Shalom

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 Good morning friends. You can sit down. It's good to be back on the back side of the desert. I believe the last time I was here I titled this place, "The back side of the desert." That's where we usually find the Lord ... where it was found one time when Moses was herding his sheep at the back side of the desert.
This fellow here, I picked him up in the rear view mirror a while ago, coming down. I heard the other day he was in the hospital and I was praying for him, and here he's sitting here this morning. Well, that's good. I'm so glad. He had a bleeding, and so glad to see him in this morning. Sorry to hear about this brother that was with us the last time here, that's got cancer, in the hospital. We know that we only have one avenue out of this, and that's the avenue of death. We all have got to walk that path, whether we, the most righteous, the most holy one of us, we pack one another over the other one's grave. And yet Jesus said, "He that believeth in me shall never die." But what the "death" is there, is not what we call death.
Like when Jesus spoke about Lazarus, He said, "He sleepeth."
And they said, "Well, he does well if he sleeps."
Then Jesus said, had to tell them in the language they knew, see, "He's dead." He said, "And for your sake, I'm glad I wasn't there, but I go wake him."

2 And that's when He made that wonderful quotation that we have in the Scripture, "He that heareth ... he that believeth on me, has everlasting life; shall not come into the judgment, but has passed from death unto life. I am the resurrection and life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." Never die! There's no... There's really no death to a Christian.
Death means "Eternal separation."
And now, as when we die, like in the physical body as we are now, we are separated from one another. But it's really... This body is the only thing that identifies us to each other, because we are bound in five senses: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. And as long as we can see or feel one another, why, we have evidence that we're here. If you're blind and can't ... and can't see, then you can feel one another, or hear one another. And the earthly senses declare one another.

3 But, really, frankly, we have never seen each other. Did you know that? We have never seen one another. You hear something speaking out of a body here that impersonates whatever it's on the inside. So then when we talk to each other, we're really not talking to the body. It's the spirit inside, but the body is the thing that identifies the spirit that's on the inside. And therefore, when we speak to each other, we quickly can understand right away whether we are Christians or not, because there's a fellowship in the spirit that we talk from. You see, it vibrates to one another whether we are Christians or not. Therefore we have never seen each other.

4 Jesus. "No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of the Father has declared Him," see. In other words, God was identified. The person of God was identified in the body, the Lord Jesus Christ, so He was the expressed image of God. Or, God expressing Himself through an image, see, through an image, man. God expressed Himself to us, and He was God. Not a third person or second person; He was the person, God. He was God Himself, identifying Himself, so we could feel Him.
I Timothy 3:16, "Without controversy (that's "argument") great is the mystery of godliness, for God was manifested, or made known, in the flesh." Isn't that wonderful? God! And we could never understand God as He moved through a pillar of fire, and so forth, as He did. But we understood Him when He become one of us, see, when He become man. Then He could talk to us, and we could feel Him, handle Him, touch Him, and everything. And as the Scripture plainly says that "we have handled God," see, with our hands, touched Him with our hands.

5 God is in man. And He's identifying Himself today in His church.
In the borned-again Christian, God identifies Himself, that He remains God. And the outside world will only know God as they see God in you and I. That's the only way that they'll know God, is when we are written epistles, epistle of the Scripture, we are read of all men. And the life that we live reflects what's on the inside of us. A man is identified by the works that he does. So our works should be good, see, always good, because we are representing our Lord Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful thing that is, especially when an old man like me, stand here and think of the life that is fading away, that's gone in the past, and we're facing a future of an eternity. And knowing if this life only is what I had hopes in, I would be a most miserable person this morning. But knowing that this life has only been a shadow of what we had to come. It's a reflection, because it can not be the perfect thing that God made. God doesn't make anything that perishes, see. God is eternal. And, therefore, this life that we now live in, is only reflecting what is ahead of us: The real one that cannot die, the body that cannot perish, the life that cannot be taken, see. And therefore the Scriptures is right, when it says that we have everlasting life, we have eternal life. We shall never die. See, because you become... When you're borned again, you become a part of God. See, you are forever for eternity, never to fail. You are part of God, because you're His son.

6 Now, I might take another name, and say my name is some other name. I might take my mother's name, Harvey, which would be the closest to me. In the world, my mother was a Harvey, and then I might take the name of Harvey. But still the blood would prove that I am a Branham, see, because I'm part of my father. And as long as I got blood in me, I'll still be part of my father. See, that's right. And when I'm borned of the Spirit of God, I am a part of God, that's all; I am identified with Him, see, that He is my Father. Then my life should reflect Him, as my life reflects my earthly father in the image that he was in. They say I look a whole lot like my father, so then therefore it's his image reflected in me. And your father reflected in you, and your parents. And, so, God our Father is reflected in us when we're born and conformed here to His image.

7 Now, I start talking, never get to my text of what I was going to talk to you about.
I have always appreciated a house meeting, cottage prayer meeting such as this, more than, I guess, people could think that I would, because the finest meetings, the finest times of fellowship, is usually in a little cottage prayer meeting like this. Where I have felt the closest to God, is when just a little handful of believers comes together, and there we worship.

8 Now this morning, I suppose we sit here, thirty, or forty, thirty, I guess, or something like that, counting the children. I wouldn't know. I'm not very good on counting the numbers, just to look over a little group of people, because there's other rooms here, you see, that I don't see the people in them. Now, but when we come together like this, I feel that we get a closeness that we don't get when we're out in a great, huge congregation. We can express ourselves. That's why, this morning, that I thought, coming down here, that I would speak to the congregation here this morning, and to its lovely little pastor. So glad to see many of my friends here, Strickers and all those that I haven't seen for some time.

9 And I would speak this morning to you my New Year's message that I had planned for speaking next Sunday afternoon at the Phoenix meeting, at the auditorium. Because, in here, I thought maybe they're making tapes out there of it. That I... Maybe the Holy Spirit would give me a better thought here amongst just a bunch of believers, than perhaps it would be at Phoenix amongst, you know, where the belief and unbelief, and superstitions and everything is mixed together. And then if the brethren, in letting the tapes out, that it would be better to do it that way, because you'd have a better tape from here. I asked the boys to check the acoustics first. And when I come in this morning, Brother Terry told me that the acoustics were fine. So, that's good. So now, let us first, before we approach this solemn affair, and I know...

10 I believe they said some of you are staying for lunch, going to have lunch here on the grounds or at the house, or something, together. That's very fine. I just sure appreciate seeing you all get together.
And I feel that my message this morning is addressed to the church of the living God, see, and which I believe this is a portion of it sitting here this morning. And now before we come to that solemn part, let's bow our heads just a moment for prayer.

11 Our heavenly Father, we are so grateful to You, that we can even be privileged to address You as our Father, for Father means that we have been begotten of the great God that created the heavens and earth. And we are so happy for this privilege, that we can think in our hearts, that we are sons and daughters of Yours. And then to see You strictly identify Yourself in the midst of us, that You are our Father, changing our thoughts from the things of the world, and changing our motives and objectives and attitudes, and every phase of us, to love You and to believe You, and know that Your promises are true.
We have assembled here this morning in this place that we call "the back side of the desert," ... or I call it that, thinking that. Reason I say that, Lord, is not to reflect anything upon this little group of people, but, of anything that would be of a nature of being small.
But I am trying to think that it was Moses, Your servant, was at the back side of the desert, maybe just he and his sheep, maybe his wife, Zipporah, and Gershom, his son, might have been along. That I do not know. But it was there that they had an experience that changed that prophet, from a runaway coward, to the service of the God who had ordained him for the job, on the back side of the desert. It was there that the pillar of fire that was made manifest for the first time in human life, that we know of; that fire was laying back in a little desert bush, and it burnt not. But it was the Glory of God reflecting itself through that bush; that Moses the prophet, taking off his shoes, drawed nigh unto it, and was commissioned by God to deliver a nation of God's people.

12 May it be so again today, Lord, on the back side of the desert that we now take off, as it was, our shoes, our hats, our all, and lay it down beneath the cross of Christ, and say, "Here am I, Lord, send me."
Bless this pastor here, our Brother Isaacson, brother. We pray that You'll bless him and his wife, and his little ones; Brother Stricker, his wife and little ones; and all the others that's represented here this morning.
And we have assembled here; no, Lord, not for some great glory, or to be known as leaders or some ... an official of something great. We are just here as humble believers. We're here because we love You, and we love one another. And as we see each other and as we congregate together, we find that it seems to be more of God gathers together as each believer assembles himself in one certain place. Jesus said, "If you'll do this in my name, then I'll be in your midst." And we know that You are here.
Speak to us, Lord. And if these little note that I got wrote out here, and Scriptures to refer to, is off of the path, this morning, of the thought that You would have us to think, then, Lord, we just omit that, and do as You tell us to do. Bless us now, for we ask this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

13 Now, in the reading of the Scripture, it used to be that before I got so much age on me, that I could remember good. And in them days, young days, I didn't take a long message, maybe thirty minutes or something, I plowed right into one thought and kept it on my mind. But now, reason I hold these long meetings now, is because I'm taping, see. And this tape, the boys there taping it, will start it at a certain time, perhaps now, at the beginning of the prayer, and it goes many, many places, around the world practically. So we are now going to speak this morning on my New Year's ... what we call my New Year's message. I had three Christmas messages, and I know you people down here at the back of the desert gets those tapes. And on my last message up at the church ... or next to my last message, was on the Light. And if you haven't got that tape, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I enjoyed it very much, the inspiration of it, the Lord gave me.

14 Now today, as we face New Year's, I want to think of not like the past, but I want to look to the future, see. As Paul said, "Forgetting those things that are in the past, I press towards the mark, see, of the high calling." And as it's been expressed, like looking back through the mirror of a car. We are looking what we have passed, when we're looking in the rear-view mirror. Now we're not trying to place the message today as looking through a rear-view mirror. It would take too long, see, the things that the Lord has did. And you are all acquainted with the great things that our Lord has been doing. It's some of the mightiest things that I've ever seen in my life, He just ... just passing in the last few months. But now we are thankful for what has been, but now we're looking forward. We're looking where we're headed for, and into this 1964.

15 And now if you here like to read, or... I'd like to read some Scriptures, because all this is based upon God's Holy Word.
And leaves me now about an hour and fifteen minutes for this tape. And, the Lord willing, I'll try to get it out so you can have your dinner. I thank you for telling me that I had till six o'clock tonight. That was very nice.
Now let's turn in the Bible to two places, the books lay close together. It's in the Old Testament. I take the text ... or the reading, from two places, Isaiah 62 and Psalms 60. Now in Isaiah 62, we'll turn to read first. And in this, we are reminded of the great powers of our Lord God, how great He is, and how mighty our God is. I am sorry, it's Isaiah 60 instead of 62. Isaiah 60. All right, now we read this, Isaiah 60:1 and 2.
Arise, and shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
For, behold, ... darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
"Gross darkness upon the people." Of this, of course, this is a prophesying of the day that we're now living.

16 Now let us turn then to Psalms. I believe that I may be a little confused where I've wrote my Scriptures down here, when in a hurry last night in writing them, writing out this. Psalms 62:1 to 8.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.
How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ... be, and as a tottering fence.
They only consult to cast him down from the excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength and my refuge, is in God.
Trust in him all the time; ye people, pour out your hearts before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

17 Now, if you noticed in the Scripture reading there in the Psalms, it kept saying, "God is my rock." Do you know what a rock represents in the Bible? A rock in the Bible, here, represents "the revelation of God." See, "God is my revelation." He is... See, the revelation of the Word is the rock.
Because, Peter one day when... Jesus had asked the question, "Who does men say I the Son of man am?"
And one of them said, "You are... Some of them say you are Moses, or Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." But that wasn't the question.
"Who do you say I am?"
Peter spoke up, these famous words, and said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
He said, "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonas, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And upon this rock..." See?
And David speaking here, "God is our rock." God is our rock when God has been revealed to us. That becomes a rock, see. God is our rock.

18 Now my text for this morning is an odd word: Shalom. Shalom, in the Hebrew, means "peace." And that's what I say to the church this morning, "Shalom!" That's peace.
In Finnish it's called Jumalan rauha, which means "God's peace" upon you. Rauha. "God," see, God's peace, shalom.
My new-year's message is to the church elected in Jesus Christ, for 1964. Not just the church groups; but the elect, the lady, the lady of the church, Christ's Bride, see; that's who I'm addressing.
We're facing here, in our two subjects that we read ... the two Scriptures, rather, a very contrast, one to the other. In Isaiah, it says, "Arise, and shine, for the glory of God has come upon you. The light is here." And then the very next verse, he says, "Gross darkness is upon this people." And then when we are in a mixture of light and darkness, and then my address to the church is "shalom, peace," let's find out what it's all about, see. We are facing this year, with both darkness and light. We are... The world is in one of the most chaotic times of darkness that it's ever stood in; and yet it's standing in, again, the most blessed light that it ever did shine in. And there is...

19 The difference is just like it was in the beginning, when there was gross darkness upon the earth. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water and said, "Let there be light." And God separated the light from the darkness. And I believe that we are now living in that hour again, that when God is separating light from darkness, and He's pressing it to the other side of the world, that the light might be made manifest. And we are...
Then, the church, the reason I'd say "Shalom" to them, is because that it's God's peace. That's what I want to bring to you this morning, for the new year's; not looking back, but we're looking forward to the breaking of a new day. There is something great laying ahead of us, where the years has been the joy that we've looked forward to, the pressing, coming of the great light. And now we can see it breaking over the horizon, horizonal realm, it's breaking between mortal and immortality. We see it breaking between heavens and earth, from an earth-bound sickness and troubled world, into a bright shining day of an immortal life and an immortal body and an immortal earth that shall never pass away. It's "Shalom," unto the church. Now, it's light time coming for the believers, but a gross darkness for the people.

20 The other day we was talking, the wife and I, and we were talking about the hour that we're living in. Now, the reason I chose this place, I felt like I could just let down and talk to you, see, see. There seems to be a time that's upon the people that it's the most pathetic time that I could think about.
I have constantly done my very best to try to, in disagreeing with man in religious terms; but if I couldn't take his hand afterwards, no matter how sharp the thing might be, and take a hold of his hands, and say, "This is in the light of a better understanding between us," and still love the person (not just say it from my lips, but from my heart), then I'm no subject at all to go out there and to try to talk to people. Because, see, we must do that, we must love the person, see. And going amongst the people in all kinds of classes, and different cults and clans, and religions and so forth, and trying to lay the Bible down, and say, "Let's discuss it not from your creed or from your book of ethics, but from the Bible." And then not... Maybe sometime men get up real sharp; but if I got one thought that I didn't like that person, then I know one thing: the Spirit of Christ has departed from me. If I can feel that I don't like that person, there's something wrong with me.

21 Because the Spirit of Christ, when they ... at crucifying Him, and His Own people driving the nails, and His very creation He created was putting the nails that He created back into His human flesh. And yet, with a heart full of love, He cried, "Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing," you see.
And I've come to that spot. I believe that people don't know what they're doing. It comes to the time to where the human being has, look like, become such a subject to evil until it's a pathetic thing. It seems like there's a shadow of darkness, just over the people, that presses them.

22 Like, for instance, this one thing. Crossing the nation around and speaking, and the Lord God identifying, a-vindicating His Word and showing that's exactly, and never let nothing be said unless it comes to pass exactly what He said, speaking it right into existence, and so forth, as He's been doing. And people sit and look at that, and continue right on in their same condition, see.
See, not any disregarding, but like our sisters, many times when I speak to them about wearing those clothes, and cutting their hair, and little things. And men, how they'll continue on into their creeds, and serve under those creeds and things. And they're good people. They're fine people. But yet it seems like that they can't understand, look like they can't get it. Why? I go back the next year, and, instead of being any better, it's worse. It continues on. Here's a sister that once had lovely long hair; she cut it off. Here's a man that once looked like he took his stand and went out for the thing was right; he's right back in the ... like a dog to its vomit, and a hog to its wallow. See, goes right back out in it. It seems like there's something that has struck our people, it struck the world, that they don't seem to have the understanding; there's something's wrong.

23 Just like you notice men today, you don't find that genuineness in men. You don't find it in women. Now I'm not talking about... Reason I'm basing this, is to get to "Shalom," see.
But you notice the women in our day, they don't seem to have that ladylike they once had. They're like they want to, but there's something won't let them do it. It seems like there's a heaviness. That, you tell a lady that she should not do such-and-such a thing, and the lady looks upon that and believes that, she wants to believe that, but there's something that presses her the other way. See? Poor thing, I feel sorry for her. She's so caught in such a web of Hollywood, and the advertisements in television, radio, newspaper, on the street, in the store windows, with modern dress and so forth, and the way that other women meet her. And it seems to be that there is something that they just can't pull away from; our young people, our old people, our middle age.

24 There seems to be something among men. Men don't seem to be ... have that masculine touch that he used to have. Women don't have that feminish touch she used to have. You take men today, men don't seem to be burly like they used to be. It's all some sort of a... They want to wear suede shoes with purple, and they want to act like women. Now that is true. It seems to be, more or less, like a perversion. A woman wants to cut off her hair and act like a man. And a man wants to act like a woman, see. And yet you can talk to them, and they're nice people to talk to, nice people, friendly, sociable people. What's caused this? It's that gross darkness upon the people, it's something that's pressed them into it.

25 Like the Jews was in the days that Jesus came to the earth, Isaiah had prophesied of it and said, "There would be... They would have eyes but couldn't see, and ears and couldn't hear." And that's the reason Jesus prayed their forgiveness, because it had to be that way to fulfill the Scripture.
And it's returned again to us. The Bible has spoke of this day that we live, and said these things would come, "gross darkness upon the people." And we see it, that there's something that just, simply... The people want to but they can't.
Nicodemus expressed it one time before the Lord, "Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God, for no man could do the things that you do if God wasn't with Him." But it was that darkness, or blindness, upon the Jewish race, that the Messiah might come to take from the Gentiles a bride. They had to reject Him.

26 And that's the gross darkness that's upon the churches and things today, to fail to see the light that's shining, see. See, there seems to be such a heavy press. We take some of the noted evangelists today, they are constantly screaming for a revival, and working right against it; see, not understanding, without understanding.
And I don't say that in the motive of trying to say, "Now we've seen this, and, glory to God, they're not in it." I'm not trying to say that to get people to think, "Well, Brother Branham, you got the only truth there is in the world." No, that is wrong, see.
I'm only saying it in the light of the hour that we're walking in, and for the benefit of people who are trying to seek this light. Truly, Jesus said, "No man can come to me, except my Father draws him." No man will never see it. It's that predestinated seed, and that only, is going to receive it. But we've come to that place again. The Bible said that, "You're the light of the world."

27 The prophet said, "Gross darkness upon the people," upon the people of the world at this time. And that's exactly what we've got, gross darkness upon the people.
God, in His great mercy, as I have always preached and tried to stand for, that He always shows His events from heaven; His great major events, happens in heaven before it happens on earth. He reflects Himself. In other words, before Messiah came into a place where His ministry would start, there came forth a star out of heaven that guided the men to the place where He was, the wise men. As you heard in my last message how that God dealt with the wise men, in the day that He turned them aside by a dream, and He told Joseph by a dream how to take care of the welfare of His own Son. Because he had the dream, there was...

28 A dream is secondarily, something off to one side, because people can have dreams that's not right. But there was no prophet in the land in that day, see; there was no prophet, therefore God had to use what He had to use with. And teaches us that God can use every faculty and everything that we do, if it's consecrated to Him. But it first must be consecrated to Him. Let your meditations, which really reflects your dream, see, because it's your subconscience. If you'll watch a dream, you'll see that it's something that you been thinking of, or something like that----usually, you see. And let your mind be on God, then, see, so it reflects something for Him. And whatever you are, let it reflect Him.

29 Now, in the heavens above... Did you notice I'm looking on the light on the picture there out of the Life Magazine, that the brother that lives here in this home has put on his wall, that triangle of light.
I just happened to run across my mind. If any of you have the Lamsa Bible translation, if you'll notice over the cover of it, is a triune, trinitarian light, a three-cornered light like a halo. And when Dr. Lamsa, a friend, my personal friend, was translating the Bible, that is the old Hebrew symbol of God in the true trinitarian way that He is; not three Gods, but three manifestations of the same God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The light is one complete circle of light in a triangle shape, which means that God will dwell in three offices: the Fatherhood, Sonship, and Holy Ghost dispensation, all the same God.

30 But did you notice before the seven seals was revealed, before the great mysterious light showed forth in the heavens up here above Tucson, Flagstaff, where Brother Fred, two of the men that was ... the two men was with me that morning. When, that had been told months and months ahead of time, would happen. Both Brother Fred Sothmann and Brother Gene Norman sitting here this morning, when it ... was there when the blast went off, and not knowing these things would take place. And He sent me back, said that the time was at hand for these seven seals which held the seven mysteries of the entire Bible, were sealed in with these seven seals. And how these angels down along the road, messengers of the church ages, opened to a certain part of that. But in the seventh hour, the seventh messenger, that all these mysteries should be finished. The seventh earthly messenger... See, this angel that He speaks of then was on earth. An angel means "messenger." And then, after that, he saw another Angel coming down, not the earthly angel that had been given the message here, but the (another) mighty Angel came from heaven with a rainbow over Him, and set His foot on the land and sea, and swore by Him that lives forever and ever, "Time shall be no more." But before He broke forth on those seven seals to reveal them, that He showed miraculous, He showed it first in the heavens.
That day they took pictures all across southern United States and Mexico. There it hangs now in the Life Magazine, still a mystery to them. But He declares it in the heavens before He does it on earth. He always does that. He shows His signs in the heavens first.

31 And even in the zodiac... I'm not going back to teach zodiac, but I'm just showing the heavens declare it. In the zodiac we find out, in the constellations of the stars, that He declared the whole Bible in the constellation of the zodiac. We find out there that He starts off, the very first figure in the zodiac is the virgin, and the last figure in the zodiac is Leo the lion; showing that Jesus would come first to the earth by a virgin, He'll come the second time as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, see. He goes through the crossed fishes just before that: Cancer Age, what we're living in now. "And all the heavens declare Him," the Bible said.

32 Now, a few months ago I preached, for a series of meetings at the Tabernacle, on The Seven Church Ages. You, perhaps, all have heard them. And when I finished drawing out on the blackboard the seven church ages, how the light come in and how the light went out. And I guess you have that, perhaps, here somewhere; but it's among us, anyhow, we know. And the strange thing, on the last day when the last church age was drawed out, this great pillar of fire (which is among us) came down among hundreds of people, and took itself back to the back wall of the Tabernacle. And there, before these hundreds, drawed those church ages, darkening and lightening, just exactly the way I had it drawed on the board. Mysteriously!

33 Now, the other day, we've had in the event of the history of the church now... In the Bible, the moon represents the church, and the sun represents Christ. For we find that in Revelation, the 12th chapter, the woman which was the "church," she was found with the moon under her feet and the sun at her head, twelve stars in her crown. Which the old Orthodox Jewish law was under her feet; she had crossed over that into the light of the sun. Twelve stars are the twelve apostles that brought the messages to us, now, under the Holy Spirit. Now we find that the moon in the heavens is to reflect the light of the sun, in the absence of the sun. It gives us light to get around. But it's still... No matter how much it reflects, it's still not the perfect light, because it is reflecting. And the sun shines against the moon, and the moon reflects its light in the absence of the sun. But when the sun, comes up, then the moon is not needed no more.
And today the church is reflecting the light of the absent Son of God. The church is a reflection of the light. Because He said, "A little while and the world seeth me no more. Yet ye shall see me, for I will be with you, even in you, to the end of the age. The works that I do..." Lights that He made manifest. And there's no light except through the Word of God.

34 That sun is the Word of God. In the beginning, God said, "Let there be light." And when the manifested Word of God, when the Word of God was manifested, there was light. First, God spoke it. What if it didn't manifest? Then it wasn't light yet. But when He spoke it, and then it was manifested, vindicated (His Word was a-vindicated), light come into existence.
And that's the only way it can be done now, is when the Word is vindicated, God's written Word a-vindicated, then it shows light. It's... A portion is lit ... or put out for each age. We find it in the church ages, we find it in the Old Testament church ages. Each time that there come a time for a certain manifestation of the journey, there was a prophet came to the earth. And the Word came to the prophet, and he made that Word live. And when that Word was identified, it reflected God. And there was the age, there was the light. And that's the way light comes today.

35 Now, I have nothing against any denomination people. But I have all that I can think about against the systems, because they're wrong. And the first system that ever rose up, was the Roman system ... or the Roman Catholic church. That was the first organization that ever was organized, was the Roman Catholic church, Nicaea Rome. About three hundred and twenty-five years after the death of Christ, 325, came forth the Roman church organization that put the people together and blanded out anything else that was contrary to it. That's where they got their strange doctrines and started off in a system away from the Word. And now that church, since that time, has exactly reflected darkness, because at that time we go through, what we call, "the Dark Ages," about a thousand years. It's known to all historians and Bible scholars, and so forth, as the Dark Ages, is when the Roman church controlled everything.
And this Roman church is the mother of harlots. The Bible said, in Revelation 17, she was a whore, and the mother of harlots. Now, that is immoral, unclean living of a woman. Both of them is the same thing, both the same. So if a harlot, it would have to be a woman. So therefore, you notice it's not harlot, but harlots, see. She is "her," singular, "whore." Then the churches is called "harlots," daughters of the Roman whore. She is the mother of all of it, the mother of organization.

36 And is it not a strange thing, that in this day that when we have come through all these things, and the message has crossed the earth against organization (It's blasted it from right to left), that in this hour that's been told since 1933, when the Holy Spirit gave me that visions and showed me the end time, seven things that I spoke of, and five of them has already happened, perfectly, right on; like Germany and Italy and all the wars, and the national things (seldom speaks to me on those things). But they happened just exactly the way He said they'd happen. How Mussolini would go to Ethiopia, and Ethiopia would fall at his step, and then how that he'd come to a disgrace, and be spit on by his own people; and disgraced, hung up-side-down, with that prostitute that he lived with, on the street. How that the Americas would go to war with Germany, they'd take an awful beating at a place called, a great line where there would be concrete fortified in there, I believe it's called the Siegfried Line. And there's one called Maginot, I believe that was the French. Was that right? And the Siegfried Line was the German line. And the Lord let me see that, eleven years before it was built. And they never would admit getting a beating on it, the Americans wouldn't, but they almost sunk the complete army. When they went in there, the Germans had their guns just trained right out on that fleet, and let it get right in there, and almost sunk it. I seen that, eleven years before the line was ever ... ever a foundation was ever poured for it, or anything, the Siegfried Line. And all these other things, like machines and automobiles, and how everything has come right down exactly what He said, until a woman ruling this nation, which, perhaps, is the church. And then the end come.

37 Now we find that in this, all this thing and how I've blasted against organization, isn't it a strange thing that the pope of Rome would leave Rome for his first time to go back to Jerusalem? And doing this... Jerusalem is known the oldest church in all the world.
When Melchisedec met Abraham from the slaughter of the kings, he was the King of Jerusalem, a Priest, which was Christ, it was God; no one else could be Melchisedec but Christ Himself ... God Himself, rather, see, God Himself, because he was without father and without mother, see. Jesus had both father and mother, see. So this man was without father, without mother, without beginning of days or ending of life. And whoever He was, He still lives. And He was King at that time, of Salem, which is interpreted, "King of Peace, Shalom." King of Jerusalem, who met Abraham and give him wine and bread----communion----after the battle. A very beautiful type there in the 7th chapter of Hebrews, we find it. Now, gave him bread and wine after the battle was over.
That's the first thing we'll take after we enter into the new kingdom; we'll eat it anew with Him in the Father's kingdom, the bread and wine. "I'll not drink the fruit of the vine, nor eat the bread anymore, until I eat it with you, anew, in the Father's kingdom, at that day."

38 Now, now when we find out that after King Shalom was in the ... come from the city, then creed took it over, later. And it's constantly been creed, but it represents the old church. And we're taught in the New Testament----Don't fail to get this----in the New Testament that we are not of this city Jerusalem, on earth, but we are from the New Jerusalem, above. So this must be the moon, Jerusalem, and not the New Jerusalem, above. So the moon representing the church, earthly.
And isn't it strange that just before the pope took his journey to Jerusalem, that the moon in the heavens made a total blackout, just a few days before he took it, his journey. He's coming here also, you know, see. Now, that's never been known, see. But what does it show? That this... He's doing this to win the fellowship as he met on the day after he come into Jerusalem, he met the Greek Orthodox hierarchy. And what does that reflect? Fellowship, they're wanting, Protestants and Catholicism joining together, which they are doing and will completely do. And God reflected this to us, in the moon, of a total blackout. By His mercy and grace...

39 Did any of you see the paper where they took the pictures of the moon? I have it here. If it ain't a perfect image, leaving out the seventh age which is not yet, exactly the way I drawed by the Holy Spirit, the church ages. There's the six of them, the seventh is not finished yet. The six conditions of the moon, how in its brightness in the first church age; dark in the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth; just the way the Holy Spirit let me draw them on the board, and then identified them with Hisself on the wall of the Tabernacle, two years ago. The moon reflects itself, and science again picks up the picture of the church ages, just as they picked up that light yonder and put it in Life Magazine, of the opening of the seals, of the revealing in the age of the seventh angel. In the days of his ministry, the seventh messenger, the mysteries of God, which all the mysteries has been along the ages, should be revealed, made manifest, it should be at that time. And He did it! His words don't fail. Isn't that a mysterious thing? God drawing in the heavens the same thing that they hold, same God let me draw on the blackboard, and then by Himself. That's three times He's perfectly identified it, and just before the pope goes into Jerusalem.

40 Which, that was the church; the moon is the church, represents the church. And before the church, the shadow of the world crosses the moon. And the shadow of worldlyism, the shadow of worldliness, worldly church, has swept across to blackout the entire light of the Bible. The world got in the light of the reflection. Do you understand? The world crossed in the light of the moon, and blinded out the sun. And the reflection of the moon that's supposed to be giving light to the earth, it was blacked out. And it come in and drawed the pictures just exactly like it did, by inspiration, before it happened.
Now that, I believe, Sister Simpson, was the Tucson paper. I don't know if Sister Simpson... She didn't understand it then. She said, "I cut out some pictures for you, and some notes, out of the paper," handed it to me.
And I thought something strange. I went in there and picked it up, and looked at it, I said, "There it is, just exactly, see, just what I've been looking for." And there it was in the paper.

41 Sister Simpson might tell you what paper it's in, if you want to get a copy of it. [Sister Simpson says, "It's December the 28th."] And what say? ["It's the evening edition of December the 28th"] Evening edition of December the 28th.
See, before he went to Jerusalem to block out its light, or what access it does have. What time, position, and what rights it has to shine, now it's cutting it off altogether, for the last age, the seventh church age where she goes into darkness. What a great thing the Lord is telling us. In everything, it's never failed but what God in the heaven has declared it and told it, looked to it, and here has identified it and a-vindicated it, that it is the absolute truth.

42 Darkness, this Laodicea church age. Now when Jesus, which is the Word, in the Laodicea church age was on the outside of the church, knocking at the door, trying to get in. Darkness, gross darkness upon this people. Was the Bible right?
The perfection of the Scripture, glory of His great name. The pope's visit was a sign of the churches blackening out. His manifested... The manifested light of the world was the Bible. Jesus said He was the light of the world. The Bible said that He is the Word. And the manifested ... or the a-vindicated Scripture is the light. Now you'll not be permitted to do it when this takes a hold. And we seen it foreshadowed, told by inspiration before it happened; foreshadowed by the moon, and show it happening, and here it is taking place.

43 The hour is upon us, darkness, gross darkness. Gross darkness on the people now, that's what it is. What does it all mean? Where're we standing? What hour are we in? How close are we to the coming? Well, you say, "When all, they have a revival."
"Fear not, little flock, it's your Father's good will to give you the kingdom." All right.
What does it mean? God has begin to separate the light from the darkness, see, pressing it behind, like He did in the beginning, to show the dawn of a new day. The church ages are fading out. [Brother Branham coughs.] Pardon me. The church ages are fading out. God is pressing the darkness into a place----It has to do it----to fade out the church organizations, fade out the world. The world is covering the thing over, and worldlyism has took the whole thing. Then isn't God right? By worldly things, and worldly dressing, and worldly acting, and worldly living, it's the world!
Ye are not of the world, little children. You are of heaven. This is not your Home.
Why should I look to, us older people, try to look back and get young again? We can't do that. But we're looking forward, not looking back. Looking here, what has been, and we want to know what's going to be. And we're looking for that hour, pressing for it.

44 So many good, sincere people today are caught away in these creeds, these churches and organizations, "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof," as II Timothy, 3rd chapter, says so.
Gross darkness, blinding of Israel, was for the lightening of the Gentiles. Now the blinding of the Gentiles is the lightening of Israel. It's just like the day and night; one side has got darkness, the other side has got light; and then the light comes over on the other side. So the moon passing the way it did, and the reflection of the darkness of the world blinding out its light, is a reflection to us that the Gentile church age is finished. The church is making herself ready, been making herself ready for a time; it's time for the rapture. For darkness is fading upon the Gentiles, and dawn will soon break upon the Jews. The sun has traveled from the East to the West, and we're on the West Coast. The light can only do one thing: go back East, on the other side. You understand, do you? The light can only go back East again, to where it began at, Israel. God blinded them for a while, but the darkness now is pressed upon the Gentile world that's covered the whole thing. The Gentiles will trod down Jerusalem until the Gentile dispensation will be finished. Jesus said so. And now it's finished, gross darkness upon the people. God reflecting it in the skies, as He has shown it on earth before it all happens. We're in it.

45 Good people caught in this thing, good people, sincere people. Like Mary and Joseph, they were very sincere, see, thinking He was with them, when He wasn't. Mary and Joseph, you know, when they was up to the feast, Jesus, the age of twelve, they thought, presuming, He was with them, but He wasn't. Good people today think the same thing. These people that's organized in this Council of Churches, these people in these organizations, they think they're doing a good thing. They're presuming He's with them, when they're not. See, many people think that He was with them when they shook hands with the preacher and put their name on the book, but He wasn't. Many people thought, when they were sprinkled, confirmed, baptized in name of "Father, Son, Holy Ghost," thinking He was with them. They're good people. Mary and Joseph was good people. But the facts was, He wasn't there! Don't presume anything.

46 What is light? The vindicated, spoken Word of God! Outside of that, there's no light. See, you can't lighten the earth with flashlights. It takes God's Word that's made manifest, the Son.
They were good people. Notice the accuracy of His Word, how perfect it is. Did you notice what Mary said? Now to you dear Catholic people, I've nothing against you. I've nothing against you. It's the system that you're in. And you Protestants, the same thing. It's the systems.
"Mary, mother of God"? Find out, a twelve-year-old boy, of her own son, had to set her in order. There's not one time in the Bible where Jesus ever called Mary His mother. She wasn't His mother. How could she be a mother of God? She was only a womb that He used to come to the earth, to be manifested to the earth, through the womb. There's nothing to her at all, not one Scripture ever said, "mother."

47 Notice how Mary is so wrong, but His Word is so perfect. She said to Him when she found Him in the temple, at twelve, discussing with the theologians... He astounded them, as a twelve-year-old boy; not even in school, or, if it is, we have no record of it. But a twelve-year-old lad confounding the sages in the temple, at His wisdom. She said, "Thy father and I have sought thee with tears." "Thy father!" The mother herself, supposingly, said, "Thy father, Joseph, and I have sought thee with tears."
What did He say to her? "Know ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" If He had been about Joseph's business, He'd've been making houses, or in a carpenter's shop. But He wasn't Joseph's son. "I'm about my Father's business," correcting these denominations and creeds and things I hear of. "I'm about my Father's business." He never admitted Joseph was His father. But Mary did, and He turned back around and straightened her out.
She said, "Your father and I have sought You."
He said, "I'm about my Father's business," showing Joseph wasn't His father. His words are perfect, see.

48 But Mary and them, just presuming that. Well, see what it was, she got carried away. She got... She wanted to show before these priests and things that she wasn't the type of woman. And she, in doing that, she absolutely tore the foundation out from under her testimony, after she'd testified that an angel had come to her, "And said, 'Thou shall conceive and bear a son, knowing no man, a virgin-born son.'" And here before the high Sanhedrin, she says, "Joseph, your father here, and I, have sought you."
And that twelve-year-old boy said, "I'm about my Father's business." He rebuked her, "That isn't my Father."

49 See the church today, carried away with councils and things of the world; now she's blacked out. God is rebuking her!
Never did Jesus ever call her "mother." One day she came to visit Him at His meetings, in a house something like this. Someone come, said, "Outside the door there, Your mother and brothers wait for You."
He said, "Who is my mother, and my brothers? Who are they?" Looked around upon His disciples, and said, "They that do the will of my Father, is my mother, my brother, my sister, so forth." That's who it is.
And at the cross, when He was dying, He said to John, the young disciple, He said, "Behold thy mother." "Woman, behold thy son." "Son, behold thy mother." See, never claimed, Himself. It wasn't her Son. It was God's Son. She was just a womb.
This is a house this morning, but it's not the church. The church is in you, Christ. The spirit of the mortals that's sitting here, met together in heavenly places. It's Christ, not the house. The house is all right, it's serving its purpose, but it's only used for a meeting place. Mary was only a womb that He used to come to the earth, to identify Himself amongst the people. Not the "mother of God," no more than this house is the church of God. It's just used for that.

50 Yeah, many friends think now----people, good people like Mary and Joseph----think that He's with them in doing this. But as they were then, so are they now, mistaken. They thought they was with Him, but they wasn't. But when they was baptized, people might have thought, "Oh, I received Him when I accepted Him and was baptized." That isn't it. Till a spoken word reflects itself!

51 But, the elected, what about the light now? I've been talking so
much on the dark, and I got half my time up, eleven-thirty. Now let's turn it back around; gross darkness is upon the people, now what about the light? He said gross darkness would be upon the people, but there would be light, "Rise, and shine, for the light has come." How can there be darkness and light; it's got to be separated. And only one thing separates it, the Word manifested, separates; it presses it to the other side of the... Here's the darkness on the earth, but when the manifested Word of God, the sun, which it was spoken into existence by the Word, shows itself, darkness runs to the other side. And that's what's taking place now: darkness separating itself from the light. Now to the elected church in this dark hour... Which, we could stay on that for hours, but I think I've said enough till you understand what the Scripture means, when I said, "gross darkness upon this people."

52 Now I say to the church, "Shalom. God's peace." Peace! Every true Hebrew, when he meets another one, "Shalom." Other words, "Good morning! God be with you! God's peace go with you! It's a "Good morning! How do you do?" It's breaking day, church. It's darkness upon the people. But it's "Good morning" to the church; Christ is appearing among us. "Shalom. Peace." Hallelujah. "Shalom."
When we see darkness settling, darkness just before day, we know that the morning star is hanging yonder to introduce the coming sun. That's when the morning star shines. It's the going-between. It's always darkest just a few minutes before day, the blackout comes; the moon fails to shine. The darkest before day, is because the light is pressing the darkness. But the morning star comes out and says, "Good morning. Shalom."

53 That's Him among us, His Word being identified. Shalom. The great day is fixing to break, when the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair, when His chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the sky. When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there. Our names are on His book, we'll be there. "Shalom. Good morning. Peace be unto you."
The darkness is separating itself from the light. God's causing it; the light's a-doing it. See, the light's pressing itself in such a way until the darkness has to congregate together. They had a chance to accept it and they wouldn't do it, so it's condensed itself. And they do that by putting the church together, and the Council of Churches, and uniting it with the pagan darkness. When they so firmly disagree with one another, but yet they had to go together to make the night come upon the people.

54 Isaiah 60:1 says, "Arise, and shine, for the light is come to you."
Rise, and shine, the light has come. The Word, light, is vindicated again. The light vindicated again, God's Word, so that you can see God manifested in His promise of the light of the day, or the Word given to this age, see, these promises that's made for this day, these promises that was said by the prophets, and by Jesus Himself. In this day! "God, in sundry times..." Hebrews 1, "God, in sundry time, in divers manners spake to the fathers through the prophets, but in this last day through His Son, Jesus Christ," see.

55 The great light that hung in the wilderness which was ... that Moses forsook Egypt, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater treasures than that of Egypt.
The same one that met Saul on the road down to Damascus. A great light hung before Him, that same light, same pillar of fire. Saul, being a Hebrew, would never worship any spirit or anything, or call it "Lord," in the position he was in. He said, "Lord, who are You?"
He said, "I'm Jesus." (Jesus said, "I come from God, and I go to God.")
That same light has come. To what? To manifest, to make known to the people the promises that He's made for this day, manifested light of the day. The darkness is darkened.

56 When He come, he was the light of the day. There was supposed to come a Messiah. And He came just exactly like God said He did ... would come. And when He did, what was He? The light of the day. And it pressed the darkness so against Him. Is that right? He had to give His life that the light continue, could shine. He was the light of the day. But why, why was He the light of the day? He was the vindicated Word that had been spoken, made manifest. No more than...
God said over this dark, gloomy, dismal, moisty world that stood here without light, He said "let there be light." And it wasn't light until that Word was manifested, then it was light.
He said, "There will come a Saviour, a Messiah." It still wasn't manifested until He come to manifest that promise. And when He vindicated that promise, He said, "Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and they are they that testify of me."
They said, "We know not whence Thou comest, we are Moses' disciples."
He said, "If you were Moses' disciples you would know me, for Moses wrote of me," see. He was the manifestation. He was the a-vindication of the spoken Word of God by Moses.

57 And today that we're now living in, God has come on the scene to a-vindicate and prove His promises. So, it's the light of the hour, so we can rise and shine. The light shines upon us again today; the Word is being made manifest. It's the light.
Just like that light's shining out there, the sunshine, this morning. That's God's spoken Word; there's nothing else can give light like that. There's nothing can do it. Any artificial light burns out in a little bit, and bulbs and everything else. But that never fails, for it's the spoken Word of God made manifest.
Little denominational creeds will bust a bulb, and blow a bulb, and knock a fuse, and everything else. But the Word of God shall never fail! It'll be itself, always, the Word.
I'm afraid I'm going to run overtime a little bit here. Or, or it's all right to go ahead and finish this message, isn't it? All right.

58 Rise, and shine, for the light has come to you. The Word, light, is vindicated.
The only way, as God was, Jesus Christ was the manifestation of God's spoken Word, the light of the hour.
John the Baptist was the light of the hour. He was the light before Jesus was light. The prophet Isaiah said, "A voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight His path." That was the spoken Word of God; it was laying there, hadn't come to life yet. Malachi, the last prophet, four hundred years before it taken place, he said, "Behold, I send my messenger before me, to prepare the way of the Lord." Here come one out of the wilderness, without denomination, without creed, without identification. But his light identified him. The Word identified him.
They said, "Are you the Messiah?"
He said, "I'm not! But I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord!'"
Jesus said, "You did walk in his light." He was a bright and shining light for a while. Why? Until the way was prepared, then his light went out.
You can't walk in that light, you Baptists. This is the light of the hour! The light has come. Rise and shine. The Word, light. Word, the manifested Word of God (identified) is a light.

59 Now what about the new year that we're facing? We could have more to say on this in-between, from the darkness to the light, the introducing of the light coming between, but now we want to get right straight to the new year. All right.
New year, new year, what about it? Brings me hope. We're one year closer. We're one day closer than we was yesterday. We're one hour closer than we was when I started, fifteen minutes to eleven, it's fifteen till twelve now. We're one hour closer! We don't look back; we look forward, see. Oh! Yes, sir. New year doesn't mean turning a new page. Uh-uh. No.

60 Like the man one morning; I heard it. A man got up early and went out and picked up the paper, come back, and sat down, put his feet up on the divan, put his glasses on, begin to read the paper. His wife, out getting breakfast, she said, "John, anything new?"
Said, "No. Same old thing, just new people." Yeah. That's right. Murders, rape and everything, somebody else done it, see. True.

61 Not turn a new page. It's, turn to the Word, see what the Word promises for today, see what the light of the day is supposed to be. What we ought to do this year is not go back to creed and things, go back to our old denominations, not go back to old denominations; but turn to the Word, see what kind of a light is supposed to shine today. Oh, church, turn to the Word, get back to the Word, flip the right switch, quit punching around on electric lights, see, artificial, man-made. Turn to His Word and see the promise of today. And then see what the promise is, and watch for its identification. When it's vindicated, then you know whether you're in light or not. See what the promise is.
Changing the pages ... or changing calendars doesn't change time. A lot of people say, "Well, the old year's gone, throw away the old December calendar now and put up the other one, a new year." That's what new years means to them.
To me, I want to see what's promised for the day. I want to know what the light of the hour is, so I can know how to walk in it. I want to know where I'm living, what age I'm in, how far up the road am I?
As Paul said, I could stand quoting again, "Forgetting those things that are in the past, now I press towards the mark, the high calling," to the complete identification, when all time will fade out into eternity when Jesus comes.

62 Do as David did, put your future into His hands. Don't look to anything else, but put your... David said here, he said, "My time is in His hands." You notice here in the Psalms where we read it, in 62, "My time is in His hand. He is my rock." What is He? "He is revealed to me. He is the revealed truth. My time is in His hands." Amen. Oh, my! There you are.
My time belongs to Him. I am His. I'm in His hand because He holds the time. I don't know what the future holds, but I know He holds the future. So, He who holds the future holds me. So why should I think about setting forth this, that, the other for the new year? I just put myself in His hands, walk like David did, "my time is in His hand," knew that God held the future. David didn't know what the future was, but he knowed God had the future. I don't know what the future is, none of us do. But we know He holds the future.

63 Patience. Patience. Some of us get so ... some of us gets in such a hurry. I think many a good man has done that. You get in too much of a hurry. You want to, see, you want to do it yourself.
And minister brethren, you know from when I'm talking, you that's listening to this tape. I'm talking to you; not only to the little congregation here, but men around the world.
Many men go out, impatient; but believing that the time is near, you try to do something within yourself. Wait upon the Lord. Patience is virtue. If you can have patience, it's virtue. It's virtue if you... "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Not they that try to get ahead of the Lord, they that try to tell the Lord, "Lord, I know You want me to do this, and glory to God I..." Don't do that. Wait upon the Lord. The Bible said, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."

64 God took thousands of years to fulfill His promise of a coming Saviour. But, remember, He knowed it all the time, when it was coming. There were many people rose up and tried to be messiahs. Many churches tried to produce messiahs. But God had the time set for His Messiah. He was in no hurry, see.
And, during the time of this, He showed many types of Messiah. He showed it all the way from Adam to the Messiah, first and last Adam; one of them of the world and the other one of heaven, one earthly and the other one heavenly, one come down from heaven and the other one come off the earth. But promised a Messiah, He took thousands of years to fulfill it.
Showed in Joseph exactly what He was. Joseph portrayed Him.
David portrayed Him. When David was a rejected king, went up on top the hill and looked back and wept over Jerusalem, as a rejected king, that was Jesus in David. Eight hundred years later, stood upon Jerusalem as a rejected King, said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have hovered you as a hen does her brood, but you would not."

65 Look at Joseph, born among his brethren, the patriarchs; not the last one (next to the last one; Benjamin was the last one), but just before the last, see, just before it. Hated of his brothers, loved of his father. He was hated because he was a spiritual man. He could interpret dreams, they were exactly right. He could see visions, foretell things that would happen. And they hated him. He was sold for thirty pieces of silver.
What did they hate Jesus for? They called Him Beelzebub because He was the Word, and the Word can discern the thoughts that's in the hearts. They hated Him. And they sold Him for thirty pieces of silver.

66 He was throwed into a pit, Joseph was, supposingly to being dead. His bloody coat was left behind, like Jesus' bloody garment that was taken up from the cross, the robe that He wore, to identify His death. But what did God do to Joseph? He brought him up out of the pit, set him at the right hand of Pharaoh. And no man could see Pharaoh, only see Joseph. And when Joseph left the palace, trumpets blowed and a proclamation went forth, "Every knee bow, Joseph is approaching."
The same thing, Jesus. He was taken from the pit, supposingly where He was dead, and raised up and sits at the right hand of the Majesty. "No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of the Father. And when He leaves there, the trumpets will sound, and every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess." See, He's the Prince of prosperity. Look what Egypt done then, it saved the whole world, a drought come on. So, so will it be at the coming of the Son of man. The knee, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess to Him being.
He was all showed in types, but God knew exactly when He would come. He knowed exactly when He come. No matter how many they had before that, He had His Messiah. He showed them in types, what was coming.

67 Just exactly like He showed us in seven church ages, what would come. Just exactly what He showed us what would come when He set that light up there, in revelation to it, to show the world. When He sent the seven angels to reveal the seven messengers that had been down through there, and show the loose ends, each angel coming each day and revealing the loose ends that Luther left, and Wesley left, and Pentecost left, is all represented in there. And in the very type and shadow of the great Shalom, Jehovah, Jvhu. See? Exactly. Throwed it in the skies, and there is the mechanical eye taking a picture of it. Thank the Lord.
Shalom! Peace! Don't be weary, Jesus is here. His great light has come to us, and we're thankful for it, yes, His Word, the great mystery. Here He is today manifesting Himself, doing the same as He did then, just the same. Doing the very same thing.

68 We are creatures of time. He's God of eternity. We try to press ourself; we try to make something different, "Oh, this has got to be done." Remember, He knows all about it. It's going to happen, anyhow. Let Him do it. Just commit yourself to Him.
Look up, and shine with joy of the Lord, to know that you've been privileged, your eyes have come open and see this day. Trust in Him for the future. You've seen Him vindicate His Word in days past. He that vindicated His Word in days past and made all these other things happen just exactly to the hour that we're living, everything exactly, to the seventh angel's message, both showed it in heaven, on earth, and made it made known three ways so there can't be no slip up, remember, He promised He'd come again. Hallelujah! That Word will be a-vindicated. God's promised Word, with two thousand years of waiting, He will arrive on time! Don't be weary, He'll be here. As He has a-vindicated His Word in every age, the church ages show the same thing, and the revealing of our Lord by the seventh message, and so forth. God revealed it, manifested it, and proved it. And among us today, He showed Himself here with us, and proved and a-vindicated His Word. So will He!

69 There will be a Millennium. The old will be young there for ever. Sickness will fade away and death will be no more. They shall build houses, they will inhabit them. They'll plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof. They'll not plant and another inhabit (his son take it; his son will be living by him). He'll not plant and another eats, die off and somebody else take it; but he'll live there. Amen! [Gap in the audio.] There'll be nothing can hurt. We'll be changed from what we are now, to that glorious image of the Son of God which is immortal. Years can never touch Him, age can never do anything to Him, He's the immortal Son of God. So we know that we're at the end time. We're at the junction. All these things thoroughly identified, so will it be identified again.

70 Now, the future, He holds it. How do I know when He's coming? When is He coming? I don't know, but He'll be here. That's right. When will He do thus and thus? When will the curse go off the earth? When will these blessed reflections of God's love, of trees standing here and shining out, and the flowers and things, when will they immortal grow? I don't know, but they will. When will all the reflection of men's hearts desiring to live, and hospitals and doctors and operations, and crying and grief, when will it all cease, to a glorious reign with Jesus of a thousand years of Shalom? When will it? I don't know. He said it would be there. I don't know how He's going to do it, but His spoken Word will be a-vindicated when the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in His wings. And the healing part there will not be a physical healing as you think, saying somebody's got a sickness and it'll be taken away from them. That's what He's doing now, in type. But the whole creature will be changed! This mortal will take on immortality. This old age will jump into youth. Amen. When will it be? I don't know, but it'll be there.

71 I'm getting old, myself. This year, if the Lord lets me live to see the 6th of April, I'll be fifty-five years old, an old man. But I'm not looking... I don't want to go back to be a boy again. I want to press towards that mark yonder, for what purpose I came for. About thirty-something years now I've stood behind this desk, from a little boy of twenty-something years old, about twenty-one, twenty-two years old, I've tried to proclaim this message. And every ounce of my strength I've put to it. If my shoulders stoop and my hair turns gray and falls out, I don't look back to that, it'd come to it again. I'm looking yonder to the break of a day where the a-vindicated Word of God said "not one hair of your head shall perish, and I'll raise it up again at the last days." How is He going to do it? I don't know. But I trust the...

72 The new year, I don't know what it holds, but I know He holds it. That's the hopes of new year I have. If He comes, Amen. If He doesn't come, I'll still be working if He spares me. I just trust the future to Him. I don't know what it is, I just trust it to Him. You've seen Him a-vindicate His Word, so you know it's going to be done. His Word!
You say, "Brother Branham, how do you get that?"
Well, let me give some thought here just a minute. Do you know what a symphony is? I know you do. It's a music, it's a drama. See, they act it out.
Now, you little children, so you'll understand. You remember in school, I believe you have a... What is that little Russian symphony, sometimes they act out on the drums, you know it's called, isn't it the... about the little woodpecker, you know, it got there in the woods; and they had the fluttering, the beating on the drums and things. And you hear it all as you go through the symphony, as they play it. I forget the name of that, "Peter and the Wolf." That's right, "Peter and the Wolf." Now, that's a Russian symphony. See, they don't have little figures flying around, play it out, but they play it on drums [Brother Branham knocks on some wood], and then [Brother Branham knocks on something else], and make the drums and the sounds and things. It plays it out, it acts it. So, you understand what Brother Branham is trying to say.

73 Now to you adults, the Scripture is God's symphony. Yes. Hallelujah. Only the Composer knows what it really means and He reveals it to those who are listening, who are interested in knowing what the drama is. But you'd have to know about a symphony first, see. It's not just something you see, it's the changing, the junctions of the word, of the music. It throws; sometime it's going this way for a while, a certain beat, after a while it changes all around. What is it? To you who wouldn't understand it or don't know nothing about it, not interested in it, it's just a racket, it's a fuss. But to those who know about it, they're watching for it, they know it's coming. Hallelujah!

74 So we have these times of symphonies of the symphony of God's Word, that the whole drama changes. You who are interested, listen for that change. You know it's getting close. You hear the way the drums are beating, amen, want something to happen. You know this is a change, see, it's going to break out into a burst in a few minutes, see. You're watching for it, you can tell the way the drums are timing. O God! If you can hear the drums of the finish now, if you can hear the echo of the music of the heavenly Word singing itself out, "And it shall come to pass in the last days!" The symphony of God's great drama that He's playing, it changes Him, His symphony at the junctions. The composer and those who are interested, listen for the change. That's what all this stuff is to us; we're listening, we're watching. Every time He appears, something happens, we see the time getting close. We see back yonder not long ago when that church ages was being drawed out, we were listening. We seen it was right with the Word, beating with the Word. After a while, what happened? Here He come, Himself, and vindicated it.

75 We heard the Word say that "In the days of the seventh angel." In the church age, He just said, "The seventh angel's message would be the last message." And then, we find out over here in Revelations 10, "In the days of the message of the seventh angel, the mysteries of God should be finished"; the seventh seal would be pulled back. It should be there. Then all at once, when it's happening, a vision broke, said, "Go to Tucson; a great noise will take place at this time so you'll be thoroughly understanding and know that it's sent. It'll just shake the earth, nearly." All of you know about it. It's on tape months before it happened. There it happened! There it appeared in the skies. "Shalom!" What is it? It's a-changing beats, the symphony.

76 Then one time He said about the third pull; how it would come by this one way, then by knowing the heart, and then the spoken Word.
Jesus said, "Greater things than this will you do; for I go to my Father." John 14, "The works that I do, shall you do also; greater than this, for I go unto my Father." Just as I said a while ago, when Mary tried to identify Him as Joseph's son, He corrected her. His words cannot fail! He said so, "Heavens and earth will fail, but my words will not."
When we hear the symphony beating, changing, fixing to change, it's a junction time. We notice as He begin to beat, and we seen, "The works that I do, shall you do also, and greater shall you do." "Greater," He promised it. We wondered how it could be.

77 But did you notice when He performed His first miracle, He took
water and turned it into wine. Is that right? He took water, which potentially someday might have been wine, but it was water first.
And when He fed five thousand, what did He do? He took something that had been like water, He took a fish that once swam and was born from an egg, and He broke it, and another fish growed onto the creation that was the original creation. He took bread that was once wheat, and was a seed and become bread, and He broke from this bread and the creation only multiplied.

78 But in the woods, there was nothing there to make a squirrel. "Let there be," and there was, without anything to break it from. What is it? The same Jesus Christ! "Greater things than this will you do, for I go to my Father." Not take something that's been created, break something from it and multiply a creation, but absolutely create. Showing that He's the same Jehovah that stood back there and said, "Let there be," and there was. His Word was made manifest. When He was made flesh on earth, He took His original creation, broke it back and multiplied it. But now in the last days, when He comes down among us again, the same light that moved down, said "let there be light," see, He just speaks the creation into existence. "Greater than this will you do, for I go to my Father." Remember, we're at these times.

79 And the world don't understand, because it's a "bunch of nonsense." Because they're not Methodist, the Methodist don't understand it. Because they ain't the Baptist, the Baptist don't understand it. Because it's not Catholic, the Catholic don't understand it. Because it's not Pentecostal, the Pentecostal don't understand it.
But those who wait upon the Lord, those who are looking! Not one man that we have history of any observatory, knowing that star that passed over. But the wise men followed it for hundreds of miles; for two years, they watched it and followed it. See what I mean? it's to those who are listening to the symphony.

80 Remember, the Composer knows the end from the beginning. He knows all about it; that's the reason He could write it here. Correctly. Now you must begin with Him; you must begin... If you want to hear a symphony, you begin with Him, like in the music at the symphony. You listen, you know what it says, it's going to be what the symphony is, then you begin to listen at the music. And you know what it is, so you know just about, "Here's where certain-certain things take place; now it's got to change." Now, to anybody else that don't know nothing about it they just walk in and sit down, it's just a bunch of nonsense, rattling noise. But the one who knows what it is, it's beat out with the music, drummed out with the notes, it's trumpeted with the trumpets, it's strung on the harp, it's played with the violin, it's beat on the bass, it's sounded by the trumpets, it's beat on the drums. The whole thing together in rhythm, and it makes the drama till you can close your eyes and live in it. Hallelujah!

81 Man could close his mortal eyes to earthly sight and live in the presence of Jesus Christ, when he sees Word being beat out in the great symphony that we're living in now, changing. You must begin in the symphony. The only thing you can do if you're in the symphony, then you start, you begin to get into the rhythm. That's the way you do God. You don't stand off and look at it. You get into the rhythm of it! How do you get in there? You're born into it, into the rhythm of the Word, when you become part of that Word.
You had to become part of the dance to get out of the dance. You have to become part of the ball game, something you're interested in, to get in the ball game.

82 You have to become part of the Word, to know God's symphony. His symphony is when it's playing, you understand, you're marching with the beat of the time. You're watching for it. "The works that I do, shall you also; greater than this shall you do," these last days. Oh, my! The great changing of the time. We get into the beat, beat of the Word. Find His purpose, the hour that we're living. Get into the rhythm of it, how does ... how He does it. If you get into the Word, you find out how He did it at the beginning, then you know how He's doing it all the time.
How did He send His message, first? What does He do? He doesn't deal with organizations. He never did, so He doesn't do it now. If you're listening to a rhythm of that Council of Churches, you're in darkness. But if you're listening to the rhythm of the Word...
What did they kill Jesus for? "You, being a man, make yourself God."

83 You got my message on The Three Types Of Believers. How that one stood there and... There was the make-believers; they followed along for a while, making out like they believed. And one day Jesus said to them, said, "What will you think when the Son of man, which is from heaven, ascends back into heaven? I come from heaven, going back to heaven."
Why, the multitude walked away, and said, "This is a hard saying."
Then there come the make-believers that was walking with Him, the seventy, when they got something hard, they didn't see that it ... they didn't know the symphony. They didn't know the promise, that this child was Jehovah, "His name shall be called Counsellor, Prince of Peace, The mighty God." And when He said, "When I ascend up to heaven from whence I come from!"
"Well," they said, "this is a hard saying. Who can understand it? We know you're just a man. We eat with you, we sleep with you, we're in the woods with you, we're by the waters with you. Well, you're merely a man, and say the Son of man goes back up where He comes from? What will you say? This is a hard saying!" See, they didn't know the beat. They didn't know the rhythm of the symphony of God's Word, that He was God manifested in the flesh, for He was a-vindicated Word light of the hour. They didn't get it. They said, "This is a hard thing. Who can understand this?" And they turned away. They didn't know the beat, see.

84 Then we notice again, there was Judas, the make-believer ... or the unbeliever, that waited till he found a fault. Then He turned to the disciples, just the twelve, and Judas was one of them, He said, "You want to go, too?"
Then Peter said, "Who would we go to, Lord? You're the Composer." Amen. "You know how it's going on. You're the only one that has the Word of life. Where could we turn to? We couldn't go back to be a Pharisee, or a Sadducee, or a Herodian," or whatever it might be. "You're the one that has the Word of life. We have no other place to go. We've joined ourself to this great Concert. We are in here, we're listening, and we're in the rhythm. We believe that You are the Son of God, the manifested Jehovah. We're sure of this. We don't know what these great trials and troubles, and afflictions and things, and You saying You're going up to be offered up,' and all this, that, the other, and 'on the third day,' all this stuff. We don't understand that. But we're in, listen to God's symphony, we're a part of it. And we're waiting to see what takes place next, and we're following close with You." Oh, my! That's what I want to do. Promise.

85 How did He begin? Just like He did at the beginning, see. He never did send His message to an organization. He never sent his group a message, He sent one man. In the days of Noah, it was Noah. In the days of Moses, it was Moses.
There's others thought one time, that they said, "Well, you would make yourself the only holy man in the bunch." God looked down upon that.
Moses went to the Lord, "I've done this. What ... what must I do?"
He said "Separate yourself from them. I'll take care of the rest of it. I sent you. It's my responsibility." And He opened up the earth and swallowed up Korah and all the gain. Always.

86 John and Jesus couldn't be the same time. Jesus... When John looked up, he said, "Now I must decrease, He must increase. He's the vindicated light." So will this light move on until he find the full vindication comes. That's right. That's right.
He is as... He was at the beginning, that's how you start, how you start learning what God was. What did He do when He was here on earth? What kind of a life did He live? Did He agree, was He a compromiser? Did He go to the organizations? How did He identify Himself? "Search the Scriptures. You think... In them you think you have eternal life, and they are the ones that testify of me." See, that's the same thing today or any other time. When you want light, see what the Scripture says for this hour. All right.

87 Where do you begin, then? If there's a sinner here, you begin at the cross where you reckon yourself dead with Him. You've entered in then to the great drama. You're listening, then; you're watching your sheet as you hold it in your hand, the symphony. You got a sheet in your hand that would tell you these things, where the changes of the music begins to make it act out, then you see what the act is. When you see God's Spirit fall upon people and do a certain thing, you look back and see where it's at. See if that's the thing for today. Why, they had a sheet in their hand when Jesus came, of the symphony. Certainly, they did.
Am I saying that word right, symphony, sympathy? I hope so. So then I just happened to think of it. Symphony? [Someone in congregation says, "Symphony."] Symphony. That right? All right.

88 Now, they had a sheet in their hand, but what would they do? They were trying to look back to a beat that had all ... a portion had already been played out. That's what the churches do today. They look back, see what part Luther played; the Lutherans does. They don't know the change of music. They don't know what God's doing today when He does these things, the Lutherans. The Pentecost say, "Oh, we got it." You got a sheet that played out fifty years ago, see. Certainly. Let's just keep this Word in our hands, and watch when the changes comes, then we'll know what we're doing.
Now, begin with Him at the cross. "Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the music, the direction," see, "His Word, the Holy Ghost that manifests the Word." Then follow through with the rhythm of the Word. What ever the music beats for that hour, beat with it.

89 Many people asked, "Why?" They asked ... somebody asked me, "Why? Why must these things happen? Why did this happen to me? Why did I start and this happen, and I had this trouble here, and this upset me here, and I lost this here?"
Sometimes I've asked, "Why?" Why, when I was just a young minister, and first started out, did God take my wife right out from under me, take my baby right from beneath me, right beneath my heart? Why did He do that? I didn't know. I do now. I just held my hand in His and kept trusting.
He knows every junction. He knows the rhythm when it must take place. He knows what it takes to mold you, He knows what kind of material He's going to use, see. The back side of the desert sometimes, where God molds righteous men into sages and prophets, see. That's where men are beat out. Men are beat out, in the Word. When they got all kind of creed and stuff in them, let them come to the Word and God beats it right out of them, molds it right into the great symphony with ... of His Word, see. And then they see the Word moving on.

90 God knows when the rhythm of it has got to change. He knows how the rhythm goes. I don't know how it goes, but He knows. He knows how it goes, I don't. But I look at it here, and I say, "Well, it's just coming."
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but God delivereth him out of them all." God has moved through history with the rhythm of the promise of His Word, in each age, in the same rhythm, making His Word. That's how God moved down through history, from all the way from Genesis to Revelation, He has moved through history with His Word. That's right, with the rhythm of the power of the Holy Spirit vindicating His Word to the elected. Remember, He's never been able to touch the outside church. It's only the elected.

91 Look at them priests, said, "This man is Beelzebub. He's a fortuneteller. Why, he's reading their minds."
Little did they know, "The Word is sharper than a two-edged sword, a discerner of the thoughts that's in the heart." And He was the Word.
But this little prostitute standing at the well that day, to get a bucket of water, she said, "I perceive that You're a prophet. We know the Messiah's coming. We ain't had prophets for hundreds of years, but we know the Messiah is coming. And when He comes, that's what He's going to be."
He said, "I am He." That was enough. Why? The rhythm beat out! She was looking for that change, from a church denomination to a vindicated Messiah. And here He stood, the Messiah that Moses spoke of, "The Lord your God shall raise a Prophet like unto me." There He is. The rhythm changed, the vindicated seed recognized it.

92 And when the real Word of God falls upon the vindicated ... upon the seed, and they see that vindication of the Word, they recognize it. They're looking at the Word, they know the junction, they know the time, they know the change, they know the beat that's supposed to be in that hour. Hallelujah! They know the beat, they know the time, they know how it's supposed to go. See, only the elected knows it.
When Philip saw it, he couldn't stand it any longer. He knew that was Messiah. So he went to a fellow, they'd had Bible study together. "Nathanael," he said, "come, see a man. Come, see what we found; we have found Jesus of Nazareth. We've found Jesus of Nazareth, that's the Prophet that Moses spoke of that would come. We found Him. We found Him."
He said, "How can it be? Where was He?" See, he wasn't... See, he didn't know the rhythm just exactly. They had been studying. But when he got there, he told him, introduced to him the Word.

93 And when he got there, Jesus said, "Behold an Israelite." The rhythm begin to take hold, the great drama was being played out there on the platform ... or on the ground that day. Maybe Jesus standing upon a rock, talking to the people. And when Philip come up with Nathanael, He looked over to him, and said, "Behold an Israelite, in whom there's no guile."
He said, "Rabbi, when did You ever know me?"
He said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you." Oh, my!
He was part of it! He said, "Thou art the Son of God! Thou art the King of Israel." No matter what the world beats was, and all their shindigs they had of the denominations, it wasn't that great symphony of God. Amen. He said, "Thou art the King of Israel! There You are! I see it. I know it." Why? He was elected. The elected seed knows. It's always through every age, that they know it.

94 You say, "But, Brother Branham, what about my mother and dad, what about my people, what about my denomination, what will they do? They'll cast me out. Is it..." If you can't look ahead, look up. Don't try to look ahead, anyhow, put your hand in His. Let Him lead you. Look up, don't look ahead. You say, "Why, why others make fun of me about my long hair, and me taking off shorts, and about me leaving the church." Huh! Suffering for His name's sake is growing pains of His grace. Yeah. Suffering for His Word, see, is growing pains of His grace. Yes, sir! Just remember, it's the grace of God has been given to you. Oh, my!

95 Like Paul said (Hallelujah!), he had an infirmity, something was bothering him. The devil would buffet him, blow after blow. And he consulted the Lord, three times, to take it away from him, said, "I don't want this, Lord. Take it away from me!"
And then one night the Lord spoke to him, said Saul, or, "Paul, my grace is sufficient."
He said, "Then I'll glory in my infirmity. I'll glory in it. I know You're the Healer. I've seen You heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out devils, open the eyes of the blind. But if I've consulted You, and You tell me it's Your grace is sufficient, then this devil that bothers me is the growing pains of Your grace. Then I'll glory in my infirmities. Why? Lest I get exalted above the abundance of the revelation," see.

96 See, he had something the other disciples didn't have; he saw Him after His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. He saw Him. Some of them say, "Well, I walked with Him." So did everybody on the street. But after He was dead, buried, rose, and ascended up, and returned back in the form of a pillar of fire, He talked to Paul. That was more than any of the rest of them had. Amen.
He said, "Except I get exalted and want to build great big seminaries and everything else, and great big something another, lest I get exalted above the abundance of this revelation, God let a messenger of the devil keep me beat down." He said, "Then when I'm weak, I'm strong." Amen. Amen. Growing pains of grace! Amen. We could stay on that a long time; an hour and forty-five minutes has passed, and we're suffering His grace pains.

97 Oh, He may permit crossroads. He may permit crossroads to try us, to perfect us for His service. He may permit that now, church, both here and on tape. He may permit the crossroads for our service.
Like He did Daniel. He give Daniel a little crossroads one day. You know, he was a great man down in Babylon. He did. He let the king turn against him and throw him in the lions' den. It only perfected him. Sure did.
Let the Hebrew children go into the fiery furnace. They was determined to stand for His Word.
He may permit cross words, let them laugh at you for having long hair, let them laugh at you for saying why you become a holy-roller or whatever more. They may let you laugh ... they may laugh at you for that, that's all right. That's a crossroad; that's a little junction. That's to prove something.
See, the only thing that the crossroad did to the Hebrew children that stood on the Word, it only loosed them from the bands they had around their feet and legs.

98 And sometime it takes hard trials to break the bands of the world off of us. Sometimes God lets us have a little trial, you know, to see what we'll do, to take you out of the world. Or other words, let you have a little trial and knock you out of that organization, and that idea that "the Methodist is the only one, the Baptist, or the Pentecostal, or that's the only group they got. If you don't believe it like my church believe it, you don't believe at all." Sometimes He lets a little trial happen. Maybe you got a sick baby. Maybe something takes place right at the hour of death. Maybe someone taken from you, or something. What's it to do? To break you away, to show you something, open your eyes. Maybe you come to criticize, sometime. Maybe you're listening to this tape just to criticize. Maybe God's doing that to break some of the worldly bands that's got you bound down.
Like a drowning man in the river, you have to take the man out of the river before you can get the river out of the man. That's right. You have to get him out of the river first, then you get the river out of him. Sometime God has to do it that way. He permits the junctions, crossroads to do that. Stand on His promises, the Word, for they never fail. The future, that's in His hand. Stand like they did, don't give way.

99 Abraham, at his crossroads, knew that God could raise up his son from the dead, from whence he received him at the crossroads. Abraham come to his crossroad. And after he had trusted God and had seen all the miracles of God. Twenty-five years he'd waited on a boy, a promised son, and then God told him to go sacrifice the very thing that he had waited for. My, oh, my, what a time! But did Abraham stagger? Read Romans the fourth chapter, said "he was fully persuaded." Amen. He was fully persuaded of what God had promised, God was able to do. Amen. He permitted the crossroad. He was showing through Abraham, to us, see, He's able to raise the dead.
Abraham said, "I received him as one from the dead." Sarah's womb was dead; and his body was dead; he was an old man. She had no milk veins to feed the baby. And they didn't have... Well, there was nothing. And he was sterile, himself, and she was sterile, see. There's no way at all. And he received him as one from the dead; he said, "If God can do that, God can raise him up from the dead. For the same God that told me the baby would come, and I stood and it come, He can raise him from the dead." For He makes everything work together for the good to them that love Him. Amen.

100 God who made the promise, in the last days these things would happen that we see happen! If He promised a son, and the son came; if He promised all these things that we see through the Scripture, and it did, let's get into the rhythm of it. He promised in the last days these things would take place, and we see it. He promised that He would send Jesus. Hallelujah. There will be a Millennium! There will be a new day. There will be a day that the sun will never go down no more, for the... We'll need it no more, for the Lamb is the light of the city to where we're going. Amen.
The dawning of a new day, I feel it all over me now. The light of a new day! The light of a day where there is no night, there is no darkness, no shadows, no skies, no dim, dark skies, no midnights, no graves, no flowers on the hillsides, no funeral processions, no doctors, no morgues. Amen. I can feel the rays of His light breaking through upon my soul. The new day! The old one is pressing away.
As I feel the mortal blood pouring through my body, I feel the surge of the Holy Ghost come in behind, "Rise, and shine."

101 Something said, "Billy Branham, you're getting old, you're getting weak, your shoulders are dropping, your hair's turning gray and falling out." That's right. And darkness and gross darkness upon the earth!
"But rise, and shine!" I feel falling there the surge of light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ which has made me a new creature in Him. I look for that day, amen, for the new day. I don't know what the future is. I don't know what it holds, 1964, holds for me or nothing else, but I hold the hand of Him that holds eternity, who is eternity. Amen.
Abraham knowed that God could raise him up again, so he trusted Him.

102 So, for the new year, be determined to stay with His Word and what it's promised, like others (elected) did in others' day. If you feel that you've seen the light that's broke through upon you, of Jesus Christ, His manifestation of His great Holy Spirit in these last days... And, remember, remember, stay with it, what He did; you are one of the elected; and the elected in other days, like Abraham, when he saw it, when it was all against scientific proof. Noah saw it, and it was all against scientific proof. Moses saw it, and it was all against scientific proof. These smart ages that's gone by; but the elected who saw it, stood firm. Amen.

103 And for the future, let's stand firm on the promise. God made it; it's up to God to see it through. I'm just following the rhythm. When it beats down the time and says, "This is the end of William Branham on the earth," then I'll go with the rhythm. Then I'll rise again with the rhythm. Hallelujah! The One that beat it in, beats it out, beats it in again. It's the rhythm of God, "I'll raise him up at the last days. He that believeth on me has everlasting life. He that heareth my Word and believeth on Him that sent me, has eternal life; and shall never come into the judgment, but has passed from death unto life." I'll follow the beating of the Word. Amen. Not the beating of my heart; the beating of the Word! No matter what it is, if my heart don't beat with the Word, then my heart's wrong, amen, for He is the Word. Amen. The Bible tells us that, God's Word.

104 I was listening to a program, coming up, Billy and I, a while ago. And it was this Bible ... the hour called prophecy, the hour of... What is it called? Something about prophecy. Voice of Prophecy. Really, it's the Seventh-day Adventists. They've had four or five different names. Millerites is what they was, to begin with.
They was the one that said, over there in a meeting, that I claimed to be Jesus Christ; that the Holy Father was over me, that pillar of fire, and I was Jesus Christ. Happened to be a friend of mine standing there at their little meeting, he raised up and said, "You'll have to prove that, because I'll call him right here. I want you to see one time that he ever confessed that," see, and like that. He was talking about the different cults and things on the earth.
They know. One time I tied in with them on this sabbath question. They got the old day that's passed by. The Holy Ghost is our Sabbath, the Bible said so, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, I'll give you sabbath to your soul." Not a "day." Paul said, "You that keep a day, I'm afraid of you." See, that's right. Yes, sir. "There remaineth a rest," Hebrews 4, "to the people of God, a sabbath-keeping. For we which have entered into His rest, hath ceased from our works, as God did from His."

105 But their speaker, a while ago, nice program, I have nothing against them. I'd do anything I could to help them. Forgive them freely for saying it, because they did say something that wasn't right. That's all right. Their doctrine is just like Jehovah Witness and Christian Science, and all these other cults, you see, same thing. But notice, they're just like any other organization, they're no more wrong, I guess, than the rest of them. The Word's always right, see, it'll prove itself out right. Notice.
But as he was speaking, the man said, "We've got the book-of-the-year." This writer, what is his name, the speaker of it? I forget just exactly what his name is now. He spoke for the Christian Businessmen up in Seattle here not long ago at the World's Fair. And he said, this announcer said, "This man has wrote the book, the most outstanding book for this year." I disagree.

106 The book for this year is the Bible! It's the light of the world. It's God Himself. Our book-of-the-year is the Bible. For this 1964, our book is the Bible. And all other years to come, our book is the Bible. All years that's past, it's been the book of the years passed, the book of the years to come, and it's the book of eternity. It reveals it is God. Yes, it reveals God. Every year that is to come, it's the book-of-the-year. Whenever you hear the Bible say anything, it's promise is a-vindicated, there will come an eternal, some day. The Bible is the one who gives us this promise, when you hear the Bible say that there's coming a day when Jesus will come. And as I say today now...
I got to close, because I've been here two hours, see, right at it.

107 Look, if the Bible tells us of these things that is to come, speaks of all these hours that we've passed through... The days of Noah is predicted. The days of all these others, the Scripture predicted. The days of Martin Luther was predicted, the days of Wesley, the days of Pentecostal. This hour that we're living in was predicted. Everything happened just exactly the way it was. Then when... What is it? It's the spoken Word of God, which is vindicated by God, makes it the light of the hour. See, just like the sun is. When the Word, the Word itself, is the light when it's vindicated for the time that it belongs to. See, it's vindicated, then it's the light of the hour.

108 John was the light... He was more light than Elijah and them had. Elijah... He wasn't Elijah's light, but he was Elijah in another form, a-vindicating the light, see. He was... And when Jesus come, He said, "He was a bright and shining light for a season. You love to walk in His light," see.
And John said, "Now I must dim out. I must go out now, my light's finished shining. I must go out. He must increase. He's the light."
He said, "I am the light of the world." Amen. That's right. "The same yesterday, today, and forever." And He's still the light of the world. And what is He? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." Why was He the light of the world? If He'd come, said He was Messiah, and He didn't do like the Bible said the Messiah would do, then He wasn't the light of the world. See, it's the a-vindicated Word that makes it the light of the world.

109 And in this hour that we're living in now, the a-vindicated Word of this hour! Pentecostals, you say, "speaking in tongues," and so forth. That was the day of Pentecost, that was the light of the hour then. See, this is another day. There's a light of the hour today.

110 The seventh church age, all smothered out, with Christ on the outside. The moon identifying it, all the darkness coming upon the earth. The light pressing in now, begin to show what's going to take place. The thing will be destroyed, and the light will come in and destroy it. And the Saints shall inherit the earth, the meek shall inherit the earth. The earth, the moon darkness will be took away. The darkness of the night will pass away, the darkness with their death and creeds, and away from the Word of God, perverted things that they're saying. And the light will break forth upon the day.

111 And remember, when the full Bible... Listen, in closing. When this full Bible has been thoroughly a-vindicated, then there will be an eternal Shalom, eternal peace, see.
He come, and said He was "Peace on earth, good will towards men," but the world didn't receive it, see, see. He was peace to everyone that come to Him for peace, see. Peace on earth, good will to men, He was the peace at that new year beginning, new day of God. For why? He was the vindicated light of that day, see.
But there's more Word to be vindicated. He's got to vindicate more Word. And when the last Word is a-vindicated ... is vindicated, rather, then death is swallowed up in victory, and the dead in Christ shall rise, the Millennium will set in, and it'll be one great peace, Shalom. Let's lay up for that day, brother, sister, for that one great Shalom.
Remember, the Bible is the fountain of all wisdom, and holds all hopes of the future. To the church, Shalom! Let us pray.

112 Little group present here now, I've been two hours on this little new year's message. You've been very patient. Is there one in here this morning ... or this afternoon, rather, that doesn't have Shalom, that peace that spoke, that identified Word of God when you and the Word become one? When, if the Bible says one thing, you say, "No, I can't hardly believe that that's right," then you haven't Shalom. You're not at peace with God, because His Word says one thing and you disagree with it.
And if the Word says, "Shalom, peace," and you have that peace, that every Word that God says, you can punctuate it with a "amen," and you believe it. And when you see it vindicated, you say, "Amen, that is the Word!" But does a creed, a light, a false light, the world sweep across in the shadow of the light that's being reflected to darken it out, some creed, to say, "No, I think that that was for something else. That don't mean just that," and yet the Word says it? Are you following that shadow, or are you appearing with that light?

113 Here and in the tape, whoever will listen at it, think it over just a moment. And if there's one present here that would like ... that doesn't have that light, would you raise your hand to identify yourself, that you are ready to walk in that light today? And if there's one out in the land of where this tape shall go, that you don't have it, will you raise your hand to God right where...? Turn off your recorder just in a moment when we pray, get down on your knees, and say, "Lord God, I have doubted, I've did this. I've thought, 'Well, because the church said them things couldn't be, and this wouldn't be.' But I see it's promised in the Bible, and I see too many things. The heavens even declared it, itself. And these things that are said, are happening just exactly. And God in heaven is declaring the same thing. So, I want to receive it now. Let the Word of God come into me. And let me get into the rhythm, of not listening what the church or the preacher says; but let me get into the rhythm of the Word, and see what it says. And let it bring to me, in this great symphony of God, a beating out of His will in my life."

114 Our heavenly Father, we now bring to You every hand that's up everywhere. And let the Holy Ghost of God bring to them the rhythm of the Word and its truth, that they are to be molded now into sons and daughters of God, and they are to be the reflecting of the light of God upon the earth. They are to be the manifested Word, that men and women are to live the way Jesus lived, and to believe every word of God and live by it like He did, for He said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Not just a few of the words, part of the words, but by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God.
The Word of Moses' time did not work in the days of Jesus' time. The Word in the days of the apostles does not work in this day. It's a promised Word for this day. They said themselves, and spoke it by the Holy Ghost, what would take place in the last days, how the churches would be heady, high-minded, how the whore would rise up and the harlots would be right with her, and how they would darken the earth. And the last church age, the Laodicea, Jesus would be completely taken from the church.
O Lord, let me stay with Him, the Word, and manifest His light, through all of us, as we set forth in this new year with a determination. Not knowing what this new year holds, but we're holding to Him, the Word, That knows the whole symphony from the beginning to the end. He knows every move and every junction. And Lord, we're just watching Him, keeping our eyes on Him, the Word. Then when we see these things appear, we know that we're right in the rhythm of the Word. Grant it. Save every lost soul, Lord, here, and every one that hears the tape. We commit them to Thee, for Thy kingdom's sake, in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

115 Now, there's a... Happy to be with you all this morning. So, I have just been exactly, since starting it, exactly two hours, from a quarter to eleven, till quarter to one. I told Meda. I said, "I'll be back by one-thirty." Now, we don't believe in breaking speed laws. Don't think we should do that, you see, to do it. Now we thank you. I want to say now...
Terry turned his tape recorder off, 'cause that's the one tape that goes out. I think you still got yours on, which is all right, see, 'cause I'm going to speak to the church.
I certainly appreciate you all down here. And there's lots of times I think this is a little retreat for me, to come down here on the backside of the desert, as I call it. Come back through the desert, way back up in here, and look around, see this little group out here under trees, right beside of the river. And we're on the east side of the river now. And I--I--I trust that God will bless you, each and every one. God, Shalom, be with you. That's His peace.

116 And I'm sorry, really, to have held you like this, but just to get a tape of this now. When, if the Lord willing, this is what I'm to speak on, at--at Phoenix, Sunday afternoon. Then, Monday, I'm going, little, short meetings, and so forth. I purposed in my heart this year, if the Lord willing... I--I just cut and tore, from side to side. See?
And we all know that's the identification. We know what the Third Pull is. We all, we all understand that. Now, you got, you'll have the tape. See? And I think it'll just lay dormant for a little while, until the great hour of persecution comes on. That's when it be. It'll speak. It'll be manifested just like the five straight signs without failure, perfectly. And now I think, just wait, see, to see what it done. Now I'm going back, the same again, through and through, to find out.
Short meetings. I'm going to try to have, get out every night, early. Have just like thirty minutes, and talk on something about Divine healing or something like that. And whenever I get ready to make a tape again, I'll either run down here to the backside of the desert, or up at the tabernacle or somewhere where you can make a tape, where we be among ourselves, I can say what I wish to, like that. But, see, Jesus...

117 Remember. See? I have to watch. When I seen them people just completely, arrogantly walking away, I think I've tried to express it this morning. It's gross darkness upon them. They can't help it. I forgive them, see, for not listening. And seen the things that God has done, still they don't do it. I still pray, "God, forgive them." And I mean it from my heart. Don't say it because my Master said it, but I want to feel in my heart, first, that I really do.
I don't isolate myself from people. I don't want to do that. See? Because I'm--I'm... I have a Message for them, "salvation." I have to go out among them. See? Now, I go out with the trinitarians, with Methodists, Baptists, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Seventh-Day Adventists, and everything else. Because, I'm seeking to save that which was lost, if I can; to bring It in, to show them the Light. And the Lord be with you.

118 I had our--our first little group of meetings here. I don't know whether you have them, or not, the schedule here. If some of you... I'll leave it laying here. Pastor will read it for you, where we're to meet at, and if the Lord willing. That is, the Lord willing. I have no leading for them, just simply going out, to try to do whatever I can. And if you got any loved ones around, in there, would like to come to one of the meetings, why, you write them a letter and tell them to attend one of these meetings.

119 God bless you. It's nice to seen you, Brother Stricker and Sister Stricker, and all the rest of you people here. Now, some of them, I don't even know your names. But I--I know you by the witness of the Holy Spirit, that you're my brothers and sisters. And--and my love and respect is for you. And it's such a great pleasure, be down here with you.
And I know how you--you had your dinner set here, going to have a little fellowship dinner. Only wish it possible I could stick around. And--and I know it's good. I--I know you got the best cooks in the country. I know that's right. But I'll probably have to get mine on a hamburger, going up. But, anyhow, I got appointments that I have to do. My time is just allotted, little bit here and a little bit there. You all understand, I'm sure. [Congregation says, "Amen."] It isn't because I wouldn't want to stay. God knows that. I wouldn't come down here... See?

120 Someone said, "Would you go down there and preach to thirty people, when you could be preaching the same thing to ten thousand?" Certainly. That don't make any difference, the size. I want to see where It's received.
"Cast not your pearls before swine. They turn and trample them under your feet, then will turn and rend you." See? But you don't cast your pearls there.
And I feel that, what I say here, is not casting pearls before swine. I think it's showing, children, jewels that belong to them. See? He'll work the tool, a thousand times, in the muck and dirt.
You ever notice a lily, where it comes from? Right out of the bottom of the slimy pit of the pond. And it toils, day and night, to get itself to the light. But when it once gets to light, blooms out, and the most beautiful flower there is anywhere. That's what a lily is. It comes up from the dirt of the earth, and the filth.
That's where the jewels are found, wrapped up out here in this gold state of the nation. Where you find gold is down in the dirt. Where you find rubies and jewels is in muck dirt. Just exactly right. That's where we all come from, the muck and dirt from the world. But these here...

121 I'm a prospector. What does a prospector do? He hunts for gold. Then, when he does, he shines it. And he beats it out, and smelts it, and he gets it ready.
This is the Gold mine. See? I'm looking through here, all the time, for beautiful jewels. See? Find them out here, somewhere in the dust, and polish them up. And say, "Lord, here they are. Here's a brother. Here's a born-again Christian. Here's a fine, young lady. Here's a fine, middle-aged, old woman, my, young woman, whatever it is. Here they are, Lord. They're Your jewels. Put them in Your crown, Lord. They'll shine forever and ever, like that."
Until I see you, Shalom. God's peace with you!
All right, pastor, come here. All right. God bless you now. And I'll see you all a little later.

Shalom

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 ...service on New Year's eve. Maybe if we just... Opening up, this is my first real campaign since the New Year's. I had a few nights at home, then was down at that Ft. Huachuca (is that what you pronounce it) Now, I can't see how you spell Huachuca with an "H."

2 We don't, we're not going to have a rear view mirror affair. A rear view mirror only looks back and sees where you have been. We're looking forward to see where we're going, see. That which is in the past... Paul said, "Forgetting those things which are in the past, I press towards the mark of the high calling in Christ." And that's what we want to do.
A man... We could look back fifteen, sixteen years ago, when I come to Phoenix the first time. There's been many things happen since then, good and bad. That all goes to the judgment, in the hands of God. But what I'm looking forward now, is what will I do in this coming year towards betterment, the kingdom, doing more, all that I can for the kingdom of God.

3 Now this afternoon I want to speak this New Year's message to the church in Christ. And then tomorrow night we're going to start praying for the sick, and we'll give out prayer cards between ... I think the service starts at 7:30. Better be here about six or quarter after, then, to get your prayer card so it won't interfere with the rest of the service. We want to thank the management here of the Ramada for letting us have this building for this meeting for this convention. The Lord bless them.

4 And now, if you wish to turn in the Scriptures to where we're going to read, I'm going to read from Isaiah, the 60th chapter and the 2nd ... 1st and 2nd verse, and Psalms 62:1-8---Psalms 62:1-8 first:
Truly my soul waiteth upon God; from him cometh my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.
How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence.
They only consult to cast down ... to cast him down from his excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly, Selah.
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defense; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, ... my refuge, is in God.
Trust in him ... all the time; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

5 I like the way David speaks that, the rock... You notice so many times, "God is my rock." You know what a rock is referred to in the Bible? "Rock" is a revelation. Like Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
He said, "Blessed art thou Simon, son of Jonas, and upon this rock [this revelation---God revealed it to him.]... Flesh and blood never revealed this, but my Father which is in heaven. Upon this rock [this revelation] I'll build my church."
David here crying out, "God is my rock [my revelation]."

6 Now in the 60th chapter of Isaiah, the 1st and 2nd verse:
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold, ... darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
Let us pray. Lord Jesus, as meditating upon these words we go now into starting this service, to the honor of Thee. Bless us, Father, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

7 Now, my subject this afternoon is one word. "Shalom" in the Hebrew means "peace." "Peace"---or it's a greeting. It's a "Peace be unto you," or "Welcome, good morning"---any kind of a greeting. But the main word I found in the Hebrew, yet, there's many things that it means, but all pertaining to the same thing: peace.

8 As we face this new year, we are facing both, as I have read, darkness and light. Now, we see that David speaking here said, "Trust in the Lord. Put your confidence in Him." Isaiah said, "Gross darkness is coming upon this people," but for the church to rise and shine in the glory of the light. So we face this year just like we do all years. There is a regret of our mistakes in the past, and a looking forward for a future of the glorious light of Christ. No doubt if we live through this year, we'll find many mistakes that we have made. And we just expect that because it goes along the pro and con. That's the law of average that we live by here in this life. But we're so glad we have a mediator who sits at the right hand of God, to make intercessions. When we are willing to admit our mistakes that we done wrong, then He forgives them. He's full of grace and mercy to forgive us for those mistakes.

9 This gross darkness I wish to speak on first---that there is so much of that in the world today, and growing darker and darker all the time. Each year we find that, that the world gets darker, spiritually speaking, because they're groping in darkness. There's more sin. Just passing through what we have, the assassination of the President and so forth; and people being murdered right here in our country, where we wouldn't think that would happen in the time of modern civilization. But we sure have it, because gross darkness is upon the people.
Now, those who will not turn to light, then there's only one
thing I can say for the coming year: you're going to stoop darker and darker as the year goes on. But to those who will turn, on this new year, to the light, then you'll get brighter and brighter unto that perfect day that we look for His appearing, where all darkness will be faded away. And the reason of that is why I say to the church of the living God today, "Shalom," because we are His light. Jesus said, "Ye are the light of the world."

10 Now, the prophet said, "gross darkness upon this people," upon the people of the world, gross darkness. Have you noticed in the last few years, some of you men and women around my age, at how each year it seems like that darkness comes, more and more? I was speaking the other day, and I said to my wife, "You know, it seems like that as the years go on, and it just seems like that people begin to get further and further away from the real thing that they should be coming closer and closer to."
I notice amongst men (look out on the street), and most amongst the women---watch their desires and what they like to do, and their changing attitudes all the time. Men are becoming more like women, and women are becoming more like men, and seems like there's no way to stop it. I cross the nation preaching against the thing, and come back the next year and it's worse than it was when I started. It's ... them people want to do right, but they ... there's something about it that won't let them do right. It just presses down on them, forces them. It's like a heavy dark fog over the whole earth, not only in Phoenix, but all over the world. There seems to be just a groping darkness that's gathering, getting more dense and dense all the time, just smothering out real manhood, real womanhood. I'm talking in the natural.

11 And they... Seems like that the ... it's coming more and more into the churches. And then when you raise up and say something against it, then they condemn you for doing it. See, you can see it coming, and then when you speak against it, somebody misunderstands it. Sometimes women misunderstand it, men misunderstand it, take the wrong attitude. Men sometimes, good men, have to cope with such things in order to hold their life in the religious ranks that they belong to; because if they don't, they're excommunicated, and then they're on their own.
And then being once excommunicated from a certain people, then it's hard to get in with someone else, because they once knew that you belonged to this other group. Then what happens over here? Then you've got to stand to your convictions, or go on your own; or deny your convictions. So it makes it real hard for the people.

12 Now, it looks like the time is, you can't see that real stand out, like men ought to be. I ... even in taking it back from the spiritual now to the natural, I ... it seems to me that men wearing velvet pink shoes, and all kinds of things like that, it just seems like they become more like women. And women smoking cigarettes (now they've got cigars), and they just cut their hair like men, and it seems like it's ... the dainty, lady, feminish something is gone. And the real masculine man is gone. All he seems to think about is something evil on the other side. I think it's just about like it was in the beginning. Every thought in a man's heart continually becomes evil.
Our programs, television and radio, is uncensored. Men can say anything, nearly, they want to, even swear, and say dirty, smutty jokes that simply ... it's not ought to be ... shouldn't be said in a barroom. Yet, they can say it on television, on the radio, and send it right into the peoples' homes. It seems like that gross darkness covers the whole thing. The whole world seems to become polluted.

13 Now, for years I've been trying to hold a standard, God's Word. And I'm more determined this coming year to hold that standard than I ever was in my life, stand right straight with that Word. Now, I hope that anyone that gets in their minds that I'm doing that to act smart, then brother, sister, you're certainly wrong. I'm doing that because I'm duty bound to that. I am bound to stay with that Word, whatever it says, put no private interpretation, just say it that way.
Now, there's some that might be able to interpret it, and make it sound a little different, but I can't do that. The only language I know is what's wrote on here, just the way it is, this way.

14 Now, a few ... about three years ago it will be now, that at home (at my home church) the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "Go to Tucson. There's something waiting." I stood on this platform and told every one of you, "Thus saith the Lord, something's fixing to happen." There's probably hundreds of people sitting here that know it. I just told you what I saw. The message is on tape, "What Time Is It, Sir?"
I saw a constellation of angels, like a pyramid, come down just north of Tucson---up in this way, north of Tucson. And they spoke to me something, and I didn't know what it was. And one day---there's men sitting right present now, two of them, that was with me back over there when that happened---and they took the picture of it in the sky, and it come out in the magazine. I thought I had a copy of it (there it is), you see it here in "Life" magazine, this copy, just exactly the way the Holy Spirit said it would be.
And there stood those seven angels, just as natural as you see me standing here, and told me to return to my home, that the mysteries that the reformers down through the ages had failed to pick up (the mysteries of the Bible which the seven seals held), would be revealed. I challenge anybody to get those "Seven Seals" and look them over, and find a fault with them, see, because it's given by inspiration of God.
Prior to that I preached on the "Seven Church Ages," and then drawed them out on the blackboard in my tabernacle.

15 My doctrine... I don't preach doctrine out here, nothing but just the great evangelical fundamentals; because I'm with brethren might differ with me, and I don't give that out before the people here. I just try to stay on the real fundamentals of the Scripture such as what we believe. But at my tabernacle, they tape it. If you want it, you can have it. If your pastor don't want you to have it, don't take it. See, that's up to you.
But in there, preaching on the seven church ages (and have the sanction from God), drawing them out; of how that the darkness come into the church, Nicaea, the church angels, the messengers. It must have been right. For, as soon as I got them drawed, at the last church age on Sunday morning at eleven o'clock, that great light came down into the building before almost as many people as sitting here; come down and flickered itself on the side of the wall, before all those people, and drawed those church ages just exactly the way I had them drawed there. Now, there's hundreds and hundreds of witnesses there to prove that.
Just ...

16 well now, we realize that God always shows things in the heaven before He shows them on the earth---like the wise men followed the star, so forth. The heavenly sign takes place first. Then the earthly vindicates the heavenly sign. God deals, works in signs---signs and wonders. They're to follow believers, everywhere. The Jews always looked for a sign, 'cause they were God's chosen. And they looked for the sign. "Show us the sign. Then we'll believe."
And then when the wise men came with their story, those Magis, of the birth of Christ, just at the new year...

17 Now, we find that the moon in the Bible represents the church. It shows light on the earth in the absence of the sun. Revelation, the 12th chapter, really explains that---the woman with the moon under her feet, the sun at her head---and how that in the absence of the sun (when the sun is gone to the other side), the moon reflects the sun to the earth. The church is to reflect Jesus Christ to the world in the absence of the Son of God. We all believe that.
It's a strange thing, much has been different.

18 But speaking here in 1933 of the pope taking His place out of ... or coming out, rather, of Rome, and making a visit to the holy lands---he'll also come here. And the strange thing is, a few nights before he left Rome (for the first time it ever was in history), the moon came down, and went in a total eclipse, just that (what was it?) shadowing off the reflected light of the sun.
In this he spoke to the orthodox father, and they're all in agreement. The pope does this for fellowship, good neighborly fellowship, which sounds to the natural ear the most wonderful thing could happen. But to the spiritual ear, it's darkness.
Now, how that we churches, we Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostals can ever join into such a mess as that, and knowing our Bible teaches us different... It's a marvelous thing to me that how Spirit-filled men can sit in places and say it feels spiritual to be in such a place. To me, it's horrible.

19 Now, I guess you got it here at Phoenix. If anyone ... how many here ever seen where I had that picture drawed of the church ages? Raise up your hands like that. See how the Lord drawed them in the skies the other night? Just exactly the way it's drawed up there at the tabernacle. Perfectly exactly, the way that the Holy Spirit gave it by inspiration three years ago at the tabernacle, there it happened in the skies. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established."
The Holy Spirit first---moved by inspiration, I drawed them on the platform. Then He came down Himself and made His vindication of it, as the moon and a light going out, going out, into this Laodicea age, going into total darkness again. And here He comes down and vindicates it on the moon, just at the time that all the churches are going together in a consolidation of the federation of churches. No wonder Isaiah said, "Gross darkness is upon the earth, upon this people."

20 I know it's not popular to speak against organization, but that's the mark of the beast. That's the thing that's carrying us right into that, making an image unto the beast. I don't say that for ... to be angry; I say that because it's truth, brother. The day will come when Phoenix will raise up, and maybe I've gone on, but you'll know that that was thus saith the Lord. It is true. And how that the great Holy Spirit has vindicated those messages, and foretold the thing, never to fail one time!
And why do we grope on in darkness? Why don't people wake up, before it's too late? One of these days it'll be too late, when you've already taken the mark. And then there's no ... there's nothing else you can do about it, then. You'll be caught in that system, that you're marked with that system.

21 Why don't you come to Christ? Be filled with the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, His resurrecting power that can set you free, and make you a candle that sits on a hill.
No matter how dark it gets, say, "Why should we do it? The
rest of them..." Listen! Right now is the time to let it shine, when it's the darkest. That's when light shines better, is when it's in darkness. We must always let the light shine where it's dark. Prophet saying gross darkness would be upon this people, and it certainly is the truth.
Now we find out, what made the moon reflecting the light: God showing first on the blackboard, next by His own presence, then in the heavens He showed the sign. And then out of Rome went the pope over into Palestine, which to the ordinary eye... People screamed, and fell on their faces, and worshipped the man---not any more against him than I would be a minister that would join up with such. It's all the same spirit.

22 It seems like that gross darkness is settled upon the people, till they think that only thing there is to do is go to church, and be a pretty good person, put your name on a book; and some little mysterious thing, God'll twist the key when you die, and change that spirit in you to Him. You're mistaken. When you die that spirit's on you. That's the way you'll forever be. And remember the Pharisees, Sadducees, and so forth, was very religious people.

23 God is a jealous God. He's jealous, and He wants His wife pure. He wants her a virgin, chaste, nothing in the world into it at all, altogether His Word, part of Him. We must be a part of the Word, not a part of the creed; a part of the Word, not a part of the church; a part of the bride. Church is condemned, we know that. She goes to outer darkness. But the bride goes up.

24 Now, if people could only wake up for a few moments, and realize what the great thing is. It's pride that does that. It's people who wants to go like the rest of the world. You can't do that; you're not of the world. Do you think a woman laying in a casket would want to know whether she had her hair water-doed, or whatever you want to call it? Do you think she'd pay attention to how she was dressed if she was laying in a casket, or some man? They wouldn't do it.
That's the reason, today, there's so much stuff that we have to copy after---the neighbors, or some Hollywood star, or some fashion or something like that---is because that we haven't died yet, to Christ and His Word. What's the matter with the churches? We're in darkness, groping in darkness. Said there would be gross darkness upon the people, gross darkness on the people now.

25 What does it all mean? It means this: that when the world ... what made the moon fade out, was because that the sun ... the earth got in the shadow of the sun that would reflect itself on the earth. The world got in the shadow. That's what's the matter with the church. That's what's the matter with the Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostals. That's what's the matter with all of us.
The world shuts out the light that we're supposed to be reflecting. Swings itself around and gets into it, and as they pass one another it throws darkness over it. And the world has come into the church in the name of denomination, the name of some creed, and we're religious, and all this, and all this. But yet it denies the resurrecting power of Christ that vindicates His Word as prophesied for this day.
There can only be light through the Word of God. We know that. God in the beginning said, "Let there be light," and there was light, vindication of His word that He had spoken.

26 Blackness, blacked out... The world got in line with the reflection of the sun to the moon, and blacked it out. That's exactly what's happened in the natural, or in the spiritual. As it happened in the natural, foreshadowed and told us, that's exactly what's taken place. Now you see how that comes out at the end. Many of you young people, you won't have to get too old until you'll see it anyhow, if you live three or four more years.

27 The moon... Now we're in the Laodicea church age. In the Laodicea church age---of all of the other churches, the Laodicea, last, lukewarm church age---Christ was on the outside of the church. Any Bible reader knows that, Revelations 3. He was on the outside of the church trying to get His way back in again, and it never did say He got in. But as many as He loved, He rebuked and chastened. The message would rebuke and chasten those who He loved. Now He's knocking, trying to get in. Darkness, shut off, exactly what come to pass. The light that has been shining soon will absolutely be shut completely out. It'll all go in to form an image unto the beast. We know what that means. That's the end-time.

28 God in the beginning separated the light from the dark, and that's again what God's a-doing. God separates light from dark. In the beginning He said, "Let there be light." Now, remember. There can be no light outside of this word of God. The very sun out there is the Word of God, vindicated. There was gross darkness upon the earth, fog and mist upon the earth, and God said, "Let there be light." Now, what if no light come? Then it wouldn't do Him no good to speak. But when He said, "Let there be light," and light come into existence, vindicating that His word was right... That light we live by today. And the only light that we can have today in the church, is God vindicating His light to this generation.

29 Each generation was 'lotted ... so much happened in their day. We all know that. The prophets come on the scene. They ... the word of the Lord came to them, understood it. "Seer" in the Old Testament means that's one that the word is revealed to. Now, how do they know it? Because he foreknows things that'll come. Then the word of the Lord came to them, each age.
Jesus said (to John) about John, "He was a bright and shining light for awhile." Why? Isaiah, 712 years before he was born said, "There's a voice of one crying in the wilderness." Malachi, the 3rd chapter, said, "Behold, I send my messenger before my face to prepare the way before Me." See, he was that word being vindicated, the word that was promised for that day. He was the light, because he was making come to pass the very word that God had spoke about him.
And when Jesus came, John said, "I must fade out now. He must come in view." And He was the light. All down through the ages, how God spoke of that hour coming.

30 How did those clergymen fail to see it? How did they fail? How did those Pharisees and Sadducees fail to see? He said, "Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they that testify of Me." How did they fail to see it, brethren? Just because it'd been prophesied that they would do it.
And so is it today, that gross darkness is coming upon the people and here we are. God has 'lotted His word to be manifested this day. And it's the only light we have. And God's going to let somebody manifest that word. Somebody's going to do it. He promised it, and He works just exactly like He always did by it. He's never changed His pattern of work. He prophesies what will happen, then He sends somebody down and vindicates that. And it goes over the head of millions because darkness covers the earth at that time. And people love darkness better than they do light, 'cause darkness has a lot of pleasure.
I seen a Hollywood play, not long ago, said, "Life begins after the sun goes down." That's when death begins. All these night clubs, and where they think they're living---they're dying.

31 God at the beginning separated the light from the darkness. He's always done that. What does He do? He presses the... By the coming light He presses the darkness to the other side of the earth.
And that's exactly what's coming to pass now. It's just before day. The morning stars come out to hail the day coming, and the Holy Spirit showing its light. It's coming a time when the light and darkness will have to be separated one from the other. Church and its order will take the order of the day. And Christ and His light---Word promised---will go in the rapture. That's the only thing that's left for them to do. It's the day. Today is the dawn of a new day for many who are looking for His coming.

32 So many good sincere people today, that's what burns the heart. So many good sincere people, like Mary and Joseph. They were coming from the feast, and they missed Jesus. Many people do that same thing today, thinking that He's with them.
Now, I want to place this little light to you, to show you how infallible the Word of God is. We all here this afternoon who are Christians, believe that Jesus Christ was God's Word manifested. We believe He was virgin-born. He was a tabernacle which Almighty God tabernacled in, here on earth---not just a prophet, not just an ordinary man---but God Himself, manifested in the form of a man. He was Emmanuel, God with us. We believe that with all of our heart.
And now, notice when Martha, or

33 Mary rather, and Joseph, thinking Jesus was with them... They were just perceiving He was with them, thinking, "It just must be all right. He's bound to be with us." But they were sadly mistaken. He wasn't.
So many good people is like that today. They think they see the hour approaching. They know something's fixing to happen. What do they do? They go join church, thinking He's with them. They shake hands with the preacher, thinking that's all they have to do, He's with them. Confirmed or baptized a certain way, that's all they have to do, thinking Jesus is with them. Brother, sister, just like Mary and Joseph of old---real sincere people, yet they are mistaken.

34 Your life proves whether Jesus is with you or not. Your life shows whether He's occupied here, or whether He's still in His heavens or not. Whatever you are, "The works that I do shall you do also." How could you have Christ in you and then the very Spirit in you deny His Word? Take up a creed instead? It can't do it. He would defeat Himself by denying His own Word. Just because somebody put a wrong interpretation to it... You got a Bible, you can read like anybody else. Be sincere.
David said, "Put Him always before your face." Know that when we're meeting this new year, we're meeting it in the power of the resurrection of Christ. "He's always before me. I shall not be moved."

35 Notice how infallible the Word is. Mary and Joseph... Now, to you my dear Catholic friends, that said Mary was the mother of God. Mary wasn't even the mother of Jesus, let alone being the mother of God. How could she be? Not one time did He ever address her as "Mother." Not at all.
They come to Him one time and said, "Your mother and brothers wait outside."
He looked out over His congregation, said, "Who is my mother? Who is my brethren?" Looked to His disciples, said, "The ones that does the will of my Father, that same is my mother." On the cross when He was dying, He also spoke the same thing. He said to John, "John [here, this man], son, behold your mother." Not "Mother, behold thy son"; "Woman, behold your son." Not...
She was no mother of God. She was just a borrowed womb that God used. No more than any other woman that God'd take a notion to use. He might use your ... the womb of your heart to declare His Son, if you'd just let Him do it, see. Not no mother of God. It had to be a sensation even to be a seed of Mary. Wasn't even a seed from Mary,

36 it was... The whole thing was God, the Creator. If the first Adam back there was created without a father or mother, the second Adam was the same thing. Anything less than that wouldn't put Him on equal with him. That's right. The same God created a body that He, Himself, dwelt in.
Now, we find... Look how ... look, if Mary was the mother of God, how she slipped up there. She said, "Thy father and I have sought thee with tears," denying the virgin birth. "Thy father, Joseph, and I have sought Thee."
Watch that twelve-year-old boy, twelve-year-old child saying, "Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business, debating with them denominations up there?" Now, if He was with ... about Joseph's business, He'd a-been down in the carpenter's shop. Joseph wasn't His father; God was His father. "Don't you know I ought to be about my Father's business?" Up there at twelve years old with them learned priests, not a day in school---but yet, they were astonished at the wisdom.
Look at the...

37 He was the Word. When He was born, he was the Word. He's still the Word! Notice, the Word will not take counterfeit. She said, "Thy father and I have sought Thee with tears."
Said, "Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business?". Rebuked His own mother! Why? He was the Word.
There'd be a question in somebody's mind if Mary here, who once said, "The Holy Ghost overshadowed, and brought forth the Son," and then here calling Joseph the father. The Word's infallible. It can't fail.
"Know not that I ought to be about my Father's business?" And He was about the Father's business---not Joseph's business, making doors and carpenter things---He was about His Father's business, straightening out the religious politics they had in that day. "Know ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
Yes, sir.

38 Many people today, and a lot of these fine churches, are going into that council of churches. Not going in; they're already there. They are perceiving that that's just exactly the thing to do. Friendly, nice. "Why can't we all come together?" Why, they've been trying all for years. Make all Methodists Baptist, and all Baptists Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and trying to make all of them Pentecostals. You can't do that. But a council is the answer for you. That's the answer, what the Bible says they will do. And that's just exactly what they've done---friendly churches. Yes, sir. A get-together, "Fine, let's have fellowship."
The Bible said, "How can two walk together unless they be agreed?"

39 Some of them deny the virgin birth. Eighty percent of the Protestant churches deny the virgin birth. And they deny the baptism of the Holy Ghost, they deny the signs of His coming, the resurrection power, they deny that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. How can you, when God put all this chaos in the world because a woman one day doubted one little phase of His Word!
Satan told her the truth, all but one thing. But that was the thing that caused all the trouble. Now it's all this heartache and sadness that you have to look at, because one little phase of it was doubted. Do you think one little phase of doubt will ever take us in? That's the reason Jesus is coming for a chaste virgin, pure, filled with the Holy Ghost---not of the world, but of the power of God.
Oh, how wonderful to know that there is a possibility to get into this group. How do you do it? You'll never do it by joining another organization. You'll do it when you're baptized by the Holy Spirit into the mystical body of Jesus Christ, raised with Him in resurrection, free from death and sin. That's the only way.

40 Darkness, great denominations, a great group of men get together and sets their ideas about it, and that throws you right back into a twist like it was at the beginning. No hopes at all in that case; you're simply gone. And all of them seem to be so stirred up about this friendly church; think that God will be with them.
Well, the millennium is going to start when the council all gets together up there, and all the ecumenical moves, and so forth, and they join in. What are they doing? Making an image unto the beast, a power that where all the undenominationals, and so forth, that won't join in with them will be shut out. Just watch and see if that happens. I've got it wrote down here, the very day the Lord let me see that in 1933. And here it is, just exactly the way it did, way it said. It's coming the same way, how the pope would leave Rome, and so forth.

41 Now, they are good people, but mistaken. Joseph and Mary was fine people, but real mistaken. But what was it? God used a twelve-year-old boy to show that that Word has to stay pure, exactly what it was, what it said the first place. He was virgin-born. And that's what He was. Thinking He was with them when they joined the churches, and so forth... But it wasn't.
Now, but to the elected... Now, as to darkness, I could stay on that for another hour. But to the elected, precious, and called saints of God, I say to you, this coming year, "Shalom, God's peace."

42 The hour is here. If I could have been back there before the days that the world was created, and looked down and seen the whole thing, and the Father had said to me, "What day would you want to live?"
I'd say, "Now, right now."
This is the hour. This is the greatest hour that the church has ever moved into, just before the coming of the bridegroom. Oh, the real church of the living God ought to be on fire, burning with the light of the gospel being vindicated among them. "Rise and shine; for the light is come to you." The light of this day... Isaiah was the light of his day, Noah was the light of his day. Why? He had the Word manifested. And the gospel, the Bible word for this day, is the light of the day. What a glorious time that we're living.

43 Now, "good morning" means peace. Darkness is gathering. What's it gathering for? To show the light. Isaiah 60:1, "Rise and shine; for the light is come to you." That's the reason I can say "Shalom." The light has come to you, God's peace to the elected woman, to the elected lady, those who God, before the foundation of the world, called out and ordained to that. The rest of them'll never see it. They'll never know nothing about it. The Bible said so. Jesus said, "No man'll come to Me except my Father draws him first. And all the Father has given Me will come."

44 Back there stood Judas. Light shining up here, but back in his heart was dark seed. When the showdown come, the darkness showed.
Here was a little old woman all blacked out up here in front, but down here was a predestinated seed. And when the light come, it scattered the darkness. It showed forth, "We know Messiah's coming. And when He does, He'll show us these things."
Jesus said, "I am He." But Judas doubted it, yet supposed to be walking in the light.
See, the light up here doesn't matter; it's the light down here that counts. The light up here will walk in fellowship, and everything else. But when the real power of God comes in, it can't come back to this dead seed. It'll reflect off into a denomination. But when it's back down here, a genuine predestinated seed, when that light comes down here and shoves all the darkness away from you, and puts you in fellowship with Christ...
He was the one who gave you the life before the foundation of the world. Otherwise you'll never see it, what God said.

45 Now, to you predestinated seed, Shalom. Amen. God's peace rest upon you, because we're near the end now. We're right down near the end. We're going to talk about that group for awhile.
Shalom, God's light has come. The word light is vindicated again, so that you can see the manifestations of the promise of God for this day. Search the scriptures. In them you think you have eternal life. They testify of the day that we're living in.
What is the light of the day? What did the Bible promise for this day? See what hour it is.

46 No wonder that Jesus rebuked them for not believing John. He was the light, because the prophet said he would come. And there he was, a manifested light. They didn't see it, they didn't understand it. They thought he was the Messiah, and they thought something else, and this and the other. They failed to see it.
Jesus come on. Two lights can't shine the same time. There can't be a church light, and God's light shine at the same time. Got to be God's light puts out the church light---that exactly what's taking place today. God's separating churchism from His light of the promised Word of this hour that we're living in. That's the truth, friend. You might not want to believe that, but you just wait and find out if it's true or not. Don't wait. You better get in right now, while there is a chance to get in.

47 The Word is light when it's vindicated. Until the Word that is promised for the day is vindicated, then it is not light. It cannot be. If God said, "Let there be light," no sun come into existence, there's no sign of light. But when God said, "Let there be light," then there was light. When God promised a Messiah, Messiah come. Then His Word was fulfilled, and He was the light of the hour. When He promised Noah, and He promised the others, and on down, they was the light of the hour.
And there's a light of the hour today. That's Jesus Christ in the power of His resurrection. His Word that's promised for this day: "The works that I do shall you do also. Greater than this shall you do, for I go to the Father." Greater works, greater things than He did. You believe it? I believe it.
It seems humble. It seems like it goes over the top of people's heads. Look. When He was here on earth, how could you do greater works? I translated that many times---more, but the same thing. "Greater," He said in St. John 14:12. "Greater works than this shall you do."

48 Did you notice, when He went to make water into wine, He took water first (already created substance), and turned it into wine. When He fed five thousand people, He took a fish that once swam in the water, broke it, handed it out, and multiplied creation. He took bread that was once wheat, baked into bread, broke it, and (hung it out), handed it out to the people, and it returned back again, multiplied creation.
But in the last days, where there is no sign of creation, He speaks it into creation anyhow: shows that He's the same God that was in the beginning. He can create squirrels, He can create whatever He wants to, because He's God. "Greater things than this will you do, for I go unto my Father." The Word's infallible. It has to be manifested. It has to be fulfilled. "Greater than this shall you do"---not multiplying, but speaking out into creation.

49 Notice at the Word now, when He promised... Where are we at then? What day are we living in? What is the hour? The manifesting of the Word of God, like it is in all hours. You got the message on the seven church ages. Watch exactly how each one of those beasts that went out, and the beasts that followed them. Watch exactly, if they didn't hit down through the reformers' age, and every age just exactly the way it was supposed to be, exactly what the Word said.
And so will the Holy Spirit manifest today just exactly what the Bible said it would be. We see the shadowing in the heavens and on earth, and all the things, and the councils and things getting ready. And we see in the midst of all of this, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ promised for this day, manifesting itself. We're living in a wonderful time.
Shalom, to you who have Word down in your heart, chose before the foundation of the world to hear the Word for this day. If you don't, it's a bad year for you ahead. If you are, it's a great world for you ahead, a great day, great year coming.
Now, New Year. Not to turn a new page---lot of people tries to turn a new page on New Year; turn it back the next day.

50 Like a little story I was reading the other morning. A woman hollered in to her husband, who'd got up early and went out and got the morning paper, and was reading the morning paper. He said... She said, "Is there anything new in the news?
He said, "No, just the same thing, only different people."
That's about the way it is today, same thing. We got new organizations; same old doctrine. Just pat it around, somebody got a little phase of it going this way, or that way.
This is a new day! Hallelujah! This is a day that we should rise and shine in the power of Jesus Christ. Gross darkness settling upon the earth. There should be a new day for us. Yes, indeed, doing it just the way He does it. But turn to His Word and see the promise that's promised for this day, and you'll know whether you're living in daylight or not. Changing the calendar doesn't change the time. It only changes the calendar.

51 Now, closely listen. Do as David did. Put your future in His hands. How? What am I ... know what to do, Brother Branham?" Put your future in His hands. No matter what comes or goes, trust Him. He is the Word.
Now, David said, "His time is in my hands. Trust in Him all the time. Always trust in Him." He knew who held the future, David did. That's the reason he could say this. There's only that one holds the future. That's God. 'Stead of you hold the future, let Him hold you. All right.

52 Some people said, "But Brother Branham, I have tried, and I have tried..."
But wait a minute, patience is virtue. Patience is Holy Spirit virtue. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."
You say, "How can I wait any longer?"
Just keep on waiting. When you've done all you can do to stand, then stand, see. Just stand.
"How am I going to do it?"
Stand.
He said, "It's the truth," and it's the truth. He said, "It'll happen." How, I don't know, but it'll happen. He said so. He promised it. If He promised it, it's going to happen. That's all. They can't wait.
So now, just remember God took thousands of years to fulfill His promise of a coming Saviour. Four thousand years God took to fulfill that promise. But He knowed from the beginning just when it was going to happen. He knew. No one else did. He just said it would happen. And when it happened, the people was in such a delusion till they didn't know to how to accept it.
If that same thing hasn't repeated again! It always does. It never fails, both sides, always.

53 What did He do during these years? He showed types of His coming. He showed it in Joseph. If you'd look at Joseph's life---hated of his brothers, loved of his father. Why? Because he was spiritual, because he saw visions. The rest of them didn't see visions. They were patriarchs, but they didn't see visions, interpret dreams. But they were jealous of him.
And he was sold almost for thirty pieces of silver, raised up out of the ditch where he was supposed to be killed, sat at the right hand of Pharaoh. And when he left the throne the trumpet sounded. "Bow the knee. Joseph is coming. "Just exactly what Jesus was done. Sits at the right hand of God, and when He leaves the throne the trumpets will sound, and every knee shall bow and confess that Jesus Christ's the Son of God.
Exactly showed it in types of David, when he was up on ... a rejected king, looking over Jerusalem weeping, "How oft would I have hovered you as a hen would her brood. But you would not."

54 Down through the ages, showed it in types, knowing that some day the last type would be fulfilled, and the full manifestation of His promised Messiah would be there. And when the full promise come, though He typed it... Day after day, and year after year He typed it. And when it come to the reality, they didn't believe it.
He's done the same thing, typed it and showed it in the church ages, and everything, to the hour that we're living. And people are in gross darkness. Seems like they just can't comprehend it. Such a sad thing.

55 No more than... See the young man out here---fine, big, fine-built fellow---with his hair (what do you...?) curled up like the women do, and leotards on, and a big long sweater hanging down, and purple shoes on. Masculine? Oh, my! What a horrible thing to call a man. What a thing to call a man! That's right.
See some woman, supposed to be dainty and loving, come out with a pair of man's trousers on, a cigarette in her mouth, and bobbed hair. What a thing to call a woman! Jesus called Mary "woman." Shouldn't be even called that, just a female.

56 Notice, the hour. Why? Sometimes people who claim, and think they're sincere, but a gross darkness has got them in this. The Bible said it would be like that. Read Isaiah 6, and find out if the women wasn't to do that way in the last days. Just exactly. It's what the Bible said they would be. It's the Word of God. Jeremiah, and different ones, spoke of this hour that we're now living, 'cause they seen the end from the beginning. So we see these things, and gross darkness upon the people.

57 Yes, it took God thousands of years, showing types and everything, and finally they did not know Him when He come, though He was portrayed in Joseph, and David, and Elijah, and all down through there. He was portrayed with them.
And yet we can't understand why they didn't see it. And there it was right in the scripture: out of Bethlehem of Judea He would be born. You find it in the scriptures, how that He was to be born of a virgin. "A virgin shall conceive and bear a child." They'd call His name Emmanuel.

58 What'd they kill him for? Because He made Himself God; and He was God. Sure. They made ... he said, "He makes Himself God, equal with God."
He said, "I'm a Son of God." Why, He was.
The Bible said, "He shall be called Counselor, Prince of Peace, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, Wonderful." That's what He was. Why didn't they understand that? No wonder He said, "You ought to search the scriptures."
They said, "We're Moses' disciples."
Said, "If you was Moses' disciples, you'd know Me. Moses wrote of Me." And they didn't know it.

59 And the hour is upon the people again, when they'll go to their creeds and things instead of the lovely Jesus. That's right. These great big things come up and bring them right into more darkness, more darkness; God declaring it in His Word by signs and wonders in the heavens, and showing forth, telling things that happen just exactly to the hour and to the minute, what is take place. And then they continually walk right on the same way. Looks like they just can't help it. Good people (yes, sir!) doing the same thing now as they did then.

60 We are creatures of time. God is creatures of eternity. God is a creature of eternity. He never did begin, He never will end. So why not just commit yourself to Him? Look up and shine with the joy of the light of God's Word that's shining today. Why can't people see that, friends?
Listen. I'm your brother. I love you. Wouldn't it be easy for me just to tolerate, and go ahead and say, "Oh, well, I'll compromise on this, I comp..." I'm not made like that. No, sir. When it's the Word, it's the Word. God help us to stand for that thing 'cause it's truth. Yes, sir. It'd be fine. Sure you'd get more pats on the back. But what I ... what'd I do, stand there that day, them bony fingers point in my face and say, "You knowed better, but you failed to tell us?"
No, I'll be like Paul. "I've not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. No man's blood's upon us." Let it go where it may be, that's truth. God knows it, and He backs it up, and says it's the truth.

61 "Turn to what? To Brother Branham?" You'd be foolish to do such a thing! Turn to Christ! And He is the Word. Turn to Christ. Get away from creeds, get back into... I don't care, you might start into your creeds five hundred years ago. That ... you just... That don't mean one thing to God. Them Sadducees and Pharisees started long before you did, and were condemned.
Oh, you've tried to place your evidence of the Holy Spirit upon different actions. I believe in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. What does it do? The Pentecostal says, "Speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of the Holy Ghost."
I've seen witches and wizards speak in tongues. I've seen them speak in tongues and drink blood out of a human skull, and prophesy, and deny there was such a thing as God. I've been in the witch camps where they laid a pencil on the table, and make it jump up and down, and write in unknown tongues, and interpret it. Right. That don't have a thing... Yet, I believe God speaks in unknown tongues through His people. But you put so much stress on that. Why should there be an interpreter? Why should there have to be a message to the church?

62 Then you other people, you say, "The fruits of the Spirit, that's how we know. Love, joy---that's how we got the evidence." It is? Then Christian Science has got you all beat. They exercise that more than all you Pentecostals, Methodists, and Baptists put together.
Watch what happens. Let me show you their fruits of the Spirit and see if you can go by that anymore. Let's take Jesus. God forgive me for these words I'm going to say. I'm going to turn against Him for a minute, to show you. Take these council of men here, this council of men here this afternoon. I'll say,

63 "Sirs, there's a young fellow around here by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Have nothing to do with Him.
"Who was the first... What does our Bible teach us? God is love. Who was the first with you, when you were born? Your kind old priest. That's right. Who come to you when you was in need, didn't have no money, and loaned you some money? Your kind old priest. Exactly.
"Who put his hand on your shoulder, and on Mother's shoulder, when you're about to separate, and prayed you back to God? Your kind old priest. Who was it took sides with you when you and your neighbor was a-fussing, and brought you back together in fellowship? Your kind old priest. Right.
"Who is it ... is the last words going to say over you at the day out yonder, who is it? They'd let you lay there and rot, but your kind old priest comes and blesses you, and sends the word of God along with you. Your kind old priest.
"What about this guy called Jesus of Nazareth then? Say, what school did he come from? Your kind old priest had to sacrifice all of his life. His grandfather was a priest, his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was a priest. He put his whole time into organization. He's trained to the Word, he knows what he's talking about.
" [Now we're talking about fruits of the Spirit: kind, love, joy, peace, understanding, long-suffering, patience, see, fruit of the Spirit.]

64 What about this Jesus? Where'd He come from? We haven't even got a word that He ever come out of any school. All He does is try to tear up the schools that we've built. [Not much fruit of the Spirit there, is there?]
"What did he do up there, when that poor merchants and all them businessmen, that had the... They don't raise sheep, so they set a little pen out there so the man could bring in a sheep. That poor businessman---he wants to offer a sheep because it's God's requirement. He brings in the sheep to sell to the businessman, so he can offer for his soul. What has this Jesus of Nazareth done? Kicked over his tables, got some leather plaited together, and beat them priests out of there; called your kind old priest a snake in the grass, a hypocrite."

65 Now, you call that fruit of the Spirit? Certainly not. Then where is your fruit of the Spirit landing up at?
No more than you think of compassion, and Him going through a multitude of people there---multitudes laying blind, crippled, afflicted, withered, halt, lame---never healed any of them. Full of compassion? People who are carnal-minded will never know it. Seminaries don't teach it. It's a revelation. Certainly. Fruit of the Spirit drops off there, doesn't it? Them priests had ten times the fruit of the Spirit.
How would you know what's right? The manifestation of the spoken Word of God being made manifest, light of the hour. Certainly. There is what the evidence of the Holy Spirit is: believing the Word of God when it's manifested. He was the Word manifested. And some of them deny it, laughed at it, made fun of it and called Him a fortuneteller, some evil spirit.
There's evidence speaking in tongues, there's evidence of the fruits. The only evidence there is, is when man believes the written Word; when it's vindicated walks in the light of it. Jesus was the light of the hour, because He was the promised Word of the hour, and tried to tell them so. But they were too much in darkness to understand it. So is it today.

66 Now, creatures of time we are. Commit your ways to Him, and He will bring the future out right, because we can see Him as He is in the Word. You've seen Him vindicate the Word promised of today. You see it in the signs of the moon, you see it in the churches. Remember, you said, "In the church? What does that have to do with the church?" Just a moment. The moon represents the church.
Jerusalem is the oldest known church city in the world. Melchisedec come from that city---King of Salem, King of Peace, King of Jerusalem. That's right. The oldest city in the world. And that was the moon, like where the law was established. And here come this wave of Gentile darkness coming over it. He said the Turks would trod down the walls of Jerusalem till the Gentile dispensation was up, and here she is. We're living right into it. She's going right back, just as certain as my name is William Branham. Yes, sir. We can see it. She's shadowed, foreshadowed, foretold, calling the elect out. They grope right on in darkness, the rest of them, as they go along. All right.

67 Now, we see His Word vindicated. We believe. So, if He vindicated the Word of today, what it is, what do I care about what the year brings? What do I care about next year? What do I care whether I will live today, or die today? Every word that He promised will be vindicated, every one. If He's able to do it today after promising it two thousand years ago, if it's 100,000 years today, Jesus will return to the earth in a physical body for a church ---a redeemed bride---and take her out of here.
Regardless of what comes, goes, fashions can go on, and people can wait on in total darkness, and believe anything they want to believe; but Jesus Christ will return again. I trust the future to Him then. Lord God, I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know You hold tomorrow.

68 His Word is just like a great symphony. How many of you ever heard a symphony? Oh, everybody has. Now remember, a symphony is when music is played in a drama. I think I have that right, a symphony. "Peter and the Wolf," you remember that, the old story? How they used to... I've heard that, how they'd take the drums and make the little woodpecker pecking, and Peter going out, the growling of the wolf, and the tooting of the horns---a symphony.

69 Now, if you don't understand a symphony, it's a big bunch of racket to you, if you don't understand it. You've got to understand what it is. It's all done by signs, and motions. But it acts out a drama in this symphony.
Now, we notice, the only one that understands a symphony is the composer, and those who are interested in knowing it---knows its changes, knows what takes place. The composer knows every move, from the end to the beginning, from the beginning to the end. Did you know that? The one who wrote it up, he composes it, he knows every little junction.
If he knows every junction, so does the director have to do to direct it. Now, how you going to twist your creed in that? One little miscue of that stick---that sign---one little missed sign at a junction will throw the whole orchestra off, throw the whole symphony out. Now, you know that's true. The composer and director has to be in the same spirit.

70 That's why the minister and the Word of God---God's great symphony He's been playing since the dawn of time---the minister and the Word has to ... not look over here, say, "I believe this ought to be, you ought to make it this way." He's got to go the way the sheet music says take it. That's the way the gospel's got to be preached---the way the Word says take it. If you throw a creed in there, you got the whole thing messed up. It's got to go to make the drama just exactly right. The director has to go what the composer said, beat out just exactly so, the music.
Now watch, it's all done by signs, and it's got to be the right kind of sign to give the right kind of a sound. Paul said, "If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for war?" Now, you see, the composer, God, who wrote the Bible... It's altogether the revelation of Jesus Christ. He knowed the changes of time. And the men---the director who's directing them, the sign of the age---has to go just exactly with the Bible signs. Hallelujah!

71 Oh, brother, sister, what's the matter with the world? Why am I crazy? There's something wrong somewhere. The symphony is not in harmony with the sheet music. They're making church creed, and everything else, when it's the Word supposed to be preached to be manifested. Something wrong with the directors. Then the whole band's mixed up, and they don't know what to do. They're all funny, "What happened? What'd this do? What'd this happen? This ... how'd that happen?" They don't know what to do now. Scared, because it never come in harmony with the Word.
That's what's the matter with our (what we call) last-day revival. That's what's the matter with our Pentecostal message. We've got it off-beat with the Bible, went and organized like they did back there. She went off-beat. God, have mercy! I wish I had words I could make it sink in. Wish it was that I could split it open, and pour it in.

72 Can't you see, my brother, sister, it's got to be in harmony? The director's got to be with the Word. When it says one thing, don't say something else. It'll give the wrong sign, then the whole thing goes out of rhythm. That's right. God's Word is a great sympathy, a symphony rather. Excuse me. You must begin like He did in the music. You must begin with Him.
Notice, get in the rhythm of it. Say, "Well, I joined church." That's not the rhythm.
"I did so..." That's not the rhythm.
"I went up to the altar and I said, 'I believe Jesus Christ, the Son of God.'" Satan does the same thing. That's not the rhythm, see.
You get out of swing. What happened? Maybe some director told you, "Shake hands, and put your name on the book. Join our club, our organization." You're all out of swing.
Then when the real thing begins to happen out here amongst a little bunch, you'll say "Well, what about that? They're out of harmony." Go back to the Word, and see who's out of harmony. See what God promised. See what the composer said about it.

73 See, you got everybody in your audience... That's the reason the world's looking around at... The church ought to be looked upon as a bright shining star, a light that's setting on a hill that no man can outshine, no man can dim. Today it's the laughing stock of the world, because that the directors got out of harmony with the composer. See what I mean?
They're beating out things that isn't in there. Musicians hardly know what to do now. The church, they're all in a twist. Been talking about all this stuff all these years and condemning; now joining right in with it. Huh! Something wrong somewhere.

74 Notice, you must begin in the music like He did. Get into the rhythm of it. Get into the promised Word. See the way He done it at the beginning, see the way He done it in the middle age, see the way He does it now---always the same. Watch the director, how he does it. If he doesn't do it, if he'd point you to some organization... There never was a director done that. A director always pointed to the Word.
The prophets of old pointed to the Word. They was the Word. They lived the Word. And what did it do? It manifested God. That brought the written Word for that day to life, because it come to them. It was revealed to them. That was their rock. Hallelujah!

75 Jesus Christ, God's Word, is our rock. "Upon this rock I will build my church."---the revealed Word of God. Shalom, to the real believer. Peace, we're at the end-time. "On this rock I'll build my church,"---the revelation of the Word.
One said, "Well, you're a great man. You're like Moses. You're a great man. You're like..." That ain't it!
But the revelation said, "Thou art the Son of God."
Said, "Flesh and blood never revealed it to you, but my Father which is in heaven. Upon this revealed truth I'll build my church."
What is it? He is the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And the Word's still God. Just, He is the same today, manifesting Himself as He was in Moses, and Elijah, on down in Jesus. And the same God today makes Him Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8. See, they never pointed you to a group; they pointed you to a person, pointed you to a Word, God.
"Where do I begin, Brother Branham?"

76 At the cross. Begin at the cross with Him. Repent. Believe the Word---that's what the Bible said. Then follow through the rhythm of the rest of the Word.
You say, "Well, what shall I do?" Just keep on following the rhythm of the Word. If repent is the first thing in recognizing, do that. That's your first step. What's your next step? What the Word says. On, on, on, and marching on with Him. Don't break the rhythm if you're part of God's symphony. Don't break the rhythm of the Word.
Don't ask, "Well, why? Why did this happen? I tried it, Brother Branham. And when they turned me out, do you know what I done? I just like to starved to death."
Don't ask why! He knows the rhythm, how it's got to change, and what junctions it's got to make. Yes, sir! For it's written. He knows all about it. He knows the rhythm. Don't ask why. Believe it.

77 God has moved down through the time of history with His promised Word in each age, and has never failed to break the rhythm by the power of God, when it come to the elected and vindicated people. The rhythm of His Word in the days of Noah, the rhythm of His Word in the days of Noah, in the days of Moses, in the days of Elijah, in the days of John, in the days of David, in the days of Jesus, on down He keeps the rhythm of the Word, right on down ... never has broke it. He's come right down through history. And the elected seed that's seen it, and believed it, fall right into that rhythm with it.

78 The others say, "Well, but the church says..."
That has got nothing to do with it. You're not borned into that, you're borned into the Word for you're borned into Christ. Christ is the Word. Yes, sir, each one in its age.
You say, "Well, I just stay... Brother Branham, I can't look ahead." Then look up. God promised, if you'd look up you'd see Him. Shalom, peace, God's peace rest with you.
You say, "Then why does others make fun of me, Brother Branham? You know, others make fun of me, and saying I got long hair, I'm old-fashioned," to the women; the men, "Because I believe the Bible, 'you don't have fellowship with us no more. We can't accept you because that you believe such-and-such.'" And you know it's exactly the way the Word's written.
God's duty-bound to you to back that up, then. He certainly is. Don't matter about that---why they say ... to make fun of. God is a jealous God. 'Member, suffering for His Word's sake is growing pains of His grace. When you suffer for His Word's sake, it's just growing pains. You know how a little kid ten, twelve years old, gets pains. Come in, say, "Mama, my arms hurt, my legs are hurting," so forth. It's growing pains. It shows he got some good vitamins. He's growing up.

79 And when somebody begins to make fun of you, say, "She's old-fashioned. Look at him, he's... Oh, I tell you he used to be..." All right, just remember, it's growing pains. That's that persecution that's good for you. It's growing pains. Oh, yes, He permits crosses, and crossroads, and junctions. He always does that in order to perfect us for His service. He permits those things to happen. Can't you understand that? He does that so He can perfect you for the call that He's called you for. That's your growing pains.
He did Daniel that way. He did the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace... What did the fiery furnace do? The fiery furnace only broke the bands that had them bound. That's all the furnace did. Just burnt loose the bands.

80 Sometimes it takes trials to break the bands of the world off of us, take you out of the world. Might be have to take you out of your creed first, like the man drowning in the river. You have to take him out of the river, before you can get the river out of the man.
That's about the way God has to do sometimes. Let 'em throw you out one time. Then they get the world out of you, but got to get you out of the world first. Sometimes these growing pains is what does that. Oh, yeah.
God stands on the promised Word for each new year. He stands on it this year to fulfill what He's got promised for this year. Whatever it is, I want to be right in the center of His will.
In the future ... like they did...

81 Like Abraham, when he met his crossroads, he didn't know how he would do it. God told him, "I'm going to give you a son." Twenty-five years he waited for it. Finally the son come.
Then God said, "Now with this son I'm going to make you the father of many nations. Take him up there, and kill him." Take him up and kill him? Destroy the very thing that he had waited twenty-five years on?
"Take him up and kill him."
Abraham never worried, never bothered him. He picked up the wood, and put it upon a little donkey, and took his son. Took him up to the top of the hill to offer him up, because Abraham knew that he had received him as one from the dead.
Sarah's womb was dead; he was sterile. So there's no way. And the boy... He's a hundred years old, and she was ninety. So he come by a promised Word. The same God that made the promise, "I'll make you a father of nations"---after twenty-five years, and being a hundred years old, him and his wife received the child---if God told him to offer him up, God was able to raise him up.

82 Praise God, brethren! I feel religious! Oh! How good I feel! I know this one thing: He's able to raise him up again.
We'll stand on that unadulterated Word of light for this hour. God'll raise us up when this generation comes forth, as shining lights against this generation. Amen! No wonder he said "The Queen of the South shall rise in the judgment with her generation, and condemn this one, because she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here."
How that little queen, way down---heathen---saw that light, and come for miles through the desert, three months on a camel's back, to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And them standing right there (with Solomon being a type, a figure of it; and then come and seeing Wesley, and Luther, all of the other denominations back there, being a figure and a type of what's happening now), and they walk right through it.
Oh, all right.

83 For... So the new year is determined by God. Just determine to stay in His Word. Walk where the Word says walk (as we come now to the close), like other---selected seed---did in their day. When they saw the Word, what did they do it? They walked in it, if they were elected seed in other ages, for He is the unfailing Word. How many believe that Jesus Christ is the Word? Oh, my!

84 I heard a program the other day of a certain denomination of people. Mr. H.M.S. Richards said he had wrote the book for the year. I don't want to disagree with a man like that---although being a Seventh Day Adventist, I don't agree with Seventh Day Adventist doctrine---but I certainly like the man. But I disagree with him. That might be H.M.S. Richards' book for the new year, but my book and your book for the new year is the book of the old year, the Bible, God's Word. Let's make it live to what it's promised to live for. Yes, sir. And every coming year to come, and every year that has been, He's the eternal God living through the eternal word that He spoke.
When every Bible truth, and every promise in it has been vindicated, as it has been down through the years:

85 how God promised that He'd destroy the world with water and He vindicated it by Moses ... or by Noah. He promised that He would send a deliverer and bring Israel up out of Egypt. They sojourned for four hundred years. He did just exactly that.
And He swore that He'd raise up David, and how David'd be a son of ... Christ would be his Son. Through David would come Christ, how He swore that he would do that. He did just that. He promised He would send John the Baptist before the coming of Jesus Christ. He did just that. He promised He would send a Messiah. He did just that.
He promised the world would get into a great group of organizations, and make a system (a power known as the beast), and it would be up there sitting on seven hills. It did just exactly that. How the church would be persecuted unto death---they did just exactly that.

86 How they'd come out in reformation---they did just exactly that. How He promised to each age, it would be. And He promised for this age, and here He is today, making that Word live, just exactly like He did in the beginning. Certainly.
And when every promise is fulfilled, death is swallowed up in victory, Jesus will come, and the last one is vindicated. Then there will come an eternal peace upon the earth, and an eternal Shalom. An eternal Shalom. Peace will rest upon the earth.
When Jesus came, the Prince of Peace, why wasn't there peace? Because all the Word wasn't fulfilled in His day. He's fulfilling it today. But when all of His promised Word, which was a thought of God... A word is a thought expressed. God in His thinking thought it, and expressed it through His prophets. And now it has to be fulfilled. And when he foretold us of these things, so we wouldn't make a mistake and blunder in darkness, then when we see it being fulfilled... Now, He promised to send Christ the second time. And whenever He does---when Christ comes the second time ---there will be an eternal Shalom.

87 Listen, friends, as we close, remember the Bible is the fountain of all wisdom. It doesn't come from Dr., Ph.D., LL.D.; it comes from the Word of God. There was Doctors of Divinity sitting there by the hundreds, and a little twelve-year-old boy called them down, because He was the Word. The little boy had no education at all, yet He was the Word. Because He was the light spoken for that day, He was a-manifesting that Word. The Word was in Him. It had to be. No wonder what He said come to pass, because He was the Word.
You understand? All that understand, say "Amen." He was the Word.

88 Remember the Bible---not some book-of-the-year that's written by man. "Let every man's word be a lie, but mine the truth." And cults and religions and so forth, all just get it so conglomerated up when you get a bunch of men into it. God never did deal in such a group.
If Jesus would come today, would He take sides with the Methodists, with the Baptists, with the Adventists, Jehovah Witness, Christian Science, Pentecostals, Presbyterian? No, sir. He certainly would not. It's an individual affair, you and God.
There's no two men see eye-to-eye together alike, no two thumbs alike. God deals with a individual. Now, how do you know whether he's right or not? Then look back and see if he's with the Word. If he's with the Word, then God's dealing with him. If he isn't, something else is dealing with him. That's right.

89 Remember, the Bible is the fountain of all wisdom, and holds all the hopes of the future in it---Shalom, God's peace.
Like a story's told one time, about a little boy lost his daddy, before he was old enough to see his father---just a infant baby when his father died. One day, he got about ten, twelve years old, he had another brother called John. He went to his brother and he said, "John," [which was several years older] said, "you remember Dad?"
He said, "Yeah."
Said, "What was he like?"
Said, "Well, he was a tall man, and he was a very fine man. He was always good to Mother, and he was kind to me, and he was kind to everybody."
He said, "Well, is that all you know about him, John?"
He said, "Well, I tell you." Said, "Henry," he said, "everybody says that I look like him." He said, "Everybody says that I got a nature like him."
He said, "Oh, that's good. That's what I want to know." He said, "When I see you, I see my daddy."
There it is. When the world sees Jesus Christ, it'll be in you, when this Word that's written, at the day.

90 Where do you see Jesus in David? When the Word was made manifest through him. How do you see Christ, God, in Elijah, in that chariot going into heaven ---see Jesus in Elijah? 'Cause the Word was vindicated. How do you see it in Moses? Jesus was in Moses. The Bible said so, see. That's right. He was the burning bush that was with Moses in the wilderness.
How will people know Jesus Christ when they ... he sees Him in you, when they see Jesus in you. For He said, "The works that I do shall you do also. Greater than this shall you do because I go to my Father." Is that right? That's how they, world, knows.

91 Not because that the Pentecostal oneness is greater than the Pentecostal twoness, or the twoness is greater than the threeness, whatever you have. Not because the Methodist is greater than the Baptist, or the southern Baptist is taking the prize this year for all the ... all the Baptist churches, all the Protestants. They got more members this year than any of the rest of them, I understand, by the count. That doesn't make them any different. God doesn't know you by numbers. The heathen's got you out-numbered anytime. The Catholics got you all. Mohammedanism's got all of them, see.
You're known when Jesus Christ lives in you by His life, and promised Word of this day reflects itself, see.

92 Now the same word that was reflected in Moses could not be reflected in Elijah, because that's another day. Same one that was reflected in Noah could not be in Moses, 'cause, see, Noah built an ark. Moses led a people, just exactly what was promised. The same light was reflected in one, wasn't in the other; but one told of the other one.
All of the New Testament speaks of this hour. Jesus Christ speaks of this hour. Who is it then, some man? It's Jesus Christ, the Son of God, manifesting, reflecting the light on the Word that He promised for this day. When men see you living like Him, when he sees your character, your conduct, with the Word just exactly like He was---the Word being manifested---then men will see Jesus Christ. They won't have to look around anywhere and say, "What does this creed teach? What does that creed teach?" They'll know what God is when they see you.

93 Shalom, God's peace be light upon you. And when God's Word is vindicated in this age completely, and you see it and believe it, Shalom to you. Face the new year with this, as David said, "I put Him always before me. Because He's on my right hand, I shall not be moved."
If you meet death this year, what difference does it make? God promised He'd raise you up. If an accident kills you, what difference does it make? You have eternal life. "I'll raise him up at the last day." Amen.
What if anything happens? No matter what it is, nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ. Hunger, peril, nakedness, no matter what it is, nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ. And He is the Word. Shalom.

94 Let's bow our heads. Now, everybody keep your head bowed just a moment. God's peace, gross [blank spot].
As it was in the days of Noah, when they were eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage (Reno, Nevada, and the whole world of red light), so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man. As it was at Sodom, where God was manifested in a human being, that Abraham called Elohim, the all-sufficient one. Stood there, eat meat, drinking milk and bread, and could tell what Sarah was thinking (behind her) behind Him in the tent. He said that will return again, at the coming of the Son of man. "A little while and the world won't see Me no more. Yet ye shall see Me for I will be with you, even in you, to the end of the world."

95 The Jews returning to their land... The things that's taking place that is in this day, would prevent from me from half-way beginning to tell you what's taking place. But we see it. What is it? Word made manifest. What do you think the Hebrews did when they seen the Word made manifest? When the promise... They got ready to leave the land. If you're not ready today, friend, start this new year out right. Start it with your hand in God's hand, God's Word in your heart, saying "Lord Jesus, I don't know what part of this symphony that you want me to play, but it ... when that junction comes for me to be persecuted, laughed at, made fun of, I still take my stand that your symphony will not be messed up because of me. I'll stay right with your Word, no matter what it is. I'll stay right there.
"And when death beats up to my door, that's part of the symphony. I know then that just as sure as it beat death up to my door, the resurrection will beat out one of these days, too, and He'll raise me up again. It's part of your symphony. Lord, let me be part today, will you?"

96 How many would like to take that vow, and say, "Beginning this new year, Brother Branham, starting this meeting, right now, I now promise God to take my stand, to never fail to stay right with His promised Word, and to live just exactly the way He promised it, in meekness and humility, that God might take my life, and place it into His great symphony, that same group He'll raise up at the last days. I'm going to raise my hand, Brother Branham, not to you but to God. Remember me in prayer."?
God bless you, everywhere. The Lord bless you. My hand is up, too.

97 Lord, take me.
Lord God, don't never let me get my mind like Judas, upon an extra dollar, upon some fashion of the world, or somebody to pat you on the back, and say, "Oh, Brother Branham, this is..." No, no, God. Never let that happen to me. I'll just take the way with the Lord's despised few. I'll be a brother to men, do everything that I can, Lord, love people with all my heart. But Lord, never let me move from this Word.
I want to raise up at the last day. And only those who are included in this great symphony, Lord, as I have tried to explain it this afternoon, that's the one that comes forth at the end of the ... of the sheet music on the great resurrection, and all the angels clap their hands, and the saints go marching in. It's those who's acted out that part in this great drama. We pray, Lord.
We know that in a drama they change masks. They come from one thing to another. And that's what You did. You come from the Spirit God, the great Jehovah, and put on the mask of a human being, changed your ... your strain. You changed, You pitched your tent. You came down from God and became man, that you might die to redeem man. You changed your mask.
Then, again You've changed it, and You've masked yourself into the people who'll believe, and act out according to the Word that You have written here. Blessed are the eyes that see it. Blessed are the hearts that receive it. Blessed are the ears that hear it, for there will come a resurrection when the symphony is over. God let us all be there, will You?
Bless this little group.

98 Speaking like this, Father, we know that this tape goes over the world. And here's a fine little group sitting here today, this visible audience here in Phoenix. O God, fifteen years of hard preaching and scolding, and God, Thou knowest the reason. Love, love is chastening. Love is rebuke. Love is discipline. O God, may I throw myself at this people this week, and may You discipline us, Lord, to your Word.
May we see your power raise up the sick and the afflicted, the eyes of the blind be opened, the great Holy Spirit come visible in the room. May every minister and every church be on fire. May the coming convention of the Businessmen, Lord, set every business man's heart in this city on fire for God. Grant it, Lord. We don't know what to do about it, no more than to ask and believe that it will be done. We commit ourselves to You, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now, let us stand to our feet,

99 I'm poor of speech, mispronounce my words, and I want to say this because I felt constrained to do it. How many in here will raise your hand that you understood what I meant by God's symphony? Raise your hand. Thank you. Good. Do you believe it, that it's a symphony, see?
You'll find it comes to a junction. Everybody's all... What do...? I call it junction. I don't know what it is, but a musician in here, why, he'd... You forgive me. It's my rude way. But it ... they're beating out there to have something to act. It'll go real low, way down. You wonder what it is. But see, if you get into the rhythm of it, you understand it. That's the only way you'll ever understand God, is get into the rhythm of it. What is...
"How will I, Brother Branham? I'm just as true a Methodist, Baptist, or Pentecostal..." That's not the rhythm!
The rhythm is God. God is the Word. The Word is God. God's rhythm is obeying His Word. Then when you obey the Word, He beats the rhythm right to you. Then you take your place. Whenever it goes down, down, down, up---whatever it is---you know those junctions.
Sometimes you say, "Oh, heartaches, and trials..."

100 Didn't God say "All things work together for good to them that love Him?"
While I'm beating out my symphony, and you find that you're afflicted and struck down, and persecuted, and made fun of, remember that's the part that goes that way. If that isn't like that, then the symphony is out of tune. The great Composer knows exactly what's in it. He knows ... He knowed you from the beginning. He put your name on the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. You believe that? He knows what you're supposed to do.
No matter how low it goes, and how dark it looks, it's got to be that way. But remember, if it goes plumb into the shadows of death, "I am the resurrection and life. I'll raise you up again." And when the great Director comes down, and beats that stick down, then time shall be no more. When that angel of Revelations, the 10th chapter, puts one foot on land, and one on the sea, and a rainbow over His head, He swore that "time shall be no more." When that time comes, you'll rise up from among the dead. While the rest of them lay there, you'll go in.

101 Stay in the symphony, stay in God's Word. No matter how hard it is, stay right with it. Wherever God's beating... Sometimes it causes trouble to break the bands and set you free. He does that. You say, "Well, I don't know what I'd do." He does! What difference? You're just ... you're just playing the part. He's the one that's got you in His hand. He's directing.
Remember it's all done by a sign. We see the time we're living in by the sign we're living at. So we know what the symphony does, today. It's a separating time, taking the light from the darkness. Let's say it together, so you won't forget it, because I feel to say it. "It's taking the light from the darkness." Let's say it again. "It's taking the light from the darkness."

102 That's God's symphony. He showed it in the heavens. He showed it on the blackboards. He showed it by Himself. He's promised it in the Word. We see it vindicated. He's separating the wheat from the chaff. He's taking the light from the dark. Do you believe Him with all your heart? Let's sing our good song, then.
Now, I want to say a word to the pastors, just a minute. Brethren, the Lord bless you. Thank you for dismissing your congregations and bringing them out here. You pastors out there, I certainly thank you.
I'm only here...

103 Let me say it, brethren. You might be Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian. Did you hear? I speak just the same to the Pentecostals as I did to you. Just the same, see. It isn't... If I can't disagree with a man sharply, and still love him, because... If I disagree with him just to be disagreeing, I'm a hypocrite. I ain't fit to stand up here. But if I disagree with him; because of fellowship, and love, and understanding, no matter what he does, he's still my precious brother. I stand with him. Yes, indeedy. That's exactly right. If that isn't in my heart, then God, take me out of this pulpit. I'm not fit to be here. That's right. I say it because of love, and something that I see coming. And He's never let me be wrong on it so far, because it's always been His Word. So God bless you.

104 Now, let us bow our heads just a moment, and sing this good old song that we usually sing, "I love Him, I love Him." If the pianist, or whoever it is (the ones with the music), will give us a little chord on it, I guess... Yes, all right.
Let's see if we can sing it then, without the music. Everybody together now, with their heads bowed.
I love Him, I love Him,
Because He first loved me,
And purchased my salvation
On Calvary's tree.
I think they've stopped the tapes now. See, this tape goes everywhere.