Is There Anything Too Hard For The Lord?

Let us remain standing just a moment for prayer. Shall we bow our heads? Our kind and gracious Father, we approach Thy throne of grace in the name of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus, asking for mercy from the throne. And we pray, heavenly Father, that You will look upon us and be merciful, that You will give unto us of Thy grace tonight. Forgive us of our shortcomings, our trespasses against Thy great holy law. And we would ask tonight that You would remember every person that's in divine presence. May this great message that's just went forth sink deep into the hearts of everyone, that will be watered by faith and bring forth a great harvest unto Thy kingdom. Grant tonight that there will not be one feeble person in our midst when the service closes. May there not be one that has unforgiven sin.

Then when we go tonight to our separate homes, the closing of the service, may we talk along the road like those coming from Emmaus, saying, “Did not our hearts burn within us as He talked to us along the way?” For we ask it in Jesus' name, Thy Son. Amen. You may be seated.

I was just driving up when I heard the last of the message that was being given, and I was only sorry that I didn't get here in time to hear the beginning of it. I think that we've had the gospel preached to us tonight. Now, just before I call those prayer cards that we never got finished with last evening, I would just like to talk to you a few minutes on the Word, to kind of get the crowd quietened and every person to their place, that the Lord would bless us, and heal the sick, and save those that are savable.

I walked on the platform Sunday afternoon, and I felt then that I made a mistake because that I spoke after that, because our gracious brother Tommy Osborn had give a message. And my son Billy, when we went outside, said, “Daddy, why did you say anything any more?” Said, “The Holy Spirit was just filling the room.” Then when I walked up again tonight, the same thing's taken place. And I'm not much of a preacher anyhow. I didn't get enough education for that. But the Lord just give me another way to declare His gospel, seeing my heart wanted to do something and I wasn't qualified, perhaps, any other way. But I'm so glad that He lets me do what I can to show that I love Him and appreciate Him with all my heart.

In the book of Genesis, the eighteenth chapter and the first eight words of the fourteenth verse, I would like to read this:

Is there any thing too hard for the Lord?

Now, just a little drama, to kind of catch the feeling of the audience. Hours before they come to get me, well, I stay in a room, praying, waiting. Close the doors, nobody bothers me, and I just keep praying. And then when I feel His presence real near, sometimes I look up and see it, that light that you see in the picture, and they've got it around the world now. And then, coming to the meeting, I like to walk right in and kind of feel out the meeting, to see where the Holy Spirit is moving, and then I can have my prayer line going.

And now we see in the first part of this chapter, Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent on a real hot day. It must've been a very hot day. Perhaps a lot of complaints had been coming in lately by the herdsmen that the grass was all gone, the land was drying up, and that the cattle was becoming very thin, and also that the water supply was just about all gone. They'd found the water holes in the land, and as the water got low they would dig out and dig out till they got down to where the water was seeping through the rocks, and still the cattle did not have enough water to supply them.

You know sometimes when things are going wrong, dark, we know by nature that it's darkest just before day. Many times when we see disastrous things happening like that, especially to believers, we must bear this in our mind: that it's Satan trying to block the blessing that's on its road.

That was very much so in this case. Satan was trying to tempt them to feel that they had done wrong, and was trying to block the oncoming visitation that God was going to give to Abraham and Sarah. And we're taught in the Scriptures that all things work together for good to them that love God. No matter how bad it seems, remember it has to be working for your good.

I'm so glad of that. Satan's been after me all day, so I just believe that there's a blessing in store here in this city somewhere. And I know when he tempts and tries to block out, what's he trying to do? Get you to disbelieve. And if you're . . . the worst thing that you can do is disbelieve God. And as soon as you get a little scared, “Well, maybe I haven't done this and haven't done that,” right then Satan's got that blessing conquered for you. You can't get to it as long as Satan makes you think that.

And perhaps if we would listen to such things, the temptations like that, and would pay attention to them, then it would be that we would miss the blessing.

I wish I had time. . . . It's on my mind now, one particular tape, of how I could not find a place to pray. God seemed to lead me into the wilderness and way down in southern Indiana, where a little girl was laying on the bed of affliction. And she'd had tubercular, and she had not even raised her head from the pillow for nine years and eight months. She belonged to a church that did not believe in divine healing.

And at that time I'd just taken over on my circuit the Milltown Baptist church. And being a Baptist minister, well, I was a preaching a circuit, and I'd taken this church in. And the Lord had been doing some great things. And they sent for me to come pray for this little girl, about seventeen years old, and she was . . . a very critical condition.

And the good brother who'd taken me over there. . . . Her father was the deacon in this certain church that did not believe in divine healing and had made a statement that if any of the members went up to the Baptist church where I was praying for the sick, would be excommunicated from the church. Her father being a deacon, it kind of placed him in an awful condition.

So. . . . (I'll brief it just quick as I can.) And I remember I went to see the little girl. Her mother went out of the room, and her father had left the house, for they would have nothing to do with it. But the little girl had read a book that I had written called Jesus Christ, The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever.

And when I went into the room, she could not even raise her hands to hold her sputum cup to spit when she had coughed. She weighed some . . . approximately thirty-five pounds or forty. Just . . . her little legs was just about so big—way thinner than Florence Nightingale, in that picture, that was healed with cancer. And I prayed for her, and she asked me if she was going to be able to walk, like the little Methodist girl that had been crippled so long, by the name of Nale. And I said, “Sister, the angel of the Lord had spoke to me, and told me to go up in that country and hunt that girl up. Well,” I said, “I do not know.”

After the revival of two weeks, just coming to the church, a new minister, we had a baptismal service up by the place called Totten's Ford. That afternoon when I had baptized some hundred and fifty people in the water, then I went to dinner with some of my friends —an old friend of mine by the name of George Wright. And something began to press me, saying, “Go up into the wilderness and pray.” Well, I just couldn't get it off of my mind. Now, when anything presses you like that, you go do it right away, because it's the Holy Spirit. Now watch something to block it. And Mrs. Wright said, “Brother Billy, when I ring the old country dinner bell. . . .” I don't guess you have them out here in Oklahoma, but back up there they ring a bell—hilly country—and the farmers can hear this bell ring, and then they'll come to their dinner. And she said, “When I ring the bell, supper's ready.” And she said, “Then you come on in and be ready to go back to church tonight. [The services closing for the revival then.]”

And I said, “All right, Sister Wright.” Went up on the hill and I started to kneel down and the greenbriers was cutting me. Well, I moved over a little farther, and it was so rough on the ground, them rocks, I just couldn't get comfortable, the rocks. I went around the side of the hill, and it was leaning too much sideways. And you know, the devil just trying to keep you from getting the blessing, that's all it was. Then I climbed up a little farther into the thicket and I knelt down. The mosquitoes was just humming all around my ears, and I couldn't hardly pray. And I believed then it was the devil, so I said, “O Lord God, be merciful,” and just threw up my hands and started praying anyhow, and just let the mosquitoes fill up if they wished to. But there was something that was burdening in my heart, and after I become so lost in prayer. . . . I guess you Christians know what it means to be lost in prayer, just forget where you are. That's praying in the Spirit, I believe.

When I opened my eyes, and just beside of a little dogwood bush, there was that light hanging there, and light shining down to where I was. He said, “Rise, and go by the way of Carter's.”

Well, when I looked around, it was almost dark. The bell had been ringing, and they had search parties out for me. I jumped up and run through the woods real quick, and I jumped over a little strand of wire right into Brother Wright's arms. He said, “Brother Billy,” said, “Mama has been ringing that bell, and we've hunted everywhere.”

I said, “Brother Wright, no supper. Little Georgie Carter's going to come out of that bed and live.”

And he said, “How do you know?”

I said, “The Lord just met me right up there by that dogwood bush, and told me to go by the way of Carter's.”

Do you believe God answers on both ends of the line? Her mother. . . . That afternoon little Georgie wanted to be baptized so bad till she had cried all afternoon. And her mother, a good woman (I'll give you her address if you'd like to write to her, after this.) . . . and her mother, a very fine woman, her father, also. . . . And they lived kind of at the edge of the little city. And so she'd cried all afternoon. Her mother, young, yet had turned gray from just sitting for nine years by the side of that girl, watching her dwindle away and die. She had not seen the leaves, or the grass, or anything, for nine years and eight months. She'd been on her back. They could not even put her on the bedpan. She had a rubber sheet under her, and they just pulled the sheet out, the regular linen sheet. And then she had been crying, and wanting to be well so she could go and be baptized.

And so that afternoon we had baptized the Nale girl that had been crippled with a stroke for, oh, a long time—or arthritis it was, had crippled her, and pulled her leg in. And she was just as normal as any other girl. And she wanted to be baptized with the Nale girl. And her mother had got so discouraged till she went off in the kitchen—to hear her own daughter crying, laying there dying; and she raised up her hands, and she said, “O Lord Jesus, that impostor has come through this land and got my child so all worried and shook up.” And said, “There the poor little thing, laying in there dying, and then him coming around and saying something like that, and got her crying, and everything.” And while she was praying. . . .

Now, this is her story. I can't say this is true, only I believe it is. She said she seen a shadow coming across the wall, and she thought it was her daughter who lived a few doors below her, coming to see her around the house. And when she looked up, she said it was the shadow of Jesus on the wall. She said, “Who is this?” and pointed her finger this way, and she seen, like a vision, seeing my high forehead here, coming in, packing a Bible over my heart. And she jumped up to run in to tell her daughter, and about that time I was coming in the door. God's always got you there just at time, if you'll just believe it.

My precious friends, I walked over to the bed, and said, “Georgie, I don't know why, but Jesus Christ. . . .” Looked at the back of her bed, where, when she could get her hands back, she'd rubbed all the paint off the little poster bed, where her little hands had been back there, crying, and crying, and praying. And said, “Georgie, Jesus Christ makes you whole. Stand up on your feet.” I don't know why I said it. In myself, I wouldn't have said that for nothing, because how is a girl going to stand up when her legs wasn't but about that big around up around the thighs; and her little arms, she couldn't even raise her hands up to take her sputum cup. Now, you might ask her mother, and let her give you a doctor's statement on it. And when she . . . I took her by the hand, and, friend, how, I don't know, I can't say, but nothing is too hard for the Lord.

And that girl jumped up out of that bed on those little sticks of legs that she was standing on, and I turned, so filled with the Holy Spirit, walked out the door. And in a few minutes she. . . . Her mother fainted, screaming, people begin to run from everywhere. And Georgie went outside (her name's Georgie Carter), went outside and was blessing the grass and leaves on the trees—the first time she'd seen them in nine years and eight months. And people was working with her mother because they thought she had passed away.

And Georgie run into the place. When she had taken TB, she had been taking piano lessons . . . or, organ lessons, rather, and she was sitting at the organ, playing. And her father heard the noise, and he run from the barn, coming up to see what was the matter, bringing a little milk can. And he rushed in the door, and when he did, there sat his daughter at the organ, playing “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, where sinners plunged beneath the flood lose all their guilty stains.” Now her name is Georgie Carter, C-a-r-t-e-r, Georgie Carter, Milltown, Indiana. Write her, if you'd like to get the testimony yourself.

And then that shows you that when Satan is trying to block you from something that's right, keep on going, regardless.

Now, Satan was trying to block Abraham and Sarah, because he knew that there was an angelic visitation coming. And then when everything rises all out of order, then we know something's wrong. Now, I believe, maybe, if we would listen to Satan, we might miss seeing it, like Sarah did.

Let's think that Sarah—being that she done what she did—let's think that she was kind of a little fussy that morning; that she might have said, “Abraham, you know the supplies are getting low here, and the herdsman says the pasture is all dried up, and the water holes. I think you made the wrong decision when you chose to come up here, and let Lot and Mrs. Lot and their family live down there with plenty. Why, the other day, or some time ago, rather, when I went to the city, why, Mrs. Lot had on one of the prettiest dresses I ever seen. It was styled by the Egyptians. Why, a camel caravan come through and she got the new styles. There is no such thing as them caravans and styles coming through out here.” But if she just knowed, there was more than a caravan coming through; there was the host of the Lord coming that way.

And I might've heard her say something like this, “You ought to have seen the new hairdo that she had.” You know, a woman sixty years old trying to look twenty. But that's just things that attracts your attention—something from the things of God, that's what I'm trying to get at. “And you should have seen her.” And poor old Abraham, faithful old brother, that didn't shake him one bit. He just walks over and gets his chair, and sits down in the door of the tent. I like that. Did you notice when the angels come to Lot, Lot was sitting in the gate, but Abraham was sitting in the door. The gate comes into the yard, but the door goes into the house. I like to sit in the door, on the altar, as close as I can get to Him. That's where my expectations is, on the altar, waiting for His appearing.

Abraham gets his chair and sits down, and, see, the faithful old servant of God bows his head. And maybe Sarah a little fussy and going on, but he just let it go and began to think back, “How many great blessings God has given me.” You know sons of God are led by the Spirit of God. Do you believe that?

Then while he was sitting there thinking of the time that God appeared to him in the name of the Almighty, the El Shaddai, the bosom, the breast of the woman, the strength-giver. . . . Now if you notice, the word is a compound word which means Shaddai—not a breast but breasted, two. “He was wounded for our transgressions, with his stripes we were healed.” Oh, I'm so glad of that, either promise of God's breast. He's a strong one, the strength-giver. Abraham, old man, ninety-nine years old. Said, “Abraham, I am the breasted God. Just lay ahold of my promise and nurse your strength from me.”

That's what it is to every believer that'll take God's Word and don't doubt it, but just hold on to it and nurse your strength.

It's like the baby laying on the mother's bosom. All the time it's nursing, it's satisfied. When a real Christian can get ahold of a promise of God and believe it's for them, he's satisfied while he's nursing the strength. Coming. . . . He won't complain a bit. He's just satisfied. Oh, I love that satisfaction of knowing that God said so.

While the aged old saint was sitting there with his head bowed, praying, no doubt, it was then when he lifted up his head, and he saw three men coming towards the tent. Oh, he jumped quickly. It must've been the Spirit said, “Go to them.” You know there's something about Spirit-filled people that recognizes the presence of God. I don't know why it is, but it must be that they got something in them that magnetizes them to that Spirit of God. And He recognized that there was something. Even Lot, in his backslidden condition, when those two evangelical angel messengers—evangelists, or whatever you wish to call them—come down there, Lot sitting in the gate, a little spark was still left in his heart. He recognized that it was angels, it was messengers from God.

While Abraham went to meet them, he turned them aside, and said, “Come in and sit down. Sit under the oak a little while, and let me fetch a little water and wash your feet, and I'll give you a morsel of bread. And just rest a little bit, then you may go on your way.” Oh, when he was sitting down there, though they didn't look any different from any other men—because they were dressed . . . dust on their clothes, and come from some other country, probably their feet dusty, and their clothes ragged—but Abraham knew inside there there was something real. The Spirit declared it. Why? He kept himself in a spiritual atmosphere all the time that he could recognize right from wrong all the time. That's the way the Christian ought to do today, is keep yourself prayed up, under a spiritual atmosphere, always . . . never seeing the bad side, looking at the good side. You are children of God, expecting His blessings.

After he stopped them, I can see him run in and grab Sarah by the hand and say, “Come aside, darling, just a moment. I want to tell you something. I believe we're getting our day of visitation right now.” Out through the herd he went, and got a little calf, and dressed it, and brought it out and fed the men.

Two of them raised up their heads and went on to their appointed place, to preach the gospel to that country that was blinded by their preaching. How we ought to think today that the preaching of the gospel blinds the unbeliever. No wonder they can't see—they're blinded. God says, “They have eyes but can't see, ears but can't hear.” God . . . if anything I want Him to do for me is open my spiritual eyes that I might recognize Him, and look around and see Him, for He's everywhere. I want to see Him, and be so acquainted with Him that I'll know Him on the very first sight, I'll recognize that it's God. That's my heart's desire, be as Abraham was. And remember, if we be dead in Christ, we are Abraham's seed.

And Abraham recognized those men as they come up as being messengers of God, for the way he treated them it proved that he knowed that they were God's messengers.

And after the other two had went to their appointed place to preach the gospel, this one who he called Lord—and that Lord, capital L-o-r-d, Elohim, the great mighty Jehovah—He was in flesh, a man.

Someone said to me some time ago, said, “Now wait just a minute, Billy, you don't really believe that that was God.”

I said, “I sure believe it was God.”

Said, “How in the world could God ever be in a human form.”

I said, “Well, you might think it was a theophany, but it wasn't, because he eat the flesh of the calf, drank milk, eat cornbread, sat there, talked. He was a man.” God was showing something.

Oh, why, it's easy for our God to just reach over and get a handful of calcium, potash, and petroleum. We're made out of sixteen different elements of the world; He made all the elements. Just reach over and grab a handful of elements, say, “Whew [blowing], step in there, Gabriel.” Reach over get another, “Whew, step in that, Michael.” Get another one for Hisself, “Whew, step in there.” Why, sure. He'll call me some day, and I may not be no more than that, and He'll call me back into my body at the resurrection. We got the mighty God for our God. Sure, I believe it was Him, and then disappear and vanish. He just used that just as long as He wanted to, then just sent it back to the dust again.

He'll use you as long as He wants to, and then send you back to the dust. He'll use me as long as He wants to, and then I'll go back to the dust. But, oh, that glorious thought, that glorious truth, that some day He'll call and we'll rise from the dust. We're looking for that hour. Here . . .

here's, now. . . .

And Sarah, let's just break in on her for a minute. There she is, sitting back there, saying, “I wonder how many fanatics my husband can entertain.” And there, sitting out there, you know, and Abraham, just interested—maybe the old fly bush, you know, fanning the flies away—and saying, “Well. . . .” I see the angel takes his chair, maybe, and leans back toward . . . his back to the tent. And Sarah listens through the tent, you know. Kind of eardropping, you know, and listening through the tent. And she was kind of in an awful mood that morning.

You don't see things when you come to church in that kind of a mood. It's just no use trying it. You just might as well have stayed home, you won't get nothing out of it. Go home in. . . . When you come to church, come prayed up, come in the atmosphere, come expecting.

Abraham knew that the time of the promise was coming close. It had to be—he was a hundred years old. He was expecting it any time. He'd watched every minute. When he run and told Sarah, “This, I believe, is our day of visitation,” and she kind of looked at him with them big eyes, and thought, “Well, Abraham, you've said that a long time.” But you know, there will come a time when it will be so, if God said so.

Then the angel took his chair and leaned back. He said, “Abraham, seeing that you have got favor with God, that you are an heir of the world, and you're going to be father of many nations, and you've believed that since you was seventy-five years old—twenty-five years, in otherwise, you've waited for this promised child by Sarah—and now I'm not going to keep this from you what I'm going to do. I'm going to visit you according to the time of life.” And you know Sarah in there, eardropping, kind of half way in an upset mood from her condition that morning, she thought in her heart, “Now, isn't that a silly thing? Think, in our day, me an old woman, as old as I am, here I am ninety years old. There sits my husband, Abraham, a hundred years old. Well, it's not been with me as women for fifty years. And Abraham, why, we've been married since we were about seventeen and him about twenty-seven. Well, how could that be? How could it be?” See, she had herself all out of condition to receive it when God brought it.

Oh, my, don't never get that in your heart! Be open, be ready. She missed it. She failed to see it. Maybe if we don't watch, friends, the church is going to fail to see it. Let's not look for church hairdos and new dresses; let's look for the Holy Spirit to come in the supernatural and raise some things. The church don't need a face lift. It needs a birth, the Holy Ghost to come into the church, bring back people that believes the supernatural, and hold on, and waiting for the coming of the Lord as if it might be any hour, living in them conditions.

Here she was in that shape, saying, “Now, how could that happen in our modern time? How could it happen to me in my condition?” But it happened just the same. Abraham out there waiting with anticipation. You see, it wasn't made known to her; it was made known to them that was looking for it. That's the way it comes yet, to those who are looking. So he was watching, Abraham was. He said, “Yes, my Lord, yes, that's right, the promise was, and I've believed it all along.”

He said, “Now, Abraham, just about the time of life it will be (each month), for I'm going to visit you and you're going to have that baby.”

And Sarah, you know, to herself, laughed kind of to herself. Now, watch, Abraham gets the sign now. See, Sarah was too flusterated, too concerned about the new hairdo she'd seen, or something else. Sometimes we're too much flusterated about the other fellow's got the biggest denomination, or his congregation dresses better than mine, or they got a bigger church down on the corner than we got. What difference does that make? I want God. I don't care if I have to worship Him on the street corner, in a coal shed, wherever it might be. I want God. Let me have my heart in condition—if I wear overalls—so I can watch God, and see His move, and recognize Him, not pass it by.

He said, “Abraham, where is your wife, Sarah?” A stranger, never seen him before. “Where is your wife, Sarah?” And how did He know that he had a wife, and how did He know that her name was Sarah?

Said, “She's in the tent behind you.”

And when Sarah laughed, He said, “Why did she laugh?”

He caught the sign, he knew what it was. Sarah didn't get it. She even come forth and tried to deny it. God would've destroyed her upon that if she hadn't been a part of Abraham. And a lot of times our unbelief would destroy us if it wasn't for the blood of Jesus Christ. God can't destroy us now because the blood of Jesus Christ keeps God off of us. We are part of Christ, just as Sarah was part of Abraham, for we are the bride of Christ. And we people who's born with the Spirit of God ought to wake up, get out of our stews, and watch for the supernatural signs of the coming of the Lord Jesus, the signs that He promised.

Remember, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said that same thing would repeat again. “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.”—that God would be working through human flesh, doing the same thing that He did then. O God, help us to wake up! The day of visitation is here.

You say, “Oh, God doesn't send angels anymore.” The Holy Spirit is that angel. The Holy Spirit is that person—the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “He, the Holy Ghost, when He comes, He will do the works that He did.” He'd be with us, even in us, and He'd bring things to our remembrance that He had taught and would show us things to come. “The works that I do shall ye also.” Now we're living in that day. We're living in the time. Watch, “as it was in the days of Sodom. . . .”

But you know what? The other class of people, down in Sodom, didn't get that sign. Just the called-out group got that sign, just those who recognized it, those who understood it. That's the way it is today, the Holy Spirit doing His work. The great big groups of people, and masters of the world. . . .

And it's becoming a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. You know it is.

Why, I read in a newspaper here in Los Angeles here some time ago I was flying over Los Angeles and seen that homosexuals was on the increase of forty percent over the year before. Men taking men to room, and living with them like wives, perversion. That's exactly what the sin of Sodom was, and that's the thing we got. Even our government's full of it. The whole nation's surrounded by it.

Communism, everything else, breaking it up. It ain't the robin that pecks on the apple that kills the apple; it's the worm at the core. I'm not afraid of Germany, or some of these other nations; it's our own rottenness among us, getting away from God, that's killing this nation—its rottenness. Cold formalism coming into the Spirit-filled churches is cooling it off. That's the thing's going to kill us. Not just looking for something here, and material of the world, and big jobs, and fine times, and big promises, and all these kind of things—take your eyes off of that. Wake up to the fact that God still remains God, and He's the same God that promised the signs. Hallelujah! I believe He's here. Do you believe that?

Let's bow our heads.

Heavenly Father, You're God, everlasting God, and I'm quoting Your own beloved Son's words. He said, “As it was down there that day at Sodom [just before the fire fell from the heavens and destroyed the city], so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man.” Now, Father, we see yonder hanging in the hangars, atomic bombs. Sitting out on islands, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, that will blow a hole in the ground one hundred and fifty feet deep for a hundred miles square —thousands of those pointed to each nation; submarines worming their way around underwater, earthquakes in divers places, flying saucers in the air, fearful sights in the heavens above, men's hearts failing, perplexity of time, distress between nations.

O God, then here You come, moving on the scene with the Holy Spirit, pulling into the church, bringing up the days of Sodom. We see the Sodomite spirit. Women on the streets, in the churches, dressing immorally, wearing all kinds of filthy, immoral dressed clothes to tempt the men on the streets—evil spirits on them and don't know it. Fine women sending their souls to hell, and have to answer at the day of judgment for committing adultery. Though she be as pure as a lily physically, but she's throwed herself before men. “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” And the woman not knowing it, and her dressing like that, and a man looking at her, she'll have to answer for committing adultery, for she permitted herself to be dressed like that, and sat before men to tempt him.

God, look at the nation, Lord. Look at the church, how it swallowed that stuff of Satan, just as easy. And Satan has fed them this corruption of hell and many thousands has believed it. O come, Lord Jesus, come, Lord. You said if the work wasn't cut short, there'd be no flesh saved. Truly, Lord, we see that in ourself today, see the falling away and the cooling off. May the remnant that escapes out of this Babylon, may it rise and shine. May You fill it with the power of God, the Holy Spirit come upon it, Lord, and perform the great works of God, and pull that which is ordained to eternal life back into the fold again. Grant it, Lord. Grant it. Hear our prayers.

People are sitting here tonight, we're to call this prayer line in a few minutes and people will come through the line. I pray, Father, that You will wake people up, to let them know that we're living in like a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. Grant it, Lord, that they'll see that that angel that was promised to visit through human flesh. . . . And, Lord, we know that that angel is a messenger from heaven, which is the Holy Ghost. It's Him that wants to work through us the will of God to call the church. Grant it, Lord. Send Him again tonight. Send that great Elohim that come down in dust and made Hisself known, because He could talk to men through the dust. Use the dust that's in here, Lord, that's been consecrated to You, this sanctified dust, by the blood of Jesus. Use them, Lord, and let. . . . If there be an unbeliever here, Lord, let them see that the hour is approaching. They see it in the newspapers, they hear it on radios and televisions. Now may they see the sign of God, that He is calling His church, giving her that final last call, that final last sign that she would receive. We've had healings, and speaking with tongues, and miracles and so forth; but that visit is what we are looking for tonight, Lord. Grant it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sorry I've kept you so long. Brother, sister, I'm just a lump of clay. Don't you pay any attention to me, but you listen to what I'm saying. The coming of the Lord's drawing near. I don't know how near. No one knows. But I believe it's real close at hand. I see everything just happening. I want you to be ready. I want you to really cut loose of. . . . “Lay aside every sin, every weight, and the sin that does so easily besets you, that you might run with patience the race that's set before us, looking to the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ.” Look at His meekness and lowliness, look at His kindness and mercies, look at His Spirit coming back to the earth. That proves that He's alive. He isn't dead. They couldn't even kill the body. They killed it, truly, but God raised it up again. It's alive forevermore, sitting at the right hand of God. The Spirit that was in it is here in the church tonight —promised it. We're in the end-time.

Now, I don't remember just where we left off the other night calling in this prayer cards. We had some left. We called some and then. . . . [Someone speaks to Brother Branham from the floor.]

Amen. Amen. May it be so. God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. Remember, the Holy Spirit that wrote this Book, the Holy Spirit that was in that dust down there at Sodom, is the same Holy Spirit that's in this building tonight. He can do the same things. Do you believe that? “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”

I want you to pray. I'm just stumbling for words. He wants me to do something. I don't know what it is, so just pray with me. And then, the Lord's trying to do something different, I don't know what it is. Just be reverent and everyone keep your seats. We don't know what something might happen here in a moment. I never had this before just like this. Just be in prayer, and may the Lord God reveal to us. . . .

Yes, here it is. I'm going to turn my back to this audience. Let you know that the same angel that was there at Sodom, that gave that sign with his back turned, is the same angel that's here tonight. It's not your brother; it's your Lord, the Holy Spirit. Now, you people in these sections of these churches here tonight, I don't say it will. Something made me do this. But if the Holy Spirit will come here in this building, and perform and do just as He did there at Sodom to an elected church, a called-out people, separated from that bunch of people down there. . . . That's where He come to, Abraham. The angels, messengers, went on down into Sodom and preached, but this one stayed behind to the church, the called-out church, and He gave them a sign that He was.

Now, if the Holy Spirit will do that, and you'll pray in your heart and believe God. . . . Say, “God, I'm a child of Abraham and I believe with all my heart.” And let the Holy Spirit come and perform here tonight as He did down there, will all of you believe on Him with all your heart? Let's just, on the piano, ever who is the pianist there, if you will, sing, “The Great. . . .” Just play slowly, “The Great Physician Now Is Near,” if you will, while we just pray. Now, this is spiritual.

I remember some time ago that was playing in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Something happened. A Dunkard girl who didn't have the Holy Ghost, she got filled with the Spirit and jumped up from the piano, run away. About five thousand people sitting there seen that piano continually playing “The Great Physician Now Is Near,” people just raising up everywhere, being healed—a bunch of Amish and Dunkards, Fort Wayne. The sympathizing Jesus.

I'm going to look at my brethren back here. You pray. Brethren, we're all going to meet some day in the land beyond, and we'll have to give an account for our ministry, what we do with Jesus called Christ. We teach our people that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. You believe that, don't you, brethren?

Now, just a moment. There's someone to my extreme right praying. It's a man, and he's praying because he's in a serious condition. He's suffering from . . . like a bladder trouble. He's got tumors. He's had an operation and he's up for another operation. That's the man sitting right there with his hand up. That's true. If that's true, stand on your feet. If we're strangers to one another, wave your hand. Do you believe the same angel of God is in the building? God bless you brother, accept. What did you touch, sir? You were praying, wasn't you, for your healing? Well, then, if me standing here, my back turned to you, that same angel that declared this at Sodom, that Jesus said would be here in the last days just before His coming, then, folks, He's on his road here, He's coming. That's right. Pray.

Now, sitting close to him, right behind him is a woman. She's got trouble with her side and she has headaches. Mrs. Arnold, do you believe with all your heart? All right. I do not know you. Is that right, lady? We're strangers to one another. Is that your name? Is that your condition? You were praying, wasn't you? You touched something. See?

The man sitting right back there with high blood pressure, if you will believe, sir, accept it as your healing. . . . You do? Looking at me, gray headed, [unclear words] believe with all your heart. Do you, sir? All right, then the blood pressure will leave you. I don't know him, never seen him in my life. Is that right, sir? Raise up your hand if we're strangers to one another. What are them people touching?

In the midst of this hour, I feel doubt moving in. Why do you do it? God, be merciful. Don't do that. The Holy Spirit is here, thus saith the Lord.

I see before me a woman. She's holding a water-headed baby. The baby has had surgery. It's got water on the brain. She's sitting right down here holding the baby. Do you know who I'm talking to? Mrs. Yager, stand up and believe for the baby.

Do you believe on the Lord? If thou canst believe. . . . How about over in this section here? So that you'll see it just isn't one section, you believe over here. Do you believe it?

A lady sitting here, high blood pressure. If you'll believe, lady. . . . Lord, who is she? Mrs. B-a-r-l-e-y, Barley. Believe with all your heart and you shall have your healing also. Do you believe it? All right.

What about this woman laying down here on this cot, stretcher? Look over this way, lady. You have a prayer card? I guess you don't. Well, I don't think. . . . I forgot to tell you about prayer cards. I guess none of you. . . . You don't have no prayer card? I can't heal you, lady, but if you believe, if God can tell me what's your trouble, will you accept it? You're going to die laying there. That's one thing sure. You've got a over-fluided body—that's fluid and everything backing up on you. That's the truth, isn't it? Now, I never seen you in my life. This is the first time. And if you'll believe it with all your heart and don't doubt, that fluid will leave you and you'll go home, be well.

Do you believe? Do you believe the angel of the Lord's here? How many of you is believers? Raise up your hands. Well, now lay your hands on one another. Put your hands on one another if you're believers. O God, Holy Spirit that's present, the angel that was promised, that Jesus said would be here, as it was in the days of Sodom, Lord God, make Satan to leave these people. I hold them before You and jealous of them. Come out of that group, Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ. Move away from those people and be dispelled from this building, and Jesus Christ take glory and power forever. Now if you'll believe Him with all your heart, believe that He heals you, the Bible said these signs. . . . That's right, lady. Get right up off that cot and go on home. That's the way. Do you believe? Stand up on your feet then everywhere. Accept Jesus. The angel of the Lord is here. I pronounce the healing blessings and the power of the almighty God into your hands.