Foot Prints On The Sands Of Time
The Autobiography of William Marrion Branham
Foot Prints Book - Page 93
I'm
told by my mother and my father. Now, my dad was a logger in the woods. My
mother and father were married when my mother was fourteen years old and my dad
was eighteen years old. I was borned when mama was sixteen years old, just a
child having a child, that was all.
I was born, I only weighed five pounds, little bitty fellow. I
lived in a little old log cabin. The picture hangs in my house today, that a
person painted for me in California. And the little old log cabin, and in
there, in this little log cabin, that morning on April the sixth, when the
midwife opened up the window so the light could shine in to show, let Mama see
what I looked like, and Papa. When they looked in--in there, there was a Light
come whirling through the window, about the size of a pillow, and circled
around where I was, and went down on the bed.
Several of the mountain people were standing there, they were
crying. My people, back before me, are Catholic. I'm Irish on both sides, and
so they were, they, my people. Not my mother and father, because they had
gotten away from the church. And then they didn't know what happened. Course,
you know how superstitious the mountain people is, said, "That young'n
that was born with the Amber over him, you know, there was a Light appeared
over yonder in a room. Wonder what kind of a young'n it'll be? See, he will be
born somewhere, he will be a certain--certain thing." You know how
mountain people are.
Early Spiritual Experiences, July 13, 1952
Foot Prints Book - Page 94
A dove has a great strange thing in our family. One day when my grandmother... She come from up here in Kentucky, off the Cherokee reservation. She was dying, a little woman, and she was... They had... I think they call it scrofula or something, she was dying. And grandfather knelt down by the side of the bed; while Mama, Aunt Birtie, Aunt Howlie, all of them knelt around the bed; Uncle Charlie, (little bitty four-year-old boy) the baby; Mama, the oldest, being about twelve years old. And she had combed her black hair out on the bed, and she started singing, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee," when she was dying. Grandpa, at that time, wasn't a Christian. I baptized him at eighty-seven years old, in the Name of Jesus Christ, at the foot of the river there where the Angel of the Lord appeared. But while she was singing this song, with her feeble little hands up in the air, a dove flew in the door, come around, set down on the top of the bed, started cooing. God took her soul.
On The Wings Of A Snow-White Dove, November 28, 1965
I
remember when we was little kids, they would get out and cut down an old cedar
bush somewhere, and mom would pop some corn and string it around it. That's
about all there was on the tree. But them little, old ragged socks was hung up
there just as... And, oh, and maybe she'd get a... maybe one little sack of
candy, and them little hard candy, (and two or three to me, and two or three to
Humpy, and two or three to this), just little pieces of candy, and we'd keep
that all day long, sucking on that, you know. And wrap it up in a little piece
of paper and put it in our pocket. And if we got an old cap pistol, or--or a
little horn to blow, it was a great thing, it thrilled us.
Today, course, it's different. The poor people has got a-hold of a
little bit of money and it's got so they can buy their children more things,
they dress better, eat better, live better. And all--all the way around, I guess
they're better off, and under the wage condition of today. And therefore,
little kids, you have to let them have something.
But always be sure of this, tell them there is no such a thing as
Santa Claus, 'cause it's not right. One of these days they'll walk up and say,
"What about Jesus, then?" See? See? So tell them the Truth, be honest
with everybody. Be Truth. And, especially, you wouldn't tell your children
something wrong, 'cause they would raise up and say... They believe in you as a
Christian, and they want you to... They believe that what you tell them is the
Truth. So be sure you tell them the Truth, then it'll come out all right.
Christianity Versus Idolatry, December 17, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 95
When
I was healed, with stomach trouble, why, I remember holding my stomach, going
along there, and when I was prayed for, I didn't have nobody with the gift of
healing to pray for me, the elder anointed me with oil. He told me, I read in
the Bible, I seen God's Word was right. And I know he had a right, though he
was a Baptist preacher, he come along, anointed. The Bible said so. He poured
some oil on my head, said, "Now do you believe you'll get well?"
I said, "Now, God, I'm asking with all my heart, let me get
well."
I went right down home to start into my eating. I had been drinking
barley water and prune juice for about three, four months. The doctor said,
"One mouthful of solid food would kill you right now." You know what
I done? I went right down home and we had cornbread, beans and onions for
dinner. I don't know whether you ever eat it like that or not. Boy, it's good!
I could stand some right now. And Mom baked, my mother baked with a big old
pone in it like that. I always get the corner where it's nice and greasy, you know,
and brittle. So, we're still enough Baptist around home to break bread, you
know, we don't cut it. Jesus broke bread and blessed it. So we break it down,
then just reach over and break you off a piece. So I... and mother said... We
never had had a prayer in the home. And dad, my dad was Catholic.
So I--I said, "Now, I'm going to try to ask the
blessing." And I never will forget poor old Dad, how he cried.
And Mother said, "I don't mind you having religion, honey, but
you, the doctor said it would kill you."
I said, "But God said I would live."
"And if I die I'm coming up to Your House. And when I meet You
at the door, I died trusting Your Word." I said, "I've tried doctors
long enough, and they can't do me do good." And I took that big mouthful
of beans and that onion, great big chomp of that cornbread, and I started on
it. And I chewed, tasted pretty good, a little funny, but I hadn't eaten about
over a year, of anything solid. And when I swallowed the first mouthful, here
it come right back up again. When I did, I held my hand over my mouth, keep it
from coming up. Got me another spoonful, till I eat the whole entire plate-full
of them. When I got up from the table, I just had to hold my hand... just as
sour of acid as it could be.
Mother called the doctor, said, "He will die, that's all there
is to it. One mouthful will kill him." Said, "That's all there
is." Here I was, going across the floor, you know. She said, "Are
you... How do you feel?"
I said, "Wonderful. Fine."
She said, "You're about to die."
I said, "No, ma'am." Just swallowing as fast as I could,
hot water in my mouth, you know. Went across, and I seen they was all gone.
Foot Prints Book - Page 96
I
got in the room and I started off with this, "I can, I will, I do believe;
I can, I will, I do believe; I can, I will, I do believe that Jesus heals me
now. I'll take You at Your Word, I'll take You at Your Word," like that
you know, on down, believing that with all my... I just got so weak I just
almost fell across the bed like that, I thought, "Oh, mercy! Mercy!"
And I got up the next day, I walked down the street, you know, my,
I didn't care. Mother come in, she watched me all night long. Thought sure I'd
die, you know. Next morning all them beans was laying right there at the same
place. Said, "What do you want?"
I said, "I want some more beans and cornbread." Yes.
Oh, the Devil ain't going to cheat me out of it. No, no. God said
so! "And every promise in the Book is mine, every chapter, every verse,
every line; (is that right?) I am trusting in His Word Divine, for every
promise in the Book is mine." That's right. He--he... I'd rather He had
said, "Whosoever will" than said "William Branham." There
might be a hundred William Branham's, but "whosoever will," I know
means it's mine. And that's right. I just said, "I believe You." Yes,
sir.
And I started on, went down the street. Said, "How you
feeling, Brother Branham?"
I said, "Wonderful." I'd go down the street, going...
mouthful of beans, swallow them back. No, no, I wasn't going to spit them out,
no, sir, swallow them back. The Lord blessed them, they were mine. Keep on, I'd
go down.
Say, "Hello, Brother Branham."
I'd say, "Hello."
"How you feeling?"
"Wonderful."
Somebody told me not long ago, said, "Brother Branham, you was
lying." No, I wasn't. No, I wasn't. They was asking me how my body was
feeling. And I was answering how my faith was, it was wonderful. Yes, sir.
Yeah, their... My--my faith was feeling wonderful because I took God at His
Word. I don't care how I felt. If I'd still been belching up, I'd still say,
"I'm healed!" Amen! That's right, sure, because God's Word is right.
Experiences, December 14, 1947
Foot Prints Book - Page 97
There
is a true and living God. That's right, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The
Holy Spirit is in the Church today. "Now, if I just had somebody to tell
me that, I'd have a right to doubt it." But listen, one day yonder, as a
little boy, I was standing under a tree, and I seen Him. I heard Him. He told
me, said, "Keep away from them foul women. Keep away from the cigarettes,
keep away from cursing, drinking, and all these things. I got a work for you to
do when you get older." Now I know He's a real, living God that copes with
His Word.
When I got a little older, how He met me! How He talked to me! How
I seen Him yonder at the burning bush, and that Fire moving around yonder! How
I seen Him speak and tell just exactly what would take place! And every time
hits perfect, just as it can be perfect like that! The same One that says those
perfected things like that, is the same One Who inspires me to teach this Bible
just the way I teach it. That's right. So it comes from God.
To me it's God Almighty, and He's the same yesterday, today, and
forever. Jesus said, "I come from the Father and I go to the Father."
When He was come... when He was God in the wilderness, He was a burning Light.
How many knows that? He was a burning Light, Pillar of Fire. And He come here
on earth, and He said, "I come from the Father and I go... I come from God
and I go back to God."
When He died, buried, rose again; and Paul, on his road to
Damascus, met Him again. What was He? Still a Pillar of Fire. Yes, sir. What
did He do when He was here on earth? What did He do when He met Paul? How did
He send him? He sent him to a prophet that told him how to be baptized, told
him what to do. Laid his hands on him and healed him, told him he had saw a
vision,
That same Jesus is here today, doing the same things, and still the
same Pillar of Fire, teaching the same things and confirming it by His Word and
by signs and wonders, I'm so glad to be a Christian, I don't know what to do!
I'm glad that you are a Christian.
Serpent's Seed, September 28, 1958
I remember coming down that Utica Pike up there, as a kid (seven, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen years old), no shoes on (tennis shoes) and it eight or ten below zero, and tennis shoes, the toes out of them. And not... now that ain't walking down like the street here, but busting the snow. There's no automobiles coming down, there might be a wagon track once in a while. Come down that highway of a morning, little old coat on, no shirt, and it pinned up like this, no more than what got on right now; soaking wet to my knees, go right on in and pay no attention to it. See, hardly have a cold. But that was about forty-five years ago. So, a whole lot of weakening, gone a lot of miles and built up on the speedometer, you know, so we just don't take it like we used to.
God's Gifts Always Find Their Places, December 22, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 98
Don't the Bible say that all things work together for good to them that love God? So what are you scared about? Let us be up and doing with a heart for any strife! Be not like dumb driven cattle, have to be begged and persuaded! Be a hero! I like that. Stand up! A little poem that used to help me so much when I was a kid, goes something like this:
There
was a noble Roman,
In the Roman Emperor's days;
Who heard a coward crocker,
Before the castle say:
"Oh, it's safe in such a fir tree,
There's no one can shake it."
"Oh, no," said the hero,
"I'll find a way or make it."
There you are. That's right. If this Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever... It wasn't an easy thing when I stepped out of this Tabernacle that day, and everybody telling me this would happen and that would happen. "You'd be considered a fanatic, throwed into jail. And all the medical association would get against you." But God said, "Do it!" The Bible said He was, and now a revival fire burns in every nation under the Heaven! That's right! Stand up to it!
How do
you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job that you find?
Can you stand right up to the work ahead?
Have you got a tired and empty mind?
(I hate that stuff!)
Or do you stand right up to the work ahead,
Or is fear ever running through it?
If so, tackle the next you find,
By thinking you're going to do it.
Stay with it. Certainly. Purpose in your heart like Daniel. Stay with God.
Serpent's Seed, September 28, 1958
Foot Prints Book - Page 99
We
used to go get our groceries on Saturday night, everybody. And we had an old
Jersey wagon, and Pop would put some straw back in there, and all of us kiddies
would get back there, and he and mother would set up front. And he drove a
little old mule, we go about seven miles down to the city. And Pop made, I
believe, it was seventy-five cents a day, and he would buy all the groceries
and things to last us through the week. And when he paid our grocery bill, Mr.
Grower, the groceryman, why, he would give us a little sack of candy, and stick
candy, oh, peppermint. And, oh, it was good! And so the thing of it was, there
was about eight of them little Branhams, and maybe give about six sticks of it,
you know, so there was just about eight pair of little Irish eyes watching that
candy to be broke just equally among each one. We'd set out there, you know,
it'd be cold weather, we'd cover up in quilts. We'd get them, that candy, and
all the boys would go to eating their candy.
And I kind of played a little trick on them. Now, don't you boys
try this, 'cause it might not work. So I'd take my candy and act like I was
eating it, and then get a piece of the paper sack off of something, you know,
and wrap it up and put it in my pocket. And I wait until Monday. And Mother
would say, "William!"
I'd say, "Yes, ma'am?"
Say, "Go to the spring and get a bucket of water."
And a big old cedar bucket, and the gourd dipper, you know. And I'd
have to go down to the spring. That thing was heavy. And I'd say,
"Edward." I called him "Humpy," was his nickname, brother
next to me. I'd say, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let you lick on
this stick of candy till I count ten, if you'll go get that bucket of water for
me." Very few chores I had to do on Monday, till as long as that candy
lasted. I was a businessman. "Lick on that candy." And I'd--I'd count,
I'd say, "One, two..."
"Not so fast!"
And I'd say, "Two, three..."
"Now, you're counting too fast!" I'd have to start over
again, he'd get a couple extra licks, you know. And, so, and then keep that
candy there, wrap it back up till I'd have something else to do, you know. I
had it easy then on Monday. I was a man of leisure. My, to go back to those
days again! That was good candy. You know, maybe tomorrow I could go out and
get a box of Hersheys, but it wouldn't taste just like that did. You know, that
was really good. Did you ever eat it with salty crackers, them old barrel
crackers, big ones? Did you ever eat that and peppermint candy? Did you ever
eat brown sugar with it?
Foot Prints Book - Page 100
I
tell you, the second thing I ever stole in my life, and only thing I know of,
was a handful of brown sugar from my daddy. They had some brown sugar in a box
and made molasses for breakfast. Did you ever eat brown sugar molasses? Oh, my!
So I'm going home with some of you for dinner, that's all there is! I went in,
and my brother said to me, said, "If you'll go get the sugar, I'll get the
cracker."
I said, "All right."
And Mother and Dad was hoeing in the garden. And I went in and got
a big handful, enough for both of us. I was walking out with that. You can't
even look straight when you're telling a lie, you know. So I walking along like
that, down along the garden, the only way I had to get out. And Dad turned
around, said, "Where you going, William?"
I said, "Sir?"
He said, "Where you going?"
I said, "I'm going down to the barn."
And he said, "What you got in your hand?"
I thought, "Uh-oh."
I changed, I said, "Which hand?" You know.
"Come here." Oh, my! I didn't want no more sugar for a
long time. So, sure tasted good, though, see, I'm talking about the sugar yet.
For, when my Father gave us a whipping, he had a razor strap made
out of a piece of belt leather. Oh, my! And I... And he had it up over the
door, the golden rule, and it had all ten commandments on it. It was out of
hickory. A limb about that long, you know, with them ten branches out on it. We
got our education out in the woodshed, just running around Daddy as hard as we
could go like that. Listen, if we had some more dads like that, we'd be better
off, amen, that's right, instead of appeasing your salary and giving him fifty
cents to go to the picture show on Sunday afternoon. That's it.
Come into a place not long ago, I was going to pray for a sick
person. A little boy come in, and a little Mary, you know, stomps her foot, she
said, "I'm not going to eat this." And said, "Well,
Mother!"
And the little boy said, "I want to do this orange," and
he grabbed it and threw it against this.
Said, "All right, son." Oh, my!
You ought to have been the son of Charles Branham. He wouldn't have
been able to eat an orange for a week or two. So he would've, sure. And he'd
take ramrod out of the old musket, and--and he used to call it, "beat the
Devil out" of us. So I guess maybe that's what it was. We thought it went
out, anyhow, when he was. I love him. He never--he never give me a whipping I
didn't deserve, and I love him today. That's right. Wish I could set down and
talk to him. Hope to, someday.
Foot Prints Book - Page 101
I
believe when we get over there we'll know each other. Don't you? I believe I'll
know you exactly as I know you now, only, we'll be immortal and we'll know each
other. Why? They knowed Elijah and Moses; and--and Peter, James and John
recognized them. And we recognized Jesus after He returned back in His
glorified body. The Bible said, "It does not yet appear what we shall be,
but we'll have a body like His, for we shall see Him as He is." So we'll
have one like that. And He was eating and so forth. And I just believe Heaven's
a real, real place that we're going. Amen,
Now, I remember when I started into school. Not long ago I stood by
the old place where the schoolhouse was, and looking at it, and, oh, I looked
like my heart would break. I remember when we used to go down there to school
and--and we didn't hardly have any clothes to wear. Poor little old kiddies.
Dad was strictly an Irishman. Every penny it didn't take to pay the grocery
bill, he drank with the rest of it. We went to school without clothes. I
remember, all one winter... Now, it's no disgrace to be poor. But I didn't have
a coat to put on, or shirt to put on. And I had a coat that Mrs. Wathen, a rich
woman, had give me. It had a little eagle on the arm, and I kept it pinned up
like this.
And I went every day to school. And we'd have to borrow a piece of
paper, and didn't have no books to study out of. No wonder I'm ignorant, and
didn't have... or illiterate, rather. So I did, no paper, no books, or nothing.
And they didn't have it like they do now where the--the community furnishes it,
or the school. And we were... I remember that year I--I wanted to study, but
I--I just didn't have the opportunity, the books and things to study with.
I remember it come spring of the year, I had been all winter
without a shirt. And got kind of warm weather there, and before school let out.
And teacher said to me one day, she said, "William, aren't you warm with
that coat on?" Said, "Take that coat off."
Well, I couldn't take that coat off, I didn't have any shirt. And
it was just the skin, so I was... I said, "No, ma'am, I'm just a little
bit chilly."
She said, "You're chilly on a day like this?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am."
Said, "You better come over here and set by the fire."
My, that big old stove, and she had fired that thing up, and the perspiration
just running off my face! She said, "Are you still cool? Are you still
chilly?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She said, "You better go home, you're sick." I wasn't
sick, but I didn't have any shirt on, and I couldn't take that coat off. So I
wondered how I was going to get to go back to school. I waited a couple days.
Foot Prints Book - Page 102
My
Father's sister that lived across the hill there a piece from us, so we... they
used to come over. He had a... they had a girl about my age. She had left her
dress there, so I figured out one day that I could get a shirt out of that. So
I cut the bottom part of it off, here, and I--I took the other part just
stuffed it down in my trousers, and I went to school with it. It was little
sleeves up like this, you know, and so it had all that there... What is it they
call that stuff that runs around on it like that? Oh, yes, rick-rack. I had all
that kind of stuff all over it like that, you know, and so I--I... They
said--said, "That's a girl's dress."
And I said, "That's my Indian suit." Indian suit. It was
that rick-rack all over her dress, you know. And kids would laugh at me.
And I remember that winter at school, all the kiddies, it was 1917.
There was a big snow in Indiana. I guess you got it over here in Ohio, too, any
of you can remember back that far. So there was a sleeted, and sometimes the
drifts would be seventeen, eighteen feet deep. And so most the children had
sleds, and they could sleigh ride. And brother and I didn't have any sled, so
we got up an old dishpan out of the dump. And we'd get in this dishpan; it was
all sleet on top, you know, and I... we'd set down and wrap our legs around one
another, and down the hill we'd go. Just... Now, we wasn't as much class as the
rest of them, but we were sliding just the same. So that--that did all right
till the bottom come out of the pan. So we had to hunt another sled. So we got
a log, and we chopped it off a little ways till... We had to chop, bring our
wood from the river and out of the woods, to burn. Each evening when we'd get
home from school, have to saw wood till plumb dark. And then I remember we got
the old log, and we were going down along the... sliding on the--the ice.
And there was a boy went to school there. If I'm not mistaken, some
of the folks from the Tabernacle, that's in here this afternoon, from my
church, I heard they were, it was Lloyd Ford, is who it was to you that... And
I'm sure Brother Ryan knows who Lloyd Ford is. I just seen him here a while
ago, and had... I was talking to him the other day, telling him about that. It
was during the time of that First World War, and everything that was big enough
to put a uniform on, had a uniform. And, oh, I wanted to be a soldier so bad!
And when I got old enough then to be in the army, they wouldn't take me.
Foot Prints Book - Page 103
So,
after all, I got to join the army and put on a uniform. It might not be... It's
not on the outside, it's on the inside. I'm in the Christian rank. God give me
the Holy Ghost and I'm in the war today, in the battle against Right and wrong,
and I--I'm for the Right. And I feel my uniform, whether you can see it or not.
Now, this boy, I said, "When you--you..." Had a boy scout
suit. He sold this Pathfinder magazine. I said, "When you wear that out,
will you give it to me?"
And he said, "Sure."
Well, I never seen a suit last so long! But after a while, after
he... Finally I missed him wearing it for a long time, I said, "Lloyd,
what about that suit?"
He said, "Why, I'll ask my mother." And so he said,
"No," said, "she taken the coat and made a pallet out of it, and
the trousers, she patched some of dad's trousers with it." And said,
"I haven't got a thing left but one leggin."
I said, "Bring me that."
So I got this one leggin, a little draw string on the side, well, I
wanted to wear that leggin to school so bad, I--I didn't know how I was going
to do it. So I put it in my coat one day, and when I was riding on this log
going down the hill, I act like I hurt my leg, and I said, "Oh, my!"
I said, "I hurt my leg so bad!" I said, "It just reminded me, I
got one of my scout leggin here." I--I pulled that leggin up, and, oh, I
thought I was something then!
And I remember I went up to old blackboard. Did you ever go to
country school? How many went to country school where they had eight grades
come up? And I stood by the blackboard like this, to work the problem, you
know, and I had that leggin on that side, and I stood like this and worked
sideways like this, see, to write, look at that one leggin. All the kids got to
laughing at me, and I got to crying. Teacher made me go home, so, oh, it was a
hard struggle back there.
I remember one day around Christmas, Mama popped some corn and that
was really a rarity. We couldn't... brother and I couldn't take our lunch like
the other kiddies. Their mother's would bake that old oven bread and, oh, my,
it was dandy! But we... They had sandwiches, made sandwiches. But what we had,
we had a little molasses bucket about this high, and on one side would be a
little jar full of greens, maybe the other side a little jar full of beans, a
piece of bread, a leaf sticking between it, and a spoon. We were ashamed to eat
before the other children, because they could have sandwiches and cakes and
cookies and things. And we'd go over the hill from school, and set down there,
and we'd set these little jars between us. And God bless his heart, he's in
Glory today. But we would set and eat, one with another, like that.
Life Story, July 20, 1951
Foot Prints Book - Page 104
Me
and my brother was fishing, we was little boys, up here. And I caught an old
snapping turtle, and I cut his head off; get him off the line, didn't want to
fool with that thing; and throwed him up on the bank there. And my little
brother come along, and he said, "What'd you catch a while ago?"
I said, "A turtle."
He said, "What'd you do with him?"
I said, "There, laid him there, and his head's laying up
there."
And he went up there. And he said, "Is he dead?"
I said, "Sure! Separated his head from his body, he must be
dead."
So then he picked up a stick, and started to reach down to throw
this turtle head back in the river, and when... the creek. And when he did, the
old turtle grabbed it. You know, they'll snap for an hour or two. He jumped
back, he said, "Hey! I thought you said, 'It was dead.'"
I said, "He is."
He said, "Well, he don't know it."
So that's the way a lot of people are, dead and don't know it!
Nicolaitanes! Oh, my! Oh, He said, "You hate that."
The Ephesian Church Age, December 5, 1960
I
had a little poem I wrote something like this. It said... Now, just think, I
was only about twelve years old. And standing up the other day looking up that
canyon, and thinking that lion will be setting right here in this den room
looking out the window in a glass window, I was thinking of a little poem. I
went back and picked it up, something like this.
Just think how God... Do you believe God is in all inspiration? God
has to write a song. You believe God's in songs? Jesus said so. He referred
back to David. Don't you know what David said in the Psalms, you know?
"Has not it... " Look at the very crucifixion. David sang it in the
22nd Psalm. "My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken Me? All My bones they
stare at Me. They pierce My hands and My feet." You know, and that was a
song. Psalms is a--is a song.
And in this poetry, just watch how it come to pass. Standing there,
a little old kid with a borrowed sheet of paper, I said:
I am lonesome, oh, so lonesome for that far away southwest,
Where the shadows fall the deepest over the mountain crest.
I can see a lurking coyote all around the purple haze;
I can hear a lobo hollering down where the longhorns graze.
And somewhere up a canyon I can hear a lion whine,
In that far off Catalina Mountains at the Arizona line.
Foot Prints Book - Page 105
Forty years later I'm setting right there at that canyon, that lion looking me in the face. O God! There's a Land beyond the river somewhere, friends. It's just--it's got to be there. See? There's--there's too much speaking of it. All these things are not just myths, they are--they're real. They're realities. I'm so glad to be here tonight to be with these people that I'm expecting to live over there forever with, where there'll be no more sickness, or death, or separations. And travel will be nothing to us then.
A Man Running From The Presence Of The Lord, February 17, 1965
Sweeten
your temper with prayer, then make up your mind. There... I don't guess there
is too many people in this building ever had any more temper than I did to
begin with. Oh, I--I had a mouth mashed all the time, And I--I--I'd taken a lot
of my meals out of a straw.
My mother, as you know, was a half Indian, and my father was an
Irishman, a Kentucky Irish at that. And every one of--both of them had enough
temper to fight a buzz saw. And all the time my mouth was mashed; I was little
to begin with. And they'd just pick me up and knock me down. And I'd get up
again; and they'd knock me down again till I just got too able--unable to get
up anymore. That's always. And then when I got able to get up, I got up again;
they knocked me down again. So that's just the way I had it.
I thought, "I can never be a Christian." But when the
Holy Spirit came into my life, that's done it. No more...
I had a woman one time; I went to have to cut the lights off. And
that day I had hair on top of my head. She said, "You little, kinky-headed
idiotic!"
I told her, I said, "Woman, you oughtn't to curse like that.
Oh, don't you fear God?"
She said, "You little, kinky-headed idiotic, if I wanted
somebody to talk to me about things like that, I wouldn't get a half-wit like
you."
"Whoo!" Then she called me a blankety, blankety name. Oh
my, if that'd been a year farther! I always said, "A man that'd strike a
woman wasn't man enough to strike a man," but I--I might have broke that
at that time calling my mother a bad name like that. But you know what? It
never even fazed me. I said, "I will pray for you." Never bothered...
I knowed right then something had happened to me. Yes, sir! Oh, my!
Foot Prints Book - Page 106
You
know the evils that I done when I was a kid, fighting! Almost killed five man
at one time. Took a rifle loaded with sixteen shots, and when them boys beat me
because I was a Kentuckian, no other reason... I couldn't even hold my head up.
One would hold me by hands like this, and the other one's stand there with a
rock in his hand and pound me in the face, till I just lifeless. Nothing in the
world...
They called me a "Kentucky squab," because my mother,
when she was young, she sure looked like an Indian (looking at her picture
awhile ago), and they knowed she was a half Indian. And because I was Kentucky
and her being a squaw, they called me a "squab, a Kentucky squab."
And I had nothing in the world to do into it; I couldn't help because I was
born in Kentucky.
I went down there to school, and I didn't have no clothes to wear,
and my hair hanging down my neck, And Pop... Mom took his old coat that he was
married in, and cut it up and made me a pair of pants to wear to school my
first time. And I... And she dressed me with a pair of white stockings on and a
pair of tennis shoes. And they said, "If you don't look like a 'windy'
Kentuckian." And--and all--and that--and then, that went on all my--all my
school days.
And a couple of boys, because I walked down the road with some
little girl and packed her books... They didn't want me to do that, and they
met me down there and beat me till I was simply unconscious. I told them, if they'd
let me go, I promise that I would go right straight home. And so they took--let
me loose, kicked me four or five times, knocked me down, and scrapped my face
all over. And I went home, like this, up through the broomsage field.
I had a little twenty-two Winchester rifle laying up over the door.
Reached up and got that rifle full of bullets, went right down through the
locust thicket, and hid beside the road till these five or six boys come along
there. Just waited till they come, and when they was coming there, talking,
said, "That Kentuckian will realize where he's at from this on,"
going on like that.
I stepped up with the hammer pulled back on the rifle, I said,
"Now, which one of you wants to die first, so you won't watch the
others?" They started squealing; I said, "Don't squeal, 'cause you're
all going to die one by one." And I meant it! And just then they started
squealing. And I pulled up and snap! The gun snapped. I throwed another shell
in. Snap, it snapped; another shell, snap, it snapped. And I pumped sixteen
shells on the ground. Every one of them snapped. And them boys running, and
screaming, and diving over the hill, and everything.
Foot Prints Book - Page 107
And after they left, I stood there. When I'd get so angry, till I--I--I wouldn't cry, I would laugh like a idiot and tears run out of my eyes. Now, that's a temper. If it hadn't a-been for God, I'd a-been a murderer. And I picked up them shells and put them back in the rifle, and, "Pow, pow," they'd shoot just as good as ever. Talk about grace!
Questions And Answers, August 30, 1964 P.M.
Then
I was out hunting one time, which seems to be a second nature to me, to love to
hunt. And I was out hunting with a boy, Jim Poole, a lovely kid. I think his
boy comes to church here, little Jim. A fine family of people. I know the
Pooles. Jimmy and I slept together and lived together since we were little boys
in school. We're about six months apart in age. And Jimmy let his gun go off
and shot me through both legs, real close to me with a shotgun, and I was taken
to the hospital, and there laying there dying. No penicillin or nothing in
those days. And they had a rubber sheet under me, and I know that night, they
were going to operate the next morning. They just took and cleaned off the
wound, and big pieces of flesh blowed up, and they'd take the scissors and cut
it off, and I had to hold a man's hands. And they had... Frankie Eich, just
recently committed suicide. And they had to pry my hands loose from his wrists,
when they got through.
I screamed and cried, holding onto--like that, and them cutting
that part of the leg off. I was fourteen years old, just a boy. And that night
I tried to go to sleep and they... I woke up and something splashed. And here
was blood, nearly a half a gallon, I guess, that had come from them veins. And
they taken an x-ray and they said the shot was laying so close to that artery
on either side that just a little scratch would cut it right in two, and I'd
start bleeding. "Well," I thought, "this is the end of me."
I put my hands down like this and raised it up, and the blood
running down my hands, it was my own blood I was laying in. I called--rang the
bell. The nurse came, and she just soaked it up with towels because there was
nothing they could do. And the next morning, under those weakening conditions,
(they didn't give the blood transfusions in them days, you know) they operated
on me. They gave me ether. And when I... The old ether--I guess you remember,
it's the old anesthetic. And under that ether, when I came out... I was coming
out of the ether after eight hours. They had to give me so much, they thought I
couldn't... wouldn't wake up. They couldn't get me awake.
I remember Mrs. Roeder stood by me out there in the hospital. I'll
never forget that woman, no matter whatever happens, I can never forget her.
She was just a young woman then. Her husband was superintendent down here at
the car works; and I remember she standing by me, her and Mrs. Stewart. They
was the ones actually that paid my hospital bill. We didn't even have food to
eat in the house; so how could we pay a hospital bill that was hundreds of
dollars?
Foot Prints Book - Page 108
But
she, through her church society and the Ku Klux Klan paid the hospital bill for
me--Mason's. I can never forget it. No matter what they do or what, I still...
there's something that stays with me, what they did for me. And they paid the
bill to Dr. Reeder. He's still living, lives here in Port Fulton, can tell you
the story.
When I came out from under that ether, there was something happened
to me there. I've always believed it to be a vision. Because I was so weak,
they thought I was dying. She was crying. When I opened my eyes to look, I
could hear her talking, and then I went back to sleep. Woke up two or three
times.
And then I had a vision then... and then about seven months later I
had to go and have shotgun wads and greasy hunting clothes taken out of my
legs, the Doctor didn't get it. See? I had blood poison, both legs just swelled
up and doubled back under me, and they wanted to take both legs off at the
hips. And I just... I said, "No, just come up higher and take it off up
here." I just couldn't stand it. See? And so finally, Dr. Reeder and Dr.
Pearl, from Louisville, performed the operation, and cut down in there and
taken it out; and today I've got wonderful legs by the grace of God. But under
that last vision that I had... The first vision when I come to, and then I went
into this trance, and I thought I was in hell.
Souls That Are Imprisoned Now, November 10, 1963
Now,
in this time, as I had this vision and thinking that I had passed from this
life into torment. And seven months later, here at the Clark County Memorial
Hospital, I had the second operation. And that time, when I come out, I thought
I was standing out in the west. I had another vision, and there was a great
golden cross in the skies, and the Glory of the Lord flowing off of that cross.
And I stood with my hands out like this, and that Glory was falling into my
chest. And the vision left me.
My father was standing there looking at me, when the vision came.
I've always felt... All the people that's knew me an these years knows I've
always wanted to go west. You know how it is. It's always been something to the
west. But because an astronomer told me one time, the same thing, that I should
go west... The stars, when they cross their cycles and so forth, I was born
under that sign, and I'd never be a success in the east, I'd have to go west.
And last year I took off west to fulfill what a lifetime's desire has been to
do it.
Souls That Are Imprisoned Now, November 10, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 109
In
the vision that I had, I'll go back because I brought that (the two visions) in
to show you about one of them, I was to be out west. I've always longed for
that.
Now, the purpose of the Message this morning is to post the church
in everything that He will let me post the church to, as far as I know, until
the... as I go along. And this struck me, so I wanted to post the church. Now,
this is to this Tabernacle only to hear. And in this vision, the first one,
here's what taken place. After the vision struck me, and I was so weak and I'd
lost all that blood, and I thought I was sinking into an endless eternity--many
of you have heard me tell this before--and sinking into an endless eternity.
First, I was going through like clouds, and then through darkness
and sinking on down, down, down. And the first thing you know, I got into the
regions of the lost. And in there I screamed, and I looked and everything,
there was just no foundation to it. I could never stop falling, for eternity
(looked like) I was going to fall, there was no stopping nowhere.
Then, what a difference it was from the vision I had here not long
ago of being in Glory with the people, the contrast. But in this, as I was
falling, I finally--I screamed for my daddy. Of course, being just a kid,
that's what I would do. I screamed for my daddy, and my daddy wasn't there. I
screamed for my mother, "Somebody catch me!" And there was no mother
there. I was just going. And I screamed then to God, and there was no God
there. There was nothing there.
And after a while I heard the most mournful sound that I ever
heard; and it was the awfullest feeling. There's no way--even a literal burning
fire would be a pleasure to the side of what this was.
Now, those visions has never been wrong. And it was just one of the
most horrible feelings I ever had, and what did... I heard a noise, sounded
like some kind of a haunted affair. And when it was, I looked coming, and it
was women, and they had green stuff, you could just see their face, and they
had green stuff under their eyes, and their eyes, looked like, run back like
the women today paint their eyes, Run back like that and just their eyes and
face, and they were going, "uh, uh, uh, uh." Oh, my! I just screamed
out, "O God, have mercy upon me. Have mercy, O God. Where are You? If
You'll only let me go back and live, I promise You to be a good boy." Now,
that's the only thing I could say. Now, God knows, and at the day of Judgment,
He will judge me for that statement, That's what I said, "Lord God, let me
go back and I'll promise You I'll be a good boy."
And when I got shot, I had told lies, I had done pretty near
everything there was to be done, only one thing that I say... I might as well
just clean it out while I'm right here now. And when I looked down and saw I
was half blowed in two, almost, I said, "God, have mercy on me. You know I
never did commit adultery."
Foot Prints Book - Page 110
That's
the only thing I could say to God. I'd never accepted His pardon and all these
things. I just could say, "I never did commit adultery." And then
they taken me out there, and then in that, I cried, "God, be merciful to
me. I'll be a good boy, if You'll only let me go back," for I knew there
was a God somewhere. And so help me, those weary creatures all around--I'd just
been a new arrival. The most hideous, horrible, ungodly feeling in that...
Looked like great big eyes--big eyelashes out like that, and run back like a
cat. Like--back like this, and green stuff and like it cankered or something,
and they were going, "uh, uh, uh."
Oh, what a feeling! Now, when I... Then in a moment's time, I had
come back to natural life again. That thing has bothered me. I've thought,
"Oh, let it be that I'll never go to a place like that, no other human
being will ever have to go to a place like that." Seven months later, I
had the vision of standing in the west and seeing that gold cross coming down
upon me. And I knew that there were the regions of the damned somewhere.
Now, I never noticed it too much until about four weeks ago. The
wife... Never thought of it in this terms. About four weeks ago, the wife and I
went down to Tucson to do some shopping, and while we were sitting... The wife,
we went in downstairs and there was a bunch of sissy-like boys had their hair
ratted (you know, like the women does), and bangs combed down here in front,
and these real high trousers on, kind of--I guess the beatniks or ever what you
call them.
And they were in there, and everybody was looking at them, and
their heads was that big like the women that wear these here
"waterhead" haircuts, you know, and they were down there. A young
woman came by, and she said, "What do you think about that?"
I said, "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, if you can
think that." I said, "He has just as much right to do it as you do.
Neither one of you have a right."
So I went upstairs, and I sat down. And when I did, there was an
escalator, it was at J. C. Penny's store, and the escalator bringing the people
up. I really turned sick at my stomach seeing those women come up there; young,
old, and indifferent, wrinkled, young, and every way, with little bitty shorts
on; their filthy body and those sexy-dressed women with those great big heads
like that, and here they come, and one coming up that escalator was just coming
right up like that where I was sitting back in a chair--sitting there with my
head down, and I turned and looked. One of them coming up the steps was saying
(Spanish speaking) to another woman--she was a white woman speaking to the
Spanish woman. And when I looked, all at once I was changed. There I'd seen
that before.
Foot Prints Book - Page 111
Her
eyes, you know how the women are doing now, painting their eyes just recently
like cat, you know, put it up like this, and wearing cat glasses and
everything, you know, with eyes up like this. And that green stuff under their
eyes. There was that thing that I seen when I was a child. There was the woman
just exactly. And I just got numb all over, and I begin to look around, and
there was those people mumbling, you know, going on about the prices and things
in the building.
And I just... Looked like that I just changed for a moment. And I
looked and I thought, "That's what I saw in hell." There they was,
that canker. I thought, because they were in hell, what made them that way, a
greenish blue under their eyes. And here was these women painted with greenish
blue, just the way that vision said about forty years ago. About forty years
ago, is what it's been. I'm fifty-four, and I was fourteen. So about forty
years ago, and that's the number, anyhow, of the judgment.
Now, there was... I'd seen that and I couldn't even speak to my
wife when she come. She was over there trying to get Sarah and the kids
something, kind of a dress or something for school, and I couldn't even... I
couldn't even speak to her. She said, "Bill, what's the matter with
you?"
I said, "Honey, I'm almost a dead man."
She said, "What's the matter? Are you sick?"
I said, "No. Something's just happened." Now, she don't
know. She's waiting for this tape to return. I've never said it to nobody. And
I thought, "I'd wait," and as I promised, "bring it to the
church first." Bring it to the church. That was my promise. And you'll
realize after tonight the reason I try to keep my promise.
I thought then as I noticed them cankered-looking eyes on those
women. There was the Spanish, French, Indian, and White, and all together, but
that great big head, you know, bushed up, with that combs, the way they comb it
back, way big, and then comes out. You know how they do it, fix it like they do
it. And then, them cankered-looking eyes and the eyes with the paint, they run
back like a cat's eyes; and them talking, and there I was again, standing there
in J. C. Penny's store, back in hell again!
I got so scared, I thought, "Lord, surely I haven't died and
You've let me come to this place after all." And there they were making...
just around like that, in that vision, like you could just barely hear it with
your ears, you know. Just the mumble and going on of people, and them women
coming up that escalator and walking around there and"uh, uh," and
there was those green, funny-looking eyes, and mournful.
Foot Prints Book - Page 112
And
wife come up, and I said, "Just let me alone a minute, Honey." I
said, "If you don't mind, I want to go home."
She said, "Are you sick?"
I said, "No, just go ahead, Honey, if you've got any shopping
to do."
She said, "No, I'm finished."
And I said, "Let me take you by the arm." I walked out.
She said, "What's the matter?"
I said, "Meda, I... Something happened up there." And
while I was under that, I thought this, "What day are we living in? Could
this be the Third Pull?"
Souls That Are Imprisoned Now, November 10, 1963
I'm
getting to be an old man, I don't know how much longer I've got. I'll soon be
fifty-five years old, and I don't know, according to nature I may not have too
many years. I don't know where this tape will go, but let everyone here,
hearing the tape or wherever it may go, don't never go toward that regions of
the lost! You can't picture hell being that bad! And whatever you do, don't you
never forget this, that the regions of the blessed... I would say this with
Saint Paul, "Eyes have not seen, ear has not heard, or either could it
enter the heart of man, what God has for them in store that love Him!"
So stop, if you're listening at the tape, turn the machine off and
repent if you're not saved, and get right with God! I'm saying this by
firsthand experience, as I believe in my heart. And I say, if the visions has
deceived me, God be merciful for me making a statement like that. But with the
sincerity of my heart, knowing that not one of them visions ever failed, I
believe that I have been in both places. Far be it from any human being going
that road downward!
Souls That Are Imprisoned Now, November 10, 1963
I
remember one day as a little boy, about eighteen years old, running from the
Lord. I went out West, I wanted... My father was a rider, and I wanted to go
out and break the horses. Just something hungering in my heart. Oh, I tell you!
I went down to the Baptist preacher, he said, "Stand up and
just say, 'Jesus is the Son of God,' we'll put your name on the book."
That didn't satisfy me.
Everywhere I went somebody... The Seventh-day Adventist, went to
see him, a fine man, Brother Barker, lovely brother, he said, "Billy, come
and accept the Lord's sabbath." (I have now.) But he said, "The
sabbath day." And I thought, "Oh, my, that just still don't seem to
be."
Foot Prints Book - Page 113
I
went out West, and I thought... Got way back up there that night, we was on the
roundup. And, you know, you took the saddle off and your camp bag, and laid it
out, and use your saddle for a pillow. And I was laying back, up under them old
pine trees that night. And I was on day watch, and so the night boys was out
bringing the cattle down. And there was an old guy called "Slim,"
from Texas, he had a--a guitar there and he was playing "Glory to His
Name!" And another guy there had a comb with a piece of paper, blowing
through it. [Brother Branham hums, "Glory To His Name'--Ed.] They had been
singing other songs, cowboy ballads, and got singing that "Down at the
Cross."
My! I turned over, put my blanket up over my head like this. I
looked back out, you know, it looked like them stars was hanging right down
there close to the top of them trees and them mountains. That old everlasting
whisper of them pines, I can hear Him holler, "Adam, where art thou?"
About three weeks after that, I went down into the city and all the
boys got drunk, and I didn't drink. And I'd have to take them all home, pile
them on the car, any way. They get out there and shoot at one another's toes,
and everything else, and dangerous to be safe; draw a straight line down
through there, bet one another five dollars they could walk it, and they
couldn't walk a sidewalk out there like that, you know. And that's the way it
was till they all got sobered up, after they got their money.
And I was down there and they was all drinking, I went apart and
set down. I thought, "My, my!" About thirty-five years ago, or
thirty-five, I guess, thirty-five years ago. And I set down there, apart.
Phoenix was a small place then, they come from Wickenburg down there. I set
down there, and there was a little spanish girl come flipping through there;
and me setting there, this big hat setting on the back; she passed by and
dropped this little handkerchief, you know. I said, "Hey, you dropped your
handkerchief." I wasn't interested.
I heard a little noise down the street there, and went down there.
And there was an old boy converted out of them bucking stalls out there, pot
marks all over his face, the tears running down his cheeks there, playing a
guitar, singing, "Glory to His Name!" Oh, my! The tears running down
his face, he stopped and said, "Brother, you don't know what it is till that
you've received this wonderful Christ. Glory to His Name!" And I pulled
that hat down and away I went. Oh, my! You can't hide from Him. You just might
as well come out and confess it. Oh, He is wonderful! Yes, He is.
The Sardisean Church Age, December 9, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 114
I
seen this at my conversion, of the day that we lived in. I'm so glad that God
got a hold of me before the church did. I'd probably been an infidel, yes, sir,
I... all this conglomeration of mess and everybody. "Well, come over and
join ours. And if you don't, well, you can pick up your letter and go join the
other one." Oh! "Won't you bring your letter into our
fellowship?" I believe there's one letter, that's when Christ writes your
name on the Lamb's Book of Life. That's the only one it's on.
When I seen all the denominations... Our background is Irish, which
was formerly Catholic, and I seen that was corrupt and rotten. I went down to a
certain denominational church here in the city; they said, "Oh, we're the
way, the truth, the light; we got all of it."
I went to another one in New Albany, "Oh, my! Them guys up
there don't know what they're talking about."
Catholics said, "You're all wrong."
I thought, "Oh, my!"
I played with a little Lutheran boy, and I thought--a little German
Lutheran; I went over and I said, "Where do you go to church at?"
"I go to that church."
I went down, and I found out they said they were the way. And I
went down to Brother Dale, in Emmanuel Baptist, or the First Baptist, they
said, "This is the way."
Then I went over to the Irish church, they said, "But this is
the way."
"Oh, my! I'm so confused, I don't know what to do. But I want
to get right!"
I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know how to repent. I wrote
a letter. I thought, "I seen Him in the woods." I wrote Him a letter,
I said, "Dear Sir, I know You pass down this path here, 'cause I set here
squirrel hunting. I know You come by, and I know You're here. I want You. I
want to tell You something.
I thought, "Now, wait a minute. I--I never seen anybody I
didn't... I want to talk to them; I--I want to speak with them. I--I want to
talk to Him." I thought, "Well now, I don't know how to do it."
And I went out in the shed and knelt down, water, wet and little
old car setting there wrecked up. And I said, "I believe I seen a
picture... I believe they put their hands like this," and I got down. And
I said, "Now, what I'm going to say?" I said, "There's some way
you have to do this, and I don't know. I know there's a way to approach
everything, and I don't..."
Foot Prints Book - Page 115
I
said, I put my hands like this, I said, "Dear Sir, I wish that You would
come and speak with me just a moment. I want to tell You how bad I am."
Held my hand like this. I listened. People said... God talked to me, and I
knowed He did talk, 'cause I'd heard It when I was a kid, telling me not to
drink, and thing. He didn't answer me.
I said, "Maybe I was supposed to put my hands like this."
So I said, "Dear Sir, I--I don't know just exactly how to do this, but
I--I trust that You'll... Will You help me?"
And each preacher telling me come join theirs, and stand up and say
they took Jesus Christ, and they believe Jesus to be the Son of God. Devils
believe the same thing, so I thought, "I--I got to have something better
than that." So I was setting like this.
I read where Peter and John passed through the gate called
Beautiful, and there was a man crippled from his mother's womb. Said,
"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have..." Don't know... I
knowed I didn't have that.
So I was trying to--to find out how to do it; I didn't know how to
pray. I made my hands; then I laid down like this. Of course, Satan come on the
scene then, said, "You see? You waited too long. You're already twenty
years old; there's no need of trying it now. You done..."
Then I got all broke up and started crying. And then, when I really
got broke up, I said, "I'm going to talk. If You don't talk to me, I'm
going to talk to You anyhow." So I--I said, "I'm no good; I'm ashamed
of myself! Mr. God, I know You'll hear me somewhere. You hear me? I'm ashamed
of myself; I'm ashamed that I have neglected You!"
About that time I looked up, and a funny feeling swept over me.
Here come a Light moving through the room and made a cross, like that; and a
Voice that I never heard in my life, talked. I looked at It, just cold all
over, numb; I'm scared. I couldn't move. Stood, looked at It; and It went away.
I said, "Sir, I--I don't understand Your language." I said,
"If You can't talk mine, and I--and I don't understand Yours... And if You
have forgive me. I know that I'm supposed to be reckoned in that cross there,
somewhere that my sins are supposed to lay in there. And if--and if You will
forgive me, just come back and talk in Your own language. I'll understand by
that, if You can't talk my language." I said, "You just let It come
back again."
There It was again. Oh, my goodness! There I got an Absolute. Amen!
Yes, sir! Felt like a--a load of forty tons lifted off my shoulders. I walked
down through that boardwalk, couldn't even touch the ground.
Mother said, "Billy, you're nervous."
I said, "No, Mom, I don't know what happened."
Foot Prints Book - Page 116
There
was a railroad track back there, I run down that railroad track jumping up in
the air just as hard as I could. I didn't know how to give vent to my feelings.
Oh, if I'd have knowed how to shout! I was shouting, but in my own way. You
see?
What was it? I had anchored my soul in a Haven of Rest. That settled
it, that was my Absolute. There I'd found something, not some mythical, some
idea. I'd talked with the Man. I'd talked with that Man that told me never to
drink, or smoke, or do anything that would defile myself--with women and so
forth; that when I got older there'd be a work for me to do. I had contacted
Him, not the church. I'd contacted Him. Him! Yes, sir, He was the One.
The Absolute, December 30, 1962
I
received the baptism of the Holy Ghost back in my shed, see. And about a year
later, or something like that, I was--I was... spoke in tongues.
And about a year or two after that, I was preaching again in a
church, and I was--I was standing up on the platform like this, and I... When I
was young and wasn't stiff and old as I am now, I could get around a little
better and I was very emotional in preaching. I was standing there preaching
and I just jumped up on a desk. It was on a Baptist Church, Milltown Baptist
Church, and went right down into the aisle, preaching just as hard as I could
preach like that. And just as I stopped preaching, Something just had me all
carried away and said several words, four or five, or six words, in unknown
tongues. And before I knew what I was doing, I heard myself calling out
"The Rock in a weary land, the shelter in the time of storm." See?
And then one day coming down a railroad track, I was walking down
the railroad track, this side of Scottsburg, coming down the railroad track,
patrolling. The winds blowing hard, oh, my, and ice all over the track, and I
crossed over so I could walk down my thirty-three thousand, sixty-six went up
the other way, kind of went parallel to the track. And I was coming down the
track, and all of a sudden... I was walking along there, I was singing. I always
sang. I had different places where I went to pray. And I was going along there,
singing, and all at once I come to find out I was speaking in tongues, see, not
knowing what I was doing.
Questions And Answers, January 12, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 117
We
believe that the Laodicean church started in A.D. 1906. I predict! Now
remember, "predict," especially you listening at the tape. I don't
say it will be, but predict that it will end by 1977, that the church will go
completely into apostasy and she will be ousted out of the mouth of God. And
the Second Coming, or the Rapture of Christ, might come anytime. Now, I could
miss that a year, I can miss it twenty years, I could miss it a hundred years.
I don't know where it... But I just predict that according to a vision He
showed me, and taking the time, the way it's progressing, I say it'll be
sometime between '33 and '77. At--at least, this great nation is going to
strike a war that's going to blow it to bits, see. Now that's pretty close,
it's awful close. And I could be wrong, I'm predicting. Everybody understands
that, "amen" me. [Congregation says "Amen!"--Ed.] See?
But the Lord showed me a vision of the great powerful woman, in
'33, 1933, it's on paper. Of how that "Roosevelt would cause... he would
help cause the world to go to war." How that "Mussolini would make
his first invasion to Ethiopia and he would take it, but he would come to a
disgraceful end." And how that "Then the three isms (Nazism, Fascism,
and Communism) would all wind up in Communism." And how many in here
remembers me just keep having you stand, just say it over like that,
"Watch Russia! Watch Russia, the king of the North! Watch Russia, king of
the North! Watch Russia, king of the North!" How many has heard me just
say this, wave that over and over? The old-timers, you see, back in the early
part of the church. Just stand there and wave it over and over, "Watch
Russia, the king of the North! See, what he would do, for all those isms will
heap up into Russia."
Then I said, that "This nation would finally go to war with
Germany. And Germany would be built in a concrete war." And that was the
Maginot Line, eleven years before it was ever started to build it, eleven years
before. And I said, "The Americans will take an awful beating at that
line." Some of these brethren here was at that line, Brother Roy Roberson
and them, ask them what happened. They sure did. All right. "But
finally," I said, "we will overcome and will be one of the winner in
the war between us and Germany.
Now, I said, "Then after that time, that science would really
progress." They did, they made an atomic bomb and everything. I said,
"During their progression, they would make a... cars would constantly
begin to shape like an egg." And you remember the big old hood on the
1933, the big back come down like this and the spare tire back of it? Look how
it is now, see, streamlined, see, like an egg. And I said, "Finally they
will invent a car that you won't have to have a steering wheel in it. I seen a
family going down the... Call it 'road,' in a glass-top car, great big
fine-looking roads and fine car. And they were sitting, looking at one another,
and the car was running by itself, going right on around the curves and
everything." And they've got the car right now, It's already invented.
They've got the car. And I said then, "Oh, how science will progress in
that day!"
Foot Prints Book - Page 118
I
said, "Then I seen a... They're going to permit women and are permitting
women to vote. And by voting, they'll elect the wrong man some of these
days." And you did at the last election. It was the women's votes that
elected Kennedy. We know that, see, between the crooked machines and things
fixed up, that F--FBI exposed. And how could anybody... Why don't they do
something about it? Why ain't something said? Huh, afraid somebody'd lose their
job. You see, it's just a bunch of politics, rotten to the core. That's all.
Sure!
There ain't no--ain't no... isn't no, excuse me. There is no
salvation in this nation, there's no salvation in any nation. Salvation's in
Jesus Christ and Him alone! That's right. Now, I'm thankful for America. I'd
rather live here than any place in the world, because... outside of Canada.
Canada and the United States is twins, we know that, neighboring nations,
wonderful place, but I--I believe I'd rather live here than anywhere I know of,
because it's my home. I'm glad that I am an American, and thankful for it. But
I tell you, it certainly needs a counter revival, it sure does. And it will not
get it! No, sir. She will never rise again! No. She's gone! You remember, about
five years ago in Chicago, that's on tape. You got it, Gene. I said,
"They'll either accept It this year, or they'll constantly drop
down." And they've done it, see, and they will do it till she will finally
meet her end.
But there'll be a powerful woman! Now, remember! This is on tape,
too. A powerful woman, great woman, she will either be President, or it'll be a
woman representing the Catholic Church (which I think it is) will take over
here someday and she will rule this country. This nation is a woman's nation.
Flag was made by a woman, it's number thirteen. She started out, thirteen
stars, thirteen stripes, thirteen colonies. Everything's thirteen, thirteen,
thirteen, right on down. Thirteen stars on her silver dollar now. Everything's
a thirteen. It's number thirteen, and appears in the chapter of Revelation. Completely
thirteen! Everything is "woman, woman, woman, woman, woman," right on
down. And she took over all the offices. She's took over Hollywood. She's took
over everything there is, equal rights with the man, votes with the man, cusses
like a man, drinks like a man, anything else. And just bait for the Catholic
Church, for the worship of a woman! They're already worshipping a woman,
anyhow.
The Laodicean Church Age, December 11, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 119
Doctor
Davis said to me, "Billy, you preach such a thing as that, you'll preach
it to the posts of the church."
I said, "I'll be preaching God's Word to the posts then,
'cause God's able of these posts to rise children unto Abraham." Right!
God's Word is true!
Said, "You think they'll believe you?"
I said, "That's not my business. It's my business to stay true
to that Word." That's right.
Said, "You think you could meet an educated world like this
with a theology of--of Divine healing?"
I said, "It's not my Divine healing, it's His promise. He was
the One give the commission."
Oh, and I remember when He swept down there in that big Light,
standing yonder at the bottom of the river, 1933, in June, when He said,
"As--as John the Baptist was sent forth and forerun the first coming of
Christ, I send you with a Message to the world to forerun the second coming of
Christ." And around the world she's went when revival fires had been built
for fifteen years on nearly every mountain. Divine healing across the nations,
and the power, and restoration, and now, I believe she's ready to strike that
final climax yonder, to bring forth a faith that will Rapture the Church into
Glory; and She's laying in the Messages! We're really at the end time. We've
talked about it and everything, but the thing has moved upon us now. Hear them!
Yes, sir! Here's one!
The Absolute, December 30, 1962
Some
time ago in New Albany, while I was standing there talking to a sinner, leading
him to Christ, a big old rough-handed man in the garage, a man was a friend of
mine, his son-in-law run the garage next door. I was standing there preaching
at a dinner hour, eating a sandwich and talking to him about God. Through the
daytime I'd find somewhere where I could go at dinner time and try to win a
soul to Christ. He said, "Mr. Branham!" He said... I was just a boy
preacher, myself. He said, "Mr. Branham," said, "my mother had
that kind of religion, that heartfelt religion." And the tears was running
down his cheeks.
I said, "How long she been gone?"
Said, "Years. She always prayed for me."
I said, "The God that heard her prayers is trying to answer
them right now for her."
Foot Prints Book - Page 120
And
this man walked in there, he said, "Ello is drunk." Said, "Hey,
Billy, listen." Said, "Anytime you want to come over to my
garage," said, "you come," but said, "don't bring that old
holy-roller religion of yours over there."
I turned and looked at him, I said, "Anywhere Christ is not
welcome, I'll not be."
And so he turned around, said "Ah, get next to yourself,
boy!"
And I just heard in my heart, a Voice say, "You reap what you
sow. It would be better for you that a millstone was hanged at your neck and
drowned in the depths of the sea." And his own son-in-law, that very same
afternoon, run over him with a two-ton Chevrolet truck, loaded down, and mashed
him down in the ground.
See, you've got to respect God! You've got to do it. You... God
demands respects. And He demands it. And so Miriam ought to have knowed better,
so ought--ought Aaron to knowed better, then, knowing this, that Moses was led
by the Spirit of God to do what he was going to do.
Respects, October 15, 1961
I
had a little girl here one time, the lady may be setting here now, her name was
Nellie Sanders, one of the first times I ever seen a devil cast out. We lived,
now, if I can just get the place in, it'd be just about three blocks up here
beyond the graveyard. Now, I had just become a preacher, and I was Preaching
right here on this corner with a tent meeting. And that little girl was one of
the best dancers. She went to high school down here. And her and Lee Horn...
And many of you here in town know Lee Horn down here, runs the poolroom in
there. So they, her and Lee Horn, was the best dancers there was in the
country. He's Catholic himself; course, religion didn't mean nothing to them.
So then (Nellie and them), so she was a great dancer and he was too, and they
had this here dance called the "black bottom" and
"jitterbugs" and all them things; and she was--them two was the best
in the country.
One day she staggered in up here, one night, to the meeting. There
she fell down at the altar, little Nellie; bless her heart. She just laid there
at the altar, she raised up her head, and she cried; and the tears running down
her cheeks, she said, "Billy," she knew me, she said, "I want to
be saved so bad."
I said, "Nellie, you can be saved; Jesus already saved you,
girl. You have to accept it now upon the basis of His Word." And she
stayed there, and she cried, and she prayed, and she told God she'd never
listen to the things of the world again. All at once a lovely, sweet, peace come
over her soul. She raised up from there shouting and praising God, glorifying
God.
Foot Prints Book - Page 121
And
about six or eight months after that, she was coming down Spring Street one
night (now just a young girl, she was just in her teen-age, about eighteen
years old), and she come to me, and she said, "Hope..." (that was my
wife, the one that's gone on). She said, "I wished I looked like Hope and
Irene." She said, "You know, they never did get out in the world."
Said, "The world puts a mark on you." Said, "I got a rough
look." Said, "Now, I quit wearing make-up and stuff, but I look so
rough. Even my cast of my face," she said, "I look rough." She
said, "They look so innocent and tender." Said, "I wish I'd have
never done that."
I said, "Nellie, the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all
sin, Honey. Go on, believe it."
Wayne Bledsoe (many of you know him here, a bosom friend of mine
years and years), he was a drinker, and he come up here with my brother,
Edward. And he got drunk down here in the street, and I picked him up, 'cause
cops was going to get him. And I brought him up here; and I was a preacher and
lived up here my mama and papa's way before I was married. And I took him, put
him in the bed in there; I sleep--slept on the duofold. There's a big bunch of
Branhams, you know (ten of us), and so we had about four rooms, and we had to
kinda double up a little. So I had an old duofold I slept on; and I pulled it
out like this and--and put Wayne to bed with me, drunk. Had to pack him in the
house and lay him down. And I was laying there, I said, "Wayne, aren't you
ashamed of yourself like that?"
He, "Uh, duh, Billy, don't talk to me like that." You
know? [Brother Branham imitates a drunk speaking--Ed.] I put my hand over and I
said, "I'm going to pray for you, Wayne. God bless you."
And I'd been saved about, oh, I guess about, maybe a year. And so
then all at once a--a cab, slammed the door outside, and somebody knocked real
hard, "Brother Bill! Brother Bill!" [Brother Branham knocks on the
pulpit--Ed.]
I thought, "My goodness, somebody must be dying." I
jumped up to the door, grabbed my old thing there, throwed it around my pajamas
like this, and covered Wayne up, and run to the door. It sounded just like a
woman. I opened the door, and this young girl standing at the door, she said,
"Oh, can I come in?"
I said, "Come in," and I turned the lights on and...
Now, she was just crying like that, and she said, "Oh, Bill!
Billy, I'm--I'm--I'm gone, I'm gone!"
I said, "What's the matter, Nellie? You got a--got a heart
attack?"
She said, "No." She said, "Brother Bill, I was
coming down Spring Street." She said, "Honest, Brother Bill, honest,
Brother Bill, I didn't mean no harm; I didn't mean no harm."
I said, "What's the matter?" I thought, "What am I
going to do with her now?" See? I didn't know what to do. I was just a
young fellow, and I thought...
Said, "Oh, Brother Bill," said, "I'm just--I'm just
all to pieces."
I said, "Now, quieten down, Sis. Tell me about it."
And she said, "Well," she said, "I was coming down
the street, and the Redman's Hall..." And they used to have Saturday night
dances there. And she said, "I had some stuff; I was going home to make me
a dress." And she said, "I heard that music, and," she said,
"you know," said, "I stopped just a minute, and," said,
"it kept getting better. So I thought, `You know, it won't hurt if I stand
right here.'"
That's where she made her mistake, stopped for a moment.
She just listened, said, "Well, I'm going to think."
Said, "Oh, Lord, You know I love You. Oh, said, "You know I love You,
Lord, but I can remember the time when Lee and I used to win all the cups and
so forth." Said, "My, I remember that old music used to attract me;
it don't now." Oh, oh! Oh, oh, you think it don't, it's already got you
right there. That's just as good as he wants right there. See?
How many ever knowed Nellie Sanders? Well, I guess a whole lot of
you. Yeah, sure! So, she said, "Well, do you know what?" said,
"Maybe if I walk up on the steps up there," said, "maybe I'll be
able to testify to some of them." See, you're right on the devil's ground.
Stay out of it! Shun the very appearance of evil!
But she walked up to the top of the steps and stood there a few
minutes, and the first thing you know, she was in some boy's arms out on the
floor. Then she came to herself, and she was standing there crying and going
on, said, "Oh, I'm lost now for good."
I thought, "Well, I don't know too much about the Bible, but I
believe Jesus said this: `In My Name they shall cast out devils.'" And
Wayne had done sobered up a little bit and was setting there watching it. See?
So I said, "Now, devil, I don't know who you are, but I'm telling you now,
this is my sister, and you ain't got no business with her, holding her. She didn't
mean to do that; she just stopped for a minute." That's where she made her
mistake though. I said, "But you're going to have to come out of here. You
hear me?" And so help me (God will at the judgment bar know), that screen
door begin to opening and shutting by itself--pumpity, plumpity, there at the
door. Ka-plump, ka-plump, ka-plump, I thought... And she said, "Bill,
looky there, looky there!"
And I said, "Yeah. What is that?"
She said, "I don't know."
I said, "Neither do I!" And the door go pumpity, pump,
tipump, shutting like that, I thought, "What's the matter here? What's the
matter?" And I looked in like that, and I said, "Leave her, Satan. In
Jesus' Name come out of her!" When I said that, it looked like a great big
bat, about this long, rose up from behind her, with long hair hanging down out
of its wings and off of its feet like that; it's going, "Whrrrrrrr,"
started right towards me, just as hard as it come. I said, "O Lord God,
the Blood of Jesus Christ protect me from that!"
Foot Prints Book - Page 123
And
Wayne jumped up in the bed, looked; and here it was like a big shadow, circled
around, and went over, and went down behind the bed. Out of the bed went Wayne,
in the next room as hard as he could.
So we--I got Nellie and took her home, and come back, and I
couldn't... Mom went in there and shook the sheets and everything; there wasn't
nothing in that bed. What was it? A devil went out of her! What happened? She
stopped for a moment. That's all.
The Greatest Battle Ever Fought, March 11, 1962
I
have come to this place that I want to explain what stage of time we're living
in according to the ministry that the Lord give me. And I wanted to record it
from the Tabernacle. It came on my heart last spring, but I waited till I got
back here so I could get a--a recording of it, to send it to you people of the
world.
It's been about thirty-two years ago, that when the Lord Jesus,
within a hundred and fifty yards of where I'm present standing now, here in
Jeffersonville at Eighth and Penn Street, the morning when I laid the
cornerstone on this Tabernacle, just being then merely a swamp. And I lived
just across the way to my left here. It was before I was married. I was living
with my father and mother. That the Lord Jesus woke me up the morning that the
cornerstone was to be laid, about early, about six o'clock. And I had been
lying in bed for some time, with my heart full of joy, thinking of this great
time that the Lord God was going to give me a tabernacle to preach in. I was
merely a young boy then. And that day I... the girl that I was going with,
which was soon to be my wife the following year, was to be with us the day we
was to lay the cornerstone.
And I remember that morning when I had wakened up, and laying in
the room, the upstairs right here on Seventh Street. Something said, "Rise
up to your feet." And I got up. And I saw, as it was, a great place, and
It was like a--a--a place where there was a river run in the valley. And I got
down there to the river and I understood it was a place where John the Baptist
had been baptizing the people, and they had turned it into a hog lot. And I was
very critical of it, just saying that this should not be done.
Foot Prints Book - Page 124
And
while I was there, there was a--a Voice spoke to me and took me up, and I
noticed the Tabernacle in just about the state it's in right now. But there
were so many people till they were just packed all in, in the Tabernacle, in
this condition, about the state it's at now. And I--I was happy, standing
behind the pulpit, saying, "God, how good You are to give me a
Tabernacle."
And at that time, the Angel of the Lord spake to me, and said,
"But this is not your Tabernacle."
And I said, "Then, Lord, where is my Tabernacle?"
And He taken me up in the Spirit again, and set me down in a grove.
And way down the grove was just rows of trees setting just level, about
twenty-feet tall, or thirty. And they looked like fruit trees, and they were in
great big green buckets.
And then I noticed to my right hand and to my left hand, there was
an empty bucket on either side, and I said, "What about these?"
And He said, "You're to plant in them." So I pulled a
limb from the tree to my right and placed it in a bucket on the right side, and
a limb from the left hand and place it in a bucket on the left side. Quickly
they growed all the way into the skies.
And He said, "Hold out your hands and gather the fruit
thereof." And in one hand fell a great yellow apple, mellow and ripe. And
in the other hand fell a great yellow plum, mellow and ripe. And said,
"Eat the fruit thereof, because it's pleasant." And I ate from one
and from the other, very delicious. You know the vision, it's wrote in one of
the books, I think, Life Story, or Prophet Visits Africa.
And just then I held up my hands, and was shouting the glory of
God. And all of a sudden, that Pillar of Fire came down over the top of those
trees, and the roar and the lightnings flashed, and the winds blew real hard,
and the leaves begin to blowing from the trees. And I looked way down, here
stood the shape of this Tabernacle, the way it sets now. And at the end where
the pulpit would be, there were three trees, and those three trees taken shape
of three crosses. And I noticed that both plums and apples were gathered in a
clusters around the middle cross. And I ran real fast, screaming to the top of
my voice, and fell down upon this cross, or by the cross, and threw my arms
around it. And the winds begin to shake, and the--the fruit from the cross, and
it fell all over me. And I was so happy, just rejoicing. And said, "Eat
the fruit thereof, because it's pleasant."
Foot Prints Book - Page 125
And then just a circling of Fire, called out, said, "The harvest is ripe, and the laborers are few." And He said, "Now, when you come to yourself again, or come out of this, read II Timothy 4. II Timothy 4." And then I came to myself. And I stood there rubbing my face and my hand. And just then, in the corner of the room, sun shining high, then I must have been under the vision for some hour or more, and It said, "II Timothy 4." And I reached quickly for my Bible, and read II Timothy 4.
Present Stage Of My Ministry, September 8, 1962
But today they don't want to hear a Message like that. The people don't want to hear that, they want to be tickled in their ears. Exactly what the Holy Spirit told me the day I laid that cornerstone there, said to, "Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap for themselves together teachers, having itching ears, and shall be turned from the Truth to fables." Said, "When the vision leaves you read II Timothy 4." Said, "Don't forget II Timothy 4." And when the vision left me, standing right there on Seventh Street, a nineteen-year-old boy standing there, the voice of God spoke out in the room, and He said, "II Timothy 4." That's exactly what it's turned to be.
The Flashing Red Light Of The Sign Of His Coming, June 23, 1963
I
was patrolling. And many people here, down around Georgetown, down here,
Milltown, there used to be way back in the hills a fountain, it was an artesian
well. It was--throwed out about a--a four or five-foot stream of water, just
gushed out all the time, and a great big fountain around there and just a...
Right around it was a lot of this penny royal, you know, and stuff growing
there, that mint-like. And, oh, I used to just thirst to get there, oh, my, to
get to that fountain! And I'd lay down by this thing and just drink and drink,
and set down and drink, wait. And year after year I'd still come to this same
fountain, and it never did cease, winter or summer. They couldn't freeze it.
You can't freeze an artesian well. Oh, no! Oh, no! I don't care how--how cold
it gets, it ain't going to freeze that. It'll freeze the cistern, just a little
frost will do that. See? But anything that's moving, got Life in it; it's
a-moving around. And you can't freeze the artesian well out. No matter how
depressed the spirit is around the place, this Well's always a-living. Live at
that Well.
And I noticed there, I went by, and I drink at it, and, oh, my,
just the fresh water; you never had to worry, "Wonder if I get there,
wonder if it quit running?" It's been running...
An old farmer told me, said, "My grandfather drank out of
that." And said, "It never has diminished or nothing; it's still the
same well, gushing right out into the Blue River there."
Foot Prints Book - Page 126
I
thought, "Oh, my! What a fine place to water." I walked about a mile
out of the way to get to that place, because it was such a real place to drink
at. Oh, how good that water was! Oh, my! I'd--I get out in that desert,
Arizona, and I still think about it. "That's wonderful well down there, if
I could just lay down to that. As David said one time, "Oh, if I could
once more drink from that well." If he could just get there.
And I set down one day, and I had a little funny thing that
happened to me; and I said, "What makes you so happy all the time? I
wished I could be happy like that. Why, I never seen you sad since I been
coming here. There's not one sad thing about you." I said, "You're
always full of joy; you're jumping and bubbling and carrying on. Winter or
summer, cold or hot, whatever it is, you're always full of joy. What makes
you--what--what is it, because I drink out of you?"
"Nope."
I say, "Well, maybe the rabbits drink out of you, and you like
it so well?"
"Nope."
I said, "Well, what makes you bubbling over like that? What
makes you so happy? What makes you always full of joy?" Said, "Is it
because that--that the birds drink from you?"
"No."
"Cause I drink from you?"
"No."
I said, "Well, what makes you so full of joy?"
And if that well could speak back to me, he'd say this,
"Brother Branham, not because you drink (I appreciate that) and because I
can furnish for the birds. I furnish for anybody that wants to drink. Only
thing you have to do is come here and drink. But what makes me happy, it ain't
me bubbling, it's something inside pushing me. It's something bubbling
me."
And that's the way it is with a Spirit-filled life. As Jesus said,
He was in... He give you wells of water, springing up into Everlasting Life, an
artesian, over-flowing gusher that's constantly flowing. Whether the rest of
the church is up or down, you're still at that well. Why would you take an old
denominational system and cistern full of parasites and everything else, and
drink around on that stagnated stuff, when you're invited to a Fountain, and
Artesian Well?
I think how it just pushed, and juggled, and--and gurgled, and
laughed, and joyed, and jumped, and froliced. Cold, rainy, hot, dry; when all
the rest of the country was drying up, it was bubbling just like it always did.
Cause it was deep, rooted; way down in the rocks it come forth.
Foot Prints Book - Page 127
Oh, let me live by that Gusher. Take an your man-made systems you want to, all your old stagnated wells, but let me come to... or stagnated cisterns, but let me come to this Fountain. Let me come there where He is just full... He is my Joy; He is my Life; He's my--He is my Strength; He's my Water; He's my Life; He's my Healer; He's my Saviour; He's my King. Everything that I have need of is found in Him.
Broken Cisterns, July 26, 1964
He
was Hope's stepfather, and I was telling him about the Baptism of the Holy
Spirit. He said, "Now, who would believe a thing like that, 'less some
kind of a bunch like you got up there?" He said, "You let So-and-so
(a businessman here in the town, a wicked as all...), let him say that he
received the Holy Ghost, then I'd believe it."
I said, "Don't worry, he will never say it." The man died
instantly without God. See, you be careful what you're doing, be careful what
you're saying. You want a life worthy of the Gospel. That's right!
Is Your Life Worthy Of The Gospel? June 30, 1963
A
woman dying, just as I run up the steps, when I was preaching right here, and a
man standing right there at the door, calling to me. She'd walked by, She lived
up the street here and had a cow out there. And she said, "If my cow got
that kind of religion that Billy's got, I'd kill the cow." In less than an
hour from then she was stricken and taken to the hospital, a beautiful young
woman. And I rushed out there. Her husband was Catholic and they'd sent for me.
She's dying, and she went... and her eyes went to swelling out. She said,
"Call him! Call him! Call him! Call him, quickly. Quickly!"
And her brother run up and stood there at the door and waited and
waited, and he kept motioning for me. The place just packed full of people, and
after a while somebody come around and put a note on the desk here; it
said--said, "Someone's dying in a hospital." And I believe Brother
Graham Snelling... I said, "Take my place till I go." And he was just
standing up to lead the singing; he wasn't even called and to--to preach at
that time. He come up to lead singing, and I went out and got in my car and
rushed out there, and just as I was going up the steps, she drawed her last
breath. And of course, the bowels and kidneys and everything act. And I run in
there, and they'd done covered her face up, and steam coming up around like
that; and that old nurse standing there, she said, "Brother Branham, she
screamed her last breath for you." Trying to make it right, but it was too
late then. You see? You can sin one time too many, you know. And she's kind of
had... deep in her face.
Foot Prints Book - Page 128
She
had auburn hair, a real pretty Woman. And she--her bobbed hair was all bushed
out; great big brown eyes had pushed out and just half closed. And the freckles
on her face had gotten in such a way, such strain, till they just stood out
like little bumps all over her face, and her mouth was open. And I walked over
there and looked at her, and there her husband stood there and said,
"Billy, here's what it was." Said, "I'm Catholic. I want you to
say a prayer for her, 'cause she's gone to purgatory."
And I said, "What?"
Said, "Say a prayer for her." Said, "She's gone to
purgatory. She passed by your church about two hours ago and said if our cow
ever got your kind of religion, she'd kill the cow." See? Said, "Say
a prayer for her."
I said, "That's too late; she should've purged her soul here,
not till she gets somewhere else." See? That's right. Oh, yes. But we
always want Him in a time of distress. People, I've heard them say, "I
don't believe in God." Let him hurt himself right bad once, see the first
One he will call on.
Taking Sides With Jesus, June 1, 1962
Man
see some little Jezebel all painted up, you know, and--and he will go around
fall for her, maybe you got a good wife. And then you call yourself a
"Christian." Shame on you! You need another dose of the altar. That's
right.
And some of you--and some of you women look around at some little
old guy with his hair slicked down; enough vaseline on it to open his mouth.
And then you...
Some little old girl, here not long ago... This ain't a joke,
because I don't mean to tell it as a joke. But the people knows that this is no
place to joke. But a little old girl here, she was... There's fine boys here,
Christian boys. A long time ago, when I was pastor here, we used to have a...
just young man's classes. And I'd speak to the young women on Sunday afternoon,
about sex and things. And then the next Sunday afternoon, speak to the young
man, and try to get those things curbed out.
Some little old girl started going with some little old shrimp,
downtown here, smoked cigarettes and had a flash in his pocket, and he drove a
little roadster car around town. I couldn't see what she seen in that boy. He
wouldn't come to church. And sit out there; put her in church out here, and
then he'd set out there on the outside in his car and wait, wouldn't come in
church. I said to her one day... She lived in New Albany. I said, "I want
to ask you something, girlie. What in the world do you see in that boy?" I
said, "The first place, he hates the very religion that you--you have. He
despises your Christ. He'd never make you a husband, he will make you miserable
all your life." And I said, "When, these fine little Christian boys
here that you could go with, and they're... Your daddy and mother despises the
thoughts of you going out. But you go, anyhow, and you think 'I'm sweet
sixteen.'"
Foot Prints Book - Page 129
She
started wearing make-up and running out, and first thing, she was in
roadhouses. She's gone on to Eternity now. But then, she stood here and... You
know what excuse that girl give me back there, that she loved that boy? She
said, "He's got such cute little feet, and he smells so good." Could
you imagine that? Perfuming himself up; that's a sissy, not a man.
"Look," I said, "Sister, I'd rather go with a
Christian boy that had feet like gravel cars and smelled like a polecat, if he
was absolutely a Christian." That's right! True!
Yeah, that's excuse, "Such cute little feet, and smells so
good." The little roadhouse runner! Finally ruined the life of the girl.
It's a shame! Disgraceful!
Marriage is honorable, but it should be entered prayerfully and
reverently. And genuine love for that woman will bind you together forever,
"What you bind on the earth, I'll bind in Heaven." When you walk down
the street yonder, she may get old and gray and wrinkled, but the same love you
had for her when she was a young beautiful woman, you'll still have it.
You may get stoop-shouldered, bald-headed, and wrinkled-faced and
everything else, but she will love you just like you did when you stand with
wide shoulders and curly hair, if it's really God. For you're looking to the
time when you've crossed the river yonder, when you'll spring back, again to
young man and women, to live together forever. That's God's Eternal promise! He
said He would do it. He... not only that, we'll get to it in a minute, He swore
He would do it!
Hebrews, Chapter Seven, September 22, 1957
I seen the 1937 flood rise, and twenty-two feet come over Spring Street, begin to prophesy. People said, "You're crazy. You're off at your head." Down at the Falls City Transfer Company, when I gave that down there to them, they said, "Ah, Billy, go on home." But less than six weeks from then, twenty-two feet of water measured over Spring Street, just exactly the way It said.
Life Story, July 20, 1951
During the time of the flood here, in 1937, this little old church, when the mud floors and so forth that was in it, we could ride over the top of it here in a--in a rowboat. The floods went up, and that night when I preached the Gospel and had left my Bible laying open on the pulpit when I went home.
Foot Prints Book - Page 130
Predicting
that flood would come, I Said, "I seen a Measure twenty-two feet over
Spring Street down here."
Old Brother Jim Wisehart and them laughed at me. You remember that,
Brother George? I said... He--he said, "Oh, Billy, in '84 it only was
about six inches on Spring Street."
I said, "I seen a man come down from the skies, and take a
measure stick and stick it there on Spring Street, said twenty-two feet."
He said, "You're just excited."
I said, "I'm not excited! It's THUS SAITH THE LORD!"
Ask them how many feet was over Spring Street. Twenty-two feet to
the inch! Exactly.
And that old Bible where I had been preaching on that night... She
started raining, the floods breaking through and so forth, and this old
church... The seats went right straight up to the ceiling, the Bible went right
straight up to the ceiling, washing through here with all that water raising it
up. The pulpit went straight straight up. They come right down; and every seat
set back in the same place, and the Bible laid right back in the same place,
and all that water, and still opened up, the same chapter at the same place.
"Heavens and earth will pass away, but My Word shall never pass
away."
Revelation, Chapter Four, January 8, 1961
I
was sick one time when, my, I lost my wife, I lost my baby, oh, lost my father,
and lost my brother, and lost my sister-in-law, and Billy was laying, dying.
And when I was just about gone, I was going up the road, crying, going to her
grave (and her and the baby, and the baby on her arms), going to the grave. I
was walking up. Mr. Isler, used to come here and play, you know, the state
Senator of Indiana, he was coming up the road. He stopped, and he run out there
and put his arms around me. It was after the '37 flood. He said, "Where
you going, Billy? Up there?"
And I said, "Yep!"
He said, "What are you going to do up there?"
I said, "I'll listen to an old dove." I said, "I set
there by the baby's grave and hers. An old dove comes down there, and he speaks
to me."
"Oh," he said, "Billy!"
I said, "Yeah! I hear the whispering of the leaves when they
play it. It plays music to me."
Mr. Isler said, "What kind of music does it play?"
I said, "There's a land beyond the river, That they call that
sweet forever, And we only reach that shore by faith's decree; One by one we
gain the portal, There to dwell with the immortals, When someday they'll ring
them golden bells for you and me."
He said, "Billy, I want to ask you something." He said,
"What does Christ mean to you now? What does Christ mean to you?"
I said, "He's my Life, my All. He's all that I have, Mr.
Isler. He's my--my Ultimate, He's all that I can hold to." Why? There
would have been something happen. Upon this rock...
Said, "I've seen you stand here on the corner and preach till
you looked like you was going to drop dead. I seen you all hours of the night,
up and down the streets making sick calls. And after He took your own wife and
your own baby, you still serve Him?" I said, "If He slay me, yet I
trust Him."
The Absolute, December 30, 1962
I've
married many couples, but I've always... reminds me of Christ and His Bride.
One of the weddings that I performed here some time ago, it was quite an
outstanding thing in my life. It has been several years ago when I was just a
young minister.
My brother was working on the WPA. I don't know where anybody ever
remembers that yet or not--anybody as old as me. And that was a project that
the government had, and my brother worked up about thirty miles. They were
digging out some lakes, a project for the conservation.
And there was a boy that worked up there with him from
Indianapolis, about, oh, about a hundred miles above Jeffersonville where I
live--or lived. And there was a... He said to my brother one day, he said,
"Doc, I'm going to get married if I can just have enough money to pay the
preacher." He said, "I've got enough money to get my licenses,
but" said, "I haven't got enough money to pay the preacher."
Doc said, "Well, my brother is a preacher, and he may marry
you." He said, "He never charges people for things like that."
He said, "Will you ask him if he will marry me?"
Well, that night my brother asked me. And I said, "If he has
never been married before, either one of them, and everything is all
right." He said... Well, he will ask him. And I said, "If it is, tell
him to come on down."
So when Saturday come along and the boy came down... It has been a
great thing for me to always look back upon this. It was a rainy afternoon, and
an old Chevrolet car with the headlights wired on with baling wire, drove up
out front. It was just a while after I had lost my wife, and I was batching in
two little rooms. And Doc was up there with me waiting for them.
Foot Prints Book - Page 132
And
the boy got out of the car, and he certainly didn't look like a groom to me, or
would to anybody, I guess. Yet I could buy a pretty good pair of shoes for a
dollar and a half, and he had on a pair that was run over, and his trousers was
real baggy. And he had on one of those old moleskin jackets. I don't guess some
of you older people would remember. It looked like it had been run through a
washing machine without being rinsed, and it was streaked and tied up like
this, the corner up.
And a little lady got out on the side with a little, oh, some of
them little checked-looking dress. I don't know, I made a mistake on calling
that kind of goods one time. Gingham, I believe it is called. And so it was
a... I said it wrong again. I'm always doing so. And I said a... She got out of
the car, and they come on the steps, and when they walked in, the poor little
thing, she... I guess she just... about all she had on was a skirt. She didn't
have no shoes hardly on. She had hitch-hiked from Indianapolis down. That
little hair hanging down back in long kind of plaits down her back, looked very
young.
And I said to her, "Are you old enough to get married?"
She said, "Yes, sir." And she said, "I have my
written permission from my father and mother." She said, "I had to
show it to the court here to get my license."
I said, "All right." I said, "I'd like to talk to
talk to you a little bit before we perform this wedding." They sat down.
The boy kept looking around the room. He needed a haircut real bad. And he kept
looking around the room. He wasn't listening to me. And I said, "Son, I want
you to listen to what I'm saying."
Said, "Yes, sir."
And I said, "Do you love this girl?"
And he said, "Yes, sir, I do."
I said, "Do you love him?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
I said, "Now have you got a place to take her after you're
married?"
Said, "Yes, sir."
And I said, "All right. Now," I said, "I want to ask
you something. I understand that you are working up here on this WPA."
And he said, "Yes, sir." That is about twelve dollars a
week.
And I said, "Do you think that you can make a living for
her?"
He said, "I'll do all I can do."
And I said, "Well, that is all right." And I said,
"Now, what if he gets out... What if he loses this job, sister? What ar