I once heard a statement made that a friend of mine made in the 1^st Methodist church here in DeWitt.  I had come back home to live after having been in N. M. for eighteen years.  I wanted to go back to the church I was raised in and share my testimony of Salvation! 

   I was part-time Sunday school teacher in different classes there for about two years.  One of the classes was an Elderly Lady’s class and one of the teachers there was an admitted agnostic.  He was an intelligent man, a Lawyer.  He would not stand and say there was no God, but neither would he say he was Sure of it!  And in class one Sunday, he was confronted by one of the Elderly Women and was asked why he would not confess that there was a God!  The agnostic gave her an answer that I haven’t forgotten.  I will repeat it in my own words, as I remember what he said.  Here was his thought!  “If you Christians want us agnostics to pay attention to your religion you will have to start living a life that  is  agreeable  with   what you say you Believe!  He said, “most of you Christians seem to me to be very uncomfortable People.  You seem to me like a man with a headache.  You carry your religion like a  person  with a headache.  He doesn’t want to get rid of his head, but at the same time it’s causing him a lot of grief!!!  Then he said, “I don’t care to have that kind of Religion!”

  That was almost forty-five years ago and I was still in my first glow of Joy because of my change and I couldn’t believe that any of God’s people are as uncomfortable   as this man said they were!  But when the early glow of my conversion was passed and I was required to live the Sometimes dull life of duties and responsibilities, I saw that there was much truth in what the lawyer had said.

   It seems like now that some people have just enough religion to make them Miserable!  And this is very wrong for us to live that Kind of life!  Why do some Christians live so nervous, upset, so full of fear, when the Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit of God is Love, Joy and Peace       ??  I didn’t have the answer until I came into our Endtime Message and learned that it takes the Holy Ghost Spirit entering our Soul to take away our doubts and fears and give us Peace!  He is our Comforter and without Him we are Uncomfortable.

   Br. Branham tells us our problem in the sermon “HE CARES DO YOU CARE”  I want to give some quotes in the sermon “HE CARES DO YOU CARE.”  It’s about how to get to Know God as He really is.  There is only one way and that is to get His Spirit in us.  Quote: “HE CARES DO YOU CARE?? July, 1963 Jeff. In. pg’s 16-17.  (The medicine he is talking about is the Holy Ghost!!!) “Unless the world repents, it’s got to perish.  See? And confession is what the world needs today, is honest Confession.

   It’s like medicine for disease.  We can all read on the bottle what kind of medicine it is and what disease it–it’s to cure.  But, you know, the reading of the directions, I’m going to apply that like to the Bible, our schools and seminaries can read all the Word.  But, you know, just reading the directions and how to take It,--It doesn’t cure the disease. See? It’s got the medicine, so It--It’s got to be taken!  So a man can say, “I am a--a theologian.  Now, don’t speak to me, I—I—I…. about such-and-such, I know the Scriptures.  I--I know that the Bible speaks thus-and-thus, that.”

   He that heareth My Word, St. John 5:24, for instance.  “He that heareth My Words and believeth on Him that sent Me, has Eternal Life.”  Or, King James puts it “everlasting,” which is “Eternal,” rightly.  “Has Eternal Life because he’s believed.”  Many people say they believe.  Now, that is true.  The—the  Scripture--is correct.  I’m reading the Prescription, I--I’m reading what  the Prescription is, and the Antidote for my sin, but can I take It?  Can I believe?  I might say “I believe,” but do I believe?  That’s the next thing.  Just read It and know the directions, doesn’t cure the disease.  The trouble is that (in our case)  we won’t take what  the

Remedy says do.  We got the Remedy, but we won’t take It.  We say we do because we can read It; but to really take It, we don’t do it.  See, the Gospel is the same way, a medicine in this case.  If the patient…And the remedy has been proven to cure the patient, and the patient reads all about the—the discovery of this drug, and they know every ounce of medicine that’s in It, they know all the—the scientist’s name that found this certain drug, like the Salk vaccine and so forth. If we know all the Word about It, but refuse to take It, It won’t help us.  See, It--won’t help us.

   But, and then how we say, “But we took it!”  And if you say you took It, and the patient shows no results, (he didn’t take it.) That’s all.   How, if that clock on the wall wasn’t such a busybody, see.  I’d like to stay here and bring down real strong for our--our people, since the Gospel has been proved these things, and they claim they take It, and they show that they don’t take it!  How can a person read the Scriptures upon the little thing that I talk about, about women with the bobbed hair and wearing shorts, and so forth like that, how can they call themselves Christians when the very Medicine itself says that it’s different!  See?  How?  You say, ‘But I danced in the Spirit, I spoke in tongues.”  That don’t mean one thing.  Your own life proves that you didn’t take It!  You said you—you took It, (but you didn’t!)  For you still are showing all the symptoms that the Medicine is supposed to cure.  And the Medicine, in the Gospel line, is a guaranteed cure!  It’s got to be.  Now you see, you got to show results.     The Medicine is the Holy Ghost.  He will bring forth results sooner or later!!

    You take a person says they are, “I am, I am a believer, I believe.”  Let the Gospel light strike them, Brother, they take It right now!  And they’ll show results.  Certainly.  You’ll not see that man in any more pool rooms, you’ll not see him out here with a cigarette in his hand, you won’t see him drinking.  Oh, no.  You won’t see him flirting with other women.  No, no, no.  I don’t care how much they throw their female flesh before him; he’ll turn his head towards the skies and look toward Christ.  What is?  It shows that the Remedy took effect.  And if it don’t take effect, you say “Well, I know I took It,” well, then where you at today then?  You are dying.  You show!  I’m looking at you as diagnosing your case, by the—by the Bible, that you’re still in sin.  And the wages of sin is death.  Don’t think it has to be made any plainer.  See, your own actions prove, your own actions prove that you didn’t take It.  You thought you did.  Amen.  You—you might have been all sincere in doing it, but you didn’t do it!  For, if you did, God promised It would take effect on you.

   Was the Prophet trying to condemn us and make us feel bad?  No!!  He was trying to get the New Soul in us. He was trying to tell us that many in our Message claim to be Born Again (Have the Holy Ghost, which is the New Soul) but their lives prove they are still unconverted!

   Please remember, Br. Branham was not  teaching Perfection in   the Flesh!   But   he  was   telling     us  we must Stop Planning to Sin.

  Romans 13: 14 “But    put   ye on   the   Lord Jesus Christ,    and make  not Provision  for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

    What does this verse mean?  It means we must Stop Planning to Sin.  There is a difference between Planning to Sin, and in being Tempted, or Tricked into Sin.

   Don’t turn on the T.V. to the channel where you know you will see Lewd things!

   Don’t go buy a bottle if you are asking for help to stop drinking.

   Don’t go buy cigarettes if you are trying to Quit Smoking.

   Don’t take the 3^rd plateful of food if you are trying to live a Fasted life!

   Men, don’t park your car somewhere so you can watch the scantily dressed women.  You know they will be there.

   If you are head over heels in debt, stop buying things on credit that you know won’t fit into your budget.

   If you are a speed addict stop looking in your rearview mirror or watching your Radar Detector to see if you can get by with it.

   We could go on and on, but this is how we Plan to Sin!!!  And God is watching the whole display of our actions and recording them.

   Don’t just read the instructions on the medicine bottle, but take the Medicine (Holy Ghost) He will produce the cure!  If we say we took the Medicine and we never get cured, then we call God a liar if we say we took It.  (If we say we have the Holy Ghost) The Holy Ghost does not fail to produce the cure for all who have Him.  God’s character is to always run after us, and to seek and save those that are lost!  He said, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine and go after that one that is lost until he finds it.”  “And when he has found it, he Layeth it on his shoulder rejoicing.”  This is always God’s part, to seek us out and find us.  But in our blindness, we don’t understand it!

    Our talk shows we don’t understand it!!!  We urge sinners to “Seek the Lord”  We ask the people, “Have you found the Lord?”  I heard of a zealous Christian worker who asked a trusting young girl, “Have you found the Saviour?”  She had a look of wonder on her face and said, “Why, I didn’t know He was lost.”

     It’s our ignorance about the Character of God that causes a lot of trouble.  The little girl was then asked “How did you get Saved, what was your Part?”  She replied, “My part was to run from God as hard as I could!”  They said, “What was God’s Part? And she said,” His Part was to run after me until He caught me!”  What wisdom from a child!  Luke 15:20 (The Prodigal son)  “…But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him.”

    Because we do not know the Lord as we should, our Natural mind gets all kinds of Wrong Ideas about Him!

We  suppose He is an angry Judge, who watches for our slightest Faults, or we think He is a hard Task Master with His mind made up to get the last ounce of Strength out of us.

   Some think of Jesus as a God who is just trying to get all the Glory He can, no matter what it does to us!  We don’t understand how deeply He is concerned about our welfare!

   There is no wonder that the people who have these kinds of thoughts about Jesus can’t really love Him and trust Him!!!     How can we expect Christians, who think so wrong about God to be anything but miserable and afraid!

   Here is what I want to say, and I can say it Plainly and Boldly, it  is impossible for anyone who really knows  The Lord, to have such wrong thoughts about Him.  He will correct us!!!

   We will have our share of Fleshly Problems and we will have Sorrows here in these bodies----But through them all the Soul that has been changed out,  (Received God’s own Soul)  will be able to live in Perfect Peace, while Sin rages all around them!  “But Whoso hearkeneth unto me (God says) shall dwell safely and be quiet from fear of evil.”  (Proverbs 1:33)

   Because of His loving nature, God can’t do anything different than to take care of us.     Not a single loop-hole is left for the devil to the Soul that has come from God.  (The New Birth)

   Some may say, “I have the Holy Ghost, but yet I don’t seem to be able to know God in the way you’re talking about.  A big part of the trouble is we’ve had a wrong idea about what Knowing God is!!!

   The kind of Knowing I’m talking about is just the Plain Matter of Fact Knowledge that comes to us by believing what is Written about Him!!!

   John 20: 30-31  30. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence  of  His  Disciples,   which are not written in this book:

   31.  But  these  are  written,   that ye might believe  that  Jesus  is  the   Christ,   the  Son  of  God;    and that

 believing ye might have  life through his name.”

   Don’t wait for some kind of a Mysterious inward Revelation that will give you Faith!!

   If you are Born again, you already know that God cannot lie, and that what is Written in the Bible is true.

   We are to Believe it because it’s wrote in the Bible.  All saved people know God can’t lie.

   When we read in the Bible that God is Love, we are Supposed to Believe it !!!

   The Bible is not a Book of Theories, but of Facts.  Things are not true because they are in the Bible, but they are in the Bible because they are true!!!

   We are to Believe what God has caused to be Written , whether we can See it or not, or whether we Feel   it    or  not,  or  no   matter   if everyone around us says it can’t be right.  We know it is Right and that is real Bible Faith!

      I heard a story about a little boy who had been studying at school about Columbus discovering America.  He said to his Dad, “If I was Columbus, I would not have gone to all the trouble he did to discover America.” 

Why?  What would you have done?  He said, “I would have gone to the map and found it.”

   He didn’t know that maps are only pictures of already Known Places, and that America did not exist because it was on the map.  But it couldn’t be on the map until it was known to be here     It is like that with the Bible, when it tells us that God loves us, it is telling us something that is a Fact.  It would not be in the Bible if it was not already Known to be The Truth.

   Once a person  is  convinced that 2+2=4, he will keep that knowledge all his life!  If he has a headache or a stomachache or any kind of sickness, it doesn’t change his knowing that 2+2=4!

   Revelation Faith comes from our Knowledge of the Word that is Written.     A child that is taught and convinced in grade school that 2+2=4 will retain that knowledge all his life!     No circumstance of his life can change that knowledge.  Not Sickness, nor Poverty, nor college degrees, so also must we Christians be just as convinced that what is Written in God’s Book is factual.  No circumstance of life should ever be able to change our mind.  Not Sickness, nor Poverty or riches or education or Social Standing.  That, Dear Friends, is Knowing God.

	Available Now:  A new order of the book “THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING CHRISTIANS”        By C.W. Wood        To Order:  Please send your name and address, typed out on a postcard to:        C.W.Wood --103 W. 6th St. --- DeWitt, AR  72042