In this evening’s message, Brother Branham brings a parable of one of the most essential resources that sustains the physical body: water. The parallel is made through fresh life-sustaining water and the stagnant water that can be found in a cistern.
If you are not familiar of what a cistern is, it’s a large tank that collects run-off from barns, houses, and gutters. Here the water can be polluted with dirt, dead animals and bugs of all sorts. There is no telling what you will find in a cistern.
Today while the world drinks from these cisterns, the Bride is drinking from the cold refreshing well of water springing up unto everlasting life.
1 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
3 Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord.
4 Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:
5 Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
6 Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.
8 The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.
9 Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord, and with your children's children will I plead.
10 For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.
11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.
12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord.
13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
He has got a place that He meets His church today, and He chose that Name, and that Name is Jesus Christ. And there is where He meets the true believer, when he is in Jesus Christ. That’s where God chose to put His Name.
But, you see, everything God does is perfect, and what man does is imperfect. So why accept what man does, when you can have perfect?
It always has, and it always will be, because it’s the Spirit of God that conditions the atmosphere.
There is no holy man. There is no holy church. It’s a Holy Ghost! Not a holy church, a holy people; it’s a Holy Ghost among a people, that’s what it is. Amen.
But God’s artesian well, He’s the--He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, it keeps all the things bubbled out of it and shoved out of it.
There is only one Man of the hour, and that’s Jesus Christ, Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is only one Messenger from God, and that’s--that’s Jesus Christ.
The Life of God is within the individual, not in the church. In you, it’s in you, you’re the one that has the germ of Life in you.
You are an individual. God leads you just the way He wants to lead you.
The only thing, to come, is take the promise of God and come to that Fountain, then He will quench the thirst.
In the midst of the empty, dry tanks, just think of it; and complaining Israel, in the desert, in their journey! He called His servant-leader, the prophet Moses, out to one side, and opened up a fountain of living water, by a smitten Rock, so His believing children would not perish.
Let me say, that same God that was in the days gone by, that we speak so much of, He is present here now.
“Something is fixing to happen.” We feel the Holy Spirit warning us that something is fixing to happen. We see everything set in order.