The Easter Seal

It's certainly a privilege to be here this morning on this birthday of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Chapter here at Phoenix and to know that the Lord granted me a little part of it, to be part of this fellowship. I want to greet Brother Carl Williams and his wife, Brother Stromei, and the rest here at the platform, Brother Shores, Brother Outlaw, the ministers, and all you fine people.

You know, I had a birthday last week too, and I'm just a teeny bit older than the chapter. I believe he said five years old for the chapter.

Somebody said the other day, said, “How old are you, Brother Branham?”

I said, “Twenty-six.” I said, “I wiped out the first twenty-five years. I didn't serve Him so well in them.” I said, “I hope He does too.” To get Him to do it will be different.

But it's good to be here.

And now, we want to not take much of your time, because I'm always afraid after I hear some of these fine testimonies and things that are going on, and songs, that I will do something that will upset that; and I wanted to add to it, if there'd be anything I could add to it.

That brother that sang the song this morning, the colored brother, I appreciated that. “His Eye on the Sparrow.” And these sisters that sang this song—that's been one of my helps since I was here the first time. I got it on a record, and I've just played it out, “I'd Like To Talk It Over With Him.” I asked Brother Dawson Riley there, my friend, if he would ... some of them see if they could get those ladies, if they were still here on earth, to sing it again this morning. I hope Terry got it. I suppose he did. I want to take that off of there maybe to a record or something, because I really like that song. That is my desire, to talk it over with Him. I think we all want to do that. That's why we're here this morning.

Now the oncoming meetings next week (Is it all right to mention it?), I'm to be home this coming week at the Tabernacle next Sunday for Easter Services—Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday night. And then I go back to California. All you people around California, we'd be sure glad to have you at the meeting over there. I think Billy had sent out the wrong advertisement. He said the Biltmore Hotel, I believe, it was to be at, but they couldn't get it; and it is to be at the Embassy Hotel. So any of the Full Gospel people over there will let you know, if you're over that way.

Then we come back from there, and I go to South Africa then. Just one month from today we sail for South Africa, expecting a great time in the Lord in about three nations down there. So we certainly solicit your prayers. I probably won't be able to see you no more, if the Lord carries on for us to go, until I get back. I hope we have a great report for you when we come back.

Last time down there, I think the Lord gave me the greatest meeting I ever had. One time for an altar call—now this is out of “blanket natives”—as far as I know there was thirty thousand accepted Christ at one time. And we thought maybe they meant physical healing, because there had been about twenty-five thousand healed at one time. And the next day the mayor of Durban, which is Sydney Smith, said, “Go to your window and look coming down the street.” And there were vanload after vanload just piled full of old crutches and things—just piled up. They were coming behind the natives (which were at war with one another), coming down the streets of the city, singing “Only Believe” in their native tongue.

I'll tell you my heart thrilled like.... When you see something like that, Brother Shores, you feel your work is not in vain then. See, you tried.

I hope that God repeats it again. Not because we're going down there, but because we're looking for the coming of the Lord. As the song says, we are seeking out that little lost sheep. He won't come until that sheep is in. Every one has to be in the fold. He won't close the door until that last one is in.

So minister brothers, I am sure with you this morning, trying to hunt out that last sheep. It might be in Phoenix this morning. I don't know, but when the last one comes in, then the Shepherd will close the door. [Someone says, “Brother Branham, could I just say a word?” then talks about something he had forgotten to announce.]

I'm the one that has to write down what I'm going to say almost. Since I'm getting older I find it harder to remember, put my scriptures down and so forth. It used to be I could line up about fifty scriptures in my mind and never even ... pass right on through it, but I got a lot of rough miles behind them days.

So we are looking for the coming of the Lord. The Lord bless you all. You get up here and you think.... You sit down here and hear these people testify, and you think, “Now when I get up I'm going to say something about that.” And there's so much to say, you'd be all day saying it. But I certainly appreciate you all. May this little chapter just keep growing. May every church in Phoenix continually grow until Jesus comes, is my sincere prayer. Now I think, just to rest us just a little bit, let us stand while we have prayer, will you?

Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who raised Him up from the dead and has given Him to us as a sacrifice, and a Lord and Saviour, we are so grateful to Thee for this privilege that we have this morning to stand in thy presence with thy people that have been redeemed; and looking for his glorious second coming to receive us unto Himself.

If there be sin among us, Lord, purge us with thy hyssop. And we pray, heavenly Father, that You will heal every sick person that is in our midst. And if there would be, by chance, those who doesn't know You in this great baptism of the Holy Spirit that we are so earnestly contending for—saying it is a “must” according to the Scripture for this last day—we pray, God, that He'll fall upon us all today and baptize us afresh into the body, and bring those that are out, in too, Father.

Bless us as we read thy Word and endeavor to speak that which is truth of thy Word. Close our mouths to that which is untruth and open our hearts and mouths to that which is truth as we commit ourselves to Thee. Use our mouths to speak, and our ears to hear, and our hearts to receive. For we ask it in Jesus' name, who has ordained it to be so. Amen.

I would like to read from the Holy Word three places in the Bible. If you would mark these, and you want to carry them on through to read them for further information, I'd be very happy if you would mark them down. The places I'm going to read is Matthew 28:1-10, and then Revelation 1:17-18, and Romans 8:11. May I repeat them again. Now, Matthew 28:1-10, Revelation 1:17-18, and Romans 8:11.

Now we are approaching Easter, and as you are getting your places and marking it down, I think that this coming week is the most ... the greatest historical week of all the weeks of the year. I think that the greatest thing we will celebrate this week, this coming week, was the greatest event that ever taken place on the earth. I don't think anything could surpass it. You say, “Well, the crucifixion was great.” But many men have died. Many men have been crucified, even in the same days of our Lord. But there was only one of them who rose up from the dead. That sealed it.

Now I want to read. This is kind of a little pre-Easter message, the Lord willing, about forty minutes. Now let's read from St. Matthew's gospel, the twenty-eighth chapter, beginning:

In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear ye not: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.

And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring the disciples word.

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshiped him.

Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.

In Revelation the first chapter and the seventeenth and eighteenth verses:

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and ... hell.

In the book of Romans, the eighth chapter and beginning with the eleventh verse:

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Now, I trust that the Lord Jesus will add his blessings to the reading of these words.

Seeing that Easter.... I have stamped it in my own heart as the greatest meeting, or the greatest event of the year. (I want to ask you to pardon me a moment, isn't that kind of blaring out there to you, kind of a roaring? Is it all right? Can you hear it all right like that? You can't hear it. Is that better? Right like that? I didn't want to get too close.)

Now, why I say this is because that Easter He proved what the Bible had said. All the scripture that was written of Him to do, He sealed his Messiahship when He arose from the dead—the Easter seal.

We have so much of it today. We talk about buying Easter seals. Well, I want to speak this morning on the Easter seal.

It's a different seal than what we buy with our money, as a seal to go on letters for, I think, the Tuberculosis Association, or whatever they call it. I think this seal is a little different seal. And being that Easter is the great day of the year for we Christians who claim to be God's children, I want to try to break into it and see how we should be fellowshipped with this great thing that Christ did for us.

The Word of God was spoken many, many hundreds of years before his coming: of his crucifixion, of his death, of his suffering, and also of his resurrection. We'll be going through these services perhaps next week as we listen to our radio programs, and in our churches, with our pastors and so forth, this coming week. But of all the days and all of the things that Jesus did.... And certainly appreciating all of his vindication of God's Word and what He did to fulfill it: of healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out devils, preaching the gospel to the poor and fulfilling every word that God said that He would do when He came; and then also suffering for our sins in our stead to be the propitiation for our sin at the cross, where no one else could have done it but Him.

But above all of that, I think Easter sealed the whole thing.

Because there had been prophets on the earth who had prophesied before Him; there had been prophets on the earth who had healed the sick, even raised the dead and done the same signs that Jesus did—but Easter proved it.

It sealed the Word of God forever for the true believer. All gloom and doubt was shattered at that blissful morning. Man had been shut up, as it was, in a prison house, even to religious people before this day; because they had seen great religious moves, moving of the Holy Spirit, and so forth, but when a man died, it seemed to settle it. But when this one came and said, “I have power to lay my life down, I have power to take it up again,” and then go prove what He said, to me that's the seal of it—when something is said, and then it is turned around and proven.

If a man said.... Like Columbus, believed the world was round, and he watched the ships (as we are told), how they come in, and he could see the mast way before he could see the ship. It proved to him that the world was round. People didn't believe that in that day, but he was a man of vision. He set out to prove exactly what he had a vision of that was the truth. And God purposed to prove his Word the truth. There was only one man that could do that, and that was Jesus; and He came and proved that to be the truth.

It sealed it. That broke all the seals of gloom and scattered all the superstitions of other religions, and so forth, where great men has raised up and said great and marvelous things. But they are every one in the grave. But our Christian religion is the only one who has the empty tomb. And that proves to me that He is the God of the dead and God of the living. He can raise up the dead back to life again. This quickening power, quickening Spirit of his, has proved through the years that He is the one who can quicken the dead back to life again.

When He proved by his promise this great conquering power that He had, on Easter, He proved that He could conquer death, hell, and the grave. “I am he that was dead and is alive again and alive forevermore, and have the keys to death, hell, and the grave.” What a statement for anyone to make! Not only did He make it, but He had already proved that He had what He claimed to have.

I think, “God hasten the day that when we, as Christians who believe this Bible, can prove what we are talking about.” That's what makes, as was said a while ago, the salt of the earth. The sister said, “That's right. The world is looking for this salt.” And when we can prove by our lives and by the Bible, that our lives are vindicating that Word to be living today, that ... that's the day we're looking for.

The Word.... “This Spirit,” Romans 8:11 said, “if this Spirit that raised up Jesus Christ be in you ... will also quicken your mortal bodies.” Not only did He prove to us that He was Jehovah-Redeemer, and had power over death, hell, and the grave, but He has also given us the access to the same Spirit, that we, ourselves, can have the assurance that we too are quickened by that Spirit. For ... the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in your body, it will also quicken your mortal bodies.

Now the word quicken means “to be made alive after death.” After it's dead, then it is to be quickened.

The world has been shut up in doubt for many ages until then this was proven. Not only talked about, but was proven. I think that anything that's worth while....

As Jesus said, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations and prove to them by demonstrating the power of God to them. These signs shall follow them that believe.” Them who are promised and say they believe, He gave us a definite understanding of it, that these signs would follow them that believe. It would be the proof of their testimony.

Now, we can say we believe, but until we have the proven sign that He said that would be upon us, then we are just confessing to be believers and not the possession of believers.

For remember.... A few days ago I was listening to a radio program on KAIR down in Tucson, and this minister had taken the side against us, that the Pentecostal religion was nothing but just a sham—not to listen to it, it was unstable. And said any man that spoke in tongues, and these things, and claimed to heal the sick, and so forth, by prayer, to leave away from it and to pray for those poor decrepit people because they were in an illusion, that there was something wrong with them. Oh, how I would have liked to have talked to that brother just a little while!

He said that that was only given for the apostles at the day of Pentecost, and that was all. I find that thirty years later Paul was ordaining these gifts in the church, in I Corinthians 15, that He set in the church the gift of speaking in tongues, miracles, and all these other gifts ... was set in the church.

Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

“How far?” All the world.

“Who to?” Every creature. They have never received it yet.

“And these signs shall follow them that believe.”

“How long?” All the world.

“Who to?” Every creature. These signs shall follow them—in all the world and to every creature—these signs shall follow them.

“In my name they shall cast out devils; speak with new tongues. If they have taken up a deadly thing or serpent, or drink a deadly thing, it will not harm them; they'll lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” That was his last commission to the church. Mark, the sixteenth chapter.

Paul is ordaining these gifts into the church thirty years later, and said in Galatians 1:8: “If an angel from heaven preaches to you any other gospel than this which is already received [see, already been preached], let him be accursed.”

I believe that Pentecost began without an ending. I believe it's to be to every creature, all times, at all places, that Pentecost should always remain, the Pentecostal blessing should be upon the people.

Now, what is this Pentecostal blessing? It's a confirmation of the resurrection.

No wonder the gospel itself means “good news.” Good news of what? He's raised from the dead. “And because I live, ye live also.” Ye which were once dead in sin and trespasses, God has quickened us together by that Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead, and we are now sitting in heavenly places with Him, communing with Him, talking with Him. What a joy to tell people that story, that believes it to be the truth.

I'm wondering today at what's happening. Are we really getting the people to God, or are we just getting them to church? We must get them to Christ, where there is quickening power. It's good to go to church, sure. If that's as far as we go, it's not far enough. When you come to church, that's good. But go on to Christ from the church, because we must receive this quickening power if we ever expect to be in that general resurrection, because it's the only thing that will ever bring us from the dead. “For if this Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, it will also quicken [bring to life] your mortal bodies.” What a promise to us!

Notice, the very essence of this resurrection is to tell, and to show, and to prove, that Jesus has raised up from the dead. He is not dead; He is living. He lives here. He is in us. “I'll be with you, even in you. A little while and the world seeth me no more. Yet ye shall see me, for I will be with you, even in you, unto the end of the world.”

Now, as Christians, we all claim He is alive, for we have been quickened from death to life by his Spirit. And if we haven't been quickened, then we have not been made alive.

Now, we are going to break into this subject, the Lord willing, and kind of teach it for a few minutes—how that, are we quickened and can we be sure that this is the truth?

Now this is your own life. This is my life. It's where that....

If this isn't truth, what I'm fixing to say, then I'm one of the most foolish people in the world. I've given my life for something there is nothing to, and so have you. But if it is the truth, then I owe everything that I am, I owe everything that I could be, to the cause of which we are standing for. And I think that we mustn't lose our enthusiasm.

As we see Easter approaching, it just does something down in me, as I know that that is the day that the thing was sealed forever in the sight of God.

Now we notice it is the same Spirit that raised Him from the grave that is dwelling in us. Now how could that be? the Spirit that raised up God, Jesus, from the dead dwelling in us. Now, it is the Spirit that quickens. It's not the Word that quickens; it's the Spirit that quickens the Word, or gives the Word life, gives it wings to fly, gives it access. It's the Spirit that does that.

Now, the wheat alone is just a wheat, but when the quickening life gets into it, into the wheat, then it gives it life. And we which were once dead—made in the image of God, and yet dead in sin and trespass—there is some way God had to get this quickening life into your mortal body.

Now, I'm talking about your body. Jesus was the Word. You believe that, don't you? “In the beginning [St. John 1], in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God ... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

Now, as the promised Messiah, He quickened every word that was prophesied that He would do: heal the sick, and how He would be born of a virgin, all that—made it true. He was the Word manifested here on earth, but He could not do this just as a man. It taken the Spirit of God dwelling in Him to quicken these promises to Him.

I hope that we get this real clear now. Jesus, being a man Himself, the body, but it took the Spirit in Him—the Spirit. “It's not me that doeth the works, it's my Father that dwelleth in me. He is the one that does the work.” Jesus Himself was the Word because He was.... Before God ... this is a bad word to use, and I hope you take it right before a crowd, but He was predestinated by the foreknowledge of God—how God's plan was to be, that He would send a redeemer, and this redeemer could only be his own Son.

So then, that was God's promise all the way from the garden of Eden, that Jesus would be here.

Here He was, as a man born of a virgin, but it taken the Spirit of God to quicken that Word to Him. And He was the Word quickened —the Word quickened for that hour.

The time had come when you had to have a redeemer. The law had failed. Other things had failed. Now, it takes a redeemer, and He was the promised redeemer. He was quickened by the Word of God.

Now, if that same Spirit that was upon Him to be the Redeemer in that age, that we have accepted.... Now, the promise of, in this last days, what would take place, if you become part of that Word, you are redeemed with Him; because the same Spirit that dwelt in Christ is dwelling in you, quickening your life to this age. And it will also, in the end-time, quicken your mortal bodies, resurrect them, bring them up again. That takes the gloom away when we look at it in that way, and that is the truth.

Romans here, Paul has proved it to us. “If the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, it will also quicken your mortal body.” This is the same Spirit that raised Him up that quickens the true believer to eternal life. The Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells into the believer, quickens the believer to eternal life.

There's only one life, one eternal Spirit, one eternal life, and that's God. God alone is the eternal. And then we, being his children, are part of Him—that is, the attribute of his thinking. The thought is expressed, and becomes a word. Then, each individual in here that possesses this eternal life was before the foundation of the world in God's thinking.

That's the only way it could be, because you are an attribute. That is an expression of a thought has become a word, and a word has taken life, and it is eternal. That's the reason we have eternal life. In the same principle that the great Son of God, the redeemer.... We become sons and daughters of God through that same Spirit, by the same foreknowledge of God.

Look at the millions on earth that didn't receive it when Jesus was here. But how thankful we should be this morning to know that we have the direct evidence and the Bible proofs that we are included in that great resurrection morning coming, that great Easter. We have the earnest of it right now in our mortal bodies. The predestinated ones are the first, of course, to be quickened, when the Holy Spirit comes to claim its own.

Now, there is a great statement; and I want my minister brothers to try to understand this. In the beginning, God, the great Spirit ... He wasn't even God then. He was the eternal One. God is an object of worship. He had nothing to worship Him. There was no angels, no nothing—just God alone. Him alone is eternal. But in order to be God, there had to be something to worship Him; so He created angels, and beings, and cherubims, and so forth, to worship Him. His great plan began to unfold.

But remember, you, in the stature that you are in this morning, if you wasn't in his thinking then, you are not now. There is some part that's in you that's eternal; and eternal only belongs to God.

In God was his thinking of you sitting right where you are now. In his thinking I stood at the pulpit this morning, because He's infinite and knows all things. Therefore He could tell the end from the beginning because He's eternal. And you, being a son of God or a daughter of God, then you were in his thinking at the beginning.

Then when the Holy Spirit come.... And you are on earth, walking around here as a sinner. Way down in your life there is something. You don't know what is taking place, but you're hungering.

I heard the Presbyterian brother, I heard the Baptist, talking about (back there, He was a Freewill Baptist, preaching where he can, my fellow brother) that there is something in you, something that you never put in there. It's something that you couldn't desire to be in there. It's something that's contrary to your own nature. It's the foreknowledge of God taking place.

God's Word,

as Jesus was born the Son of God to be Emmanuel, God's full expression in a man.... He found Him in perfect obedience down at the river of Jordan, being baptized by that prophet. And as soon as He obeyed Him and walked out of the water, the heavens opened to John, and he saw the Holy Ghost descending from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son.” Perfect obedience. The Spirit had sought Him out—in obedience.

Oh, wayward man or woman this morning, when you're sitting here and there's something in you telling you this is right, it's the Holy Spirit seeking you out to bring you to a knowledge of truth of this hour that we're now living. Not some hour that's gone by; the hour now.

There were thousands there that were obeying an hour past, but there was a present tense hour. That was the hour that Jesus was to appear. And there stood the Word, there stood the people, and here was a manifestation of God taking place to vindicate that that was the truth. And as Pentecostal people today, let me say this, that we're standing in this last days where God promised He would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh and his sons and daughters should prophesy. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” It's the hour. That's what makes that creation in you.

As I spoke here not long ago (it sounded a little sacrilegious, but I hope it don't to you this morning), the farmer that set the hen and had an eagle egg. Many of you remember the story of the old eagle giving birth to this ... or, the hen giving birth over here to this chicken, or egg of the eagle under her chicken feathers. See, it is the atmosphere. The Presbyterian church, Methodist church, Baptist church—any of them can bring forth these eagles. Sure, it's the atmosphere that does it. As Dr. Bosworth used to say, you could take a hen egg and put it under a pup and tie him down, a pup would hatch out a chicken. Why? It's the atmosphere. And when any church or any group that'll assemble themselves together and pray until they throw away their creeds and things, and look straight in the face of God, it'll bring forth eagles just as certain as I'm standing here.

That's what I think that this Businessmen's group has done, trying to break up the atmosphere. We are getting too clannish. One belongs to this or that. Let's break up the atmosphere and get the atmosphere in a heavenly worship. Get the atmosphere right.

Eagles will be born out of any church, anywhere. And this little eagle walked with the hen for a long time, but the clucking was kind of strange. He didn't understand what the hen meant when she scratched in the waste of the manure pile in the yard. That wasn't food to him. She eats bugs and so forth that an eagle doesn't eat, so it seemed strange, all, to him. He was an ugly duckling. He was—not saying this sacrilegious—maybe he was a Freewill Baptist ... but something on that order, or Presbyterian.

But you know, one day ... his mother knew that she had laid an egg. There had to be a child somewhere. So she throwed her big wings into the winds, and she searched and she searched, screaming to the top of her voice. One day she passed over the barnyard. Then when this little eagle heard this familiar scream.... He'd never heard it before, but he realized that it fit him like a glove over a hand and he knew that was his mother. She knew that was her son. She was looking for him.

So has God in every age ordained his church for that age—a message for that age. They could have laws and anything that they want to; but when that hour comes, the Holy Spirit of God, which at the beginning thought out and spoke out for that age, that Spirit hunts that egg. And when he hears that message, there is no church denomination going to hold it. It'll rise to the heights. It has got to.

It's a different bird. It's a different creature. He is an eagle, and he will hear the scream. “My sheep hear my voice.” As someone said (Brother Williams), “sheep food.” “My sheep hear my voice, a stranger they will not follow.”

No matter how loyal the church has been, how big a name it has got, when “My sheep hear my voice [which is the Word], a stranger they will not follow,” they'll go right straight to that Word. They can do it. It's like a magnet.

One day up in Indiana, I was visiting a steel mill, and the whistle blowed. Everybody took off their aprons and began to sweep out from their lathes, out into the middle of the floor, the shavings that they had made through the day. I was walking along with the man that was taking me through, and he said, “Watch this.” Every man laid his bench dress upon the table and walked away. Way back in the back he touched a little button, and here came a big magnet through. It picked up every bit of that iron that was shaved off of those pieces. Now, it went out, it demagnetized it, it dropped into a cupola and was melted over for another piece of goods, the same thing—axles or whatever they were building. I stood there and looked at that until I just lost myself.

And I said, “I'm wondering something.”

He said, “What is it, sir?”

I said, “I noticed that some of that didn't go up.”

He said, “It's aluminum, and the magnet is not magnetized to the aluminum.”

I said, “I see.” Then I said, “Well, did you notice there's a piece of iron laying across there?”

“But you see, sir, it was bolted down.”

I said, “I see.” When he took it out, I said, “Now what happens to that out there?”

He said, “It goes right back into the mill, poured out through the cupola, and comes right back and makes another wheel.”

I said, “Praise the Lord!”

That's it, see.

There is a great magnet sitting in the sky that God one day will touch his fingers to. No man knows the time He's coming, not even the angels of heaven doesn't know. God alone knows. But there has been some trimmings that's come off of the Bible—Bible Christians, believers for this hour. One of them might have been an axle back in another day. This might be some other part. It's going on to make the big regime of God, but it'll be molded into the pot of God's great cupola and poured out again into the images of God. Just those who are magnetized to it will be taken up. Oh, what a privilege it is to know that there is something in the resurrection that's pertaining to us.

Now notice, recognize the call of God's Word, which is a part of ... and it's an eagle to an eagle. Now, if that mother would have screamed like a buzzard, he would have never known it. He would have been just as well off in the barnyard. But it was the scream of an eagle. There was something inside that little fellow that he knowed he was an eagle; and the same thing is with every true believer.

When the preaching of God's Word comes forth, and vindicated, and proved that it's God's Word for this hour, then there is something within the believer—I don't care how loyal his father was to a church, or how loyal his mother was, or his grandparents, and if that church is teaching contrary to this hour of the baptism of the Holy Ghost message—there's something in him that screams out. He'll leave the barnyard. He's got to do it. The chicken might have been all right one day, but this is eagle hour, see. It is different. It's something that he must leave—the old coop—and fly away into the blue. Then this earthly body is quickened and brought by the quickening Spirit to the obedience of God's Word.

Now, when this Holy Spirit, represented as the eagles flying over the land, and finds the believer—“No man can come to me. No man can come to me [even if he wants to]. All the Father has given me will come to me, but no man can come by himself.” It isn't your own thinking, your own drawing. It's God drawing. “All the Father has given me will come to me.”

Now the Holy Spirit is here on earth, looking out those individuals that God has ordained to life in this age. And as soon as it finds it, it does just like it did on Jesus Christ, the great super Son of God, who redeemed us all. It comes down and takes its place of abode into the human life.

Now notice, brought the quickening power. Now, that quickening power that come upon Jesus quickened Him to manifest every promise of the Word of that day. So does the Holy Spirit that comes upon us in this day. If it's not a mockery Holy Spirit, if it's not the devil mocking the Holy Spirit, but is the real true Holy Spirit, it'll manifest the promise of this hour.

When it fell upon Luther, it manifested that promise of that hour. When it fell upon Wesley, it manifested the promise of that hour. When it falls in this day, it manifests the promise of this hour. When it fell upon Moses, it manifested the promise of that hour. It fell upon Noah, it manifested the promise of that hour. When it fell upon Jesus, it manifested the promise of that hour, see.

It's the Holy Spirit coming down to quicken, make alive, those people that are foreordained of God to be in the rapture. That is, if he is a true eagle. He will understand the message of the hour if he is a true eagle.

Now, the little eagle, probably, in the barnyard was eating all right, but he knew it wasn't just exactly right. But then when he heard the truth, then he received this truth.

Now, in John 14 ... John 5:24 rather, Jesus said, speaking this way, “He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into the judgment; but is passed from death unto life.” Just think how simple that is. “He that believeth.” Now the correct way of saying that: “He that understandeth.”

Now, you go out here on the street and say to this prostitute, “Do you believe?”

“Sure.”

“Do you believe He is the Son of God?”

“Certainly.”

“Been baptized?”

“Sure.”

Go down to the drunkard and say, “Did you hear that, hear that preacher preach?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Sure.”

See, but “he that understandeth.” He that knoweth his place in this hour. “He that heareth my Word and believeth on him that sent me hath [present tense] eternal life ... shall not come into judgment, but has already passed from death unto life.”

Then when this new eternal life dwells in you, it is the potential or the earnest of you being quickened from mortal to immortality. Let me say that again. When this Spirit has found you, the individual, and has come upon you, it is the potential of your eternal inheritance that God thought of you and made for you before the foundation of the world. That is your potential. Like, if you ask me for an oak tree and I gave you an acorn. Now, the life for the oak tree is in the acorn, now but you have to wait till it grows up.

So do we. When you receive the Holy Spirit of God, it's God's potential waiting upon you, that has already recognized you, and you are sealed by the Spirit of promise of God into the body of Christ. When God looked down at Calvary and seen Jesus dying, He not only.... He died for his bride, the body, which is the Word-church—the church that believes the Word of God for the age, whether it is feet, body, head, or wherever it is.

It's Christ was bleeding and dying, and God, looking upon Him, saw his resurrection, and the church raised with Him on Easter. Now, I want you to get all this together because I've got something here, a little bit I want to say, the Lord willing.

Now notice, it is the earnest or the potential. The quickening power of your resurrection, when you receive the Holy Spirit, is then dwelling in you—the potential of it.

Notice, you are now on your way, growing to the full resurrection. No tree just comes up overnight. It's got to grow. We grow in the grace and knowledge of God. You are baptized into the Holy Spirit. Now, as the Pentecostal church, baptized into the Holy Spirit, it's begun growing. Limbs has died, He's pruned them off; but the tree is still growing. It's still going on, because it has got to come to the resurrection.

They're led by the Spirit (to quicken the Word to you who is believers). The Word keeps quickening as you come to the first limb, second limb, third limb, on up. It just keeps quickening. The Spirit of God keeps quickening it to you.

Notice that Pentecost ... their bodies were quickened by the new life they received. That makes me feel religious!

Think, now here was men—fishermen, tax collectors, the humble little women, just ordinary housewives, little virgin girls. They were believers. They were believing that this was the truth. They believed that when Jesus died—they believed on Him—and He rose up again from the dead, they believed that to be the absolutely testimony of God, that He had quickened Him to life.

Now, they go up to the day of Pentecost to receive their abstract. Do you know what an abstract is? It is when a deed has been cleared. They went up there to receive their abstract, and they became quickened. Oh, what a thrill! They'd bought the land—been bought for them. They had received it.

“Is it true or not? We've seen Him raised up, but now what about us? We are witnesses. We stood and seen the man crucified. We seen the clouds come over the earth and darken the skies, and the earthquake that shook, it had nervous prostrations. Then, when they put Him in the grave, they speared Him in the heart with a spear; and they took his body down and laid it in a grave of Joseph of Arimathea. And then to find out that on the third day He raised up again.” And as the disciples said, “We are witnesses of this. We seen Him raise up. We know He's alive.”

Now what did that do? That took all the fear out. No wonder Jesus said, “Fear not. I'm He that was dead and is alive forevermore.” It taken all the fear out when they did that. But when they went up to Pentecost, there they received the quickening power, the power that made them alive.

Now there is where I think that you Presbyterian, and Methodist brethren, you do receive potentially on believing on the Lord Jesus Christ; but the abstract hasn't come yet. That is the clearing of the deed.

God gave Abraham a promise. Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. But He sealed the covenant by the seal of circumcision. And God gives you a promise, potentially, that you will receive it, and you're going to be raised up. This body is going to be glorified with Him at the end time. But you see, you have to get a clearance on that deed. And the clearance is when everything against it has been stricken off, and you've got the abstract to it. You've got the seal. It's yours. Everything on it belongs to you. Amen!

And when we believe on Jesus Christ for our Saviour, and repent, and are baptized, and come up to believe Him, God recognizes our repentance and our faith towards Him, and sends down the abstract. The abstract is the assurance. It's the guarantee that everything that was ever held against you, you thoroughly repented. Hallelujah! And the property is bought, and you hold the abstract for the assurance.

Let nobody try to put you off a land and say it doesn't belong to you with the abstract in your hands! Let him try to. No law in the land can do it, because you hold the abstract. And there's no devil, no church, or any theology, that can overstep the boundaries of God's proof and abstract that the baptism of the Holy Ghost has recognized us in Jesus Christ.

We're just as sure to raise as He raised, because potentially we have already raised in Him. Amen. The whole thing.... What does it do to our mortal body? It turns our opinion, changes our notions. It sets our affections on things which are above, and the smoking, drinking, gambling—the things that you used to do—is dead. It's beneath you,

and you are quickened in this quickening power. It brings your body into a raptured condition already.

Notice, the Pentecostal people up there when they got quickened by the Holy Spirit—listen to me!—when those Pentecostal group up there on the day of Pentecost received their abstract deed from God.... Sure, it glorified their souls. They screamed, they saw tongues of fire separated upon each of them. And it so quickened their bodies, till they couldn't even speak in an earthly language anymore. It quickened their body to a heavenly language—the place they were going to.

Quickening power of God shook their mortal bodies so till their entire mortal language was transfigured, transformed into an immortal language. What a quickening power! What ... something, it belongs.... “If the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in your mortal bodies, it shall also quicken your mortal body.”

We are quickened, then, by the power of the living God. Tongues —quickened to a new heavenly language to speak to them. A rapturing up, raising up into a different atmosphere than what they'd ever lived in. Also, with the new quickening life to them, that come in them, it quickened their language. They spoke in new tongues. Oh, yes.

Now watch it. It also was designed to give them—after this abstract—it was designed to give them every promise that was on the grounds, every promise on the grounds of God's Word, that was promised in the Bible. That quickening power was given to them to quicken that promise to them. Therefore, they laid hands on the sick, they was healed. They spoke in new tongues. They done great signs and wonders because that was in God's promise. And when Jesus died to redeem that back to them, the ground that belonged to sons of God, He demonstrated what God was. How dare we to socialize that and put it into an organization? We have no right to do that.

It's the Holy Spirit today hunting out honest hearts that will believe that message. Everything in the Bible that was promised is to that believer. And when you accept it in its fullness, and God knows that you'll do it, He gives you the abstract to that. And then every promise that's made is in your possession, and the Holy Spirit has got to quicken that to you. Oh, my! What kind of people should we be? How wonderful to see that God's great Holy Spirit here to do that power. Think of it!

When the Holy Ghost itself, here to bear record of this hour.... Jesus said so. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. How dare any man to wipe that out of there!

“The works that I do shall you do also.” John 14:12. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” That is the assurance.

When we see a group of people sitting together, and those signs manifesting themselves, that's the assurance that the abstract is there to vindicate that that's property of God. Amen.

So we are Easter also. Amen. We are now in our Easter. We have already raised (Hallelujah!) from the things of the world to the things of God's promise. Not we will; we are. It's the potentials.

It's God's promise He would pour out his Spirit in the last days, and that's what they would do.

Notice, they laid their hands on the sick—everything that was in God's promise. “I shall pour out my Spirit in the last days upon all flesh. Your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions,” and all these different promises that He made. Everything is laying right there in God's promise.

Jesus redeemed it to us. And when we become, or we.... If are ordained on that ground, if we are ordained to be on that ground (like the eagle walking in the chicken's nest), if you're ordained on that ground, the Holy Spirit is here to find you. And when it finds you, you'll recognize its call. You know the hour you're living, you know that these things are supposed to happen. Quickly you're raptured up to meet it, and now you're sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Oh, what a promise! What a heavenly Father who would give us these things!

The Spirit quickened their fellowship with God, so that they called the dead back to life in that day. They laid their bodies upon the dead, they came to life. Listen closely. They done the same things that Jesus did, because the same Spirit that was upon Him was upon them. If one Spirit makes a man act this way, it makes the other one act that way.

How can this come upon ... say you got the Spirit of God and deny the works of God? It cannot do it.

Notice, God's life—which is in the Greek called “Zoe”—moving through them and in them, quickens their minds to his Word. Now, let me say that real quietly now. The Spirit of God that moves among the people, quickens the mind of the person to the promise of God. See, it does it.

Look, I'm trying to show you the ... let you realize that I'm speaking now of the church, and also quicken to life in Him. Although they only were His attributes to begin with. But if God said, “In this day [back in the beginning] John Doe will be my servant,” millions of years ago.... Now, John Doe was born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, because he is a mortal, but maybe he gets a little religious feeling. He'll go join a church. Maybe he'll join a Pentecostal church, I don't know. He might join anything. But let him get under the atmosphere of God once. John Doe is bound to recognize who his Father is. Just as that eagle recognized who the mother was.

It has got to realize it. Only that John Doe is God's attribute that's become a Word spoken, and then the Holy Spirit speaks that Word out. Here it is. He calls him, gives him everlasting life, and brings him into the presence of God, God's Word.

Look, God had the same when He saw Jesus. It was a finished work that God finished with Jesus when He said, “It's finished.” All the plan was finished. And when the Spirit of God comes upon you, and you truly are one of God's attributes that He spoke of.... Now, if you're not, you'll wonder and flusterate, run here and there, and everything else, and never come to the knowledge of the truth.

If you are one of those, the old things pass away right quick, and you become new, and the plan of salvation is finished. You're ready to obey every word that God ever spoke of you, see, for you to do. You're submissive to his Word.

The contract, exactly, the abstract to the contract. The title deed belongs to you. The debts are all paid. It's all struck off, as it was at the day of Pentecost.

Now, let us notice this quickening Spirit on other people. Now, I can't speak very long, and I just got twenty minutes to keep my word if I do that—to keep to what time I said, about an hour.

Notice, now, this quickening power that only comes....

Now, there is a lot of mockery of it. There is a lot of people that really think they've got it when they haven't. A lot of people do it because they've got some false impression of what they have seen other Christians do.

Satan can impersonate any of that. We know that. As missionaries, you can see it impersonated—shouting, dancing, speaking in tongues and all these things—you can see it impersonated anywhere. Absolutely—among heathens, people who deny there is such a thing as Jesus Christ being the Son of God.

They do all those things themselves, but the real true quickening Spirit that comes to a believer quickens him to God's Word. That's back to eagle food again, right back to where he lives. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Let us now notice this quickening Spirit as it come upon other people, like it did on the day of Pentecost. Let's notice Pentecost, how they acted, and see if they were quickened by this quickening power that we are talking about.

On the day of Pentecost they were all waiting up there. In themselves, they were afraid, the Jews, what they were going to do, so they got scared. What happened? When this quickening power fell from heaven, there was a bravery set upon them. There was something, an understanding, where they wasn't too sure of it a few hours before.

They knew He had died, they knew He had risen, they had talked to Him on the way; but was that thing for them, or was it just for Jesus, Himself? But here on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, the abstract, fell upon the believers; that made them part of His resurrection, made them part of His fellowship. The Holy Spirit came and confirmed to them that they would be raised up, because they were potentially raised then from cowards to brave men.

They were afraid of the very Word that they thought. (Don't let this pass over you.) They were afraid.

They knew that He was that Word. Even the Jews had to admit it. Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher that come from God. No man could do the things you do except God be with Him. Now, we know that. We recognize that.”

So, the disciples.... Peter even swore in His presence. All of them up and forsaken Him at the crucifixion, but here they are now up in this upper room, in the presence of God.

Then all of a sudden, here come this Holy Spirit down from heaven, and it quickened them. And when the quickening took place, they wasn't afraid to make a witness of the message that they believed and knew to be the truth. Otherwise they were afraid of it.

How many Presbyterians, how many Methodists, how many Baptists in the world today, how many Pentecostals that know the truth and are afraid to make a stand on it? I'm persuaded to wonder what was that that fell on you? Are you a part of his resurrection? Would you dare scream off, for some man-fearing idea; or have you got the real fullness and the real manhood it takes to stand out and call right “right” and wrong “wrong”?

Are you a part of his resurrection? Or are you a worshipper of a bunch of creeds? Are you a goer to church? Do you have your name on there and dead in sin and trespasses? He that believes not the full Word of God is a sinner.

Those Pharisees believed in many things to be the truth. They said, “We are God's children”; and they were until that Word was preached, but when that Word was preached and vindicated, then they become sinners for rejecting the thing that they knew was right and witnessed that “We know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do the things that you do without God being with Him.”

I wonder today. Where are we at? I ask you: Where is this resurrection finding us? Are you dare to step out? Are you dare to take God at His Word? If you're ordained to life, you sure will do it. If you're an eagle, you can't help doing it. There is something in you.

Or do you want to just serve a creed somewhere and say, “I go to church. I'm just as good as you are.” If you hold those birthrights.... You'll never see it, you can't see it; but if you do hold the possession of this birthright, you can't help from seeing it because it's part of you, and you're a part of it.

How could I deny the mother that gave me birth? How could I deny the father that his own blood is in me? How could I deny Charles Branham for being my father? I could not do it. I'm willing to stand his reproach or anything else because I am his son. Hallelujah! Then being a son of God—and He was the Word of God—how can I deny that Bible being truth that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever? And seeing the hour there we're living in, we need an Easter in the church—resurrection. We need a resurrection to power faith—men and women to stand out for that which is God's vindicated Word.

Say, “Well, we're having our Youth for Christ.” That's all right. “Our church is having a meeting. We want so many members.” Nothing against that. That's all right, but that's only the atmosphere. That might be an old hen's feathers, but if you'll get in the right atmosphere there, it'll hatch a eagle if you're an eagle egg. If you were foreordained of God to see it, you can't help from seeing it. You are coming forth in a resurrection.

That's the way the Baptist is born, that's the way the Methodist is born, in a resurrection of that day. But they turned off to a hen instead of an eagle.

As I said not long ago, going down from Tucson I watched a very strange thing. I seen a hawk sitting on a wire down there. That hawk has long lost its identification. It used to be a bird next to the eagle. It could not follow the eagle. No, by no means. Nothing can follow an eagle. But he was a hawk. Christ is the eagle and the church should at least be a hawk. They can fly higher than any of the rest of the birds. But that hawk has become soft. It's lost its identification. He sits on the telephone wires and waits for some dead rabbit. He hops like a vulture instead of flying like a hawk.

Oh, my brother, sister, you Pentecostal people, which is my own dear people, the church is losing its identification. It's coming down and depending on some dead formal creed instead of flying in the heavenly, hunting for fresh manna.

A hawk used to hunt his own manna, but today he takes what the automobiles run over, what the vultures eat. He hops like one. He looks like one.

We've so adorned ourselves in the modern world—our women cutting their hair and wearing shorts, our men with not enough backbone to stand in the pulpit and tell the truth—we've long got soft on the Word.

O God, send the Holy Ghost and look out those eagles somewhere that's ready to stand yonder, no matter what takes place; that'll soar into the unknown, not sit on the telephone wires and look for some Sunday school literature to come in. Let me have the Word—and it is precious—in the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. We need an Easter, a resurrection that's potential.

My friend, if you are satisfied with such carrion of the world, there's something wrong.

My sister, my brother, let me say to you this in godly fear, knowing that I may never live to see an Easter again, but there's one thing sure—when a genuine foreordained son of God by the Word of God hears that voice of God, he'll rise and go to meet it. It's the potentials that he's going to meet the real living Word. As He was, the bride will meet the groom. She's a part of his body.

Notice, long have we.... We are losing our identification. We come on Wednesday night, some of us. Others stay home and watch “Who Loves Suzy”—televisions, all kinds of worldly things, all kinds of entertainment to keep you away from church. Long have we lost it.

Our seminaries, our schools, are putting out a bunch of Rickys with a whole lot of theology, and entertainment, and everything in the church to take the place of the prayer meeting.

We've took dress and tried to fulfill what the modernists try to do, and bring them in. You'll never win them by that. They've got more of that than you have. You ain't got no business on their ground. Let them come over on yours where the real baptism is shining, where the real power of the resurrection....

Don't try to build a church like theirs. Don't try to have a pastor like that. Don't try to do this, that or the other, or cooperate with the world. They shine with Hollywood;

the real gospel glows with power. Eagles hear that. They don't look for a shine; they look for a glow. Glowing with humility, glowing with love, glowing with power—that's what the real eagle hunts. You can't scratch in a barnyard and please him. You'll never be able to do it. You'll never touch him because he doesn't believe it. Let that voice scream from the heavens, “I am He that was dead and is alive again”—something takes place. “I am the same yesterday, today, and forever and it shall come to pass in the last days, I'll pour out of myself upon all flesh.” Glory to God! “I'll quicken your mortal language, I'll quicken your mortal tongues, I'll give you the evidence that I'm going to bring you in the resurrection with me.” Hungry-hearted eagles reach for that just as hard as they can. It's the pearl of great price that they sell everything else to go buy. Amen. God help us, friends. Our churches are losing their identification.

Let's quickly now, let's go to some....

Watch the action of those disciples—scared. They knowed Jesus was the truth; but you see, it was against the popular idea, the popular religion of the hour. The most strictest religion—Pharisees, Sadducees, and so forth (the cults, clans, and denominations)—they were against that heresy. But Jesus was the identified Word, and Jesus is the Holy Ghost in Spirit. “A little while and the world seeth me no more but you shall see me.” Not the body; the life that was in Him.

God is upon the church to call sons like He did then, obedient. “I always do that which is pleasing to my Father. Which one of you can accuse me of sin. [In other words, sin is unbelief.] What has the Word said about me that I haven't done? Show me what the Word said that I'd do that I didn't do? Which one can accuse me? Which one can lay your fingers on me and say that I haven't fulfilled my Father's words?”

Oh, when the Pentecostal church gets to that spot: “Who can accuse me of unbelief?”

Oh, Christians, be identified not as a hawk but an eagle! That hawk is soft; it'll come down. You never see an eagle doing that. He'll never do that. He hunts his own food out of the blue. God has prepared him so he can see it. He gets fresh manna, not something that's dead.

In the Hebrews, when they crossed through the wilderness, they tried to eat dead manna, and it become stagnant. It had wiggletails in it. You know what we mean. It's contaminated, rotten, maggots is in it.

Why would I eat a food that has been dead years ago? It might be in form and shape, but it isn't fresh. We've got to get food every generation new. So does the eagle look for that food every generation, as we are in our journey.

Notice,

now let's take some people again. Let's take some of the Old Testament prophets, see what they did. Let's look first at Stephen, how Stephen in the midst of that Sanhedrin Council.... When that Council brought him up there, that great assembly of believers there—supposed to be believers—brought him up and tried to condemn him, why, he said, “You stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost. [That's that eternal life.] As your fathers did it back yonder to the prophets, so are you doing it today.” And they gnashed upon him with their teeth.

They didn't want to hear that; it was against their creed, it was against their denomination. And they stoned the man to death. And he raised his hands up, looked towards heaven, said, “I see heaven open and Jesus standing at the right side....” Why? He had the resurrection, quickening power, in him that took him into the bosom to Jesus.

Notice, quickly now. Look at Philip, down there in a great revival, having a revival, where it had been daresn't for any man.... Why, if they had've.... Got big cooperation amongst the churches and everything down there and were having a great revival, and the quickening power of God spoke to him and said, “Stephen....” Maybe it said this, “You're having a great revival, but I got one man I want you to talk to.” And Stephen is obedient, no matter what it is, how much criticism.

“Oh, Stephen, you can't leave!”

“But I can. God said so.” And he went out into the desert, and out there he found this eunuch. And what happened? He said, “If thou believeth with all thine heart that Jesus is the Son of God, I'll baptize you.” When he baptized him.... Look, he was quickened by this quickening power to leave a revival of thousands of people to go out into the desert to one man.

Oh, that'd be against all reason. Why there is ten thousand wanting you here, but there's one wanting him out there, see. And the quickening power sent him to God's provided place. Hallelujah!

Men and women, it will make you stand to your feet. It will make you do the things that God wants you to do. I don't care what somebody else says about it. The neighbors say, “Oh, that person has lost their mind—pray all night, they read the Bible.” I don't care what they say, it's what God calls you to do. That's right. “Why,” they say, “we can't have these old-fashioned Pentecostal revivals like....” Oh, yes we can too. You can have it in yourself, and you are the majority in God, no matter what the rest of them think.

Notice. After, in obedience (listen close now), after obeying God to his Word, when he fulfilled his mission, that quickening power that he received at Pentecost caught him away, quickened his body. Miles and miles away he was taken in the Spirit, and was found over in another country somewhere. Quickening power of God. And if we be Pentecostals, that same power that raised up Jesus from the dead, if it dwells in your mortal bodies....

All right, notice.

Let's take another man with this quickening power. There was a man way long ago by the name of Enoch. When a new thing come along or something came along, and said, “Well, now, we have to go back to the old school, or this, that, or the other,” Enoch walked with God. Whatever God said do, Enoch never missed one word. He walked with God.

What was he? He was a son of God. He was an eagle that had been called to that day, and when it came time, he was so full of that quickening power.... Remember, he had walked five hundred years or more before God, and not one time had he missed his Word. Not one time did he misbehave himself. Not one time did he do, but kept the testimony. Everything that God told him to do, he went and done it. No argument about it, he just went and done it. No matter what anybody else thought, he went and done it. Why? He was full of that quickening power.

When it came time for the old man to die, God just sent down a ladder and he walked up home. He quickened him and took his mortal body up in a rapture. Amen! That's that quickening power.

Look at Elijah. After his work was finished on earth, he was so full of that quickening power.... He condemned them Jackie Kennedy haircuts in his day, he told old Jezebel what he thought of her. He told those preachers and priests what was right and wrong. And they didn't believe him, but he condemned them painted-faced women and things so bad. And he was so full of that quickening power, till nothing could harm him.

God had fed him from the heavens, took him out and set him aside. He was so full of quickening power when it came time to die, the Jordan opened up, and he just walked ... sent down a chariot and took him up home. So full of that quickening power he became a true genuine son of God.

Notice, he had a successor, and his name was Elisha. And Elisha had a double portion of this quickening power, see. He had a double portion of it. Now, he preached for about eighty years, or he was about eighty years old. He took sick and died. Now he didn't get to go home like Elijah did.

See, both of them are represented there in the church. Some saints go, and some are resting. But notice, when Elijah was taken up in the rapture.... Then Elisha went to sleep in God, full of quickening power.

Look at his prophecy just before he died.

Now, let me show you. I don't care if you are dead or where you are at, that quickening power never leaves you. Years and years after his death.... His meat had rotted away, the skin worms had eaten it up. But they were packing a dead man one day, throwed him in on them bones, and there was so much quickening power there until the man came back to life again. Hallelujah! Raised him up from the dead, because that quickening power that was upon that saint of God never left him, stayed right on those bones.

Oh, remember, we are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, if we are his bride. Death won't bother that quickening power at all. “Though the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Glory to God! Caught up! I don't know what to say....

What a hope for an old man like me, knowing I see my end time right out yonder soon, at fifty-six years old. Ever since a little bitty boy I've stood here trying to proclaim this, but I know that in me—nothing good that I have, nothing I've done—but in me is that quickening power.

It quickened me one day from the things of the world as a young man, unto eternal life. All the things that's happened—I've seen visions, foretold things—He never let nothing fail yet. I've spoke in other tongues. I've prophesied. I've done those things by the Spirit of God that dwells in me. That's quickening power.

I know that some day....

My redeemer is living now, and some day when He comes, these bones shall rise again to go to meet Him in the air. You may bury me in the deep, burn it up, whatever you want to, that quickening power is eternal! (Whew!)

I feel an Easter right now! Yes, sir. I've had it for years. It's in me. It's in you. If the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in your mortal bodies it has quickened you from the things of the world to the Word of God only. It has quickened you from this life to life eternal.

You who were once dead in sin and trespasses has now been quickened together to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, feasting on manna from above, seeing the hand of God made manifest and prove the promise of this day.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.#158 ”They were eating, drinking, marrying, and given in marriage. And as it was in the days of Lot, so will it be in the hours that the Son of man will be revealed on earth.“ Not Son of God no more; Son of man come back as the prophetic message for the last day, when that eagle will be flying. Not the lion, not the oxen, the sacrifice age.

See, every time, a religious power went forth to meet the challenge of the political power of the world. When the lion raised up the religious power, it went to meet the Roman power. And then when it come to sacrifice hour, the ox went, because he's a sacrifice beast of the Lord. Then come the reformers. Down through the church ages come the face of a man. And the reformers have been sent—Luther, Wesley, Calvin, on down, down, Pentecostal age. But in the last message that went forth, there came a flying eagle. It's eagle time, reveal time, the Word of God made manifest, the Word of God proved.

Oh, children, walk into this baptism of the Holy Spirit. Come in and believe it with all your heart. God will fill you.

Look here now. We find now.... Remember, we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. As God raised his bones and flesh out of the grave, they cannot hide the man that has the potential. Death cannot take him.

Jesus said, “All the Father has given me will come to me, I'll raise him up at the last day.” Oh, my. Easter, why, we are right in Easter. When He raised we raised with Him. He sent the abstract back; we hold it. That is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. He is alive forevermore, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8 proves that. He's the same.

His Messiahic, anointed ones believe that. What is the Messiah? What is the Messiah? Messiah is anointed one. And now if He was the Messiah—being the anointed one for that day to fulfill the Word of God to be the Redeemer and the anointed one—and God raised up that body, his bride is the anointed one for this day, and has already raised with Him in the resurrection because these two are one. Amen!

I wish I could tell it the way I see it. I wish I had the education I could do it with. I hope you see it. I hope God, the Holy Ghost, comes down there and puts that in your heart to see what I mean.

The resurrection—we are now in the resurrection. We are sitting with Him in the resurrection, but only those who have life. Not those who do not have life. They won't know it. They'll never know it. They'll go right on thinking they're getting the Holy Ghost, being saved, and the rapture will done be over with and gone. He said, “Elias has already come and they did that way, and you knew it not.”

Notice, death does not stop the quickening power of God. Notice, death can't stop it. You say, “Well, my mother was a Spirit-filled woman. My daddy, I never seen a man so full of power as my daddy, but he died, Brother Branham.” Sure. That didn't stop the quickening power.

Moses had that quickening power. Do you believe that? There never was a man like him on the earth until Jesus. For he didn't only see visions, he talked face to face with God. Even a prophetess, Miriam, disputed his word one day. He said, “Don't you fear God? Consider my servant, Moses. There is not nobody in the world like him at this hour.” There had never been anybody like Moses. “I speak to Moses. What did he ever say that wasn't true? I speak to Moses. Don't you fear God? Don't you say a word against him.” And right then she was stricken with leprosy and was dying. She didn't live very long afterwards.

Moses prayed for her,

and Moses climbed up on the mountain at 120 years of ministry—or, eighty years of ministry, 120 years of life —climbed up on the mountain and died, and was buried in the valley. But that quickening power was on him! About eight hundred years later, here he was standing on Mount Transfiguration. Amen. What was he? He was included in that resurrection. Sure he was. He had the quickening power of God. Here he was standing.

Look at Job, Abraham, Isaac, the saints, on the day of the resurrection, that great morning. And Job and all of them knew that would come, when he said, “I know my redeemer liveth,” hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ. It's ... actually the book of Job was wrote before Genesis, they claim—the oldest book in the Bible.

And in his trials, like we go through now.... And his wife even, the closest thing to him on earth, said, “Why don't you curse God and die the death?”

He said, “Thou speaketh like a foolish woman. The Lord gave, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” And when the Spirit of God come upon him, and he began to prophesy, he said, “I know my redeemer liveth, and at the last days, He will stand upon this earth. Though the skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” And he made a place to bury himself. He said, “I'll buy this ground.” And he bought there and buried himself.

Later on came a man named Abraham. (The church growing, coming on up.) Abraham. Well now, he had the potentials of God, too—everlasting life, eternal, because God called him. Now notice, when he died, or Sarah died, he bought a piece of ground in Palestine near Job's grave and buried Sarah. Abraham died and also was buried with Sarah.

Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac, when he died, he slept with Abraham in the same parcel of ground.

Now, when Isaac begot Jacob.... Jacob died way down in Egypt, but being a prophet, now, with this potential, this quickening power, he said, “Don't you bury me down here, Joseph. Come here, my prophet son. Put your hand upon this hip that God crippled. Swear to the God of heaven you'll not bury me down here.” What was in that man? Why wasn't Egypt just as good as any place? He was a prophet. He knew where that resurrection was going to be. It wasn't going to be in Egypt; it was going to be in Palestine. He said, “Put your hands upon my crippled hip, and you swear by the God that I serve—you're my prophet son—that you'll not bury my bones down here. Take me up yonder and bury me.”

Joseph, being a prophet also, laid his hands upon his crippled daddy, said, “I swear to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I'll not bury you here.” They took him up and buried him up in that land. Why? Why?

When Joseph died, he said, “Don't you bury me down here. Don't bury me down here.” Why? God is God everywhere, but He has a plan. Joseph was a prophet. He said, “Some day [listen to his words] the Lord God will visit you and will take you out of this land, and when you go, you take my bones.” That quickening power was in them bones.

Oh, if the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, He'll also quicken your mortal bodies.

“Don't put my bones down here; bury them up there, with those of the promise.”

When Jesus comes....

Here, I've got a scripture here, Matthew 27:51, when Jesus raised from the dead. Job seen that coming, said, “I know my redeemer liveth. In the last days He will stand upon this earth. Though the skin worms has destroyed this body, yet in my flesh I'll see God. I've seen Him.”

They knowed that was a prophet. Abraham was a prophet. Isaac was a prophet. Jacob was a prophet. Joseph was a prophet. And they had the revelation of God according to his Word.

On that Easter morning when that One came and redeemed all those who had believed on Him, they raised, too, according to the Bible.

That quickening power came into the grave of Job, where there wasn't even a spoonful of the dust of his bones left. After all those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, his bones had decayed and went back and turned back to the gases of the earth. Just a mere ash dust laid there. But yet, when that quickening power—according to the Word of God through the promise, hundreds and hundreds, yes, thousands of years later—when that quickening power was brought forth from the grave, Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of them came out of the grave with Him.

The Bible said so. St. Matthew, the twenty-seventh chapter and the fifty-first verse, it said many of the saints that slept in the dust of the earth resurrected and came out of the graves with Him when He came up on Easter morning.

Why? They had that potential. They had that quickening power, and raised up from the dead, and went with Him in the resurrection—enjoying the resurrection with Him, because they were full of that quickening power.

They had that genuine Easter seal. “Well,” you say, “I wish I lived back in the Old Testament.” Wait a minute. In I Thessalonians the fourth chapter, the sixteenth verse, I want you to read that. “I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those that sleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again the third day [not make-belief, but we believe] even so them that sleep in Him shall God bring with Him.”

The New Testament saints with that quickening power shall resurrect also at his second coming, just as sure as the Old Testament saints with all that quickening power upon their bones, and translations, and powers, and so forth that showed of God. Them prophets, who the Word of God came to, they resurrected with Him on that resurrection morning.

And with the promise of God that everyone that's in Christ Jesus will also come with Him in his resurrection ... the quickening power of God upon the bones.

No wonder we lay hands on the sick. No wonder we love one another. We're brothers and sisters. We shouldn't hate one another because we're corrected by the Word of God. We should love one another and have respects for one another. You know, if you don't, it won't help you.

There's a little fellow sitting right here under this church now. A few days ago—that man believes—a little old boy had a cancer on his ear, and he wouldn't say nothing about it. He was working up there at the house. I'd been on a hunting trip with him, up there with the Moseley brothers and Brother Dawson here. We was up here hunting, and Brother Williams' son. I happened to look over on his ear, and I saw his ear all swollen up. I said, “What's the matter, Donovan, that ear?”

He said, “Brother Branham, it's been on a long time. I don't know.”

I just caught him by the hand there. That was a big cancer on his ear. Never said one word, just held it. It was off my brother. In a day or two after that there wasn't even a scar left of it. It was his respect; and the God of heaven, by his quickening power killed that cancer and spared the life of Donovan Weerts back there. That's right.

What are these things? Look here, people here in Phoenix. Look at you people who has believed in this. Look at the people who has this, that lay their hands upon you. Watch what happens. It's quickening power. “These signs shall follow them that believe. If they lay their hands on the sick....” That quickening power, eagle to eagle, something is going to take place.

Now, an eagle to a buzzard won't work. Eagle to eagle raises from the barnyard to the heavenly. “These signs shall follow them that believe”—when they're both in belief.

See, that same quickening power of God represented in these two prophets, Elijah and Elisha. Notice, the same word, one of them is “catch up”; the other one is “caught up.” “Catch up” and “caught up,” see. He was caught up, we'll be catch up. Catch up with them, meet them in the air; be caught up to meet them in the air.

Notice, a bird has to have two wings to balance itself. Is that right? Elijah was a translated wing, Elisha was a resurrection wing. See, both of them together representing the saints that are living and the saints that are gone on.

Remember, quickened to see past the curtains. How these people were quickened back there to look past the curtain and see down in this time.

Those prophets....

Look at Paul, he said in the last days how these people would be acting and calling themselves Christians. He was a prophet, full of the quickening power, foresaw it come to pass. We believe that, don't we? He received quickening power.

Look at the quickening power today foretelling things without one event missing. Not one time does it fail. Quickening power—not the power of a man, the power of God. The power, the abstract of Easter, the resurrected Jesus that sent back the abstract to guarantee us that we're already quickened with Him.

Notice, you remember the little book of the Businessmen here, “Looking Past The Curtain Of Time”? As I begin to get older, knowing my days are getting shorter, and I get real.... I play that little piece that them ladies sang awhile ago. I've had it for about eighteen, twenty years now, “I Want To Talk It Over, Lord.” I get out there and go to praying, and then that quickening power comes. I'm wrest up and I look up there and I say, “Look yonder.”

I remember that morning being “caught past,” and my wife, sitting back there, laying on the same bed with me that morning. I raised up and looked, and there she was asleep. I said, “If I'm going to do anything for the Lord, you'd better hurry up, boy. You're past fifty.” Then the Holy Spirit caught me away. I looked over there, I seen those saints—just as certain as I'm standing here by this desk, with this sacred Book laying here, and a minister of the gospel.

Have I ever told you anything in the name of the Lord but what happened? If I did, I want you to tell me about it. Every time has it been perfectly, at the platform? Every time has it happened just like He said? This was “Thus saith the Lord.”

I stood there and looked over that time, and I seen tens of thousands times thousands coming, young men and women, running, throwing their arms around me, screaming. I looked right back and seen myself lying on the bed. Oh, Lord, let me look past the curtain of time!

What is it? It's quickening power that will catch us away—that great quickening power. The quickening power come in this last days.

That is what I'm in Arizona for right now. There's many people sitting here, stood right here in Phoenix and heard me tell you from this very platform, “Thus saith the Lord.” (How many remembers it?) Said I was going ... something was fixing to happen.

I saw seven angels come. Didn't Life Magazine pack it, as the fog of it floated across here twenty-seven miles high and thirty miles across? Is not Fred Sothmann and these others, Gene Norman, sitting back there ... stood right there when them seven angels appeared right there on the hill? It shook the hills for miles around like that. There stood seven angels (it throwed a sword in hand) and said, “Go home and open these seven seals that are given.” And here they are—the true mystery of marriage and divorce, the serpent's seed, and all of these things that's been fussed about. It's “Thus saith the Lord.”

What is it? The quickening power coming to the church, making her ready in this hour that we're approaching—quickening power. Oh, God help us to receive it. Help us to believe it. See, it depends on what attitude you take to it whether it's going to do you any good or not, though. You have to believe that. If you don't believe it, it won't do you one bit of good.

How old Samuel stood there before the people and said, “Have I ever told you anything in the name of the Lord but what happened? Did I ever beg you for your money to live on?”

“No, but we want the king anyhow.”

That's the way the church is today. They want their own ideas. They won't pay a bit of attention to you. They walk right around. Well, it just goes to show the quickening power is not there.

“Oh,” you say, “I spoke in tongues. I jumped, I shouted.”

That's all fine, but if that quickening power is there, you'll recognize—like that little eagle, that's his mama—that's the Word, that's “Thus saith the Lord.” That's what God promised. That's what was foretold. That's exactly what happened.

We're beyond any shadow of doubt, potentially in the resurrec-tion right now. The saints getting ready to be taken up in the air.

Jesus, so full of this quickening power, said, “If you can destroy this temple that took you forty years, you thought, to build, I'll raise it up in three days.”

Why? Why could Jesus say that? I want to ask you. Why could Jesus say a thing like that? He knew that He was.... Amen! I wish I could make that stick. He knew who He was. He knew that every word God had wrote in there of Him, He had fulfilled it. He knew He was the one David spoke of.

Do you know you're the ones the Bible speaks of? Do you know your position is in Christ? if you're in Christ, you're a new creature? Do you know this Word is just like every day living to you? Why, sure. It's yours. You are an eagle, that's your food.

He knew that by the power of God He would do it, because it was prophesied He would do it. That's the reason He wasn't scared to say, “Destroy this temple, I'll raise it up in three days,” because David said, “I'll not leave his soul in hell; neither will I suffer my Holy One to see corruption.” He knew not one cell of his body would corrupt, and it corrupts in seventy-two hours.

He said, “Destroy this temple, I'll raise it up again in three days.” Why? He was so full of that quickening power that quickened every word. He looked back and seen every word God wrote of Him and prophets said, He'd fulfilled it. He knowed that would be fulfilled too.

Now, every word that God said, has your spirit said “Amen” to it? and has it been fulfilled in your life as a believer? Do you hold back on something and say, “Well, my church teaches different”? Then be careful, hawk.

Notice, eagles believe. There's no question to them, they believe it.

Notice,

now. He knew it would happen because the Word said it was, and every word wrote of Him had to be fulfilled. He knew that it was written by the power of God by the holy prophets that had prophesied that He would do so, and prophecy never fails. It cannot. The Word of God can't fail. And it is written by the Spirit.

Now, also the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead, if it dwells in your being, your body, it will also quicken your mortal body. Then shoot it, burn it, do anything you want to; make fun of it, tear it down, turn it down, do what you want to, God will raise it up, for He said He would.

Every saint of God that has that promise in him knows that that's the truth. So fear not, brother, we are already into Easter.

Look now at transfiguration, just before we close—transfigura-tion. We're all represented there in transfiguration. Look what we are seeing today. Notice just what we're seeing today, the quickening power of God. We were all there.

There was the dead saints represented in Moses. There was the resurrection and Jesus Christ glorified. Elijah .... Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all standing on the mountain—the dead saints, the raptured saints, and Jesus glorified.

Oh, my!

Well, you say ... I heard a guy say the other day, “You people, why, if you have that kind of power you ought to go out and tell people what you can do.” Far be it from a real Christian saying a thing like that. Surely we don't claim any power, but we do one thing.

When they looked around with all this power upon them, they saw Jesus only. And the real true believer don't care whether he is backing up a denomination, or nothing about it. He only wants one thing—for you to see that glorified Christ. Makes any difference, the real true Mount Transfiguration experience only glorifies Jesus Christ.

It didn't glorify Moses, it didn't glorify Elijah, it didn't glorify itself, it didn't glorify nothing else, but they seen the glorified Christ. And any true believer, that's what is in his heart—to glorify Jesus Christ. That's what He is trying to get the people to see. Not to say, “Well, if you come and join our groups, if you come do this or do that....” Oh, don't do that. Don't do that. See God's Word, which is Christ, magnified and fulfill the promise of this day, in this great hour of resurrection.

And it gives them joy to know that we are with Him, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. What a joy! That's the only thing that a real believer cares about.

They don't care about a denomination, they don't care about an organization. They don't care about what the other women think. They don't care. Certainly not.

They won't do these things that these other women do. These men won't do them things. They won't hang and baby around with some organization to keep from being put out, and afraid they won't have a meal ticket. They don't care about them things. It's nonsense to them. There's only one heart's desire, that is to Jesus Christ glorified.

Their conduct must be with God. It must absolutely, nothing else but just the glory of Jesus Christ. And what is Jesus? The Word. Is that right?

Now notice ... and seeing his same vindicated method proving his resurrection. Now, what is it? Seeing your life, by his promised Word that He said He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, proving that He is still alive.

I don't care if every door in the country is closed to me. That time.... My, as I said, I was fifty-six the other day. I could be snapped out. I am at the heart attack age. I'm in all this other age, everything else. Well, what difference? It didn't make any difference to me when I was a kid, it don't make any difference now what hour my number is called, or my card out of the rack. I don't care if they ever knowed I ever lived on the earth. It don't make me no difference. You don't have to have no big monuments or big buildings to say that I was here on earth.

There's one thing I want you all to know: that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in my heart I hold his abstract.

I know that some day.... Although I may be drowned in the sea, I may be killed in Africa, I don't know what'll happen to me—but there's one thing I know: I'll hold the abstract. Hallelujah! Every door can be closed. That don't make a bit of difference to me. I'm not trying to glorify some man, or some organization, nor myself, or none of the groups, or nothing else. I want people to see Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, and his Spirit lives. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

No wonder Jesus said, “Fear not. I am he that was dead, but I'm alive forevermore.” For now we are redeemed by Him and are risen with Him. And are now (not will be) sitting in heavenly places in Him.

Now, when we have this Spirit in us—the abstract—shows that all of the doubts have been stricken off. But Christ lives. Not I live, not me; Christ lives in me. Not you live, but Christ lives in you, because his living Word lives in you, showing that all of the accounts of all your Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostal ideas, and everything else, is stricken off through Jesus Christ.

Like on Mount Transfiguration. All the prophets and everything else is finished. All the days of the Lutheran, the Methodists, the Presbyterians. They're all right, but “This is my beloved Son. Hear ye him,” the Word of this hour. The hour of the seals, when all the mysteries back yonder that have been hid all these years, and that great pyramid of time was stricken off the headstone, making it honed down, so that the star of David will settle into its place; and the great church of the living God will be raised like the wings of an eagle, packed out yonder into glory. Yes, now in our bodies, with speaking with new tongues, prophesying and foreseeing, laying hands on the sick and they recover, the world dead and all the things of the world. We have passed from death unto life, and we now hold the power. Hallelujah!

On that resurrection morning when death's seals will be broken we shall rise. Hallelujah! We shall rise. Amen.

There aren't enough devils in hell to keep us from doing it. We were foreordained of God for this hour. The Word of God manifests itself right through us, and we live in the presence of God, by the Word promise of God.

Ain't a devil in hell can keep me from raising! Ain't a door he can shut in my face on that morning. The seals has been broken. Hallelujah! I'm free. I'm an eagle. I'm no longer in a cage, but I'm free. I have raised from the dead into the new life of Jesus Christ. Not only me, but every man, woman, boy, or girl sitting here that's been filled into that Spirit of God, he is a new creature in Christ, and you are an eagle.

We are alive today and enjoying the resurrection forevermore. Because He lives, we are alive also. And He is living in us, making us alive, and the Spirit that raised Him from the dead dwelling in our beings shall quicken our mortal bodies to that great eternal Easter. Glory to God!

Oh, take the world, take anything you want to, but give me Jesus. Amen. I love Him. He is all the world to me. And because that you are a part of Him, I am a part of you, and you are a part of me, and together we are a part of Him.

Oh, Christians, what an opportunity we have! We have an opportunity that St. Paul never dreamed of having. We have opportunities that Enoch, and Elijah, and all of them never had—the opportunities we have now.

There is one little sheep out yonder somewhere, and He will not be satisfied until that one comes in the fold. By the help of God, and by a vision, and “thus saith the Lord,” I'm returning across the sea. That last little sheep may be a black one, down there, for all I know —where they don't even think they got a soul, but God knows different. I'm going to seek to the last day of my life to find that one, wherever it is.

I hope I never have offended any of my brethren by saying these strict things—not that I don't want you to go to church. Sure, I want you to go to church. You go to church wherever you are going. But just don't let that be your hope, say, “Well, I belong to this,” or “I belong to that.” Oh, brother, sister, belong to Christ! Go to church, but belong to Christ. Amen!

Let that potential (if that isn't in you) quicken you right now to life. Won't you just receive it now? This room is full of it. I feel it all over me. I know it's here—the power of God. The great seer of visions, the great foreteller that can tell the things and it never fails, the great One that can speak and no man can say it's “no.” A man can open, and no man can shut. He that was dead is now alive, and alive today here in Phoenix, walking amongst the newborn flowers.

No wonder on that Easter morning little tear drops of dew were laying on every lily's cheek and on every rose. Why? It knew it was brought up through the ground, and somewhere there's an eternal flower blooming, it will take its place some day. That's right.

No wonder joyful tears can run down our cheeks. No wonder our hearts quiver and shake when we can feel that same transforming power coming into our lives and filling us, even letting us speak in a language that comes from heaven.

We are so quickened up into his presence there—prophesy, foresee, foretell, and everything hitting perfectly with the Word. If it's prophesying contrary to that, don't believe it; but if it's with the Word, it's already said, “thus saith the Lord.” “Fear not, I am He that was dead and alive forevermore.” That is God's Easter seal.

That seals every letter of this Word into your heart. What is the seal? You are written epistles, read of all men. You know that. But when God has claimed you, He sealed you with the Easter seal, that you are risen with Christ, and you are a new creature. If you haven't been sealed this morning, do so while we bow our heads.

[A message of prophecy is given by someone in the audience.]

Did you hear that? Think now, with your heads bowed. Romans 8:11: “If so be that the Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead be in you, it will also quicken your mortal bodies.”

What can we look forward to, people? What is there left? Look at Formosa and all the world, atomic missiles and everything else just ready to strike the world. They're just so nervous, scared, and screaming, and these movie mimics out there telling all kinds of jokes, just like a little boy going through the graveyard whistling at night, trying to make the people believe that everything is all right. Don't you be deceived. The coming of the Lord is at hand.

Did you notice the other day.... A fisherman came up and told me, sitting down yonder in the bay at some kind of a rugged point or something or another down here, how that long before that earthquake shook over in Greece, all the fish that usually feed about that time of morning, they didn't feed. What was it? They wasn't on the surface. The second time it happened, the same thing took place. He knew right then something was going to happen, and the fish wasn't feeding at that time.

All the gulls and things that feed on the fish, they quit feeding. Early in the morning, that's when they feed. They sat up on the bank, got away from the cliffs and things—for just in a few minutes the sea moss began to boil up out of the earth, off the sea bed. Them fish knew it before it happened.

Going in to India, I read in the paper—it said, “The earthquake must be over.” For days the little birds wouldn't come back to their nests in the rocks, the cattle wouldn't stand around the shelters, under the shade in the heat of the day. The sheep stood right out in the middle of the field and leaned against one another. They wouldn't go up around those rocks two or three days before the earthquake happened. Why? Those sheep knew it. They knew something was going to happen. Those birds knew something was going to happen. Those gulls knew something was going to happen. Those fish knew something was going to happen. It is the same God that led those animals into the ark.

Can't you see, Spirit-filled people, something is fixing to happen? Don't look for some great big universal something sweeping—nothing but the coming of the Lord Jesus. Remember, just remember the words, the promise of the Lord.

Won't you come on in right quick? Get away from them big walls. The resurrection is near at hand, now.

If there is somebody here that don't know that they'd go in that resurrection, and not sure that they've got that resurrection power resting in them.... Though the skin worms destroy it, though an atomic bomb burst right in the middle of you, it'll never destroy that quickening resurrection power. No, no, sister, brother, your precious name is put on the Lamb's book of life up yonder, no man can rub it out. There isn't enough rubbing compounds in the world to rub your name from the book there where his blood has bought it. If you're not sure of that, don't take a chance on it now.

You might take a chance on running through a barricade somewhere and not get killed, but you're not going to run through this barricade. No, no, you're going to get it. You don't have to. There's a red light flashing now. Bypass, bypass your own ideas, bypass the things of the world,

come, let's be resurrected together in this great Easter time, the great celebration of Easter.

Can you celebrate it in your heart this week? If you can't, would you just raise your hand to God and say, “God, I'm not sure of it. I don't know whether I could just do all of that or not. Will you help me? I'm going to raise my hand to You, Lord. Help me.”

God bless you. God bless you. That's good. “I want You, Lord. Help me. I want to be raised. I want to have the potentials right now. I want to know it's right. I want to know that it's right, Lord.”

I can't make no ... I don't want no mistake then, it is going to be too late. Now is the day. Now is the day—don't wait.

Not long ago I was preaching. An old colored man came back there to the back of the building and met me. He said, “Reverend, I wants to tell you. I says you're right.” He said, “I done told the Lord a long time ago, I want my ticket in my hand that morning. I want to know that it's marked right. There's going to be a lotta trouble down there at the river.” He said, “I'm comin' down to that river. I don't want no trouble there. I want to get it all straightened up right here.”

That's right. Got your visa? If you haven't got your visa.... You may have a passport but if you haven't got your visa, you can't enter the land. You know that? Have you got your ... everything ready? If it isn't, right now is the time to do it.

Fear not. If you're a little bit scared, now there is about maybe a hundred hands that went up in here, so if you're just a little bit scared, now let's just settle it.

Now, I know we have had different ways. Some men say, “Come up and let me shake your hands.” Others say, “Come up and kneel at the altar.” Now, them's fine. I haven't got one word to say against it at all. Not a thing ... anything you'll say. But let me just tell you my way, “As many as believed....” Coming to the altar won't make you believe. Shaking hands with the minister won't make you believe. But if you're called of God and you're an eagle to begin with, just a scream tells you. You believe. If you really believe it, I'm going to pray with you.

Could you imagine that little eagle could stay in that barnyard any longer? No! No! No, don't stay here any longer, friend. Let's rapture now. The grace of God is here to do it.

Heavenly Father, we realize that we're coming down towards the closing hour. We haven't too long to be here now. Not as our age, but at the time. We believe there is many a young person sitting here that will be living when this happens, and it may happen yet today. We don't know the minute or hour, but, Lord, You told us, “When you see these things taking place...” and they've been taking place now for a long time.

We know we're way over according to the scientists. Six or seven years ago we were three minutes till midnight. We don't know how much time that is ticking on, but we know we are right there. O God, to have that assurance! To see that our heart punctuates every promise of God with “Amen!” To see that the Spirit itself that has come into us quickens our being!

God, let my brethren see that this morning. Let my brethren see that, that that Spirit comes in and quickens to the Word. Let my sisters see the same thing, Lord. And then, if they see something that won't let them quicken to that Word, O God, may they get rid of it right quick. Grant it, Father. It's all in your hands now.

I know I've failed in many things, and continue to fail, but, Lord, I've done all I know how to do. Now it's in your hands. They are yours in Jesus' name. Receive them, Father.

Now, to you that are here and is needy of healing for your body.... How many believers are here? Raise your hand. “I am a believer, as far as I know my heart.” How many possess, you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that in your heart right now you've been raised from the dead? Oh, my, what could happen in a meeting like this, then!

I know I'm late, but what could happen right now? Just think of what could take place. The potentials are laying right in you.

You, with your hand up, you took like an oath to God: “I know that something has happened to me. I may not be right where I ought to be.”

Neither am I. No, sir. I'm a long ways from where I should be. But I know this one thing: I've passed from death to life. I know that something happened to me.

Not as an old man now, but many, many years ago it happened, and I know that day when I walked into that hospital when I had my great challenge.... I seen my wife die, me calling for her life. “What have I done but stand on the street corner and preach and pray for the sick?”

And then Satan said, “Well, He won't answer your prayer.” I seen her die, but I know that in her was that resurrection power. Them bones shall rise again.

I seen my little baby lay there. I laid my hand on it, and said, “God, don't take it.” It looked like He pulled the curtain down and said, “I won't even hear you anymore.”

Satan said, “There it is. Just one word.” He knew better than to tell me there was no God, because I knew that. But he said He don't love me, He don't care for me. See, every reason.... Said, “You're just a young man, just twenty years old. There lies your wife, lying down in a morgue, and here's your baby going there. And you say He was a great healer and He's all of this. And look, what does He do? One word. He wouldn't even have to speak it, just look down there and say ... just nod his head, that's all. It would take place, it would be healed. But you see, He don't love you. He don't care for you. Let your baby die right there, even refuse to hear your prayer in this dark hour.”

Everything he said was absolutely the truth. He said, “What have you done? Work all day long until you couldn't hardly stand up, and then sit up all night till twelve and one o'clock, standing on the street corners preaching, making calls to the hospital. Come in and sit down in a chair, sit there and sleep an hour or two and go back to work again. Next night, the same thing. Here you are about twenty-one, twenty-two years old. Every friend, every young lady, every young man that you have ever associated with calls you a crazy crank. What have you done? You've made a fool out of yourself. Don't you see it?”

I was just about ready to agree with him and something down in me—that's that quickening power—I said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

When all my hopes give away

Then He is all my hope and stay.

On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand,

When He shall come with trumpet sound,

Oh, may I then in Him be found....“

Wrapped in the robes of his righteousness, not in my own—I don't have any. Mine are filthy, dirty rags.

I would hate to try to go to heaven on my preaching. I would hate to try to go to heaven on my visions. I'm going to heaven because I hold his grace in my heart—his grace to me. That's why I'm going. That's how we go.

Oh, friend, you're a part of this body. You're God's little children. Now, I'm saying this to build your hope. If I've found favor with you and told you the truth, and what I've told you ... as the prophet said of years gone by.... Not making myself his prophet, no, sir; but I'm telling you the truth. Has He ever said anything but what was right? I have known you now for twenty-something years here in Phoenix—since that song, “I'd Like To Talk It Over With Him”—over at Brother Outlaw's church, I believe it was, or Brother Garcia's. Have I ever told you anything in the name of the Lord but what happened?

Remember, there is only one hope. Get this quickening power. It will hold you when everything else has given away, it will hold you.

Some of them said, “Did you keep your religion, Brother Branham?”

I said, “No, it kept me. It keeps me, I don't keep it. It isn't whether I hold on or not; it is whether He held on or not. He is what held on for me. He didn't have to.

Angels were sitting in every tree. “Just pull your finger loose. Just point (you don't have to take it) from the cross. Just point your finger and watch what....” See that mocking bunch? But if He did that, I couldn't have had this testimony today. You couldn't've had it, but because He stayed to the cross, He held there, that is why I hold with Him.

“On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;

All other grounds are sinking sand....“

Now, if you're sick, will you lay your hands upon one another. Let's pray. Just lay your hands on somebody by you. Regardless of what's wrong with you, have faith now. If I ever told you the truth, I tell you now. Jesus said, “These signs shall follow them that believe.” And you're believers—you just raised your hands. Don't doubt. There's some poor suffering person that you've got your hands on. Somebody's got their hands on you.

Remember that quickening power, that power that raised up Jesus from the grave. You have faith in what you've got in your own body. It's going to help that person that you've got your hands on. If it dwells in you, it will also quicken your mortal bodies.

Dear God, as I stand here this morning, nearing the noonday time, when it was about this hour of the day when Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I thirst.” No wonder the prophet foresaw it and said, “All my bones they stare at me, they pierced my hands and my feet....” But, “He was numbered with the transgressors. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.” We claim that this morning, God. We claim that

in the morning of this resurrection.

Notice this vindicated truth that I've told, Lord, from your Word, in the presence of God. He is judge and we are witnesses that He has redeemed us, and in us lays, by the grace of God, that resurrecting power.

Our friends are sick, the ones that the hands are laid upon. O God, we challenge the devil in the midst of our faith this morning, with hands laid upon the people, and me with my hands stretched over the people. Let every disease, every affliction that tries to hold the people in the presence of this vindicated truth, come out in the name of Jesus Christ. May these people be made free today.

The Bible, the words of our God, said, “If they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover.” And our hands have been up in the air towards You, God.

As every plant of the earth drinks at your fountain, and as sure as that plant that is germitized drinks from your fountain, it begins to build up. It begins to grow. The stalk of corn, the flower, whatever it is, is drinking at your fountain, grows up toward You. And this morning we have grown inches, Lord. We can reach up higher. We are drinking at your fountain. We are your creatures, with the resurrection power within us, Lord, and we pray that You'll hear our prayer for our brothers and sisters; and may every affliction that's hindering these dear people here that possesses this power, Lord, turn them loose so they can serve God. And it shall be well, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Do you believe Him? Leave a thing like this? How can you do it? You just have to, it looks like, pull yourself away. Do you feel that way? It may just be me, but I have a feeling, just a strange feeling, when I come among the people where you sit together like this. I know somewhere, invisible here, just like radio, television or whatever it is, passing through this room, Christ is in this room. Just think, our Redeemer. Tony, He is here. Amen! And who could be any happier than people who possess with Bible evidence of every word of God being made manifest to see—even to angels and his being, as they have through the ages, and hear the words of the seers predicted, and it happened just exactly. And here we are at the eve of his coming. Oh, what a wonderful time.

We will see Him. One of these days, He will be here. Until He does come, will you pray for me?

I've got dangerous perils in front of me. I know it. And I meet with heathens who'd shoot you the same as taking a drink of water. And you're just paid for. You come on their grounds—devils that will challenge you on the Bible just as easy ... but I've never seen a time but what our God won the victory. I go in his name, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of eternal life, the resurrection and the life.

“He that liveth and believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” I believe that to be God's eternal Word. Do you believe the same? Will you pray for me? I'll pray for you.

May God watch over us until we meet again.

Now, let us stand up to our feet just a moment. Let us bow our heads. It just wouldn't be right for us not to sing this little song, would it? Do you remember our song, “I Love Him”? Is that in every heart? Let's just sing it. Sister, dear, would you...? I want to say I appreciate your playing, too, sister.

I love Him, I love Him,

Because He first loved me,

And purchased my salvation

On Calvary's tree.

Now, we're going to change the song:

My faith looks up to Thee,

Thou Lamb of Calvary,

Saviour divine!

Now hear me while I pray,

Take all my guilt away,

Oh, let me from this day

Be wholly Thine!

Doesn't that do something to you? How many of you likes that real hard? I like jubilee songs, sure I do, but when you're in a spirit of worship, don't you love those old sweet hymns? I believe the Holy Spirit moved upon Eddie Perronet and them that wrote those grand old songs. Don't you believe that? Fanny Crosby when she wrote:

Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,

Hear my humble cry;

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by.

Thou the stream of all my comfort,

More than life to me,

Whom have I on earth beside Thee?

Or Whom in heaven but Thee.

Isn't that wonderful? That makes us want to sing, “I Love Him,” doesn't it? Now while we sing this time, “I Love Him,” let's.... We love one another. If we don't love one another, then we can't love Him. Now let's just shake one another's hands, just stand, just reach across the table somewhere and shake hands with one another.

I love Him, I love Him,

Because He first loved me;

And purchased my salvation,

On Calvary's tree.“

Let us bow our heads now.

I'm going to ask Brother Williams, young Brother Williams, to come here just a moment. I'm going to ask him if he will dismiss this audience in prayer.

I love Brother Williams, a young Christian, and I think he is truly a servant of Christ, his little family. I have a lot of fellowship with these and the precious Moseley boys, and all of them. We have been together, and so many of my dear friends here in Phoenix that I love with all my heart. And I think that morning in that vision, He said, “All that you ever loved and all that loves you, God has given you.”

There is someone here repenting of their sins. Down on the floor, a young lady crying. Let's just bow our heads a moment for her.

Dear God, is that that little sheep that was left in Phoenix? I don't know, God, You know. But some day it will be. But, Father, this no doubt is one, so I pray that You'll help her just now. Sweetly open up the gate. Say, “Come, child of mine. Come in from the tired, weary road. You've been stumbling out there in the dark. I come out today to get you. It's my Spirit that's speaking to you and bringing you into the fold now.” Grant it, God. May this young woman just at the crossroads of life.... “He that will hear my words and believe on Him that sent me has everlasting life.” Grant it, dear God, to this young Christian.

“He that will come to me, I will in no wise cast out.” While saints are standing over the young woman praying—remember even Paul who was stoned so bad that he was dying, and when the saints stood over and prayed, life come back; because in the bodies of those saints was that quickening power that brought the spirit of life back to St. Paul. God, it can certainly pray the prayer of death out of ... or, death out of the person by the prayer of faith to life. Grant it, dear God. Bless us now as we wait upon Thee. In Jesus Christ's name, we pray. Now, with your heads bowed, I'm going to ask Brother Williams....