<TITLE>09. Par 31-35</TITLE>L-31 But he said, 'Just a minute, let's move through the crowds. He's fixing to speak just in a moment. And everybody will be breathless while He is speaking.' And we moved through the crowd. And Andrew had been... seen John introduce Him and... So then, I moved up close, and I thought, 'I'm--I'm going to see--get a good look at Him. And I'm going to hear what He says, see if He is with the Scriptures.'"
"So I moved up close that day. When He got ready to speak, and I thought, 'Now, I'll just see what Andrew's been talking about.' And when He--before He opened His mouth to say anything, His eyes fastened upon me. And He looked at me and said, 'Your name is Simon and you are the son of Jonas.' Oh brethren, that--that fixed it for me."
"Not only did He know who I was, He knowed that godly old daddy of mine that had warned me and told me what the Messiah would be. Therefore, I knowed that that was God's Prophet, the Messiah that was raised up. That finished the testimony for me."

L-32 Must have been Philip about that time, that raised up and said, "Now, Brother Nathanael, I'm going to tell this on us now in the testimony meeting here out on the ocean." Wouldn't you have loved to have been standing, listening at it, setting up on the brail of the boat, listening at them?
And Philip might've said, "Well, I was standing there, Simon, when I saw Him do that, or heard Him. And I seen the expression on your face. You just fell right at His feet. And I thought, 'Surely that big burly man Simon, would just droop his shoulders down.' And He told you your name would be a 'little stone' after this."

L-33 "And I knowed that would be a good fitting name for you, because you were solid. When you believed anything, you believed it. And then I thought, 'How would He ever knowed that?' So I'd read the Scriptures too. So I knew my good friend setting up here at the end of the boat, which is Nathanael, so I took around the mountain to find him."
"And I found him under a tree praying. And when he finished his prayer and had gotten up, why I said, 'Come, see Who we have found, Jesus, the Son of Joseph, that's the Messiah.' 'Oh now,' he said, 'could there be anything good come out of Nazareth?'"
"And I told him, 'Come, see.'"

L-34 "And you remember along the road the... our conversation? And as soon as I brought Nathanael into the Presence of our Lord, He said, 'Behold an Israelite, in whom there is no guile.' And I'll tell you; I'm going to stop my testimony now. Now, Nathanael, you finish it."
"Well," said Nathanael, "I... All the doubt was taken out of me. But it... I was astonished as soon I seen the Man, the first time I'd ever seen Him, till He tell me that I was an Israelite and no guile. How would the Man ever know me, when I never laid eyes on Him in my life until I come to His meeting? And I thought I would question, and I was so enthused to think, 'Could the news be true or--or was I just dreaming a dream?'"

L-35 So I said, 'Rabbi (or Reverend, Teacher, whatever you wish to call it), when did You ever know me? Why, You have never seen me in Your life. And how would You know that I was an honest just man, no guile?' He said, 'Why before Philip called you, I saw you when you were under the tree.'"
"Brethren, I knowed then that was the Prophet that we'd been looking for all these years. And I confessed Him publicly before my priest and all the rest of them, knowing that I'd be excommunicated from the church for saying such a thing or taking a stand. But it made no difference to me. I knowed the Scripture said that's the kind of a Man it would be.
So I stayed with what the Scripture said, 'cause Moses... We were taught to believe Moses and the prophets. And they said that this Messiah would be a Prophet, and we haven't seen anything of it for hundreds of years. And here it was right with us. And I--I know the Man did not know me. So it settled it for me."


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