Once More

Thank you very much. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we are assembled again in the name of thy beloved child, the Lord Jesus, to express our love and worship to Him again. We pray that His Spirit will meet with us, and that He will give us each a portion of that Spirit that might give us sustaining grace to finish the journey, and fight the fight that's set before us, the fight of faith. Grant it, Father.

And break to us this afternoon the bread of life to strengthen us, for it is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.” May we hear that this afternoon. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may be seated. Commending Brother Carlson, he just let me on about ten minutes late—getting better. Another week's meeting we'll just ... I'll probably be here on time. We're so happy for the privilege.

Now, tonight is our closing night of this certain service, and I want to let you out in time so you can have your supper. I know a lot of you call it your dinner. But if I have dinner, then where's my supper come in? Now, I was talking to a fellow, he said, “Oh, Brother Branham, it's dinner.”

“Oh, it is?” I said, “I want to prove to you you're wrong.” I said, “We don't take the Lord's dinner; we take His supper.” So we like to think of it as the ... our supper, the Lord's supper. That's night, not morning or afternoon. He took it in the evening. It was His supper.

Now, so, we want to get back early, and so we won't be late tonight. Brother Carlson's going to let me on just exactly on time. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” And I don't know, if the Lord willing, I might try to speak tonight, if I can get a little ... enough time, on “The Countdown.” It's a scientific little message the Lord's give me for the last days. And maybe, the Lord willing, I might be able to speak on that tonight.

Now we had a grand time last night. I went over, said, “We're not going to pray for the sick.” And the Lord healed the sick anyhow. Sometimes we can say something, but the Lord can just upset that any time He wants to, you see. See, He's God.

Now I want to read quickly from the Scriptures for a little text that I thought that might be a help to us this afternoon. Now if he let me on on time, I want to try to get out on time. And that would be about 4:30, which would be about fifty minutes from now. Let us turn now over to the book of Judges, the 16th chapter. And let's read the 27th and 28th verses as we look to the Word.

Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, ... behold while Samson made sport.

And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord..., remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O Lord, that I might be ... avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.

Let's pray again. Lord Jesus, take this little text, water the church with it, Lord, we pray, and ... commit it to You, in Jesus' name. Amen.

There must have been about three thousand Philistines looking down from the top of the galley of this great arena, when the couple entered the arena that afternoon. Must have been a hot day. All day long they'd been out there. And in this great company on top of this great arena that was built something on the order of a upside down mushroom, and the center post in the middle that went out something in this way, and held the two posts holding all the spectators around.... Highly polished war lords and their fine jeweled women all leaned forward at this certain event, for they wanted to get a good look ... that what was taking place.

There had been preliminaries, all the entertainment. They probably had little monkeys that played little tricks. And they had different things that they entertained themselves with—fighting and wrestling, and maybe dueling to death, and many other things that they had been entertained with all day—for it was a great day.

But now the main event come.

You know how we all wait patiently while the preliminaries are going on? And they wait for the main event. That's when everybody sits up and takes notice. We watch it in our religious services, when we have our singing, and our testimonials, and the preaching and so forth. But the main event is see what the Lord's going to do, see why He's gathered us together for. We're all under anticipation to see just what the end is going to be, the main event. It's that way in anything. We always watch for the main event.

And they all raised up to look forward to see what was taking place, because the main event was being brought to them. What did they see but a blind man being led by a little boy!

The halls had echoed all afternoon with drunken revelry—how that they passed the whiskey and their high drinks, and their fine painted up, jeweled women, and great dignified war lords and all. It was a great celebration. They were celebrating the victory (Oh, how I hate to say this!), the victory that the fish god Dagon had got over the servant of God. It just goes plumb down to the bottom of me to have to say that. But it's truth. Celebrating such a way as that, a victory over Jehovah's servant—what a shameful thing. Drinking, revelry, painted women, and jeweled up, and great dignitaries—the fires was burning under the fish god, and what a celebration it must have been.

But the heartbreaking part (as thousands of years later that we have to think back of such an event as that), that when the great God of heaven, who had purposed in His heart to destroy that nation because they were heathens, and had sent a man to do the job; and here the fish god idol was celebrating a victory over Jehovah's servant. Jehovah never lost. The servant that He sent to do it lost the victory.

What a sight! What a shameful thing it was.

The lad led the stumbling blind man across the hall to these big center posts whereon all the great upside down mushroom, umbrella-like, sat, where people looked down like this, when the great ... like pilasters, run up and held the thing in order—laid by stone that could not be reproduced again today. No one could build it like that. But what a great thing it was. Thousands of the celebrity, priests who had served a idol, with their chests all swelled out, and all their ceremonies and rituals over their idol, that he had conquered Jehovah. What a great day it was—drinking, revelry and carrying on.

And here comes Jehovah's servant, blind, stumbling, led by a little boy out to this great post, to make sport.

The main event of entertainment was to make sport out of Jehovah's ordained purpose to destroy the nation. And yet the nation has taken the thing that God had placed in to destroy them; and now they'd conquered him, and was making sport out of him their main event at their celebration. Doesn't that just kill you, nearly, to have to look at that? To think, what could.... This story never ... really should've never had to be told. But it was probably told for our admonition. It was wrote that way.

Humiliated, broken, standing now defeated, right between the two posts that held the building—what a symbol that is of the church of this day.

What a symbol it is of a fallen race of people that has sold out to the world, and the very thing that we're here to conquer—the church that has sold its morals, that's sold the Bible, sold its strength, so surrendered its sword; and standing humiliated in the hour when the approaching signs of the coming of Jesus Christ is at hand, when she ought to be washed, not a spot or a wrinkle, standing to receive her bridegroom.

What a picture we see here, a symbol of moral decay that rests upon the nation, this nation. And I'm not going to try to stay with my scriptures too long so I can get through quick, but I could symbolize that with the church, with the nation, with politics, and with everything you can put your hands on today besides God's Bible. Morally decayed. The human race itself just in a terrible condition. And they're under atheists and unbelievers that can point their finger into the face of the church (who should have the message for today), and ask them, “What does all this mean?”—and they don't have the answer. They don't have the answer. Why? They did like Samson did. They surrendered.

So, see him standing there, and we'd say,“ So this is Samson.” Let's catch a picture of it, this great mighty warrior. Let's picture him this afternoon, that he had wide shoulders, great framework. And here this big bulk of a man stands there blinded, tied with little strings and led to the middle of the floor, humiliated, broken, defeated—with the great God of heaven looking down upon it—down here his critics, drunken soldiers, looking down. I'd imagine as he stood there, many Philistines that even shook in their shoes to hear his name.... Samson was a mighty name one time. So was Christianity, the church was. I'm going to parallel it with the church, this scene.

Samson's name—people just fainted, for he was some sort of a man that they'd never seen a man like him. His strength was beyond anything that the world had ever had. There's nothing they had could match it. Many remembered him, as they looked on him standing there in that condition.

Many looked upon him from the galleys and remembered seeing him standing in another position: one day standing with a jawbone of a mule in his hand with a thousand Philistines laying around him; when they'd fled to the rocks for safety, standing, motioning his fingers, “Come on if you want some of it!” But now look at him.

Many of the Philistines that one night he was persuaded in by a harlot.... And in the city of Gaza they took the great big gates that would have weighed tons, and fenced him in, and caught him; and sent out to the soldiers and said, “Now we've caught him. We've hemmed him in.”—like the devil's always trying to do, hem you in on something.

But remember, when Samson awoke the next morning, or that night, rather, seeing he was hemmed in, he could feel back on the back of his head and still know he was a covenant son of God, and there was nothing could hem him in! The church once stood like that too.

What did he do? He rose up, walked down the street, pulled the gates out of its sockets and put it upon his shoulders and walked up to the top of the hill and sat down. Many standing there that afternoon remembered that event. But look at him now, blinded, mocked, just a sport for the enemy. All of his powers that he once had for his protection, for God's achievement that he'd been born in the world to do, had been stripped from him by a woman.

I think that same thing could be applied today. That a woman who pretends to be the bride of Christ.... And basing her teaching with the cup of the filthiness of her abominations, of her fornications, she has tipped the cup of her fornications into the mouths of God's church that's been raised up to show His signs and wonders, as Jesus' last commandment was to do in Mark 16. And now, we find that she has took God's little faithful group and organized them together, just exactly the way she did herself, and has got them standing stripped, denying the power thereof! denying the Holy Spirit! denying the power to speak with tongues! denying the power of the Holy Spirit to raise the dead and heal the sick and cast out devils! And now “the Philistines is upon thee. And what you going to do now?” Stripped.

Oh, what must have went through that man's mind!

We have seen what must have went through the Philistines' mind. They'd known him when ... “I've heard ... [one reach over to another, maybe, and say] ”I remember the time when ... you'd say 'Samson!' every Philistine would go like rats to a hole.“

“I've heard the time,” you'd say, “a thousand men would be marching across the desert, they'd say, 'Samson's coming!' they'd drop their arms and run for safety as hard as they could.” But now look at him.

He's in a terrible condition. Bound. All because he compromised to a woman. That's what done it. She stripped him of his power. She kept trying to find out where his strength laid. She knowed he was a big man, but they had big men too. But this Delilah, she was a real Jezebel. She knowed how to work on him, to woo him to her, and say that she loved him; but all the time she was trying to fish along where his strength laid.

That's the same thing that the Jezebel has done to the church! It's fished along until it's found out where the strength laid, and that the strength is in the Word. The Word is God! And finally, she found where that strength laid, and she took him down to Nicaea, Rome, and shaved off his locks. And now they've took what's left out of it and taken them back to the World Council of Churches and got their locks shaved again.

It's a constant shaving: taking this out; and this doesn't mean that; and the days of miracles are past; there is no such a thing as this, that, and the other thing. They found where the strength laid —substituting baptisms and hand shakes and all these other things, for the true unadulterated Word of God!

This Word is God that was given to His church to defeat the world, and the devils, and the sickness, and to cast out devils! No denomination was given to the church; the Word was give to the church. That's her strength!

But they've cut this away, they've cut that away, and they shaved off this lock, and shaved off that lock, until she stands shorn today. Like a Catholic sister. Shorn off, until she's accepted a bunch of man-made creeds for her doctrine—just exactly what the prophet said she would do. And here she stands today humiliated, when the God of heaven has chose the ignorant fisherman, and so forth, and has come down and [unclear word], proving that He still remains God! And they can't give an answer to their congregation for it, because it's not connected with any denomination. And she stands humiliated, where she ought to've been standing in her strength.

If the church today stood like it did on the day of Pentecost, if the church today stood like it did in the days of Irenaeus, and in the days of St. Martin, or in the days of Polycarp, where the church would march right into death before it would defy any Word of God! Irenaeus, Martin, all those men, held tight to that water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Every one of them held tight to that baptism of the Holy Ghost, the prophets, signs and wonders. And they've got away from it today. What happened?

Delilah knowed where the strength laid, and if she could ever get those seminaries away from that Word on to some man-made theology, she had it! Then it was easy to buy and lead them into the World Council of Churches, this ecumenical council. Say, “You ain't got no right.” I'm still an American citizen—I got a right to freedom of speech. That's right. Certainly is. Notice, that's exactly the truth.

Oh, how he must have felt. What went through that man's mind as he stood there, blind!

Now Jezebel knew (or not Jezebel, but Delilah), knew if she could ever punch his eyes out, that was it. And that's exactly what Delilah of this last day has done to the church—punched its eyes out to God's promises and sold to some great big intellectual denomination. Everybody likes to say, “I belong to the First Church ... I belong to down here ... I....” See, as long as the devil can put your eyes out to the Word of God, and the promise of God.... No matter how foolish it sounds, it's God's promise! I'm not endorsing cults, not at all. But them cults are known by their works. So is God's church knowed by its works. But I'm trying to say what Delilah has done to Samson.

Now let's take Samson's side. What must have went through the man's mind as he stood there? All the great victories he had once had must have passed through his mind.

The event's on now, the entertainment for the afternoon is fixing to start. The ones that's to be entertained are thinking of what he was. And here he is standing here thinking of what he was. But because some woman lured him, the picture's changed, to what it should've been. God raised Samson up to destroy that nation. That was the very purpose of bringing him on. If God can only find one man, that's all He needs—one man that can fully surrender to Him. He don't take an army. He never did use that; He only uses a man.

Now Samson gave God his strength to use, but he didn't give God his heart. He gave his heart to Delilah; and gave his strength to God. But you've got to surrender soul, body, spirit, strength, everything you are, to the will of God. Become a prisoner to Him. You're going to be somebody's prisoner. You don't belong to yourself. You're somebody's prisoner. You're either a prisoner of the devil, knowing this truth and won't surrender to it; or prisoner to the world, and surrender to God—one or the other. You're either the devil's prisoner to sin; or you're God's prisoner to righteousness. You're one or the other.

And now Samson thinks of the great victories that he had won. No doubt it come to his mind of how that when he was a little boy that God had vindicated him: told his mother how that she must do, not drink strong drinks, or watch her diet, that she was bringing forth a Nazarite; how she combed his hair and told him, “Son, through these locks it's a covenant with God that your strength will lay in there. Don't never give it away. Don't never give away your secret. Don't never surrender it. Whatever you do, stay with it.”

Jesus Christ told the church that “Heavens and earth will pass away, but my Word shall never pass away. And whosoever shall take one word from it or add one word to it, his part will be taken out of the book of life.” The church ought to think of that now as we stand in this chaos, and this hour just prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus at any moment for a rapture.

The great victories that we can point back in the days gone by —in the reformation, back in the days of Irenaeus and St. Martin, Patrick, and those who protested those organizations, and when Luther came out and protested that first organization, Catholic Church.... And the group that followed him come right back and organized behind him. When John Wesley come out of Anglicanism.... And as soon as Wesley left, they organized right behind him.

And the early Pentecost come out of the denominations—that was a cursed word to you. But as a dog goes to its vomit, and a sow to the wallow, you've went right back into the thing that you were born to defeat! Hallelujah!

That hurts my heart too, even more than to think of the victory yonder that Dagon had over Samson. I see what Jezebel's got over the church. That's the reason that ... every strength and every fiber in my being I'm trying to protest that thing and call back that church to her place of repentance!

Your mothers, your fathers, were ousted out of those organizations. They come out of it, and protested it. And here their children has turned right back around and went right back into the thing that they come out of. If that ain't a picture of Samson, what Delilah did!

How we ought to let the thoughts go through our mind of the great victories! I don't have time to get it and keep my word to you.

...and of God, that raised him up for this purpose. And there he stands between those two posts—blinded, defeated, humiliated. He was still the same big bulk that he ever was; but his strength was gone. The church, if anything, it's stronger in membership than it ever was. But where is the Word? the strength being manifested? It's been cut off from you by your power-shaving organizations.

He had failed God! Not only had he failed God, but he failed his own people. He was a total failure. Now he was a prisoner to the very nation that God raised him up to destroy. And here stands the last organization of the church—Pentecost—this afternoon, just as defeated as Samson was. You might not believe that, but if you'll just open your mind to the Word you'll see it's the truth! Had him doing tricks for entertainment.

How sometime ... I said not long ago, these Full Gospel Businessmen (as well as I love them) in their magazine writing up Holy Reverend Father So-and-so. You poor, deluded, blind Pentecostals! What's the matter with you? Don't you know our Saviour said don't call no man on this earth “Father”? Don't you realize the devil's only taking somebody's been kicked out of one of those there, out here, and just making a laughing stock out of you? They're not coming in! Don't you let anybody tell you they are!

What's the matter with this deluded church? The world has punctured its eyes. Don't you know Jesus said that that would happen? And when the sleeping virgin come in to buy oil, she never got it! There's the sleeping virgin. Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, they're not getting it! They might speak with tongues and jump, but that don't mean anything. I've seen heathens do the same thing. And devil worshippers speak in tongues and jump and sing and shout, drink blood out of a human skull, and call on the devil and speak in tongues. Don't you rely on sensations; it's the Word of God that don't pass.

There she is, defeated—just as much as Samson was defeated—doing tricks now. How ... Satan stand up and laugh and said, “Look, they claim they believe the Bible. Look.” Telling all the angels of heaven, “Look, look, they're Bible believers, each one of them. Look at them, all colored together. I'm going to throw them every one over. Just exactly. Going to lead them right in.” Just exactly what the Scripture said. They have to do that.

There they are, defeated. Delilah. Eyes punctured so they can't see the truth. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You've got eyes and you can't see. You've got ears and you can't hear.” Why? Said, “ 'Cause Isaiah said so”. He referred back to the Word, the prophet. The ... God Himself, Jesus Christ, referred back to the word of His prophet.

And today the Holy Spirit's bringing your memory back! “Heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” Women, painted faces, wearing shorts, acting like the world, bobbing their hair, and doing so forth—“having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Why, your own works proves that you don't believe it—the Holy Spirit in the Word pointing right back to the Word again.

“Oh,” you say, “I got it.” When you take medicine for a disease, if it don't show up, you'd better change your medicine. You're ... die in your sins.

The nation, the very purpose, the very thing that they was raised up to destroy.... Samson is now a victim. And so is the church raised up to put denominationalism, and the world in the denomination, to shame! And you come right into the denomination. And by doing that you can't follow the Scriptures—every one of them has got a different idea. So you lost your strength. That blinding devil!

Let a lure of a woman take him from the Word of God. Now you say, “Brother Branham, it wasn't....” It was the Word of God! Delilah took Samson from the word of promise! And so has the Jezebel of this day taken the church, lured it from the Word of the promise, God, Holy Bible! Same thing, same exactly thing.

What did they do? Let Jezebel, spoke of in Revelation the 17 ... Revelation, 17th chapter.... The Catholic church is represented there. And they tell you it's them, too. They don't ... their own book says so. They make no bones of it. How many ever read their own writing and know that that's true? They say the Catholic church is represented. That's right. And remember she was the mother of harlots. She was a whore, and a mother of harlots. See, it had to be churches. It's not boys; it was girls. Protestant churches. A mother of harlots. As soon as they organized they done the same thing they did there. They stripped themselves from the Word and have to follow the dictations of some organization.

I know this is not popular, but it's the truth.

I haven't got no big radio programs and television programs to support. God help me to never have. I only want one thing, and that's the support of Jesus Christ by His Word. Let Him vindicate that I'm telling the truth by His Word. Not some bogus make-belief, un... scrupled thing, but the genuine Holy Spirit, Himself, who takes the promise of this day and shows that it's the truth. That's all I long to see. Like Jesus said, “If I don't do the works of my Father, then don't believe me.”

Now, blind. “Oh,” you say, “we're not blind.” You are blind! The Bible said you was. Every Scripture reader knows that this is the Laodicea church age. How many believes that? Then the Bible said that the Laodicea church was blind, naked, and didn't know it! There's the bad part. She don't even know it. She's worse than all the other church ages put together.

The ox knows its master's crib, or stall. And the mule knows his crib. And He said, “My people don't know.”

Blind, spiritually blind. Blind to what? God's Word. Just as blind as they can be. And they don't want to see it! And you tell them, they'll say, “Oh, yes, I'm intending to do that.” But none of them does it. They can't do it, and maintain their fellowship in an organization. They'll kick them right out of it.

There she stands. Delilah shaved off his locks. Now he's bobbed haired—like the women in it. Same thing. Now, look at them—defeated, just like they was.

Ministers, the Pentecostal messengers of the early days, you would've never made them men believe that their own children would organize seminaries, that they criticized by the Word of God and come out of! That's right. What, by these seminaries, have we got? They've brought world into the church.

An old minister used to sing, “We let down the bars, we compromised with sin. We let down the bars, the sheep got out, but how did the goats get in?” You let down the bars! Got away from the Word. When Eve let down the bars to intellectual reasonings of Satan, death come in. And the bars, that God had her barred in with, was His word of promise. And we've substituted something else—a creed instead of the Word. Amen. You know that's the truth.

What have we got, the Pentecostal people today? Too many Rickys. That word—Elvis and Ricky. You never heard that in other days. It's a word, it's a name, for this day. It goes with this. It means something. You say, “A name means nothing.” Then why did He change Abram's name to Abraham? Why did He change Saul's name to Paul? Simon's name to Peter? Why did He change His own name? Why did He change Jacob to Israel? Not until he wrestled with the Lord. Not until he overcome. And when Jesus overcome death, hell, and the grave, the Bible said He had a new name. And when Jacob overcome....

And if the church can overcome, she'll stop saying, “I'm Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian.” When she can overcome her creeds, and the world that's drawn her in there, she'll come back to the bride of Jesus Christ—Mrs. Jesus Christ. Amen.

What a sad sight as we see Samson standing there:

women with short hair, wearing shorts, painted faces (and Pentecostals), calling themselves Christians, singing in the choir.

I was in a Pentecostal assembly not long ago, in a great city where a famous great man lives. And the meetings got so big I had to take it over to a big place. And they had the selected Pentecostal choir. And little did they know I was sitting right down behind the curtains praying. And there every girl, in that row about of thirty-five girls and thirty-five boys to sing the Messiah, was wearing makeup and bobbed hair! And when David duPlessis was taking up a missionary offering they were acting like they were blind Bartimaeus running along passing the cup.

That's Pentecostal grandchildren. That ain't a Pentecostal servant of God with the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost won't make fun of His own Word! He can't, and remain the Holy Ghost. But that's where you've got to. Oh, Samson, get to thinking a little bit. Remember these tapes are recorded and sent around the world. I'm just not only speaking to this group here.

Samson began to think of his errors (oh!) and he began to think of what he was one time. Pentecost, think what you was nineteen hundred years ago. Church—Catholic, Protestant—think what you were nineteen hundred years ago; and look what you are today. Study a little while. (Just got about eight more minutes to keep my word.)

Notice. But while he was standing there, he cried. He began to think of his errors. And when he began to think of what had happened to him.... He was blind; therefore, he couldn't see no more. He's accepted something else. For the love of this woman, that's what got him. And then she turned him down.

Oh, what a trap I could speak on here that Satan's set for the church. Just get your eyes blinded from the truth and that's what.... They got you then. And if you only knew it, one of these days God's going prove it to you what the mark of the beast is.

Notice. But when once blinded, there she stands. And there he stood. And he began to remember the things of his errors, where he had left the strait and narrow road, where he'd got away from God's promise. And he cried out, “Lord, revenge my eyes.” Why did he do this? He knew there was a possibility. Now is where I want you to listen.

Samson must have thought of all ... where he had left the path. He saw it then. It was too late now. He saw it where he had left the path, and he thought there must be a possibility that God would answer. He knew if he could repent, and get God to see that he was sorry for his error, there was a possibility that God would still achieve His promise. God will do it. He's going to do it.

Same now! God's going to have that church. Don't you worry. She's going to be there. The Holy Spirit'll be moving so in the church, and the church and Christ'll be the same Spirit. Luther stood down on the feet in justification; Wesley stood in the heartbeat of love of sanctification; but this is raised up to the head now, see. More than that. She denominated, and the husbandman come along and pruned the vine. They died. They never did come back no more; they never will come back no more. But still there's a seed of life there that's coming on.

But notice. Samson thought there must be a possibility. He caught the idea. But the sad part is today, the church don't catch that. They don't realize that there is a possibility of a revival. They don't realize the possibility. They haven't caught the vision yet. They just sit. “Oh,” they say, “now Brother Branham, what are you doing?”

Oh, I know, you clap your hands and have great big gatherings, and glittering with worldly tinsel. You have to go to the biggest places; you have to have the most, best entertainment; you have to do this, that, or the other. Your pastor must be a seminary scholar with a doctor's degree or.... You can't tell your neighbors down there that your pastor is some little guy out of the cornfield out there that got saved. “Our pastor is Dr. LL.D. So-and-so.” To me that means he's just that far away from God, that's all—just that far away, for intellects always takes him away. Oh, you're shining with scholarship.

And another thing about a lot of this modern evangelism today: all the way from Pentecost, all the way back, is a bunch of Hollywood showmanship. You certainly are glittering with that, as the tinsel's in the hall of the fish god, Dagon. But that tinsel and scholarship and intellectual showmanship, with a great bright ... let none of the public see any defeat and so forth....

All that stuff like that, intellectual conceptions of the gospel and so forth—that don't bring the power of God to make women quit wearing bobbed hair, and men to act right, take their place in the house, and raise their children like they ought to. It don't bring the Spirit of God.

Samson stood there just as big a bulk as he ever was.

And the church stands stronger in members than it did forty years ago. But where is the Spirit of God? Oh, God! Where is the Spirit of God in it? I see the spirit of Hollywood. I see the spirit of the world. I see the spirit of glamour. Go right through.... I've been fifteen years preaching against it, and it gets worse all time. I can see it. And I can see the spirit there, but where is the Spirit of God that can grasp God? that can recognize the Word itself when it's made manifest? can recognize truth? Only the Spirit of God can do that. That's right. You can take glitter, polish, showmanship. Samson had just as big a body as he ever had; but his strength was taken from him.

The church, Pentecost today, stands.... I believe three years ago, the “Sunday Visitor” of the Catholic church said that they had a million conversions to Catholicism in one year. But the Pentecostal church had one million five hundred thousand—more than that. But what have you got when you got it? I'd rather have five that could surrender their life to Christ. He can do more with five men, or one man surrendered, than He could with forty million outside. What does members mean? Just means another thing that you're blinded, and adding more strength to the harlot. Right.

Notice. The church today is not willing to pay the price.

Samson prayed the right kind of a prayer. “Lord, let me die with this enemy.” Oh, my! There you are. You don't want to die to your pride. You don't want to die to the things of the world. Now remember, I'm talking to literally thousands around the world when I'm saying this, see. I'm just not speaking here in Chicago; I'm speaking at the world.

You don't want to die! But the only way that there's a possibility of a revival.... You blinded Samson, can't you see that the Delilah has blinded your eyes? And the only way that you'll ever be able to bring back the strength to the church is to die to the enemy that's got you in this worldlyism. Samson said, “Let me die with the enemy.”

There's a great price to pay. You must die to the thing that's brought you in this thing. You must die to the thing that's brought you, you Pentecostal people, to where you are this afternoon. You've got to die to it.

Samson was willing to pay the price to get the power of God back in his life again. I wonder if the church is, this afternoon, willing to pay the price and die with the enemy, the thing ... all your popularity and all your this, that, or the other, just to see the power of God back on you again, and become a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

Oh, I hear some of you say, “Oh, yes, we're having revivals.” But it's denomination revivals. The Oneness wants to take all the Threeness and make them all Oneness; the Threeness wants to take all the Oneness and make them Threeness; the Church of God wants to take the Church of God of Prophecy. One wants to take the other—making big denom.... Don't you realize you're only catering to men? We are brethren! There's no denomination can separate the love of God! We are brethren. “...this will all men know you are my disciples, when you have love one for the other.”

You say, “What are you hollering about a man...?”

Love is corrective. If love doesn't correct, then it's not love. If you see your child down on the street, and don't give him a little bit of posterior protoplasm stimulation, you're not a good dad. But a real mother or dad'll turn him up and spank him—let him know he's got to get out of that street or perish! That's genuine love.

But you say, “Junior dear, I don't know. You ... maybe you shouldn't be out there at this time of day [the end-time], when the cars are going pretty fast.” Oh, nonsense, you sissified preacher. Not the audacity to take God's Word and call white white, and black black; right right, and wrong wrong! But they do it.

Yeah, we have revivals all right, but look at your morals behind these revivals. Don't change them a bit—getting farther from God into the world all the time.

Notice. Samson knew what was going to happen if his prayer was answered. But we haven't counted the cost yet. What's going to happen if God answers your prayer to become a real genuine child of God? You know you're gone from your denomination right then. And them women that you play bridge with and everything? Oh, no. You're gone, that's all. Better count it up first.

But Samson said, “Let me die.” He was willing to pay the price. And he knew

(listen close now to this remark) he knew that his present backslid condition could never meet the challenge of that hour. Yet he was just as much man as he ever was in his muscles. His frame was as big as it ever was. He was ... just as big a muscle that ever could raise up on his arm at any time—was probably larger, because he'd been grinding down in the ... doing heavier work.

We got better churches, better buildings, and everything. But where is our strength, spiritually speaking? Oh, we could take a vote in the nation, sure. We could do these things. But that ain't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the presence of God being recognized among us. That's what we ought to live for.

He knew that his backslidden condition could not meet the challenge of that hour. And so does the church know it now. We can't do it under this condition. You can't do it. Denominations does not vindicate the Word; it denies the Word. The very denomination itself denies the Word as soon as it's denominated. Just the thing itself, you just get on the other side to begin with. It denies the Word.

All the time....

(I've just a little minute or two longer, but notice, as I hurry now, to keep my word.) All the times while they were all standing there and these thoughts was going through their mind (I hope it sends some through yours), they never noticed when Samson, his thoughts went through his mind. Maybe they passed the bottle, took a drink again. The fine Hollywood women stood there with their cigarette in their mouth, if there was such a thing in that day. I don't think they got quite that low in that day. But ... pushed up their hair and took another drink, hollered, “Hello, Joseph [or John, or you up there somewhere]. We played cards together last night, was out at the big party.”

[Blank spot] “...there's a possibility that God'll hear me. There's a possibility.” And while he thought, the Philistines had not noticed him while this little boy untied his hands. Walked back, he said, “Lay my hands upon the post. There's a possibility.” Oh, my. I wish the church could see that. There is a possibility of a real revival.

What did he do? He raised up his sockets (he had no eyes) towards God. They never noticed the moving of his lips as he was sincerely confessing. We don't need this little “Lord, forgive me and Jim, Joe, and all of us. Amen.” We need a sincere cleaning up from the pulpit to the janitor.

They never noticed the tears running down from them sockets where he once had eyes. They never noticed the moving of his lips, his eyes, briny tears streaming down from the sockets. He wanted God to make His Word once more vindicated to prove—as I'd say to this Delilah today, or this Samson, rather—“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Once more he thought it would happen.

“Not a new denomination, not a new sectarian, but a vindicated word from You, God. I know You're still God. I'm blind, I've got off the track, I'm not worthy to live. Let me die with this enemy. You raised me up to destroy it, and I've failed You, Lord. But there's a possibility You'll hear me once more, Lord. Once more.”

Dead earnest he prayed. He knowed what was coming. “Lord, just this once more. Once more, let me see Jesus Christ as He was yesterday.” When he prayed that prayer, and the tears rolling from his cheeks with deep sincerity of confession....

That's what the church needs. Confess you're wrong. Don't care what Dr. Jones says, or what anybody else says. You're out of the Word of God. Confess it, that you're wrong! Cry out, “Once more, Lord, once more. Once more, Lord, once more. Avenge my blindness upon these denominations.”

Said, “Give me strength, Lord, to shake this denominational world with your vindication. Give me strength, Lord. Once more prove it.” He knew what was going to happen if his prayer was answered. He knew—dead earnest, crying, “Once more, Lord.” And while he was praying and making his honest confession, every fiber in his body began to vibrate.

O God, if the body of Jesus Christ could stand as one, and every fiber and every member begin to vibrate with the literal baptism of the Holy Ghost again, not with new members and shaking hands and some creed!

As the strength began to move into those big muscles, every fiber began to twist, he began to feel himself again, and he twisted out! And when he did, the big wall fell. All we need to do today is to see these denominational walls fall, is get deeply sincere before God to heal these blinded eyes that's been blinded from the Word of God! That was Samson's greatest victory he ever had, because he was willing to confess—over every enemy, first, that he was brought up to destroy.

Oh, Pentecost, stand at your post this afternoon, your post of the duty of God's Word. Repent and cry aloud, “Lord God, once more!” Let me tell you something, you better destroy your enemy before your enemy destroys you. Right.

Bring back the old-fashioned prayer meetings, the real godly repentance, the all-night altar service. Oh, Pentecost, hear me! Leave, oh, leave, this corruption that Jezebel has worked among you. Leave it! Leave it quickly! and return back to the Word of the Lord away from this Hollywood showmanship. Turn with your whole heart back to the Word of God. Turn back to the power of the Holy Ghost.

You women dress like women! You men act like men!—like sons and daughters of God! Turn, oh, turn from this Jezebel system that's choking you and blinding you. God, help us to have a true repentance. Not ... halfheartedly you can't do it.

I think today at this very moment (when my time is up), we should stand to our feet and cry with our hands in the air, “Lord, once more, once more; oh, Lord, once more.”

Let's stand, everybody that's willing to do it, to see a revival, that's ready to die to this Hollywood showmanship, everybody that's ready to die to see the power of God come to Zion with joy in all these holy mountains, nothing hurt or shall destroy. Let's raise our hands and cry, “Once more, Lord! once more, Lord! once more, Lord! once more, Lord, send the Holy Ghost with a mighty rushing wind like You did on the day of Pentecost.” Amen.