Accept God's Gift

Thank you, Brother Baxter.

Good evening, friends. I'm very happy to be here tonight. And I am sorry that we have such a standing up condition—everybody out on the street. My son came down to get me, and he said, “Why, dad,” said, “they're standing all around out on the streets, and everything.” Said, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” So, that kind of makes it kind of hard when you have to hurry, hurry, hurry! Isn't it? But it isn't so bad on me hurrying, as it's bad on you having to stand like that. That's what I'm sorry about.

We've been very happy to be here at Tallahassee; enjoyed every moment of our time here. I hope that someday we can come back to be with you again, for we're really expecting someday for God to give us the hint or something, and we can have services then. It's kind of hard when we have to.... You know, people coming, and our place is maybe not big enough to take care of them.

We thank you for everything that you've done. We thank you for all the ministers for what they have done, their cooperating pastors. You attend church, work hard. Men like that who believes in these great principles of God—what they've taught you to be true. God has come around and confirmed that it is the truth. So, you must believe them. They are men of God. So, I trust that every one of you brethren that's helped in these meetings, that your services will get greater and greater all the time. And to you people, may God richly bless you.

And there's been many, many things has been done in the services, but I have never said nothing about it as yet. I just let it go. But you'll find out after I'm gone (You pastors, remember this.) ... that after I'm gone, you'll see that there is many things that's been done that people doesn't know nothing about yet. But you'll find out that women and men will be coming to you: “My stomach trouble's gone.” “My arthritis left.” Now, pastors, you mark that down and see if that isn't the truth; you'll notice them saying that.

So, we thank you.

And my manager just told me they'd taken a love offering for me. I appreciate that. I didn't really deserve a love offering, friends; I didn't. But I appreciate it, because I'm really trying to get money together now to go to Africa, to other places. That's what I'll do with it: send me over to Africa. Thousands and millions of people sitting in black ignorance, darkness. I know it'll go to the right place; I promise you that. Every penny of it will be used for the cause of Jesus Christ. Maybe I might have to pay a little food bill, or something, at home—my grocery bill, and so forth. But outside of that, every cent I get goes right straight into foreign missions. Then I go myself to be sure that I'm getting it over there right, and use it. The Lord bless you is my prayer.

And I will give Brother.... I believe this church here, somebody told me today that it was a Pentecostal Holiness. Who's the pastor of this Pentecostal Holiness? [Unclear words.] Is that right? [A brother says, “I saw the picture of Brother Dallas Freeman [unclear words]. Brother Bosworth showed them to me when he returned.”] Is that right? Well, that's very fine. Well he's certainly.... Brother Freeman, and I, and Brother Fisher, we're all very, very fine, good friends. I'll sure bring them news that we had a real meeting down here in the Pentecostal Holiness church, then, when I tell them that the Lord was with us down here.

The Lord bless you all, every one of you.

And now, tonight, you standing here, I'm just going to read a Scripture. And then, we'll start praying for the sick just in a few moments. I know you're tired standing. I know the ones outside, and in the basement, and around is tired standing.

I wish there was something I could do right now. I wish there was just something within my power that I could just raise up and bless everybody here, that they'd just be praising God, and blessing God. And everyone be healed and go out, and there wouldn't be any sick, or crippled, or any.... Wouldn't I love to do that? Oh, if I could, I would just do it right now. But it isn't in me to do it. I can't do it. I'm just a man, see. The only thing I can do is offer prayer for you, and tell you the truth.

And if by being the meetings, what the people come.... It's something that the ministers has preached (your pastors, maybe years ago has preached to you) that God would do these things just before ... [blank spot on tape.] It's only confirming what your pastors has preached to you would take place. And in doing that, humbly, I'm trying my very best tonight to bring the Gospel to you in the way that I believe God has ordained that I should preach it. Receive it, will you? And then, you believe just exactly that this is the truth.

Now, to you on the outside, in the basement, and you who are not able at this time to see in, the Lord Jesus Christ at His vicarious suffering, and death at Calvary, purchased healing for every mortal in the world—ever will be in the world. Jesus has already paid the price, and in the sight of God, you are already healed. There is no sickness in the sight of God. You're already healed.

Every sinner here inside, out, wherever you are, your sins, as far as God is concerned, is forgiven you now. But if you do not accept it, then when you come into His presence without the blood of Jesus upon you, as a son or daughter, then you're condemned when you get there. “The day you eat thereof, that day you die.”

Now, you don't have to die in that condition. You can't help being a sinner, because you was born a sinner, but you can help remaining a sinner. For, in the sight of God, sin is already covered. He couldn't look upon sin. He's just, and He's sovereign. He'd have to ... [Break in tape] doomed right then. God cannot look upon sin. He's holy, but the blood of Jesus holds it off, as a bumper on a car. Every time you sin, the bumper, Jesus Christ, catches your sin before it reaches God. Aren't you ashamed the way you've treated Him?

I remember one day when I looked up there and saw what He done for me, I crawled humbly to Him. There laid my name on top of a book. Oh, what was written under it. I said, “Lord, will You forgive me?” And seemingly took His hand, dipped into His side, and said, “Yes.” And He wrote across that book, “Pardoned.” closed it up, and put it back in the sea of forgetfulness. I've been happy ever since.

I'm trying my best, in my humble way, to tell every mortal on earth: Jesus Christ loves you, and He's the only thing that's holding the wrath of God off of you. Receive Him as your personal Saviour. And when you've done that.... Now, He was also striped on His back. “With His stripes we are healed” ... or, “we were healed,” not, “we will be.” We have already been healed. Every person has been healed.

And now, the only thing you have to do is to believe that first in your heart before you can say it. If you're just saying it from your lips, it won't do you any good. But from....

See, this isn't a shallow affair. It isn't something that's just like.... I heard someone say last evening on a broadcast, “Every person that believes has been filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Now, not disagreeing with the minister, but he just probably didn't understand the Scripture. Paul, in Acts, the 19th chapter, asked those Baptist people up there, had they received the Holy Ghost “since” they believed. Not, “when” you believe. The Holy Spirit is a gift of God after you believe. It's God's gift to you for believing. But you can believe Jesus being the Son of God and accept Him as your personal Saviour, and still not have the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is God's personal gift to the believer. You're saved because you believe, but you're filled with the Holy Ghost when God's personal gift comes upon you, which is the Holy Spirit.

Now, see, it's not a shallow affair. It's something deep. We're not babies anymore; we're men and women. The church should be in that condition tonight: not shallow, but deep in God.

Now, healing is not something that you just say, “Well, yeah, I believe it. I believe it.” Now, that's all right. If that's the best you can do, just mentally, or just say, “Well, yes, I see it. I believe that. I accept it.” Then if you accept it on those basis, keep saying it over and over. Say it out loud. Say it over and over. Just keep saying, “I'm healed. I'm healed.” Say it until, actually, you believe it. And when you believe it, then it's going to take place.

Don't have a negative testimony. Every time when you confess, “Well, I still feel bad today; I guess I....” you go right straight back in the same rut that you was in the beginning. There's not a man or woman in here that's baptized with the Holy Spirit, but what would start your confession, “I believe I've lost the Holy Spirit. I believe it's gone from me. I believe....” You'll go right down. You'll never....

Listen close: You'll never live above your confession.

Jesus is the High Priest of our confession. Is that right? Now, Hebrews 3:1. Now, any scholar knows that same word profession is “confession,” too—same translation. Now, sitting at the right hand of the Father to make intercession upon what? Our confession. He can't do nothing for you until first you confess He's done it, see. When you accepted....

Now, I wasn't saved.... I'm not saved tonight because I get happy and shout. That isn't it. I'm not saved because the gift of God works through me. I'm saved because I have met the conditions that Jesus Christ required from me. I'm saved according to the Bible, see. Is that right? See, not because I feel like I'm saved. Satan can whip you around a stump on your feelings, but he can't when it's “Thus saith the Lord,” see. He can't go.... He can't wade across that. That'll defeat him.

Now, when you believed you were saved, sitting in your seat out in the ... wherever you was, you accepted it, and began to confess, and tell people you were saved. Well, you kept on saying, “I'm saved.” The people said, “There ain't no difference in you.” But you believed there was. Is that right? And you kept with your confession. And after awhile it worked righteousness. All your neighbors and everybody knows you're saved now, because you believed it; you've confessed it. Why, what happened? What changed you? He's the High Priest of your confession, sitting at the right hand of the Father, making good what you're confessing.

Now, that's the same thing it is by healing. You accept Him as your healer, renounce your feelings. It's not by feelings; it's by faith. Say you're healed. Believe you're healed. Act like you're healed. Associate with those that believe in healing, and God will bring you right out to a perfect soundness of health. It will not fail.

Just an illustration. I'm trying to get faith moving, you see, so I can see what the Holy Spirit will do here for us in a few minutes.

Don't never look at symptoms. Lady, don't you look because you're sitting in a wheelchair, or this young fellow here. That's no more to God than to heal a toothache. Don't make a bit of difference.

But, now, look. He's the High Priest of your confession. Now, if there's any fellow that ought to've had a bad case of symptoms, would have been Jonah when he was going down to Nineveh. He was backslid, going to Nineveh ... or, to Tarshish instead of Nineveh; on the wrong ship, going the wrong way, backslid, running from God in a stormy sea. They tied his hands and feet, throwed him out of the ship. He went down into the sea. A whale swallowed him, and went plumb to the bottom of the sea to rest his swimmers, as all fish does.

There he was: tied hands and feet, backslid, a stormy sea, many fathoms deep in the sea, in the belly of a whale. If there's anybody should've had symptoms, it was Jonah. He looked this way, it was a whale's belly. Everywhere he looked, it was a whale's belly. But he refused to look at it.

You'd look, say, “I'm sitting here.” Somebody else looks, say, “Well, the doctor told me I had heart trouble.” “I had arthritis.” Refuse to see it! Refuse to believe it. That's right.

Jonah said, “They are lying vanities.” He said, “Once more will I look to Your holy temple.”—told God. Because when Solomon dedicated that temple, he said, “If Thy people be in trouble anywhere, and look to this holy place, and pray, then You hear from heaven.” And he believed—Jonah believed—that God heard Solomon's prayer. And he started saying, “I'll not look at this whale's belly. I'll not think about my backslidden condition. I'm looking towards Your holy temple and making confessions.” And God sent oxygen down there and kept him alive for three days and nights, and brought him right in Nineveh where he belonged.

Well, if Solomon prayed that prayer.... And there's no one here that's in the condition—or, halfway—like Jonah was. You got nothing like the symptoms he had. Well, if he, in that condition, could look to a temple where it was built by hands of a man—and a earthly being, a man, Solomon—sitting and praying, and could have faith in Solomon's prayer, how much more ought you and I tonight, sitting here, look to the throne of God where Jesus stands at His right hand with His blood there to make intercessions on your confession. Just refuse to have the symptoms.

Symptoms is something like: Say, tomorrow when you go home now to your place. The express agent will come up and say, “Are you Mrs. Doe?”

“Yes.”

“I have a present for you.”

“All right. What is it?”

He hands over a basket, or box, and you hear something hitting in that box. You look at it. It's a big box of snakes—rattle snakes. Well, you don't want them things. Well you say, “I don't want them.”

“Oh, but they're yours. Somebody sent them to you. Here's your name. Here's the name that somebody sent these snakes to you. They're yours. You have to take them.”

Now, in one sense of the word they're yours, in another sense they're not. Somebody sent them to you, but they're not yours until you sign for them that you've received them. And when you sign you received them, then they're yours. But if you refuse to sign for them, he has to take them back to the express company. The express company has to send them to the one that sent them to you. Is that right? Well, don't sign for nothing the devil brought! No, sir. Just refuse to have it. No, sir. Say, “I just haven't got it. Devil, you take it all back. That's all. I won't have it.”

Refuse to have your sickness, your arthritis, whatever it is; I just haven't got it. “By His stripes I'm healed.” Stand right on your ground. Confess it. Believe it. Stay there. God will bring it to pass. No matter what it is, just believe Him.

All right. You're a lovely group of people. I'm not much of a preacher, but I'd sure like to talk a little while tonight, but I can't. I'm afraid I'll get away from the.... I've been praying all for hours now for the anointing for healing. And then, come right around and start preaching. It wouldn't be just the thing to do.

I want to read some Scripture, and then we'll call the prayer line. St. John, the fifth chapter, thirty-three ... thirty-third verse, beginning. Listen close now:

Ye sent unto John, and he bear witness unto the truth.

But I receive not testimony from man: but the things which I say, that ye might be saved.

He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.

But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father has given unto me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me.

We bow our heads just a moment, everywhere, if you will. Now, in deep sincerity, friends, inside, out, everywhere. Now, let's look to the Author and Finisher of our faith, who promised if two or three would gather together in His name, He'd be there.

Now, Lord, we believe that You're right here. We come, God, in the name of the Lord Jesus, because we have no name or merits of our own to come in. If we would come in our own name, You would not receive us. But we are so deeply concerned tonight about sick people, and the conditions of these your children. Till we come, placing the name of Him who promised that if we come in His name, that You'd hear—our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Whatever you ask the Father in My name, that I'll do.” So, we come in His name, knowing that the God of heaven, the great Amoyah, and looks down on this church tonight; looks standing out in the yard, down through the basement. Those great x-ray eyes of Yours look right through to the soul of man. There's nothing hid; You know everything. You know every person. Not even a sparrow could fall in the street without you knowing about it. How much more you know we're praying now.

Father, will You do this for us tonight,

if I have found favor in Your sight, Lord? I've tried my best to serve You all I know how, knowing that I've made many mistakes, and deserve to be cut off tonight. But it's through Your grace, Lord, that we're here.

Lord, since You told me and sent me out to pray for the sick, I've tried to be humble. I didn't have to have great big places to go to. A little church is all right for me. Just wherever it seemed like You wanted me to go, I tried to go. I've always tried to give honor and glory to Jesus Christ, our Saviour; trying to carry out the works that I feel that He has started back there, and promised to be with the people to the end of the world, giving Him all praise and glory.

Now, Lord, look down upon this waiting group of people. Send the great Spirit of God upon them. And may, as it were, the Angel of healing stretch His great wings across this building tonight. Shut off all unbelief. And may there be such a great joy in this camp after a while, that they could run under His feathers, Lord, and wait. And may the great distilled drops of mercy and faith drop down from His wings upon every person, that they'll just drop loose from every sin, every shackle; be free and come and serve Thee; be healed of their sickness.

And when we're going to our separate homes tonight, God, bless each one. May we say as them from Emmaus, “Didn't our heart burn within us because of His presence?”

God bless this little church. Bless every church that's cooperating. And some day, Lord, grant that if it be Thy will, we can return to this lovely city, and there have an old-fashioned revival for many, many weeks; many things might be done. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you. Now, let's begin tonight. They give out all new group of prayer cards today. A whole new group—many, many. Starting with the letter M. And now, we can't stand too many at a time. How many could we stand? All right. (Who was it that said...? All right. Okay.)

The pastors, Brother Baxter and them, suggested we just call about three at a time, because ... keep them from standing up. All right. That'll be just fine. Well, let's start right out with the first one, then; just start right down.

Who's got M-1? Where's it at? M-1, prayer card M-1? Look on your prayer card, see.... It'll be a little card like this, that'll have your name and address on the front of it. On this side over here has.... On this side, down here, has a letter “M”; it'll be a 1. M-1, M-2, M-3. Let's see if we can get them out. Some of them is, I guess, outside. Some of them's in the afternoon meeting. Some of them may be standing down in the basement. Wherever you are, that's got prayer cards beginning with the letter “M,” be ready, now, to be called. We have M-1, M-2, M-3. (That be enough to...?)