him before the foundation of the world, when the
morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy, way
back before the foundation of the world. How do we know that that wasn't
at the same time that the Lamb was slain; that when God in His great
thinking seen us shouting and rejoicing in our salvation through Jesus?
And tonight we're only got a foretaste of that great glory Divine which
shall be revealed at His second coming. All sickness and sorrow will be
done away with, then we'll have a body like His Own glorious body, for
we shall see Him as He is. Here as we look at our hands a withering, our
hair's turning gray, and shoulders stooping; we're aware that we are
mortals and headed towards the dust from which our heads are bowed now,
and where we come from. But, Lord God, just as sure as You are God, You
made a promise that we'd be raised up again in the last days, and we
believe it.
1-3 Solemnly we stand with our faith
tonight in Thy Presence, coming with boldness because that Jesus bid us
to do it. Not upon any good thing that we have done, for we've done
nothing right; but we come humbly, professing that we own this treasure
because of His grace that's been 'lotted to us. Therefore, we come
asking that You'll bless us tonight in the bringing forth of the Word.
For it is written that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
And let the mouth of God be spoken tonight. Let the words come forth,
and may It go deep into the hearts of we, the listeners, and be filled
with Thy Spirit and Thy Presence. For we ask it in Jesus' Name. Amen.
1-5 To--today and yesterday--last night, rather, and today we have been speaking on the subject, first to head it up, "Why We Are Not a Denomination," and we have made it rather strong why we're not a denomination, and why we do not believe in denominations, because we find it in the Bible that denominations was never ordained of God. It was ordained of the devil. And proved it by the Bible. And how that through denominations brings forth error. Now, we're saying this to correct and to bring this tabernacle into a fellowship around the blessed Word of God. That our hopes was not built in what denominations says, or what any man says, it's built upon what the Lord God has said. That's the only way we can ever be corrected right.
2-1 And this morning I had five (I believe) different articles that's come out through denomination that's absolutely not spoke of in the Bible, that the Protestant churches are bowing down to and teaching for doctrine the same thing that the old mother prostitute Catholic church preaches. And come out into the Protestant church, and we bow to the same thing, which is contrary to anywhere in God's Word.
2-2 The first denominational church... We looked it up this afternoon in the "Nicene Fathers," history of the Nicene church. After the death of the apostles, there what come the Nicene fathers, and they went on for several years (three hundred and twenty-five years) finally came to--to Nicaea, France, where they had the--the great Nicene council. And in there they formed these dogmas that the Catholic church has now, and also that's handed down to the Protestants.
2-3 And as I said it in--in the teaching this morning, each one of those church ages on up to that--to that Thessalonica church age, the fifteen hundred years of dark ages, there was not one time but what He said, "You still have My name." And on this other side, they wasn't in Christ anymore that come out in a denominational name: Catholic, Luther, Wesley, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, on down. But just before the closing of the age He said, "I've set before you an open door." See? And that's the age that we believe we are in right now, the open door age, between the last going out of the Laodicean church.
2-4 And it's exactly three hundred and twenty-five years to the Laodicean council. And in there they adopted these forms such as sprinkling, pouring, and false baptisms, false holy spirits, all these other things. They adopted it. And then when Luther, being a priest, and come out of the Catholic church, brought these things with it. And out of there, come Zwingli. Out of Zwingli, come Calvin. Out of Calvin, come Wesley, out, oh, on down. And they just kept bringing these dogmas down. And how can God lead His church, when they're following roads that He never even brought out for them to be led on?
3-1 And remember, in Revelations 17 we
found a woman... (Now, these words are plain. They're written in the
Bible, so I guess I can say them.) It said this woman was a whore. That
means that she was a ill-famed woman, that she's supposed to be married
to a husband and committed fornications with the world. And she had a...
She was a mother of harlots. Therefore she had daughters. (And we have
geographically drawed that.) Being in--at there myself, seeing it in the
Scripture, seeing her doctrines, and everything, I believe the Lord has
perfectly laid it on the line that that can't be nothing else but the
Catholic church. It's the only way it can be. And what did she give
birth to? The Protestant churches. Exactly she did.
And she had in her hand a cup of the wine of her fornications, and she
was giving it to the kings of the earth, and she was the ruler over all
the earth, spiritually speaking. That's exactly right. There's not
another...
3-3 Look at... we could go back to Daniel and get the image. Look at the image: the head of gold, the Babylonian kingdom; brass, or silver, Medes-o-Persia; brass, Alexander the Great, and so forth (the Grecian kingdom); then the Roman empires, eastern and western Rome, the two feet. And notice in these ten kingdoms, which exactly comes with those ten horns that we was speaking of this morning. In each one of those ten kingdoms that was to rise, there was iron and clay mixed together. And that iron come from the legs which was Rome, and there's a streak of Romanism mixed in every nation there is under heaven through the Catholic church. That's exactly right. And they would not mix anywhere, and they'd intermarry among one another. The Bible said they would, and look at them today.
3-4 Your boy goes with a Catholic girl.
When they go to get married, they have to promise to raise the children
Catholic (See?), vice versa. See, it's to break the power of the other.
But what is it? The Bible claims the whole thing's a prostitute. Now,
what are you going to do? That's right. And how the sins of the people
would be visited...
We went back in Deuteronomy and showed that a illegitimate child,
bastard child, could not even enter the congregation of the Lord for
fourteen generations. That was under the law, and Christ come to magnify
the law. How much more is it now?
3-6 And what's happening to these... What's the matter with these little flappers on the street today, these little cigarette-sucking women, and short wearing, bobbed-haired flappers, and so forth? What's the matter with them? It's 'cause their mammy acted like that. It's visit the iniquity from one generation to the other. That's what it is. And what have we got? We've got to a place it's a conglomeration of nothing but messy sin.
4-1 That's the reason God has raised up Russia yonder with an atomic bomb to wipe her off like the antediluvian flood was, when He raised the clouds. Sure He has, and the Bible says so. Russia, the atheiotic country that they are (atheistic), has absolutely playing just exactly in the hands of Almighty God. Just as King Nebuchadnezzar was to destroy Israel because they failed to walk with God, Russia's raising right up to avenge the saints of the Catholic church of the blood that she's shed of the saints. The Bible said so. It's going to take the whole thing.
4-2 So look here, if their mother was a chorus girl, and... Their grandmother, and her mother was a flapper, what's she today? A rock-and-roll striptease. What's her children going to be? And you say, "Does God do that?" Yes, sir. God visits the iniquity of the children, the generation, even to fourteen generations. And if Christ come to magnify it, we'd say a hundred generations or five-hundred generations. Why, He said, "Them of old... You've heard them say, them of old times, 'Thou shalt not kill. I say you, who's ever angry with his brother without a cause has killed already.' You've heard them said, them of old times, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' But I say that who looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already." He made it. What is magnify? Make it many times bigger. And if under the law it was fourteen generations, how long will it take the same thing today?
4-3 And young man and middle-age man,
and married man have no more respect for their marriage vows. Why, they
just take women and live with them anywhere, and just like common dogs. A
dog's got better respects and better morals than some people have. I
know that's awful strong, but that's right. Why?
And the churches go right along, and say nothing about it. Why? They're
acting just like their mammy does. The church has inherited it. 'Cause
the church... And this Protestant church come out of the Catholic
church, the sins of the Catholic church is visited upon the Protestants.
Certainly it is. So pot can't call kettle dirty. That's exactly true.
4-5 Now, we find out and in the Scripture... We found out... And I never seen a note on the table here tonight. I said show me one place where God ever ordained a denomination. Show me one place where God ever ordained a woman preacher. Show me one place where God ever ordained sprinkling. Show me one place where God ever ordained pouring. Show me one place where God ever had anybody baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Find those things. And yet we constantly do them. It's just right down in the church.
5-1 Now, I said to you, the way--the
reason we couldn't be Baptists, because we believe in being baptized in
the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no one ever in the Bible
baptized any other way. You show me one place where one person was
baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, I'll raise my hands
and say I'm a false prophet.
And if the Bible says you must be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ,
that means you must do it that way. Paul commanded them to be baptized
over. No matter how they'd been baptized, they had to come and be
baptized again. They was baptized by the same man that baptized Jesus
Christ: John the Baptist. He said, "That won't work no more; you got to
come be baptized again." And they had to do it before they received the
Holy Ghost. It was God's program.
I might go just a little deeper than that tonight. Why? Jesus keeps His
Word. Do you believe that? Now, pretty near all of you was here this
morning, but I want to lay a little more on that.
5-4 Why would Paul commiss--command that after it'd been done? Paul said, "Even if a angel from heaven come and preached anything else, let him be accursed." Now, you say, "We got new light on it." No, you haven't. That's what the devil come to Eve with: some new light. Don't need no new light. You need to walk in the light that God's already put here; that's all.
5-5 Now, watch this. Just how simple.
When they come down from Mount Transfiguration, Jesus said to His
disciples, "Who does man say I, the Son of man, am?"
One said, "You're Moses, or Elias, one of the prophets."
He said, "Who do you say?"
He said... Peter said, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God."
He said, "Blessed art thou Simon, the son of Jonas, for flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you." See, it doesn't come through seminaries.
It doesn't come through denominations. "Flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you. You never learned it through any school of theology. But
My Father which is in heaven has revealed this to you. And upon this
rock I'll build My church, and the gates of hell can't prevail against
it": a spiritual revelation of Who He is.
Notice, "And I say that thou art Peter, and I'll give unto thee the keys
to the Kingdom. And whatever you bind on earth, I'll bind it in heaven;
whatever you loose on earth, I'll loose it in heaven." Now, He had to
keep His Word or He wasn't God.
6-2 Now, and when He did that, a few
days later He was crucified, rose, ascended up into heaven, and Peter
opened the Gospel on the day of Pentecost. Did he do it? Certainly, he
did.
Now, watch. When he was... They was all mocking at them, because they
were filled with the Spirit. They were called heretics, holy-rollers, or
some kind of a name like that. And they even laughed and said, "These
are full of new wine."
And Peter standing up in the midst of them, lifted up his voice and he
said, "Men and brethren, hear my voice. Hear my words and hearken unto
me. These are not drunk like you suppose they are. This is just the
third hour of the day, but this is that which is spoken of by the
prophet of Joel. 'And it shall come to pass in the last days that I'll
pour out of my spirit...'" and what He would do upon His sons, and His
daughters, His handsmaids, and so forth in the day.
6-3 And when they begin to hear this,
they were cut at their heart; for they heard a man that didn't know his
abc's, yet they had to take notice to him, knowed he had something
inside of him burning him up: the Holy Spirit. Stop him? Why, it'd be
like trying to put a fire out on a dry building on a windy day. You
couldn't do it. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. And what did he do
now?
They said, "Men and brethren, what can we do to be saved?" Now, watch out Peter. You have the keys to the Kingdom. See?
Now, when Jesus rose on the third day, He did not have the keys to the
Kingdom of heaven. Did you know that? He said, "I got the keys to death
and hell," but not to the Kingdom, because they had been given to Peter.
6-6 Now, He said, "Peter, whatever you
loose on earth, I'll loose it in heaven. What you bind on earth, I'll
bind it in heaven." Now, here he stands with the keys to open up this
blessed thing to the world. And here he's got the keys in his hand, and
they're asking, "What can we do to be saved?" Now, no matter what the
apostle said to do, God has to recognize it in heaven if He give him
that authority.
Now, Peter said, "Repent, everyone of you, and be baptized in the Name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost." Is that right? And that's the reason the
keys turned in heaven to any other name, any other way, any other--any
other form... It turned on earth, and it turned in heaven; or Jesus
didn't keep His Word to Peter. And every place in the Bible they was
baptized after that, they were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. And
those who were baptized before that had to come and be baptized over
again in the Name of Jesus Christ to get the Holy Ghost. That's the
correct. It still runs the same.
7-1 So if we are teaching baptism in the
name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it's false prophecy. Now, I don't
want to hurt you, but I got to pin this down so this church will know
what... We're not here as a bunch of illiterate crack pots; we know
where we are standing in the Word of God. See, we know... I challenge
anybody to show me one place where anybody was ever baptized in the name
of Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
Now, are you going to listen to false prophecy or the truth? Search the
Scriptures. It's up to you. Show me where one person in the Bible, where
a church was ever ordained a denomination in the--in the Bible. Show me
in the Bible where they ever ordained a woman preacher. Show me in the
Bible where all these things that we been talking about ever was
ordained in the Bible. They're not there. Tell me one place.
7-3 You go to a denomination... Well,
when the Methodists raised up, they preached sanctification. That's
good. But when they did that, they made a denomination, and that settled
it. That's the reason the Bible said, "You've got a name."
You say, "I'm a Christian."
"Well, what denomination do you belong to?"
You say, "A Methodist." Why, you're a prostitute then.
"I'm a Baptist.": prostitute. "Pentecostal..." You're a prostitute. You
belong to that church. You should belong to Christ. Got no business
saying "Methodist," "Baptist." If you're a Christian, you're a Christian
at heart.
7-5 Every one of those denominations can
produce children, children of God. That's right. But when you think
you're going to heaven just 'cause you're a Methodist or Baptist, you're
wrong. And that's the reason we stay out of that thing. Why can't the
Baptists see? I asked a Methodist man here writing a thesis just not
long ago. He said, "The only thing we got against you, you hang around
the Pentecostals."
I said, "Who is we?"
"We Methodists."
I said, "Well, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll come to your city and you let the Methodists sponsor it."
"Oh," he said, "of course we couldn't do that."
I said, "Now, that's what I thought. I stay with the Pentecostal because
the Pentecostal believes it. That's right. They rally around it.
They're the ones drawing the benefits of it." How many read that article
in "Life" Magazine just recently about the Pentecostal church? That's
one of the greatest phenomenas in this age. They got more converts in
one year than all the rest of the churches put together. Why? Even in
their error, God's a moving them on because they believe the truth and
are marching on with it. That's the truth.
8-2 But what are we doing now? See? That's the reason we not denomination. And just as sure as Pentecostal denominate and... Way back yonder when the Holy Ghost first poured out on the Pentecostal church forty years ago, and they begin to speak with tongues, one of the gifts... That was the smallest of the gifts. That's the least of the gifts according to St. Paul (just speaking with tongues). And as soon as it fell, "Oh," they say, "we got it now." And they made a denomination, the General Council, which is now the Assemblies of God. "Oh, nobody's got it 'less you speak with tongues." God just moves right on away from them, let them set there. Certainly. Yes, sir.
8-3 Along come the Oneness, and found
out the baptism in Jesus' Name. They said, "Oh, we got it." They
organized. What'd they do? God just moved right out and left him setting
there. It's for, "Whosoever will, let him come."
See, the Oneness can't go to the Assemblies, and the Assemblies can't go
to the Oneness. I've talked to some of the best men they got. Mr. Goth
and Dr. Pope, and many men, the who are great men in the... I set down
with them and I said, "How can you teach that initial evidence as a
scholar?"
"Well," said, "Brother Branham," one, two, or three of them was real
honest, said, "we know that's wrong. But what can we do? If we say
anything about it now, why, it'll interrupt the whole program." Sure,
and you won't be the bishop anymore, the general overseer. That's the
idea.
9-2 Brother, I'd rather have me a little
mission on the corner or preach under a pine tree, and have the truth.
Certainly. And know that you are telling the truth. Man wants the truth,
and you're obligated as a Christian to bear forth the record of truth.
God's going to hold you responsible for it. Stand on these things. If
you haven't been baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, and you haven't
done these things, and you haven't received the Holy Ghost...
You say, "Oh, I spoke with tongues." That don't mean you got the Holy
Ghost. I've seen witches, wizards, demons, and everything else speak in
tongues. Certainly. They ain't got the Holy Ghost, and you know that.
Drink blood out of a human skull, and dance, call on the devil, and
speak in tongues... Certainly. They ain't got the Holy Ghost. So 'cause
you spoke with tongues, that don't mean you got It. The only way you
know you got It, when your spirit bears record with His Spirit, and the
fruits of the Spirit follow you: love, faith, joy, peace,
long-suffering, goodness, meekness, gentleness. That's when you know you
got the Holy Ghost. It bears record of Itself.
9-4 Now, when you're trying to rest upon
because you belong to the Assemblies, or to the Baptists, or to the
Presbyterians, you see what you are doing? You're taking on a name of a
prostitute. That's exactly right. Get out of that thing. Come away from
it. I don't mean out of your church or anything; you do what you want to
about that; but come away from laying ahold, "I'm Presbyterian. We
don't believe in the days of miracles." Why don't you believe it? The
Bible teaches it. "Oh, I belong to the Church of Christ. They say the
days of miracles is past." They are false prophets. I can show you where
Jesus Christ give power to the church to heal the sick, and raise the
dead, and cast out devils. I challenge any man to show me a Scripture in
the Bible where He took it away from the church.
What took it away? Your own dogma, right, not God's Word. The Holy
Spirit's still getting the job done, going right on just the same, and
He will forever. That's the reason we're not a denomination, "having a
form of godliness and denying the power thereof. From such turn away."
We don't believe in that stuff.
10-1 Now, how did it ever start? We'll
have to hurry and get to it just as quick as possible now, how it ever
started. Now, we got plenty of Scriptures wrote out here about the Holy
Ghost.
And another thing, we made a challenge last night on the perseverance of
the saints, not in the way the Baptists believe it. No, sir. I sure
different with the Baptists and their idea of their theory of Calvinism.
I certainly disagree with the Presbyterian. I disagree with the
Methodists upon their way of Arminian doctrine. Yes, sir, but they both
got a truth; but you got to bring it back here where it is the truth.
When you run out there, you run wild with it. Certainly.
10-3 Baptists come in, baptize a couple
over here in immersing. The preacher baptizes, nine out of ten smoke
cigarettes, go back out and stand out there and play cards, bunco all
night, run around, crooked business deals. And all the women wearing
shorts out here, running around in the streets, and bobbing their hair,
and--and smoking, and talking, and little stitch and sew parties, and
telling dirty jokes. You call that Christianity? And you think you got
eternal security? You're going to hell like that. You wouldn't enjoy
yourself in heaven in any manner. Certainly not. That's not eternal
security.
But when a man is born again of the Holy Ghost... And you Pentecostal,
'cause you jumped up and down, spoke in tongues, and run up-and-down the
aisle, that don't mean you got eternal security. Don't you ever get
that in your head. No, sir, it certainly doesn't. Because you know that
your own--your own life bears you record that you're not right with God.
That's right. You're not right. That's not eternal security yet.
10-5 But I want to ask you something. Is there an eternal security? The Bible says so. The Bible said that our names were put on the Lamb's Book of Life before the world ever begin. As I said this morning, I say it again: The man who wrote the song, "There Was a New Name Written Down In Glory Tonight and It's Mine," his idea was all right, but he was wrong Scripturally. Your name wasn't put on the night you got saved. Your name, according to the Bible, according to Revelations 13, 17, and so forth, was put on there before the world ever begin; and Jesus Christ was slain before the foundation of the world.
10-6 How could God, Who is infinite...
How could an infinite God, knowing the end from the beginning, how could
He ever permit sin to come on earth, if it wasn't for a reason?
Just to back up now some things that we have said. What was first, the
Saviour or sinner? Saviour, sure. Which is more powerful, a Saviour or
sinner? If a Saviour can take away the sin, He's more powerful.
Well, why did He let sin happen in the first place? To show that He was a Saviour.
Which is the most powerful, a Healer or a sickness? A Healer. Then why
did He let sickness come? To show that He was a Healer. (I feel
religious right now. Yes, sir.) Oh, my, that's His attributes. That's
why He lets trouble come. That's why He lets sorrow come: to show that
He is joy. Sure, it is. That's why we got a night: to prove there is a
day. That's why we got temper: to show there is peace. Sure, it--it's
pro and con. Oh, He's wonderful.
11-4 Now, how did it start? (We'll get straight to it just as quick as we can, so I won't keep you all night.) Now, there's got to be a beginning of all things. I want to ask you something. Now, this may be... You just tuck this over in your vest pocket. You don't have to put this over with the regular dish. But listen to this. If you are an eternal creature, then you never had a beginning or never can have an end. For "eternal" comes from the Word which has no beginning or no end. Don't you remember, I said this morning that how that Melchisedec, when He met Abraham coming from the slaughter of the kings, and the Bible said in Hebrews 7 that--that Levi paid tithes to Melchisedec when he was in the loins of his father Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac; Isaac begot Jacob; Jacob begot Levi. That was father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. And while Levi was in the loins of his great-grandfather, the Bible gives him credit for paying tithes to Melchisedec. Talk about eternal... My, my.
11-5 He never said he done it in the
shadow, he potentially done it, the Bible said he paid tithes. Amen.
Then if we come through the right seed, when Paul preached the Gospel I
was there and you were there. We're going to get into that just in a
minute, plumb up to our ears. Notice, that's what the Scriptures claims
to us. It even went way back.
Just think, Levi; then Jacob, his father; then Isaac, his father; then
Abraham, his father, his great-grandfather. When Levi was in the loins
of his great-grandfather, he paid tithes to Melchisedec.
11-7 I want to ask you, "Who is this Job 27, there...?... when he said, 'Where was you when I laid the foundations of the earth, when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?'" Who were those sons of God that was shouting for joy? Jesus told them that, "I had joy with you before the foundation of the world." We're not creatures of time; we're creatures of eternity. "No man can come to Me except My Father draws him. And all that comes to Me, I'll give them Eternal Life, and raise him up at the last days. No one can pluck them from the Father's hand; He give them to Me." How you going to lose? See, you're scared. You're afraid. You'll run around here, and that's one of the best evidences in the world that you haven't been nowhere yet. That's right.
12-1 How can God ever save you if He...
How many in this church would raise your hands and believe that God's
infinite? You know what the word "infinite" means? That's just perfect.
Infinite... You can't--you can't explain the word "infinite."
Did you ever take your camera and set it on infinite? Why, it just means
from thereafter. All right, there's no way of focusing it any more.
Well, that's what God is; He's infinite. And if He's infinite, there
could not be a beetle, not a fly, not a flea, not a mouse, not a
chigger, or nothing that ever was on the earth or ever will be, but what
God knowed it before the world was ever formed. There's some conception
of infinite.
12-3 Well then, the infinite God Who saves you here, knowing He's going to lose you next week, or next month, or next year, why, He's defeating the very purpose. He can't lose you. "He that heareth My Words and believeth on Him that sent Me has Everlasting Life and shall never come into the judgment but's done passed from death unto life." Can't do it. He'd no more... He that is born of God does not commit sin, for the seed of God remains in him, and he cannot sin. How can he sin when there's a sin-offering for him? How can I be sick when I'm in perfect health? How can I be blind when I can see? Oh, my. How can I be in the building and out of the building at the same time? How can I be drunk and sober at the same time? You can't do it. And when you're saved, you're under the atonement, and your sins are not reckoned unto you.
12-5 Did not David say, "Blessed is the
man who God will not reckon sin and impute sin to"? God don't hold the
sin against this creature. That's strong. That isn't skim milk; but
that's the Bible. God will not reckon sin to the righteous. God by His
grace through predestination, not willing that any should perish, but
all might come to repentance; but being infinite and know who would come
and who would not come, He could predestinate everything to work to His
will.
If He didn't do it, why did He permit sin in the first place? When He
was a Saviour... If there'd never been a sinner, He would have never
been a Saviour. The attribute within Him could not be pulled out.
13-2 How did He ever become a Healer?
How did He ever become a Healer? Because He permitted sickness to come,
that He might show Himself a Healer. He was a Healer. How would He ever
be known? How would He ever be known? How could His attribute ever work?
How could He ever be a Healer, if there'd never been no sickness? He
had to permit sickness.
No wonder Paul said in Romans 8, "Foolish man, who can tell the--the
Potter what to do about it?" Who... When the clay raises up and say,
"Why make you--me this--thus?" Did not He raise Pharaoh up for the same
purpose, that He might show His glory down in Egypt? He hardens who He
will and justify who He will. It's not him that willeth, or him that
runneth, but God that showeth mercy. So you have nothing to do with it.
You haven't one thing to do. If it's grace, if it's a free gift, there's
not a thing you can do about it. God has give it to you, and that's the
will of God. That's the thing that God has predestinated to you.
13-4 The Bible said that we were predestinated to the sons and adoption of the sons of God before the foundation of the world. Then when God slayed the Lamb in His own thinking before the foundation of the world to prove out His attributes, what He was, when the Lamb was slain, we were slain with It. When the blood of the Lamb was caught in His Own mind back there before the foundation of the world, mine and your names were written on the Book then. All in His great thinking. He's infinite. If He didn't, why did He permit it?
13-5 Which is the strongest, as I said,
the Saviour or sinner? Which has got the most strength? Then the
stronger had to permit the lesser. And He only does it for His glory.
When He made Lucifer, He knowed he would be the devil. And He had to let
it be there to show that He was the Saviour, the Christ. He had to let
it happen that way. Now, don't the Bible say all things work together
for good to them that love God? So what are you scared about? Let us be
up and doing with a heart for any strife. Be not like dumb driven
cattle, had to be begged and persuaded and... Be a hero. I like that.
Stand up.
14-1 A little poem, that used to help me so much when I was a kid, goes something like this:
There was a noble Roman,
In the Roman Emperor's days;
Who heard a coward croaker,
Before the castle say:
Oh, it's safe in such a Fir tree,
There's no one can shake it.
'Oh, no,' said the hero,
'I'll find a way or make it.'
There you are. That's right.
14-2 If this Bible teaches that Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever... It wasn't a easy
thing, when I stepped out of this Tabernacle that day, and everybody was
telling me this would happen and that would happen. "You'd be
considered a fanatic and thrown into jail. And all of the medical
association would get against you." But God said do it. The Bible said
He was, and now a revival fire burns in every nation under the heavens.
That's right. Stand up to it.
How do you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job that you find?
Can you stand right up to the work ahead of you?
Have you got a tired and empty mind? (I hate that stuff.)
Or do you stand right up to the work ahead of you,
Or is fear ever running through it?
If so, tackle the next you find,
By thinking you're going to do it.
Stay with it. Certainly. Purpose in your heart like Daniel. Stay with God.
14-3 "Where did this all happen? How did it take place? What makes people thus? Why are we just about ready to be destroyed? Brother Branham, explain to me. What makes you think that this whole thing's got to be wiped off?" It was wiped off once before (Is that right?) in the antediluvian destruction. (Now, here comes some deep things. And we'll get ready to read.)
15-1 Now, I want you to turn with me now
over into the book of Genesis at the 3rd chapter. If you want to know
anything, I can show you in this book of Genesis where every cult, and
every ism, and everything that we got right today, begin in Genesis. How
many know that "Genesis" means "the beginning"? Certainly. We find the
Catholic church in the beginning: Babylon, Nimrod the founder; we find
it in the middle of the Bible; we find it at the last of the Bible. We
find, trying to bring in women preachers in the beginning of the Bible
by worshipping little statues made out of roots.
How many have read Hislop's, "Two Babylons," the history? All right.
Find out in these histories they had a woman... And then you remember
even Jacob stole his father's gods, and his daughter hid them under her.
And took them out there in the wilderness, which defiled the camp later
on.
15-3 All right. Let's read now in Genesis.
Now, the serpent was more subtil than any beast
of the field which the LORD GOD had made. And he said unto the woman,
Yea, has God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
... the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the
garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch
it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,... (See? Hunting new light.)... and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
15-4 See, how these fellows are today
trying to take away from the Bible. "Why, isn't it just as easy to pour,
or sprinkle, this way or that way?" No, sir. God put down a program,
and that's what we're supposed to follow, This.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to make--to
be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat.
And their eyes of them both were opened, and
they knew... they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and
made them aprons.
16-1 I would like to stop here for a minute. Now, there's got to be a beginning of everything. You had a beginning. Now, we--here's where I want to base the whole thing on now that we've talked about in these last two meetings in the year. Now, this morning we went back and dramatized in the Bible that when God was making the earth, that when He was forming the gases (and then them gases become calcium and potash, and--and different things) He was making your body. He was laying the building out like a great master builder, like a contractor laying out his materials to build a housing project. He was making your body, and He had it laying there. He knew just exactly in His mind what was going to be done. This hand... God made that hand before He--while He was making the world. But my spirit, He made before there was a world. Now, but this hand and this body, He made when He made the world; 'cause this body came out of the earth, and going back to the earth. God made that. He laid it all out in His great blueprint and His program. Now, when He went to making the earth, He made the man, and the man didn't look just right.
16-2 Now, we had that this morning, went
through the drama, how the--the Father came down and looked at His son
made in His image, and so forth. Then he made him a wife, a helpmate.
Now, remember, that all of the creatures of the earth, Adam had named
them. He had made the--the cattle and the beasts, and everything. And
today, we chronologists and--and different great minds of science have
been trying for six thousand years to find out that missing link, why
that animal... Man is animal life; we know that. That we're made... And a
woman is just a part of a man, a byproduct. A woman was not in the
original creation. God had done quit creating for years and years and
years, until He made the woman out of a rib out of his side.
16-4 Adam had done named all of the
creation, everything else. But he wasn't nothing for himself, so He made
Him a helpmate: took a rib from his side, closed up the gash, and made a
helpmate to him. And man in his spirit was both man and woman. And a
woman is just a part of a man.
And when a man takes to himself a wife, and if she's correctly his wife, a God-given wife, she'll be just to him as part of him.
That's the reason you have so many scruples in the marriage. Is because
you go out and see some girl with pretty brown eyes, or blue eyes, or
something like that, some pretty figure, and you fall for her. First
time she has her first baby them teeth comes out, and she gets wrinkled
and old, and then you want to kick her out.
And some of you women find some little boy with his hair slicked down,
his mammy's lard can half dumped on it, and curly; it'll all fall out. I
know that by experience. But what happens? What is it? You fall for
that. You ought to pray first, 'cause a woman is part of you.
And if you've embraced a woman to your bosom, and taken her for your
wife, and she makes an imprint on you... (We'll say it like this so
you'll understand) and any other woman against that bosom won't fit that
print. And God will hold you responsible for it. You just remember
that.
17-5 You that take somebody else's wife
out and... I heard today of a little girl here in town, a poor little
thing, I know her. And some gambler buying her big fine clothes and
things, and trying to play up to her like that. A rat would do a thing
like that, can't even be considered a human. You know a dog ain't that
lowdown, and yet you call a mother dog a slut. She's got more morals
than half the women of Jeffersonville has got. And you call an old
mother hog a sow, and she's not--she's a lot more moral then--than the
women of this United States, many of them. That's exactly right.
Now, I know that's flat, and I told you I was going to grind it home,
and I want you to know it. And that's true. The old women nowadays don't
even know what moral is. Say, "It don't hurt my conscience." Well, you
haven't got any. Notice. Yes, sir. When you know what's right and
wrong...
17-7 Now, notice. This man, when he was created, God separated his spirit, and He took a piece off the man, his side, and made a woman out of it. And then He took the feminish, dainty spirit of the man and made a woman out of it, and He made the man masculine, burly. And when you see a--a man that's little, you know, manicuring (or whatever you call it) his fingernails and, you know, four on one side and five on the other, and--and is slicking his hair down, and holding his mouth open in front, and such stuff as that, one of these pretty boys; you just remember, sis, there's something wrong with that bird. There's something wrong. You better keep your eye on him.
18-1 And when you see a woman with a
cigarette in the side of her mouth, with a pair of overalls on, and
saying, "I tell you, 'feller', what it is." Brother, you watch that old
gal. There's something wrong with her.
A woman's supposed to be a woman, and she's supposed to dress like a
woman. When God made a man, He made him one thing; and He made a woman
something else. And when God dresses a man, He dresses him one way, and a
woman something else. And the Bible said it's a abomination for a woman
to put on a garment that pertains to a man.
18-3 And you women, putting on these
little old pants and things, and wearing them out here, little old (What
is it you call them?) Knickerbockers... Or what is it? What is that,
sisters? No, no, it's not shorts, it's that--got the long legs in them:
pedal pushers and overalls, dungarees...
Go and they said, "This is for the ladies."
I said, "No, you're mistaken. Ladies don't wear them things: women
might, but ladies don't." That's right. The Bible said it's an
abomination for a woman to put on a garment... And for a man to put on a
garment that pertains to a woman... And man is becoming more sissified
everyday, and women is becoming more masculine. What's the matter?
(We're going to find out in a few minutes by the Bible.) Women ain't
women no more. I don't mean you Christian women. I'm talking about the
general run. They want to act like men, want to cut their hair like men;
put their hand upon a bar like that and sing "God Bless America" with a
cigarette out of the corner of their mouth.
18-5 Go down the street, back out like
that of riding the highway... We counted... I want to tell you
something. And you women drivers... Listen. Billy Paul and I on this
last campaign around the nation (six months), I kept a count of how many
scruples on the road. And out of three hundred mishaps on the road,
guess how many of them was women drivers? There was only lacking
nineteen of them were men, and two hundred and eighty, or I believe two
hundred eighty-one of them would be women drivers: women drivers.
Now, I'm not saying there ain't good women drivers. But she'll turn any
way, and you just try to get back at her. Let her be kind of nice
looking and stand there, push that hair up when a cop comes up there.
"Why," he'd say, "sure you're in the wrong." We ain't got no law. They
proved that the other day in the tax suit I'm just coming through. We
ain't got no laws. If there are...
19-2 No wonder that great Lords of England said, "Democracy was all sails, no anchor." That's right, stand on a soap box electioneering. The democracy's rotten, and so's dictators and all the rest of them. The whole thing is rotten. There ain't but one thing for God to do: is to destroy the whole thing as He said He would do, and start anew.
19-3 Now, watch how close you are to the coming. Now, when this woman, He made him a helpmate, and she was to be his helpmate.
And then... Now, here I've never had a preacher to agree with this yet.
And they try to make it some other way, but yet it don't make sense to
me. They try to say that Adam and Eve eat some apples. Brother, if... I
don't say this for a joke now, but I want to say it for... If eating
apples makes women realize they are naked, we'd better pass the apples
again. You know that's right.
You know eating an apple, that wasn't what they did, made them realize
they were naked. Certainly, it wasn't. It had to come through sexually.
It had to be, 'cause they realized they were naked when they taken this
forbidden fruit.
Ain't a woman a fruit tree? Aren't you the fruit of your mother? That was the fruit that was forbidden to be taken.
19-7 Now, here's a great thing. Now, the
closest that science has ever got to knowing what the human being
was... They dig up old bones; they take fossils, and they take heads;
and they take skulls, and arms, and bones and try to make it look like a
human being. And they know that the closest thing that they've ever
come to finding the human... Next to it is the chimpanzee. He's the
closest specie to a human being. But yet, it isn't nothing with the
human being.
The highest... The lowest form of life that there is the frog. The
highest form is the human being. God started at the bottom and made
right up till He brought it plumb to His image. Brought it from the
birds and the beasts and on up till He got to the image of God. He made
man in that image; that's the highest form. The lowest form is just a
polliwog that turned into a frog and so forth.
20-1 Now, this missing link that they
can't find... Watch the Scripture now. You--you're going to disagree
with this, many of you; but I want--just want you to bear it in mind and
don't be prejudiced against it.
Listen, I know many of you have just been listening to Doctor DeHaan. I
certainly... As a man of his caliber, a good Baptist brother... And I
certainly appreciate him. He's got more intelligence and brains,
and--and has forgot more than I ever know, because he is a Doctor of--of
Divinity, and he's a Medical Doctor, and he's a Doctor of Science. He's
a smart man, but he's saying that those--when the sons of God saw the
daughters of men were fair... He takes Josephus' stand and say that they
pressed themselves into human flesh and taken unto them wives; and
there were giants in the land of Nod; and they had taken to themselves
wives and lived with them, when the sons of God, fallen angels, taken
and seen the daughters of men, and the sex desire was such a great
thing, and yet them being sinful from falling, they pressed themselves
into human flesh.
If they'd do that, they'd spoil Divine healing, they'd spoil everything
else. If the devil can create, he's equal with God. The devil cannot
create. I want you to show me one place where the devil can create. He
cannot create. He only perverts what has been created. He is no creator.
He is only a perverter.
20-4 Well then, what happened? What's? Here's my version. Here's the missing link.
Now, they got a chimpanzee, but you can't breed a chimpanzee with a
woman and bring forth a child. You can't breed a human being with any
animal. It won't mix. You can't blood transfuse any animal.
20-6 When I was in Africa... They treat
those poor colored people there in such a way. Someone said to me; he
said, "They're nothing but animals."
I said, "I beg your pardon. They're just as much human as you are, maybe
a little more." Let me tell you; when you got that kind of an attitude,
you're getting back towards an animal. I said, "That man, if he's as
black as the ace of spades, or if he's as yellow as a pumpkin, or if
he's as blue as indigo, he might save your life by giving you a blood
transfusion." But don't you never put an animal's blood in you.
Certainly, he's a human.
21-1 Just because one skin was black,
the other one brown, another one yellow, and the other one white, that
has nothing to do with it. The Bible said, "God of one blood made all
men." And that's exactly right.
Places we lived in, changing our colors, had nothing to do with it. God
made of one--one man all nations, one blood. All nations the same. The
Chinese... The colored man can't say now... The black man can't say,
"Now, that--that Chinese, he's--he's yellow and I ain't going to have
nothing to do with him." He's your brother. And you white man can't say
to the yellow man or the black man, either one, "I have nothing to do
with you." He's your brother. Exactly right.
21-3 Notice. Now, here's what taken
place. I believe, and can support it by the Bible, that it is the
serpent that did it. The serpent is that missing person between the
chimpanzee and the man, 'cause, listen, notice this now, that the
serpent was not a reptile. He was the most subtil of all the beasts of
the field.
Now, I went and got dictionaries today from everywhere to look up this
word, what the word of "subtil" meant. It means "to be smart, to be
crafty." And the best interpretation of the--of the Hebrew from
"m-a-h-a-h, mahah" means "having a true knowledge of the principles of
life."
21-5 Now, let's watch this just a
minute. He's smart, crafty. Yet he's called the serpent. But remember,
he was the smartest thing there was, and the more like the human being
than anything else that was on the field: closest to a human being. He
was not a reptile. The curse made him a reptile, and he was the... The
Bible said he was the most beautiful of all.
And even the curse didn't take all of his beauty away, yet the glorious
colors of the snake is beautiful. And his grace and his shrewdness, even
the curse didn't move it off. But you remember, God told him that his
legs would come off and he'd go on his belly. And you can't find one
bone in a snake that looks like a human being, and that's the reason
science is lost. But there he is.
21-7 God hid it from the eyes of the
wise and prudent and promised to reveal it to the sons of God in the
last days, when the sons of God would be made manifest. When God's sons
that rejoiced with Him before the foundation of the world, when the
great revelation of the Godhead and things would be brought down in the
last days, He would manifest these things to the sons of God. You know
the Scripture teaches that. And here we are.
That's the reason that God is opening these things to us. God is
bringing His sons into manifestation. He's going beyond the limitations
of any human knowledge, way into the spiritual revelations and bringing
it down.
Haven't we been teaching in this Bible, "Here's to him that has wisdom."
Not what he learned in some seminary, but what he can learn on his
knees before God, and what pleased God to give him: sons of God made
manifest.
22-2 Here's the serpent. Now, here's what the serpent was. I'm going to give you my description of him.
We have the... We come down from the frog on to that, the polliwog, and
on down, on, and so and so; you finally come to the monkey, to the
chimpanzee; and from the chimpanzee there we jump from the chimpanzee to
the human. And we wonder why. "Well," science says, "now wait; we can
breed the woman to the monkey and to the...?... vice versa, a man
breeding to the chimpanzee." It won't work. Breed to any other animal:
won't work. Blood won't mix. Take their blood, it's altogether different
blood altogether. There's some blood between here, and they can't find
the animal. Oh, hallelujah. I'm getting to feel religious right now.
22-4 Notice. Why? God hid it from them.
There ain't a bone in a snake that looks like a human bone. He put the
thing so far away that it couldn't be discovered by smart men.
I'm going to show you where that smart man comes from, where he--where
he's at anyhow. See? He can't come through that. It's got to come by
revelation. "Thou art the Christ, the Son... Upon this rock I'll build
My church, and the gates of hell can't prevail against it": spiritual
revelation.
How did--how did Abel know to offer a lamb instead of Cain offering the
fruits of the field? It was spiritually revealed to him. You don't get
it by seminaries. You don't get it through denominations. You get it
from heaven.
22-8 Now, watch the serpent, this
serpent which was first. Let's draw a picture of him now. He's a great
big fellow. He's between the chimpanzee and the man. And the serpent,
the devil, Lucifer, knew that that was the only blood that would mix
with this human blood. The only person he could deal with... He couldn't
deal with the chimpanzee. That blood wouldn't mix. He couldn't deal
with different things. He couldn't deal with the sheep. He couldn't deal
with the horse. He couldn't deal with any animal. He had to deal with
this serpent.
Let's take him now and see what he looks like: Great big fellow,
prehistoric giant. That's where they find these big bones, and I'll show
you this in the Bible. Now, watch closely then. All right. This great
big fellow, let's say he was--he was ten foot tall, great big shoulders,
looked just like a man. And his blood, after coming down, coinciding
one animal to another...
23-2 You can cross animals. They kept
getting higher blood, higher form of life, higher form, till it climbs
up into the man realm. But the last connection here between here was cut
off. How many knows that science can't find the missing link? All of
you know that. Why? Here he is, the serpent.
Here he was a great big fellow. And the devil comes down. Now, he says,
"I can inspire." Now, when you go to looking at women and actions of
women, remember you are anointed of the devil, if it's not your own
wife. Notice. Now, the devil come down and got into the serpent, and he
found Eve in the garden of Eden naked. And he talked about the fruit in
the midst, the "midst" means "middle" and so forth. You understand in a
mixed congregation. And he said, "Now, it's pleasant. It's good to the
eye."
23-4 What did he do? He begin making
love to Eve. And he lived with her as a husband. And she saw it was
pleasant, so she went and told her husband; but she was already pregnant
by Satan. And she brought forth her first son whose name was Cain, the
son of Satan.
"Now," you say, "that's wrong." All right, we'll just find out whether
it's wrong or not. "And I will put enmity between thy seed and the
serpent's seed." What? The serpent's seed. She had a seed, and he had a
seed. "And he shall bruise thy head, and you shall bruise his heel." A
"bruise" there means "to make an atonement."
Now, there's your seed of the serpent. Now, notice, here comes these two men out.
Now, this serpent, when he stood there... This great big giant of a
fellow stood up there. He was guilty of committing adultery with Adam's
wife. Where's sin lay today? What makes things the way they are today?
(Now, I--I... Surely you can catch what I'm talking about.)
23-8 And there he was. And when he did, God said, begin to call for Eve and Adam. And he said, "I was naked."
And He said, "Who told you you was naked?" Then they begin to--in army fashion, passing the buck.
Said, "Well, the woman You gave me done it. She was the one who persuaded me."
And she said, "The serpent give me an apple." All right, preacher, get
next to yourself. She said, "The serpent beguiled me." Do you know what
"beguile" means? Means "defiled." The...?... The devil never gave her an
apple. "The serpent has beguiled me." And then the curse came.
24-1 He said, "Because you listened to the serpent in the stead of your husband, you took life from the world; and you--now you'll multiply your sorrows, and your conception shall be to your husband," and so forth. "And because you listened to your wife instead of me--I took you from the dust the highest specie--back to the dust you go." "And serpent, because you did that, off goes your legs; upon your belly you'll go all the days of your life. And you'll be hated, and dust shall be your meat." There you are. There's that missing link.
24-2 Now, here comes Cain. Let's watch
the natures. Here comes Cain. What is he? He's a shrewd businessman. He
tills the fields: smart, intelligent, religious, very religious. Watch
his--watch his attributes now. Just move with me for just a few minutes
longer. Here he comes out. He knows he's mortal. He wants to go to
church. He builds him a church, makes him an offering, brings an altar
along--builded an altar, puts his flowers on it, put the field--the
fruits of the field, offered it to God, and said, "There You are, Lord. I
know we ate apples. That's what caused it." (Some of his offsets have
the same kind of an idea. Shows where it came from.)
Brought his apples in out of the field, laid them on there, said, "This will make an atonement."
God said, "It wasn't apples."
But by spiritual revelation Abel knew it was blood. So he brought a
lamb, hacked its throat, and it died; and God said, "That's right.
That's what done it. It was blood." (You know what blood I'm talking
about.) All right. It was blood that did it. Now, watch.
24-5 And then when Cain saw his
holy-roller brother had been accepted before God, and signs and wonders
was being taken place down there, he got jealous of him. He said, "We'll
stop this stuff right now." Look at his brothers. Look at his children
on today. "Now, I'm smarter than he is." So he got angry. Where did
angry come from? Could you say that's anger? He killed his brother. He
was a murderer. Could you call God a murderer?
And Adam was the son of God. The Bible said that Adam was the son of
God, that pure beginning back there. Adam was God's son, and that
jealousy and envy and everything could not come out of that pure stream.
It had to come through another place. And it come through Satan, who
was a murderer to begin with. The Bible said he was: a liar and a
murderer to begin with. There it is. And he killed his brother.
And there was a type of the death of Christ. Then out of that, 'course,
He raised up Seth to take his place: death, burial, and resurrection of
Christ.
25-3 And watch, then here comes your
giants. Then Cain went to the land of Nod. If his daddy was a great big
giant of a fellow, what would Cain be like? His daddy. And he went to
the land of Nod and took one of his sisters. Only way he could do, there
was no more females could come, only through Eve. They claim they had
seventy sons and daughters. If--if there was no females... The Bible
don't record females when they're born, just man. And when... If there
was no more females than Eve, when she died the human race ceased to
exist. They had to have daughters. He'd have to marry his own sister.
He went to the land of Nod and got--and got his wife; and when he
married her in there, there's where they found those great big giants,
which were fallen sons of God who came through their daddy, the devil
through Cain. There's your missing link.
25-5 And watch the seed of the serpent.
Now, watch. Remember the seed of the serpent is religious. Watch it
start moving now for a few minutes. Here goes the seed of the serpent.
What happened to them? Now, let me just read something here I just wrote
down this afternoon. What come through the line of Abel? Listen to
this.
All right. Along came Abel. After Abel come Seth. After Seth come Noah.
After Noah come Shem. After Shem come Abraham. After Abraham come Isaac.
After Isaac come Jacob. After Jacob come Judah. After Judah come David.
After David come Christ to the perfection.
25-7 Watch back there how the Spirit of
God lived in Abel. Look how it lived in Seth. Look how it lived in
Judah. Look how it lived in David. Look at the same Spirit calling out
through that righteous seed all the way down. No matter what they done,
they were predestinated.
Look at Jacob, a dirty... I don't say this to--sacrilegious. But Jacob a
little shyster hanging under his mother's coattail all the time,
running around, a little sissy boy, put things over him, and went and
deceived his father to getting the blessing. But it was given to him
before the foundation of the world. Sure it did. Went out there and lied
to his father-in-law and took some speckled sticks (poplar sticks), and
put them in the water to scare these cattle when they were pregnant, to
make them bring forth speckled cattle so he could cheat and get them
cattle. God blessed him in it. That's right. Woe unto anybody that says
anything about Jacob.
26-2 You know--you know what the false
prophet said, that he was prophesying right: Balaam? He said, "Ever who
blesses him will be blessed, and ever who curses him will be cursed."
"I took thee, Jacob, found him as a--as in a strange land. As the eagle
stirs her nest, I stirred him and took him out." Hallelujah. "Not by
power, not by might, but by My Spirit saith the Lord."
Watch that come down to that perfection. That Spirit worked down to the
perfection in Christ, down through every one of the patriarchs, coming
right down. No matter what they did, what they said, and what they did,
they were absolutely the seed of the righteous.
26-4 And here when righteous Abraham... Glory. Oh, I just feel real good. When righteous Abraham met Melchisedec, Who was God Himself... Who was Melchisedec? The King of Salem, which is King of Jerusalem, King of peace. He had no father. He had no mother. He never had a beginning of days nor ending of life. Ever who He is, is still living. He never was born. He never will die. He never had father or mother. He never had a beginning of days nor ending of life? Tell me Who it was. The eternal God in what we call a--oh, I forget just what you call that now: theophany? Is what it is--just in, like not a myth, but yet it's something made manifest. Like He come to Abraham in the tent up there, like an Angel, and prophesied and told Sarah. She laughed behind Him, and so forth, the same--the same thing. And here He was. He met Melchisedec, and grand--great-grandfather Abraham, in the seed of the righteous, paid tithes to Melchisedec, and it was allotted to his great-great grandson down here, the seed of the righteous.
26-5 Now, here comes the seed of the--of
the serpent. Now, remember, there'll be enmity, war between them. The
seed of the serpent comes along, and what does it produce? Now, let's
take the first few years. Now, watch what takes place to them. We'll
read it right down 'cause I just checked it up.
The seed of the serpent produced Cain. Cain went to the land of Nod,
produced giants, and then they come to the land of Noah. They were smart
educated, intelligent people. Is that right? They were builders,
inventors, scientists: Not through the seed of the righteous, but
through the seed of Satan, the serpent. They were such men as--as
scientists, builders, and great men, educators; the Scripture says so.
They worked brass; they worked iron; they worked metals. They invented
things. They tempered different metals, and built houses, and so forth.
The Scripture says so. And they were scoffers at the seed of the woman:
Noah, the righteous. Is that right?
27-2 Let's follow them a little farther. Then we get them up to the ark. Everything was destroyed: got in such a conglomeration of sin. And they took the rule, and smartest and intelligent, till God looked down, there wasn't very many left, so He just took Noah and his family in the ark and rained the water down, and destroyed the whole thing: took Enoch up beforehand. Is that right? There was all the seed, almost all the seed. But He has purpose has to be fulfilled.
27-3 Now, Noah and his sons which come out, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, come out in the righteous line. How did the seed ever get over? The seed come over in the ark, just like it did in the beginning through the woman, their wives. They carried the seed of Satan through the ark, just as Eve packed the seed of Satan to give birth to Cain, through the woman. You put them women in your platforms for preachers, the Bible condemning it. Paul said, "If any man thinks himself to be a prophet or even spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write is the commandments of the Lord; but if he be ignorant, just let him be ignorant."
27-4 That is why I walked out of the
Baptist church down here. Brother Fleeman who was here awhile ago; I
think he was there that night. Doctor Davis said, "You'll stand up here
and ordain these women for preachers."
I said, "I will not do it. No indeed."
He said, "Well, I'll throw you out."
I said, "I've been throwed out of better." I said, "This is the Word of
God, and It condemns the thing. And I cannot hold up for what God
condemns." No, sir. Ever who does it is showing they're false teachers,
false prophets. The Bible said they would be: deceive the very elect if
possible. There you are.
28-1 Notice this now. And out of there
then come Ham, Ham with his wife and them. He had a curse put on him.
From Ham come Nimrod, who built Babylon. Out of Babylon come the
Catholic church, the beginning of it. Come on down through Ahab, come on
down from Ahab into Judas Iscariot, wound it up--the antichrist. And in
this last day, here is the spirit of the antichrist and the Spirit of
the Christ. The spirit of the antichrist saying, "The days of miracles
is past," the Spirit of Christ saying, "He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever."
The spirit of antichrist says, "It don't make any difference if you're
baptized in the Father, Son, Holy Ghost; poured, sprinkled, or whatever
it is. It means the same thing." The Bible said that God's infallible,
and He can't change. Who you going to serve? It's up to you.
28-2 Now, you say, "Can they dwell
together? You said that they're in that ark, Brother Branham. You had in
there both Ham and Seth." That's right, exactly right; Ham was evil.
Seth was religious and righteous. All right, let's follow Ham.
All right now, there's Ham and Seth in the same ark, one righteous, and
the other unrighteous. There was a crow and a dove in the same ark.
There was Judas and Jesus in the same church. There was the antichrist
and the Holy Spirit in the same church. And today the same spirits work,
having a form of godliness, very religious, but "having a form of
godliness and denying the power thereof. From such turn away."
28-4 The Holy Spirit claiming Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which side will you choose?
The antichrist says that this is just a book of creed. "We'll repeat the
Apostles' Creed." I challenge any preacher to tell me where the
Apostles' Creed's found in the Bible. "I believe in God, the Father,
almighty, the Creator of heavens and earth, Jesus Christ, His Son. I
believe in the holy Roman Catholic church, the communion of the saints."
Where do you find that in the Bible? And yet you repeat it in your big
Methodist and Baptist churches. It's a doctrine of the devil, and false
prophets are teaching it.
28-6 I'm not... I hope I don't hurt your
feelings, but I'm pinning that to this Tabernacle. You here at the
Branham Tabernacle, abstain from such stuff. Anything that believes in
communion of saints is spiritualism. There's One Mediator between God
and man, and that's the Man Jesus Christ. I don't care how many Mary's
there is.
See how that woman's seed back there did? See how the woman's seed carried over there?
Look at today in America. America is the seat of the devil. What is it?
She's a woman's nation. You've heard, "This is a woman's world." That's
right. It's a woman's nation. They set the pattern.
29-3 I went over here not long ago in
Switzerland. The women saying... One little Holy Ghost woman said, "You
know, if I go over in America, they say the women's got freedom."
I said, "Let me tell you what it leads to."
I begin to tell her; she said, "Oh, mercy, I don't want any of that."
I said, "That's where it leads to." You know they don't do things there like they do here. What is it?
29-4 Let me show you that America is a
woman. On our coin is a woman's picture. Everything in here is a woman.
Tell me, there isn't enough bootleg joints in the country would have.
You can put forty bootleg joints in this city and put three prostitutes,
of good looking women that twist theirselves down the street; they'll
send more souls to hell lusting after them than all the bootleg joints
you could put in the city. That's exactly right.
Who is it then? It's woman. What is she? She's the god of America.
29-6 Take some of these old movie actors
and get up here, married four or five times, living with three or four
different husbands at the same time. And some of these magazines
exposing them and tell them, taking their pictures naked out here, and
you little girls set that as your example? Why? Because your mammy
before you perhaps, your grandmammy before you...
You see where that seed of the serpent works in? Sure it did. And what's
it done? If iniquity is to visit to fourteen generations under the law,
what will the iniquity be visited in this day? When the seed of the
righteous is about worked out; and God said it'd come a time if He
didn't cut the works short, there'd be none of it left. We're at the end
time.
29-8 Hunt the righteous tonight. Go
through the city. Oh, you find church members just as loyal to the
Baptist, and Presbyterian, and so forth, as they can be. But they have
no more to do with God than a rabbit has to put on snowshoes, know
nothing about it. All they know... "Are you a Christian?"
"I'm a Catholic."
"Are you a Christian?"
"I'm a Baptist."
"Are you a Christian?"
"I'm Presbyterian."
"Are you a Christian?"
"I'm Pentecostal." That don't have nothing to do with it. You're a
Christian because that God, by His grace, saved you, and you know about
it, and something has changed your life that you live different, and
you're a new person and creature in Christ Jesus.
30-1 Certainly, but you see where the
seed of the serpent... What was the seed of the serpent? Adultery. You
follow it? Adultery with Eve. What happened to that? What brought that
forth. What is it tonight?
Look back yonder a few years ago when the first song come out. You older
people, when the... They used to censor songs before they'd let them be
sung on the radio. And the first one come out was that "Roll them,
Girlies, roll them; showing your pretty knees." And all like that.
"Laugh at Pa and Ma, and give 'em all a ha-ha-ha." That's the first one
they let slip through. Where do you think the guy is tonight that wrote
that song? He's dead. What do you think of Clara Bowe, who come out the
first and said, "the dangerous curves" and the "striptease" that sent
thousands of souls to hell? Where do you think she is tonight? She's
been dead for a long time. Where's she at, when that body of hers laying
yonder, cankered in the dust, and the worms and maggots has eat through
it. And her soul lays yonder before a just God.
30-3 Where is the man that took that
woman and made them old dirty looking clothes that they put on, to push
them all out in one way and the other and misfit them? Said, "What did
they do it for? Why do you wear those kind of things for?" 'Cause you
want men to look at you. No other way to prove it.
And do you know that when you do that, and some old sinner looks at you,
you know what has happened? At the judgment bar... You say, "Brother
Branham, I'm just as true to my husband as I can be." You'll be counted
guilty of committing adultery.
Jesus said, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her has
committed adultery with her already in his heart." When that man has to
answer for committing adultery, who's going to be the one that caused
it? The way you dressed yourself and presented yourself. Now, I don't
mean to say you have to dress like some something or other out of an
antique box, but you can look more like a lady.
31-1 And get out here and strip your
little shorty shorts and tie a little ribbon around it like that... Your
baby, with its eyes like a cigarette tray, with a cigarette in your
mouth, walking down the street... You don't do that for no good purpose.
You might be innocent of the fact, but the devil's using you for a
tool, just like he did Eve.
Why is it a woman's nation? Because it's leading right up to the
domination of Catholicism. What is it today? You never hear them mention
Jesus. "Hail Mary, Mary, mother of God." Saint Cecilia, all kinds of
saints, dead saints...
31-3 Here not long ago down--I was down
in Mexico last year. Here come a poor woman dragging, her knees all drug
off like that, (the hide), crying, and holding her hands, and the
father walking along, packing two little children, them crying, mother
suffering so 'cause some woman that they call a saint, died. They had
her statue up there on the hill. Some lover killed her. And as soon as
she gets killed like that... 'Course she was a saint; she was Catholic.
So then she was going to do repentance, and she had to drag two miles
over cobblestones to do repentance.
Brother, if there is one thing that I have to do, Jesus Christ died in
vain. Grace I am saved, and that not by myself, but by the will of God,
and by the goodness and mercy...
31-5 Them reporters asked me, said, "Mr.
Branham..." (The--the little dead baby had been brought to life and a
few things there.) Thirty thousand Catholics... No, I beg your pardon,
it's twenty thousand (Thirty thousand was Africa.)--twenty thousand
Catholics received Jesus as a personal Saviour at one time when that
happened, standing in Mexico City. And those priests, they couldn't send
too many; it would start a riot. Had too many on the side, so they
said, "Mr. Branham, do you believe that our saints can do the same thing
that you do?"
Knowing their doctrine, I said, "Sure, if they're living." (See? So you can't be a Catholic saint until you're dead, you know.)
So he said, "Oh, you can't be a saint till you die."
I said, "Where do you read that at? Paul said, 'To the saints that are
at Ephesus and them that are called of God. To the saints which are at
Ephesus (he was reading his letter) and the saints that are other
places, at Galatia, and--and the saints in Rome, and so forth.' the
saints, the sanctified ones, what about that?"
32-1 He said, "Of course now we ain't
supposed to argue the Bible because we're the church, and what the
church says... We don't care what the Bible says; it's what the church
says." Said, "What is your opinion then of the Catholic church?"
I said, "I wished you wouldn't ask me that. 'Cause you ask me, and I'm going to tell you the truth."
Said, "Well, I want you to tell me the truth."
I said, "The highest form of spiritualism I know."
He said, "How do you get that?"
I said, "Anything that intercedes with the dead is a spiritualist."
I said, "If that saint talks back, then he's in hell; because those
that's crossed the path, my--my Bible said that he could not come back."
That's right. And I said, "If it is--if he was a saint, it's the devil
talking like a saint, and it isn't a saint after all."
And he said, "Well now, just a minute." Said, "You intercede with the dead too."
I said, "Where?"
He said, "Jesus Christ died."
I said, "But He rose again. He's not dead, but He lives to make intercession, by the only Mediator between God and men."
"I am He that was dead and is alive again, and is alive forevermore. I
have the keys of death and hell. Whosoever will, let him come and drink
freely from the waters of Life." My, that's our God.
32-6 That's our God, and the seed of the
righteous is about run out. Talk to people about these things; talk to
people about going back to the Bible way; talk to the people about
miracles; talk to the people about that; their church don't believe it;
so they're bastard children to God. The Bible said if we cannot bear
persecutions, and trials, mockeries, and called holy-rollers and so
forth like that, if you can't stand it, you're bastard children and not
the children of God. The Bible said so.
Call me a holy-roller if you want to; call me anything you want to; as
long as my heart's right with God, and my experience matches God's
Bible, I'm moving right on in the same direction.
33-1 Yes, sir. That's what we believe.
That's the church of the living God, which does not come by theology; it
does not come by some manmade intellectual conception. It comes by
absolutely the revealed truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
If I only had just a intellectual conception because the Baptist church
or the Methodist church taught me that there's so and so things... When I
hear this Bible, if the Bib--If I'd been baptized in the name of
Father, Son and Holy Ghost and read this Bible, and a preacher told me
that there was no one in the Bible ever baptized but in the Name of
Jesus Christ, and I read it and seen that was the truth, I'd hit the
water just as fast as I could. Yes, sir.
33-3 If somebody told me that--that
Jesus Christ was a great Healer, and my church told me, the days of
miracles was past, and I had a need of healing, I'd run just as fast as I
could to that altar to get healed. I sure would.
If I was a preacher and had a--a woman preacher in my pulpit, and I read
in that Bible and seen that a woman wasn't supposed to preach, I'd take
her out of there if it took the hide off my back.
Remember setting right back where Sister Wright's at one night that a
woman was going to throw me out the door for doing something like that.
Yes, sir. I said, "You're not coming in my church with your old..." When
they used to wear or cut their dresses way down like this, and with
that funny looking stuff and about half of their body exposed, I said,
"If they ever come in my church, I'll sure put them out." And some
little old snicklefritz down here (She died not--after that, and she
called on me, dying. She was a Catholic girl.) walked up there and set
down with that like that. I looked back and spied her setting up here
(They was singing.), took off my coat, walked back there, put it up
around her shoulders. I said, "Madam, if you're going to listen to me
preach, would you please wear this coat while you're in the church of
God."
33-6 She stomped out of there, spread
them little lips as she went out of the building; she said, "If he's got
religion, I wouldn't let my cow have that kind of religion."
I said, "Don't worry, she won't have it."
When we had the tent, they called for me when she was dying. She had a
heart attack, and she was dying. Her husband come. He said, "Come
quickly," (And I was right in the meeting), a big tall boy, standing at
the door waiting for me. I run his--got in my car and run up there. As I
went up, I met that old nurse out there that lives down in Howard Park
yet. She said, "Reverend, there is no need of coming." (That's been
about twenty years ago, maybe a little better.) Said, "She's dead."
Said, "She's been dead about three minutes." Said, "She screamed as hard
as she could for you." Said, "I got a message for you."
I said, "What?"
Said, "Tell that preacher that I said that about, please forgive me."
34-1 I went down there to look at her:
beautiful woman. And she had suffered so hard she had little freckles
across her nose. A pretty woman. And the freckles looked like stood out.
And her eyes had pushed completely out of the sockets and was halfway
turned back. 'Course her bowels and kidneys had moved, and the steam
coming up all over the bed like that. And her husband looked at me and
said, "Brother Branham, say a prayer, 'cause she wanted to see you."
I said, "A prayer for her now would do no good. The way the tree leans,
that's the way it falls. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he reap."
34-3 Do you see where it is? Now, what's
happened? Look at a woman who would do that. Look at women who lived
back yonder as a chorus girl. What was her daughter? A flapper. What's
the flapper's daughter? A rock-and-roll teen-age. What's her daughter
going to be? Hum. What is it?
See the seed of the righteous? Look at you Baptists. Go back a little
while ago. Go back to John Smith, your founder, you Baptists, when he
prayed for the iniquity of the people until he cried and prayed for the
people until his eyes swolle shut, and his wife would have to feed him
at the table, his breakfast.
34-5 And you Methodists, around here
with jewels in your nose and over your ears, and look like side saddles
for the devil, and going out, wearing shorts and things like that...
When old John Smith, one of the elders of the Methodist church, before
he died at eighty-five years old preached a short sermon (four
year--four hours). They had to pack him and set him in the pulpit. And
here was his last words: He said, "I am so shocked at the action of the
Methodist church." Said, "Even the daughters of the Methodist church are
wearing gold rings upon their fingers." What would he say now, with
shorts on, singing in the choir? You did run well. What did happen?
You're acting like your mammy. That's exactly it.
That's the reason we don't want none of these denominations hanging
around this, on tacked on here. "We're Methodists." "We're Baptists."
We're just of Christ. Leave it that way, be free.
35-2 Now, see the seed of the serpent?
What would a woman like that pay now? What would that do? What did...
They kept coming on down? That pushed the Baptists back, pushed the
Methodists back, pushed the Presbyterian back. What'd they do? They all
went right back like their mammy, the old prostitute. There they all are
doing the same prostitution. "Well, it doesn't make any difference.
They've been immersed; they've been sprinkled. They--they've come made
confession. They took their six months' probation. They didn't drink too
much during that time, and so forth. They made good members. They pay
good on..."
Oh, my. That has nothing to do with the fruits of the Spirit. The fruits
of the Spirit is faith, believing Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today, and forever; love for the brethren, joy, peace, long-suffering,
goodness, gentleness, patience, meekness, temperance. That's the things,
the fruits of the Spirit.
35-4 "And we take a man... Well, he--he
lives a good life in the neighborhood." So did Esau. Esau never harmed
nobody, and Esau was of the devil. But Jacob, out of the same womb, was
of God: the seed of the devil, the seed of the woman. The seed of God
come through...
Now, see, it's all got down to this, "Well, what is it left in the world
today?" I'm going to say this real harshly; drive this down. Then we'll
start the revival after this in the next meeting. It's got to a
shape... And please, I don't say this sacrilegious. I don't say it to be
mean. It's got to the place to a big religious bunch of illegitimate
bastard children. There's my final remark.
35-6 That's exactly what it's come to.
You know that to be the truth. It's come to a place until it is
church-join, church-member, having a form of godliness, denying the
power thereof, till it's come to a bunch of religious bastard children.
That's exactly what is it.
What's next left? There's a rocket hanging yonder, several of them,
cobalt bombs and everything else; they're just waiting for that power to
arrive. And there'll be a destruction by fire like there was by water.
35-8 And friends, whatever you do, if
you are a Christian, and you've got God in your heart, and you know that
you've passed from death unto Life, you ought to be the happiest person
in all the world. When the Holy Spirit in you...
When the Bible says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and
forever," the denominations say, "But we believe the miracles are
passed."
The Holy Spirit says, "Amen. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So be it."
36-3 As the Bible say, "Repent and be
baptized everyone of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins, you shall receive the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you and
your children, to the Gentiles... all afar off, as many as the Lord our
God... As many as the Lord our God shall call." Not "as many as the
Methodists call, the Baptists call," but "as many as the Lord our God
shall call" shall receive this Holy Ghost and be baptized in the Name of
Jesus Christ. That's what the Bible says.
When that strikes you, you say, "Amen."
The church said, "Oh ,it don't make any difference."
But this Holy Spirit in you say "Amen" to His Word. "Man shall not live
by bread alone, but the Word that proceedeth from the mouth of God."
There you are.
36-5 I want you to show me one Scripture
where it ever said a apple started the thing to going now. I want you
to show me that they eat apples. I showed you that where Cain thought
the same thing, and where his seed still thinks the same thing. But the
spiritual revelation of God proves by the Bible that it was sexual
intercourse between man and woman, illegally. There's where your giants
come from. That's where your sin come from. That's where your corruption
come from. That's where it's come down.
Now, notice, and all... Just--just look. The--the serpent was twice as
smart. His seed has always been twice as smart. And I'd like to climb up
on this pulpit, and grab this microphone in my hand, stick my feet over
the pulpit and say this: "And today where is your great intellectuals?"
Your pastor that's gone down and got a lot of intellectual knowledge,
and he stands up. He's the pastor of the biggest churches there is in
the country, and so forth like that... Where does the seed of the
serpent staying at? In the smart intelligent places like that: smart,
shrewd scholars, there's where he is at. That's where he lays. "Not by
power, not by might, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." See? There's
where you...
37-1 And you take the little brother
standing down on the corner, crying his eyes out, and maybe standing
down there beating an old guitar saying, "Brothers, come, find the
Lord."
Pastor walk by, "Humph, I wouldn't have my congregation... Why, I
wouldn't associate... wouldn't let--wouldn't let Liddie and Johnny and
them see me around such a place as that."
Go on, seed of the devil. You're headed for your eternal destination
anyhow. That's right. I could have said another word there, and said
bastard children. And that's just about where it's at. For you see,
you... "No man can come to Me except My Father draws him. And all that
comes to Me, I'll raise in the last day. There's nothing going to be
lost. I got it. I'll keep it." No man can do it except this. All lays in
Him. You all can't say I done one thing. It's the grace of God that
done it all. So nothing I done. I never had a thing to do; you never
neither. You never merited one thing. God did every bit of it. You never
turned your finger for one part of it.
You can say, "Well, I come out of a good family. I did this." That don't
have one thing to do with it. God is the One Who did it. God's mercy.
37-5 I'm sorry now, it ain't quite
eleven o'clock, but I'm going to close anyway. See? How many understands
that the Bible speaks of these things to be the truth, you Branham
Tabernacle people especially? Now, that's just about one-sixteenth of
what we teach and believe. But remember, to you bystanders I might say
this, you people that doesn't come here as a member: the way we believe
this, that this is the Bible, and the Bible is God's Truth.
And we believe that in the Old Testament now, they had a way of knowing
what was the truth and what wasn't the truth. Now, we all know that they
had the written Law. How many knows that? The law, the--the
commandments was in the ark and so forth. All right. And the law on the
commandments... It said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Ever who
commits adultery is stoned." See? That was the --the commandment and the
law on the commandment. Now, the ark was setting like this. The
commandments was down in there, and the laws of the commandments was in
the pockets on the side of the ark. If man come down here, and committed
adultery, they reached down here and got what the law said. "Stone
him." They took him right out and stoned him. That's what the law was on
the commandment.
37-7 Now, they had two more ways of
knowing. (There's always three is a confirmation.) They had another way
of knowing, and that was either by a prophet or a dreamer. How many
knows that? "If there be one among you who's spiritual or a prophet, I
the Lord will make Myself known to him in dreams and speak to him in
visions." That's right. Now, he prophesied.
Now, if a man come around and said, "Oh, hallelujah, I got it. I'm
prophesying now in the Name of the Lord. I've got the revelation," they
didn't let that go like that, like you people do. They examined that by
the--God first.
38-2 Now, on Aaron's breastplate they
had what they called the Urim Thummim. How many ever heard that word?
What was it? Was twelve stones, six on each side of the twelve
patriarchs: Jasper, Judah, and so forth, on down to twelve stones. And
then they took this prophet or a dreamer, and they hung this breastplate
up, and they stood him there. And they said, "Now, prophesy and tell
your prophecy."
"The Lord spoke to me and said a certain-certain-thing." No matter how
real it seemed. It might sound like it's just perfectly the truth. But
if them lights didn't come together and make a rainbow color across
there--the Urim Thummim, them lights conglomerating together, the
supernatural working, confirming... See, God's always confirmed His
Word. See? And that supernatural light didn't flicker on there, then I
don't care how real it seemed, it was wrong.
38-4 If a dreamer said, "I dreamed a
dream, and this dream said that Israel should move and go to a certain
place 'cause the Syrians are going to come in on this side and besiege
it," they would take that dreamer down there, he told his dream. If them
lights didn't flicker across there, he was wrong no matter how... If
the Syrians was already setting in battle yonder, he was wrong. No, sir,
they absolutely--it had to be proved by the Urim Thummim.
Now, everybody knows that the old priesthood was gone a--done away with,
and the Urim Thummim went with it. We know that, don't we? And the new
priesthood was come in. And what do we have a Urim Thummim today? Yes,
sir. God's Word. Yes, sir, this is it. If any man has any kind of a
revelation, or speaks anything, or any doctrine that's not according and
co--and coping with this Bible throughout the entire Scripture, he's
wrong.
I don't care what denomination he is. How good he is, how smart he is, how educated he is, he's wrong.
38-6 And when any man tells you these things that we've taught here in the church now, and tells you that if you're sprinkled, it's all right, he's told you a lie. That won't flash on the Urim Thummim. When he tells you that pouring's all right, he's told you a lie. If he tells you to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost is all right, he's told you a lie. If he tells you the days of miracles is past, he's told you a lie. If he tells you it's all right for women to preach, he's told you a lie. If he tells you it's all right for you to go ahead and stick to your denominations, he's told you a lie. It won't flash on the Urim Thummim. And dozens of things that come out in that old mother harlot and come down there... And there's why we stay away from the denominations.
39-1 We love our brethren and sisters
out in those denominations, but you don't go and say, "I'm a Methodist
and make you a Christian to me." You're a Christian because you are
borned of the Spirit of God. You don't have to be Methodist or Baptist.
You don't have to be either one. You just have to be born of the Spirit
of God. Do you believe it?
Upon these basis, if anybody's here and wants to cooperate and come into
the fellowship of this worship and wants to be--wants to be immersed,
baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, here's the pool. They're going to
baptize just in a minute. If there's any man in here, anybody that wants
to come in any other way... We're here... That's right.
39-3 Now, we're--we don't have any
membership; you just come here to this church. We believe that Christ is
in the Methodist church, the Baptist church, the Presbyterian church.
He's got members in every one of them. And what's lacking today... Is
false prophecy, bringing those things out, the teaching of those
churches, which is absolutely contrary to the Bible.
Now, if somebody made that that plain to me, I'd certainly get myself...
I believe there is enough Spirit of God in me to search that Bible out
and come and make it right. If I just walked up and shook hands with the
preacher, and put my name on the book, and still had hatred and malice
in my heart, and still had envy and strife, and still disbelieved Jesus
Christ to be the great Healer and so forth like that, I'd go get
straightened up with God right quick. I sure believe I would. I--I'd be
that honest about it. I'd go get right with God. If I just hung on
because I was a Baptist or a Methodist, I'd go down and get Christianity
in my heart. I'd do it. Yes, sir.
40-1 Now, remember, the coming revival which will begin, the Lord willing, this coming Wednesday night, that's upon these basis. Listen, friends. There is a true and living God. That's right. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is in the church today. Now, if I just had somebody to tell me that, I'd have a right to doubt it. But listen, one day yonder as a little boy I was standing under a tree. I seen Him. I heard Him. He told me, said, "Keep away from them foul women. Keep away from the cigarettes; keep away from cursing, drinking, and all these things. I got a work for you to do when you get older." I know He's a real, living God that copes with His Word.
40-2 When I got a little older, how He
met me, how He talked to me. How I seen Him yonder at the burning bush
and that fire moving around yonder. How I seen Him speak and tell just
exactly what would take place and every time hits perfect, just as it
can be perfect like that. The same One that says those perfected things
like that, is the same One Who inspires me to teach this Bible just the
way I teach It. That's right. So it comes from God.
To me it's God Almighty, and He's the same yesterday, today. and
forever. Jesus said, "I come from the Father and I go to the Father."
When He was come... When He was God in the wilderness, He was a burning
light. How many knows that? He was a burning light, Pillar of Fire. And
He come here on earth, and He said, "I come from the Father and I go... I
come from God and I go back to God."
40-4 When He died, buried, rose again;
and Paul, on his road to Damascus met Him again, what was He? Still a
Pillar of Fire. Yes, sir. What did He do when He was here on earth? What
did He do when He met Paul? How did He send him? He sent him to a
prophet that told him how to be baptized, told him what to do, laid his
hands on him and healed him. He told him he saw a vision.
That same Jesus is here today, doing the same things and still the same
Pillar of Fire, teaching the same thing and confirming it by His Word
and by signs and wonders. I'm so glad to be a Christian; I don't know
what to do. I'm glad that you are a Christian.
40-6 You Tabernacle here, I told you we're going to change the name of this. It's not right for it to be "Branham Tabernacle." That's just a man. See? We're going to change the name of it, make it some other name. We'll get on that after while. I just want it to be a--a church of the living God. I don't want it "Methodist," "Baptist," "Presbyterian," "Pentecostal," I... All those people I love with all my heart. I don't know which one's which. I can't tell you.
41-1 I just have to preach the Word. I
cast the net and pull it in. There's frogs, and there's water spiders,
there's snakes, and there's some fish too. That's up to God to decide
that. I just pull the net, just preach the Word and pull it in and say,
"Here they are, Lord, all around the altar. You know Your Own. You've
known them since the foundation. I don't know which is which. You do, so
it's up to You, Lord. That's the best I can do. I'll go over here and
seine somewhere else now and get another group in. That's all I can do."
All right.
Oh I feel like traveling on,
I feel like traveling on.
My heavenly home is bright and fair;
And I feel like traveling on.
41-2 Now, remember, anybody wants the
appointments, just call Mr. Mercier here: Butler 2-1519. We'll be glad
to see you. If your loved ones come in and have to hurry out during the
time of the revival, now I'm going from tonight to go to myself and be
gone for two days now to myself.
I just get in there and go to studying like this: "Lord, You're near me.
I know You're here. Your Word said You'd draw nigh unto them that draw
nigh unto You." I keep praying and watching till I see that Pillar of
Fire begin to move. I know it's ready then. Then I walk in to the
platform for the healing service to pray, to do what I can to help the
sick and afflicted.
41-4 We appreciate all your kindness now, and when you come, come believing. And we're expecting to have a great meeting. I want to say that Brother Jefferies... Is he here tonight? We want to appreciate Brother Jefferies and his work. I guess he's gone back to the islands and so forth. Glad to see Brother and Sister Wright and many of you people here. I seen attorney Robinson here awhile ago, come in awhile ago. I wanted to compliment him on his--on his message he had the other day. Nobody ever did say who it was. I was ashamed. He had a real good message on prophesies, something like I'd been preaching tonight. And I...So... Then there was another minister here this morning, or last night, Brother Smith from the Methodist church-or from the Church of God over here. I don't know whether he's here tonight or not. If you ever stand up in this pulpit and look back that way, it's kind of hard to tell. It's flat. You see? You can't tell it. If you're here, Brother Smith, we appreciate you.
42-1 And isn't this setting right here
this little brother from Georgia, back--back here setting by Brother
Collins? Glad to see you up here again tonight, brother. And the rest of
you, all of you. Each one knows who you are.
I believe this is the sister and brother here who went and prayed for
the girl that time, right here, a doctor setting over here on the side.
The Lord bless you, doctor.
42-3 Now, please don't feel offended at
me, you ministers and brethren, because the way I strictly drive this in
just as hard as I can. This is our Tabernacle. It's what we stand for,
and we want to lay it right on that Word and shake them with it. Then,
if you ever get out of line, we're going to come back and say, "You
knowed better. Here it is on the tape. There you are. Here it is on
tape."
We got a whole lot more ought to go on there, you know. And so... But
you got that much. You stay right with that, and we'll get the rest of
it after while. Like the man was eating watermelon, said, "That was
really good, but there's some more of it." So we got a lot more of it
yet coming.
42-5 The Lord bless you real good now while we... Going to have a baptismal services now. Is that right, Brother Neville? Is there someone here to be baptized just now? We don't care who you are, we're--we're ready to baptize. Raise up your hands, the ones that was to be baptized. Someone, I believe there's a... Here's a lady here. And was anyone else? Now, we got clothes here for both men and women.
42-6 Now, we're not saying leave the
Baptist church, leave the Methodist church. We don't say... You go right
back to your church. But if you haven't been baptized according to the
Scripture in the Name of the Lord Jesus, not in the Name of Jesus only,
in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ (That's the Scriptures.), you're
baptized wrong.
I don't want no trouble when I come to the river. I want everything as
clear as I know how when I'm holding that ticket (See?), 'cause I want
to get aboard at that time. I'd advise you to do the same. Go back to
your church. It's up between you and God. That's all I can tell you. But
no one in the Scripture was ever baptized in any other way but the Name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And those who were baptized was commanded by
St. Paul who said, "If an angel preached anything else let him be
accursed," commanded to them to come and be rebaptized again in the Name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's right, and he did it. And what he did,
he commissioned us to do. That's what we will do God willing.
43-1 We believe in feet washing. We
believe in Communion. We believe in the second coming of Christ, the
visible corporal body of the Lord, not spirit, but the corporal body of
the Lord Jesus coming again in glory. We believe in the physical
resurrection of the dead to receive a body, not old and wrinkled as we
go into the grave, but a new one in the very bliss of youth to live
forever. We believe in the immortality of the soul, absolutely. We
believe there's only one form of Eternal Life and that's the Life that
you get from Christ Jesus. That's exactly right. Therefore, we do not
believe in eternal punishment. We believe in a hell-fire, brimstone
burning, but we don't believe it burns forever. If it does, you got
Eternal Life.
There's only one Eternal Life; that comes from God. That's right. You'll
be burnt maybe for a million years, ten million years, I don't know;
but you can't have Eternal Life. You can't burn forever... You can burn
forever, but not eternal. There's a difference between "eternal" and
"forever." "Forever" is forever and forever (conjunction) means "a space
of time." But eternal... You do not have eternal punishment. You have
Eternal Life, 'cause there's only one form of Eternal Life, and he that
has Eternal Life lives and is blessed of God forever. But the soul that
sinneth, that soul shall what? Die. Then it hasn't Eternal Life.
Certainly it has. It has its punishment, but not Eternal Life. So you
see there's many things yet to be taught; we'll get later on. The Lord
bless you.
43-2 Now, let's sing this good old song
while our sister is going there... I believe this lady here... Rosella
is that your mother? Why, bless your heart. Glad to see you, sister,
doing this. That's very fine.
Rosella Griffin, one of the finest little friends that we've had. She is
the young woman that was a alcoholic, to some of you people here might
be a stranger. Rosella don't care for me saying that. When she come onto
the platform up there at--at--up here in Indiana, you never seen a
wretch, she was one of them: a walleyed alcoholic. Where four great
doctors of Chicago said, "She's..." The Alcoholics Anonymous and
everything else give her up. But one night when she come into the
meeting, the Holy Ghost unraveled her life, and told her right there;
that settled it. Look at her now. I guess thirty-something years old,
pass for eighteen, lovely, beautiful young woman. Never tasted whiskey
since, no more desire, living for Christ, going around in the streets
everywhere, testifying to the glory of God, to sinners and alcoholics
all through skid rows and everything else through Chicago doing
something for the Lord. She was baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus,
and her mother comes tonight to do likewise. If a God could heal her, if
Jesus could heal her...
43-4 Whatsoever you do in word or in
deed, do it all in the Name of... That's what the Bible said. That's
right. All right. Now, we're going to have the baptismal service. We're
going to turn the lights out just for a few minutes while we make ready
for the service to be baptized, and--and then we'll expect a good time
in the Lord. Are you going to...?... All right. You'd better--you'd
better get ready now. I'll start, I'll lead the songs and things, while
we're going ahead then. Are there... Baptismal clothes, Doc, right
quick" All right. Let's just sing one of these good old songs... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] And so we do that as we leave. We must do what?
Take the Name of Jesus with us,
Falling prostrate at His feet,
King of kings in heaven will crown Him,
When our journey is complete.
All right, up to our feet.
Take the name of Jesus with you,
Child of sorrow and of woe.
It will joy and comfort give you, (I
tell you what let's do. Turn right around there and shake hands with
somebody there, and say, "How do you do, brother? I'm sure glad to be in
the service.")
... (Precious Name,)... (O how sweet!)
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Precious... (Precious Name) O, how...