Why little Bethlehem?

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 It might look kind of funny, this morning, to wear my overcoat on the platform, but I was so happy to display that pretty overcoat this church give me. I seen Brother Neville up here the other day, with that nice suit on, how it fit him so nicely, and I thought, well, I... It looked so nice, and the congregation talking about it, I thought, "I'll just wear my overcoat out on the platform."
You know, I believe we never grow up. We always... And I don't want to grow up. How about that, Brother Luther? Never want to grow up, we just want to always remain children.
[Brother Neville says, "Brother Branham, I thought you had on one of those attires like these higher-classed ministers. I just glanced the corner of my eye, and I thought maybe you'd put on a robe."]
Complimentary to that nice overcoat.

2 Well, I'll say I was needing one awful bad, and it's the best one I ever had. And I sure do appreciate it. And Brother Roy Roberson (I don't know whether he is here this morning or not), he had something to do with the selecting of it. And it was really a fine selection, and we are very, very pleased to have it.
And so we are very pleased to be back in the house of the living God, this morning, and to enjoy these wonderful times of fellowship around His precious Word.

3 And it's soon now, if the Lord willing, I've got to go overseas. And I guess you seen it in the Businessmen's Voice, that I leave for overseas this next month. And we will be soliciting all the prayers of the people, that they will pray for us while we are away. It's seemingly that overseas my meetings seems to be better, because it takes better there. In America...
I was telling Brother Mercier that I listened to... He gave me a record player, first, and it had the records on it, of some of my sermons. I knew then, if anybody ever listened to me, it would have to be God's grace to them, because I thought I could be a little better.
He is taping that, too. You can cut that part out, see. Or, he is holding his thumb down; l guess that's cutting it off.

4 But I tell you, I was so surprised. The poorest preaching I ever heard in my life, was my own, that's right, on the record. It made me so nervous, I couldn't even eat my dinner. I got sick, got away from the table, couldn't sleep that night.
And went down in Kentucky, with Brother Wood yesterday. Coming back, I said, "Brother Wood, I don't see how that I ever get a person to come and hear me speak. It's so poorly, such repeating myself, and, oh, grammar missing, and punctuation---there isn't any." I just... I don't know. I said, "It encouraged me in one way, to know it has to be God, or nobody would come at all." That's right.

5 So I was speaking to Brother Collins. I suppose he is in the building. And so I said to him... He come over, and was telling him about it. I said, "Brother Collins, honestly..." I said, "I'm pretty near thirty years old, as a preacher, and I certainly ought to know what a sermon is." I said, "That's the poorest I ever heard."
And he is a Methodist minister, and his brother is quite a man in the Methodist denomination. And he said, "Well," he said, "I will tell you, Brother Branham," said, "the punctuations and your sentences may not end right, and things like that, but," said, "did you ever think of that guy that preached on the day of Pentecost, that couldn't even sign his own name, his name was Peter?" Said, "I imagine that wasn't punctuated just right."

6 But, you see, what makes a man get his eyes on that: You listen to these radio broadcasts, and that's all wrote out, you see. And they can write it out and punctuate it, and things, because they're reading it.
I stood with Charles Fuller, preaching behind a trough about like that, for his platform. And everything that he said, he read it right down, number one, number two, number three, number four, like that, till he got all right out, and timed it. And it was all censored, radio censored, and everything.
And with Billy Graham, I seen his, and so forth, where they just stand there and speak that, just read it just as fast as they can read it, and it's all ready, so I guess you would get the punctuation.

7 But the trouble with me, I couldn't even read it. If I wrote it, I'm sure I couldn't read it. So it's amazing grace, isn't it, to see what He can do for us. But I am grateful to starting in now, ending up of this old year, to start a new year.
I listened to a prayer line, and I certainly wasn't satisfied with the prayer line, either, to listen to that. It's the first time I ever heard myself back like that, for a message, and I certainly was surprised. The prayer lines isn't run right. No, I think it'll come to pass that, after a while, it'll be so that everybody will have to know everything about them before they'll believe. And beginning the first of the year, I want to change that, and just start the prayer line wherever God speaks to me, "This person is out of line," or "something wrong"; I will stop with him. Let the rest of them go on through, because you don't get enough through like that, see. The people know where they are, and who they are, and what they've done. But they find something that's not lined up just right with God, that's the time to stop on that one, say, "This is the one," see. So, I think maybe there'll be some alteration done, Brother Leo, since I heard them, and I trust that God will help us in the coming year.

8 Now, I believe that tonight they got services here at the Tabernacle. And I am to be up here on 62, with Brother Ruddell, tonight. I understand that they're going to have a watch service here. And Brother Ruddell had asked me for that watch service, but thinking maybe I would come back at the Tabernacle for that night, because I've always tried to be at the Tabernacle on New Year's Eve, and I wanted to come back down here with the brethren here. So I kind of compromised a little, and I will be with Brother Ruddell tonight, out on 62, at the old 62 Club that's been converted into a church. And then Wednesday night will be back here at the watch service. And then Thursday we leave for Chicago, and then on, and on to Philadelphia, and then overseas.

9 And this morning, we don't want to keep you too long, because we got interviews, and the services go on.
And, say, since the last prayer service here, oh, I am very grateful for the results that came forth from the last service of prayer. It was certainly a wonderful thing that our Lord can do when His people get together. "They that will call upon the name of the Lord, assemble themselves together," I believe is the way it is, "and pray, then God will hear from heaven."
So let us bow our heads, just a moment now, as we look to Him to give to us the inspiration needed for this message.

10 Lord, Thou has been our refuge and strength in all generations. Our forefathers, before us, trusted in Thee, and were not confounded. They believed in Thy Holy name, and they were brought forth as shining lights; and we, looking upon them, as the poet has said, "Footprints upon the sands of time; our partings leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time." Then we see that those who trusted in Thee, always, without one time failing, come out right. Though they went through many deep waters and great trials and persecutions, but yet, in the end, Thou did always bring them out more than conquerors, because it is Thy promised Word that You would do this.
And we would pray, today, that You would bless this little church. Bless its pastor, our good brother, Brother Neville, and his family. We ask that You will just be with him in this coming year, and will anoint him greater and bless him in every way. Strengthen the health of his family, the little ones that are coming up. Keep Brother Neville strong and healthy.

11 And bless this church and every member that's in it. The trustee board, how we love them as real gallant men of God; and the deacon board, they also are Thy gallant servants. And all the people that come here, we are grateful for them, Lord. Just does my heart good to know that this little old pond and weed patch, standing on the corner many years ago, has been made a lighthouse to the kingdom of God. And I pray, God, that it'll stand until Jesus comes. May many great souls that's been in here, Lord, come forth at that day, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Grant it.
And as we open this blessed Word of Thine this morning, Lord, by turning back the pages to read from it a text, and we know that You alone can give the context. And we pray, God, that You will anoint Your Word, and may it go right to the hearts of the people that would do them good. Make believers out of unbelievers; and strengthen Christians; and heal the sick; and give courage to the discouraged; and get glory unto Thyself. In order to do this, Lord, circumcise the lips that shall speak and the ears that shall hear. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

12 Announcing a little text that fell on my heart since last Sunday. I was speaking upon the wise men coming to see Jesus, the Star they followed from the east to the west. While studying that, I hit a scripture, and then did not get to be here Christmas Eve because of some jail service, and so forth, I had to be at. I thought I would speak today upon the subject of: Why Little Bethlehem?
And I want to read out of the book of Micah, the prophet, one of the minor prophets, the 5th chapter and the 2nd verse. It reads like this:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall ... come forth unto me that ... the ruler ... be the ruler in Israel; whose goings forth has been from ... old, from everlasting.
I had a spot on the Scripture there, is the reason I couldn't make out what the word was, at the time.

13 Of all of the places that is in Palestine! And there is so many great cities, and its localities, cities that are seemingly much more known in the lore of history, and better fortified, bigger cities. Why should God choose little Bethlehem to be the birthplace of His Son? There is many that are greater. And for instance, the historical lore of Jerusalem, the proud Jerusalem, the capital of all of it, and it's one of the largest cities of Palestine. And then we wonder why God would pick on that little bitty town of Bethlehem, for the birthplace of His Son.
But as the Scriptures has said, "What God determines to do, it will be done." And God foreordained it to be that way or it never would have been that way. And there... The Scripture says, in the 15th chapter of Acts, that there is nothing by chance. God knowed everything. And it just didn't happen to happen that way. It just was that God made it that way.

14 And then when we in our little finite minds begin to think over, "Why would the great King of heaven choose a little place like that, instead of the capital?" Instead of some...
Even there was many places who had greater spiritual background than what Bethlehem did. For instance, some of the places like Shiloh. Shiloh was an ancient worship place of Israel, where they all came year by year to this great place where the ark of the Lord rested. And wonder why, then, that He wouldn't be born at Shiloh?

15 Then there was Gilgal, another great spiritual place of worship. Why wouldn't God let Him be born then at Gilgal?
And there was another one, Zion. Zion was on the mountain top. And we wonder why that Jesus would not be born then in Zion, because it's been a great historical mark of where the Lord has blessed His people in the ages.
And it looks like that maybe He would have chosen Zion, or Gilgal, or Shiloh, or one of the other great places where there had been great blessings and great teachings.
And there was other great cities, such as Hebron. That was the place for a man who was wanting a city of refuge, a place of safety. There was Ramoth-gilead, also another place of refuge where the people could come, which would've been very appropriate for him to be born.

16 And maybe, if I would have been thinking it, I would have brought Him over to Kadesh-barnea, for there was the judgment seat, and a place of refuge. Perhaps I would have brought Him over to that country for His birthplace, or maybe we would have chosen some of the other cities.
But, you know, I'm so glad that even just little insignificant things in the Bible mean so much. I believe that it was Jesus that said this, that "You pass over ... do the weightier matters of the law, rather, but pass over the little things." And sometimes it's the little things that holds the big things together. But, all in all, the great cogs is turning just exactly the way God ordained them to turn. There'll never be one miss its place. God has foreordained all things, and it must hit just exactly to that place.

17 And when we get faith like that, and begin to think of who is behind all this. What is the main spring that's turning this great economy of God's? We find it's the Holy Spirit. Not left into the hands of men to do things; but in the hands of the Holy Spirit. And He is the main spring, that if He can get the rest of the instruments, it'll work just perfectly and keep exactly God's time.
And then we see that, and we wonder in our mind then, as we look at great things and how that we would have them; and then it gives us a lot of consolation today to think that, maybe if we are a little group of people, maybe if we are insignificant to the world and to the bigger churches of denominations, yet God uses those little simple things sometime.

18 For it is also written in the Scriptures, "Fear not, little flock, it's your Father's good will to give you the kingdom." What a consolation! I know that just as sure as Jesus had to be born in little Bethlehem, so will the little flock be the one that the Father will give the kingdom to, because it's written. And all Scripture is given by inspiration, and the Scriptures cannot be broken. They must be fulfilled. So it gives us that hope, to know that it'll be a little flock that will receive the kingdom, a little faithful flock of believers. I'm trusting to be one of those flock ... or, in that little flock, I should say.
And then we know the story, most all of us are acquainted with the story of how Israel came into Palestine by promise of God. And we know that the great Joshua was the one who divided each tribe their portion.

19 And it's certainly... If we had the time of about from now until six o'clock tonight, to stay right on this subject, to line these things away, to get the real meaning out of them; which, we do not have---just about thirty, forty minutes. So we have to strike just the high points, trusting that the Holy Spirit, to you Bible readers, will place the rest of it into your heart, as we go along.
Did you know that those portions, how Joshua allotted them in Palestine, was given by inspiration? And those Hebrew mothers of those patriarchs, when the baby was coming forth and her in travailing pain, to deliver the child, she uttered the very spot that those patriarchs would settle down and be at the last days.
Talk about inspiration, this Bible is inspired! No matter how little, just every little scripture has such an outstanding thing in the great picture. All of it, every word is inspired, and on that hangs the destination of souls, for it's the Word of the immortal and eternal God.

20 And even those mothers, when the baby was born and she uttered their voice, placed them positionally where they would be in the promised land, hundreds of years later. And Joshua, not knowing that, yet by the same inspiration placed them exactly where they was to be.
And Joshua, dividing up, divided Judah's portion. If you'll notice on the map, it's geographically just west of the plain sea, a few miles south of Jerusalem, the capital. And when Judah was getting her part ... or, his part, rather, in the land (his province, we would call it), it's strange, but this little city was not even mentioned: Bethlehem. Yet it was there, because that Abraham... Or, I believe it was Rebekah was buried at that place. But it must have been just a little village of some sort, because if you read Joshua 5, you'll find that there was a hundred and fifteen major cities under the domain of Judah, besides the villages and little towns; a hundred and fifteen cities, mentioned. And perhaps when it was divided up, that Bethlehem was so little, maybe just a little house or two, it wasn't even mentioned in the inheritance. And then we find out that it never actually come to be known...

21 The one that founded it was Caleb's son, whose name was Salma, and he founded it. The Bible said he was the father of it, which means he was the founder of Bethlehem. In other words, he must have moved in there and started some sort of businesses, and commercial, and the trading, and so forth, that grew it up. And later we will find out that the real reason of it, that the whole lands was jealous of that little piece of land; which lays to the north, and east, and slopes a little to the south, on that spur. And it was the most fertile of all of Palestine. It was a corn belt and a wheat belt, and there were great olive orchards, and so forth, on it, in that part of Bethlehem ... or, Palestine, the end of Judah province.

22 And we find out that it was also became the home of the harlot Rahab. When Israel had passed over the borderline of the Jordan River, into Palestine, we are acquainted with the story of Rahab the harlot. Let's picture her this morning for a few minutes now, as a young lady, a beautiful young woman whose some misfortune in life had been forced in, being a pagan, had been forced into the life that she was living. And many times people are forced into the life that they live.

23 I was in the prisons the other night, to see a man who was taking a sentence. And I took him by the hand, and talked to him. And I said, "Why would you do such a thing as that?" And holding me by the hand, he begin to speak. And he was forced into what he was doing. I said, "Because that you permitted that to force you to that. You don't have to do that. No man has to drink." I said, "I am nervous, myself, but there is no need of that."

24 And this young woman, after she had got her first hearing of Israel, and of a God who was a God that answered prayer; not only a God to pray to, but a God that answered back. When she heard that there was a God of miracles, who could perform miracles, who dried up the seas and rained bread out of the heavens, her heart begin to tremble. And when she got the first message from two preachers that went over, quickly she accepted it with all her heart. And there was a scarlet cord bound at her window, for a protection of her house, because that she had received the message.

25 I might add here: Did you know she typed the Gentile church? She was a Gentile, and she was a type of the Gentile church, when they heard the message. We were all out in spiritual prostitution, committing spiritual fornications against the God of heaven, in all kinds of stuff, all kinds of denominations and religions. But when we heard that there was a God that still lived, that could perform miracles, quickly we received the message.
There was applied the blood of the Lord Jesus, which made the scarlet cord. And to keep from going into detail, you know how she hung it from her window, publicly; the blood was displayed publicly. That's the way the blood has got to be displayed, publicly hanging from the outside of the wall, to show that, on the inside, something had taken place. That's the way the true believer in Christ is this morning; on the outside is the display of the blood of the Lord Jesus, that shows something took place on the inside.

26 And through this, God looked down when the wrath fell and the trumpets begin to blow, God seen that scarlet cord hanging there as a memorial. It's always pleased Him to pass over the blood. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." He saw it. And when the shaking and the Holy Spirit rumbled the earth and shook down them walls---some twenty-feet thick---not one rock fell where that cord was hanging. Shows the protection of a true God to a true believer, no matter what state you're in when He finds you, if you'll just accept that scarlet cord. It weaves through the Bible.

27 And then we see her when she was taken in as one of the Israelites. She fell in love with a man, which was a captain and a prince in Judah. He was a captain of the Israelite armies. His name was Salmon, just like the king, Solomon. And he was a captain, and she become in a great romance with this captain, which was the prince of Judah. And finally she married him. And when the estate was settled up for the Israelites, she and her beloved husband lived in Bethlehem.

28 Now you begin to see it open, haven't you? See, it begin to open as we see that in Bethlehem she lived, being a Gentile bride, to a Jew. Why? Because she believed in a miracle-working God. And as... Look what she come from, from being out of a house of ill fame, of prostitution; through her conversion and through her unfailing faith in God, it brought her from a prostitute house, to a beautiful home in Bethlehem. What a difference!
That's the way it does all of us. From a house of unbelief and flusterations, and immoral acts, and everything; to a place, position in Christ, which is most beautiful. From the ridiculous to the sublime, that's the difference that it makes through our conversion. And did you see, she married a prince of the house of Judah, a captain? That captain represented Christ, took to Himself a Gentile bride. From the lowest of lowest, to the principal and best place in the land, as we will get to it later in our message, to prove that it was nothing else could be but that. They're a type of the Gentile church.

29 And we find out they had a lovely home in Bethlehem, as Salmon had established it, and it would become a great place, and the fertile lands. And how beautiful it is to think of that great wheat country there, that it would be the bread place of the world. And, it is true! No wonder Jesus had to be born there, because He was the bread of life! There is where all the nation come for their wheat, all the nations come for their corn. For, it was in Bethlehem, that had those fertile lands. And, you see, this little bitty thing, just saying, "Oh, it was the province of wheat," yet that meant something. And you see how the Gentile prince ... or, this Jewish prince taking His Gentile bride back up to Bethlehem, for a settling down place, a place to live, where there was plenty of bread.
We find out, through this great romance and great obedience to faith, through the harlot Rahab, she gave birth to a son to Salmon, and his name was Boaz. And we all are acquainted with another great story tying in this link here now. And Boaz was born in Bethlehem, from Salmon and the harlot Rahab.

30 And we find out that years later, after Naomi had left the country and gone over to sojourn with the Moabites, and when they had evilly mistreated her and she had got out of fellowship with the rest of the believers, and associated herself in a backslidden condition, in another land, among another people. In otherwise, she had left the true believing church, to go out into the world for a little while, to join some social church, who believed in just anything would be all right. In there, she lost her husband.
And it don't have to be every time in physical death. You might lose him in a spiritual death, or lose your wife. Better stay on good grounds! You had better stay where you know you are covered by the blood, regardless of what the rest of them looks like, how big they are, how fine of spires they have on their churches, or how the big bells ring. You better stay where the blood covers the sins of the people. You might lose one another, and, above all, you might lose the Lord Jesus and be barred out.
And we find out then that after her sons was gone (she lost both of them), and she returned back because there was no revival spirit in the city, at the time.

31 Oh, how I would love to rest here for a few minutes! How I'd like to pick it up right here and show you! Regardless of how many of the church has gone back, stay under the blood; that's the place to abide. In or out, up or down, thick or thin, wherever it may be, stay under the blood. But Naomi, she thought it would be better to go over and join another group, because they were having troubles, spiritual bread wasn't there. But God will restore it back, "I will restore, saith the Lord." Stay in the field where it comes from.

32 So, we find that she begin to long to go back, because they heard that a great revival had broke out. And if you noticed, Naomi returned in "barley season," the Bible said, just at the time of the harvest; in other words, when there was a great revival going on---spiritually applying it. She returned just in that season. Nothing left; she had nothing.
And Orpah, one of her sons' wives, when she come to look upon what she had to sacrifice, being a type of the modern church, "If I have to go over there, I'll have to get away from my dances, I'll have to get away from my big time, and my social gatherings." Then she just wept and kissed her mother-in-law, and returned back.

33 But here is a beautiful picture: There was one named Ruth, with her, another daughter-in-law, which was a type again of the Gentile bride, who kissed her mother-in-law, and said, "I will forsake everything. I'm going with you. Let your people be my people. Let your God be my God. Wherever you die, there I will die. Where you are buried, there I will be buried." That's it. That's what God wants. It's not that borderline, half way; but an absolute, full surrender to the kingdom of God. She kissed her.
And so Naomi said, to discourage her, said, "You had better go back to your people. I'm old, and there is no more sons in me." And the law was that she had to wait for a son. And said, "Then there is no more in me. And if I would have a husband, and I'd have a son, you would be too old to marry him, so you just return back to your people."
But Ruth said, "I will not go back!" Faith---rooted, grounded, perfect faith---had come into Ruth's heart. She said, "I'm going right with you." And she clave to her, held onto her. "I'm going to be where you are." I like that.

34 And we're acquainted with the story as it goes on, that this great Boaz, which was the lord of the harvest, was in harvest at the time, and was a kinsman to Naomi. And when she found Ruth out there in a little mission, gleaning, every little straw that she could pick up, that had some wheat on it, she held to it, for it was life. Boaz, being the lord of the harvest, he commanded that his reapers would drop a handful now and then, for her; and she would pick it up, and with joy. And she shucked out a great apronful of it, that day. And when Boaz, the lord of the harvest, came out and looked upon Ruth, and seen her faithfulness, he fell in love with her.
Watch Boaz represent Christ. Where was he at? Bethlehem. Where was Ruth come to? Bethlehem. Where was she gleaning at? In Bethlehem. See all those spiritual significances to this here, the background to this great scene that's taking place, God knowing it in the beginning?

35 And she begin to question to her mother-in-law, what she must do. And finally Ruth was married to Boaz, a Gentile married to a prince again, in Judah, and settled down and lived in Bethlehem. "Oh, thou little Bethlehem, ... aren't you the least among all the principal cities of Palestine; but it's pleased God whose knowing and going forth was from old, from the beginning, to have His Son born there."
He knows all things, and He works it just to be right. And there Ruth married Boaz. And when Ruth and Boaz was married; if we had time to go into the great story there, which was one of the greatest love scenes of all ages, when Ruth and Boaz were married. And you remember...
Let's just stop for a minute here. Just too good to pass over!

36 Ruth was a Gentile. She had no inheritance with the Jew, just like we Gentiles had no inheritance. So, Naomi was actually the one to inherit. So, she had lost all of her first estate; all of her goods had been sold at public auction. Therefore, she was ... been excommunicated, and had gone away.
Now when she came back, there was only one person who could ever redeem her lost inheritance; that was a kinsman right next to her. And Boaz knew this, so he had to work some way to get this Gentile girl for a wife. And what did he have to do? He had to buy all of the estate of Naomi, in order to get in this estate, which Ruth was part of the estate of Naomi. And the only man that could buy it, would have to be a person that was kinfolks, near kinsman. That was the law of redemption.

37 And the only way that Christ could ever buy the estate of the backslidden Israel, was to become a Kinsman. Only way God could redeem the human race, God Himself had to be made flesh. And Jesus was God made kinfolks to the human race. He was Emmanuel. He become kinfolks. He took upon Him, not the form of angels, but the form of a servant who washed the feet, and lived... And the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but He didn't even have a place to lay His head. He eat, He drink, He cried, He laughed, just like other men. And He was God, not a prophet. He was God because He had to be kinfolks in order to redeem the lost human race. So, Boaz, in this great type at Bethlehem; look where this Kinsman was born to the human race---had to be.

38 And then when this great Boaz redeemed her, he had to make a public showing that he had redeemed all of her lost estate. So he went to the gate of Bethlehem, that little city again, and he called the elders of the city, and he let them know that that day he had bought everything that Naomi had lost. Everything that she lost, he bought it back. And he kicked off his shoe and threw it up before the people, as an ensign, "And if there is anyone has any reason to say something, say it now, for this is a memorial that I have redeemed everything that she lost."

39 Oh, blessed be the name of the Lord! And when our Kinsman came, Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, He stood on top of Golgotha, and lifted Him up between the heavens and earth, as a memorial that He had redeemed everything that the human race had lost in the fall. How can men despise divine healing and the powers of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, when a public ensign was made at Calvary, that "I have redeemed the whole human race and everything that they ever lost," redeemed our soul, redeemed our body, redeemed everything that we lost in the fall. Our Kinsman Redeemer came and was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and offered up the ensign, and said, "It's finished." What's finished? Everything is finished. We're just walking right into our inheritance. And as the days go on, we're walking closer and closer.

40 Boaz and Naomi... After being married for some time, they brought forth a son, which added more to the lineage, and that was Obed. And he also brought forth his son, which was Jesse. And Jesse had eight boys.
And it was the great prophet Samuel who came with the cruse of the oil, the great prophet who went to Jesse, and said, "God has chosen one of your boys to rule and serve My people." And it was out in the backside of the field, in a little shepherd yard, where the little ruddy, scrawny-looking boy was brought: David, the youngest. And Samuel poured the anointing oil on him, in the presence of all of his brothers and them which stood about, and proved that God had anointed him king. Where was that at? Bethlehem. Glory to God in the highest! No wonder, Bethlehem, where he was anointed king.

41 And it was in Bethlehem, where David was born. And his greater Son, Jesus, was also had to be born in Bethlehem, because there is such a close knit between the two, his Father and Son. Not only was this great Son only the Son, He was the root and the offspring of David, He was even before David, He will be after David, He was for everlasting, from everlasting on. But according to the flesh, and all the things to be fulfilled, He was the Son of David. He was to be born years later in this same Bethlehem, this little forsaken city.

42 But all the time, in there, do you notice, there is working a great mighty mystery that no one seemed to understand. That's the same thing it is in God's Bethlehem today: There is working a mystery sign, but no one seems to understand it. It's something that goes over the top of the heads of the people. They don't seem to get it. No matter what's done, or what's said, and the mysterious part of the things that's done, the people will say, "Oh, well, I guess it's all right," and go on, but they don't understand it. They can't catch it. They can't grasp it. And that's what God was doing in Bethlehem in Judea. He's working, all these little things moving up, to come to one great head.

43 David, oh, when he was anointed king, as a little boy, he was ruddy to look up at, but he must have been something in him that looked real to God. The little bitty, the smallest of the family. The rest of the boys, great big fine men, would look good in the robes, and a crown on their head. But God showed what He looks at: not the outward appearance, but the inside of a man. He looked at his heart; He knew what was in David's heart, no matter how the crown looked on him. He knowed He was finding Him a man that was a man after His own heart, which David would be a man after His own heart. That's why He poured the anointing oil ... or, had it poured upon David. Which, the name David means "beloved."

44 And it was well represented in Jesus, the Beloved One, years later; the Son of David, who was to come to fulfill all things that had been promised. This little city of Bethlehem was where this taken place. And it was on them same little Judean hills where David had herded his sheep, many years later, that the angels sang their first noel on the hills of Judea, overlooking Bethlehem. The first noel, "Unto Thee is born in the city of David, Christ the Lord." When angels first made their appearance to sing, it wasn't at Jerusalem, the big church; neither was it at Gilgal; or neither was it at Shiloh, where they'd had the religious denominational worship all the time. But it was in little Bethlehem, where the Spirit of God had been moving in a mysterious way, bringing forth something. It was there.

45 It was there where Christ had to come. It was there. It was in that same little city, with a King born, that a mother, virgin, brought forth her first born son. It sheltered, and housed in its little fortress, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Where not only did Samuel come to pour out the anointing oil, but God poured out upon Him, and upon the world, Christ the Lord. The angels heralded His coming and sang to the shepherds on the hillside, who followed David the king, years before. See the mystery of God, how great it is?
He was born in this great wheat belt, which one wheat comes forth the basic principles of life. And He was the bread of life. "I am the bread of life. He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and shall never die or come into condemnation, but has passed from death unto life."

46 Bethlehem! The name beth-el. B-e-t-h, beth; beth in the Hebrew word means "house." E-l stands for Elohim, its abbreviation, Elohim means "God." B-e-t-h, beth; E-l, E-l is Elohim, which is God, the House of God, where the bread of life is laying. E-l, h-e-m, finish it out and bring back your l again with your e, means a "loaf of bread," in the Hebrew, El-hem. E-l is God, Elohim. B-e-t-h is... b-e-t-h is "house." E-l is Elohim abbreviation. Then E-l, e-m is "bread." What was He? The house of the bread of God. "The House of God's bread." House, beth; Elohim, God; El, e-m, bread. "The house of God's bread," means Bethlehem.

47 Where could He have been born anywhere else but that? But it was hid to everybody but that prophet; he said, "Out of Bethlehem shall come Him." They was looking in Jerusalem; they was looking in all the big Shilohs; they was looking everywhere. But He come from Bethlehem, because it was the house of God's bread of life. He is God's breadbasket to the world. There He was, born in Bethlehem. He could be born nowhere else.
There could be many great things, as I was studying this week of the different spiritual aspects to that, why He must be born in Bethlehem. When I hit these few places, the Holy Spirit just caught me away, and I said, "O God, that's sufficient. I see it now."
He could not be born nowhere else but Bethlehem. It was the place of the bread of the nation. It was the bread of all the house of Israel, come from there. And He was the bread of life that come down from heaven, the spiritual Manna; has to come from Bethlehem, the bread line, the place where bread lays. Bethlehem, the baking of the bread. Now, Jesus being the bread of life, "The man may eat thereof," He said, "and never die."

48 Another great event that I wouldn't forget to call, that was when David was in his worst of time, when he was a fugitive. He had already been anointed; he knowed what he was to be. He was to be king, God said so, and yet he was hated. He was standing in between two great deep fires; here was the Philistines on one side, after him, here was Saul on the other side. And he was a man without a nation.
Just as the church stands today, the true living church of God, without a denomination or anything else. She stands alone, but yet she's had the anointing poured on her. She knows what she is.

49 How in the world can it ever come to pass, the devil on both sides, driving at David? He had taken refuge in strongholds in the wilderness and in caves, trying to hide out, with a little band of faithful warriors, just a few believing like him. But those men believed God, that that would be the king.
So is the believers today, who is hid out from place to place, but yet they know who is coming to be King. I don't care who is going to be president, we know He is coming. And it looks farther away than it ever did, when science is trying to overrule, and say, "They can build a man, they can do this, and they can take a rabbit and take the pollen and make another rabbit, and so forth," trying to disprove God's Word. Yet, there is a people who believe God, who stands just as pat as they ever did. No matter what comes or goes, they still believe God. God is right! They hold to God's unchanging hands. In the midst of battle, in the midst of tears, in the midst of sickness and death, and everything, they still hold to God's unchanging hand. They know that He is coming King.

50 People today laugh and make fun of them, and call them, "holy-rollers." Call them everything they want to, but them warriors of God stands faithful at the post of duty. Might call them a "healing group," you might call them a "bunch of fanatics," or whatever you wish to; they hang to that King. They know He is coming in power. Though they take His name in vain, scoff and make fun, and call the people who believe Him, "outcasts, bunch of backwash," that doesn't bother them a bit; they stay true at the post of duty.

51 Those warriors that was with David stayed right by his side. If a Philistine come up, he had to fight. Whoever it was, they were picked on, every side. Poor David, in his mind, all confused; he thought, "How can it be, Lord?"
You know, leaders sometimes go through things that the congregation don't know what they're going through. When you think of promises God has made, then why don't it come to pass? They don't tell their congregation, they don't tell the people they associate with, but there is many flusterations in the heart of a real leader.

52 David sitting there, his throat burning him, it was in the middle of summer. The Philistines was taking advantage of that split between David and Saul. And Saul looking for David everywhere, and the Philistines, also, and the Philistines looking for the Israelites. Talk about a time of confusion; just about like it is now. David taken refuge in this little place, in this little shelter, everywhere he could get to, the little strongholds that he could hold into. Then he got up on the mountain, on that hot, middle of the summer, when the heat was tremendous, his throat parching, and flusterations and fears in his heart, and wondering, "O God, how could it be? You poured that oil upon me, not because I chose myself, but You chose me. Why did You call me from herding the sheep out yonder, and told me You would give me this to serve Your people, and here You've got me between the fires everywhere?" That was going through his heart.

53 He sat up on the hill and he looked down, and there the Philistines had come in and garrisoned right in Bethlehem, his little home. Then, his little city was under government control of the enemy. Not only that, but his own father's house, Jesse's house, was under bondage to the Philistines. There was his own nation, his own church, against him. Here was the enemy he was fighting, here is the church people he was fighting; not because he wanted to, but because he was forced to do it.
Many times we are forced to do things and say things that we don't want to say (a real spiritual leader), but he's forced to do it. He has to take his side and show his colors. "I'll take the way with the Lord's despised few," said the song writer.

54 So there he was on that hot day, no doubt, walking back and forth, and looking down through that long valley, of about twenty-five miles down there, and back. There was his own father's house in bondage to the Philistines. There was Saul just across yonder, and here come this one, sitting right between, see, to take sides. Seeing the great time that Israel was all broke up, the church broke up in different denominations, as to say. Here was David standing back here, not knowing what to do, and yet knowing that on him rested the anointing. They knew that anointing was there. They knew David was going to be king. Hallelujah!

55 We know who is going to be King. Doesn't matter who is going to be president. I know who is going to be King. He will be King. And I know it takes something to stand. But God help me to shut my eyes to denominations and everything else, and look to that spiritual sight yonder, that He is the coming King. I'll serve Him. If it's death, let me die. If it's my family, it's my loved ones, if it's my denomination, it's everything: Let me serve Him. I'll stay to Him. That's the warriors of God, like was with David, that had their hands on their sword, walking any time. That's the way God's warriors walk, ready!

56 The enemy says, "You have to take a little drink, to be sociable."
"I touch not your unclean things." Amen! There's the enemy. There's the warrior!
"Oh, why don't you renounce that old holy-roller stuff you believe?"
"I believe God. I'll stand true!" There you are. There's the warriors.
"Oh, there's no such a thing as divine healing!"
"That's what you think. I know better," see.
"There's no such a thing as the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Them days has passed on."
"That's what you think. I've already received it; you're just too late to tell me anything about it."

57 They knew the anointing was on that little old ruddy-looking fellow, and they knew he was going to be king.
But David, in his own mind, was flusterated. I can imagine... Just watch him a minute: goes back out there and sits down, and looks down there, and thinks, "My own beloved city, Bethlehem! Look at it there, where the great things of God has taken place, where my father's father's father's father was born; where my great-great-great-great-grandmother yonder uttered in the time of the birth of Judah, from whose tribe I'm from, that yonder laid something supernatural. She uttered their place, and there Joshua placed that somehow in there. And through there come all these things here. It's got to be. I was a sheepherder, and You poured oil on my head. You said I'd be king. I believe You. Amen."
Then he goes back and looks down there, and thinks, "Well, way down yonder in my little city, where I was born, that little group where I was with, them good old days."

58 It would be better if the Methodists looked back to their good old days, when they were few and far between in little schoolhouses out here in America, falling under the power of God, and throwing water in their face. It would be better for you Baptists to look back to where you come from, too, and the rest of them. You Pentecostal, look back where you come from. That's right.
In the heat of the battle here, David begin to think, "Oh, I can remember them nights I laid out yonder on that hillside. I remember when I watched them stars, how they moved up yonder, and how God talked to my little boy heart. I can remember when I got so in the Spirit one day, looking at the clouds and the shady green pastures, till I screamed out in the Spirit, and singed:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadows of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;...

59 Oh, my, here he was right in the jaws of death right then, on both sides. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." Them good old days when the Spirit was with me, when God was with me; I sang His praises, I enjoyed Him.
"I remember one time that a lion come up, one morning, and got one of my sheep. And the Spirit of God came upon me, and I went out and grabbed him and cut him to pieces. I remember that deliverance. Oh, I can remember that evening just before the sun went down, a bear come in and got one, and I killed him. Them great deliverances!"
"I remember when I sang His praises in my childhood days, when I herded my sheep. O God, take me back to that place. Take me back to my first love. Take me back and give me back my shepherd's staff. Give me back my herd of sheep. Let me alone back there, to worship You."

60 Sometimes we think that, but we're in the heat of the battle. Something's got to be done. We were boys once; we're grown-up men now. The fight is on. I remember when the sawdust boiled up on the floor, and the people screamed and shouted, and you couldn't get around the place nowhere here, for people, but it's not that way today. The battle is on. Oh, it's not William Branham, the little boy preacher, anymore; you got to produce something. Yes, sir, there has got to be something different. The time is on. The battle is on. The heat is on. The time to be delivered, the people, everyone's found written in the book. Now the time has come.

61 David and all his flusteration, walking back and forth, and thinking, "Oh, this hot day! Whew, oh, it's so hot! Oh, Saul might come from this way, the Philistines from this way; armies around everywhere, and here we are sitting in the mouth of a cave! And, yet, the anointing oil on me. How can it be, O God, how can it be? Oh, I wish I had a drink!" Then his mind goes back, to way down there by the gates of Bethlehem, there was a well. There just was no water like that water.
You know, Palestine has some bad water. They have evil waters, and they have even to black-water fever, and stuff, in them. And a lot of it is alkaline water, which would kill you.

62 But Bethlehem is the water seat of the province, too. There was no water like Bethlehem had! David used to think, "When I take my sheep and start out of a morning, I'd go by that old well and drink. Oh, how cool and how sweet, and how it quenched the thirst!"
Now his throat is a going, yet anointed, "Oh, if I only had a drink of water!" Now his warriors... And he screamed out, in his despair, "Oh, if someone would bring me a drink again from that old well yonder at Bethlehem!" Oh, after dreaming of all of his childhood days and the victories, and see him in the place where he is sitting here between the fires, he screamed, "Oh, someone could bring me water from Bethlehem!"

63 Now, his warriors could not interpret his thinking, but, brother, they loved him with all that was in them. The least of his desires was a command to them. Three of his mighty warriors pulled their swords, slipped off from the camp, and cut their way, twenty-five miles. David, in their going, no doubt wondered, "Where they at? What have they done? Where did they go to? Did they know they're jeopardizing their life?" They're right in the jaws of death, through a twenty-five-mile line, laying in ambush everywhere, and the swords a flickering, and the shields a blasting; but their man, their brother that they believed that would be king, desired a drink.

64 Oh, brother, I wonder if the warriors today are willing to cut their way through formalism, doubts and unbelief, to refresh in the presence of the Lord, His desires? "The least of Your desires; if it's Africa, India, if it's to the street, wherever it is! The least of Your desires, Lord, is my command. Death don't mean a thing to me. Popularity, what I am, what I will be, means nothing, Lord. It's to fulfill Your desires." That's the warriors that's standing by the side of Him. "If they call me 'holy-roller,' if my name is scandalized, if they kick me in the street, that doesn't matter. Your desire is my command." That's the real soldier.

65 What did they do? They fought their way through until they got to that well. They dipped the bucket of water out. And here they come back, fighting, cutting their way from right to left, until they come into the presence of David. Said, "Here you are, my lord!" Oh, my! What? A man that was disgraced, a man that was hated by the church, a man that was hated by the king, a man that was hated by the Philistines, a man that was hated everywhere, nearly. But a little group that followed him, they knew that he was the coming king.

66 Today, I know we sing great songs, we build great churches, we have great anthems and everything, we praise to Him like that, but Jesus said, "In your hearts you are far from me, for you teach for doctrine the commandments of men." Let the Holy Spirit come in and do something in the church, showing the presence of Jesus Christ, they'll kick you out the door. "In vain do you worship Me. They worship, but in vain do you do it, teaching for doctrine the traditions of men."
But there's warriors who believe Him, there's warriors who stand by it, with a spiritual understanding, like in little Bethlehem yonder, see. Sure, it was.

67 David picks up this bucket of water, he looked at it, and the Bible said that he poured it upon the ground. Said, "Lord, be it far from me that I would drink that, because these my warriors has jeopardized their life, to go yonder and to bring this water to me. It's the blood of men. I cannot do it." And this sweet water that they jeopardized their lives and broke through the enemy line to go yonder and get, David poured it upon the ground as a free-will offering to the Lord. It wasn't mean; it was only fulfilling the Scriptures.

68 Because, although Jesus, from Bethlehem, is the bread of life, He also is the water of life. Sure, it is. And what did He do? He was represented in both David and warriors; because He was the King, and He was the warrior who came and broke through the enemy's lines. Amen! Conquered death, hell and the grave, poured out His own blood, that John 3:16 might be fulfilled!
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but would have eternal life.
And that He give not the water it represented, but He was the water, a perish; a perishing people, that might have life. How did He do it? Through His own blood, by pouring it out; not spilling it, that's an accident. He poured it out freely at Calvary, after He broke through every line of the enemy, and poured out His life blood, that He might be the breadbasket to the world.
And the fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
When sinners plunged beneath the flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

69 That's why He was born in Bethlehem. That's why He had to come, because it was the bread center, the bread of life. It was the water center. What is it? The waters of life. And in Jesus was both bread of life and waters of life, therefore He had to come and be born in Bethlehem. "...thou Bethlehem of Judea, are you not the least among all the great princes? You're just an ordinary little preacher, you're just a little fellow; but out of you shall come ... the ruler which is from old, everlasting to everlasting, His foregoing has been going forth from ever, and from everlasting to everlasting."
That's why He was born in Bethlehem of Judea. It cradled Him. And, my brother, the place He wants to be cradled today is in your own being, your own heart, that He might display from you, the waters of life to a perishing people, and the bread of life to a starving people. He is the bread and water of life, which is the two essential things to a man's living, is bread and water. It's promised, sure.

70 Let us bow our heads just a moment, and in doing so, I want your undivided attention. Have you ever been to Bethlehem, this morning? If you have never been to Bethlehem...
It was called Ephratah of Bethlehem, too, Ephratah of Bethlehem. Ephratah means "the root," come from the word h-e-m-p, hemp, means "the root." And the old ancient district there was called Ephratah, which means, "it's the beginning of life." Christ said, "If ye abide in Me, I am the vine and ye are the branches." He is the root of all life.
If you've never come to Bethlehem, Ephratah, Bethlehem, come this morning and receive Him as your Saviour, and He will forgive you of your sins. Will you raise your hands to Him, and say, "Lord God, be merciful to me now, I now here come to Jesus, with all my heart. I come to Your Bethlehem, the water and bread of life. I now accept Him as my personal Saviour"? The Lord bless you, young fellow back there. The Lord bless you. God bless you, little one.

71 Is there another, say, "I now come; nothing in my arms. I stand, thirsting, my throat is dry. I'm wondering where I can go and find real life. I'm wondering. I've joined churches..." God bless you, sister. "I have joined churches, I've done everything I know to do, Brother Branham, but I've never yet touched that real life-giving resource. I now come, Lord, to receive it." He is here for you. Would you just raise your hand, say, "It's me, Lord. I'm the one that's standing, and needy"? The Lord bless you, while we pray.

72 O Lord God, this little broken-up message brought from the Scriptures, though, in all its symbols, that You put it there; maybe it's hid from the eyes of the wise and prudent, and be revealed to babes such as will learn. How that little Bethlehem, the least of all of them! How did the prophet say that? "Art thou not least among all the princes?" But it so pleased God to bring from that little insignificant place, the Ruler of Israel. Lord God, out of a little group of people that's washed by the scarlet line of blood of the Lord Jesus, You shall bring forth to that group, somewhere, Lord, across this world, Christ again, that will rule all nations with a rod of iron.
I pray Thee, Father God, that You'll be merciful to each of us who are present now, and may we come to Your Bethlehem. "O come, all ye faithful," we've been singing, "come to Bethlehem." Lord, let them see that it's not go to a little city yonder, that was once in a symbol; but go to the reality, Jesus Christ, God's bread and water of life.
And these who raised their hands, receive them into Thy kingdom, just now, Lord, for it's by their faith that they receive Him, it's by faith that they raised their hands, and it's by faith that I believe that You receive them. Keep them, Lord, at Bethlehem, where they'll never stray or go away like Naomi; but may, if the times gets hard, may they stay right at Bethlehem. It will be better, by and by. Grant it, Lord.

73 Now I pray that You'll be merciful to those who are sick and afflicted. There are those here, Lord, who need Thy healing touch. O Lord, You did restore Bethlehem to all of her former glory. You restored her in the time of the depression, when she was sick. You brought her right back, and brought Naomi at barley season. And now, Father, we pray that You will bring every Naomi, and everyone that's in here that's in need. I pray, God. O Lord, it's just barley season, the great barley loaf that was seen, come rolling down the hill, into the camp of the enemy. I pray, God, that You will bring that great barley loaf into this building now, and that it may be the atonement for the sickness of the people, as well as the sin, and heal every person that's in Divine Presence.
I just feel, Lord, maybe it's just my own personal feeling, but I feel that You're near, the nearness of You now in here. I believe that You're here. And I say not this because of the people. Thou who knows the heart of man, I pray, Lord, that somehow they'll catch the vision, this morning, like those warriors, that Your great omnipotence, Your great power, Your great presence, what You are, the Son of God, the King, the anointed One, that You're in the midst of us; they'll catch the glimpse of it, in their souls, and be healed of their afflictions. I pray this prayer, as I place it to them, in the name of Jesus Christ, Thy Son. Amen.

74 I believe God, all His words, believe that every part of His Word is divinely inspired. I believe that He isn't "I was," but He is "I AM," an ever-living presence. I believe that right now, in the midst of the people here.
You who raised your hand, find you a church, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, calling upon God, washing away your sins, believing that His soon coming is to... He is to appear in His second coming.
I also believe that His presence is here to heal the sick, to make well those who are needy. You don't have to necessarily just be one-by-one prayed for. I proved that the other night, to people, that I just wanted to show them what would happen.

75 There was a certain young man, who is sitting, looking right at me now, that had been in bed for days. His throat was swelled so bad till he couldn't even eat nor nothing, his fever was way high. And he had told his father and mother, "Send, get Brother Branham come pray for me." And somehow they didn't want to bother me, because I was busy. And just something led me to go to their house.
While sitting there, they tried to bring the young man a plate, had real soft egg and something another, and some soft beans mashed up, and he was trying to swallow them. He would wallow them, take a finger and mash them; his teeth was all swelled out and puss running out of them. And he would try to mash it like that, with his finger, and try to get it down his throat like that. And he made about a bite or two, and he just couldn't go no farther, pushed it back.

76 I was sitting there, without a prayer; there is just a little something. You can't tell everybody what's going on. No. I said, "Lord, Lord, it's close to the end of the year now. There is a coming on, a new something. Let me... Lord, is this it, is this it?" And as soon as I begin to say that, and say now, in my heart now, "I know You're here," the young man reached and got another bite, and another bite, and another bite, and another bite, and cleaned up his whole plate, and got in his car and went away.
Oh, He's God, see, His presence, His presence. They don't... It just lets Him be present.

77 The other day when they taken this last, latest picture... When I seen Him standing there, I looked at it and I thought, "Well, I've seen the Angel of the Lord on those, and I know it was wonderful." But when He taken this one! Then about three o'clock in the morning, He woke me up and told me what it was to be, and explained it all to me, and how the armor and everything, showed me the things on it I had never seen. I went in and get it, and looked at it, and there it was. I had never seen it before. Oh, what a feeling that brought to me, a consolation, to know that He is present!
He is here, just His presence. And the presence of the Lord was there to heal the sick. The presence of the Lord is here to heal the sick. The presence of the Lord is here to bring conviction to sinners. The presence of the Lord is in the midst of His people, and He is God's Bethlehem, full of bread and water. I am so glad (aren't you?) that we have a place to come, to eat and live forever.

78 Now, the Lord bless you. Got something you want to say, brother? [Brother Neville says, "No."] Let us stand to our feet, just a moment. Our old dismissing song, "Take the name of Jesus with you."
How many love the Lord? Let's see you raise your hands way up. Now while you got your hands up, now put them down and shake hands with somebody standing by you, say, "God bless you, pilgrim. God bless you." That's right, then around. All right, that's just so you get acquainted with each other. All right.
Now, let's look right up towards the heavens and sing this song now.
Take the Name of Jesus with you,
Child of sorrow and of woe;
It will joy and comfort give you,
Take it everywhere you go.
Precious Name, (precious Name)
O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven;
Precious Name, (precious Name)
O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
(Now remember...)

Why little Bethlehem?

You can find this sermon at ChurchAges.net

1 That's what we're here for this morning, raising up our cups, "Fill it, Lord." This is the only time that we'll have the opportunity to ask this. There'll come a time where we'll be on the other side and then we won't have that opportunity. So while we do have it, and in our right mind, I think one of the most sensible things that anyone can do while God has given us the opportunity to do so, is to do it, get our cups filled now with His love and mercy.

2 There is one who sat with us long ago, not too long ago, neither, and he's passed on. And it's a great sorrow in our hearts for Brother Williams. Brother Williams, our chapter president here, his father. How old was your father, Brother Williams? Eighty-eight. That'd be about eighteen years, I guess, a-past the... no, it'd be, yeah, eighteen years a-past the promised time. A gallant man. It hasn't been too long ago since, sitting in the meeting, I said to him, and no disregards to Brother Williams, I said, "You look younger than your son, Carl." It just goes to show that we're here today and tomorrow we're not here. We don't know when that time comes, when it is coming, but we know it's coming. I was thinking, but life is a great thing, life is an opportunity.

3 We just had a great tragedy, of one that come to our church so long, from Chicago, was killed the other day coming home, a mother. She was close, I guess close to seventy, and she and her husband riding along and up Kansas, Missouri, one, a blizzard going through. A man driving, car out of control, her neck was broke instantly. And we just don't know when this is coming. When I... They called me to tell me about it and I called up all the children around across the nation, telling them. 'Course, being their pastor, like, I was the one to notify them. Thinking of how quick we can go, and then there set a box of candy setting before me that she made me about a week ago, and gave to me. Just to see how quick we can be snapped out. But, if that... If this life only was where we had our hopes, we'd be a miserable people. Job said, in the 14th chapter, "Oh, that thou would hide me in the grave and keep me in the secret place."

4 Have you ever noticed how nature testifies of God? We find the trees, the leaves go off the trees, and the life in the tree goes down into the ground, like the grave, and stays there until the wrath of the winter is past, then comes back again, bringing forth new life. It's a testimony that we live again. The sun rises of a morning, just a little baby, it's weak; after a while at this time it's in school, high school; then at noon it's in its strength; then the afternoon it begins to turn to the other side; then in the evening it gets weak again and dies. But, that's not the end of the sun, it comes up again the next morning to testify to another generation, that there is a life, death, burial, and resurrection.
Even nature everywhere speaks of Him. And nature is a great testimony in another way, that is, that we cannot have this resurrection Life unless it serves God's purpose. Now, if a seed is planted, and that seed is germitized, it brings forth a new flower. But if it isn't germitized, it will not bring forth a new flower, if it doesn't serve God's purpose. Yet, not just because it's a flower it rises, because it serves God's purpose. That's the reason the sun rises, is because it serves God's purpose. And we rise when we serve God's purpose.

5 I believe that Brother Williams served God's purpose in life, a real father. And I see his darling companion, Mrs. Williams, sitting here. A real husband, that's one of God's purposes. A father, one of God's purposes. And he was germitized to God, by the Holy Spirit, God's main purpose. So, to say that Brother Williams will not rise and be with us again, we'd have to say there's no going down of the sap, there's no rising of the sun. Everything speaks of his resurrection again, to be with us again, everything. First, the sun, the flowers, the nature, botany life, everything speaks of it. And then the Word of God speaks for him. And, besides that, the very faith that's in our heart pulsates that we'll see him again. God rest his soul. Just as a little salute to him that once set with us, let us stand to our feet just a moment.

6 Heavenly Father, we have never tried to make a gathering like this a purpose just to be seen or heard. We have come together each time, for the edification of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, and to give testimony to those who are without Him, that they might find Him. We are, our hearts are burdened for those who are left behind from the departing of our brother, one that sat with us not long ago, has many times sat right in this same chapter. But we believe that You let him live out a good, full round life, and his soul is with You today, Rest him, O God, until that day when we shall see him again. Bless his son here, his other children, his darling wife, and those who loved him, and that's all of us, Father. And may we take notice to this, that we too are frail and we must go someday, so let us prepare ourselves for that great hour. And if there should be some here this morning who has not prepared for this same event, may this be the day that they'll say "yes" to the Lord Jesus, and also be germitized to Him by the Holy Spirit. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Be seated.

7 Now, we want to announce a few announcements. My wife sitting back there this morning, I told her, I said, "Honey, I'm going to be out of the breakfast..." We had to go downtown, do some things. And I said, "I'm going to be out at ten o'clock..." She looked at me. I said, "If I'm not out by ten o'clock, I'll buy you three new dresses of your choice." So I know what's going to happen, I owe three dresses right now, 'cause it's twenty till ten now. But I will try to hurry as quick as possible.

8 We're glad to be here in Jericho with you brethren this morning, and we invite you, Monday night, up to Jerusalem, at Tucson, at the banquet down there. See, Phoenix is in the valley, like Jericho. Tucson, where I live, is on the mountain, that's Jerusalem. Where're you at, Tony? Why don't somebody say "amen" around here. Now I'm in a trap, Tony didn't even show up. Well, tomorrow, or Monday night, is the banquet at Tucson, and we certainly would be glad if you're around that way, would drop in and see us. My subject that night, if the Lord willing, is, "We Have Seen His Star in the East and Have Come to Worship Him."

9 And now the nineteenth of this month, or next month, rather, nineteenth of January, I start a revival here, right in this room, the Ramada Inn here, and the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first. And then the twenty-second, I believe, starts the... twenty-third, I have four nights here, and as a revival. Many of you minister brothers, we're certainly happy to have you with us this morning, and we cordially invite you out to bring your people. The ones especially, that you know here in the city that doesn't know Jesus as their Saviour. And then, secondarily, to those who are sick and believes that God answers prayer, we aim to pray for the sick during this time just prior the great national convention is to be held here beginning the twenty-second. And I'm sure you want to hear that, because there's many outstanding speakers come, and I'm sure you'll have a great time.

10 Now, this morning, I have thought about speaking here to this chapter, which Phoenix has always been a place on my heart. I like Phoenix. I was here when I was a little boy, out here at Wickenburg just above. And lived down here at Sixteenth and Henshaw. It was a desert then. But I see it's right in the metropolitan, well, really in the heart of the city. Goes to show that there's a changing time, changing. But there's one thing I want to speak on this morning, is the unchanging one, that's God, God, in His program, His Word, it never changes. Times change, men change, systems change. But God never changes, He ever remains the same.

11 And I thought, being that we were facing the Christmas time, that we would.. maybe I'd speak on a Christmas message. And now if you have your Bibles, and like to read, sometimes people do, behind evangelists or speaker, I want to read from St. Matthew's gospel, the 2nd chapter, for a portion of the Word.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
Saying, Where is he that's born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
When Herod the king... heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together, he demanded... them where Christ should be born.
... they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophets,
And thou Bethlehem, of the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: but out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

12 May the Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Word. And now with some notes here, and some scriptures referred to, I'd like to have your undivided attention for a little while on the subject of: Why Little Bethlehem.
You know, at Christmas, I think we all, too many of us, I wouldn't say all, but too many of us lose the real value of what Christmas is. As I noticed out here, even the palm trees are decorated; and in the East it's always the fir tree, or the evergreen. And months, or weeks, rather, maybe a month or six weeks before Christmas ever begins, it's always the tinsel and the great... They've made it a commercial in the stead of what it really means.

13 I don't believe that Christ was born on the twenty-fifth day of December. I do not believe that at all. It would be impossible for the things to happen. The hills of Judea are snowier than, why, snow is waist-deep in there in the month of December, up in Judea. But we realize in studying history, Christ was probably born in the spring, along maybe April or May, somewhere like that. But when it was changed, this they brought it, when Christianity was converted into Romanism, they made the sun-god's birthday, which was at the solar at the twenty-fifth, from the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth of December, the sun setting right almost hardly changes at all. And then that was the sun-god's birthday, so they changed it to the Son of God.

14 But, remember, ever what day it might be, we still doesn't take away the sacredness of what it's supposed to be. Where Satan has robbed us of this, has made the great commercial, and Santa Claus stole all of the worship. And it's become a day like Easter, like bunny rabbits and pink ducks. And then what's that got to do with Easter? What's that got to do with the resurrection of Christ?
It's just like the world today, the kids on the street can tell you more about Davey Crockett than they could about Jesus Christ. They can tell you more about some outlaw, some criminal of days gone by, than they can of the Prince of Life that was born nineteen hundred years ago. But that doesn't take the real thing away from we Christians.

15 You see, always light shines its best in the darkness. The forked lightning in the black cloudy skies at night, shows there can be light in darkness. And when the light is shining, you don't see... If the sun's shining, you don't need the lights too much. But darker, the smaller the light, greater it'll shine in the darkness. Darker, the better, shows itself better. And that's more the less that we Christians ought to be testifying to the glory of God giving His Son to us. This Christmas ought to be an outstanding thing. We Christians ought... No matter how much it looks, it'll make it shine that much better. The whole world's got tinsel. We've got Christ, and that's what we ought to be letting shine in this dark hour that we're now living in.

16 We think of how God does things in unusual ways, because He is unusual Himself. God is unusual. He's the Supernatural, the Infinite, unto we finite. So, anything He does is in it's scope unusual. And God is so great, till He takes the unidentified things of the earth to identify Himself by it.
We notice here in my subject, of: Why Little Bethlehem, that smallest of all of Judea, the princes or the cities of Judea, why did God choose to send His Son to that place? That's what we want to talk on. God taking the things of the world, I believe the Scripture says, "By the foolishness of preaching, it pleased God to take the unidentified things." What we make great, God calls foolish. What we put so much glory to, God says it's no good. And what we think is no good, God glorifies it.

17 Was thinking of just before the birth of our Lord, when all the prophets, and so forth, had spoke of the forerunner coming, how every mountain would be brought low and the low places brought high, and the mountains would skip like little rams, and the leaves would clap their hands. And it was a minister, a prophet by the name of John, came forth out of the wilderness, not from even a theological school, whiskers all over his face, and a piece of sheepskin, not in a clergy clothes, come out and announced, "The kingdom of God is at hand!" And the people could hardly understand such an outfit as that coming, with no identification of any system, anything that he belonged to, any fellowship card, or any denominational that was backing him up. The message was too great, he couldn't take man, God schooled him out in the wilderness. His message was not on some kind of a theological terms. He spoke of serpents and axes and trees, and that's what he was used to, nature, watching it how it worked. And that was the way he approached. Not as a clergyman, but as a man of nature.
And the people could hardly understand him. Didn't even have a pulpit, and probably wasn't welcome in any, but he preached on the banks of the Jordan, probably standing in mud up half to his knees. But the people come out to hear it, those who were honest in heart. They wanted to hear because it was something different, it had a ring of truth to it.
Today we ought to be at just at the approaching of the birth of Christ, our message, it ought to have a ring of truth to it that would make people thirst to find Him.

18 God took that simple man, without education, not one day in school, and yet said he was the greatest among all the prophets that ever lived, because God identifies Himself in unidentified things.
When Jesus chose His disciples, it was. There were many men better qualified for the job than those disciples, there were clergymen, He never called one. There were clergymen in them days, great men, priests, men of education, renowned men, but He never called them. He took fishermen and tax collectors, and so forth, to send His message out. He always does that.

19 In the days of Noah, He chose a farmer, just a common farmer, to announce the destruction of that age. Just a common farmer, not a clergyman, just a farmer. In the days of Noah, He took a... or pardon me.
In the days of Moses, He took a runaway slave, not a clergyman. And He let him get out till He was satisfied, out in the backside of the desert, and lose his education, and appeared to him in a burning bush, and sent him down with a crooked stick in his hand, to take over a nation that had... that he had run from.
See, God takes the simple things to identify Himself through. See, taking His... just His Word. He made the world out of the things that does... has not appeared.

20 A few days ago I was at the Morris Auditorium, one of our great New York campaigns, and I was hearing a lecture on Einstein speaking of this galaxy, that said take hundred and fifty million years of light time, to go out to it, and hundred and fifty million years to get back. And then, just think, hundred and fifty million light years, that would be three hundred million light years. And then when you got back here, you'd only been gone fifty years. Think, why, how fast light travels, one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per minute, and think of how many billions and trillions of years it would take to go out there and come back. A hundred and twenty or three hundred million light years. And that's just to a galaxy in the constellation that God just blew from His hands, and He maybe aeons of time in light years beyond that, and there looking down upon that.

21 Then this Russian said that he was about hundred and fifty, two hundred miles up in the air, said he never seen no God or angels. How simple can man get? And then think of all them billions and trillions of years; and only fifty years from here, what did he do, broke into eternity.
They say this astronaut that just went up, was up so many hours, went so many, seventeen times around the world, or whatever it was, they said it never even... it wasn't one second in his life. He was traveling with the time. So, you see, you break into Eternity. That's the greatness of God.
Our minds cannot fathom how great He is. And yet when He gets ready to reveal Himself, He makes it so simple, takes the simple things to do it, the simplicity of it.

22 David, he seemed to be the... All of Jesse's seven sons, he was the last one to be brought before the prophet. Why, even his own folks could have laughed, they couldn't imagine a little ruddy-looking David, a little stoop-shouldered, ruddy-looking man to be the man that would be the king of Israel. He might not have looked like a king to those people, but he sure must have looked like it to God, 'cause they... He anointed him king, anyhow. See, He took the simple of David's family, or of Jesse's family, to make king. Something that the world had turned down.. he had sent him back to take care of the sheep. He brought forth his first son, a great strong stately-looking man, probably could stand erect and look like a king of Israel, and that's the one they thought would look good with a crown on his head, that's the one would wear the kingly garment and could pack the staff, and whatever must be done to a king. He looked good to the eyes of the people.

23 But the prophet, with the anointing oil in his hand, said, "Haven't you got another one?" And he brought them, one by one, until finally he said, "Haven't you got another one?"
He said, "I've got one, but perhaps he wouldn't be nothing. He's just a little dried up sort of a fellow, we got him out there herding sheep."
He said, "Go get him." And as soon as he fell in the eyes of the anointed prophet, he poured the oil upon his head, and run to meet him said, "This is the one God chose," see. See, it's not tinsel always, of the world. It's God's choosing.
By grace He chose us, so we're grateful for that this morning. And it doesn't take those great tinsel things of the world. The humblest can be a servant of Christ, takes somebody who's willing.

24 God anointed him, see, takes the little things. Now, why did He take little Bethlehem? Seemed like there would have been greater places that the King, great King of kings could've been born.
Usually when we fix up an event here on earth, we try to get it in the highest, most glittering thing that we can think of, we take it to the biggest places and spend the most money, and the most elaborate things. That's the way we do it.
But God don't do it that way. He takes something that's nothing, so He can show Himself to be mighty, that He can. If He'd've took a high priest or a well trained man in the days when He was calling the apostles if He'd've took that instead of an ignorant, unlearned fisherman who couldn't even write his own name, they could have said, "Oh, that, see, your education pays off." But God took a man who couldn't even write his name, that He could take something He could get in His hand, something that He could make something out of, to show that He's God. When we get to a place that we realize that we're nothing, then get in God's hands, and He can mold you and make you the way He wants you to be. But as long as we feel that we're important, then you'll never get nowhere. You can't even get in the hands of God until we realize that we're not important.

25 One of my little girls was asking the other day about importance. I said... Well, talking about some important man, well, it was the president that was just assassinated, and our hearts was grieved over it. And I said, "Well, he was an important man." The papers played it up, and the television shot it, billions and billions of dollars it cost the government to broadcast that. Which, that's all right, that's their business. But I said... This little Pentecostal preacher up there in Carolina, that a man walked in, a drunk, with his shotgun, called for his wife, and shot the man plumb out of the pulpit and then shot his wife and shot himself, a little piece in the back on the paper about that big. Let me tell you, brother, no matter who we are, "Do you want to know how important you are," I said to my little girl, "stick your finger in a bucket of water and pull it out, and try to find the hole." We're nothing. There's only one important, that's God. We must remember, He's the one.

26 Looked like that if they wanted to... man had been fixing a place for the King to be born, there was more greater religious places and historical places for the King instead of this little Bethlehem. Places, for instance, like Shiloh. Shiloh was where the ark was pitched first, we know, as we come across the Jordan to this side in Palestine, to where the ark was set up for its first worship place. Or Gilgal; Zion, Zion a great place; Gilgal, also.
Or the proud great capitol, of Jerusalem, where the heads of all the organizations gathered at, their headquarters, looked like they'd've fixed a place up there at Jerusalem for the great King to be born, if they wanted a place, a historical place or a great outstanding place. That's where the religious headquarters was, of their religion to which the King came to. He came to represent their religion. And He... and when He did, instead of them fixing Him a place at Jerusalem or one of those great historical spots, He was borned in Bethlehem, the smallest of all the cities. "Art thou not the least among the princes of Judea? But out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule My people." And this great proud Jerusalem and all the other cities was rejected.

27 Or maybe they could've took some of the places of refuge, the great place like Hebron, Kadesh, or Ramoth-gilead, one of those great refuge cities, because He was to be our Refuge. If we would try to fix in our own mind, we might have took, say, "Well, now, if this great King's coming, which will be our Refuge, He should be born in one of these great memorial places of a refuge, like Ramoth-gilead, or Kadesh, or one of those." We would have tried to fix it like that in our minds.
But, you see, God has other ways of doing things. He knows how to do things right. And now by the mind of God and the help of God, we'll try to say why that this happened, because everything works just exactly right in God's great program. And I want you people here at Phoenix, and around to try to get this. That remember, that God knows what He's doing, see. And He takes simple means to do it by. Because, if He does something by some great outstanding something, then... God never does do things like that, He never did in all the history of the Bible. God never did deal, never did in any time, take any group of people to do anything. God takes an individual. You're the one, you, one person. God never changes His program, because His first program, He must always remain with that program.

28 In the days of Noah, He had one man, Noah. The days that He brought Israel out, He had one man, that was Moses. We know Dathan and many of the others tried to think, well, they had the same authority, and so forth. You know what happened to them. The days of the coming of the Lord, the days of John the Baptist, and the different ones, He has one individual He works with. And He deals with us today as one individual, not as a group. One person! It's going to be up to you and I, of how we stand before God. Because, He's dealing with you and I as individuals, not as a group that we're in, and not as the denominational church we belong to, but as you and I as individuals.

29 Now, Joshua, in dividing up the land, give this little spot to Judah. Many of you, I got some places here jotted down to where it sets at, but we're all aware of that, where it sits up in the corner. And it was just a little place that they give it, Joshua, in dividing the land, give that to the tribe of Judah.
And now when Israel come over the river of Jordan, now try to catch this, when Israel crossed over into the land, the promised land, there was a Gentile woman that we know as Rahab the harlot. And she asked for mercy, and she received mercy, she received mercy as long as she stayed under that scarlet cord. And that's the only way she could have mercy. It was a sign, a token that was given her.
We have a Token today, also, and we're safe as long as we stay under our scarlet cord, the Blood of Jesus Christ. As an individual, not a group, an individual we each must stay under that scarlet cord of the Blood of Jesus Christ.

30 And then this Rahab, after she was spared, she got all of her people in, everything that was under the cord was saved. Just like when God in Egypt, all was under the blood was saved. All was under the scarlet cord was saved. All under the Blood of Jesus is saved, all out from under it is lost and it's ready for destruction. And we find out now, in doing this... Then we understand by history that she courted some general, I don't know his name right now, in Israel's army. And she finally married this man. And they settled up here in this, near this little place, and her son Salmon was the one who founded Bethlehem. See, a Gentile is connected with it to begin with, a Gentile, Rahab the harlot.

31 Now, we find out that Salmon founded this little city of Bethlehem. And he begot Boaz. And Boaz was the one who married Ruth, another Gentile. And we're following this lineage now. Ruth, she got, she was a Moabite, and she married Boaz, and came into this little city just in barley season. Oh, if we had the time this morning, on that, I'd owe my wife six dresses, afterwards. But how to dwell on that subject!

32 Naomi, representing the orthodox church, went away on the account of a famine, went over into the land of Moab; like the scattering of Israel, all out among the nations. And then as she came back, she brought back Ruth, the Moabite, and she returned just in barley season, just the gathering in of the first barley. That is that the Gentile church coming to God just at barley season again. What a beautiful picture there. And then she and Boaz being married, and their famous son, Obed, was begotten there, and also born. And then his son, great son, Jesse, came from Obed. There also he begat David, his son, the king David come out.

33 Look at this coming up now. From Rahab the harlot, her son, founding it. From that come Boaz, which brought in another Gentile. And then from Boaz come Jesse. And here Jesse, to Jesse was born David. And David, right here at this same little Bethlehem, was anointed by the prophet of God, to be the king of Israel. All these spiritual things hid from the eyes of the world, was happening here in this little city of Bethlehem. See, that's the way God does.

34 Now, I trust that the Holy Spirit will be present now to give you correct understanding, that God doesn't work out in these big things. It's by the Spirit. "'Not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit,' saith the Lord," see. God working in the Spirit among the people. See, these great backgrounds, He could only come to this city. That's the only place He could be born. God following His same line. God always does that. God follows the line of His Word. He cannot go back on His Word by no means and then remain God He's got to stay with the Word. He can never leave that. Today, our traditions and so forth take us from the Word, we have creeds and things we inject into the Word, which pollutes the whole thing. But God can never leave the line of His Word. His Word is true, always, because He is the Word. God and His Word is the same.

35 Now, we see here how that this little Bethlehem, yet being unnoticed, a little place not noticed too much to the outside world, just a smallest of the cities, nobody paid any attention to it. But yet God had in His purpose that there's where all these things would happen. Now, the spiritual mind would pick that up, because the prophet said here, you see, the prophet said, "Thou Bethlehem of Judea, art thou not the least among the princes? But out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel." The prophet, the mind of the prophet found it.
Watch those spiritual, Holy Spirit today leading those things. Don't make any difference what the world says in all of its tinsel. Watch the Holy Spirit in the Word, there's where it come.

36 How about when Job died and specified his burial place? Along came Abraham, Abraham bought the parcel of ground to bury his wife, Sarah. And Abraham, when he died, wanted to be buried with Sarah. Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac, when he died, wanted to be buried with Abraham. Isaac begot Jacob. Jacob died, plumb down in Egypt, but he made Joseph (his prophet son) sware by him, with his hand on his limping hip, that he would not bury him down in Egypt. Why? Said, "Take me up into the land and there let me be buried." And Joseph, when he died down in Egypt, made mention of the departing, and Israel going out according to the prophecy, but said, "Take my bones out of this land." Why? They knew the firstfruits of the resurrection was coming up from that land, because Job said, "I know my Redeemer liveth, and at the last days he'll stand upon the earth; and though the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

37 They knew that firstfruits of resurrection was coming out of the promised land, not Egypt. They were spiritual, they were prophets. And when Jesus died, on Good Friday, and raised up on Easter morning, the following Sunday morning, the Bible said that, "Many of the saints that slept in the dust of the earth, raised up and come out of the graves, went into the city, went on into glory with Him." Why? It was them prophets that knowed exactly where to be buried, at the place and at the time. It was hid from the eyes of the wise but they knew... they looked at the Spirit side. The firstfruits of the resurrection was to come out of Palestine, not out of Egypt.
So is it today, friends. So many people hold onto things of the world, or some great system or something. Bury me in Jesus, for those that are in Christ will God bring with Him at that resurrection. And I don't care what the world's got to say, how much they try to tinselize things. It's in Christ, those that are in Christ that God will bring with Him. The spiritual mind catches those spiritual things.

38 Here the prophet said, "Little Bethlehem, art thou not the least among all the princes of Judah? But out of thee shall come this Governor," not out of the big self-styled capitol, not out of some historical church grounds or something, where the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, or whatmore started. "But out of the least of these, out of a little insignificant place will I bring forth this place, my ruler of the people."
But today we want to say, "Our fathers did this, and our fathers did that." See, God ignores every bit of that. God does what He wants to. Watch the line of the Spirit, watch the way the Scripture reads. They were ignorant to that. But, you see, the Scripture is what's right. Always, God is right.

39 David was anointed by this great prophet, to be king. No doubt that Samuel, this great prophet, knew these things beforehand. And it was there that his great promised spiritual seed.. for God swore by an oath, that He would raise up Christ to sit on the throne of David. Then where else could Christ be born? Here's His father born, His grandfather, His great-grandfather, great-great-great-great-great... on back. See, his people in the line of the Gentiles brought in. And now the Bible said that, "In His name will the Gentiles trust."

40 It all has to be brought in so you can see it. We'd like to stay there for a while and dwell on that, and show you why the Gentiles, but I'm sure the spiritual mind will catch this right away now; because, being the mothers, and not the father. Now, 'cause it was a woman--the Bride. The Gentile will be made up... The Bride will be made up of Gentiles. The Gentile, "He'll take a people out of the Gentiles for his name's sake." That's His name. He took a Wife, see, out of the Gentiles. That's how it had to be, woman come in, church, and she... they were Gentiles, the grandmothers back in the line of the seed.

41 Now, just as Isaac was in the line of the seed otherwise. Now notice this, we find out then that David had this promise of a son. Now, we notice how that parallels again with Israel. When Israel... Or Abraham was promised that his seed, what it would be, that out of his seed would come this great Saviour, and he'd be father of the nations. His natural seed, of course, was Isaac, and it failed. But his spiritual seed, by the faith that he had, come Christ, which brought in all of the nations.
Well, now the same thing is paralleled here again. David's natural seed was Solomon, and it backslid just like the other seed of Abraham did. It backslid. So did Solomon backslide. He got too many women and, the first thing you know, they led his heart away from God. And the way he went and backslid, died that way, backslid. Israel died in the same way, backslid.

42 But we find out that this spiritual Seed, which was promised by the natural seed as a lineage of people coming through Abraham, but the kingship come through the spiritual promise of David. And David was born in Bethlehem. And he was anointed in Bethlehem. And we find out then that when his real Royal Seed, heir to his throne was born, in this same city, little Bethlehem. "Thou art least amongst all the princes of Judah, but out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people."

43 In this little town, little stable, city stable down on the side of the bluff, was a cave back in the bluff, and out of there came forth through its little doors, the Prince of Peace, born in a stable, in a little box of straw sitting somewhere, manure piled up in the barns, and so forth, but out of there came that great Prince, the Seed of the woman, out of there came the Saviour of the world, out of there came Jehovah Himself, in the form of a man, came out of that little humble stable in Bethlehem. Not in some king's palace, born in royalty; but there He came from that humble place, to a manure stack down in there, and was wrapped in swaddling cloth. As traditions says, it was taken from the yoke of an ox where they had been plowing with it.

44 Poor people! Joseph and Mary, both real poor, and here they was in this little stable. How humble God makes Hisself! And then we try to make ourself something great. Can't you see how God humbles Himself and takes the things that's not, that He might bring to pass His great promises. How that little Jehovah laying in a manger, wrapped in the cloth taken off of the back of a yoke, the neck of a yoke where ox had been. And wrapped the Prince of Peace in it. My! Who are we then? What do we deserve? If God can humble Himself like that, oughtn't we to be able to humble ourselves to become His servants, if He did things like that? Can't we forget our great dignities and things of this world, and pass from that, and humble ourselves before Him this Christmas? And be a... Show Him our appreciations of that birth and that humility, by humbling our own selves in receiving His Word. No matter what the tradition says, it's His Word that counts. That's what He'll take, His Word, and that only.

45 Now we find out, this little stable, it was there that the first noel was ever sang on earth, and it was sang by angels. Think of it! The first noel, not sung up there with Caiaphas, not down at some great fine church where a wonderful pastor was, but at a stable in Bethlehem, the least among all of them. But the first noel was sang by angelic beings in the little city of Bethlehem. See what I mean?
No matter how poor you are, how little or insignificant you might be, God can use you if you'll just let Him do so. God wants you. He don't want you to... you don't have to belong to some great society, some great order, or some great brotherhood, or whatever it might be, that don't mean nothing to God. God wants you! And if you're... if you feel that you're great, get that feeling out of you. You got to get it out. You say, "Well, I have a Ph.D., LL.D." That just takes you that much farther from God. Forget the thing. Come back to God. Come back to the humility of the Spirit, and love God and take His Word.

46 "If ye abide in me and my Word in you, then ask what you will, it'll be done for you." God promised that. "If you say to this mountain, 'Be moved,' and don't doubt in your heart, but believe that what you've said will come to pass, you can have what you've said." "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he also. Even greater than this shall he do, for I go to my Father." What promises!

47 There's something lacking somewhere. What we try to do is twist it up and make it some great something up there, put flower and tinsel on it, and we pollute it just like the nations has done Christmas. That's right! If we could get the tinsel off of the things, and the humility back in the human heart! If we could bring the humility back to Christmas of what it ought to be! Not a commercial day, not lights and Santa Clauses! But back to worshipping the God of creation Who come in a stable and was borned a baby, God made flesh and dwelt among us! If we could come back to that, get away from the tinsel and the big things. God don't even deal with it at all.

48 You say, "Well, I belong to the biggest organization." That takes you that much farther from God. You say, "I do this, that." That just takes you that much further.
You've got to humble yourself until you see that, until, "If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, then ask what you will." What we try to do, as soon as God gives us a little shower of blessings, we try to twist it all up and get dignitaries in there that's going to make great big names and outdo the other one. This one starts this way and that way, God leaves the whole thing. What we need today is a fresh pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon hearts that's humble. We need a real Christmas, a birthplace. If you could realize that you're nothing but a stable! God didn't go to Jerusalem, to Shiloh, or Ramoth-gilead, He come to a stable that was polluted. You let God, you become... and realize in yourself that you're nothing but a stinking stable. But welcome, open your doors, when these great big places and inns are turning Him away, open your doors of the manger of your heart and let Jehovah come into that, and watch what takes place, for He is the Word. He said, "if ye abide in me and my Word in you." He is the Word. Let Him come into you, and watch what takes place. Then ask what you will, and it'll be done for you.
Yes, it was there the first noel was sung by angels, many years ago. And when He...

49 [A brother speaks in another tongue. Someone gives an interpretation. Blank spot on tape--Ed.] Amen. Now, we know the message must be very important, that God wanted to say that, or He wouldn't have broke in on a message to do something like that. "Humble yourselves under the hands of God," was the message of it. Now, our Heavenly Father, we know that Thou art all wisdom and does everything just right. We pray that You'll grant now that this might be a message to the people, that they truly must humble ourselves, all of us, and come under the hand of the mighty God. We commit ourselves to You, Father, that You'll grant this to us. In Jesus' name, Thy Son. Amen.

50 Now, to continue on, I was speaking of when the first noel was sang, was sang by angels at little Bethlehem. There's where all these great men were born. There's where the promise of the King was born. The promised King came to that. Now, the word... to get quickly now, so I won't hold you too long. The promise, the word was this, the word "Bethlehem." Let's break it down. I skipped over a few notes here in order to take up the time. Now, Bethlehem. The word B-e-t-h means "house." E-l means "God," in Hebrew. E-l-h-e-m is "bread." Bethlehem, "the house of God's bread." That's what the word means.
Words, names, they have meaning. Many people don't believe that, but that's true. If names don't have some meaning, why did Abram's name have to be changed to Abraham? Why did Sarai have to be changed to Sarah? Why did Saul have to be changed to Paul? Why did Simon have to be changed to Peter? See, all these has meanings, everything has meanings.

51 And the name Bethlehem means "the house of God's bread." Now, how fitting that is to Jesus, the Bread of Eternal Life. Christ is the Bread of Life. We all believe that, don't we? How fitting Bethlehem there, the bread center of the world, was the bread center of Eternal Life. That's why the King had to be born there. He said, in St. John 6:35, "I am the Bread of Life that come from God out of heaven. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and all dead. But this Bread, if a man eats this Bread, he shall live forever." Then, Jesus is the Bread of Life, so the Bread of Life had to come at Bethlehem. He is our Bread of Life for the journey, like Israel. God gave Israel bread out of the skies for their journey as they journeyed from where they left Egypt unto the promised land. Bread, nightly, rained down from the sky. And God gave us the Bread of Life for our journey, come at Bethlehem, God's house of Bread. See how it had to be? It must be where that name is called, Bethlehem, "the house of God's Bread." Then how could He be born in Jerusalem? How could He be born in Ramoth-gilead? See, He come to where His name was, "house of God's Bread."

52 Oh, notice, Israel received a new fresh bread every night, coming down from heaven for their journey. Christ is our Life, Bread of Life, and every day we receive a freshness from Christ, from heaven, the Holy Spirit coming down upon the believer every day. Fresh!
Yesterday's experience, many of us live on yesterday's experience. We mustn't do that. It's today's experience! That's what's the matter with our denominations, they're living on the experience of John Wesley, upon the experience of Dwight Moody, Finney, Sankey, Knox, Calvin, many of those back there. They're living on that experience. But, remember, the bread that fell, and they tried to keep it over, it got contaminated, maggots got in it, little wiggle-tails. And that's what's the matter today, contaminated cisterns, living on past bread that's contaminated.

53 We must have something fresh from Christ, His Word today for this hour, see. He is our freshness, our Bread that falls every day from heaven upon the believer. He is our Bethlehem, God's house of Eternal Life Bread. Christ was born in Bethlehem, and became God's house of Eternal Life Bread. He is the Bread of Life. He is our Bethlehem. Christ is our Bethlehem. Natural bread is called the staff of life. We call the natural bread, like our light bread, and stuff we get, is called the staff of life. Jesus is God's Life Staff, Bread of Life Staff for Eternal Life. As a staff of life is called bread, Jesus, being the Bread of Life, is God's Staff of Eternal Life Bread to us, see.

54 We can't go, something must die so we can eat. This morning when you eat, you eat dead substance. If something doesn't die, then you cannot live, 'cause you only live by dead substance. If you eat meat, the hog died. You eat pork, the hog died, of course. And then if you eat beef, the cow died. You say, "But I eat bread." Then the wheat died. "Why, I ate greens." The greens died. You only live by dead substance, and that's the only way you can live.
Then if you can only live natural, by dead substance, something had to die so you can live natural, how much more did something have to die so you could live eternally! Christ died, that we might live eternally. And He become the house of God's Eternal Life Bread, that we catch, freshly, every hour of the day, coming down from God out of heaven, in the form of the Holy Spirit, feeds our hungry souls as we set together in heavenly places. He is our Bethlehem.

55 Then all true believing sons of God are born in Bethlehem with Him. If Christ had to become the Bread of Life, to be born in Bethlehem, which is Life's Bread House, then every one of true believers in Christ is born in Christ, they are born in God's Bethlehem. Amen. Then not only Jesus was born in Bethlehem, I was born in Bethlehem, you were born in Bethlehem. How did you do it? Right here in Phoenix, Arizona, this morning in the Ramada, you can be born again in God's Bethlehem, house of Eternal Bread Life. Eat it and live forever!

56 Why little Bethlehem? That's today, "Why a bunch of little holy rollers? Why this, that or the other?" The people don't know what it's all about.
But the Spirit reveals it. The Word shows it. It's the manifestation of God's Word. We have Life through Christ, and Him alone. Our organizations, our denominations, our differences, only separates us from God. We have one access to God, and that's through Jesus Christ. There's not another way that we can come through by no priest, no preacher, no system, or nothing else; only Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He's God's Bread of Life, and we are borned in Him. And if He is God's Bread of Life, then He is Bethlehem. And being born in Christ, we are then born in Bethlehem, in Christ Jesus, sitting together in Heavenly Places, eating of Him. Eating of Him! Who is He? He's the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And when we can sit with one objective, the Word of God, and feed upon that, we are in God's spiritual Bethlehem, eating God's spiritual Bread, and our souls punctuating every word that He spoke with an "Amen!" We enjoy this heavenly angel Food.

57 When it says "These signs shall follow them that believe." The creed or denomination says, "Oh, it isn't so. But the real man who's born in Bethlehem, says, "Amen!"
"The works that I do shall you do also." The denomination says, "It's a bunch of work-up emotion." But the real Bethlehem dweller says, "Amen," because he's satisfied that it's angel Food.
"If ye abide in me and my words in you, ask what you will, and it'll be done for you." Amen.
Oh, the high and prudent will never see it. We hold so much to our traditions of the elders, so much that we have to pack cards and everything else to get in some pulpit. They ain't it! You can get in God's pulpit by humbling yourself. Come into the house of the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, and live forever in His presence, and lifted up in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, feasting on the Word. That's God's Bethlehem.

58 How many of us is in it this morning? How many's willing to forget your traditions, how many's willing to forget your creed that disagrees with the Word? Why ain't we got a revival? Why haven't we got these things going on? What's the matter with Pentecost? It organized itself. That's it. You can't organize Pentecost. You can make an organization. But the Pentecost is a blessing, it's the power of God. And if it's a genuine Pentecost, it'll never bypass the Word for a creed. It'll take the Word. Right, because it's circumcised from the world and the things of the world. It sets only on the Word of God, and believes it. We're in Bethlehem, candidates for the kingdom of God. We're eating God's Eternal Life Bread. Born, God, Bread, born in Bethlehem, to become the spiritual Bread of Life, of Eternal Life, in the house of God. Oh, my. Born in Bethlehem, we are this morning, when we're born in Jesus Christ, for He is God's Bethlehem. Jesus is God's house of Eternal Life bread.

59 He also is our Water for the journey. Now, we know that He is the Water. Like Israel in their journey; They smote a rock and the bread come down out of heaven, but a rock was smitten so that they could drink from it for the sustainings of their life in the journey. God smote a rock, or had Moses to do it, His prophet, smote the rock. What was it? Opened the rock. The Rock was Christ. Do you believe it? All right. Then if the prophet opened the rock so life could come out, then, if it is the rock, today we need the Holy Spirit in some man who will smite back the Rock, amen, and let the Word come out, because He is the Word!

60 We've bypassed on creeds and drinking stagnated water from cisterns. What we need today is an opening of the Word that lives, that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot fail! They can call it mental telepathy, they can say whatever they want to, or spiritualists, or a devil, as long as that Word is flowing free and producing exactly what it said it would do, it's a fountain in the house of David again, back in Bethlehem, where that Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever, to His Bethlehem dwellers live with it, live in it, it's life-journeying water for us as Israel had.

61 One of David's great experiences, if you want to read about it in II Samuel 35:15, beginning, we read out there that David, being born in Bethlehem, but yet he become a fugitive. Oh, what a sight! The Philistines were garrisoned at that time, in the land, because Saul, the great man that brought all Israel into sin, had fell away from God and become an enemy to God, and had been garrisoned, the Philistines were garrisoned around Bethlehem. And David, trying to get back to his own home, could not do it, was out in the wilderness because he had become a fugitive to the people, there was ousted.

62 What a beautiful picture that is of Christ today, a fugitive. He is. Now, you say, "That can't be." Well, if you believe the Bible it is. The Bible said, in the Laodicean Church Age, that Christ was on the outside of the church, knocking, trying to get back in His own church. A fugitive is something's been refused, rejected. And the Word and the Holy Spirit is rejected. That's right. You can't get in there. If you ever receive Him, you got to get out of there to get Him. You got to go out to Him. He can't get in. They're so set on their creeds that they won't let you preach them things, they won't let you believe those things.
They say, "Do you believe He's the same?"
"Oh, in a way, He's the same." Now, that's not living in Bethlehem. No, no. That's drinking at a stagnated cistern, way back, old contaminated bread that fell several years ago. "What did so-and-so say about it?" They might have been all right in their day. This is another day. This is the day of the Lord! This is another Church Age, not the Philadelphian. This is the Laodicea. It's rejected, and Christ has become a fugitive in His own church, pushed out. He's foreign.

63 He can come right down and work right among the people, and do the same things that He did here, saying that He would do it in the last days, give the same signs and things that He said He would do as it was in the days of Sodom. We know what He done to the church there.
We see Billy Graham, as it was and them messengers went down in the church denomination, and preaching down in there. And there calling them out, telling them to believe the Word and to come out of Sodom.

64 Abraham's group wasn't in Sodom, they was already called out. Watch the angel, what He did up there for them, for a sign, that they knowed. And the same thing can be done, and people say, "Oh, well, don't believe it." Why? Why? Because that they have made Christ a fugitive to their organization, they're so foreign with it, Pentecostal and all together. Now, that's just exactly the Truth. I know that scratches but listen, if anything that don't... if it's Truth, it will scratch. That's right. It's got to be Truth.

65 Now, now watch David, when he was up there, David dreamed of his mighty victories. He was in a cave, staying back, and way away, about fifteen miles out of the city. And he come up and noticed that there, his own beloved city where he had been born, and where he had been anointed king and so forth there.
The dwellers in Israel, in them days, was something like it is today in Germany. They have the little cities and then they live in the cities for protection, and then they take their sheep and their stock out in the country and feed them, and drive them back in. And the evening time, put them in the corrals.

66 And David, looking down upon the city, begin to remember the mighty deeds that God had done by him, the great mighty victories that God had won by him. How that one day while he had his sheep up there in the mountains where he was, laying down there by the green pastures, and so forth, a bear come in and got one of the little lambs and took it out. And he went after it, and he killed the bear. God gave him victory because he was detailed by his father to take care of those sheep. That was his job, take care of the sheep!
O pastor, that's your job! And they eat sheep food, not almanacs. Sheep Food, God's Word!
Someone come in and got one, run out. Someone come in and got one and took out, he went after it. A lion come in and took one, he went after it. He wasn't satisfied until he got it.

67 That give him that great victory one day when he seen Israel all backed up. See, Israel had been hearing all the creeds and everything, they had all, they'd all went to church. They had all be circumcised. They all went to the priest and got their blessings before they went to battle. But when it come down to the showdown, of the Supernatural, they were, every one cowards, because they seen something was in opposition. And they didn't have the audacity, they didn't have what we would call today, the street word, they didn't have the "go get it." There was something lacking. They could not go out there and face that giant. Why? But they was all blessed by the priest. They had the holy blessings upon them, and they had knelt and probably been anointed with the holy waters, and whatever it was, and there they was all standing out there. But when the opposition was so great, they didn't have it. There stood Saul, the general overseer or the bishop, standing out there, head and shoulders above his army.

68 And he made a challenge, Goliath did, and said, "If I kill him, then you'll serve us. But if he kills me, then we'll serve you." But the opposition was too great. He had fourteen-inch fingers, that'd be twenty-eight inches across his hand. Look what a hand he had! His needle, weaver's needle, his spear he had. And think how big his head would be, be about like a tub. And there would be a helmet, of inch or two thick, of brass, hanging over his head. Look at the armor, pieces of armor like one of these jalousie windows, where he could breath and move himself, that's the way the armors worked. With that great coat of mail hanging on him, may have weighed a hundred pounds, or two hundred pounds, of brass, hanging over his chest. With a needle, spear in his hand, maybe thirty-five-feet long.
What the enemy can do when he thinks he's got the odds on you. What he thinks he can do, how he'll make the boast! "The days of miracles is past. You can't get by with such a thing as that."

69 But there come up a little ruddy-looking fellow that hadn't had no theological experience, but he'd had an experience that God still remained God. God keeps His Word. Here he come up, and Saul said, "Wait, I'll give you a bachelor of art."
He put his helmet on him, and it sunk him down. He didn't know nothing about that. Said, "I don't know nothing about them kind of things." Said, "I don't know. But I know one thing, that are you afraid to go fight that giant? And you stand here and call yourself the church of the living God, and let that uncircumcised unbeliever stand out there and make such boast as that?" Said, "I'll go fight him!"
Oh, we need men like that today, men who's had an experience!

70 What did he do? What did little David of Bethlehem do? He went out there to fight the giant. The giant cursed him in the name of his gods (gods, plural), cussed him in the name of his giants, or his gods, and went out there and said, "Today I'll take you by my spear and I'll hang your carcass up there in the tree and let the birds eat it."
He said, "You meet me as a Philistine, in the name of a Philistine, with an armor and a spear, but I meet you in the name of the Lord God of Israel." What was it? The Word! The Word, "I'll meet you with the Word." Said, "Today I'll cut your head from your shoulders." That giant laughed and took after him. And David didn't back up, he took after him, too. There's only one little place, and God directed his rock.

71 David, laying up here as a fugitive, was thinking about that, how that great victory was. Then he must have got to thinking about the psalms, how sometimes out there in the mountains he'd lay and meditate on God. He said he tied His commandments on his bedpost and his fingers, and everywhere he go. "I always got the Lord before me, always, and I shall not be moved." He kept God before him. And the great victories he had! When he'd get so inspired, he was a psalmist, he'd jump up and take his pen and write down the psalms and sing them. He'd get into the Spirit, and dance and dance and dance in the Spirit. How he'd get so carried away in the Spirit, he'd dance in the Spirit by writing these psalms. And he must have come over the different psalms, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures (the 23rd Psalm), he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. Oh, He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. And, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil. Thou art with me."

72 And as he thought on those things, it must have been a hot day, he got thirsty, hot and sweating. He could look way down in the valley from the top of the mountain, on the east side or the west side, or east side it is, of the city, when he looked down and seen where the Philistines all down there, thousands of them garrisoned around. He seen that old well where he once drank from. Oh, he begin to think of a morning when he'd take his sheep, go out to feed them, he would pass by this old well, because it was a great place of water. And then he'd go there and he would drink water, and drink, let his sheep drink. How, there, at Bethlehem, where he watered his sheep.
That's exactly where God waters His sheep again today, right back at Bethlehem, its cool fresh Water.

73 He cried out, "If I only had a drink from that well again!" I'm going to close now, listen close. "If I only had a drink!" Inside of him cried out, "If I could only drink once more from that well at Bethlehem." His desires was a commandment to those who loved him. Remember, his soul was crying for a drink of that water. And those who loved him, his least desire was a command. We're told that one... three of those men got together, great men. One killed eight hundred, by himself. The other one jumped into a pit and killed a lion. One took a stick and knocked a spear out of an Egyptian's hand, slew him with his own spear, and stood on a field of lentil like that, and killed three hundred around him. Great men! They were Gentiles. Watch where they come from.

74 David here is a type of Christ, Bethlehem, 'cause Christ is David's Son. Here he's standing there, crying for a drink of that water. And his desire was a command, I said, to those who loved him. Three of those men pulled their swords and fought fifteen miles of men, down to that city, while others fought keeping... Them were gallant fighting men (those Philistines, twice their size, some of them) but they were men, gallant, who could fight. One of them slew, stood alone-handed, and killed eight hundred men right around him, in one day. They were great men, they trusted God. They had faith in their leader. And they cut his way down through, until while some of them cut and the other one got a bucket of water, and they cut their way back through another fifteen miles of men, and brought that up to David so he could drink it.

75 Here Christ is represented here in this, both king and warrior, because He cut His way through. He broke the enemy's lines of death. He broke the enemy's lines so that we might have Eternal Life, the Waters of Eternal Life. He come through even to death, and took death upon Himself, and died the death, and come back that we might have Eternal Life. He's both King and Warrior. We didn't conquer, it's already conquered! We never conquered death, He conquered death for us! He's our David of this day. He conquered death. Bethlehem's Bread and Water.

76 Bethlehem was the center. You historians know that, that it was the center. It was a great wheat country in there, from the irrigation and stuff. They could have great wheat crops. And it's also the best water. It was the bread center and the water center of Palestine.
And today, no matter how many organizations we got, how many other so-called brethren, and which way they may be, still Christ is the believer's Bethlehem. He is the place of Bread and Water. Methodist, that's good for you; that's good for you Baptists, you Pentecostals, the rest of you. It's all one place, that's Bethlehem, is where Bread and Water of Life comes from... Yeah.

77 Here He is our Bread, God's Bread and Water for us. He's the center, the only place that you can come and get it, is from Him. God's House, in the person of Jesus Christ, our Bethlehem, Bread and Waters of Eternal Life. And He is the Word made flesh. Here is the Word, the Bread and Water of Life. Hebrews 13:8 said, "He's the same yesterday, today, and forever." That makes Him our Bethlehem, our place of Bread and Water, the only place of Eternal Life.

78 Notice David, in getting the waters, he never drank it. He said, "God forbid. This is the blood of these men that jeopardized their lives," to go out and bring him that drink. Watch! He poured it upon the ground, for a drink-offering to God. Amen! Men and brethren, rise your faith just a minute now. He refused to drink it himself. He poured it upon the ground for a drink-offering to God.
How fitting that is to John 3:16, "when God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Jesus, the Prince of Life, come here, didn't have to die. He conquered death Himself, and poured His own Life's Blood out upon the ground, amen, as an offering for our sin. He's our smitten Rock upon the ground, His precious God-given Blood.

79 I heard someone say the other night in a message, said that they come to... I believe it was Billy Graham, last night, we was watching him as he said that he went to Israel and he went into Palestine, and he said, "I come to believe your people," something on that order. And I certainly admired him as he appeared on that worldly program last night. Many of you turned the man down for doing that. But, look here, he got before the whole nation then. And he never took it back, he stood just exactly on what he believes. And I certainly admire him for that. And he said, "I went to Israel and I told them, 'I worship one of your children,' in other words, like this."
I thought, "Billy, that's wonderful. I'd like to see that God-given power that you have to stand there in the midst of all that Hollywood glamour and give a testimony by Jesus Christ, but he was not a Jew." Jesus was God, not a Jew. Remember, the blood cell comes from the male sex. And He was not no man, Jew or Gentile, He was God created in flesh. We're not saved by the blood of a Jew or the blood of a Gentile, we're saved by the Blood of God. He was God, nothing less. He wasn't Jew nor Gentile. God's creative Blood in Him, we become... If He was a Jew or a Gentile, we're all lost. He was God in flesh. That's right.

80 I don't worship a Jew, I worship God when I worship Jesus Christ. I don't worship some fiction or some kind of a historical something. I worship Jesus Christ, the presence of Jesus Christ right now, which is His Word that's manifested in this age.
God in every age allotted His Word from the beginning, and every time which one of those ages passed by, God sends down an anointed prophet for that age. In the days of Noah, days of all the rest of them, when He made the promises. I don't care what kind of a condition the church got into, He always does that, He sends a man anointed. For the Word of the Lord comes to the prophets. And here he stood there, each prophet, and was condemned by the organizations of that day, but he stood on the Word and made the Word live.

81 Jesus was the fullness of God's Word, for He was the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him dwelt the fullness of God. God lived in Jesus Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Not Jew nor Gentile, but God! There He stood, making Hisself. How fitting! And God's own Blood had to shed upon the ground, from the innocent blood of Abel on down, to redeem us. He didn't take His own life, He didn't hold His own life; He said, "Father, is it possible this cup should pass from me? But, nevertheless, not my will, thine be done." He give in to the Word.
Today we can do the same thing. You can either take your creeds, take your so-and-so, and go wherever you want to with it; but you can say, "Not my will, but thine be done." Come back to that Word of God. Take your tinsel and Christmas and do what with it you want to, but give me Jesus Christ in my heart. No matter how humble it is and how people laugh at it, or what. Watch its nature, see if it does just like He did. If it didn't, then don't compare with this Word, leave it alone; it's not Christ 'cause Christ is the Word.
Now we find how fitting it was, our Rock, smitten, His Blood Life poured upon the ground, a sin-offering for the sinner. Our Bethlehem, Water, Bread and Life, offered to cleansing for us unclean sinners.

82 Oh, sinner friend of mine, how can you refuse, so foolishly, such an offering, when God gave His only begotten Son, a sin offering, that whosoever believeth in Him, in Him, shall not perish but have Eternal Life? How do you get into Him? By one Spirit we're all baptized into one Bethlehem, the Word of God, which is Christ made manifest for this age.
And every promise that the Bible gives of this age, He's waiting for some prophet to rise on the scene to manifest that, He promised it according to Malachi 4. It'll be done. No matter how foolish the people think, it'll be done anyhow! God said so! He's able of these stones... our creeds won't receive it, if our churches won't receive it, God can go back to the stable, He can go anywhere He wants to. But there'll be somebody stand up for this Word spoke for this day. Something has to manifest it. It won't be a group, either, it never was.

83 O sons, warriors, as I close. I don't want to keep you here too long. I'm going to close right now, the Lord willing. Five minutes till eleven, or six minutes, rather. Notice, O warrior sons, you men here that claim to be sons! Did you know what David represented? David represented Christ, Christ was the Son of David. Now listen, in closing. Those Gentile warriors, many of them, notice they come from everywhere, but they knowed that that fugitive was anointed. They knew David was rejected by His own people, but they knowed the anointing was on him. They could see it. So they stood right by his side, die or live! They were gallant men, no matter how much the outside world didn't believe it.
His own people kicked him out. They didn't want nothing to do with him. Saul run him out, the head of the denomination kicked him out, and have nothing to do with it, the council kicked him out, and he become a fugitive. They had to go to wherever he could. There he was up in the mountains, but there was a little group of men, of Gentiles and so forth, made up, that they looked at that man and they knowed he was coming king.

84 So is it today with real gallant soldiers of faith of that Word, who knows that Word promises that Jesus Christ will return. We ain't interested in millions of dollars of this and millions of dollars of that. I'm interested in the return of Christ Jesus. O warrior sons of God, what's the matter with you, how do you stand today? When we see that the Bible predicts that He's a fugitive today, turned out of His church, turned out of the organizations. You know it. No need of hiding around about it, it's the Truth. The Bible said it would be that way. Come out from them marks of the beast!

85 Look at these men! They pulled their swords. What was it? His desire was a drink of cool water. David! What a type of today, our David, Christ, we know He's called a holy roller, He's cast off to one side, a fanatic and everything, rejected by the churches. They've got their creeds and things drawed up at the Christmas like they did the first one. We know that, but we know that this Word ever remains true, and it's got to be fulfilled. And the desire of Christ is for men, warriors, to stand! Amen!

86 Oh, come stand with me by my side, I'm standing in a terrible place. I challenge today! These tapes go over the world. I challenge some man, some warrior who loves Jesus Christ, that knows that these things has got to be fulfilled today, brethren, come stand by my side and pull the Word of God. Forget those dry cisterns and stagnated denominations you're living in. Pull the fresh Word of God, let's give Jesus a good drink of fresh Pentecostal Water! That's His desire today, back to original Pentecost, back to the Word! It's prophesied we'd do so, in Malachi the 4th chapter... Return the faith of the children back to the fathers, again. Who would stand this morning?

87 Like David, we know that David is coming into power. Jesus Christ is going to take the world. He inherits the earth, He is going to be King over the earth. He's rejected today, He's a fugitive among His people. 'Course, He's a fugitive to the world, always was. But today He's a fugitive to His own church, they reject Him, they love their creeds and big dignitaries instead of the Word. They won't let it be manifested. They won't let it be preached in its power. They've cut away from it, just like the Bible said they'd do in Revelation 17. What are they doing? Going up here today, and all going in this council of churches. Catholicism and Protestantism uniting together, making the mark and the image of the beast. And Protestants falling right for it, Pentecostals everywhere. Dignitaries going into Rome, from Pentecost, and coming back, said, "Most spiritual place!" And in Texas and everywhere else, they're opening up and giving understanding of the stations and so forth, knowing that that creed's been injected to this Word!

88 Oh, you Bethlehem dwellers! Hallelujah! I call for men, warriors who's not afraid. I don't care if there's eight hundred standing on one side and ten thousand on the other, I want warriors who will come with me and cut a hole through this line of unbelieving Philistines. The world council has got garrisoned around the Word of God, trying to make it creeds and feed the people. There's a well, there's a fountain open in the house of David, Bethlehem, for sin and uncleanliness. Brother, sin is unbelief in His Word!
Who... warrior that can see the millennium coming? What warrior can see this great Holy Spirit coming in the form of Jesus Christ, the literal body of Christ to take over again, stand with me. Stand by me! Let's cut a hole through this denominational creed. Let's get in there! He's crying for a good fresh drink of Pentecostal Water, original Pentecost, not a bunch of carrying on, screaming, hollering. I mean a genuine Holy Spirit baptism that produces the Life of Jesus Christ back into the person.

89 Forgive me if I hurt you. No, don't you do it. I'm doing this in the name of the Lord Jesus. Come back! Stand, you gallant men who see David standing yonder! Jesus Christ, a fugitive from His church, barred out by their creeds. There's a fresh Fountain hanging yonder. Amen. There's power to make this Word live again, it's prophesied in this day to come to pass. God said it would come to pass. It's got to come to pass. You'll never do it in the army you're in now. You're garrisoning yourself, Pentecost, right around with the rest of the organizations, cutting it into a creed.

90 O men of God, where's that sword? Our Lord desires a fresh drink. I don't care if it's life or death, let's cut through this thing. It's so hard standing by yourself. I'm calling for men to stand by me, stand with the Word! What that Word says, do it just the way the Word said. I don't care what anything else says, stay it that way, for that's the only thing that will cut. Let's get to Bethlehem, the true Water of God.
"If a man abide in me and I in him... if ye abide in me and my words in you..." Abiding, not just jumping from place to place, and swapping your fellowship card from a oneness to a twoness and a threeness, and back to a Presbyterian, Lutheran. "Ye abide in Me (and He is the Word), my Words abide in you! Don't be afraid of eight hundred or eight million, I'll stand by your side." I desire to drink from that well again.

91 God's going to have a people that will drink from that Well! Hallelujah! You might think I'm crazy, and maybe I am, then I'm crazy about Jesus Christ and His Word. If I have to be called a fool, let me be called a fool for His Word. I've never been against men in them organizations, I'm against that system that's barring the Word of God out. Let's cut, warriors, stand by it! Let's go into that Well, He's our Bethlehem.
These old cisterns, the world council of churches organizing now. Let's restore the fresh Word of God, not a denomination. Let's not take a creed, that's old stagnated cisterns that fell forty years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, or either last year. I want God's Word that's promised for today. That's the drink He wants me to have, this Word today! It's a little Bethlehem, it's rejected.

92 It's... I know, it's just like you think, "Well, if my..." Yes, that's right, they thought He should be born in Jerusalem. They thought He should be born where their denomination heads was. But He turned by all that. He come to the name Bethlehem, for that's what He was. Hallelujah! He's not coming for Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or Pentecostals. He's coming for the Bride, Jesus Christ. That's who He's coming for. It may seem strange to you, but believe it!

93 See, these types, they can come no other way but by the Word. That's the only place He could be born, is by that Bethlehem. That's why it had to be that little humble place. That's the way it has to be this morning, has to be the same way by the promised Word. Yes, sir. The Philistine council of churches now organizing, garrisons everywhere around our Bethlehem. Around this Christmas, they're garrisoned around there everywhere, it's all decorated up with worldly tinsel. "Oh, we'll bring world peace." Pope Luther, John, or whatever his name is, he'll get together, and all the great bishops of the church, the United Council of Churches and the World Council all coming together. How can two walk together unless they be agreed? Amen!
There's only one you can walk with, that's Jesus Christ. How can you walk with Him? When you agree with who He is, the Word! Don't you let that leave you.

94 I don't care about how much tinsel they got, "You got to do this or we're going to close up your church or... I don't care what they close up, that has nothing to do with the Word. Yes, sir. Where you going? Just exactly what the Word said you was doing, going right back, all dressed in worldly tinsel, with all kind of worldly promises, but it's away from the Word a million miles. There it is today, Christmas again, to keep us from the promise of the Word. But it shall be fulfilled. God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham. Ah, trying to keep the real, true Bethlehem dwellers away from Eternal Life, that's their purpose.

95 Rise, ye sons and warriors, let's cut back to our original Bethlehem! Remember when David come to his throne. These men stood by him because he knowed... they knowed he was coming to the throne. They knowed that David was going to be on the throne, no matter how much he was rejected out. He was the worst fugitive in the land. So is the true Word of God, this morning, it's foreign to organizations. Look what they've done. That shows it right before you.
People try to say, "Brother Branham, you're knocking the church." I'm knocking them systems. The Church is Jesus Christ, not a system.

96 And today, look what they've done, look what they're doing. And you can see what they're doing, they're trying to keep the people from that. They're garrisoning more and more around that well, to be sure that nobody will drink from it. But, O warriors of God, I believe that Jesus Christ will come some day in glory, I believe He'll come and sit on the Throne of His Father, David. Though He be a fugitive, His Word this morning, rejected by His own people like David was, the organizations turned out His Word, they turned out, when God comes and vindicates His pure Word. Don't tell me! For years, across the country, and they get farther away from it all the time.

97 I said the other day, about Jacqueline Kennedy, how many times I've rebuked you women for cutting your hair, wearing makeup, you Pentecostal women cutting your hair, which God said it's... You make yourself a street harlot when you do it. And, according to God, your husband has no right to live with you any longer. A woman that cuts her hair, dishonors her head, which is her husband. That's exactly. What did I say about it? And you call me out on it, I get the letters, "You old crank." All right, they called Elijah the same thing. They called every Word of God, every time the Word is made, call it.

98 Somebody said the other day, "Why, we believe you to be a prophet."
I never said that, I don't tell... I ain't no prophet, I'm just God's servant here trying to tell you the Truth. That's all. Let me tell you, the Word of God stands for that! He said, "The daughters of Zion, the branch that escaped in that day of all its contamination, it'll be glorious in the sight of the Lord." Cut through, women, you got your place to cut through, worldly Hollywood and picture shows, and all this television stuff that you try to pattern after, dress yourself sexy out on the street.
And someone said, "Why, the people want you to teach them how to receive the Holy Ghost and how to get..."
Say that you got the Holy Ghost, and then deny the Word? Your own life proves you haven't got it, see. Now, I'm not angry, I'm just telling you what's the Truth. Look at yourself and find out. Paul said, "If an angel from heaven taught anything else, let him be accursed," Galatians 1:8. That's right.

99 What if Jacqueline Kennedy... She did set the pace of women with all these waterhead haircuts and things that they have, all these sexy dresses, and like motherhood dresses and things. Every woman in the country wants to wear them, you Pentecostals, too. Look, Jacqueline Kennedy never did hear a message like this. If she would have heard it, she might have repented long ago. But you Pentecostal women hear it day in and out, and year in and out, and still you do nothing about it! Hallelujah! God's going to get tired one of these days! God will get tired. Well, I know you think I'm crazy. Go ahead, it's all right. They thought that all down through the ages when the Word... see.

100 O warriors, pull that Sword, let's stand for everything that Sword stands for! Let's get to that well where there is a Fountain filled with Blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins. Not a Jew, Immanuel's veins, God with us; Where sinners plunged beneath the flood lose all their guilty stain.
"And there shall come forth a ruler out of Bethlehem that shall rule over my people." The Holy Spirit today rules over the people, and the Holy Spirit is the Word. Is that right? Now, in closing, reverently. He rules the people. No matter what you think; you cope with the Word. If you don't, the Holy Spirit's not there; you bear record of your own testimony, no matter what you say. You could jump up and down, speak in tongues, and run over the floor, still have bobbed hair and doing the things you're doing; it testifies against you, that it's not so.

101 Bethlehem dwellers, God bless you, let's go through! Christ wants a real Church. He wants a Bride. Let's cut our ways through. Get out of here, get these creeds away, that the real drinkers might come back and get a drink of real, cool Pentecostal Water that once flowed from this great Well. It's still flowing. Won't you come today and believe that with all your heart, while we bow our heads just a moment.
I got many things here I should speak on. Time won't permit it, it's eleven o'clock now. I wonder how many warriors in here, you ministers, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic priest, whatever you might be, you're convinced? I know I'm not a clergyman. I might have come out of the wilderness, with chopped up this, that, and the other, but this is the Word. You believe it's so, you believe it's the Word, that's the Bethlehem. Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone; every Word that cometh from the mouth of God." And the Word is here, the Bible. Man shall live by that, and He is that Word.

102 O warrior, will you pull the Sword of God and say, "I'm through with these traditions, I'm coming back to the Word, I'm coming back to Truth."? Women, men! Women, ain't you ashamed of yourself, the way you've been doing? Are you willing this morning, at this Christmas, to come back and reflect the real Jesus Christ?
Now with your heads bowed and every eye closed, would you raise your hand, say, "Pray, Brother Branham. Truly I want to do that in my heart. I am... I believe it"? God bless you. My, ministers, women, everywhere!

103 In Bethlehem... Bethlehem, the place of the Bread and Water of God, Christ our glorious Bethlehem. How do we get into Him? I Corinthians 15, "By one Spirit we are all baptized into the mystical body of Jesus Christ."
We feed upon His Word, not anything else, sheep Food alone! That Word! Nothing else. You can't put no creed in it, we won't listen to it. No, sir. You go to say, "Why, it's this way." If the Bible says it's this way, this is the way we want it. We don't want it seasoned up. We want it just the way it is.

104 O God, our Father, today there's hungry hearts still left on the earth. Why little Bethlehem? In my poor unlearned way, Lord, I've tried to let this little group... which loves me, I know they do, Lord. And I love them. And I love them so much till, Lord, I'm zealous of them. I don't want to see them mixed up in these great things, and get cut off then when it's too late, and see them poor souls yonder in prison, and know it once had the opportunity.
Lord God, today, no matter what the great Jerusalem thinks, and what the Gileads and the Ramoth-gileads and whatevermore, Shilohs and the great worship places, wherever they are. There is a Bethlehem. "Art thou not least among all of them? But out of thee..." Out from the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian; Catholic, the great capitol; and the Ramoth-gileads, where Luther fought; and the Shilohs, where maybe Wesley fought; and many other places. But, Lord, Lord, You raised up a Pentecostal group, and if they haven't turned right around and done the same thing.

105 Jesus of Nazareth, I pray Thee, Lord, to let warriors, out of every one of these creeds back there, rise in Your name, cut through all these creeds and get back to the true, unadulterated Word, laying aside every weight that does so easily beset them. Laying aside every hour that they're out here foolishly dropping around trying to make members of an organization. Lord God, let them come back to get converts to Jesus Christ; not to glorify any organization or any persons, but Jesus Christ, He alone.
It was David those men fought for. It was David they set their life in jeopardy for. And them great and mighty warriors, without fear, they moved their way through there, because it was his desire. It was his desire to have a drink from that well.
Lord God, maybe we don't feel, just that tug, but, look, it's your desire that these things be done. As you said to John, "Thus it is behooving to us, or becoming, that we fulfill all righteousness."
It's becoming to us, as ministers today, to see that this Word is preached, to see that it's done. It's becoming to us, men of these hours that we're living in. Great men in the earth today, O God, they're out there, let them see it and grab the Sword! No matter what the opposition, if God be for you, who can be against you? We don't care jeopardizing our social living, we don't care jeopardizing this, that, or the other, we want to get the Water of Life back!

106 Let us go to Bethlehem, Lord, let every one of them. Let all these women, that, surely, if they put up their hand, they was ashamed of themselves. Let them realize that these men will be like Mr. Kennedy one of these days. They'll be like the rest of men, they have to die. These women are dying. I'm dying. We're all burning up here on earth, and know that just a short time, we've only got a very few days left. And, God, instead of trying to build big systems, Lord, let men and women see this morning it's the coming of a King.
O God, the coming of that great King, Jesus! And we realize, God, that every one of those men that pulled that sword and fought for David when he was a fugitive, when he come into power, he made them rulers over cities. Every one of them had cities. And you promised that in the Bible, that we would have cities. O God, as Gentiles, fell heir through the Gentiles, that we might be partakers of His holiness and His righteousness! Let us today, Lord, as men warriors take that Word, knowing that, those who stand for Him in this hour, they'll be rulers over cities. Not as we want to be rulers, but we want to be servants to You, Lord. O God, we see the vision of this little minority, this little group, this what's called fanaticism in the... Paul said in his day, "In the way that's called heresy (crazy)." That's where I want to fight, Lord. Thy Word is Truth! Thou art the Word, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

107 O God, anoint us with Thy Word, and bring Thy Word promised to this day to pass. May we leave this building this morning as shining instruments of God. May we go with the Sword, it glittering in the air, to cut away every weight and everything else, till we can get back the people to Christ, bring a cool fresh drink to our Lord, instead of all these old stagnated creeds. Let the people drink from the Fountain, of real, cool refreshing Pentecostal blessing, that it might bless His heart and bring Him back among us again. Grant it, Lord. In Jesus' name, I pray.

108 While we have our heads bowed, if the pianist or organist, or whatever it is, will got to the organ, piano, I want us quietly to sing this, "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins; when sinners plunge beneath the flood..." Sinner, what is sinner? Unbeliever. "Unbelievers plunge..." Unbelieve in what? The Word. Oh, those Jews, they didn't want to believe that they were unbelievers, they thought they were saved, but God knowed they needed a saviour. They was praying for a warrior, God give them a baby, a Saviour. He knowed what they need. That's their Christmas present. That's what you need today, that's what I need today, a Saviour for my unbelief, a Saviour for your unbelief. While we sing, let's just pray about it now in our hearts. Just pray sincerely, please, church.
%#There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
And sinners (unbelievers) plunged
(not a church member, now) beneath the...
(That's where church members plunge.)
Lose all their guilty stain.
Lose all their guilty stain,
Lose all their guilty stain;
And sinners...

109 Lord Jesus, I pray now that You'll receive us. I'm putting myself right here with this group, Lord. Take all my unbelief, Lord, away from me. Let me die, Lord, as Samson cried, let me die with these Philistines. Let me do whatever it may be for me to do, but, God, cleanse my soul. Take all doubt away. If there's anything in this Word that I don't believe, Lord, if there's not something here that You've promised, that I can't see my own life be... vindicate that Word for this day, then, Lord, forgive me. Forgive me, Lord.
Give me courage. O Lord, I need courage to cut down this thing, cut this wall, for I know it's Your desire. You've spoke it, it should be in this day, "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." We see this last move, this last sign that's been given to the church. That was the last sign of Abraham's natural seed saw before the fire burnt up the Gentile world. And so is it the last sign that His royal Seed will see before the fire burns up the Gentile world. You... Lord, may they see that's just exactly the reason Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. It's Your Word. It's Your promise. Bless them now, Father. I give them to You, as trophies. And may we, together, Lord, pull the Word today, and march forward in Jesus' name. Amen.

110 God bless you. Do you love the Lord Jesus? Do you believe that's the Truth? Raise up your hands if you believe it's the Truth. Thank you, friends. Look, I am... I guess the tape's off. See, in speaking here, I'm not just speaking just to you. That tape goes around the world, and men and women around the world hear that. We go to nation after nation after nation, they just... They sit there with little tubes in their ears and speak that right out to hundreds and hundreds of people around the world.

111 And look, it's not... Now you women, I don't want to hurt your feelings when I tell you them things. But if your pastor don't tell you that, there's something wrong with him. He ain't got the audacity to do it. He's hiding behind an organization. Or he's like Lot, sitting down, before the fire fell, he just didn't have the real stuff it takes to stand out there. He... The Bible said that, "The sins of Sodom vexed his righteous soul daily." His soul knowed better, but he didn't have the real thing it taken to stand out there and condemn it. And a pastor that won't tell a woman it's wrong to cut her hair, there's something wrong with that man, and to wear these clothes.

112 And you men, you men that'll let your women do such things at that, what's the matter with you? What's the matter with you? Lead your wife around through town like a public prostitute, and then slap some man in the mouth if he'd insult her. You're the one needs slapping in the mouth. That's right, and God will do it some day, too. That's right. We need to get back to this Word.
Not only that, that's just a little thing. But how're you going to get the big things if you refuse the little ones? How can you learn algebra if you don't know ABC? If you can't count to ten, how you going to know your mathematics? You've got to start from the bottom. You're trying to get at the top. Come down here and get started right.
This is the time to do it, now, Christmas. It was the birth of Christ, let Christ be born in us. What is Christ? Christ is the Word. How many knows that? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

113 Somebody said the other day, said, "Brother Branham, you... people know that you're a woman-hater." I am not. I'm not. I got genuine love for my sisters. Some man will turn around, think you look nice with red eyes and green eyes, and bobbed hair, that man has got a different opinion what I'd have. I love that soul that's in you, that's got to meet God. That's what I'm... my sister for eternity, not some little sex thing here on earth will...

114 How many ever read the decline or the fall of Rome? Sure. Look at there, just the same thing we're doing, sex appeal. Youth in the condition it is, just exactly the way we got now, racial problems. And youth taking over, and men and sex. Just the way the Roman Empire fell, eighteen hundred years ago, and here it is right back here again amongst Gentiles, see. The confusion amongst the religions and things. Oh, what an hour that we're living in.
[A sister gives a message. Blank spot on tape--Ed] Amen. The Lord God has spoke. I believe that.

115 Now let us stand. When He speaks, it's time for us to give reverence. [Someone speaks to Brother Branham--Ed.] By God's grace, and by God's help, I'm more determined than I ever was, to stand by this Word and try my best, by the help of God, to cut away down to Bethlehem again, where Bethlehem dwellers can drink from that Fountain. How many will join with me, with your hands up, say, "I promise to God I'll do it"? God bless you.
Now bow your heads just a moment, and I believe some brother here, Brother Jeffries, come here. He's going to dismiss the audience while we bow our heads in prayer, if you will. All right, brother.