Branham Stories
Changing Coats
Christians, I may never see you again. It's been years since I been here. May never see you again. Line up with God's Word. Look in the mirror. Like a little boy one time, that'd been out in the country. He never seen a mirror. He come to his--his auntie's house. He started walking up the steps. He seen a mirror; and he seen a little boy in the mirror. He kept walking up, looking. And he'd wave, and the little boy'd wave. And he kept looking. He never seen himself in a mirror. So when he got close enough to it, he turned around and said, "Why, mama, that's me."
How do you look in God's Mirror? Does it reflect a daughter or a son of God? Is there something which you hear that--does it make you hate the man that's saying it, or is there something pulls, say, "I know that man's right, because that's in the Scripture." Then that's the vitamins needed for this body that's ordained to be there, a house that that other one's going to need when you get there. See? This house... If we have borne the earthly...
Now, remember, we think so much of this body. We put so many clothes on it. We do so many things that's unnecessary, change after change after change and all these things and... And why, it's just everybody. Just let somebody start something. You paint your steps red and watch the Joneses paint theirs red. You change from a Chevrolet to a Ford, and they just can't stand it. It's matching time. You let the--you let a woman come to church, certain type hat on, watch all the women get that, especially the pastor's wife. See? Just watch what happens. Now, that is true. That is the absolutely truth. It's matching time. Brother, it ought to be matching time at...
All them--all them things is--is for a purpose. I don't care whether my coat matches my trousers, and I have a hard time. My wife, or my daughter-in-law, or somebody has to tell me what kind of--of a tie to wear with it. I--I don't care whether they match at all. I want my experience to match God's Word. That's the thing, 'cause that's where I aim to live, not down on the corner yonder with the Joneses, but yonder in glory where Jesus has gone to prepare us a place. Yes, we want that. Yes, sir.
Keep from all this... This old earthly tabernacle here, you know what it is? This body is like an old coat that you wear, a coat that you once wear. But now, you have one so much better, you don't use it any more. What do you do? You hang it in a closet, for you've got one better. You've got a better coat. It's more up to date than the one you used to wear that's worn out. What? It is that garment. You are the inside of that.
Remember, that garment only done what? It bore your image. See? But you don't need it anymore now. You've hung it up. It's a rag. And that's the way this old body is. You... It's bore the image of the heavenly, yet it is not you. You are on the inside of that body. You, the Spirit of God, is on the inside of that body. That's what makes the outside come into subjections, because the inside is pulling it (See?), bringing it in the line with the Word of God: your inside, you, yourself, your being. This body's just an old coat, and someday what will you do with it? For you was--was only in the garment for a while. That is like the earthly garment, this body, your--your real body, your real self is on the inside of this old coat, that you call William Branham, or Susie Jones, or whoever it is. See? Someday it will hang in the earth's hall of memory of you. You'll put it out yonder in the grave, and somebody will put a tombstone up, "Here lies Rev. So-and-so, or John So-andso, or So-and-so." It'll lie there as a memorial of you. The people just seeing you in this, and what you was, your real you, was on the inside of that.
But the old coat itself just born the image of the heavenly. Oh, people, have you made reservations to change coats? Have you made reservations for heaven? Remember, you must have reservations. You can't get in without them. I'm talking to you in modern language now. But you know, if you go to the hotel and say, "Well, I had..."
"Did you have reservations? Well, I'm sorry, everything is filled up." You're out in the cold, because you failed to make reservations. And if you've come to the end of your life's journey without reservations, there'll be no one there to meet you. You'll have to step off into a dark eternity where there will be screaming, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. You must; you can't get into the city, you're--because you haven't got reservations. You must have them to enter this city where Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you. Remember, you must have the reservations and the garment of salvation on. You cannot...
In Matthew I've got a Scripture here (I'm watching Scriptures), Matthew 20-22:1-14. I haven't got time to read it, because it's getting too late. I've spoke too long to you. But remember, the King sent forth and made a supper. He killed all of His oxen and--and fixed the fatlings, and everything, and had a great supper prepared. And He sent out and He bid many to come. One said, "Well, you know, after all, I belong to this, and I got this. And I got to go to my farm," and one did many things. And He sent again, and they evily mistreated them.
And finally... That was the Jewish generation Jesus was talking to; they had something else to do. Then finally, He sent him and said, "Go, just don't--just compel them. Go into the streets, and highways, and everywhere, and compel them to come in." And after that, determined that His house was--His wedding supper was going to be set. There was going to be guests there. And then He found a man in there without the wedding garment on. He wanted to hold to the old coat. And look what he said: "Friend, after I have invited you to My wedding supper, and I invited you and give you an invitation to come..."
And if you ever was in the Orient, which I preached in there many times, that wedding supper's still carried on just the way it was. The bridegroom, the--he has so many guests that he's going to have. Probably, Brother Kopp, probably you've watched it there in India. See? They just have so many guests that he's going to ask. Say he's going to ask thirty guests. Now, the bridegroom has to furnish the robes. He has to furnish them. Therefore, there's a man stands at the door, and you come up with your invitation; he examines your invitation and puts you on a garment, a robe, that... Some of them are rich; and some are poor; and some of them are different; but they all look alike when they get these robes on. They all look alike. And you have to all be alike. You ain't going be say, "I'm the Methodist over here," "I'm the Presbyterian over here." Oh, no. You ain't going in the first place. See? You've got to come by the Door. Jesus said, "I am the Door to the sheepfold."
"I'm Pentecostal." "I'm this, I'm that." That don't mean one thing. You come by that Door. And if you come by that Door, you get the robe.
And this man, well He said, "How did you get in here, Friend?" See? It showed he come up some other way; and he come in a window, come in the back way, but not through the Door, not through the Door, the way that Jesus came, through self-sacrifice, giving your all to God, and walking to Calvary, and be crucified with Him, and rise again to wear His garment of sacrifice and death to the things of the world.
If you love the world or the things of the world, the love of God's not even in you. See? If you still have the love of the world, want to act like the world and do like the world, you're trying... You're yet... You're in the church, but a cocklebur in the patch with the wheat: shout with the rest of them; rejoice with the rest of them; all the spiritual blessings is right upon you. You say, "Well, I prophesy." So did Caiaphas; so did Balaam. That has nothing...
"I got the baptism of the Holy Spirit." That still has nothing to do with it. That's just only a temporal gift for you. The real gift is your soul down in there (See?) that was borned of God, and that controls the whole thing to the Word of God and the will of God; and there you grow up. See? Then you are a son and daughter of God. You are a child of God. And these things that you come up... Like the mother now, you're in the bowels of the earth trying to come forth. You're a son of God coming forth and you see the Word says, "I should do this; I should be borned again." "Well, I belong to a church." That don't mean one thing. See?
"I'm Methodist, my mother..." That's good for your mother.
"Well, my, I'm Pentecostal; I belong..." If you don't line with that Word, there's something wrong. See? Then you see, your real father ain't God (See?), because that real start in your soul, before there even was a spirit, it was your soul. That soul didn't come from God, then it wasn't a germ of God to begin. You're deceived. You're in a patch of weeds and bearing the world's record of the weeds, coming forth acting like the world, loving the world, is because the love of God's not in you.
And now, there'll be false anointed ones in the last days, not false Jesus; they wouldn't stand for that, but false anointed. They are anointed. Yes, sir. But they are antichrist. They are anointed with the Spirit to do the signs and wonders that Christ did, but won't line up with His Word. See? "Many will come to Me that day and say, 'Lord, have not I prophesied and cast out devils in Your Name?'" He'll say, "Depart from Me, you that work iniquity, I never even knew you." "I was Pentecostal, Lord. Glory to God. I shouted; I spoke with tongues; I laid hands on the sick and healed them, cast out devils.
"Depart from Me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you." See what I mean?
Oh, little children, do you feel the need of that vitamin tonight, that something... There's a body waiting yonder; there's a body waiting to be received. People, don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. The devil is a deceiver. Even the--the wedding garment, you must wear it. It must be.
Now, we're at the evening time. The earthly body is now ready to be dissolved, and we're preparing to enter in into the heavenly. And we now feel the strange call of God to go to this great Eden. And before we could be born here, our little bodies cried for something that--that had to be provided or we'd be an afflicted child here if we wasn't. God has no afflictions up there. They're every one perfectly lined up, the Bride, just exactly like the Groom was: the Word manifested in It's season. God grant tonight, children, each and every one of you.
There is a heaven to go to; there's a hell to stay away from."
