Ashamed

Morning friends. It's good to be here this morning. And I think I'm ... I am an intruder on Brother Neville's time. Sitting back there with his ... getting his text together and I walked in. He started folding up his text, and said, “Well....”

It reminds me of years ago there used to be a colored brother down here named Brother Smith, Sister Cross. There were very good friends of mine. And when I'd walk in the building at night, the old fellow, he used ... he had a white mustache. Don't know whether any of you remember him or not. And he would be on the platform, you know, and all of them would be singing, “It's a Highway to Heaven.” And Brother Smith would be just sitting like this, you know. When I walked in the back door, there was a little girl, kind of real dark, she was sitting in the corner, she started clapping her hands, say, “Lift Him Up,” that song you know. They put their own melody to it, you know. And then over the next corner, be somebody else come in again, “Lift Him Up.” Well, that's what they'd sing when I come in the door. I just love that bunch of people. And so, old Brother Smith sat back there a little bit you know, and he's kind of a quiet sort of a fellow. He'd say, “Come in, Elde'. Rest your hat.” Not, “rest yourself,” “rest your hat.” “Come in, Elde'. Rest your hat.” He'd get up there, and I could tell the way he started off, I was in for it, see. He'd say, “Wells,” he says, “children, you know,” he said, “I was sitting here just wondering, 'Lord, what You going to give me to say?' Said, (He kept shaking his head at me) 'I ain't gonna give you nothing to say.'” Said, “I seen Elde' Branham walk in back there,” and I said, “Now, Lord, I just begin to remember....” Well, I was right in for it.

Brother George Wright, how are you? Bless you, Brother Wright. I certainly.... Oh, is that right? Brother Lij' Perry, he says, back there. Where you at, Brother Lij? I haven't seen him in a long.... Why, my goodness. Now we ought to have a real meeting here. Lij Perry, George Wright and some of them old timers that used to be here when you'd almost have to hold the shutters on the place with our hands—the wind blowing. Good seeing you. Is Sister Wright with you? Sister Wright in? She's back there, too. Yes, sir. Well, I'll ... Sister Perry, I see them all now. Well, that's really fine. Good to be in. It's good to sit in these places, so good to be together.

I'd planned on so hard coming back, burdened in the heart. I just returned from Africa, as you all know. And when I got over there, I had a restricted visa and wouldn't let me preach because it gathers too many together. They're expecting an uprise there at any time; and they wouldn't let me preach, because of that gathering too many people together. The only way I could, would I have some organization that's represented by the government—in the government—to invite me over, then that would automatically let the government send out a militia for protection. See, they're just ... there's just going to be an uprise and that's all there is to it. It's just right in hand. The government man said the last time he was here, he had about a quarter of a million people together. And he said, “Then you see, that'd just be the very thing that communism is looking for, for an uprise.” So I couldn't preach. Those people standing there, waving their hands crying, “Remember my mother.” “Remember my brother die....” “My....” there, and in behind a bar, you know—bars of wire—and it just made you feel real bad.

And I come back home,

and I thought, “Well....” My son, Joseph, back there, had let down a little bit in his reading, and he had ... he passed all right, but he had to take it over; he wasn't reading good enough. So I thought, “Well, we're going to have to stay home a little while,” and I said, “if we stay home, it's going to ruin the kids' vacation.” So we just postponed it and taken him over to another part in August and come back here for a couple, three weeks.

I said, “I believe while we're back there, I'll just take and hold a meeting. We'll get that school auditorium up here, and we'll have a meeting from the 28th on through to the 1st—a meeting at the school auditorium. I wanted to preach on the subject of the outpouring of them Seven last Vials” And so we called ahead, and we had a little disappointment. They won't let us have these schools no more; it's too many people crowds in. We can't have it nowhere. And so, then I decided while we was back here then, instead of....

We can't put all the people if we'd advert.... (It's never been advertised, now.) So if we put all the people ... try to put them in the tabernacle here, we couldn't do it, see. It'd just.... Five days in here would be awful. So sitting in there talking with Brother Neville and Brother Wood and them, we have decided to do this; if we can't.... Instead, that'd make us have five services. That'd be 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st and 1st. Well, I feel if we have.... Beginning next Sunday, we can have two services: Sunday morning and Sunday night (that's the 18th); and then on the 25th, have Sunday morning, Sunday night (that's four services); then on August the 1st, have a Sunday morning and Sunday night (that'd give us six services). And then it won't make such a jam to get the people in. And I think that.... Don't you think that'd be better than having everybody just crowded and mashed together and everything? Then just that.... For them two services we can put up with that, but everybody kind of pull together. For five nights straight, it would make it hard.

Now, I want to get with the trustees and the elders here, while I'm here.

This is becoming everywhere. We're living in these last days, that where the Gospel does not have the preeminence as it should have; it don't have the rights that it should have; it's all sowed up in politics and things—just like a union. And that's what it's finally coming to, because the mark of the beast has to come by union, we know, so we ... because it's a boycott; no man can buy or sell, save him that have the mark of the beast.

And now, I want to find out through the elders.... I feel led.... I've never had such a hunger in my heart for God in all my life as I have now, see. And I want to get my own tent and my stuff like the Lord gave me a vision to, and I believe the time is just now at hand. And I want to see while I'm here why we can't get the tent. And then when we go, like come here to Jeffersonville—instead of having just a day or two, or three or four days, we can go out here and put up this tent and have two or three weeks (you see?) and just, nobody can say nothing about it. We can either take a ball park; or if they won't let us have, there's a farmer out here will let us have a farm. We'll rent the farm and put it up. The only thing we'd just have to do there would be make our out-buildings and so forth and a-for our conveniences, and that could be easily done. And then we start having our services like that, because that's according to a vision from the Lord, to be done in that way.

And coming in yesterday and finding, you know, this, that, and was going up the street, and a good friend of mine going along there said, “Hello, Billy.” I looked at him and snow white hair, that much tummy, and the boy's my age! We run around together (handsome young fellow) when I was a kid. It kind of made me feel funny.

My little son Joseph said, “Why you sad, Daddy?”

“Oh,” I said, “I can't explain it to you, Joseph. See, I can't tell you.”

And I look at Lij Perry sitting back there and Mrs. Perry. It seemed like yesterday they were a little black-headed couple out there living next door to me, when we had the old boat Wahoo, and down on the river and fished at night—see them both white-headed. You know, it says one thing; it's a little buzzer that comes on: “You ain't got much more time!” See?

So, I want every day of my life to count for Him. What I have left, what time I have, I want to spend it somewhere doing something—if it's no more than standing on a street corner, testifying to the glory and honor of God. And I'm here for that purpose.

And I've got a little secret place up here at Green's Mill, Indiana. It's not a city now; it's a wilderness. And some people's taken it over, and they won't even let you set a foot on it; but I got a cave there that he'd never find me when I got into it. I go in at nighttime, and he'll never know when I go in or come out. And he don't know where the cave is and couldn't get to it, no matter where it was. And I want to go over and talk to the Lord awhile; I feel that it's a necessity.

The wife, she wants to come ... want to come back and visit around, and Rebekah, and Sarah, and them, with their friends; and we're back here now for next three weeks, if the Lord willing.

And I think instead of trying to jam the people all together for them meetings here in the tabernacle ('course, this belongs to us—belongs to the Lord ... give it to us and it's air-conditioned), we'd like to have a Sunday morning service, a Sunday night service. That'd let people go back to their place, then wait over until the next coming week.

I don't think I could take and officially do justice to the pouring out of those Last Vials, because they're very, very great message in that. But I could pray for the sick and do things that I ... have messages to the ... as the Lord will give them to me—for the church. Through the week I'll get out here in the wilderness somewhere and study, come back on Sunday morning and have Sunday morning service like this and a Sunday night service.

Our most gracious little pastor, Brother Neville ... I asked him if that would be satisfaction to him. That's taking all of his services away from him, but he was more than glad to surrender it over to that.

I just ...

Brother Capps, he, I guess, got the roaming fever too, and I see he's left, and Brother Humes. And the Lord had a Brother Mann here just to take right over the place.... You know, isn't that wonderful how God will do things? He always has everything timed just right.

I come up and I heard somebody preaching, and I said, “That don't....” I believe Brother Capps ... He come to Tucson, and I think it bluffed him right quick; it was about 110 degrees. He didn't want nothing to do with that, so away he went—him and Brother Humes—and went up to Phoenix. (Of course, it's 115 to '16 to '18 up there.) That was still worse, so I think he took off to Texas after that. He is trying to find a place. But you don't want no Arizona this time of year. I tell you.

It was 140 degrees the other day (last Friday) ... 140 degrees at Parker. That's where Brother Craig from the church here lives. And you can break an egg; it'll fry before it hits the ground. You spit and the moisture's gone. It's just.... There's no humidity nor nothing. It's really a bake-oven this time of year. But from about November, December, and January, it's wonderful; but when it comes about March and April you better get away if you don't want to suffocate.

And so, Brother Capps and them happened to come just at that time, which I think run them out. So maybe the Lord did that for a purpose. I'm believing this, that God orders the footsteps of the righteous.

Sometimes it seems hard.

Like the other day on this trip to Africa: I was so sure that I was moving in the will of God, because a year ago I was down in the South holding a series of meetings, and they.... I thought, coming from that organization that said, “You can come on through the Christian Businessmen, but we'll have nothing to do with it.”

Well, I don't want to throw them men right in on ... you know, make conflict. I want to make them feel good at one another. So, I just said, “Well,...” (wrote them a letter) I said, “Remember....”

I have tried to get into Africa for years again, feeling that my ministry isn't finished in Africa. I have no.... Why would I have to go to Africa, when I've got six, seven hundred cities right here in the United States calling, see? Just right here without leaving Canada, Mexico, or any of these places. Why should I want to go there? But it's something in my heart that pulls me to Africa. Those people ... there's something about them that I love, and I want to go just for the colored people only, and there's something in.... Lot of them—them leaders—they don't feel I should do that. I want to go to my colored friends. That's where the Lord called me. And they're needy. Many of those people.... Those white people can have doctors and everything, but them poor natives live out there and half rotten.... I feel they're the ones that looks like they'd receive it. They're the ones. There's something about it.

When you get to a spot you're so smart that you know everything, then God can't do nothing with you. But if you get to a place that you're willing to listen and learn, then it's God time to move in and talk to you.

And so I wrote them a letter back and told them ... I said, “Remember, at the day of the judgment, let them bony hands reach out of the smoke, condemn you. Their blood be upon you, not on me, because I've tried for about ten years to get back.

Then when I mailed the letter, come back, something said to me, “See Sidney Jackson; take a hunting trip.” The same time the Lord spoke to Sidney Jackson and said, “Yellow-mane lion, Brother Branham, camping, Durban, big meeting.”

He was over here; he spoke with you here. By the way, we baptized.... He was firmly against this baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and his wife was worse than he was; she would just walk away. I'm telling you, I never seen any more devout people. They've got about 150 ministers over there baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they're just burning the country up. The message is just sweeping Africa everywhere; aviators and great men coming, being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

And so I.... When I started to go over, I'm telling you, I never had so much trouble in all my life to trying to get there. And then at the very last minute—very last minute to go—here it was wrote across my visa, “Cannot anticipate in any kind of religious service; can only come hunting.”

Well then, it was rank, but I said, “I don't care what the devil does, I can't voucher for what Brother Jackson said about yellow-mane lion and this, that, or the other. I can't vouch.... But I do know God told me to see Sidney Jackson and go hunting, and,” I said, “I'm going.” And sometimes.... And I had one of the greatest trips; I found what the trouble was. Now, I think about October, the Lord willing, I can go back and have a meeting and everything, full cooperation, and everything else (see?) in Africa now. I got to the bottom of it and found out where it was at, what caused it.

Up here writing, this one's got this to say, and something's got something to say, and this one there.... The best thing to do is go find out yourself; and I know where the trouble was and what the reason of it was. It was because of so many people gathering together, the government wouldn't let me have it.

Now, if the Christian Businessmen or any organization which will bring us in, then the government automatically.... Because the organization is represented with the government, the government sends militia protection.

If there'd be twenty-five men out of one denomination, twenty-five out of another, still they won't receive that. It's got to be the head of this organization, and Christian Business Man is a non-sectarian organization representing all the churches—Dr. Simon, their head over there, a very fine man; I got to meet him and talk with him—and they're taking the meetings, and all the rest of the churches is coming in together, see. And I believe we'll have one of the greatest meetings that's been had in Africa.

But my point was this: when you know that you're trying to do what's right, the first thing if you feel led to do anything, then check it with the Word and see if it's right with the Word; and then let nothing stop you. I don't care how many wheels the devil throws in the way, just move right over the top of them.

I told my wife, and I told Brother Wood when I got here, and some friends that I met yesterday: I have had about five years here that I hardly knowed what to do. It's been a nervous.... See, the revival itself amongst the churches has died; everyone knows that. You feel it in this tabernacle; you feel it everywhere. There is a “thunk”—dead feeling. There's just something isn't right; it's because the revival enthusiasm has gone away from the people. Go into the churches; you'll see them sitting there, and the pastor stumbling around for a message and something another, and the first thing you know he's turned off on some kind of a party they're going to have or something. It seems to be a dead “thunk” everywhere.

Billy Graham notices it. Oral Roberts.... Mr. Allen had some trouble, as you know. Oral Roberts got that fifty million dollar buildings and so forth in there; he's got a school. And well, there's nobody on the field now.

I left here by a vision to go yonder to Tucson to see what the Lord wanted me to do. There He met me up there, as He told you here He would do it, and ... the form of seven angels, and said to return back and the seven seals was to be opened. That's just exactly what happened.

He said.... One day with Brother Wood when he come out there, we went to the same place and throw up a rock; it come down. He said, “Within a day and night you're some [I forget just what the words was] you're going to see the glory of God.” And the next day a whirlwind came down out of the skies, and we know the story of what taken place. When it went up, they asked what it was. I said, “It spoke three words in three great blasts.” The men only heard the blasting. I understood what it said, “Judgment striking West Coast.” Two days after that, Alaska liked to have sunk. It's been thundering around, earthquakes, everything.... Just look at them; every day earthquakes just shaking everywhere.

My last meeting ... last meeting I had.... This will be my first message really to preach since then. I was preaching in Los Angeles at the Biltmore Auditorium, and I was speaking on a man choosing himself a wife. You probably got the tape of it. I said it reflects his character and his ambitions; that when a man takes a woman, he takes a young girl to be his wife, and he takes a (you know) a modern girl that's a common Ricketta, it just shows what his.... If he marries a beauty queen or a sex queen, whatever it is, it shows what's really in the man.

But a Christian, he looks for character in a woman, because he's planning a future home with that woman. He gets a homemaker. And I said, “Then Christ, according to His Word here, tells us what our future home will be. What kind of a wife will he choose then? A denominational prostitute? Never! He'll choose a woman that's characterized by His Word, and that'll be the bride.”

And while in there something struck me, and I didn't know nothing for about thirty minutes. There's a prophecy went out. First thing I remember, Brother Moseley and Billy, I was out on the street walking. And it said, “Thou Capernaum, which calls yourself by the name of the Angels [That's Los Angeles, City of Angels, see—the angels], which are exalted into heaven, will be brought down into hell; for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom that's been done in you, it would've been standing till this day.” And that was all unconsciously to me, see.

And how I just got through exhorting—Christ, exalting Him—and telling the church ... I said, “You women, no matter how I try to come to you or preach against these things that.... You men, you preachers, you constantly conned all the time, do it just the same. You walk over it as if the Word of God wasn't nothing.”

And when I understood that, I went ... I said, “There's a Scripture about that somewhere.” And I went and found it was Jesus rebuking Capernaum by the sea coast. That night I looked up the Scriptures, come home, got the history book, and Sodom and Gomorrah was once a thriving city, a Gentile headquarters of the world. And you know, that city by an earthquake sank into the Dead Sea; and Jesus stood and said, “Capernaum. if Sodom would've had the works done in it that you've had done in you, it would've been standing today; but now, you must be brought down to hell.” And about two hundred or three hundred years after His prophecy, well, all them coastal towns, every one of them's still standing but Capernaum, and it lays in the bottom of the sea. A earthquake sunk it into the sea.

And then prophesying, “Los Angeles will be in the bottom of the sea,” and I come home and went to Africa; and while I was in Africa, they had a earthquake, and scientists.... You seen it; it was on a broadcast that some of the big, fine homes tumbled in (in Los Angeles), and a motel, and so forth. And now, there is.... Since that earthquake, there's a two or three inch crack that come in the earth, starting in Alaska, goes around through the Aleutian Islands, comes out about a hundred fifty or two hundred miles in the sea, comes back up at San Diego, takes in California ... or Los Angeles, and comes out again just below the northern part of California there—a little place called San Jose, just below there.

And this scientist was speaking, being on an interview (we watched it on television), and he said, “Beneath that is just a churning lava.” And he said ... they.... He said, “A chunk will break loose,” and said, “and it will....”

And this man—scientist—interviewing this chief scientist, said to him, said, “Well, that could, then, all sink?”

He said, “Could? It's got to.”

Said, “Well, of course, we probably be many, many years from now.”

He said, “It can be in five minutes from now, or it can be in five years from now.” He just 'lotted five years.

But just as I sure as standing there under that inspiration, put judgment on that West Coast, and then followed it right up here with the sinking of Los Angeles; she's gone. That's right. It will happen. When? I don't know.

But oh, what happened? You know, we only got six continents now; we had seven. That one that sunk between Africa and the United States.... Oh, it's historical; you know about it.

Now, if that goes down.... Then I want you to watch when....

This was a sermon that I preached on in.... I believe Brother Lij Perry might've been deacon here in the church at that time, for all I know. But it said, “The time will come (I didn't know it until Mrs. Simpson brought me the sermon the other day, and it got wrote in a little book) that the desert ... that the ocean shall weep its way into the desert.” That was thirty years ago. And of course, the Salton Sea is about two hundred feet below sea level, and if that big churning ... that earth swallowing in like that with hundreds of square miles—hundreds and hundreds of square miles—sinking into the earth, that'll throw a tidal wave plum to Arizona. Sure it would!

Oh, we're at the end time! Glorious hour! The appearing of the Lord Jesus.... He said, “There shall be earthquakes in divers places, perplexed of time, distress between nations, men's heart failing in fear....” Said, “When these things begin to happen, raise up your heads; your redemption's drawing nigh.” Oh my!

Nation's are breaking;

Israel's awakening;

The signs that the prophets foretold;

The Gentile's days numbered

With horrors encumbered,

Return, O dispersed to your own.

(Be sure to do that.)

That day of redemption in near;

Men's hearts are failing for fear;

Be filled with God's Spirit,

Have your lamps trimmed and clear;

Look up, your redemption is near. (That's right.)

False prophets are lying;

God's truth they're denying,

That Jesus the Christ is our God....

See the picture the other day? How you turn that picture sideways there, and the very picture of those seven angels being lifted up.... Turn it to the right-hand side, and there's the face of the Lord Jesus looking down to the earth again. Remember, when I preached the Seven Church Ages, I couldn't understand why Jesus standing there with a white ... over His head; He was a young man. I took it back in the Bible, and it said, “He came to the Ancient of Days, Whose hair was white as wool.” Jesus was only 33½ years old at His crucifixion.

I called up Brother Jack Moore, a theologian. He said, “Oh, Brother Branham, that's Jesus in His glorified stage.” Said, “After His death, burial, and resurrection, He turned to that.” That sounded all right for a theologian, but it didn't go good; it didn't hit the something.

I went up there and started on the First Church Age; there the Holy Spirit revealed it. (You got it right on your Church Ages. I guess the books will be out pretty soon now—the full detail of it.) And it showed that Jesus was Judge. There's a white wig that they used to wear—put a wig on and wear as a judge; England still does it. When you got supreme authority.... And that turning sideways in this picture, there He is—His black hair (you can see it in the side of His beard) and the white wig on. He is the last of the authority; He's supreme authority, even God said so Himself: This is my beloved Son ... Hear ye Him.

There He is with them angels, the message, which was the seven ... breaking of them Seven Seals that revealed serpent's seed and all these things here, and it shows that it is His very covering; it's His supreme authority. He is supreme and He's wigged ... or covered. The Bible said that He changed His countenance or He changed Himself—En Morphe. The word comes from the Greek word, En Morphe, which means “a Greek actor that plays many parts.” Today He's one thing, and in the next act He's something else. He was God the Father in one act, He's God the Son in another act, and God the Holy Ghost in this act. There He is; His Word is still supreme. We're living in the last days.

Coming back from Africa the other day, I ... kind of tired. You see, it's just ... it's nighttime there now, and you have to turn around; and then time I got turned around, come back again. We had a wonderful trip (hunting trip), one of the best I ever had in my life. Billy's got the pictures. Maybe you have the time, he can show it somewhere and show you the trip.

I had a dream. I'm always dreaming of being back at that Public Service Company somehow. So I thought I was kind of rattin' on the job. I was supposed.... They just let me have my own way, and I thought I'd.... Instead of going out and walking the lines, or collecting the bills, or something I was supposed to do, I just said, “Well, I'm my own boss.” I just went swimming. And I got down there and took off my ... these clothes and put on my swimming clothes. I was by myself, and I thought, “Say, this ain't right. The Company.... This is daytime; the Company is paying me for this time.” I thought, “That's strange.” And then I thought, “Well, the money I collected on the route....” I had both the patrol and the route mixed together, and I said, “Well, the money I collected, I've done something, roping around here; I've lost all the tickets, and I got their money and my money mixed together. Now, how do I know who paid the bill?” I thought, “Just because I wasn't paying attention!” I thought. “That's not right. There's only one thing for me to do, that's go back to my superintendent and tell him.” (That was Don Willis.)

I said, “Don, I lost those tickets. Now, here is all the money I got, and here's their money together; leave it here at the cashier, and the people when they come in, they'll have a receipt that I receipted their bill.”

Probably people sitting right here that I—I know there is—that I collected from them in the days and I'd give a receipt. You know it was only ten percent if you let your bill run over, and maybe $1.50, be fifteen cents over. A lot of them people lived.... We'd just like to get together and talk, and they'd just let their bill go and me come talk to them awhile. Give fifteen cents, you know, just to sit down and talk a little while to collect their bill. So it got rank and just got so many bills I couldn't collect them. Well, I thought that's the only way I could do it, and I woke up.

The place where we live, Sister Larson (I don't think she's here; she's been very nice to us, and she don't like for me to say that, but she's a very fine lady) and we've been living in her rooms. She got two apartments (small apartments together); we rented them both. And wife and I sleep over here in the other apartment, where I kind of receive the people when I can and.... There's couple of little twin beds in there. I woke up; she wasn't awake yet. And after a while she woke up, and I waved over at her, and she looked back and batted her eyes a few times. I said, “You sleep good?”

She said, “Nope.”

And I said, “I had the awfullest dream. I was back at that Public Service Company again.” I said, “What have I done?”

I remember as a little boy ... or a young man, I'd walked all those lines at Salem, Indiana, different ... go in, buy a breakfast—maybe a bowl of oats. In that hot sun and everything, it'd just make me sick to eat breakfast. I'd turn in ten cents on my petty cash. The superintendent come down and said. “You know what they said in the meeting, 'Who is that knothead that would turn in ten cents for breakfast?'” Said, “You ought to at least turn in fifty cents.” (Now, all of you know fifty cents was a big breakfast in them days.)

And I said, “Well, I don't eat that much.”

He said, “Well, the rest of them turns in fifty cents; you ought to turn in fifty cents.”

I said, “Well, I don't use it.”

Said, “Turn it in anyhow.” (That was my superintendent.)

Well, I thought, “Well, what can I do? I have to charge fifty cents and I eat ten cents.” So I'd go out on the street and get some little kids that didn't have no breakfast and get them forty cents worth of breakfast.

So then, I thought, “Well, what could I.... Maybe that's what He holds against me.”

I remember here not long ago, they come through on the patrol and tore up that backyard back there and said, “Turn in your bill.” You know they got patrol rights, but they have to pay for damage. I just wrote back and said, “You don't owe me nothing.” I thought, “That'll pay for them forty centses. Maybe I've spent twenty, thirty dollars during that time, giving it to kids. Maybe that would....” Kept on dreaming.

Then I had a big tree out there the kids played under it, and the patrol.... Now they patrol in a helicopter. So he come in and said, “Billy, how about cutting that tree out?”

“Nope, don't cut it; we're going to trim it.” I said, “Brother Wood and I are going to trim it.”

He said, “Well, I'll just have the man come by and trim it.”

I said, “Now, don't cut it.”

He said, “I won't cut it.”

I went off on a trip; when I come back she was cut—on the ground. Then I had a lawsuit coming, you see. I said, “Well, Lord, this will clear it up....” So I struck that off; that was all right, just let it go.

Well, I still dreamed it.

When I got up the other morning, I said, “Well....” First thing we do of a morning when we get up is pray together, then pray when we go to bed at night. And then after she went on over to get the kiddies' breakfast, I started to pray. I said, “Lord, I must've been an awful guy. What have I done in life that I can't get away from that Public Service Company?” I went in and took a bath, come back out, and something just seemed to say to me, “Maybe I'm rattin' on His job.” I thought, “Here's about five years I ain't done nothing, just waiting on Him.”

Standing up there the other day (they built us a new home up there, and Brother Moseley come down, was talking about it), and I said, “That's just a little gift from my Father.” And he started crying. I said, “You see, He said, 'If you'll leave your homes, houses, lands, fathers, mothers, I'll give you houses, lands, fathers, mothers and hundredfold in this life and eternal life to come.'” I said, “See, I had to leave the tabernacle that I love so dearly; my home that the Lord give me up there—had to leave it. He just give me this one back.” I said, “He's wonderful, you see.” And he started crying.

Well, I said, “I had to come out here and separate myself—come to this desert.” And I thought, “Wonder why God'd bring me to a desert, out here where there's nothing but scorpions and Gila monsters?”

It's not only a desert—Is it hot?—but it's spiritually a desert. Oh, my! There's no spiritual life at all. The churches are against.... Well, you never see such in your life. We don't even have a church to go to or nothing. And then when then the.... The people almost perish spiritually. I can notice it in the people that come out there, see the difference is in them, watching them, and so.... You stay under the Spirit of God, your life becomes sweet, tender, like water brings this grass and soft buds. If this grass in Arizona wouldn't grow, these trees would be cactus. Them leaves just wind up and make stickery. That's the way it is when you get dry around the church: Everybody's sticking one another, you know, and ... see. You got to have the soft waters of rain to soften you up and make leaves and shade for the pilgrim that passes by.

And so, something said to me, “Maybe you're rattin' on God's job.” So I'd prayed for a vision. And Meda just got me a new Bible, and Brother Brown from up in Ohio got me a new Bible—both of them at the same time, at Christmas. I went and got one of the new Bibles, and I said, “Lord, in the days gone by, you had a Urim and Thummim.”

Now listen, let me say this. Course they're not ... this is not ... taping—this meeting. The reason I'm ask—saying this.... Let me say this: Don't do this—it's not a good thing—but I said, “Lord, used to be when a dreamer dreamed a dream, that they took it down to the Urim and Thummim and told it, and if the Urim and Thummim flashed the lights back (the supernatural light), the dream was true.” I said, “But that priesthood and that Urim and Thummim is done away with. Your Bible is the Urim and Thummim now. Lord, may I never do this again; and I've asked You and prayed to You to give me a vision, speak to me about why I am dreaming these dreams. What have I done? If I've harmed ... if I've done anything to any person in the world, let me know; I'll go make it right. If I owe the Public Service Company, if I've done something wrong to them or any other person, if I've done something wrong to You, let me know; I want to make it right.” Let's make it right now, don't wait till after a while; it may be too late; let's do it now.

And I said, “Surely, there's something in this Word of God from Genesis to Revelation, that some character in there that You dealt with would be on the same basis that would be my question. If somebody done something and You got after them about it, then let me turn to that place in the Bible. And if somebody.... Whatever they done, it'll lean my way. Where I've done wrong, or something You want me to do—or haven't done—let me see some character in the Bible like that.” And I closed my eyes, just let the Bible fall open; put my finger on a Scripture and Genesis 24:7: Eliezer, Abraham's faithful servant, the model servant of the Bible, being sent to hunt the bride for Isaac. Chills run over me.

Sure, that's my ... that's right with the rest of my message: pulling out the bride. He said, “Swear that you'll not take a bride out of these, but go to my own people.”

He said, “What if the woman won't come with me?”

He said, “Then you're free of this oath.” He said, “And the God of heaven will send His angel before you to direct you.” He went right straight out and begin praying, and he met the beautiful Rebekah that become the bride of Isaac.

Just a perfect message back to the Word, “Go get that bride.” That's a duty; that's what I'm here for; that's what I'm trying to do, is call out a bride.

Remember in California there, that interview of the bride ... preview (I had it here) how that bride come up first and seen her go by, then here come Miss America, Miss Asia, and all—oh, the awfullest looking thing—and then the same bride passed by again. One of them got out of step and I was getting her back in step (two of them, it was), and that's what I was supposed to do: keep that bride in step, hunt that....

I said, “God, I'm going back home, renew my vows again, and start out anew.” So, that's what we're planning on doing; that's what I'm here for.

I think it'd be a good thing if we did this: started in the 18th, next Sunday morning, next Sunday night, the following Sunday and the following Sunday. How many thinks that'd be a good thing? Thank you.

Now, I want you to do something for me. If you've notified any people that there's going to be a meeting on the 28th, will you renotify them again that we couldn't do it? Write them a letter or something or other. We don't want the people come and be disappointed, but we could not get the auditorium. See, we couldn't get it. And so.... Because the last meeting I think we had so many up there and everything, they just.... You know how the public is, and they're.... Well, we're just living in the last days, that's all. And they claim that the people come in and disturb the school, and they were there too early, and they did this, or that, or something another; and the place was too jammed up, and the fire marshal does this and that, and well.... You know. So, we will set up those vials and those trumpets.... I want to place them in; I told you I would. They come under another thing, so does the vials come under sounding the trumpets; but we want to take that entire course right straight through and bring it ... tie it in together.

How many's read any of Brother Vayle on rewriting that and fixing it up and grammarizing it for me? Have you read any of it? You have? Two or three of you. I think you done a real job, Brother Vayle—a real job. Do you.... I think Sister Vayle did it, and you just a-wrote it down, see. She was a.... See, I'm not always against the women, am I, Sister Vayle?

So now, let us for the next fifteen, twenty minutes read a Scripture here. I.... And I got a little book here.... I told, I believe it was to Brother Vayle, or who was it? I believe it was Roy Borders. Brother Vayle bought me the book. I want to make a little textbook.

But if anybody ever looked at what I call notes.... Like I want to preach about the Morning Star, I'll draw a star; and if I want to preach something about.... I make it all in symbols here, scratches. Nobody can ever know what it was.

Well, I'm out, and I think of anything, I got a.... Riding on the road, sometimes, the car jumping up and down and I'll jot this down and say this and that, and make little signs, and crossing bridges, and all kinds of things. Like I want to preach on the descending of the Star, and I'll put the pyramid—draw it out here—and put the five-point Star of David coming down to it; and I know where I'm going in the Scriptures like that. And Moses, a certain thing he done ... just make little turkey tracks like. I got several of them in here and I thought this morning back there when I thought I'd speak on this subject for a few minutes here, on a note (maybe it would take me twenty minutes)

and then.... I ain't going to take Brother Neville's service tonight. I'm going to rest tonight, listen to him; and then, the Lord willing, next Sunday morning we'll start the service. And you all help me and we'll pray, because it was in my heart to try....

They said, “Well, we could go to Louisville, or we could go down in New Albany”; but the meeting was supposed to be for Jeffersonville. I'll go to Louisville and New Albany at different times, but this was supposed to be here at Jeffersonville.

Now, let's bow our heads just a minute while we been ... I've been talking to you here for about thirty minutes; let's speak to Him a moment.

Lord Jesus, we are certainly a blessed people above our thinking, above our understanding, for if there was a noble among us, such as some personnel from some other country or diplomat of some sort, we'd think it was great to have such a noble person among us. But today, we have the God of heaven not only among us, but in us, dwelling, living His life through us, and we're so thankful for this, Lord. It's beyond our understanding, of course.

But now, speaking on what the services ... and going to Africa and the things that we've tried to arrange for these few days here in Indiana. And somehow or another, Lord, it may be You're driving us to that tent, to make that vision fulfill. So, Thy will be done; we've committed it this way, the best of our understanding. So, we pray, Lord, if there's anything contrary to Your will, You'll make it known to us, that we might know to do Your perfect will.

Now, bless us in these next few minutes. Speak to us through Thy Word, Lord, for Thy Word is truth. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's turn in the Bible to Mark the eighth chapter.

[Brother Branham speaks to someone on platform.] Now, just a little short message here that I can speak to you about the Word, after testifying about over there, and so forth. Mark the eighth chapter and let's begin about the thirty-fourth verse to the ... thirty-... taking the thirty-... and the rest of that chapter. I like to read what He said, because I know that's true. Now:

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; ... whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.

For what shall it profit a man, if he ... gains the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

I want to take a little text from there (if it'd be called that)

called, “Ashamed.” You know, I like that: “Whosoever is ashamed of me and of my words, I'll be ashamed of him.”

Now the word ashamed could be also translated “embarrassed.” You know, something that you're.... You're faced with something that you're embarrassed about—being ashamed.

Another thing being ashamed does, it shows that you are not sure of what you're talking about. If you know what you're talking about and have the assurance that you know what you're talking about, you can tell anybody that. You're not ashamed. But if you feel put out, out of place, it shows you're not sure.

You notice, there's so much of that today, especially on the subject that I'm speaking of, Ashamed of The Word.

Now, He and the Word are the same: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ... the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So, “Whosoever is ashamed of me and my word [and He and His Word are one, so being ashamed of His Word in this sinful, present generation], I'll be ashamed of him!”

Now, we notice today if somebody says, “Are you a Christian?” it's very much a popular thing say, “Oh, I'm a Christian,” see. “But do you believe the Word of God where it said, 'These signs shall follow them that believe'?” Oh-h-h, every ministers' faces will blush, see. Are you ashamed of, say, of divine healing? Are you ashamed of the Full Gospel? Are you ashamed of your Pentecostal experience? That's being ashamed of His Word. That's His Word made flesh in you.

So, His Word has to live itself out for every generation. It lived itself out in the days of Moses, because in that day, the Bible says in Hebrews first chapter, “God in sundry times and divers manners spake to the fathers by the prophets....” And those prophets.... The church got all so twisted up that when those prophets.... Those daring messengers of God come without church, without denomination, without organization, without anything, and defied kings, kingdoms, churches, and everything.

When the priests was brought before ... they was brought before the priests, they wasn't ashamed, because they had directly “thus saith the Lord!” If you notice, the prophet in one sense of the word in the Old Testament, when he said “Thus saith the Lord”—now, watch him—he goes right into the phrase of taking the place of God. You notice, when he placed out before him “thus saith the Lord,” he fell right into God, and he acted as God, then he gave his message, which was God speaking through him, “Thus saith the Lord!”

I think of the prophets of old when they come with that message and it embarrassed the kings, and it made the people feel uncomfortable—the priest even. They would feel uncomfortable, because they were supposed to be leaders, religious men; and when the Word came forth in that manner, it exposed them, and they felt embarrassed or ashamed.

And many times we see that, not many ... too often today, that men.... You say, “I am a Christian.”

“Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?”

“Oh-h uh ... ha!”

See, they're embarrassed about it.

Somebody say, “Do you belong to that group up there that does all that there shouting and all that divine healing stuff?” Many times Christians back up. They want to announce it if they got a denomination: “I'm Baptist”; “I'm Presbyterian”; “I'm Lutheran.” They're not ashamed of that,

but when it comes to being a Christian that can take God's Word just the way it is, then they're ashamed.

“I don't belong to any denomination,” see. They're ashamed to say that. They've got to be like the rest of the world, represented by some organization.

Now, that's just recently come into that. In the days of Luther, to recognize yourself as a Lutheran, a follower of Luther, why, it almost meant death by the Catholic church. In the days of Wesley, to know that you had defied the Anglican church, it was almost a penalty of death by the Anglicans to announce that you were a Methodist. In the days of Pentecost, it was a shame almost to say that you was a Pentecostal, because you was quickly counted a holy roller, or some tongue-speaker, or something like that. Now, they organized and went right in with rest of the group.

Now, when the calling-out time comes, that you don't belong to any of it, it's very popular to say, “I'm Pentecostal”; it's very popular to say, “I'm Presbyterian,” “Lutheran.” But what.... It comes to the time that you'll have to come out and stand for the Word. “I don't belong to any of it.” That uh ... embarrassed.

MARK 8:38 LUKE9:26

Jesus said, “Now, if you're ashamed of me, then I'll be ashamed of you.” Why would He be ashamed of you? Because you're claiming to be His when you won't follow Him.

What if I said, “This little boy, he's my son.”

He'd turn around and say, “Who? Me be your son? What do you think I am!”

It would embarrass me, it would to your son. And that's the way that so-called Christianity today.... If you named by a name of a denomination, all right; they accept the fatherhood of a denomination. But when it comes to accepting the Fatherhood of the Word of God—Christ—no! They're embarrassed; they don't want to say, “Yes, I have spoke with tongues. Yes, I've seen visions. Yes, I believe in divine healing. Yes, I praise the Lord; I'm free from all organization; I'm not bound down to any of that; I'm a servant of Christ.” Oh my, that just tear them to pieces.

The other night a great speaker come in amongst the Full Gospel Businessmen in Chicago. May I stop here just a minute to say this (you excuse me); but many times you think, and I do too, that what we're talking about, the truth of the Bible, don't go over amongst the people; but it does. Sometimes they'll rear right up against it, but they really don't mean it. They're trying to find where you're standing.

As the story was about a bunch of drunks arguing that there was no such thing as Christianity, one man said, “I know where there is one at; that's my wife.”

Said, “Well, I don't believe it.”

Said, “Come on, we'll.... Let's act like we're really drunk.”

Went up there at the house and done everything they could, and told them cook them some eggs, and then he throwed them out on the floor and said, “You know better'n to cook my eggs like that!” —carrying on in the house. And they went over in the other room and fell down in a chair; they heard somebody out there sweeping it up, not saying a word, saying ... singing a little song to herself:

Must Jesus bear the cross alone,

And all the world go free?

... there's a cross for every one,

And there's a cross for me.

And this consecrated cross I'll bear,

Till death shall set me free,

And then go home a crown to wear....

That old drunk said, “What'd I tell ya?” Said, “She's a Christian!” See? They was only trying her. And sometimes the world, I've found out, try you.

So, I never thought this would happen, but last Saturday night, I believe it was, or Sunday night, the great speaker—I don't ... subject to calling people's names—but he's trying, working exactly contrary.... I'm trying to keep them churches out of that ecumenical move, and this man's trying to put them in there. So he's speaking for the Christian Businessmen (which I supposed to have had the meeting in Chicago, and I thought I'd be in Africa at that time, so I couldn't take it). This man said ... got up there and said, “The greatest move, the greatest thing is in the earth now that's ever been: all the churches are returning back to the Catholic church in the ecumenical move, and the Catholics will receive the Holy Ghost.”

What a trap of the devil!

And this leader, Brother Shakarian, the President of the International Businessmen, stood up and said—after the man sat down—said, “That's not the way we heard it.” Said, “Brother Branham has told us that this ecumenical move will move them all to the mark of the beast.” (And the man sitting on the platform.) Said, “It'll move it to the mark of the beast.” And said, “We're inclined to believe what he says is the truth. Come our way.” He said, “How many of you would like to hear Brother Branham come and give you the true side of it, raise...?” And there was five thousand something people, they screamed and cried, “Just come for one day—one day.”

Brother Carl Williams called me up and said, “Brother Branham, boy, I went out through that crowd, till they had piles of hundred dollar bills laying in my hands to get you a airplane ticket up here and back.” See, just for one day! See, those people.... That Word is sinking in where sometimes we don't know it, see. But see, when you're really.... No matter how much the world is against it, how much the denominations are against it, God's proving it to be the truth.

When the great hour finally strikes, things will happen maybe that we didn't think about.

Yes, it shows you're not sure if you're embarrassed. So you would rather not discuss the subject if you're going to be ashamed of it; you wouldn't want to discuss it—hold back.

But how can a man who's filled with the Holy Ghost, how can a man full of the power of God, the love of God in his heart, talk to a man a few minutes and not mention something about that love that's in his heart? There's something that happens; you can't do it. This must be that evil day that Jesus was speaking of. People are ashamed of the Word and of the Spirit of God that acts within them. But when the truth is made plain to the people, God, then ... Himself revealing Himself through the Word....

Now, any man can make any kind of claims and we've had it in these days, where there's been so many claims claimed that it's been horrible. But you see, if there is a truth, it must be by the Word, because they say they've had all kinds of things: of oil flowing through people; and blood out of their hands; and women on their back, and with blood running down their shoes, and raised up their shoes and pour oil out; and frogs jumping out and hopping down the platform, and all kinds of things like that. There's no such stuff as that in the Bible. There's no promise of anything like that in the Bible. Only it said, “In the last days the spirit would be so close it would deceive the elected if possible.” But there's no Scripture for that.

But when it comes to genuine, unadulterated Word of God, confirmed by God, it seems to even embarrass the other group on the radical side, see. There's an embarrassment about it, but it's a reality to a man or woman, boy or girl who really is a genuine Christian.

When God made a promise of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and you receive it, there's something that settles within you that there's nothing takes its place. When a man ever meets God—not in some emotional work-up, some enthusiasm, or some religious doctrine, some catechism, or creed, or a dogma that he has accepted for a comfort for himself; but when he really comes to the place, like Moses did on the backside of the desert—walk up face to face with Almighty God, and you see the Voice speaking to you exactly with the Word and the promise of the hour—there's something it does to you, see. You're not ashamed of it. It does something to you.

Now let us look now for just the next fifteen minutes.

There's some people that receive such an experience. And as I speak to you today—not as a church, or as a denomination; I speak to you as an individual, not because you come here to this tabernacle, because that I love you and you love me—not because of that. Let me speak to you as a dying mortal that some day you've got to come to the end of this life, and I may not be there, and another preacher might not be there, but there's One Who can meet you there, and that's God, And you listen to it, and not whether, “My wife is a good Christian” or “My husband's a good Christian”; but, “Am I right with God? Have I met God like that?” Not because, “My pastor met God” or because, “My deacon met God”; but “Have I met Him?” Not because I shouted, not because I spoke in tongues; but because I met Him as a person. Then you'll never be ashamed of that.

There's something that's so perfect, and pure, and true....

And remember, you might meet a spirit would act like God; you might meet a spirit would do this, that or the other; follow it a little bit and see how it compares with the Word of God. You might meet a spirit that would tell you you're saved and give you a glorious feeling, and you shout and scream; then when it comes to denying the Word.... How can the Holy Spirit that wrote the Word deny His Own Word? That Spirit must punctuate every promise of God with an “Amen.” If it isn't, then you never met God; you met a deceiving spirit, and the world's full of it today.

But when you see God come down and make a statement that He's going to do a certain thing, then comes back and does that time after time after time, then you've got a genuine Spirit of God. How could a Spirit be on a man—the Holy Spirit that wrote the Bible—then turn around and deny: That's not right; that was for some other day? He said, “The promise is unto you, and to your children, to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” (That was Acts2:38.) How can a spirit then accept anything different from that and be of God, when Hebrews 13:8 says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever?

What if somebody said, “Oh, I believe he was a philosopher; he was a good man; he was a prophet, but as far as his power....”

I was speaking the other night with George Smith, the boy that goes with my daughter, Rebekah. A fine kid, he sang here in the tabernacle, a Baptist boy that's just told, “Take my name off of that thing; I want nothing to do with it.” And there was a young lady.... They was having a conference at a certain Baptist church up in the hills, and they're so firmly against me—all of them out there. And about.... They've not got nothing against me; it's against this Word. Me as a man, they can't say nothing against me; I never done them any harm, but that's what they're afraid of, see.

Now we were....

They was having this meeting up there, rather, and they was going to have a missionary to the last three nights of this great conference up in the hills where it's cool. Happen to be this missionary got up and come on to Mark 16, and he said, “There's many people today who can't believe in divine healing.” Said, “I was in India. I'm an Indian, and I was in India when a man here in the United States by the name of Brother Branham come.” (The pastor begin to move over.) Said, “My wife was dying with cancer; I was blind (or something like that). He prayed for one of us and the other, he called out in the audience, not even knowing our own language, and spoke the power of God. And said, 'You're healed.'”

Well, they tried to shut him up, they couldn't do it. That's, see, right in their own conference. Then they even denied of anything.... And some of the people, even my ... this boy's sister.... Them on the ground wouldn't even have nothing to say. They wanted to know if she wasn't connected someway they could get down to find out.

One of the ladies said, “Why, I believe it.”

Rebekah and George went to see this lady. She went, got a girl that was suffering with a ... kind of retarded a little. So they had me come over there to see the girl the other night. And I went over there; the little lady was sitting there, and I said, “Are you a believer?”

She said, “I don't know whether I am or not.” Well, she wasn't retarded, just a devil spirit; they don't realize it. See, it takes you and you don't know it. It comes in.... Violence overcomes a person and they don't know it.

Women that walks out here on the street with these shorts on, they don't realize. They might be ... they might could prove and swear to it that they've never done anything evil against their husband or so forth like that, but in their heart they don't realize, but the spirit of the devil has took them over. They're possessed of it. What would a woman want to strip her clothes off before a man? There's only one person who done that in the Bible, and they were insane. Others try to cover themselves. They don't realize; it's so cunning, so subtle. You have to watch, weigh yourself with the Word of God and see where you're standing.

This young lady said, “Oh, they told me that I was baptized when I was a kid.” Said, “I don't know whether to believe that stuff or not.”

I said, “Don't you believe Jesus Christ?”

And she said, “Well, I don't know whether I do or not.” She said, “Some of that hocus pocus stuff, I don't believe it.”

I said, “Well, of course, you don't believe hocus pocus stuff.” I said, “But do you believe that He was the Son of God?”

“Oh,” said, “He could have been.”

I said, and I said, “Do you believe He's the same today, the God that would save you?”

She said, “Is any of that there stuff about that there miracles and stuff like that? I don't believe nothing about it.”

And I said, “What would you do if you were sitting in a meeting and seen God, the Holy Ghost—which is the only God there is, working amongst the people—God in the Fatherhood, the pillar of fire ... of the prophets, God in His Son, and then God in His people? It's just attributes of God—one great God—it covers eternity.” I said, “What would you see if He—among His people —made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, look out upon the audience and tell the people what was wrong with them, like He did when He's here on earth?”

She said. “I believe it would be horoscope.”

I said, “You are in a worse shape than I thought you were. You'd be better off if you was crazy, see; you wouldn't be accountable. But,” I said, “you're just possessed of an evil spirit.” I said, “When Jesus told the woman at the well about her husbands, when He looked upon the people and perceived their thoughts, would you call that horoscope?” See, just so wrapped up in a denomination called Lutheran, that anything contrary to that would be wrong. Now God wants men who's wrapped up in the Word. Anything contrary to that's wrong.

Jesus said, “Let every man's word be a lie and mine be the truth.”

There was a man in a very scientific age by the name of Noah. He wasn't ashamed of God's Word. God met him. He talked to Him, he knowed it was God. And He said, “It's going to rain.” It never had rained, but he believed it was going to rain; and the faith that he had, he wasn't ashamed to exercise it. He took 120 years to build an ark when the world was against him. He wasn't ashamed of God's Word in his day; God saved him and his household for it.

There was a.... How foolish it might have seemed to be to other people, but to him, he met God. No matter how scientific the other was that was contrary, how it said it couldn't happen, it couldn't happen; he met God! That's what it is, when you know that you're talking to Him!

You'd think it was a foolish thing when somebody ... when I know that there's a few people in the world holds on to what I say to be the truth, to stand here and say, “Thus saith the Lord, I'm going to Arizona. There I'll meet seven angels in a cluster.” Well, there's a group of men standing there to see it happen.

The other night, saying it: “Los Angeles would fall into the ocean.” But when you have met God, and the God Who doesn't fail, the God Who does exactly what He said He would do—He's always done it—you're not ashamed of it then. You don't have to walk back and be embarrassed about it; you can tell the whole world. When a man meets God, talks to Him, and the reality of God becomes his in his heart, he's not ashamed of it.

Noah wasn't ashamed. It seemed foolish to the rest of the world, but not to him.

Moses, when he was before Pharaoh, he wasn't ashamed to tell Pharaoh that these certain things would happen, because he had met God. God told him in the burning bush. Moses said, “I—I stutter.” That's what he had, an impediment of speech.

He said, “There comes Aaron; you be God to him, and he'll be

prophet to you. I know he can speak well, but I'll be with your mouth. Who made man to speak?“ Amen. I like that. That's God! ”Who made man to be deaf or dumb, or Who made man to speak?“ God has.

He said, “Lord, show me your glory!”

Said, “What's that in your hand?”

He said, “It's a stick.”

Said, “Throw it on the ground!” It turned to a serpent. He said, “Take it up again!” It turned back to a stick. Amen! He's God. “Put your hand in your bosom!” He put it in and pulled it out, it was white with leprosy. He said, “Put it back and pull it again,” and it was like the other hand. “I'm God.”

Then he'd walk up before Pharaoh and say what He said he'd say. He said. “It's going to be thus and thus.” Picked up sand and throwed it up in the air and said, “Thus saith the Lord, let fleas come upon the earth.” And the fleas came. Took water and poured it out into the river and said, “Thus saith the Lord,” and the whole rivers and everything turned to blood. Called hail down out of heaven.

You know, in the last days there's supposed to be them plagues repeat again. And remember, an adulterer in the Bible times, his penalty was death by stoning; and the unbelieving church will be stoned to death with hailstones. It was once God's way of punishment. He'll stone this unbelieving world, as adulterous generation. He'll stone it from heaven with hailstones weighing a talent apiece, which is a hundred pounds. The adulterous church will ... adulterous world will die under the punishment of God, under stoning like it did in the beginning.

Get right with God, church! That's what we all must do, turn back to God!

That old fuzzy-faced, gray-haired, whiskers, bald-headed, skinny arms, eighty-year-old Elijah sitting up there in the wilderness looking out upon the sins of the people, God spoke to him one morning and said, “Go down there and tell Ahab that not even the dew will fall from heaven till you call for it.” I can see his little old eyes looking out from under that fuzzy-looking white beard, that stick in his hand, walking down the road like a sixteen-year-old boy. Walked right up in the presence of the king and said, “Not even dew will come from heaven till I call for it.” He wasn't ashamed of God or His Word. He'd tell the king or anybody else. He wasn't ashamed; he didn't have to hide, say, “Ahab, you'd be a....”

It puts me in mind of something like ourselves. I said to the people, “I'm getting to a spot I need more faith.” That's what I'm home for now is to get a new burst of faith. Got so.... Look like when you pray for people you apologize. “Mr. Devil, would you please move over and let....” Nothing! Faith's got muscles and hair on its chest; when it speaks, everything else shuts up. “Don't go in, Mr. Devil; you move out. Get out of here; I'm a son of God, commissioned of God; leave them alone.” That moves.

You have no apology to the devil, nothing to do with him, not ashamed of the Word of God, not ashamed of the commission, not ashamed of who we are. Only ashamed that I am is: I'm a Branham; that's my earthly birth. I'm ashamed of my failures, but as His servant I'm not ashamed! I'm not ashamed of His Word, whether it's denominations, kings, potentates or whatever it might be; just ready to give an answer if God calls for it.

Moses walked up before Pharaoh; he wasn't ashamed to tell him that they would not compromise and take his so many days out in the wilderness. He said, “Some of the women stay back, and the children.”

Said, “We'll all go. Not even one hoof will be left behind; we'll take our cattle and all.” He wasn't ashamed. Why? He'd come into the light of deliverance.

That's the reason a man or a woman sick or anything, that once comes into the Presence of God and knows that God's healed them, you're stepping into the Light of deliverance. You don't compromise on anything. Deliverance is in his heart for he had met the God who said, “I am the God of Abraham, Who gave Abraham the promise, and the time of redemption ... of deliverance is at hand; I'm sending you down there to take them out.” What's to apologize about that?

Pharaoh could have killed him; he was just a man. He was a slave. He could have killed him, but he wasn't ashamed of the Word. He didn't come down and get down on his knees and beg to Pharaoh for nothing. He said, “I come to take them.”

Pharaoh said, “Well, you can't take 'em.”

He said, “All right, then there'll be fleas upon the earth till you'll wade through them.” And there's what happened.

Said, “Oh, Moses, take them away!”

He said, “All right; now do you repent?”

Said, “Well, you can go so many days in the wilderness.”

He said, “Then flies will come.” Amen! Said, “Darkness will come.” It was so dark they couldn't see one place to the other.

And finally death come. From Pharaoh to the servant, it was death for the oldest child in the family. Didn't have no apology to nobody. He was the son of Abraham, born in the Spirit of God, given commission by God, the message of God, to go down and take those people out.

Well, can't God call the same thing in this hour to take out of the church a bride?

Daniel was in the ... or

David, rather, wasn't afraid before Saul. When everybody was afraid of Goliath out there, he wasn't afraid to walk up and said, “Your servant....” Just a little ruddy-looking fellow, said, “Your servant was herding his father's sheep, and a bear come in and got one of them; I chased him out in the wilderness and killed him with this slingshot. A lion come in (oh my, a lion!) ... come in and got one of them and run in the wilderness; I knocked him down with a slingshot; when he got up, I killed him.” He said, “And the God....” That backslidden king standing there, them wishy-washy soldiers claiming to serve the God of heaven, and let that uncircumcised Philistine stand out there and defy the armies of the living God. Said, “Your servant also will slay him; for the God Who delivered the lion and the bear to me, will also deliver that uncircumcised Philistine.” He didn't stutter; he didn't say, “Perhaps it'll be done”; he said, “It'll be done!” He wasn't ashamed.

Daniel, before the king, wasn't afraid to defy his orders that nobody would pray only to him. He opened his windows and threw up the sash and prayed three times a day. He wasn't afraid.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego wasn't afraid of that fiery furnace. Said, “Our God is able to deliver us. God can deliver us, but if He don't, we're not bowing down to your image.” They wasn't ashamed of it. No, sir! No, sir! They certainly wasn't ashamed of it, because they knew.

Samson wasn't ashamed before the Philistines. When a thousand run up to him, he picked up the jawbone of a mule. And them helmets, they're about an inch and a half thick of brass. He beat a thousand down with his ... still had the jawbone in his hand. He wasn't embarrassed; he just picked up what was in his hands and went to work with it. He knowed that the Spirit of God was upon him. He knowed he was borned a Nazarite. He knowed that nothing could bother him; he was a servant of God. As long as he was in the will of God, nothing could stand in his way, no matter how many kings, or Philistines, or whatevermore come up. Right.

John wasn't ashamed of the Word of God that came to him in the wilderness and told him to go baptize with water. He wasn't ashamed to say, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world,” for the Spirit of God was upon him. He wasn't ashamed before the priests. He wasn't ashamed of the Word of God when he walked up to Herod. Philip's wife was living with Herod. Walked right up in the face of the king—this old woolly-faced fellow out in the wilderness there, come out of there with no education or nothing else—walked right up in the face of Herod and said, “It's not lawful for you to have her!” He wasn't ashamed of God's Word. Sure, absolutely was not ashamed of it.

Stephen, he wasn't ashamed of God's Word.

First, the Pentecostal people up there on the day of Pentecost, when they gathered in the upper room, the Holy Ghost fell upon them by a promise of God. Luke 24:49 said:

... behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but wait in the city of Jerusalem, until you receive power from on high.

And the very promise that the Word of God promised to them ... “Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but wait there [Don't get no more theology or education and so forth.] Wait until you're endued with power.” And when that power from heaven came like a rushing mighty wind, they wasn't ashamed of the Gospel. Peter stood up and said, “Repent every one of you. You men with wicked hands, you've crucified the Prince of Peace, which God has raised from the dead; and we're a witness, for this is what Joel said would came to pass in the last days: 'I'll pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.'” He wasn't ashamed of the Gospel.

Little Stephen, as I mentioned him a few minutes ago, when he went through there like a tornado.... He wasn't a preacher, just a deacon, but he testified everywhere of the resurrection. He had met God. And it was just like.... Try to stop him? Well, it was like trying to put a house ... a burning house, fire out of it on a windy day in a dry time. Why, every time the wind blew it just set another fire.

They jerked him up before the Sanhedrin Council. Can you realize what that is? That's like the Ecumenical Council. All religions head up there under the Ecumenical Council; all of them headed up under the Sanhedrin Council. Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, whatever they were, they had to come into that council. And they snatched him up, just not one organization, but the big council snatched him up. “We'll scare the liver out of him.”

When he walked up that morning, the Bible said his face looked like an angel. He said, “Men and brethren, let me speak to you. Our fathers dwelt in Mesopotamia before they came to Charran,” and so forth. He went and give the Scriptures, and then when he got all wound up, the Spirit came upon him; he said, “You stiff-necked, uncircumcised of heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost; like your fathers did, so do you.” He wasn't ashamed of the Gospel; wasn't ashamed of the Word; he wasn't embarrassed before any Sanhedrin Council. No.

Paul said before Agrippa ... being a Jew, taught under Gamaliel (a great dignitary, he was).... But one day on the road down to Damascus, he come in presence ... contact with God. An Angel came down from heaven in a form of a pillar of fire, a light that struck him on the ground. He raised up and said, “Lord, Who are you?”

And He said, “I'm Jesus.”

Stand before Agrippa, he repeated the story again. He said, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.” Sure.

Now friends, we come down with men down through the ages (but we're past time) but let me say this: a man who has once come in contact with God, which is the Word, and the Word has been made plain and manifested to him, there's no shameness about that. You're not embarrassed. It doesn't embarrass me to say I believe every word of God. Doesn't embarrass me when the Lord says to say anything, you go say it and do it. It don't embarrass me to say that I've been filled with the Holy Ghost. It don't embarrass me to say that I've spoke with other tongues. It don't embarrass me to say that our Lord has showed me visions. It don't embarrass me to day He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

“When you're brought before rulers and kings for my name's sake, take no thought what you shall say, for it'll be given to you in that hour. It's not you that speaketh, but my Father dwelleth in you. But whosoever is ashamed to me and my Word in this generation, him will I be ashamed of before my Father and the holy angels.” God help us not to be ashamed, but help us to be living testimonies.

Every man in the Old Testament.... When them prophets came, they become the living Word. They was the Word. Jesus said they were called gods and they were, because the Word of God came to them. They say, “It's 'thus saith the Lord.” And any disciple of Christ who has come in contact with Him in redemption, and salvation has come into his heart, he is a possessor of God. And what kind of a life should we live, and how should we walk, and how should we talk if God is representing Himself through our own mortal bodies? Who could be ashamed of that?

I come to a place that I was in the police force here in Jeffersonville, walk down the street with all the authorities, I wouldn't be ashamed of the city; I'd be part of the city; I'd be a police, a part of the city to keep order and conduct. If a man run a red light, I wouldn't be ashamed to tell him he done wrong, give him a ticket; that's my duty because I'm getting paid by the city; I'm living by the city; I have the authority from the city. No matter if he was drunk or what was the matter, they'd back me up. I stand my grounds 'cause I'm a policeman and I'm ordained or put in here and given authority to do this. You're supposed to take the law and rights and things and see that it's done right.

And if I'm a Christian and been filled with the Spirit, wearing the testimony of Jesus Christ's resurrection, that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, don't let any devil try to push you around say, “You don't do this and you don't do that.” You do do it. God has given you the.... See, we don't have power. That policeman don't have power to stop one car. It's about.... Sometimes there's three or four hundred horsepower motor; what could he do about it? But he's got authority. That's the Church; we have authority by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His promised Word. Hallelujah! “The things that I do shall you do also; more than this will you do, for I go unto the Father.”

Don't be ashamed of Him in this generation—sinful, perplexed, the last generation that'll ever be on the earth. This sinful adulterous and full of all putrefied sores, all.... Everything that's been decent has become indecent. National politics, filth, nations are broke up. Way back in the jungles of Africa, safari hunters, they had to take high-powered radios to hear Elvis Presley, Pat Boone, them guys with that rock'n'roll and twist. And the natives, trying to see them act along, jerking their head, acting like that; the natives stood and looked at him. But you see, they're not Americans like Pat Boone, and Elvis Presley, and Ricky Nelson, and them guys are. They're not Judases of that type, but they.... See, it's a spirit, and the spirit is not only in America; it's spread itself out over the world to bring them to the battle of Armageddon. They act like that whether they are.... Whatever nation they come from (Africa, India, wherever it is), that vulgar and stuff has spread all over the earth by just one man starting it.

So has the Gospel, and the power of Almighty God has spread around the world. And the separation time is now taking place, when God's a-calling a bride, and the devil is calling a church. Let me be part of the bride. Let us pray.

Dear God, we see the handwriting on the wall Lord; we're at the end time. We know that there's great things laying ahead, but yet somewhere, somewhere out in this mess out here is still honest people that's been ordained to life. It'd be impossible for one man or two men; but God, all of us together, let us spread in every corner we can the good news that Jesus is coming and see ... just spread a little bread along, a little word. Wherever the eagles are, they'll follow that food. Whether it comes by tape, or whether it comes by word or a testimony, eagles will follow it to its headquarters. For it is written, “Where the carcass is, there the eagles will gather.”

Dear Jesus, we know that Thou art the carcass that we eat; Thou art the Word, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We pray, God, that when we scatter the Word, that the true eagles will find it. Let us not be ashamed when we stand before people—wicked, indifferent people, religious, whatever it is. As Paul told Timothy, let's be instant in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking with all long-suffering in doctrine, for the time will come when they'll not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall heap for themselves together teachers having itching ears and will be turned from the truth to fables. God, we're living in that day. You let me live long enough to see that happen, as that lays right here in the cornerstone of this tabernacle today of thirty-three years ago.

God, bless each one in here. If there be one in here, Lord, that's not ready to meet You, that they cannot just agree with Your Word, and they haven't met You face to face and know that ... You, not just by an act of some sort of an acception like you would a creed or something, but has met the living God; and if they haven't did this, Lord, may they do it right now. I believe You're real near this hour. I don't know who they are. I don't know even if there's any here, but I just feel led to pray to You. Not that the people hear me, for that would be a hypocrite right. God, far be it; I don't want to be a hypocrite. But I pray it with the sincerity in my heart, Lord, whoever he or she is that You speak to this morning, may they humbly not be ashamed, but way down deep in their hearts receive You now, coming this evening and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, following every word—every word. If they've been baptized different, or sprinkled, poured, remember, we do, Lord, that You said, “Whosoever shall take one word out of the book, add one word to it, his part will be taken from the book of life.” Though he tries, comes, puts his name on the book, it won't work. Let us be sincere and humble. Now, they're in Your hands, Lord. You do with then as You see fit, for they're Yours. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Now while we have our heads bowed, I want you to think real seriously now. I apologize first for being about fifteen minutes late. Now, we want to hum, and you just think in your heart now, “Have I really met God?” Just think it real sincerely now, because it won't be too many times, maybe until ... maybe the last time now, that we'll meet before His coming. It's close, friends. Every Scripture, looks like, is just about fulfilled. And it might be for you or I. This might be our last chance. We may be gone before night.

...I'll go with Him, with Him all the way.

I can hear my Savior calling,

(Are you ashamed of Me and of My Word?)

I can hear my Savior calling, (Just imagine

you're laying in your deathbed now.) can hear

my Savior calling,

(Then might be too late, but it isn't right now.)

“Take thy cross and (might have to sacrifice now)

...follow me.“

Now, in your heart answer this:

I'll go with Him through the garden,

I'll go with Him through the garden,

I'll go with Him through the garden,

I'll go with Him, with Him all the way.

Now with our heads bowed, lets just raise our hands and say:

I'll go with Him through the judgment,

(That's what's going on right now;

He's judging us.)

I'll go (Lord , do you find me guilty?

Then forgive me.) through the judgment,

(What do you judge me to be this morning, Lord?)

...with Him through the judgment, (Try me, Lord,

see if there be any unclean thing in me.)

...with Him, with Him all the way.

Father, we thank You this morning for all these hands. I didn't see one person but what they had their hands up. I thank You, Lord. I trust You didn't either, Lord. No one that didn't have their hands up; they're ready to go through the judgment. Judge us, Lord, and if there be any wrong in us, forgive us for it, Father. Give us of Your mercy, for we don't want to meet Your judgment when mercy is not present. So mercy is present now; so we pray, God, that You'll judge us and forgive us of our sins according to Your Word and Your promise and let us live for You all the days of our life, not being ashamed of the Gospel.

Now, Father, if it's Your will, we're starting three straight Sundays now of meetings. Prepare our hearts for it, Lord. Prepare me. oh God. I'm the one that's standing so deeply in need of You. I pray that You'll guide me and direct me in the things that I should do and say in these days to come. Guide and direct our precious Brother Neville, that gallant servant of Yours, Lord, and also Brother Mann, and the deacons of the church, and the trustees, and every person that assembles here.

Prepare us, Lord, that we might be able in a real Christian way to bring sinners to You, and to bring church members to a knowing the God that we know, that we have met personally; let Him become their God, too.

Now, Father, this we cannot do. We cannot send them in, but Thou, Holy Spirit, move upon the people—the members of churches. And as the little experience I had with You the other morning, “Go get my Son a bride. Take it from among the people, among the churches; pull out that bride.” Let me in prayer now, Lord, You send the Rebekah; I'll try to be the Eleazar. Help me to be a faithful servant, and may the God of heaven send His Angel before me ... before us, that we'll collect the things together to select the bride that You have chosen. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, I'm sorry to have kept you a little late—twenty-five after; I should have been out of here twenty-five minutes ago. But now.... Do you like that old song? “Take the Name of Jesus With You”? Ain't that pretty? I've sang that now for some thirty-three years as a dismissing song; water baptism, “On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand.” I think this is so pretty: “Just take it everywhere you go.”

Precious name, O how sweet!

Hope of earth ... (Shake hands with somebody.)

Precious name, O how sweet!

Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

Now remember the services tonight, seven-thirty—seven-thirty tonight. Now, let's sing this one verse, see.

Take the name of Jesus with you,

As a shield from every snare.

When temptations 'round (What do you do then?)

Just breathe that holy name in prayer.

Precious name, O how sweet!

Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

Precious name, O how sweet!

Hope of earth and joy of heaven.

Was there any come to be baptized after this service? If so, raise your hands. Somebody to be baptized, too? All right, to be baptized immediately after this service. And if the rest of you, anyone that wants to be baptized? We'll have baptismal services at every one of these services. The only thing you have to do is ask. We're ready to baptize you; that's our duty to baptize you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's our duty to do it. And we'll be glad to do it any time. You that's to be baptized, just go to the rooms immediately after this service and we'll have the water baptism. Anybody that wants to follow them it'd be ... sure that we're here. If you have repented of your sins and you've accepted Jesus as your Saviour.... You've been a Christian for years and never seen the light, and the light of deliverance has come now. A woman, a bride that must take the name. Jesus said, “I came in my Father's name and you received me not. But there will be one come in his own name and you'll receive him. [That's your denomination. Any son comes in his father's name. I come in my father's name. And what was His name? What is the name of the Father? Jesus!] I came in my Father's name, you received me not.” Now, His bride will have His name, of course. I took a woman by the name of “Broy” and she became “Branham.” He's coming for a bride. Be sure to remember that as you come to the pool.

Let us bow our heads now.

Brother Vayle here is no stranger to us. He's a very precious brother; has been with me many meetings—him and his wife. And he's also now the writer of these sermons and things that goes into book form. Brother Vayle, would you dismiss us in prayer while we bow our heads?

[end of tape]