23-0724P_THIRSTING FOR LIFE

Psa 63:1  A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; 

Psa 63:2  To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. 

Psa 63:3  Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. 

THIRSTING.FOR.LIFE_  CHICAGO.IL  SUNDAY_  57-0630

E-27    Listen to what David said here, "My soul thirsts after thee in a dry land, where no water is." Oh, could you imagine being in a dry land, where no water is. That's taking a--like taking a fish out of the water. It'd kill him pretty soon. And the real borned again saint of God, not just once of a morning when you get up, but all through the day, that blessed thirst calls out for God. And you'll smoke a cigarette to quieten your nerves instead of praying, and a member of the church. You'll take a little sociable drink and call yourself a Christian, to quieten your nerves, in the stead of letting God quieten you, love Him.

THIRSTING.FOR.LIFE_  CHICAGO.IL  SUNDAY_  57-0630

E-28    You'll go up and throw your arms around some other man, have a little clean fun, have a little date on the side, a little afternoon kiss at the back gate to satisfy that thirst that God put in you to thirst after Him. And you'll take another man's wife, and run off with her, and live in a hotel with her, and carry on like that. I don't say you do it; you may be here. If you are, God burn that in your soul (That's right.), thinking you're having a little clean fun. There's an all seeing eye watching you.

And the devil is trying to burn your passions after other women as they walk up-and-down the street half dressed. And your long looking, almost half wreck, at them little old dirty, vulgar, stinking women out there with them little old dirty clothes on.

And you men that'll let your wife do that, that shows what you're made out of. That shows what kind of a man you are. A man is the head of the family; he's the head of the house. But today the women's the head of the house, head of the factory, head of the church, and everything else, because it's become a conglomeration of sin. And Satan took Eve, and he's still using her. And America is a woman's nation.

E-29    Not long ago in Germany, or Switzerland, some lady said to me, a Christian woman; she said, "Brother Branham, I'd like to go over to America. I hear that the ladies are really... Well, they have the big sway there." Not in Switzerland. No, sir. "Well, we have no..." I said, "But here's what follows. It causes prostitution." Right here in Chicago, according to your paper, you have two thousand abortion cases every day, two thousand abortion cases. Two thousand innocent babies die every day because of filth. How can you have a revival under them kind of circumstances.

How many prostitutes hit the street last night, and men with other women, and women with other men? And little girls sell their morals, and up-and-down the street, till finally they end up on skid row down here. As I walked through the city last night of Chicago and I looked what was going on. How can you expect the Holy Spirit to sweep a revival over something like that? It's got to have a place to anchor.

E-30    And they go through the churches out here of a morning, and hear a little old pettified sermon about something, go back home and think they are Christians, and close the church up early. If the pastor preaches more then twenty minutes on the roses, or who will be the next president, or something like that, they will fire him and put a new one in. That bunch of hypocrisy, hell bound, vulgar, pleasure seeking, the Bible said, "They'd be heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are right."

God, give us old time Christianity, borned again experiences. That thirst--that thirst is in you, but it's for a purpose.

THIRSTING.FOR.LIFE_  CHICAGO.IL  SUNDAY_  57-0630

  E-31    Woman was made woman for a man. Man was not made for woman, woman was made for man. But a woman was made for a man, not m-a-n, m-a-n, not men, many of them, but singular. That's right. But when they sell their morals, when they scandalize themselves, and men, the same thing, you're perverting the very cause that God made you a women or a man. Then you call that life. It's death. Then you go to church, and join church, and put your name on the church, and become a church member, and live like the world. It's perverting the very thing that God intended you to be, that thirst that God put in you to be like Him and to love Him and thirst after Him. The pastors, and the churches, and yourself, you've robbed yourself from that wonderful blessed thing that God ordained for you to use, that thirst: thirsting, thirsting.

E-33    Notice, David said again, as being a psalmist. And he was a woodsman; he lived in the woods. He knowed what it meant to be in the woods. He always wrote of the still waters, and green pastures, and the shady places. He knowed what it was, because a shepherd has to find those things. He has to know where those beautiful places are.

Many times have I been into the desert, riding out there, just place where I'd have to lead my horse. Poor thing was so much out of water, we couldn't have any to drink, the horse or I. How we would thirst... Oh, if only I could find a track somewhere to get back.

THIRSTING.FOR.LIFE_  CHICAGO.IL  SUNDAY_  57-0630

  E-34    And then when you get to that state, the devil begins to show you mirages. You know what a mirage is? Did you ever go down the road and look and see the sun shining on the road, looked like a lot of water? Oh, it'll fool you.

Here not long ago I seen where a bunch of geese coming from Canada, or ducks, and they seen one of those on the road, and fell in the road and they all bursted open. They thought it was a water.

Oh, the devil's got a many a pitfall for the people. It looks like it. And I've seen people thirsting, where they'd run into these places and fall into them, look, think they was in water. Looks just like a big running water, throw sand upon their head thinking it's water. And it's nothing but hot burning sand.

And then they was up there whooping it around, kinda relaxing, they would call it. One of them stopped and said, "Whoopee, this is life."

I said, "Oh, no, that's not life; that's death. The Bible said, 'She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she is alive.'" The Bible said that.

THIRSTING.FOR.LIFE_  CHICAGO.IL  SUNDAY_  57-0630

  E-20    And this many times that the devil tries to tell you that that's life. But that's death. And notice also that that life becomes so miserable till people take that life, take a gun and blow their brains out. There'll be many of them in Chicago perhaps this summer.

Our womanhood is broke. Motherhood of America is crashed. The morals is as rotten as in any nation there is in the world. What's the matter? It's because they have loved the things of the world more than they loved God, and they got a perverted. Exactly right.

Not only that, but our churches is crushed. Little old pulpit, sissified preachers that stands up in... I ain't criticizing no certain ones. But they stand up, and it's a meal ticket. It's an offering, or it's a popular name to get on television or on the air. I wouldn't sell my birthright to Jesus Christ for all the televisions and popularity there is in the world. No, sir. Life means more than these nasty ungodly things. I'd rather have favor with Christ then to be the president of the world. What a condition the world's got into.

E-25    Listen, friends. God created a man to thirst. God put thirst in a man. A man was made to thirst. And do you mean to tell me that you would try to quench that blessed holy thirst with the world, and with the devil's programs. You try to quench that thirst with drinking whiskey, that God put in you to thirst after Him? There's something in man to thirst; God made that thirst for man to thirst for Him. But you try to quench it with pleasure.

And this American people has quenched it with pleasure, mad. That's right. That blessed, holy thirst... You strip yourself on these beaches. You'll lay in these pool rooms, playing cards, social drinking, all this nonsense that you do, and stay home on Wednesday night watching the television instead of going to church. What are you doing? You're trying to quench that holy thirst. You got to quench it some way. And you reject Christ, and the devil pours his slop into you. Right. And you think that you're right, but the Bible said, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death." Death is total annihilation, separation. Don't you never try to quench that blessed thirst with something the devil put into you.

E-26    Now, not only... You say, "Well, I'm not a drunkard. I'm not a gambler. I'm not a pleasure seeker." But, brother, if the devil can't get you one way, he will try another. And the devil has tried to quench with his type of life, the thirst that God give you for His Life. He just let you join church. He's let you shout. He's let you speak with tongues. He's let you do all kinds of demonstrations, and still, you're drinking from the devils slop pens. That's exactly right.

When a man thirsts after God, his whole being is surrendered to God. People goes around today, and joins churches, and lives like the devil. They think they quench that thirst. "I go to church; that settles it." Many times I told them when they come on Easter, that's usually when everybody wants to show their new hat. They'll come on Easter; you might as well bid them a Merry Christmas, 'cause you won't see them again till next Easter. And yet they're members of the church. They are members of that denomination. But a member of the Church is borned again of the Spirit of God and their soul cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That blessed holy thirst that God give you to thirst after Him. Then you pervert it. Give it something else. That hunger, that thing that you want to do, test out and see what it's thirsting for; see what it's after.

E-51    Just be praying; the Holy Spirit's speaking. That little heart in you is moving.

 ... sinners plunged beneath that flood

Tonight say...?... Say, "Brother, preacher, I've longed for something; I don't know what it was." There's only one thing that longing was put in you for, that's right here. Here's where you long to be. The devil's trying to get you not to see it. But I'm praying in my heart as I'm standing here, "God, open the eyes of their understanding." I love you.