<TITLE>14. Par 39-40</TITLE>L-39 Notice, Noah was in the ark before any water fell. Lot had to get out of Sodom before any fire fell. The Church will get out of the world before an atomic bomb blows it up. It'll have to.
Notice, now let's watch what Sodom did, then we get right back.
You say, "Brother Branham, you got way off of your text."
Well, as David once said, David duPlessis said, "I cannot preach on the highway all the time, because a lot of the people I preach to don't live on the highways. I have to go down the lane and pick up some, come back again." So I get off my text, but I wanted to pick up some down on the lane now.
Now, notice, on this "In Sodom, as it was in the days of Sodom." Let's just stop for a few minutes here now on Philip's testimony. And let's go to Sodom just a moment.
Notice, Sodom... There's always three classes of people in the world: That's believers, make-believers, and unbelievers. That's the three classes that they always produces.
And now, in Sodom there was the Sodomites. You know what the sin of it was? It was terrible, just like it is in the--the world today. All right.
Now, and then Abraham... Now, Lot was down in Sodom a lukewarm Christian, a nominal Christian, because it said, "The sins of Sodom vexed his righteous soul." But he did little about it, let them come into his church, dressed any way they want to, act the way they want to, smoke, drink, gamble, and do anything. As long as they were, professed to be believers (See?), it was all right, just a lukewarm Christian, lukewarm church member.
Then, we notice that outside, up in the desert, separated, called-out was Abraham, the elected Church, elected by foreknowledge. God had called them out. The very word "church" means "called out and separated."
Israel was the people of God till they was called out of Egypt and segregated from the Egyptians, and then they were the church of God. The word "church" means "called-out."

L-40 Here they were, Abraham setting up there, things going hard for him. I'd imagine Mrs. Lot walked up and down her little ivory palace down there in Gomorrah and say, "You know what; there's poor old Sarah up there, hasn't even got a change of clothes hardly. There's Abraham, his cattle starving to death. Why don't they come down here and join our societies?"
But brother, they had a society in their heart. They had something that was making them, waiting for the coming of the Lord. One day when the weather was hotter than it is today, dry as it was, Abraham was setting in the door of his tent, where they had an old oak tree.
And I thought of that Brother Bud, if you're in here, when I come to your place today.
And setting there by the tent... And the--the herdsmen was out, and the water was all dried up, and they could hardly find anything for their cattle. And the first thing you know, Abraham happened to notice, and here come three Men with dust all over Their clothes, just ordinary Men. Abraham thought, you know, that there must be a little something different about those Fellows. He called Them in and set Them down.
He said, "Set down. Let me fetch a little water and wash Your feet, and refresh Yourself, and I'll get a morsel of bread, and You eat the bread. Then go on wherever You're going." 'Cause Abraham believed that there was something fixing to happen.


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