Broken Cisterns

Let us remain standing just a moment, and bow our heads. Lord Jesus, we are trying in our humble way to express to you by singing this that we believe. And we pray, Lord, now, that You will continue breaking the bread of life to us, giving to us that which we have need of out of thy Word, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I am quite sure if we should ... if I'd say the all-sufficient word now of “Amen,” that all blessings of God would still rest on this audience.

I sat this morning and listened close to the service, and enjoyed the testimonies, the different ways each one has of expressing themselves, and to hear the newcomers ... Baptist brother here that come to apologize for thinking that little wrong. I certainly appreciate the human ... somebody that can be human enough, or gentleman enough to, if he thinks he's made a mistake.... He didn't exactly apologize to me. It wasn't me he was apologizing to, but it was God. So I appreciate that, see. God bless our brother and his evangelist brother.

My, that Baptist.... You know I used to belong to the Baptist church myself. I was a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. When I come among the people.... I know how you feel. I felt the same way, just full of something that.... I didn't know....

I remember my first experience of seeing a Pentecostal. It was in Dowagiac, Michigan. I beg your pardon. I had been in Dowagiac on a fishing trip, and was coming down from Dowagiac down into Indiana. And so I seen the name of Jesus all over the cars and things, and I listened to the services that day. And the next day they asked me to come to the platform to say a few words, and I did. And they asked me what church I belonged to, and I told them I was a Baptist. And that night they had an old colored man was going to preach. And he must have been in his late eighties, and he come out to the platform—the old fellow, they almost had to lead him out. He was ... long ministerial coats on, the velvet collar, just a little rim of white fur, hair around the side. And I thought, “All these men here, and theologians, great men, how they'd let this service be given to a fellow like that. Why, the old man should be in his chair somewhere, sitting down.”

They had been preaching that day about what Jesus had did here on earth and.... But he took his text, I believe from Job 7:20. I wouldn't be sure that's the scripture. However this is the quotation, or some part of it: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world, when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?” And he spoke on what went on in heaven, while they had been speaking on what went on on earth. And somewhere about five minutes after he was speaking, the Spirit of the Lord hit him, and he jumped way up on the floor and clicked his heels together. My! There was as much room as almost half on this platform, and he went walking off. Said, “You just haven't got enough room up here for me to preach.”

Well, I was about twenty years old then. I thought, “If that'll do that for that old man, what would it do for me?”

We have to keep everything just as orderly for our new brethren that.... We certainly welcome them into our fellowship, see. I believe they mention of a priest sitting here, I think. Of course, being Irish, my people are Catholic. And so there was a couple more—Baptist, and different ones.

You might have been a little confused awhile ago. I noticed none of the brethren spoke about it, but I thought I would try to straighten out when Brother Shakarian, after (the fine speaker here) ... was ... got so filled with joy of knowing the coming of the Lord's so close at hand, he spoke in an unknown tongue to us. And we have interpreters. The gift, the interpretation, which Scripture says if there be no interpreter then let them hold their peace; but if they speak in tongues, and then interpret it, it becomes prophecy. So the little confusion of two of them at one time.... Now that wasn't a bit confusing, see, because one of them was giving the interpretation; the other was prophesying, see. So that's....

I thought I would let our brethren understand, if they did not understand, because one of them is correctly giving.... Do you note the time limits of each one? And the other one was just so filled himself that the Spirit of God was prophesying through one interpreting; the other was giving the interpretation. So that it might be clear that you.... We're not.... Sometimes to the natural mind.... Just like our precious brother that give the apology this morning, it is a bit confusing to the person who doesn't understand. But to those who are in that ... veterans of the battle that we're in, why, we understand that what these things are. So I just thought I'd just say something about it, if it was all right.

Now I know this is no place to say this, but being everybody's been telling little things, I.... You know that fellow said, the old colored man said, “You don't have enough room for me to preach.” You ain't got enough time for me to preach. I'm rather long-winded.

Man said one day, said.... A minister came up. He'd been a pastor at the church for twenty years, and he always preached just exactly thirty minutes each Sunday morning at his church. And he said this Sunday morning he preached three hours. And so the deacon board called him in. Said, “Pastor, we really appreciate you.” Said, “We always know that you stand for the Bible, and it's right.” And said then, “And you always correct us, so we can be ... feel pure and clean before God, and we really appreciate you. And we believe you're God's servant, and we certainly did appreciate that message this morning.” But said, “There's just one thing that we want to ask you about. Said, ”We timed you.“ The deacon board said, ”Every Sunday morning you're just exactly thirty minutes, and today you were three hours.“ Said, ”Now remember we appreciate every bit of it. It was all right,“ making the old fellow feel good, you know.

He said, “Well, brethren, I'll tell you what it is. Every morning when I go on call to the pulpit,” said, “I put one of those little Lifesavers in my mouth.” He said, “I just suck on it.” And said, “When the Lifesaver's done,” said, “takes just thirty minutes.” And said, “then I quit preaching.” He said, “You know this morning I thought I was a little overtime. I spit it out. I had a button in my mouth.” I ain't going to put anything in. Hope I don't get a button. But we are.... I hope that didn't sound sacrilegious here, but just.... You know, even God has a sense of humor, you know.

So, we are very thankful to be here, and have this time of fellowship, and with this grand privilege to break the bread of life once again in my own simple little way. I know as theologians, as that man spoke here last night from England, my I hate to get up behind a person like that with my seventh-grade education, but I hope that God will interpret to you the meaning in my heart. If my words are not right, my intentions, I trust, are.

Now let us read in the Scripture. Many of you like to follow, and I'm going to read this morning for just a few moments from the book of Jeremiah, the prophet, the 2nd chapter. And I'm going to begin now with the 1st verse.

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, and the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.

Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:

Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and ... walked after vanity, and are become vain?

Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, and led us through the wilderness, through the land of deserts and of pits, through the land of drought, and of the shadows of death, through a land that no man passed through, and ... no man dwelleth?

And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when you entered, ye defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

And the priests said not, Where is the LORD? and the hand of the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.

Therefore I will ... plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.

For ... over this land of Chittim and see; and in the Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.

Hath a nation changed their gods, which are ... no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.

Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye ... desolate, saith the LORD.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word. And I would like to take a text of that: “Broken Cisterns.”

In reading this scripture this morning, which all Scripture's given by inspiration, and we come to the house of the Lord for correction, and for understanding. And sometimes that we see any little thing in the way.... Like this military man awhile ago was speaking to us, and saying that some certain things, that perhaps ... maybe in some other country has a certain missile, or something on that idea, and we've got to find something to counteract that in military strategy.

Well, the same thing goes into a church, the parish where a man is preaching, or if he's an evangelist in the field. When he sees uprisings, and something that's just starting, going in its infancy, or whatever it is, if that man, if he's a servant of God ... to blot that thing so far from the people's mind that they'll keep away from it. And we don't want that to happen, or to get into places like that.

Now, during the time of Jeremiah here, his prophecy, it had been about sixty years since the death of Isaiah. And it had been about sixty years without a major prophet. There was Habakkuk, and some of the small minor prophets, but Isaiah was the last major prophet. And the people had ... during this time had had no one to call them out. They had drifted, yet they were God's people. Had drifted into this state now that we find them in as Jeremiah came to prophesy to them. And Jeremiah also was.... He prophesied before the exile, and also he went into exile with them. And then, of course, Daniel come on after Jeremiah; and Daniel said that he had understandings for the Scripture of the seventy years that they was to be there.

Of course, that was another prophet among them that wanted to make this yoke, as he put it upon his neck; that it would be a small thing—that within two years that God was going to bring them all back. But Jeremiah knowed different from that. And we know what happened to the prophet who prophesied wrongly. He died that same year—so God wouldn't let him stand.

And now, we also noticed the conditions of the people in that day.

Now I do not wish you to misunderstand me. I'm not aiming ... what I aim to say here, some scriptures and little notes.... Used to be I didn't have to write my scripture and things down, but after I passed twenty-five, the second time, well, I don't remember like I used to. So I write down the scripture, and kind of know from that where I'm going. Then so much time praying for the sick and so forth, and out and gone, I don't have time to really study like I should do.

Now....

But this great prophet of this day was Jeremiah, and he was something on the order of Amos, and many of the other prophets that rose up. He was stirred when he seen the conditions of the nation. Now they were.... Places sometimes when you're speaking about a nation, it ... might think that it's reflecting to a certain group. It's not that; it's the over-all picture of the nation.

And we find, today, a very comparative condition today, as it was in the days of Jeremiah, that the nation itself altogether has gone into, more or less, idolatry. Kind of, I'd say, got away from God, and by doing that.... It's been the weakness of the pulpit, because if the pulpit would've stayed straight and with the Word of God, God would be in every church like He is moving among us here. But they have led away from that, and that's the thing that I want to talk about this morning.

And now we find that that's absolutely true in every age.

I believe it was Amos (as I referred to him awhile ago), that he said he was not a prophet, he was the son of a prophet, but said that when the lion roars who can but fear? And if anyone ever heard a real lion roar in the wilderness.... These you hear in the cages around here are just meowing; but when one roars in the wilderness everything takes heed.

I've laid in the jungle to hunt them. And he's the king of the beasts, and when that lion roars even the beetles stop hollering. Everything does. The jackals and the hyenas a-screaming, and the other animals, the squawking of the baboons, the monkeys, and the beetles—you can hardly hear yourself think. But in the distance let a lion roar, and every beetle'll stop hollering. See, everything's afraid of him. Yet there's many things can kill him, but he's recognized as a king amongst the beasts. And he says, “When a lion roars, who can but fear?”

He said, “When God has spoken, who can but prophesy?” And that's ... I think the condition meets that challenge again today. God has spoken, see, and we see the handwriting on the wall. So it's very easy to prophesy and see that we're at the end time.

And we're seeing God from every section of denomination. All the way from Catholicism to all the Protestant churches, Buddhas and what more from India, and whatever more—He's calling His people together, assembling them together. And I'm very happy for that, to see this day coming.

Now, we.... It's a great day. One of the greatest privileges that.... If I had ... if I would have known.... Before there was a world, when we were souls, a part of God that we are.... For we were with Him before the foundations of the world, because there's only one form of eternal life and that's God, and we're a part of Him. We was ... not so much that we would know, and could think, and had a being; but we were in His thoughts of what we were before the foundation of the world, because we are a part of Him. Like my son is part of me, and I'm part of my father, and so forth, we are sons and daughters of God by His foreknowledge.

And back there if I could have known, as I know now, and could've looked over the whole span of time, and He'd said to me, “What time do you want to live?”, I'd've said, “This time right now.”—just the eve of the ending up of world history, and the oncoming of the kingdom of God to be established in the earth. I think it's the most glorious time of all ages, is right now.

We find out here that Israel is accused by the prophet—when God had ordained him, and sent him out—they were accused of two major sins. And we want to talk on those two things that they had done, and from that we want to prosper by it. Now they had turned from God, the fountain of living water, and had hewed themselves out cisterns. They had turned from the thing that God had given them, and had hewed themselves something that they had did themselves.

And these cisterns, you notice, he had ... they had broken and they were leaking. Now a broken cistern cannot hold water. It'll leak out. I was raised on a farm and I know what an old cistern is, and the difficulty we have with them. And this leaking cistern is a very fine picture, I think, of this day that when our.... Everything that we have tried to do to get men together, get people together, get churches together, it has become always in the realm of intellectual trying. We've tried to make all the Methodists become Baptists, and vice versa, and the different denominations—and that was not God's program to begin with.

God only has one meeting place. He said over there in the book of Exodus that, “I have chosen the place to put my name, and that's the only place that I'll meet people.” And He'd chosen a place to put His name, and where He put His name that's where He met Israel.

He's got a place that He meets His church today, and He chose that name. That name is Jesus Christ. And there's where He meets the true believer: when He's in Jesus Christ. That's where God chose to put His name.

You say, “God's name?”

He said, “I came in my Father's name.” So that's where God put His name, was in Christ. And in Christ is where we can all meet under the shed blood, and there have real true fellowship.

God made His program at the beginning, in the garden of Eden, where ... the place He would meet man. And that wasn't upon intellectual understanding. If it had, Eve was exactly in line with His program. But we know that her accepting Satan's intellectual conceptions (“Surely God will not.”).... But God said He would. And so then, He chose a place of redemption, and it was by blood, and not by intellectual conception. So we're only beating the air, but it's just human nature that people will try to do that. If we had time we could break it down in many pieces, but I don't want that button, so we'll just try to make it as simple as possible.

Leaking cisterns—and we find that it's absolutely happened again. It's a very picture of our age that we're living in, of all of our tryings. And no disregard to every effort of any servant of God that even names the name of Jesus Christ. He ought to be honored for just even naming His name in reverence and respect. And the great evangelistical systems that cross the earth, and so forth, in these last days, I think still we'll never be able to get people in one heart until we get them underneath the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the only place that we'll ever be safely.

Someone called me not long ago from up in the East, and said, “Brother Branham, I hear you moved out to Arizona and you formed a place there where that there is safety.” And as you know how the message come, and the Lord told me what would happen in Alaska and how down through California it would be—and it's just been that way. And they said, “Now, if that's shaking and everything, where is a safety zone?”

I said, “There is one safety zone that I know of. That's in Christ, for those that are in Christ Jesus. It's the only one I know.”

Now, Jeremiah was called also the weeping prophet, and because I believe what made this prophet weak, weep rather, was because him being a prophet (and the Word of the Lord comes to such) and seeing the people walk after their traditions, and thought they were all right; and no way at all to turn them, for they were going straight to exile, because we know you reap what you sow, regardless of who you are, what you are.

And we as a nation have reaped, or sowed rather, and we've got to reap. And speaking tomorrow, the Lord willing (that's afternoon), on “Birth Pains,” and I touch that in there, that we cannot get by with nothing. We got to reap what we sow. And if God would let us get by with our perversion of Christianity today, and perverting the people into these things that's so-called Christianity, as Brother Moore once said, He'd be morally obligated to raise up Sodom and Gomorrah and apologize for burning them up. That's right, because God's still just, and we're unjust. It's becoming to His holiness and His Word that He makes people reap for what they sow, and we'll have to do that.

Now notice, they had left Him, the fountain of living waters, and had hewed themselves cisterns. Now there may be somebody here who wouldn't understand what a cistern is. A cistern is a man-made tank that tries to take the place of a well. It's something that somebody dug, and.... How many knows what a cistern is? Fine. All right, a lot of country people here this morning. So, I remember the old cistern at the place, how it looked. I was always afraid to drink from the thing. It was a man-made tank, and it never can be relied on. You cannot rely on a cistern.

Now anything that man does is usually not very good. But just like the Lord sets time into cycles, and the earth turning every year, every time it crosses, every day, every hour, and the sun setting, and it never fails. But the very best watches we can get will fail many minutes in a month's time, no doubt. But you see everything God does is perfect, and what man does is imperfect. So why accept what man does, when you can have perfect?

I've always said that about us Pentecostal people, see. We know, and we're not out of the order, of course, of God, we don't believe; but we also know that among us we have people who try to impersonate the other fellow. That's just human. They'll try to do that. They did it in the Bible—one, “I'm of Paul,” “I'm of Silas,” and so forth. But they try to impersonate what someone else did, or is doing. But why would you accept a false impersonation when the skies are full of the genuine thing?

When the promises are to you, and your children, why would we accept something that was different? Why would we take up a creed or a dogma, when the Bible is the unadulterated Word of God? Why would we try to add to it, or take from, when the Lord Jesus said in Revelations 22:18, “Whosoever shall take one word out of it, or add one word to it, his part will be taken from the book of life.”?

When God first set the human race on earth He told them they live by His Word. Now the Word of God is like a chain. You're passing across hell with it, and it's ... chains only its best at its weakest link—and God wants us to keep every word of it.

Now that's at the first of the Bible. Just to break one word plunged the human race into a darkness of death. Jesus came in the middle of the Bible, and He said that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word.” Not just part of the words, or ninety nine out of a hundred, but every word, just like Eve and Adam was. And in the last of the Bible, Revelation 22:18, He said that whosoever shall take a word out of this, or add one word to it....

So why do we need to inject here somebody's ideas of things, when this is God's own idea about it? We want to take what He said. It is also written, “Let every man's word be a lie, and mine be the truth.”

That's what was the matter with this prophet in the days of Jeremiah. He was a prophet, he had the Word of the Lord, and this fellow was trying to inject something to it.

Now it cannot be relied upon, and I'm likening these tanks now to these systems that we have tried to take ... and to take the place of the original Word of God. For nothing can take its place —it is God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us....” And Hebrews 13:8 said, “He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

How can we run away from that? It's got to be the truth! He remains the same. He's the same in every principle. That's the reason you enjoy—you Baptists, and Methodists, and Catholics, and Presbyterians, and so forth—enjoy that presence. Somewhere in you, you've accepted God. Maybe it's sometimes in a intellectual way, maybe you have felt the power of God, and you are a servant of God; but when you can really come into God and recognize your place in Him as a son or daughter of God, that's what brings that great thrill to you that God intended you to have.

Now we notice in St. Mark, the 16th chapter, Jesus did not say, “Go ye into all the world and teach.” He said, “Go preach the gospel.” Preach the gospel is demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit. Go ye into all the world and demonstrate the power of the Holy Ghost!

Talking to a brother, one of the sponsors on the ... my meeting in India, Bombay there, down in South Africa, and different places where the missionaries are taught it as a word, or as a intellectual conception. But one day in the meeting when ... the Holy Spirit came down Himself and saved thirty thousand blanket natives at one altar call, right on the same ground where they were standing. Women standing there who had been as naked as they almost were when they come into the world, and the very minute that they raised their hands to receive Christ.... And the Holy Spirit fell upon the place and healed twenty five thousand people at one time, off of wheel chairs, cots, and stretchers. The mayor of the city had me next day look at these van loads going down the street.

Them women standing there naked, not knowing they were naked, but as soon as the Holy Spirit struck them they folded their arms to walk away from the presence of their men.

And I'm wondering how that we in America call ourselves a Christian nation, and in the presence of God, and each year we, our women, take off more, and you ought to be putting on more. And the more Christ you put, on the more conscious you'll be of your own condition. Sometimes I see the way people act on the street I wonder if they're just exactly mentally right. Seems like they don't realize that when they do that what they're doing. They're making themselves a bait for the devil, and to send souls to hell. That's right! But the world's in a corruption like it was in the days of Jeremiah.

Now back to the cistern. Now this cistern cannot be relied upon because it cannot fill itself, and it has to depend upon the local rains to fill it, the local rains and the local revivals—to have a little revival here and a little revival over there, or so forth, to get it filled up. So it cannot be relied on—it can't fill itself. See, it's insufficiency to itself. It cannot do it, and it's got to depend on the rains to fill it.

Then let's notice where it gets its rain, where it gets its water, the cistern. It comes off the top of the barn, shed, where all the dirt that the dust blows up there washes right into the rain and right down into the cistern, a man-made tank. It becomes almost like a cesspool. And it washes off the top of the barn, where all the animals, and the smell of the barn yards, and so forth can settle down, and the air blows in the dust and stuff on the barn. Then the local rain comes along and washes the rain right off.

And then the water is carried by a man-made trough, through a man-made spout, through a man-made tank, and then when it gets there it's filthy—so filthy that you have to put a strainer rag on it, or you couldn't drink it. Now, see, it's washing from the roof by a man-made trough, man-made spout, into a man-made tank, and then it was a man-made strainer on the top of it to see that some of the bugs and things is kept back.

Now we notice in these, a few days after the water sits there in this man-made denominat ... or tank.... Excuse me. All right, after it's ... after it's been washed off with all kinds of these theologies and things washed into it. Now we come to find out when it sits there a few days it becomes stagnant. And anyone knows in the history of the church when God sends something forth, a message, and it becomes fresh from God, then after the life of that founder, whatever it might be—you call him reformer, or whatever you want to say about it—after his death then they get a system worked up, and they make an organization.

And as soon as they make an organization out of that, it dies right there. It never rises again. It did it through every time back, plumb on back

(and giving regards to this Catholic priest sitting here), when God organized a church.... Not organized it. God never did organize a church. He's not in that kind of a business. He's in birth, not organization. So when God started the church off at the day of Pentecost, and then finally down at Nicaea-Rome they organized it, and there's where it lost its power.

Then we come on down to the Lutheran Reformation, and it was a great thing. The Word of God was given: “The just shall live by faith.” And when they did, instead of picking up altogether, and all of them together and marching on, they made a Lutheran church, separated themselves from this group, and then it died.

Then God raised up John Wesley with sanctification, the message of the second work of grace, and it was a wonderful thing. But after Wesley and Asbury they organized it. It died.

Then up come the Pentecostals with the restoration of the gifts. They were doing fine. What happened? Organized it, it died. Just exactly.

Now in the midst of all of this, God's still calling a remnant out of every one of those generations, and it's our time of coming out of gathering together.

That's what I think this Full Gospel Businessmen has played a great part in breaking down these walls, in saying that there is no difference in us. Let us come together and worship God under one principle, not in an organization.

If it was an organization I'd get off this platform right now. I'd have nothing to do with it.

What it is, it's got to be a fellowship; and not a fellowship of some creed, but a fellowship in Christ by the power of His resurrection. That's the thing that brings life, that brings birth.

And before birth can come, we realize there has to be death before birth. And a birth is a mess. I don't care what kind of a birth it is. If it is in a pig pen, or wherever it is, it is a mess. And so is the new birth. It makes you do things that you ordinarily think you wouldn't do. But when you're ready to die to yourself, then you're borned again a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Then things open up, and life becomes a new sight to you, because you've accepted the person of Jesus Christ, and not some theory, or some creed, or even to the written Word—it's got to be quickened by the Holy Spirit. No matter how much theology you've got, it's laying there dead. I can have a handful of wheat. Until it gets into the process so where it can be quickened, the wheat will never live. And you can have a doctor's degree, Ph., LL., whatever you wish to, but until the Holy Spirit comes upon that and quickens it to you as a personal experience with God, then the wheat does no good.

Your learning is in vain,

as this Englishman said the other night here. I was so astonished. He had ... all the learning he had, as Paul, he had to forget all he knowed in order to find Christ, do things that he thought he wouldn't do. So that's the way God does. He humiliates us in our educational systems.

Not as I'm trying to support ignorance, but I'm trying to tell you the difference. Education can never bring life. It takes the Spirit of God to bring life, and that life must not come out of just an intellectual revival. It's got to come out of the Bible, Word revival. And that Word is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And when it falls today and quickens, you get the same results you did in Acts 2. Exactly! It always has, and always will be, because it's the Spirit of God that conditions the atmosphere.

It takes atmosphere to do things.

That's the reason you men are always taught, bring your children here. Well, certainly, that's right! I was glad to see my daughter Rebekah come in and sit down just a few minutes ago. If somebody seen me wink to a woman, it was my daughter. So she come in, and sat down. I want her to receive the baptism of the Spirit. That's why she's here in the meeting. That's the purpose of it—it takes atmosphere. Old Dr. Bosworth used to say, “You just take a hen egg, and put it under a pup, it'll hatch a chicken.” Why? Because it's an egg, and got the right atmosphere. I don't care if you're Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian—in the right atmosphere it'll hatch out a new born son of God. It's the atmosphere that does it, no matter what denominational tag you have.

Used to herd cattle. I noticed the ranger when we'd take them up into the forest, out of the feeding lands down at the ranches and put them on the forest, he would stand there and watch as they went through the gate at the drift fence. He never paid so much attention to the brands, because there's all kinds of brands went through there. But there's one thing he did notice—the blood tag. It had to be a thoroughbred Hereford or it could not go on that forest, because it's the Hereford associations that grazes that forest. It must have a blood tag to keep the breeding right.

And I think that that's the way it'll be at the day of the judgment. He's not going to ask me if I was Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, or Presbyterian, but He's going to look for the blood tag. “When I see the blood I'll pass over you.” That's the thing.

So we find that these cisterns after they sit around awhile they become stagnant, and they are no good. And it becomes, then, also becomes the home of frogs, and lizards, and snakes, and bugs, and germs, and whatmore, because it's a stagnated condition that's pushed into it. Could you imagine washing off of the barn roof, or off of the house close to the barn, or anywhere the dirt would be, what kind of bugs, and germs, and everything, it washes into this cistern?

Now it's a perfect example of any kind of a man-made system. He's a failure to begin with. That's the reason he needs a savior. He could not save himself. He cannot do nothing, for he's lost to begin with. He's born in the world sinful. He comes to the world speaking lies. He's a liar to start with, so how in the world can he do anything for himself?

How can a holy man...? There's no holy man, there's no holy church. It's the Holy Ghost; not a holy church, a holy people. It's a Holy Ghost among a people. That's what it is. See, not a holy mountain where Peter and them stood. The mountain wasn't holy, but it's the holy God on the mountain that made it holy. Not a holy person. It's the Holy Ghost used in that person what makes it holy; not the person, but the person of the Holy Ghost.

It isn't a man, because he's just a man, born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies.

Any man-made system'll keep him right in that. He'll blind the things from the intellectual, the intellectual eyes, that they think: “I belong to the church,” “My name is on the book,” “I have did this,” “My father was this,” and so forth. That sounds all right, which it is. Nothing to say against it.

But still, friends, Jesus said, “Except a man be borned again he cannot even see [”See“—that doesn't mean that he sees with his eyes, but understand] the kingdom of heaven.” Until you're born into.... How would this Baptist evangelist, how would that man who stood there and criticized and made fun of it, see? There's nothing in him that could even receive it, but God had to do it, see. God gave him the Holy Spirit. He manifested that this is not hypocrisy; this is the Word. He only hears it from the school idea, and they try to take all the blessings of God and place it on a day gone by.

A young Baptist preacher here not long ago, sitting present right here this morning, and he came to me, and he said, “Brother Branham, there's one thing that you're doing is wrong.”

And I said, “Help me.”

And he said, “You are ... I think you're sincere and a good person, but....”

I said, “Thank you, sir.”

He said, “But there's one thing you're doing wrong.”

I said, “I hope the Lord just finds one thing wrong.”

And he said, “Well, this is what you're doing that's wrong.” Said, “You're trying to introduce to the world an apostolic ministry.” And said, “The apostolic ministry ceased with the apostles.”

I said, “As a Baptist to a Baptist, I'd like to ask you a question.” So I said, “Do you believe the Word of God's inspired, every bit of it?”

He said, “Why, certainly!”

I said, “Then He said, 'Don't add one word or take one from it.'” I said, “Then I'll show you where the apostolic blessings come on the people by a promise of God. Now you show me the promise of God, and when it went off the people. If you can't produce that in the Word, then forget about it,” see. I said, “Because it's still going on.”

He never said nothing for a few minutes, and so I said, “Well then, brother, I'd like to ask you this: Peter introduced the apostolic message on the day of Pentecost, and we all know that's true, for he had the keys to the kingdom that Jesus had given to him. Now watch what he said. He said, 'Repent every one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.' Then if there's a place where He took it out, what happened to Peter's words on the day of Pentecost, see?” No, it's never ceased.

Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

For all the ransomed church of God

be saved to sin no more.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,

I'll sing thy power to save,

When this poor lisping, stammering

tongue

Lies silent in the grave.

God help me to believe that, and hold to it, all of us, and stand by it because it is a gospel truth. Yes, sir.

A wise man should never look at these things—and know that they won't work. They never have worked. An organized religion, and an organized experience will never work in the presence of God. It's got to come unadulterated from God. It has never been used by God! No time in the past did God ever use such a system. Now you ... oh, you get members and things like that, but I mean the genuine seed of God, the blessing like fell on the day of Pentecost. It never comes by organization. It comes by birth, being born again.

We're invited to take Israel for an example, which they have been. Notice, they have forsaken Him. They were provided fountains, and had hewed themselves out cisterns. Could you imagine a thing, when a man is at a artesian well drinking, and then wants to make him a cistern, see, to drink out of it?

Now that's what the prophet said. That's what the Word of God says. That's what God said to the prophet: “You have forsaken me, and have left me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed yourself out cisterns, which are broken and they're leaking out.”

See, something ... they wanted something they could control, or to show what they had done.

That's the folly of organized religion. It's always trying ... they got to have something in it themselves. They got to have all these systems, and societies, and things, and “I belong to this,” and “I....” Instead just being humble children of God, they want something that they could show themself. Instead of letting God do it His way, they want to do it their way. And that's the way the systems has got the church today. Not.... Each system—one wants it this way, one wants it that way. If you're a Methodist, you must see it this way, Baptist this way, Presbyterian, Catholic, whatever more. They got their systems. Nothing against that, but that ain't what I'm talking about.

Man wants his way of doing it, and God's got His way of doing it. And it says you are holding to your way, a broken cistern, and won't accept my way, the way of life. That's the same thing as it is today. It just hasn't varied a bit. Think how foolish of a man leaving an artesian well of pure, clean water, bubbling up, and then he'd want to go to a broken cistern that and he made himself. And dig him out a cistern with that trash that's up on top the barn washing into it, and drink from that! There certainly is something mentally wrong with that person.

And when a man'll cling to an ecclesiastical conception of the Scripture instead of accepting the Holy Ghost, which vindicates the Scripture and makes it real to you, there's something spiritual wrong with that person. That's exactly right. Sure, the Holy Ghost....

Each one has an interpretation of the Bible, what you think is right. God don't need your help. God don't need your interpretation. God's His own interpreter. God tells the interpretation the way He says He would do it. The Lord said in the beginning, “Let there be light,” and there was light. That don't need any interpretation. That's what God did. He said, “a virgin shall conceive.” She did. That don't need any interpretation. He said He would pour out His spirit upon all flesh. He did. It doesn't need any interpretation. God interprets His own word by vindicating it, and manifesting it, and proving it.

That's how a prophet was proven to be of God. He said, “If there be one among you who is spiritual, a prophet, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in visions, speak to him through dreams. And what he says comes to pass, then fear him; but if it doesn't, don't do it.” That's the same thing when God speaks His word, and the man says the word is this, and it happens that way—then it's God doing it.

But if he says, “It's this way,” and “The days are gone,” why, he takes all the.... He reaches for a hungry ... bird in his hand, the children, and take it away from them, and them starving.

Why would you want to drink out of a cistern when this artesian well was there? What is a fountain of life now? What is the fountain of life, fountain of living waters? An artesian well, we would liken it to.

Now, I want you to notice the difference between a cistern and a fountain of living water—artesian well, and an old broken cistern. And they're full of bugs, lizards, frogs, germs, whatmore, see; and here's an artesian well.

Now watch this. It's self-supporting. You don't have to get any big systems to bring a lot of money into it, you don't have to join a lot of members; it supports its members—of the Spirit of life in them, functioning. Notice the water that comes from it. Fresh, pure, and clean. Not a cistern—something stagnated that's been indocumated with forty, sixty, different minds saying this is right, and that's right, and this conception; and vote, and call on it, as they do, and make a denomination out of it. It's pure and clean, unadulterated Word of God coming from the hand of God. It's a real artesian well.

Notice the secret of its power is within itself. Man cannot find it. Some kind of a pressure beneath it that's making it push up.

I remember that when I used ... was a state game warden of Indiana, I used to go by, in Harrison County, a certain well or spring. It was always bubbling up, and this always looked like it was the most happiest thing. Whether the snow was on the ground, ice was froze, how cold it was, it still bubbled—where the old man-made ponds and tanks was frozen. Everything was out there was froze over solid. And that goes to show that any denomination, through a little lack of Spirit or a little change of atmosphere, will freeze over. But God's artesian well is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It keeps all the things bubbled out of it, shoved out of it. And there's nothing in there to begin with, and anything gets into it, it'll push it out of the way.

And that thing was bubbling up like that, and I said ... sat down there one day. I said, “I believe I'll talk to that spring just for a moment.” I took off my hat, and I said, “What are you so happy about? What are you bubbling so about. Maybe it's because the deers drink from you once in awhile?”

If he could've spoke, he'd've said, “No.”

I said, “Maybe it's because that I drink from you?”

“No, that isn't it!”

I said, “Well, what's making you so pure, so clean? So what is it bubbling that makes you bubble, so full of joy all the time, and nothing can freeze you over? You're spurting up in the air, and there's nothing ... clean water.”

If it could've spoke to me, you know what that well would've said? It said, “Brother Branham, it isn't me a-bubbling, it's something behind me bubbling me.” And that's the way it is with ... that's a poor word, but you know what I mean.

That's the way it is with a born again experience. [Unclear words.] It's a well of water within you bubbling up into everlasting life. See there's something about it, that you have nothing to do with. The man-made tanks may freeze, and them begging for revival and everything; but a man that's under that fountain, living in that fountain, it's day and night.

No, you don't have to wait on local rains and local revivals. You're full of it. “I'll give unto him a fountain of life,” in him, bubbling up, something in it that's fresh every day, pure and clean. It's unadulterated Word of God in your heart and mouth, vindicating itself, speaking for itself. I don't care whether it's raining, whether it's snowing, what kind of weather it is, you're still happy, because the Holy Spirit is in there bubbling up.

It's a hidden power, notice, for its secret's within it.

It gives of itself freely to whomsoever will drink, and use of its substance. Now you don't pick up and say, “Well, now, I'm ... just have to go to the Methodist Church, because I'm a Methodist, for a revival. I'll have to go over here.” But if.... “I have to go to a Pentecostal, because I'm a Pentecostal revivalist.”

I'm telling you, when you got that well of water springing up, that fountain, when you're drinking by there, there's no difference. You'd give to anything that comes by. You're willing to give a hope of life to a Catholic, to a Protestant, to a Jew, to a atheist, or whatever it is. You really, really got something in you that's doing it.

You notice another thing about it—you don't have to pump it. You don't have to pull it, you pump it up. I've seen so much of that that it makes me sick. Pumping up something, playing a bunch of music, and jumping up and down, or great bunch of literature out on the town, and great big signs, “the man of the hour!”

There's only one man of the hour—that's Jesus Christ, who's the same yesterday, today, and forever. There's only one messenger from God, and that's Jesus Christ.

Yes, sir. You don't have to pump this up, or pull it down, or you don't have to join it—you just take it freely. Amen! “I am the fountain of living water. You left me to go and make yourself some tanks.” Now you don't have to pump it, pump it, pull it, join it, dig it—nothing else. You just have to take of it freely.

You don't need any man-made theology for a strainer rag either. I tell you [unclear words]. Some man-made theology, some educational system, self righteous religion in your ... in the ... just some cistern of religious system—you don't need it. It don't have to be there. You put a rag over that, it'll float plumb up in the air. You don't have nothing to do with it. It's self supporting. It's the power of God springing up into life. Why would a man leave a thing like that to join into a system, is more than what I can say. You don't need any strainer rags. You don't need it.

It does not need to be—it doesn't need to depend on local rains for its filling; it's full all the time! Amen.

A man I used to ... “I'm just down in the dumps today.” Oh, my! Oh, I'm glad to be living in the presence of God, whether things are going right, or not right. He's my life! Amen. He's our life, He's the life, the abundant life. Yes, sir! Look what it does for us.

Its power and purity is within itself. It needs no priming from the cistern, or any other system. Somebody say, “Well, what's your fellowship card? Let's see if you're a good Baptist. I'll see if you got a card.”—or a good Pentecostal, if you're a Oneness, Twoness, Threeness, or whatevermore. See, it doesn't need any priming; it's always a-going. Yes.

You know, I used to have this old cistern. I had to pour water down there, and prime, and prime, and prime this old sucker pump to get it out of there. You know—pour some more water in it, and just pour (a bunch of bugs and things in it), to pump out bugs and things. That's just about the way some of these systematic revivals is.

But thank God, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins; where sinners plunged beneath the flood.... You don't give ... make church members; you make Christians out of them when they come to that fountain. Why would you leave the fountain of living waters, to drink at such a cesspool as that?

No pumping up—its power's within itself. It needs no priming, yes, sir, for itself ... its own life is in itself. That's the way the seed of God is in a man's heart.... The life of God is just in the individual. Not in the church; in you. It's in you. You're the one that has the germ of life in you.

Just one taste of it is convincing to all kinds of clergymen. Ask the Catholic priest, ask the Baptist, whatever it is. Just one taste of this great, fresh, artesian water, I'm telling you, it's convincing that it's the truth! Your hungry soul ... anyhow, it's convincing to the thirster anyhow. Now if you're not thirsting.... This little Baptist, he wasn't thirsting to begin with; but when he got thirsty the water tasted awful good. That's right. But you've got to thirst, the blessed thirst that ... Jesus called that: “Blessed are you when you do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall be filled.” Jesus said that, friends. Yes, sir! It's a blessed fountain to the thirsty.

Why should any want to swap it for a swamp? How would you like to swap an artesian well for a swamp water full of bugs and contaminations, of all kinds of man-made theories, which God said that adding one to His Word, or taking one of His words away, his part would be taken off of the book of life? and when God promised that He'd vindicate this Word in every generation? “For the promise is to you, and your children, and to them far off, that's as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

Why would you pump on some systematic pump that's been contaminated for years, from some old manna? Maybe the manna was all right, nothing against it, in the days of Martin Luther, in the days of this, and in the days of that, the other reformers—nothing about it. But that's manna that fell a long time ago. If we notice in the Bible they had to pick it up every day. They had to get new. After it got a little old, it rotted. It cannot rot without breaking down. It has to have bacteria in it, or something to make it rot. We know that's so, and so is the systems. After it lays there from one great revival to another it gets contaminated. It gets full of bugs and like a cistern full of wiggle-tails (that we used to call it), little old bugs that wiggle in there.

That's what's the matter with so many people's experience today. They're just full of wiggle-tails wiggling from one to one, on to the other, telling tales that ain't got no truth in it at all. That's right—wiggling out of one into another. “I was a Methodist, I joined the Baptist, I was a Catholic, I went to be this, I went to be that.” It's just wiggle-tails. Oh, forget the whole thing, and come to the fountain, amen, that artesian well, the ever-living presence of Christ.

I believe Him to be the inexhaustible fountain of life. More you get ... come in the pressure, gets in ... the colder it gets, and the better it gets, and the sweeter it tastes. I been serving Him now for thirty three years, and each day grows still sweeter than it was the day before. I never ... He said you'd never thirst if you drink of this water. Notice, how great it is.

Oh, Israel did, as many do today—they left the fountain of living waters to go dig themselves cisterns.

Now, speaking of grace just for a moment—what the grace of God.... We got laws and by-laws, and if you don't measure up to this standard.... I got a religious measuring stick; if you don't measure just up to that, you got to ... you can't come in, and so forth. But God saves us by grace, not by measuring stick, see. But God, speaking of grace, now, just how this happened to take place, a-drinking from Him, from this measuring-stick. Murmuring Israel, watch, He said, “And I will visit you again.” Notice in the Scripture, notice He's going to try them—to visit them again.

Murmuring Israel, at the Red Sea, was invited to follow Him through the stagnated Egyptians' water, to be a free people. They was invited to come over to be a free people with Him, come out through the Dead Sea (the Red Sea, rather), come out through that to go into a wilderness to bring a separation between them and the impersonators, trying to impersonate it without circumcision.

Oh, that's what caused the trouble. Every one of them perished right in the sea. Pharaoh and his army, they seen human beings walking by supernatural power; so they come back around and tried to impersonate that without being ... and when they did, they perished. It's carnal comparisons. A man that tries to do that, tries to impersonate something, then he is making a carnal comparison of a real Christian.

My Indian brother there knows that. Come up around Bombay, and you see the people there, the Hindus and so forth, laying on spikes, and upon ... walking on glass, and walking in fire, to show what they can do, and things like.... That's carnal impersonations of some man back in the jungle there doing that to sacrifice for his god.

We find that amongst all religious life—carnal impersonations, somebody trying to be like the other. There's only one example you're to be like: that's like Jesus Christ, who was the Word. And then when the Word of God comes to you it'll be the same way.

But God led them right on to the promised land anyhow. They found, also, every tank—when they started through the wilderness in their journey, now after they had separated—they found out that every tank was dry to them. And you'll find the same thing, brother, when you start this journey to the promised land. You'll find doors closed, like that little preacher said—an Anglican or whatever he was, and the first thing you know his church turned him out. Just as soon as he had so many received the Holy Ghost, that was the end of it.

And Israel found the same thing, as examples, in their journey to the promised land. The tanks were all dry. Yeah, their journey, in obedience to His promised Word, their journey in ... the tanks they found dry. Now they found the tanks could not be depended on for the journey. And if you're going to journey in obedience to the Word of God, and try to join this, and join that, you're going to find out there ain't a tank in the world that will support it. Not at all. You are an individual. God leads you just the way He wants to lead you.

Then we have found the same thing today, and all tanks are dried up,

but the promises are always true to.... God, who will keep His promise to His people, He promised He'd supply all they had need of, so He did that. In the midst of the empty dry tanks (just think of it), and complaining Israel in the desert, in the journey, He called His servant-leader, the prophet Moses, out to one side, and opened up a fountain of living water by a smitten rock, so His believing children would not perish.

In this day that speaks of grace to me. We are undeserving. The way that we've done, the way that we've lived, we're undeserving. But God in this day, like right here this morning, look—the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, and all, He has opened up a fountain. Hebrews 13 proves that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; so it makes true John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

And it was lifted up for a compound reason: because the people were murmuring and sinning, and they were snake bitten, and they were dying; and for their forgiveness of their sins, and the healing of their sickness. And that's the same fountain that's open to us today—for our salvation, and for our healing, physical healing, for He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And when the rock that was smitten by ... the promised Word of God had commanded, it was giving forth gushers of pure clean water. Not stagnated, not contaminated, but God's own presence, pure water, and saved all that drank. Now we know that's true because we read it in the Old Testament as a type.

Now you did not have to pull it, pump it, join it, go into the seminary to learn how to use it. They'll tell you how to use it there, see. “Oh, well, if you have received the Holy Spirit, we believe that; but so, we ... you do it this way....” But, you see, there's no control of it.

You don't use the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit uses you, see. See, you're not, you're not to use the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's got you. A gift is not something you take, like a knife and sharpen a pencil with it. It's yielding yourself to God, and getting yourself out of the way so the Holy Spirit can use you.

Notice, they never had to pump it, or pull it or they never had to ask, “Now how do we use this water?”—because they knowed how to use it. They were thirsty. They knowed what to do with it. And so does a man or woman, regardless of what creed, or denomination he belongs to, if he's thirsting for God he don't have to run back to seminary like this Anglican brother did, or British brother last night had to go back and consult “how” to the Anglican Church—how he must use this great gift he's got, speaking in tongues, and how he must do this. They'd kick him out to begin with. See, he was thirsty, so God just filled him. That's all there is to it. It's thirsting, and then He just fills.

You don't have to have any control, somebody tell you what to do with it. God leads each individual in the way He wants you to do. You are an individual yourself. You are a part of God. Nobody can take your place. And there's no way I have to go to somebody and say, “Now, I have to do this with it, or I have to do that with it.” No, sir! God uses it the way that He wants to.

When you're thirsty you know enough to drink.

If you're thirsty this morning, drink from it. That's all you have to do. God had provided a way for their thirst. The thirsty children could partake freely of Himself. And God's provided a way for every man and woman this morning who's hungering and thirsts.

Perhaps there's people sitting here who's never been saved, there's people sitting here who's on the verge of being saved, there's people here sitting here is church members. You want to do right, but you're drinking from a tank. It'll never tell you these truths.

The only thing to come is take the promise of God, and come to that fountain. Then He'll quench the thirst. He that drinks from this fountain shall never thirst again.

Notice now, how He liberated His ones who received this water by grace, and not by a system, or cistern of education. It vindicates His Word, is a life-giving resource. How many in here knows that you received life when you've taken that Word, and His water, just ... you know that you received life?

Let's take just another example or two, then we'll close just in a moment. I must have that button somewhere, but notice.... I just keep talking, but I don't mean to do it.

Look. Let's take for example just a couple people.

Let's take the woman at Jacob's cistern, a dug well. There she was sitting there. That's all the woman knowed was this cistern, where she come to get water. And over against the well, she found (in the little panoramic there), a man sitting there, a Jew, and she was a Samaritan. This is the city of Sychar. And we find out that this man, this Jew, spoke a unusual word to this woman: said, “Bring me a drink.”

She said, “Now we have segregation. It's not right for you to ask me a question like that, you being a Jew and me a Samaritan.”

He said, “But if you knew who you were talking to, you'd ask me for a drink, and I'd give you waters that you don't have to come to this cistern to drink; it'd be a well of water bubbling up in you.” Notice, when she found that this proved to be the truth....

Now, first, any man could have said that, but she said, “You say worship in to Jerusalem, and we worship in this mountain.”

And He said, “Salvation is of the Jews. We know what we believe, but,” said, “let me tell you one thing [in words like this]: neither in this mountain, or at Jerusalem.... The time's coming when the men shall worship God in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such....”

He said, “Go get your husband and come here.” Watch, here it proved it. Here it showed what fountain she was at. Said, “Go get your husband and come here.”

She said, “I don't have any husband.”

He said, “You said the truth.” See, looked like a plain contradiction to what He had asked her, and said, “Go get your husband.”

Said, “I have no husband.”

Said, “You've said the truth.” Said, “Because you've had five, and the one you're living with now is not yours.”

Watch that woman—how different from the priest of that day. The priest of that day seen the same thing happen, and said, “That's a devil, telepathy, or Beelzebub.” See, they failed to see the Word promising that; but that little woman was better versed in the Scripture than any of the priests.

She said, “Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet. We haven't had one for four hundred years [that's from Malachi].” But said, “We have looked for one, and we know there's one coming, the Messiah, and when He comes this'll be what He'll do.”

Jesus said, “I am he.” Amen!

Did you notice, she left her bucket at Jacob's cistern, run down into the city, full of an artesian well. She'd seen it perfectly vindicated that He was that fountain. Let me introduce her to you. She left that. When it was proved to be the Word of life, she left it. And had discovered that the same rock that was smitten in the wilderness was proven to be present then.

Then let me say that same God that was in the days gone by, that we speak so much of, He's present here now. Not with some theological understanding, but by a personal knowledge of His vindication that He'd pour out, in this last days, the Holy Spirit upon His church. He is not a “I was”; He is still the “I AM,” present tense, always.

Then the cistern lost its taste. And so does every man who ever falls into the power of God by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The denominational systems lose their taste. You don't want no more of that stagnated ... frogs, and lizards, and bugs, and so forth. You're drinking from a fountain that's fresh and pure, the Word of God, fresh every hour in your soul; the same as now, when as the Word has been proven to be the truth. Taste and see if it's not right.

So the cistern has served us well, served its time well, but you see the fountain of life was there. Not Jacob's well no more for spiritual drinking. What they thought they'd drink from that well, why, it would be all right; but now the fountain of life itself was sitting there.

Now we don't need systems and organizations like that. We're at the end time. And God promised them at the end time the things that He would do, and we see it fulfilled to the word. We hear the men of military might stand up, and shivering, and saying, “Something's fixing to happen.” We feel the Holy Spirit warning us that something's fixing to happen. We see everything's set in order. Then leave that system and come to the fountain!

Yes, sir, served its purpose, but now she was face to face with the fountain itself.

In John 7:37-38 Jesus said, in the last days of the feast of the tabernacle.... What did He say? “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.” Right in a bunch of theologians. “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink, for the Scriptures has said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” There's the living fountain. That's the fountain that the people's forsaken today. For the creed they have forsaken the fountain of living waters.

Let me introduce you to Him. He to me (and I'm closing,) He to me is that fountain that saved Hagar's life and the child, when they were dying in the wilderness. I believe He is that rock. In Isaiah 32, He's that rock in a weary land. He's a shelter in a time of storm. Zechariah 13, He is the fountain that's open in the house of David for sin. I believe Him to be that, don't you? And Psalms 36:9, He is David's fountain of life. He is the still waters of David in the green pastures. He is the water by the brookside for David.

In Genesis 17, He's Abraham's nursing breast, El Shaddai. That when his life was gone from him, still he.... God said.... A man of a hundred years old, “How would this thing be? I'm old, my wife is old, how can these things be?”

He said, “I am El Shaddai.” Now, “El” is “the,” and “Shad” is “breasted.” Shaddai is plural. Would be, “I am the breasted God.” Like a baby that's fretting, and it's sick, and its strength is gone from it; lean upon the mother's bosom and nurse its strength back. Sure. Not only when it's nursing, it isn't fretting no more; at the mother's breast it's satisfied. Why? It is getting its strength.

And any man that would take God's promise in his heart—that the promise is unto you, and your children, them that's far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call—and lay right against that, and nurse your strength back. Fretting child, believe it. It's for the believers.

To the believer poet, I could think of many songs that the poets found that.... There was one of them said one time:

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins;

When sinners plunge beneath the flood

Lose all their guilty stains.

That dying thief rejoiced to see

That fountain in his day;

There may I, though vile as he,

Wash all my sins away.

Ever since by faith I saw that stream

Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.

To me, He's the waters of the word of separation that separates you from everything that's contrary to His Word. That's the fountain I believe Him to be. Yes, sir! That ... it's the water that's separated me from man-made cisterns, to the fountain of living water. Oh, friend, I could just ... you could just go on and on with the things that He is to us. He's Alpha, Omega, He's the beginning, He's the end, He's He that was, which is, and shall come, He's the root and offspring of David, He's the morning star, He's my all in all.

And brother, sister, if you haven't had ... just been drinking from this little man-made tank all your life, why not this morning forsake that tank, and come to this fountain?

Let's bow our heads just a moment. With your head bowed [Someone sings a prophecy. Blank spot on tape.] ... to my opinion the altar call ... how many now? I was all nervous I was keeping you too long. Oh, it made me chop my message to pieces, but I believe the Holy Spirit wants you to get what I mean, see. Look there's nothing more important in this day than getting right with God. See, our dinners, whatever it is, whatever—the Lord is here. (Now, I've only heard that about once in my life since this time.)

Now, all of you here, not how many, all of you here that wants to drink from that, just stand up. Just a minute, just for prayer. God bless you. The Lord bless you.

Now how many in here that's standing present now, would say that, by a uplifted hand, like this, “God, move on me. Just fill me. Let me drink from this fountain. And I haven't done just what's right, but I want you to forgive me for it. I want you to wash away my sins, and let me from this day just....”

Just now,

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains,

Lose all their guilty stains,

Lose all their guilty stains,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

Now that you that's a Christian believer, you've accepted Christ as your personal Savior, but you have not as yet.... Now if you haven't, that's the fountain. The only one I know about is that fountain from Immanuel's veins. Now, and if many of you here....

Just like I was speaking the other night about this little eagle walking in the barnyard with the chickens. And he never knowed nothing else but the chickens, but he knowed there's something about him was different from the chickens. And then his mother come hunting him and she screamed from above. It was an eagle's call, see.

He had to be an eagle to begin with, or he'd've never recognized that call, see. He ... there has to be something there to germitize, or it can never produce life. And if the seed, the Word of God, is in you, the Holy Spirit's here now to germitize that and bring it to a reality to you.

How many in here has not received the baptism of the Holy Ghost? Would you raise up your hands? All around, everywhere, just real honest, if you haven't received the Holy Ghost, and you'd like to, raise up your hand wherever you are. Just keep your hand up just a moment.

Now I want you standing around, and looking at them, I want somebody to lay your hands over on them. I believe right now the Holy Spirit will fill every one of you that wants it. Now don't think about the food out there in the cafeteria. Let's think about this food here. This is the one. This is life, see. This is life. Now turn right around, each one of you and lay hands on each other. “And they laid their hands upon them....” Now I want you to pray for that person you got your.... Now don't think about going out, don't think about nothing else, just think right now the Holy Spirit's here to fill each individual.

Open up your heart, dump all the cistern water out, and say, “O fountain of life, come into me, fill me, O Lord God, with Thy goodness and mercy.”

Lord Jesus, that inexhaustible fountain, I pray God that You will fill each one of them. May the Holy Ghost fall here. I pray God, that we forget all about anything else, that the Holy Spirit fall into the midst of us just now, and will give to us that waters of life freely. From everywhere, grant it, O God, for all. The continuity of prayer and song blending together, Lord, knowing that your presence, your divine presence....

We want to come to the fountain. We want the real genuine baptism with the Holy Ghost, Lord. These people are praying for it. I pray that it'll strike a moment now, that they will be filled with this goodness of God. Grant it, O God. Hear the prayer of your children. May you come upon their beings, may the power of God and the Holy Ghost sweep over them. Grant it, God.

Oh, how we thank you for the refreshing, for the presence of the mighty God of Heaven standing in our midst. Right at this noon hour, Lord, feed us. Lord, we want food from your table. Feed us, Lord, just now. Feed us with the Holy Spirit in our lives. Our hungry, parching souls are thirsty, as you said in the interpretation of the song: It would pour forth water upon parched ground. Let it happen, Lord. Let thy words be made manifested in the hearts of thy children—water upon dry, parched ground. Eternal God, hear the prayer of your servant, and give unto us that blessing. Amen.

Oh, how I love Jesus,

Just keep praising now, find out—the Holy Spirit's here. If you don't receive it, it's your fault.

... how I love Jesus,

(Lovest thou me more than these?)

......... love Jesus,

Because He first loved me.

Oh, how I love Jesus,

(Praise be to God!)

Oh, how I love.....,

(What if He comes just...?)

Oh, how I love Jesus,

Because He first loved me.

I'll never forsake Him,

I'll never forsake Him,

I'll never forsake Him,

Because He first loved me.

Wonderful, wonderful, Jesus is to me,

The Counselor, Prince of Peace,

Mighty God is He,

Saving me, keeping me, from all sin

and shame.

Wonderful is my Redeemer, praise His ...

Let's sing it to Him.

Oh, wonderful, wonderful, Jesus is to me.

Counselor, Prince of Peace, Mighty God

is He;

Saving me, keeping me, from all sin

and shame,

Wonderful is my Redeemer, praise His name.

All that feel that, say amen! Oh, hallelujah. I see some people coming through now with the Holy Spirit.

I once was lost, now I'm found, free

from condemnation,

Jesus gives liberty, and a full salvation.

Saving me, keeping me, from all sin

and shame,

Wonderful is my Redeemer, praise.....

Let's raise up our hands, and really sing.

Wonderful, wonderful, Jesus is to me,

Counselor, Prince of Peace, Mighty God

is He;

Saving me, keeping me, from all sin

and shame,

Wonderful is my Redeemer, praise His name.

Do you love Him? Oh, wonderful. Praise Him, the fountain filled with blood where sinners lose all fear of man, all condemnation, just free in Him. Hallelujah! Oh, my. That's really wonderful.

Now while we sing that again, let's let all the Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, what there is, while we sing this “wonderful, Jesus is to me,” let's just turn around and shake hands with each other, just have a good old mix-up. You know, that's what I like. Come on, let's sing it now as we do it.

Oh, wonderful, wonderful, Jesus is to me,

(That's right)

Oh, Counselor, Prince of Peace......

.... . keeping me, from all sin

and shame,

Wonderful is my Redeemer, praise His name.

................. comforts me,

It makes the lame to walk, and the

blind to see,

It opens prison doors, sets the

captives free.

Well, there's a river of life flowing

down through me.

[blank spot on tape]

The Bible said pray for those that are in authority.

Our heavenly Father, we are standing in a desperate need for the leader of our nation, our President. He may never know this, Lord, but you know it. I pray for Brother Johnson, as he professes to be a believer in you. And, Father, a heart attack, we understand, has struck him. I pray, God, spare his life. We're in a national crisis right now anyhow. Let thy spirit come upon him, Lord, and right now in the hospital, or wherever he may be, let your spirit come down to that Walter Reed hospital, and touch his body, sparing his life, Lord. The man's under pressure, more pressure than what we understand, so we pray, God, as believers and as a part of this nation, we pray for our leader, that you will grant him an extension of life in this great hour. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.