The Family Altar Audio Devotional - Day 9

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)  47 Some years ago I was talking to a—a Indian guide that had got lost on the desert. His name was Tim Coy, very well-known guide. And he got lost out on the desert in the Arizona’s, and he couldn’t find his way back. And his horse… If you was ever lost… I’ve been lost. The nose becomes raw and bleeds where the sand boiling up. Your tongue becomes so thick you can’t speak, your lips turn upside, inside out and crack all over. Then the devil shows you a mirage. That’s something… You go down the road and you look like you see water. When you get there it’s not water. That’s the way the devil does to church members and sinners. He tries to show you something pleasant.  48 And many times the tourists that wander off the road and—and get into the desert to pick some flowers, then all of it looks alike and they can’t find their way back. And before they die, they see those mirages. And they run to it, jump into it, and thinking they’re throwing water on them, but they find they’re only throwing hot sand on their head. And a long time before death, the great vultures come from the skies and pick their eyeballs out while they’re laying on the desert. How oft does people, sinners, and church members, and pretenders, when the devil shows you a mirage where you can be popular, you dress so and so, and go with the crowd and so forth, the buzzards of hell pick your eyes out to the Gospel a long time before physical death ever strikes you. You go to a meeting, say, “I don’t believe in that stuff.” Why the buzzards of hell’s picked your eyes out. That’s your spiritual sight.  49 Tim said that he come down. He was a Christian man, a very renowned Christian man. He said, “I got off my horse; I prayed and I prayed for water.” Said, “I’d lost my way and I couldn’t find nowhere.” Said, “After while I come up on a path where it looked like either buffalo or something had run.” And said, “My old horse, her name was Bess.” And said, “She begin to nicker, and I got up on her, tried to ride again, and she was too weak to pack me.” And said, “I’d walk a little piece following this…” Said, “I was told that sometimes them paths led to a water hole.”  50 And said, “I started to ride her; she was too weak.” And said, “Then I was all excited and trying to get down the path,” and said, “The first thing you know, I—I found myself stumbling and falling. I was too weak. I was gone.” Said, “I climbed back into the saddle again, started.” And said, “Over to my right, there was a little dim trail that led off to the right.” Said, “My old horse Bess tried to take that trail.” Said, “I said, ‘Come out of there, Bess. You can’t take that trail. This is the trail. It’s wider. It’s better. More of them went this a way. This goes to the water.’” And said, “She started nickering and trying to go the other way.”  51 Said, “I had a pair of wheel spurs on. Before I knew it, I was just cutting her to pieces with these wheel spurs, trying to make her go down that broad path.” And said, “Then she started; she stumbled and got to her knees.” And said, “I jumped off of her, and I looked at her. She was standing there about ready to perish, looking down that little trail, and was nickering, and the blood running out of her sides where I’d cut her with those spurs…” Said, “I stood there a little bit, and I thought, ‘Oh, what will we do. We’re no better off.’” Said, “I rubbed her on the face, and I said, ‘Bess, I have often heard that animals had instinct and maybe the big wide path don’t lead to the spring.’”  57-0811a - "The Greatest Gift In The Bible"  Rev. William Marrion Branham