You never mean to do that....but from That Time.......

FROM.THAT.TIME_  SPOKANE.WA  FRIDAY_  62-0713
  E-35    Now, time, as time goes on, from time to time things happen that leaves an impression on our life. For instance, like we say, the immoral woman. I've had them in confession. I had one not long ago. It was the most pathetic case. In a home we set there, and they...
People call in, come in from all over the world. A trustee of our church... And some of them are in this building tonight. They know it's true. There's about three hundred on the waiting list, and they come in from Africa, from Asia, from Europe, from everywhere I've been--waiting, watching. They write back and forth until they get the time. And we set right there until the Holy Spirit reveals everything, and then tells them just what to do and how to do it. And never one time has it ever failed. See?
That person comes in and waits. Maybe it's something in their life. They know the plan of salvation and things, but there's something they don't know what to move or do. And they wait there months, waiting for it to happen. See?

Lovely woman in straight (not straits) jacket...
  E-36    And I had a woman came one time. It wasn't at the home; it was at a meeting. And the woman... I went into the ward where they had the insane in jackets, and that was... Walked in there. And they couldn't be out in the public. They were in straitjackets, and--and some of them had to have guards over them.
And then, when I walked in, a lovely young woman was setting there, pretty young girl. And I said, "How do you do?"
She said, "How do. Are you Brother Branham?"
I said, "I am." And I said, "Well, I just don't know where to start."
She said, "I wish you would start with me."
And I said, "You?" I said, "Are you a patient?"
She said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "This is just for the insane."
She said, "That's what I am." I said... She said, "Would you listen to my story?"
And I said, "Certainly, ma'am."

  E-37    And what that woman told me. Young, about twenty-five years old, twenty-two or twenty-five, something like that I judge, a very pretty woman, and looked like would make any man a lovely, beautiful little queen. And she told me that when...
She was raised up in a Christian home. And when she did, she started going with a boy that smoked and drank. And one night there was a spiked drink given to her, not exactly with something to knock her out, but with something that she didn't... Well, she... It was something, a immoral act. She thought she'd throw her life away.
She become an alcoholic; she become a prostitute; she was picked up, and sent to the Good Shepherd's Home when she was only about fifteen years old, Catholic institution, changed her religion from what she was unto a Catholic. Come back out, thought she'd be all right, said the same thing happened.
Then she was picked up. She was getting of age then. She was picked up and spent two years in a woman's penitentiary. And there they thought they had fixed it all right then.
Said when she come out, she said, same thing again started right over again.

  E-38    And I said, "Well, now, lady, it's... You're just trying to turn a new leaf. That--that won't work." And I said, "It may sound old fashion..." I said, "I want to ask you something." I said, "Don't you never expect to be married, and a pretty woman like you, and have a husband, and babies like any ord--normal woman?"
She said, "Yes, but who in the world would have me?" And she said, "What could I promise a man?" Said, "I get temper fits that I'd--I'd fight, and--and swear, and drink." And said, "I'd get on a drunk and wouldn't come home for a month." Said, "What would a man want with a woman like me?"
And I said, "He wouldn't." But I said, "did you ever think that instead of it being just something, as a school, or turning over a new leaf, or something could help you, that it's a devil?"
And she said, "Mr. Branham, I've always believed that." She said, "Now, they say I'm a delinquent person."
I said, "I don't believe it. I believe the devil has got a hold of you."
And she said, "I've always believed that."
I said, "Now, the only way to get rid of a devil is in prayer." And I said, "Now, let's get down and pray."
And she prayed. And she prayed there awhile. I prayed with her, and she looked back up, and she said, "Oh, Mr. Branham, I--I believe I'm going out of here to be a different girl."
I said, "No. You're going to go out the same way you come in. See? You're just simply taking it on a mental conception." I said, "You've got to get down to business, sister, with God."

She never drank from that day...........
  E-39    And we got down there, and started praying. After while she struck something. Then she turned, and the tears running down them cheeks out of them big brown eyes, she said, "Brother Branham, I'll never do that again." Oh, she'd found something then.
She's married now and got two or three children. She's never drank from that day since. She's never smoked. See, something happened.
But you see, it started when she was just a girl, a wrong act. A little boy, maybe a little modern Elvis with a block haircut, and--and out there thinking he's so cute, or something like that. And the first thing you know, get him a girl wound around him like that, and then do a trick like that. That's a modern Judas. That's right. Now, she didn't aim to, but it started as a child.

  E-40    The drunk, I've met many of those that said, "Brother Branham..." down the skid rows and so forth.
When I was in New York not long ago... I won't have time to tell it, but how that I picked up a drunk. He was the president of a bank that I could look at from where he was. Said, "I come home one night. I found a 'Dear John' letter. I thought I'd drink it away. Here I am. Could you give me a quarter to get a drink?" And there you are. They didn't aim to do it.
The cigarette smoker, that woman that smoked her first cigarette, she didn't mean to become a tobacco worm. That boy, the first time you smoked that little corn-silk cigarette, you didn't mean to become a cigarette fiend. The first little sociable drink you taken, you didn't mean to become a drunkard. See, you don't mean to, but it started because somebody influenced you to do it. That's it.

  E-41    Oh, of the stories of these thirty-one years around the world, and around, and around, hearing the confessions, and things, that'd raise the--the hair on your head. To think of--of the things that, hear them confess of what they've started, how innocent they was, and how beautiful sin looks, and how attractive it looks to be. But it's--it's a way of death. Don't go in it. Whatever you do, shun the very appearance of evil.

  E-42    The liar, he never... He thought he'd tell a little lie to his mother. He went and eat some coffee, and--and went and blowed his breath in his mother's face.
"See, I--I never... I--I never smoked, mama." But you lied.
A red light flashes, "Don't do this, little boy." It's not easy to go to hell. You have to fight your way to hell. Every time you do wrong, there's a little red light drops down in you, and the countdown comes. "Little boy, don't do this. Little girl, don't do that." See, it's something happens in you. But you fight right over it.

Fighting your way to Hell.........
  E-43    You pass by the church, and you hear the people singing the Gospel songs. You really want to go in. But oh, my, you light up another cigarette and shake your head. What are you trying to do? You're fighting your way right through every barricade.
God don't send you to hell, you send yourself to hell. Break every barricade, run every stop light trying to make yourself go to hell. And then say God's good and won't send you to hell? You're sending yourself to hell. That's right. God sends nobody to hell. It was created for the devil and his angels, not for you. But you fight your way right into it, men and women do.

  E-44    You see them wonders of God. Some people would do that. And just because of theology, some church creed or something, you'll walk away and shun God to keep from receiving the Holy Ghost. You see people down at the altar praying, see them women get up, and men, and their faces washed with tears, and screaming, and walking up and down the building, some of your friends on the outside laughing.
You say, "If that's new birth, I don't want nothing to do with it. Our church believes in new birth, and we just put our name on the book." You're afraid of It.
Let me tell you this. I don't care what kind of a birth it is; it's a mess. If it's in a pigpen, or in a hospital room pink decorated, it's a mess. And the new birth is nothing less, but it takes that to bring Life. You've got to die in order to be borned again. It's true.

  E-45    Notice how that God's warns, "Don't lie." Then every New Year you'll sign a pledge, "I'll not do it any more." Oh, you got good intentions. Certainly. hell's paved with that, with good intentions. You don't think that... You think that's the way to do it, just presume that that's the way you should do it. Every New Year just say, "Well, I'm going to make my New Year vows. I'll write them all out." And before two days is up, you done broke half of them. See, you can't do it.
Throw away your pack of cigarettes and watch where they light. Throw your bottle out somewhere and be sure you don't break it. Set it up on a shelf and say to wife, "I ain't going to do it no more." Say to husband, "I'll never drink no more."
But you watch what you do with it, 'cause you go right back to it, like a hog to its wallow and a dog to its vomit. It's got to take something different. You got to die out to the creature that you are. See? Yes, sir.

  E-46    It starts off as an innocent child, maybe in a good Christian home. But there was somebody who come along. Some little sneaker come along and twisted you off of the right road. You can mark the time when it started, when you first started lying, when you first started stealing, when you first started drinking, when you first started doing anything was wrong.
Before you can ever accept wrong, you've got to deny the right. You've got to deny right before you... You've got to deny God's truth before you can ever accept anything wrong. That's exactly right. Notice. Now, in New Year's, you change and you say, "Now, it's... I'm going to turn a new page." You have good intentions. Certainly. I believe the nation has good intentions.

  E-47    I can just barely remember as a little boy about five years old, when the First World War broke out. I know my father came up the road driving two horses in a spring wagon, and he had a sack of beans and some flour (he'd been to the grocery) setting on the seat. And I heard him, got off the wagon, and come in.
And mother said (way down in the city miles below), said, "I heard the whistles all blowing."
He said (her name was Ella), said, "Ella, they've declared war." And he was about twenty-two years old; said, "You know what that means? I'm going."
And I picked up that sack of beans. I said, "They come after my daddy, I'll hit them with this sack of beans." I was--I was so little, but I...
He said, "Now, they tell us, if we'll go on overseas and fight this war, there'll never be no more wars." And said, "Here's Billy. He may have to go someday. There's Edward. He might have to go. There's Melvin. He might have to go." And said, "If I go and help fight and get them get free again," said, "they tell us there'll never be no more wars. And it'll settle wars when they have this great World War."

They do everything to stop the world except prayers........
  E-48    They had good intentions when they were saying that, but they come right along again with another one. Yes, sir.
They formed what they call the League of Nations after while, a police. They said, "We've got the idea now (good intentions). We got the League of Nations. And when we do, we'll police all the world by that." You can't do it. It fell right through.
They've got the U.N. now. It ain't worth the charter it's wrote on. That's right. Certainly. When they won't accept prayer, and take every other way out but the way of God, well, how--how long can it last?
They got good intentions, but it just don't last. It certainly does not. It'll fall to its bottom, and go into history to dust. Well, you see where it is right now. The whole world's a shaking, and what good's the U.N. doing? It's just a name. That's right.
No nation was ever made to rule over another. God made man, and man made slaves. We're not to be slaves; we're to be brothers. That's what the Gospel teaches us: to be brothers.

  E-49    Here come along the church with good intentions. They thought, "We'll make the--this great denomination. We'll educate our preachers. We'll have them very polished and everything, and they'll learn the people, and there'll not no more be illiteracy in our country."
And what did we do? We got a bunch of educated heathens, unbelievers again to the Word of God. Everything that... Man has always tried to achieve something by himself. He's never been able to do it. Nimrod tried to make a tower that he could climb into heaven. It fell into dust. Nebuchadnezzar built a city. Immortal, eternal, he thought. It went to dust.
The Americans, jealous of their sister England, built a ship called the Titanic that couldn't be sunk. God with His mighty hand showed the world it cannot stand.
The French thought they could live in sin and make the Siegfried line. What good did it do? Germans walked right around behind it and took it.
Germans built a Maginot line, said, "We've got something that nobody can get into." And the Americans blowed it out with bomb-busters. Right. It goes to show that man's achievement amounts to nothing, because he's corrupt in his thinking, and he cannot stand. What is it all? There's something in there shows there is an eternal city though. That's right.

Before I was not like that........but......
  E-50    Young married couple, when they got married, I've had them on confession. Many times catch them in the prayer line, and they say, "Well, Brother Branham, John and I got married. We was going to make a home. And it was all right, till one day an insurance collector (or a--or a book salesman) come to the door, and--and he asked if I could come in just a--if he could come in for a few minutes. I just let him." And from that time (See?), there it started.
A man can say, "Brother Branham, I had a good wife. I--I had a good family. And one day we hired a new office girl."
"I was down in the park. I met a little lady, she had on shorts. She walked up to me..." From that time. See?
There's a time where you start. Yes. There was a time when all this stuff started. There was a time when death started. That's when Eve, strolling one day down through the garden of Eden met Satan. And Satan... When God had His--His church...

  E-51    When men go to war they study things to--to combat. When they first put the helmet on a rookie, he thought that was the awfullest thing he ever had, and pack a ninety-pound back--a pack on his back. But when he got out there in battle, he needed every implement.
When he put a helmet on him, that mean he was going to have--need that helmet, because there's going to be shrapnel. He never had it before, but he had to have it then, because it was needed. They'd studied it.
Each year they study something different, get something greater, because the old becomes obsolete. Our fine planes that we had in the last world war are junk, billions of dollars worth of them. The old steam engine's obsolete. Certainly. The guns that we used, first, the old Krag Jorgensen, and then the--the Springfield, and then up to the modern Garand. And now it's an atomic missile. They're all obsolete. We're trying to find, keep finding something better.
But when God begin to fortify his man, He gave him the best thing, and he never has to change no more. He give him His Word. Amen. There's his fortress: God's eternal Word.