¹ Thank you, Brother Williams. Morning, friends. It's a privilege to be here this morning. And to have an introductory like this, it still makes me feel smaller. And I'm--was very grateful for this opportunity to come this morning to Phoenix.
I remember when I first come to Phoenix, I was about seventeen years old. It certainly has growed since that time. Out this morning where we come into Phoenix, we could hardly tell when we left Tucson and got to Phoenix. It's almost tied together; so many places has sprang up. Places where we used to go out here and even run burros on the desert, and now there's motels and ten-cent stores, and so forth. And 'course, that makes me getting old.

³ And then I set down here by the side of my good brother here, Brother Valdez, and I--I said, "Well, brother..." We was talking, and I said, "Well, 'course I'm getting old." I said, "I realize that; my miles are building up." I said, "Wait till you get my age," or something like that. I was--I was surprised to know that he was about twelve years older than me. So I... Then I felt lots better then...?... I said, "Brother Valdez, I want you... How long you been preaching the Gospel?"
He said, "Fifty years."
Well, I was a very small child when he was preaching. So I said, "I wish you would just take the service this morning, Brother Valdez." I said, "I--I'm a young man," I said, "I hate to kinda set up here and try to speak." I said, "My elders..."
And he just laughed, said, "What do you think I drove down here for?"
So--so I'm very grateful for Brother Valdez. He was telling me about having a rest home out here. That's--that's really nice. I appreciate that. Invited me out to come and visit with them sometime. And it's out here by New River. I don't know whether any of you know where it's at, or not. I'm sure, if a Valdez is behind it, it's all right.

⁷ So then, every time I come to a convention, I usually meet somebody that's--that's been healed in the services or something. And when I was standing here at the table this morning, a precious sister setting over here, the name of Erb, she comes here from Michigan. Her son is the announcer here on this Christian station. And she was telling me about being in the meeting way back in Flint, Michigan. She got a prayer card, and was trying to be prayed for, and she never did make it. And she's very seriously ill. And right here this morning, I believe God healed the woman, standing right here by the side of the place.
I said, "What a time now. That's been about twelve, fourteen years ago, and now in the city called Phoenix. Phoenix is something that's built--built up from ruins." I said, "Well, that's the same thing happened to you this morning. God built you up, I believe, this morning from a--a ruined health to good health."

⁹ I was just hearing last evening, the calls was coming, so many. I'm your neighbor now; I live in Tucson; and the calls were so many I couldn't get out to get them all, so I just praying for them by phone. And they... Then they just had to leave their numbers.
And there was a lady, eighty-seven years old, an old Christian, she had been out of her mind for a while. She was in the street, screaming, and calling the police, that somebody had taken her baby. Eighty-seven years old (See?), her mind had left her. And she was a dear old woman. I never knew her in my life. And so Billy rang and said, "Go immediately to prayer," said, "the--the lady is seriously, and they think she's going to die." Said, "She's just... She's beyond herself."
Then I just hung up the receiver, and went into the room, and prayed. In a few moments she was asleep. She'd woke up, normally well, eat a full chicken supper with all the ice cream and cake, behind it. Yeah.
You see, God is sovereign. He's so real, He can... You don't have to be there; just--just ask this.
I believe our leader here, this morning, or someone, or maybe it was Brother Valdez in his prayer, said, "We have not because we ask not. We ask not because we believe not."

¹⁴ I appreciate the singing of this young people here. Brother Valdez, us old people, were remarking of the sincerity of that young man making that testimony, that he knew Jesus.
Now, we know that we find, many times, these little quartets and singings, I... This is another minister's word; Brother Valdez said, "Sometime they come a dime a dozen." Because they seem like today, it's--it's become a show in the stead of the--the sacredness and sincerity that the Pentecostals once possessed.
And the sincerity of these boys, I--I appreciated that. The Lord bless you boys. And I was...

¹⁷ I'm not much on television. As you know, I'm really against it. And I'm really renting a place down in Tucson until we get our place fixed, where we'll have our home established there, the Lord willing. And the lady that rents the house, she's a fine Christian friend, but she had in the house a--a--a television. Well, I've got young children, and you know how they are, so they hurry to it. So a couple mornings ago, when I just come in from a trip with Brother Stromei... I don't know whether Brother Stromei's here this morning, or not; he's the president of the chapter at Tucson. My young daughter, which is setting back over here, called me in to watch, said, "We're going to turn the television on, some singing quartets," or whatever it was.
Well, now, I am a very good critic, and I--I'm sorry for that, but I--I--I can't be nothing but just what I'm made. If I do something contrary to my own makeup, I'm a hypocrite. And I wouldn't want to be that before you people. I--I want to be just what I am, and then you know how we're standing. And I--I guess I criticize a little too much.
But I just had it in my heart to criticize that, because it just looked to me like some kind of a Hollywood put on, just a lot of carrying on. It didn't seem like the sacredness it should. And they sang those hymns in--in rock-and-roll time, and gold slippers on. And has it come that the Gospel has become a show? Why, I, if that's what it is, I--I don't want nothing to do with it. I want something that's real and genuine, and we want to keep it that way.
Now, I--I believe that transpositions these two right here, brethren, that... You hear me better now?

²¹ Now, next Saturday morning, the Lord willing, I have the grand privilege of speaking at the chapter, my first time, at Flagstaff, Arizona. The brother here, I just forget his name, is the president. [A brother says, "Chester Earl."--Ed.] Chester Earl, Brother Chester Earl. Just had the opportunity to meet him this morning, when I was just shaking hands with the fine evangelist here from India, an Indian brother. And he said that next Saturday morning I'm to speak there. You're all cordially invited to attend this meeting. We hope that the Lord will bless us.
And then the following Monday night, at Tucson, is a banquet. The Lord has give me the honor to speak to the--at the banquet down there, twenty-first day of--of December, at Tucson. You're certainly cordially invited to attend that banquet night.
And then as Brother Williams announced that I'm to be right here again, for to kind of a little prelude before the convention starts.

²⁴ And, so, am I getting some static there, Brother Williams? There's... What say? Is that better now? That's better. Fine.
I certainly hope that many of you can find time to attend one, or every night and day of the meeting. That--that starts on the seventeenth, at seven, Sunday afternoon? [Someone says, "One-thirty."--Ed.] One-thirty. One-thirty, Sunday afternoon. I want to say also, if the Lord willing, I'll be praying for the sick in--in--in those meetings, and doing all I can to help you.

²⁶ And minister brothers here, this morning, of the Phoenix area. The reason that I come here to this hall, I have... Each time when I come, I usually make a little panoramic, and run around to the churches, each church. Then I find it kinda hard, because some of the churches are kinda small. And we certainly don't want to leave out any brother because his church is small, and then it makes it hard, the people can't get in. So if... I thought we'd just meet in one place and I'd take care of it myself, and we'd just meet here and have the service, just a little evangelistic service, and pray for the sick and things. Before...
Maybe if I get over on this other, this better over here? [Someone says, "No, that, that's the tape."--Ed.] That's the tapes. All right. Ah...

²⁸ Maybe it would be a--a little better if I did it that way. And I want my brethren here of the churches, the pastors here in Phoenix, to know that that's the reason we did this, to come here to this hall, so we could have all get together in one certain place. And now, you can't get to all the brethren, there's so many of them. You seen what stood this morning, and probably that's not a half of them. So you can't get them all in a few days that we have here, before--prior the convention.
And I'm sure we're going to have a great time in the convention. You'll hear great speakers. This Brother Cash is Cash Hamburg, Hamburg. My, how many ever heard him? He certainly is a--a typhoon. Yeah. Excuse me, I oughtn't to have said it that way. That's a brother, but--but, my, I was with him one time. You know, I don't see how you ever come to hear me, when you hear a fellow like that. He can preach and never catch his breath. I--I don't know how he does it, I... But he certainly does get a lot out. I went with him in my New York convention, recently, and he wanted to take me to--to supper after the meeting. And I went into a place, and I was about ready to get out when brother... He, he preached all up-and-down the floor, and everywhere around, to everybody there was in there. He's quite a--a character, in himself.

³⁰ And I'm sure you'll enjoy brother from California too. What's his name? I can't think of his name, the one's--one of the speakers. I--I forget his name too. But he's a--a forceful speaker, and you will enjoy him. There'll probably be great speakers there such as, you know, the--the Brother Roberts and many of the great men of this day.
So I'm thankful to think about a Scripture comes on my mind here at this time. And at one time David was looking out upon the ark of the Lord, setting in tents. And he said... He was setting with the prophet Nathan of that day. And so he said, "Is it right that I would dwell here in a house, live in a house of cedar, and the ark of the covenant of my Lord under tent?"
And the prophet said to him, "Do all that's in your heart, David, 'cause God is with you." That's all he knew to say.
But that night, the Lord met the prophet, and said, "Go, tell my servant David, that I took him from that sheep cote, from following those few sheep, you know, and have made him a name like the great men," not the biggest name, not the greatest name, but numbered him with the great men that was in the earth at that time.
And I thought, "The grace of God, to David there." And I thought, "I could count it, myself. When I find the privilege of this day that we're living in, the closing days of the world's history, and to be numbered among such men as we have attend these meetings." And the Lord bless you, real richly.

³⁵ Now, my good friend, Brother Valdez, said, "Brother Branham, I got to leave at--at, I believe, at a quarter to ten, or quarter after ten." Said, "I'm going to get over on the end, so I won't disturb--disturb you speaking." He's been in the meetings before.
I'm--I'm kinda slow, and have to think, you know, when I'm speaking. And I write down my Scriptures here, and a note, maybe, but then I have to go back and think what the Lord told me to say, you know, have to wait for Him. And I'm kinda slow, so I hope I don't keep you too long this morning.
I asked Brother Williams, I said, "Brother Williams, how much time do I have?" I said, "Now, I had a Scripture here I could speak on which would take me just about thirty minutes, or something, and dismiss everyone and go home." And I said, "But I'd like to have a little lesson, if it's possible," and on what I think that would be something for you today, something that you could take home with you to think of it.
And I certainly wouldn't have got up this morning at three-thirty, or twenty minutes to four, and got ready to come up here, just to be seen. I--I--I don't care to be seen. I--I come here and studied yesterday upon some Scriptures I got written down, for something that I prayed sincerely over, and thought maybe that, through that, it might help somebody. I... We haven't got time for shows and sceneries. We--we must get down to business. I believe that Jesus is coming pretty soon.

³⁹ And now, they're taping this, and probably someone might get the tape. And I'd like to make this statement, that sometimes I'm... Many times I am really misunderstood. And many times people call me back, say, "Brother Branham, did--was this the light you meant that in?" And sometimes it's we say something, but you have to know to approach it by terminology that what I meant by it.
And I say things sometime that's--that's a little contrary to maybe someone's belief (I want you to get that clear now.), someone, what someone believes. But I have a--a Message, I'm not--from the Lord, that I feel that way about it. Others might feel it's from the Devil. Others might feel it's nonsense. But to me, it's Life. And I don't mean to be different when I say things that's different, or maybe a little hurty or cutty to people. I don't mean it in that light. I--I, if I do, then I'm a hypocrite. I--I say it in the light of progress to God. I say it in the light of--of--of have people to know God better. And I say it not because that it's something I've made up myself. It's something that I find from God.

⁴¹ And now if I happen to speak on something in any of these conventions, that hurts people, or... Say, "I don't believe That that way."
Well, I've often made this rude statement. And my wife setting there listening to me, she knows there is not much formality about me. I--I... Just like when you're eating chicken and you run into a bone. Now, no good chicken lover ever throws away the chicken because he hit a bone. He just throws away the bone, and he goes ahead eating chicken. The same thing in eating cherry pie, if I hit a seed, I--I--I never throw the pie away; I just throw the seed away. So...
And what I say here that might seem like, in any of my meetings, that seems like a seed to you, well, you just lay that aside and, say--allow that to me not knowing as much about it as you would. So then you just go ahead and eat what you think that's right. And I'll...

⁴³ I trust now that the Lord will bless His Word. I am a firm believer in the Word, and the Word only. Just the Word only, and that's the Message that the Lord has given me.
We different, one from another. I have noticed this morning, my brethren, missionaries, evangelists, and pastors, standing here, maybe--maybe a hundred or more of them standing here. Each one of them's more qualified to stand here and speak, than I am. I'm sure of that. But, see, each one of us, one can't take the other one's place. One cannot take the other one's message. See, we have our different ways.

⁴⁵ God's sovereign. When He... Who--who could tell God how to make things in the beginning when there's just He alone? See? And if we have Eternal Life, there's only one form of Eternal Life, and that's God. So if we have Eternal Life, we were with God right then, a part of God. We were His attribute. We are now His attribute. And because "In the beginning was the Word." And a word is a thought expressed. So we were His thoughts, then expressed into word and become what we are. That's the reason our names, maybe not what we have now, but our names were put on the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world. See? And if it wasn't there then, it'll never be there. See? And Jesus come to redeem all those, that's whose names were on that Book. See, He knowed.

⁴⁶ "The potter," as Romans 8 tells us, "who can tell the potter? Can the clay say, 'Make me thus, thus'?" See? No. God has to display all of His attributes. And so He has to make one vessel of dishonor, and the other one to honor, to show that one up, of course. Now, but He's sovereign (You see?); nobody can tell Him what to do.
And He makes us different. Even to--that we're told in the Bible, that the stars different one from another; one star differents from another. You know, there's a difference in heaven, in Angels, Angelic beings; there is Angels, there is Cherubims, there is Seraphims, and there--there difference there. And we are all different. And God has big mountains; He has plains, prairies, grass, desert, water. See, He's--He's different; He's a--He's a--a God of variety. And look at His people here this morning, some of us white, some black, some brown, some yellow, some red (See?); it's--it's His people. He's a... He's--He's a God of variety, and so I think He has the same thing among His ministers.

⁴⁸ Now, let us bow our heads just a moment for prayer. And I might say this now before we read the Word. I know that if I'm just a little long, and you have to get up and go out, I'll understand (See?); I'll perfectly understand.
Now, let us pray. And while we're praying, with our heads bowed towards the dust from which God took us, is there someone here would like to be remembered in prayer, just raise your hand. He, He knows right what's in your heart, beneath that hand.

⁴⁹ Dear heavenly Father, we are solemnly approaching Thee, with our heads turned to the dust from where You have took us. And then in our minds we're thinking that You told Abraham, one night, could he number the sands that was upon the seashores? And then You told him to look towards the stars, and could he number them? Of course, it was impossible. And You told him that his seed would be innumerable as the sands on the seashores and on the stars that light the heavens. Now, our minds, our thought--our thoughts in our minds, rather, as we bow our heads towards the sand where we come from; then our hearts look towards heaven where we are going: from sand to stars, being Abraham's Seed. Dead in Christ, we are Abraham's Seed, and heirs with Him according to the promise."
And we have come here this morning to fellowship around the natural foods of life, which we have taken, to get that out of the way. And now, we are desirous of Thee to give us of that heavenly Manna, that Food that would give us strength in the Life that's in us. As the blood carries away this food now to strengthen it, to make more cells, to build us strong for the day, may we receive of Christ, that He might get into our spirits this morning through the Word and--and strengthen us for the hour that we're living in. 'Cause the day is far spent and the evening shadows are falling; the evening Light is here; and we are soon listening for the summons to come on high, and we are wanting to be ready at that hour. So, help us, Father.
And there's no man worthy to open the Book, or to loose the Seals thereof; but the Lamb, that was slain from the foundation of the world, come took the Book and loosed the Seals. O Lamb of God, come this morning, open the Book to us, and let us look in with Thee, Lord, and see what we must do to be prepared for this hour.
Bless every church, bless the oncoming meetings, each one of them, and our little meeting, to join with them coming on. And when we leave here today, may we be able to say like those who came from Emmaus, "Did not our hearts burn within us as He spake to us by the way?" Grant it, Father. We ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.

⁵² Now, to you that would like to turn, usually you like to read from behind a minister when he's going to read, to find out just where he's speaking from, if you have your Bibles, and will turn to Saint Matthew the 4th chapter...
And now, I'm going to give my text just before I speak; more or less, want to teach it like, and speak it as we go along. And this I have titled somehow, I don't know why, I'm titling this: "The Harvest Time."
And we're going to take a Scripture reading to base this thought upon, to draw from here the context of the text. We're going to read Saint Matthew the 4th chapter, a portion of it. This is in the temptations of Jesus. After He was filled with the Holy Spirit, He was led into the wilderness.

⁵⁵ I want to back up just a little bit, to the 4th verse again.

⁶⁰ We thinking of this, that Him saying, Himself now, that, "I am that Bread of Life." Now, how could this Man be Bread of Life? That's what we wonder. "My body is Bread," He said. And now how could this Man be Bread? That's kind of strange, but don't be puzzled about it. People of His time got puzzled about it. They didn't know how that this Man could actually be Bread, Himself. Also in Saint John 1, it is given to us this way, that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us." So the Word became the Bread. The Word and the Bread here would have to be the same, 'cause Jesus is the Word and He is the Bread.
Now, how could He be Bread and Word? All the... It would be puzzling to the carnal mind. But we're hoping this morning, that there's no carnal minds among us, that there is a spiritual mind among us, that we could understand what the Father is trying to get to us here. Seeing these words are puzzling, but at the same time, they are Scriptural Truth. See?
"Now, how could this man be Bread?" That's what they said. That's what, I believe, Josephus, many of the historians... As I been studying it...

⁶³ Now, I'm writing a book, my commentary on the first four chapters of Revelations, hope to have it out pretty soon. It'll be a large book. Then I'll have a brochure of each church age.
And I was studying church history. I... It was kind of in my mind; I believe it was Josephus, that, or one of the early writers anyhow that said that, "This Jesus of Nazareth, Who went about healing the sick," said, "His disciples dug Him up and eat His body." See, they were taking the communion. They thought that they dug His body up and was eating His body. Which, we do eat the communion, or take the communion in symbol form of His body, 'cause He was the Word.
Now, see, this is puzzling. And the same time, there's Scriptures. And Jesus said, "All Scripture must be fulfilled." See? Now, we want to always cut our minds from anything contrary to that Scripture. Don't never, never, any time, leave that Scripture for anything, not one Word of It. Stay exactly with that Scripture.

⁶⁶ Now, God's got to judge the people someday. And if He's going to judge the people by a church, which church will it be? They say, "The Catholic church." Well then, which Catholic church? See? Because they are in difference with each other, worse than they are with us. See, they different, one... They're the, oh, the different forms of them, the--the Roman and the Orthodox, and the Juphanite and, oh, many different tribes of them. And they certainly at one another's throats, so which one of them Catholic churches? If He does it by the Protestant church, which Protestant church? Each one differents from the other.
But He's going to judge the world, and He's got to have some standard to judge the world by, or He'd be unjust to let us go now and--and live this life without a standard to be judged by. Who would be right? Where could you tell what was right? There has to be a Standard.

⁶⁸ Then He said, in His Bible, that He would judge the world by Jesus Christ. And we read here that Jesus is the Word. In Hebrews 13:8, said He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. So therefore, He will judge the church by their attitude towards Christ, Who is the Word. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Not out of the mouth of man, not out of the seminary, not out of the--of the church, but out of the mouth of God. Man must live by That, and That alone, not man's interpretation, but God's Own Word!
"Well," you say, "there's a mistake here." If it is, God's responsible for it. He brought it to me. See? This is what I must take, right here is what He said.
Now, if this is kinda puzzling, and about a Man being Bread and being Word, let's now go and search for this. Let's find out. 'Cause the Scriptures are all true, and they--they cannot be ever broken. Every Scripture will be fulfilled. No matter how strange it seems, that--it'll always be fulfilled.

⁷¹ What if--if Brother Williams or--or some of the brethren here, our great-great-grandfather, both could rise on the scene, this morning, and, say, well, show them television? And maybe someone prophesied back in that--their day, and said, "There'd be a time that you can hear a voice around the world."
They'd say, "Well, let the poor old fellow alone, he's lost his mind."
"And there'll be a time that color will flow right through the air." It's here right now. "And they'll turn on a little button, and around the world you'll see people moving, and things, right on the screen."
"Well," they'd say, "the poor old fellow." See? But now we have it right in this room this morning.
And I want to bring you conscious of that, before we approach farther, that God is in this room. The Author of this Word is here. So it doesn't matter how you are dressed, or what degree you live in life, or what kind of a home you live in, or what type of car you drive, or how much education you've got, God looks at your heart. And He looks in my heart. And we're judged from our heart, not even our words. Our heart judges us. "From the heart speaketh the mouth." If it isn't, it's hypocrisy.

⁷⁶ Now, in this room now is coming human beings, forms of human beings, passing through here from all around the world; voices singing is in this room right now. But, you see, you are only limited in your senses to a certain percent of sight. But now, you can take the crystal, or the tube, or whatever that's in the television, and turn it on, and with the set that could deviate that on those ether--ether waves, and deviate that, to condense it into a channel, and pick up those people; someone in Australia, South Africa, or where, India, or wherever it may be. You can stand here on a screen and see even the color of clothes that they got, the color of the trees, and every move they make. Just flip on the television and see if that isn't so.

⁷⁷ Then, it's got to be somewhere, hid from our eyes, that same thing is passing through here now. It passed through here when Abraham heard God say, "Look up towards the stars." It was here when Elijah set on Mount Carmel. It was here when Adam was here, but they just now discovered it.
And so is God here and the Angels. And someday it'll be just as much reality as television or anything else is, because the Spirit will bring us into that immortal Life. Then we'll understand. So then, we are speaking from His Word. Now, that, we're going to try...

⁷⁹ God, God the great Creator, let's try to speak on the form of nature, pick Him up in nature first, to bring it back to the Word. Now, nature runs just with the Word, because God is a Creator of nature. When you see the way nature works, the--find out that that's the way that... That's my first Bible, was to find out how nature--found God in nature. And wheat is nature's product, bread, make bread out of it, which sustains the natural body. Nature holds many secrets. We... That's my first time to find God, was watching nature. I seen there had to be something. And now, I have no education; therefore, I speak lots by nature. And it is... I'm not trying to support ignorance. But I'm trying to say you don't even have to have an education to know God.

⁸⁰ John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, when He came out of the wilderness... We're taught that He went in the wilderness at the age of nine, and he stayed there because his job was important. His father was a priest. And in that certain line of priesthood, or denomination, oh, his father said, "Now, John, you know you're to introduce the Messiah. You know, that Brother So-and-here just makes perfectly the Messiah." So John had to get away from that; he'd get in the wilderness to himself, because it must be God's choosing, and not man's choosing at all, Who would be the Messiah. So he went in there at the age of about nine years old.
And, you notice, when he come out at the age of thirty, his sermons wasn't as a theologian. He didn't use great swelling words, but it was all on nature. He said to them church men of that day; he said, "You generation of snakes." That's what he seen in the wilderness, snakes. He hated snakes. They were poison. In their fangs they had deathly poison, and he pronounced this upon the church of that day, "You bunch of poisoned snakes, who's warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Don't begin to say, 'We belong to this,' and, 'We're the--we're the Jesenites,' or 'We're the so-and-so,' or, 'We belong to the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian,' or whatever it is. Don't begin to say you have that, 'cause I tell you, God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." See?

⁸² And also, "The axe," that's what he used in the wilderness, "it'll lay at the root of the tree. And every tree that don't bring forth good fruit--fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." See, he wouldn't cut a tree that was bringing fruit, 'cause he lived by the fruit of the tree. But the tree that didn't bring fruit... Oh, you could just take all the Scripture, is so inspired, till everything in there fits around Jesus Christ. You see, "Every tree that bringeth forth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire," and so forth. You see, he--he used his message in the realm of nature.

⁸³ And we want to face that now, being that we've found that He said, "I'm the Bread. And man shall live by every Word, and I am the Word." See? So we want to go back in nature. I notice a lot of times I have to do that.
And nature runs on the same scale. You take the time you watch all the birds congregate, leave and go out in the field, and go to eating. Watch all the cattle when they're out, scattered out in the field, eating. Drop your line in; fish will bite. But when them cattle... Them birds huddle up in the trees, and them cattle get in the corner, you might as well take your line up. They won't bite, because nature runs on the same scale all the time.

⁸⁵ And so does the Word of God run in continuity. God always does everything He does on the same scale. He decided at the beginning when man lost his fellowship with Him, He would save him by the shed blood of an innocent one. And He's never changed His method. We've tried to educate them into it, denominate them into it, and--and beg them into it, beat them into it, or shout them into it. It still remains the same; the shed Blood only is where God meets a believer.
Not, we cannot make one World Council of churches and everybody meet. It'll never work; it never did; it never will. That's the way I'm against that system. God's got a system. You heard it said today, "All the churches come together; it's going to be a World Council of Churches. And Jesus prayed for that, that we all might be one." Well, now (You see?), that's carnal minded, without knowing the Spirit.

⁸⁷ Jesus said, "That they might be one, Father, as You and I are one." Not for some man to be over something, it never will work; one denomination wants to take over the other, and one man over the other. But that you might be one with God, like Christ and God was one; that's what the prayer is. That... He was the Word, and Jesus prayed that we might be the Word, reflecting Him. That's His prayer to be answered.
See how Satan scruples it up in the carnal mind? But that wasn't Jesus' prayer, at all, that we might all congregate together and all have a certain creed and so forth. Every time they do it, they go further and further from God.
He wants us to be one with God, and God is the Word. Each individual in his heart must be that one with God.

⁹⁰ God knowing that this, all these things worked out like this... Now, that's how we find God sometime is to look in nature. Seasons, rotating around, proves God. That's where I first found it, how that there's a life comes up in the spring; it lives its life, produces a seed, dies and goes into the ground, comes back in the resurrection, just revolves around. We could spend hours on it.
But now how different that is from like, our missionary brother here, in India. I find many over there, and around the world, they believe in reincarnation, that they--they--that you die here as a man and you come back as a bird or an animal. See, that doesn't speak with nature.
Nature speaks that this same seed went in the ground, the same seed comes up again. See? The same Jesus went down, is the same Jesus come back. Hallelujah. And this body, when it falls into the ground, it'll not come back a flower or something else; it'll come back a man or a woman. We see it in nature, how it does; it has to go through the cold winters, and rot and so forth, but the life is preserved if there's any life in it.

⁹³ But if there... And if that seed hasn't been germinatized, it'll never raise again; it can't raise; there's nothing in it to raise it. And if we just become a nominal Christian... There's two churches in the world, church natural, church spiritual, they're all called Christians. But the church natural cannot raise. It's doing its raising now in the World Council--Council of churches.
But the Christian rises to meet Christ, because It's a Bride, to go to meet Him. There's a difference in them. Nature holds these secrets to us, and we can see them as we watch them. And we see that Christianity speaks the truth of death, burial, and resurrection.

⁹⁵ If there is then a wheat bread that we know we all live by, and we know that there's only one way that we can ever live, is by taking dead substance into our body. You can't live no other way.
A vegetarian met me, not long ago, he said, "Brother Branham, I had a lot of confidence in you till I heard you say you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast." See? And said, "How could a godly man eat a thing like that?"
You see, I said, "Well, what's wrong with it?"
All things are unclean, but it's sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. The Bible said, "If thou be a good minister of Jesus Christ, thou shall remind the brother of these things. (See?) All things are sanctified, nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." I Timothy:3. Now, we find that that is true. So I said, we...
I said, "Well, don't you have to eat something dead too?"
"Oh, no, sir."
I said, "If you live at all, you have to live by dead substance. If you eat bread, the wheat died. If you eat greens, it died. Whatever you did, even to milk, you drink the bacteria. You have." You can only live by dead substance.

⁹⁹ And then if something had to die so we could live physically, how much more did something have to die so we could live eternally? Death it takes to do it. Bread... Seeing that Jesus said, "I am the Bread," and there's a wheat bread, and He wasn't that kind of bread, so there must be two kinds of lives that's sustained by bread. It would lead us to that. There can't be... He isn't... He wasn't wheat; and He wasn't Word; He was flesh, so there must be two kinds of life. We know that wheat dies so we live physically, as I said. Jesus, the Word Bread, died so we could live eternally. He was the Word Bread. Now, notice, keep that in mind. Now, to prove Jesus' Words to be true, we see in this--in the nature, how it goes.
Now, let's go to the Scripture, to find out again, back up into the Scripture till we get to our main text. In the garden God gave His first family the Word of God to live by, every Word of it. The first family that was put up here on the earth, was given Eternal Life as long as they stayed with God's Word. That was His plan. "I am God," He says, "I change not." That's still His plan. It's never His plan for creed, or organization, or manmade rules, that man shall live by, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

¹⁰² Now, to go back in Genesis, which is the beginning. "Genesis" means "the beginning." We find that God gave His family Eternal Life as long as they stayed in this Word and lived by this Word. But when they broke it, just one link in the chain of promises, death struck them, which was a promise also.
It's a chain. You're hanging over hell with it, and that's the only thing that'll carry you through. When the believer becomes a make-believer and lives on one word that's contrary to this Word, he cuts his fellowship with God. One link broke... And, remember, your faith in this Word is like a chain. A chain is its strongest at its weakest link. That's right. It's the strongest that, 'cause that's all it'll hold. And if there's something in the Word that's puzzling to you, something that you have heard different, but they said, "The... Oh, that was for the apostles, and them things was for days gone by," when the Scripture said Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, don't let that be a weakness. Fortify it and hold it, and wrap your life into it, because that's the only thing that'll take you over the flames of hell. That's right.

¹⁰⁴ When this chain is broke with Adam and Eve, the first family... Now, remember, they didn't break a sentence; they didn't break three Words; one Word. Man shall hang over hell by every Word, every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That's where man's eternal destination is determined. Why, he'll hang by that chain, or he'll hang by a creed; or if there's creed mixed into the chain, there's where the weak link is, and you're gone. That's where the weak link was with Adam and with Eve. That weak link, "surely," he said, "God..." But surely God said it. And if God said it, God meant it. And He also keeps His Word by saying, "The day you eat thereof, that day you die." The day you put into you anything else besides the unadulterated Word of God, into your soul, that's the day that you're separated from God.
Now, this is very strong, but just listen close. Now, notice. One Word, one Word of the first of the Bible, God said that, one Word, separated man from its eternal life chain.
That's like taking a man and your hanging by his feet and he's got his hands in heaven, and you cut him half in two, break off a toe, whatever you're hanging unto. You're hanging on the very bottom part, and you break that chain anywhere, you're gone. Now, bear that in mind.

¹⁰⁷ Remember, the Bible said, "In the mouth of three witnesses, let every word be established." We'll get on that, in a few minutes, on the three temptations of Jesus; the three temptations of ministers today, where they make the fall; three temptations of the church, and where they make their fall; three temptations of an organization, where it makes its fall; and the three temptations in the individuals, and where they make their fall. Now, it all runs in three's, like justification, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Ghost; Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Everything is perfected in three.

¹⁰⁸ Now, notice. God, in the beginning the very first thing He give His children to live by was His Word. Now, we find that is the truth. Then in the middle of the Bible, we hear Jesus come and say that, "Man shall live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." And then in Revelation 22:18 Jesus Himself speaking again, said, "I testify of these things. If any man shall add one word to This, or take one Word of this Book out, his part will be taken from the Book of Life."
Now, see, it's not our good living; that just something goes with it. It isn't our--our church loyalty; that goes with it. But the main thing is, staying with that Word. Don't eat nothing else but that Word. Stay with It. He is that Word. Now, we want to watch close now.

¹¹⁰ What is the difference in this bread of creation to live? Now, wheat is the bread of life, if it's not a hybrid grain, it'll--bury it and it'll come up again. It must be a good ripe grain. Defective grains won't rise. We all know that. And Brother Sothmann, setting here, a wheat raiser from Canada, knows that you don't put defective grains into the soil to expect a crop out of it. Because the beetle or the--or the bacteria, ever what it is in the grain eats it up, eats the life out of it first.
Did you know that the very worms that will destroy you, that will eat up your body, is in them right now? Job said, "Though my skin worm destroys this body..." Put you in a coffin and seal it up air tight; still the worms that's in you will eat you up.
You find meal and flour, and stuff, and set it up a little while, it gets a bug in it, seal it up. What is it? That bug's in there, to begin with. It's there to start with.

¹¹³ Now, this grain must be a good grain. It must be free from fault, failures, and so forth, in it. It must be a thoroughbred grain. It can't be a hybrid grain--grain, because when it comes up, you plant it again, and your--your wheat is done, because a hybrid grain won't grow again. It can't grow again. You take the life out of it when you hybreed it.
And that's what's happened to the churches. They've been hybrid to the world, and that's the reason that each revival coming on, and you can't have another revival behind it. Every organization that ever organized, dies on the spot and never raises again, because it organizes the world into its systems; therefore, it never did. There is no history ever shows that any church that ever organized ever raised again. She died there. Why? You hybrid it.

¹¹⁵ Don't put a bishop over it. Let the Holy Ghost stay over it. See? The Holy Ghost was sent to keep the weeds and things out; not what the bishop thinks, or the overseers, or so forth. It takes the Holy Spirit to keep that church in its condition. He was that perfect Word as we will see.
Adam had his choice: the Word and live, or disbelieve one Word and die. We have the same choice, 'cause we have to be. If God put Adam on the Word, and the Word only, then He puts us on a creed or any kind of a creed, then God's unjust in His judgment; it isn't becoming to His holiness nor His sovereignty. But it is becoming to His sovereignty to see that He puts every man on the same base. And He's God and changes not. What God does first, He forever does the same thing. He never changes His--His program. Only thing, He magnifies it, but He never changes it. The same thing continues on.

¹¹⁸ Now, Adam had a choice. And if he held to the Word, he lived. If he didn't hold to the Word, he died. And we got the same thing. We stay with the Word, we live. "Man shall live by every Word." But if we don't, we die; we spiritually die. Oh, we can still make noise, sure, kick around, and holler, and carry on, but that--that ain't--that ain't living. That isn't living. I am a missionary. I've heard heathens kick around and holler more than we could, and profess to know gods, and things like that. They're not living. "They're dead while they are living." Bible said so. Now, we find that this choice is given to us.
But Eve compromised to Satan's one word, then died. And if, the beginning, which God in His grace and mercy could've bypassed all the sufferings that we've done, all these deaths of little babies, and everything, and the wars, and internals, and crucifixions, and things that we've had; if He could've bypassed it, His sovereignty of His Word would've permitted Him to bypass it, He would've been unjust if He didn't bypass it then. Do you get it? He can't bypass it. He never bypassed it for Adam to begin with. And He won't bypass it for you or I to begin with. We must come to that thing, the Word only. "Let every man's word be a lie and Mine be true," He said.

¹²² Now, we're just looking for what day we're living in, the harvest time.
Then God, after Adam had fell (tried by the Word, and fell), God continued in His creation to try to find a man who would live every Word. Now, look. He tried to find that, that is, live the Word for his age. Now, you see, God scattered His Word out, 'cause He could...
He's--He's infinite, and He's--He's omnipresent, omniscient, therefore He knows all things. He can't be present everywhere. By being omniscient, knowing all things, then He can be present everywhere. Because that's the way He predestinates us by foreknowledge, not because He desired that this person should be saved and this one lost. But He knew who would be lost and who would be saved. See? Therefore, by His foreknowledge He can predestinate. And He makes everything work to His glory. That's what His attributes are doing, displaying to His glory. One vessel of honor and one of dishonor, but it's God that maketh it. "Not him that willeth or him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy." See?

¹²⁵ "No man can come to Me," said Jesus, "except My Father draws him. And all that the Father hath (past tense) given to Me, will come to Me," to the Word. How can they come unless they were--are all--they were foreordained to come? "As many as received Him, to them give He the power to become sons of God." See? 'Cause their names were on the Book; He come to redeem what was on the Book.
In Revelation, we find out, when the Seals was opened, there was a Book. And Him that set upon the throne, God, had It in His right hand. And there wasn't nothing, nobody in heaven, or in earth, or anywhere, was worthy to come take the Book, or to even to look on It. John wept with great... Because the whole Book of redemption was there.

¹²⁷ It was at the meeting the other night, that little Assembly of God brother and sister sang that song, "I wonder if John saw me when he saw all the nations gathered. Did he see me?" Sure he did, if your name was on that Book. And when...
John's name was on it too, and he wept because there was nobody that could touch It. And then it--one of the elders come and said, "Weep not, John, for the Lion of the tribe of Juda has prevailed."
And John was looking around to find a--a lion, and out from behind the curtains come a Lamb, a Lamb that had been slain since before the foundation of the world. Then he saw a bloody Lamb come out, and He come and took the Book out of the right hand of Him, and called everything what was on that Book. It's the complete Book of redemption. And this is It. The Book of redemption, He redeemed all was in that Book, not out of the Book.
Anything that had a beginning has an end. But if you've got Eternal Life, you never did begin and you cannot end, because you're sons and daughters of God, attributes of His thoughts and His Word. You have no ending of Life, if your name is on that Book. The Lamb come to redeem It. Not all that profess Christians, not all that try to live good and holy; but those whose names were written on there, He redeemed that, and that alone, whose names were on the Book.

¹³⁰ Now, we find out that Satan caused Adam to fall by that one word. And God continued on now in His creation to try to find one man who would live by every Word. His first man failed. And this man would live his time, his age that he lived in.
Now, see, there is different ages that God prophesied from the beginning, which would take place all down. That's the reason He could tell the end from the beginning, is because He knew all things. He made all things by Jesus Christ, and for Him, and for His own pleasure.

¹³² Notice closely now. Don't miss this. What if Moses would've come bringing Noah's message? It wouldn't have worked. Couldn't. No. What if Jesus would've come bringing Moses' message? It wouldn't have worked.
What if we come, trying to bring the Methodist message, Baptist message, or the Pentecostal message? It wouldn't work. They were fine; prove that in a minute, by the Word. They were all right in their age. That age is gone. We got to find out what the Scripture says for today. This day, that's what man is to live by for his age.

¹³⁵ He tried to find a man that would live the whole Word. First thing He did, He tried Noah. Noah failed Him, got drunk; he failed.
Moses, that great mighty masterpiece of God's, He tried him and he failed. He glorified himself, and wasn't permitted to go into the promised land.
Then come David, that He was going to reflect His--His--the great millennium in David, and He was going to show what His King was. And God swore by David, He'd rise up the--raise up his son to set on his throne. And David was such a gallant man, till he was a man after God's own heart. And David was doing good. He smote all the Philistines and tore down their altars, and stayed with the Word. And finally, a pretty woman upset him, and he broke the commandment, lost the Word, committed adultery. See? A man after His own heart (See?) still David failed Him.
Moses failed Him; all the rest of them failed Him, but all their lives was just reflections of the One that was to come.

¹³⁹ In the Book of Revelations, that I'm writing, one man who is translating or grammarizing... My grammar's so poor; I've got a--a good scholar to grammarize it, put the right nouns and pronouns together. Which I don't know which is the difference between a noun and a pronoun. But--but he does, and he's putting them on... I know... The only thing I know, God gives It to me and I just write It down. See? And they--they have to put it so if it goes into schools and things, they--they know what can read it more in their way of understanding. And then the writer said to me, the--the grammar, the man that's grammarizing it, said to me, he said, "But, Brother Branham, we find in the Pergamos church age... That Jesus said here, 'he that overcometh, I will give him the Morning Star.' Give him the Morning Star?" He said, "Now, how could he get the Morning Star, when Jesus said Himself that He is the Morning Star?"

¹⁴⁰ See, all those seeds of Abraham are reflected by stars, and they different one from another, and we'll different one from another. And Jesus is that Morning Star, the brightest of all of them. But we find Him in Revelations 1, with seven stars in His hand. He interprets that, and said, "These seven stars are the seven angels to the seven churches," or the seven church ages that's coming.
Then he said, "How could it be then, if they got the Morning Star?"
I said, "The stars that were in His hand were only the reflection stars from the Morning Star (See?), for the messenger of that day had the Word." And He is the Word; he just had the portion for that day. And the people that's ready to come away from the world systems and world things and walk with Him, sees the reflection of the Morning Star through the messenger of that age. As He did through Noah, and through Moses, and so forth, as He reflected the Old Testament.
Finally they all arrived to One. And so will it at the end of the church ages; it'll all arrive back to Jesus, that He is the Word. We as Christians are only reflecting Him.

¹⁴³ The moon only reflects the sun in its absence. And the believer only reflects the Son of God in the absence of the Son of God. It's the Light of the Bible, the Scriptures, being vindicated in our lives, the Word that makes Light in darkness. You are candles that sets upon a hill. That ain't the sun; it's a candle. The candle just takes the place of the sun, just shows a certain amount of light. We are God's children; we are sons and daughters of God, only by the Spirit with portion. He had It without a portion. We are a star that's shining, all of us together make a Light to the world; but He's the entire Son that reflects the Light of every star. Hallelujah. I believe Him. God help my unbelief.

¹⁴⁴ Finally this perfect One arrived. Now, He arrived to be tempted in every point just like we are. The Bible said He was. He was tempted like Noah. He was tempted like Moses. He was tempted like all the rest of them. If we had time to break that down and show you, but we haven't, 'cause I don't want to take too much of your time. But to break it down and show you, He was tempted in the same manner.
Satan never changes his tactic, neither does God: just changes ages. But what... Satan got in back there to the first family of God on earth. Here it is brother, sister. Don't fail to get this. How did Satan get the first family? He couldn't break it no other way but to get that Word broke, for they were fortified behind that Word. If he could only get one gap...
That's how he has got every church in every age, got every believer, just pull that gap out. "Well, I--I believe the Bible's right, but I don't believe that." Oh, there he goes. Too bad, but there he went.
"Every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God..."

¹⁴⁷ Now, closely confine this now. Now, He finally, this One that would, arrived and had to be tempted just exactly like the rest of them was tempted. Now, notice how striking Satan makes his every attack just the same each time. Now, he tried to give Him the natural bread just like he did Eve. "If you will eat this, take this," or something another; he's got it.
And that's what he does to every organization; that's what he does to every individual; he tries to give you the natural things that you can look at, and it's--take you away. "Well, look at this great big church. Why, they got so many millions in it. Our church is the biggest church in the city. Well, our--we have... The mayor comes to our church." Oh, see all that. "Our pastor has a--a degree of D.D., L.D., Ph.D. That, well, that... Why, he's bound to be a smart man." A Catholic priest can come around and cover him over anytime with his degrees. He's got sixty-some-odd books he has to know as bad--as much as you know the Bible to get his degree to be a priest, so don't try to compare educations.

¹⁴⁹ That's just like the world's always trying to compare. Don't compare with things of the world. Don't compare with churches. Compare with the Bible. That's what we're doing today. That's what's the matter with us Pentecostal churches. That's what's the matter with our quartets and singings, and so forth, as we have, we're trying to act like Hollywood. Hollywood glitters; the Gospel glows. There's a lot of difference between a glitter and a glow. See? Hollywood glitters with clothes, and Rickies and Rickettas, and ricochets. But God humbly glows in humility of the believer, no matter how ignorant he is. He glows in humility, not shines in Hollywood.

¹⁵⁰ Notice, he tried his old tactic on Jesus, same thing he did to Moses, same thing he did to the rest of them. He tried it. He'll try it on you to get you accept some great big something that looks shiny.
Reminds me when I used to hunt coons, raccoons. I'd get me a... Papa, my daddy, used tobacco. I don't know whether you all ever know one of them old tags that used to be on a twist of tobacco. I would take that and get me a log and bore a hole in it, right around the creek where a coon had been running. And then I'd bore a hole in there, and stick this tobacco tag there. And then drive me some nails, angling in like this. And the coon's always reaching for something shiny. And so when the moon come up, and he run along there; he looked back there; he pushed his hand in there to get it. He--he won't turn it loose.
He's like some church members. Even he knows he's caught, he won't turn it loose. "If I do, they'll put me out of the organization." That's just his death; that's all. All right. Notice. There he holds onto it; he won't turn it loose.

¹⁵³ Now, Satan tried his same tactic on Jesus that he tried on the rest of them. He tried to make Him eat something besides the promised Bread Word. 'Cause Jesus said, "It's written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'" See? He tried to make Him obey him. Though it looked pretty good, looked like He could feed Himself, and He could've done it. You have...
You can act any way you want to too. You can take It or leave It, either one you want to. Now, if that coon had sense enough just to close his hand back, he could pull it out again; but he won't do it; he just holds himself there. And that's the way a lot of nominal Christians does too. They don't want to hear nothing about it, don't want to come and hear it. They want nothing about it. Go ahead and hold onto it then (See?); you'll find out what happens.

¹⁵⁵ Now, notice, they tried to make Him eat something besides the Bread of Life that every man should live by. But Jesus stayed with the Father's Word. Oh, he didn't hit Eve then; he never hit Moses; he never hit any of the rest of them. He hit One was going to reflect every Word. See? He... That's the reason He was the Word. But Jesus stayed with the Word, refused his theological seminary doctrine (Yes, sir.), his new light, his more experience. He couldn't push it on Jesus like he pushed it off on Eve, to show her, "Oh, surely, God..."
"Oh, surely, God would be in this if we could get together and make a whole World Council of church. Surely, God would be. He wants unity; He wants brotherhood." With Himself, not with the world; brotherhood with Hisself, worship to Himself. That's what He died for, that you'd worship Him.
As ever, if he can't get... Now, we find out that he failed. Jesus went right back to him with THUS SAITH THE LORD. Amen.

¹⁵⁷ Now, when he sees that a believer... Watch the believer come in these same categories now, each one of you. When he sees he--you're going to stay with the Bible, "Yeah, I believe the Bible. I ain't joining no creed and thing yonder. I'm going to stay with the Bible." And, as ever, if he can't get you to believe to--to live the real Truth and to believe the Word, I want you to notice what he done to Jesus the second time, if he ain't get you. Say, "I ain't going to join no creed. I ain't going to. I'm... I was born free; I'm going to stay with it. I'm going to do this, that, or the other." See, join the church, and you come join, and something another; he can't get you to do that, then he'll do something else to you. Oh, brother, watch this.

¹⁵⁸ If he doesn't, then he'll send you off to his own seminary to be taught by his own theologians (See?), where Satan is the interpreter. "Oh, the days of miracles is passed. That people down there, I got... well, that's a bunch of heretics. They--they're not." See? He'll send you there.
Oh, you may say, "Wait a minute, Brother Branham. Just a minute now." Yeah, let's do wait just a minute. See? You say now, "Don't you no longer supposed to? Aren't we supposed to?" No, sir. No, sir.
But Jesus said, "When He the Spirit of Truth is come (See?) He will bring these things that I've taught, to your memory, the Word. And He'll also show you things to come." There's the real Spirit-filled Church now, stays with the Word, reflects the Word, God on earth. See? He doesn't need any theologian, 'cause His Word is of no private interpretation. He interprets His own Word, by vindicating It and proving It, It's the Truth.
When the Methodist church told you you couldn't receive the Holy Ghost like they did on the day of Pentecost, did you pay any attention to it? Certainly not. You went right along and got the Holy Ghost anyhow. See? 'Cause the...

¹⁶² I was discussing the--the trinity with a--a Baptist minister, the other night, and I told him it was only terminology. And so we come to find out, he said, another little minister there from the seminary, he said, "Well, Mister Branham, you're trying to make people believe an apostolic religion."
I said, "Certainly, it's the only one there is."
And he said, "Sir, where did you go to school at?"
I said, "On my knees, my brother. Not to... See, that--that's where I got, not theology, but kneeology." I said, "That's where I found Him."
And he said, "Mister Branham, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, like they got on the day of Pentecost, you try to say that that's today?"
I said, "The Bible said, sir, that the--that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." I said, "That was Jesus Christ that come on the day of Pentecost." Oh, yeah, the same One. "Yet a little while... I'll pray the Father; He'll send you another Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. A little while and the world won't see no more--Me no more; yet ye shall see Me, for I will be with you, even in you, to the consummation, end of the world."
I said, "Yeah, that's Him come on the day of Pentecost. Yes, sir. He came, lived in them, notice, in the form of the Person of the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ in the Person of the Holy Ghost, as we understand the Godhead."

¹⁶⁸ Now, notice, Satan didn't need his theology, theology. And this man said to me, he said, "Mister Branham," he said, "I'll give you to understand, I'm from a certain school, and we're trained."
I said, "I hear your program all the time." See?
He said, "We're trained there." Said, "The baptism of the Holy Ghost is for the disciples only."
I said, "The Bible said there was a hundred and twenty in the upper room." And I said, "Now, who's right, you or the Word?"
And I said, "And then, also, when Philip went down and preached to the Samaritans, and he baptized them in the Name of Jesus Christ, but the Holy Ghost hadn't come upon them yet, 'cause Peter had the keys. So he sent up to Jerusalem and got Peter, who come down and laid hands upon them, and the Holy Ghost came upon them. The Bible said, 'The Holy Ghost...'"

¹⁷¹ I said, "Then Peter, with a vision, with the keys, went up to the house of Cornelius, Acts 10:49... 'And while he yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell upon them. For they heard them speak in tongues, and--and--and prophesy, magnifying God. Then said Peter, can we forbid water, that these should not be baptized, seeing that they received the Holy Ghost like we did at the beginning? And he commanded them to be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ.'"
"We find, thirty years later, Paul passing through the upper coasts of Ephesus, finds some Baptist people who was having a great revival. Great things was going on. They shouting, praising the Lord. And Paul visited the church where about twenty people were attending, where Aquila and Priscilla was attending the meeting; where Apollos, a converted lawyer, proving by the Bible that Jesus was the Christ. And they had great joy and a great meeting. Paul passing by, he came by after he--the Lord delivered him out of prison, for casting a spirit out--a devil out of a fortuneteller. And then he come on up through there in the work of the Lord, and he went to hear the meeting. And he said, "This man's a great man, all right,' but said, 'have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?' He believed you received It when you believed. But he said, 'Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?' He said, 'We know not whether there be any Holy Ghost.'"
"Said, 'Then to what was you baptized?' That was the question. He said, 'We've been baptized, the same man that baptized Jesus: John. We've been baptized to John's baptism.' See? He said, 'John only baptized unto repentance, not for the remission of sins.' John... 'cause the Lamb hadn't been killed yet. He said, 'John baptized unto repentance, seeing that you should believe on Him that was to come, on Jesus Christ. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. And Paul laid his hands upon them, and the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they prophesied and spoke in tongues,' thirty years later."

¹⁷⁴ And I said, "Besides, do you believe the Bible?"
He said, "Certainly."
I said, "Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when this was all noised abroad, and they was all shouting and praising God, they said, 'Men and brethren, what can we do to be saved?' Peter said, 'Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is unto you and to your children, and to them that's far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.' Heavens and earth will pass away, but that Word will never fail."
You Pentecostals paid no attention to the Methodist, Baptist, or Presbyterian. You knowed That was for every generation, and you pressed into It. Certainly. Now, just don't stop pressing right there; just keep on pressing. See?
That's where Methodists made their mistakes; they pressed into sanctification but stopped. Lutheran pressed into justification and stopped. See, then it organizes it, and there it dies. That's the end of it. That's all of it.

¹⁷⁷ Watch now as we hurry up through. "When the Spirit of Truth is come, He will teach you all things, whatever I taught you," oh, my, "bearing all remembrance to you, what I've said to you, bringing to you, all remembrance. And He will show you things to come. He will vindicate every Word, confirming the Word with signs following." Everything that He promised, that God promised in the Bible, if you'll turn loose from every creed and everything else, and hold onto the Word, God is obligated to take care of His Word. And so when they did this, the Word vindicates Itself.
He don't need somebody to say, "Well, the days of miracles is passed."
Who's that man to tell me the days of miracles is passed, when I was once a blind man? Hallelujah. I once laid where the doctors give me three minutes to live, and I'm a-living today. How can they tell me any different? Once a lukewarm church member, now filled with the Holy Ghost... God don't need any interpreter. The Spirit Itself, which is the Word, interprets it to be the Truth. If a man will dare to stand out and take It. He's His Own Interpreter. Try Him one time, and find out if that isn't right. Don't pay attention to what somebody said. Do what God said do.
"Well," you say, "I do this." Well, what about the other, every Word? One word breaks the chain.
That's where the churches always fail, right on that chain. They organize it and get the thing together, and make a big denomination. These men get together, holy Father So-and-so and Doctor Bishop So-and-so. And what's the first thing you have? There you are. You die right there. We'll prove it by nature and by the Word, if the Lord willing, in a few minutes. All right.

¹⁸² "Bringing to remembrance." He vindicates every Word, and we live by It. Hallelujah. Live by It. "Man shall live by every Word," every Word vindicated. Jesus said, "These signs shall follow them that believe. Shall follow them that believe." Take ahold of It; God vindicates It, that It's the Truth.
Where, the seminaries and theologians, inspired by Satan, say, "You can't trust It. That's for the apostles. The days is passed. There's no such thing. That was only meant for the apostles to prove the Gospel then. We have learned people today."
They had better learning then than we got now. Tell me any church that can come up with that--that Sanhedrin, when their great-great-great-great-grandfathers had to be priests behind them. One crooked word in that--in that scroll, or, why, they--they'd stone them for it. They had to stay right exactly. But they missed seeing the real Kernel of the Word when It come, the Life. That's why they were condemned and called the workers of Satan.

¹⁸⁵ See, that don't reflect the Word of God, when a seminary student tells you, "The Holy Ghost is not for today. And these things, all that Divine healing stuff for some other day." See, it's not a reflection from God; it's a reflection from a--a creed. It's a reflecting from a doctrine that's outside the Bible.
Hebrews 13:8 said He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Saint John 14:12, said, "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall He do also." Now, how you going to take that Word out of there? How you going to add something in Its place? You break your chain of Life. Man lives by Bread only, the Bread, eternally he lives by that Bread. Physically, he lives by this bread. There's the two breads. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is in you, says "amen" to every Word of God, if that is the Holy Ghost. Now, I want to ask you something. Now, this is a pinching part.

¹⁸⁷ Mama used to give me castor oil when I was a kid. And I--I can't stand the smell of the stuff yet. See? We was raised poor, and mama boiled meat skins, or render them out. We'd get them down at the--from an old sister named Goodman, that had a bakery down there, and she baked hams and things, and rendered that out. We'd get meal, and take that grease and stuff and make our cornbread. And we had poor eating; no wonder we had malnutrition and so forth, plaguery. But mom then, every Saturday night... We--we didn't get the right kind of food, so she'd make us all just take a big dose of castor oil. And I--I'd just hold my nose and scream; I said, "Mom, that makes me so sick."
She said, "If it don't make you sick, it don't do you any good." So--so maybe that'll work this a way. Now, how...

¹⁸⁸ I'm going to ask you something. How can a man or a woman who claims to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the Word (That right?), and how can you be the flesh of that Holy Spirit, has made you part of Him to reflect the Gospel of your age, and deny the Word that He wrote?
I don't care how good you are. Why, I can take you to Africa, to the--the Hottentots there, and show you a life that a Christian can't touch. Even if they'd be caught in adultery; if one of the women, before she's married, a young woman, she has to be tested first for her virgincy. If she be found guilty, she has to tell what man did it, and they're both killed together. What if that happened in the United States? Who would bury all the corpses? See? So you--you see? But there you are. See? And they are heathens, see the morale. See, so you can't test it by that. Our Indian brother here can tell you now, the Mohammedans probably live a lot better life than we ever think about.

¹⁹⁰ But what is it? It's the Word that gives the test. Them Pharisees was twice as humble as Jesus. He went around tearing up their churches, and throwing them out, and beating them out, and everything like that.
And this godly old priest, you know, why, who was... If I was having a meeting against Him this morning; I'd say, "Who come to you when you were sick, prayed for you? That godly old priest. Who loaned papa that money when his crops failed? That godly old priest. Who dedicated you to God for a life of service? That godly old priest. Who was it, when you was in jail, come and visits you? That godly old priest. And this young renegade called Jesus, what does he do? Called your pastor a snake. See? See, it's not by the fruits.
It's by the Word. "Man shall not live by fruit alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."
And He was that Word. They just failed to see It. That's what He was supposed to do. They couldn't see it, because they wasn't ordained to see it. Said, "You can't come to Me." Look at them poor Jews, their eyes were blinded. Sure, He did it. He blinded them, Himself.
Think of how it would be to be blinded. You better be thanking God for what sight you got on the Scripture.

¹⁹⁵ Now, notice. Now, He, He was this Word. Now, after this, He was tested. Jesus' testing. Now, we're going through these.
See, it doesn't reflect the Word when anybody says, "Well, that was for another age," 'cause the Bible said He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. How the Holy Spirit in you could say that you are a filled with the Holy Ghost?
Now, can I hurt you a little bit? Is it all right? Raise your hands. You won't be mad at me? If you do, you have to be.
How can you women, with bobbed hair, tell me that you're filled with the Holy Ghost? One Word. "Oh, I spoke in tongues." That don't make any difference. I've seen witch doctors speak in tongues, interpret, shout in the spirit, dance in the spirit.
How can you men call yourself the head of the house, and let your wife wear shorts and carrying on the way she is, call yourself Christians?
How can you pastors ever face God with a thing like that, without standing up and protest it? You can't make them do it. But you get to preaching like that, you won't belong in the seminary very long or with a group. You'll have to get cooperation from somewhere else. We'll get into it, just in a moment, the Lord willing. See?

²⁰¹ But there you are. Don't, I don't mean to hurt you. I love you. That's the reason. If--if you were floating down the river, and I seen you was going to drown, I'd be a poor fellow, say, "Well, be a good person, honey." You better warn them. That's right. Tell them.
As I said the other night, if I'm a Christian, I have to be identified with every character of the Bible. I had to stand with Noah and preach with him in the days and warn the people. That's right. I had to stand on Mount Carmel alone with Elijah. I had to stand at Calvary and be crucified to myself and my own thoughts, with Him. But then again I raised with Him on Easter, triumphant over all things. All the carnal of the carnality of the world, raised above it in Him.

²⁰³ Notice, it doesn't reflect the Word then, no, it doesn't vindicate It. Now, but if you believe the Word, God will vindicate Hisself, as He did here in Jesus.
The Word Bread always means to be fed on. "And man shall not live by bread, like this bread alone, but by every Word." So that's the Word Bread; keep that in mind. This is this Bread that the church through every age has fed on, has been the hidden Manna just for the overcomer only. Revelations said so. Now, I don't have time to break this whole thing down, because I probably got another thirty minutes.
But, look, when the holy--when the holy manna fell from heaven, which was a type of the Holy Ghost. You'll agree on that. God told Moses to go out and get an omer full of it, and put it in the holiest of holies. 'Cause if they didn't put it in the holiest of holies, it become stagnant. Is that right? The worms got into it. Now, he said, "But put it in the holiest of holies, in this omer, that every generation coming up after that priesthood, when a man becomes to go to be a priest, to minister the Word, the first thing he gets to do, after he's ordained, is go in and get a handful of that original manna and eat it.
That was to represent that Light in His hand in the new church age, reflecting his Light, the Manna; and only the man that perfectly overcome, the man that really sets down and throws aside everything else besides the Word... And the Word is that Manna. Oh, my, it's Jesus. "Man shall live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." That's the hidden Manna for the overcomer, oh, that was laid up each--each, for each priesthood a following it.

²⁰⁷ The schools of theology long ago has swapped this blessed Thing for a mess of pottage (That's exactly right. Yes, sir.) like Esau did. Now, Esau, morally, was a better man than Jacob, but he didn't have respects to his birthrights which was the Word. How many knows that? The birthrights was the Word, the promise, the elder son. But he was a good man, moral man, like, oh, like the nominal Christian today, a good man. He didn't lie. He didn't steal. He was good to his daddy. He done all these things. But, you see, his birthrights, he said he didn't care about that. "What difference does that make? I'm an Israelite, anyhow. See, I--I belong to it anyhow." But it was his birthrights that counted. See? His natural was all right, but his spiritual was all wrong.
So is it today, the pottage, mix church and world together, some of each one; bingo parties, dances, all kinds of carrying on in the church; short-haired women, wearing shorts.
Well, you say, "Brother Branham, what's that little thing?"

²¹⁰ That's one of the Words, for the Bible said it's wrong for a woman to cut her hair. That's right. If she does, how's she going to get in? See? Just ask, any preacher will tell you the Word says that. See? She dishonors her head; she dishonors her husband. She should be divorced. That's exactly right. "For she that will cut her hair, let her also be shorn off, shaven." (See?), if she wants to do that. Not but just bobbed, God don't want it that way. That's that Mister In-between. Don't fool with it. Either cut it all off or leave it grow; that's what God said, Any minister of the Gospel knows that's the Truth, whether you'll say it or not. But that's the Truth. See? Well, what good, if you're going to do all the rest of them, and leave that go?
What? There's just a little bit of the worldly style into you, trying to act just a little bit like the other churches. That's exactly where Israel got in trouble. That's where they die. That's where Adam got in trouble. That's where all the rest of them got in trouble. Just one Word, that's all it takes, just one point. Pottage, mixed with the world, some of the world, some of Hollywood, some of the church, some of the theologians, and what's you got?

²¹² Notice, if Satan fails here, then he'll try his second scheme on you to--to disbelieve the Word, he'll--and--and go to the seminary. He'll try the next, a scheme. Now, here's where you want to be real careful, and just set just for another five minutes on this part, if you will. Then he makes you a supernatural offer. I'm going to come back to all this, just before closing. He makes... See, if he can't tempt you away from the Word, "No, I'm going to stay with the Word," then he'll give you a supernatural offer.
He said, "I'll tell you what. You get up here and dive off the temple and bring back up. See, show the people that You can do something supernatural."
Boy, he got them there. Now, watch this, this is... Watch when you get to the end, where this temptation come. Maybe He might let some of you speak in tongues, think you got It. See? Or he might even let you prophesy, though it not be with the Word. I've seen people stand up and prophesy, was as contrary to the Word as the east is from the west. See? It's the Word that you live by. Them supernatural gifts, Satan can just hand them out by handfuls. Certainly. That don't mean one thing.

²¹⁵ Didn't Jesus say, "Many will come to Me in that day, and say, 'Lord, haven't I prophesied in Your Name? In Your Name I've cast out devils. I've done mighty works. I've been a great man in the organization. I've done all these things, these things'"? He'll say, "Depart from Me, you that work iniquity."
What is iniquity? It's something that you know that's right, and you concede it and won't do it in your heart. When you know that that Bible teaches a certain thing, and you won't do it, that's iniquity. And David said, "If I hide iniquity in my heart, God will not even hear my prayer." Is that Truth? Is that the Bible? Now, surely you couldn't get angry with that. See? Jesus said that, "Many will come to Me in that day, and say, 'I've done all these things,' and I'll say, 'Depart, you workers of iniquity.'"
Same as did Adam. Adam said, "Lord, I did this, I did that." But one Word (See?), one Word did it. That's all it takes, just disobey one Word.

²¹⁸ Yes, maybe prophesy contrary to the Word. But now, time he's got this supernatural gift, he's so carried away by the noise, by the glamor of it. "Glory to God, I pray for So-and-so, they got up and walked away. Hallelujah, I can speak in tongues. And somebody interpret it; it's genuine, the truth."
Paul said, "I can speak in tongue like men and Angels, and yet be nothing. I can have faith to move mountains, and still I'm nothing." Is that right?
But, see, he'll offer you that. Oh, Pentecostal people, I love you, or I wouldn't be with you. There's where you failed. See? Watch the Word, not the gift. Watch the giver, see where--see where it comes from. See? He's all carried away; he's dancing in the Spirit, boy... [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]... only thing. He's got so many people around him, and everybody calling for him here and there, and he forgets the Word.
Oh, you're very popular as long as you stay away from that Word. But you get in that Word one time, watch who's going to cooperate with you then. See? Watch what comes out then. We're going to get to this in another stage of nature, in a moment. See, watch who--who wants you then; nobody does. "Oh, hands off of that."

²²¹ Like a certain association gathered together here a few weeks ago and banded me, any minister that come to the city, full Gospel, would have me to the city to pray for their sick, would be completely excommunicated from the association. All right, 'cause I pray for the sick. All right. "Don't hear it." Say... And there's the Word vindicated.
That's the same thing they done with our Lord. That's the same thing they done with every man in every age. That's what they done with Luther, Wesley, and all. That's what they done with you in the beginning, now you turned right back in the same wallow you come out of. See? Notice the way, it's always been the same way. It's never failed, Satan does the same thing.

²²³ Now, he is so carried away by the noise of glamor, and so forth, till, my, he don't even pay any attention to the Word. "Oh, brother, Brother So-and-so said so-and-so, and I got to go over here. I..." See, he's just so carried away, he don't even notice It. Whether it's Word or not Word, don't make any difference. "The rest of them said it was all right, so that don't make any different." The denomination says, "Boy, you got it; don't you let nobody tell you." You got what? See? Notice.

²²⁴ Satan ever had, even then... Watch in this one place here, he coated the Word. Even on this supernatural that he tried to get Jesus to do, the supernatural (See?) being having supernatural, what if Jesus would've listened to him? See? He said, "Now, wait. You want to stay with the Word, do you? You want to stay with the Word?" Said, "It's written, he'd give his Angels charge concerning, lest anytime dash your foot against a stone, they'd bear thee up." But He wasn't dashing His foot against no stone. See? Watch. What if he would've stayed with it? He... Did you notice, I never said he quoted the Word; he coat It, coated It, like putting an icing on a cake, covered It over, whitewashed It (See?); It wasn't in It's right place.

²²⁵ That's what they try to say today, trying to whitewash It, but you can't make it run with the rest of the Scripture. It's got to be everything, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." See, no matter how much Word you try to coat, that don't make...
It's got to be quoted just the way He said It. Then, if It's quoted right, He'll vindicate It to be so in your life. "That's how all men know you're written epistles read of God." Written epistle is "Bible." Is that right? An epistle is the Bible. And you're a written Bible reflecting His Word, that perfect man again, in God.
But Jesus said, "It is written also." See?

²²⁷ But notice Eve at this same stage, carried away by her supernatural understanding, she had a theological experience. Her education was supreme to any theologian in the country at that time. See, she was so carried away, she didn't know it. She knew she had something that Adam never had. Perhaps she'd be able to rule over him right now, because she knowed more about it, her Adam. Watch what their Adams are doing today. She knew good from evil, fine education of the truth. That's right. She had a fine education of the truth, that she didn't know before, and it was God's Truth. But she was dead by breaking the Word. See? She got her education, all right.
So does the seminary give you a theological experience, that you can quote every character of the Old Testament or New. But be careful what you're doing, if it don't break that Word right there, if you do. Just say, "Well, it's for them." No, it's for you, whosoever will. See, see? Be careful. "Oh, that was for the church long ago." He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
She had a fine education, but she was also dead in sin and trespasses.

²²⁹ Now, Satan's third scheme. We'll get to it quickly 'cause we don't want to take more time than possible, maybe another fifteen, twenty minutes, if you want to go that far. Notice his third scheme then, his--or his third temptation. If the others had failed, this one won't. See? He now offers you a position in the church, like he did Jesus. "I'll give you the world. You be the king. I'll make you. They all belong to me, so I give it to you."
Who can make a man a minister? Who can give a man a gift by laying hands on him? "God has set in the church..." See? See how they twist the Word. Like Eve now, with her new knowing, knowledge, she had Adam at her sway. She could do what she wanted to (See?) as soon as she got Adam to accept it.
And, but when he come to Jesus, He didn't accept it. He said, "Get behind me, Satan." In other words, let me not misquote it, but just add this to it. "It's written, every man shall live by every Word of God, not by your proposition, 'I'll make you the general overseer, a presbyter, or--or deacon, or I'll let you play the piano, sister.' See, all these propositions, 'You're a very popular person, and we need your talent in our church.'" See, come to the Word.
She could rule him or teach him, same as today's crop. That's the way they do it today, to become a D.D., a state presbyter, overseer, district manager, or something another like that.

²³³ How different from Jesus! He stayed with the Word. Now, the next few minutes, I want to prove all these things true (See?) by both nature and Word, bring this together. This proves He was the Word made flesh for Bread. He was the Word made flesh. For He reflected what? The Word only.
If you're a written epistle, you reflect only the Word; not what the seminary says, what somebody else says, what Miss Jones thinks about It, what Doctor So-and-so think about It, but what God said about It. "Let every man's word be a lie, and Mine be the Truth. Whosoever shall break the least of these commandments, and teach men so... Whosoever shall take one Word out of this Book, or add one word to It... Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word proceeding out of the mouth of God." Live eternally by that Word.

²³⁵ Just as so as you have to have dead substance there to live by, you have to have Christ to live by here or you die. And what is Christ? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
And you are the same written epistle, one for one age and one for the other, for the Light of that hour; but they fail to see it. You reflect It only.
Others fixed, although in one--only failed in one point; but He didn't. And as I said, in Revelations 22:18, He said, "Whosoever shall add to This..."

²³⁸ Now, watch real close now. Matthew 24:24 is the striking, how that they... "Almost in this last days," Jesus said, "the very elected would be deceived by this thing." Watch the spirits. "In the last days," now that Scripture has to be fulfilled. Do you believe it? Now, that was, "In the last days, the very elected, predestinated, elected to it, would be deceived..." It's so perfectly; it's so Scriptural, and looks so pretty and clear, that you can't see a flaw in it anyhow, only the elected will escape it. Now, that's what Jesus said. Do you believe it? "Would deceive the very elected if it were possible."
"Why, it's perfectly Scriptures, you can see it in the natural eye." But, you see, that isn't it. Jesus... Them Pharisees had that Scripture just as perfect as It could be, but by their own interpretation.
How did they know He wasn't wrong? Because God vindicated every Word that He promised to Him in that age. That's the reason they knowed He was the Messiah. See?

²⁴¹ Now, notice, "if it was possible," in these days. Only one Word, one Word is needed. That's all Satan had to have to Adam, just get Him on one Word. That's all he has to have today; just get one thing turned around. That's all, that's all he needs. Now, you know that's the Truth. To add one, or take one, it's total failure. Every bit, "Every Word of God..." Think now of the interpretations of the seminaries, every one different from the other.
There has to be a Truth somewhere, and this is It: the Bible. Now, Jesus said...
You say, "Well, Brother Branham, they have the most beautiful worship."
Jesus said, "In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrine the theology of men, not the Word," man, his own conception of the Word being interpreted.

²⁴⁵ As I have said, God don't need no interpreter. He interprets every Word Himself. See, you don't need somebody to interpret It to you, God interprets it to you when you're willing to accept It. See, that's the Life, that's Life Itself.
Jesus said, "In vain they worship Me." They actually worship God. Cain actually worshipped God in the beginning. "But in vain do they worship Me." What's vain? "It don't do no good."
They might say, "Well, I do this. I dance in the Spirit. I--I speak in tongues. I--I prophesy. I preach the Gospel." But fail to let your hair grow out, fail on one thing, and see what happens, the Spirit will leave you right there. That's what's happened to our churches; failed.
"In vain, worshipping Me. Oh, it's a beautiful worship. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of man."

²⁴⁹ Those Pharisees were learned theologians. Don't you dare to say we got anything today to compare with them. No, indeedy. They knowed one word, every word, just the way it was written, but in vain they were worshipping. Think of it, "in vain," big fine schools, and seminaries, and teachers, and young men, and everything like that, but lost.
Same as the wilderness, He said, "They all eat manna from that spiritual Rock in the wilderness, they all drink from that Rock, I mean, and they all eat manna out of it." And Jesus said, "And they're every one dead." "Death" means "eternally separated." Why? Because they failed to believe the promise of God.

²⁵¹ Oh, I hate to keep you like this, but I just have to say it. Look, I won't take a minute on this. Every one of them people come out under the Pillar of Fire; they come out in the wilderness, believing God, marched on. But when they come to see the obstacle, when the--when the ten come back and said, "We can't take the land. Oh, my, they're giants there. They're this, that, and the other. They just... We can't do it. It's impossible."
But what did Caleb and Joshua? They stilled the people. They said, "We are more than able to take it." Why? Those people were looking what they could see (See?); they're looking at what they could see. But Caleb and Joshua was looking at the promise of God. God said, "I have given you that land. Go get it."

²⁵³ Now, Hebrews the 6th, if I could quote it, "For it is impossible for them which were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Holy Ghost, the power of the world to come, if they shall fall away again, deny, walk away."
Like those fellows come up there and eat the grapes from over on the other land, stood there; and when it come to following the Word on through, they said, "We can't do it." And they died in the wilderness.
That's where we got. We tasted a good Word of God. But the full promise, "No, no, we can't do that (See?), 'cause Doctor So-and-so or somebody else says we can't do it. That's for the apostles. That was another day." There you die.
See, the Scripture all ties together; every Word of It ties together. And it cannot be given by any manmade theory, system, or anything. It's only revealed by the Holy Ghost. Jesus said, "Father, I thank You You've hid these things from the wise and prudent, and reveal it to babes such as will learn."

²⁵⁷ Quickly now let's go to this next thought here if we can. "In vain they worship Me." Those Pharisees, learned, oh, morally good, but called by Jesus, "devils." Them learned theologians, Jesus said, "You're devils, and the works of your father you'll do." Said, "You garnish the tombs of the prophets, but your fathers back in that same time... Them prophets come forth to tear down those religious systems." That's what they done.
Prophets... Where does the Word come, to a theologian or a prophet? Not to the theologians and the school. It comes to a prophet always. God never changes His system, never. Always has, always... Not to a group; to an individual, never to a group: individual, yes, sir, a prophet. And they said...
Jesus said, "You garnish the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers put them in there." And they're doing the very same thing under the blindness of Satan's seminary. See?

²⁶⁰ And now, Pentecost, keep your nose out of that World Council of churches. Now, you ministers here, you'll write into headquarters to--to these people. Now, you won't have to write to--to the Assemblies and many of them, 'cause they done set the thing out; they want nothing to do with it. And you Baptist brethren too, keep your head out of there. Don't you see that's exactly the mark of the beast coming up? You know who's going to gulp it all up, if you know anything about the Scripture. If the Words reflect Itself in you, stay away from that thing. Your denomination will run into that. And you're going to have to do it or excommunicate your denomination. You can't be a denomination and stay there, because you've got to come in or stay out.
Then, you're no more organization, then you've showed yourself. Exactly. God bless you, if you do it. Hard to tell how many will do it. But some will, no doubt. Yes, sir.

²⁶² Deceived, and Jesus called them devils. Now, but when Jesus was standing there (What?), every temptation He rebuked it with the Word, and stood there by the Word. God vindicated Him.
Like over, the other night, I preached on Michelangelo. How many was ever at Forest Lawn and seen Moses' monument there, by Michelangelo? That was a striking, when I went in there the first time and seen it. Michelangelo almost spent his lifetime, of making. In his mind he had what--what Moses ought to look like. And he--he wanted to get--get him fixed before he died. And he spent years and years of carving out, chipping off here, and breaking off here, and polishing here. Till finally one day when he had it finished, after many years, he was standing there with a rag in his hand, like this. He stood back and looked at it, the vision that was in his mind, for since he was first heard of Moses, it ought to look like that. There it was, flashed before him. He got so inspired by his own work, he grabbed a hammer and struck it on the leg, and hollered, "Speak, Moses!" He thought it was Moses should speak, he was so much like the thing that was in his mind. And that mar on the leg is still there. It's a perfect statue all but that chip off of the leg, the right leg. Watch it in Forest Lawn, as you go in the door, a reproduction of it. Michelangelo's Moses, his masterpiece, that--that sealed his life...

²⁶⁴ God is a great Sculptor (right); He made man in His image to reflect Him, and He is the Word. And what did He do? He tried Adam; he failed, Moses failed, all the rest of them failed. But here's One perfect. Hallelujah. What was it? Nothing less than God Himself in flesh, the Word reflected; in Him dwelt the Fullness of the Godhead bodily; not a prophet, yet He was a prophet; not a man, yet He was a man.
Jews, don't try to claim Him as yours. He was neither Jew nor Gentile. He was God. See? You are what your blood is (See?) and, 'course, you're flesh. And Mary, of course, Mary didn't have no conception with the Holy Ghost giving her a sensation. God the Father created a germ, or--or egg in Mary and a Blood cell in her also, and it was the Blood of God.

²⁶⁶ The blood comes from the male sex. So it was no... The hemoglobin's in the blood, has to come from the father, 'cause the baby can't even take its mother's disease, like TB. It could inherit it from the breath of the mother, but not inherit it, I mean, but can breathe it and--and catch it. But she cannot take it from the mother, because he, she's free from it; he's not his mother's blood.
Now, but Jesus was not the blood of a Jew nor a Gentile, He was a creative Blood by Jehovah Himself. He was the Blood of God. The Bible said we're saved by the Blood of God, not the blood of a Jew or blood of a Gentile; it'd all be sex, but this was the Blood of God.

²⁶⁸ Notice now when He seen that perfect One, He struck Him and marred Him. Isaiah said, "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity." What was He? He was that perfect Word, reflected for Bread, that every man shall live by. He was that wheat of God's Word that could be ground and put in the four Gospels, sixty-six Books. And man shall live by That, and That alone, and every Word of It. Amen. That was Michelangelo's masterpiece. And when God could see Hisself reflected in a Man, He had that perfect Man created in His Own image. Oh, my, what a Man. He had to die for all of us. (We could stay on that, but we won't.) He had to die for all of us. And He died, the perfect One, that we, imperfect, could be made perfect in Him by partaking of every Word of His Bible. Now, then He raised Him up again for our justification, that we have a right, as a raised Jesus, that He's here now to minister to us, every Word of God, that we should live by.

²⁶⁹ Now, quickly now, then we're closing. Now, the second Eve bride. Now, the first bridegroom, Adam, had to be brought up through a long string of prophets, and so forth, then come out perfect, and then had to die in order to be Bread for the rest of them.
Now, what about Eve? She has to do the same thing. But when Jesus come... Remember, Eve was the woman. The church always is--is a woman represented in the Bible, 'cause she's bride. Now, watch what she did. She tried to persuade Him to her doctrine. As long as He would preach just what they thought, He was a great Fellow. But one day he begin to speak, and said, "I and the Father are One."
"Oh, You make Yourself equal with God. See? Oh, my. We want nothing to do with that fellow anymore."

²⁷⁴ And all these other things He had begin to say, "Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man." What do you think a doctor would have thought, setting in there? What do you think any man would, just common thinking? "You got to eat My Flesh and drink My Blood."
They said, "This man's a vampire, not a minister. Stay away from that man; he's crazy. Stay away from him."
But it was the Truth. See, it was the Truth. "Except you eat It, you'll perish. You'll all die, if you don't eat It."
That's the same thing today. The bread and wine is only a symbol; don't let that natural thing get you down. You've got to eat Christ, which is the Word that you live by, "every Word that proceedeth," the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelations.

²⁷⁸ Now, the second Eve, watch her. She was created anew, like He was, at the day of Pentecost, filled with the Spirit, and fed by the Word. Amen. Now, I'm getting religious. I feel good. That first church, that first Eve, which was to be Christ's Bride... How many can say "amen" to that? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] She was to be Christ's Bride. She was borned at Pentecost, not at Nicaea, Rome; not in London, England; or not in the United States; not in Germany with Luther, not in England with Wesley, not in the United States with Pentecostals, so called. She was borned on the day of Pentecost. She was Spirit filled. And she was Spirit filled and Word fed, "every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Even to Judas... And, oh, they just had to take everything, just Word by Word, a real blooming plant on God's earth, representing Him, another Bride tree.

²⁷⁹ His Word of promise reflected Him in her. They had to take notice to Peter and them. They hadn't been to a seminary, and they knowed that. They hadn't been to any Bible school, some theological seminary. They had no education, 'cause they couldn't even write their own name. The Bible said they were ignorant and unlearned. But what happened? They had to take note that they had been with Jesus, for there He was in them, reflecting His promise. Hallelujah. Glory to God. That's what we need in this age. His Word reflected Him in her, the church. She was a live by every Word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.
But then, as Eve, she met her fall on the Word, at Nicaea, Rome, where the first organization was ever organized, the universal Christian church. Is there a Bible scholar in here? Is there a... Is there a theologian in here that knows that's the truth? The first organization was at Nicaea, Rome. God never did have an organization, never will have one. That's man controlled. That's where they all...
I'm a Christian. "What church do you belong to?" There's only one. I've been a Branham fifty-five years, and I never did join the family; I was born one. That's how you are born in the Kingdom of God, and you're a reflection of His Word.

²⁸² Notice, Eve met hers. And so did the second Eve met hers at Nicaea, Rome, gave to it a denomination, creed, accepted dogmas instead of the Word; taken down pagan idols like Jupiter and so forth, and put up Paul and Barnabas. And--and took down the sun god and the moon god, Ashtoreth, the moon god, with round kosher on it, and made her being the mother of the sun god which is Jupiter. And changed the birthday of Jesus from April, where all nature, where He was born under the ram, 'cause He was a ram, and changed that up to the sun god's birthday in the solar there, where it makes one day... There's just only about a minute difference in the day when it passes on the twenty-fifth day of December, the sun god's birthday, not the Son of God. And every one of us play Santa Claus, and decorate trees, a heathenism, and things like that, and then call ourselves Christians? What's the matter with the Christian church?
Will there ever rise somebody among us, who can preach the Word and tell the Truth, and God vindicate it, and prove to the people that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever? We don't need a seminary. We don't need a theologian. We need a prophet. That's right. God promised it too.

²⁸⁴ Then Eve met her failure, so did the church; gave away to denomination, rules of men, to be ruled by men, not controlled by the Spirit no more. She went away from the Word and accepted dogmas. Who can say "amen"? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] Sure. But do you know we Protestants accept as many dogmas as they got, when we add something to this Word or take something from It? Satan got her with his same old technique he did Eve: compromising. That's where he got it: accept something different from the Word, a creed or a denomination.

²⁸⁵ The original went on to the ground in martyrdom, the burrs of Rome ground that wheat from Pentecost into the dust, and burned them at stakes, and fed them to the lions. They went in like the other wheat did (That's right.), but He begin to raise her again in the reformation, the same one, the second time.
Like He did the Second Adam. After Adam fell, He begin to raise a Second Adam. And the Second Adam fell, then It was taken up. The first Adam fell in his sin and stayed there. The Second Adam fell to redeem a man from sin, and was taken up.
Now, the first church fell at Nicaea, Rome, first, by one Word of Truth out of the Bible, where the Roman church had added their dogmas and creeds. There come a little priest by the name of Martin Luther, who said, "This is not the communion; this is not the body of Christ. It's a kosher. And men 'the just shall live by faith.'" And he threw the thing on the floor and protested it. There comes your first star shining after the Thyatira age. Yes, sir, justified by faith. He, the great Sculptor, set up to make a masterpiece Bride that would reflect His Word.

²⁸⁸ But what did Lutherans do after the death of Luther? They met Satan, and made a denomination out of it and died. She never done anything else after that; she was done, just become a great mass of people. All right.
Then God picked her up again in the days of John Wesley, with another Truth to reflect. What did he do? He said, "Sanctification is the second work of grace." And what did God do? He blessed it. And he protested the Anglican church, and the Zwingli church, and all the rest of them, and all the legalists, and all the Calvin, or the--the Calvinists, rather, and protested it. And--and said, "The just shall live by faith," said Luther. "And the second work of grace is sanctification." And that's true. That's right. See?

²⁹⁰ Then what did he do? Same thing, after the death of Wesley, and Asbury, and them, same thing that Luther did, organize, die. Look at it now.
Went there, here not long ago, to pray for a woman in a hospital, going under an operation. I went in there. She said, "Brother Branham, I called you. You don't know me," she said, "but would you pray for me? I've got to have an operation in the morning."
I said, "Certainly, sister."
There was another man, a woman, and a boy, setting there, about an eighteen-year-old boy, and they was watching me real close. And I turned around and I said, "Would you pardon me, I'm going to..."
She said, "Pull that curtain."
I said, "Aren't you a Christian?"
She said, "We are Methodist."
I said, "That wasn't what I asked you. I asked you... If you're just Methodist, I'll pull the curtain. If you're a Christian, you don't want the curtain pulled." So, yeah, that's right.
There is a lot of difference in being a Methodist, or a Baptist, or Presbyterian, and then being a Christian; not being a Campbellite, but being a Christian. See?

²⁹⁵ What did she do? The same thing. Then what happened? God picked up a little bunch down here in the south, a little colored man with a cross-eye. And, He, what did He do? He poured out the restoration of the gifts, and it become Pentecost. And many of you old-timers like Brother Valdez setting back there, an aged sage, was preaching when I was five years old. He remembers the early Pentecost. Boy, don't you speak organization to them guys; they come out of that nasty thing. And they had the message of God.
But what did they do? Same thing the others did: organized it. Now, they got about thirty or forty different organizations, oneness, twoness, three's. Till, mercy, goodness, I never heard such in my life. What did you do? You died right on the spot. That's all the farther you could go. Your organization wouldn't accept This. You--you picked your man, "This man, if he don't believe with us, don't have him in there. Our fellowship won't have it." Oh.

²⁹⁷ Look, hurrying, there must come a true Seed. There has just got to be, because He's coming for the Bride without spot or wrinkle. He's coming for it, a Word-vindicated Bride. Oh, she'll be such a little bitty group. Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah (wherein eight souls was saved, is that right?), so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." How many? I don't know.
But, see, the Bride's going to be made up of all down through, that's had the Word in their age. It's not just this last group, God's going to take the whole thing out of here. Oh, no.
It'll be--be so small, it'll be surprising. They'll come up missing; you won't even know they're gone. What if He took five hundred in this last day? You'd never know it. Took five hundred in a few days' time, two or three days, there's that many people comes up missing across the world, don't even know where they're at, never hear nothing about them. The secret coming of the Lord Jesus, She'll be taken away.
And the rest of them go right ahead preaching, just like it was in the days of Noah, "Glory to God, we got It (Hallelujah.)," and sealed to their death. That's what the Bible says, and It can't fail.

³⁰¹ As Noah, Moses, David, reflected the coming of this perfect Bridegroom; so has Luther, Wesley, and Pentecost, reflected the coming of a perfect Bride.
Notice, each time she indicated, what did she do? Each time, this church, like Eve did, she forced her Adam to believe her new light, her scheme, and there died with it. "We'll, well, our group will get together (See?) oh, our new blessings of what we found, so forth."
What did this all do to Eve? (We've just got a short time now.) What did this all do to Eve, by the first mother church, the first bride to the first Adam? What did it do to her? Now, listen close; you're going to disagree with This. But it produced the seed of the serpent. That's exactly right.

³⁰⁴ Her first son was not the son of Adam. If it was, he had the birthright. The Bible,