THIS ISSUE WILL CONCLUDE BROTHER JACKSON’S FOUR PART MESSAGE ON HEALING. HE HAS COVERED MANY OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL DISPUTES ON WHETHER GOD STILL HEALS, OR WHETHER WE ARE LEFT AT THE MERCY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. HE DOES NOT JUST GIVE HIS OPINION ON ANYTHING HE TEACHES: HE ALWAYS BACKED UP EVERYTHING HE TAUGHT, WITH SCRIPTURES FROM THE BIBLE AND KEPT EVERYTHING IN THE PROPER CONTEXT.

I greet each of you in the name of the Lord, and ask that He help me as I continue on with this message I thank the Lord for His greatness and His goodness. This morning, I have the testimony here, which you will find in the Psalms, “Who forgive all our iniquities and healeth all our diseases.” I want to try to finish this message today, on “Healing is a promise of God;” and I ask for your prayers as we continue on. When WW2 was over the homes of America were still filled with tears of sadness in families where men had went away as young men to fight a war, and never returned home. Hearts were broken and the outlook very questioning for many. God saw the attitude of a lot of people, and it presented an opportunity for Him to begin to show grace and His presence, not only in a salvational way, but He began to manifest Himself in some outstanding healings. During those years that God showed mercy along the healing line, using men of faith, men with gifts and such, a lot of things were taught, some right, and many wrong. Some were good and some were completely out of context with the scriptures because it looked like God was just over riding everything and He was healing almost everyone. I have some books with some of the statements those men have written, giving you the idea that to go to a doctor is strictly unbelief, and it is just simply because you do not trust God. That was a very careless statement for a preacher to make. I was privileged through the years, to watch different men’s ministry and observe the things that were done by them. I have to say, Right here in this area, God raised up a little man, actually he was the man that spearheaded that healing revival ministry. I could begin to name many of them and their own testimonies, because what they saw God do, encouraged them to launch out and do the same. This morning I have the testimony of people that my wife and I have known, especially some of our neighbors. I want to try to clarify some things. I said last Sunday, that medicine is a product of God. I want you to listen carefully how I say this about medicine. Long before medical science ever came along with scientific means of putting chemicals together, every part of man’s medicine was taken from nature. Bloodroot and ginseng, the aspen tree, those things had been harvested for hundreds of years for man to produce medicine.

I want to clarify this for you, because some of these men would always quote these scriptures where Jesus came along and healed certain ones, how the woman who had spent so much on physicians, leaving the idea that it is wrong to go to the doctor. That is why I brought out the time when Hezekiah became sick, I believe that is in 2^nd Kings 20, verse 1, where God sent Isaiah to him with a message. He said to Hezekiah, Set thy house in order because thus saith the Lord, thou shalt surely die. This so struck Hezekiah, that it was a shock to him. Nothing was said at that time, of what the sickness was. Isaiah was leaving, but he was not completely out of the king’s compound when Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and began to seek the favor of God. You can read how he prayed. His prayer touched the throne of God and before Isaiah got out of the king’s court, the Lord had spoke to him, “Turn back and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer. I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shall go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years.” Yes Isaiah told him the Lord had heard his prayer, and that the Lord would show mercy, and that He would extend his life for fifteen years. Was that not enough? Nothing was mentioned as yet about what the sickness was, but then Hezekiah said, How will I know that the Lord is going to heal me and extend my life? I have to say, Right here is a problem, a question, but it shows how merciful God is throughout the whole thing. When Hezekiah had prayed like that and Isaiah has told him, Take a lump of figs, and they laid them on the boil he afterward recovered. Hezekiah had asked, What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me? Isaiah had already come along with the means of the healing but Hezekiah wanted a sign from God, a sign that God is imputing the healing. Isaiah said, Shall the sun dial advance ten degrees forward, or ten degrees backward as a sign to you? Hezekiah said, Well it would be easy for it to go forward ten degrees, but to come back would be what I will ask. God then granted his petition. They did not have all kinds of shots for boils at that time, but the man was deathly sick with boils. He was told to take figs and make a poultice to put on the boils. He did so and was healed. I am using this to show you, that whether it is a divine act of God bypassing certain medical things, or whatever, the end results are the same, and all healing is of God. We have got to understand that, lest we fall into error. Hezekiah recovered from his boils, but now I will ask you also, go to Jeremiah, 8:22, where we read of another case and the Lord is speaking.

As I read last Sunday, the Lord is asking the Jewish society, What, is there no balm in Gilead? That was a territory where this herbal stuff grew in abundance. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there not a physician? (What does that have to do with it? Listen), Then why is the daughter of my people not healed? This is God talking, not man. I use this, because there comes a time when God will not let the physicians of the earth be able to minister to the betterment of man’s needs. Somewhere along the line He is going to let His own hand of divine mercy be extended for His glory. Any time He does this, He has a reason for it, and we have to understand it in that light. That is why I looked back this morning, to those years that my father suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, because, in those days there was no known medical cure for tuberculosis. Usually, if it was tuberculosis, especially in the lungs, it was sure death. As I have already stated, before my father’s condition was found, the second and third vertebrae above the tailbone was almost eaten in two. That is why the doctor said to my dad, I wouldn’t give you a dime for your life, the shape you are in right now, because you could just bend over to tie your shoes and that could snap your spinal chord and you would be a dead man. That is when the doctor said, but if you will work with me, I want to try something. So the doctor, knowing there was no known cure for this type of tuberculosis of the spine, as I related last Sunday, went to work fashioning that narrow little bed for dad to lie on; and for two years and a half of treatment, the only medicine my father took was cod liver oil emulsion, because it had a lot of bone building vitamins in it. That is the only thing in the line of medicine he ever took. After that my father lived thirty some years and worked many days of his remaining life and that condition never bothered him any more. Young Dr. Willy Green, that practiced medicine all through WW2 with his father there in Pekin, later went on to become a great bone specialist. After the war was over he returned to Boston Massachusetts, where he had taken medical training before. He became the administrator of a big hospital. Later he became known as the third best bone specialist in the United States. There are some physicians that God is going to honor. There are others that He will not honor. Why? It is because of their attitude and motive.

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO

We are living in a day when you and I know, that medical science has forgotten all about God. They want to concentrate and boast on what WE have done, what WE have achieved, what WE found out, and what WE have experimented with; and they never give God any mention. Well saints, we are living on the brink of the coming of the Lord and only God knows what we will face in the meanwhile. I do believe that somewhere up ahead, there is going to be some things along the line of healing, that God is going to do strictly for a witness that He is still the same yesterday, today, and forever. When it looks like the medical world, or we could say, the intellectual world has turned their back on God, and especially away from the idea of a Creator, that presents an opportunity for God to step in and show Himself. Well I have some truthful things I want to relate to you. We grew up with a Methodist background, we did not know that God does such a thing as an act of divine healing outside the medical world. Then we came in contact with and became acquainted with Bro. William Branham, and the wonderful gift of healing that God had put in his ministry. We became acquainted with him in 1952. I did not have to see a miracle in order for me to believe he was a called out man of God. The first sermon I ever heard him preach, I walked out of church that night, and going to the car I said, If there is such a thing as the coming of Elijah, this is that man. It was the way he preached the word. After we became more acquainted with him and saw how God used him, we made a request for him to visit someone and pray for him. My wife had a cousin by marriage, that worked at the Chevrolet dealer in Corydon. His name was Junior Flickner. He worked in the body department. A terrible accident had happened, and there had been gasoline put on the floor to clean something. Somebody lit a welding torch at the wrong time. That ignited the fumes on the floor. He was standing in this; and the fumes engulfed his body, clothing and all. He collapsed. They managed to get hold of him and drag him out of the garage. They took him to the hospital. One leg was burned so bad, they had to be careful how they took the clothing off because the skin wanted to stick to the clothes. After a few hours they were afraid gangrene would set in. The doctors had voiced their opinion, if we don’t take that leg off, he will not live through this. At that time I thought, who are we to trouble Bro. William Branham with a request to pray for this fellow? Nevertheless on this particular Sunday afternoon, we heard he was going to Milltown to pray for somebody there. I managed to get word to him and ask him, Brother Branham: my wife has a relative in the Corydon hospital who has been burned very badly, the doctors are saying if they don’t amputate the leg, he will not live. Would you be willing to stop by and pray for him? Brothers and sisters, I want to say this, It is strange sometimes, how God lets something get to the extreme end before you even see what He can do. You can scream, Oh God help us, but sometimes something has to get to an acute stage before He steps into the picture. We did not go to the hospital with him, because he would go there from Milltown. He went to the hospital and the Lord had already showed him a vision. As he stepped into the hospital room and looked at Junior lying there, he said to him, Thus saith the Lord, you will not lose the leg and you will not die from this, you will live on. He was several days in the hospital, slowly recovering. Gradually that indication of gangrene all disappeared, the flesh stopped falling off and the leg began to heal. The leg wound up being very scarred, but he is still alive today. I saw him the other day in Corydon. When I saw him, I just thought, Fifty two years ago, he could have been a dead man. The reason I say this, is because it was like every miracle of divine grace God imputes to anyone, it ought to change their attitude, but it does not always work like that. We naturally think, It looks like this ought to make them give their heart to the Lord. It is not always that way. There are many back through that era that were touched by God’s divine hand of grace and it became a miracle recorded in all kinds of magazines. Very few of those individuals ever gave their heart to the Lord to live for him. They could say, Oh it is the grace of God. Well sure. It would look like God just ought to forget that kind of people, when there are many people within church realms that beg God to do something merciful toward them, and it seems as thought He does not hear the prayer. That is why I said last Sunday, God is still a sovereign God. Do not try to program Him to fit your ideas or feelings. It will not work. He does not work that way. As the years passed, a lot of the time people have said, Oh Lord, heal me that I don’t have to wear glasses. They wind up having to wear glasses. Why did He not answer that prayer? Revelation faith is what God pays attention to, not just our desires. I wear glasses to read. So do an awful lot of other saints. I will tell you a testimony I read about back in the 1950’s. There was a preacher traveling west to an evangelistic meeting of some kind. He was somewhere in a western state, an arid desert area and had a flat tire. He had his glasses on when he got out to repair the tire, but because of the discomfort of the glasses, he just laid them on top of the car. After the tire was changed, he forgot about the glasses he had laid on top of the car and headed on toward his destination. Some people would read this and say, Well it is not the will of God for anybody to wear glasses. He got back in the car and was driving on down the road to the meeting. All of a sudden he remembered, Oh my glasses. This startled him, How am I going to preach tonight. He turned around and drove all the way back to where he had the flat tire. He looked, and looked, but could not find the glasses. Now he was really troubled. He got back in the car and went on his way and began to pray about it. The Lord said to him, Fear not, I am the Lord that healeth thee. If you will trust me, if you can believe and trust me now, you will never wear glasses again as long as you live. He did not know how to verify it, because there did not seem to be any indication or anything he could look to. Well he went to the meeting that night and when he got up to read, he could read the text just as well as if he had his glasses. That became his testimony everywhere he went. Now the point is, Are we to take that and make a doctrine of it? Like, if He can do it for one, He can do it for everybody. That is where I have to say, Many have gone wrong. You should not even think like that. Sure, He can do that, because He is a sovereign God, He can do as it suits His purpose, but after all, we are part of His creation; and it is not right for us to try to put God in a corner, You did this for him, now you do it for me. You cannot demand that of Him. We have read and heard of the many miracles that have been done by the hand of God, and made to see how merciful He is, but every case is an individual one. I suppose, that in the days of the woman who had spent all her life’s earning going to different physicians, and finally when she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was made whole, there could have been many that day to say, Well if He can do it for one, He can do it for others. My point is, God is still a sovereign God and He doesn’t want any man playing around with a certain scripture, making a doctrine out of it that you can hold as leverage over everybody else. It just simply does not work that way with God.

GOD IS NOT HONORED IN EVERY MIRACLE

Through the years, we have witnessed many things that God did for some. There was one case close to where we live. Another distant relative of my wife, a common farmer who was getting on up in age fell sick. He got seriously sick and they took him to the hospital. I heard about him being taken there and that he was very bad off. His wife wanted to know if I would go and have prayer for him. That night I had a dream, and in the dream I saw myself walk into the New Albany hospital, I asked for information concerning his room number. When I received it I walked up to the floor and walked into his room. The minute he saw me, he started crying. He was an emotional man anyway. He started just bawling, Oh Bro. Jackson, I don’t know what is going to take place, the doctors don’t give me much hope. It sounded so pitiful. There was no need of interrupting him while he was crying like that. Finally he stopped and I said, Arlie, I had a dream about you last night. I want you to know, you are not going to die, you are going to get out of here and go home. The Lord showed me in a dream, that you are going home. He reached up and grabbed my arm, and because he was a very emotional man, he started screaming and yelling, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You could hear him all over the hospital. Here came the nurse and others, to see what was going on. I thought, I have myself in a situation now, don’t I? He lay there in bed and shook. Finally he calmed down. I told the nurse, I just talked to him and stirred his spirit a little bit. He came home later that week. He was soon doing the same work that he always had done. The reason I say these things, is to remind you that one would think every divine act like this would cause the heart of that man to repent and give his heart to the Lord. You would expect such a person to say, I want to live for the Lord, I want to go to church where this is believed. Well I never did know of that man being stirred to go to church as he should have. The reason I say these things, is because all through time God has been merciful to many people. We do not have a right to question Him. Nevertheless I still have to say, Healing is a promise of God, whether He does it by using an earthly physician or whether He overrides it and does it by divine act of His sovereignty. He is still a healer: He is the one that healeth all thy diseases, who forgiveth all thy iniquities. (You know the scripture.) I am saying these things, because back in the 1950’s, many evangelists who had success in praying for the sick, also wrote all kinds of books on how to have faith to be healed. The way they preached it, they made it sound like going to a doctor was a sign of unbelief, you keep that up, and you never will be healed, some would say. I have read other testimonies of God’s mercy, when it looked like certain people had exhausted all their physical and financial means going to the physician, and it looked like their life was just about over and they would be taken out of this world, then God by His divine mercy, would show mercy and step in. As I have said already, We are living in a day just before the coming of Christ. He is going to come for a church that has no spot or winkle or blemish. Everything that is in the Bible that is supposed to be believed, this element of people is going to be believing and living by in the correct manner. I believe with all my heart, that as God restores the truth of His word to His Church, and as the people embrace the truth and become unified in it, then God will restore those gifts of healing in the body wherever, and however it suits His purpose. When I say that, remember, it does not always have to be a preacher that the gift of healing is working through. These gifts of healing can be of a minor degree, and they can lay in the body somewhere and God can use them at His will. Since God is a sovereign God, and He is not going to allow modern man in this twentieth century to take His grace and His anointing and go down the road commercializing it, like, Come and be healed, this and that, you should be aware of those who do try it. You do not find anywhere in the Bible, that the apostles went down the road screaming, Come and be healed, come and be healed. The apostles went preaching the gospel of the kingdom and God stretched out His hand to heal whoever He would, and however it pleased Him to step in and show His mercy. He did it at Corinth that way. He did it at many other places also, but nowhere do we find the apostles running down the road commercializing this unusual gift of healing. I will say this though, When we were brought into the light of Bro. William Branham’s ministry, and fellow shipped in those circles, I have seen many of those men conduct themselves in a way that one might think that is all the Bible was written about, just divine healing. I do not condemn the men, but it is the fact that they cut the gospel message so short and make it sound like that is all the gospel is made up of, that I find fault with. Divine healing is more than just one thing. God is interested in the salvation of the soul first of all; and then there are these added benefits in His grace and mercy. I have to believe, as God moves around the world to put His church together, there are certain things He is going to do, and He has a specific way to do them. I just want to be able to have my eyes open to Him and watch Him, how He wants to do these things. I believe there are things He has never done before, that He intends to show some people before the end, especially in this religious realm of the world. When you listen to some of these religious evangelists today, it is a shame how they have commercialized this thing called the power of God. The other night on TV, I saw Benny Hinn and watched for a few minutes. He was wearing a white suit, white shoes, and his hair was as white as the suit. I could not help but think, Yes Benny Hinn, God has anointed you through the years gone by, in a few outstanding healings. You have taken that and built it into a great big commercial picture. Everywhere you go, you look at the people and have a certain way of saying things, a way that is not ordained for the glory of God. What is he doing? He is building on a platform of psychology, so the people will fall under the power of God. It looks and sounds good to a lot of people. One time, I saw him looking way up in the balcony at some people, You up there, do you want God to touch you. He just blew into the air and it was like a storm hit. You don’t see that in the Bible. Where did Jesus ever do that, or the apostles after Him? They never did, but we are living in the commercial age of modern intellectualism. God is letting men get by with much of this, but is it for their good? No. Because in that day, Jesus said, Will they not come to me saying, Have we not cast out devils in thy name, have we not prophesied in thy name, have we not done many mighty and wonderful miracles in thy name? He will say, Depart from me ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you. That kind never have the intimate relations with Jesus in the WORD, that the chosen bride has. They have made it a play thing. No wonder in the church world at large, that some of those men have huge auditoriums, because you look at the people, how they are dressed, they are no more dressed like word loving saints that are going to go to heaven than anything: they look more like they are ready to go to a dance or something like that when they leave there. Yet they are able to say a few words and cry crocodile tears and praise the Lord, Hallelujah! I love Jesus! Well God is still in the saving business, and He wants to save people from their sins, not bless them while they are living in sin. I believe with all my heart, that we are living in a day that when He gets the silliness out of some people, and they depart from those who commercialize the gospel of Jesus Christ and get serious about their spiritual lives, Lord, put me in unity with your people wherever they are, we are going to know our time here on earth before the rapture is getting short. When we begin to hear more of, Oh Lord, Let me be in harmony and agreement with you, the seven thunders are about ready to sound. Remember, that the Bible says He will present the Church to Himself, a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle, He was speaking of something that is to be a reality. When He said glorious, that was His way of looking at it, having neither spot, wrinkle, nor blemish. I believe He is looking at our minds, our attitudes, and our motives. In other words, What are we going to do with what we believe? Does it mean anything to us? I am thankful this morning that God has allowed me to see with my eyes through the years, what He has allowed me to see, and also hear and understand with my spiritual mind. I don’t want to look at this and treat it like something we manufacture. It is the grace of God that any of us are saved. But I want to be in a body of people that all believe the same thing and that can actually understand spiritual truths the same. We have so many people today that say, Well do you mean to tell me that I have to believe exactly like you? I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, Now you know we don’t all have to see eye to eye on everything. That is the way an awful lot of people are. They want to be free, to choose, to think, to see and believe certain things the way they want them to be. It matters not whether it is healing, prophecy, or conduct or what, some people who claim to be believers, just want everything to be their way, regardless of what the Bible teaches. That is why many times as they go down the road and you ask them, Where are you going to church now? Well I am not going anywhere right now, because I cannot find anybody that believes like I do. That is the way they are and they have no thoughts of being different. Saints I have to say this, God is looking at people today and knows our every thought and motive. He is working with true believers in a way that He can get all this foolishness and silliness out of us; and put in us sincerity and integrity that causes us to live and walk in a way that glorifies Him. I believe with all my heart, that we will soon see the hand of God do some outstanding things that He will be glorified in, because those affected will give Him praise and magnify that which is known by them to be the hand of God. I have some more testimonies I want to share with you.

ANOTHER HEALING TESTIMONY

Back in the 1970’s one night I had gone to bed, and somewhere around 1:30 AM, the telephone rang. I answered it and (Some of the people of this family are here this morning.) the woman was crying, calling from the hospital, Bro. Jackson, we have a little baby here in the hospital with such and such a sickness. The doctor is not giving it any chance to live until morning, can you come and pray? I said, I will be there as soon as I can. I got up and went to the hospital. As I made my way to the waiting room, here sat the young mother and father. She took me by the hand and began to weep, Bro. Jackson, our little baby has something wrong with its kidneys: they won’t act, and the doctor is not giving us any hope. They have it in intensive care. We are not allowed to go in except when they allow us. I could tell by the way they talked that it was bad. I know I would have felt the same way under those circumstances. They were really worried, that the baby would not live. When she got through talking, I said to her, Sit over here by your husband. I took them both by their hands and prayed, Lord, I have heard their story, you know all about it, Lord these hearts are broken, this little baby means so much to them, you know what the medical doctors have said, but we know all things are possible with you. (This is the way I prayed.) Father, if it is thy will to take this child from this world, then do not let it linger and suffer on and on in this state. But Lord, if it is in your plan to show mercy to this baby, then touch its body and cause it to recover, and Lord, you be glorified. That is the way I prayed. Finally the mother said, Let’s go down toward the intensive care room and see if there is any information. The three of us went into the hallway, walking toward the intensive care, when one of the nurses came out and saw the mother and said, Oh, I was just coming after you to let you know your baby has just now regained consciousness and its kidneys have acted. You may go in and see her. When we walked in, the baby was sitting up in bed under the oxygen tent. Naturally when the baby saw its mother, it fell forward reaching out and the mother took a dive toward the baby. Her arms were around the baby, and she was crying. You could not help but say, Thank you Lord. Do you know what? That little baby lived and she is also a mother today. We would think that ought to have set that home on fire and they should be sitting here today, but they are not. To me, it is heart breaking, that we can take the grace of God, then show such little respect. I have seen that happen many times through the years. It should be another way, but we cannot change that. We will now look at another case. In 1975 we were in a convention here in this building. After the service ended we had stopped at the Frisch’s Restaurant for a little snack. After awhile the waitress came back and said, Rev. Jackson, you have a phone call. I answered the call, and it was another family member of Sis Virgie. She was at the hospital in intensive care, she was hemorrhaging, losing much blood and the doctors were saying she may not live through the night. The caller said, Would you please come and pray. My wife and I went to the hospital. I will never forget that. Entering that room I looked over and saw her laying on her side and a bed tray full of cotton and gauze, she was coughing and spitting up blood. The nurse took us over to her bed and said, Now you cannot stay long. I said, No, I will not be long, I just want to pray for her. Sis. Virgie recognized who I was. I said, Let’s pray. I laid my hand on hers, she was really in a weakened state. I just prayed, Lord, be merciful to this sister. I ask you touch this problem and take it away. In less than a week she was out of the hospital and she has been here in church ever since. I have to say, That is the way it should be. You know, I believe those people that were healed in the day of Jesus, sooner or later would end up following Him. However we are living in a day and hour of time when the world has such a strong pull on people, and they will say, Well it is too far to church: I would go if it was closer to where we live. To that I say, You will not go that far to church, but you would run half way to New York for something in the material realm, something to satisfy some longing you have. I have nothing against people going on vacation, but when a vacation means more to you than going to worship God, watch out, down the road you will have a wreck of some kind and it will not necessarily be a car wreck either. If God sees you in His plan, He is going to get hold of you. This is a day when we cannot play around with God and get by with it. Let us therefore purpose in our hearts, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I love the Lord. He first saved my life, then He saved my wretched soul. He has been so merciful to allow me to see with my right eye, after the doctor had said, If he lives, he will never be right. Well I will give him credit for that, I have never been right since then, if you know what I mean. Those of the world are always accusing believers in Jesus Christ as not being right. I am thankful today, even though it took that kind of blow in life to bring me to my senses, that I now realize there is a God to be served. I am thankful for the fact that I have the privilege of serving Him.

MIRACLE IN INDIA

I will never forget an incident the first time we went to India. I have never gone anywhere saying, Lord, I want to see you heal the sick, I want to see you do this and that. I have never asked God to do anything other than to confirm His word in whatever way it suits His purpose. It was in the year 1978, when we went to India for some meetings. We did not go to the big metropolitan cities to be seen: We got on a train and were taken a hundred and some miles inland to a back woods city. There, is where we had our meetings. They lasted one week in that place. I preached three times a day. It was a tent meeting, and there were very few chairs available. Most everyone sat on carpets on the ground. The first service, I noticed a man standing just on the outside of the tent flap area. The flaps were up because it was hot. I noticed he had his left ankle and leg bandaged. He was walking with a crutch. He did not come inside: he just sat outside looking in. He was there all three services that day. The next morning we were back for service. When it was over and we dismissed and were leaving, the interpreter was following me, but this man on his crutches asked the interpreter to come over to him. He was sitting on a porch opposite the tent. He had sat on the edge of the porch listening to the service and then motioned for the interpreter to come to him. The interpreter said to me, This man wants to ask you a question. He wants to know if you pray for the sick? I said, Yes I do. He asked, Can God heal this? I said Yes. Then he said, If God will heal this, then I will come to the service, but if He don’t, I will not come. I did not ask to be backed into a corner. I did not ask to have my faith tried, but God heard the remark and it was all up to Him. I just laid my hand on the leg and prayed, Heavenly Father, you and you alone know what is in this man’s heart. You know what you want to do for this man, so I just commit it all to you. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Touch this man’s leg, whatever it is, you heal him and let him see that you are still the same yesterday, today, and forever. Then we walked away. I did not know if I would ever see him anymore or not. That night he was there, and did not have his crutch, nor did he have his leg bandaged as before. He was sitting in the front row. Through the rest of that meeting he was there every service. On the following Saturday there was to be a baptism at the river. There were a lot of people to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. He was the first one to lead the way, the whole crowd followed him. He did not have a crutch or his leg bandaged, so it was reasonable to assume that he had been healed. Now saints, I did not come home and say, God did great things while we were there. I just made a small remark about it. I am not going out here and advertise and commercialize what God does, like it has been done by many others in these last number of years. I believe God Himself should be the one allowed to broadcast it. He was walking on a crutch when I got there, but after God touched him there was no bandage on his leg anymore. He led the whole crowd to the river. I just have to say, God did something for him. I did not heal his leg nor perform any magic. I just trusted God to work His will and purpose in it and I have to say, God did it and I am thankful. I am thankful to God for what He is able to do. I never want to get to the place of thinking, Well He is not doing this any more or He is not doing that anymore: I believe He is ever the same and what He does is what fits into His plan. You will never know what He is going to do: You just pray and wait upon Him. I always believe, that if we will keep our hearts right and look at God in a positive way, we will see the hand of God in many such ways on up the road in front of us. When He gets all of us in unity and in harmony with his will and purpose, so that we go down the road of life allowing Him to lead and direct us, He is going to do something more than just touch someone now and then. I believe with all my heart, that God is going to leave a testimony in this unbelieving world, a testimony that He is still the sovereign God He has always been, and that He can do the same things today that He did two thousand years ago. He will always be the same and there is nothing impossible with Him. Every time I hear on the News, what they are saying about new diseases breaking out, it always seems as though it is in the Oriental part of the world. I have to think, Lord, is there a reason that these new kinds of diseases always seem to start up somewhere in the Oriental world? Then I think of the tribulation hour up ahead. I know that in that time of tribulation, when the last three and half years of the seventieth week of Daniel are being fulfilled, and God has taken His hand off of society and is no longer showing any mercy, things will be drastically different. I have no doubt that throughout the Orients and all over the world, people are going to die with uncontrollable sickness and diseases. It is because they have refused to open their eyes to acknowledge the true and living God, and refused to give Him credit or recognition for the many things He has done. Many times it looks like God has just taken His hands off of things already, looking at the general society of the world, how they talk, how they conduct themselves; and especially the politicians and the educators. There are those who would ask, Why should He, but I believe that somewhere just ahead the hand of God is going to begin to be seen outstretched to show some healing and miracles and signs. It is not for us to throw up signs and advertise, but to reward those who have been faithful. Let us just live for God and rejoice in whatever He does. Let us purpose in our heart’s to walk with God, and may God do with us and among us, whatever pleases Him to do. I know God will be glorified in those who are following Him in the days ahead.

ANOTHER TESTIMONY SHOWING GOD’S MERCY AND GRACE

I have one more story to illustrate just how God works in certain places and conditions. In 1980, which was the last time we went to India, God showed His mercy and grace to a little baby. We arrived in Calcutta, and Bro. Hiwale and his brother-in-law and their wives were to meet us there. We were going to have a meeting there as the Lord directed. We got there late in the evening. We made our way to the hotel where we would stay. After we got settled into the hotel, Bro. Hiwale came in and brought his brother-in-law and his wife and their little baby girl which looked to be about a year or year and a half in age. At that time, they never said one thing to me about what she was sick with or what. They asked, Bro. Jackson, would you care to pray for this little baby? Right there in our hotel room I just laid my hands on its little body and said, Lord, whatever the sickness is, you heal it in the name of Jesus Christ and may you be glorified. After awhile they left; and I did not know that the brother-in-law of Brother Hiwale and his wife and little girl had come to Calcutta to see a specialist about her condition. She had a kidney problem that would not let them act properly. I was not told that until the next morning, just before the service was to start. On our way to the meeting Bro. Hiwale told me that the little girl I had prayed for the night before was suffering from a kidney condition. Until he told me what was wrong with her, I had no idea whatsoever what her problem was. Being in Calcutta for that purpose, they had a chance to take her to a specialist this morning. The specialist examined the little girl and her kidneys had acted, so he tested her urine and could not find anything wrong with her: God had healed her. Did I come home and broadcast it? No. I just said, Thank the Lord, that He is ever the same. I believe there is a time when we can say these things and there is a time also when it is better to keep quiet. There are too many times people just want to hear those things and then run with them. We have thousands out there, if God was healing the blind, raising the dead, healing the sick and it was all publicized, this place would not hold all that would try to get in here. Do you realize that? There are thousands of people in the world today, if they hear of anything like that, that is all they want, they could not care less about hearing the truth of God’s word preached. They just want to see and hear something exciting, and they will go where they can see it. Well I am not following the Lord because of some miracle: He got inside my soul, saved my life and saved me from death and blindness in my right eye. When I came to my senses in the hospital, I knew why He had spared my life, it was to bring me to the place that I would give my heart to Him. I have to say, What I have been privileged to see with my eyes through the years since then, has all been a part of God’s sovereignty. I am thankful to Him for His mercy and grace and the things He has allowed me to experience. The same way with my wife. I have told about the condition with her bladder infections already. For almost three years she was bothered with that, it just kept coming back. The doctor would give her a prescription for some new antibiotic and the condition would go away for a little period and then back it would come. The last time, he said to her, After you have taken this, if it is not better, then we will send you to a specialist. That is when I had the dream. I saw myself take my wife up to Bro. William Branham’s home for prayer. In the dream, as we were leaving there, he said, Sis. Jackson, don’t worry, everything is going to be alright. Here I was thinking I could take her all the way to Topeka Kansas and get her prayed for. That was not the way God was leading. I went all the way out there and back, spent the money for gasoline, and even though I saw a lot of things done out there, none of it was the fulfillment of my dream. When we got back here, it just seemed like my wife’s condition took a turn which was much worse after the trip. That is when I made up my mind to contact Bro. William Branham. When he did pray for her, everything came about exactly the way it was in the dream. That was about 1962 or 1963 and that condition has never come back since that day. God is a healer. He can heal when the medicine has failed to work. On the other hand I plead with you, Do not look at the doctor and say, We have no place for you any more. They are every one here to carry out God’s purpose, regardless of the experience some of you have had. How many understand what I mean? There are many doctors out there that are doing good, just as there are preachers out there that think only they themselves are doing the good. I hope that does not offend any of you. There are a lot of preachers that have torn the word of God all to pieces. They have commercialized it to make it fit their purpose. They are the ones I am pointing to with disfavor.

SURE PROMISES OF GOD CONFIRMED

I am going to try to finish this message tonight, so open your Bibles to the 5^th chapter of James starting with the 14^th verse. “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; (That is a promise.) and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” That very scripture shows beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God has a way, a plan and a purpose for healing the sick. As I said this morning, Healing is a promise: We cannot deny that. We just have to realize it does not always have to be a divine act. God, before the foundation of the world, when He created the first man, created in the loins of that man a law of reproduction by which every other human being that has ever been brought into this world, was brought by that means. They are born with a quality for health and a capability of replenishing, because each body has within it an immune system. It was put there by God Himself. The old fashioned remedies of years gone by, we do not hear them talked about very much any more. The modern medical profession has made synthetic chemicals and all such, that are supposed to be the answer for all of the problems of modern mankind. They all have their place, but I have to say this, Sixty years ago when we did not have all of this modern means, there did not seem to be as much sickness as there is today. Our hospitals are filled almost every day anymore, and they are constantly building new ones. It just seems like the building and progress of things cannot keep up with the pace society demands. I have to believe, that up the road in front of us, as we get nearer to the coming of the Lord, the sickness condition is not going to get better, but worse. Regardless of everything else though, I cannot help but believe that those believers who have a willing and humble heart and a right attitude toward the things of God, He is going to cause His promises to be fulfilled to them one way or the other. I believe God is going to be glorified, and that it is going to be made known through His true Church, that He is still the same yesterday, today, and forever. As I spoke before, my wife and I were raised up through the Methodist background, and we had never heard about such a thing as divine healing in the miraculous way during all the years we were in that system. I gave the testimony of how God was merciful to my father and brought him out of that condition, but now I want to bring it on up to the years that my wife and I have both experienced something in that line. We have learned many lessons by the things that have fallen upon us. We have learned the lesson that lets us know, no matter what the circumstances may look like, we should never lose our confidence and trust in God, because some where He is going to guide you through it all. I want to take us back to the year 1955, the year Naomi was born. We had a sister in our church back then; and (I know that many of you have heard this, but I want to include it in here at this point.) God had placed a gift of prophecy in her life. She had told me several weeks in advance, Bro. Jackson, I am not saying this is the way it is going to be, but when the child is born, it may be that God would want to name the child. You call me when the child is born, and I believe God will have spoken to me in advance. I just said, All-right. It came to that time that I took my wife to the hospital, and in a short period of time she had given birth to Naomi. I held off giving her a name. I did not know what the name would be. I went downstairs and called that sister and told her we had another daughter. This is what she said to me on the phone, Bro. Jackson, how long has it been since the child was born? I said, just a few minutes. She said, Well, that you might know that this is of the Lord, I just got up from the table writing this. It is up to you whether you want to use it or not. Have you seen the child? I said, No. Well, that you might know that this is of the Lord, you will find a birthmark on the back side of her shoulder, and that will be proof to you that her name is to be called Naomi Ruth. There was more to it. She later sent me this prophecy in the mail. This was in the summer. When I got this prophecy in the mail, the Lord started out saying how we had prayed earnestly for a son. The Lord said, Not yet my will be done, but in the appointed time and season I will visit you and a son will be born at last and thou shall call his name David. Well little did I know what lay in store. I am telling this to give God the honor and glory. I respect the medical profession in their right place. I went back upstairs, the nurses had just finished giving her a bath and putting her in a little bed and pushing her up to the window. I said, could you turn her over, when they did I saw that little birthmark. That was all I needed. I went to the nurses desk and said, Her name will be Naomi Ruth Jackson. That was it. That was in the summer time. I have the promise there will be a son come at last. This was 1955. We passed on into the year 1956, but before going on I want to remind you, we had no way in those days for a woman to have a test to determine in advance whether the child would be male or female. Well there we were, under the opinion that my wife will become pregnant again and it will be a boy. In 1956 I began to get a big idea that I wanted to go somewhere for a service. I had heard about A A Allen’s miracle valley revival. I wanted to go ever so badly. I was telling my wife that we were going to make great plans. By then we were in the late summer of 1956, somewhere along about August or September. My father-in-law and I were baling hay. All of a sudden my wife came across the field in the car with her mother at her side, my wife was crying, because she was in severe pain. She said, I have to get some help: I am in severe pain. I just turned everything over to my father-in-law and jumped in the car heading for the Harrison County hospital. They put her in the emergency room immediately. After awhile the doctor came out and said Raymond, your wife is suffering from what we call tubal pregnancy, which means we have to stand by and maybe perform an operation. If she starts hemorrhaging, she may bleed to death unless we are able to help her, so I have a surgeon standing by. I thought, Lord, I was not looking for anything like this. He had given her a shot to reduce the pain. When I went in, my wife was under the influence of the pain medicine. I told her what the doctor had told me. She said to me as she lay there in pain, There is no knife going to touch this body, I am going to believe that God is going to perform a miracle. Because she has already suffered so much, her blood pressure dropped way down. Ever few minutes the nurses were taking her blood pressure, knowing that when it reached a certain level, that is when they would expect hemorrhaging. After a period of about forty five minutes, the nurse came in and took the blood pressure. She raised her eyebrows and said, The blood pressure has come up a little bit. Without making it a long story, over a period of a few minutes, as these nurses came in and took her blood pressure, it kept rising, rising and our hopes rose with it. After awhile she said, I feel like going home. To that I said, Well now, you are in no shape right now to go home, they have a surgeon on standby in case he is needed. Nevertheless in about an hour and forty five minutes to two hours of lying there, the pain was becoming less, and less, and less, and her blood pressure was coming back up until it was almost normal. The family doctor came in and checked her again. He asked her how she was feeling. She said, I feel like going home. Are you sure he asked? Yes. He said, Then will you promise me, if we release you and you go home and this pain comes back, that you will get in here as quick as you can? She said yes. Then you can go. The minute he left, I put my arms around her and said, Lord, this is all in your hands. You do with this situation as you must, but above all Lord, don’t let this pregnancy turn into some kind of surgical situation that causes the loss of this life. With that we went home. That condition never did come back. But now I look back at the prophecy, A son will come at last. By then it was late in the fall, after Thanksgiving. There was an epidemic of mumps broke out in the school. There were no less than eight or nine cases in the community where I lived. I had never had this disease, so naturally I was concerned. My children had gone to school, but I personally had never been around anyone to catch it. One afternoon I started feeling awfully sick. By nightfall I was really sick with a rising fever. I was chilling terribly and could not get comfortable. This was the fall of 1956; and as I lay there I thought, I hope this isn’t the mumps. Well about midnight I woke up so terribly sick: I was shaking and my wife called the family doctor. In those days they did not say, Well come on in to the emergency room and we will check up on you. Instead, the doctor made a house call, so in a short order of time he pulled into our driveway. He examined me and checked my temperature; and these are the words he said, Raymond, you have the mumps and they are going down on you. I am asking you to stay in bed. I am going to give you some pain pills, because you are going to have some severe pain. Take these pills for the pain, and stay in bed. Brothers and sisters, I was not in pain, I just had a fever. He gave me something for the fever; and said, Now Raymond, don’t get out of bed and start walking around just because you might feel like it. I truly had taken the mumps. I could tell they were in my throat, but they were moving on through my body. In three days time I was lying in bed flat on my back, swelled, and with a fever, but I was not in pain. The reason I say this, is to give God the glory and honor. He was watching over me. Lying there in bed, burning up with fever and feeling miserable, I did not have any energy to take care of myself. The doctor had said, Raymond, you will be sterile the rest of your life. I thought, Well I have that prophecy laying in the bottom of my dresser drawer, declaring that I was to have a son at last. What kind of predicament is the devil putting me in I thought. My wife was building the fire, cooking the meals, milking the cow, and I am laying flat on my back in bed. For three solid weeks I was like that, but I never did have to take a pain pill. Bro. Glenn Funk brought Bro. William Branham down about the third or fourth night I was in bed. I will never forget what Bro. William Branham said. He took hold of my hand and said, Bro. Junie, don’t worry, everything is going to be alright: this is going to be for the glory of God. I thought, I am lying here in bed feeling like this, how could this be for the glory of God, but I believed the man knew what he was talking about. All I could do was lay in that bed for three solid weeks until all the misery and everything went away and I was back to normal. By that time winter was upon us. I was slowly being able to go back to a normal amount of work. Well, my wife was already pregnant as we crossed over into 1957; and naturally I was thinking, Well this is probably going to be my son. I have to say, Do not ever question God, as to why certain things take place the way they do, because He has a certain way He works. My wife was to give birth some time in May. We had been at the Tabernacle and met a Bro. Faust from Canada, and heard his testimony. He was the man in Canada that had gone into a country farm store to get parts for his machinery and as he was going to get into his car, Bro. William Branham, who had been in the mountains deer hunting, had received a telephone call to come to the nearest phone and pray for a certain person in California. As Bro. William Branham passed this Bro. Faust in the parking lot of that store, Bro. Faust recognized Bro. William Branham and stopped. You are Bro. William Branham. Bro. William Branham stopped to look at him and said, Yes, and you have a call of God in your life, and you have not obeyed it. Well the brother was shocked. Bro. William Branham went on and said, God has spoken to you to go to the mission fields and you have not obeyed him, isn’t that right? Bro. Faust said, Yes, that is right. He said, You will never succeed in anything until you do what God has called you to do. We were at the Tabernacle the morning Bro. William Branham introduced him and told about this experience. After that morning service we were privileged to be introduced to him personally. We had him and his wife and children come down to our little mission in New Albany that night. We were by then into the month of March, and I began to feel like, Here I am, laboring here all these years and have only about fourteen people in the congregation. The same faces, the same kids every service: Lord, I just need to go somewhere to a place where somebody needs to hear the gospel. I was starting to complain, because I did not see anything growing from my ministry. One night when we had gone to bed I said to my wife, Honey, if the Lord was to tell me to go to some foreign country, would you go with me? She said, Whatever the Lord tells you to do, I am right with you. (That is why I say tonight, She has stood by my side through these years.) Right then and there, I took her by the hand and said, Let us pray for the Lord’s will to be accomplished in us. Then I said, Lord, if it is your will for me to get ready to go to some foreign field, give us this child a little early as long as it does not impair its health. It went on into the month of April. The day I took my wife to the hospital and she gave birth to our last girl, Lois, you don’t know how that made me feel. I thought, This was supposed to be a boy, but it was a girl. Now the devil was sitting on my shoulder, saying to me, See, I have you now. You are never going to have a boy, you just as well throw that prophecy away. Well I was not ready to discard the prophecy, because I believed it was from the Lord. Therefore again I would say, I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but somewhere down the road, God, I believe you are able to bring this about. The very day that Lois was born, that night, I had a dream. In the dream I saw myself and my wife and children on a boat sailing across water somewhere. I saw my children running around on the deck, I could see the color of it. I remember making the statement, This is not safe for little children like this. I told my wife the dream. After awhile we came to the conclusion that the Lord was directing us to go to Cuba, because I had contacted this Bro. Faust and they had made provision for me to spend a month in another small town about twenty five miles from where they were doing their missionary work. In the meantime they made arrangement for a young fellow to be our interpreter. When the time came we were able to go. That was in the fall of 1957. The day we got on the ship was the last of November. I always wondered what would be the color of the deck. Going over, the waters were rough and they would not let us on the top deck. But coming back on the same boat, the sun was shining, the sea was calm, and anybody could go up there and enjoy the view. We went up to see the top deck. It was just my wife and I and our children that were up there right then. The deck was red, just like in the dream. All the time we were up there, we were the only ones. I had my parents little movie camera and took some pictures of it, to prove that my dream was right. I say that only to say this, Still deep inside I was asking, Where is this son coming from? The years passed on through 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963, and still no son. We were in the last week of 1964, and I will never forget, right after Christmas, the telephone rang during the night hours and it was Sis. Wright, the mother of little Edith that had polio and was confined to a wheelchair. This was what Sis. Wright said to me, Bro. Junie, Sis. Edith just passed away; and her last words were, that she wanted you to conduct her funeral. I just said, Sister Wright I will do my best. After I got back in bed, I told my wife, This fulfills the dream I had while we were in Cuba. While we were in Cuba I had a dream and saw myself back at home, but I was entering an undertaker’s establishment, walking over to the casket and there lay a funeral card, Services will be conducted for Edith Wright on a certain date by Rev. Raymond Jackson. I remember reading that in the dream. It was seven years to the exact month, that it came to pass. When I told my wife this, I said, Honey, I don’t know what all this is adding up to, but God has something planned for us. When I did go back to sleep that night, that is when I saw Bro. William Branham approach me on that white horse. I say this tonight to let you know how God has directed my life. Sometimes when circumstances hit you, it is just like the devil has unloaded a truckload of problems on you. There is not a thing you can do about it: You can only say, Lord, I am in your hands, you take charge of everything. That is the way I prayed about it. Little did I realize that within a few weeks my wife would become pregnant again. August 1, 1965, the day I told that horse dream to Bro. William Branham, we already knew she was pregnant. I did not have to worry: I did not have to say, Well suppose this or that. I knew after nine years, and there was no birth, that God had a time factor in the works for that promised son, so I am saying to you tonight, God uses doctors under certain circumstances, ☛ but on the other hand there comes a time when He will not let what the doctor is doing be of any value whatsoever. He is going to do it His own way. He is sovereign: He can do that. When my wife was pregnant with Lois and we didn’t know it, little did I realize God was going to take His hand off of this, and let it look like it was an impossibility, but that prophecy was true, just waiting for God’s time. I have seen the hand of God intervene like that through the years, and work in such a way I could not doubt that He was on the scene. When everything has looked like it would fail, God has been right there to fulfill His purpose. So I thank God tonight, that He never fails to keep His word.

TESTIMONY OF CRUELTY

Brothers and sisters, I am going to say something now, that I have told very few times before; and the reason I have not told it very many times, is because it is not related to the gospel of Jesus Christ. While we were in Cuba we became very attached to this Bro. Faust and his family. We were there in the last part of 1957, and in June of 1958 is when Castro came out of the mountains and took over. While we were in this certain little town, there were two different occasions when soldiers raided some outlying villages and found various arms caches, rifles and things that been hidden. They were for the guerillas that were getting ready to take over, but the soldiers found them and the guerillas never got them. Well we left there, and later on Bro. and Sis. Faust left also, because conditions had gotten so bad. They stopped over in our area to spend some time at the Tabernacle when they returned; and he told me what I am going to tell you now. He said, Bro. Jackson, I am going to tell this testimony to you because I need to tell somebody. During the time that Castro first came out of the mountains and took over the country of Cuba, his troops confiscated the brand new military jeep they had left Canada with, to go to the mission field, without asking authority or anything, they just took it. At that time Canada was still on talking terms with Cuba. Bro. Faust reported this to the Canadian embassy and in a few weeks time they brought the jeep back to him. Listen to this now, when he went to run it, the motor had been practically burned up. He notified the Canadian embassy of it. Again the Canadian embassy went to bat for him. They put pressure on Castro’s military, they came and got the jeep and in a few days time they gave the motor a complete overhaul and returned it to him. During the process of time before they left Cuba, Bro. Faust became sick and felt he needed to go to a doctor. He went to one not too far away. After ministering to him, that doctor said, I am going to tell this testimony to you because I know there is no one else here in Cuba that I can tell it to, no one that will believe me. Maybe you can tell somebody outside of here. Here is what he told, Some weeks back, after Castro had taken over the island and had control of everything, some of the military officials came to this doctor one night and took him by force. They took him in a vehicle, out into the countryside among the sugar cane fields. He said, I did not know where we were going or why, but after awhile, on the back side of a sugar cane field, we came into an area with a few vehicles and I could see some nurses and artificial lights, and several Cuban people. I wondered What is going on here? The doctor said he was forced by the Castro military regime, to take blood from those Cuban citizens who had been taken from their homes against their will. He was told to draw all the blood from their veins; and if they die, so what. Every Cuban citizen that the Castro regime felt like might be untrustworthy, this was their way of getting rid of them and using their blood for their military. The doctor told him, Here I was, having to extract blood from those people, and there was not a thing I could do about it because they threatened to kill me. I am telling you, hoping maybe you will tell somebody on the outside. After Bro. Faust told me this story, I have thought many times, Who on the outside would believe such a story, how can you prove it? If you were not there, do you think the news media would believe it? No. Do you think the politician would believe it? No, they will not. You have to have proof of it. When I heard this story, I thought, God have mercy on this unbelieving world. One of these days when God takes over this planet to bring about judgment, He will destroy this kind of people from the face of this earth. They don’t deserve to live, when they will treat humanity like this. What good would it do to go to a government official? How can you prove it? If you weren’t there, you are only taking someone else’s words as fact. We don’t know half the things that innocent people have suffered, old and young. When Castro took over with his regime, almost everyone wound up having to submit to him, but some wound up as prisoners and only God knows what became of them. I just pray that you can understand, I am thankful to God for what He has allowed me to see and experience in life. He did not have to do it, but He did. This lets me know, you cannot say, God, you do it this way. He does things the way He wants them to be done, because He plans it ahead of time and it will always come out the way He wants it to. That is why we have to learn to live with our trust in Him, that if He starts you down a course, then He has a reason, and believe me everything will work out just fine. After spending one month in Cuba when all our children were small, not one of us ever had a sickness of any kind during that month. We cooked our meals on a charcoal burner for thirty one days. God was very gracious. I can say this, We were invited into the homes of several families in that small town. They knew something was getting ready to take place, because they all knew Castro and his forces were in the mountains. They said to me many times, Do you know what we are praying for? We pray that God will let America take over Cuba and run it. That is the way they looked at it, but Castro got it and you can see what has happened. I say these things in closing the message, I am thankful for the things He has allowed me to experience in life, because they prepared me for what God had called me for. As for what I have related to you, I want to assure you, I do not try to exaggerate. I only say I am so thankful that God saved my soul and gave me the Holy Spirit to guide and direct me in life. May the Lord Bless You.

This is the end of our message “Healing is a promise” It is a little short for the paper, so we have selected a small portion of the April 1989 issue to insert at the end. It gives us a chance to see with our own eyes, that what Brother Jackson preached back then, did not have to be changed to be God’s Word for this present time.

APRIL 1989 TRUTH REVEALED

Bro. Branham absolutely did put his messages into 20th century phrasing, even though he was without a formal education, and did not use words that the scholars of our day would accept. Therefore he has been greatly criticized because of that, and also for the various dual statements he made touching certain subjects. However I am fully persuaded that God ordained it to be like that, to confound those who believe He only speaks through the educated Doctors of Divinity, and also to send a lot of tares running in circles, quoting the literal words of the prophet, without having any revelation of what he was talking about. If he had placed every verb, every adjective, and every noun exactly where they should have been, he would not have been so rejected by the Doctors of Divinity out here in your religious systems. Neither would there be all of these divisions in the Branham movement itself. Because of his way of saying things, there were many times that people without the Holy Ghost, who just sat there to catch his literal words, would leave the meetings, some believing one thing and others believing something else, and they all got what they went away believing, from the same statements. No wonder the apostle Paul wrote, in 1st Corinthians 2:14,”But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Only those true children of God are going to get a true revelation of things that are revealed by the Spirit, because they are the only one’s that have that Spirit of revelation in them. That is why some knew what Bro. William Branham meant at times, and others did not. The same Spirit that wrote the Bible through men in former times, is the Spirit that has to reveal it to people later on, if they are ever to know what certain things really mean. Take for instance, when Bro. William Branham was preaching the Seals messages; I believe it was either the first or second night, he made a statement saying something like, The Church goes through the tribulation; it is the bride that is raptured. Then when I preached a Millennium message stating that the Church is raptured before the great tribulation, and that she comes back with Jesus to rule and reign with Him in the Millennium, a lot of people got upset, and started telling me how wrong I was, for the prophet said the Church would go through the tribulation. They never bother to read their Bible to see what it says about the matter.All they care about, is what the prophet said. Like I have said saints, I believe God allowed a lot of things just so the tares would have something to run with; thereby allowing the true children of His to see who the tares are. I challenge any man to step up here with his Bible, and show me one verse of scripture that puts the Church in the great tribulation in the seventieth week of Daniel. You just simply cannot find it there. In the mind’s of those who wrote the New Testament, there was only one Church, made up of those who believed the gospel message, submitted to water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They are the Church the apostles wrote about. Well how do we look at the man’s statement then? We simply must realize that he, living here in the 20th century when that great conglomeration of religious systems out here in the world is referred to as the Church, made that statement based upon that. He certainly did not deliberately stand there contradicting what the apostle Paul taught; it was just a matter of knowing what he was referring to. Just to speak it very plainly, Those Protestant religious systems in the world about us are the harlots of Revelation,17:5,and they certainly are going through the great tribulation, for the Bible says they are abominable. Do you know why? It is because they still hold on to most of the doctrine their old mother (Catholicism) taught, and the Bible calls her a whore, spiritually speaking. Their mother is none other than Roman Catholicism. John said,(in) Revelation,17:6, “And I saw the woman (that same whore) drunken with the blood of the saints, so do not try to tell me she is part of the bride of Jesus Christ. I do not say these things trying to be unkind; I am just telling you what the Bible says about that system.

IDENTIFYING THE CHURCH

The apostle Paul was consistent in the terminology he used, and you will find that his reference to the Church, always pertained to that baptized body of believers who were filled with the Holy Ghost; no matter what age they may have lived in. Therefore here at the end time, reference to the Church technically and literally applies only to those who are free from those systems of religion. I do not know if God has all of the living element of the Church out of those systems yet, or not; but when they are all out ,the only thing out there that God has any interest in is the FOOLISH VIRGINS, spoken of in Matthew,25, which spiritually speaking, are a by-product in the overall plan of God. The rest of what is left there will be the tares of Matthew 13:24-30, which the Bible says will be bundled up ready to be burned . No I am not the one that will appoint them to that fate, the word of God has already done that. A lot of them will scream when they hear this; but the tares are not all out there in denominational systems; a lot of them claim to be followers of Bro. William Branham‘s message. The real truth is, they do not even know what Bro. William Branham’s message was. They say they do; but they are not back in the Bible yet, so I would have to say they do not; for his first priority was to get the bride of Jesus Christ back into the Bible. Never did he purposely say anything to throw people off the track and get them out of the Bible; God just simply allowed it to turn out like that. Literally, it just makes what we were reading in 1st John, chapter 2, stand out even more vividly. You will recall that John said in verse 18, “Little children, it is the last time:and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” Verse 19, is the one that really nails it down. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” These were not a bunch of worldly people that came in and tried to take over. They were people who on the surface seemed to be above reproach, but what they believed and taught was not according to the truth the original Church was founded upon. Satan, seeking to buffet the Church succeeded in getting people into those fellowships that by and by began to turn some of the others from that oneness of revelation the early Church was founded upon. That is exactly how the Church began to be pulled off course, as those original apostles passed from the scene. The younger generation was not as zealous to contend for the faith, as their parents and grandparents had been. The devil just simply created situations to get one pulling one way, and another one pulling another way, until by 500 A.D. the original revelation had just about been lost altogether, and the Church had to go through what history calls, “The Dark Ages.” That is why God sent men like Martin Luther, John Knox, John Wesley and Bro. William Branham. They were called of God as instruments through whom He could restore the apostolic teachings back to the Church. The Church did not lose her revelation of the word of God all at once, and neither was it restored back to her all at once. However now that it has been restored, God will accept nothing less than a pure revelation from those whom He calls, from here on out to the end. It is easy to see why the Bible says, How can two walk together except they agree? All the devil has to do is get people disagreeing on something, and the first thing you know they are actually pulling against each other. Even two gangsters cannot walk together except they agree. In order to walk together you have to see things the same way. Anyhow John told us some had left; good people no doubt, if you are looking only at the flesh. They were probably very good neighbors to those they lived close to; but when you bring them over into the realm of the family of God, you have a setting for eventual trouble. That is what causes some to leave. Regardless of what men may do, the Bible only presents one picture, and sooner or later we all have to see it the same way, if we are going to be ready to go with Jesus when He comes. God cannot really use us until we get a proper revelation of His word, and of His purpose. I believe with all my heart, this world is being programed and the stage set for the coming of the Lord, and that the denominational systems are completely blind to what is going on. We have printed a message titled “The Dragon Speaks,” which if looked at properly, should enable anyone to see that the old Roman Empire is being restored. She is almost back to where she was when the Reformation hit; and the American Lamb Beast has been fulfilling its part of the prophecies right on time, right on through the years, but the world is blind to it all. They are ignoring the signs that hang over their head’s. They read Revelation, chapter 13, and look at Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger,and men like that; but their lack of revelation keeps them from seeing where the Antichrist really comes from. The world is full of blind leaders leading blind people, and you know what Jesus said about that; they will all fall into a ditch (The great tribulation). Hear me though, saints, we do not need to fall into that ditch. We have been pointed in the right direction, and our guide (the Holy Ghost) is still on the job. Hallelujah! I am so thankful to be walking in the light, with people who have a genuine desire to be one, and to be led by the Spirit of God.

WHERE ARE WE GOING?

I realize I have dwelt on these verses of the 17th chapter of John, in this message; but after all, verses 21, and 22 are what this whole thought is built around. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; (For what purpose?) that they may be one, even as we are one.” I like the words of verse 22; which lets us get a little glimpse of what is ahead. We are to be one, just like Jesus and the Father were one. How? By yielding to the Spirit of God and following a true revelation of His word. We live in 1989, in the LAODICEAN AGE, and we believe God sent a prophet messenger to this age to turn us back to the faith of our fathers, according to Malachi 4:5-6. How will we know when we have the faith of our fathers? It is simple; we will Believe what they believed, and conduct ourselves in the same manner they did. It is all recorded right here in the book of Acts, and in the Epistles. What Peter, Paul, James, John and Jude believed is all recorded right in here, (The Bible) and it will make you and I, all believe the same thing. That in itself is what really makes us one. The Messenger came, delivered his message, and left the scene; and hundreds of thousands of people the world over have either heard or read the words of that little man, so why are we still so divided after 23 years? We printed a message a few years ago titled, “They Are Not All Children,” so that should give you a clue as to why we are still so divided. Naturally if any of those who believe different than you and I, should read this, they will feel animosity toward me for saying that, but it is true anyway. I am going to read some of these controversial statements from the “Spoken Word” books, so you will know exactly what I am talking about. Of course they will say, You have no right to do that, but I say, The Holy Ghost has a right to point people to truth any way He chooses to, regardless of what they say. I am not criticizing Bro. William Branham, nor trying to make myself something more than what God called me to be; I am just trying to give innocent people a chance to know first hand what is going on among those who claim to be following the message of Bro. William Branham, but are in reality instruments of the devil, being used to cause confusion among people who do not yet have a revelation of what God is doing in this age of time. This just happens to be the warfare we are engaged in presently. It is a spiritual warfare, waged by those who are enemies of the truth. Amen.