Deepavali Message : Jesus the Light of the World

58-0316E  DOOR.TO.THE.HEART_  HARRISONBURG.VA  SUNDAY_
  ^E-27  Did you know we got...The Christian church has its greatest buildings its ever had? Do you know it's richer than it ever was? Do you know that they got the best theologians they've ever had? It's standing and its great spires reaching towards heaven, with a half a million dollar pipe organ, its robed choirs; its scholars come polished up from the seminary to the very latest...?...who can walk to the platform and not make one grammatic mistake, who can limit their sermons to so much time with so much psychology in it, that can hold the people's minds to that thought that they've got.
But yet the Bible said that we are poor, and we are wretched, and we're blind, and naked, and don't know it. Now, if a man was out on the street, could you imagine a person going down the street, poor, miserable, blind, wretched, and naked? Now, if the man knows his condition, he will try to better hisself. But the sad part is, when he don't know it. He doesn't understand that he's naked. He thinks he's rich, and he's--he's dressed all right, and he's in his best condition.
 
  ^E-28Now, if that's the way Jesus described this Church in this day, the latter day... I don't mean just this group. I mean... I'm talking universally, the Church universal. It is in one of the most miserable conditions, and it doesn't know it. They think, "We're faring all right. We're doing good. Why, this year we--we paid so much for missionaries overseas." I don't mean to be light.
I'm a missionary myself. But the miserable part is when some old mammy washes over a washboard to help support a missionary on the field, and when you get over there to find them riding around in an air-conditioned Cadillac, and preaching at a compound. I wonder how many David Livingstones I'd find. Frankly, I've only seen one what I called a missionary, a little crippled boy from Rhodesia.

  ^E-29 One of the greatest churches that I know of in the Protestant realm... I was coming down out of--of Southern Rhodesia, and I'd been up there in a meeting. And I seen that American passport. There was three little girls and a boy.
And I said, "I see that you got American passports."
He turned and said, "Oh, you speak English."
I said, "I'm an American." I said, "What are you?"
He said, "Oh, we're missionaries."
I said, "That's fine." And I said, "Where you from?"
And they was from my backyard almost, where the great seminary's at. And I said, "That's good." I said, "I'm from Jeffersonville, Indiana."
"Oh," he said, "you are?"
I said, "How long you been over?"
He said, "Going on two years."
And I said, "How many souls have you won to Christ since you've been over?" Ducked his head.
 
  ^E-30And I said, "Sisters, have many have you won to Christ since you been over?"
But just before I did that, he said, "What's your name?"
I said, "Branham."
"Oh," he said, "you're the one that caused that big stir down in Africa down there, down in South Africa."
I said, "I don't know whether there was any stir or not."
He said, "Well, we heard that you was a holy-roller."
I said, "Thirty thousand raw heathens come to Christ day before yesterday." I said, "That's more than all of our churches has done in our missionaring in a hundred and fifty years over there. And I found missionary, or natives coming in with a tag on their neck as missionary of--as Christians, packing an idol in their arm."
 
  ^E-31  And I said to Sidney Smith, the mayor of Durban, who was taking me out to the race course, the Audia Park Race Course, where some hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand had gathered. And I said, "Mr. Smith, what does that tag mean on their necks?"
Said, "They're Christians."
I said, "And packing idols?"
He said, "Well, Mr. Branham, I can talk his language, Shangai." Said, "Let's just ask him, talk to him." He pulled his car over to the side of the street.
And I said, "How do you do, John?" He spoke back in his language. And I said, "What, are you a Christian?"
"Oh, yeah."
And I said, "What you doing with that idol?"
"Oh," he said, "my papa carried it." And he said...

  ^E-32I said, "Don't you believe in God?"
"Oh, I believe in Amoyah." "Amoyah" is a--a word they use means, "the unseen force, like the wind." "I believe in Amoyah."
I said, "But what about the idol?"
He said, "Well, you see," he said, "one day the lion got after my father, and he set it down, this idol, built up a little fire, and said the prayer the witch doctor told him. And the lion run away. Now, if Amoyah fails, this won't." Now, that's the strength of Christianity in South Africa by the missionary.
I said, "I am a Yakta." "Yakta" means "a hunter." "I hunt lions. And that idol did not run that lion away. The fire run the lion away. There's nothing in that idol." Oh, well, he'd pack it anyhow.
 
  ^E-33 But that afternoon, when they seen a man with a chain around his neck, not even mentally right, brought to the platform, and the Holy Spirit telling who he was, where he come from, what his mother and father was, told his brother was on crutches, and he was healed setting right back like that... And here come the boy with the crutches over his head; he'd been riding on a yellow goat, and had hurt his leg years before.
Then I saw a vision of this man, and I said, "In Christ's Name, stand up." He couldn't understand. He thought I wanted him to do a dance. And he was down there, no clothes on. Oh, my. It was a terrible looking sight, and a chain around his neck, leading him like a dog, walking on his feet and hands.
 
  ^E-34  I walked over to the poor man, took him by the chain and raised him up. This is witnessed about a hundred around a fifty thousand people. And there, when he stood up, after everybody said if he would be healed, they would receive Christ, and he stood up in his right mind, and the tears dropping off of his black belly, and received Christ as his Saviour. And thirty thousand raw heathens throwed their idol on the ground and broke it, and received Christ.
Not long ago in the Kiwanis meeting where I was talking in the presence of Dr. Davis, who ordained me in the Missionary Baptist church, that told me I was going to become a holy-roller, and I said, "Dr. Davis, what you call holy-roller..." I said, "what you call fanaticism won more souls to Christ in five minutes time, than all of your theology and tract passing that you've had in the past hundred and fifty years." Naked, miserable, blind, and don't know it. Oh, it's pitiful.
 
  ^E-35 I said to that little boy and girl; I said, "You ought to be back home washing your mammy's dishes, taking care of the babies." It's exactly right. Go down there and, go down to the compound, and say a few words to them natives, when they have a dance, and pass out some tracts. What does a poor, ignorant native know about a tract when he don't even know which is right and left hand?
We've miserably failed God. Why? Is because Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel." He never did say, "Go in all the world and build churches." He never did say, "Go, build schools." He never did say, "Go, build seminaries." He said, "Preach the Gospel, and these signs shall follow them that believe." We've failed.
 
  ^E-36 "I stand at the door and knock: if any man will open, I'll come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me." What could it be when a man is knocking on a door? What's He trying to do with knocking at the door? He's trying to gain entrance. He's trying to get in. He has a message for you. He has some business to talk with you. And that knock has come by great men down through the ages.
What if the great Caesar, Caesar Augustus would've went down to a peasant's house in Rome, and had knocked on the door? And that peasant would've opened the door and seen the great mighty Caesar honoring him to come to his door. Oh, he'd have said, "Great Caesar, come in. Welcome to my house. Anything in here that you want is yours."

  ^E-3Or what if the late Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of Germany, would've went down to a foot soldiers house and knocked at the door? And that little soldier, as we would say, little rookie, would've went to the door and opened it, and there stood the Fuehrer of Germany? He would've stood at attention and give the German salute, and have said, "Great Fuehrer, you've paid me honor to come to my house. Oh, enter into my humble house, great Fuehrer of Germany. Anything that your servant has that you want, you can have it."
When you're welcome, that's the way you're invited in. If I come to your house and you said, "Welcome in, Brother Branham." I'd feel like going in. If I wanted to take off my shoes and lay down across the bed, I'd do it. If I wanted to go to the ice box and make me a sandwich, I'd go do it. If you welcome me in, I'd feel like I'm one of you. I'm welcome. Sure.

  ^E-38 And then what an honor. You see, what it does, it's not who--not... It's not the knock that does it. It's who's a knocking. It's the importance of the person that's doing the knocking.
What if tonight, if the great President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, what if he come to Harrisonburg, and went to the house of the best democrat there is in the city, you'd feel honored to have him. Though you disagreed with him on politics, but yet to have the honor of Dwight Eisenhower at your door, it would be an honor to any good democrat, certainly, 'cause it's the President of the United States. He's an important man.
 
  ^E-39 Or the Queen of England just visit this nation. What if the queen were to come down to your house, sister? And she'd have knocked on the door, and you'd have opened the door and say, "Who are you?"
She'd say, "I am the Queen of England."
Though you're not her subject, though she has nothing to do with you, but she's an important woman. She's the greatest earthly queen on earth. And anyone would feel honored. Why, the newspapers would pack it everywhere. The television would show it, that the Queen of England humbled herself to come down and knock on the door of some poor person's house.
What would you say to her? "Oh, queen, enter in." And if anything she desired, she could have it. Though you had something that was very valuable, that you thought, a little trinket or something, and yet it was a--a family thing that's been handed down, yet if she asked for it, you'd give it to her because she's the queen. And it would be a great honor for you to do so, because she's an important woman, and would come to my house, or your house.
 
  ^E-40  But, oh, who's more important than Jesus? And who's more turned away than Jesus? That queen might want something; Hitler might want something; Dwight Eisenhower might want something of you; but Jesus wants to give you the best thing He could be given to you. And yet there's nobody turned away from doors any more than Jesus Christ that knocks at the heart's door. He's turned away.
And yet if you shut the door in the queen's face, or if the Hitler's little soldier would've slammed the door in his face, Hitler would've had him executed. The queen would've blasphemed you. Eisenhower, it'd have been wrote up in the papers, that you turned down Dwight Eisenhower. Oh, what disgrace it would've been.
 
  ^E-41 But yet, Jesus knocks at the door, and people think they do something smart by turning Him away. It's the greatest mistake that any person ever made, is to turn the lovely Jesus from their door. That's the most important Person in all eternity that could knock at your door.
If Eisenhower got into your house, he could only ask you a question or--or something like that. But if Jesus comes in, He comes to bring you Eternal Life and save your soul, or to bring some good thing to you. But yet He's turned away.
But now, you'll say to me, "Wait just a minute, Brother Branham. I let Jesus into my heart many years ago." Well, that's good. I'm glad you did. But you know, when you get in, Jesus gets into the heart, that's the first door. But then you've got a whole lot more little doors all in your house in your heart, just a little secret closet, here and there, and a little room here.
 
  ^E-42  Say, "Now, you can come in, but don't you dare open that door. Don't you go to this one. But you can stand right here." Would you feel very welcome? That's the way with some of you church members. You just let Him come in. Oh, you want Him to be your Saviour, but He wants to be your Lord. Lord is rulership. He wants to be your Ruler, not just your Saviour only.
You want Him as a Saviour, but what about being your Lord, that'll control you, control your emotions, control your thinking, control your every fiber of you, that you could say like the man years ago who let Him in, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Let Him in in that way to be Ruler and Lord over you.
 
58-0316E  DOOR.TO.THE.HEART_  HARRISONBURG.VA  SUNDAY_
  ^E-43 Now, let's look into this heart of ours just a little. You know, when Jesus comes in, there's a little door you turn to your right in the human heart. And that's the little door that they don't want nobody fooling with. That's the door of your own private life.
"Now, Lord, You can save me from going to hell, but don't You fool with my private life. I just won't stand for that. Now, I'm going to... I belong to a card party down here where they play cards every Wednesday afternoon, and that's my own little clique. And I don't want You telling me anything about that. If You'd speak through any preacher, I won't go back to hear him again."
Private life: oh, we have a lot of that. "My own private life." "Now, if I want to make my hairdo look like a man, that's none of Your business. This is my private life. A preacher ever says anything about it, I'll never go back again. My own private life."
You don't have any life. I can tell you now, that what you call life is a perverted life and it has an end.
 
  ^E-44 The Church don't need a face lifting, it needs a death and birth. God condemned that spirit in the garden of Eden. And a man's got to be born again, and let Christ be Lord and Ruler of his being. Certainly. But, oh, you don't want Christ fooling with your private life. That just won't work.
Then there's another little door (We'll hit them fast because we just got a few minutes.), another little door called selfishness. "I'll let Christ in, if... What do I get out of it?" Oh, such a motive. "I'll let Him in, if--if You'll promise me this, that I'll get to go to a better church than what I go to, if my standing in society will be a little bit better." How many people use that? How disgraceful it is to use that.
 
  ^E-45Then there's another little door called prejudice. Oh, how people like to keep that back. They don't want God to open that door. "Now, I'll tell you now; she did something to me, and I won't speak to her on the street. No, sir. She comes out, hangs up her clothes every day, but I won't speak to the old reprobate. No, sir." Oh, my.
The Lord will say, "There is a preacher that lives down the street that you've never spoke to. And you shunned him the other day when he was coming down the street, and you never spoke to him."
"Now, looky here, Lord, don't You go to dealing with that, because I'll tell you, he don't belong to my denomination." There is only one Church.
I been in the Branham family for forty-eight years, and they never did ask me to join the family. I was borned in the Branham family. And that's the way you become a Christian. You are born in the Church of the living God. But you don't want no one... "I'm a little prejudiced of my faith." You haven't got very much. "But just a little prejudiced (You see?), because the people who comes to my church dresses a little better than they do at that mission down there."
 
58-0316E  DOOR.TO.THE.HEART_  HARRISONBURG.VA  SUNDAY_
  ^E-46 How they want to make fun of the little mission. "Oh, that's that group that goes down there at the mission. Why, I see them people wearing the same clothes all the time." But they got clothes on that you can't see by your natural eye.
Here sometime ago a young student was in a seminary. A poor old mammy thought that her child was going to be a minister, so she sent him over to a seminary to learn how to be a preacher. She was washing, and one day the old mother got the pneumonia, and so she sent a telegram to her son.
The doctor said, "If that... Both lungs are congested, and if you've got any of your loved ones, you better get them in."

  ^E-47 So the nurse sent for her son, said, "Stand by. If your mother's fever doesn't break by morning, you'll have to come." That's all. The boy stood by and never did hear no more.
In a few days got a letter from his mother, said, "I'm just fine, son."
About a year later, the boy visited his home. And after he had kissed his mama when he come in, and he said, "Mama, there's been one thing that I've always longed to ask you." Said, "When you were so sick with that pneumonia," said, "what happened? You told me to stand by, and then I didn't hear from you for a week, and then you were all right. What did the doctor give you?"
Said, "He give me up."
 
  ^E-48 "Why," he said, "how did you get well?"
She said, "Son, I got something to tell you." She said, "Do you know where that little old store used to be down there by the alley?"
"Yes."
Said, "There's a bunch of people moved in there call themselves Full Gospel." And said, "They were down there having a prayer meeting one night, the night that I was so sick, and a message," they said, "come to them and said there was a woman up here sick."
One of the ladies come up and asked me if I believe in Divine healing. I told her I believed anything that God had. And said, she said to her, "Well, our pastor prays for the sick. Would you like for him to come up, I will have him to come?"
She said, "Certainly."
 
  ^E-49 "So the pastor come up," she said, "and anointed me with oil. And they all knelt around the bed and prayed for me." And she said, "Son, the next morning I was well." She said, "God healed me." Said, "Oh, praise His Name."
The young fellow who'd had some of this embalming fluid placed into him, and he said, "Oh, mother, why, such a disgrace." Why, said, "You know better than that."
She said, "No, I don't, son."
Said, "Why, that's--there's no such a thing as healing any more." Said, "We learned that in the semint... (cemetery, all the same all right) We learned that in the seminary that there's no such thing as Divine healing."
"Oh," she said, "son, you're too late to tell me that." She said, "I'm already well."

  ^E-50 And said, "When I went to the doctor and he was surprised too."
And he said, "Well," said, "did you change doctors?"
She said, "Yes."
Said, "Well, what doctor did you use?"
She said, "Doctor Jesus."
So the doctor scratched his head and said, "Oh, is that right? Where does He practice at? I don't believe I ever heard of Him." That's how far they're away.
And he said, "Mother, don't you never believe such stuff as that." Said, "Where did you think that preacher read from?"
Said, "From Mark 16. 'These signs shall follow them that believe.'"
"Oh," she... He said, "Mother, that's the illiterate bunch." Said, "Those preachers don't know very much." Said, "They haven't got a college education. Now," said, "we learned in the college that Mark 16 from the 9th verse on, is not inspired."
 
  ^E-51 She said, "Hallelujah."
"Oh," he said, "mother, you even act like them."
"Why," she said, "hallelujah."
Said, "What's the matter with you, mother?"
She said, "I was just thinking. Do you mean to tell me, my son, that that's what you've learned in these three years in college, that Mark 16 from the 9th chapter on is not inspired?"
He said, "That's right." Said, "Mother, that's authentic."
"Well," she said, "praise God." She said, "If God could heal me with uninspired Scripture, what could He do with that really is inspired?" Amen.
That's about the way of it. Naked, yet you say you're rich. That little private part, that thing you don't want to degrade yourself to come down with somebody else... Come down off the high horse.

  ^E-52"Well, I'm telling you this, that this old-time religion will make a--a tuxedo suit put his arms around a pair of overalls and call it brother." It'll make a silk dress hug a calico and say, "Sister." It certainly will when God comes into the heart to be Lord. We're all on one level. Certainly.
Oh, there's another little door that I'd like to, let's look into. That's the door of faith: F-a-i-t-h. Oh, you claim you got faith, but you know, when Jesus becomes Lord of your faith, then all of His Words become real to you.
 
  ^E-53 That's the reason people can't believe for Divine healing, yet they're members of the Christian church. They got Jesus at the door. But if He could stand in that little door of faith, He would be your faith. He would be Lord of your faith. And I could not imagine that the Man Who wrote the Bible, turn around and deny the Bible, deny His own writing and still be God. Faith, they won't let the door open.
Then there's one more little door before we close. And that's the door of your eyes. He said, "You're blind and don't know it. I counsel of thee to buy from Me eye salve that Thou mightest anoint thine eyes that you might see." If you could ever get your eyes open, then you'll look around and see what condition you're in.
 
58-0316E  DOOR.TO.THE.HEART_  HARRISONBURG.VA  SUNDAY_
  ^E-54A certain preacher said to me sometime ago; he said, "I don't care what you say. I don't believe there's such a thing as Divine healing."
I said, "Not for you, it's not for unbelievers. It's just for those who believe. It wasn't made for you. He said them that believe. It's not for unbelievers."
 
  ^E-55  And he said, "Then strike me blind."
I said, "You're already blind."
He said, "I mean like in the Bible."
I said, "That's what I'm talking about." I said, "I'm going to say to you just exactly what my Lord said to your pappy, 'Get behind me.'" That's right.
He said, "But that man was physically blind when the Bible referred to him."
I said, "When Elijah went down to Dothan, and all the next morning when Gehazi woke up, he said, 'My father, the whole Syrian army are got us all surrounded.'"
That old prophet raised up and rubbed his eyes out of the sleep. He said, "What are you talking about?"
He said, "Just look at the army. The whole city's besieged."
The old prophet just as calm as he could be, said, "Why, there's more with us than there is with them."
"Why," he said, "I don't see anybody, just you and I."
 
  ^E-56  And that old prophet stretched his hand out and said, "God, open this young man's eyes." And when God opened his eyes, around that old prophet stood Angels of fire, and the mountains was on fire, and chariots of fire.
Then he said, "You see how easy it is? I'm going out there and smite all them people blind." And he walked out, he smote them blind. He said, "Are you looking for Elijah?"
Said, "Yes, that's who we're looking for." They was blind. Why, said, "Old man with the long whiskers, tell us where Elijah is."
"Do you want to find him?"
"Yes."
Said, "Come on."
 
  ^E-57  And they all knew him, but they were blind. Said, "Come on, follow me. I'll take you right where he's at." He knowed where the Israelite armies was laying in ambush. He just led them right in between. He said, "Now, I'm Elijah. Open up your eyes." Blind and don't know it... You know, that's what's the matter with the Church. It's blind and don't know it.

My grandpapa was a--an old hunter. And he used to trap and hunt raccoons. I bought a little tail, one the other day in a ten cent store, from a little Amish girl, to take to my Joseph to put on his--his little bicycle. And grandpa would catch raccoons, and when he rendered out the fat, he'd make some sort of a grease out of it that mama kept in a can.
 
  ^E-58 And we lived in an old house with clapboard shingles. You know what a clapboard shingle is? And we used to have to put a canvas over us at night when it'd snow to keep the snow out of our face. You could just look at the stars right through them old clapboards.
And we'd get bad colds, and it would settle in our eyes, us little kids. And mama, every morning when she'd come to the bed and our eyes was all mattered up (she called it), matter all in our eyes (It was cold in our eyes.), she'd go down and get grandpa's old coon grease, and she'd come up, and rub our eyes and massage it with coon grease. And believe it or not, in a few minutes all the matter was out of our eyes and we could see.

  ^E-59  Now, you know what's the matter with the church? It's been so cold till it's got a spiritual cold. And it'll take more than coon grease to open your eyes. It'll take the oil of the Holy Spirit and the power of the resurrection of Christ to take the coldness away from the church and open their eyes, that they might see the Presence of the Lord Jesus.
Let Him open your eyes. He's the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity here tonight to grease up your eyes with God's salve: open your eyes.
You know what? American people are--want to be entertained. They want some little Hollywood star with kinky hair and dressed up like I don't know what to come out and make entertainment, 'cause that's what you see on your television. I'm just one old fashion preacher that believes that there's no cure but the Blood of Jesus Christ. That's right.