Once More (63-0804A)

 

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

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

⁷
Now, so we want to get back early. And so we won't be late tonight,
Brother Carlson's going to let me on just exactly on time tonight.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for." And I don't know, if the
Lord willing, I might try to speak tonight, if I can get a
little–enough time, on, "The Countdown." The… For the… It's a
scientific, little message the Lord has give me for the last days. And
maybe, the Lord willing, I might be able to speak on that tonight.
Now, we had a grand time last night. I went over, said, "We're not
going to pray for the sick," and the Lord healed the sick anyhow. You
see? Amen. Sometimes we can say something, but the Lord can just upset
that anytime He wants to. You see, He–He's God.

⁹
Now, I want to read quickly from the Scriptures for a little text that
I–I thought that might be a help to us this afternoon at…
Now, if he let me on on time, I want to try to get out on time, and
that would be about four-thirty, which would be about fifty minutes
from now.
Let us turn now over to the Book of Judges the 16th chapter, and let's
read the–the 27th and 28th verses, as we look to the Word.

Let's pray again. Lord Jesus, take this little text, and water the
church with it, Lord. We pray and commit it to You, in Jesus' Name.
Amen.

¹³
There must've been about three thousand Philistines a looking down from
the top of the galley and–of this great arena, when the couple entered
the arena that afternoon. Must've been a hot day. All day long they'd
been out there. And in this great company, on top of this great arena
that was built something on the order of an upside-down mushroom, and
the center post in the middle, that went out something in this way, and
held the two posts holding all the spectators around… Highly-polished
war lords and their fine-jeweled women, all leaned forward at this
certain event, for they wanted to get a good look, that what was taking
place.
There had been preliminaries, all the entertainment. They probably had
little monkeys that–that played little tricks. And they had different
things that they entertained themselves with, fighting, wrestling,
and–and–and maybe dueling to death, and many other things that–that
they had been entertained with all day, for it was a great day, but now
the main event come.

¹⁵
You know how we all wait patiently while the preliminaries are going
on. And they wait for the–the main event, and that's when everybody
sets up and takes notice. We watch it in our religious services of when
we have our–our singing, and our testimonials, and the preaching, and
so forth; but the main event is see what the Lord's going to do, see
what He's gathered us together for. We're all under anticipations to
see just what the end's going to be, the main event. It's that way in
anything. We always watch for the main event.
And they all raised up to look forward to see what was taking place,
because the main event was being brought to them, and what did they
see, but a blind man being led by a little boy.

¹⁷
The halls had echoed all afternoon with drunken revelry, how that they
passed the whiskey and their high drinks. And their fine, painted-up
and jeweled women, and great dignified war lords, and all… It was a
great celebration. They were celebrating the victory (Oh, how I hate to
say this.), the victory that the fish god Dagon had got over the
servant of God. It just goes plumb down to the bottom of me to have to
say that, but it's truth. Celebrating such a way as that, a victory
over Jehovah's servant. What a shameful thing. Drinking, revelry, and
painted women, and jeweled-up, and great dignitaries, the fires was
burning under the fish god, and what a celebration it must've been.
But the heart-breaking part, as thousands of years later that we have
to think back of such an event as that, and when the great God of
heaven, Who had purposed in His heart to destroy that nation because
they were heathens, and had sent a man to do the job, and here the fish
god idol was celebrating a victory over Jehovah's servant. Jehovah
never lost; the servant that He sent to do it, lost the victory.

¹⁹
What a sight, what a shameful thing it was. The lad led the stumbling,
blind man across the–the hall to these big center posts, whereon all
the great upside-down mushroom or umbrella-like set, where the people
looked down like this, from the great-like pilasters run up and held
the thing in order, laid by stone that could not be reproduced again
today. No one could build it like that. But what a great thing it was.
And thousands of the celebrity priests who had served a idol, with
their chests all swelled out, and all their ceremonies and rituals over
their idol, that he had conquered Jehovah. What a great day it was:
drinking, revelry, and carrying on.

²⁰
And here comes Jehovah's servant, blind, stumbling, led by a little
boy, out to this great post to make sport. The main event of
entertainment was to make sport out of Jehovah's ordained purpose to
destroy the nation. And, yet, the nation has taken the thing that God
had placed in to destroy them, and now they had conquered him and was
making sport out of him, their main event at their celebration.
Doesn't that just kill you nearly to have to look at that? To think
what could… This story never really should've never had to be told.
But it was probably told for–for our admonition, is wrote that way.
Humiliated, broken, standing now defeated, right between the two posts
that held the building…

²²
What a symbol that is of the church of this day. What a symbol it is of
a fallen race of people, that has sold out to the world and the very
thing that we're here to conquer. The church that has sold its–its
morals, that sold the Bible, sold it's strength, so surrendered its
sword, and standing humiliated in the hour when the approaching signs
of the coming of Jesus Christ is at hand, when she ought to be washed,
not a spot or a wrinkle, standing to receive her Bridegroom.

²³
What a picture we see here, a symbol of moral decay that rests upon the
nation, this nation. And I'm not going to try to stay with my
Scriptures too long, so I can get through quick. But I could symbolize
that with the church, with the nation, with politics, and with
everything you can put your hands on today, besides God's Bible.
Morally decayed, the human race itself, just in a terrible condition…
And there under atheists and unbelievers that can point their finger
into the face of the church, who should have the Message for today, and
asking them, "What does all this mean?" And they don't have the answer.
They don't have the answer. Why? They've did like Samson did. They
surrendered.

²⁵
So see him standing there, and we'd say, "So this is Samson?" Let's
catch a picture of it, this great, mighty warrior. Let's picture him
this afternoon that he had wide shoulders, great framework. And here
this big bulk of a man stands there, blinded, tied with little strings,
and led to the middle of the floor, humiliated, broken, defeated, with
the great God of heaven looking down upon it. Down here, his critics,
drunken soldiers looking down…
I'd imagine, as they stood there, many Philistines had even shook in
their shoes to hear his name. Samson was a mighty name, one time; so
was Christianity, the church was. I'm going to parallel it with the
church, this scene. Samson name, people just fainted, for he was some
sort of a man that they'd never seen a man like him. His strength was
beyond anything that the world had ever had. There's nothing they had
could match it. Many remembered him as they looked on him standing
there in that condition.

²⁷
Many looked upon him from the galleys and remember see him standing in
another position: One day, standing with a jawbone of a mule in his
hand, with a thousand Philistines laying around him, when they had fled
to the rocks for safety, standing, motion his fingers, "Come on, if you
want some of it." But now look at him.
Many of the Philistines, that one night he was persuaded in by a harlot
and in the–the city of Gaza, they took the great big gates that
would've weighed tons, and fenced him in and caught him, and sent out
to the soldiers and said, "Now, we've caught him. We've hemmed him in."
like the devil's always trying to do, hem you in on something.

²⁹
But remember when Samson awoke the next morning, or that night, rather,
seeing he was hemmed in. He could feel back on the back of his head and
still know he was a covenant son of God, and there was nothing could
hem him in. The church once stood like that too. What did he do? He
rose up, walked down the street, pulled the gates out of its sockets,
and put it upon his shoulders and walked up the top the hill and set
down.
Many standing there that afternoon remembered that event. But look at
him now, blinded, mocked, just a sport for the enemy. All of his powers
that he once had for his protection, for God's achievement that he had
been born in the world to do, had been stripped from him by a woman.

³¹
I think that same thing could be applied today, that a woman who
pretends to be the Bride of Christ, and basing her teaching with a cup
of the filthiness of her abominations, of her fornications. She has
tipped the cup of her fornications into the mouths of God's church
that's been raised up to show His signs and wonders, as Jesus' last
commandment was to do in Mark 16, and now we find that she has took
God's little, faithful group and organized them together just exactly
the way she did herself, and's got them standing stripped, denying the
power thereof, denying the Holy Spirit, denying the power to speak with
tongues, denying the power of–of the Holy Spirit to raise the dead,
and heal the sick and cast out devils. And now the Philistines is upon
thee, and what's you going to do now, stripped?

³²
Oh, what must've went through that man's mind. We have seen what
must've went through the Philistines' mind. They'd knowed him. When
I've heard one reach over to another, maybe, and say, "I remember the
time when you say 'Samson,' every Philistine would go like rats to a
hole. I've heard the time, you'd say, a thousand men would be marching
across the desert, they say, 'Samson's coming,' they'd drop their arms
and run for safety as hard as they could."
But now look at him. He's in a terrible condition, bound, all because
he compromised to a woman. That's what done it. She stripped him of his
power. She kept trying to find out where his strength laid. She knowed
he was a big man, but they had big men too. But this Delilah, she was
a–a real Jezebel. She knowed how to work on him to woo him to her and
say that he–she loved him. But all the time she was trying to fish
along, where his strength laid.

³⁴
And that's the same thing that the Jezebel has done to the church; it's
fished along until it's found out where the strength laid. And it–the
strength is in the Word. "The Word is God." And finally she found where
that strength laid, and she took him down to Nicaea, Rome, and shaved
off his locks. And now they've took what's left out of it, and taking
them back to the World Council of Churches, and got their locks shaved
again. It's a constant shaving, taking This out, and, "This doesn't
mean that. And the days of miracles is passed. There is no such a thing
as this, that, the other." They–they found where the strength laid,
substituting baptisms and handshakes and an these other things, for the
true unadulterated Word of God.

³⁵
This Word is God that was given to His church to defeat the world, and
the devils, and the sickness, and to cast out devils, and no
denomination was give to the church. The Word was give to the church;
That's her strength. But they've cut This away; they cut That away, and
they shaved off This lock, and shaved off That lock, until she stands
shorn today like a Catholic sister, shorn off, until she's accepted a
bunch of manmade creeds for her doctrine, just exactly what the prophet
said she would do. And here she stands today, humiliated. When the God
of heaven has chose the ignorant fishermen, and so forth, and has come
down in that and proving it, that He still remains God, and they can't
give an answer to their congregation for it because it's not connected
with any denomination. And she stands humiliated, where she ought to
have been standing in her strength.

³⁶
If the church today stood like it did on the day of Pentecost, if the
church today stood like it did in the days of Irenaeus, and in the days
of Saint Martin, or in the days of Polycarp, where the church would
march right into death before it would defy any Word of God…
Irenaeus, Martin, all those men held tight to that water baptism in the
Name of Jesus Christ. Every one of them held tight to that baptism of
the Holy Ghost, the prophets, signs and wonders.
And they've got away from it today. What happened? Delilah knowed where
the strength laid. If she could ever get those seminaries away from
that Word onto some manmade theology, she had it; then it was easy to
bind and lead them into the World Council of Churches, this ecumenical
council.
You say, "You ain't got no right."
I'm still American citizen. I got a right to freedom of speech. That's right. Certainly is. Notice, that's exactly the truth.

³⁹ Oh, how he must've felt, what went through that man's mind, as he stood there blind.
Now, Jezebel knew, or not Jezebel, but Delilah knew, if she could ever
punch his eyes out, that was it. And that's exactly what Delilah of
this last day has done to the church: punch its eyes out to God's
promise, and sold you some great big intellectual denomination.
Everybody likes to buy–say, "I belong to the First church. I belong to
down here. I…" See, as long as the devil can put your eyes out to the
Word of God and the promise of God… No matter how foolish it sounds,
it's God's promise.
Now, I'm not endorsing cults, not at all; but them cults are known by
their works. So is God's Church knowed by its works. But I'm trying to
say what Delilah has done to Samson.

⁴³
Now, let's take Samson's side, what must've went through the man's mind
as he stood there. All the great victories he had once had, must've
passed through his mind. The event's on now; the entertainment for the
afternoon is fixing to start. The ones that's to be entertained are
thinking of what he was, and here he is standing here a thinking of
what he was. But because some woman lured him, the picture's changed to
what it should been. God raised Samson up to destroy that nation, that
was the very purpose of bringing him on.
If God can only find one man, that's all He needs: one man that can
fully surrender to Him. He don't take a army; He never did use that. He
only uses a man.

⁴⁵
Now, Samson gave God His strength to use, but he didn't give God his
heart. He gave his heart to Delilah and gave his strength to God. But
you've got to surrender soul, body, spirit, strength, everything you
are to the will of God, become a prisoner to Him. You're going to be
somebody's prisoner. You don't belong to yourself. You're somebody's
prisoner. You're either a prisoner of the devil, knowing there's truth
and won't surrender to it, or a prisoner to–to the world, and
surrender to God, one or the other. You're either the devil's prisoner
to sin, or you're God's prisoner to righteousness. You're one or the
other.

⁴⁷
And now, Samson thinks of the great victories that he had won. No doubt
it come to his mind of how that when he was a little boy, that God had
vindicated him, told his mother that how that she must do: not drink
strong drinks, or–or watch her diet, that she was bringing forth a
Nazarite. How she combed his hair, and told him, "Son, through these
locks, it's a covenant with God, that your strength will lay in there.
Don't never give it away. Don't never give away your secret. Don't
never surrender it. Whatever you do, stay with it."

⁴⁸
Jesus Christ told the church that, "Heavens and earth will pass away,
but My Words shall never pass away. And whosoever shall take one Word
from It, or add one word to It, his part will be taken out of the Book
of Life." The church ought to think of that now as we stand in this
chaos in this hour just prayer–prior the coming of the Lord Jesus at
any moment for a rapture.

⁴⁹
The great victories that we can point back in the days gone by in the
reformation, back in the days of Irenaeus, and Saint Martin, Patrick,
and those who protested those organizations.
And when Luther came out and protested that first organization,
Catholic church, and the group that followed him come right back and
organized behind him. When John Wesley come out of Anglicanism, and, as
soon as Wesley left, they organized right behind him.
And the early Pentecost come out of the denominations. That was a
cursed word to you. But as a dog goes to its vomit, and a sow to their
wallow, you've went right back in the thing that you were born to
defeat… Hallelujah. That hurts my heart too, even more than to think
of the victory yonder that Dagon had over Samson. I see what Jezebel's
got over the church. That's the reason that every strength and every
fiber in my being, I'm trying to protest that thing, and call back that
church to her place of repentance. Your mothers, your fathers were
ousted out of those organizations. They come out of it and protested
it, and here their children has turned right back around and has went
right back in the thing that they come out of. If that ain't a picture
of Samson, what Delilah did…

⁵³
How we ought to let the thoughts go through our mind, of the great
victories. I don't have time to get it, and keep my word to you.
And of God had raised him up for this purpose, and there he stands
between those two posts, blinded, defeated, humiliated. He was still
the same big bulk that he ever was, but his strength was gone.
The church is anything, it's stronger in membership than it ever was.
But where is the Word, the strength being manifested? It's been cut off
from you by your power-shaving organizations.
He had failed God. Not only had he failed God, but he failed his own
people. He was a total failure. Now, he was a prisoner to the very
nation that God raised him up to destroy.
And here stands the last organization of the church, Pentecost, this
afternoon, just as defeated as Samson was. You might not believe that.
But if you'll just open your mind to the Word, you'll see it's the
truth.
Had him doing tricks for entertainment.

⁵⁸
How sometime I said not long ago. These Full Gospel Business Men, as
well as I love them, and in their magazine, writing up, "Holy Reverend
Father So-and-so." You poor, deluded, blind Pentecostals, what's the
matter with you? Don't you know our Saviour said don't call no man on
this earth, Father? Don't you realize the devil is only taking somebody
that's been kicked out of one of those there, out here, and just making
a laughingstock out of you? They're not coming in. Don't you let
anybody tell you they are.
What's the matter with this deluded church? The world has punctured its
eyes. Don't you know Jesus said that that would happen? And when the
sleeping virgin come in to buy oil, she never got it. There's the
sleeping virgin: Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian. They're not getting
it. They might speak with tongues and jump, but that don't mean
anything. I've seen heathens do the same thing, and–and
devil-worshippers, speak in tongues and jump, and sing and shout; drink
blood out of a human skull, and call on the devil and speak in tongues.
Don't you rely on sensations. It's the Word of God that don't pass.

⁶⁰
There she is, defeated, just as much as Samson was defeated, doing
tricks now. How Satan stand up and laugh at them, say, "Look, they
claim they believe the Bible. Look." Telling all the angels of heaven,
"Look, look, they–they–they–they, yeah, they're Bible believers,
each one of them, look at them all colored together. I'm going to throw
them every one over, just exactly." Going to lead them right in, just
exactly what the Scripture said. They have to do that. There they are,
defeated. Delilah; eyes punctured so they can't see the truth.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You've got eyes, and you can't see.
You've got ears, and you can't hear." Why? Said, "Cause Isaiah said
so." He referred back to the Word, the prophet. The God Himself, Jesus
Christ, referred back to the Word of His prophet.
And today, the Holy Spirit's bringing your memory back. "Heady,
high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God," women,
painted faces, wearing shorts, acting like the world, bobbing their
hair, and doing so forth, "having a form of godliness, but denying the
power thereof." Well, your own works prove that you don't believe. The
Holy Spirit in the Word, pointing right back to the Word again…

⁶³
"Oh," you say, "I got It." When you take medicine for a disease if it
don't show up, you better change your medicine, you're die in your sins.
The nation, the very purpose, the very thing that they was raised up to destroy, Samson is now a victim.
And so is the church: raised up to put denominationalism and the world
in the denomination to shame, and you've come right into the
denomination. And by doing that, you can't follow the Scriptures, every
one of them's got a different idea, so you lost your strength. That
blinding devil…

⁶⁶
Let a lure of a woman take him from the–the Word of God. Now, you say,
"Brother Branham, it wasn't." It was the Word of God. Delilah took
Samson from the Word of promise.
And so has the Jezebel of this day taken the church, lured it from the
Word of the promise, God's Holy Bible. Oh, same thing, same exactly
thing… What did they do? Let Jezebel, spoke of in Revelation the
17th, Revelations 17th chapter, the Catholic church is represented
there. And they tell you it's them too. They don't… Their own book
says so. They make no bones of it. How many ever read their own
writing? You know that that's true. They say the Catholic church is
represented. That's right. And remember, "She was the mother of
harlots. She was a whore, and the mother of harlots." See, it had to be
churches; not boys, it was girls, Protestant churches, "a mother of
harlots." As soon as they organized, they done the same thing they did
there; they stripped themselves from the Word, and have to follow the
dictations of some organization.

⁶⁸
I know this is not popular, but it's the truth. I haven't got no big
radio programs and television programs, support. God help me to never
have. I only want one thing, and that's the support of Jesus Christ by
His Word. Let Him vindicate that I'm telling the Truth, by His Word;
not some bogus, make-believe, unscruple thing; but the genuine Holy
Spirit Himself, Who takes the promise of this day and shows that it's
the Truth. That's all I long to see. Like Jesus said, "If I don't do
the works of My Father, then don't believe Me."

⁶⁹
Now, blind… Oh, you say, "We're not blind." You are blind. The Bible
said you was. Every Scripture reader knows that this is the Laodicea
church age. How many believes that? [The congregation says, "Amen."–Ed.]
Then the Bible said that the Laodicea church was blind, naked, and
didn't know it. There's the bad part; she don't even know it. She's
worse than all the other church ages put together.

⁷⁰ "The ox knows his master's crib, or stall, and the mule knows his crib," and He said, "My people don't know."
Blind,
spiritually blind. Blind to what? God's Word. Just as blind as they can
be, and they don't want to see It. And you tell them; they'll say, "Oh,
yes, I'm–I'm intending to do that," but none of them does it. They
can't do it and maintain their fellowship in an organization; they'll
kick them right out of it.
There she stands. Delilah shaved off his locks. Now, he's–he's
bobbed-haired; like the women in it, same thing. Now, look at them,
defeated, just like they was.

⁷³
Ministers, the Pentecostal messengers of the early days, you would've
never made them men believe that their own children would organize
seminaries, that they criticized by the Word of God and come out of.
That's right. What, by these seminaries have we got? They've brought
world into the church. An old minister used to sing:

You let down the bars, got away from the Word. When Eve let down the
bars to intellectual reasonings of Satan, death come in; and the bars
that God had her barred in with, was His Word of promise. And we've
substituted something else, a creed instead of the Word. Amen. You know
that's the truth.

⁷⁵
What have we got, the Pentecostal people today? Too many Rickies. That
word, Elvis and Ricky, you never heard of that in other days. It's a
word; it's the name for this day. It goes with this. It means something.
You say, "A name means nothing." Then why did He change Abram's name to
Abraham? Why did He change Saul's name to Paul, Simon's name to Peter?
Why did He change His Own Name?
Why did He change Jacob to Israel? Not until he wrestled with the Lord,
not until he overcome. And when Jesus overcome death, hell and the
grave, the Bible said He had a new Name. And when Jacob overcome…
And if the Church can overcome, she'll stop saying, "I'm Methodist,
Baptist, and Presbyterian." When she can overcome her creeds and the
world that's drawed her in there, she'll come back to the Bride of
Jesus Christ, Miss Jesus Christ. Amen.
What a sad sight, as we see Samson standing there.

⁷⁹ Women with short hair, wearing shorts, painted faces; and Pentecostals, calling themselves Christians, singing in the choir.
I was in the Pentecostal assembly not long ago in a great city where a
famous, great man lives. And the meetings got so big, I had to take it
over to a big place, and they had the selected Pentecostal choir. And
little did they know I was setting right down behind the curtains,
praying. And there every girl in that row of about thirty-five girls,
and thirty-five boys to sing "The Messiah," was wearing makeup and
bobbed hair. And when David duPlessis was taking up a missionary
offering, they were acting like they were blind Bartimaeus, running
along passing the cup. That's Pentecostal grandchildren. That ain't a
Pentecostal servant of God with the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The Holy
Ghost won't make fun of His Own Word. He can't, and remain the Holy
Ghost. But that's where you've got to. Oh, Samson, get to thinking a
little bit.
Remember, these tapes are recorded and sent around the world. I'm just not only speaking to this group here.

⁸² Samson begin to think of his errors. Oh, and he begin to think of what he was one time.
Pentecost, think what you was nineteen hundred years ago. Church,
Catholic, Protestant, think what you were nineteen hundred years ago
and look what you are today. Study a little while. (Just got about
eight more minutes to keep my word.)
Notice, but while he was standing there, he cried; he begin to think of
his errors. And when he begin to think of what had happened to him…
He was blind; therefore, he couldn't see no more. He–he has accepted
something else. For the love of this woman, that's what got him there,
and then she turned him down.

⁸⁵
Oh, what a trap I could speak on here, that Satan set for the church.
Just get your eyes blinded from the Truth, and that's what–they got
you then. And if you only knew it, one of these days God is going to
prove it to you what the mark of the beast is. Uh-huh. Notice, but when
once blinded, there she stands.
And there he stood. And he begin to remember the things of his errors,
where he had left the straight, narrow road, where he'd got away from
God's promise. And he cried out, "Lord, revenge my eyes." Why did he do
this? He knew there was a possibility.

⁸⁷
Now's where I want you to listen. Samson must've thought of all where
he had left the path. He saw it then; it's too late now. He saw it,
where he'd left the path, and he thought, "There must be a possibility
that God would answer." He knew if he could repent and get God to see
that he was sorry for his error, there was a possibility that God would
still achieve His promise. God will do it. He's going to do it.
Same now, God's going to have that Church. Don't you worry, She is
going to be there. The Holy Spirit will be moving so in the Church till
the Church and Christ will be the same Spirit. Luther stood down on the
feet in justification; Wesley stood in the heartbeat of love, of
sanctification; but this is raised up to the head now (See?), more than
that. She denominated, and the husbandman come along and pruned the
vine; they died; they never did come back no more. They never will come
back no more. But still there's a seed of Life there that's coming on.

⁸⁹ But, notice, Samson thought there must be a–a possibility. He caught the idea.
But
the sad part is today, the church don't catch that. They don't realize
that there is a possibility of a revival. They don't realize the
possibility. They haven't caught the vision yet. They just set.
"Oh," they say, "now, Brother Branham, what are you doing?"
Oh, I know you clap your hands, and have great big gatherings, and
glittering with worldly tinsel. You have to go to the biggest places.
You have to have the most, best entertained. You have to do this, that,
or the other. Your pastor must be a seminary scholar with a doctor's
degree. Or, you can't tell your neighbors down there that your pastor's
some little guy out of the corn field out there, that got saved. He's,
"Our pastor is Doctor LL.D. So-and-so." To me, that means he's just
that far away from God. That's all, just that far away, for intellects
always takes him away. Oh, you're shining with scholarship.

⁹³
And another thing, about a lot of this modern evangelism today, all the
way from Pentecost all the way back is a bunch of Hollywood
showmanship. Yeah, you certainly are glittering with that, as the
tinsels in the hall of the fish god Dagon. But that tinsel, and
scholarship, and intellectual showmanship with a great bright, letting
all the public see any defeat and so forth, all that stuff like that,
intellectual conceptions of the Gospel, and so forth, that don't bring
the power of God to make women quit wearing bobbed hair, and men to act
like they should, take your place in the house and raise their children
like they ought to. It don't bring the Spirit of God.

⁹⁴
Samson stood there, just as big a bulk as he ever was. And the church
stands stronger in members than it did forty years ago, but where is
the Spirit of God? Oh, my. Where is the Spirit of God in it? I see the
spirit of Hollywood. I see the spirit of the world. I see the spirit of
glamor. Go right through, I've been fifteen years preaching against it,
and it's just worsening all the time. I can see it, and I can see the
spirit there. But where is the Spirit of God that can grasp God, that
can recognize the Word Itself when It's made manifest, can recognize
Truth? Only the Spirit of God can do that. That's right. You can take
glitter, polish, showmanship.
Samson had just as big a body as he ever had, but his strength was taken from him.

⁹⁶
The church, Pentecost today stands… I believe, three years ago, the
"Sunday Visitor" of the Catholic church said that they had a million
conversions to Catholicism in one year, but the Pentecostal church had
one million five hundred thousand, more than that. Well, what have you
got when you got it? I would rather had five that can surrender their
life to Christ. He can do more with five men, or one man, surrendered,
than He could with forty million outside. What does members mean? Just
means another thing, that you're blinded, and adding more strength to
the harlot. Right.

⁹⁷
Notice, the church today's not willing to pay the price. Samson prayed
the right kind of a prayer, "Lord, let me die with this enemy." Oh, my.
There you are. You don't want to die to your pride. You don't want to
die to the things of the world.
Now, remember, I'm talking to literally thousands around the world,
when I'm saying this. See? I'm just not speaking here in Chicago. I'm
speaking at the world.
You don't want to die, but the only way that there's a possibility of a
revival. You blinded Samson, can't you see that the Delilah has blinded
your eyes? And the only way that you'll ever be able to bring back the
strength to the church, is to die to the enemy that's got you in this
worldlyism.
Samson said, "Let me die with the enemy."

¹⁰¹
There is a great price to pay. You must die to the thing that's brought
you in this thing. You must die to the thing that's brought you, you
Pentecostal people, to where you are this afternoon. You've got to die
to it.
Samson was willing to pay the price to get the power of God back in his
life again. I wonder if the church is, this afternoon, willing to pay
the price and die with the enemy, the thing, all your popularity, and
all your this, that, or the other, just to see the power of God back on
you again, and become a prisoner of Jesus Christ?

¹⁰⁴
Oh, I hear some of you say, "Oh, yes, we–we're having revivals." But
it's denomination revivals. The Oneness wants to take all the Threeness
and make them all Oneness. The Threeness wants to take all the Oneness
and–and make them Threeness. The Church of God wants to take the
Church of God of Prophecy. One wants to take the other, making big
denom… Don't you realize you're only catering to men?
We are brethren. There's no denomination can separate the love of God.
We are brethren. "This will all men know you're My disciples, when you
have love one for the other."
Say, "What are you hollering about them then?"

¹⁰⁶
Love is corrective. If love doesn't correct, then it's not love. You
see your child down on the street, and don't give him a little bit of
posterior protoplasm stimulation, you–you're not a good dad. But a
real mother or dad will turn him up and spank him, let him know he's
got to get out of the street or perish. That's genuine love. But to
say, "Junior, dear, I don't know. You, maybe you shouldn't be out there
at this time of day, the end time, when the cars are going pretty
fast." Oh, nonsense, you sissified preacher, not the audacity to take
God's Word and call white white and black black, right right and wrong
wrong. But they do it.

¹⁰⁷
Yeah, we have revivals all right, but look at your morals behind these
revivals. Don't change them a bit; getting farther from God, and to the
world, all the time. Notice.
Samson knew what was going to happen if his prayer was answered. But we
haven't counted the cost yet. What's going to happen if God answers
your prayer to become a real, genuine child of God? You know you're
gone from your denomination right then. And them women that you play
bridge with and everything? Oh, no. You're gone, and that's all. Better
count it up, first.
But Samson said, "Let me die." He was willing to pay the price.

¹¹¹
And he knew… Listen close now at this remark. He knew that his
present backslid condition could never meet the challenge of that hour.
Yet he was just as much man as he ever was in his muscles. His frame
was as big as it ever was. He was just as big a muscle that ever could
raise up on his arm at any time, it's probably larger, because he'd
been grinding down in the–doing heavier work.
We got better churches, better buildings and everything, but where is
our strength, spiritually speaking? Oh, we could take a vote in the
nation. Sure, we could do these things, but that–that ain't what I'm
talking about. I'm talking about the Presence of God being recognized
among us. That's what we ought to live for.
He knew that his backslidden condition could not meet the challenge of
that hour. And so does the church know it now. We can't do it under
this condition. You can't do it. Denominations does not vindicate the
Word; it denies the Word. The very denomination itself denies the Word
as soon as it's denominated. See? Just the thing itself, you just get
on the other side to begin with. It denies the Word. All the time…

¹¹⁵ I've just a little minute or two longer. But notice, as I hurry now to keep my word…
All
the times while they were all standing there, and these thoughts was
going through their mind; and I hope it sends some through yours. They
never noticed when, Samson, his thoughts went through his mind. Maybe
they passed the bottle took a drink again. Their fine Hollywood women
stood there with their cigarette in their mouth, if it was such a thing
in that day; I don't think they got quite that low in that day. But
pushed up their hair, and took another drink, and hollering, "Hello,
Joseph, or John, or you up there somewhere. We played cards together
last night, was out at a big party." [Blank.spot.on.tape–Ed.]

¹¹⁷
"There's a possibility that God will hear me. There's a possibility."
And while he thought, the Philistines had not noticed him, while this
little boy had untied his hands, walked back. He said, "Lay my hands
upon the post. There's a possibility." Oh, my. I wish the church could
see that. There is a possibility of a real revival.
What did he do? He raised up his sockets (He had no eyes.) towards God.
They never noticed the moving of his lips, as he was sincerely
confessing.
We don't need just a little, "Lord, forgive me and Jim, Joe and all of
us. Amen." We need a sincere cleaning up from the pulpit to the
janitor.

¹²¹
They never noticed the tears running down from them sockets where he
once had eyes. They never noticed the moving of his lips. His eyes,
briny tears streaming down from the sockets. He wanted God to make His
Word once more vindicated to prove, as I say to this Delilah today, or
this Samson, rather, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and
forever."
"Once more," he thought, "it would happen. Not a new denomination, not
a new sectarian, but a vindicated Word from You, God. I know You're
still God. I'm blind. I've got off the track. I'm not worthy to live.
Let me die with this enemy. You raised me up to destroy it, and I
failed You, Lord, but there's a possibility You'd hear me. Once more,
Lord, once more." In dead earnest he prayed. He knowed what was coming.
"Lord, just this once more. Once more let me see Jesus Christ as He was
yesterday." When he prayed that prayer, and the tears rolling from his
cheeks, with deep sincerity of confession…

¹²³
That's what the church needs. Confess you're wrong. Don't care what
Doctor Jones says, or what anybody else says. If you're out of the Word
of God, confess it, that you're wrong. Cry out, "Once more, Lord, once
more. Once more, Lord, once more, avenge my blindness upon these
denominations. And give me strength, Lord, to shake this denominational
world with Your vindication. Give me strength, Lord. Once more prove
it."
He knew what was going to happen if his prayer was answered. He knew,
dead earnest, crying, "Once more, Lord." And while he was praying and
making his honest confession, every fiber in his body begin to vibrate.
O God, if the Body of Jesus Christ could stand as one, and every fiber
and every member begin to vibrate with the literal baptism of the Holy
Ghost again, not with new members, and shaking hands, and some creed.

¹²⁶
As the strength begin to move into those big muscles, every fiber begin
to twist, he begin to feel himself again, and he twisted out. And when
he did, the big wall fell.
All we need to do today is to see these denominational walls fall, is
get deeply sincere before God to heal these blinded eyes that's been
blinded from the Word of God.
That was Samson's greatest victory he ever had, because he was willing
to confess, over every enemy first that he was brought up to destroy.

¹²⁹
Oh, Pentecost, stand at your post this afternoon, your post of the duty
of God's Word. Repent, and cry aloud, "Lord God, once more." Let me
tell you something. You'd better destroy your enemy before your enemy
destroys you. That's right. Bring back the old fashion prayer meetings,
the real godly repentance, the all-night altar service. Oh, Pentecost,
hear me. Leave, oh, leave this corruption that Jezebel has worked among
you. Leave it, leave it quickly, and return back to the Word of the
Lord, away from this Hollywood showmanship. Turn with your whole heart,
back to the Word of God. Turn back to the power of the Holy Ghost. You
women dress like women; you men act like men, like sons and daughters
of God. Turn, oh, turn from this Jezebel system that's choking you and
blinding you. God help us to have a true repentance; not
half-heartedly, you can't do it.

¹³⁰
How I think today, at this very moment when my time is up, we should
stand to our feet, and cry, with our hands in the air, "Lord, once
more. Once more, O Lord, once more."
Let's stand, everybody that's willing to do it to see a revival, that's
ready to die to this Hollywood showmanship, everybody that's ready to
die to see the power of God come to Zion then with joy, and all His
holy mountains nothing hurt or shall destroy.
Let's raise our hands, and cry, "Once more, Lord." Once more, Lord.
Once more, Lord. Once more, Lord, send the Holy Ghost, with a mighty
rushing Wind like You did on the day of Pentecost. Amen.