<TITLE>05. Par 36-42</TITLE>L-36 Well, we notice one thing about a cistern that's different from a well. Now, a cistern will get empty. The--the--the cistern cannot fill itself. It is--is... It's not reliable. You can't rely upon a cistern. It has to rely and depend upon the rains that fall in the summer or in the winter, whatever it is to... Usually, in the wintertime when the snow and rain comes, then it runs the water off into the cistern. And if it doesn't get that water, then you--you don't have any water. It's all--it's all... dries up. And it can't refill itself. The old cistern cannot refill itself. It gets its filling from the--the rains that falls.

L-37   And I want you to notice another thing about a cistern. Usually, you find, or the way it was at our place, the cistern... Usually the barn is about twice the size of the house, and they usually run the water off the barn, to the cistern. I remember that old cistern well out there, when he had... when the--the drain pipes rushing it in, too, off the barn. It fills from the barn.
So then the water is carried from the roof of the barn; where, all the animals stepping around through the stable yard, and all the filth of the barnyard settles on top the barn, in dry times. And then the water comes and washes it all down off the roof, into a trough that's man-made, then into a man-made spout, then into a man-made cistern. And if you haven't got a mess, I don't know what you got, when you got a cistern. Yes, sir! It's all man-made, and just as dirty as it can be.

L-38   You know, we used to call... We had a filter rag on one. Did you ever know what that was? Had to put a filter rag on it, to catch all the bugs and things that come off the top of the--the barn, and all around the place, and poured out from one place to another, into the cistern. And we used to put a--a filter rag on it, to catch all the--the scum and stuff that we could. Course, that wouldn't catch the real dirt, it just caught the big missiles that come down and fell into it. The bug might fall in it, but the juice of the bug went on with the water. So, you--you really had a mess when you had an old dirty cistern.

L-39   In a few days, you let that water stand there, and it becomes stagnated. You let the water stand in a cistern, it become stagnated. And it gets full of--of frogs, and lizards, and snakes. And we used to call it "wiggle-tails," little bitty... I don't know whether... They're not a parasite, they're a... I cannot, I don't know what you'd call them. But some little thing gets in the water, that--that we called it wiggle-tails. You know what it is. How many knows what I'm talking about? Oh, why, sure, all you country folks know. Gets it all full of stagnation, and then these lovers of stagnation comes with it. It just actually comes, because it's stagnated. And because it's stagnated, it draws the animal there that likes stagnated things.

L-40   And that's a whole lot like our churches today. I think that we have left... One of the great sins that the church has done today, just like Israel then, it left Him, the Fountain of living Water, and has hewed themselves out man-made cisterns. And it become a habitation of everything that loves that kind of water. Lizards, frogs, and all kinds of unclean germs, live in it, because it's a man-made tank. And in this tank these things stay, a perfect example of our denominationals today.

L-41 "Now," you say, "Brother Branham, why do you strike at those people so hard?"
It ought to be struck at. It's got to be struck at. Flee it, because it will finally form the mark of the beast. Remember, that is the Truth! It will be the mark of the beast. Denomination will lead right to it. It's on its road right there now, to force, by a power.

L-42 Look in the old Roman empire. That's exactly what led them to that mark of an apostasy. You found out that no man could buy or sell without the mark of the beast. He had to have it.


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