Revival
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 128

St. John 4:13-14, "Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drin-keth of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh oft the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him a well of wa-ter springing up into everlasting life."

Let us consider what God's Prophet said about it:

A fountain of living water... We find out what is a fountain of living water. We find out what the cistern is. Now, what is a fountain of living water? It's an artesian well. "An artesian well, what's that, Brother Branham?" It's a well that's always comes from beneath and pushes its water out. It's flowing all the time. It is self-supporting, always fresh and clean, an artesian well, a fountain of living wa-ter. It's not dead and stagnated; it's living. It's constantly changing, bringing up something new all the time, moving on, coming from its resources. It draws its resources from its bed, which is a--still a fountain of living waters spraying up, self-cleansing. It's clean, pure, clean water. It's self-supporting; you don't have to wait for the rains to fill its tank up. It's always a-bubbling up, gives its water free. You don't have to pump it, wind it, twist it, or join it. It's just a fountain of living waters.

You know, you take these old cisterns, you have to crank it and crank it and crank it, and pump, and everything to get a little of that stagnated water out, but a fountain of living water gives it out free without pumping, joining, anything else (Jer. 2:13).

Oh, I'm glad for that Fountain (Ps. 36:9). Yes, sir. It needs no strainer on it to take the parasites out, for it's coming so deep down there in the rock until there's no parasites there. It don't have to have an educational rag hanging on it (That's right.), some worldly-made system of manmade, denominational wisdom to tell you before a psychiatrist whether you're able to preach or not. It don't have one of those filthy rags hanging on it. It'd push it right off as soon as you put it on there. You can't do it. That well is bubbling up all the time. If you'd put one of them rags on it, it'd throw it plumb out of the one side or the other. It don't have no time for a denominational rag on it. Ha.

You don't need no filter, no strainer, no pumping, no jerking, no nothing else. It's just there, bubbling up. It don't have to depend on local rains to fill it up. Rains are revivals. Where that fountain--that's at that fountain of life, where the Carcass is the eagles will gather. You don't have to pump up a re-vival; you don't have to pump up nothing. Only thing you have to do is just come to the fountain. It's always full of good, fresh water, and there's no end to it. It just keeps on bubbling.

You don't have to go to the cistern and say, "Well, if it rains and washes off the barn, we'll have something to drink." My, my. Not this, that artesian well's spurting forth good cold water all the time. You can depend on it. You don't have to say, "Well, I'll go to this old cistern. We used to drink out of it, but it hasn't rained in a long time. I tell you, it may be dry."

That's the way some of these manmade systems are. You can go in, if you got a big something going on, a big kaboo, and selling something, or--or some kind of a something going on, a big parties and things going on, bunco games, and parties in the basement, everything, you might find a full house; but where you go to where that Fountain is bubbling up always, the people are there getting them a good cold drink of water; you can depend on it. Say, "They haven't had a revival for ten years." If you live by that Fountain, she's always got a revival going on.

That's the way it is when you live by that Fountain of living Waters. It's living all the time, bubbling over, and over, and over, and over; there's no end to it. Not go see if some water, if we had a rain here not long ago; that's not it. It's that Fountain of living Water.

As I say, it gives its water free. You don't have to put rags on it to find out--some educational rags 'fore you can send him out to preach and see if he spells his words right, speaks them right, if he uses the nouns and pronouns, and so forth, and adjectives. Many of them don't even know what they are. But he's living at the Fountain just the same (See?)--the same.

It don't have to depend on the local rains to fill it up or the local revivals, for it don't have to do that, for its power and its purity is within itself. That's where the Word is, Its own power. When a man can receive It in his heart, It's got Its purity; It's got Its power. It's right in the Word Itself. Springs forth to Life (John 7:37-38).

What we need today is not a lot of material things; we have that. We don't need greater churches; we don't need greater congregations. We don't need more on radio and on television. We don't need so many more of these things. But what we need today to be spiritual, is a person that will humble themselves before God if they haven't got a penny, and will pray till that spirit within them is satisfied with the goodness of God, and a revival takes place on the inside of their heart that changes their attitudes and atmosphere that they live in.

Now, listen real close now. Now, we find out that there would be wars and rumors of wars. And now we see that the fig tree's put forth its buds, and the other trees put forth their buds, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and all put forth their buds, a great revival going on. Now, I believe that God's gathering the Bride for that last hour, the elect. Oh, my.

Now, that's what's the reason today that the revivals that we're supposed to have... We have denominational revivals; we haven't had a real stirring. No, no, no, no. No, sir. Don't think we got revivals. We haven't. Oh, they've got millions and millions and millions of church members, but not a revival nowhere. No, no.

The Bride hasn't had a revival yet. See? There's been no revival there, no manifestation of God to stir the Bride yet. See? We're looking for it. It will take those seven unknown thunders back there to wake her up again. He will send it. He promised it.

Brother Branham was questioned: Have the seven thunders which equals seven mysteries already been revealed? Were they revealed in the seven Seals, but are yet not known to us as the thunders yet?

No, they were revealed in the seven Seals; that's what the thunders was about. They was to reveal... The seven thunders that had uttered their voices and no one could make out what it was... John knew what it was, but he was for-bidden to write it. He said, "But the seventh angel, in the days of his sound-ing, the seven mysteries of the seven thunders would be revealed." And the seventh angel is a messenger of the seventh church age.

I watched one time at the seashore where a wind was blowing, and it was just shaking. Well, it wasn't a seashore; it was up in Lake Michigan. I was standing out there watching the waves as they come in, and, oh, that sea was a jumping, or the waters a jumping, and the boats a rocking. And I thought, "What is that going on?" I thought, "Why, the lake's having a revival." That's it. It jumping and shak-ing, why? There's a rushing mighty wind coming down on it. Well I thought, "Well, you know what? There isn't one more drop of water in it right now than what it was when it was perfectly still." No more water in it, it's just all stirred up. Well, now, what's it stirred up about?" You know what a stirring up of the water does? Washes all the trash out of it up on the bank.

That's what we need: a washing of unbelief out on the bank, let the Word of God have preeminences. That's what we need, a revival to wash all the unbelief out, and all the bugs, and superstitions, and things. Come out and see that God's still God. That's what we have revivals for (Matt. 12:38-42; Heb. 13:8).

How can we have a revival when we're bound? We've bound the Holy Spirit with our organizations and traditions, and we can't have a Holy Ghost revival. Amen. I know that's scorching hot with the weather, but it's the truth. How can we have a Holy Ghost revival when you're so bound and starchy? "Form of godli-ness," the Bible said they'd have. "Form of godliness, but would deny the power thereof." The power of what? The power of the organization? The power of the world? The power of the church? The power of the Holy Ghost. That's the secret place in the church. And when the church adopts educated preachers, and big buildings, and finery, in the stead of the old fashion Holy Ghost, they'd better be in the mission again. Amen. True. How you going to have a revival of the Holy Ghost, and people quench It and bound It and afraid of It? There's where the trou-ble lies.

I think that it's a time that we should never let the Spirit of revival die. We've got to keep in revival, constantly revive every day. Paul said he had to die daily that Christ could live. And we must never let that revival die within us (I Cor. 15:31).

But on backsliding, remember, you backslide every day. There's no way at all for you to keep out of it. All right. But you backslide to the people in the church, but not before God... See? You backslide on Christ, but you don't on God. 'Cause, if you had really sinned, you're gone. But you're constantly falling. Paul had to die every day. Is that right? He had to die every day, repent every day, and just constantly repenting all the time. See? And if Paul had to do that, then I'm going to have to too. Aren't you? That's right.

Now, if there's anybody got the mechanics for a revival, is our noble brother, Billy Graham. But the mechanics is all right, but the mechanics won't move it; it takes the dynamics to move it. You can build an automobile, put fine seats in it, make fine pistons, and prove by science what it can do; but unless the dynamics is there, she's just a dead piece of goods.

So in the Welsh revival, one of our late revivals before our Pentecostal, no one knowed what started the revival, just a bunch of people.
Our friend, Billy Graham, will get all of the Presbyterians, and Lutherans, and Pentecostals, and everything together, go into the city, and there they'll have a great gathering together of thousands, and thirty thousand will come in two weeks and give their hearts to Christ; go back another two weeks and you ain't got a one. See? That's the mechanics.

But let God in His sovereign grace just speak to some little nitwit, as so to say, a little nobody; let His Spirit fall into a city and men can't go to work, women can't wash dishes, the maid can't make the bed, a-screaming and crying with their hands up in the air. That's revival; that's in the will of God.
It was said that some noblemen from the church went over to the Wales to understand, or figure out what all the mechanics was in the revival, during the Welsh revival. And when they got off the ship with their tall hats on, and their round collars; see come down the street, a little policeman, swinging his club around and around like that, whistling, they said, "My good man, could you tell me where the Welsh revival is?"
He said, "Yes, my brethren; you're standing in the middle of it." He said, "You understand, I am the Welsh revival," said, "because the Welsh revival's in me."

That's sovereign. That's what God does, and He alone has a right to send a revival. Not get the mechanics together, it's pray for God to send the dynamics.

Now, we have just witnessed one of the greatest revivals, I believe, that the world has ever seen, in these last ten, fifteen years. But, now, in the last few years it's quietened down. You don't notice the enthusiasm in the people that used to be.

I remember one night in Vandalia, Illinois. I walked into the meeting, and had no more had been in the meeting over five minutes and there wasn't a feeble per-son around the place, anywhere. Wheelchairs pushed out and piled up, blind was seeing, and deaf and dumb speaking, and it just simply, It's... The Spirit of the Lord was present, and He just healed the whole group of them. Now, that's when you can do something, when revival is going on.

But let that revival fire die down, then you can hardly... The people are still Christians, but they're not revived into that Spirit, that great atmosphere that does something. It's just like in a forge in a blacksmith shop; you've got to get the iron hot before you go to pounding it on the anvil. If you don't, you'll never straighten it out. That's what it takes to have a revival, is everybody under the heat of the Holy Spirit that's brought down the powers of God in a revival moving. Then there's prayer meetings going day and night, every minute everywhere.

There's where the blind was seeing, the deaf was hearing. And the ministry tonight is a hundred miles beyond that, but the revival fires has died down.

Brother Branham was questioned again: What seems to be wrong in the day when we are living, of being a believer and following the Message and messenger of today, when you cannot seem to pray like you would like to?

That's a good question. I believe brother, sister, ever who asked it, it's a cause of the conditions of time. The revival is over. The revival has lasted some fifteen years, never did last before over about three years. I believe it's received its last revival. And I believe that's why you can't pray and feel in the Spirit like you used to. It's because the revival fires has gone out.

I notice in out chapters and so forth of the Business Men, "There's coming right away, hallelujah, a great revival."
Don't be deceived, "He has already come, and they did to Him what was list" (Matt. 17:12). But they think there's a revival. Is it happening? No! It's done, dead; it's over. Notice, this is lamp trimming time, coming out and going in. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31; Matt. 25:1-7).

This is just to the church, the Body of Christ, that we're trying to lead to deeper thoughts and higher objectives, believing that the coming of the Lord Jesus is at hand. We believe that much more. It's twenty years closer than it was the first time I come to Shreveport. Oh, so much has happened since that time. Now, we're looking forward for the coming of the Lord in our generation. I'm not looking for revival in our generation; I'm looking for the coming of the Lord in our generation.

That's why each generation has its own revival, a chance at the Word. Oh, the sovereign God at the judgment... John Wesley's group will raise up, and these "starched-washed" Methodists of today will answer for it. Luther will raise up. The Catholics will raise up. And back behind Irenaeus, Martin, Polycarp, and those, and will have to stand the judgment for hybreeding the Word of God to dogmas. This group of Lutherans that followed Lutherans' revival will answer the same thing. The group of Baptists that followed John Smith's revival will do the same thing. Alexander Campbell's will do the same thing. And the Pentecostals will do the same thing. That original revival, when the Holy Ghost fell, called out a people, and God trying to get His Word to it, and they organized it, and set over here, and denominated, and died right there.

Notice. But watch when the spiritual Bride when She begins to have a re-vival, when She begins to come back and line Herself up with the Word of God, watch then again, how that the Scriptures, at that time there'll be a message sweep out to catch that Bride, catch that woman - elect. For as the world... Satan the deceiver, who deceived the first bride to sinning against God by misbe-lieving His Word...

But then, watch again to the spiritual church, how that group of people "called out," the Elected through every revival. In Martin Luther; it happened the same way in the Reformation. It happened the same thing in the time of John Wesley. It happened the same thing when Pentecostal first started. They dropped them women right back in line with the Word, and then they drift away. There she goes right back over into chaos; but then the time that the people are ready to line up, there is a message comes forth, and they line with it.

Luther was the messenger of one day of justification; and the church lined right with it: some of them; the rest of them continued on. Wesley come with sanctification; the church lined right with it. Pentecost come with the restoration of the gifts; the church lined right with it, the elect of that day, and then, faded away, went right back off in denominationalism and went right out with the rest of them, all of them right down along the line.
Now, but you notice when the people begin to try to line with the Word, there comes a fresh message from the Word of God right straight to the peo-ple, and it kept that message in line up, every time. It's just in God. We have that.

What time is it, brother? What time is it, minister? Do you see the time of the day and the sign you're living under? Can you understand it? Do you see it?
Everywhere now there's no revival. Everybody's complaining, ministers crying. I was reading one of the outstanding papers that comes here to the church, a very fine paper. And I know the editor, and I know the people. And they're godly people, very fine, Brother and Sister Moore, of the "Herald of His Com-ing," one of the finest papers on the field, "Herald of His Coming." But they hardly will print anything unless it's about, "Fast, pray, fast, pray. Sound a trum-pet. Get..." How many reads it? You know, you see it all the time. "Fast, pray, fast, pray!" That's all you hear. "Fast, pray. We're going to have a great breaking of the day. There's a great thing going to happen. All of you pray, pray, pray. We're not too late yet."
Why do they do that? Why do they do that? They want a great awakening. They're crying, believing that there will be awakened. They're good people. Why is it? What have they done? They have not recognized the awakening of the Bride. See? By being a Christian they feel the pull of the hour, but they haven't recognized what's been done. That's what's making them feel that way. They know something's supposed to happen; but they are looking for it way off in the future to come, when it's already happened right by you.

Now let me say this here. I don't believe that God is calling only to the false church to repent (Rev. 3:19). In this verse He is talking to His elect. They have some repenting to do, too. Many of His children are still in those false churches. They are those of whom it speaks in Ephesians 5:14, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." To be asleep is not to be dead. These are sleeping amongst the dead. They are out there in the dead de-nominations. They are floating along with them. God cries out, "WAKE UP! Re-pent of your folly." Here they are lending their influence, giving their time and their money, actually their very lives to these antichrist organizations, and all the while thinking it is all right. They need to repent. They must repent. They need to have a change of mind and turn toward truth.

Yes, this is the age that most needs to repent. But will it? Will it bring back the Word? Will it again enthrone the Holy Spirit in men's lives? Will it again re-vere Jesus as the ONLY Saviour?

A revival, to my opinion, doesn't consist of, well, bringing in new members. A revival doesn't consist of a bunch of conversions, although those things go along with a revival. But a revival is to revive what you've already got, just to get them revived (II Peter 1:13-14).

Reference:
"Broken Cisterns" (64-0726E), par. 74-83
"Israel In Egypt" (Israel and the Church Pt. 1), pg. 1 / "Be Certain Of God", par. 21
"The Second Seal", Seal's Book pg. 211 / "The Third Seal", Seal's Book pg. 253
"Questions & Answers" (64-0830E), Q-No. 395, COD pg. 1161
"The Presence Of God Unrecognized", par. 3 / "A Deceived Church By The World", par. 73
"How Can I Overcome", par. 33 / "Questions & Answers" (54-0103M), COD pg. 66, par. 48
"Trying To Do God A Service" (65-1127B), par. 125-130, 155
"Calling Jesus On The Scene" (64-0319), par. 41-50
"Questions & Answers" (64-0830E), Q-No. 386, COD pg. 1158
"Invisible Union Of The Bride", pg. 4, 8-9 / "The Spoken Word Is The Original Seed", pg. 18
"Recognizing Your Day And Its Message", par. 81-82
"Laodicean Church Age", Church Age-Book pg. 356

Spiritual Building-Stone No. 128 from the Revealed Word of this hour, compiled by: Gerd Rodewald, Friedenstr. 69, D-75328 Schömberg, Germany
Phone: (+49) 72 35 76 13, Fax: (+49) 72 35 33 06

There's coming one with a Message that's straight on the Bible, and quick work will circle the earth. The seeds will go in newspapers, reading material, until every predestinated Seed of God has heard It.
[Bro. Branham in "Conduct-Order-Doctrine", pg. 724]