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Message 59-0628M A Deceived Church By The World
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59-0628M A.DECEIVED.CHURCH.BY.THE.WORLD_ JEFFERSONVILLE.IN CH 67 SUNDAY_
« 1 † Jesus Christ, His Son, and has given us all things freely in Christ… We are grateful to Thee, Lord, for the privileges that we are granted by this great supreme Sacrifice that Jesus gave for us at Calvary, that it reconciled us back into fellowship and to favor with Thee, that we might have this consolation of knowing that it’s written, “If ye abide in Me, and My Words in you, you can ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.” Now, we’re grateful for this, and pray that You’ll give us faith to believe it with all that’s in us.

59-0628M A.DECEIVED.CHURCH.BY.THE.WORLD_ JEFFERSONVILLE.IN CH 67 SUNDAY_
« 2 † Now, let us lay aside, Lord, every toil of the day, every care of this life, all the way from the janitor to the pastor, that there would be nothing in our minds now, but be waiting, listening reverently for the Holy Spirit to speak to us, that we might accomplish something good, to know more of Thee, by our gathering together. For, Lord, truly that’s why we come on this hot day. Speak to us through Thy living Word, and let the living Word dwell in us and abide in us, that we might be shaped and formed, not to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of our spirit into the form of the Son of God.
Oh, our hearts tremble when we think, and the joy floods our souls to know that we can be called sons and daughters of God. And we stand on the very brim of His second coming, and all nations and kingdoms quivering under our feet, all things of the world is vanishing, but knowing that someday He shall come and shall take us to a Kingdom where there shall never be an end, or, it’ll never be moved. And to think that we are now the–the subjects of that Kingdom O God, circumcise our heart and ears today by–by the Holy Spirit, through the washing of the water of the Word. For we ask it in His Name and for His glory. Amen.

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« 3 † I wish to approach the subject this morning. For I was going to speak on something a little different if there was to be a healing service, but we announced that the prayer cards to be give out at eight, till eight-thirty or nine o’clock. And I just… Billy come up to the house a few minutes ago and he said there was hardly anyone here, so he didn’t give out prayer cards. So we’ll… I thought of taking this text for a correction of the church. And I want to speak on the subject of “A Deceived Church By The World.” I wish to read some now out of the Book of Judges the 16th chapter, beginning with the 10th verse.
And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy mightest be bound.
And he said unto her, If thou bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.
Delilah therefore took new ropes and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there was liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like as threads.
And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me and told me lies: tell me where thy mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest… seven locks of my head with a web.
And she fastened it to the pins, and said unto him, The Philistines be on thee, Samson. And he awakened out of his sleep, and went away with the pins of the beams, and with the web.
And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when in thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast… told me wherein thy great strength lies; and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth.
And it came to pass, when she had pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;
And he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There has not come a razor upon my head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like another man.
And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called… the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he has showed me all his heart. And the lords of the Philistine came up unto her, and sought money in, or brought money into her hand.
And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and he caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and… begin to afflict him, and his strength went from him.
And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.
And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD had departed from him.

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« 4 † Now, I wish to read, for a text for this subject, found over in the Book of Revelations the 2nd chapter, beginning with the 21st and the 23rd verses.
And I gave her space to repent of her fornications; and she repented not.
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Word.

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« 5 † Samson, great deal like the church, started off right. He started off in the right direction. He started off and was called a mighty man of valor. But he started out serving the Lord in keeping His Words and doing His commandments. And that was somewhat like the church. It started off on, as we would say, as a world expression, started on the right foot, started to keep the commandments of the Lord. And as long as Samson followed the Lord, the Lord used Samson.

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« 6 † For God can keep anyone and use anyone that will follow after Him, for it’s God’s business. But when we turn to aside away from the things of God, then God cannot use us any longer. When we’ll walk steadfastly after the commandments of God, when we’ll stay in the pages of the Bible and worship by the written Word, worship Him in the Spirit and in the Truth of the Word, then God can use any individual. But when they take a notion to turn aside after something else, then God cannot use that person any longer.

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« 7 † So Samson makes a–a very outstanding representation of the church of today. When the church started, God could use the church, for the church walked diligently after the commandments of the Lord, kept all of His judgments and His statutes, and done all of His commandments. And God was with the church. But it seems to be that there is such a weakening place amongst the church.

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« 8 † Remember, we are not on a picnic, but we’re in a battlefield. Many people just think that when they become a Christian that that’s all they need to do, that that settles it forever, as they are a Christian and everything’s going to come easy. Don’t never get that in your head. For I become a Christian to fight, fight the good fight of faith. I become a Christian to get in the battle lines. We are Christian soldiers, and we got to be trained, and brought up, and know all the techniques of the enemy, to know how to fortify, to know how to–to fight the fight. And we can only do that as the Holy Spirit will reveal it to us. We cannot take what some other nation tells us when we go to war, some of their ideas. But we got to take our own ideas, the way the Holy Spirit would direct us, and what ideas He would give us, because He is the Commandering Chief of the army of the Christians.

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« 9 † Samson did good; he was a great man until he begin to–begin to kinda (we would call it) scallywag around, until he begin to get off of his own territory. And the church did run well and was all right until they begin to get off of their territory. Samson begin to flirt, and he was not flirting with Israelitish girls; he begin to flirt with a Philistine girls.
And that’s somewhat similar to what the church did. It never begin to make love with its own; it got off after unbelievers and begin to flirt with unbelievers. That’s where we made our great, and one of the greatest mistakes is when the church begin to do things that wasn’t right. It begin to keep, like Samson, bad company.

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« 11 † Samson, as long as he was in the company of the Lord’s people, he did all right. But when he got to flirting with bad company, then he got in trouble.
And that’s the way it is with the church. When the church followed reverently and daily after the leading of the Holy Spirit, God blessed them, and miracles and signs and wonders followed the church. But when it begin to keep bad company with the world… One of the worst things it done, and the first things it done, it begin to organize, breaking up fellowship amongst other believers, because they found out that nations were organized. But this great Gospel is not dedicated to one nation or one peoples. It’s dedicated to “whosoever will, let him come,” all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people. God never did intend for us to draw a boundary line.

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« 13 † But man wanted to be like, they compare, or to copy after, go like the–the world does, say the things that they do, make a success the way they were a success. We cannot never be a success doing anything the world does. We can only be a success as we follow after God’s statutes and His way of doing things. We can never be by patterning after the world. If the cigarette company has met their greatest success by television, and the beer and the whiskey crowd has made their great success through the contribution of television, that’s no sign that the church shall make its success by television. The success of the church lies within the preaching of the Gospel, of the power of God, and the demonstration of the Spirit. We cannot say because that television done such-and-such for the cigarette company and the–and the other companies… We do not have any Scripture to tare–try to compare with them people. And as long as we do, we may draw great numbers of people, but that’s not what God ordained us to do. We think because that we’re all colors, flying high, great organizations, causing great colorful things to take place, that it’s a success. We are dying daily on our feet, spiritually speaking. If we stood ten-million strong this morning, and the Holy Spirit wasn’t with us, we’d do well to stand ten strong with the Holy Spirit with us. We cannot compare with the world.

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« 14 † And one of the first things was the church begin to organize themselves. The first organization was the Catholic church, and then come the Lutheran church. When they organized in the Catholic church to make it an organization, one day there was a cry, “The Philistines is on thee, Samson,” and Samson broke the cords of the bounds of the Catholic church, and Martin Luther came forth with the organization.

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« 15 † Then they bound the church with another cord as Delilah did. And they begin… Instead of having God-called men, men who were called by the Holy Spirit, maybe didn’t know their abc’s, but they knowed Christ. Then the church got stylish, and fashioned after the political speakers. And they had to give their preachers doctor’s degree, everybody had to be a Doctor of Divinity. That was another cord to bind the church. Men go off and study, each seminary tries to produce a better scholar so that their churches can brag, “Our pastor is a Doctor of Divinity.” And what did they do, one try to have more knowledge than the other one. Well, that doesn’t mean anything in the sight of God.

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« 16 † And there’s no need for any man to try to take his worldly knowledge and ever please God with it. It’s an abomination in the sight of God. You’ll never please God with the worldly ambitions and knowledge, because it’s enmity to God, says the Scripture. He cannot do it.
And each one tries to have all the knowledge. They know just what to do and the words to say, and it becomes just a political speech in the stead of a powerly demonstrated, Holy Spirit message that sinks to the heart of men and discovers the sin. They’re trained for political talks, and we don’t need that. Paul said, “The Word come to us, not only… or, the Gospel in Word only, but through the power and the manifestation of the Holy Ghost.” That brought the Gospel, demonstrating the powers of the Holy Ghost. But all these men go off to seminaries and they learn great education, how they must stand before the people, how they must present themselves, how they must dress, and how they must act; they should never use the wrong grammar. Now, that’s all right for a political speech, but we’re not after the enchanting words of men. Paul said, “The Gospel that I preach didn’t come like that, but it come through the renewing of the–the Holy Ghost and the power of demonstrations.” Doesn’t come by a right formed speech, that your wisdom would be, or your trust would be in the wisdom of man. But it come through the demonstrations of the power of the risen Christ. That’s the Gospel, “To know Him in the power of His resurrection.”

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« 18 † Each one tries to think he’s a little smarter than the other man, each denomination. The Methodists will say, “We got the smartest men.” The Baptist will say, and the Church of Christ, and so forth, they all, “We, we’re the smartest. We… Our–our people, we don’t let just the ordinary men go out and preach the Gospel.” But they handpick them. (O God, have mercy.) Handpick them; if they’re indocumated with their certain doctrine, then they put them in the church. God can’t touch him in no way. I want somebody to preach to me that’s been hand-picked by the Holy Ghost, God has raised up, not picked by men or denominations.
All knowledge… They say, “Oh, we know all about it,” and some of them doesn’t know the first alphabet of the Holy Spirit. They deny It.

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« 20 † It reminds me of a little book I read one day in California, about ten years ago. I picked it up in an old book store. I forget who was the author, just a little ten cent book, but it had some good sense to it, though it seemed jokingly and cunningly. But I found something in there that sounded like God to me. And one of the little stories started out like this.
One morning in a great chicken pen, there was a certain little rooster that thought he’d had all the knowledge that there was to be known. So he flies up on a box and beat his little bill against the box four or five times, flew back his little head, and crowed like you never heard a rooster crow. And the others, he attracted their attention, and he said, “Ladies and gentlemen of this chicken pen, I would like to speak to you all this morning on some great educational program we have just designed.” Said, “I have required a lot of knowledge in my studying,” as he pulled his little glasses over his bill. And he said, “I have decided that we chickens can better ourselves by more knowledge. Therefore, I can tell you that where, if we will dig and work in a certain pen or hole, we’ll find a certain vitamin that’ll make us crow better, prettier feathers. And, oh, I can tell you how we can embetter ourselves in many different ways.”

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« 21 † And the little pullets with their little red combs, they just cackled and said, “Isn’t he a darling?” And they certainly admired him. “Oh, he is such a brilliant rooster.” Reminds me of some of these here seminary preachers: “Such a brilliant man. There’s no need of us hanging around with the rest the chickens; we all ought to go with him.”
Well, before the little fellow got his speech finished, there was another little chicken that didn’t have such bright feathers, come running in from the rest of the chicken yard, and said, “Boys, just a minute. I just heard the latest bulletin on the radio. Chickens went up four cents on the pound; we’re all going to the slaughter tomorrow. What good’s your knowledge going to do?”
Brother, all the knowledge that we can accumulate, what good does it do? We’re six-foot of dirt. We’re all dying by inches and by minutes. Our knowledge means nothing. We want to know Him. But they do that.

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« 24 † As I was remarking sometime ago about a certain little canary, and he thought he knowed all the knowledge that–that need to be knowed, and he knowed so much that he could tell all the rest the canaries about the human beings. So he flies up on his cage and he begins to speak about the human being, how he knowed all about them. And all of a sudden, a professor from Purdue walked up and begin to speak some high-polished words to him, and the little fellow batted his eyes and turned his head. Now, he had eyes; he could see the professor. He had ears; he could hear him. But of course he didn’t know what he was talking about. Why? He’s got a canary brain. He’s just a bird brain. That’s all he’s got. He hasn’t got a human brain, so he can’t think like human beings.
And neither can a human being think like God. You’re human, and all the worldly knowledge is no more than a canary brain. All that you do, you just hurt yourself with it. You’ve got to have the mind of Christ.

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« 26 † The reason people go and join organizations, and substitute a handshake in the stead of the new birth, they’re trying to bypass the new birth. They don’t want the new birth. And they–they know we teach it in the Bible, so they want to substitute something for it. And the Pentecostal people are just as bad, trying to substitute something. They want it in class. It must be just so classy, “We’ll shake hands and join the church, and be sprinkled or baptized,” or something. They are afraid of the new birth. I sometimes believe the Branham Tabernacle’s getting afraid of it.

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« 27 † Now, we all know that a birth, I don’t care where it is, or where, whereabouts, it’s a mess. If a baby’s born on a shuck pile, on a hard floor, or in a pink-decorated hospital room, it’s a mess, anyhow. A birth of a calf, birth of anything else is a mess.
And the new birth is nothing less than a mess. But people so starchy, “We’ll go over where they shake hands. We’ll go over where they don’t bawl and cry, and beat on the altar, and cry out.” You want to be too human. What we need is birth, dying out, to bring forth Life.

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« 29 † A seed, an old potato, a seed potato, you take that potato and put it in the ground. Until you can have new potatoes, that old potato has to rot. A corn cannot produce new life until it’s rotten.
And a man or woman can never have new birth until their intellectuals and their own self is rotten, dead, die out at the altar, and scream, get all messed up to a place the starch gets out of your collar, and you’re borned again by the Spirit of God. I don’t care if you squall, speak in tongues, jump up-and-down, flop like a chicken with its head off, you’re bringing forth new Lifes. But we substituted something for it; we want the classical way. Sure.

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« 31 † The other day, Friday, wife and I was going to the store. I don’t mean to harp on this. But as we went down the street, I just kept turning my head one way for the other: naked women. I promised God when I was a blind man, if He’d heal my eyes I’d look at the thing was right. I keep a little cross hanging in my car. When I see such as that, I look at the cross and say, “O God, that’s my Refuge,” as I looked at the cross.
I seen those women. Meda said, “We haven’t seen one woman today that’s got on a skirt.” And she said, “Bill, look at that woman there with those little straps around the top of her body,” and said, “you mean to tell me that woman don’t know that’s wrong?” Said, “If she doesn’t know it’s wrong, then she’s out of her right mind.”
I said, “Just a minute, honey. She is an American; she does as the Americans do.”

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« 34 † I said, “I was in Finland not long ago, sweetheart.” And I questioned there to a man that set me down, Doctor Manninen. And we were going to the–the health baths, what’s called the sauna, and they take you in and pour hot water on, or water on hot rocks, and it just sweats you. Then they make you jump in ice water, and then back out. Then you take you into a room, and there’s nurses in there, women who scrub the men (and them naked), send them back into the pool. I wouldn’t go in. And I said, “Doctor Manninen, that’s wrong.”
He said, “All right then, Reverend Branham, that’s wrong. Then how about your American doctors that’ll strip a woman naked and lay her on the table, examine every sex organ she’s got? How about your nurses in the hospitals?”
I said, “Excuse me, Brother Manninen–Manninen, you’re right.”

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« 37 † What is it? It’s customs. When I was in Paris I could hardly believe it, that the urinals for both men and women was the same one. I couldn’t understand it, that the rest rooms was on the side of the street for both male and female. I couldn’t believe that when women went to the beach to go swimming, a boy and his sweetheart, they had no dressing rooms; they just took all their clothes to the last garment, then turn their backs and put on a little strap and went swimming, but it’s so. They pay no attention to it. It’s a custom of France.

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« 38 † In Africa women and men, young and old, no clothes at all, walking through the prairies. Never knowed what a rest room was, or things, or never went out of each other’s sight. But they don’t know the difference. They don’t know the different. But it’s customs of nations.
But I said, “Honey, we are different, we’re from another nation. We are pilgrims and strangers here; that’s what makes these things look so wrong. For the Bible said, ‘They that profess such, claim they show that they are pilgrims and strangers, they are seeking a city to come.'”

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« 40 † A man or a woman in Italy, in France, in Africa, in any other nation, that’s ever borned again of the Holy Ghost, don’t do those things. They won’t wear those clothes. They won’t act like that, because they’re of another nation whose Ruler and Maker is God. We’re from heaven. The spirit that’s within you motivates your life. If you are a American, you’ll do as the Americans do. If you are French, you’ll do as the French do, and criticize the other one. But if you are of God, you’ll do the way they do in heaven, because your Spirit comes from above and It controls you.

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« 41 † A little something you might look at. In the Scripture those who sought this new city acted different. They professed that they were pilgrims and strangers. But on the side of Cain, they become fugitives and renegades. But Christians were pilgrims and strangers. A fugitive has no home; a renegade is a horrible person. But a pilgrim is something real, and from a real land in another nation, trying to find his way home, professing by his living that he has something that he’s from another country. There is the reason.

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« 42 † But yet those people who do so, those people who wear those things… Let me tell you. In South Africa, when I saw thirty thousand raw heathens, naked, blanket natives, sixteen, eighteen, twenty year old girls, boys with not one stitch of clothes standing there with mud in their faces, and painted up, bones through their nose, and blocks of wood hanging from their ears, and cross human bones or some bones in their hair, animals’ teeth hanging over them, naked as they come into the world, and didn’t know it. But when they received Christ, and fell on their face and received the Holy Ghost, they got up and folded their arms to hold shame to their bosom, as they walked away and found clothes to put on. Why? They become pilgrims and strangers to this world. Hallelujah. They were away from it. Yes, sir.

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« 43 † Oh, yes, these people call themselves Christians. They belong to churches. They go away and say, “We are Methodists. We’re Baptists. We’re Pentecostals. We’re Seventh-day Adventists. We’re this, that, and the other.” That doesn’t have one thing to do with it. Your spirit, the life that’s in you, motivates and tells what you are. Jesus said, “By their fruit you shall know them.”

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« 44 † The church has become like Israel first. They seen all the heathen nations having a king; God was their king. And they seen the heathen nations having king, so they wanted to act like the heathen nations, and they bought themself a king. And as they did it, they got in trouble. Gradually it begin to come in. Gradually the world begin to slip into them. Finally ended up in Ahab. One king coming just a little closer to it, a little closer to it, and finally squeezed the life out of them. And there they went. And when their real King come, they didn’t know Him.

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« 45 † That’s the same thing the church has done. It’s adopted… Here you are. It’s adopted politics, educations. It’s adopted organizations, societies, big churches, high cafluting preachers. And when the real King comes, they don’t know Him, and they’re crucifying the very Holy Ghost that’s their King. They don’t know Him, but they laugh at Him and make fun of Him. As they–Jews did their Messiah, the church is doing their Messiah the same way. They don’t know it. They haven’t got the spiritual insight, because they’re so indocumated with their eyes and what they see, great buildings, trying to compare with the world. We’re never exalt–exhorted to compare with the world. We’re exhorted to humble ourselves.

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« 46 † And one is the majority in God. And today in the healing evangelists out on the fields, there’s such a competiting–competitors. One says, “Well, bless God, I have so many thousand. I got a bigger meeting than you have.” What difference does that make? If we have one or one million, what difference does it make? Are we true to God? Are we true to His Word? Do we stand under test of the Holy Spirit? Is it true? That’s the main thing.

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« 47 † But we compromise upon the Bible. A lot of our Pentecostal people, upon the fundamental doctrines of this Bible, compromise. There’s… I don’t want to hurt feelings. I’m in my own church, and I feel that I shoul–I could do just what in my church, because I’m preaching the Gospel. But there’s tens of thousands of Pentecostal preachers knowed that there’s no such a thing in the Bible as the baptism in the name of “Father, Son, Holy Ghost.” I challenge the archbishop, or anybody, to show me where anybody was ever baptized in the name of “Father, Son, Holy Ghost.” But they compromise, because the organizations has did so. There’s not one person in the New Testament, and for three hundred years afterwards, by history, but what was baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. What is it? Organization. That’s did it. Compromising…

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« 48 † And today they’ve took all the street workers off the streets. They’ve took the tambourine out of the church. They’ve taken all the glory out of the church, and got seminary preaching, little old rooster-comb preaching, all polished in society, and their women wearing shorts and dresses that they’re skinned into, and men smoking cigarettes, and gambling and telling dirty jokes. It’s a disgrace in the sight of God. I know that’s rough, but it’s time somebody said something. Compromising, giving in, acting like the world…
I don’t care if I have to stand alone, with nobody but God alone, I’ll preach the truth of God’s Bible and stand for it. If I die, I’ll still stand for the truth. Certainly. We want truth. I’ll measure up not according to the church, but according to the Word of God I want to measure up.

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« 50 † But Delilah, did you notice, she knowed that Samson had a power. And she didn’t know where that power laid. She couldn’t tell what that power was, but there was some great power that Samson possessed, and she wanted to find it. And, as Delilah, she kept wooing Samson after her beauty. Oh, she dressed herself real sexy. And she walked before him and she tee-heed like some of the little teen-agers of the day, and–and so forth, and when you act like something another, a striptease, trying to woo Samson to her.

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« 51 † That’s the same thing the world’s done to the church. “Now, where is your great power?”
“Well, if we’ll organize, that’ll break the power.” The Catholic church done it.
“But the Philistines is on thee, Samson.” And a Luther come out.
Then they organized again. “If you’ll bind me with another cord, it’ll hold me.” So they did.
“And the Philistines on thee, Samson.” What happened? Wesley came out and broke the cords.
“Now, you’ve deceived me all along. Don’t you know I love you, Samson? All right, tell me the truth in your heart.”
“All right, you bind me with another cord.”
“All right, now we’ll do that.” What is that? That’s the denominational cord.
“You let me be free, that I ain’t got no denomination. Then I tell you, you’ll have me broke.” So out come the Pentecostals. Where’s your power? “Philistines be upon thee.” And he broke the cords again.

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« 59 † But now what happened? It’s got the Pentecostals, the big Doctors of Divinity for their pastors, some great man. They’ve got just as much school and ritual as the Methodists or Baptists, or any of the rest of them’s got. Go into a church and you can’t hear an “amen,” just as cold as a bunch of Eskimos right off the North Pole: cold, indifferent. “And now the Philistines is on thee, Samson.”
The Philistines is on thee, America. Where is that oneness of spirit? Where is the oneness of Pentecost? The Assemblies of God, and the United, and the Church of God, and this, that, the other, each one with a different ism, this one with that, and this one with that. We’re so broke up till you can go into a city to hold a revival, if one church sponsors it, the rest of them won’t even attend. The Communists is upon thee, America.

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« 61 † Where is our power? Where’s our glory? What is it? Because we went after a wisdom of men instead of the power of God. Why, they got… Our preachers and things is so stiff and starchy, till they’ve organized us till we’re so starchy and stiff-necked, till people, you never hear a shout in the church any more. You never hear anybody cry. The mourner’s bench is put in the basement. There’s no more glory in the church. All we do is set back just as stiff as we can be. We’re not free. We’re bound. The devil, with his modernistic demons, has bound the church of the living God. That’s right. There’s no more power in the church. There’s no more freedom. The people are so starchy and stiff. Why, the God can come into the midst of Pentecostal people, and show that He’s God, and prove His signs of His resurrection; it don’t even shake them. Glory. Why, it’s a disgrace. I walk across the country, God working, performing signs, and people set, and, “Well, I guess that’s all right. Oh, I know it can be done.” It doesn’t move them. Why? They’re bound with Delilah, the world. They’re in fetters.

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« 62 † Now, they’ve even got them into, bound them into a confederation. “The Philistines are on thee, Samson.” What you going to do about it?
“Oh, we’ve got great denominations.” Sure. “We have greater membership than we ever had.” But where’s the Spirit? Where’s the Holy Ghost?
That’s what the devil has done. It’s wooed into the church. It kept wooing the church, “Come to me; I’ll give you a great big tabernacle over here if you’ll just do this. If you’ll get rid of that fanatic preacher you got, and get a man, a Doctor of Divinity that’s got some sense, we’ll build a nice big classical church and we’ll be like the rest of them.” Shame on you. Rather have a man that didn’t know split coffee from beans, but was filled with the Holy Ghost, that was uncompromised, by the power of God.

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« 65 † But it’s got, oh, so starchy, till some poor saint can break through in the meeting, and speak in tongues, or shout a little bit, or do something, and the rest of them will all gander around and look. “What was that? Well, wonder why? That must be a fanatic dropped in somewhere.” You know that’s the truth. Some poor saint step in, get happy enough to raise their hands, and cry, and praise the Lord, somebody who will holler “amen” to the preaching of the Gospel, and the rest of them turn around and see what he said. That’s Pentecostals. What’s the matter? You’re patterning after the Methodists, after the Baptists; they patterned after the Catholic; Catholic patterned after hell. And all together, they’re all after hell. Right.

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« 66 † Delilah has wooed you into big churches, fine, educated ministers, take the better class. “Well, you know, So-and-so down here is a millionaire, if we could just get him to come into our congregation, oh, my.” If he isn’t born again, then he doesn’t deserve to be there. I don’t care if he’s got a million dollars. If he owns forty Cadillacs, whatever he’s got, he’s got to be borned again, come right down to a new birth, and be regenerated by the Holy Ghost, and come out of there in a new birth, snotting (Excuse me.), a-crying and screaming, and carrying on like the rest of them do, and live a life afterwards to prove he’s got it. Amen. That’s what you need.
“Samson, the Philistines is upon thee.” The Communists is upon thee. The world’s upon thee. The devil’s upon thee.

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« 68 † They go back and they see the Spirit of God perform miracles and do things of His resurrection, what Jesus promised; they say, “You know, I think Brother Branham’s got a lot of mental telepathy. My pastor said it was of the devil.”
You poor, hypocritical, deluded infidel, all polished up, you wolf in sheep’s clothes, Jesus said, “If you’d have knowed Me, you’d have knowed My day.” But you’ve got a bunch of Saul’s that try to make you like the rest of the world.
We want a bunch of men of God who don’t compromise on the Word, but preach the truth and stand on the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
But what has the world done? It shaved all your power off. You were born Nazarite, Pentecost, but the world certainly shaved your power. Now, it’s just as starchy as the rest of them.

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« 72 † What are we going to do? What’s going to happen? There’s one glorious thing that I can think of to end this text. While Samson was bound… We can’t have a revival. Listen at our loyal brother, Billy Graham, “Revival in our day.” Listen at Oral Roberts scream, “Revival in our day.” Listen at the rest of them, “Revival in our day.” How can we have a revival when we’re bound? We’ve bound the Holy Spirit with our organizations and traditions, and we can’t have a Holy Ghost revival. Amen. I know that’s scorching hot with the weather, but it’s the truth. How can we have a Holy Ghost revival when you’re so bound and starchy? “Form of godliness,” the Bible said they’d have. “Form of godliness, but would deny the power thereof.” The power of what? The power of the organization? The power of the world? The power of the church? The power of the Holy Ghost. That’s the secret place in the church. And when the church adopts educated preachers, and big buildings, and finery, in the stead of the old fashion Holy Ghost, they’d better be in the mission again. Amen. True. How you going to have a revival of the Holy Ghost, and people quench It and bound It and afraid of It? There’s where the trouble lies.

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« 74 † “The Philistines is on thee.” But the one blessed hope we have, while Samson was in jail…
What’s the first thing they done when they caught him? They bound him first. They took his power away; they found his secret. They found your secret. The world found your secret. Now, you women all bob your hair; it goes like the world. You men all go and act like the world. It’s all right, tell jokes and dirty jokes, and go out and smoke a few cigarettes, and run out with the neighbors’ wives, and everything else like that, a little sociable drink to hold your job. I’d rather lay on my belly and eat soda crackers and drink branch water, and stay clean and pure before God, than to compromise for any kind of a job. That’s right. True. Stay true to God.

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« 76 † “Samson, the Philistines is on thee.” Branham Tabernacle, worldlyism is creeping in among you. What about it? Have you exposed your secret? Have you exposed that secret that God give you when you were wallowing there in the sawdust a few years ago? Have you let it creep out by social, formal worship? What’s happened to you? God can come down and perform a miracle, and go right down through the audience, and tell people the secrets of their hearts, and everything, and heal the sick and afflicted, and do signs and wonders, and preach His Word as hard as they can by the Holy Ghost, and people say, “Well, I guess that’s all right. We enjoy listening to it once in a while, if we’re not too tired.” That’s Branham Tabernacle. The Philistines is on thee.

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« 77 † When, used to be when the preaching of the Word, and the old saints with the tears in their eyes, would rise to their feet and walk, sobbing, maybe not saying a word, just walking around, two or three times, and set down, so filled with the Holy Ghost… The Word fed them. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Philistines is on thee, Branham Tabernacle. Philistines is on you, Pentecostal.
‘Course the Philistines got you, rest of you, long time ago when you organized yourself so tight, nothing could come in ‘less you was a Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, or something. You wouldn’t have nothing to do with the rest of them.

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« 79 † So revival in our day? How can we have it when the regular revival Giver is bound by the world? God won’t come in where the world is; you can just depend on that. You associate with the world, then it’s–it’s all of it. When you let the world creep in, you go to acting like the world, then you are finished. But when you’ll cut loose every fetter from the world and come to God, God will use you until you go to flirting again.
Here’s the only hope that I have this morning to wind up my message, is this, “While Samson was bound, a new shock of hair growed out.”

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« 81 † God, send us another church just before the end time, that the power of the Holy Ghost can come into her in the demonstrations of the Spirit, and Mark 16 can follow the church, Acts 2:4, Acts 2:38, all of it will be following right along with the church. Signs and wonders accompanied the apostles. Great signs of His resurrection accompany them. While we’re in prison, surely God’s growing a crop somewhere, for the last great kill. May it be you, my Christian friend here this morning; may it be your strength has begin to grow. I pray that this message this morning, and out into the land to where this will go, I trust that this message will help bring the vitamin to your system that’ll grow a spiritual power back into your life again. Let us bow our heads and pray.

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« 82 † O Lord God, Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Author of Everlasting Life, and the Giver of every good and spiritual gift, take these words this morning and place them into the heart, and water them, Lord. May the people pray over these things, seeing that the world has wooed the church and has finally found its power, found its secret place, found where its secret lies, and has shaved it off, has taken the peoples that once shouted the victory, once had the victory, and has shaved them off to staying home on Wednesday night to watch a television program; taken the joy out of their hearts, and give them more love for the world than they have for God; has give them more world, for worldly, more desire for worldly entertainment than to have the preaching of the Gospel. If there’s not a great band and a lot of carrying on, and whooping and carrying on, then they don’t want the old Gospel any more, that brings tears of joy to the soul, that brings Divine healing back, that restores the apostolic gifts to the church, that brings in the risen Christ, the Messiah of this day.

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« 83 † But as Israel was bound by–by their kings, that they could not follow their real King, and their real King, when He came, they didn’t recognize Him, so is it today, O Lord, the King of glory has appeared in the form of the Holy Ghost, and, Lord, they don’t know it. They don’t recognize it. They’re so organized so tight, that they do not understand it, because it’s not in their organization. Lord, this is a work of the devil that’s done this to the people.
May the Samson of God, may the true in heart, those who are longing and crying, and pleading and holding on, may they stay with it, Lord, until this new crop grows out, until there comes forth again a joy in Zion, and there comes forth a group that can recognize and understand, that can see the Messiah and the hidden powers that’s hid from the world, that they will not understand now. Grant, Lord, that they’ll see this. For we ask it in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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« 85 † [Blank.spot.on.tape–Ed.]
… power just now,
O Lord, send the power just now
And baptize every one.
They were in the upper chamber,
They were all with one accord,
When the Holy Ghost descended
That was promised by our Lord.
O Lord, send Your power just now,
O Lord, send Your power just now;
O Lord, send the power just now
And baptize every one.
How I love Him. Just send His power. They were in the upper chamber, all with one accord. All the world had drained out of them. They were emptied up, and the Holy Ghost came.
Today they say, “Come, join the church, put your name on the book, or bow down and say, ‘I confess Christ as the Son of God,’ get up.” The devil does the same thing. Certainly. The devil was baptized when Judas was baptized. The devil went out and preached the Gospel when Judas went out and preached the Gospel. But the devil didn’t get the Holy Ghost. That’s it. There’s where the hidden power’s at, that resurrection, that know positive, beyond a shadow of doubt. Amen.

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« 87 † He’s here. That same Holy Ghost, that One was on the Messiah, is still on His Church. He never leaves. “I’ll be with you always, even in you to the end of the world. I’ll be there. The works that I do shall you also. More than this shall you do, for I go unto My Father.”
But the world compromises it, “Oh, those are days past.” Just what the devil wants you to do. They want you to glamorize. God wants you baptized. God wants you… You say, “Oh, I don’t believe all that there carrying-on.” Go ahead and live, go ahead and live in your sin, live in your sin. But until you rot, till you rot to your own ideas, till you rot to your own fashion, and be regenerated again and borned again, and that new Life will be altogether different from the one that went down.

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« 89 † A grain of corn goes down yellow; it comes up green: goes down hard, cased in, it comes up flexible and blowing with the wind. Oh, glory. Hallelujah. When the winds begin to blow, the grain can’t do nothing but move itself, shift, but the little–the little blade flex and rejoices, grows then, strengthens itself. It can never become a blade until the corn is dead and rotten: not only dead, but rotten. Can’t come back no more, but life comes out of it.
As I said awhile ago, a birth is a horrible thing, filthy, dirty, the filthiest of filth, but that’s where life lays. When you reckon yourself filthy, reckon your Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal creeds filthy, die out at the altar, then new Life comes in. The Holy Spirit makes you in above that; you see God.

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« 91 † We shall see Him some glorious day. Someday beyond the reach of mortal ken, we’ll see Him. You believe that? Someday beyond the reach of mortal ken, there waits for me a glad tomorrow.
I was standing up here on the corner last night, and thought I seen little Rabbi Lawson. When he used to be down here, and reach around with his old cane and pull me with his neck, around my neck with his cane, up here to the pulpit, and sing that song, “There waits for me a…” [Blank.spot.on.tape–Ed.]…?…

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« 93 † Something happened. It taken the world out. I begin to see things different. I’ve worried so much about the way these American people are doing, constantly year by year, seeing women and men how they degrading themselves and getting out into sin, till I almost had a breakdown two or three times, worrying over it. Yesterday I said to God, “I’ll not worry no more. Your Word said it would be so, but I’ll stand in the breach and call against it, with all that’s in me.”

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« 94 † Other day, standing up at Green’s Mill, my cave, way back into the wilderness, been praying all day. And about three o’clock the sun was setting, and I was standing up there looking across, come out of the cave, up on a big rock. And I was standing there, looking towards the east, praising the Lord. And I could see the sun moving down in behind the trees up on top of the mountain, as I looked across the canyon over into the others, and a lot of foliage on, just as still as it could be. And I said, “Lord, one day You hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, and You passed by him because he was weary. But You passed by, he said it looked like the back of a man.” I said, “Hide me in the cleft, Lord.” About that time, over to one side of me, there come a little Wind moving down through the bushes. It moved right along, come right down by the side of me, a little Wind moving down, went down through the woods. I stood there.
Someday, God only knows just where or when,
The wheels of mortal life will all stand still,
Then I shall go to dwell on Zion’s hill.
Someday beyond the reach of mortal ken,
Someday, God only knows just where or when,
(What’s going to happen? She’s going to close, all these little wheels turning.)
The wheels of mortal life shall all stand still,
Then we shall go to dwell on Zion’s hill.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home;
Tell Brother Bosworth, and all my friends too,
Just coming for to carry me home,
Now, swing low… (She’ll zip down someday to pick me up.)… char… (Every tree will be afire: the Angels of God and the fiery chariots.)… for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

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« 95 † One of these days, one of these days in the low parts of my death hours, I look for Him to coming. That’s right.
I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home; (like old Elijah looking over Jordan)
A band of bright Angels coming after me,
They were coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, (Get down low.) sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

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« 96 † The Lord Jesus, the blessed Driver of this chariot, the Pilot of the old ship of Zion, the boat of Life, moving down through the building, speaking, His Presence is here. The very Holy Spirit that raised Him from the grave is here.
Being that they give out no prayer cards, is there anybody here who come from out of town, that I don’t know, that’s here to be prayed for? Raise up your hands, that I don’t know. Raise your hands up; I don’t know.
You, you there, I believe the little fellow with the mustache back there, somebody raised their hand back in that way. Yeah, you, did you raise your hand? All right. Back there, you, sir. All right. You all strangers to me? Is that Lord Jesus, the same Shepherd of the flock here? You believe His promises is true? He anoints His church, and “The works that I do, shall you also. Even greater than this shall you do, for I go unto My Father. More than this.” You believe that?

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« 98 † Did you raise your hand that you didn’t know me? You believe God can tell me what’s in your heart, can speak to me just like He did the woman touched His garment? You believe He’s a High Priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities? If God will reveal to me your conditions, will you believe me to be His prophet, believe that His Presence is here and that’s why He permits it? You’re praying for your wife. She’s got a broken hip, dislocated hip. That’s right. If it’s right, raise up. All right, go find her well. Amen.
What about you back there, the little fellow that raised up, that had the mustache? You believe with all your heart? Do you believe God could tell me your troubles? You believe your son will get all right? You do? Got a boy; he’s got cerebral palsy. That’s right. You’re not… It’s from Kentucky. If that’s right, raise up your hand. I don’t know you, do I? If I do… Raise your hands like this, we don’t know one another. That’s right. Trusting to God, do you believe? As you believe, find your boy the way you believe. Just put you on your heart…?…

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« 100 † Who was it here raised up their hands, that I didn’t–didn’t… Was it you? All right, mister, do you believe me to be God’s prophet? You do, with all your heart? You don’t have to get up, just stand right there. All right, sir, what’s your trouble, you’ve got sugar diabetes. And it’s bothering your foot. You’re from Ohio. Your name’s Mr. Miller. Go back home and get well. All right, believe with all your heart. All right.
You believe with…? If you can believe…
The lady setting here, did you raise your hand? Big lady, glasses on, you believe with all your heart? You believe, lady? You believe me to be God’s servant? You do? All right, if God can tell me what’s your trouble, will you believe? Heart trouble. All right, raise up your hand if that’s right. All right.

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« 102 † The lady here next to you, raised up. Heart; but it’s really your eyes. I know her. All right, if thou canst believe…
Back there, the next man back there’s got heart trouble too and a skin disease. Do you believe that God will make you well? You do, sir?
There’s a man back there somewhere, raised up his hands that didn’t… Mr. Schubert. All right, sir. All right, do you believe? It’s for your eyes also, isn’t it? You’re praying for your mother setting out there also. If that’s right, raise up your hand. We’re strangers. Is that right? Shake your hand, shake your hand to one another. All right, that’s right. If you can believe, you can receive.

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« 105 † The risen Jesus Christ is in the building. He’s the same One. What does it do to you? Have you let the world sap all the strength out of you? Glory. I want new birth. I want new Life. I don’t care what plane It comes on, if I have to be a holy-roller, anything. I don’t care what plane It comes on; I want the real Holy Ghost like is on me now. I want to keep It. I’d rather have It than all the things of the world. Amen. Do you believe? Do you believe He’s here?
Lay your hands on one another then. Tell me one more thing He could do: nothing. Have faith now. Believe it’s over.

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« 107 † Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, Author of Eternal Life, and Giver of all good gifts, Thy Spirit is here so anointing, Lord, looks like the building’s a-breathing, moving back and forth. Why can’t the people understand it, Lord? Have they–have they associated with the world so much, and got so cold and formal and starchy, till they can’t know You any more? Lord God, may this power strike everyone, and every sick person be healed, every sinner saved, and God get glory. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I ask it. Amen.

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« 108 † Do you believe it? Raise up your hands. Do you accept your healing? God bless you. Now, go and find it just the way you believe, it’ll be that way. I see visions breaking over others. That’s right. I got to come back tonight.
If you don’t believe now, you ain’t going to never believe. That’s right. Jesus did it one time, and they said, “Thou art… We know when Messiah cometh, He’ll tell us this.” She said, “I know the Messiah will do that. But Who are You?”
He said, “I’m He.”
Then she run into the city and said, “Come, see a Man Who knowed what I was and what I’ve done. Isn’t this the Messiah?”
He said, “These things will form again in the last days. The Church will be preaching the truth; it’ll be standing on the Word. It’ll be you doing all the commandments of God. It’ll not associate with the world. And through there I’ll move and do the same things.”

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« 112 † But He said, “They’ll be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than of God, trucebreakers, false accusers, having a form of godliness,” very religious, going to churches. “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.”
You people, wherever you was in the church, that He called out just now, the vision’s gone from me. If–if that was truth, what I said, and me being not knowing that to you, raise up your hands, ever who it was. All over the church, every–everywhere. All right. See? Don’t know them, never seen them; but the Holy Spirit’s here and He knows them. Can’t you see it’s not me?

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« 114 † Listen. If He’ll entrust me with that, He’ll trust me with the truth of the Word, because the truth can only come by the Word. Repent, everyone, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is unto you and to your children, them that’s far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” You believe it? There’s to be a baptismal service just in a moment.
Let’s bow our heads. I’ll ask the pastor to pray while they make ready for the baptism. I think there’s a baptismal service coming…?… All right, sir.

–Rev. William Marrion Branham
–copied from The Table Software, available from VGR

15-0916 The Sudden Secret Going Away of the Church
Preliminary Part 1 and 2
Message: 58-1012
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Songs: 28, 106, 24, 501, 1, 196, 4, 221
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58-1012 THE.SUDDEN.SECRET.GOING.AWAY.OF.THE.CHURCH_ JEFFERSONVILLE.IN SUNDAY_
« E-1 † Should make anyone feel good, shouldn’t it, an introduction like that?
All right, let us bow our heads just for a moment of prayer before we open the Word.
Lord, we say like those of old, “I was happy when they said, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.'” We can find no place better to be today than to be right here with the congregation of the Lord in worship. Though it may be raining outside, and there may be miseries and things, but when we are in Thy Presence, we have this smile of satisfaction, that we know that You understand and are working everything just right for us.

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« E-2 † We would ask special blessing this morning on those who were unable to get to the service. Many perhaps would’ve come if the weather had not been so bad. But may they find consolation in reading Your Word, and listening to ministers on the radio and programs that are designed for those people.
We would ask that You would especially bless those who are in Divine Presence for their effort of coming forth this morning to hear the Word of the Lord and to minister to Him in Psalms and in–in prayer, and in thanksgiving.

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« E-3 † And we ask, God, that You will touch the bodies of those who are sick and needy, who are waiting just now, has come at long distance to be prayed for. And we ask that You would just look upon us and speak to us, that we who are here this morning should take inventory of our own situation. “Search me,” said the–one of the prophets, “and try me, and see if there be any evil in me.”
And then, Lord, in the searching, if You find that there is evil in us, purge us, Lord, as we humbly confess our sins and our evil doings. Ask only that You remember us as You look at Jesus Thy Son, Who died to be a propitiation for our sins and our iniquity. As we confess that we believe that He died for this purpose and rose again that we’d have the grand privilege of doing this this morning, grant it, Lord. And speak to us through Thy written Word as we wait further to hear from You. In the Name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

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« E-4 † We wish to turn in the Scriptures this morning for a–a reading out of the Book of Thessalonians the 5th chapter. And I have… Those who has the request for prayer also this morning, the list, which prayer will be rendered immediately after this preaching service…
I believe, for just a moment, to you who are opening up your Bibles, let’s turn to I Thessalonians the 5th chapter and read just for a few moments. I am sorry, while you are opening your Bible, it is… The children have not been dismissed yet for their various classes. Would you just go right ahead now to your classes. You little children and teen-agers and so forth, go right to your classes.
And while… If you can now read, or open your Bibles to I Thessalonians the 5th chapter.
And if it’s possible that the Trustee Board is present at the time, I would like to see them just a few moments after the service in the Deacon’s office on some business. And if they’re not, someone get them word that I’d like to see them tonight just before service in the Deacon’s office.

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« E-5 † Now, for a text, I want to take this for a text this morning, “The Sudden Secret Going Away Of The Church.” May I… Let me announce it again, because I haven’t had very much time to premeditate on any comments, but just hurrying. We were out late yesterday and never got in last night till real late, and rushing down here this morning… But this just come to my mind. And maybe later I might catch something that would do someone good. I love this subject: “The Sudden Secret Catching Away Of The Church.” And now in I Thessalonians the 5th chapter…
But of the times and of the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.
For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destructions cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are the children of the light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, or of darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
Now, I wish you to look just across the page, if it is so geographically arranged in your Bible, to the 16th, 17th, and 18th verses of the 4th chapter of I Thessalonians.
For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Holy Word.
This is an unusual thing to speak of a subject like this on a morning that I come down to–to minister to the sick. But there is a greater sickness than physical sickness. And it’s much more essential that we be well for this great event that’s just fixing to take place, than it would be to be even asleep in the Lord, that is, dead, as we would know it.

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« E-6 † It’s better to be ready. I would rather be a sick man ready with the Lord, than to be a well man not ready to go with the Lord. But however it be, God is so willing that we be both well and ready, soul and body. For He forgives all of our iniquities and heals all our diseases. He died for a compound purpose.
And then, I thinking today on this subject of “The Sudden And Secret…” I like that. God is… People live today as though just before the coming of the Lord Jesus if He was going to send a host of angels down to all the newspapers and for a year or so announce it throughout all the world in the newspaper, that on a such and such a date Jesus will arrive; and to have it broadcast by the radio, and put on the televisions, and everywhere, just the day and just the hour that He was coming. Now, that’s the way people live today.

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« E-7 † But God has said in His Word that it would be like a thief in the night coming. If that would be so, people would say, as the world thinks today, “Oh, well, there is just plenty of time, I’ll… It’ll be well announced and…” But you see, it is announced, but it’s a secret announcing. It’s just those who are willing to hear it, those who are willing to consider it and to–who loves the Lord.
I think now of what Paul said when he said, “There is a crown of righteousness laid up for me, that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day.” And then he stopped, did you notice, and said, “Not only me, but to all them that love His appearing.” If we love His appearing…

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« E-8 † Usually in the world today, that people think of the appearing of the Lord as a horrible, dreadful thing. “Oh, the world might come to it’s end. Don’t talk to me about that,” they’ll say. They don’t want to know about those things. They don’t care about them, just for the present day living. But those who love the Lord, love His appearing.
What if one of your loved ones, some of you older people, that your mother was gone on, or your father, or your baby, and they were–been away for so many years, and you knowed that they might appear at any time, why, you’d have the house all cleaned up. You would just be ready and watching down that road for every car light that turned in; you’d think it would be them.

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« E-9 † Now, that’s the way the Church ought to be watching for the coming of the Lord: all in order, all ready, all packed up and ready to go as soon as He comes; because it’ll be in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. Just try to time how long it would take your eye to twinkle. That’s just how quick the rapture of the Church will take place.
You know, the enemy always uses the tactics that the–the–that the Lord uses. You know, when he seen that God was going to have a righteous Church, and the things that He was going to do, the enemy used that same strategy. He’s got a church, and he’s got a–a people that’s very religious. And they’re just right on the toe as–as religious people, because he knows that Christ’s Church is the same way. And he does it out in military life.

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« E-10 † I was reading an article sometime ago on the sudden attack on Pearl Harbor. That wasn’t no exactly any unknown attack. They had already been warned that the Japs were going to do that. But the sad part was, they ignored that warning. They had seen signs, and the Japanese army assembling themselves together, and the big ships being loaded with ammunition, and the threat was in the air. And they were just exactly in line for the invasion. But they ignored it.
That’s the way it is today with the Church. The Church is in line of judgment. But they are ignoring the coming of the Lord. So it… You can’t blame Him.

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« E-11 † They said when it was noised abroad around in Pearl Harbor that the Japs could attack at any time, and that their big fleet had set out in the waters of the sea and was moving slowly but steadily towards Pearl Harbor, that they only laughed at it, and said, “Oh, nonsense. You gloom builders, you worrywarts, all you think about is some trouble.”
And on the night just before the great attack the next morning, there was a great dance, or a big party given in Pearl Harbor itself. And no matter how much they tried to say that the Japs were coming, they still would not take warning.

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« E-12 † Let’s just look on them for a few minutes. There’s a little radio bulletin goes out, and a little piece in the corner of the paper, about like a healing campaign would be advertised, just a small place, that the Japs were on their road in the waters of the sea, a great fleet was headed that way. “Nonsense,” says the others. “We don’t believe in no such stuff as that. What are you trying to scare us about?”

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« E-13 † And then we find, getting close to the night I can see at the home place instead of them preparing for–to get out of the city, why, the young girls were all putting on their new frocks and so forth; they were going down to this great big jubilee they were going to have. And also, the officers of the army were just busy writing little passes so that the soldiers could all attend this party–big drunken party. And the trucks were roaring and humming, bringing in their best of beer, and their wine, and stuff for this party. And all the time the Japanese fleet on its road there, and they failed to hear the warning.
As the sun begin to set, and they all gathered in these great tavern of a place; maybe on the side somewhere, the bartender polishing the bar, or something said something like this, “Say, did you hear the rumor?”
“No, I don’t believe I did,” said the man he spoke to.
“Oh, they say something about a Japanese fleet being coming this way.”
And then someone else drops in on the conversation. And a young silly girl bounces up there, sticks her foot up on the bar, and said, “You gloomy headed warts, don’t you know that we’re here for a have a good time and not talk about war?”

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« E-14 † If that isn’t just about the way the world is the same today about the coming of the Lord. “You old fashion fogy, back numbers, what makes you dress and act and do the way you do?”
But we’re looking for that secret sudden appearing of the Lord. For there’s something in the air, a message of the Holy Spirit that tells us the coming is at hand.
Then when the big shindig went on, and oh, it must have been a horrible thing that night. For it said that sometime during the night, they took a young lady–a beautiful built young girl, and stripped her clothes from her, and put her in a little wagon with just one underneath garment on, and run her down the street and so forth, just having a big time. And all the time the Japanese was gaining grounds, coming right on.
And then the next morning when the man on the post of duty, and the airplane signal watching and so forth, had been out all night drunk and running around with these women and so forth, was so drowsy and upset the next morning from the big party until they were caught asleep on the job.

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« E-15 † And I’m afraid that it’s going to be likewise at the coming of the Lord. The Church is so took up and drunken with the cares of the world, till they’re going to be asleep at the post of duty at the coming of the Lord.
And then, over the city flew the planes, and the bombs dropped. And they just battered out that city to the ground. Why? Because they wouldn’t take heed to the warning. And that young lady, along with the rest of them, when those Japanese brutal soldiers, run in there, they ravished them in the street, and cut them to pieces with knives afterwards, and so forth. For if you won’t heed to warning, there’s only one thing left; that’s judgment.
Oh, if there ever was a time that this America was ever at its lowest ebb right now of its immorality, of its indifference… The Gospel’s been preached from shore to shore, and signs and wonders has been performed, and great miracles has been done; and they continually go on in their revelry, drinking, ignoring, making fun.

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« E-16 † Out of the two hundred thousand pulpits in America of Protestant churches, what we need today in those pulpits is prophets of the Lord who’s not afraid to blast out God’s thunderbolts of judgment upon this generation of sinful people that we’re preaching to. We need prophets like Isaiah, who cried out and said, “A wicked generation…” And how that he did condemn that generation and tell them of the oncoming judgments.
But today too many of our ministers are afraid to say those things. They are scared to give a direct witness of warning, for it would mean some of their jobs. They’d have to leave their denomination, leave their pulpits. And they would have to–to go out perhaps, maybe take another stand at some other church, or something. But it’s just too bad that we got those kind of people in our pulpits. We need men like John Wesley of the early reformation, Martin Luther. We need people like Paul, who’s willing to give all and to surrender theirselves even if it means separation from this life as a witness of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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« E-17 † What it is today, that education, and societies, and little frantical, delicate things of societies, and their own feelings has took the place of the Holy Ghost in the church. What we need today to cry out to America is God sent, God filled men with the power of the Holy Ghost, who’s not afraid to cry out against the thing that’s wrong and to warn the people of the oncoming judgment.
God could by no means ever let this nation escape judgment. If God would do so, He would have to raise up Sodom and Gomorrah and apologize to them for ever sinking them when they was such a evil people. We are no–no exception in the sight of God. What we have come today when it comes to our politics, when it comes to our government, it is rotten all the way from pillar to post. There is no justice no more, only in God.
Oh, we say we rely upon the U.N., the United Nations. And better than five years ago they were fifty-one percent communist, of the nations in the U.N. There’s nothing to rely upon but the Word of the living God. We can’t rely upon nothing, not on politics.

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« E-18 † I have been in trial for the last three or four months, under heavy fire, trying to accuse me of doing something that was wrong by passing the money through this Tabernacle here for the meetings. Which our Trustee Board here, signed the declaration, and there’s not a person that’s ever attended my meetings but what I’ve publicly announced that this money was taken up in our–in my meetings were directed through this church.
And now, they say because I placed it through the church, I was trying to defraud the government and want to give me twenty years in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for it.
I said, “What is that word wrote over our–our courthouses, ‘justice.’ It means no more than it wasn’t even wrote there.” Said, “When everything that your own people told me to do, I have did it. And now you say that they’re not with the government any more.”

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« E-19 † How can you, you’ll settle one and prove it out. Then here they’ll dig up something else. Not only that, but they’re wishy-washy.
I made this statement in the federal courts. I said, “If communism had Christianity in it, I’d be a communist. But I can’t be, because it denies Christianity. So I have one hand to hold to; that’s God’s unchanging hand, knowing that He will respect truth and honor; it’ll have to come forth in justice.”
But to let you know there is not hopes nowhere, only in the coming of the Lord…
Oh, it’s such a day that we’re living, such a–an awful time, when every physical thing, even to the church itself, the church peoples, the church denominations, they’re so concerned about their little–their little differences till they won’t even fellowship one with the other, and not taking warning that the coming of the Lord is at hand.

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« E-20 † Men such as Billy Graham, and Jack Shuler, Oral Roberts, and many of the great evangelists, and Charles Fuller, who has an outreach to the whole world, they do everything that they can to warn the coming of the Lord. Those old men, those men who tried to do right is the men that our own government tries to tear to pieces.
I said to someone, “Mister, twenty-eight years of my life I’ve laid on the altar of God to try to do right. And I want someone to look at me in the eye and tell me if I ever beat anyone out of anything, or ever stole anything in my life. By the grace of God I’m clear.”
That means no more to them than the snap of your finger. “You’re guilty anyhow. And you’re a dictator in your church. You snap your finger, and your church does what you tell them to do.”
Oh, I said, “How unjust can man be?”
He said, “You gave people gifts when their homes burnt. Here’s your checks where you give widows hundreds of dollars and paid their rent, and done things like that.” Said, “Did you go to your church board and tell them you were going to do such?”
I said, “No, sir.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I said, “The Lord told me in His Word, ‘Don’t let your right–your left hand know what your right’s a doing.'”
Said, “Then you’re trying to plead your case by a Bible, and we’re judging you by a law.”
I said, “Which is the highest law, man’s or God’s?” I’ll take God’s law.

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« E-21 † Just a few–two years ago, I’d been on my vacation, was on my road back. Here in Indiana the speed laws are sixty-five miles an hour in the day time and… That’s on the free highways, the freeways. And it’s sixty miles an hour at night after the sun goes down. That’s so in Kansas; that’s so in Illinois; that’s so in Colorado; that’s so in Idaho; that’s so in Wyoming.
And on my road back after setting in a snowdrift for several days, in a blizzard. And I’d just gotten an elk, and I was on my road home to give it to my friends. And I had to hurry to try to beat another blizzard was just behind me, or I’d be set up again and the meat would ruin.
And I crossed out of Wyoming, come over into Nebraska. I was about thirty miles up inside the road. And all of a sudden I looked back, and I seen a police’s red light. And I never was arrested in my life, so I just went on. I looked down; I was doing sixty miles an hour, out on a thirty or forty miles from any–any kind of a city, and just going down the highway, big four lane highway.

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« E-22 † And I noticed sixty miles an hour; I looked back and he continued to stay behind me. And I just watched, and I seen the red light flicker, and I thought, “Well, why don’t he pass me; he’s got plenty of room?” And I kept waiting. I run my window down and I heard a siren. “Well,” I thought, “I’m over as far as I can get.” And he pulled around and stopped me. I got out of the car; I thought, “Maybe it’s some message that I didn’t pick up on a radio, maybe at home my wife or family.” I got out of that car just as innocent as I could be.
He said, “I guess you wonder why I stopped you.”
I said, “I do, sir.”
And he said, “You were breaking the speed laws.” Said, “Do you know how fast you were going?”
I said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “I was going sixty miles an hour.” He said, “That’s right. And that’s against the law.”
I said, “It–isn’t it sixty-five in…”
“No, sir,” said, it’s fifty-five here. You’re doing five miles over the speed limit.”
“Oh,” I said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”
Said, “Give me your drivers license; just show me your license.”
And I took them from my pocket. And just as soon as he seen that word Reverend, his eyes gleamed with fire. He grabbed out his book and started writing me a ticket for twenty-four dollars and fifty cents.
I said, “Are you going to give me a ticket?”
Said, “You’re right. I’m going to give you a ticket.”
“Well,” I said, “Sir, it’s all right. But I didn’t see anything.”
He said, “Oh, there’s a sign right outside the state line. You should’ve seen it.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m been setting in a four–snowdrift for four days, and I probably just never saw it, sir.”
And he said, “All right, you got any cash on you?”
I said, “Just about twelve dollars.”
“Well,” he said, “you’re going to stay right here until you pay it,” about ten o’clock at night, or eleven.
I said, “Sir,” I told him all what was wrong, and the meat and so forth. That didn’t mean a thing to him. So I had to sign a bona fide statement that I would send them the money.

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« E-23 † When I got home I wrote the judge that–of the little city that–little squire that I was to send it to, and I told him, I said, “Sir, I’ve put twenty–about twenty-five years at that time, twenty-six years in the service of the Lord trying to convert criminals to the Lord Jesus, to try to protect your life as an officer, to try to make better communities, and a better place to live, and decency for families. I’ve put twenty something years in that service, and I just crossed over your line. I feel that you should forgive me for it.” I said, “But your officer would not even consider it at all, which I–maybe he’s supposed to do that, and carry out his duties.”
“But I’m asking you, as a judge, it isn’t the money, it’s the principle. My first fine to ever pay, and this has to come out of money that people give me to live on through the church.” I said, “If you’ll be so kind as to forgive me for it, I’ll appreciate it. However, here is the check that’s been notarized, that you might know that it’s–it’s all right.”
Brother, he just signed his name across it and took it cold bloodedly. Why? Why? And done through rotten politics, and religious prejudice… Some of them get by with murder. There it is. God won’t let His Church exist very long under such things. And the world is corrupted. And the politics is corrupted. And the church is corrupted.

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« E-24 † What we need to do more about it, is God-fearing people to get together and call on the Name of the Lord. That’s what the Branham Tabernacle needs to do. Oh, I would… Just looking and seeing I had a lot ahead of me, and thinking of how much we could stress here of the way that the church is a going: how they let down upon the morals of the people; how they let them live, and go to dances and to rock-and-rolls, and dress any way they want to and–and everything, and still go on just the same, compromising preachers.
What we need is old fashion, God sent, heaven born preachers who will tell the truth regardless who it hurts, like John, who said, “The axe is laid to the root of the tree; and every tree that not bringeth forth good fruits is hewn down and cast into the fire.” We need preachers, prophets like that who will bombard and use the judgments of God for ammunition to tear up and–this wicked condition that we’re living in.
You can never rid sin by patting it on the back. You can never rid sin by educating people. Our programs has become demolished and have failed. There’s only one remedy for sin. And that is, Christ is that remedy. And not Christ through intellectual confession, but through the baptism of the Holy Ghost to a new life and a regeneration. That’s the only remedy for sin. Only remedy for our nation, it’s the only remedy for our Church; it’s the only remedy for the people.

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« E-25 † Here some time ago, I guess many of you people who travel has been there; I’ve stayed all night there many times in my journey out west, which I have to go next week and reliv–get relief from the government to go… They’re holding me here, where if they send me away they could get me right here. And I’ve got to go to a couple of meetings over on the West Coast. And the Lord willing, I shall pass through this little city called West Memphis, Arkansas. It’s just across the river from Memphis, Tennessee.
And in this place they wanted to spend two and one half million dollars for a race court for gambling. Two and one half million dollars to degrade, and to pollute, and to send souls to hell.
And then catch men like Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, myself, and those who are suffering for the cause of Christ to pass legitimate money through a church, and want to give them twenty years in federal prison. It’s always been the will of the world to act like that.
I said you… “I have brothers who’s been in federal prison.”
And one of the said–attorneys said, “You’ve got brothers in the federal prison?”
I said, “I did have.”
Said, “Who were they?”
I said, “One of them was Brother John in Alcatraz on the Isle of Patmos. And the other was Brother Paul in the Roman federal prison. And Brother Daniel, he was also in the prison house. And Brother Joseph, because that he’d been accused of something that he was innocent of, served years by trying to be a real servant to Potiphar; and his wife accused him, and he was condemned and laid in prison for years, until his whiskers and hair had growed out, till he didn’t even, they had to shave him to take him before Pharaoh.” Sure.
What for? Anything wrong? For the cause of Christ, exactly. And then spend two and one half million dollars for a race court to pollute, and damn, and send souls to hell… Talking about God coming quickly…

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« E-26 † But the Arkansas people done something about it. Every church, I think nine or ten different denominations in that community, they all got together and said, “It’s wrong. And we won’t have it.” And they formed a prayer meeting. And they take chains of prayers, day in and out, and night in and out. And when the judges and the federal men, and they all went to the court the next morning to settle it, whether they could build it or not, they were met and it was defeated. Prayer changes things.

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« E-27 † I don’t care how rotten the world is, how rotten our country is, our nation is, our people are, prayer changes things. But we’re not interested in prayer meeting no more. We got so many other things we have to do, so we think.
And then, not only that, was that race court condemned, but it also was drawed up that they could not have in the state of Arkansas, nothing like that any more for years and years to come. Why? Because the people that are called by His Name assembled themselves together and prayed.
Oh, what we need today is a calling together, a getting ready, and not depending on the preacher; but you, as an individual before God, make yourself ready for the coming of the Lord to escape all this corruption. No matter what they call you, and what action they take, that doesn’t change God one bit. God will do it just the same. He’s depending and waiting on us. Oh, my.

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« E-28 † Some people say, “Well, I go to church on Sunday morning. I listen to our pastor, which is a fine preacher.”
That’s good. I appreciate that in you, or the America, the world, whoever it is. But it takes more than a good message from the pulpit. It takes your life. It takes you to get ready. In Revelations the 19th chapter and the 7th verse the Bible said that, speaking of the bride of Christ, “She has made herself ready.” She made herself ready. And you, as a member of this bride, you’ve got to make yourself ready.

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« E-29 † Sometime ago, a minister was preaching. And–and there was a man who’d been attending his church for a, oh, quite a lengthy time. And he came that morning up to the altar, and he said, “Pastor, I now wish to give my testimony and my surrender to the Lord Jesus, which I have done last night.”
And the Pastor said, “Well, I am sure glad to hear about that, John, to know that you have decided to finally come and give yourself to the Lord, because we don’t want to hurt your feelings, but we know that you had been very wicked. And we know you have mistreated your family. You gambled away your money, and you drank it up, and lived a horrible life; and your family went without. And it gives my heart joy this morning to know that you have come forward now and going to surrender yourself to the Lord Jesus to become a different person, to serve Him.”
He said, “Thank you, pastor.”
He said, “Then just what… I want to ask you something. What sermon did I preach, or what text did I use, or what song was sung in the church in the hymns that made you so decide to do this?”
And as the man looked at him in the face, with the tears running off his cheeks he said, “Pastor, it was none of your sermons, though as good as they were. It was none of the choirs singing or the specials, though as good as they were.”
He said, “Then would you tell this congregation why you have made this decision?”
He said, “I work with a man who is a Christian, and I’ve said everything to him. I’ve called him a holy-roller. I’ve called him a religious fanatic and everything, and it didn’t bother him a bit. But he lived such a life till finally in my heart, all along, he has won a place that I want to be like that man. And that’s the reason that I ask him to lead me to Christ. I wanted the Christ that he serves.”

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« E-30 † You see, God does work through the pastor to get His church ready. He works through the songs to get His church ready. And He works through you to get His church ready. If your pastor would fail and continually to fail, you’d hunt you another pastor. Quickly you would do that. If your choir didn’t sing right, or your solos wasn’t right, you’d say to the director, the one who has the music, “Don’t let them sing no more. They just make me nervous to sing.”
But what about you as an individual? How do you fail in your daily living? How do you tally up with God–what God says for you to be a shining light that sets on a hill. No one can pass that way, when around your way without knowing about Jesus. What type of life do you live? One of those types that’s mean, and insulting, and aggravating, indifferent? Or can you speak of the peace and the love that you have found in Christ? She has made herself ready.

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« E-31 † I was showing you the wickedness, and the time would not–would fail me to go through the ages and show, that each time like in Babylon on the night of the rioting, and dancing, and drinking, and so forth, and what happened. And down through the age it’s been that way. In every age God’s had thunderbolt prophets, and signs and wonders to condemn the thing in the midst of all popularity and stand alone for God.
Not only that, but what if I would speak of the time of little Stephen: not a prophet, not a pastor, just a member of the Body of Christ, how that this little fellow stood before the Sanhedrin Council that morning and spoke out to those who were condemning him, and said, “You stiffnecks, uncircumcised in the heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do you.”
He wasn’t a pastor. You can’t expect your pastor to do it all. You can’t expect your Trustee Board to do it all, or your Deacon Board. You’ve got to make yourself ready. It’s an individual affair. And remember, His coming is so sudden that the Church will go in a twinkling of an eye. And if we see sin on every hand and judgment pending in the battleships of God’s wrath coming, how we escape this?

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« E-32 † Signs are appearing. Jesus is coming. And great wonders are being done. Every milepost is pointing towards His soon appearing. And it’ll happen in a moment. How are we standing this morning as we take inventory? If we should be spoke to this morning, and the Lord Jesus should descend from the heavens this morning with a shout and the trump of God, would we be found ready as a church body? Would we be found ready as an individual to join with those who are raised from the dead, who have proven themselves ready?
No matter whether we are ready or not, the Lord Jesus will come just the same at the appointed time. We must be ready. And we must do it now. It is no time to wait. We must redeem the time and be ready.

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« E-33 † Sometime ago, a story, just before closing, that struck me as I heard it many, many years ago… This secret coming of the Lord, sudden secret going of the church… “Watch, there’ll be two in the field; I’ll take one and leave one. There’ll be two in the bed; I’ll take one and leave one,” showing that the coming of the Lord will not be just at any certain corner, but it’ll be universal. One will be in the field working: daytime, the other one in the bed sleeping on the other side of the world. It’ll be a universal rapture. And it’ll come with the shout, with the voice of the Archangel. And the trump of God shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise. And she will be caught away secretly. Oh, I love that. The great Bridegroom coming, and the bride that got Herself ready, waiting for that secret moment that she doesn’t even know herself, but she’s ready and dressed, and waiting for it.

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« E-34 † We see signposts in the world that she’s ready for judgment. We see signs and wonders in the church, great things taking place. What kind of people should we be? Ready at the moment, for we don’t know when He’s coming. “Be ye also ready for you know not what minute or hour your Lord does come.” Be ready, for you can’t get ready then. For He said you could not.

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« E-35 † How many of you, all perhaps, have read of the virgins? Some were wise and some were foolish. “Virgin” means “purity.” They were all good people, every one of them virgin, sanctified vessels of God. But those who had oil in their lamps went in. And the others was left out. They were all virgins, every one, people that you couldn’t put your finger on for anything wrong. They everyone believed in the coming of the Lord. They were ready to go meet Him, but some of them let their oil go out.
Don’t let that be your case. Keep oil in your lamp. Oil is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Never let it drain from you. When you feel your love dying away, your sincerity to Christ, and to the–the cause, quickly go to Him Who has the Fountain of Oil and buy for yourself a filling of the Holy Spirit.
Our nation gone, morally corrupted and ruined, our politics corrupted and gone, our leaders… O God, what could we do about it? You can put a good man in, and he comes out a crook. There’s only One we can bring now, that’s the Lord Jesus. Let’s make ready for His coming.

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« E-36 † I want to tell you a little story that I heard some years ago, in the close. The sudden, quick, rapture of the Church… Now, you say, “Certain things will take place, then I’ll make ready.” Make ready now. I’ve just related to you of Pearl Harbor and of many places where they refused to hear the warning. They refused to listen to it. Nothing was left but divine judgment upon the people.
Now, all that will not go in Christ will be under God’s wrath and divine judgment. Please don’t let that happen to you. No matter what the Branham Tabernacle ever turns out to be, don’t you let it be you. You be a servant of Christ. No matter what the church world does, you be a servant of Christ. It’s not up to the Branham Tabernacle, neither is it up to any other churches; it’s up to you as an individual to be ready at the coming of the Lord. You must be ready. I must be ready. I sweep my own steps; it’s up to you to sweep your steps. Leave mine alone, me leave yours alone. You’ve got to make your garment ready.

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« E-37 † There was a great rancher, and he owned a mammoth big ranch, way in the northern part of Colorado near the mountain section.
As you all know, I done a little ranching in my life of riding and so forth. One of my calls to God was setting on a pair of old Texas wheel spurs, with a rifle laying on the saddle, and a pistol on my side when I heard them trees blowing: sounded like a Voice said, “Adam, where are you?” As I looked up towards the stars and heard old Slim, an old cowboy from over in Texas, blowing through a comb with a piece of paper:
Down at the cross where my Saviour died,
It was down there for cleansing from sin I cried;
There to my heart was His blood applied;
Glory to His name!
I pulled the blanket over my face and tried to hide myself, ’cause God was looking down in those hills.
It was on one of those ranches where the great packing companies buy their cattle, run them into the mountains, and then bring them out after calves are born in–in the fall of the year and brand them and sell off some of the old herd and the steers, and so forth. And go ahead into the… accumulate their great herds of cattle…

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« E-38 † And on this certain ranch, the owner, or the caretaker, what we call there “the top, the foreman,” he had about five daughters. They were all beautiful women, young, single. And there was a little lady there which was a cousin to these girls, that her father and mother had both deceased. And she was brought over there to be–to live with her–her uncle.
And those girls, that they was in those fancy type of frilly frocks, you know, and–and they just took this poor little girl, and they just treated her like she was some animal, all the hard work poured right on her. She washed the dishes; she cleaned up, she fixed the bunks; she–she had to do it all.
And they just stayed around with polished fingernails and manicure, the stuff on their lips, and all fixed up, you know, just prissy. And especially did they do this when they heard that from Chicago, the big packing company who owned the outfit, his young single son was coming to visit the ranch. Oh, did they deck out in good clothes. Oh, how and did they dress and make ready for his coming.

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« E-39 † And each night the conversation would be, they were going to vamp this young man and marry him who would… Then they would own the ranch themselves, for the son would fall heir to all. So they made themselves ready.
So you see, there is a ready to be made. You make yourself ready by joining church or something; that ain’t all that’s required. You’ve got to have Oil in your lamp. See? Just your dressing, saying, “We’ll build a big church. We’ll belong to a better denomination. We’ll–we’ll give them a pipe organ to the Lord. We’ll make plush seats.”
That isn’t what God requires. Righteousness is what God requires, of His Son, Christ Jesus. That’s the garments, for the Bible said, “The white clothes which she is adorned in is the righteousness of the saints.”

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« E-40 † So she–these girls thought they would make themselves ready for the coming of this young man. ‘Course that poor little cousin…
That reminds me of an offcast somewhere. You could appreciate her. She was a beautiful woman. But oh, my, she was a nice little girl, but she was not even considered among them, not as a relative.
Now, that’s about the true picture of the real Church today before the denominations. [Blank.spot.on.tape–Ed.] Not even considered, a bunch of interdenominationals, a bunch of outcasts.
So the poor little fellow just went ahead working. And when the young man arrived, they didn’t know it, but he come looking for a wife. He was sick and tired of the city girls who just stayed all dolled up, and, oh, you know, hung around the barrooms, and rode around in the Cadillacs, and the–the different things. They–they were just sick and tired of it. He thought, “I will go out west and hunt me a–a real girl, that will be a real mother to my babies, and somebody who will not hang at all the sewing circles, and the–and the societies, and things, but will just be a real mother.”
What did he find when he got there but the same thing that he had condemned in Chicago.
I wonder if the Lord Jesus will find a church just a denomination, just by name, a church, no oil in the lamps, not ready to go? Oh, they got fine frocks; they got the biggest churches, the biggest this and all these things, but God don’t want that. He wants you as an individual. They may have the best pastors, they may have the finest deacon board, but He wants you with Oil. He’s coming to catch that Oil and Bride away.

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« E-41 † And as he, this boy looked upon them, he was disheartened. And that night they were having something on the order of, in them days, it’s been a long ago, they called the Charleston. Which is just like a rock-and-roll. And they were going to throw one of those big parties. Many of you people remember that old Charleston dance they did back when I was a kid, when I was out there.
And so they were all had their little black and white clothes on, you know, to do the… (Oh, I… it was called Charleston and Black Bottom, that’s what they were calling it.) And they had them two-tone clothes, and they were going to–to do these dances and…

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« E-42 † But this boy was sick of that stuff. He was hunting for a real girl. So he slipped out of their party. He’s watching them; he went in to look at them.
So is another Son that I know of. Another Son will come to your church, He will–Son of God, He will come there. He will look around; He will see your fine dress. He will–He will know that you’re a good member. But He’s looking for something different from just the regular trend of church.
So as he looked around, after while, he was so discouraged, he walked out the door. And going back, walking in the moonlight towards the bunkhouse, he heard somebody kind of humming. And he looked around, and here went this little girl with a great big pan of dishwater, way in the night, bare-footed, to throw the dishwater out. And as soon as he saw her, something another said, “That’s her; that’s the one.”
So he put hisself in the way. And when she… Well, when she come back along the corral fence, why, he was standing there. And she almost fainted. He said, “How do you do?” And he said, “What’s your name?”
And she told him her name. And it was the same name of the boss of the ranch.
Said, “Then I can’t understand how that this… Is that your father?”
Said, “No. I’m just a cousin, you see. My father and he were brothers. I’ve got the same name, but I… That’s–that’s the boss.”

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« E-43 † You might have the name of church, might have the name of Branham Tabernacle, or Methodist, or whatever church you go. That isn’t it, friend. See, it’s something different; it’s your character; that’s what God’s a looking at. You might be Methodist; you might be Baptist; you might be Presbyterian. It’s not that. It’s character that God looks at, not just earthly character, but Holy Spirit character. “These signs shall follow them that believe,” said Jesus in the 16th chapter of Saint Mark.
She was so gotten that–that he would speak to her even, and she held her little head down and she ran into the house.
He was there for a week or two. And he looked all around everywhere. And he never said no more, but he kept watching her. And the night before he left, he was to leave the next morning; they was throwing another big party. And he watched for her. He couldn’t find her. He knowed she’d had to do the dishes and so forth, so–the dirty work, and all could be throwed off.

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« E-44 † And that’s the way the real church of God has to take it sometime, the dirty work, all the scandal names, and all of the things that’s mean, to be throwed at it. But she’s a great speckled bird. All the other birds gather around and flock at her. That’s all right. Her name’s on the Lamb’s Book of Life. She’ll spread Her great wings someday for a flight. She’s ready. Them speckles meant the Blood of Christ sprinkled on her. You’ve read it in your Book, the Bible.
And this boy caught the little lady that night coming out. He said, “I’ve watched you. No one knows it but myself.” He said, “I’ve come out here looking for a wife. And all that I have ever seen, you meet the requirements.”
How did she feel, the big man’s son asking her now, if she would be his wife? Just imagine how those girls must’ve felt when they looked out the window and saw holding hands with that little despised cousin, the man that they tried to vamp with all their big fine frocks and frills and carrying on.
And he said, “Will you marry me?”
“Oh,” she said, “sir, I’m not worthy.”

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« E-45 † That’s the way the real church feels about it. “I’m not worthy, I can… If I can just wash Your dishes, it’ll be all right.” Are you willing to take that place? Could you wash the dishes from the supper, would you be willing to be called fanatic, or would you be willing to be–take the way with the Lord’s despised few? Are you willing? Are you willing at your work to be marked? “There’s a man; he’s a religious fanatic, because he won’t drink; he won’t smoke; he doesn’t dance; he doesn’t run with women.” “There’s a woman that keeps her head down, and she walks like… down through the town; she’s not… She won’t join our circles and…” Are you willing to take the way, make yourself ready for the coming of the Lord?
If you have… If you do, you’ll be waiting for Him to come. You’ll joy at His coming. It won’t be a dreadful thing; it’ll be the most gracious moment that you can think of, the coming of the Lord. “All those that love His appearing…”

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« E-46 † So when he left, he told her he’d be back at a certain time. Said, “When you begin to see…” It was the winter. Said, “When you begin to see those trees begin to bud yonder, that mesquite and stuff begin to take on new life,” said, “then I’ll be back about springtime.”
I understand; I couldn’t say it was true, but the girl only got about a dollar and seventy-five cents a week for her labor. But she saved every penny of it. Why? She was getting ready for the wedding that was to be. She was saving her money for her wedding gown, for he said, “We’ll be married right here at the ranch when I come again.”
She saved her money all year. She was happy. She didn’t mind washing the dishes. She didn’t mind ironing the clothes, or sweeping out the bunkhouse, or whatmore. She was engaged to the boss of the ranch.
What do we care what the world says, a real Christian? What do we care if we have to be despised and rejected? “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The Boss’ Son’s a coming one day, and we’re going to a wedding supper. What difference does it make to us, if you love His appearing?

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« E-47 † After it was all… The days passed. The little daughters, the little cousins, made fun of her, danced around her and done everything else. Why, said, “You poor silly kid. Do you not know if he… Why, he was just like all other men. He was just teasing you.”
But the Son of God doesn’t tease. “Except a man be borned again, he will in no wise…” I don’t care how good you look, how much church you belong to, what your status is in the country. You might be a politician; you might be in the federal government; you might be in the Catholic, Presbyterian, any church you want to be, but it’s “Except a man be borned again, you’ll not enter… And these signs shall follow them that believe.” I’m only quoting His Word.

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« E-48 † Finally, when the hour come, she begin to see the–the buds begin to come on the trees. She knew he’d be there at any time.
And he said, “I’ll try to make it just at sundown, so we can be married and hurry off.”
And every evening at sundown when she–she’d go and get–make herself all ready, get her little wedding garment on and wait at the gate. And these little cousins come and laugh at her and make fun of her, and said, “You poor silly ignorant child, to think that the–the man who owns is the president or–or of the company, that his boy would marry a dishwasher.”
He was looking for virtue, not clothes. He had enough money to buy all the clothes that’s necessary.
God don’t care how big your… fancy things you have, He owns everything in the world. So He wants virtue. He wants something that’s real.
And so finally one evening, while she was standing there… And they were laughing and making fun of her and telling her she was silly, all at once they heard some hoofs a prancing. What happened? Across the hill come a buckboard. Now, a buckboard’s a little wagon, open top, very popular in the west. And the horses all jingled and everything; coming across the hill come this carriage. And it stopped in front of the gate, and she run. She said, “I knew you would come.”

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« E-49 † That’s to be the Church someday. She threw herself in his arms, and he said, “Darling, I have had a man stationed on this ranch since I left here last year that’s brought me a report of everything that you’ve done.”
God’s got a Man stationed in this tabernacle this morning. He’s called the Holy Spirit. He knows the secrets of your heart. He knows everything that you’ve done or what you think. He tells the Father everything that you do. He brings the message back and forth.
He said, “And he has told me that you’ve waited, and you worked, and you’ve labored patiently, waiting for me to come. Now, you’ve been a slave for a long time. But now, your slave days are over. I have brought along the minister. Right under this rose trellis you become my wife.” He kissed her, put the wedding ring on her finger, and picked her up, and set her in the buckboard with his arm around her, and drove off to find this new big palace on Outer Drive in Chicago, the selected of the nation, where she could live as his bride.

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« E-50 † Why? She was ready. She’d lived and been the kind of a woman that he wanted. It happened just in the spare of a moment.
And that sudden secret coming of the Lord; the world don’t know it’s going to happen, but we do. It’s at hand. Don’t be like the young lady they stripped the clothes from in Pearl Harbor; you’ll go down in disgrace. Be like the one who made herself ready, and kept her virtues, and was waiting for the coming of the Lord, ’cause it’ll be secret and sudden.
While you think of those things, let’s bow our heads to Him Who will come.

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« E-51 † Just before we shall speak to Him, every man in his own way, every woman, boy or girl… And while I am speaking to Him and know that His secret Agent, the One Who you cannot see with your eyes, so He is a secret Agent, the blessed Holy Spirit is in this building. Would you want Him to remember you before Father this morning, that you want to be ready and–when He comes to go with Him? If you would, would you raise up your hand to Him? The Lord bless you. I guess practically every hand in the building, mine also. “I want You, Holy Spirit, to tell the Father, look down upon me. I have–I’m taking the way with His despised people. How I want to go. I want to be ready, and I–I want to be ready right now, because He may come before this service is over.”
Nations are breaking,
Israel’s awakening,
The signs that the prophets foretold;
The Gentile days numbered,
With horrors encumbered;
“Return, O dispersed, to your own.”
The day of redemption is near,
Men’s hearts are failing for fear;
Be filled with God’s Spirit,
Your lamps trimmed and clear,
Look up! your redemption is near.
The fig tree is growing;
Israel’s restoring…

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« E-52 † Oh, God, the fig tree putting forth its buds, Israel returning as a nation. When I heard our pastor this morning speak to pray for Israel, don’t you know that’s the putting forth of the buds? He’s to come at that time. Seeing that “Three Minutes Before Midnight,” that article, seeing it on–on my own camera, or projector in my basement, when those old Jews crippled and coming in on ships and everything, from all over the world… The interviewer said, “Are you coming to the homeland to die in the homeland?”
He said, “No, we come to see the Messiah.”
The fig tree is growing; (Can’t you see it? The day of redemption is near.)
False prophets are lying,
God’s Truth they’re denying,
That Jesus the Christ is our God; (Can’t you see where we’re at?)
But we’ll walk where the apostles have trod.
The day of redemption is near,
Men’s hearts are failing for fear; (Think of it.)
Be filled with God’s Spirit,
Your lamps trimmed and clear,
Look up! your redemption is near.

58-1012 THE.SUDDEN.SECRET.GOING.AWAY.OF.THE.CHURCH_ JEFFERSONVILLE.IN SUNDAY_
« E-53 † Lord God, in this great moment where I look upon this little congregation and see red faces and tear-stained cheeks, we’re aware that the great secret Agent is standing near, the Holy Spirit. Now, let us take the way with the Lord’s despised few. If there is little scruples in our neighborhood amongst the people, amongst the Church, or wherever it is, that has nothing to do with us. We shall not defile our garments with things of the world any more. For You shall come someday in a moment in a twinkling of an eye, that sudden secret rapture of Your church. You’ll be coming over the hill of time, down the horizontal rainbow to take away the church. For the Scripture said, “The trump of God shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise, and we shall be caught up with them in the air to meet the Lord, and forever be with the Lord. Wherefore, my brethren, comfort one another with these words.” Let that ring deep in the hearts of this congregation this morning. We’ll praise Thee, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

–Rev. William Marrion Branham
–copied from The Table Software, available from VGR

https://branhamtabernacle.org/en/streaming/viewservice/085280E8-1614-4084-A493-7E135A06E8F9

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