A Prisoner

... again, in the name of the Lord Jesus and to hear of the great and mighty works that You have done before and now we stand with anticipation. It raises our faith and anoints us to believe that what has been asked for tonight, will be granted. Thou knowest each and every one of them, (all that they have requested) and we pray for them especially, Lord, those who are so near death. Bring peace to their soul if it isn't already there; and bring healing to their body. Grant it, Lord. Bless our coming together, we pray, Lord, that on this Wednesday night prayer meeting; that as we have assembled knowing that wherever two or more are assembled together, You'll be with us. And we ask You, Lord, to give us your Word tonight. Speak to us, Lord, and warm our hearts strangely that we would know how to discipline ourselves for the great time that lays ahead; as we believe that we're nearing the coming of the Lord.

We thank Thee for people now, beginning to find faith dear to them and knowing what faith means. And knowing that even thanking You for services yet ahead; believing that You're going to do something, Lord. We're waiting with anticipations like the days of old; believing that the time is near when You're going to just raise up the windows of heaven and pour out the promises that God has promised in this last day.

Now, we ask You, Lord, to be with all around the nations; as today we heard so many around everywhere that's in need. Grant them their requests, Lord, and we pray to see the great hand of God moving all over the world among those, who are looking for this great thing. Forgive us of our sins. Chasten us, Lord, with thy Spirit and thy Word that we might discipline ourselves to obedient servants—obedient servants to the will of God. Let us remember and try to think in our hearts what the early Christians done ... what type of people would we meet had we met those who had personally been in contact with You. How their faces must've lit up with faith and joy. How their lives must've been the living Word of God (just written epistles read of all men) as they walked in and among people. God grant it once more.

May our lives be so submitted to Thee that the Holy Spirit will live itself through us and speak through us, Lord. May we remember in our minds as we walk upon the street and rub arms with the world that we're not supposed to be like those; and we step aside and give them the place, Lord, in their rightful position here on earth. We'll take the back seat knowing that we are delegates from another world; we have a kingdoms that's coming into power, Lord. And our great King will soon arrive, and take over all the kingdom that's in his domain, and we shall rule and reign with Him here on earth a thousand years and be with Him forever.

With this in mind, Lord, now we look forward to the answer of our prayer. We look to our confession that if we have did anything, said anything, or thought anything that was contrary to your great will; let the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse us.

Lead us, Lord, as the sister said tonight about she and her husband on the road to Chicago. Lead them, Lord God, to the place that You can use them that they might be beams of light to others who are groping in darkness that knows not our Lord Jesus. Now we commit the service to You and, (listening for your word of correction) that we might know how to prepare for this great hour in Jesus' name, we ask it. Amen.

I was a little bit unexpected of this. I.... Being here at home, I felt like if I wasn't really ... had to go somewhere—emergency—I'd feel very bad to be sitting at home and not come to prayer meeting, and I kind of dropped in unexpected to myself, even to my family, and just got in and took right off. And so I said, “I'm going down to prayer meeting.” She didn't even have time to get ready to come, so she didn't know I was coming.

So, I'm happy to hear the sister's testimony there, the brother ... about that light up at South Carolina, or North Carolina, somewhere. Greenville, was it? Southern Pines, yes. Brother Lee Vayle was just here today. I baptized him today in the baptismal service here, today. Brother Lee Vayle, you know, one of the ministers there. Brother Parker Thomas....

I remember of the time the sister being shadowed. It was a great confirmation, sister, to what the.... The Holy Spirit sometimes will let us go ahead and test our faith to see what ... and test others' faith. When you're looking directly at something and see something and say it.... Others look and don't see it, they say it's not there. See? But it is there.

Now there was no one that could see that light that was hanging over Paul, but it was there. No one seen that dove coming down out of heaven and that light in the form and hung over Jesus but John himself. But it was there. See? And so, then later when I was telling the people about this light being like a pillar of fire: no one wanted to believe it, but now the mechanical eye of the camera identified that.

And I tell them that the evil spirit is dark. It's just like our lives we're shadows and we're ... if we're a light we're.... If our lives cope with the light of the day, we're walking in light. It's just like you look out and say, “I see the sun” in the daytime. You see the shadow of the sun. It's a reflection of the sun. It isn't the sun itself, but it proves that there is a sun. It proves there is a sun.

And now when I see, like you sitting out there; using fans, talking—that means you're living, but it's only a shadow of life, because anything has got to have darkness in it to make a shadow. See, because a shadow has to possess so much darkness and so much light to make a shadow. It can't be altogether dark, and it can't be altogether light. If it's dark, it's real dark. If it's light, there is no shadow, nothing to make a shadow, but if it's mixed with dark and light, it makes a shadow—so we are really shadows of light.

Now you are reflecting a light from somewhere. If you are a Christian, (this being a shadow) it only proves that there is a life where you can't die, because this life has death in it. See, but it's a shadow, because you're living, moving creature with abilities to see, think, move, and talk, ... (the five senses of the body). But yet you know, they're dying—and there's so much trouble. You know, it can only be—it's a reflection, see, that there's life and death mixed together.

The physical has to die, but if you are reflecting by your mortal life, the light of heaven, then you're reflecting the eternal light, God. Then when you die you can no more than go to that light, because that's what you've reflected. If you are of the dark world, you reflect that and you can go no other way but to darkness. See, so we are in a reflection. So, we see that as sure as the Holy Spirit reflects light and life, so does death reflect darkness

and here they both are.

By the end of the week, maybe by Sunday, we're getting a small photograph blowed up to a large size so it can be put on the billboard where your picture hangs out there on the billboard. I don't know whether you noticed it or not. And then, about a week ago in Jamaica where I was missionarying, we send tapes all over the world; and the seven seals has got back into, a way back into the inlands of Jamaica—way in the interior. And it's very primitive back in there behind Blue Mountain. And the natives—sometimes they have a tape recorder you get for them that you have to ... like the old Victrola—crank it—and then let it play like that, and then every few minutes somebody has to crank it.

This group had a little battery: a six-volt battery or something or another, playing this tape recorder and they was all sitting together (about what's here tonight) listening to those seals, I believe it was. And while I was speaking, they noticed coming in the room—came that same pillar of fire ... moved over where the tape recorder was and settled down over the top of it, and they went and got a camera and took the picture of it. And just the same one; there it is hanging right there over it. Now we're getting it blowed up so we can put it on the billboard out there, that you can see it.

We are so grateful for the grace of God that's been brought into our ... us into his presence in this day. Now, we are grateful for many things. Now, I think I'll look in here and see if I can find some notes or something or another that I spoke on, or get some kind of a ... I got some texts wrote out anyway back in here in a book. If I can find one, maybe the Lord will give me something to say on something while we pray.

Now, we're under anticipation for Sunday.

I have been speaking in the messages and Sunday I kept you here a long time on, Why Criest Thou Unto Me, Speak to the People and Go Forward.

Now, Sunday is the healing service where the sick is to be prayed for. Now you get around to the sick, and there's got to be some reason that the sick (when we pray for them if they're not healed).... And I want to if the Lord willing, for just a short sermon on Sunday morning to.... So I'm going to have a healing service and pray for all the people. And Billy Paul or some of them will be here Sunday morning about eight o'clock (when the church opens) to give the people cards as they come in the door—or whenever they get in.

And now.... Then I want to try.... I believe the Lord has, somehow given me a little insight on the reasons why there's some people are not healed. And I believe it's lack of understanding; and I believe, maybe, we'll speak on that Sunday morning, the Lord willing.

Now Wednesday night prayer meeting is just a short meeting where we get together and pray, as we have, and associate together;

sometimes I believe one of the great things that I find in this day is the lack of sincerity of what we believe. If God, in the days of John Wesley, would have done in that day what He has done today, what would it have done?

In the days of Martin Luther or whatmore, as what we see Him doing both proven by the church, by the Spirit, and by science and every move that ... that's in motion—has to recognize. And God's Word here declaring it and telling it before it comes to pass. And then moving upon and prophesying and showing the very things that He said would come to pass perfectly, exactly what He said, and still we sit kind of slothful as if we wonder ... “Well, wonder if that could mean me? Wonder if it could mean just the church in whole, or what if I'm really included in this?” I think, Sunday morning, I'll try to talk on some of those principles that it might enlighten us a little.

Now, tonight I found something, just turned to it, here, before I come down I thought, “What if Brother Neville ... if I would get down there and he'd happen to say, 'Get up and speak,' and just sit down.” I thought I'd better write down a couple of scriptures, because I know he's such a lovely brother, and we appreciate him.

Before we pray over the Word, I want to recognize a brother. I can't even call his name at this time (two of them). They are here, friends of mine. They're ministers, and evangelists in the field going out. They heard these messages by tape, and they're out of different denominational churches. Two young fellows—and the boys ... one of them is so interested till he flew down to Tucson, just recently in closing out a meeting. I believe I was in the Businessmen's breakfast, and the young fellow—fine young fellow—come down.

They're from Kansas, and they come all the way here for me to marry them. I appreciate that—to think that people would believe in your prayers enough to believe that God would hear and answer; and young people starting out in life, like this. And when they got here for me to marry them yesterday—they find out the state law of Indiana requires that, even though with their blood test, to wait here in the state three days before they can be married. So they cannot be married until Friday morning.

And I ask the brother there on the end if he'll just stand up and tell us who he is—and his lovely little lady there and the next brother. [The brother gives testimony.]

Thank you very much. We certainly wish these young ambassadors for the work of the Lord Jesus, God's blessings—to speed them on the way. And as I'm wondering, waiting for the coming of the Lord and see young men and young women with a purpose in heart to serve Christ, that thrills me to see them raise up like this. The Lord bless you richly, my brother sister.

Now, let us turn over to a little book that I never spoke out of before in my life and it's a very ... just one chapter. It's the book of Philemon. I'm just a little bit Irish and I do have a wire around my bottom teeth to hold a couple in the back in place. I sometimes I don't pronounce these names right, when I do know what they are, and sometimes I can't pronounce them right for the lack of education. So “Philemon,” someone said back there, which I think is really the correct pronunciation of it.

Now, the first verse, I want to take just a word or two from it.

Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ....

And that's what I want to use tonight as a text, the Lord willing, is: A prisoner.

Now, you can hardly imagine Paul regarding himself a prisoner, a born-free man filled with the Holy Spirit, but yet, he calls himself a prisoner. And now we find out when he's addressing the Corinthians ... “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ....” Another time, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ ...” by the will of God, when he's speaking to Timothy and different ones. Now, when he's writing here to Philemon he says, “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ”, “Paul, an apostle.” I'd like to preach one night on that. “Paul, a servant,” preach on that—and then, “Paul a prisoner.” But tonight, being it'd take hours to duly consider one of the subjects, I'd like to take tonight, “Paul, the prisoner” and take the subject of: A prisoner. Now let us bow our heads just a moment.

Lord Jesus, any man that's physically able can pull back the pages of this Bible, but only the Holy Spirit can interpret it in the light that it's been meant to. We ask Him to come now and help us to understand what this was addressed—this great mighty prophet, Paul—and yet called himself a prisoner. May the Holy Spirit reveal this to us as we wait on Him in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

Now, I can imagine Paul, when he wrote this letter to Philemon, how he was sitting in jail, down there in the dungeon of this city. A prisoner, and he could well know by his position what the word meant. He was surrounded by bars—he could only be let free as someone would let him go free, and he knew what it was to be a prisoner. And then again, I believe that the apostle meant just a little.... Not exactly addressing it to his present condition, as being a prisoner of his physical being sitting here in this jail, but I believe he was referring to his being—his spirit, his will—being a prisoner to Jesus Christ.

Now, we're all born a free moral agent to make any decision that we wish to. God justly does that, because He must put every man on the same basis, or He put the wrong man on—He put the first man on the wrong basis that He put on free moral agency.

See, we're just exactly tonight like Adam and Eve. There's no difference. Right and wrong sets before either one of us. Life and death—we can make our choice. It's up to you to make it. See? That's the way Adam and Eve did. You see, and they made the wrong choice.

And now by that—put the whole race—of human race under death, the penalty of death, and then God came down in the form of man and took that death and paid the penalty of death that his subjects that desired to be free could go free. Now if He took us without the same way that He did Adam and Eve—just pulled us through something and said I'll save you whether you want to be saved or not. Then He put Adam and Eve on the wrong basis, you see, but each one of us has to choose this day between death and life. We can do it.

As I just expressed; if your light will prove.... Your life will prove exactly what side you're on. I don't care what side you say you're on. What you do every day proves what you are. You've heard the old saying: “Your life is so loud I can't hear your testimony.” See, your actions just so loud.

I've always believed in shouting and jumping, but I've always said, “Don't jump no higher than you live, because the world is going to watch that, you see.” You must just jump as high as you live, so, because somebody is watching you.

And now when people won't come to church. They ... many of them just won't do it. And some of them not coming are sincere people. They seen so much corruption in the church until they don't want to have anything to do with it. And many times we're speaking on a flat thought of that; you can hardly blame them, because of the way the people act—that call themselves Christians. They're the greatest stumbling block that the world's got: is a man and woman who professes to be a Christian and lives something different from their profession. Exactly right.

Now for the disappointments that'll be coming at the judgment. Now the sinner, the bootlegger, the gambler, the adulterous; he won't be disappointed to hear his sentence read to depart into everlasting fire. He won't be disappointed, but that fellow who is trying to hide himself behind some kind of a church profession. That's the boy that's going to be disappointed at the day of judgment, see—that professes to be a Christian and lives some other way. It'd be better for him that he never did even make any kind of profession ... started off than to start and live something different, because he's the greatest stumbling block we got, is for that professor—that says that he is a Christian and lives something different.

Always, don't judge your life by how much power you have to perform miracles, and we don't judge ourself by how much knowledge you have of the Word, but always judge yourself.... Look back and take an inventory of what kind of a fruit that the life you presently live now is bearing. As I preached sometime ago at a Businessmen's meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, of the reflection of Jesus—reflecting Christian life.

I said I was born up here in Kentucky where it's very primitive, especially back when I was a kid. And this certain little boy never had a home like we have here; where we have so many pretty ladies that have to look through mirrors all through the house to keep their hair just in place and so forth. But he had one little mirror (just a little piece tacked on a tree on the outside) where the wash bench was; where his mother and father washed and combed their hair, and so forth, from this little piece of old mirror tacked on a tree.

Frankly, that's the type of a home that we had. If anybody wants to see a mirror—we kids had to get a box and get up on the wash bench and look in this piece of a mirror that I'd picked up, myself, in a dump. That wasn't down in Kentucky; that was here in Indiana up on Utica Pike, here.

Now this little kid had never exactly seen himself like that; so he come to the city to visit his grandma. And on the tour of the room, the grandma had a house that had a complete mirror on the door, and so the little boy running through the room ... seen another little boy in front of him; and the little boy was running also so he thought he should stop a few minutes and see what the little lad was going to do. And when he stopped, the little boy stopped. When he turned his head, the little boy turned his head. He scratched his head; the little boy scratched his. Finally, he walked closer to investigate, and he turned around (and his mother watching him and his grandmother with amazement). He said, “Why, Mother, that's me!”

So I said, “That we, too, are reflecting something.” See, our life is reflected. And now, if we lived in the days of Noah; whose side would we take? What side would we have took in that great day that Noah lived? What side would we have took in the days of Moses? What side in the days of Elijah, the prophet, when all the world was gulped up in a great mass of modernism, like the modern Jezebel, and had rid all the servants of the Lord out into a worldly way—the church and the priests were all bowing to her. Would you have took the side of popularity, or would you have stood with Elijah?

Now, in the days of the Lord Jesus when we think of this unpopular person, uneducated by the world. No schools they could ever find that He went to and no seminary experience and then raised up with a name of illegitimate birth and then come out preaching a gospel that was contrary to anything that they'd been taught.

And condemning the ministers and their organizations, and so forth, and the organizations had made a statement if anybody even went to hear this so-called prophet would be put out of the synagogue, which was a mortal sin. They had to be accounted—the only way they could worship was under the blood of the Lamb. They had to come to this sacrifice, and then they were outcasts and what a great thing it was.

And this man ignored such as that, and yet He was perfectly with the Scripture, but not in a way they knew it.

What side would you have took? See, now don't.... Your life that you live now reflects now just what you would have done then, because you still are possessed with the same spirit. If you take that side, now, with them, you'd have done it then, because the same spirit that's in you now was in people then.

See, the devil never takes his spirit, he just goes off of one man on to another. God never takes his Spirit either, it goes from one to the other one, see. So the very Spirit was upon Elijah come upon Elisha—same one on John the Baptist and so forth. The Holy Spirit was upon Christ come upon the disciples, all down, and still upon the people.

See, God never takes his Spirit. So there we are left to make a choice,

and I can't see here where Paul was regretting anything and saying, “He was sorry he was a prisoner,” but he was addressing hisself.... I believe that Paul—as he wrote this letter with that pen that it was the Holy Spirit causing him to write that. That maybe even to this night that we might pull out the context of our text to show why Paul did this, because it's scriptural and scriptural is eternal. And I believe that sitting in this dingy old jail, that Paul wrote to ... calling here that his brother, that he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ; so he could express it by seeing what was around him.

Now he was in jail, but that wasn't what he was speaking to this servant of Christ; (a minister with him) he was speaking that he was a prisoner to the Word of Jesus Christ, 'cause Christ is the Word,

and

Paul had been a great scholar in his days. He had great ambitions. He was a man that had been trained by people.

A fellow by the name of Gamaliel which was a great teacher, I would say, one of the greatest schools that he could have went to. For instance like we say, Wheaton, or Bob Jones, or some great fundamental school—he'd been taught as a minister of the Word. He was well educated and smart and an intelligent boy with a great ambition as maybe someday becoming a priest or a high priest to his people.

He had an ambition, and then to find that this great ambition he'd been trained for, and had spent all of his life, from maybe the age of about eight or ten years old up to about thirty or thirty-five when he finished college and graduated and had all of his diplomas and everything—and stood in good with all the clergy. Even to the high priest at Jerusalem; he'd had orders from him, personal orders, written and trusted with this great Saul to go down to Damascus and to find all of those down there that worshipped God contrary to what he said; and to bind them, and put them in jail, and if necessary he had orders to put them to death, if he wanted to.

He had great ambitions. Now, all that he had trained for—God had took it all out of him. What his objective was, and what his father had spent his money for, and the ambitions of his father and mother, was all ... had been taken away from him, because that God had something else. Therefore, he was a prisoner from his objective that he had in life, and he'd become a prisoner to Jesus Christ, who was the Word.

That road to Damascus changed Paul.

Going down about eleven o'clock, perhaps in the day, there he was stricken down, and he heard a voice saying, “Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He looked up, and looking up, being a Jew, and knowed that pillar of fire was the Lord that led the children of Israel, because he knew that's what it was.

Remember, this Hebrew would have never called anything Lord, L-o-r-d, Elohim, unless he'd been satisfied that that's what it was, because he was a trained scholar. And when he looked up, and he seen this light—a pillar of fire—that had led his people through the wilderness, he said, “Lord,” Elohim, L-o-r-d. “Lord, who are You?”

And what a surprise it must have been to this theologian to say, “I am Jesus”: the very one that he was so against. What a turn around!

Oh, it must have been something terrific for this man (that all of his ambitions that he had) to find out all at once he had been persecuting! His ambitions had drove him farther away from the main thing that he meant to do, and what a great shock it must have been to this apostle, when He said, “I am Jesus”—the very one that he was persecuting. “Why persecutest thou me?”

Another little quotation we might drop in here.... You see as they make fun of the church, they're not really making fun of the church; they are making fun of Jesus. “Why persecutest thou me?” How could Paul then, with all of his intellect, believe that this was ... that this group that he was persecuting was the very God that he claimed to be serving?

I think that—without going into details—I think we're all well trained enough to know what I mean, here. The same thing is happening today.

Paul, through ignorance, yet intelligent and smart—much smarter than the little uneducated Galileans that he was persecuting that had already in their humility accepted this man as Lord. But Paul, in his great teachings, in his intellectuals, could not accept that.

And what a turn around it must be to him on this road ... and he was stricken blind, so he would not carry out his commission, but was led down to a place in the street called Straight in the house of one.... Then come the prophet down there by the name of Ananias, who saw in a vision him coming down—saw where he was at—went down to where he was, and went in, and said, “Brother, Saul, the Lord appeared to you on the road down and sent me, that I might lay my hands upon you to receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

See what it was?

What a thing it must have been for Paul! See, all that he had been trained to do was vice versa. So, now, with all the education he had; it would just become naught to him. Now, he knew that he had an experience. So here is another good lesson for us: that experience alone isn't enough! It's got to be an experience according to the Word of the Lord.

So, him seeing this and knowing that it was a great something that somebody else had received it before him, he took three years and six months down in the desert in Arabia, taking the Bible, as it was then (the Old Testament) and going down there to compare this experience that he'd had and see if it was Scriptural.

Now what if he said, “Well, I guess that was just a little blow over,” and went on. “I'm going to follow my intellects.” Now he had to become a prison to something—a prisoner. So, after comparing it and seeing ... knowing that he could write the book of Hebrews in a type.

See, three years and a half down there laying in the Word and finding out that the very God that had called him was taking him back and changing all of his intellect—changing all that he ever thought; all that he trained to be; all of his ambitions—just wiped it away from him, and he became a prisoner.

The love of God had been to tremendous and such a revelation that he could not get away from it! That's the true experience of every real believer who meets God. You come in contact with something that's so great that you ... that you become a prisoner to everything else. See, you get away from everything to imprison yourself to this.

It's expressed one time where Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is something like a man buying pearls. Then when he finds that great pearl—He sells out everything he's got to get that one. And that's the way here. You have an intellectual conception. You have a theological experience, but when it comes to a time that when you really find the real thing, you just sell out everything else, and you close yourself in to this.

Paul knew what it was. He found out that he was harnessed to something. Like the fellow ... a horse in a harness—it's to pull something—and Paul knew after this experience and three years and a half of typing the experience he had with the Bible; he realized that God had chosen him, and had harnessed him, by the Holy Spirit—the experience that he had to pull the gospel in the presence of the Gentiles. The Spirit, itself, harnessed him.

And today, as servants of Christ, we become harnessed—hooked up. We can't go anywhere without it being with us—harnessed to the Word! No matter what anyone else says; you're harnessed to it. There is something about it that you just can't get away from it. You've been yoked up with it by the Holy Ghost, has yoked you to the Word. No matter what anyone else says, It's the Word that's always harnessed up with it; put in the yoke with it. To the Word by the Spirit; he was harnessed.

He had learned on the backside of the Arabian desert there, when all his former things and experiences and ambitions; he'd been stripped of those things. Now that's where we find today that we must be stripped first, and people don't want to be stripped. The Methodist brother wants to hold to a little bit of his Methodist teaching. The Baptist brother wants to hold to a little bit of his Baptist teaching. See, but you've got to absolutely be stripped of everything and just born again afresh and take up from there and let the Holy Spirit lead. You can't say, “Well, now my daddy said when he went in the church, he shook hands with the pastor. He's a good loyal member.” That might have been all right for his race but we're in another race.

Now we must come back to the Bible times for this day.

The priest was harnessed, too, but you see they come over into another dispensation, and they failed to strip off their old harness and put on the new harness. And the same thing we find today. We did come through a denominational age, as we've proved through the church ages, the Bible, and so forth, but we've come now to a free age where the Holy Spirit, Himself, comes down, and vindicates Himself, and makes Himself known—makes every promise that He promised come to pass.

Oh, my, what a great time, and he knew that ... another thing ... he knew he could not go to places that being harnessed to this ... that he would not ... that he wanted to go. He knew that his ambition drawed him amongst brethren where he was invited to come, and yet, he was pressed in the Spirit to do something else. He wasn't his own.

Maybe somebody could say, “Brother Saul—Brother Paul, we want you to come over here because we've got the biggest church. We've got the biggest congregation. Your offerings will be great...” and so forth, but being pressed in the Spirit, he thought, “I've got a brother over there. I'd like to go over and save this brother; get him to the Lord.” But yet the Spirit pressed him to go somewhere else—he was a prisoner—correctly.

Oh, God, make us prisoners like that—from our own selfish ambitions, and from our own judgments, and our better way of thinking, to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I think that was a great statement: that I'm a prisoner to Jesus Christ.

Remember, He is the Word. No matter what anyone else thinks, it's the Word. See, if you're a prisoner to the Word, no denomination can sway you from it. It's the Word. You're just a prisoner to it; that's all. You must act the way it acts.

Now, he could not go certain places that he wanted. Because why? The Spirit forbade him. You remember many times that Paul was trying to go some place, thinking, “There is where I could have a great meeting,” but the Spirit would forbid him.

Now, does that clearly state and prove that Paul was a prisoner? A prisoner to Jesus Christ—harnessed to his Word by the Spirit. Oh, I like that. He was bound. He was bound by a chain, by fetters of love to do the will of God and that only. He was a prisoner. He was in the fetters of love. He was in the yoke with Christ. He could yoke up with nothing else. He was yoked with Him, and wherever the lead went, that's where he had to go regardless of how green the path looked on this side or that side; he had to go the way the leader and the yoke went.

Oh, tonight, if we as the Branham Tabernacle could only become prisoners to our own selfish being, to our own ambition; that we could completely surrender ourself and be yoked to Him. No matter what the rest of the world thinks; what the rest of the world does. We're yoked with fetters of love—we are prisoners! My feet is so yoked to Christ, it won't dance; my eyes is so yoked to Christ till when I see these modern strip tease on the street, it turns my head; my heart is so yoked in love to Him till I can't have love for this world anymore. My will is so yoked to Him till I don't even want to know what my ambitions are. Just wherever You lead, I'll follow, Lord. I'll be a prisoner.

Paul was correctly a prisoner. He wasn't making any wrong statements. He was trained by the Holy Ghost again to wait on the Word! Now, he had been trained one way, but God had trained him another way, now. He was trained by the Holy Spirit to wait upon the Lord. No matter what his ambitions were.

Now, I'm going to (I hope) by the Holy Spirit show you something. Now let's just take an instance. One day Paul and Silas, coming down the street in a certain city where he was holding a revival, and a little demon-possessed girl kept following him; crying out after him. No doubt but what Paul knowed that he had the authority as an apostle, to rebuke that evil spirit out of that woman; but did you notice? He waited day after day until all of a sudden the Holy Spirit spoke to him. Said, “This is the hour!”

Then he said, “Thou spirit, come out of her.”

See, he knowed to wait on the Lord. There is where so many people today bring a reproach upon the Word. They go out with an ambition. How many revivals have been left flat because of a thing like that? Because the evangelist don't wait to see what the Lord's got to say.

Some of them said, “Come over here.” and they go right now, because the association says “Go.” And the Holy Spirit would say something different—yet the ambition of the man to become the state presbyter or something or another; or some elder, or some bishop, or something was pulling—“you must go,” and yet he knows better. The Holy Spirit is saying, “Go here.” See, he's yoked to his organization! He's a prisoner to the organization! But if he's yoked to Christ, he's led by the Holy Ghost, and he does nothing but what [unclear words.] He's yoked, a prisoner. Don't make any difference what anything else says. It's a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. He hears only the voice of God, and he speaks only when it comes out. He says nothing.

Somebody say, “Oh, Brother Jones or Brother Roberts...” or some of these great men in our land today like Tommy Hicks, or Oral Roberts, or Brother Tommy Osborn—some of those great evangelists. If somebody would say, “Say, come over here, Tommy. You're a great man of God,” or Oral, “and I got an uncle that's laying over here that is all bound, and he's sick. I want you to come over. I believe you have the strength to heal him.”

And maybe the Holy Spirit would say to him, “Not now.” But yet to the friendship of that man, he's duty bound to go with him. If he don't, he becomes an enemy to that man. That man say, “Well, he went to 'so-and-so' and healed that child or that boy. I know he did; and I've been his friend for years, and he wouldn't come to my place.” But if he's constrained by the Holy Spirit not to go; he'd better not go. If he's yoked to God. His friend he loves, but he'd better be led of the Holy Spirit to go there; because it won't do any good anyhow. I experienced that so many times.

But Paul just waited for the Spirit to tell him what to do. Wherever the Spirit said.

He stood one night preaching and walked out there he seen a crippled man. And all at once the Spirit spoke to him, and he said, “I perceive.” How? The same way he perceived he was going to be wrecked upon an island. “I perceive that you have faith to be healed. Stand up on your feet! Jesus Christ has made you well.”

There you are—he was yoked. He might have held a week's revival there and nothing would happen, but yet he waited for the Holy Spirit to say. See, he was yoked to that appeal.

Now you say, “Brother Branham, you're condemning what you said Sunday” (about you've been waiting all this time). But you remember, it was the Holy Spirit that spoke to me up there on the road and said, “I'm sending you back amongst the sick and the afflicted.” It's obedience to the Holy Spirit. Sure. I didn't go until He told me to do it. I was waiting for thus saith the Lord, till I got thus saith the Lord. Now, that's different, see. Now, that makes a difference.

Yes, he waited for the Word of the Lord. He was pressed in the Spirit to do only God's bidding. Then, he become a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Friends, if we could only become prisoners.

Now, I know it's hot, but I'd like to name a couple more characters, if you would, I've got about six or eight wrote down here, but I'd like to name just another character or two.

Let's take the character, Moses. He was born a deliverer, and he knew that, that he was born a deliverer. But before I say about Moses, I'd like to make this statement: that God always has to take any man that will serve Him truly, to be his prisoner. A man has to surrender every ambition he's got, everything that he is, everything: his life, soul, body, will, ambitions, and everything else, and become a complete prisoner to Christ, who is the Word, to serve God.

You might have to walk contrary to your better judgment. Maybe in a certain organization you might think that they could lift you up and give you something great that you might flash. But what do you find yourself? You find yourself defeated after awhile. Until God can get a man that's willing to become a prisoner to Him....

God is looking for prisoners. He's always done it. You might search it through the Scripture. A man has to be a prisoner to Christ against anything.... Therefore, you cannot be connected with anything but Christ. Even your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife, anybody—you're only connected with Christ, and Him only. Then God can use you. Until then, you can't.

Going out sometimes; I speak rough to people. See, I'm trying to get you to cut loose. You've got to have a starting place. Like I sometimes call about the women bobbing their hair, and wearing these clothes, and hold and maintain their Christian profession.

You say, “That's a little thing.” Well, you've got to start somewhere. So begin right there on your ABC's, see. And cut loose the worldly looks, anyhow, and become a prisoner to Christ, and then just keep on cutting loose everything till finally the last line is cut loose. Then, you are a prisoner. Then you become in his grip. He's got you in his grip.

Now, Moses knew that he was born a deliverer—he knew that. And did you notice with the ambition that Moses had?—knowing his mother had told him over there that she was his nursemaid.

No doubt when Moses, the little baby, was born, that his mother said, “You know, Moses, when your dad, Amram, and I prayed constantly; we knowed and seen in the Word it was time for the coming of a deliverer, and we prayed: ”Lord God, we want to see that deliverer'. One night the Lord told us in a vision that you would be born, and you'd be the deliverer. We wasn't afraid of the king's commandment. We didn't care what the king said. Then we knowed that you were born a deliverer. Now, Moses, we knew that we couldn't bring you up right,“ (Now, remember they'd been down there four hundred years in Egypt, see.) ”and we wanted to get you the right thing, the right education, the right training; so, I took you and put you in a little ark and set you out into the Nile. I strained at the current taking that little ark down through the reeds and rushes, and brought it right down miles away and turned it right into Pharaoh's palace, where Pharaoh's daughter ... where her bathing pool was. And how that I knowed that she'd need a woman to raise you,“ (and in them days, of course, they didn't have these bottles to raise the babies on, so she'd have to have a wet nurse so...) and Miriam, I sent her down, and she stood there and she said, 'Well, I know where I can find a wet nurse,' and come and got me. And Moses, (the doors are all shut) Honey, you're sixteen years old, now, and you're going to be Pharaoh's son; and someday you're going to be the deliverer that's going to take the people out of here.”

Moses' ambitions begin to grow. “I'll study, Mother! I'll study everything I can! You know what I'll do? I'll study hard to be a military man, and I'll know how to take these people out of here. I'll be a great general, bishop, you know, I'll know how it's done, and I'll take them out. I'll get my Ph.D. or LL.D. I'll do it.

Like Father Chiniquy if you ever read his books. All right. He was going to deliver all the Protestants, you know, and he become one himself. So ... this great priest years ago, Father Chiniquy. You ought to get his book and read it. They call him Father, it's just Brother Chiniquy what he was. We don't call no man Father, like that.

So we find that he was going to read the Bible, so he could get out there and disprove the Protestant religion. Big old Catholic, he probably went to read the Bible, the Holy Spirit took up for him, and he got the Holy Ghost, and then he become one of them.

So then, notice this: that Moses got all the training, because he knew ... he was so smart, so educated, so intellectual, till there's nobody.... He could even teach the Egyptians. He could teach their psychologists. He could teach their generals what military might was. He was a great man, and people feared Moses because of his greatness.

Oh, such a scholarship! My, he was an archbishop or maybe like a pope. He was a great fellow, and he was a mighty man! He knowed that he was born to do this and had trained with great ambitions to do it.

Just like today, I don't say that men training in these schools.... I don't say.... Like out here in the West, now, they're going to build a 150 million dollar school of theology. See—Pentecostal. A 150 million dollar school. To me, that should be missionaries in the field.

But whatever—what do they do when they come out of there? What are they? A bunch of Rickys. Just exactly, and then that's how they come out. It always has the rest of them, and that's the same line.

Now, we find out that when Moses in all of his training, and today with all the training, (making big bishops and so forth with great high ambitions) what do we do? Our ambitions become just about like what Moses' was. God, before He could get the man in his hand, He had to strip him of his ambitions. He had to strip him of all of his training.

He did go out and he delivered ... he killed one Egyptian and he ... and when he did, he found out that he was in the wrong. He couldn't do that. It wasn't that way. And God had to take him out into the wilderness, into the desert, a desert place.

Did you notice, kind of strange how these fellows that God's got a message for them; He takes them into a desert. He took Paul to the desert to train him, to tell him what all his great visions. Walked out into the desert. “Go out to a certain desert,” and he stayed there until God fully made known what to do.

In Moses' time, He took him out in the desert. Kept him out there for forty years and stripped him of all of his theology and all his ambition. Oh, what a time that he could look back and see his failure, and how we, tonight, ought to do the same thing. When we see our ambition.

Look at the healing campaigns and see if the Lord did something a few years ago to start restoring healing to the sick and so forth. Everybody, every organization because they didn't come into their organization, they had to get them a healer. And what have we done?

Let's look at it just a moment. We have done the same thing that Moses did! We've went out and tried so hard to manufacture some kind of a miracle. “I smelt a disease”—“I got blood in my hand.” Manufacture a miracle. And what have we got?

Some of the men—in such hard strains has broke up and become regular drunkards: neurotics. And got their minds till they switched all the way back from the Pentecostal objective back to making organizations and things again.

See,

what have we done, slew about one Egyptian. That's right. And we've tried, we've strained, we've paid, we've labored all night long in prayer meetings till we have no voice and try to manufacture something and soup-up something and all these kinds of things; and find it to be a total failure. We need a going back to the desert. That's right. Yes sir.

Camp meetings and struggles. Why not just give up? That's what you ought to do. Go back and give up. Why, we done the same thing they did, same thing Moses did. It doesn't do any good. After forty years, he found himself a prisoner to the Word of God. What are we trying to do

when the great blessing come out? And the manifestation of all these great things that God has told us about, how that we must be born again and how we must receive the Holy Ghost, the baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and all of these things, here. You see, people, instead of staying to that Word, harnessed to it—what did they do? They started with their own denominational theory, which had already failed, and tried to manufacture something to look like the truth.

I better cut off right there. I'm sure you're wise enough to know what I mean. But look what it's done. Think of it! What have we got tonight but a nation full of organized people who deny the Scriptures of God—who would call the light of the Holy Spirit: that it is was a mental telepathy—who would refuse such to come into the church, and they wouldn't permit you to mention one word of serpent's seed, eternal security, and of things that the Holy Spirit has revealed and proved to be the Word.

I've given challenge after challenge to come and prove it wrong. What have they got? The same thing that Luther had, the rest of them. See?

Slew an Egyptian. What was it? Maybe made some man stop stealing or maybe live true to his wife, but what did you make him out of that? A church member. “Come and join our group.”

See, that stinking dead man was the only thing he could point his fingers to of his success of forty years of training—a stinking Egyptian laying there, rotten and dead.

That's about the way it is tonight. The only thing we can point to this revival that's crossed over, (so-called) is the stinking bunch of church members that knows no more about God than a Hottentot would know about an Egyptian night! That's right. That would tell them about the Word of God. They'd say, “I don't believe that. I don't care what you say, I don't believe it.” That's an awful thing to have to point back to. For all the strains and struggles and everything we got....

Maybe we could point to a big school; but it's dead! We can point to an organization, but it's dead! It's stinking! It's just like the first thing that we pulled out of. Like a hog going to its wallow and a dog to its vomit, we return back.

One dead Egyptian....

No doubt but somebody says “Moses, haven't you got no more feeling for the people? You was called to this.” Somebody that knowed Moses and knowed he was called for that.

“Have you lost the feeling of the people?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, why aren't you out doing this? Why aren't you down there trying this? And why don't you go on with the rest of them?”

Moses was out there getting stripped until he had an experience at the burning bush that declared the Word. “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I remember my promise; and I've come down to deliver them; and I'm sending you to do it.”

That was it

he seen the Word, not the ambition of the people or the desires of the people. Then what did he become? He did not want to face the Egyptians anymore. He didn't want to face this thing anymore, but he become a prisoner! Amen.

All of the years of running stripping down, but then he become a prisoner at the burning bush.... The mighty Moses with all of his intellect. The Bible saying that Moses was a mighty man in word or in deed down in Egypt.

But watch what the mighty theologian did in the presence of the burning bush! He only confessed his inability. When he seen the genuine purpose of God, he confessed that ... his inability to do it, yet he was trained in all the theology that they could give him. Trained in their best schools, but yet what could he do when that pillar of fire hanging there in the bush.... He said, “I can't even talk.”

Lord, who am I that I should go?“ ”Get your shoes off, Moses. I want to talk to you. Get yourself down—even your shoes. You fall on the ground, I want to talk to you.“

Couldn't even talk. Finally, an elected prisoner, an elected prophet; just like that Paul was elected.

Moses was elected deliverer, and then finally God had his elected subject a prisoner to Him. Oh, hallelujah! He could only move as the Word of God moved him.

“Who shall I say sent me?”

“I Am.”

“How will I do?”

“I'll be with you.”

“Yes, Lord, just as You say. Here I am.”

“Oh, my, that's ... he's a prisoner. He goes against his better thinking.”

Now, he'd been trained to command an army. “Swords up, about face.” Trained to go—“Chariots all in order; spears forward. Charge!” That's how he was going to take it over. That was his training. But he said, “What am I going to use?”

He said, “What have you got in your hand?”

A stick! God does things so ridiculous sometimes to the human mind. Got a stick in his hand. Whiskers hanging down, eighty years old; his wife on a mule, kid sitting on her hip, little old flabby arms hanging down, a stick, just his head stood up, but he had thus saith the Lord. What? (He'd finally got anchored!)

He was a prisoner.

“I only move when the Word moves. I only speak where the Word speaks.”

“Where are you going.”

“I got one commission—stand before Pharaoh and show him by this stick that God sent him.”

“What are you going to do after that?”

“He'll provide the next thing after I do this.”

There you are. You've only got one thing to do. The first—that's right, surrender. Become a prisoner! Don't think of yourself or something else. Become a prisoner.

Moses become a prisoner. Confessed he couldn't even talk. Finally, when God got him in his hand where he could only move where God moved him. Where.... He told him the Word. He knowed it was the Word. Then he submitted himself to the Word, and the Holy Spirit there, God, harnessed Moses to the will of God.

That's the same thing He done to Paul. Is that right? He harnessed Paul—little crooked nose, sarcastic Jew. Paul, with Ph.D., LL.D.'s wrote all over him, but He said, “I'm going to show him what he's going to suffer for the Word's sake.”

And then Paul sitting there and seeing the Word and seeing that that was Jesus. Then he raised up his hands and become harnessed to Him! The love of God harnessed him to the Word. He's going to bear my name before the Gentiles. There he went.

Moses, I am the God of your fathers, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob. I remember, I promised them, and the time of the promise is near. And I see the afflictions of my people! I remember my promise! And I have come down to harness you.

You know what the Word says. I've harnessed you to go down there—

harnessed you with power to go down there and deliver my people. Take that stick in your hand as a witness because you seen a miracle done by it. Just like David with a slingshot.

Harnessed himself, and he went down. Finally, God had a man that was subject to Him, harnessed to Him and could not move until the Word of God moved him. If people would just do that today.

Then he was his prisoner—a prisoner of love. Yoked up in the bond of love with God, as Paul was yoked up in the bond of love to God—just like Paul. Both of them trained the same way. Moses trained, you know, to deliver the children of Israel by military might. Paul, trained to take it out of the hands of the Romans and put them free by great ecclesiastical force in the world that day. Great schools of training come up under Gamaliel, and both of them went to the desert; come back different men.

Both of them saw the pillar of fire, and both of them were prophets! Is that right? Both of them prophets, and they both was talked to by the pillar of fire. Exactly right, coming for deliverance. There they was; went through a desert. Left their homes and went to the desert to find out ... left their people and everything to find the will of God.

They were trained in one way: God changed them to another. And they had become a complete prisoner to not act in the way that they wanted to act, but act in the way that God wanted them to act. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Have we got another ten minutes? I'll real quickly get to another character: I see one before me now. His name is Joseph. He was an elected son. He was a perfect type of Jesus Christ. He was born a prophet. He's a prophet also. And now, he could see visions, and when he was yet a little boy, he saw a vision of himself sitting on a throne and his brothers bowing to him.

But watch. He felt like he was a great guy. See, and all—but what did God have to do? He done the same thing that He did to the rest of them, because Moses was a deliverer, Paul was a deliverer, and now Joseph was a deliverer. He saved his people from the famine.

What did God have to do to him? Put him in prison. Put him right straight to the prison.

Yes, sir, remember he was sold by his brethren to an Egyptian, and they sold him to Potiphar, and Potiphar gave him a little bit of liberty and the first thing you know, that was taken from him. And there he sat in the prison crying, crying. God had to strip it.

Now notice. But all the time, I believe, in that prison, he could remember that the vision said that he was going to sit on a throne, and his brothers was going to bow to him, because he knew that his gift come from God, and he knew that it had to come to pass.

If we could only keep that in our minds: that according to the Word of God, that in this last days He's going to have a church—going to have a people, and these things that He promised; He's going to do them. He said He would, and we're living in the time, we're there. He's just trying to get us to be real prisoners now; locked in with Him.

Did you hear that old song we used to sing: “And then I'm shut in with God; I want to be shut in with God?” Now, it's where I thought about this, being shut in with God. Nothing else. You only move when God says move. You only do as God says do. Then you're shut in with God.

Now remember, he was thinking. He also became a total failure to himself. All that he knew, all that he understood, and everything; he become a total failure. It didn't work. He was put under a situation to where that nobody would listen to him. He was a prisoner.

He was put into a situation that unbelievers would not believe. Do you see what I mean? His ministry was of non-effect—the people turned their heads. They wouldn't pay no attention to him in prison. What good would his ministry do? He might stand through the prison bars and preach to them—they'd walk on down the street, see? But he become a prisoner. God took him a prisoner until the wheels got rolled upright, say midnight.

Glory!—total failure.

Finally, God came to him in his prison. Like Paul, like all the rest of them, He came to him and He used the gift that He'd give him to get him out of there. That's right. He brought him from his prison. What did he do? As soon as He brought him from his prison, he was given power by the king—he was changed. That he sat on the side of, that he was under. He was brought from the prison house and given power to whatever he said had to happen. Amen.

In his prison he constantly remembered he was born for a purpose. He was going to sit by a king, and all the rest of them was going to bow the knee to him. His vision told him so. Amen! But before his vision could be completely fulfilled, he had to become a prisoner! Amen. Then he become a ruler, and when he come from his prison house and become a prisoner of the Word of God that he could only say what God put in his mouth to say, then God moved through him!

Notice, that Moses had power to bind Pharaoh's princes at his own will. “If you say to this mountain be moved.” He had power to bind Pharaoh's princes, whether they were deacons, or presbyters, or whether they were state representatives or whatever they was. He said, “I'll bind you!” And they were bound, that was it. He could do it at his own word and his own pleasure! Amen! Glory to God!

Oh, I've just got about three more minutes, so that I keep my word.

Now, we find out that he become a prisoner to God—from a prisoner to the world, from Paul the same way, and Moses the same way. From a prisoner to his own thinking to a prisoner to God. And when he come out, he had the power of God.

And when he become Paul ... when the own thinking of Moses.... He surrendered it, and stripped of it. He become a prisoner to Christ's Word—could only move wherever.... You say, Christ.... He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater treasures than that of Egypt so he was a prisoner to Christ just like Paul was.

And remember, all three of them were prophets. And they had to be stripped of their own thinking in order to become a prisoner to the will and the ways of God. And we remember now, that he had power to bind at his own word; he had power to loose at his own word. He could say, “I loose you in the name of my king.” Amen!

Pharaoh made Joseph his son.

Christ makes his prisoners of love, his sons; and He gives them power. The same thing He had—St. John 14:12. “He that believeth on me,” see? “The works that I do shall he do also.” “Even more than this shall he do.”

Now, the prisoner of the love of Christ becomes empowered by his King, who is Christ. Amen. “And verily I say unto you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be moved,' and don't doubt in your heart, but believe that what you've said will come to pass; you'll have what you said.” If ye abide in Me, and my Word in you.“ If you're yoked to Me ... because Him and his Word is the same. ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.“ The same yesterday, and today, and forever. ”If ye abide in me [not here and there] ... abide in me, and my Word in you, ask what you will [or say what you will], and it'll be done for you.“ He had power.

Notice, before he came out, he had to be taken out and shaved. A few things had to be shaved off, before he could meet his king.

Oh, God sometimes takes his people out like that and shaves a few of their own wills off. He shows them that they can't do just what they wanted to do. You know what I mean. They're not at liberty to do what they want to do. Before they can come into full power and be a love-slave to Christ, they have to be shaved off and then presented. Sometimes He takes them to the deserts to do that—to shave them off and then bring them out, the anointed ones, to fulfill the purpose that He's ordained them to be! See, what I mean? Brethren, we're at the end-time.

Remember all other times what He's done. He's always had to take a man and make him a prisoner to Him—forsake his own. He had to forsake everything that he knowed, forget all of his training and everything in order to know the will of God and to follow God. He can't follow anything that man's got to do and God, the same time. It's too contrary, one to another.

You can't be going east and west at the same time; you can't be going right and left at the same time; you can't be doing right and wrong at the same time; you can't be following man and God at the same time. No sir, you're either following God or following man.

Now then, if you are following God and have submitted yourself to God, then you become a prisoner to that God—to that Word, to that will. No matter what anything else says, you become a prisoner to it.

Listen, we're at the end time, and I would say this with reverence and respect as the last couple of minutes is floating by. Look what God, to my opinion, will do and must do and will do in this last day, is to find a tool for the harvest. He's got to find a tool to thresh this floor.

Any farmer, when he goes to his harvest; he has to have a tool to do it with. Certainly. He's got to have a sharp sickle or something: some instrument to thresh out the grain. And the harvest is ripe.

God, take us in your hands. Make us bond servants of your love. Use us for tools to bring the realization to this sinful cursed earth that we're living in today, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

For myself: God, let me be a prisoner. If all my brethren turn me down; if all my friends turn me down; I want to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ and his Word; that I might be harnessed to his Word by the Holy Spirit, to see the Holy Spirit make the Word of God be confirmed by the same things that He said would be done. I want to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Let us pray.

I wonder tonight, with our heads bowed, if that ambition that we have of being something else, or maybe something that we might think be a selfish thing, I wonder if we couldn't just kind of lay that aside?

I wonder if some young boy here tonight, will look around and say, “I'm going to be....” “When I get big, I'm going to be a certain, certain thing.” I wonder if you could feel the will of God move in your life and say, “No, no, my ambitions are lost, now. For the last few days the Holy Spirit's been speaking to me. I want to yield myself to God to be a threshing instrument of this last day.”

Some young girl that might have ambitions of a fine lady character, or maybe, be a pretty little misses, or maybe some day make Hollywood your career, I wonder if you're not willing now to submit your ambitions in the presence of God and his Word, and hear the call of God in your own life? God knows who you are.

I wonder if there'd be a minister close, or a servant, worker somewhere in church, (I just get in here once in a while; I don't know one-third of the people sitting here, tonight. But I ... just a little handful that's here.) But I wonder if there'd be such a person that you'd be willing to say, “I don't care what anyone says. I'm God's slave, now. I'm going to preach his Word, regardless. I don't care if my organization turns me out, I'm still going to stay with that Word. I'm going to do it. My will is God's will. God's will is my will. I'm going to be a prisoner to Jesus Christ. By his grace and help, I'll do it.” Think of it while we have our heads bowed.

How many has got that ambition tonight? Would you raise your hand? That's mine, too—I surrender all. With our heads bowed, now—slowly, now, as you think it over—now, as you pray.

I surrender all,

I surrender all,

All to Thee, my blessed Saviour,

I surrender all.

I surrender all....

(Do you really mean it? I want to be a prisoner. Take me Lord, take me down to the potter's house tonight and break me all up and mold me over again.)

All to Thee, my blessed Saviour,

I surrender all.

Heavenly Father, as the song continues to play, I thought it most profitable at this time that I'd break in on the song and talk to You just a moment. As the people are thinking, “I surrender all,” Father, may we do this, like if this is our last opportunity to do it. Let us come with sincerity. Come unto the table of the Lord, as it was, with washed garments, washed souls, washed wills, washed ambitions—to surrender ourselves,

and let God take his Word, yoke us up together with it—God's Word. And may the Holy Spirit take us, now, as we hear the yoke click around our hearts from tonight on. I take You at your Word. “Now, don't think your own thinking; think my thoughts. Think my will; I will lead you.”

God, grant that it'll be an experience to everyone of us. These young people sitting here, husband and wife, and some coming to be husband and wife. There's older men sitting here that's ministers, that's been along the road. Lord, here's Brother Neville and I, getting way up on the ladder. Our days are being numbered now. Our steps are made more careful than what we did make them. We watch where we step. We're not as sure footed, physically speaking, as we once were. But, Lord, as we see that mortal life is fading out, and none of our footsteps are sure without You got our hand.

Now, God, take us—will You? Take our hearts and our will in your own hand, and let us become prisoners, tonight, to the Word; to Christ. May we live godly lives here. May these women, these young women, these young men; boys and girls surrender their lives. Lord. And may their ambitions become the ambition to serve Jesus Christ, and let become a prisoner of his divine grace and will. Grant it, Lord.

It's all I know to do, Lord. These little broke-up words, and I trust that You'll put them together rightly, because it's hot in here. And people want to listen, but it's real warm, and many have to go home and go to work early. But may those seeds just lay into their hearts—a prisoner.

Go home and say to the wife, after they—before they get ready to get down and pray this afternoon or this evening by the bedside.... Look across to one another and say, “Dear, what about that tonight? Have we really become prisoners to Christ and his will, or do we work through our own will?”

May young men and young women everywhere, especially those who's heard the message tonight, ask themselves that same question. “Am I willing to become a prisoner—forsaking my own life.” “He that saves his life shall lose it, but he that will lose his life for my sake, shall find it.”

Father, we know that that is to become a prisoner of You. Lose our own ambitions and our own desires to find yours—then, we have eternal life. Grant it, Lord.

Only thing I know is to commit it now, into your hands, and may it become fruitful and bring forth great tools for the last day harvest. Men and women, boys and girls, surrendered to the complete will of God and become prisoners of Jesus Christ; to his love—shackled with fetters of divine love to Christ. We ask it in his name.

I surrender all, (Let's stand.)

I surrender all,

All to Thee, my blessed Saviour,

I surrender all.

Let's just say that again with our eyes closed and our hands up.

I surrender all,

I surrender all,

All to Thee, my blessed Saviour,

I surrender all.

Now, if we'll bow our heads, and before the dismissing song is sung of “Take the name of Jesus with You,” I'm going to ask that this brother, here.... I forget his name. The sister testified about the vision of darkness coming over her, which was healed. And remember, looking back the veil was gone. Her faith did that. You dismiss us in prayer. Will you, brother? And ask God's blessings upon us.