<TITLE>06. Par 20-22</TITLE>L-20 Now, to every one of you that's here, I wouldn't come here, I'd rather be home tonight, with my wife and family, a million times, and know that I'd meet God in peace than to come here and know I'd have to stand before Him to be a deceiver. I don't... Anything but to be a hypocrite or a deceiver, I certainly wouldn't want to be that. No one would want to be.
And I, if I didn't think that I was in the will of God, I wouldn't be out here tonight. If I didn't think that the message that I had for you from the Lord Jesus Christ would do you good, I certainly would not be here.
You know it's not for popularity. I'm a person that shuns that. If it would've been, I'd have been out here in the nation, tonight under a bright lights and everything else, with a great television, radio programs, and everything. It would've been different. And you know, a ministry of this type would produce that. But I've--I've shunned it, kept back from it, let my crowds be little, so you won't have to pull for money. Let the poor people have their money, and so forth. The Lord will take care of the rest of the thing if we--if it's just known.

L-21 And I haven't covet money. I don't take money. I was a Baptist preacher for several years, twelve years pastor of Tabernacle there at Jeffersonville, and never one time took an offering in my life, never one time. I worked for a living.
I remember one night, I was going to take an offering, and I... Well, you know how poor people get: you get to a place where you can't make ends meet. Did you ever have that ever happen to you? Yes. Where you can't make the ends meet... Then, and when I got in that shape, I said to the wife, I said, "Honey, I--I'm going to take up an offering tonight."
Now, they'd have done it, bless their heart there at the tabernacle, they'd have sold their homes to give to me. But I didn't make very much, and I was a game warden during the time; and I wasn't going to arrest nobody like that. I never... I was on seven years and never made one arrest, so... But I believe I made some good fisherman. That's one thing. I'd talk to them and told them about the Lord. So that's better. I wasn't fired; I just quit to serve the Lord.

L-22 So I didn't have much money, and we had a debt coming up, and I just needed five dollars so bad. And the brethren work and them making quite a bit of money, and I just got a little bitty salary, and then commission, on what I took otherwise; and I didn't make any of that, so I said, "Well, I need some money, honey. I just got to have it." And I said, "I'm going to take up an offering."
She said, "I'm going to watch you do it."
Over she goes and sets down right in front of the church; I said, "Well, brethren [Brother Branham clears his throat--Ed.] tonight," I said, "I kinda hate to ask you this." I said, "But I'm kind of in a little tight place, and I wonder if I'd pass my hat around if I could get just a little offering tonight, personally for myself."
We had a little box on the back of the church to pay the debts and things till, "Even so much you done to the little ones, you've done it to Me."


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