<TITLE>05. Par 16-18</TITLE>L-16 And all the brethren must have pulled their oars up to listen to what he was saying.
"I remember my old Pharisee father said to me when we were fishing together, he said, 'Son, Simon, I don't suppose I'll see the coming Messiah; I'm getting old, and my days are few. But I've raised you up to look for Him. Now, let me teach you, son, so that you'll be sure you'll know Who this Messiah is, because there'll be many false one rise. There'll be many great things happen just before this real Messiah comes, but there'll be a real Messiahic sign with Him. And here's the sign that you'll know Him, whether He's real or not: He will be a prophet, a God Prophet. He will be more than a prophet, He will be God. But He will be a prophet too, for the Scripture says (what we go by, Simon) that Moses said, 'The Lord our God will raise up from among us a Prophet liken unto him. And He will be the gathering of the people now. And when you see the Messiah coming, the sign that He is the Messiah, He will be a prophet. And you look for Him for... For four hundred years now, we've had no prophets--since Malachi. I believe that the next sign of prophet that's showing will be the Messiah. And you watch it, son.'"
"And you know, when I went with Andrew, that kept repeating over in my heart. 'Watch this Messiah, and see if that is the One that Moses spoke of. He will be a God Prophet. And I'll know Him by that.'"
And he said, "Brethren, when I walked up in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth, He looked into my face for the first time in His life, and said, 'Your name is Simon.' I knew that was the Messiah. Not only that, but He knowed that godly old father of mine. He said, 'You are the son of Jonas.' That settled it for me, John. Before He ever broke the bread or anything, that settled it for me. I knowed He was the Messiah, because He give the sign of the Messiah."

L-17 And it must've been about that time, that perhaps Philip... When he said, "I followed Him one day; I went to His house. I heard Him speak; I heard what He said to Simon, and I--I took off. You ought to have seen the face of my friend that I went to get--Nathanael. Now, I know Nathanael was a good man; he was a religious man, not a doubter, but he wanted to be sure. And I told him, 'Come, see Who we have found, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, the Messiah Who we're looking for.'"
"And Brother Nathanael said to me, 'Could there be any good thing come out of Nazareth?'"
He said, "Come. See? Come, find out; come, look it over for yourself."
"And along the road I told Brother Nathanael."
And he might have stopped oaring, and said, "Nathanael, remember that?"
"Very well, Brother Philip. I remember it."
"And I told him that this Messiah had give a sign of a Messiah, that He'd told Simon who he was, and what his name was, and what his father's name was. And I told Nathanael wouldn't surprise me but what He told him who he was.
"Said, 'I'll wait and pass my own judgment.'"
"And when he come into the presence of the Lord Jesus, Jesus looked at him in the face, and said, 'Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile.'"
"Brethren, you should have seen the look on his face. All doubts had scattered, and he spoke out quickly and said, 'Rabbi, when did You ever know me? This is our first time meeting.'"
"He said, 'Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you.'"

L-18 Nathanael raised up, and said, "That settled it for me. I called out and said, 'Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.' For I knew that that... I learned it in the Scripture. I knew that that Messiah would be a God Prophet, and I seen that that was the Man; I was fully persuaded."


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