A Thinking Man's Filter (65-0822E)

 

¹ Thank you, Brother Mann…?…

Let us pray. O God, truly that's what our heart's desire is tonight,
just only to believe. As we've assembled here tonight in the
Tabernacle, the sun setting in the west, we pray, dear God, that You'll
let us realize how close it is that the sun is setting also upon time;
it's running out. The day is far spent. And we remember one time when
the day was far spent, two travelers bid You come in and stay with
them. And then You made Yourself known to them by explaining Your Word
and letting them see that what–Christ must suffer all these things
first.
So we pray, God, as the day is far spent, that You'll come into our
houses, and live with us, and explain to us the Word, Lord, that we so
graciously hold as a Treasure from You, as a Gift in our heart. May we
never overstep It; may we always reverence It with all of our hearts.
We thank You for what You did for those in the hospital this morning,
and what You did for Brother Capps' little boy that was laying almost
dying; and now here he is in the audience tonight. How we thank You,
Father, for all these things.
Grant, Lord, that we may know how that we should give You praise. We
just… It's beyond our understanding to know how to give You praise.
But, Lord, receive our hearts as thanksgiving tokens, that we love You.
And when we–we want to do what's right, show us what to do. We ask in
Jesus' Name. Amen. (May be seated.)

⁵
Good evening to this great packed church tonight and out across the
land on the telephones. They say they're hooked up again tonight.
I hope my wife's listening in. I didn't get to call her, so I'm going to call her after this service.
And we are–have a note here that this morning Brother Jackson's
brother–or father being in such a condition, that such an
improvement's taken place, he may get to come home tomorrow. So we…
Brother Capps' little boy, who he called me the other night (I don't
know whether Brother Capps is in the audience or not, but), and his
little boy was very sick. And just happened to be that Joseph and I was
down to the–the shooting range getting my little .22 rifle ready. I
told you all about it last week. And he really going to be a real shot.
And so he wanted me to be sure and tell Gary and Larry what he did.
And he told me coming back, I said, "You ought to stop in and–and tell Brother Gene Norman about it."
He said, "Stop and tell Billy first (his brother)." After he showed him
what good shots he made, he said, "Now, keep off of my feet." See?

⁸
And just as we got there, why, the phone rang, and Billy run in to
ask… I said, "May be a sick call now." And we just got in, and it was
Brother Capps. And the little boy had parotitis, and just a very little
shade of a chance to live. And the Lord has healed him. And the other
night said he's suffering with some kind of pains, Mrs. Wood was
telling me. We was leaving in a hurry, and I just–I said, "Mrs. Wood,
it's so late now, ten o'clock, I doubt of them letting me in out there
at the hospital." I said, "I'm going up home and just close the door."
And I went up and prayed, and–and they said the little boy is in the
audience tonight. So we're very thankful for that. And we're grateful.
Now, we're holding on; we haven't heard yet… If Brother Leo Mercier
and Sister Mercier is listening in, we haven't heard as yet from your
father. We hope to hear in a little while, how he's doing. But I'm
almost sure he'll be all right, so we're trusting that to Almighty God,
that God will take care of that dear, old, sainted man–an old veteran
minister of the Gospel.

¹⁰
Now, oh, there's so many things that needs to be done and such a short
time to do it, so we have to put all of our efforts now in what we can
do for our Lord.
I come down a little bit early, and I–I haven't been feeling too extra
good. I got tired, just really tired, and I laid down this afternoon
there. I haven't even eat dinner yet. So I–I went in, just laid down
all afternoon; I felt bad. So laid there, and I–I got to praying; and
I felt better, and got up, put on my clothes, and come to church.
So we–we are trusting to the Lord Jesus now that He will bless our
efforts together tonight as across the nation we try to join this part
of the Body of Christ that I have been giving the right to feed His
Sheep. And I would only do the very best of my knowledge in giving out
the right food that I know for the Sheep. And I'm anxiously waiting for
the hour to where we can all congregate in one place and preach on
those Seven Plagues, and Seven Vials, and the Trumpets, and so forth.
They all happen right in–in a cluster. That's the reason it'll take us
about a week, ten days or more to get through it in one single meeting,
if we can. I think it's very sufficient.

¹³
Now, many of you are traveling far, I look out here, and I just noticed
awhile ago the folks in Tucson, Mrs. Sothmann… I see Brother Fred
arrived all right. I seen him in the audience this morning. And there,
I think that's Brother Don Ruddell setting there by him back there
tonight. Glad to see Brother Don in. And Junior, is Junior here or is
he at his church? I guess they're in on the phones at the church
tonight. So all you brethren, we're very happy that you're here with us
tonight, and trusting in the Lord that someday we, when the life's day
is finished and our little light of mortal life begins to grow dim and
going out, we'll fear no evil for down through the–the a…

¹⁴
I just got a report to you up in–up at–in Arizona–up at Prescott.
Brother Coggins has been dismissed from the hospital. So we're very
thankful for that. Good. That's fine. So we're very grateful for that.
Sister Mercier, your daddy's getting all right now. I just felt after
we prayed that he would be all right. So… They may be tuned in; I
hope they are; and I think they are. So we very grateful for that, that
our brother is–is all right now and going to be all right. So we thank
the Lord for all these things.
Had a request last night, a dear brother here… I guess he may not be
with us today. A brother from down in Kentucky called me about his
daughter, lovely family. And the–the girl is going to be operated… A
young mother with cancer in the back. So we–we pray that God will
deliver this young woman. I believe He will, if we'll just–the
congregation, all of us together, join in and pray for these people,
all together. That's what we must do as a unit.

¹⁶
As–and as the days grow closer and closer and the narrowing of the
path, we–we want to go closer together. My, we must be just one–one
Body. We must move together, forgetting one another's sins and our
differences, just sticking closer and closer and closer as we see that
day approaching, assembling ourselves together, all with one accord and
one heart. And if a brother, sister gets out of the way in any way,
don't do nothing but pray for that person and in love always
considering one another. Don't–don't never let one of you get away.
Stay together. And if you can, add more to it constantly all the time.

¹⁷
Brother Neville, I got your request here concerning Brother Wright,
Brother George Wright setting here. We're glad Brother Wright and
Sister Wright here… Little Edith, I… One day when we come we want
to have a little memorial service here. I didn't get back for Edith and
when she went, but Sister Wright, you remember the dream she had about
a couple years ago. And I told you then, I said it's a–little Edith
won't stay with us very long now, because the Lord had already told
that she was going through that dream that she had. And I got… The
interpretation of it was that she was going to meet God. About two
years later she went to meet God, now waiting for her papa, mama to
cross the dividing line between mortal and immortality. God bless you.
I want to try to see you right away if I just possibly can. So God be
with you.
And Shelby and everybody… I thought I seen Shelby this morning; I
wasn't sure. You can't see too good up here: ceiling's down like this,
and it casts a–a light like that. You can see the spots, but you can't
see the people too well.

¹⁹
Now, right straight to the message. This is a message I want to read
from Numbers 19:9 and Ephesians 5:26. And if you people who keep down
the records of the texts and so forth, why, you may jot it down.
And now remember, if this is being taped, I don't know. I can't see
anyone. Yes, I do; I do see Brother Terry over in–in the recording
room. And if this is being taped, to any ministers at any place, any
time, this is not directed in disregards to your teachings; this is not
even directed to your sheep. This message and all other of the messages
that I speak on is directed to my congregation. It's not for your
congregation unless they want to receive it, but it's directed to this
people here.
The people buy these tapes. The people across the world buy them and
play them. Many times they write in, and I always refer to them if
they're a member of some church, "See your pastor."

²²
Now, pastor, I want you to know that, that this is only to my
congregation I speak these things. And I have a right to do that,
because I been set by the Holy Spirit to watch over these sheep. And
woe unto me if I don't tell them what I think is the truth, and way I
think it comes. But it's not for the world or the rest of the churches.
You do whatever God tells you to do. I cannot answer for you; neither
can you answer for me; but we must each answer before God for our
ministry. Therefore, if I have to answer for my ministry, I must preach
it in the way that I see it, and the way it is revealed to me. So let
that be known now.

²³ Now, in Numbers 19:9 we want to read this text or this Scripture rather:

Notice, not to everybody: to the congregation of the children of
Israel, the waters of separation. Now, in Ephesians the 5th chapter and
beginning with the 22nd verse…

²⁵
Now, this little text tonight, if I should call it a text… And I
trust that people here and also out in the telephone hookups will not
disregard this and think that it's meant in a way of sacrilegious,
though to take a text like this, it would sound sacrilegious. The
subject that I'm using for tonight is "A Thinking Man's Filter." That
sounds very radical for a subject for a minister that's so opposed to
smoking, would take a text like that, "A Thinking Man's Filter."
It come to pass that the other morning when I'd went squirrel hunting,
that… You people out on the–oh, out on the radio–the air–or on the
telephone wave could've seen the expression on this congregation's face
when I announced my text, you'd have had a laugh out of it: "A Thinking
Man's Filter."

²⁷
Well, it all happened up where the Angels of the Lord appeared to me
one morning, and them squirrels was spoke into existence. All of you
remembers when it taken place. And also just at the top the hill where
I was standing before–just before preaching the Seven Church Ages,
going hunting one morning before daylight, there stood… I thought the
sun was coming up, about four o'clock in the morning. Unusual, I seen
that Light, and I turned around, and there stood the Seven Golden
Candlesticks, standing up there on top the hill, with like a rainbow
was coming up through the pipes and feeding out.
Immediately after that, the Lord Jesus appeared to us, and right then I
heard a Voice that said, "The Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of
the New." And there He was after while revealed after those Seven
Golden Candlesticks. Then notice that. How many remembers that text? I
wrote it on the back of a–of a box of–of cartridges I had in my
pocket, "Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New." God in
heaven knows that that was true.

²⁹
When I crossed that place where He'd appeared to me a little later on
about the squirrels… Then when I called my good friend Jack Moore a
few months later to ask, when I started to preach the Seven Church
Ages, Revelations 1… And He was standing white all over, His hair was
like wool. How could He, being yet thirty-three years old, and be white
all over? And Brother Moore, a very fine, cultured, Christian
gentleman, and a scholar, one of the best that I know of, and he said,
"Brother Branham, that was Jesus after His glorified condition. That's
the way He looks now."
But that didn't ring a bell with me. And I kept praying until one day
before I started the Seven Church Ages, I couldn't get that first
chapter straightened out right. How could a Man thirty-three years old,
resurrected in the same body… The apostles recognized Him, knowed Him
to be… And how could He be way up, maybe an eighty or ninety years
old with great white wool over His face, and His beard white as snow?

³²
I'd read over in the Book of the–of Daniel, where He came to the
Ancient of Days, Whose hair was as white as wool. Then I seen that
Ancient of Days; He was that Ancient of Days, the same yesterday,
today, and forever. I seen it was a symbol. Then why the white wool?
And then I–the Holy Spirit seemed to speak to me about a picture I saw
one time of a ancient judge. Then I went to the history; I went back
into the Bible history and all to find out. And the old judges like the
high priest in Israel, he had to have that white, gray woolly-like hair
and beard, because the white over him signified that he was supreme
authority of the judges in Israel. And even in today and down to a few
hundred years ago, maybe a couple hundred years ago or maybe not like
that, later than that, all the English judges, no matter how young they
was or how old they was, when they went in for judgment, they wore a
white wig and–to show that there's no other authority in that kingdom
above their word. Their word is the ultimate of the kingdom. What they
say, that's all of it.
And now, then I seen that there He was standing there, yet a young Man,
but the white wig on. He was the full, supreme Authority; He was the
Word. And He's having–wearing the white wig.

³⁴
Then later on when we got through and the–the sermon and went out
west, and when the Angels of the Lord appeared out there for the Seven
Seals, and it went up into the air (which we had the picture of it here
and around over the country), there He was standing there still wigged
with that supreme authority. He is the Head of the church. He's Head of
the Body. There's nothing like Him anywhere. He made all things by
Himself. He made all things for Himself, and without He there wasn't
nothing made. He has all authority in heavens and earth, and everything
belongs to Him. And in Him dwells the Fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And the Word was God and made flesh among us, and He was the One Who
revealed the entire secret of the whole plan of salvation that all the
prophets and wise-men had spoke of. He alone was that wigged One and
supreme authority.

³⁵
Now, I'd stopped up on the hill the other morning, looked like there'd
been some squirrels been cutting up there. And I started to set down.
And I'd just been there a moment when the bushes struck by me and
a–some great big fellow with a double barreled musket of a thing come
walking out through the bushes there, and like to scared the daylights
out of me. I went on over, scooted down. I was afraid to move, afraid
he'd shoot me. And the bushes moving, so I just set real still.
A squirrel started up over the hill, and he powdered both barrels with
him and so… He missed him. And so the squirrel went down over the
hill, and I thought, "Now, I'll get away, all that noise is echoing.
He's got his gun unloaded." And I started down the hill, and the guy
shot right in front of me. It turned me back this way, and I started
over here to go down another way, and a .22 rifle started. And the
bullets buzzing above me, I said, "Say, I'm in an awful place."

³⁷
So I turned around and went down by the river, and I thought, "I'll go
down here and hide till they get done so I can get out." And on the
road down, I happened to draw… My attention was drawn to look over to
my right side, and as I did, there laid a empty cigarette package,
where one of them had throwed down in all the running of the–when the
squirrels were going through the bushes.
And I picked up this certain cigarette pack and was look… I never
picked it up (I beg your pardon.); I looked down at it. I didn't pick
it up, 'cause I don't like the smell of the things to begin with. And I
looked down there, and it's a–a certain tobacco company that I guess I
shouldn't call their name, but you'll know. It said on there, "A
thinking man's filter and a smoking man's taste." I looked at that
thing, and I thought, "A thinking man's filter?" I thought, "If the man
could think at all, he wouldn't smoke at all. How could it be a
'thinking man's filter'? A thinking man wouldn't smoke at all." All
right.

³⁹
Now, I thought, "How deceiving that is." Now, that tobacco companies
are supposed to be American. And oh, if we lived to our policy, we
would be working to help one another, if we have a feeling one for the
other. And how hypocritical… The reason I never called the company's
name, I've got to say some bad things about them. And how hypocritical
can anybody be to make money?
A thinking man won't smoke at all, but how the American public fall for it. They think that that's wonderful.
Now, look. You cannot, you cannot… Ask anybody, scientists as you
want; you cannot have smoke without having tar. If there's one little
speck of smoke comes through, that's tar. And if you don't get any
smoke, well, you don't get any tar; and you don't get any anything.
You're just drawing against a solid stick. But as long as you get any
smoke at all, you're drawing in cancer: nicotine.

⁴²
If you'd been with me last year, or year before last, I believe it was,
at the World's Fair, when Yul Brynner and all of them was up there on
demonstrations and you see them take that cigarette, put it in
something, and pull it across a piece of marble… And that doctor
taking a swab, rolled across there and got the nicotine off of it, and
put it on the back of a white rat, and put him in a cage. And every
seven days they took him out. And the rat was so full of cancer he
couldn't walk from the nicotine out of one cigarette.
Then he said, "You know, they say that you can get it through a
filter." He said, "You cannot have a filter… Any filter that would
take nicotine out, takes the smoke out," said, "because you have to
have smoke–have tar to make the smoke, and it's the tar that gives the
cancer."
And then he went, pulled it through water and said, "Sometimes you
think you could filter it through." Said, "Every time that you… No
matter where you pull it…" Said, "They say, 'I don't inhale it,' and
they put it in their mouth and spit it out." Then he took that and
rolled it up, and put it under something there, and showed it was still
cancer. Well, you just swallow it right down your throat. See? And no
matter what you do, it's still death. See?

⁴⁵
And then to think that a company would deceive a man enough or try to
deceive their own people, it's like a vulture living off of their–it's
own kind. Money-making, selling death to the co–the country, and to
young men and go out there on the battle front and die for them, then
turn around and sell such a thing as that under a false pretense: "A
thinking man's filter, but a smoking man's taste." You'd have to have
the smoke to get the taste. See? "A smoking man's taste…"
How the people fall for it though. They get it. Now, it's only to
deceive you more. See, it's of the devil. They don't care for your
life. They ain't got no feeling for you. They sell you that stuff just
to watch you die, as long as they get money.

⁴⁷
Like politics and war, I don't believe in war. I don't believe that we
all–ever should've ever had a war. I believe in the great Kingdom that
God's bringing, the great civilization that'll be brought in under His
own great dominion; there will never be another war. Nation won't lift
up spears against nation. They'll all be peace, eternal peace.
So this kind of a civilization brings war, and more civilized we get
under this, the more war we have. One try to be more civilized than the
other, and the more civilized makes more war. See?
And look what under this civilization, that a person would put out such
a thing as that. And the only thing it does, it only deceives you to
make you buy more cigarettes. For if a man smokes cigarettes, and I
believe it is of the devil, and it's a nicotine devil in a man and–or
a woman. And if one cigarette would satisfy that nicotine devil till
he'll leave you alone and quit haunting you, with one cigarette, and
then you take a filter, it just lets one-third of that smoke through
there, then–or one-third of that nicotine through there, then it'll
take three cigarettes to take the place of that one, and you'll smoke
three to one.
See, it's only a–a scheme, a deceit, a scheme to try to sell
cigarettes. They can sell more that way than they can by just letting a
man smoke the straight tobacco in his pipe or in his cigarette. Now,
see, it's of the devil.

⁵¹
As I stood there looking at it and thinking of how deceitful it was,
the question came to me and I stooped back, looked at the pack again,
and I could–just seemed like something said to me, "But the slogan is
all right: 'A thinking man's filter, a smoking man's taste.'" It came
to me that that deceitfulness also in the natural realm there in the
tobacco, is something on a order of the churches of today (See?), a
deceitfulness.
It's come till the whole world has become a great deception of what is
really true and what's right. See, even in politics and in social
affair, in school, in everything, it becomes a deceitfulness.

⁵³
A young fellow was telling me the other day that he was down to an army
camp, and a young soldier got run over by a tank, his lungs, his
stomach, or whatever it was, punctured. And they went up to the
hospital; they had three or four doctors standing there in line, and
everybody stand in line. And two or three soldiers holding their buddy
up, and him just barely could breathe… Every time he'd breathe, that
rib would stick right into his lungs, and that would make him
brea–bleeding inwardly. And they let that young man stand there in
that line, way back in the back of the line, and let them some of them
guys with nothing but a earache or something go ahead.
And about time he got up there, some colonel come in with a little
child that had rash–his little boy or girl had rash on his hand. And
they stopped that line to put the colonel's child in, and that boy
punctured, dying. There you are.
Oh, if that colonel would've been a genuine feeling for his brother out
there in the line, he would've said, "This kid can wait; get that man
up here quickly; do something for him."

⁵⁶
But every man wants to show his authority. Now, they're not all like
that. No, they're not all like that. But there's too many like that;
there's too many of them that's like that. But the man, only thing he
was thinking of was his own little boy that had a rash on his hand, and
not thinking about that poor boy standing there mashed under a
tank–the very tank and maybe the very boy that would save his life
someday on the battle front. See, they don't stop to think, only for
themselves. "A thinking man's filter…"
I looked at it, and I thought, "It's something like the–the
denominations of today, the churches that we have." Each one of them
has their own filter; they have their own type of filter. They let just
what come in they want to and what not come in, what they filter in and
filter out with their own kind of a filter. They just let so much of
the world get in to satisfy the unbelievers that's in there. They'll
take them in no matter what they are if they got money. They'll take
them in no matter what they are if they're popular. But there's one
thing about it; you can't get in the Church of God like that, not the
denomination now, I mean the real genuine Church of God…?…

⁵⁸
Like the tobacco companies of today, the people that comes into these
said churches or denominations, they have a taste; and that taste is
the classics of the world. And each denomination has their own filter,
and they filter out all the true Christians that would say "Amen," when
he was preaching, and bring in all the bobbed-haired, painted-faced
Jezebels that's in the country, as long as they are popular: "So-and-so
comes to our… A movie star, a great person…" That's the kind of a
filter that they use. "Our denomination, So-and-so the president, or
the–or the colonel, or the someone belongs to our denomination." See
what kind of a filter they use? That filter, of course, is of the
world, the people of the world.
The people, they know what they want. So if they have to get what they
want, then they'll have to have a certain kind of a filter and enough
of the world speak through to satisfy their worldly taste. "A thinking
man's filter, a smoking man's taste–a religious world's filter, and a
worldly man's taste."

⁶⁰ They want to be religious. They think they must be religious, because they have a soul.
When
we first come to this country, we found the Indians worshipping suns
and so forth. Because why? He is a human being. We go back in the far
jungles of Africa; we find the natives worshipping something. Why?
They're human beings, and they must worship.
So the human being, no matter how fallen he is, he still knows there's
something somewhere, but he's got such a taste for the world that he
cannot take the correct filter. He has to have his own made filter.
Each one making their own kind of filter.
Each cigarette company brags on theirs, what they can do: "A real
filter, this is the best filter. All up front," and all like that.
Said, "The taste comes, or something, from up front." Oh, for goodness
sake. "Up front…" What's on the back end of it though? It sure ain't
a thinking man or a thinking woman. But that's what they say, just
simply deceiving the people.

⁶⁴
Now, we find out of our day, that the people has got a taste. And why
does a man smoke a cigarette? It's to satisfy a taste. What does a
woman smoke a cigarette for? Satisfy a taste.
And then if the church has figured out, a religious group, they–to get
people in there, they've got to have a certain kind of a filter to give
the people the taste that they want. So if they don't get any taste
that they want, they don't want the cigarette. And if they can't get
the taste that they want in religion, they don't take the religion.
Now, just as plain as it can be.
Women with shorts, bobbed-hair, painted faces, sexy-dressed, they want that; they love that.
As I spoke this morning in the–last Sunday morning on that wheel in
the middle of the wheel, or that little inside soul on the inside of
the spirit, how that the spirit on the outside between the soul and the
body can be absolutely anointed with the Holy Ghost. Did you all
understand that?

⁶⁸
Now, to follow that in with the continuity of the message "The God Of
This World," "The Anointed Ones In The Last Days" That outside, that
middle circle… First circle is the–the human senses; the second
circle is the spirit senses: Will–self-will, desire, and so forth. But
the inside is the soul. That soul was predestinated. So they can anoint
this spirit to make the outside body come in subject to the spirit.
"But the soul that sinneth, that soul shall die." The soul that rejects
in unbelief, the Word of God, which it is a part of, that soul shall
eternally, has, always…
I believe in an eternal death, same as I believe in an eternal heaven,
but not an eternal hell. There's no such a thing as eternal hell. There
is an eternal death for the people that are…
Many of them religious in the world today has always been dead. The
woman that liveth in pleasure with her bobbed hair and painted face is
dead while she is alive. The Bible said so. See? See, she may be
religious, but she never was saved. She's got a outward motion. She
might sing in the choir, or she might dance in the Spirit; she might
speak in tongues and have all the manifestations of the Spirit; but
unless that soul on the inside is God's daughter (See?), she's gone no
matter what she does.

⁷¹
Israel was all outwardly spiritually, all filled with God's goodness,
and how they reverenced God and so forth, but that didn't work. The
inside of them couldn't recognize the Word Itself.
But when you're born of the Spirit of God, then you've got a–you are a
son of God, and you always was a son of God, and you always will be a
son of God. There's no way to separate it, because it's–you have
Eternal Life. And eternal never did begin; neither will it ever end.

⁷³
Oh, for the grace of God that He'd give us understanding of such great
mysteries. As Paul spoke here further on down in Ephesians, speaking of
the husband and wife, and said, "This is a mystery," how the women
should be in respect to their husband. Even the second place, I believe
it is, in the entire Bible that reverence was ever spoke to, said, the
women seeing she reverence her husband, reverence her husband. Then a
husband ought to live such a life before his wife that his wife could
reverence him as a son of God. And if he doesn't live that kind of
life, well then, 'course she wouldn't reverence him, because she knows
what he's made of. But when it is a man that is reverent man, reverent
and clean with his wife, and before his family, a real servant of God,
then the women, children, all should respect that servant of God with a
reverence.

⁷⁴
Notice, now woman, they want to have bobbed hair. They want to wear
shorts, paint, makeup. These little bikinis and things that they–that
they wear nowdays, they want to do it; and yet they want to go to
church. You see that anointing upon the spirit, not upon the soul. See?
Says… Wants to be a Christian and also do these things. And the
pastor says it's okay. Then if he says it's okay, "You can be a member;
your name can be on my church book here. It's okay," then he's giving
her his denominational filter to suit a worldly woman's taste. She
loves the world; she likes the taste of it. So he's got a filter for
her, but she's a long ways from being a thinking woman. But there you
are. That's where I found this text.
No, she isn't a–a thinking woman. If she was thinking she'd know the
church isn't going to judge her at the last day. The church is judging
her now by her membership, her loyalty to the circles that she belongs
to and the societies. They're judging her now by that. But God's going
to judge her at the last day. So she isn't thinking.

⁷⁷
Just like the man that's smoking, he loves a cigarette so well until
his thinking faculties has become numbed with nicotine. And the woman's
desires have so numbed her thinking faculties until she'll do these
things that's evil in the sight of the Lord. 'Cause she wants to do it;
it satisfies a worldly woman's taste. So she takes a worldly church's
filter; she goes right through it fine, nothing to bother. Shows…
Now, we see there that that is Truth. The pastor says, "That's all
right. We don't condemn the women of doing that. It's all right;
there's no sin in it." That's through his filter. Shows that they went
through a theological filter, and they got a theological taste; and
they had a theological taste. But it certainly didn't go through God's
filter. No, sir.

⁷⁹
Now, if there is a theological filter for the theological thinker, and
there is a church filter for the church thinker, a cigarette filter for
the cigarette thinker, there's got to be a real filter somewhere for
the real thinker. And God has a Filter, and that's His Word. It's a
Separator, for It's a Waters of separation for sin. Now, that's the
thinking man or the holy man's taste.
And if a man goes through this kind of a filter of the world, he–he's
got a worldly taste. And like the tobacco company, he gets more members
in his church by pushing them through this filter. They say, "There's
more women goes to church than there is men." That may be so. Now, that
may be also true when she can go and do anything she wants to. That's
right. She'll do–she'll join up with anything. But she went through
that church filter. If she went through God's Filter, she'd come out
different from that. See? She couldn't go through God's Filter and come
out with bobbed hair. She just can't do it.

⁸¹
Now, this is going to be a–a little bitter maybe to somebody, but when
she started through God's Filter, and It says in there for them not to
cut their hair, then what? She lodges on the other side. If It said
it's a sin for a woman to do such and she's dishonorable to do such…
If she wants to, he said… "Well, she's got to have her hair cut."
Said, "Then shave it off then." And said, "We know that that's a shame
for a woman to have a head shorn," said; "Then let her have her head
covered." And her hair is her covering, not a hat, lady. Her hair is
her covering; the Bible says…?… Shows she's a Nazarite unto the
Lord. Long hair to a woman means a Nazarite to the Lord.
Now, we find that that's true. But we find if the thinking man,
so-called in the world, can smoke and still get his taste, he ought to
have sense enough to know he's getting tar from the tobacco. But
it–only what it's done is to sell him more–make him buy more
cigarettes.

⁸³
And the church filter gets the membership and things like that when
they let them get through with anything and still belong to the church,
they get more members. What if we went to the churches tonight and
filtered everybody out besides those who was genuine Word born
Christians. There'd be a many a blank sermon up against a wall tonight.
True. 'Cause it went through the Filter.
And if I've got one desire in my heart, and I hope that everybody
listening to me has the same thing: God, take me through Your Filter.
And as David said, "Try me, and prove me, and see if there be any evil
in me, then take it out, Lord." See? I want God's Filter. Don't care
what the world does, what the church has, I want to be a thinking man,
to think Who I'm going to be standing by one of these days for
judgment.

⁸⁵
Notice, the tobacco company does it to sell more cigarettes; the church
does it to get more members. A woman with short hair, wearing shorts
would be caught in God's Filter; she could not go through It with short
hair, because the Bible said she shouldn't do it. She dishonors her
head when she does it. We should know it. But she goes right through
the church all right, all of the rest of them.
I stand sometimes, not disregarding anybody. I never speak personally
about any person, but it's sin in the church. You bear me record of
that. I didn't say, "Miss So-and-so is so-and-so, or Mr. So-and-so, or
Reverend So-and-so is so-and-so." No, sir. I say sin is sin. If it's in
my family, it's in me, it's in whoever it is, it's still sin. Not as an
individual, I don't speak against individuals. I speak against sin. And
I don't care if it's in me or whoever it is starts through God's
filter, any sin will stop you right there.

⁸⁷
Notice. But the woman who wants to have short hair, and wear shorts, or
wear paint, and anything, she can go right through a Pentecostal filter
just as easy as pie: nothing about it. Right into death, 'cause he
that… She said, "Well, there's no harm in that." If you love the
world or the things of the world, it's because the love of God's not
even in you."
Down through this spirit then, she can pull down into her soul things
that isn't of God and against God's Word if that's the taste in the
soul. It can come through the taste, see, taste… It can come through
the think–through the reasoning, "There's no harm in it. I have taste;
I have feelings. I have a feeling that this is all right." She come
right on down through that and right into her soul, if her soul is of
that type. Shows that she isn't drawing through God's Filter. But if
she's got bobbed hair, wearing makeup, shorts, pants, looks like man,
all of these slacks and ever what they call them, saying those kind of
things, and doing those things, and living for the world, she'll stop;
she can't get through there. No, sir. It'll stop her at the beginning.

⁸⁹
Notice, a man looking at her pretty red lips, and painted face, and
shorts, and–and bikinis, and ever what she's got… A real thinking
man won't look at her. Now, a man that's a church member will look at
her, admire her. But I don't care how she looks to the eye, a thinking
man will turn his head. Why? He's been through God's Filter, and he
knows to look upon her is adultery in his heart. He don't think she's
pretty. Say, "Isn't she a pretty thing?" Not to him it isn't. She's a
filthy looking, miserable Jezebel wretch to a thinking man. A son of
God looks upon her with shame that he even belongs to the family she
belongs to. That's right. "How could that be my sister and act like
that?" See?
She pulled through one filter, and he come through another. He won't
think she's pretty, not at all. That's not beauty to a real man of God.

⁹¹
You remember, one time before the Blood of Jesus Christ become the
Filter, as we'll get to in a few minutes, the sons of God looked upon
the daughters of men that they were fair and taken unto them wives. God
never did forget it. Again it happened in the march of Israel, and God
never did forgive it; and every one of them perished. "A thinking man's
filter…"
I come out of the meeting here; there was a little Ricky standing back
there behind the church one night, said to me, about three or four
years ago, said, "The reason you say that, you're an old man." Said, "I
think they look nice."
I said, "I can imagine that." From just the looks of him, you can tell
what he looked like. I said, "Let me tell you something. How old are
you?"
"About thirty years old."
I said, "When I was fifteen years younger than you, I thought the same
thing." Right. It's still filth. "A thinking man's filter…"

⁹³
Now, notice, if he has been, his mind filtered through the Word of God,
God's Filter, he won't look upon her. He won't think she's pretty;
he'll think she's a Jezebel. He'll think behind those red lips is
poison fangs that would sting him. And the Bible said, "Her gates is
the gates of hell; and a man walks into them like an ox going to his
slaughter." There's a thinking man's Filter.
What do you desire? When the woman comes down the street dressed like
that, and you men turn your head, gaze around like that, you're not
using a thinking man's Filter. Because when you do that, you're
committing adultery; for the Filter said, "Whosoever looketh upon a
woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already."
Turn your head, thinking man. Get away from her. She's not pretty;
she's a serpent (That's right.), twists like one, acts like one, stings
like one. Keep away from her.

⁹⁵
Oh, yes, the Word of God is a thinking man's Filter. Anyone knows that;
that's what your soul is filtered through: the Word of God. And It
makes… When you come through God… When a thinking man comes through
God's Filter, it gives him a holy man's taste. That's right. When you
come through God's Filter, then your taste is a holy man's taste. It
makes a righteous man's taste. The slogan certainly is okay.
Now, we find out how this was done in a type in Israel, for the
congregation of Israel only… That's the reason speaking this now, if
ministers disagree on anything that's said, this is for my congregation
that the Lord's given me to–to preach to.

⁹⁷
Notice, In Exodus 19… (I want you to read it when you go home when
you have more time.) Notice, when Israel had committed sin, first they
took a red heifer, which had never had a yoke on her neck. That means
she never was yoked up with anything. And she had to be red. The color
red is a–an atonement color. Did you know science knows that if you
take red and look through red to red, it's white?
Look through red at red; it's white. He looks through the red Blood of
the Lord Jesus and our red sins become as white as snow: red through
red. And the heifer was killed in the evening time by the whole
congregation of Israel, and there was put seven stripes of her blood
upon the door where the whole congregation had to enter: a type of the
Seven Church Ages by the Blood.

⁹⁹
And then her body was taken and burnt. It was burnt with the hoof, with
the skin, with the intestines, with the dung. Everything was burnt
together, and it had to be picked up by a clean man and had to be put
in a clean place outside the congregation. Therefore, if Israel could
only see the type, this Word of God must not be handled by dirty hands
of unbelief. It's got to be a clean man, and if he's clean, he had to
come through God's Filter. A clean man, clean hands, and it had to be
kept in a clean place, not a place where Jezebels, and Rickys, and
everything partaking, take the Communion and things, when they're
running around with wives, and husbands, and all kinds of filth, going
to dances and parties, and wearing bobbed hair and shorts, and
everything else, and call themselves Christians. It's to be kept in a
clean place and handled with clean hands.
And then when Israel sinned and recognized that they had done wrong,
then they were sprinkled with the ashes of this heifer upon them, and
that was a water of separation, a purification for sin.

¹⁰¹
Notice, here it is. And when Israel, before they could come into
fellowship in the worship, they had to first pass through the waters of
separation–justification by… Faith cometh by hearing, hearing the
Word. Then they entered into the congregation under those seven
stripes, the blood, to show that something died and went before them
for their sin. They were separated by hearing the Word, the Waters of
separation, then entered into fellowship.
The only place that God met a man was behind that order. He wouldn't
meet him anywhere else. He had to come behind that order. God only met
Israel in one place. And God only meets you today in one place, and
that's in Jesus Christ. And He is the Word, the Waters of separation.
And His Blood was shed for all Seven Church Ages, and then by the Holy
Spirit we enter into that fellowship, which is only given to the
church. Oh, how great He is.

¹⁰³
Also now, we want to look at Ephesians 5:26. Said it is the washing of
the water by the Word, a Waters of separation. What does It do? Then
the Filter of God is the Word. Waters of separation–washing of the
waters of separation by the Word, God's Filter.
Then you can't come into Christ through a church filter. You cannot
come by a denominational filter or a creed filter. There's only one
Filter that you can enter into that holy place; that's through the
washing of the water by the Word. The Word of God is a thinking man's
Filter.

¹⁰⁵
The church will judge you here whether you're a good member or not.
They'll give you a good funeral and half-mast the flag at your death,
send great wreaths of flowers, and–and do everything for you, but when
it comes down to your soul facing God, it's got to have Eternal Life.
And if it's a Eternal Life, it's part of the Word. And as my own word
cannot deny–my own hand cannot deny my hand… My own eyes cannot deny
my hand, or my foot, or my toe, or any part of me. They cannot deny it,
and neither can a man that's part of the Word of God, or a woman, deny
one part of the Word of God. Then, women, when you think you can have
bobbed hair and come in the Presence of God, you're wrong. You see it?
You are wrong. You can't come through God's Filter where you're washed
by the water of the Word. Then you enter into the fellowship. You think
you are, but you can't be until you come through the Word. And every
little spot, every little Word of God… "Man shall not live by bread
alone but by every Word." It's got to come through that filtration,
coming through. And that gives a righteous man's taste, 'cause that's
what he's looking for, looking for something to cleanse him.

¹⁰⁶
The Word, the Word of God is a thinking man's Filter, and It makes a
righteous man's taste. We know that true. Filters all the sin of
unbelief out, there's no more disbelief when you come through the
Filter, because it is a true believer's taste.
The true believer wants to be right regardless. He just don't want to
say, "Well, I belong in the social ranks. I belong to church, the
biggest church in town." I don't care if it's a mission on the corner,
if it's a brush harbor somewhere, a thinking man knows that he's got to
meet God. And regardless of what the church says or anybody else says,
he's got to come on God's terms. And God's terms is God's Word.
"Well," they say, "God's Word…" Sure, all of them believe It's God's
Word, but can you filter through It? How you going to let a
bobbed-haired woman come through there? How you going to do that? How
you going to let a man come through there that wants hold up for this
doctrine? See? It ain't a thinking man's taste. No. A thinking man will
think–a thinking man will think twice before he jumps into something
like that.

¹⁰⁸
Notice that Word cannot deny Itself. Then it is satisfied–or it's the
desire. It's a desire of what? What made you desire It in the first
place? Because down in your soul there was a predestinated seed which
was Eternal Life always laying in there–always was in there. "All that
the Father has given Me will come to Me. There isn't any of them going
to be lost."
"A thinking man's taste…" When a thinking man hears the Word of God,
"My sheep hear My Voice, a stranger they will not follow," for down in
there is Life, and Life connects with Life. Sin connects with sin, and
sin is so hypocritical until it thinks that it's saved when it isn't
saved. It's in the very depths of hypocrisy.
Church members want a denomination filter so that they can have their
own desire and still be classed religious people. You hear them say,
"Oh, he's very religious."

¹¹¹
In Africa I was out there one day, and they was talking about these,
some of the kids was talking about these rock-and-roll songs that Elvis
Presley and them was singing, Pat Boone, and whatevermore, Ricky
Nelson, and all them others. I said, "They're a bunch of renegades."
Some little girl said, "Why, he's very religious."
I said, "So was Judas." I said, "Judas only got thirty pieces of
silver; Elvis Presley got several million dollars. (See?) They both
sold out their birthright." See? I said, "They're nothing–the very
worst indebtiment the nation's got." Still just as deceiving as the
filter of the cigarette, these denominations let those members come in.
They oughtn't to even be… There ought to be a law that they couldn't
sing religious songs. It's against–ought to be against the law for
them to do it. But the whole thing's become one great big pile of
hypocrisy, and there's where they stay today. The true Filt.. [Blank.spot.on.tape–Ed.] for the soul says, "If you love the world or the things of the world, the love of God's not even in you."

¹¹³
See, you can't–you can't say rock-and-roll is of the world–or is of
the–God. Rock-and-roll is of the world. Any of those dances and
filtered–nasty, filthy things, rather, is of the world. It's all of
the world. You can't say that bobbed hair for a woman is of God. The
Bible says it's not, so it's the filth of the world. And if you love
one speck of the world, the love of God's not even in you.
See what's that… Well, what's drawing. It's something down on the
inside drawing. The soul is drawing your resource through the outside
down through the spirit into the soul. And if the soul loves the world,
it's dead. I don't care how much anointed it is out here, and how
righteous it is out here, down in here it's dead. "For he that loves
the world or the things of the world, the love of God's not even in
him." no matter how religious.
The true Filter that way, will–will set all those things out and bring
nothing but the trueness of God, the Word, into the real true soul.

¹¹⁶
They're like Esau, outwardly okay. Esau was religious on the outside.
And when it comes to religion, it seemed to be more religious than
Jacob was. He seemed to be a better man than Jacob was, but the inside
of him, what he was… He was outwardly religious, but his thinking was
not filtered. He didn't think right of the birthright. He–he didn't
think that God–the birthright meant as much as God said it did. There
he was, said, "I'm hungry; what difference it make about the old
birthright? You can have it if you want it." Oh, my (See?), "I go to
church; I'm just as good as you are. My denomination is just as… Why,
it's one of the greatest in the world. My mother belonged to it; my
father belonged to it, all this, that, and the other. My pastor was
educated; he's got so-and-so." That's puts him that much farther from
God. That ain't a thinking man's filter. If it would, how could Peter
ever been what he was when he couldn't sign his own name. But he packed
the thinking man's Filter.

¹¹⁷
Notice. Oh, my. Esau thought that that birthright didn't mean what God
said it did, that it was the difference between life and death. And so
like Eve and like Judas, sold their birthrights for a satisfaction of
the taste of the knowledge of civilization. That's exactly what Eve
sold her birthrights for. She sold it for a little taste of science, a
little taste of worldly knowledge, a little better church, a little
better class of people, today it would be called. See? And Judas sold
his birthrights for thirty pieces of silver and make a few extra
dollars. "My congregation can pay me better over here, and I'll just
preach over here." See? "So if I become a preacher, well…"

¹¹⁸
They said, "Brother Branham, we believe that Message is the truth but
we can't accept it. If we did, why, where would we preach at?" The
world, brother, that's the parish. Certainly. "Well, none of the
brethren would back me up." I–I ain't looking for none of the brethren
to back me up. I'm looking for Jesus Christ to back me up, because He
stood by it. He's the One who said it.
And when the true birthright, the Blood, filtered out by the Word, and
all sin, and the world, and church, and denominations, and sectarianism
is left outside… Education, civilization, church, denomination,
system, sin of all types is left outside when a thinking man takes a
thinking man's Filter in God's estimation.
There's nothing left in it when a man draws his–his life through
a–God's Filter. Notice. Here your life was all messed up with sin,
because you were borned in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world
speaking lies. I'm going to say something, as Brother McCully used to
say. Listen to me.

¹²¹
When you come in this world, you were borned in sin. You didn't even
come with a fighting chance. You were borned in sin, shaped in
iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, within your own spirit the
desire of sin, a lover of sin, because you were borned in sin. You
didn't have a chance. But down inside of you somewhere (Here you come.)
there was something in there that begin to draw. If you knowed it was
something that told you there was a God somewhere, and you read His
Word, then you took the church, you took their ideas when you was told
better, then you never used a thinking man's Filter. But when you use
God's Filter which is a thinking man's Filter, because "all other
filters will pass away, but Mine shall not."… And when you take God's
Filter and draw your life, your desires… If you draw your desires
through God's Filter, a thinking man's Filter, there's nothing left but
the Holy Ghost.
Now, if you want the evidence of the Holy Ghost, there it is. When that
soul of yours will line with the Word of God in every respect, it shows
you've drawed your life through the thinking man's Filter–God's
Filter.

¹²³
Notice. Is that God's filter? He said we was washed by the water of the
Word. And when God gave Adam and Eve a Filter in the garden of Eden, He
said, "Don't you draw none of this in there." But Satan punched a hole
in it, said, "Oh, it's… A little bit won't hurt."
Just one drop too, it's all it took to set death into the human race.
That's all it takes, just one taste of nicotine, then they're gone.
There's nothing left but the Holy Ghost. And then, that shows that in
you was that predestinated seed down in you that makes you hunger for
God. "All the Father has given Me, has given Me to redeem, they died
with Me at Calvary; they raised with Me in the resurrection; all that
He has given Me, will come to Me. They'll be placed in the body
(whether foot, arm, nose, mouth, whatever it is). They'll be placed in
there, and they will come to Me in their season."

¹²⁷
Oh, my. There is that real filtration. Of all the sin of the world and
the love of the world is dead and this soul is drawing only one thing.
Here it is, don't remember it–don't forget it. All you out there on
the telephones, set this down in your mind. When a thinking man begins
to think Who he's going to stand before and what the Word of God is,
when he begins to think, then when he draws through that, there's
nothing can get to it but the Holy Ghost. What is it? It's the germ,
seed Word from the beginning, that you was in God at the beginning,
standing here drawing the seed Life. The seed is in your heart by
foreordination. Hallelujah. The seed is already in there by the
foreknowledge of God, predestinated. And when it draws, it can't draw
through nothing else but the Word. And then it's the taste of the
thinking man, the righteous man, the holy man who sees the Bible, that
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What comes into
that place down there? That Word that's in the heart "I've hid Thy Word
in my heart that I sin not against Thee." What is it when it's drawing
through the Word? There's only one thing will pass through the Word;
that's the Holy Ghost. That's the only thing that can pass through the
Word, is the Holy Ghost. And a thinking man's Filter gives a holy man a
taste.

¹²⁸
Then he's tasted of the heavenly things. He's got the Word of God in
his heart; he sees It manifested before him. And his whole soul's
wrapped into It, and the world and all things is dead around him.
A thinking man's Filter of religion… And I'm thinking of filtering
religion now. When a thinking man's Filter gives a holy man's taste
(See?), It satisfies his taste. He sees that Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and forever. There it is. See Him right before us
doing the same things He did; it satisfies the holy man's taste, his
thinking.
He knows then that he's passed from death unto Life. And he loves…
And–and–and it loves for the world–to be confirmed–and wants the
Word to be confirmed and vindicated. In each age he waits for It, for
he is a holy man and he's got a desire to see God. Others just wants to
join church. This man wants to see God. He don't see Him in a bunch of
creeds. He don't see Him in big fine pipe organs, or cathedrals, and
high crosses, or polished up scholars with their collars turned around.
He doesn't see Him in–in a theologian; he sees Him in the confirmation
of His Word.

¹³¹
See what I mean? A filter man–or thinking man's Filter. A man that
wants to stand in the presence of God… What was God's Filter? His
Word. "The day you eat thereof, that day you die." I don't care what's
happening out here; don't you pass that Word. Washed by the waters of
the Word, a thinking man's Filter: not a denomination, not a creed, not
a church, not a cathedral, but a thinking man's Filter. For you're
going to be judged by the Word. A thinking man will think that. A
foolish man or a taste of the world will just take anything, a
substitute. Why substitute when there's a real one?

¹³²
Think. Just think of it a minute. A woman speaking in tongues with
bobbed hair and lipstick on, and then the church still holds to it that
that's the evidence of the Holy Ghost.
Or a preacher from a seminary or some Bible school using the
trinitarian baptism or compromising with the Word to some creed or
denomination, is that a thinking man's Filter? Not the way I see it,
brother. It's a foolish man drawing through that. It's right. Could you
imagine that? Instead of using God's Word as a Filter for his soul,
letting that old creed and denomination pile in on top of him like
that, instead of taking God's Word for a Filter… And then he's all
contaminated and let them induce into him doctrines of men, doing
things, almost deceiving the very elected and neglecting the Word when
he could draw to his own soul, if there's anything in there to draw by.
But if that predestinated seed (Don't miss this.)–if that
predestinated seed is not in there, it will not draw through there.
Because it'll draw for it's desire.

¹³⁴
If a smoking man wants a smoking man's taste, and if he's got ahold of
a stick… I say, "Suck your finger." and he stood there sucking his
finger, why, he'd say, "That's silly." Why? His taste is for nicotine.
So he's not a thinking man. See?
But you say, "Well, I don't–I don't taste nothing… I want to taste
the world. I–I want to taste tobacco; I don't taste a thing." Give him
a clothes pin and let him suck on that. See? Sure, let him suck on that.
He says, "I don't taste nothing." What's you sucking on it for then?
You've got a desire to taste nicotine. And when you're sucking on a
church creed and still you women wear bobbed hair, painted faces, and
is sexy dressed, and you men look at them and all these other things
and carry on the way you do, what is it? What's in there? The world's
still in there, and you got a taste; you're pulling on it for a taste.

¹³⁷
"I can go to this church; they don't never name that thing. They don't
say nothing about this, nothing about that. None of these things are
brought up. Our preacher is more wide-minded than that. We don't say
things like that." What is it? You've got the taste of the world you're
sucking for. That's right.
But a thinking woman won't take that kind of a thing. She knows she's
got to be holy. And the only thing that you can draw through God's Word
is the Spirit, the Quickening Power, to make the Word Itself which is
in you live to manifest Jesus Christ in the age you're living.
Hallelujah. Brother, if that ain't the truth, I don't know what the
truth is. I've lost my mind if that isn't the truth.
It is the Word Itself in your heart, predestinated there, that's
drawing. And it spits out that world; it don't want it. But when it
gets over here in the Word, it begins to draw. And when it draws
through the Word, it can be nothing else but the Holy Ghost to quicken
that Word.

¹⁴⁰
Then a thinking, religious man's Filter is the Word, and it satisfies
that holy taste that's in his heart: "A thinking man's filter, a holy
man's taste." Oh, my, what we're into.
Instead of using God's Filter for his soul, he's letting Satan deceive
him by some denomination or creed, just exactly like the tobacco
companies are deceiving you people that smoke cigarettes. You just get
more members, and that's all.
Oh, let me close in a few minutes saying this.

¹⁴²
Blind Laodicea, how blind can we get. Blind Laodicea, the–leading the
blind of this age under false pretense, under false creeds, under
dogmas that's false, under denomination that's false, under creed books
that's false. Oh, blind Laodicea, leading the blind, you're all headed
for the ditch.
Change your filter tonight, preacher. Don't draw that denominational
nicotine into your system, of dogmas and creeds, which Jesus said,
"Whosoever shall add one word to It or take one word from It…" When
you tell your congregation it's right for them women to do that, and
those men to do that, and all these things, that, and the other, as
long as they stay true to this, and do that, and keep these creeds and
things, aren't you ashamed of yourself?

¹⁴⁴
"Blind Pharisees," Jesus said. As Jesus cried, "Blind Pharisees," the
Holy Spirit in my own heart tonight cries, "Blind Laodicea, how oft God
would've give you a revival, but now your time has come. It's too late
now. How did you laugh and make fun of the people that God sent to you?
But now your time has come. Oh, United States, United States, how that
God would've hovered you as a hen does its brood, but you would not."
Now, this Voice is going from coast to coast, from north to south and
east to west. How God would've hovered you, but you would not. Now,
your time has come.
Nations are breaking; the world is falling apart. Fifteen hundred mile
chunk of it, three or four hundred miles wide, will sink hundred–or
maybe forty miles down into that great fault out yonder one of these
days, and waves will shoot plumb out to the state of Kentucky. And when
it does, it'll shake the world so hard that everything on top of it
will shake down.
Oh, hide me in the Rock of Ages. God, let me–let me… Breathe upon
me, Lord. Spirit of the Living God, breathe on me. Let me take God's
Filter and live under that, Lord. Let me breathe the fresh air of the
Holy Ghost into my lungs, in my soul each day, that I sin not against
You, O Lord. Breathe on me, Holy Spirit; breathe on me. I'll…

¹⁴⁷
Let me plant the Word of God in my heart and purpose there that I'll
not turn to the right hand or to the left hand away from It, but I'll
live true to It all the days of my life. O Father God, then send down
upon me the Holy Spirit of Life to quicken those Words to me, that I
might manifest Jesus Christ before those who are before me to–looking
for it to happen. That's my prayer.
Oh, my. Notice how they do today in those churches. Sucking the people
through those denominational filters into the ecumenical council. Why?
Why? For it gives them the desire of their heart: organization. They
have a taste for organization. They'll do it.
Every time God sent them a revival, and they… What did they do? They
organized it. Is that right? So they got their kind of filter, because
they've got a great taste. And now God's going to give them their
desire of their taste. He's going to give them… They're sucking them
right into the ecumenical council, and then they get the organizational
taste then. They got it coming.

¹⁵⁰
Oh, church of Laodicea, don't be deceived in this age by their
deceptions. O Pentecost, you who've gone into Laodicea, you who are a
part of Laodicea, the church dead through Methodist, Baptist, and
Presbyterian, just a ritualistic form… But you Pentecostals who could
still once in a while say, "Amen." who can pull a lot of music up on a
platform and have bobbed-haired women dancing all over the place, and
still do believe in Divine healing, how oft God would've took you, but
you took another filter, a denominational filter. How oft God would
have took you.
How deceiving it was. Matthew 24:24, Jesus said that the–it would
deceive the very Elected if it was possible. How close that you are,
just like Eve just leaving off one or two little things that she
wouldn't receive because you're organized and can't receive it. That's
all it takes. You just might as well take the whole thing, for to
offend in the least, is guilty of the whole. Oh.

¹⁵²
Pentecost, Pentecost, pass thy thinking through God's Filter, not your
denominational dream, and you will come out with a holy man's taste,
the true baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Could you imagine a man letting his wife cut her hair, wear shorts, or
wear slacks, and say he's coming through a thinking man's Filter. Could
you imagine a man doing a thing like that.
Can you imagine a preacher standing in the pulpit, because he's paid
good by a congregation that pats him on the back, calls him "Doctor,
Brother, Reverend," and takes him out to all kinds of parties where
there's mixed bathing and everything else on the beaches, could you
imagine a man claiming he's coming through a thinking man's Filter?
And some of those women on the platform with their dresses above their
knees and cut so tight, and shows every form, every move they make, and
their underneath clothes showing through their dresses, just as bad as
wearing shorts, bikinis, or anything else. You Pentecostal, blind,
Laodicean preachers, how long will God suffer you? I don't know. May
God be merciful to your–to your blind eyes. He's got eyesalve tonight
to open your eyes that you might see.

¹⁵⁶
As I said this morning we're in the seeing age, the top. There's no
more faculties above that that you can move outwardly to know. You…
From your nose you can smell, from your lips you can speak, from your
hands you can feel and reach, and your feet and so forth, but you can't
go farther than your eyes.
Malachi 4 has come: sight, it shall be Light about the evening time. Oh, walk in the Light.

Yes, sir. Pass through it, oh, brother, and you will come out a–with a holy man's taste with the Holy Ghost.

¹⁵⁹
Oh, woman, just pass your modern thinking of dress, pass your modern
thinking… Before you go out on the street before men… You young
women, you old women, before you go out on the street with your clothes
so tight, pushed out in the back and front… I'm not critical; I'm
your brother. I stand between the living and the dead and realize what
I'm saying. Before you enter out–and know that your body is a sacred
order, a sacred caste that God has given you–before you enter the
street dressed like that, pass your mind through a thinking woman's
Filter. And let it remember that whosoever looks upon you to lust after
you, you have committed adultery with him already. Remember that,
sister.
And, brother, before you turn your head to look at her on that second
glance, pass your mind through a thinking man's Filter; you'll come out
with a holy man's taste (See?) of doing what's right.

¹⁶¹
Notice, if you pass your mind through a thinking woman's Filter, you'll
come out with a holy woman's dress. That's right. You'll come out,
brother, with a holy man's look. Now, that's just one thing. Everything
that you do, pass it through the Filter of God's Word, see if it's
right or wrong.
You'll come out with a holy woman's dress, with long hair, decently
dressed, a quiet, humble spirit, not up and brawling, fighting and
carrying on. A quiet, meek spirit, which is a great treasure from
God… The Bible said so.
Now, I want to ask you something out in the lands… We're going to close in a few minutes.

¹⁶³
Now, let us all tonight check our desires, and then you can see what
kind of a filter you've been drawing through. Let's check, each one of
us, here and out across the nation. Check your desires, what you want
really in life. Check what you're fighting for. Check what you're here
for. Check what you go to church for. What makes you… It's good to go
to church, but don't–just don't go to church only; that won't save
you. See? Just check just a few minutes. Say, "Is my objective…
What–what kind of a filter am I drawing through anyhow?" And if you
won't cope with the Word of God, and your soul don't do it, then
there's something wrong, for it shows up your taste, that the
life–what kind of a life is in you. If it's a holy, discreet,
honorable, it'll come out that way. If it isn't you've got another
taste in you you're drawing from. That's exactly right. And if the
taste is the Word of God and the will of God, then you know what's in
you, what's drawing the taste. Shows you are a part of that Word. That
Word is in you drawing from the Word.

¹⁶⁴
What's it drawing? It's drawing through the Word, because you are a
part of the Body of Christ of this age. And if that Word is in you, It
can only draw through the Word the Spirit that quickens that Word
that's in you. Just the Word alone will–won't live. That's the reason,
"All the Father has given Me will come to Me, and if I be lifted up,
I'll draw all men unto Me." See, see? The Father…
The part of the Body of Christ that's in the world, predestinated, put
into the heart… Any man that's a real Christian, borned again today,
knows since he was a little kid or a little girl, either, that there
was something in you that hungered for God. And you tried joining
churches and everything else; it wouldn't work. What was it? It was
that Word. You was hunting for a Filter, and one day It flashed before
you; you seen Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. That
satisfied the taste. See? 'Cause life was in you drawing. See the life
in you is drawing; it's–it's set on what desire you got here. You're
pulling… You can't pull through this, and that, and the other; you've
got to find that right Filter, 'cause you're a thinking person. See?
If you're a thinking person, you are predestinated, or filtered 'fore–from the–'fore the foundation of the world.

¹⁶⁷
And if a denominational minister hears this, I hope that he takes the
thinking man's Filter, if he's a denomination minister. Then he'll
throw down that denominational pack that's sure to perish, 'cause it's
the word of man, and accept God's filtered Word that can never fail nor
pass away, and It will suit the holy man's taste. And like Jacob, will
sacrifice all the world and the appetites of every denomination or fame
that there is in the world, where you can be bishop, cardinal, whether
you can be a state presbyter, or a pastor of some great church, you'll
sacrifice everything that there is: not like Esau to become part of the
world, but like Jacob, you'll give everything you've got to obtain the
birthright, the Filter of the thinking man; 'cause It'll give you the
holy man's taste. And It will satisfy. And It'll be satisfying and will
sanctify with the eternal taste of the holy goodness of God.

¹⁶⁸
Remember, Satan punched the first hole through Eve's mind–or her
thinking, to let the taste of his wisdom and knowledge get through.
Now, think of this; I'm closing. Satan punched the first hole through,
'cause all she could draw was the Word. That was the Spirit through the
Word of God, 'cause she said, "As long as you breathe through this
Filter, you'll never die; but you take a breath of this out here,
you'll die." See?
And Satan said, "But you don't know nothing here, but you take a little
taste of this here and then you'll know; you'll be like God. See, he
knows right and wrong; you don't. And if you'll just take a little
taste of this…" And she let him punch a hole in it, just one little
hole.
Now, you see why I say… You say, "Why don't you teach women and so forth how to receive gifts and things like that?"
I said, "How can you teach them algebra when they won't even learn
their a-b-c's?" One little hole is all it took. He took the world's
wisdom; and when it did, it set death to the whole family, wanting to
taste of wisdom.

¹⁷³
Now, look at the filter, and certainly it expressed her taste. Her
taste was for the world; that's what she's got. That's what it is
today: they love the world and the things of the world with a form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof. See? Satan will let them
speak in tongues; he'll let them shout; he'll let them have Divine
healing services; he'll let them do all these kind of things.
He say, "Many will come to Me in that day, and, 'Lord, have not I cast out devils, have not I done many things, done this?'"
He'll say, "I didn't even know you, you worker of iniquity." When the
Word was placed right before you and you still sucked that old filter
of the world (See?), shows the taste that was in the heart.

¹⁷⁵
Doves cannot eat a-carrion. They cannot eat it. They don't have any
gall. A crow can eat the seed like a dove and can eat a-carrion like a
crow (See?), because he's a hypocrite. But a dove is not built like any
other bird, and that's why God represented Himself as a Dove descending
from heaven. See? It cannot–it cannot stand the stink of a-carrion.
It's not a vulture. The reason, it don't have any gall. It couldn't
digest it. It would kill it, if it eat it. And a dove never has to take
a bath. A dove's body puts out oil from the inside that keeps it clean.
It's a life that's in the dove; it generates in it a oil that keeps the
feathers clean. And so is a Christian, there's a Life within them that
keeps them clean. It's filtered.
Oh, notice. Now, look at he that–at the filter and certainly you can see the taste thereof of what they're doing today.

¹⁷⁷
Look at this modern church. Look at their filter. You can see what they
love. See what they got. The love… What do they love? Miss Laodicea
which is headed for God's judgment. That's right. The love, the church
love today is for Laodicea, a great organization, a great setup, a
great, popular thing, fine dressed people, highly cultured, full of
wisdom, full of the devil, under the deceit of the church of Christ.
There's only one word ought to be in there "antichrist," for everything
that Christ taught, they're against practically everything. Right. Just
enough so they can call themselves that.
Now, if you are a thinking people tonight, here and out in the land
where the message is going, your desire will be a Bible taste, not a
denominational taste, for you will be judged by the very Bible, the
Word that I'm asking you to filter your soul through. And to reject one
word of It and not let your soul pass through that one word, you'll be
turned down; for man shall not live, breathe, by bread alone, but by
every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
And it will be brought into you predestinated, and when the Lord
breathes upon you, His Spirit will quicken that Word to a reality, and
you'll see that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Oh, my.

¹⁸⁰
Leave the world's denomination, religious pack. Let it lay like that
cigarette pack in the woods. Let it rot and decay (It's–it's a wrong
filter.), and take the Word which is Christ that gives, and reaches,
and preserves the taste of Eternal Life to everyone that will take it:
Eternal Life.
The Word, if you are predestinated, you see It. There's no way to hide
It from you. You look there and say, "Why, It's just so plain before my
face; I'd look at It; there it is. I'm looking right at It. I see It.
Here It is the Word, every word, just word by word, living out." Then
there's a taste of Eternal Life that you want. And when you breathe
through that… What can come through that, God's Filter? Nothing but
the Spirit, no world at all, no unbelief at all. It's God's Filter. And
when you breathe through that, nothing can get through that but the
Holy Ghost.

¹⁸²
Now, you got the evidence of the Holy Ghost. See? A holy man or woman's
taste, they want to live, they got Eternal Life. And because this
Word's quickened to them, they live. A thinking man's Filter and a holy
man's taste…
Don't take the world like them cigarette companies under a deception,
but take the real thinking man's Filter. Filter the breath that you
breathe, the food that you eat. Everything that you are, breathe it
through God's Word, and you'll have a holy man's taste; for It will
produce that, for He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And I know, whether we are or whether we are not, I believe that we
are… But if we are not, there's somebody in the world today that's
part of the Body of Christ; and It will live only by the Word of God,
every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God for this age that
we're living in now.

¹⁸⁵
And I can't see where denomination, with those words so plainly in the
Bible said it would happen and the things that would be, and here we
are living right in it now, I can't see where it could be anything else
but this.
Church, I realize I've got to stand with you in the judgment someday.
Far be it from me to ever tell you anything wrong for popularity. I
don't want that. If I had my desire, I'd–just my human desire, I'd
take my rifle and go to the woods, and build me a cabin, and trap the
rest of my life. I'm getting old, tired, weary, and broke down. But I
can't quit. There's something in me grinding. Woe unto me if I don't
tell the Truth and the whole Truth. Woe unto me if I don't stand here
till the last breath of the body is left me. I must stand, regardless
of what anyone else says, I'm responsible before God.

¹⁸⁷
And I truly believe that the things that we're preaching is the Truth,
not because it's me preaching it, no, my brother. No, sir. God knows my
heart. I would like to set out in the congregation and listen to the
anointed preach. How much easier it would be on me. Certainly. 'Cause
I'd have Eternal Life as same as the man in the pulpit. I'm a part of
it the same as he is. I'd go to the same heaven, have the same
privileges. How easy it would be for me to set out there and not take
all these bruises, and beats, and carry on. How easy it would be. For
out here all night with no sleep, an hour and a half or two hours
wrestling all night with things that's come up. How easy for me to do
that, take up my gun the next morning, my fishing rod and go fishing or
hunting. How easy it would be. But, brother, it fell my lot, and may
God help me to never shun my post of duty, but to stand loyal and true
and produce to you a thinking man's Filter that'll give you a holy
man's taste.
The thinking man's Filter is the waters of–the waters of separation.
It's a purification from sin, which is the Word of God. And the
thinking man, the man that knows he's got to stand before God, knows
he's got to answer for every Word of the Bible, It'll satisfy that
taste that's in your heart. May God help us to receive it as we bow our
heads.

¹⁸⁹
Dear God, another hour or two has passed on. The clock has moved around
now. The message now goes into history, and it's recorded on the Book.
We all have to answer now for this, every move that we made, every word
that we said, every thought went through our mind, the record is still
playing. And it'll play on till life is over, and then we'll answer at
the day of the judgment.
O God, the great Creator of heavens and earth, Whom we do believe, I
pray for this people of this day. I pray for myself with them, that,
Lord Jesus, that You'll hold Your Filter. And if I'm saying anything
sacrilegious, Lord, I–in my heart I don't know it. I pray that if it's
wrong for me to take Your Word and use such a thing as that, You
forgive me for it.

¹⁹¹
But, Lord, I thought when You spoke to me there in the woods, You know
the time and the morning, it just–I couldn't get it off my mind. I
accepted it as coming from You. So, Father God, I have already spoke
it, and I pray God, that You'll let it be in the way that I thought it
to be, that the thinking man, the man if he's got any thinking at all,
he'll know he has to stand in the Presence of God, and he won't take
into his soul anything that contaminates or is contrary to the Word of
God.
And, Father, we realize that as I compared it with these organizations
of today, not to be different, Lord… You'll judge me someday from my
heart. And I pray God, that You'll see that it wasn't to be different,
but it was to be honest, to try to be sincere, realizing that I hold
the purchase of Your Blood from coast to coast right now in my hand.
And many of them has believed the report.
And God of heaven, may there not be one of them lost. I claim them
every one and hold before them the Filter from sin, the Waters of
separation, the Blood of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Grant it,
Lord, and may the Holy Spirit pour through every promise into our
souls, and may we be living representatives of the Bride of Jesus
Christ in the time of the eyes, of the seeing in the evening Light, for
we present it to You in Jesus Christ's Name. Amen.

¹⁹⁴
You love Him? You believe it? I–if I said anything wrong by saying
thinking man's filter, I can't say no more. I have no education; I just
have to say what comes to me. And when I seen that laying there, I
thought, "What a line of hypocrisy." And something said, "Just like the
church."
A thinking man's filter (Oh, my.), there's more than that to it. A
thinking man wouldn't use it at all. See? Certainly not. And it desires
a smoking man's taste (That's right.), because he's got to have it to
satisfy his taste. But a real thinking man that knows his soul's going
to judgment will filter his taste through the Word of God, "For all the
Father has give Me will come to Me." And he'll live by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God, which is the Waters of separation,
that a–separates us from sin. For when it comes through the Word we
see that it's sin to disbelieve it, so we just believe it and go on.
It's a separation from sin.

¹⁹⁶ You love Him?

What did He say?
"This will all men know you are My disciples, when you love, have love
one for the other." Now, let's shake somebody's hand while we sing it
again and say, "I love you too, brother."

¹⁹⁷
How do you like a thinking man's Filter? When you go on the street to
rub arms with the world tomorrow, brother, sister, have you got the
thinking man's Filter? When that man calls you a holy-roller, do you
use a thinking man's Filter? When that somebody says something evil
against you, do you have a thinking man's Filter? See? Do good for
evil. Pray for those that despitefully use you and those who persecute
you; then you're breathing through the thinking man's Filter.
For if you love those just who love you, as we shook one another's hand
that's dearly beloved in the Lord, that's good; but can you also love
the unlovable; that's the thinking man's Filter; that's the Spirit of
Christ in you, loving those who don't love you, then you have the
reward of God. But now, if you do it as a duty, you still haven't got
the thinking man… You're only up in the second cycle. But if from
your heart you really love him, then you're breathing through the
thinking man's Filter, and It satisfies a holy man's taste, that you
know from your heart you forgive everybody everything, no matter what
taken place. Isn't He wonderful?

¹⁹⁸

You love that?

I just love that.

Just think of it: filtered through the Word, wholly Thine.

[Brother Branham begins humming–Ed.]

¹⁹⁹
Dear God, we love to sing to You, for it's there we express our
feelings, our emotion, the whole congregation, as You breathe upon us
the Word of Life. We're so grateful, Lord. In that song, receive us,
will You, Lord. That's our desire, is to be filtered through the Word
of God, walk each day in the Light, the Light of the Gospel.

Grant it, Lord. Bless us together now. Let Thy grace and mercy be with us. Heal the sick and the afflicted throughout the land.
We thank You for Brother Coggins tonight, that You let him leave the
hospital to go home well. Thank You for all the things that You've
done, and for our own strength that we feel lifted up now.

²⁰²
We thank You for the little cut-up message tonight, Lord. I–I didn't
do it right, but I pray, Lord, that You'll make it right in the
people's sight, that they might see and know what it was meant for. Get
glory out of it, Lord, and may we have this understanding, if nothing
else, that we are to live by the Bread of the Word of God, filtered
from God just for His children only. It's a separated congregation.
It's for no one else. It's only for those, Your chosen, as the red
heifer's waters of separation was for the congregation of Israel only.
So, Father, we know that the Bread is for the Sheep only. "It's not
meet that I take the children's bread and cast it to dogs," said Jesus.
And the woman in return said, "Yes, Lord, that's true, but I'm willing
to take the crumbs." And we feel that way tonight, Lord. We want all
that You can give us, Father, for we're hungering and thirsting for
more of You.
Grant that our hungers will be fulfilled and our desires be made known,
for, Father, we want to have a righteous man's desire. And the
righteous Man was Jesus Christ, and His desire was to do the will of
the Father, which was the Word. Grant it to us, Father. We ask it in
His Name. Amen.

²⁰⁴ Let us stand now while we sing our dismissing song of "Take the Name of Jesus With You."
Out
across the places now in where the message has gone tonight, may God be
with you now as we dismiss in prayer. May each one of you out there…
I hope you've enjoyed as much listening as I have bringing it to you.
And I trust that God will place it in your hearts and give you the
right interpretation to it.
And you people here in the audience that's got these handkerchiefs
laying here, I've laid hands upon them. I pray that God will heal every
one of you, there won't be any sick people among us, you see how our
God answers prayer.
When we gather together, "The people that's called by My Name shall
assemble themselves together and pray, then I'll hear from heaven."…
He promised do it.

²⁰⁷
So we are not divided; we're just one person. We're all one in Christ
Jesus. And each one, pray for each one. You pray for me as I pray for
you. And God bless you till we see you again.
And I trust that you'll be a constant–you who live here close, will
come to the Tabernacle and visit here with our good pastor, Brother
Neville. He'll do you good, Brother Mann and the fine people they have
here in the Tabernacle.
If you're close to Brother Junior Jackson or some of the rest of them
throughout the land, New York, and different places where they got
their meetings, around through Arizona and California, visit those
churches if you're out in there. We pray that you'll return again and
let the pastor help you to know more about the Lord Jesus.

²¹⁰ God bless you now while we sing "Take the Name of Jesus With You."

²¹¹
Looking over the congregation tonight seeing Brother Estle Beeler back
there, Brother Palmer, and many, Brother J. T., and so many of the
ministers standing around here, I can't call all their names. Wished I
could have you every one up here and all of you dismiss the
congregation or do something. You understand, don't you? I know you got
a Christian heart and know that we have to–how we–how we are. We're
all together one person in Christ Jesus.
Now, let's remember this next verse as we sing it while our Brother
Martin here will dismiss us in prayer. And I want to… This is Brother
Earl Martin from, I believe, from Arkansas, or–or Missouri–Missouri
right on the Arkansas Missouri line there. They got a church down there.
I noticed this other brother from down there; I can't think of his
name: Brewer. He was here this morning. I guess he's still here
tonight. Yeah, I see him standing over here, Brother Brewer. I promised
to come by and dedicate their churches so many times. I'll get there
someday by the help of the Lord, as I can. Now, while we sing this next
verse now…

Let's sing it now.

Let us bow our heads.

Brother Martin…

(more…)

(more…)

(more…)

(more…)