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START OF FILE: 2012-06-24 - The Present Truth Pt. 2 - Barry Coffey.txt
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SERMON DETAILS
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Date:     2012-06-24
Title:    The Present Truth Pt. 2
Speaker:  Barry Coffey
Church:   Hickory Bible Tabernacle
Type:     Sunday Evening
Duration: 1h 47m
Language: English
URL:      https://web.archive.org/web/20130926202729/http://hickorybibletabernacle.org/thepresenttruth/
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TRANSCRIPT
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Since I live my burdens down. Oh, the devil don't like it. No, he don't like it. Since I lay my burdens die. Oh, I've got joy and peace. Oh, sweet joy and peace. Since I've laid my burdens down. Oh, I've got joy and peace. Oh sweet joy and peace. Since I lay my burdens die. Oh glory. Hallelujah. Since I lay my burdens down. Oh glory. Hallelujah. Since I lay my burdens down. Oh sing it one more time. Oh glory glory. Hallelujah. Since I lay my burdens die. Oh glory. Hallelujah. Since I lay my burdens die. Hallelujah. Give the Lord a hand clap of praise. Amen. You know, we have a we have a an answer to our burdens. We don't have to carry those burdens around, Brother Wayne. I heard uh brother uh Woosley, I think it was last weekend talking about having lost weight and I myself had lost somewhere around fifty pounds. And you go and you pick up fifty pounds and you see what that feels like you're carrying that around. Well think how think how much easier it is the journey when you take your burdens and you let Christ carry them for us. Amen, hallelujah. We don't have to bear our burdens alone. I love him this evening. Good to see each one of you here looking for a good time. Certainly enjoyed the services this morning. And I believe we're getting close. We're getting close. If you have any needs, you can get them answered right here. Let's sing that old song to KD. I would not be denied. That's what you got. That's the attitude you gotta have this evening. Don't be denied. Amen. When pains of death seized on my soul, unto the Lord I cried oh till Jesus came and made me whole I would not be denied. Oh I would not be denied Oh I would not be denied. I would not be denied now as Jake come in the days on hold. I wrestle with the Lord and in stun with a curve. I stood up on his word. Oh, I would not be denied. Oh, I would not be denied till Jesus came and made me whole. I would not be not Satan said my Lord was gone and would not hear my prayer. Oh the praise the Lord, the work is done, and Christ the Lord is here. Oh I would not be till Jesus came and made me whole I would not be denied. No, I would not be denied. Brother Andy, we've come too far to turn back. We need to keep pressing on pressing the button. Pressing on. I'm gonna keep pressing on. I'm gonna keep pressing all. I'm gonna keep pressing on to a high calling of my own. Oh, I'm gonna keep pressing on. I'm gonna keep pressing. Oh to a high calling of my Lord. Oh Satan tries to stop me. Turn me aside. There's no need for you to go home. Why do you even try? Even if there was a rapture, you never make any. Oh I'm gonna keep pressing on. I'm gonna keep pressing home. I'm gonna keep pressing to a high calling of my hold. Amen. We're gonna go on into the service. I don't uh have any prayer requests here in front of me. But I know that there's many needs among us. We wanna continue to remember our sister Molly. Um that the Lord will continue to touch and strengthen her body. We also uh I know that Sister Margie O'Dale had been pretty sick earlier this week, and we want to remember her in prayer. Uh we also just want to uh remember our pastor as he's getting ready to come and minister to us, and we wanna remember each other, always say that we we need to hold each other up in prayer, and maybe there's a unspoken request by the raising of your hands. I'd like to ask our uh Brother Larry Cross, if he would come and lead us in prayer. Let's just sing that song Only Believe as He comes. All things are possible. Oh me. Amen. Let's just bow our hands. Dear Heavenly Father, we gather here this evening. Lord, knowing that all things are possible. Lord, we just pray for more faith and more revelation. Lord, that we can just take your word and simply believe it. Believing that it's already done. Lord, look into the sacrifice that you made and the price you paid at Calvary. Lord, the stripes that you took for our healing. Lord, it's all included in the covenant. Father, the same way we believe for our salvation, we believe for our healing. Lord, we claim our families. Lord, we claim our loved ones. Father, we just ask you to put it all under the blood now and have your good and perfect way. Ask you to remember these families that were mentioned. Lord, we think about the family of Brother Lebell that you'll be with them and help them. God, we look forward to that day when Lord will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Be caught up together. And Lord, have our hearts prepared to receive your word. And when we leave tonight, we'll say, like those on the road to a mayus didn't our hearts burn within us, Lord, because of the stimulation of revelation that comes from you. We'll give you the praise and honor and glory in the precious name, Jesus Christ. We ask these things. Amen. Thank you, Lord. All things are possible. Only Amen. You can be seated this evening. I just, I want to. I meant to do this, and I just want to thank all of you for your prayers for me Wednesday night. Um I certainly could tell that you all had prayed for me and the Lord really touched me. I'd um had an allergic reaction to some food product and uh was really really sick. And I just appreciate y'all's prayers. I knew the Lord touched me and healed me. I was 100% the next morning. I'm just so thankful for your prayers. Just a quick note for you to mark on your calendars, putting your iPhone or your phone, the uh fall fellowship. And you said, Brother Keith, it just turned summer this week. Well, it's three months away. We uh have got it set for a little earlier this year. We're looking at September the 22nd. Um there'll be a lot more information to come later on. Just want y'all to mark that on your calendars. Um it's gonna be a lot different this year than what it has in the past, but there'll be a lot more information to come on that. Just want you to mark your calendars so that you can kind of plan around that and uh plan on coming and having a good time. Um I want to have our uh my daughter Ashley's got a song she's gonna to give us this evening, and then uh we have uh a special from our sister Carl. She's gonna give us one. Amen. We pray for blessings. We pray for peace. Comfort for family. Protection while we sleep, we pray for healing for prosperity, and we pray for your mighty hand to ease our suffering you hear each broken need, love is way too much to give us lesser things 'cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know your needs and what if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise? Your voice to hear and we cry in anger when we cannot feel you near We doubt your goodness and we doubt your love as if every promise from your word is not enough the while you hear each desperate plea long that we have faith to believe what if your blessings come through raindrops, what if your healing comes through tears, and what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know your needs of this life are your mercies in disguise when friends betray us when darkness sleeps, or when we know the pain reminds us heart, this is not this is not our heart, it's not our blessings come through raindrops, what if your healing comes through tears? And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes no your need? What if my greatest disappointments or the yaking of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst? This world can satisfy, and what if trials of this life during the storms the hardest nights are your mercies in disguise? A great feast was given in the Bible we are told a row each received as he came, a doormen wash their feet, and perfume fill them, and a kiss from the host, each received put over corner, said Jesus with dirty feet, no man to receive him as custom records. But mocked and made fun of him and over in a corner, sat Jesus with dirty feet, a woman came unnoticed to the room where they were and knelt down at the feet of a woman. Her tears of repentance was the water that she used, and she cried and washed the feet of the Lord, and over in a corner set Jesus with dirty feet, and to receive him as custom records. Lord, we lift our hands and worship as we live your holy name. You deserve the glory and Lord, we lift our hands in worship as we lift your holy name. For you are great, you do me call so great. There is no else like you. There is no else like you. You are great. You do me call so great. There is no just sing that chorus again now and worship it. For you are great. You do me recall so great. There is no else like you. There is no else like you. There is no I have a Father Maker. He will be no matter where I go. He knows my name. Lord, if the song we just sing is true, hear us tonight as we call upon you. In the simplicity and the quietness of this evening hour, we rejoin our faith together and ask in Jesus Christ's name that you be pleased to dwell among us. Speak to our hearts and fill our comfort. We are a people who are Bound to you in love, not by legislation. But Lord, just simply by love. And we want to say tonight again that we love you and we thank you for all you do for us. We ask that you would just minister now to the needy. Encourage the discouraged. And I pray that you'd pour oil upon the troubled waters. Give us, Lord, I pray, of your mind tonight that we would know, Lord, just exactly what to do with your word. We commit ourselves to you, Lord, fresh, and realizing our dependence upon you, Lord. We ask that you would just come and quicken the word to our hearts now. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. And amen. Praise the Lord. You may be seated tonight. God bless you. I could fix that there. Just a couple of quick announcements here before we begin. Good to have you this evening here. Good to have Sister Cindy here. Good to have Sister Sharon here. Good to have the crosses here. Good to have Sister Buchanan, isn't it? Sister Shirley's been moving house and working too hard. And we know that. But it's good to have her with us tonight. And I appreciate uh appreciate you being with us tonight and been praying for you and thinking about you over the last little while. We know that any move is difficult. And when you get over 29, it's more difficult. So we uh we are glad to have you here tonight with us, Sister Shirley. Uh a couple of quick things here this evening, just before we look in in the scripture. And uh give me a few minutes here. I'm gonna be brief. I told you I was gonna be brief this morning, and I was right. I was less than an hour this morning. And uh, but I I realize sometimes in teaching, you know it's a little hard to retain a great deal, so uh I I want to be brief again tonight, so that's the good news. I missed a birthday uh today, Savannah Gunter. And uh, Brother Larry, I I'm I've got I've got you know a sensitivity towards grandkids now, and and uh so I apologize profusely. It was not in the directory, and it was not on my calendar. We have two calendars that we operate from. One is is the uh uh birthday and anniversary calendar, which I have online, and that is uh that is updated by somebody who is no longer here. So we're a little bit shy on updates. If somebody wants to volunteer to do that, that'd be great. And then we have our church directory, which brother Steve Folkerson maintains. Church, uh any kind of directory or address list is what we call fluid. In other words, it's always changing. People are moving, people are being born, people are uh, you know, just uh different addresses, different email addresses, different cell phone numbers, and all of that is always, always changing. It's never ever the same. Otherwise, we'd send out one and that'd be it. And so uh it is easy to to you know to be out of date in an address list. The day you put it out, usually you're out of date. So what I would ask you to do again is to look at the directory and check your listings there and update it, okay? Because you are all not current. I can tell. Uh there's some of you have been dialing wrong numbers for a long time. I've been having great fellowship with the person I've been talking to, but it hasn't been you. And that's the problem. You think I'm ignoring you. Uh but Savannah's birthday was June 22nd, which uh was on Friday, right? And uh one year old, and I missed that today, so I apologize for that. Uh so I was uh also gonna mention too that uh so if you could do that on the directory, that would be really helpful for us, and then get that information of Brother Steve. Don't write it down and give it to me. Don't give it to me because I I don't get it. I just don't get it. And so don't write down and give it to me because it it tends to get buried. Uh brother Steve, Brother Steve, Brother Keith mentioned the fall festival. We have a number of interesting things that are going to be changed in the fall festival this year. Uh, we want you to keep the information, the date down, and and uh as he said, we'll be giving you more information. And uh we're going to use it a little bit like an outreach so that you can bring friends and family and so forth, and it'll be uh we're trusting in an enjoyable day. Brother, most of you know Brother Lee Vale passed away. He was 97 years old, an associate of Brother Branham. Uh he was uh wheelchair bound in his last uh few days. He uh had not ministered for actually a number of years now. And uh he um he certainly will be remembered as a person who was close to Brother Branham in many different ways and uh witnessed many, many things. Uh I had my own personal times with Brother Vale, and uh I can tell you that uh there was a uh uh uh just a little season where when I lived up in Ohio uh he invited me to come to a meeting and I'm not really I can't remember I can't really recall why he called me but his accountant his church accountant was having a meeting in Columbus Ohio for ministers for church ministers and church accounting is a little bit different than most typical business accounting and so he his accountant was a friend of his and he was very good he was very knowledgeable and brother Vale called me up and asked me would I want to come and sit in on this meeting and I did and I enjoyed it and and learned a lot of things there. And so afterwards we went out for dinner and and uh just got to be able to spend some personal time with Brother Vale and it was very very nice and and uh we maintained a little contact over the over the years but I can tell you that one time uh I was going through a uh really difficult financial squeeze and it was rough and I remember thinking you know there's just no way I can do it there's just there's just no way I can I can manage this and I didn't know and it's you know you come to those times where you just commit it to God and say Lord you're gonna have to do something because I I don't know what to do now. I mean I've done all I know to do and I uh I paid my tithes and and done everything I know faithfully and then all of a sudden the next day I go to the post office and there's a check and the check was for uh an amount which is uh about the average what an average tithe payer would pay times fifty two an average tithe payer for one week times fifty two and a little note from brother Vale and I probably have this note from Brother Vale and I I ought to dug it out but it's a number of years ago so I'd have to do a lot of digging. But he said God is never afraid to test us and he said he never gives us more than we can bear but he comes close to the edge. And he said sometimes what we need is just one more tithe payer in the church. And he said when we have a tithe payer in the church and they make a regular salary he said over a year that adds up he said that's what this is God bless you and that's all he said. And I learned a lesson in that little experience just to trust God and and uh because I never asked Brother Vale never told him anything about this situation at all never never mentioned anything about the hardship at all and and I I just I just really appreciate that and appreciated a person who was um you know sensitive to things like that and that that's sovereignly done. I tell you lots of stories like that but that's one that I had with with Brother Vale and I I always appreciate I always held him in you know a special place in my heart just because of the way that he and I had interacted over the years and uh in the last number of years never had too much contact with him but uh I did appreciate the the times that I uh did have and and uh I know he's gone to his reward and and uh I I believe that uh we'll see him over on the other side so we just wanted to pass that along to you two more things number one brother Anwar is in the country as I told you I think on Wednesday night I mentioned it to you he's traveling around we're going to try to get him here to visit with us and possibly to do uh little recording uh interview with him and uh we did an interview with him uh when we were over in Dubai but the quality was was poor enough that we want to try to get a better one and if we can get maybe a little um interview or interaction with Brother Anwar uh you might find it interesting just to be able to ask him some questions and have you know have some dialogue with him here maybe on a Sunday evening if we can do that and uh have him share some of the things that uh they face over there in the country and he's going through a uh pretty difficult time as you know his family is out of Pakistan they're in uh they're in the United Arab Emirates temporarily and uh we're just monitoring that situation with him and just praying that God will lead him and guide him and he's looking possibly at relocating in another place there. Told you this morning I have one more interruption before um uh the summer summers are usually busy times for me uh this summer uh we're just trying to slow it down a little bit we have some company who are uh coming to visit us which is nice uh this summer so you'll have you'll see some new faces that are coming around uh but next weekend Lord willing my wife and I will be in Ireland we're gonna be doing a family camp over there uh in Dublin and up in uh the north of Ireland for a couple of days and um then we will uh take a couple of days there in Ireland as we as we like to do and just rest a little uh so we'll be leaving Lord willing believe in on Wednesday so we'll have uh brother Matt Watkins who's gonna come back and minister for us on uh the following weekend so next Sunday he'll be here uh we are not going to have a service on July fourth because it's July fourth and a lot of folks have expressed an intention of you know wanting to be uh spend time with families it's a holiday and uh so this coming that not this coming Wednesday but the following one is our Normal Wednesday night service, so we will not have service on July 4th. It falls on a Wednesday night this year. Let's stand to our feet if you don't mind. And we're going to read a little passage of scripture here. Sure don't know why this title never gets up there, but we're talking about present truth. We're looking at 2 Peter, first chapter verse 10. Now, if you don't mind, let's just read a little few a little more than what's on the screen here. Verse 3, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3. Very familiar. We've all come across this in readings before sermons. And according as his divine power, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3, hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. Wherefore are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and the temperance, patience into patience, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you, that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall. That's a wonderful guarantee. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. And may the Lord at his blessing you may be seated. Thank you for your patience. Now, I will be brief as I promised, and uh just jump right in. Wednesday night we began to talk a little bit about responding to controversies with biblical truth. There are uh we're in a season, as I said, we're in a season where there seems to be some uh increase in uh contests or uh disputes about the accuracy of the message, the accuracy of the Bible, uh, the accuracy of Brother Bram's message and so forth. And uh I have res I have responded, I have been responding, I have done this for a number of years, uh, because when you're in a position in the ministry, you're often asked to explain uh or justify certain things that are said, certain things that uh we commonly refer to. And uh so this is not an unusual thing at all, but I wanted to uh bring this to you partly because of what Peter says right here, that he says, these things, though I know these things. He says, though I know you know them. Uh he in verse 12. He said, I won't be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them. I this is not this is not new. Anything I'm gonna tell you here tonight is not new. And I know you're established in the present truth, but there there are times when it's good to go back and rehearse some of these things, just so that you're clear and we're refreshed sometimes in what it is that we can say to people who may have a question about what you believe. Now, you are responsible, as I said on Wednesday night. We are responsible in two categories or two perspectives. Number one, we have a uh a responsibility horizontally to deal with people around us. We respond to questions among ourselves, we respond to questions from people without. We discuss things within the body. You know, we discuss different things that come up, and we communicate with one another. But there are people also who are outside the body who demand an answer sometimes. They want to know why it is, why do you act the way you do, and why don't you participate in certain things like we do? And why don't you uh, you know, why don't you believe what everybody else believes? Why are you so unique? And and as many times when people uh they will they will consider you to be arrogant, you know, they'll consider you to be, you know, you're too good for everybody else. You know, you have this this belief, and you're set off over here by yourself. And uh Paul writes this in the Philippians church, he said, Being confident of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you will perform it even until the day of Jesus Christ. Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, in so inasmuch as both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye are all partakers of my grace. Paul was a defender of the gospel, and we also are called upon to defend the truth. We are also, though, responsible for our personal relationship with Christ. And that has nothing to do with anybody else. So you have a horizontal component and you have a vertical one. And the vertical one, as we read here in 2 Peter, says that we need to give diligence. You need to be diligent about this. You need to be certain about this. And you need to get to it, roll up your sleeves and jump in and make your calling and election sure. If you're not sure, it's a good time for you to become sure. If you're wavering and you're unclear, and maybe you had some experience way back then, maybe you were baptized way back then in another, you know, another step of faith, you know, that you took way back then. But you feel like, you know what? If I died today, and that's always the question you should ask, if I died today, would I have any hesitation going down to the river? If I knew I was going, this was it. There's no turning back now. Would I have any hesitation? Would I have any nervousness? Would I have any uh, you know, any trepidation? If I had to meet the Lord today, how would I feel about it? I've watched people die. I've watched relatives and family members die. And when they knew they were going down this slope where there was no turning back, you watch the reaction they have on their face. You watch that uh that that countenance change on their face, and they realize they're going, and all of a sudden they get this fearful, uh wild look on their face. I've seen it. It it's something that you really don't forget. And I remember one time my aunt, who was a Catholic, and she was a very, very close relative of mine personally, and when she was dying, she had stomach cancer. It was a terrible thing. And when she was dying, she reached out to my my uncle who was standing next to her. She wasn't married, and her brother was very close to her, and she reached out and grabbed him by the hand and held them very tight in her last couple of seconds. And she said, she said, Jim, go take $10,000 out of the bank and buy mass cards from me right away. Because she knew she was going, and where she was going was a terrible place. She knew that. It was a frightening scene for me, even as a uh even as a young adult. It was just coming in the message at that particular time, and it was a shock to see somebody that afraid and that going down. And when you buy mass cards for somebody, and if you don't know in the Catholic church, uh you're paying the church to pray uh intercessory prayers for you in the form of a mass that hopefully gets you out of purgatory faster than normal. It's a great fundraiser. And I'm not being sarcastic, but that's what it is. Because when we came into the Catholic church, we asked the local priest about purgatory and mass cards and lighting candles for the dead and everything else. And uh the priest said, Well, he said, you know, uh, and my mother now, who had lit a lot of candles for relatives in her life and bought a lot of mass cards and spent a lot of money on the dead. The dead is big business in the Catholic church. If you know anything about the Catholic system, and uh my mother asked the priest, she was coming out of the Catholic church, it was shaky for her, and she was coming into the light of the message, and she looked at the priest and said, Is there any truth to praying for the dead and mass cards and lighting candles for it? And he just kind of leaned back and said, Well, he said, that's really just a consolation for the living. He ought not to have said that to mom that day. Mom, mom's normally a passive person, but I think it was the last thing he ever said to mom. Because mom was enraged when she heard that. She said, You've lied to me all of these years. And when my aunt was dying, she reached out and said, take $10,000 out of the bank and buy mass cards and have people praying for me. It's my only hope. Let me tell you something. If you're not sure, you need to be sure. If you're not sure, there I believe there's still time. There's still mercy, there's still a place of intercession. There's still a mediator between God and man. That's the man Christ Jesus. And that responsibility is yours and yours alone. And if you're big enough, old enough to understand what I'm saying, that's between you and God, and nobody can take you there. Nobody can do that for you. That's your decision, that's your choice. That's God dealing with you one on one, has nothing to do with anybody else. You shouldn't come because somebody else is coming. You shouldn't stay away because everybody else is staying away. You ought to deal with that yourself. That's a question between you and God. That's the vertical. You also have the horizontal. We could find many scriptures in relation to that. Here's another 1 Peter chapter 3. Paul says, Peter says, if he suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye. Be not afraid of their terror, neither be trouble. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So we have a we have a horizontal responsibility to know why we believe what we believe. Philippians chapter 3, though, Paul says, For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who shall change our vile body, and it might be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby I He is able even to subdue all things unto himself. That's you and God. I'm looking, I'm looking for him to take me out of here, right? No matter who else goes, I'm going. By God's grace, I'm going. I've got that determination. Listen, all the other things that are said, all the other doubts that are expressed, all that the internet carries, all the garbage that's out there, hey, I'm looking to him. He said he was going to come back to me. He said he was going to come back and change this bile body. I'm looking for that change of the body. Aren't you? I feel like that little woman, Brother Bram told, who went down and took that dishpan of water. Remember that little cousin who wasn't married, and and uh, you know that little girl who went down through the water over the fence, the dishwater over the fence, and that that that uh son of the ranch owner, he, the son of the ranch, the owner of the ranch, he came and he promised her, he said, I'll come back and get you in a year, I'll be back and we'll go and get married and so forth. And all the other cousins who were jealous, they said, Ah, it ain't gonna happen. But she said, I believe it is gonna happen. I believe him. That's the way we ought to be determined in our hearts. I believe it's gonna happen. He's gonna take me away from here, he's got a body prepared for me, and I one day I'm gonna step into it, and nothing's gonna hold me back. That's vertical, and you have a horizontal too, right? So that's the way, that's the way that it's laid out. Now, when we talk about, uh, as we go back in this scripture here again, that we have a uh an answer for every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that lies within you. That that answer, that word there is apologia. And it simply means the verbal defense or the things you would say in a reasoned statement or argument uh with somebody. Not that, not that we want to pick an argument with anybody, but we would have a reasoned defense. It's just like somebody saying to you, well, uh, you know, I don't believe Brother Bram's for real. Well, Brother Bram said he was. You're really not going to convince anybody about Brother Branham by saying Brother Branham said. If they already doubt Brother Branham, adding more statements by Brother Bram is probably not going to help. You need to be able to show somebody in the scripture where Brother Branham fits in. That would make a little more sense, wouldn't it? It's just like I've told you before. When John the Baptist came on the scene, they came to him, and people will say to you, you know, they'll say to you all the time, well, Brother Bram's name is not even in the Bible. You know, he's not not even there. Why are you? You're and they say you're following a man, uh, you know, you're following Brother Bram, his name's not even there. You're right, it's not there. But neither was John the Baptist's name there before John was born on the earth. But John had scriptures that pointed to his ministry when he would come on the earth. Because when they came and asked John from Jerusalem, and he said, Who are you? Who sent you? What school are you from? What authority do you have? John did not pull out his ID and say, I'm John the Baptist, graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. He didn't say that at all. You know what John did? He pointed back to the scripture and said, the low places will be brought brought up and the high places will be brought down, right? And he and he pointed to the scriptures that prophesied of a forerunner that would come before the Messiah. And that's what John did, that was his credential. When John needed to have an ID, that's what he did. He pointed to a scripture that was to be fulfilled by him, and now God is vindicating that in his ministry, right? And then when John's born, his name is revealed. When it comes to Brother Branham, his name was not in the Bible because he has not been born on the earth yet. But rather than say we're following William Branham, we can say we're following scriptures that point to a messenger that would come just like John the Baptist, whose promise was to forerun the Messiah in the last day, to forerun the second coming of Christ, right? So we can point you to Bible verses and say, uh, you know, we can find his ministry in the scripture at least. Now, tell me, who are you following? Right? You know, you should always turn those questions around and say, Well, tell me who you're following. Well, we follow the church. Well, show me in the church, show me in the Bible what your church is supposed to do in this hour. And, you know, I mean, I'd give it a little more consideration, but we find in the Bible that God never uses a church. He uses an individual, right? He uses a prophet. And we can find in the scripture, Malachi 4 to Revelation 10, and all in different places in between, that God was going to raise up an individual in the last day who he was going to significantly use to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and also to complete the mystery of God. In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, right? And we can point back to those scriptures. So that's a reasoned argument there. That's better than saying, Well, you know, I think Brother Branham was real. It's really just your word against someone else, right? And you know what? Butting heads only proves who's got the harder head. That's not a reasoned argument. And remember this, as I I love this little statement. I like to throw it in here. Brother Bram said, anything that's done, it's got to be according to his word that's been spoken. I don't care how well you say this ought to be, or that ought to be, or this ought to be. To be, it's gotta be according to his word. It's gotta be according to the absolute or the plumb line, which is God's word. And we have to line ourselves up like that, just like you have to line up wallpaper, say if you're hanging wallpaper or you're hanging sheetrock or something, you've got to line it up according to the vertical, otherwise it's gonna be way off in the end. And what we find now is systems that are way off in the end because they were not aligned with the word of God at the beginning. And they get off a little more as time goes on. So it's not just because we want it to be a certain way, it's gotta be because God's word says so. So that's why when Brother Bram came along and he turned us back to water baptism, the way the scriptures point to, because that's the way God began to do it in the beginning, right? That's a nice example for people to use to for somebody and say, uh, you know, one of the things Brother Bram was guilty of was telling people that they need to be rebaptized if they were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because uh that's not the way anybody baptized in the early church. Right? Are you with me? Nobody baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, because Father is not a name, and Son is not a name, and Holy Ghost is not a name, but the Lord Jesus Christ is a name, and everyone that ever did anything in the New Testament did it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what's the difference now? The difference is revelation that separates folks, right? Now, you know you can't give a revelation, but we know that we can give a reasoned argument as to why we stand where we stand. Now, and I seed shall possess the gates of his enemy. They fail that still small voice of the word, and that word keeps you balanced to the cross. And that's where it lay. That's why we have, that's why we don't have genuine prophets in the church today like Agabas. Now, Agabus is a character in the in the uh book of Acts here, uh, where uh when uh he came to Paul and Paul was going to be shipped to Jerusalem and so forth, you know, he was on his way uh to Jerusalem and he took Paul's cord off his garment and wrapped it around his wrist, and he said, The one who owns this cord will be going to Jerusalem and so forth. And uh, he was a true prophet in the New Testament church. He's not what we refer to as a major prophet like Paul, but he was a uh he he prophesied correctly uh to the New Testament church. And Brother Bram said, when you have the word balanced in the church, he said you have those kinds of things that happen uh among the believers. And he said, That's why the church today, they hardly respect speaking in tongues when somebody speaks because they've heard so much bogus and carrying on till they don't know what is right and wrong to it. Now, there's a problem with too much false, obviously. When people misinterpret and people have uh too much false, they've heard too much false, it's tough to get people to believe what's true. And I will say this, and I hope you don't mind me saying it. Even among the ranks of people that follow the message, there are some odd things that are preached. And it's sad, but it's true because there are people who preach nothing but polygamy. There are people in the state of North Carolina who preach nothing but messages against Christmas. There's one church you can go to, I know, where they preach, that's all they ever preach is messages against Christmas. And I had an opportunity to cross paths with one of those people in this church, and uh one time, and I was talking about a certain issue and certain thing that was going on there, and they they invited me to get involved here in this particular situation, just on the telephone and so forth. They were looking for a little counsel. And uh one of the first questions they asked me, I didn't know who this church was, I didn't know who it never met the pastor, but you know, I was chatting with them and so forth, and they were asking me right away, right up front, do you believe in Christmas? You celebrate Christmas? And I thought, does this have anything to do with the problem that you're going through? Well, no, I mean no, but I mean, if you believe in Christmas, we have nothing more to do with you. We have nothing more to do with you. And I said, What's the big deal about Christmas? And they said, Well, Brother Brandon was clearly against Christmas, and we have nothing to do with it. Now, just imagine now if you were an unbeliever just walking in off the street and you came into that church. And you heard a service and the service was, you know, here there's too much emphasis on Christmas and too much on gift giving and tinsel and Santa Claus and all the rest of it. You you'd probably, you know, well, hey, yeah, amen. I mean, that's all right. People lose the balance on things, right? And then you come back for another service, and then you come back for another service, and you come back for another one. My goodness, you wouldn't want to wear red there. You'd probably be shot. Sister Cross, you're all right. Don't get worried over there. It's wearing red. I had somebody tell me the other day. They had a. And these are people now that profess the message. And there was an issue about marriage and divorce that came up. And in their particular church, because the pastor was double married himself. This is not a North Carolina. But the pastor was double married himself. So he had taken another statement that Brother Branham made about marriage and divorce and completely disqualified it. He laid it aside. It's somebody who professes to believe the message. And I asked the question, because again, I was called in conference and I was asked to counsel on this situation. And I said, how can I just take that and lay it aside? Oh, they said, well, Brother Branham wasn't inspired when he said that. I said, no, are you serious? And they were as serious as a clogged artery. Which is pretty serious. And they said, no, Brother Bram wasn't inspired. I said, he wasn't? How do you know? Did he tell you? I mean, I find that in the message, I find Brother Bram mentions that several times in the message. And you're going to just brush that aside now because it doesn't apply, it would be, it would hinder what you want to do. So you're going to brush that statement aside. Well, naturally now, let's just say you're an unbeliever and you come into the congregation and they're talking about Brother Branham in the message and they're talking about salvation and everything else. But on this particular case, we can take Brother Bram's words and we can cut it out. And we can cast that aside. That doesn't count. You'd have to sit there and wonder what else can we cut out? Is it all right then if we come across something that we don't agree with or we think is out of date or we think it doesn't really apply, and just take that and uh tear it up and say, well, yeah, you know, rip. We just cast that aside. You know, we just go back now to what we what we like. You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna wind up with two covers. Now, folks, this is not people out in denominational circles. Everything I just told you are people who are who are identified with this message like you. So no wonder now people would look at at us, maybe and say, Well, you know, where's the credibility? Where is the where's your authority? Now, again, now I'm still in the same quote here, and Brother Bram's talking about, let's look at it again. He said, People they they fail that still small voice of the word, and the word keeps you balanced to the cross, and that's where it lay. That's why we don't have genuine prophets in the church today like Agavas. Church gets a little bit off balance, somebody coming back in there and straightening it out. That's why in the church today they hardly respect speaking in tongues when somebody speaks, because they've heard so much bogus and carrying on until they don't know what is right and wrong in it. You know what? You know what people need then in this case is a teacher, right? Somebody to show them what the truth is. He said, interpretations that's just merely illusions, and somebody just saying something because he feels led. That's not interpretation. Not somebody stand and speak in tongues and another one get up in a few minutes and interpret what he said when one is speaking and the other is interpreting, right there, saying word by word, same expression, everything the same. That man might be prophesying, but it isn't isn't interpretation. And some of them, this kind of voice giving something, this back here giving something else, and some say ten words and another say 50 words behind it for an interpretation. That a problem is now there are people who, you know, they they hear enough controversy and they hear enough contradictions, they say, I, you know, I'm I'm I'm gonna give it all up. And it's sad that that happens, but it does happen. There are things that happen where when there's a lack of wisdom and a lack of discernment and a lack of presentation of the gospel, and people back away from it. And I think that's sad. And I think we we should know better. I think we should do better than that. I really do. I I think that we should uh you know exercise our discernment. I think we should uh you know make sure that the decisions we make and the things that we preach, the ministries that we have here, I believe all of it ought we ought to be very careful because it does have an effect on the listener. It does have an effect on people. And we never know, we never know who might be here. We never know who's listening. We're online. We never really know. We don't have restrictions about who can log in and listen to us. And there are people that have been affected by uh by listening and so forth. And I want it to be a positive effect, don't you? And not only from the church here, but I want you to be able to go out and witness to people and and and and affect them by your life and by your standards and by your living and by your dress and by your conduct and by your speech and by your praying before your meal and by giving God the glory for things and not being ashamed of that. I think that's the way it ought to be, because sheep beget sheep. And we are called to be witnesses in this world, right? Right? We're called to be written epistles in this world and to go out and show Christ to a world, dying world, because you are many times the only gospel they'll ever read. So we just jump ahead. So therefore, Jesus prayed for the disciples as they went out this way. And he said, Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven. And when they bring you unto the synagogues and unto magistrates and powers, take ye no thought for how or what thing ye shall answer or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what you ought to say. Well, hey, hello. The Holy Ghost is teaching you a little bit now what to expect and what we can say when we are called in question. Now, let's give you an example now, because Brother Branham was contested many times and in many ways by people on all kinds of levels of understanding. Brother Branham, you know, touched many lives. He was in front of many, many people. And there were senators and kings and queens and great people of great authority in the in the congregations where he ministered. And there were there were very a lot of common people also who were in denominational churches, and they came and they heard Brother Branham talk about things. They heard about, you know, what happened in the Garden of Eden, and they turn heard about the Godhead. And Brother Branham was not a Trinitarian. So they heard lots of things, and they would come to him and ask him questions. We have the benefit of seeing how he responded to them. Okay? Brother Jack Moore, a very good friend of mine, and Brother Perry and I, we love Brother Jack. And the message I think kind of baffled him a little, especially on some of the things that we hold dear and believe that it came to us through the opening of the seven seals as we believe it, such as serpent seed and eternal security of the believers and so forth. Some of these messages. We don't think this is hard. Look what he says. We don't think this is hard. But you gotta open your heart to truth. We believe that we're living in the end time, and that's just so real to us. We're just at the end of the road. This could happen anytime. It could wind up anytime. That's how real it is to us. That's what he's saying. And the reason is because we've opened our heart to whatever God wants to reveal. But there are people who are even close associates and friends of ours. And Brother Branham went to uh went to uh uh you know the the Jack Moore's tabernacle in in um in Shreeport many, many times. He was there for many years. And Brother Branham says, you know, with Brother Moore, he says it kind of baffled him a little bit because he's having trouble opening his heart to what God is bringing him on to. And you know the end of the story, and Brother Branham, you know, he eventually had to part ways with Jack Moore because they they never they never fully opened their hearts to it, and as a result, uh, you know, the tabernacle and Brother Moore and all of them went in a completely different direction altogether. But to us, it's so real, so common. It's so, I mean, it's just so clear, right? I mean, it's kind of like we don't need to stand here for weeks and weeks and preach about God sent a prophet. We believe that. That's just real to us, isn't it? But you've got to remember that other people don't look at it that way, and sometimes they're influenced by other elements out there, and even people who've been around it for a number of years, all of a sudden they find that you know somebody out there who influences them and persuades them, or they get on the internet and they begin to read some of the arguments that are on there and to begin to question the things that they just held, you know. I mean, this is just common knowledge to us. This is just something we never debated, we never thought about at all. Without having a good foundation in the scripture and keeping your heart and mind open to the Holy Spirit, you can easily fall prey to those spirits that would try to pull you away from the absolute which God has laid down. Right? Now remember now, as I said on Wednesday night, God is not liable for what's on Google. God is not subject to a search engine. He doesn't have to come up with every and uh a right answer for every inquiry on the internet. That's not the way God works. God is obligated to his own word, right? We we don't need to elaborate on that. God did what the prophets said was going to happen, and that's all God was responsible for, right? Like John the Baptist coming and Jesus being born and all the other things that happened there in the birth of Jesus, as we said on Wednesday night, they all happened, and God just stood there and said, This happened to fulfill the scripture as was spoken by Isaiah or Jeremiah. God is responsible for that and not for all the different inquiries that people make today. And I will tell you, there are no answers for many of those inquiries that are out there today. Some of them are absolutely ludicrous questions. So this is what God is after in. Us in Isaiah 57, he said, and now shall and shall say, Cast ye up, cast you up and prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people, for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in a high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and a humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones, for I will not contend forever, and neither will I always be wroth, for the spirit shall fail before me in the souls which I have made. So God loves the humble and the contrite heart. God loves somebody who can admit the wrong. God loves somebody who can see it in the scripture and say, you know, that's that's right. And so therefore I've got to change my belief about something because I can see it now in the scripture. And you're only able to see what God allows you to see, as we mentioned this morning. You can only see it the way God allows you to see it. There's lots of people reading the King James Bibles, lots of people in church tonight, but God has allowed you, God has allowed your knowing to change, to conform to the word of the hour, the light of the hour. He's brought you into the light of the hour. So we see the scripture a little bit differently, right? And let me tell you something. I was discussing this with somebody the other day, and we're going to talk about this a little bit more. I used to think that when it came to the communion table, that if there was a sinner at the communion table, and you took communion at the same time, and you would fall under the likelihood that you could be weak and sickly because there was a sinner taking communion at the same time. Because Paul said, For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. And Brother Bram says, and that means many die. And I thought for a long time that that meant that if there was a sinner taking communion with me at the same time, and I was in the same line up taking communion, I could be subject to sicknesses or diseases or something, because they were taking it there. And that's not what Paul meant at all. And I went back and researched that, and I had a couple of brothers who helped uh find things for me and ministers, and we were sitting down talking about that, and they helped us help me to understand how Brother Branham actually applied those scriptures. And Paul is saying that if you've got secret sin in your life, he says, You need to repent and make that right, because this is a vertical application of the word of God, not a horizontal. So, and therefore it's between you and God. Are you eligible? Are you are you able to take the communion? Are you are you know a person who's in communion with Christ, so you can come and take that? That's between you and God. There are many times that we don't know what other people in the communion line, what they're up to, right? Or what's happening in their lives. And if it was true, then we ought to have an interview session prior to communion out there in the lobby and say, Are you okay? I mean, are you living all right? Are you living all right? I'm not taking communion if you're gonna be there. I mean you see what I mean. We would be suspicious of everybody if we heard a rumor about somebody who said, Ah, that's it, I'm out of here, not taking communion. And I used to believe it that way, but when I saw it in the scripture and I saw it in the message, I realized I was wrong on that. You need to examine yourself, but so let a man examine himself. Right. God loves, my point is, God loves a humble and a contrite spirit. And he loves somebody who's teachable. Brother Bram said, a little lady belonging to a certain church, tried to argue with me a little while ago, and said, and knowed everything scientifically. And he said, She said, Reverend Branham, do you mean to tell me that you believe that Jesus, he, was divine? Now, this is a woman who came from the Christian science church. And Mary Baker Eddy was the leader of this group here, very intellectual, very smart person. And he said, I know, Brother Bram said, I know he was divine. She said, He was just a man. And I said, He was more than a man. I said, He was the God man. And she said, he was nothing but a man. And I said, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. You see what he's doing? He's going back to the scriptures. And I said, He was divine. And she said, he wasn't. He was a man. And I said, he was a divine man. And she said, It's impossible. I can prove it to you by the scripture that he wasn't divine. And I said, if I can prove it to you by the scripture, if you can prove it by the scripture, I will receive it. And if I'll disprove, and if I'll disprove your ideal, will you receive it? And she said, I'll prove you first that you're wrong. And I said, Well, let's have you at it. And she said, when he went down to the grave of Lazarus, you understand? Now she's taking a Bible verse. When Jesus went down to the grave of Lazarus, said, He went down to the grave and he cried. And that showed he wasn't nothing but a man because he had sorrow in his heart. He cried. He was a mortal. And that was and is their argument. And I said, Yes, ma'am, I'll agree with you that he cried like a man when he was going to the grave of Lazarus. But when he stood there in that little frail frame, straightened up and said, Lazarus, come forth. That was more than a mortal there. That was God speaking through his son. Hallelujah. So Brother Man was not afraid of an argument, but I'll guarantee you that when you come back with a true answer, there's many people don't commit to believing it, even though it's true because they've already sold out. They're already listening to a voice already, right? It's just like the people that came to my door. I told you before who were a Jehovah's Witness. And uh, you know, in the early days when they didn't have my house with a big black X on the front of it. And they would come to my door, you know, and uh they had the watchtower. Now I've I've read many a watchtower in my days because I used to work with a Jehovah's Witness guy, and he was a nice guy, and uh we would, you know, he would he would give me materials to read, and I give him materials to read. And these these people uh came to the door and and uh they had these materials and they they you know they parked a car at the end of the cul-de-sac and they split and everybody goes to a different house. There's nobody home, right? Nobody's home anymore. Nobody, nobody's at home in the day anymore. So they they they knocked on the door, left the brochure in the door, and then they all came back in the car. Well, they were all back in the car, but in our house, I was home. And uh, you know, my kids, and they open the door and they see the watchtower. He said, Dad, and then so I come out and I'm talking to him, and and you I've mentioned it before. And uh I said to them, I said, I will take your watchtower, and I said, I promise you I'll read your watchtower. I have other watchtower stuff in my office here, and I will read your stuff if you take mine and read what I got. No, can't do it. You just gotta take ours. And I said, Look, you believe yours is true. True enough to come to a stranger's door and offer it to him. And and believe that what you've got here is an initial step in the process of salvation to get me into that. Well, you can't get me into the 144,000, I said, because that's already filled up, right? Yeah. Yeah, it is. You know, I mean, everything's 144,000 with the Jehovah's Witness, right? But I said, that's already filled up with elders and saints and apostles and everything else, right? Yeah, yeah, it is. And I said, So, uh, you know, maybe if one of them drop out, maybe I can, you know, sub in as 140, something, but you you're here. You're here believing that what you got for me is good enough, and it'll bring me in the first steps of salvation and get me to uh get me to heaven. And and so, yes, sir, we believe that. And I said, you know, I have the same fervency about what I believe, and I think what I've got is truth and it's light, and it lines up with the scripture, and I'm not saying yours doesn't. I'm just saying that I'm passionate enough about mine too that I promise you, I will read yours if you read mine. Just one. No, not gonna do it. But you know what's really funny is all the people who are out in the car, right? They're looking at these these two in the door, and they're standing their ground and they're getting this look on their face and everything else, and I'm you know, they I guess they're they're oh, go sick them, Johnny, sick them, you know. And I I've I've told them, I've invited him every time they come. I said, you send who you want, bring your elders, bring the head guy of the Jehovah's Witness, and come and we'll sit down and bring your Bible and we'll look at the scripture together and talk about this question of uh, you know, of two in the Godhead. You got you got a council up there that that runs the show and Jesus is a is a minor, like an err boy who came to the earth, and I said, We'll we'll debate them. We'll we'll look at them. Because I said, I got a scripture verse that, as you know, is one you don't like to hear, and that is that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. And in their Bible is translated Jehovah, right? No, I'm sorry, it's the one verse that's not translated Jehovah. And they can't justify Jesus being called Jehovah, even though the same word is applied to him there. And they don't like that at all. But I said, I'll gladly talk about it any time. And the same thing what Brother Bram's doing right here. He's not being arrogant with the woman, but he's looking at her argument and seeing how limited it is. Well, let's talk about the bigger picture. And and in order to do that, we have to know the Bible, right? We have to know the Bible in order to do things like that. Now, let's take a take another look here. Brother Man said, What does it take to make a Christian life? Do you have the sheets, Brother Tom? There are everybody got a sheet? What does it take to make a Christian life? 1957. This was the year that the photograph was taken of the pillar of fire in Houston, Texas. Now I got a question for you. Are there any extras? Huh? I don't have any. Hmm. Look at that. There's a man with a servant's heart right there. Let's hear it for Ben. Let's give it up for Ben. God bless you, my brother. Thank you. Appreciate it. Ben just wanted to get on camera. Brother Bam said, Now I hit a little spot last night in the church that I didn't know what I didn't know what I was saying it, but how that Satan is not a healer. And the Lutheran college, where all these were converted recently, when I the man debated with me on the subject, which said Satan could heal. And when you hear anybody say that Satan can heal, he's wrong. And Brother Bram's referring to, when I debated the man here when I had to run in with that man, he's referring to this incident that took place in Houston, Texas. Now, Brother Bram's telling this story, he's relating this incident in Edmonton, Alberta. And he's doing this before his sermon called Jehovah Jirah. And Brother Bram reads a scripture where Abraham's called Jehovah, Abraham calls him Jehovah Jirah when the ram is caught in the thicket there. And when Brother Branham reads that scripture, then he goes and he tells you, he says, I'd like to tell you a little something about Jehovah Jirah. Now, if you don't mind, just follow along with me here and we'll take a look. Now, the night that this picture was taken when I was at Houston, Texas at the Coliseum, Sam Houston Coliseum, I think it seats around 30,000 people, and they uh and they see when they seek the stampede floors. And the minister put a piece in the paper and said that I was a religious devil and should be run out of the city. Brother Bram's in the middle of a campaign. And he wished he had the privilege of doing it. And then Mr. Bosworth brought the paper to me, and a reporter was waiting downstairs for my answer. And on the front page of this paper, he challenged me to a debate. Well, I tell your friends, I don't believe the Bible is to be debated. I believe the Bible is the book that we should live instead of fuss about. And I never was in for debating, but the next day he wrote another large piece in the paper on the front page, and it said it proves what kind of people they are. They're afraid to approach their heresy in the light of the Bible. I thought it was interesting in the way the way that it was said. Now, these reporters are waiting to jump on this, right? And they're wanting to have, you know, this uh fuss back and forth, you know, on the front pages of the paper, and this man is making a big issue because he's a local Baptist minister. So Mr. Ballsworth, this is Daddy Bosworth, who Brother Bram was very close friends with, came back and brought it to me again. He said, Now, what about this? And I said, Brother Bosworth, we haven't got time. He said, There's about eight or ten thousand people here to be prayed for. And why should we use that night? For we just got a few more nights to be here. Why would we take that night just to fuss with one unbeliever? And he'd have the same attitude no matter what was said when he left as he did when he came in. And I've never seen a fuss yet ever bring any good. So I said, why don't you just leave him alone? And he said, Well, Brother Branham, we're duty bound as a religious gentleman to answer his question. And he's going back to the scripture to have a reasoned argument for the hope that lies within you. Why is Brother Branham? Well, you know, what's the basis for this ministry, this healing ministry, and so forth. And I will never forget the look on that godly man's face. And he said, then Brother Branham let me do it. Brother Bram, and this is not the entire story, goes on for several pages, but uh he stands there and he's wanting to do it, and Brother Bram says, No, I don't want to fuss. I don't want to have a public debate with him. And he says he was just standing there, just anxious to do it. And he said, Brother Bram, let me do it. Well, this young Baptist minister was only about 35, 38 years old, just fresh out of the seminary. Smart man, very smart. And that makes me know now, we're living on a flower bed of ease, for there was people who would disagree with me on other subjects, and as far as the east from the west, but that day, special planes and trains and cars swept across them prairies, and people from miles and miles came around to rescue right quickly. They believed in divine healing and they come. So, in other words, he said, There's lots of people out there who disbelieved my teaching, my doctrine. But he said that day, they all were coming to Houston with their children, their spouses, their parents, who were healed under this ministry. And they were coming to stand there and say, But my child was healed. Because this man was accusing Brother Bram, saying, Well, go back a year later and see where they are. Go back six months later and see if they still are disease-free. And all these people now who heard about this, they were coming because it went not only in Texas, but it went all over. Uh, Brother Bram said he was up in Michigan and saw it in the headlines in the paper. Lee Vale saw it in the papers in Ohio. And so people from all over the country were flocking to Dallas to stand there and say, but my son is still healed. My daughter is still healed. And Brother Bram said they believed in divine healing and they come. And as it got later in the evening, well, I thought I'd better go down. So I put my coat on, pulled it up, two policemen took me up in there in the 30th row, and I sat down there with my wife, my babies, and my brother. Now, Rebecca Branham tells this story. And she said, that was the one time she said she loved this service, and it wasn't a service. It was a debate. But she loved this evening because Brother Branham was not intending to go to church that night, but he did eventually go. And when he went, he was sitting in the audience. Brother Branham was never sitting in the audience, right? This is like me. I've sat very little with my kids in church. That's why they've done so well. But nonetheless, Brother Branham was sitting in a congregation that night, and he had Rebecca, little Rebecca, on his knee. And she thought that was great. She remembered that all the days of her life. And Brother Bram sat there and they went through this whole debate. And Brother Bram said, then said, and there had the ministers, uh, there had the ministers on the platform and Dr. Best, the Baptist Temple. He had hired this American Photographer Association to come and take six glossies of him. And said, Now I'm going to take that old man Bosworth and I'm going to skin him with the Bible, going to take his hide and tack it up in my study door for a memorial to divine healing. He didn't believe in divine healing. So I'm going to hang it up as a memorial, this victory. So Mr. Bosworth got up with his little book in his hand and he asked the moderator, moderator, and he said, Now, I'll ask Mr. Best. I got 600 scriptures here that shows that Christ's same attitude towards the sick today as it was when he was here on the earth in a human body. And Brother Branham's out of the picture. He said, We're talking about Bible doctrine on divine healing. And Brother Bosworth's speaking now. He said, Brother Bram's not here. We're not talking about Brother Bram. We're talking about the Bible. And I've got 600 scriptures that say that God's feeling about divine healing is the same as it ever was. And he said, I just want to be able to give this to Dr. Best. And he wouldn't take the book. And he asked the moderator if he could ask Mr. Best just one question. Brother Bosworth asked him one question. They give him leave, and he said, Mr. Best, if you'll answer this question, yes or no, just say either yes or no. Mr. Bosworth said, Was the redemptive names of Jehovah applied to Jesus? Yes or no. And that settled it. Jehovah Jirah, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Sidcanu, Jehovah Rapha, right? Jehovah Shalom. Those seven compound redemptive names, did they refer and apply to Jesus? Yes or no. That's the that's the only question that he got to ask in that debate. He said he wouldn't answer it. And if he isn't Jehovah Rapha, the healer, then he isn't Jehovah Jirah, the Lord's provided sacrifice. And if he is Jehovah Jirah, then he's also Jehovah Rapha, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And Mr. Bess knew better than to handle that. He said, But if that old fella at nearly 80 didn't stand there and tie the scriptures together till I never heard anything like it in my life. So then when that taken place, he said, jumped up and he said, he hit his fist on the platform and he said, Now, let me see that divine healer come forth and perform. And Mr. Bosworth said, Well, now Mr. Branham doesn't claim to be a divine healer, sir. And I just sat there a little bit. All of a sudden I felt the Holy Spirit real near. Brother Bram was sitting there with his brother, and it was two policemen who were sitting right next to him. And when he made those challenges on the platform, they looked at Brother Branham, and Brother Branham was kind of squirming a little bit, and they said, Don't go, don't go. And Brother Bram sat there, and then pretty soon he took Rebecca and he laid her off her off his knee. And he said to his brother, he said, All of a sudden I felt the Holy Spirit near, and I said, I can't, Howard. The Holy Spirit is leading me now. He says, When I got to the platform, I said, now, and another part that I left out here, the ushers, there was 500 ushers in that meeting, because there was 30,000 people there. They got together and they linked arms together and made a corridor for Brother Branham to get down there because there was people who wanted to touch him to be healed. And they linked arms and they were, you know, they made a corridor for him, came right up under the platform. He says, When I got there, now he says, this is what he says to the audience. Now don't feel hard at Mr. Best. I differ with him in doctrine, but I certainly don't want anybody to condemn him because he's our brother. He just doesn't understand the way we do. I said, now, as far as divine healing, I can't heal. But if the angel, the visit of the angel of the Lord is in question, now that can be proven. So just before I came down, he said to Mr. Kipperman, this is Mr. Best now. He said to Mr. Kipperman, take the pictures of him. And he goes around in front of Mr. Bosworth and he stuck his finger in his face and he drew his fist back and he said, Take it like this. And he did, and shut it up his fist and put it in Mr. Bosworth's face and said, Take it like this. And Mr. Kipperman was there with this big camera taking these pictures of these poses. And now he says, they don't let the pictures be taken while I'm under the anointing, because that angel is a light too, and it interferes with me. And they can take them anytime before that, it's all right. About that time it sounded like a wind shook the building. And when it did coming down visible, here come this pillar of fire moving down. And Mr. Ayers, a Roman Catholic, had put a piece in the paper and said, I hypnotized a woman and a goiter went on. Off her throat the day before. And he was one with the studio. And after they took the picture, I said, Now God has spoken. It's time for me to leave. So, Brother Bram, he feels led by the Spirit to go down. He goes down on the platform, makes a few comments. The Holy Spirit whirls into the place there, and then he goes and sits down. So they went in, they had the pictures taken, everybody's dismissed. They went in, they took the pictures in the acid. And in the in and back then they had three baths that they put the pictures in. And Mr. Kipperman went upstairs, which lived over the studio to go to bed. And Mr. Eyre said, We better run these glossies through because best will want them tomorrow. They were wanting to put them in the paper. So he sat there, smoked his cigarette real nervously, and he went in, pull them out of the acid. And all six pictures of Mr. Best shaking his fist under Mr. Bodsworth's nose, every one of them was blank. God would not permit that man to shake his fist under the nose of that godly saint. They was everyone blank. And when he pulled out the seventh one, there was the angel of the Lord on the picture. And he had a heart attack that night. And they sent it away, and it was tested by George Lacey, the head of the FBI in fingerprinting document, one of my critics. And Brother Bram said he went to the shell building where Mr. Lacey was, and Mr. Lacey came out in the lobby and said, Whose name is Mr. Branham? And Brother Bram stood up and he said, It's mine. He said, Sir, I've been your critic. And I've heard people say about that light and so forth that it was psychology. But he reached out his hand and he said, Mr. Branham, the mechanical eye of that camera won't take psychology. The light struck the lens. And he said, as far as I know, that's the first time that a supernatural being was ever scientifically photographed in all the history of the world. He's Jehovah Jirah, folks. God's able to do exceeding and abundantly above what we could ask or think. And here's God allowing this now. Now, let me just draw back in your attention again. We go back to the road to Damascus, and here's Paul or Saul, and he's moving over to uh Syria and he's going into Damascus and he's going to arrest the saints there. If you were sitting there by the side of the road and you had a Polaroid camera and you were just watching this scene come along, what would you see? It'd be a pillar of fire over a man on this horse, speaking to him. It'd be the same thing, wouldn't it? God, in a form, visiting this person who would become a messenger to that first church age. Nobody had a camera back in Paul's day. But now here's God allowing himself to be photographed with that prophet. And not the believers or disciples or church members saying anything about the validity of the picture. A man who's a known critic of Brother Branham and has the credibility of being a high-ranking member of the FBI in terms of investigation and fingerprint. And those guys are very exacting in their work and so forth, and looked at it and said, There was a light that struck that lens. There was obviously some light that was over you and that. And he said, as far as I know, it's the only supernatural being that was ever photographed. So God allows this to come through the voice. Even the critic is standing there witnessing the truth of what happened in that particular evening there. So it's not Brother Branham saying, Look, he had God, God came down and had his picture taken with me. No. Even the unbelievers have to testify. You can still go into the uh Library of Congress up there and they have uh the photograph in the archives, but they have the photograph in a special place because so many people still come and want to see the original photograph. Uh they don't have it in a regular archives, they have it in a special place, so it's easily accessible. So if you go to Washington, you ask to see the picture, they'll know all about it and so forth, and they'll be able to pull it out quickly, even though it is considered archived, it is accessible because so many people want to see it. Even today, many people still want to see the evidence of the fact that a supernatural being was ever photographed on the earth here. Let me tell you, like Jesus said, even he said, if they stopped their rejoicing, the rocks would cry out and testify that the Lord is coming into Jerusalem. It isn't just a group of people that are following a man blindly. What we are concerned about is following fulfilled scripture. The things that God said would happen in this last day, they're happening. If we were just followers of William Branham, we wouldn't have anything to follow now because Brother Bram's not here. But we are even more avid followers now because a greater than William Branham is here. Let's stand to our feet. We're a blessed people to see what we see in the age we live in. Brother Bram said, Don't be hard on Mr. Best. He said, you know, he just doesn't kind of see it like us. Don't be hard on and Brother Moore. I kind of feel the same way. I don't need anybody to convince me the message is true. I believe it's true. I've just seen too much evidence. I met the author of the message, and I know that he's real. It's amazing that we can be the people that Jesus referred to back in the days of the disciples. He said, You've you've felt me and seen me and put your hand in here, and says what blessed are those that I don't see. We never sat in the meetings. Maybe one or two people here tonight were in Brother Bram's meetings, and that group of people who were eyewitnesses now. But all over the world, you can go wherever you want to find pockets of people that believe that God sent a prophet. One more time now. Thank you, Jesus. Can't you see? Oh I'm so happy. We have heard the message. Show along and all is when there is a place. Perfect rest behind me inner veil. So rest. Little bride rest. For all is where they that way. Shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Teach me, Lord. Teach me, Lord. To wave. Teach me, Lord. To wait. Good time. You answer my plea. Teach me not to rely. But to wait in prayer for an answer. From you. Yes, they that wait upon the Lord. Shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings. As an eagle. And they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Teach me, Lord. Teach me, Lord to wave. Lord Jesus, as we bow in your presence tonight. We have to marvel, Lord, just at how your word still seems as fresh tonight as the day it was spoken, Lord. Seems like all of that was written, Lord, just for us in this hour. But Lord, that's the way your word is. That's the way your Bible is to us. Help us to realize, Lord, that what you said is true and you meant what you said. You never add to or take away from your word, and neither do we need to do that. Lord, may we not be ashamed of what your word says, but maybe we willing, Lord, not only to testify of it, but Lord to reflect it in our daily living. We thank you, Lord Jesus, because you always have an answer. You told us not to fear because we'd be given what we need to say in an hour when we are contested or when we stand before the magistrate. Lord Jesus, may we just have confidence that your Holy Spirit will be with us no matter what questions we face. Let us yield to you, Lord, and let us lean upon the arms of your understanding. But Lord, may we may we witness and may we answer questions and may we respond to inquiries, Lord, with love and grace. Realizing, Lord, that that's how you dealt with us. That's how we want to deal with others. Prepare us, Lord, I pray. Teach us and show us your way. We may be good and faithful witnesses in the name of Jesus Christ. Now we pray. Bless the people, Lord, as we leave and head towards Ireland, Lord. I pray that you be with the people here, and may Lord you minister to their hearts continually. Protect them through the week, Lord, until we meet again. May your Holy Spirit, Lord, go with us and minister to those who are sick, those who are needy, those who need your help, your strength, and your touch, Lord. Encourage each one, we pray. We'll ask it all in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord Amen. Praise the Lord. God bless you tonight. Thank you for coming. Appreciate each and every one of you tonight. And you're a blessing to minister to. You know that? And not just saying that because that's the right thing a pastor should say. But I'm telling you this. I appreciate you, and I appreciate your openness to God's word and your willingness to um keep moving on and walking in the light. That's a real real comment. That's a real blessed thing. Let's sing that little chorus, All is Well, all is well. We've heard the message, shalom, and all is well. Sing this tonight as you go. All is well. Is where a place a perfect rest behind me so little bride rest for all is well and we have the message. A perfect rest behind.