I promised God, I would never take my first drink." ....." And said, "Now, if you want to shoot [me], you just shoot."

I had a story that was told me sometime ago. I might've told it in this church. If I have, you forgive me for repeating it just to hit the spot. There was an Indian guide, or kind of an overseer of the Indians. He was traveling in the Navajo country, and was got lost. His name was Coy. And he was going down a trail, a game trail, and he thought, "Now, if I hit this trail, I'll surely find water." And his horse was so thirsty till its tongue was hanging out and dry; the nostrils had turned red and caked with sand. He'd held his handkerchief over his face in the sandstorms until it was caked over, and he was perishing for water. And he was leading his horse when he struck the trail. And he said, when he got on the horse he saw this game trail, said, "Surely it'll take me to water." So he jumps a-straddle of his horse and started down the trail.

 And the horse knew also it was on the trail to water. How God gives instinct to the dumb beasts. And down the trail it went. Finally, a few turned off to one side, just a very few off the beaten path. The horse wanted to turn that way, but Coy thought different. He tried to keep it in the main blazed trail, and he started down and the horse would not go. He spurred it, and it nickered and started the other way. And it started rearing up. She was too weak to buck him off.

 So he started pulling the spurs to it again, until he cut the horse, so excited to get to water, his life would be spared, until the horse stood, quivering, bleeding. And he looked down, looked down there; she was quivering like that and almost falling under him. He looked down at her, and seen the blood on her side. He was a Christian. And he said to his horse; he said, "I've often heard that wild--or beasts had an instinct. It don't look like that that little bitty bunch turned off that way would be going to water. It looks like this great path here would lead to where they go constantly to water." But said, "If you've carried me faithful this far, I'll follow your instinct."

 Oh, how I think of that about Christ. The way to destruction is posted and blazed all the way, but there's a narrow road that leads to Life. Few there will be that find It. Only, not instinct, but the Holy Spirit will turn you aside to that water of Life. I think, "It's brought me safe this far, I'll take It the rest of the way." [Matthew 7:14]

 To finish the story, he--he hadn't gone a half a mile, until, all at once, the faithful horse plunged right into a big hole of water. The horse knew what it was talking about, what it was meaning in its way of expressing to the--the rider. He got in there. He said he throwed water up into the horse's nose. He bathed himself; he screamed and he hollered; and he was shouting to the top of his voice, and pouring water down his throat, and screaming, "We're saved. We're saved. We're saved." And the horse, drinking, and quivering. And he looked at her bloody sides, then all whelped up from the spur marks.

 And said just then, he said... heard somebody say, "Come out of the water." And he looked, and there was a little disfigured cowboy standing there. And he got out of the water. He said he smelled fire, and he looked over, and there was a bunch of men camping there. They'd been up on a prospecting outfit. They'd struck some gold, and on the road back they had their horses and pack horses along, and they come to this water hole and was resting, and they'd all got drunk.
And said they had some venison cooking, and he did eat with them. And said, one of them said, "Take a drink." He told them who he was; he was Jack Coy, the--the Indian guide. So he said, "Well, now, take a drink."
He said, "No," he said, "I don't drink."
And that's kind of an insult to them people. So he said, "You'll take a drink from us."
He said, "No, I don't drink."
So he throwed the jug up and said, "Take a drink." Drunk, all of them, you know, about a half a dozen.
And so he said, "Thank you, boys."
Said, "If our venison's good enough to eat, our whiskey's good enough to drink."
And you know how they are, drunk. And he said, "No," he said.
And they threw a shell in the rifle, and said, "Now you'll drink or else."

 He said, "No. No, I won't drink." And he started to aim the rifle. Said, "Just a moment." Said, "I'm not afraid to die." He said, "I--I'm not afraid to die." He said, "But I--I want to tell you my story 'fore I do, the reason I don't drink." Said, "I'm a Kentuckian." He said, "And in a little old log cabin one morning, where a mother lay dying, she called me to her bedside, and said, 'Jack, your father died with a deck of cards in his hand, across a table, drunk.' And said, 'Don't never drink, Jack, whatever you do.'" And said, "On my mother's brow I laid my hands. And I promised God, as a little ten-year-old boy, I would never take my first drink." He said, "I've never took it." And said, "Now, if you want to shoot, you just shoot."
And as the drunk raised his rifle and throwed the jug up again, said, "Take it or I'll shoot." And just then a gun fired and the jug bursted.

 

 Standing at the side of a canyon was a little old cowboy, disfigured, with tears running down his cheeks. He said, "Jack, I too come from Kentucky. I made a promise to a mother one day, but I broke my promise." He said, "I was waiting till these guys got drunk enough, and was going to kill the whole bunch of them, anyhow, take what gold they had." He said, "But I've been a drunk and I've done wrong." But said, "I'm sure when my gun echoed up through the canyons of heaven, mother heard me sign a pledge I'll never do it again." There by the grace of God he led all those people to Christ, all those out there.
See, there's something about water, something about refreshing. My point was to get to the water when you're thirsty. There's something it does to you, is to get to the water when you're thirsting.

 62-0204, Communion, Branham Tabernacle, Jeffersonville, IN, 86 min