Once more

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Thank you very much. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we are assembled again in the name of thy beloved child, the Lord Jesus, to express our love and worship to Him again. We pray that His Spirit will meet with us, and that He will give us each a portion of that Spirit that might give us sustaining grace to finish the journey, and fight the fight that's set before us, the fight of faith. Grant it, Father.
And break to us this afternoon the bread of life to strengthen us, for it is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." May we hear that this afternoon. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

2 You may be seated. Commending Brother Carlson, he just let me on about ten minutes late---getting better. Another week's meeting we'll just ... I'll probably be here on time. We're so happy for the privilege.
Now, tonight is our closing night of this certain service, and I want to let you out in time so you can have your supper. I know a lot of you call it your dinner. But if I have dinner, then where's my supper come in? Now, I was talking to a fellow, he said, "Oh, Brother Branham, it's dinner."
"Oh, it is?" I said, "I want to prove to you you're wrong." I said, "We don't take the Lord's dinner; we take His supper." So we like to think of it as the ... our supper, the Lord's supper. That's night, not morning or afternoon. He took it in the evening. It was His supper.

3 Now, so, we want to get back early, and so we won't be late tonight. Brother Carlson's going to let me on just exactly on time. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." And I don't know, if the Lord willing, I might try to speak tonight, if I can get a little ... enough time, on "The Countdown." It's a scientific little message the Lord's give me for the last days. And maybe, the Lord willing, I might be able to speak on that tonight.
Now we had a grand time last night. I went over, said, "We're not going to pray for the sick." And the Lord healed the sick anyhow. Sometimes we can say something, but the Lord can just upset that any time He wants to, you see. See, He's God.

4 Now I want to read quickly from the Scriptures for a little text that I thought that might be a help to us this afternoon. Now if he let me on on time, I want to try to get out on time. And that would be about 4:30, which would be about fifty minutes from now. Let us turn now over to the book of Judges, the 16th chapter. And let's read the 27th and 28th verses as we look to the Word.
Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, ... behold while Samson made sport.
And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord..., remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O Lord, that I might be ... avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
Let's pray again. Lord Jesus, take this little text, water the church with it, Lord, we pray, and ... commit it to You, in Jesus' name. Amen.

5 There must have been about three thousand Philistines looking down from the top of the galley of this great arena, when the couple entered the arena that afternoon. Must have been a hot day. All day long they'd been out there. And in this great company on top of this great arena that was built something on the order of a upside down mushroom, and the center post in the middle that went out something in this way, and held the two posts holding all the spectators around... Highly polished war lords and their fine jeweled women all leaned forward at this certain event, for they wanted to get a good look ... that what was taking place.
There had been preliminaries, all the entertainment. They probably had little monkeys that played little tricks. And they had different things that they entertained themselves with---fighting and wrestling, and maybe dueling to death, and many other things that they had been entertained with all day---for it was a great day.
But now the main event come.

6 You know how we all wait patiently while the preliminaries are going on? And they wait for the main event. That's when everybody sits up and takes notice. We watch it in our religious services, when we have our singing, and our testimonials, and the preaching and so forth. But the main event is see what the Lord's going to do, see why He's gathered us together for. We're all under anticipation to see just what the end is going to be, the main event. It's that way in anything. We always watch for the main event.
And they all raised up to look forward to see what was taking place, because the main event was being brought to them. What did they see but a blind man being led by a little boy!

7 The halls had echoed all afternoon with drunken revelry---how that they passed the whiskey and their high drinks, and their fine painted up, jeweled women, and great dignified war lords and all. It was a great celebration. They were celebrating the victory (Oh, how I hate to say this!), the victory that the fish god Dagon had got over the servant of God. It just goes plumb down to the bottom of me to have to say that. But it's truth. Celebrating such a way as that, a victory over Jehovah's servant---what a shameful thing. Drinking, revelry, painted women, and jeweled up, and great dignitaries---the fires was burning under the fish god, and what a celebration it must have been.
But the heartbreaking part (as thousands of years later that we have to think back of such an event as that), that when the great God of heaven, who had purposed in His heart to destroy that nation because they were heathens, and had sent a man to do the job; and here the fish god idol was celebrating a victory over Jehovah's servant. Jehovah never lost. The servant that He sent to do it lost the victory.

8 What a sight! What a shameful thing it was.
The lad led the stumbling blind man across the hall to these big center posts whereon all the great upside down mushroom, umbrella-like, sat, where people looked down like this, when the great ... like pilasters, run up and held the thing in order---laid by stone that could not be reproduced again today. No one could build it like that. But what a great thing it was. Thousands of the celebrity, priests who had served a idol, with their chests all swelled out, and all their ceremonies and rituals over their idol, that he had conquered Jehovah. What a great day it was---drinking, revelry and carrying on.

9 And here comes Jehovah's servant, blind, stumbling, led by a little boy out to this great post, to make sport.
The main event of entertainment was to make sport out of Jehovah's ordained purpose to destroy the nation. And yet the nation has taken the thing that God had placed in to destroy them; and now they'd conquered him, and was making sport out of him their main event at their celebration. Doesn't that just kill you, nearly, to have to look at that? To think, what could... This story never ... really should've never had to be told. But it was probably told for our admonition. It was wrote that way.
Humiliated, broken, standing now defeated, right between the two posts that held the building---what a symbol that is of the church of this day.

10 What a symbol it is of a fallen race of people that has sold out to the world, and the very thing that we're here to conquer---the church that has sold its morals, that's sold the Bible, sold its strength, so surrendered its sword; and standing humiliated in the hour when the approaching signs of the coming of Jesus Christ is at hand, when she ought to be washed, not a spot or a wrinkle, standing to receive her bridegroom.

11 What a picture we see here, a symbol of moral decay that rests upon the nation, this nation. And I'm not going to try to stay with my scriptures too long so I can get through quick, but I could symbolize that with the church, with the nation, with politics, and with everything you can put your hands on today besides God's Bible. Morally decayed. The human race itself just in a terrible condition. And they're under atheists and unbelievers that can point their finger into the face of the church (who should have the message for today), and ask them, "What does all this mean?"---and they don't have the answer. They don't have the answer. Why? They did like Samson did. They surrendered.

12 So, see him standing there, and we'd say," So this is Samson." Let's catch a picture of it, this great mighty warrior. Let's picture him this afternoon, that he had wide shoulders, great framework. And here this big bulk of a man stands there blinded, tied with little strings and led to the middle of the floor, humiliated, broken, defeated---with the great God of heaven looking down upon it---down here his critics, drunken soldiers, looking down. I'd imagine as he stood there, many Philistines that even shook in their shoes to hear his name... Samson was a mighty name one time. So was Christianity, the church was. I'm going to parallel it with the church, this scene.
Samson's name---people just fainted, for he was some sort of a man that they'd never seen a man like him. His strength was beyond anything that the world had ever had. There's nothing they had could match it. Many remembered him, as they looked on him standing there in that condition.

13 Many looked upon him from the galleys and remembered seeing him standing in another position: one day standing with a jawbone of a mule in his hand with a thousand Philistines laying around him; when they'd fled to the rocks for safety, standing, motioning his fingers, "Come on if you want some of it!" But now look at him.
Many of the Philistines that one night he was persuaded in by a harlot... And in the city of Gaza they took the great big gates that would have weighed tons, and fenced him in, and caught him; and sent out to the soldiers and said, "Now we've caught him. We've hemmed him in."---like the devil's always trying to do, hem you in on something.

14 But remember, when Samson awoke the next morning, or that night, rather, seeing he was hemmed in, he could feel back on the back of his head and still know he was a covenant son of God, and there was nothing could hem him in! The church once stood like that too.
What did he do? He rose up, walked down the street, pulled the gates out of its sockets and put it upon his shoulders and walked up to the top of the hill and sat down. Many standing there that afternoon remembered that event. But look at him now, blinded, mocked, just a sport for the enemy. All of his powers that he once had for his protection, for God's achievement that he'd been born in the world to do, had been stripped from him by a woman.

15 I think that same thing could be applied today. That a woman who pretends to be the bride of Christ... And basing her teaching with the cup of the filthiness of her abominations, of her fornications, she has tipped the cup of her fornications into the mouths of God's church that's been raised up to show His signs and wonders, as Jesus' last commandment was to do in Mark 16. And now, we find that she has took God's little faithful group and organized them together, just exactly the way she did herself, and has got them standing stripped, denying the power thereof! denying the Holy Spirit! denying the power to speak with tongues! denying the power of the Holy Spirit to raise the dead and heal the sick and cast out devils! And now "the Philistines is upon thee. And what you going to do now?" Stripped.
Oh, what must have went through that man's mind!

16 We have seen what must have went through the Philistines' mind. They'd known him when ... "I've heard ... [one reach over to another, maybe, and say] " I remember the time when ... you'd say 'Samson!' every Philistine would go like rats to a hole."
"I've heard the time," you'd say, "a thousand men would be marching across the desert, they'd say, 'Samson's coming!' they'd drop their arms and run for safety as hard as they could." But now look at him.
He's in a terrible condition. Bound. All because he compromised to a woman. That's what done it. She stripped him of his power. She kept trying to find out where his strength laid. She knowed he was a big man, but they had big men too. But this Delilah, she was a real Jezebel. She knowed how to work on him, to woo him to her, and say that she loved him; but all the time she was trying to fish along where his strength laid.

17 That's the same thing that the Jezebel has done to the church! It's fished along until it's found out where the strength laid, and that the strength is in the Word. The Word is God! And finally, she found where that strength laid, and she took him down to Nicaea, Rome, and shaved off his locks. And now they've took what's left out of it and taken them back to the World Council of Churches and got their locks shaved again.
It's a constant shaving: taking this out; and this doesn't mean that; and the days of miracles are past; there is no such a thing as this, that, and the other thing. They found where the strength laid ---substituting baptisms and hand shakes and all these other things, for the true unadulterated Word of God!

18 This Word is God that was given to His church to defeat the world, and the devils, and the sickness, and to cast out devils! No denomination was given to the church; the Word was give to the church. That's her strength!
But they've cut this away, they've cut that away, and they shaved off this lock, and shaved off that lock, until she stands shorn today. Like a Catholic sister. Shorn off, until she's accepted a bunch of man-made creeds for her doctrine---just exactly what the prophet said she would do. And here she stands today humiliated, when the God of heaven has chose the ignorant fisherman, and so forth, and has come down and [unclear word], proving that He still remains God! And they can't give an answer to their congregation for it, because it's not connected with any denomination. And she stands humiliated, where she ought to've been standing in her strength.

19 If the church today stood like it did on the day of Pentecost, if the church today stood like it did in the days of Irenaeus, and in the days of St. Martin, or in the days of Polycarp, where the church would march right into death before it would defy any Word of God! Irenaeus, Martin, all those men, held tight to that water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Every one of them held tight to that baptism of the Holy Ghost, the prophets, signs and wonders. And they've got away from it today. What happened?
Delilah knowed where the strength laid, and if she could ever get those seminaries away from that Word on to some man-made theology, she had it! Then it was easy to buy and lead them into the World Council of Churches, this ecumenical council. Say, "You ain't got no right." I'm still an American citizen---I got a right to freedom of speech. That's right. Certainly is. Notice, that's exactly the truth.

20 Oh, how he must have felt. What went through that man's mind as he stood there, blind!
Now Jezebel knew (or not Jezebel, but Delilah), knew if she could ever punch his eyes out, that was it. And that's exactly what Delilah of this last day has done to the church---punched its eyes out to God's promises and sold to some great big intellectual denomination. Everybody likes to say, "I belong to the First Church ... I belong to down here ... I..." See, as long as the devil can put your eyes out to the Word of God, and the promise of God... No matter how foolish it sounds, it's God's promise! I'm not endorsing cults, not at all. But them cults are known by their works. So is God's church knowed by its works. But I'm trying to say what Delilah has done to Samson.

21 Now let's take Samson's side. What must have went through the man's mind as he stood there? All the great victories he had once had must have passed through his mind.
The event's on now, the entertainment for the afternoon is fixing to start. The ones that's to be entertained are thinking of what he was. And here he is standing here thinking of what he was. But because some woman lured him, the picture's changed, to what it should've been. God raised Samson up to destroy that nation. That was the very purpose of bringing him on. If God can only find one man, that's all He needs---one man that can fully surrender to Him. He don't take an army. He never did use that; He only uses a man.

22 Now Samson gave God his strength to use, but he didn't give God his heart. He gave his heart to Delilah; and gave his strength to God. But you've got to surrender soul, body, spirit, strength, everything you are, to the will of God. Become a prisoner to Him. You're going to be somebody's prisoner. You don't belong to yourself. You're somebody's prisoner. You're either a prisoner of the devil, knowing this truth and won't surrender to it; or prisoner to the world, and surrender to God---one or the other. You're either the devil's prisoner to sin; or you're God's prisoner to righteousness. You're one or the other.

23 And now Samson thinks of the great victories that he had won. No doubt it come to his mind of how that when he was a little boy that God had vindicated him: told his mother how that she must do, not drink strong drinks, or watch her diet, that she was bringing forth a Nazarite; how she combed his hair and told him, "Son, through these locks it's a covenant with God that your strength will lay in there. Don't never give it away. Don't never give away your secret. Don't never surrender it. Whatever you do, stay with it."

24 Jesus Christ told the church that "Heavens and earth will pass away, but my Word shall never pass away. And whosoever shall take one word from it or add one word to it, his part will be taken out of the book of life." The church ought to think of that now as we stand in this chaos, and this hour just prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus at any moment for a rapture.

25 The great victories that we can point back in the days gone by ---in the reformation, back in the days of Irenaeus and St. Martin, Patrick, and those who protested those organizations, and when Luther came out and protested that first organization, Catholic Church... And the group that followed him come right back and organized behind him. When John Wesley come out of Anglicanism... And as soon as Wesley left, they organized right behind him.
And the early Pentecost come out of the denominations---that was a cursed word to you. But as a dog goes to its vomit, and a sow to the wallow, you've went right back into the thing that you were born to defeat! Hallelujah!
That hurts my heart too, even more than to think of the victory yonder that Dagon had over Samson. I see what Jezebel's got over the church. That's the reason that ... every strength and every fiber in my being I'm trying to protest that thing and call back that church to her place of repentance!
Your mothers, your fathers, were ousted out of those organizations. They come out of it, and protested it. And here their children has turned right back around and went right back into the thing that they come out of. If that ain't a picture of Samson, what Delilah did!

26 How we ought to let the thoughts go through our mind of the great victories! I don't have time to get it and keep my word to you.
...and of God, that raised him up for this purpose. And there he stands between those two posts---blinded, defeated, humiliated. He was still the same big bulk that he ever was; but his strength was gone. The church, if anything, it's stronger in membership than it ever was. But where is the Word? the strength being manifested? It's been cut off from you by your power-shaving organizations.
He had failed God! Not only had he failed God, but he failed his own people. He was a total failure. Now he was a prisoner to the very nation that God raised him up to destroy. And here stands the last organization of the church---Pentecost---this afternoon, just as defeated as Samson was. You might not believe that, but if you'll just open your mind to the Word you'll see it's the truth! Had him doing tricks for entertainment.

27 How sometime ... I said not long ago, these Full Gospel Businessmen (as well as I love them) in their magazine writing up Holy Reverend Father So-and-so. You poor, deluded, blind Pentecostals! What's the matter with you? Don't you know our Saviour said don't call no man on this earth "Father"? Don't you realize the devil's only taking somebody's been kicked out of one of those there, out here, and just making a laughing stock out of you? They're not coming in! Don't you let anybody tell you they are!
What's the matter with this deluded church? The world has punctured its eyes. Don't you know Jesus said that that would happen? And when the sleeping virgin come in to buy oil, she never got it! There's the sleeping virgin. Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, they're not getting it! They might speak with tongues and jump, but that don't mean anything. I've seen heathens do the same thing. And devil worshippers speak in tongues and jump and sing and shout, drink blood out of a human skull, and call on the devil and speak in tongues. Don't you rely on sensations; it's the Word of God that don't pass.

28 There she is, defeated---just as much as Samson was defeated---doing tricks now. How ... Satan stand up and laugh and said, "Look, they claim they believe the Bible. Look." Telling all the angels of heaven, "Look, look, they're Bible believers, each one of them. Look at them, all colored together. I'm going to throw them every one over. Just exactly. Going to lead them right in." Just exactly what the Scripture said. They have to do that.
There they are, defeated. Delilah. Eyes punctured so they can't see the truth. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You've got eyes and you can't see. You've got ears and you can't hear." Why? Said, " 'Cause Isaiah said so". He referred back to the Word, the prophet. The ... God Himself, Jesus Christ, referred back to the word of His prophet.
And today the Holy Spirit's bringing your memory back! "Heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." Women, painted faces, wearing shorts, acting like the world, bobbing their hair, and doing so forth---"having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." Why, your own works proves that you don't believe it---the Holy Spirit in the Word pointing right back to the Word again.

29 "Oh," you say, "I got it." When you take medicine for a disease, if it don't show up, you'd better change your medicine. You're ... die in your sins.
The nation, the very purpose, the very thing that they was raised up to destroy... Samson is now a victim. And so is the church raised up to put denominationalism, and the world in the denomination, to shame! And you come right into the denomination. And by doing that you can't follow the Scriptures---every one of them has got a different idea. So you lost your strength. That blinding devil!

30 Let a lure of a woman take him from the Word of God. Now you say, "Brother Branham, it wasn't..." It was the Word of God! Delilah took Samson from the word of promise! And so has the Jezebel of this day taken the church, lured it from the Word of the promise, God, Holy Bible! Same thing, same exactly thing.
What did they do? Let Jezebel, spoke of in Revelation the 17 ... Revelation, 17th chapter... The Catholic church is represented there. And they tell you it's them, too. They don't ... their own book says so. They make no bones of it. How many ever read their own writing and know that that's true? They say the Catholic church is represented. That's right. And remember she was the mother of harlots. She was a whore, and a mother of harlots. See, it had to be churches. It's not boys; it was girls. Protestant churches. A mother of harlots. As soon as they organized they done the same thing they did there. They stripped themselves from the Word and have to follow the dictations of some organization.

31 I know this is not popular, but it's the truth.
I haven't got no big radio programs and television programs to support. God help me to never have. I only want one thing, and that's the support of Jesus Christ by His Word. Let Him vindicate that I'm telling the truth by His Word. Not some bogus make-belief, un... scrupled thing, but the genuine Holy Spirit, Himself, who takes the promise of this day and shows that it's the truth. That's all I long to see. Like Jesus said, "If I don't do the works of my Father, then don't believe me."

32 Now, blind. "Oh," you say, "we're not blind." You are blind! The Bible said you was. Every Scripture reader knows that this is the Laodicea church age. How many believes that? Then the Bible said that the Laodicea church was blind, naked, and didn't know it! There's the bad part. She don't even know it. She's worse than all the other church ages put together.

33 The ox knows its master's crib, or stall. And the mule knows his crib. And He said, "My people don't know."
Blind, spiritually blind. Blind to what? God's Word. Just as blind as they can be. And they don't want to see it! And you tell them, they'll say, "Oh, yes, I'm intending to do that." But none of them does it. They can't do it, and maintain their fellowship in an organization. They'll kick them right out of it.
There she stands. Delilah shaved off his locks. Now he's bobbed haired---like the women in it. Same thing. Now, look at them---defeated, just like they was.

34 Ministers, the Pentecostal messengers of the early days, you would've never made them men believe that their own children would organize seminaries, that they criticized by the Word of God and come out of! That's right. What, by these seminaries, have we got? They've brought world into the church.
An old minister used to sing, "We let down the bars, we compromised with sin. We let down the bars, the sheep got out, but how did the goats get in?" You let down the bars! Got away from the Word. When Eve let down the bars to intellectual reasonings of Satan, death come in. And the bars, that God had her barred in with, was His word of promise. And we've substituted something else---a creed instead of the Word. Amen. You know that's the truth.

35 What have we got, the Pentecostal people today? Too many Rickys. That word---Elvis and Ricky. You never heard that in other days. It's a word, it's a name, for this day. It goes with this. It means something. You say, "A name means nothing." Then why did He change Abram's name to Abraham? Why did He change Saul's name to Paul? Simon's name to Peter? Why did He change His own name? Why did He change Jacob to Israel? Not until he wrestled with the Lord. Not until he overcome. And when Jesus overcome death, hell, and the grave, the Bible said He had a new name. And when Jacob overcome...
And if the church can overcome, she'll stop saying, "I'm Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian." When she can overcome her creeds, and the world that's drawn her in there, she'll come back to the bride of Jesus Christ---Mrs. Jesus Christ. Amen.
What a sad sight as we see Samson standing there:

36 women with short hair, wearing shorts, painted faces (and Pentecostals), calling themselves Christians, singing in the choir.
I was in a Pentecostal assembly not long ago, in a great city where a famous great man lives. And the meetings got so big I had to take it over to a big place. And they had the selected Pentecostal choir. And little did they know I was sitting right down behind the curtains praying. And there every girl, in that row about of thirty-five girls and thirty-five boys to sing the Messiah, was wearing makeup and bobbed hair! And when David duPlessis was taking up a missionary offering they were acting like they were blind Bartimaeus running along passing the cup.
That's Pentecostal grandchildren. That ain't a Pentecostal servant of God with the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost won't make fun of His own Word! He can't, and remain the Holy Ghost. But that's where you've got to. Oh, Samson, get to thinking a little bit. Remember these tapes are recorded and sent around the world. I'm just not only speaking to this group here.

37 Samson began to think of his errors (oh!) and he began to think of what he was one time. Pentecost, think what you was nineteen hundred years ago. Church---Catholic, Protestant---think what you were nineteen hundred years ago; and look what you are today. Study a little while. (Just got about eight more minutes to keep my word.)
Notice. But while he was standing there, he cried. He began to think of his errors. And when he began to think of what had happened to him... He was blind; therefore, he couldn't see no more. He's accepted something else. For the love of this woman, that's what got him. And then she turned him down.

38 Oh, what a trap I could speak on here that Satan's set for the church. Just get your eyes blinded from the truth and that's what... They got you then. And if you only knew it, one of these days God's going prove it to you what the mark of the beast is.
Notice. But when once blinded, there she stands. And there he stood. And he began to remember the things of his errors, where he had left the strait and narrow road, where he'd got away from God's promise. And he cried out, "Lord, revenge my eyes." Why did he do this? He knew there was a possibility. Now is where I want you to listen.

39 Samson must have thought of all ... where he had left the path. He saw it then. It was too late now. He saw it where he had left the path, and he thought there must be a possibility that God would answer. He knew if he could repent, and get God to see that he was sorry for his error, there was a possibility that God would still achieve His promise. God will do it. He's going to do it.
Same now! God's going to have that church. Don't you worry. She's going to be there. The Holy Spirit'll be moving so in the church, and the church and Christ'll be the same Spirit. Luther stood down on the feet in justification; Wesley stood in the heartbeat of love of sanctification; but this is raised up to the head now, see. More than that. She denominated, and the husbandman come along and pruned the vine. They died. They never did come back no more; they never will come back no more. But still there's a seed of life there that's coming on.

40 But notice. Samson thought there must be a possibility. He caught the idea. But the sad part is today, the church don't catch that. They don't realize that there is a possibility of a revival. They don't realize the possibility. They haven't caught the vision yet. They just sit. "Oh," they say, "now Brother Branham, what are you doing?"
Oh, I know, you clap your hands and have great big gatherings, and glittering with worldly tinsel. You have to go to the biggest places; you have to have the most, best entertainment; you have to do this, that, or the other. Your pastor must be a seminary scholar with a doctor's degree or... You can't tell your neighbors down there that your pastor is some little guy out of the cornfield out there that got saved. "Our pastor is Dr. LL.D. So-and-so." To me that means he's just that far away from God, that's all---just that far away, for intellects always takes him away. Oh, you're shining with scholarship.

41 And another thing about a lot of this modern evangelism today: all the way from Pentecost, all the way back, is a bunch of Hollywood showmanship. You certainly are glittering with that, as the tinsel's in the hall of the fish god, Dagon. But that tinsel and scholarship and intellectual showmanship, with a great bright ... let none of the public see any defeat and so forth...
All that stuff like that, intellectual conceptions of the gospel and so forth---that don't bring the power of God to make women quit wearing bobbed hair, and men to act right, take their place in the house, and raise their children like they ought to. It don't bring the Spirit of God.
Samson stood there just as big a bulk as he ever was.

42 And the church stands stronger in members than it did forty years ago. But where is the Spirit of God? Oh, God! Where is the Spirit of God in it? I see the spirit of Hollywood. I see the spirit of the world. I see the spirit of glamour. Go right through... I've been fifteen years preaching against it, and it gets worse all time. I can see it. And I can see the spirit there, but where is the Spirit of God that can grasp God? that can recognize the Word itself when it's made manifest? can recognize truth? Only the Spirit of God can do that. That's right. You can take glitter, polish, showmanship. Samson had just as big a body as he ever had; but his strength was taken from him.

43 The church, Pentecost today, stands... I believe three years ago, the "Sunday Visitor" of the Catholic church said that they had a million conversions to Catholicism in one year. But the Pentecostal church had one million five hundred thousand---more than that. But what have you got when you got it? I'd rather have five that could surrender their life to Christ. He can do more with five men, or one man surrendered, than He could with forty million outside. What does members mean? Just means another thing that you're blinded, and adding more strength to the harlot. Right.
Notice. The church today is not willing to pay the price.

44 Samson prayed the right kind of a prayer. "Lord, let me die with this enemy." Oh, my! There you are. You don't want to die to your pride. You don't want to die to the things of the world. Now remember, I'm talking to literally thousands around the world when I'm saying this, see. I'm just not speaking here in Chicago; I'm speaking at the world.
You don't want to die! But the only way that there's a possibility of a revival... You blinded Samson, can't you see that the Delilah has blinded your eyes? And the only way that you'll ever be able to bring back the strength to the church is to die to the enemy that's got you in this worldlyism. Samson said, "Let me die with the enemy."

45 There's a great price to pay. You must die to the thing that's brought you in this thing. You must die to the thing that's brought you, you Pentecostal people, to where you are this afternoon. You've got to die to it.
Samson was willing to pay the price to get the power of God back in his life again. I wonder if the church is, this afternoon, willing to pay the price and die with the enemy, the thing ... all your popularity and all your this, that, or the other, just to see the power of God back on you again, and become a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

46 Oh, I hear some of you say, "Oh, yes, we're having revivals." But it's denomination revivals. The Oneness wants to take all the Threeness and make them all Oneness; the Threeness wants to take all the Oneness and make them Threeness; the Church of God wants to take the Church of God of Prophecy. One wants to take the other---making big denom... Don't you realize you're only catering to men? We are brethren! There's no denomination can separate the love of God! We are brethren. "...this will all men know you are my disciples, when you have love one for the other."
You say, "What are you hollering about a man...?"

47 Love is corrective. If love doesn't correct, then it's not love. If you see your child down on the street, and don't give him a little bit of posterior protoplasm stimulation, you're not a good dad. But a real mother or dad'll turn him up and spank him---let him know he's got to get out of that street or perish! That's genuine love.
But you say, "Junior dear, I don't know. You ... maybe you shouldn't be out there at this time of day [the end-time], when the cars are going pretty fast." Oh, nonsense, you sissified preacher. Not the audacity to take God's Word and call white white, and black black; right right, and wrong wrong! But they do it.

48 Yeah, we have revivals all right, but look at your morals behind these revivals. Don't change them a bit---getting farther from God into the world all the time.
Notice. Samson knew what was going to happen if his prayer was answered. But we haven't counted the cost yet. What's going to happen if God answers your prayer to become a real genuine child of God? You know you're gone from your denomination right then. And them women that you play bridge with and everything? Oh, no. You're gone, that's all. Better count it up first.
But Samson said, "Let me die." He was willing to pay the price. And he knew

49 (listen close now to this remark) he knew that his present backslid condition could never meet the challenge of that hour. Yet he was just as much man as he ever was in his muscles. His frame was as big as it ever was. He was ... just as big a muscle that ever could raise up on his arm at any time---was probably larger, because he'd been grinding down in the ... doing heavier work.
We got better churches, better buildings, and everything. But where is our strength, spiritually speaking? Oh, we could take a vote in the nation, sure. We could do these things. But that ain't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the presence of God being recognized among us. That's what we ought to live for.
He knew that his backslidden condition could not meet the challenge of that hour. And so does the church know it now. We can't do it under this condition. You can't do it. Denominations does not vindicate the Word; it denies the Word. The very denomination itself denies the Word as soon as it's denominated. Just the thing itself, you just get on the other side to begin with. It denies the Word.
All the time...

50 (I've just a little minute or two longer, but notice, as I hurry now, to keep my word.) All the times while they were all standing there and these thoughts was going through their mind (I hope it sends some through yours), they never noticed when Samson, his thoughts went through his mind. Maybe they passed the bottle, took a drink again. The fine Hollywood women stood there with their cigarette in their mouth, if there was such a thing in that day. I don't think they got quite that low in that day. But ... pushed up their hair and took another drink, hollered, "Hello, Joseph [or John, or you up there somewhere]. We played cards together last night, was out at the big party."

51 [Blank spot] "... there's a possibility that God'll hear me. There's a possibility." And while he thought, the Philistines had not noticed him while this little boy untied his hands. Walked back, he said, "Lay my hands upon the post. There's a possibility." Oh, my. I wish the church could see that. There is a possibility of a real revival.
What did he do? He raised up his sockets (he had no eyes) towards God. They never noticed the moving of his lips as he was sincerely confessing. We don't need this little "Lord, forgive me and Jim, Joe, and all of us. Amen." We need a sincere cleaning up from the pulpit to the janitor.

52 They never noticed the tears running down from them sockets where he once had eyes. They never noticed the moving of his lips, his eyes, briny tears streaming down from the sockets. He wanted God to make His Word once more vindicated to prove---as I'd say to this Delilah today, or this Samson, rather---"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." Once more he thought it would happen.
"Not a new denomination, not a new sectarian, but a vindicated word from You, God. I know You're still God. I'm blind, I've got off the track, I'm not worthy to live. Let me die with this enemy. You raised me up to destroy it, and I've failed You, Lord. But there's a possibility You'll hear me once more, Lord. Once more."
Dead earnest he prayed. He knowed what was coming. "Lord, just this once more. Once more, let me see Jesus Christ as He was yesterday." When he prayed that prayer, and the tears rolling from his cheeks with deep sincerity of confession...

53 That's what the church needs. Confess you're wrong. Don't care what Dr. Jones says, or what anybody else says. You're out of the Word of God. Confess it, that you're wrong! Cry out, "Once more, Lord, once more. Once more, Lord, once more. Avenge my blindness upon these denominations."
Said, "Give me strength, Lord, to shake this denominational world with your vindication. Give me strength, Lord. Once more prove it." He knew what was going to happen if his prayer was answered. He knew---dead earnest, crying, "Once more, Lord." And while he was praying and making his honest confession, every fiber in his body began to vibrate.
O God, if the body of Jesus Christ could stand as one, and every fiber and every member begin to vibrate with the literal baptism of the Holy Ghost again, not with new members and shaking hands and some creed!

54 As the strength began to move into those big muscles, every fiber began to twist, he began to feel himself again, and he twisted out! And when he did, the big wall fell. All we need to do today is to see these denominational walls fall, is get deeply sincere before God to heal these blinded eyes that's been blinded from the Word of God! That was Samson's greatest victory he ever had, because he was willing to confess---over every enemy, first, that he was brought up to destroy.

55 Oh, Pentecost, stand at your post this afternoon, your post of the duty of God's Word. Repent and cry aloud, "Lord God, once more!" Let me tell you something, you better destroy your enemy before your enemy destroys you. Right.
Bring back the old-fashioned prayer meetings, the real godly repentance, the all-night altar service. Oh, Pentecost, hear me! Leave, oh, leave, this corruption that Jezebel has worked among you. Leave it! Leave it quickly! and return back to the Word of the Lord away from this Hollywood showmanship. Turn with your whole heart back to the Word of God. Turn back to the power of the Holy Ghost.
You women dress like women! You men act like men!---like sons and daughters of God! Turn, oh, turn from this Jezebel system that's choking you and blinding you. God, help us to have a true repentance. Not ... halfheartedly you can't do it.

56 I think today at this very moment (when my time is up), we should stand to our feet and cry with our hands in the air, "Lord, once more, once more; oh, Lord, once more."
Let's stand, everybody that's willing to do it, to see a revival, that's ready to die to this Hollywood showmanship, everybody that's ready to die to see the power of God come to Zion with joy in all these holy mountains, nothing hurt or shall destroy. Let's raise our hands and cry, "Once more, Lord! once more, Lord! once more, Lord! once more, Lord, send the Holy Ghost with a mighty rushing wind like You did on the day of Pentecost." Amen.

Once more

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 I want to say that I ... [Congregation applauds.] I appreciate that. Thank you, very much. I want to say that I certainly love this fellow, too. Brother Joseph has been my friend for years. I would like to have the opportunity, some time, to tell you how we ever come together. But I just trust that the Lord loves me like Joseph does, and I'll be all right. God bless you, Brother Joseph. The Lord bless you.
I believe we were going to sing that, "Now I believe." And let's mean it from our hearts, tonight, "Now I believe."
Now I believe, now I believe,
All things are possible, now I believe;
Now I believe, now I believe,
All things are possible, now I believe.

2 Let us bow our heads, just a moment, while we remain standing. And in this moment, let's bow our hearts, also, to Him. And I wonder if there is any in the congregation would like to be remembered in this prayer, just by raising your hand to God, saying, "God, this signifies I have a need yet, and I'm wanting You to supply it." God grant your request.

3 Our heavenly Father, great and almighty Jehovah who formed the earth out of Your Word, and has given us the opportunity to sojourn here and make our decision whether we want to live or die. "Choose you this day." And we choose between death and life. So I pray, Father, if there be some in here that does not know Thee as their own beloved Saviour, that this night they will choose You, which is life, to know. And then if there is those here tonight that's sick unto physical death, that they will choose You, tonight, as their healer, and it will also mean physical restoration again.
Oh, Thou art so good to the sons of men, long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance. You send forth the clouds for the rain, and bring forth fruit and food upon the earth, to feed your children. And we are so dilatory, Lord, and so destructive, to waste and to be selfish. And, O God, just forgive us, Lord. We plead for mercy. We would not want Your justice or Your judgment; we want Your mercy, Lord, so we pray that we may be partakers of Your mercy.

4 And, Father, not that this congregation hear me; but that You might, standing here in this place that's been dedicated. I thank Thee for this fine fellowship. And I believe, with my heart, that if You should come tonight, there would be a host of New York people go in that great rapture. And Father, we pray that we will be lights, not under a bushel, but under the anointing of the Holy Spirit that lights the candle, that we might be lights to this dying world, as the great dismal fogs of unbelief is floating in from every side. We know soon we'll see our Lord break back that fog, when the light begins to shine. And we trust, Lord, that You'll make us ready. If there is anything we have need of tonight, supply it to us, Lord, through Thy grace. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Thy child. Amen.

5 I am not very expressive. But I would like to say to Pastor Vick, his little co-worker there, and the choir, fine bunch of ladies and men, and to all the cooperating pastors, laity, all of you, and the visitors, strangers in our gates. I want to thank you for your support this week, of your prayer and cooperation, to try to bring the gospel light to this city.
And our efforts, Pastor Vick with many other pastors, are, we are seiners in this great lake. There is fishes in here that belong to God. We do not know who they are and where they are. But as he stands at one corner, another at another corner, seining, I just come to weave my net with theirs, with the ministry that's giving mine with theirs, to try to reach out and get a little larger group in, that we might present them to God, and say, "Father, is there any fish in here? Is there any seeds of life, predestinated to be in the book of life, that the Lamb died for? If they're there, we feel, that when the gospel light strikes, they'll see it right quick, because they are predestined to that.

6 Now we are sorry that we did not have room to accommodate the people. Each night, nearly, when I've come up, there's been great throngs of people all up-and-down the street, walking, trying to get in. And some crying; some different, you know.
But I know that it's they have a law here, a fire marshal's law; just so many, you have to leave so much aisles, and so forth. And that they cannot help. Because that we are, as Christians, we've got to do that. For the Bible said, Jesus told us to, "Give Caesar those things that pertain to Caesar, and then to God those things that belong to God." So we try to. And if we will not obey Caesar, it's doubtful that we'd obey God. And as long as Caesar's laws doesn't interfere with God's, we must obey God first. And then these fire hazards, and so forth, well, they know how to take care of that, and they told us.

7 I was asking for mercy for the people, and seeing them up-and-down the streets, and things, and the sick, and trying to get in, and bringing them in cabs from across somewhere else in New York, or Long Island and Jersey, or different places, and Manhattan. Well, you see, but we can only ask. And then when I find out that that's the law, why, he said, "If the fire marshal would come in and catch us crowded like that, he would close the whole meeting." So that would cut everybody out.
I want to express my gratefulness to the owner, or whatever it might be, or the company that owns this building, and to the management for letting us have this building, and for the custodian and the courtesy of giving us right of way. They've been very, very nice. And if they're ... If they don't at this time have eternal life, I trust that God will give them eternal life.

8 And now this may sound like a rashal statement, but I say this only because I'm zealous for Christ. I do pray that if this building be used at any time, from hereafter, for dances or worldly entertainment, that the Holy Spirit will throw such conviction upon those people until they'll weep. I pray to that. Because I'm sure that the people even that owns it would rather see souls saved to the kingdom of God, than to have the other going on.
"And now you're welcome back," for me to come back, that just fills my heart. Because, little odd ministries is sometimes so unwelcome amongst brethren, especially some of them that in their certain organization that they are built up to a place till they cannot accept it, see, because there is a system behind it. Not that many of those precious men ...

9 I've met Catholic priests that's took my hand and just looked me in the eye. And think I didn't know what was going through his mind? That's discernment, you see, what you see here. He wanted to embrace it, but couldn't do it; see, he would be excommunicated, see. Protestant ministers, the same way, fine brethren, and they want to do it.
That way, when I speak against some denomination, or the denominational system, it isn't the people in there. It's the system that I'm against, you see, that holds them apart, holds us from receiving, see. They draw up their declaration, say, "We believe this, period!" If they would end it with a comma, "We believe this, plus as much as the Lord can show us out of His Word," it would be all right. But they do not do it that way. You know that. It couldn't be a denomination and do that, see. It would just be the move of God, moving on all the time, see. And the...

10 Each one becomes a latter rain to the other. See, Luther was a latter rain to the Catholic. And John Wesley was a latter rain to Luther. The Pentecost was a latter rain to the denomination. Now the Pentecostals are organized, now what's going to happen? See?
But remember, the children of God never drove their stake tents down so tight but what they could pull it up. And when the fire moved, the pillar of fire, they moved with it. See, they moved with the pillar of fire.
But when you get the pillar of fire doing something, the Holy Spirit doing something, and then after that man with a message departs this life, then they say they organize upon his work. And the pillar of fire moves right out and leaves them sitting there; just goes right on. They're so staked down till they can't move, but in there is many fine-hearted people.
I don't know when that I have had any more liberty to speak just my heart than I have right here.

11 Now, they say that the New York people are cold, different, informal; the great molding pot, where they get a handful of the worst out of every nation, and dump it in and grind it up, and you got New York, see. But I want you to know, in there, some of the saints of God are in there also, see. That's right. It's true. And everywhere I go, around and around the world, I find the saints of God are in every nation, everywhere. And the strange thing is...
I might say this to some of you, just drop it in. As a missionary, I find that I go into a nation that doesn't even know which is right or left hand, they do not know what any words, how to spell anything, only thing they know is just kill and eat. But let those people receive the Holy Spirit, and they do the same thing you do, and act the same way you act, not even knowing one word about it. So, you see it's to all races, all peoples everywhere, and we all have the good and bad.
And I do feel, tonight, and thank our heavenly Father, for I believe that part of the cream of the crop, I have the privilege of speaking to, tonight.

12 Now you can imagine the responsibility, to speak to a group that would lay onto every word you say, and then you'll have to answer for what you told them, at the day of judgment. Because, through the little humble ministry, it gives people faith to know that a human being cannot do those things. It has to come from God, therefore that they lay onto every word you say. So I never try to build something, thinking, or writing down Scriptures and notes that it would be something that I thought would make the people all elated. See, I try to pray and to think of something that would be constructive to you, that would help you.
Cause, I'm not here just for us to clap hands and shout, and run up-and-down the aisles. Oh, I believe in that, sure, but there is more than that to it. It's got to have a foundation for this, you see. I believe that when you jump, and when you come back down, then live as high as you jumped, you see. And, if you don't, don't jump, see. So then just always jump as high as you live. And now that's what we should do. Because, after all, see, your life speaks louder than your testimony. People know what you are, by the way you live and the things you do.

13 And now I've been very long at night. Supposed to be out of here, well, I guess, at the correct time, in the next twenty minutes, and I haven't even started. And I'm slow. I just ...
I'm always late. I was late getting here, I was a little over nine months. And then I was ... That's right. When I was born, I was a little overtime, my mother said. And then when I got ... what education I got, I was always behind. When I got married, I had my wife waiting about three hours till I made a sick call; I was late at my wedding. Now if I can just be late for my funeral, that's the next thing, see, that's the main thing. I don't say that for a... But that's the truth.

14 But I've never tried to educate people into it. I never try to think; just let the Holy Spirit have its way.
I've got two girls at home. I was just talking to them, a few moments ago. One of them is Rebekah, the other one ... That's the older. The younger one, sister next to her, is Sarah. And they are about nearly five years apart. Sometime ago, I was in a missionary meeting, come home late. And they're daddy's girls. They even now, Rebekah is a young woman, but she is still daddy's girl. And I love my children. And I remember they would sit up and wait. I wouldn't come in for months and then when I come in they'd wait to see me. Well, they were little. It's been several years ago, about ten years ago. I had been overseas, and I was coming in. And the plane was late, and so the little girls got sleepy and went to bed. The sandman got in their eyes, or throwed the sand in their eyes, rather. So then, well, wife waited up.

15 And finally I got in early, around three o'clock in the morning. So then I was so tired and weary, I couldn't sleep. I laid down for about an hour, and I got up, went in the living room, sit down in the chair. And after awhile, it broke day.
And the first thing you know, I heard a noise back in the room, and it was the two girls had woke up. And Rebekah woke up first, the idea struck her, "Daddy's home," and here she come, out of the bed and here she come! Well, that woke her little sister up.
I guess my children is like yours. When the oldest one wears something almost out, the next one gets the hand-me-down, so Sarah was wearing Becky's pajamas. And that was the times that they had these kind of rabbit-feet pajamas, great big feet in them, and they were certainly way too long for Sarah. And so she couldn't keep up, her legs was too short.

16 And so Rebekah run in and jumped up on my knee, and throwed both arms around me and begin to hugging me. 'Course, I had to cry a little. So, and poor little Sarah thought she was left out, Becky had beat her; so she was standing at the door, and her big black eyes looked up, and the tears on her cheeks.
So Rebekah turns around and said, "Sarah, my sister!" She acted something like, I think, some of the churches try to do, you know. Said, "I want you to know that I was here first." And she said ... And she had both arms around me, and she said, "And I've got all of daddy, and there is none left for you." Now, that's what they try to tell us, a lot of times, you know. Well, Becky was kind of long-legged and so she could reach the floor; she was pretty well established, you know, like many of the churches.

17 But little Sarah, she was so hurt, until I looked at her and I winked my eye at her, you know, and motioned like that. And stuck my other knee out. That's what she was waiting for. Here she come! And she jumped up on my leg, and it was a little too high for them short legs of hers, and she was wiggling about like she was going to fall. Well, I caught her with both arms, and she put her little head up against my bosom. And she kind of liked the feeling, I guess, and so did I, so I was hugging her.
She raised up, and she looked up at Rebekah. And I thought this was pretty good. She said, "Rebekah, my sister, I want to tell you something, too." She said, "It may be right that you were here first and you've got all of daddy, but I want you to know daddy has got all of me." So ...
I am not a theologian. I didn't have long enough to grow in some school of theology, but I hope He has got all of me, that's all, so He can use me.

18 Last, but not least, by no means. I never come here ... And I asked them not to take up any offering, see. I don't come for that. I've never took up one, myself, in my life. All my ... I've been a minister for thirty-three years, I've never took an offering in my life. There has been some taken for me, by ministers. But I never took one, in my life, and I hope I never have to.
But that you have done it, it will go, I will take it and put it into foreign missions, and go over, myself; to bring the people that hasn't the privilege that you have here, to bring this same gospel to those who cannot afford to send for me or pay my way. Therefore [Congregation applauds.] Thank you. That they, too, who are underprivileged might have the same privilege that we have here. And not one penny of it will be spent for, you know, drinking, smoking, or ... it'll be for the kingdom of God. And I trust that God will, in that, give you a great mention. "Insomuch as you have done unto the least of these, my little ones, you have done it unto me." And may the Lord bless you. And now I'm going to try tonight ...

19 I want to ask one question. How many was in that great prayer line last night, that passed through under the hands of these ministers, that feel the Holy Spirit is already working in your case? Let's see you put your hands up. Oh, that's wonderful. That's just fine, beautiful. He always does. He works in your behalf.
Now I thought, tonight, being we've had so much healing services ... And we have seen the Lord Jesus in His great power, making Him the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we have learned through the week, that there has been many great signs that He has showed us, of His presence, right here with us now, in the form of the Holy Spirit.

20 Now next Sunday, I'm to be at my Tabernacle, Sunday morning and Sunday night in Indiana. And then the following week, I am in Shreveport, Louisiana, in a big convention. Then after that, I go to Yuma, Arizona, and back to Phoenix, for the Christian Businessmen. Then back to Indiana, for the Christmas holidays.
Then back to Phoenix again, if any of you is around there have friends. Beginning on the nineteenth, they give me that nice, about four thousand seating, Ramada auditorium, air-conditioned, free, prior the international convention of the Christian Businessmen. And I speak two nights out of the four, and Mr. Roberts one night and I think Brother Brown one night, and I think mine's the opening night and the closing night. And then from there, on and on.

21 Pray for me. And now I need your prayers. If there is anybody needs prayer, it's me, see. And Satan sure ... I'm a target for him, you know. And I have to keep up the faith all the time, that shield, to march on. The Lord ever bless you.
And if I never see you no more until that day, I will meet you in the morning, see, at that gate. And then in there, I can say as I say now, I'll still be believing this same glorious gospel, and believing that Jesus Christ is not dead. But He is alive among His people, and His gospel is the same. And the things that He did, we are to do till He comes. And I realize that God will judge me for those things that I have preached. I have to answer to God for what I say.

22 Now may the Lord bless you. And just another word of prayer before we open the Book.
Lord Jesus, take the Word now and feed our hungry souls. We are waiting patiently, Lord. We are under great expectations. Like at the last day of the feast, how the people rejoiced! We're thinking of Simeon in the temple, promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not see death until he seen the Lord's Christ. And there it was, on that great day, when the women come in to have their children circumcised, offer the gift for purification, and it was at that time that the ... Jesus was brought into the temple. And Simeon, maybe off somewhere in a side room that morning, in the office, but the Holy Spirit made him the promise. And here was the Messiah in the arms of His mother, the little fellow out there wrapped in His swaddling cloth.
And Mary, them keeping their distance away from her because she had a bad name, so thought the people, the baby was born out of holy wedlock. No one wanted anything to do with that woman. But in her heart, she knew what she held in her arms. And, Father, may our heart tonight cradle that same hope. No matter what the world says, we know what has entered our life.
LUKE2:26

23 And at that time, Simeon, the one that said that He ... The Holy Spirit told him that he would see the Messiah. Yet, old, well-stricken, an old sage, honorable man, but he believed the Word of the Lord to him the Holy Spirit coming to Him, and, he going, led by the Holy Spirit, down through the building, around this great string of mothers. With two-and-a-half-million people that time, overnight there might have been as many as several hundred babies born. And there they were, standing ready for circumcision and purification.
And how the Holy Ghost led him right to this little rejected person! Reaching over, picked the Messiah in his arms, with tears running down his beard. He said, "Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to thy Word, for my eyes have seen your salvation."
Staggering through the building come an old prophetess, to whom the Word of the Lord comes to, and also prophesied of Him; blinded in eyes, but not in spirit. She knew that was the Messiah.

24 Lord God, may our eyes come open to the fact that He's still the Messiah. And may we embrace Him, tonight, for we have confessed that we are pilgrims and strangers of this world. This is not our home. This is not our land. We are different acting people because we are born from above.
And we who hold this promise in our heart, may we see the promise that Jesus made to His church, that we would see just prior His coming, as we see the days of Noah returning, "... eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, and immorals of the land." Then He said, "As it was in the days of Sodom, to the Gentiles, before the fire fell, that God came down and was manifested in flesh, by knowing the secrets of the hearts of the people." And He promised the same thing to return. May we have the privilege tonight, great Holy Spirit, for we humbly ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

25 [Tongues and interpretation given from audience: "For He of whom thou seekest is here; to heal hundreds of broken hearted, to heal the wounds that bruised the Son of God. Many are here whose burdens are still unlifted, but Jesus is here to say unto thee, 'Stretch forth thine hands.' Because He knoweth the way that thou takest. Lift up your heads and hearts because it is only those with clean hands and pure hearts that can count in his sight. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, He is the King of glory. Lift up your heads on high. Look unto Him because He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has given his command, 'Follow me.' "] Amen.
Oh, I think now to be conscious of the Spirit near us, light. Break out of the shell of the hour we're living, and the time, and be conscious of the Spirit of God now among us.
Let us turn to the book of Judges, the 16th chapter, beginning with the 23rd verse, as we read the Word.
And as you are turning, I might say, my thinking in choosing this chapter to read this afternoon, at the closing of this meeting, might be something brought forth which would be constructive to the church. And always I wait to see what the Holy Spirit will say, in the room, as it strikes me. I might jot down different Scriptures and things, then wonder what it will be when I get there. "What will He say concerning this?"

26 And now listen closely, just try to be just as attentive to it as you possibly can, as we read. For, in here, if it be the will of the Lord, I am trying to set forth a parallel from one to another. And listen close now, 23rd verse, beginning.
And when the lords of the Philistine gathered ... together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god has delivered into our hands our enemy, and ... destroyed ... our country, which slew many of us.
And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, for he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars.
And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them.
Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and they were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.
And Samson called unto God, unto the LORD, and said, O Lord ... remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be ... once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
And Samson took hold of the two ... pillars upon which the house stood, and on which he ... bore it up, of the one, and the ... his right hand, and on the other ... his left.
And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death was more than they which he slew in his life.

27 What a sad sight! Must have been a hot afternoon, sun shining down at this great celebration, and three thousand Philistines looked down from the galleries of the stadium, as the pair entered. How honored war lords, and their fine-jeweled ladies, leaned forward to get a good look, as the boy led this blind man! The halls had echoed all afternoon with drunken revelry, celebrating, (Here is what hurts me) celebrating the victory of their fish-god, Dagon, over Jehovah's servant. What a disgrace! What a thing had happened! The man had failed. Now, God had not failed.
And what Jehovah must have been thinking as he looked down and see all this going on! Drunken conglomeration of women half stripped, fine-jeweled and decorated, and fixed up, their drunken husbands drinking and celebrating to a god, a fish-god, an idol that had took the victory over Jehovah's servant.

28 The lad led the stumbling blind man to the middle, of the poles where they stood, two of them, holding this great big slanting pillars, or a great big hall that slanted down in this manner. And two great big huge posts, as I could think of the setting; holding the people, of three thousand war lords, and the celebrity, the finest honored soldiers, the greatest warriors. Just the celebrity was invited to this, because it was a celebration.
And across from them was this huge image of a fish, with human blood beneath it, upon the altar, sacrifice to this fish-god, a total pagan statue that can neither speak, hear, nor breathe. But they, in their ignorance, they was worshipping this god, thinking that he had give them the victory, a celebration.

29 And then led to these posts in the floor, where they could all see, the main event was just about to take place. There had been many entertainments, maybe like they used to have, monkeys and they had gladiators, and when they would duel, and the gladiators would say whether the victim was on the floor should be killed or not. And they had to see shedding blood. And all the events had taken place, and now the main thing come up. The preliminaries were over. And the main event was to make fun of Jehovah, make fun of our God, all because His servant had failed Him.
See, He is God, that's true, but we're His servants and we got our commission to carry out exactly the way He said to carry it out.

30 Then we find, in their drunken irreverent condition as they were in, and now they had all raised up because there was a great silence, perhaps a trumpet sounded. And they were going to have the main event, to what they were celebrating, bringing in Jehovah's witness; bringing him out there in the middle of the hall, that they all might make fun of him, and make sport out of him.
Look at him, humiliated, broken, a symbol of a fallen church, spiritually stripped, morally broken. What an example that is of the conditions of today.
Samson, this was Samson, Samson the great; so this was him, the great mighty instrument of God? Why, many Philistines, I would imagine, them war lords standing there, looking there; why, at the very remembrance of his name, the whole country trembled. Just say "Samson," that's all you had to do, just mention the name "Samson" and everyone trembled at his name, and now look at him.
You know, it used to be that the name of the "Lord Jesus" had a great reverence, people highly honored it. And the ones who honored it could cast out evil spirits, by it, and could make nature obey their command, through His name.

31 But I think that Samson here, what I want to parallel it to, is the modern local ... or not local, but the modern conditions of the church today. It's a perfect parallel. The church has long lost its respect; not because that God has failed the church, but the church has failed God. It wasn't because that God had failed Samson, but Samson had failed God. Where, we ought to be standing in such a condition like the church was when Ananias and Sapphira was brought before the church. But instead of that, we have long compromised with the things of the world and brought it in, until, today, it could be called a bunch of holy rollers, or just an ordinary other denomination, just some church. There is not... It hasn't, doesn't pack the dignity that it should have.

32 I guess, as they stood there, standing to their feet, when the main event was taking place. And let's just take ourselves back there for a few minutes. And I would imagine, the Philistines, many of those great warriors standing there, with their fine-jeweled women, their arms around them, drinking a toast to Dagon. "Hail, Dagon, thou art victorious over Jehovah! We have showed them what we can do. We show this fellow, who claims so much, that there is nothing to Him."
That's almost the condition of the church today. We who have the keys of the kingdom in our hand, with every spiritual gift that God give to man, laying in the church, long have we compromised with creed, and so forth, until we've windled all the power of God out of it, until it becomes no more than a lodge.

33 Like in a recent event, when a Mohammedan stood by the side of our foremost evangelist, and he said, "I'll bring up thirty people that's sick and afflicted, and you heal fifteen of them and I'll heal fifteen of them." And I say not this against the evangelist by no means, but the evangelist took off and left the man alone, without an answer.
What a letdown to our God, for the Word is God. And the promise of the Word is a promise of God, "These signs shall follow them that believe."
And it's almost come to another challenge, or another celebration, when heathen gods can speak to the church, and the church stands helpless, defeated, spiritually stripped. Now there is something that's done that, that's been the cares of the world entering into the church, and it's got it no more than any lodge. We find that. I believe...

34 I don't know what I would have done in the case. I would have to wait to see what God said. But I believe I would have felt like the Hebrew children, "Our God is able to deliver us from this! But, nevertheless, we'll never bow to your image, whether He does or does not."
But we've lost the courage; that's what Samson had done, lost its power. The church has lost the influence of its testimony, that it is a living, moving, body of Christ. It has accepted dogmas, mixed it in with their beliefs, until the Word has not the preeminence. As Jesus said to that helpless church that He come to, "You have taken the commandments of God, and, with your traditions, you've made them of no effect. Made the commandments of God without an effect, by your traditions, to explain it away."

35 Some time ago, in a school. There was a fine New York man here that come to my house, and he said to me ... He was a Baptist brother, and he said to me, "Brother Branham, I am a Baptist." And I had him to come in and sit down, he and another brother. And we talked, for, at length. And after awhile, he said, "When I was a little boy, I was called to the ministry." He said, "My precious old mother washed over a washboard, to send me to school." And said, "The day that I was going and received my degree of Bachelor of Art, my B.A. degree," he said, "I thought then surely Christ would be in that, but," said, "He wasn't." Said, "When I received my doctor's degree, then I thought 'Christ will be in that,' but He wasn't." He said, "And when I got my LL.D., Doctor of Literature, and so forth." And said, "I've got enough degrees and honorary degrees till I could plaster your wall with them, and where is Christ in all of it?" He said, "I'm still looking for Him." Said, "I'm going to ask you a question." Said, "Has the teachers been wrong?"

36 I said, "My brother, [Jewish to begin with]," I said, "I am in no position, as a seventh-grade education, to say that the teachers are wrong. I could not say that. I don't feel qualified to condemn anybody. But I'll say this, that I have found Him, and He wasn't in that."
And he said, "I hear that you were a Baptist."
I said, "That is true."
And he said, "Now I understand that you have turned Pentecostal."
I said, "No. I have just received the Pentecostal blessing, see, not the Pentecostal denomination. The Pentecostal blessing!"
And he said, "Well," he said, "I've been to their meetings. And I have seen them kick over the chairs, and throw a book through the window." And he said, "You couldn't call that the behavior of the blessed Holy Spirit."
I said, "I'm still not able to judge God."
And he said, "Well," he said, "would, what's ... What makes them do that?"

37 I said, "In my travel, I find two classes of people." And I said, "One of them are fundamentals, positionally they know by the mechanics, that they are to be sons and daughters in God." And I said, "The next I find is the Pentecostals, they, with the baptism of the Holy Spirit." But I said, "The fundamentals positionally know where they're at, but they don't have any faith in the Word. And the Pentecostals has got a lot of faith, but don't know who they are." And I said, "It's like a man that had money in the bank, but could not write a check; and one could write a check, but had no money in the bank. If you could just get them together!"
He said, "Well, what makes them act like that?"
I said, "It's letting off the steam." I said, "Now, I don't think that would have to be necessary," I said, "but they've got to give vent somewhere." And I said, "Now if they would just take all that steam and could know how to direct it fundamentally, in the Word, the big regime of God would start moving on."
There is where Satan got in, to make it all mechanics and no dynamics. Back all dynamics and no mechanics. See, we've got to put it together. We've got the power of the Holy Spirit, but we've got to come back with the Word to feed this machine. We can't feed it on creed. It won't burn it; chokes up the flues, and it will not burn it. It was made for the Word of God. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, [not just part of it], every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

38 So here we stand, a church commissioned on the last commission, the last thing that Jesus said to His church, the last commission given, "Go ye into all the world, and make disciples of all nations. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned. And ... [And is a conjunction, to tie your sentence together.] And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; if they'd take up serpents or drink deadly things, it would not harm them; if they lay their hands on the sick, they shall recover."
So why should we have to stand in the presence of some heathen god and take a defeat? We stand again like Samson, spiritually stripped, morally broken. Our churches; what has happened? They used to be honorable men and women, and today ... it's terrible. Now let's just look a few minutes at some thoughts that passed upon there. So there stood Samson, and, pardon me, here he is again today, again stripped morally, spiritually. And it's also a symbol of a fallen nation. But we're speaking of church, because Samson was God's servant, supposed to be, and the church is supposed to be God's servant in the earth.

39 Many great warriors standing there, sober up for a moment, as the liquors run off of their ... probably their armors and breastplates, and their arms around their pretty jeweled queens, as they looked out upon there, and many of them looking at this sight. A little boy holding this big bulk of a man, and no eyeballs in his sockets; they had been burnt out.
That's what the enemy does. The first thing, when he gets ahold of you, he does like he did to Samson. He shuts your eyes off from the light of the gospel. Now he cannot see, his eyes are gone. Long has the church lost its spiritual sight, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and every promise is true.
And as they stand there now, no eyes, a ridiculous sight, a disgrace standing beneath the fish-god, a captive of the very nation that God raised him up to destroy.

40 Now I'm going to come home just a minute. And here is our Pentecostal people that, fifty years ago, left that muck of denomination, God called us out to be a separated people. And we stand, today, just dozens of organizations, different and Pentecost all fighting one another. The very thing that God called us out to defeat, it has defeated us. If one goes to this denomination, has a meeting, the rest of them don't want to cooperate. Just now and then you can find one. That's right. And denomination has always been a curse in the sight of God. It never was; God never did. That never was His plan.
God cannot change His program. God deals with individuals. There were millions in the days of Noah, but Noah was the anointed one. There was millions in the days of Elijah, never Elisha and Elijah at the same time. On down, each generation! There were two-and-a-half-million in Egypt; Moses went down, see. There were millions in the days of Jesus. Even when John the great prophet stood, when he seen this great mighty One come on, he said, "I must decrease now, my work is over; and He will increase, God." He pointed them to the lamb.

41 But, see, that went on for three hundred years, until the Nicaea Council, and then we had to have an organization. Then from that on, that fell. And every time that a message comes forth, and they organize it, it dies spiritually and never comes back again. So it's a cursed thing to the church of God for a man to put his hand upon the moving of the Spirit. Always.
Then they take them out there and get seminary ministers, and they rub shoulders with the world, and so forth. The first thing you know, they got the women acting like the world, the men. The first thing you know, politics and bishops, and they want a straw in their hat, and they cut and push, and fuss and fight, until the Spirit of God is completely grieved away.

42 Some of them remember seeing Samson when the anointing was upon him. Standing in the field, with a thousand Philistines laying around him, with nothing in his hand but an old brittle jawbone of a mule, that he had beat through inch-thick helmets of brass, knocking Philistines one way and the other, when the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. And many of them had took refuge to the rock. And he was standing there, saying, "If you want some, come on out!" Some of them remember seeing that.
Some of them might have whispered across, and said, "Do you remember in Gaza that night, when it was noised abroad that our enemy was in the city? And we got the army, we locked the gates. And the gates, weighing maybe six or seven tons, those big brass gates, where a whole four or five chariots abreast could move in, an army moving in the city. And we took the army, with our spears and swords, and we stood and said, 'Now we've got him.' And when we awakened!" He just walked right down through them, shoving them right and left; took the gate and pulled one off, and pulled the other one off, and laid it on his shoulders, and walked up on the mountain and sat down. That's when the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. One day ...

43 Some of them might have remembered when they seen a lion roar against him, which would have killed him in a second.
If any one knows how fast a lion can kill you. And with one big blast and a roar, in a split second they kill a two-ton wildebeest or a buffalo; with just one of them paws, break his neck like that, or bite him like that, and he is gone. Don't even kick a hoof, kills them so instantly.
And here this man walking along, and a lion roared, and he was helpless, not even a jawbone of a mule in his hand. But the Bible said, "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him," and he grabbed the lion and tore him apart.

44 But now he stands, helpless, all stripped of power. It's the same thing now, the church stands the same way. Where, once the church used to cast out devils. The church used to raise up the dead. The church used to do the things that Jesus did. Sin could not dwell among them, the Holy Spirit came in and condemned it. If a man done something secretly, and belonged to this Christian group; as soon as he come in, the Holy Spirit revealed his sin. He either repented or perished. But, you see, we don't have it no more.
And they won't receive it no more. And when it does come, they try to call it an evil spirit, that they might receive that much more condemnation. Something has to condemn them.

45 Notice, stripped of power, what must have went through that man's mind? Once that kind of a warrior, and now a little boy has to lead him around. Why? He is blind. He can't see. He has nothing to see with.
God, have mercy upon us! The church is so denominated and so far away, till the devil has poked out the eyesight, the spiritual sight that this is the Word of God. Not a creed; It's the Word! And God is duty bound to produce everything that He promised in this Bible. They say, "We, we believe..." You haven't got no belief coming, if it's contrary to this. The mind of Christ in you, you believe the things that Christ wrote, 'cause this is Christ, the Word. But look at the condition, look at the parallel, when we see that.
What must have went through his mind?

46 Let's see what went through his mind.
We see what went through the war lords' mind, of the fear that they once had just of his name. They was a scared to do anything. Just mention Samson, that's all, everybody was gone. But now there he is, standing, a victim under Dagon, the fish-god. A Jew that despised idols, was standing a victim under one. Why? Because he had failed God. Samson standing there, no doubt... Let's search his mind for about three or four minutes. He must have thought of all the victories he had. There he stands, what he had done. How the Lord had blessed him, and how that he once was a great man as long as he was in the kingdom of God, keeping the promise of God!
See, he had failed, and got rid of the promise. That's the same thing the church has done, got rid of the promises. "Oh, well, that's, we'll write our own little catechism, this, you see." This is it, the Word!

47 Now, notice, he had thought of all of these victories. And then this must have went through his mind, and how that he had failed God's people.
It ought to be a shame, to a minister that will sit and read this Bible then walk out before his people. The world is full of Lots. The Bible said that the sins of Sodom vexed his righteous soul, but he didn't have the courage to stand up and rebuke that sin. And there is many men today ...
And I say this with reverence, only with love, but just to say truth. We may never meet again.

48 There is many men that reads this same Bible that we read; sits in his office, preparing his message, and run upon these truths of God, and have to bypass them. He would be afraid to preach against the women cutting their hair. His organization would turn him out. About them wearing immoral clothes and committing spiritual adultery. And about the men that takes a sociable drink on Christmas, and gets out and has a little clean American fun, tells dirty jokes, still maintains the office as deacons. They know them things are wrong, but they're as it was in the days of Lot. We're back to that sinful place again.

49 Oh, how Samson must have been reminded, by the Holy Spirit, that how he had failed God's people, and had failed God Himself. Now he is a prisoner of the very thing that God raised him up and give him power to destroy.
And with love and with ... I am a member, I am in this with you; not a member of an organization, God forbid. But I am a member, by grace, in the body of Christ. I am your brother. I have no selfish motives, my motive to achieve anything personally. I am only zealous for the Lord God, and I say this with all my heart. The very thing that you were called out of, you've gone back into it again. And as the Bible said, "As the sow goes to her wallow, and a dog returns to its vomit!" And if the vomit made the dog sick, in the first place, won't it make him sicker the second time? And if organization and creeds that had got the people so bound up, and God calls you out to be a free people, and you turned right back around and done the same thing, it's a greater sin.

50 Now they had him doing tricks to entertain them. And that's just about the way it's got, instead of the Holy Spirit.
That when someone raises up and gets arrogant, the Holy Spirit is obligated to God, to shut that thing up. I've seen them pack them from the meeting, paralyzed, blinded, dumb, and even die right in the meetings, and drop dead while they're trying to rebuke it. God in heaven knows that's right. Many of you here has been in other meetings and witnessed the same thing.
There ought to be a holy power surrounding, and in the church, that will make demons flee. Instead of that, it's become a laughingstock. What is it? The mechanics instead of the dynamics.
Now he is doing tricks.

51 What caused it, what was the cause of Samson's fall? He let a woman lure him away from the promise of God. That's exactly. We all know that. He had seven locks. And he was born ... His birth path was to be a Nazarite, a odd fellow, to the Lord. But, you see, he let this woman lure him until she shaved his oddness off.
And that's the same thing that's happened to the church. You are borned a peculiar people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. But what happened? You've let the world shave off your peculiarness until you have become one of them. You had to have a denomination just like they had. You had to outshine the Baptists or the Methodists, one. And now the Assemblies is trying to outshine the United, and the United outshine the Assemblies, the Church of God out this, and oh, my, on and on, thirty or forty different organizations. See, like the dog returning to its vomit, the same thing.

52 Notice, the same thing has been done as it was then, let Jezebel, the mother of harlots, Revelation 17. Remember, she was called a whore, that's a woman that's immoral. And woman always is a ... represents ... The church is represented by a woman. Because, Christ ... one He is coming after is a bride. And she was the mother of harlots. What is a immoral woman? Now, it couldn't have been men, because they were harlots, see. Is a woman that would live untrue to her husband. And she claims that she is the mother of all churches, and she is.
And what made her a whore? Is because she committed spiritual fornication. She adopted creeds instead of her husband's Word. Instead of becoming a true mate to her husband, she took another book--of creeds. And what was she? The mother of harlots that did the same thing. Now you don't need any more explaining to that, see. You see where it's at. What was it? Organization, getting away from the Word.

53 Notice now what Delilah did to Samson when she kept wooing him. "Oh, you are a great man. You are powerful. But, don't deceive me, tell me wherein lieth your strength." And she loved him, and she made love to him until finally he gave in. And what did they do? The first thing she did, she had his secret taken from him.
Well, that's the same thing that happened (and you readers and Bible students) at the Nicaea Council. The old path of Pentecost wanted to stay with the Word. And they adopted some pagan ideas through Constantine and them, and brought ... As Ahab married Jezebel and brought in idolatry into Israel, so did the church marry into Romanism and bring in idolatry, right straight back in the church again.
Now you've got a little bunch of harlots, on the same principles, and look what's taking place now. Mother is a wooing, and again she is going to shave all your rights away from you. God help that we'll never give it up; it's this Word or death! The council of churches, putting themselves together and uniting in fellowship around Rome, exactly what the Bible said it would do.

54 Nineteen thirty-three, the Holy Spirit came one morning and told me seven things that would take place before this nation was destroyed. One of them is that. It's on old paper there at the church, many has looked at it. How that we would go to war with Hitler and they'd ... How Germany would fortify and build a Maginot Line, or the Siegfried Line, I believe it was, eleven years before it was ever thought of. And how that automobiles would constantly shape like eggs. And how that they'd permit women to vote, and in doing so they would elect the wrong president. And in this would be a woman stand up that would govern the United States; not actually a woman, but a church. Then I seen her with nothing but ashes. It's going to happen.
Five of those things has perfectly been fulfilled exactly. How Mussolini would rise and go to Ethiopia, and fall at his step; and he would be turned to the people, in shame, with a woman. Many, many years before it happened perfectly on the dot. And it's never failed, and it won't fail, because it's 'thus saith the Lord.' And it's not contrary to this Bible. It's got to be.

55 Now she is making love to her daughters, wooing them right back home again. With no spiritual understanding, stripped. It's an oasis for they say, "Oh what a grand thing it is." Oh, my! And Pentecostal men sitting in the council at Rome and sending letters around, that is was the most spiritual time they ever seen." How could a born-again man cut off his secret, cut off the Word, and they live by the creed? That's exactly what Delilah has done today, cutting off the Word and you live by the creed.

56 Now look at the defeat, today, from what it would be. Ministers, instead of God-called ministers for our Pentecostal group, you almost have to have a doctor's degree before you can get in the pulpit. That's right. The first thing, you've got to have a fellowship card. And if you ... And now in our great denominations of Pentecost, before they send a missionary, they have to take him before a psychiatrist, to see if he can stand the mental test. No, that ain't Presbyterian, that's Pentecost, see. Now that's right. Now, I wouldn't say that unless I could back it up, see. See? Right. Tell me if that's the qualification of a minister.

57 The Bible said, they never went before any psychiatrist, "But they waited in the city of Jerusalem, until they were filled with power from on high." Some of them could not write their name. A few days later, one passed through the gate called Beautiful, and He had never been before a psychiatrist. He never had his fellowship card, but He said, "Such as I have!" I have never seen a fellowship card produce that yet.
What are we? We are stripped, embarrassed in the presence of the Holy Ghost. It certainly fulfills what the prophet said in II Timothy 3, "They'd be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." Used to be wrong for our Pentecostal women to go bathing in suits, and mixed bathing. It isn't no more, see. No, no, just like the world, just the same. All these things--worldly. Everything that's in the world, they just brought it in, and ministers has raised up and permitted their wives to do it. And they've done all this kind of stuff, and this generation grows on and then the next one comes on. Just ... Oh, my!

58 Samson stood, thinking of his great victories. Let's look back and see the great early Pentecostal victories. You don't have to look plumb back two thousand years ago, just look back fifty years ago. And, remember the Roman Catholic church was first the Pentecostal church. And they say, "That the church was borned ... that the Roman church was borned at Nicaea, Rome." I want Scripture for that. The first church never begin at Nicaea, Rome. The first church begin in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Oh, a victim of all the errors! Oh!

59 Then when he realized where he was standing, when he realized what would happen.
As I said, I may never see you again. I don't know. This may be my last message to you. I may, if I ... if the Lord permits, and I come back next year, we all won't be here. Some of us will be gone. And each time, I must speak as if it was our last time; 'cause it is, some of us. It may be my last time.
What a condition it is, a error! And if we would only stop like Samson did, and think just a moment of what we are supposed to be, by God's Bible. Not a great big something, not a glowing keeping up with the Joneses, but a humble, reverent, Spirit-filled little group of people. Not shining; glowing. Hollywood shines; the gospel glows. See, we want something shiny, the biggest churches we've ever had. We'd be better off if we stood down at the alley, in a storeroom, and have the Spirit of God back on us again. That's right. Notice.

60 And as he stood there and realized, and his hair had begin to grow out again; but he could not be effective, because he didn't have any eyes. And he cried, "Lord, revenge my eyes. They've put my eyes out."
They're ... today I might say, the creeds! "They sent me to a seminary. And the call that was in my heart, of the living God, they punched all that out of me, saying, 'Those things was for another age.' "
"Revenge my eyes!" What was Samson thinking? "There was a possibility. Perhaps Jehovah is full of love. It might be possible that He would hear me."
Oh, I wish I could get Samson to wake to that tonight, there is a possibility! He is full of love, forgiving the iniquity of His people, from generation to generation, showing mercies to thousands that love Him and keep His commandments.

61 "There is a possibility," Samson thought, "if I'd only get revenge of my eyes. I can't see those things no more. They don't happen."
We can't see the great Holy Spirit, in our great organizations, moving like it did at the beginning. It's gone. See, it isn't there. It's blind, and don't know it. Jesus said it would be that way, this Laodicea church age. " 'Rich,' say, 'I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing.' And don't know that thou art naked, blind, miserable, and poor, and don't know it." See, don't know it!
Well, we had a slogan out, "1944, a million more," a certain organization. And through the ministry of great men, they've had a million more what? Joiners. That's right.

62 He knew there was a possibility, but the thing of it is, today, the people don't seem to come conscious that there is a possibility. They're satisfied to go right on down the old trend they're going. Don't do that. Believe God! Have faith in Him.
Now they say, oh, they, "We'll sit tight." That's right. "We clap our hands, and everything, and shout." But you know its all sails and no anchor, see.
How can you clap your hands and shout, and deny the Word being the truth? How can you clap your hands and shout, and the Holy Spirit will walk among you, and then you say, "Oh it's a telepathy. It's something, it's just not working."?

63 We have great gatherings, glitter, worldly tinsel, great meetings. What do we get? More members. The Pentecostal church, three years ago, put more members in it than all the rest of the churches did together. That was in "Our Sunday Visitor," the Catholic paper. The Sunday Visitor said they had a million converts to Catholicism in that year, and said, "The Pentecostals had 1,500,000." Yeah. Yes, sir.
All kinds of scholarship, men learned to talk, in the schools, and say their speeches, intellectual, Hollywood showmen, pardon the expression, preaching to a bunch of so-called Pentecostal grandchildren!

64 God don't have no grandchildren. They come in. The old Pentecostal father and mother, under an experience, brought you in; and you just come into the church and sat there, and automatically you was a Pentecostal? He don't have grandchildren. He only has sons and daughters. There is no grandchildren. You have to pay the same price and get the same Holy Ghost that they did. You've got to be a son and daughter, not a grandson and granddaughter. He is not an old doty grandfather, soft, and lets his kids get by with anything, bless their little hearts. He is God, the eternal one! That's right, sons and daughters!

65 We still got the big bulk like Samson had. He stood there with all of his power. He stood there just as big as he ever was. And we stand bigger than we were, but we're stripped of power. Samson still had the brawny muscles, he still had every physical part he had, but the Spirit of the Lord didn't come on him no more. We stand, million strong, stronger than we were, but where is the Lord. As the angel said back there in the days of Gideon, He said, "If there is still God, where is his miracles? Where is the things that He is supposed to do? Where is He proving Himself, that He is alive, and the same yesterday, today, and forever?" That's what we get.

66 Notice, Samson prayed right. Samson prayed, "Lord, let me die with the enemy," when he realized what was happening around him." His eyes were gone. His strength was gone. His fellowship was gone. But there was a possibility that a prayer meeting might spark it again, see. Then he prayed right, "Let me die with the enemy."
You must die with your enemy. That's right. You must die to the enemy that's got you in this condition. That's right.
Samson was willing to pay the price to get the power of God back on him again. He seen what he was raised up to do. Not be a showman; but to be a servant, to have hisself so that the power of God could flow through him.

67 We stand, millions stronger than we were, but the power [Gap in the audio] ... purpose.
Jesus even said, "As it was in the days of Noah, wherein eight souls were saved by water, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." All this you see walking on the street is cannon fodder. That's atomic fodder, only laid in there for judgement. The rapture comes, there will be a scarce few. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, but few there'll be that find it; for broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat. Not all that saith unto me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter therein, but the one that doeth the will of my Father." That's the one that goes in, see; not saying "Lord," and their fine prayers, and revivals, and so forth.

68 Oh, I hear somebody say, "Now wait a minute, Brother Branham, we have revivals." Yep. That's right. That's right. We have revivals, and what do we have? It's a denomination revival, see if we can get some more in the church.
And we're having another great revival, too, we're taking all the churches into one, the council of churches. Getting farther and farther away from God's Word all the time. Uniting! "How can two walk together except they be agreed?" How are we going to walk with people who deny the very resurrection of Christ? How can we walk with people who said, "The days of miracles is passed"?
You are a separated people, by the Holy Ghost. See, the world wants today, the ... What the world is wanting today is mixers. They want somebody who can walk around and fellowship with the world and fellowship with the people, and get a lot of members, and have a social organization. But when the Holy Ghost said, "Separate me Paul!" God is a separator, not a mixer. A separator!

69 He knew that his backslidden strength, though there it all stood, the great regime that he ever was, he stood there, but his backslidden strength could not meet the challenge of the hour.
And the church knows that, too. The evangelist knowed that when that Mohammedan challenged him. Your intellectual strength doesn't meet the challenge of the hour, 'cause the devil is loose among us, with powers that nothing can dare challenge but the Spirit of Almighty God, when this Word is made flesh. And it's going to get worse and worse, constantly worse.
He knowed that he was insufficient. He couldn't do it. And he knowed what would happen if God answered his prayer.

70 I wonder if we're that willing tonight? I wonder if the Pentecostal world is willing, tonight, to make that same agreement with God? "Lord God, if it knocks my denomination to pieces, if they excommunicate me from the council! I don't care if they take my fellowship card, and I have to lay on my stomach, and drink branch water and eat soda crackers, instead of riding around in a big car with a big salary! I don't care what the price is. That system drove me away from You. Take me back again, Lord. I'll believe your Word. Revenge my eyes that's been put out. Let me die with it. Amen. Let me die out to my own self. I don't care what they say about me. I may be bishop, I might be this, that, or the other, but I don't care what they say. Bring back the power of the Holy Ghost in my life. I've been blinded long enough."

71 Oh, church, are you willing for that? "Let me die with the rest of them. Let my name, as reverend, doctor, or whatever it be, perish. O God, just give me again, just send upon me again, that glorious power that fell on the day of Pentecost; that can meet the challenge of this hour, in the face of communism or anything else that rises. Let me die, Lord, with them." There is a possibility, you know.
You know what? On such a confession, the Philistines, they was too drunk to notice what he was doing. All at once, when he seen there was a possibility, he turned his head up towards the skies, and the tears running out of the blinded sockets. He begin to move his lips; tears falling from his eyes. They wasn't noticing him. They were too busy making fun of him. He wanted God's Word, the real living God to come on the scene once more. He had failed Him. He knowed he'd failed Him. But he wanted to see the living God, living here, to prove to that Jezebel outfit that He still was God.

72 Oh, if it takes the starch out of you. If it makes you not act like some kind of a movie star, if you have to let your hair grow down, and put on an old-fashioned dress, "I don't care what it costs, I'll take the way with the Lord's despised few. Lord, let's see it again, let's see the presence of God moving before this Jezebel!"
He was aware of what happened if God answered his prayer, but he was ready and in dead earnest.

73 That's what we have to do. Get ready, make up your mind. Shut your eyes, let your affections ... Don't alter God's Word to you; alter yourself to His Word "Not my will; Thine be done, Lord. Not what I think about it; it's what You said about it." That's right.
What did he cry? "Lord!" Said, "Little boy, put one of my hands upon this post, it's possible." Oh, my! "Lead me to the post that holds this, because I want to rest my hands. I'm tired. I've been made fun of long enough." Oh my!
"I know, Lord, what it's going to cost, but maybe You will. There is a possibility. You're full of mercy. I've failed You, Lord." That ought to be the cry of the church, tonight.
"Little lad, would you put my hand upon one pillar?"
"Yes."
"And my hand upon the other pillar?"
"Yes."
"Is my hands placed right?"
"Yes, they are right."
And he started to pray. And he said, "Lord, revenge my eyes." In other words, "I've done wrong. But just once more, Lord, once more!"

74 Oh, if that could only be the objective of the Pentecostal move tonight! "I'm willing to forget about whether I'm this way, or oneness, twoness, threeness. I'm willing to forget about all these worldly things and everything. Just once more, Lord! Once more take me out of this creed and this thing that I'm bound up in! Once more! Once more let me see the appearing of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Once more, Lord, once more!" The church would scream that, though they've been blinded from these things, blinded from their brother and his idea. Just take God's idea and you won't have to argue about it. "Once more, Lord, once more!"

75 Then there stood that big bulk of a frame, powerless and helpless. All at once, he begin to feel something happening. Every fiber of his body begin to fill with the power of God.
Oh, if the church could only get to that again, and all the way from the preacher to the deacon, to the laity, every fiber and every member of the body would be filled with the power of God!
Those big brawny muscles straightened up, and he crushed it to powder. "Let me die with them, Lord! Let me die with them! You raised me up to destroy it. Now I've built myself up around it; let me destroy myself with it, my reputation and whatever it is. Let me destroy it, but I want to see the power of God again."

76 Always, when the power of God comes in, the walls that you've built around you fall. Your denominational walls will crush, and God will be known again. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And every fiber filling with the Holy Ghost, every muscle filled, every bit of his body was just filled up with the Holy Ghost. That was Samson's greatest victory.
Oh, church of the living God! I'm going to omit the rest of my notes to say this one thing. Why don't we? Are you ready, Assemblies of God? Are you ready, you, United Church? Are your ready, oneness, trinity, whatever you are? Are you ready, Church of God? Are you ready, all the rest of you denominations, to forget this nonsense and the thing that you've done? Look where you got people tonight, and what kind of condition they're in.

77 O God, let's break them walls down. "Once more, Lord!" I don't ... we're at the end of the time, folks. We ain't got much left. We better be hollering right now, crying out. "Once more, Lord, once more! Just this once more, at the end of the world, let your strength fill my every fiber. I'll break away from all these things. Fellowship cards, and bishops, and denominations, and everything, don't mean a thing to me. I want You, Lord, more than anything."
Let's think of it, as we bow our heads just a moment. I'm urged to do this. "Once more, Lord!" Everybody, sincerely, reverently, just as reverent as you can be. Just have faith, and down in your heart say, "Once more, Lord!"

78 Lord Jesus, great master of life, the shepherd of the sheep, come forth, Lord. These people that hungering. They're thirsting. Lord, years I've wanted to see this happen, maybe it will. Just once more, Lord, one more great move of the Spirit! One more time, Lord, and the church might receive the rapturing faith to go in. Grant it, Lord. Make known that You are with us, and we will praise Thee for it. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

79 I know it's not many words, I know it ain't a long prayer, but He knows my objective. I mean it. Can Jesus live among us tonight? Can Jesus once more come to us and show that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, as we've been taught? Is there sick or afflicted, or downcast, in here, that you know there is no prayer cards out (we taken them all last night), but believe God, would raise up your hand and say, "I am in need, Brother Branham. I pray to God that He will speak to me?" Raise your hands, wherever. It's all over.
Now here is the grace of God to bear record of what I've said is the truth. See, a man can say anything; unless God vindicates that, then it's wrong. Now you believe.
And I want you to believe me as His servant. I want you to say to God ... You see, when He met me, He said, "If you'd get the people to believe you, and then be sincere."

80 And now if Jesus stood here, tonight, and if you were sick or needy, whatever, He could not heal you; He has already did it. But Jesus and the Word is the same. He is the Word. And He said, "Man should live by this Word," not by a creed. By the Word! "And he that believeth on me [not make-believeth, but believeth], the works that I do shall he also."
How could He perceive what was in their minds? How did He do it? And they thought He was reading their minds; and He told them He would forgive them for that, "But when the Holy Ghost come to do it, to speak against that would never be forgiven." Now we've been through it, right straight through the Bible, and find that God, if He identified Himself then as Messiah, by showing that He was the prophet and the Word. Because, the Bible said, "The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword [Hebrews 4], and a discerner of the thoughts that's in the heart." That's the reason they couldn't hide nothing from Him. And the things that ... that's how they knowed.

81 That's how the woman at the well knew that He was Messiah. She said, "Sir, I perceive You're a prophet. We know when Messiah cometh He'll tell us those things. That's what He'll do."
He said, "I am He."
She run in and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me what I've done. Isn't this the very Messiah?" And they believed it.
But somehow we don't, seem like the world don't want to believe it. But, God rich in mercy, it's a possibility that He might do it again. He has to identify Himself like that, the Messiah. He can't do it to the Samaritans and Jews, and then leave the Gentiles out. It's got to be done, so you pray and you touch the border of His garment.
And to the clergy. "He is the high priest now that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities." That is true, Hebrews 3.
"Now He is the high priest [we all believe that], that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. And He is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Then His life, His actions, His everything is the same. "A little while, and the world [cosmos, the order], will not see me no more," they'll never see it.

82 Remember the angel that come down in the form of a man that talked to Abraham, the called-out, elected church. He never went down in Sodom and done down there like those other fellows went down there and preached, like Billy Graham and them today, with that G-r-a-h-a-m again, like A-b-r-a-h-a-m. Each once had their messenger. They've got it today, the same thing come. Go up here to the called-out church, who wasn't in Babylon, and there is where that mysterious thing was done; when He told Sarah, when she was in the tent behind Him, what was wrong.
She laughed. And He said, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying in her heart, that these things can't be?" And Abraham called her forth, and she tried to deny it. And He said...
Look, here is the grace. Here is the possibility. God would have struck her dead right there, but He couldn't--she is a part of Abraham. For our unbelief He would strike us dead, but He can't; we are part of Christ. Grace holds us, see. But He still has to keep His Word.
Now you pray.

83 I don't see a person that I really know, in the building. But Brother Pat Tyler sitting over here on the end, I do know him. But as far as... And I think Brother Bill Dauch sitting right here, and his wife. Outside of that, that's the only people that I know, Brother Joseph. And if the Holy Spirit would speak to them, I'll just tell you what about it, and then omit it and tell you after the service.
But once more, Lord, once more! "The works that I do, shall you also." Now you believe, and see if that same light that you see constantly...

84 Well, when we got through with the church ages, down there in the Tabernacle, about this many people. There is people sitting right here now was present. That same pillar of fire come right over by the side of the wall, and drawed out those church ages the way I had them on the blackboard. Is that right? Many of you was there. And the people fainting, and everything else. And I said, "There it is now, if there's a question."
They got the picture of it, here in Washington D.C., copyrighted as the only supernatural being was ever photographed. George J. Lacy, the head of the F.B.I. fingerprinting document, examined it, when that light was there. He said, "Brother ... Mr. Branham, I said it was psychology, I attended your meetings; but the mechanical eye of this camera won't catch psychology." Said, "The light struck the lens."
Well, if that is Christ that ... stricken Paul down, and called Him, "Lord [see], what would you have me to do?" the life that was in Him will be reproduced in us, then. See, He is here with the called-out church.

85 And may it come to pass, once more, Lord, that this people may see that You still live. And You're not dead, and neither have You left Your people. They are here, but, Lord, they have had their eyes punched out by a organization, a Jezebel Delilah, that took them from the true Word, to a creed. May the walls fall, Father. Grant it. Once more, Lord! As I said, there is many here I'll probably never see again. But once more, Lord, let Jesus appear among us, in the form of the Holy Spirit; that He might reproduce the life in us, that He was then, to fulfill His Word.
"He is the high priest that can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities." Let the sick and afflicted touch this master. You're the same one, Lord, that could tell Simon Peter, when he come up among them, "Why, your name is Simon. You're the son of Jonas." You're the same one, Father. You don't fail. Same, little woman that touched His garment, the same Christ lives tonight. May it be once more, Lord, once more! For Jesus' sake I ask it. Amen.

86 Now no one moving. Reverently, let's be down sincere and reverent. We don't hit these things haphazardly.
It's a promise of God. The divine Spirit of the living God promised that in His Word, and that Word is life and Spirit. Jesus said it was. And He and the Word is the same, and man lives by that Word. That Word lives in man.
Now, as a gift. Now I'm going to tell you a secret, as I leave. You've been sweet and kind. I've never exactly expressed this, I know of, public, before. "Brother Branham, what is that gift?" It's a gift of knowing how to get William Branham out of the way, so Jesus Christ can live through a vessel. Just getting yourself out of the way!
I don't know you. I don't know nothing about you, but He does. He is the one.

87 Now have faith, and believe. Say, "Lord, that man doesn't know me. And yet You said a little while, the world, Babylon, or Sodom, won't see you. 'But ye shall see me. You shall see me, for I will be with you, all the way to the end of the world.' "
It hasn't come to an end yet. "You will see me. Ye shall see me, for I'll be with you, even in you ... you'll see me."--His life reproduced in the believers.
Now, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I take every spirit in here under my control, for the glory of God, that the works of God might be made known again, if He so sees fit to do it.
No more than I had said that word, I looked here in the corner, and here... Can't you see that light hanging right there, amber, moving around? Or is it, am I in another dimension, and just imagine, my spirit?

88 There is a little woman sitting there. She is in trouble. She is suffering with a stomach trouble. And she's had an operation, for cancer, and the cancer was on the breast. They removed the cancer, little lady. Yes, that's right.
So now you'll know. I don't know you, but do you believe me to be His prophet? I say it plainly, tonight; I'm leaving. Do you believe me? Do you believe that we're promised that in the last days, according to Malachi 4, that would turn the hearts of the children back to the father?
Now Mrs. Taylor, that's your name. You can go home, and Jesus Christ make you well.

89 What do you think? You've had an operation, too. Do you believe? If you do, with all your heart! Your operation was also cancer, tumor, in the bowels, intestinal tract. But now you're suffering with complications. If you will believe, Mrs. Shukwit, with all your heart, that Jesus Christ will make you well, you can have what you ask.
Do you believe? Here, a lady back here, she is a colored lady. She is suffering with something wrong with her eyes, and with her limbs, her legs. Her name is Mrs. Washington. Stand up, if you wish. You are healed.
What did she touch? Ask what she touched. The humility of that colored woman...

90 By the way, it struck another colored woman sitting right out here on the end. She is suffering with a heart trouble. Her name is Mrs. Harris. Do you believe, Mrs. Harris? Your heart trouble has left you.
What did she touch? She never touched me. She is twenty yards from me. She touched the high priest.
Here, here is another woman, I turn my head, sitting right here. She is suffering with a heart trouble, too. Mrs. Carter, stand up, Jesus Christ makes you well.
Way back, a woman with an ulcerated stomach. Her name is Mrs. P-a-o-l-i. Mrs. Paoli, stand up, Jesus Christ heals you. All right. There you are.
"Once more, Lord, once more!" Do you believe Him?

91 Let's stand up. Let's confess our sins, and pray, "Once more, Lord, let the Holy Ghost fall upon us!" Raise up our hands.
Lord God, we stand embarrassed; the world makes fun of us, Lord. Help us, tonight. Let the Holy Ghost come again, be poured out upon the people. May He come now, Lord. May every sick person be healed. Every sinner be saved, every seeker filled. Once more, Lord, once more! Just once more, Lord! Once more let the Holy Ghost fall among the people!
Raise up your hearts now, and cry, "Once more, Lord!" All together, "Once more, Lord, once more!"
Once more, Lord! Once more let the Holy Ghost take this audience, break down the powers of the enemy, and fill every fiber with the baptism of the Spirit!